Seeing isn't believing

While I was searching the Internet for some image I can't remember, I saw this picture on some random website.

I had to stare at it for a minute, Trying to figure out whether this was part of another jackalope-esque hoax, or a shot from a new live-action Pokemon movie. I typed in the link in the corner Human Descent.com. It's a website where people with a lot of time on their hands photoshop images to make them strange, unrealistic, and quite frankly really creepy. Just goes to show that you can't trust pictures anymore.

Full weekend

Lots going on in the next few days. Aidan is coming over today for another sleepover. Tonight is also the graduation party for a friend of ours who we've known for about ten years. She, Ross, and I were the "Three Amigos" back when we were in Tae Kwon Do, haven't seen her in a long time.

Tomorrow is a swim meet against the Gold River swim team. They aren't part of our league, but a meet has been set up in order to give our team some harder competition. This meet is also pretty personal, our coaches have been reporting a lot of smack-talk from the Gold River swimmers, and even some parents. Our team may be the best in our league, but the Gold River team is in a tougher division. It'll be an interesting match. Aidan will also be accompanying us to the meet, and we'll all have to squeeze into the car pretty tight.

Summer reading

While reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for my summer reading, I read this excerpt that completely, simply, and elegantly described why atheism is wrong. Here's the excerpt:

...atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.

The logic and clear writing of C.S. Lewis continues to astound me.

Backed Up

Sorry I've been so behind. It's taken me awhile to post the Memorial day recaps. Don't worry though, nothing worth mentioning has happened since then.

Ghillie suit update: So Close!

I just bought the Rit dye for the burlap at OSH. Now all I need is the netting and I can actually start. I bought the powdered form of the dye, 4 Dark Green, 2 Golden Yellow (to mix with the Green), and 2 Dark Brown. I bought a lot, since I knew I was going t'mess up trying to find the right colors. Now I can finally dye my burlap!

Memorial day weekend: Monday

Woke up early on Monday. Took a drive with Aidan and his family to the beach. When we got there, the sky was clouded over, you couldn't see the sun. We ran with the waves, ate Doritos, and rolled down large sand dunes. I saw some rocks farther up the beach and decided to check them for tide pools. I love tide pools, and I almost never get a chance to explore them. Unfortunately, the rocks were pretty barren. So I drew things in the sand with Aidan and Ross.
Ross drew the "Chicka Chicka Chaaa!!"
I then decided to dig a hole in the sand. We didn't have any shovels, but I was able to dig a hole about 4 ft deep by mushing up the sand with my feet, then spooning it out with my hands. I couldn't go any farther after that because the bottom began filling with water and the ground turned to slop. It was extremely entertaining.

Went home afterwards, fell asleep for some of the way back. Once home, my entire family including me collapsed.

Memorial day weekend: Sunday

Sunday began as usual. Went to church, went home, nothing special. Around four, we went to the house of some of our church friends and had a barbeque with other church friends. Had fun went home, went to bed, nothing special.

Memorial day weekend: friday-saturday

Friday was Ross's birthday party. Just invited two two people, our neighbors Aaron and Aidan, we've been going for small birthdays lately.

At around four o'clock on Friday, Aidan came over with his sleeping gear, and we drove him to the Racquet club. We had swim practice on Friday, so we brought Aidan along with us. Jack's practice is before ours, and while the younger group swam, Aidan, Ross, and I, along with some of our swim teammates went into a racquet court and played intense rounds of dodgeball. It probably wasn't the best idea, everyone still had an hour of swimming to do.

After swim, got home, picked up Aaron, and watched a few youtube videos. Then went straight to our Xbox 360 (now don't get all indignant, we had just spent three hours playing at the club, so we weren't being a bunch of couch potatoes). Which reminds me:

This Week's COTW:
A random, non sequitur take on batman and spiderman. HINT: Don't try to make sense of it, just don't.



