Stuck

I'm stuck. And let me tell you, it's not a great feeling. Nothing interesting seems to happen anymore. There are some mundane, marginally interesting aspects of my life I could post about, but I have very little doubt that it would bore you to tears.

Does this happen to other bloggers, or is it just me? Do I just lead an only marginally interesting life? When am I gonna find something good to write about?

I don't know. All I know is that's it's been to much of an average week to really write anything about it. I suppose that I can throw in a few tidbits about what's going on though.
1. I got a major role in the school play.
2. I'm trying to put together a talent show.
3. I'm participating in St. Baldrick's Day.

Yeah, that's all I can do for you now. I hope that I'll have a revelation soon so I can write a story and post it, but until then you'll all have to deal. Leave some comments if you want me to write about something.

Keeping My Mind Off Things

With all that's been going on lately, I've been looking for fun, comforting things to keep me occupied and distracted. There's two things really.

One is that my blog is doing quite well. This used to be kind of a pressure, but these days it's more of a relief and convinces me to write well. Positive feedback and new readers have done me and my writing well. I'm glad that after these months of writing I'm finally getting more readers.

The second distraction, is, of course, video games. I confess; I am quite a nerd. And quite a Nintendo fan actually. Since my Wiimote sensor bar is low on battery, I've gone back to a few of the Gamecube games. Most of all, Pikmin. And I've noticed something. Nintendo has either:
A.) A boatload of creativity
-or-
B.) A boatload of drugs.
When you've been a fan as long as I have, you'll realize how true this is.

At any rate, getting my mind off things did have repercussion. Fast forward. It's 11:00. I'm lying in bed because I can't get to sleep. Suddenly I realize something. An English that's about half my grade is due tomorrow. Son of a...

So I dragged my nauseous, teary ass out of bed and dragged it downstairs to start writing. And two hours later, after finishing, I dragged my ass back upstairs. It still took me a half-hour to get to sleep. You'd think I'd be tired. Just need more sleep...

Once In A Dream

The best waking moments of my life seem to be those that are more like dreams.

I haven't been dreaming lately. This saddens me. Maybe it's because of all that's been going on. Dad's been having more seizures at home and Mom is kind of stressed due to that. And somehow I find myself trying out for a play and organizing a talent show at the same time. And I'm trying to hang out with my friends more, but there's just not enough time to do all this and have any time at the end of the day to relax a little.

What bothers me most is Dad. I've had trouble getting to sleep since a couple of days ago when he started having trouble again. I'm just so worried. People tell me to try to be optimistic and hopeful, but I can't help but wondering how this story will end. He's going to be starting radiation soon. My friend Sam had a Dad go through cancer. He told me never to see Dad go through radiation. He said seeing his dad go through it still gave him nightmares.

What to think in these troubled times? The most comforting thing I can ever do is lay my head down on a pillow and be whisked away by imagination. Sometimes I wonder whether heaven is just one eternal dream. A reverie, ever-changing and morphing to what the thinker wants it to be. And sometimes what the thinker needs, but doesn't realize. There are truly infinite possibilities in the realm of dreams, and every one is unique and meaningful. I've come up with songs before in my sleep. They were better than anything I've written awake.

There are two other comforting thoughts (memories really) I can look at. A flashback to that moment in the St. Joe's Church. Dad had just taken the anointing of the sick. He came and sat back down next to Mom. We all held onto each other, and for a golden, hopeful moment, everything was gone.

And a dream. A single dream from long ago. Micheal and Jessica and Andy and Mom and Dad and me, hugging in a beautiful, bittersweet moment. And behind us is a montage of all the happy places we've been together. Seattle, Maui, Lake Cushman, the list goes on. And when it goes black, we're still there, hugging.

Things are what you make of them. But dreams are what your soul makes of you.

A Photo Post

I've gotten into the habit of carrying my camera around with me to try to find good photo oppurtunities. And now I've got a lot of pictures to get off my memory card. So here we go.

