Snow Day

SNOW DAY!

This Wednesday morning when I got up to go to school, I suddenly got a phone call from my good friend Troy. "Yeah?" I said, half asleep.

"It's a snow day!" he said and then hung up to let me get some sleep. About three or four hours later, I woke up again to finally climb out of bed to start some sort of adventure. So I called Troy back and told him - We're going sledding.

Have you ever been to Camelsbak? That's got to be one of the funnest places to sled. Troy lent me a sled that had two brakes on each side, so I was able to actually steer. He used one without any, but he seemed to be able to handle it.

It really would have been perfect if not for other people. Honestly, they were stupid little s***s. What you were supposed to do is that you were to climb up the side and sled down the face. But instead they liked to clog up the road and get hit. Honestly - Troy was going down the mountain, doing it right and minding his own business when some ten year old got in the way. Unsurprisingly, he got hit, but he got mad at Troy. "You damass!" I could hardly stop laughing.

What was funnier was these people that brought there dogs sledding, because at some point, all of them got hit, and when they did, it was funnier than hell. One of these little dogs got hit and did a flip in midair.

To make it better, KISS FM was there. Quite frankly, I hate them, but they filmed us sledding when we went off this little jump and crashed into a bunch of people. But soon we got tired and after a couple of hours we went back to Troy's house and had snowball wars until my folks called for me to come home. I'm hoping there's another snow day tomorrow (I doubt it will happen though).

A Look Down The Halls

I was bored this morning and had my camera handy. Take a look at what it's like before school.

Weekend In McCall: On The Road Again

Here is the final chapter of my McCall quadrology (yes I made that word up). But anyway, read through the last few, because this one may be a little bit dull. This is the day that Mom, Dad, Andy, Julie, Brian, Billy, and Annie, and I all pack up and go home.

There's not much to say about the actual packing up, except that it was accompanied by the normal "where's all my stuff" panic and the normal "you should have kept track of your things" scolding from Mom. Sometimes I wonder if my family is normal... I know that I'm not.

And this of course was accompanied by the normal shuffle into the cars. Back to the long drive home. Like I've said in the first chapter of the quadrology, the road is unnerving and difficult. This was not helped by the fact that we were driving in blizzard conditions. Usually the drive takes two hours, and this time it took two and a half. All I could do was listen to my iPod.

Julie, Brian, Billy, and Annie split up with us once we rolled into Boise to visit Kurt & Amy & Ali (Brian is Dad's brother and Amy is Dad's sister, so all three are siblings). We went home and I started working on my homework. Of course, distraction is a dangerous game, and I often end up wasting hours off-topic. Yeah, it happened again. I'm acutally supposed to do homework right now...

Julie & Brian and their kids are staying with us tonight and they'll be gone on Tuesday. So there's the happy ending to the McCall quadrology...

Weekend In McCall: Snowmobiling

Welcome to my third part of the four part McCall story. You should probably read the last couple posts, but I'll try to give you a synopsis of my weekend so far. I'm hanging out at my McCall house with my extended family - My uncle Brian, my aunt Julie, and two of my younger cousins: Billy and Annie. Yesterday we went skiing and the day before we also went tubing.

Alright. There's good news and bad news about today. The bad news is that I'm missing my JV hockey playoff game. If they lose, that's it. If they win though, I'll get to play next week. The good news is that the reason for me missing it is because my folks had some really cool stuff reserved for us in McCall...

SNOWMOBILING. The day passed without interest until we finally went out to Cheap Thrills Rentals to start snowmobiling. So we grabbed some gear and drove out to the trail head where we got an overview of how to use them and which one would belong to who. Each of the parents got to drive and each of the kids got to ride along with them. I asked Mom if I would get a chance to drive.

I got more than I bargained for. I drove the majority of the trail, and I did better than Dad. Mostly though, this was because aunt Julie couldn't drive. I can't blame her - she's a Californian, and she really wasn't used to the snow. Nor was Billy or Annie. Brian seemed to enjoy it just fine, though. And I enjoyed it too - it really is a fun thing to do. Go snowmobiling!

Weekend in McCall: Friday Skiing

Well Hello Again. If you didn't read my last post, I'm here in McCall, staying with family - my uncle Brian, my aunt Julie, my cousin Billy, and my cousin Annie. Me and Andy ditched school at Lunch to go out to McCall with the family. We just got here yesterday, and spent last night tubing. But enough about yesterday. We spent today skiing.

Have you ever been to Brundage? You should, it's a great place to ski (or snowboard). Andy and I skiied for hours while little Billy got some snowboarding lessons. They finally set up their terrain park, called Jammer. We pretty much did that all day. Let me tell you, you can get some serious air off those jumps. Andy did a bunch of cool little tricks and I even managed to do a 180 off one of the jumps.

