So school started. That's how all the stories start, isn't it. With school.
Pretty easy selection of classes. Some copywork for handwriting, then an hour for history or science, depending on the day. Science is anatomy (again...bleah) and history is Renaissance. (...eh...it beats cave men) Then there's math. Algebra 3, which is a sort of geometry/trigonometry highbred, only without all the useless stuff I learned last year skipped over...which is geometry and trig, so it's pretty much pointless then. Ah well. Beats history. With math I can be right or wrong. History is just there. Then there's government/economy, which is by far my favorite. It's interesting stuff. Everybody should be learning it. Then drums, and a pathetic first-grader-style Greek/Latin class.
It's getting lonely, but with school starting up, the other youth groups ought to be getting under way, so it won't be for long.
And with the start of school things have stopped happening. Trimmed back the moss roses in the garden. They've gotten huge. Everything seems to have taken hold well, except for one of the phlox plants, which is looking slightly deceased.
Taking longer bike rides, as long as possible anyway. Today's was quite sad though. It's always interesting to wave at everyone or at least nod and see how many wave back. Today, none did.
Picked up the Casting Crowns CD today.
This weekend ought to be fun. Family shooting party in the backyard, and a bit of camping.
SOTD: Casting Crowns - East To West
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Guns And The Wine
Wednesday Grandma decided she wanted to move back to her condo. It hadn't sold yet, which with the current real estate market is no surprise, and her brothers and sisters have all been saying she needs to move back and stay there for a year to complete the grieving process. Supposedly they've taken classes that tell how to deal with losing a spouse. I say everyone's different and they ought to let her do what she wants to, but she listened to 'em and packed everything up to move back. Called up my uncle to have him helped since we moved her last time. More much of Wednesday, though, she and Mom wandered around the house arguing. Grandma insisted that she had brought a case of wine with her when she moved in, and seemed to be of the mind that we had stolen it. (A case of wine? We moved her, and we saw no wine. Since when does Grandma drink wine, anyway?) So she would keep looking and saying things like, "It's so easy for things to get...misplaced when...so many people are helping you move...no, no, that's alright. God knows." Meanwhile, Mom follows her around repeating: "Mom, I didn't take your wine."
This went on for hours. It was raining (Finally! Awesome!) but I went for a bike ride anyway. Weekend before last Dad went through the bike collection and pulled out a bunch of Schwins he'd gotten from someone we helped move last winter. Now we've all got different bikes. They're very quiet, and when you coast it feels like you're being pushed. Anyway. Had to go slow so as to not get mud everywhere. Went for something like a forty-five minute bike ride. Apparently they'd worked out what happened to the invisible wine when I got back, though I did find a green worm on my arm. He must've been busy throwing himself out of a tree when I rode by.
Thursday went for another bike ride and took some pics on a new road. Yeah, fresh material. Cheers.
Aug 16, 2007
This went on for hours. It was raining (Finally! Awesome!) but I went for a bike ride anyway. Weekend before last Dad went through the bike collection and pulled out a bunch of Schwins he'd gotten from someone we helped move last winter. Now we've all got different bikes. They're very quiet, and when you coast it feels like you're being pushed. Anyway. Had to go slow so as to not get mud everywhere. Went for something like a forty-five minute bike ride. Apparently they'd worked out what happened to the invisible wine when I got back, though I did find a green worm on my arm. He must've been busy throwing himself out of a tree when I rode by.
Thursday went for another bike ride and took some pics on a new road. Yeah, fresh material. Cheers.
Nifty.
