So according to Mom, dryers emit 'positive ions'. I'm guessing she read a health book written by a psychic or something. Anyway, positive ions are supposed to make you tired. Fluorescent bulbs emit the things, as do clothes dryers.
What the heck?! Positive ions? Clothes dryers emit WARM IONS and fluorescent bulbs emit LIGHT ions. How's that for science?
So I tested this by cramming myself in the dryer and bringing a specially converted fluorescent flashlight with me to see just how long I could stay awake. There were a few problems. Firstly, fluorescent bulbs need some kind of converter/activator box thing to work, and I'm not sure if they can be converted to DC power. (the kind you get from batteries, which is different than the kind that comes out of your wall by magic) Also the dryer settings can not be manipulated from inside, as the thing won't turn on unless the door is closed.
So I actually didn't test that.
*pulls lint out of hair*
I got to skip my government/economy class today. Bethany was having real trouble understanding how a bank works. Originally, Mom asked how Switzerland maintains such a stable economy. From what I could tell from the book,s it's because they are the nation of banks.
Switzerland has been a neutral country for eight hundred years. Stays out of everyone's business. It is also an incredibly defensible area, surrounded by mountains and the entire male population excluding the psychopaths are in the Swiss equivalent of the National Guard. This makes them and ideal place to stick money, especially in times of war or other dangers.
So people and companies and countries with a lot of money stick it in Switzerland where it will be safe.
The magic of Switzerland's wealth is that money is coming into their country without inflation. There is more money all the time, but since the Swiss aren't creating it, the value stays good. (This is just my interpretation)
Anyway, Bethany wanted to know what happened to the American dollars if an American put a bunch of money in a Swiss bank. The American obviously can't keep his money, but the Swiss could only spend the American money in America. (and Mexico ;) )
But not so. I explained to her about exchanging currencies, and after trying a few different wordings, she got it. Also debunked the myth that in the back room of the bank is a little safe with her name on it where all the money she deposits goes.
Mom counted it as a government/economics credit hour.
Yeah, homeschooling.
Perfect time of year to take pictures, but the camera is slightly broken. It's fixable, Bethany just never takes the time to do it. And while we're gossiping about Bethany, it's been taking her two hours or more to get going in the morning lately. Homeschooling is perhaps offering her a little bit too much freedom. The least she could do is get started at five or six AM so she could be ready at a natural hour.
So that's why there aren't any pictures.
But Dad is buying a fancy digital camcorder, so maybe I'll start making weird movies in my spare time.
What I do during math class: ...a lot. But the funny bit was a comic a few days ago. The Persians invading Teletubbyland, with one of the Teletubbies (Popo or something gay) shouting 'Tonight we dine in hell!'.
Maybe homeschooling offers me too much free time as well.
So talk about pointless! But school work is boring to tell about mostly, and yardwork for neighbors is also pretty boring.
SOTD: Skillet - Savior
HOTD:
Some haikus make sense
This ain't one of those poems
I like fried chicken
QOTD: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin
Other QOTD: "Think of how many rhinoceroses can fit in your back yard, and realize half of them potato-eating cracker salsa." - Me
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Ebay Google Ads
Apparently Google no longer has the spontaneously generated Ebay ads in their sidebar. This afternoon I wanted to check to see if Ebay offered the best prices on children, and they were gone! I tried various other search queries (even some that probably really ARE on Ebay) but to no avail.
It's like the internet has suddenly become a bit darker.
It's like the internet has suddenly become a bit darker.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Platform Jousting Video
The fourth pair in, my sister is the one in the white. In the fifth pair, I'm the one in red. I kept swinging at his feet because his defense was too good to hit him any higher, and I had to apologize constantly because I naturally wanted to jab him, which was against the rules.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Funny Things
Because nobody cares about the rest of it anyway. :)
First off, the short one: I wanted to check up on two TV shows to see when they would be on next, Prison Break and Jericho, but I kept forgetting, so I wrote a note. I was feeling a bit lazy, and the note was for me, so there was no danger of forgetting what it meant, so I abbreviated everything. After writing the note, I realized I had written to check up on "PB and J".
But what happened TODAY was even funnier. Doctor's offices are generally really boring, and getting the employees to do anything in a timely manner seems to require you to either die on the premises, or take hostages in one of the waiting room, and cut off their fingers each minute that your name doesn't get called.
Such measures aren't necessary at the chiropractor, people get in and out more quickly and the mood is generally more helpful. Also the waiting room has a large window facing the street, making it easy for snipers to shoot you if you try to take a hostage. However, sometimes they're still not as fast as they could be...