Last weekend I had the TEAMS competition. I forget what the acronym means, but it's a huge test that fried our brains.

The TEAMS room, with all the people in it.

Our team with Zack, Bronte, Payton, Richie, and me.

After several hours, we looked like this...

Or worse, like this...

The whole Junior Varsity TEAMS participants, as well as Doctor Neznanski, our C. Phys. teacher. He's funny as all hell, I'll have to get him to write something sometime.


A week later came a busy weekend. First off I had to play keyboard with the band at the basketball game

The school band (which I'm in) played at the school's basketball championship. Here's everyone who was there.

Here's another picture of us playing...

Last one... by the way, band is really fun. We play really fun songs like Jump (Van Halen) and The Final Countdown (Europe) and plenty of others.

After that, I went and saw Jumper. It was like 10:00 PM before it started.

Jumper.

All that was Friday. Saturday was the Junior Varsity Hockey Championship. This was what I've been waiting for.

We lost.

6-0.

Oh well. It kind of sucked, but we did make it to the championship. And as a note, Boise (the team we played) had 14 players. We had 8. Plus the refs were totally on their side. Closely following that, I went to the Hallissey Mass. Hallissey is a local inter-Catholic School basketball tournament. My brother took part in it so we went to the mass.

This will give you a little bit of an idea of what the church looked like. Really nice church.

Well that was Saturday. To top it off, I got hurt at the game so I could hardly walk. So Sunday I took a little bit of rest. I did go to the Discovery Center, though. But I don't have any pictures from that, sorry. Monday though, I felt quite a bit better, so I went skiing with my brother Andy and my friend Troy. We found that most of the kids from the hockey team were up there, and we skiied with them.

Bus ride up...

It was a beautiful day out.

Here's most of the hockey team in snowboarding gear. We had a lot of fun and went to the backside several times.

And finally, I got back home from my incredible weekend. I was almost looking forward to school by the time that I finally finished. That can't be good... Oh well. That was my photo post.

Up The Ante

Because that's just what my uncle Brian did recently. He upped the ante.

While some of you may not know this, Brian of Switch 2 Plan B is quite a blogger and is part of a very active blogging communities. Yesterday he did a post titled "Avuncular" and comically referenced both me and my cousin Calvin. And already I see that Calvin's blog has gotten comments from Brian's friends. Comments = views + feedback. I.E. Good.

To be honest, this panics me a little bit. First impressions are really important for repeat visits, and quite frankly most of the stuff I've been writing recently seem more like filler than anything else. I don't like writing filler, but some days I can write well and others I can't think of anything.

All I can say is that I better step it up. And for any new visitors, make sure you take a look past the first two or three posts. You'll find there's more to me than meets the eye.

The Different Types of Blogs

You know, I've been thinking about the nature of my blog, and the nature of other blogs, and how mine fits into it. Or how I fit as a blogger. I've arrived at a few conclusions - mainly that there are essentially three different types of blogs.

Type 1 - Completed.

These are the blogs that you occasionally see and try to go back to, but find nothing new. This means that the blogger has probably moved on and left it to die. These are like novels, and if you look closely, you can find some really good gems. Of course, none of these classifications ensures quality, but I've found that these can be quite good. Take The Musings And General Ponderings of Master Seth. This was really a great blog because of it's content, and it remains so. Seth wrote in this sort of Homeric style and had interesting things to write about. But he won't be updating it anytime soon, I think. But it's a great collection of stories, still.

Type 2 - Semi-Regular

These are the blogs that are updated less than twelve or so times a month. Usually, these ensure better quality, seeing as the author is given more time to write better posts. The best example of this blog would be Switch 2 Plan B. I personally know the author, and he is a great speaker and writer as far as I know him. Like I said, these can be very good quality due to time over post distribution, and there definitely a lot of great blogs in this category.

Type 3 - Regular

This is the sort of blog that are updated more than twelve or so times a month. These can be good, and if nothing else, a steady stream of new material usually flows from the author. The perfect example, I think, would be none other than yours truly, Alcatraz014. My frequency's gone down, but my quality, I think has probably gone up (or at least according to the poll I put up). You have to be careful with these ones though. They can be more filler than good stuff, and you may find yourself looking for stories and finding Youtube videos (I'm guilty of that a few times).