We played Halo 3, which we hadn't touched in a long time. We came up with our own version of Ninjanaught (one player is almost completely invisible, everyone else has to kill him). We found it so entertaining that we played it nearly non-stop from around 8:30 pm to one o'clock in the morning. Then we were forced to go to sleep.

Saturday morning we ate homemade pancakes, then went to the movie theaters to see Terminator: Salvation. Because of memorial day, there was no swim meet. Terminator: Salvation was pretty good, totally cool. The special effects were mind numbingly awesome. The storyline was okay, though don't how it had anything to do with salvation. It keeps in line with the original plot very well, but the main storyline is a little shaky. Course, that doesn't really matter when everything is exploding.

I always love watching the previews before the movie, but this time they left me a little angry and a little depressed. One was about the movie District-9, where peaceful aliens are persecuted by humans, who are refusing to let the aliens go home. Another was about a bunch of little dolls that run around the twisted decaying wreckage left behind after we humans destroyed ourselves.

Still, good movie, had fun.

Went home, relaxed.

Customer Service

I'm having some trouble finding the last materials for my ghillie suit. I need Rit Dye and a large sheet of 3/4" netting. Walmart had neither.

I suggested to my mom that we should try Home Depot, and she said I should check their website and call the store closest to us. I checked their main website and searched for the materials. Nothing came up. I tried to mentally picture seeing bottles of dye on the industrial steel-frame shelving of the store, but found that the two didn't really match. Same with the netting, I can't picture large canvasses of the stuff fitting in with the rest of the wood and PVC products.

But I resorted to calling the nearby Home Depot anyway, ask if they happen to carry it. Called the number, and was told to press "6" for Customer Service. A lady answered and asked what I needed.

"Hi, I was wondering if you carried three-fourths inch netting."

"Three-quarter inch netting? Um... Let me transfer you to the departm-- *click*"

*beep*... *beep*... *beep*...

I stayed on the line. I wasn't sure if the transfer had worked.

*beep*... *beep*... *beep*...

I waited a little longer, a minute passed; I started to worry.

*beep*... *beep*... *beep*...

For a brief moment of thoughtlessness, I wondered whether I had mistakenly pressed the "off" button with my palm. No, I could hear my breath through the phone, maybe they mistakenly hit the off key, or maybe on purpose.

*beep*... *beep*... *beep*...

Then it hit me: This is customer service.

I hung up.

I'm going try try and swing by a nearby OSH and see if they have what I need.

sorry, can't think of a title

I know that as the blogger it is my duty to come up with some sort of quasi-clever title that ties in with the content of the post, but right now, I can't think of anything.

Aaaaanyway, I just wanted to say how happy I am to have brought another blogger to the force. Sammyman is the online alias of Sam, a good friend of mine. He has started a blog called "Friendly Times" (find it here). It is very new, but please check it out.

Learn C

My father brought this home recently. It's part of one of this year's summer projects: learn a programming language. "C" is one such language. Apparently it is possible to learn it in one full day. I haven't looked through it yet, but I'll probably get to it soon, though I haven't the slightest idea what this course entails.

Thursday, May 21

Woke up this morning at the usual time. Showered, dressed, all the rest. Went to the kitchen and decided I wasn't in the mood for cereal. Instead, I had a bowl of Top Ramen.

I know everyone who likes Ramen has their own personal preferences as to how they like it cooked and so forth. I like mine soft and salty: less water and longer boil time.

It was very cold, so I put on a pair of socks... then another pair, over the first. I've never done that before, don't know why I haven't, it's very effective when you're really chilled.


This Saturday is Ross's (my second youngest brother) birthday. We're going to see a movie, I'm not sure which though. Right now, there are so many good movies out or coming out that it's hard to choose. There's The second Night at the Museum, Terminator: Salvation, the second Transformers, and Pixar's UP. I think I'm most eager to the tranformers movie, the mish-mash of special effects and weaponry and military hardware from numero uno has me hooked.