When you're in the waiting room, there's not much you can do about it but glare at the secretary and insist that 'that's all right' every time she apologizes for the delay, but when you get sent all the way down the hall to the back room to get a scan, there are more options.
Thermal scans check muscle tension in your back to see where there is strain or imbalance so the chiropractor can adjust you accordingly. Though the scanning process seems quite simple, it is actually incredibly difficult and all the nurses do their best to get out of it. (This is only a hypothesis, based on the amount of time it takes for a nurse to come to give you your scan, and may or may not accurately represent the opinions of the nurses.)
So you go back to the cold, quiet room at the end of the hall, exchange your shirt for your hospital gown, and wait after opening the door. (They tell you at the front desk that opening the door signals the nurses that you are changed and ready for your scan) They let you keep your pants, which makes sense, because most people don't keep their spine in their thigh.
Anyway, you change, sit down on their little wheeled swivel stool, and wait...I am a patient person, and when someone whose job it is to know these procedures tells me to do something, I do it, but after a while, I started to realize that nine times out of ten, the nurse at the front desk would neglect to tell the other nurse to go back and scan me, or they would just forget I was there entirely. I only came to this conclusion AFTER they sent some strange woman in while I was waiting, apparently so SHE could get HER scan. Rather than changing and sharing the stool with me, she elected to go back to the front desk and ask them why there was a boy in a hospital gown in the scanning room.
So I decided to stop being patient. I'd go back their, change, open the door, and start being cold until about five minutes were up. Then I would get creative. While waiting, I noticed that the phone in the scan room had many different lines within the office, including on labeled 'front desk'. As I expected, when I picked up the phone and pressed this button, the echo of a ringing phone came to me down the hall, and it was answered by the nurse at the front desk, telling me that it was: 'a great day at House Family Chiropractic' and asking me: 'how may I help you?'.
I explained that I was feeling cold and unappreciated in the back room with no one but the x-ray machine for company. She sent someone back and got me scanned.
But alas, this immature and lazy behavior didn't stop. Their lazy and immature behavior. Mine didn't. Because the next time they left me back there, which happened to be the next time I was sent back there, I called them again. This time they noticed the flashing red light on the desk phone that told them that they were being called from the back room. (I wasn't being super annoying, this was a few months later) They answered in a rather annoyed manner and sent someone back.
So now we finally get to today. I was feeling a bit random, so I dug through the pile of clean hospital gowns and chose a rather nice pink one, put it on, and sat down on the wheeled swivel stool. Much to my non-surprise, no one came. I was bored with phones, so I began to wonder to myself, what would happen if I rolled the stool out the door and down the hall, out into the waiting room and asked the nurse face to face why I was being neglected. The office had such nice wooden floors...I thought about it...ran it through in my head...double-checked to be sure the gown I was wearing was in fact, pink, and set off. Out the door, down the hall.
The doors to all the adjustment rooms are left open so people can watch each other be adjusted, so all the patients saw the kid in the pink gown scooting past. I stopped by the room my parents had been sent to and explained my plan to them, then off I went. The people in the waiting room all started laughing a bit, and I pulled around behind the desk right up to the nurse there. "You forgetted me." I explained. "I forgetted you?" she asked without looking up from some paperwork. (this was a different nurse than last time, and I must say, she has a better sense of humor) "You forgetted me." I repeated, then turned and started wheeling back to the scan room. She turned and caught just a glimpse of the pink gown before I was gone.
Back in the scan room, a few seconds later she sticks her head in. "Were you really wearing the pink gown? Oh wow, you really are..." and she left again, laughing.
Within thirty seconds the nurse showed up to give me my scan. Apparently she'd been 'on the phone'.
Later as I was getting my adjustment, the chiropractor said I could roll in the hall any time I wanted to. Then he said "And I thought I was going crazy."
"Sometimes you just need a crazy kid in a pink gown to put things in perspective."
In other news, the Michigan government shut down on Monday from lack of funds.
Seriously. They ran out of money, so all the officials are just staying home.
The sad part?
No one can tell a difference.
I'm curious as to what services will remain and which will disappear. Are prison inmates being fed? Are there still 911 dispatchers waiting to answer my call and send the fire department to the next street over if my barn explodes in the middle of the night?
Will they still be expecting the state taxes? Will all the toll roads be free?
Does Michigan even have any toll roads?
SOTD: Er...hadn't thought about it really. How about: Dierks Bentley - Long Trip Alone (not linking anymore for now, router being a pain)
First off, the short one: I wanted to check up on two TV shows to see when they would be on next, Prison Break and Jericho, but I kept forgetting, so I wrote a note. I was feeling a bit lazy, and the note was for me, so there was no danger of forgetting what it meant, so I abbreviated everything. After writing the note, I realized I had written to check up on "PB and J".