So skip ahead to Saturday, because besides praise team practice, nothing really happened until then, and since I didn't get to play drums, praise team practice doesn't count. The rain clouds still haven't cleared up as I write, so by Saturday it was getting to be downright chilly. Slept with winter blankets and a sweatshirt and even a nightcap. I never wear nightcaps. Especially in August. They call me cold-blooded, sure, but that's downright frigid. :)
Helped Uncle David load up Grandma's stuff. She insisted that she wanted her old TV, not one of our newer, simpler ones that we had ready to go. So I had to pull the entertainment center apart to get the TV out. The DVD in the player was a rental and it fell off of the tray inside the DVD player. Couldn't leave it in there, so I got to do some quick tech-surgery and open it up to get it out. Pretty simple inside there. Nothing like a VHS player. Anyway, got all that put back together and her TV loaded. No way Uncle David could unload that furniture himself, especially with Grandma trying to help, so I came along and we got all her stuff back into the condo. She was really confused, telling us to where to put pieces of furniture that she'd watched us bring in and set up minutes ago. She's getting to the scary forgetfulness old people get when they get put in senior homes.
We got out of there so she could unpack, and Uncle David took me geo-caching before dropping me off at home. What it is is someone will go to a park and hide a box somewhere, then they'll hide GPS coordinates around the park that lead to each other, and eventually to the box. Then they post the coordinates of the first stage on the geo-caching website. You can set up your GPS to download the nearest fifty or so, then whenever you're bored you can look up the nearest one, drive to the park, and use the GPS coordinates to find the first stage. The GPS can get you within about fifteen feet, but then you have to find it...whoever made it hides the coordinates for the next stage somewhere in the area. Carved in a tree, in a hollow log, written on the bottom of a railing, etc. It's a lot of fun. Then at the end there's a box where everyone leaves notes or business cards or whatever.
Monday there was so much rain Travis didn't go to work, so he came over and we watched movies and played video games. It's kind of a tradition to make a huge lunch and eat it downstairs too, so we made burritos and stuffed jalepinos and stuff. It was cool.
Then today I decided the router's day of reckoning had arrived.
To
get warmed up, I took a shot at an old CD with the BB gun.
Didn't expect it to explode so violently!
Here's a picture of the scrap of CD that the BB actually hit. Nice dent, eh?
These are the plastic soldiers I've been shooting at with the BB gun over the summer. Collectively they've probably taken around five hundred shots. Some introductions, from left to right. Man whose abdomen is gone. Subsequently, so is everything that was attached to the top of it. Man with no head. Man who can no longer have children. Man with broken arm. Man with leg and arm shot off. Man from 'Saving Private Ryan' with a dent in his helmet. Sniper without a head.
This is a fuel canister from a framing nail gun. I was told they make a nice 'pop' when thrown in a fire or shot. He's gonna take a .22 bullet sometime today.
The router, ready to be dragged behind wild horses. Sadly, all of our wild horses are in New Zealand filming 'The Hobbit' right now, so I used the moped instead.
Post-moped. A little scuffed and muddied, but I didn't expect much more. If I'd gone any faster it would have lifted off the ground. Can't have that. Oddly, it survived a mile and a half, then fell off as I pulled up in front of the barn to untie it.
A CD after being shot with the .22. Apparently since a .22 bullet flies so much faster, the stress is gone so fast that the disk has no chance to shatter like it would with the slower-moving BB. I was hoping for something a little more dramatic. Ah well.
The fuel canister after being shot with the .22. Nothing really pyrotechnical. The bullet went in one side and out the other, there was a hiss and a small cloud of smoke, and the can flipped and flew a few feet. The can was cold to the touch afterward.
After what the BB gun did to the CD, I'd really expected a big more carnage from it against the router. Just some holes, and once the BBs got through the cover, the circuit board stopped them dead. If you shook it, they all rattled down at the bottom.
The .22 wasn't much more impressive. The holes are about the same size.
However, this time they did make it through the circuit board. The exit hole is rather shredded-looking, meaning though the bullet punched through, it slowed down a lot. Circuit boards are tougher than I'd thought.
Took a few shots with the .22 at the soldiers. This guy is lying out there somewhere with no legs.
And this guy flew backward so hard the tack tethering him to the board ripped out. Rather forcefully I might add.
After tossing the router up in the air and hitting it with a baseball bat. The front cover popped off, but that was about it. Not enough resistance I guess. Dang this thing is sturdy!
After lobbing the router off of the roof. The back cover came off. Now we're down to just the circuit board.