Wednesday: sleeping in

Woke up at 5:00 this morning as usual. Got showered and dressed as usual. Went in to the living room, lost all my will to continue standing up, and fell down onto the couch. That doesn't usually happen. Of course, I went to bed last night at 11:15, so I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked. I woke up again at around 8:15 and just stayed there for another hour.

I know a lot of my peers extol the wonders of sleeping in, and boast about sleeping in 'till 2 in the afternoon. Personally, I am incapable of sleeping in past 8:30, and I can't stay in bed any longer than 9:30. I in fact, I find sleep rather boring, and sleeping in just means there's something exciting to do that you're not doing.

Still, the rest of the family was sleeping in as well, so the house was completely silent. I wish I had the video camera with me. I was staring through the glass sliding doors into our backyard. The windows were opened just enough to hear the birds and feel the cool (not chilly) summer morning breeze. The the trees cast light shadows in the light of the early sun. The swaying leaves were silhouetted against the blinds of the windows, and the rays that made it through floated and drifted on the warm wood of the coffee table.

Not feeling it? Oh well, I'm not much of writer, that's the best I can come up with. Still, a picturesque moment, if there ever was one.

COTW

This is an old SNL clip that my dad showed me, sorry if the quality is a little bad.



The vid doesn't play when I embed the video, so you'll have to use the thumbnail link.

Help Wanted: No Jerks

I found this on the window of a Taco Bell close to our home. I was able to snap a picture of it as we drove by.
I doubt that this has filtered any applicants: "Hmm... For hire at a Taco Bell. The wages probably aren't that great, but still, I -- oh darn it. They want friendly people. Well, guess that rules me out, drat."

Perhaps this was an advertising scheme. Taco Bell wants its customers to know that they care.

Tuesday: nothing happening

Nothing to report today. Just doing the last lessons of geometry. Can't progress with the ghillie suit until I get more materials. Nothing exciting to look forward to either. I'll try to post a video or a commentary later, but there really isn't anything going on right now. Sorry.

Almost ready to start

I went to the local Army surplus store and bought a flight suit for my ghillie suit project.

The flight suit will serve as the base for the 3/4 inch netting, which is attached to the back with shoe goo (which I've also bought). Once the netting is attached, I can tie the burlap fabric into it, thereby creating the suit. First, however, the burlap needs to be dyed, and I still need to buy the dye.

So far I have unstrung burlap strands, a flightsuit, a hat (for the headpiece), shoe goo, and natural colors of spray paint.

All I need now is 3/4 inch netting, natural colors of dye, and a thick padding material (this is for the pads that are attached to the chest, knee, and elbow areas of the suit that allow for more comfort and protection when crawling).

Invitational recap... very short

Saturday was the invitational. It was very long. I had just five races spread through the entire meet. We arrived at around six in the morning and left at four. It was also very hot, no surprise there. Luckily the meet went very well. Came home afterwards, whole family sat down and watched a cheesy movie on the Sci-fi channel. I was so tired that I wasn't capable of clenching my fist. Glad it's over.

Twitter-worthy ghillie suit update

I finished stringing all three burlap sacks. Now all I need is dye, netting, a flightsuit, and just about everything else. Also need to scope-out the area I will be testing the suit in so I can tie in the correct colors.

Big swim meet

Tomorrow is a big day. I'm a member of a swim team called The Rollingwood Rockets, and tomorrow is our swim league's invitational meet.

Usually, swim meets are between just two teams at a time. An invitational meet is when all the teams of the league come together in one huge competition. The only other time this happens is during championships.

It's going to be an early morning (you must check-in at the pool at 7:15am) and a long day. Usually, there are only 3-5 heats of any particular event. At the invitational, the number jumps to about 8-15. There will be a lot of time to kill. Oh, and did I mention we'll be outside the entire time in 102 degree heat? Whoopdee-doo.

Still, the invitational is a good time to see familiar faces. There is a unique relationship between you and the swimmers on other teams that you befriend. You only see them three times during the summer (invitational, dual, championships), but the competition drives you together. Then by the end of champs, you just say "See ya next year!... Um, what's your name again?" The invitational allows us to reacquaint ourselves.