Around two though, we were spent, and we skiied over to pick up Billy and go home. And that's what we did, climbed back into the Lexus and drove back to the house. Mom shooed them outside once I passed out on the couch and told them to play in the snow. When I woke up she sent me out too. So we built a jump and skiied down it. I wish that I could say that it worked just fine, but it really didn't. Oh well.

We put some water on the jump though and maybe it will freeze over tonight. Til tomorrow...

A Weekend in McCall: On The Road Again

(The House In McCall)

It's Thursday. Today, at lunch, my parents whisked me away so we could spend the rest of the week and weekend in McCall with some of my relatives. This was easier said than done; lunch was a total mess. It was tip-off takedown week (some ping-pong club tourney thing) and they had a 'mix-it-up lunch'. Basically, we were supposed to sit at random, assigned seats so that we sat next to new people. The prize was ice cream, but as I was leaving, I was able to convince Mr. Vitrano to give me the benefit of the doubt and packed me with a popsicle.

I climbed into the car and we started heading out. Before going, I met up with my family back at home and had a little lunch. By the way, the extended family is Brian, my uncle and author of Switch 2 Plan B, Julie, his wife, Billy, their son, and Annie, their daughter. All in all a completely enjoyable family. We had tomato soup and shuffled into our cars to start the long drive toward McCall.

The drive usually takes about two hours on an unnerving road. That is to say, nearly half of the drive is a couple of feet from a rushing river, sharp rocks, death, death, and more death. But I'm of course used to this and soon fell asleep and woke up in McCall two hours later, parked next to our cabin.

Shortly following the unpacking, we got into our ski clothes and yet again scuffled into the car, off to The Activity Barn. It's this nice little tubing hill a few miles from McCall. You go really friggin' fast, trust me. I feel sorry for Annie - she really didn't enjoy it. It's just that none of those guys were really used to the snow (They're Californians). As opposed to me, who has always been a skiier and always had white winters. It really makes a difference.

At any rate, we went home, freezing and wet, after about an hour or so of tubing. We plan to do something fun tomorrow as well. I can't wait...

All Of My Pipes Are Clogged

All of my pipes are clogged. Everyone else seems to have more pipework, but I just end up a mess.

My room is clogged
with clothes and gifts,
from distant relatives and parents' friends long forgotten.

My bedside is clogged
with books and CDs
from bands and authors long forgotten.

My desk is clogged
with documents and drawings
from dreams and aspirations long forgotten.

My blue bookbag is clogged
with papers and handouts
from grades and tests long forgotten.

My green bookbag is clogged
with songs and binders of sheetmusic
from melodies long forgotten.

And my mind is clogged
with knowledge I never wanted. But it's also filled with good times with good friends, remembered and cherished forever.

And my character is not clogged, but growing and healthy. I find it harder to be an ass than it once was. It's a strange thing to be nice somedays.

Alas, if I only had a plumber.

Possibly My Best Weekend So Far

Well guys, this one was a winner for me. It really was quite incredible. It started on Friday. The school day went as usual, and we got to play "extreme volleyball" in P.E. Shortly following that, I went home, ate, and got my hockey stuff together. Because I was playing a Varsity hockey game today (usually I'm on Junior Varsity, so kind of a big deal for me). To be honest, I thought I would suck.

Ånd to be honest, I think I did just the opposite. Friday was hands-down the best hockey game of my life. I had several great breakaways and great shots, and for a Varsity game I think I did just awesome. We may have tied at three, but it really boosted my confidence.

In short, a day passed, and I played again on Saturday for Junior Varsity. This time I played center (again kind of a big deal because that's a major position). I'm not sure whether it was because coach thought I was a competent player after seeing me play on Friday, or if it was because one of the kids on the team got kicked off due to bad grades. Hopefully the first. It wasn't nearly as good as my last game, but that was mostly because it's been a while since I played center. I think I did alright though, and we won 4-1.

Sunday I went skiing with Andy and Troy. They finally set up Claim Jumper, a bigger, meaner version of playground. Which, of course, we went down countless times over the hours we spent up on the mountain. I had one of the best wipeouts - I was bombing down this bowl but when I accidentally ran over a cat track, it threw me off balance and I flung forward and faceplanted, sliding twenty feet with snow coming up my nose before sliding to a stop. I was covered in snow. I really wish it had been videotaped; it was pretty sick.

God, I am sore though! Too much hockey and skiing. And too think I'm supposed to get up tomorrow at 6 AM for a hockey practice...

