Pre-script (P.S.)

A so-called "brief note" or two

Does anybody remember when I promised to have pictures up from the Double H trip this summer? Well it finally happened. They're /here/.


The second "brief note" that I have to post... just before I leave for Dallas where much extended family is and Stillwater OK where more extended family lives to be there for Christmas... is sort of like a blogger announcement.

Ross has a blog! The url is cadetsbigday.blogspot.com ... OR ... click on the NEW link in my sidebar (hopefully it's there...)

Dad's posting again! Same type of posts, different blog. URL: ardickoverthetop.blogspot.com
Or yet again you could click on the link to your right ------>

Farewell fine friends!

-Petr

(post publish comment)
scroll down on Ross's blog for a reeeaallly great picture of bonfire.

Do-it-yourself (?)

Just in case you wanted to carve swans from watermelons, wikihow has just the thing for you. Follow the directions and the tips and you're "sure to be successful!"

Now I just hope they don't have anything on how to live your life. I'm afraid that's out of the online how-to department....


&&&&&&(page break)&&&&&&
(hey, I figured if *others* could use it to good affect, why not I?)


And on top of that, Petr has returned to his blog!!

Well whadya know. Sometimes I even wonder what's the point in putting anything here. Maybe it would be better with almost all picture content, sort of a picture-web-log. Try to shorten that now -- picblog? ^_^

But still I return. To what purpose, who knows?


^^^^^^^(break 2)^^^^^^^

Friday, December 7th, 2007. A day which will live in... well, maybe my memory for a while. I know it now as the beginning of the most recent T342 cooking *trek, voyage, expedition, etc.* camping-trip (known as the camp-out, campout, campowt to the lowly scout).

Saturday, December 8th, 2007. A day to live in more infamy than the previous one. The Ranger patrol sadly made a few critical mistakes. Glories were lost. Taste was diminished, or else spoiled. The great feat of a chocolate cake in a dutch oven (!!!) ... LOST because of a burnt crust. A sad day for the loyal Ranger. Once again, despite all efforts to "save the day", the /other patrol/ swept the cooking competition. (I'm personally upholding the idea that on at least one decision both judges were biased)

Sunday, the day after Saturday. Problems were forgotten, dashed hopes returned, and a new day dawned. Camps were broken, tents were disassembled, trucks were loaded with personnel and equipment, and yet another successful two-nighter brought to a close.


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$(break 3)$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


So enough of the funny viewpoint. Back to good 'ol first person.
This coming Saturday, the annual teen-white-elephant-party held at our house. Surely you've heard of this occasion, when teens in the homeschool group, and some non-teens, bring presents and have a sort of exchange. It's always more fun when you realize that most of the "presents" are worth less then their face value. Let's take the example of Evan's gift last year. He brought a nice pair of shoes, pre-worn, pre-damaged, pre-scuffed. They even came in a collector's box! But had the receiver looked closely, he or she would have noticed that a sole was missing from one of the shoes. What a scandal! :)

And I find it incredible that the D's could get in town for the Spring party, the Summer party, and the Harvest party, but not the memorable White Elephant? What a shame. I suppose we shall have to do without, and merely wish for their presence, as so often has been the case. Or perhaps, once again, I am merely posting exaggerated sarcasm. As has sometimes been the case.

(break)

http://picasaweb.google.com/nandn7/Mexico2007
Does this link work?

-Petr

A couple things

First of all, I thank all of you who supported us on our Thanksgiving journey (trek, adventure, ... any others? I'm sure Frodo would have a whole list of such words). Whether it was by helping us with finances or praying for the whole (insert such word here). Anyhow, that was one more thing to be thankful for that chilly, wet Thursday.

And more about that (excursion, jaunt, junket, outing). Starting with pictures, one of which I intend to make my \new\ picture. First some opinions though. :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/nandn7/Mexico2007

However, now is not the time to wax eloquently about the (expedition, pilgrimage, tour, safari, voyage). I'm still working on remembering the details you might want to hear about. ^_^

And something funny, as I often intend to put in my posts. Credit goes to one of my debating friends.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama

-Petr

Pending

Short explanation.

I have been gone since Tuesday the previous week, spending most of that time either in Weslaco or Reynosa. I just got back a few hours ago. Further explanation pending.

And Happy Thanksgiving to you too! Lotsa thanks to give! Now obviously, these are not randomly thrown thanks. Who do you thank, and for what? Just something to consider.

"We apologize for the inconvenience."