Sprinkled a few tablespoons of gas on it, used a lighter to light one of those 8"-long matches (the long ones don't light on the striker 'cause they're too old) and ignited the gas that way. I don't play with gas often. It keeps me cautious that way. It was pretty fun to do though.
All I get in return. A lightly charred circuit. Last time I burned plastic (the old vacuum) I couldn't put it out. Whatever they make circuit boards out of, I intend to line a coat with two layers of it. I'll be impervious to small-arms fire, fire-proof, and it won't weigh much at all.
After burning it I was feeling kind of down. Not nearly enough destruction to pay for its crimes. Then I thought to myself, hey, we DO have bigger guns. Went up to Dad's gun cabinet and selected this break-action 20 gauge. I was too chicken to touch his precious 12 gauge, besides, it's scoped for a hundred yards or so, so hitting something this close without iron sights would be difficult. In the picture you can see two shotgun shells, the yellow-tipped one is rabbit-shot, something like thirty-five lead BBs packed into a shell along with a bunch of gunpowder, designed for shooting a spread of small shot at fast-moving critters so if you're not a professional sniper, you can still kill them. The second, gray-tipped shell is a slug, meaning it's a big-butt bullet with a boatload of gunpowder. It's the kind of bullet that makes a real mess when shot at something.
I fired the rabbit-shot first. It was louder than I remembered a 20 gauge being. Should've worn my eye and ear protection I guess. It did do quite a number on the board though, sheared it right in half. At least I think it was in half. I could only find these two pieces, as the entire thing was blown away into some tall grass nearby.
After lining up the two pieces on in front of the other, I shot them with the slug. Pretty anticlimatic after the rabbit-shot. Punched a hole through both boards big enough to stick your thumb through. I was hoping for an explosions with shards of plastic flying every which way, but I called it good enough.
I must be some sort of redneck/geek hybrid. That was fun. The whole process took about two hours.
SOTD: Skillet - Savior
FTTDOTD: Save interesting things to shoot at and/or blow up. Then shoot at them and/or blow them up. Take photos.
So skip ahead to Saturday, because besides praise team practice, nothing really happened until then, and since I didn't get to play drums, praise team practice doesn't count. The rain clouds still haven't cleared up as I write, so by Saturday it was getting to be downright chilly. Slept with winter blankets and a sweatshirt and even a nightcap. I never wear nightcaps. Especially in August. They call me cold-blooded, sure, but that's downright frigid. :)
Helped Uncle David load up Grandma's stuff. She insisted that she wanted her old TV, not one of our newer, simpler ones that we had ready to go. So I had to pull the entertainment center apart to get the TV out. The DVD in the player was a rental and it fell off of the tray inside the DVD player. Couldn't leave it in there, so I got to do some quick tech-surgery and open it up to get it out. Pretty simple inside there. Nothing like a VHS player. Anyway, got all that put back together and her TV loaded. No way Uncle David could unload that furniture himself, especially with Grandma trying to help, so I came along and we got all her stuff back into the condo. She was really confused, telling us to where to put pieces of furniture that she'd watched us bring in and set up minutes ago. She's getting to the scary forgetfulness old people get when they get put in senior homes.
We got out of there so she could unpack, and Uncle David took me geo-caching before dropping me off at home. What it is is someone will go to a park and hide a box somewhere, then they'll hide GPS coordinates around the park that lead to each other, and eventually to the box. Then they post the coordinates of the first stage on the geo-caching website. You can set up your GPS to download the nearest fifty or so, then whenever you're bored you can look up the nearest one, drive to the park, and use the GPS coordinates to find the first stage. The GPS can get you within about fifteen feet, but then you have to find it...whoever made it hides the coordinates for the next stage somewhere in the area. Carved in a tree, in a hollow log, written on the bottom of a railing, etc. It's a lot of fun. Then at the end there's a box where everyone leaves notes or business cards or whatever.
Monday there was so much rain Travis didn't go to work, so he came over and we watched movies and played video games. It's kind of a tradition to make a huge lunch and eat it downstairs too, so we made burritos and stuffed jalepinos and stuff. It was cool.
Then today I decided the router's day of reckoning had arrived.