But what happened TODAY was even funnier. Doctor's offices are generally really boring, and getting the employees to do anything in a timely manner seems to require you to either die on the premises, or take hostages in one of the waiting room, and cut off their fingers each minute that your name doesn't get called.
Such measures aren't necessary at the chiropractor, people get in and out more quickly and the mood is generally more helpful. Also the waiting room has a large window facing the street, making it easy for snipers to shoot you if you try to take a hostage. However, sometimes they're still not as fast as they could be...
When you're in the waiting room, there's not much you can do about it but glare at the secretary and insist that 'that's all right' every time she apologizes for the delay, but when you get sent all the way down the hall to the back room to get a scan, there are more options.
Thermal scans check muscle tension in your back to see where there is strain or imbalance so the chiropractor can adjust you accordingly. Though the scanning process seems quite simple, it is actually incredibly difficult and all the nurses do their best to get out of it. (This is only a hypothesis, based on the amount of time it takes for a nurse to come to give you your scan, and may or may not accurately represent the opinions of the nurses.)
So you go back to the cold, quiet room at the end of the hall, exchange your shirt for your hospital gown, and wait after opening the door. (They tell you at the front desk that opening the door signals the nurses that you are changed and ready for your scan) They let you keep your pants, which makes sense, because most people don't keep their spine in their thigh.
Anyway, you change, sit down on their little wheeled swivel stool, and wait...I am a patient person, and when someone whose job it is to know these procedures tells me to do something, I do it, but after a while, I started to realize that nine times out of ten, the nurse at the front desk would neglect to tell the other nurse to go back and scan me, or they would just forget I was there entirely. I only came to this conclusion AFTER they sent some strange woman in while I was waiting, apparently so SHE could get HER scan. Rather than changing and sharing the stool with me, she elected to go back to the front desk and ask them why there was a boy in a hospital gown in the scanning room.
So I decided to stop being patient. I'd go back their, change, open the door, and start being cold until about five minutes were up. Then I would get creative. While waiting, I noticed that the phone in the scan room had many different lines within the office, including on labeled 'front desk'. As I expected, when I picked up the phone and pressed this button, the echo of a ringing phone came to me down the hall, and it was answered by the nurse at the front desk, telling me that it was: 'a great day at House Family Chiropractic' and asking me: 'how may I help you?'.
I explained that I was feeling cold and unappreciated in the back room with no one but the x-ray machine for company. She sent someone back and got me scanned.
But alas, this immature and lazy behavior didn't stop. Their lazy and immature behavior. Mine didn't. Because the next time they left me back there, which happened to be the next time I was sent back there, I called them again. This time they noticed the flashing red light on the desk phone that told them that they were being called from the back room. (I wasn't being super annoying, this was a few months later) They answered in a rather annoyed manner and sent someone back.
So now we finally get to today. I was feeling a bit random, so I dug through the pile of clean hospital gowns and chose a rather nice pink one, put it on, and sat down on the wheeled swivel stool. Much to my non-surprise, no one came. I was bored with phones, so I began to wonder to myself, what would happen if I rolled the stool out the door and down the hall, out into the waiting room and asked the nurse face to face why I was being neglected. The office had such nice wooden floors...I thought about it...ran it through in my head...double-checked to be sure the gown I was wearing was in fact, pink, and set off. Out the door, down the hall.
The doors to all the adjustment rooms are left open so people can watch each other be adjusted, so all the patients saw the kid in the pink gown scooting past. I stopped by the room my parents had been sent to and explained my plan to them, then off I went. The people in the waiting room all started laughing a bit, and I pulled around behind the desk right up to the nurse there. "You forgetted me." I explained. "I forgetted you?" she asked without looking up from some paperwork. (this was a different nurse than last time, and I must say, she has a better sense of humor) "You forgetted me." I repeated, then turned and started wheeling back to the scan room. She turned and caught just a glimpse of the pink gown before I was gone.
Back in the scan room, a few seconds later she sticks her head in. "Were you really wearing the pink gown? Oh wow, you really are..." and she left again, laughing.
Within thirty seconds the nurse showed up to give me my scan. Apparently she'd been 'on the phone'.
Later as I was getting my adjustment, the chiropractor said I could roll in the hall any time I wanted to. Then he said "And I thought I was going crazy."
"Sometimes you just need a crazy kid in a pink gown to put things in perspective."
In other news, the Michigan government shut down on Monday from lack of funds.