There's one other distinction that you can make in blogs, and that is it's audience. If you ever take a look at the Blogs of Note on blogspot, you'll probably notice that most of them seem to have an exclusive audience. Christians, horse owners, artists, musicians, and medical workers (I've even seen a Santa blog) seem to be very common niches. I think my audience may pertain mostly to high school students such as myself, but I think that most people could read of my adventures and not be bored to tears or have no idea what I'm talking about. But then again, I'm not even sure I have an audience. It should be noted that I have more than one blog, but they're all Type 1 except my Mobile blog. Which doesn't count.

A Prologue To My Camera's Crazy Weekend

Christ, have I had a weekend or what. In short succession I've had:

Friday (all after school)-
Hockey Practice
Band Performance at a basketball game
Movie (Jumper)

Saturday-
Hockey Championship
Halissey Mass

Sunday-
Discovery Center
Homework

Monday-
Skiing
This post

And interestingly enough my camera followed me around this whole time. So I've got quite a memory card to unload, believe me. Expect a post heavily dependent on massive amounts of pictures in the near future.

Miniclip

If that blasted website does what it promises, this should work. If not, it makes for excellent blog filler.

My Valentine's Day

I hate to think that I easily post about lame holidays, but seeing as I actually did kind of celebrate this one, I don't think it would be fair to just ignore it.

Before I talk about it though, I'd just like to give a little bit of background information on my love life. Right now I'm going out with a girl called Emma. Mind you, I'm not going to post about our relationship all that much. There are already annoying rumors and such, and seeing as there are actually people at my school who read this, it would not bode well for us. We've been going out for a while now, since about the first semester, and we're doing pretty well.

Enough of that though. What was special about this Valentine's day was what I did for Emma. Her friend, Jade, is in her second period class, and once the bell rang for break, Jade told Emma she needed to talk to her in private in the music room. Emma was a litle bit frustrated because she wanted to know what was going on, but Jade lead her to the music room (for anybody who doesn't know, it's the room the band, choir, and my band practices in, and it has a keyboard and a crapload of percussion instruments).

Within a few minutes, Jade had taken her to the music room. She opened the door and Emma walked in. Emma heard the door close behind her. She also saw me, sitting at the keyboard, and heard me, playing She Paints Me Blue by Something Corporate, a song and band that we both know and love. She sat down on the steps and listened to me sing and play, until I finally finished and handed her four carnations and a box of chocolates. She loved it and almost cried.

Turns out I can be romantic.

The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster

I have recently converted (sort of) to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, otherwise known as Pastafarianism or FSMism. I have recently ordered and received the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and have been doing my best to convert the school to acknowledge the Spaghedeity.

This is a perfect example of my joy in the randomness. I have been telling the good news of his noodliness for a few days now, and of course have managed to alienate quite a few people. This is their fault not mine, but I would like to note it is vastly entertaining to see their puzzled expressions when I try to preach the word.

If you know nothing about the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's an elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design created by Bobby Henderson a while back as a protest to schools teaching ID as an alternative to evolution. The funny thing is the impression that most people get from it. Pastafarians realize it's a fabrication, and this information is by no means hidden. But people still look at me like I'm crazy, and hate mail keeps rolling into Bobby Henderson's inbox.

At any rate, I am studying that aforementioned gospel now, and it is funnier than all hell. You can check all this stuff out at Venganza.org - the official website of our church. For now, though, may the FSM be with you. RAmen!

The Junior Varsity Semifinals

Well, my hockey season's about at and end and we've finally made it to the playoffs, and more specifically, the semifinals. We were set up to play Eagle High on Saturday at 6:15 P.M. When we arrived, we saw the other semifinals game going on on our ice rink while we were to get dressed and get ready for the game. This one was Boise vs. Meridian.