To
get warmed up, I took a shot at an old CD with the BB gun.
I must be some sort of redneck/geek hybrid. That was fun. The whole process took about two hours.
SOTD: Skillet - Savior
FTTDOTD: Save interesting things to shoot at and/or blow up. Then shoot at them and/or blow them up. Take photos.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The Altar And The Door
So my passport came yesterday. Yeah. It's like a book with my picture in it and lots of patriotic pictures and scrawls that I'm guessing are supposed to be inspiring quotes by the founding fathers in a classical handwriting style. It's only five weeks after I needed it...and two months after I was supposed to have it. Ah well. I guess I know to get a passport a year early if I need one again. This one will be outdated by the time I need another. Was pretty funny.
Then I cleaned out a really nasty trash can we had in the garage. Pretty boring day, overall. Most of it was getting Dad's computer sped up. He goes on about how the computers at work are...*snaps fingers and says 'bang'* this fast, and how ours are ridiculous. Theirs also cost over a half a grand more than ours did, but that doesn't get figured in. Anyway. It's a special challenge to make relics smoking fast.
Today did a bit of weeding in the garden...wrapped up the computer maintenance. Now I'm off on a bike ride, I think. Added some power steering fluid to my truck. Overfilled it. Oops.
The new Casting Crowns CD comes out in two weeks. So how did it end up on the pirate music networks? I don't know, but Mom's had a copy reserved all summer, so technically I own a copy already, meaning I can download it and not care.
As always, it's amazing. The title track is my favorite so far.
SOTD: Casting Crowns - The Altar And The Door (It's about how inspired and excited and empowered and broken you can feel in a church, and how fast it can disappear...between the altar and the door, see? It's awesome.)
Bonus Awesome Thing Of The Day: A preview video on Youtube with snippets of some of the songs and an interview with Mark Hall, the lead singer of Casting Crowns.
Then I cleaned out a really nasty trash can we had in the garage. Pretty boring day, overall. Most of it was getting Dad's computer sped up. He goes on about how the computers at work are...*snaps fingers and says 'bang'* this fast, and how ours are ridiculous. Theirs also cost over a half a grand more than ours did, but that doesn't get figured in. Anyway. It's a special challenge to make relics smoking fast.
Today did a bit of weeding in the garden...wrapped up the computer maintenance. Now I'm off on a bike ride, I think. Added some power steering fluid to my truck. Overfilled it. Oops.
The new Casting Crowns CD comes out in two weeks. So how did it end up on the pirate music networks? I don't know, but Mom's had a copy reserved all summer, so technically I own a copy already, meaning I can download it and not care.
As always, it's amazing. The title track is my favorite so far.
SOTD: Casting Crowns - The Altar And The Door (It's about how inspired and excited and empowered and broken you can feel in a church, and how fast it can disappear...between the altar and the door, see? It's awesome.)
Bonus Awesome Thing Of The Day: A preview video on Youtube with snippets of some of the songs and an interview with Mark Hall, the lead singer of Casting Crowns.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
The Last Little Frog
Wednesday started off with a visit to my Grandparents' house in Grand Rapids. They've been cleaning their basement, and there was a big pile of old tools and stuff for my dad and I. It was fun to go through them with Grandpa telling stories about everything. He worked at Learjet a long time ago (Learjet is basically the standard for rich peoples' private planes) and so he has some very interesting precision tools.
Then trimmed a few branches with those saws on a stick. They're okay, except they're never long enough, and you get small pieces of trees falling on you all the time, with a few not small pieces of trees thrown in to keep you on your toes, which is difficult to do on a ladder. Which is also always just a little too short.
Then we stopped by a cell phone joint to buy minutes for Dad's cell phone. It's cheaper to buy phone cards than to buy in on a network, apparently. Much cheaper. If you need your phone to check emails and take pictures and open garage doors and make strawberry pie, it doesn't work, but if you want to, I dunno, call someone or something, it works out alright. So apparently all you can buy in cell phone stores are holsters. Lots and lots of holsters. Holsters are the shoes and purses of the future. Women will have a different cell phone holster for every outfit.