-Petr

TRULY random, none of this...

Have you ever wondered how a computer is programmed to generate a random number? It's not. You cannot program a computer to generate a random number. It is simply too predictable. All 1s or 0s (or shorts, if you wire it wrong). A computer is designed to follow instructions perfectly, so even if your computer is totally messed up beyond all shadow of working, it's still predictable. That's just how it works.

Shadow already knows all this, right?

BUT>>>>

True Random Number Generators.

[Random.org]

[HotBits]

[lavaRND]

Now under this last link, there are two very interesting demos. One is a "LavaRND Haiku", essentially random poetry generator. I was strongly encouraged to show this to E____, who is highly involved in poetry. The other is "LavaRND CorpSpeak", a Dilbert-like management memo generator. And you can read all about how these are both generated by a TRULY random process. None of these computer algorithms...

Where p0liticians come from

And this morning, Andrew and I were discussing--of all things to discuss in the morning--infinity and rational numbers. The comment was that two of my sisters spend all of their free time on the computer. No, every irrational portion of every second of spare time. So then I started thinking, what is the ratio of rational numbers to irrational numbers between 0 and 1? There are infinite rational numbers between 0 and 1. Between every two rational numbers, there are infinite irrational numbers. So the ratio of rational to irrational numbers is infinity over infinity. That region of irrational number between two rational numbers... that's where politicians come from. So.... Infinity over infinity is equal to Hillary Clinton. :-)

-Petr

Fascinating

The "link" box is useful. I like links.

This post is much rambling and some unfinished business.

To begin with, I will bring up a... prominent issue on the internet. Does anybody wonder what it takes for a word to be used a lot in internet "slang"? For example, "interesting" is a very useful word, but I think that its usefulness has been overvalued. "Interesting" is no longer interesting to me. The word that I now am attached to is "fascinating". But that's beside the point. Perhaps I can get some input on this, considering all who read are internet users?

Continuing my ramble.

Did you know that in IM terms, *<<<<<-| is a Christmas tree? I thought you might want to know.

F.B., my intent in posting the picture is for you to laugh, or at least grimace, when you see that picture. It always make me just the more merrier. I hope a little jollification from across the Atlantic doesn't hurt you too much. You can only be expected to be stern most of the day. :-)

From the previous post. We don't know who wanted to sleep out there. They must have been crazy, we all agreed, to want to sleep out there, what with the temperatures dropping into the 40's during the night, and probably worse out on that peninsula.



-Petr

Gnarly!

By the way, click on the title.
==================================


October 26-28 2007

"Gnarly" was the "word of the trip" for this year's NACHEA (not NAHSA anymore--I know, it's a little bit of disappointment. I am not big on the idea of an acronym that sounds like a sneeze :) family camping trip. I don't know if anybody knows what I'm talking about, so I'll elaborate.

The camp ground was out near the Trinity River, at Trinity Pines Camp. Some people may know it as "the place Evan and Caleb worked all summer". It's sort of like a family campground area sort of thing out by a lake. I don't quite know how to describe it. Anyhow, the NACHEA families went out and camped in the RV area, and not just with RVs. Some of us had to use *gasp* tents! Needless to say, we survived despite the hardship of tents and bringing our own food. Speaking of we, I need to explain that too. (don't worry, gnarly is making a comeback in the near future)

Unfortunately, we were not able ...Isn't it so splendid having the possibility of work emergencies (some really sick person) even when your off? And not getting even that much time off? I'm sure Dad loves it... to go as a family. So Andrew and I were invited by the Jones family to come along with them. So we is either a general Joshua, Joy, Mrs. Jones, Andrew, and I, or else the NACHEA group as a whole on the trip.

Shortly after "we" arrived, I found Aarin off doing his own thing and describing things as gnarly. I declared there and then that we needed a word of the trip, and that it would be "gnarly". I'll now end this short paragraph with a confident :D



A short video from the trip.

Following are some pictures from what we did all weekend.




Dodgeball, believe it or not. Each team tries to get the other team out by hitting them with little foam balls. Fun. Note that I was unable to get in action shots because of grumpiness expressed towards the camera man.

And of course, the good old truck. It managed to be useful through the whole trip. Bandwagon, bleachers, equipment truck, cargo truck....

Find the hole that is infamous for its difficulty.


I might throw in some scenery from the trip later on, in another post. Toodles for now, my friends.