Everyday

I was surfing the web the other day and found this marginally interesting video. Check it out (you'll have to copy and paste the address you lazy bums).
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo&feature=related

Crazy Day of Skiing

Last Sunday, Andy, Troy, and I all went out skiing. I probably should have already talked about this, but lately I been behind in my posts. So here's how it was.

Well, we got up at about 9:00 AM or so, listening to Gregorian chants and other sorts of classical music on the drive up to Bogus. Mom sent us off with our skis and a couple dollars more than three digits for tickets and lunch.

Now let me say something. We do this basically every weekend, and we all have a singular favorite run to go on. It's called Playground. It's basically a terrain park that empties out into a really sweet, somewhat difficult bowl. So we turned left off the main chair lift on our first run and headed to Playground.

Now I like skiing terrain. I like it, but I'm not great or even too good at it. Sure I can go off a few jumps but usually grinding is out of my league. But as Andy went down and grinded off a table and jumped off, I thought I should try it. I did, and the table was easy. It's only a picnic table and you just have to keep your legs straight and jump at the end to make it. But there was another grind down there that was a little bit more difficult.

It wasn't very thick, maybe 1 or two feet wide, but was like twelve to fourteen feet long. I didn't want to lose my momentum, and I jumped on, going straight down with my skis perfectly parallel. But as I made it halfway through, one of my skis slipped and lost it's place on the grind. I also lost my balance, and when I finally flew off in a mess. My left ski came off and I slid on my ass for seven feet before finally slowing down.

And I laughed. It was hilarious. Troy was laughing too. I finally grabbed my ski and continued down, bombing down the bowl. We went down that one again next time, and this time, I hit the grind perfectly. Andy was great and did a few 180s as well, and Troy got to grind too. We eventually went off that same run 15 times. It was the only run we went on, and we perfected our routine again and again until we were going down the mountain like pros, grinding and jumping and everything.

The Sidebar

Recently I have been getting a lot of hits thanks to the links on my sidebar. After taking a look at it I realize that I'm going to need to explain it a little bit.

About Me: This is just a little description of me and what I blog about. It doesn't really matter much, but if you're visiting this blog, I'd appreciate it if you took a look at my profile so I can get a better idea of how many people read.

Other Good Blogs: These are all the blogs that have affected me:
Switch 2 Plan B - My uncle's blog and the one that inspired me to start.
The Musings... Master Seth - A friend of mine started this blog, and while he's probably done, his posts are really good stories; almost Homeric.
Ricky's Blog - Seth's friend. Not much of a blog but it's interesting to see all the connections that blogs build.
Dan's Toy Museum - I thought this one was kind of quirky and decided to link it when Dan left me a positive comment on my 'A Difference' post.

Cool Links (non-blogging): Well these are the games and they've gotten me a lot of visits. Here's what they are:
Age of War: This is a fun little war flash game. Survive and destroy the enemy base by building turrets, soldiers, and evolving.
Red: An addictive little flash game, and you can finish a game in about three to five minutes. My high score is 893 seconds! Can you top that?
Missile Game 3D: Another addictive little flash game. Gets pretty difficult later on. Be sure to set your settings to touchy.
Tower Defence: I love this little tower defence game. One of my favorites.
Onslaught 2: This one's much like tower defence but a little bit different, with combos and different affects and all sorts of fun stuff. (doesn't work at school)
Stick Avalanche 2: Apart from several sexist jokes between levels, this is a timeburning little flash game where you dodge a bunch of falling ice.
Slime Soccer: Possibly the funnest multiplayer flash game around. If you're bored and by a friend, this is for you.
Hell of Sand: This game doesn't really have a point, but it's really fun. Just try it out and experiment!

Blog Archive: Here's a list of all of my posts. I've done like sixty-five now! Impressive.

A Guide To Alcatraz014: I put labels on all of my posts and now it's categorized. Just click on a word to see posts with that label.

Well that's all!

One of the Funniest Webcomics I've Seen For A While

If you like this, there's more of this sort of great stuff like this at

http://xkcd.com/

Meet the Family (p.2)

Same image as last time. There's three people though that I have yet to explain.

Kurt - Father of Ali and wife to Amy, this conservative diabetic is really some charming company. He has a lot of skills in the models business (I mean models as in miniatures) and even made the car in the movie Stuart Little, as well as many other movies that I can't remember. He is looking for a job that suits him right now and ended up with a California workplace. So he goes back and forth between work in Cali and family here in Boise, and it works pretty well.