God preserve our souls.
That's assuming you can understand the sales representative, of course, which I couldn't. He seemed pretty disoriented and Italian and thought he worked at McDonalds, though it took him a few tries to pronounce that right. Helpful guy though. Pointed us to a gas station...a place that sells refined decomposed dinosaur for combustion in cars...because they sold cell phone minutes. I'm still looking for a good coffee shop that sells plywood in 3'x8' sections.
Then we went home and took the van apart. The brakes are locking up, and for some reason Mom has a problem with driving a car that veers toward the shoulder without warning and smokes and smells like a power grinder attacking a pile of rubber ducks.
I always was good with similes.
Thursday morning was breakfast at a small time farmers' restaurant. We go there a few times a year. Lots of good food. Lots of people talking about cows and tractors and corn. It's cool though 'cause everyone who eats there knows each other, and gladly welcome new people into their little circle.
On the way there we drove down a really cool road that I'm going to have to take pictures on. It's got a pond next to it, some cool big hills, all in the 'dirt road tunnel through green woods' style.
From there we went to the fair. Everyone else claims that we stopped by Travis' pigs in the pig barn, but I can neither confirm nor deny those rumors, as with fairs come animals and with animals come tuna salad, and with tuna salad comes hay, which makes my nose run really watery snot, eyes water, and just this once to make things interesting, my face swell up. Then I got a headache, and felt like I was outside in the snow on a sunny day, everything was glaring...even though the sky was one big mass of clouds. My favorite part was towards the end...actually my favorite part was right AFTER the end. When we were in the car going home and I could see and my nose desolidified.
Then today we vacuumed out the pond. First time using a vacuum on water. You can't do it with any vacuum, gotta have a special wet/dry vacuum, but it's pretty sweet. The frogs didn't think so. One of 'em jumped into the bucket at the bottom of the pond, then as we vacuumed out the water, he realized that he couldn't get back out. Luckily for him, he eats mosquitoes, who eat me. We rescued him. So now the pond water is clear again.
Then the van started smoking and locking up again. It's old and no one loves it any more, what with the sweet nine-seater truck and the convertible. Dad's now blaming the bearing in the front axle.
Over the past few days my sister and I have gotten a song worked out. A Johnny Cash song that's simple, but still interesting to play. Bethany disagreed with some of the lyrics, but that was an easy fix. Now that she's got a pickup for her acoustic guitar, we can come up with some pretty cool sounds playing around with the equalizer and the overdrive on her amplifier. Did a bit of harmonica fiddling. That was about it.
SOTD: Johnny Cash - Hurt
Honorable mention: Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation (JXL remix)
FTTDOTD: Stand next to something expensive and then try to twirl a drumstick.
Then trimmed a few branches with those saws on a stick. They're okay, except they're never long enough, and you get small pieces of trees falling on you all the time, with a few not small pieces of trees thrown in to keep you on your toes, which is difficult to do on a ladder. Which is also always just a little too short.
Then we stopped by a cell phone joint to buy minutes for Dad's cell phone. It's cheaper to buy phone cards than to buy in on a network, apparently. Much cheaper. If you need your phone to check emails and take pictures and open garage doors and make strawberry pie, it doesn't work, but if you want to, I dunno, call someone or something, it works out alright. So apparently all you can buy in cell phone stores are holsters. Lots and lots of holsters. Holsters are the shoes and purses of the future. Women will have a different cell phone holster for every outfit.
God preserve our souls.
That's assuming you can understand the sales representative, of course, which I couldn't. He seemed pretty disoriented and Italian and thought he worked at McDonalds, though it took him a few tries to pronounce that right. Helpful guy though. Pointed us to a gas station...a place that sells refined decomposed dinosaur for combustion in cars...because they sold cell phone minutes. I'm still looking for a good coffee shop that sells plywood in 3'x8' sections.
Then we went home and took the van apart. The brakes are locking up, and for some reason Mom has a problem with driving a car that veers toward the shoulder without warning and smokes and smells like a power grinder attacking a pile of rubber ducks.