-Petr

Just thought you'd want to know

Monday, October 15th is a day that shall go down in infamy. Good 'ol Nathan, Esther, gerbil, giblit (don't ask me where that came from) died during the night. 'Twas a silent night, full of silence in the space where rattling and chewing would have filled the air. We shall remember you, old pal...




____________________________________________________________________




In other news, a new picture has appeared, not from Evelyn's photo banks, but from a different source...
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-


Something funny to think about. Turn up the sound after the screen goes white.



-Petr

It's official

Here is where I put something related to the title and related to the general gist of the post. Well, today is October 15th. That's official. This is my forty-fifth (45th) blog post. Today is Blog Action Day. I'm not too impressed at the moment.

It has indeed been a long time since the last post. I cannot say what has delayed this one. Perhaps it was the overwhelming task of journaling my early fall events. Perhaps it is the doom of eminent debating that hangs over my head (I still think this is too early in the 2008 season to really get serious, considering everything else that hangs over so ominously). But I intend to address the highlights of these past few months in what might seem a monotonous post to those of you who are obviously more expressive than I am in their descriptions. Boy, doesn't it seem like I'm repeating myself?

Anywho, somewhere back in the mists of time gone by... (I'm don't know myself where this is going, where I should start... where it would be safe to assume your knowledge, or lack thereof)
I suppose I shall start with the most recent. Forget chronological order.

From Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, troop 342 from Nacogdoches, or whatever of it decided to come (you might want to know that Venture Crew 342 was there too), attended the 2007 Naconiche area Camporee. This was a rather well organized event. The purpose of a camporee in general is to gather Scout troops from around the area for... an instructive and fun mini camp. This year it was all about search and rescue. Mr. S, area camping chairman, managed to arrange for the fire department to come out to demonstrate and an EMS helicopter to fly in. Very interesting for all involved. The cooperation and effort of the troop (a small concern for me because of the recent shuffling) was actually one of the higher points of the trip for me, despite half of our older, more experienced scouts not coming. The younger guys managed to work it out quite nicely.

Perhaps this was a "coincidence", but on the very weekend that this took place, at the very same place, not too far from our campsite, the model fliers had their little planes going. For two hours of free time, a group of scouts watched them fly the RC planes around in circles. Fun stuff.

The previous weekend was one of the highlights of this fall so far. On that weekend, Dad, Andrew, Robert D. and I took a trip to Houston, for the 23rd annual Wings Over Houston airshow, probably the biggest in the state. Were the computer running at full speed, I might post some pictures. Oh well, I don't even know whether they have been taken off the camera yet. "Pictures are worth a thousand words", yet I don't intend to use one for a thousand, or even a hundred. Maybe it'll work later.

Well it's now 10 PM or later. I'm finished for now. Now this post too shall vanish after a few weeks, assuming we have a few weeks...

-Petr

Life

-!!!!!!!-
Look at the last post. Did I not say that I would post about the events of life in the near future? Well here is this post, consisting of almost purely life events.
-!!!!!!!-

Yesterday, I'm sorry to say I missed the announcement, was International Talk Like A Pirate Day. February 19 each year. Go google it and find some interesting facts. ARRR!

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Going all the way back to the end of August...

Debate Camp!

This trip into the Rockies for the purpose of debate theory was figuratively the calm before the storm. Calm flight in, long road trips from the airport out and back, calm flight out. Lots of mountains. Hey I could've just sat on the front porch of the admin building watching clouds float by or hiking up and down and up and down and oh by the way some ups and downs. I did neither. I missed the only chance to do that. :(

So instead, most of the weekend was spent inside a small conference building listening to useful lectures about the value of isolationism, immigration history in the United States, economics, lectures about case structure, values in general, cross examination, "judge reading" (!), philosophers, time management, club exercises, and probably some more that I didn't even write down. There were lectures about certain debates or group activities or flowing a certain speech in a debate. Lots of theory!

The day after we got back, or rather the day we got back at 1 AM, I slept until 12 PM with little trouble. The next day, the storm broke. I had, and still have daily, to work through algebra II/trigonometry, advanced chemistry, SAT preparation, history (lots of reading or lots of essays), and several DVD and tape lectures. It's hard to keep the algebra equations separate from chemistry formulas and funny looking constants (2.18x10^-18? 6.63x10^34?). And all this the day after I get back from a weekend in Colorado.