Amy - Kurt's husband and my Dad's brother, she is one of the happiest people I know. I never see her without a smile on. She's a good mother to Ali and because she lives only about ten miles from our house, we do our best to see each other on at least a weekly basis. She is just really happy with everything she's got, with her family and house and friends and all. She is in all ways a very pleasing person.



Ali - Amy's and Kurt's kid. She's four years old. She's really quite cute, but I can't say that she's unique for her age. Her interests include: princesses, girl stuff, and more princesses. Oh well, she'll grow out of it. I can tell that she's intelligent, and she loves to spend time with our family.

Now funny story about these guys. Before they moved to Boise, they wanted to look at a house to buy. They found some new suburban area and bought it before it started building. So what were they supposed to do while they were in Boise? Stay with us! For a couple of months they lived with us, using our guest rooms for bedrooms. I loved having these guys around, even if Ali could get annoying at times (not her fault-she was three). Kurt disappeared during the day to oversee the construction and make sure it was perfect. And in a couple of months, it was completed and they moved out. It was kind of like roommates for a while there.

At any rate, that's my family here in Boise. You may hear some more later about my extended family.

Meet the Family

Note - Gary, my dad, is not in this picture. He was the one taking it.

This is my immediate family, as well as my aunt, uncle, and cousin. Not my only ones, but they live here in Boise, so I get to see them alot more than most of my extended family. (Most of them are in California.) And I will now describe them in no particular order.

Jessica - My sister of 22. She always liked me and is very nice. She is good company and enjoys girly things like clothes and makeup. She also enjoys partying with Micheal on a regular basis. She goes to college at BSU and owns a little house about a mile away from ours. She visits often, but I can tell that she's starting to get a life of her own now that she's an adult.

Micheal - My brother of 20. He is strong, philosophical, if somewhat arrogant. He is funny and great conversation. I don't get to see too much of him anymore because he goes to college in St. John's in Minnesota, but I miss him every second that he's gone. One of my favorite characters in my life.

Me - Oh come on. It's on the sidebar.

Andy - My brother of 13. This is one of the most competitive, athletic people I know. He's on year-round swim team, some sort of plus soccer team, as well as having played most of the other sports out there. He's somewhat annoying and malicious, but I have faith that he's going to mature and be a good person someday.

Mitzi - My mother of ??? She is really a great Mom. She's always been really caring, and how I was brought up really made me a good person. And a lot of it comes from her. She's never really does things if she doesn't think that it's right. She's got a great sense of right and wrong, and a great will to follow the first one. Besides that, she's a nurse working under a neurosurgeon at St. Luke's Hospital.

Gary - (not shown) My father of ??? He as well is a great Dad. He was the religious factor in the family, and was an outspoken Catholic to try to teach us about his faith. He is a doctor - anesthesiologist - and works at St. Luke's as well. I think Dad told me he met Mom over a patient. He really is brilliant, much smarter than I am. He recently was diagnosed with cancer, but he's taken some chemo and if things continue as they are, it could be normal again. I love him so much, and hope that it will be normal again.

Later: Amy, Kurt, and Ali.

Semester 2

The good news about this semester is that I've really only got five classes this semester that I have to work on. Five out of eight. Because three of them is boy's PE, Computer Apps II, and Band.

The bad news is that the other five just got a lot harder. Jsut like last semester, I've got homework nearly everyday in English, and I end up with harder material with everything else.

I still know I'm lucky. There are still some freshman having to go through health and speech this semester. And don't get me wrong - I liked speech, but both classes have a considerable workload, and they aren't all that easy. And health was hell on earth for me.

So really, conpared to my last semester, this should be pretty good. And just like last semester, I really like my schedule. I've got PE last, so I get to have some fun before school ends. I just hope I can keep it up in the other five. It may be difficult. We'll see...

Optical Illusions

I would stick the actual video on here, but I can't figure out how. Just go to this copy and paste this web address for some trippy illusions.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-72045614459376997&q=Whitest+optical+illusions&total=12&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

Have fun!

Useful Masquerades

Saturday was an interesting day of discovery for me. Let me show you why.

The beginning of the day passed without much interest, but after lunch I decided to invite my good friend Troy over to my house. He promptly arrived and we soon teamed up with my brother Andy to play Wii Sports. Now we usually pass the Wiimote around after our turn is done, and usually we catch it. Sure we occasionally drop it and it hits the ground, but that safety jacket makes it hard to break.

Of course, we broke it anyway.

I threw it straight to Andy. He ducked. The Wiimote went over the lazyboy and hit hard on the wood floor. We picked it up, hoping it was nothing to be worried about, but we soon found it was. While it could still sense most motion at the screen, the shake mechanism and most of the actions in Wii sports had been screwed up. After debating who's fault it was, it came to the conclusion that I, being the richest, should buy a new Wiimote.