I always was good with similes.
Thursday morning was breakfast at a small time farmers' restaurant. We go there a few times a year. Lots of good food. Lots of people talking about cows and tractors and corn. It's cool though 'cause everyone who eats there knows each other, and gladly welcome new people into their little circle.
On the way there we drove down a really cool road that I'm going to have to take pictures on. It's got a pond next to it, some cool big hills, all in the 'dirt road tunnel through green woods' style.
From there we went to the fair. Everyone else claims that we stopped by Travis' pigs in the pig barn, but I can neither confirm nor deny those rumors, as with fairs come animals and with animals come tuna salad, and with tuna salad comes hay, which makes my nose run really watery snot, eyes water, and just this once to make things interesting, my face swell up. Then I got a headache, and felt like I was outside in the snow on a sunny day, everything was glaring...even though the sky was one big mass of clouds. My favorite part was towards the end...actually my favorite part was right AFTER the end. When we were in the car going home and I could see and my nose desolidified.
Then today we vacuumed out the pond. First time using a vacuum on water. You can't do it with any vacuum, gotta have a special wet/dry vacuum, but it's pretty sweet. The frogs didn't think so. One of 'em jumped into the bucket at the bottom of the pond, then as we vacuumed out the water, he realized that he couldn't get back out. Luckily for him, he eats mosquitoes, who eat me. We rescued him. So now the pond water is clear again.
Then the van started smoking and locking up again. It's old and no one loves it any more, what with the sweet nine-seater truck and the convertible. Dad's now blaming the bearing in the front axle.
Over the past few days my sister and I have gotten a song worked out. A Johnny Cash song that's simple, but still interesting to play. Bethany disagreed with some of the lyrics, but that was an easy fix. Now that she's got a pickup for her acoustic guitar, we can come up with some pretty cool sounds playing around with the equalizer and the overdrive on her amplifier. Did a bit of harmonica fiddling. That was about it.
SOTD: Johnny Cash - Hurt
Honorable mention: Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation (JXL remix)
FTTDOTD: Stand next to something expensive and then try to twirl a drumstick.
Monday, August 6, 2007
A Long Time Gone
Been a week since I blogged? I am so irresponsible, neglecting my loyal readers like that.
The weekdays all happened one after the other in standard order. My shower was cut short Saturday morning. Travis was having trouble loading his pigs for fair. By the time we got there, he was through though...Friday at 11:01am, they will become the property of someone who isn't Travis, and their money will become the property of someone who is, who will proceed to pay all the pig feed debts he's been running up over the summer. The bigger two pigs anyway. The small ones are ideally going to be the star attraction of a neighborhood pig roast.
From there we took the top off of the convertible and went for a casual drive around Wayland. Stopping at flea markets and hardware stores and the like. I bought a lighter and a jug of 'The Works' toilet cleaner at the hardware store ('The Works' is the main ingredient in pretty much the most popular bomb used to blow up mailboxes in the early mornings) and also asked if they carried potassium nitrate...I think if I hadn't been shopping with my dad, they would have arrested me. Potassium nitrate isn't super dangerous, but it sounds so. I intend to use it in a sweet smoke grenade recipe I found recently.
As for the smoke grenades...I have many pranks planned for them. Making the neighbor guy's truck smoke...taping a couple to a model rocket and launching it over the lake, sticking it in the fridge so when someone opens the door it's full of (non-toxic) smoke. Fun stuff.
Stopped by to say hello to one of our old neighbors. He said hello back, and a boatload of other stuff that took around twenty minutes to wrap up. Yeah, he hasn't changed much. He's nice though.
Sunday, forgot to set my alarm, but was awakened by a dream of operating the sound board...my brain has it's shortcomings, but sometimes it pulls some pretty sweet stunts. Didn't have time for a shower, but I got there on time.
VBS got better towards the end, the songs grew on me, as always, but it still wasn't nearly as good as the previous years. It was kind of sad too...each day of the VBS week had a main point. Whenever one of those points was mentioned in a lesson, the kids were supposed to yell 'tell the truth'. Poor things were so brainwashed and confused by the end whenever someone would say something, they would start hollering 'tell the-...oh'.