I'll try to squeeze out something tomorrow, but don't expect much.

Random Picture

I love summer.

So does the bunny.

First concert... ever

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the Director of Christian Education of my church asking whether I'd like to go to a concert for a christian rock band called "Above the Golden State" with the other highschoolers. I've never been to a live concert before, so I think it'll be fun.

Personally, I don't listen to the type of christian rock you find on stations like The Fish. It's not like I'm against the message, I love the message, it's just that I don't find the music very appealing. Some of it is too similar to the music of today's boy-bands (i.e. whiny, sound like they could fill a swimming pool with concentrated angst, etc.). Instead, I listen to musicians like Phil Keaggy, whose songs focus as much on the christian message as they do on good music.

Luckily, I listened to some of Above the Golden State's songs and they sounded pretty good, so I'm looking forward to the concert.

COTW and summer project

Here are the COTW. Today it's tied in with my summer project: make a ghillie suit.

First thing to do is to spark your interest, and make you go "Hey! Now I'm interested in reading the rest of this post." Well, here goes: (watch in HQ when possible)





So... that's what ghillie suits can do, pretty cool huh?

I've wanted to make one since February, and added it to my "things to do this summer" list. I found a documentary by some military experts that lays out all the steps in the process of building your very own (No, I'm not going to tell you the name of the documentary until I've completed my suit, otherwise you wouldn't listen to anything I have to say now would you?). Turns out, ghillie suits are basically flight suits with netting glued/sewn onto the back, with dyed burlap tied into the netting. It really isn't anything fancy.

I learned that you can buy ghillie suits online, but the military experts from the documentary strongly disapproved of it. According to them, a ghillie suit must constantly be changed, depending on the environment you're using it in and the time of year or season.


right now I'm in the beginning stages: unstringing the burlap strands out of burlap coffee bags.



It takes a while, and I've unstrung two large bags so far; more than enough for a single suit.

Here's a bundle of unstrung strands.
I'll keep you posted as I go through the steps.

End of BSF

The beginning of summer has marked the end of BSF, Bible Study Fellowship. Every Monday evening, I would go to a church complex with a bunch of other teens and study the word of the LORD. This year we were studying Moses, and read from Exodus all the way to the end of Deuteronomy. I have to say it was the most fun I have ever had learning about the old testament. Being a fairly recent convert, I was enamoured by the level of faith expressed by the teachers and by the other highschoolers. Their example has been one of the most powerful motivations for further developing my own faith, and I thank God for giving me such an opportunity. If any of you from BSF are reading this, I want to thank you also, and I apologize for not mentioning your names due to privacy issues. I'll miss all of you, and I eagerly await next year.

T-shirt-material quote from BSF:
"Don't Follow the Herd, Stay with the Flock"

I'm Back

My school is now officially over, all that's left are a few geometry lessons that I need to clear up, but that's really it. Now I plan to start daily posts on the Manifesto, and re-format a lot of it.

Over the spring, I began developing a "Things to do this summer" list that I would add to whenever I thought of something fun that I didn't have any time to do. For example: I would be sitting at my desk, being forced to describe what qualified Star Wars as a "great epic" (Hint: it's not). Then my thoughts would drift to activities that I would much rather be doing during the week, but I couldn't because of my homework. I couldn't do it next week either since I would have to describe what made Westside Story such a great musical (Hint: it's not). In fact, I would not have time for that activity until the school year was over. So I would jot it down on a scrap of paper, then type it on to a Word file once I was finished. Here are some of the main points on my list:

• Make a podcast
• Learn how to pick a lock
• Learn how to edit video
• Make a ghillie suit
• Watch a ton of MST3K.
• Write a novel

As you can see, I was pretty desperate for things that I would have rather been doing during school. I don't think I'll be writing a novel anytime soon (or at all), and I have already seen 3 volumes worth of MST3k. So I've kind of ruled those out.

Anyway, Treadstone is back, and the Manifesto should have full posts every day (except maybe weekends).