Later that Tuesday evening was the first Boy Scout meeting I had been to in a long time. Speaking of which, recently boy scouts have been hectic. Just this Tuesday we had elections and a huge mixup over who should be in what positition and who should be responsible for deciding those positions and what the standard was in the past and what the standard should be now. We still don't know some of the details from the elections and appointments.

Small sidetrack, but necessary for the topic at hand, Life. I mean the life that I can observe, ok? Not the life of somebody in Kansas or Arkansas. :)

I'll skip forward a couple weeks to... Saturday, September 15th.

Last week was the NACHEA (not NAHSA anymore :( teen photo scavenger hunt. Mrs. Yerkes got Jeremy *somebody* to organize it. Several teams of teens ran all over SFA trying to get pictures and solve some clue thingies, leading to the thing that evil Sinisterguy (or something like that) had taken from him. My team never found it, and we weren't told in the end. Regardless, there were some pretty weird pictures we had to get. Big sign reading 5:18, team in stranger's truck, three legged race with non-participant, and some other strange things. At 6:30 all the teams had to gather at this house for an afterward party thing. We found that we had gotten third and the peanut M&Ms to go with it(!!!). It lasted late into the night, of course. It's always strange to be staying after the party, to clean up. The house is so... empty. Sort of like when relatives come and then leave. Not much fun to be left behind.

Well it's getting late again and the black cat is bugging me. Go away Beamer! I can't pay attention to you right now. :-)

So good night to you all, and God bless! Have fun in Ireland F.B.!!

-Petr

And furthermore

Well I finally got back. I'm posting, can't you tell? This is a post. It is meant to be read, so don't comment unless you do so!

:)

I've had this post formulated in my mind for a long time. A looong time. Unfortunately, I don't remember the original formulation, so I'm just going to, well, go with it.

So beginning with the not so difficult stuff. I remembered Philip's "Potatoes" video this weekend when a video similar in its concept came up in a small discussion. Along with posting this video, I must also mention that I no longer intend to post videos, just their URLs. Web page, if you didn't understand the first time. But back to this video, its essentially repeating something in the right context so much that it's funny. Oh, just follow the link already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tin6NJqQQsM

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

Another interesting thing, not so much fun, more disturbing than anything else.

Debate brings up some interesting things. Sure you learn how to debate, speak, etc., and included in this "etc." is researching. Now I was researching for my Affirmative case when I stumbled across something. Perhaps things are a little out of hand... well it's about the supposed "North American Union", told off by Bush and others, but I think this takes the cake. But be warned, Hal Turner is very blunt with his language. I really think some people have taken it too far this time.

====================================================================

A page update watcher, originally found and posted by Shadow. JCPenney requested this, but I think that more people can benefit from it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pwatcher
It is the one that I am currently using, and will tell you if anything is different. Even a slight html code change.

====================================================================

To answer your predictable questions, yes I did change the template. I am planning some other changes as well, eventually. I wonder if eventually will ever be now...

Considering the purpose of this post, I don't intend to relate current events. That's coming tomorrow or some other time in the near future.

Goodnight, and God bless.

Procrastination

Isn't it such a terrible thing? I mean, right now I'm supposed to be writing an Affirmative case for my debate camp--that we leave for tomorrow. Now obviously I've been working a while, so I'm taking a break to leave a nice post for some of you guys, that post that you have (or maybe haven't) been waiting for so patiently and yet hasn't come for a long time. So now is a post to break the silence and fill you in on some of those crazy ideas that I thought weren't worth posting about.

Side note:JCP I just went back into the archives of your blog and found the houseplant song. Funny, but doesn't quite compare to "some of that Petra". :)

Isn't it weird how the good ideas come to one's mind in the weirdest of places? I can remember multiple times where in the middle of my shower I am struck by some life-changing idea, but then ten minutes later, I forget about it completely. Or maybe I'm just about to fall asleep, when... BAM!! Just sort of appears and totally ruins the next day cause I'm too tired. Or even while I'm toting a gas powered rotating-wire-head on a stick (commonly called weed whacker) across some random parking lot, thinking about this post and what I should mention on it. Even this mention of random location ideas came to me in a random location. O_o

One such idea came while I was listening to some rock music (that some people might consider too hard). I was thinking about how many Christian friends I had in so many different places, and how many of them had different views on different things, for example their opinion of music, whether hard rock is "neat!" or just... "interesting". Or some people who have theology that would be very questionable to others, yet they are indeed (as far as man can tell) Christians. Then another thought came from that idea--no matter what different views they may have on some subjects, they all have the same common factor, the goal of life being to glorify God. This is hard to put down in words :-\ I think some dots can be left for you to connect.