Seriously. They ran out of money, so all the officials are just staying home.
The sad part?
No one can tell a difference.
I'm curious as to what services will remain and which will disappear. Are prison inmates being fed? Are there still 911 dispatchers waiting to answer my call and send the fire department to the next street over if my barn explodes in the middle of the night?
Will they still be expecting the state taxes? Will all the toll roads be free?
Does Michigan even have any toll roads?
SOTD: Er...hadn't thought about it really. How about: Dierks Bentley - Long Trip Alone (not linking anymore for now, router being a pain)
Monday, October 1, 2007
The Flags And The Sheds
Why bother writing constantly...with school most things have gotten both predictable and busy.
The highlights of the week have been painting the garage floor with rubber paint so it won't leak and building a garden shed.
I got to use a roller. Plus I was just getting over my cold, so I couldn't smell the paint fumes at all. Some might consider that a bad thing, but I was alright with it. Plugged the trusty MP3 player into some speakers and Dad asked a bunch of questions about my trip to PA next summer. He seems to fine with everything.
As for the garden shed...can you ever have too many outbuildings? We'd made a model of the framing on the computer, but then Dad changed the dimensions and threw off the roof angle, so that became pretty useless. We spent the evenings all week preparing the foundation and floor frame, then over the weekend we built the walls. Our loft is like a Home Depot lumber warehouse, we were able to get all the wood we needed from there and barely made a dent in Dad's stash. Got lotsa blisters from hammering.
Then they all got popped in a very energetic game of Capture The Flag at youthgroup Sunday night. Was a junior high/senior high collaboration, and those events are generally very cool.
The junior highers are all really slow, and my team had more adults. Adults like to pretend they're planning war offensives, and they actually listen to each other and work together. Me being the speedy one, between a group of maybe four of us we could stage a run all through their territory without getting caught, and did so probably five times. Couldn't find their flipping flag. We got it in the end though.
What made it interesting was instead of tagging someone to capture them, everyone had two flag football flags on a belt that they wore. If both their flags got ripped off, they were out for the rest of the game. It was alright for the 'dead' players too, 'cause they could take a break.
The downside was the playing field was narrow, so getting through their borders was a trick.
Played percussion at church this Sunday. Small congregation, most people seemed really bored, but it was fun. Got to play more than I usually do. Bongos, clicker sticks, shaker, tambourine, tom, and xylophone. And a stool that sounded cool when hit with a drumstick.
Two weeks until my PSAT. Going to take the practice test this weekend, then the real deal next one. Good luck to me.
SOTD: Mathew West - You Know Where To Find Me (Don't listen to Mathew West a lot, but he's got some really great songs)
The highlights of the week have been painting the garage floor with rubber paint so it won't leak and building a garden shed.
I got to use a roller. Plus I was just getting over my cold, so I couldn't smell the paint fumes at all. Some might consider that a bad thing, but I was alright with it. Plugged the trusty MP3 player into some speakers and Dad asked a bunch of questions about my trip to PA next summer. He seems to fine with everything.
As for the garden shed...can you ever have too many outbuildings? We'd made a model of the framing on the computer, but then Dad changed the dimensions and threw off the roof angle, so that became pretty useless. We spent the evenings all week preparing the foundation and floor frame, then over the weekend we built the walls. Our loft is like a Home Depot lumber warehouse, we were able to get all the wood we needed from there and barely made a dent in Dad's stash. Got lotsa blisters from hammering.
Then they all got popped in a very energetic game of Capture The Flag at youthgroup Sunday night. Was a junior high/senior high collaboration, and those events are generally very cool.
The junior highers are all really slow, and my team had more adults. Adults like to pretend they're planning war offensives, and they actually listen to each other and work together. Me being the speedy one, between a group of maybe four of us we could stage a run all through their territory without getting caught, and did so probably five times. Couldn't find their flipping flag. We got it in the end though.
What made it interesting was instead of tagging someone to capture them, everyone had two flag football flags on a belt that they wore. If both their flags got ripped off, they were out for the rest of the game. It was alright for the 'dead' players too, 'cause they could take a break.
The downside was the playing field was narrow, so getting through their borders was a trick.
Played percussion at church this Sunday. Small congregation, most people seemed really bored, but it was fun. Got to play more than I usually do. Bongos, clicker sticks, shaker, tambourine, tom, and xylophone. And a stool that sounded cool when hit with a drumstick.
Two weeks until my PSAT. Going to take the practice test this weekend, then the real deal next one. Good luck to me.
SOTD: Mathew West - You Know Where To Find Me (Don't listen to Mathew West a lot, but he's got some really great songs)
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