Well, I knew it had to be done, but I was hoping that perhaps I could get it for cheap on the Internet. What can't you get on the Internet? So I googled for a bit for cheap Wii remotes and came to several inexpensive links through eBay. I knew that I couldn't buy it because I wasn't eighteen, but I still clicked on 'create new user'.

Now before I tell you that, it's essential that you know that when I started off in high school, my parents gave me the high school privileges. For most kids that meant a phone and a bigger allowance. Which is basically what I got, buy my folks thought it a good idea to give me a Visa Buxx Card in place of cash. This is a pre-loaded debit card which my parents generously load with $100 a month, with which I buy lunches and anything else I want.

Of course this debit card had my name and age and all that on it, but miraculously, when I entered in my debit number for eBay and told them I was eighteen, it sent me right through the process as if I was the proper age. I thought to myself, this can't be right. They'll just kick me off. And it seemed as if I was correct-they told me I needed a Paypal to use eBay. Surely they would check the age on my debit, right?

Wrong! I entered in the same false information about my age as I did on eBay, and, presto! I now have a Paypal and eBay account. Apparently all of these websites simply assume that anyone who's got a debit or credit is eighteen. They don't check the age. They've been bluffing all along, and I've called it.

And it's not as if my eBay account is useless either-I've already bid on and bought several items with no problems at all. As far as the World Wide Web knows, I'm eighteen and a half. And now I've got a huge window of oppurtunity-much larger than I ever thought I could get out of the Internet. But I'll have to be careful. Like they say: "A fool and his money are soon parted!" Let's hope I don't qualify as a fool.

New School Schedule

Here's an overview of my new class schedule for the second semester:

1st period: Computer Application II. This class is easy for me and usually I just write posts for my blog in this class.

2nd period: English 1. Same as last semester.

3rd period: Geometry. Same as last semester.

4th period: Conceptual Physics. Same as last semester.

5th period: Spanish 1. Same as last semester.

6th period: Theology. Different teacher than last semester, and different time.

7th period: P.E. Probably the easiest class I will ever have.

I know I should go into this more, but I'm too distracted by Super Mario Galaxy. So... Trippy...

Gone Out With A Bang

Well, here we are. School starts tomorrow. So for the final day of Winter break, I had some fun. I went out with a bang.

Here's how today played out:

After inviting my good friend Troy over, we played on my new Wii until my cousins showed up- Nathan (12) and Nolan (9). Mom soon got sick of us playing downstairs and took us out to lunch at Smoky Mountain Pizza. We stuffed ourselves with an XXL meatlovers pizza before nearly passing out from fullness. Geez, they make some really good pizza. A must eat!

After digesting our meal for a little bit, we all shuffled into the car and started driving out to Idaho Iceworld, the local ice rink. Mostly this was because I had gotten an email that said we had hockey practice that day and my folks thought it would be a good idea to bring everybody else out for a free skate. But it turned out that the practice schedule ended up kind of messed up. So what happened was that I skated with my little brother, Troy, Nathan, Nolan, and several other teammates that had shown up on the free skate. And when the coach showed up, he pulled some strings and booked a sticktime for us. So after a couple of hours of skating with my friends and relatives, I walked over to the other rink, put on my gear, grabbed my stick, and got on the ice.

It really wasn't much of a practice, but it was fun as hell. We actually just scrimaged for an hour. And who wouldn't enjoy that?

After finishing that up, my cousins bid farewell and started driving back to California, we took Troy home, and I went home as well. After a great dinner, I went back downstairs, and started typing this. And now here I am. And tomorrow, I have to wake up again to go to school. It saddens me alot to know I can't have any more lazy days during the week. But that's life. I'll just have to make the best of it.

New Year's

I've got an announcement everybody!

Holy Crap it's New Years!

We've made it to 2008. Let's make it a good one, eh? For me that means some examination of myself and my writing. I've been up in McCall since the 27th and it's been the perfect time to deal with my own inner-conflicts, make some resolutions, and take a look at my blog (This is also why I haven't posted for so long). So far what I've found is this: I need more drive, I need to play music more, I need to get better grades, and I need to write better posts. Well at least all of them are positive, huh?

Looking back on the year, I've made a lot of progress in some of these. After reading some of my early posts, I'm certain that my writing has improved, and my music has been making progress since I picked up the saxophone again as a second instrument. But school? Yeah, not so much. Maybe this year I can pick up some of the slack.

What else do I mean to improve?

Hockey

Skiing

Overall Fitness

Organization

Everything else

If I hold true to all of these, then I know it'll be a successful year.