Anywho, the other few ideas that I was to put in this maybe long post have jogged my memory. I shall probably be back to edit this post later.

TTFN.
-Petr

EDIT
====================================================================


"Dinky little pole! A mere breath from my massive lungs with send it flying!"
(suitably edited)

By a request from JCPenney, credit for (finding) this video goes to her. *hrrumph*
I liked this video. I included an inside reference from it. It needed to be posted. I'm tired.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkWjVAFjUBw

Least original title

In the world. Maybe not, but I like to think that not much is new as far as my titles go.

I don't really intend to directly answer the question why I haven't been available. I'm going to do that indirectly.

Some of you may have heard of this place called "Pine Cove". I shan't post in detail about it. Go look it up with Google if you must. A Sunday afternoon three weeks ago Mom attempted to send Lillian, Annalee, and myself off for a week at this place(note that we were actually going to individual camps so there was no form of contact between the persons) . It turned out we were early. So the next week we made the 2 hour drive again, to be left there for an entire week. It was fun. If this were a speech it would be very monotone. :D

So there you have it. A week of my summer spent in Tyler at a camp. One of many weeks this year that I've been gone. Shall I sum up? Much of the early year was spent gone on debate trips, summer was split between various things like the Double H hiking trip and two week Oklahoma trip, as well as a couple other random things that I can't really recall right now.

My aspiration with this post is to be brief. Inform the public and go to bed, seeing as it's fairly late in this region of the world. F.B., I assure you I will probably type up an email for just you sometime soon. Fear not, general population, I shall return.

-Petr

some descriptive words

Greettinns. I am back from Oklahoma after a two week trip, leaving here only shortly after getting back from Double H, soon to be gone on another trip.

This has been a busy year. I'm sure that I've probably described many vacations since the start of the year, with the exception of the one I just got back from. Be warned: for me, this will count as a long post.

You all heard of the Double H trip I'm sure. I still don't have pictures by the way. The Monday of the week after we got back, we went on a rather short notice trip to Stillwater, having the primary purpose of Mom's trips with Grammy, reaching to the far reaches of OK and almost into the next state for quilting materials and such. Mom tells me they had lots of fun, got lots of material, and gave up after the second day.

This was the same week the the Reformed Presbyterian Church was having VBS and I was of course volunteered to help with the management and proceedings (it actually was fun). Starting Tuesday, I was to help all week with watching and directing a small group of young men (approximately 7-12 or so) through the various activities that were planned for them. I was also helping with the skit Logan had come up with, a "Cowboy's Progress", a spinoff of Pilgrims Progress. And we were pretty good actors too.

Also during that seemingly short week, the teenagers in the Church would go out into the community during the afternoon to ask questions and hand out pamphlets (that's such a strange word). I was invited to join them, which I did of course.

Well we were gonna stay there until Saturday, and leave early morning. CHANGE OF PLANS. While the rest of my family (Mom, Lillian, Annalee, and Mary) went home, I stayed in Stillwater with the expressed reason of staying and doing the exact same thing over again for another week, only this time in Enid.

inserted: I am doing this post over the period of several days, do not mind the disjointedness of it.

Perhaps I should mention the facilities? Well I will, wether or not you like it or not. In Stillwater, the Salvation Army was kind enough to let us (them? How do I describe the people from the church with myself included? Another random thing to ponder) use their chapel building. It was a good building yes and worked quite well for the VBS purposes. There was a place for running around and screaming and shouting like the small folk there liked to do, there happened to be appropriate places for everything (everything being the rest of the things that I care not to describe at this moment), with slight improvisation, and of course the stage and chapel made a good place to act in.
In Enid, we were at the YMCA. If we were inside, we were most likely to be in the downstairs exercise room. (side note: F.B., there were about 20 people on average during the week) not quite so versatile a room as the chapel at the Salvation Army building, but it worked. And did I mention that it makes a terrible stage? I had to improvise several times. (side note: I was playing Christian the Cowboy all week in Enid) "The Y" being what it was made it great for the activities section of the schedule, having at least two accessible places to play dodgeball or other games and an indoor pool (BTW we swam in it Thursday).

I feel strongly that in my description of said week I must include something about lodgings. In Stillwater, my family stayed in the N's house (my cousins to those who are ignorant). If you don't already know, it's a really cool house and I really liked staying there all week. In Enid, the group of people helping VBS stayed at the W's house, another really cool house, and another great place to stay all week.