Sunday afternoon was my little sister's birthday party. She's three. The crazy uncle who always has a cool new 'toy' and is skilled in just about everything had a pair of bb shotguns and a nitro-powered remote controlled car. Now Dad wants one. I've got connections, we'll see, might actually be able to get him one.
Today was Michigan's Adventure, the local amusement park. (maybe not so local...two hour drive) The lines were longer than I remembered. Still had fun though.
SOTD: FFH - Follow Love (Inexplicably sad song. FFH is marked as downright cheery, competition for Relient K, then suddenly a sad song such as that one over there. Ah well.)
Johnny Cash - Hurt gets an honorable mention. If you haven't heard it, give it a try. His songs have a very unique style to them, but then each one is very unique by itself. 'Hurt' is about regretting drug abuse and cutting and stuff.
FTTDOTD: Don't keep all your appendages inside the ride at all times. Then when your appendage gets automatically confiscated by the mechanics of the ride, you can sue and give the money to your lawyer.
Scratch that, become a lawyer.
The weekdays all happened one after the other in standard order. My shower was cut short Saturday morning. Travis was having trouble loading his pigs for fair. By the time we got there, he was through though...Friday at 11:01am, they will become the property of someone who isn't Travis, and their money will become the property of someone who is, who will proceed to pay all the pig feed debts he's been running up over the summer. The bigger two pigs anyway. The small ones are ideally going to be the star attraction of a neighborhood pig roast.
From there we took the top off of the convertible and went for a casual drive around Wayland. Stopping at flea markets and hardware stores and the like. I bought a lighter and a jug of 'The Works' toilet cleaner at the hardware store ('The Works' is the main ingredient in pretty much the most popular bomb used to blow up mailboxes in the early mornings) and also asked if they carried potassium nitrate...I think if I hadn't been shopping with my dad, they would have arrested me. Potassium nitrate isn't super dangerous, but it sounds so. I intend to use it in a sweet smoke grenade recipe I found recently.
As for the smoke grenades...I have many pranks planned for them. Making the neighbor guy's truck smoke...taping a couple to a model rocket and launching it over the lake, sticking it in the fridge so when someone opens the door it's full of (non-toxic) smoke. Fun stuff.
Stopped by to say hello to one of our old neighbors. He said hello back, and a boatload of other stuff that took around twenty minutes to wrap up. Yeah, he hasn't changed much. He's nice though.
Sunday, forgot to set my alarm, but was awakened by a dream of operating the sound board...my brain has it's shortcomings, but sometimes it pulls some pretty sweet stunts. Didn't have time for a shower, but I got there on time.
VBS got better towards the end, the songs grew on me, as always, but it still wasn't nearly as good as the previous years. It was kind of sad too...each day of the VBS week had a main point. Whenever one of those points was mentioned in a lesson, the kids were supposed to yell 'tell the truth'. Poor things were so brainwashed and confused by the end whenever someone would say something, they would start hollering 'tell the-...oh'.
Sunday afternoon was my little sister's birthday party. She's three. The crazy uncle who always has a cool new 'toy' and is skilled in just about everything had a pair of bb shotguns and a nitro-powered remote controlled car. Now Dad wants one. I've got connections, we'll see, might actually be able to get him one.
Today was Michigan's Adventure, the local amusement park. (maybe not so local...two hour drive) The lines were longer than I remembered. Still had fun though.
SOTD: FFH - Follow Love (Inexplicably sad song. FFH is marked as downright cheery, competition for Relient K, then suddenly a sad song such as that one over there. Ah well.)
Johnny Cash - Hurt gets an honorable mention. If you haven't heard it, give it a try. His songs have a very unique style to them, but then each one is very unique by itself. 'Hurt' is about regretting drug abuse and cutting and stuff.
FTTDOTD: Don't keep all your appendages inside the ride at all times. Then when your appendage gets automatically confiscated by the mechanics of the ride, you can sue and give the money to your lawyer.
Scratch that, become a lawyer.
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