Let me give you a little background on these two teams. Boise's the best team in the league, according to the stats. And Meridian's exactly the opposite - they're basically the worst team in the league with mostly eighth graders and a few freshmen sprinkled in. So of course, we rooted for Meridian.

At any rate, they tied, due to an official confusion, they'll be finishing they're OT tomorrow. I wonder how they'll do. After sitting in the locker room for 15 minutes with the team, thinking, trying to prepare ourselves for the game ahead. The coaches finally called us out onto the ice and we warmed up.

Let me fastforward. It's 3-1 us, and my linemate, Andrew, is skating up to take the shot. I'm trailing close behind to try to get a rebound. He takes a shot about twelve feet from the net. It bounces off at a perfect angle, and I switch and backhand the rebound in. Goal. First (probably) only goal of the season, and of course it would be in the playoffs.

The second instance of interest was when me and Andrew again ended up on a rush. We were at the blue line and the puck glided up between us. We looked at each other, and, instantaneously, we knew who was going to take the puck. I did, and I missed, but I did draw a penalty when one of the opponents threw a stick at me.

At any rate, all of us, including me, played a great game, and we won, 5-3. Technically I also scored the game-winning goal. So at any rate, we did well. I can't wait til next week. We'll kick some ass!

Blood Relations

My grandpa Don and my uncle David are in town this weekend and they're staying with us. I may haven't made this clear, but as of late, I've had my extended family in town much more than usual. I'll expand more on this later, but I have to get ready for the weekend - A TEAMS competition and the Junior Varsity hockey semifinals are coming up. This'll be good.

Everyday: Played By Us

I was practicing in the school band this morning and when we got out early, George and I stayed behind and jammed for a bit. This song is called 'Everyday' by Carly Comando. If you want to hear the real full version of it, go back to my post called 'Everyday' and go to the link.

Recovery Through CoFSM

It's been a few days since the Groundhog's incident now, and I've been getting on pretty well. Considering, anyhow (If you don't know, read my 'Groundhog's Day' post).

Best thing to do now is of course to try to pray that things return to normal. It helps me to take up some new interests and make some new friends; it gets my minds off things. In fact I've taken up a brand new interest that is quite interesting. Have you ever heard about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? I'm gonna go into this in more depth later.

At any rate, just a few notes. Don't be surprised if I don't post as often as I used to, I'll probably only do 15 in a month now. And don't think I'm heartless because I'm not continually posting about Gary. I don't want to depress you. "Laugh and the world will laugh with you. Cry and you cry alone."

Groundhog's Day

(St. Lukes Hospital)

I awoke this morning to the sound of Andy desperately whispering to me, "Wake up Joe! Dad's having another seizure!" In a sense of disbelief, I put on some clothes haphazardly and walked into the master bedroom. There was Gary, on the bed, twitching and breathing with difficulty, almost wheezing. Mom was right there too. She's a nurse and called the paramedics as soon as she figured out what was happening. After a few confused moments, watching in pain, they arrived, carried Gary outside onto a stretcher, and put him in the ambulance.

We knew the way and were there before they were. And as soon as they came, we were able to see Dad and comfort him. It was a long time in the hospital before I finally took a look at a clock. It wasn't even 4 AM in the morning, and we had spent an hour or so awake already. And we had spent most of that time standing there in the hospital room next to Dad. We all cried and held hands and tried to comfort each other. I didn't know what to think, and that was partly due to the fact that every single thing that runs through your head in a situation like this seems infinitely inappropriate. And you can't think of anything to do or say to make anything better. What are you supposed to do?

We spent three hours in the hospital. Dad got a CT scan and they sent us home at six so we could all get some sleep. None of us know what this means yet. It could mean radiation. It could mean more powerful pills. It could mean anything. But I'm gonna hope it means nothing. And I'll try to start over today. I don't want this to ruin everybody. If we indeed have limited time with our loved ones, we should spend minimal amounts of it weeping. Comforting, always. I hope to God that this is just a sign, a warning, anything but bad news.