On Tuesday of the second week, Mr.W took a select group of people to the Air Force base in town to show them the flight simulators, as well as to set this group of people up in scenarios and see if they could avoid crashing. We did not manage to carpet bomb Enid, sadly (F.B.). It was only an unarmed T-6 that was being simulated. I was in that first group. Another group went Thursday night.

Sadly enough, the week had to end and on Friday night most of the helpers went back to Stillwater. Two guests remained in the W house, myself and David H (fun guy). Daisy and Stupendous had already left, attending the N's trip to Colorado.

Saturday the second week was an all day trip to Carl Blackwell lake (is that right? The one right outside Stillwater) for the W's and David and a few friends and myself (alright, who wants to be on the list now??). They had a rental boat and some water skis (a kneeboard came along later). I hope I needn't describe this small outing in great detail? It was fun. So there.

Well, my extended period of time away from home soon came to a close. I was going to Dallas on Sunday after church with one of the W girls, where I would be met by Mom, who would take me home (you want long sentence? That's nothing). End of Story, goodbye.

Plus some pictures from my good cousin ERN.

Was it fun? Sure...

Now I'm sure everyone has been so patiently waiting for my next post, the one that is sure to contain something about that Double H place that I've been talking about forever...

Well, I got good news and I got bad news. I'm not gonna waste my time trying to describe what can best be described with a picture, which I don't happen to have a lot of at the moment, and the rest of it--well, maybe I could try.

But anyway, the trip up there was an eye-opener, with lots of open places, mountains, dust devils, horizons(!!), and that sort of stuff that you might expect to see on a trip from East Texas to New Mexico. "That sort of stuff" also includes three movies on someone's DVD player, three movies that I didn't get to see until the return trip. It turns out they weren't much to see.

Sure there were nice views and good picture chances... but I have pictures for those coming soon.

Oh yeah, the basic premise of the trip. Well, they drop us off in the middle of nowhere, expect us to hike to a mid-week camp where we get to have fun and ice cream, then they send us out again into the middleofnowhere to get picked up and sent home. I wonder if I could post a picture of a map later...

I must go now. My next post shall have pictures, surely?

-Petr

May 20-June 2nd, and beyond

It's been a while, hasn't it? Ah, well, as JCPenney put it so accurately, "I get busy packing beforehand, and afterwards I think about so many things that happened that I couldn't possible get them all into a post so I just don't try." I totally understand you. :)

So about the entire last week, I was gone to a Boy Scout Summer camp out near Bastrop. Really hot and humid. It was not the funnest camp I've been at, but it wasn't the overall worst either. I got the geology merit badge (does any of this matter to anybody?), got a partial on cooking, and took an all afternoon all week long C.O.P.E course (Challenging outdoor personal experience or something). Despite my presence there all week and a pool along with a lake, I only swam twice. The first was swim check, the second was "troop swim". Boo. I wanted to do more of that. :(

Who is asking about what Ross is doing? He's currently in Lufkin working for Temple Inland as an intern. That means that every weekend he can come home and spend the weekend. It also means that I don't have to solve every computer problem around here.

Yesterday was... "fun". Another day spent on lawncare. It was a new job, a really big one. We spent all morning on it and after lunch another 2 hours. After that we went back to the Reese's house and swam and played AA. :)
Oh and yeah I get payed a little bit for working for them.

I am not gonna put a lot of effort into this post right now. See ya later.

God Bless.

-Petr

Well...

I say hello to anyone who's listening...

I don't get it. We're heading into summer and more time on everybody's hands (most everybody that is) and yet the blogger community around me has... well, decided it wanted to move on. (note: this excludes JCP and Ellentia--who have both been hanging around the place for quite a while. thanks) So I will post what I can think of for those few who are still watching.

Random thought #1: Is it just me, or has the entire idea of a "blog" died away in this country? Or at least you don't see nearly as many reports about "bloggers say X" or "bloggers think Y is cool, but Z is out". Coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps it's my imagination.

Somewhat random thought #2: Bummer. It just left my mind.

Recent events:
Last night was fun. The Reese's had a 50's party. For the first two hours, it was talk and eat and a couple competitions. For the rest of the time (until around 10PM) people were dancing to 50's music and talking.
But even before that, there was a "crawfish boil" out at Fern Lake. One of Dad's hospital "parties". The best part about it was the food. Good food, and lots of it, in many different kinds. But that was nothing compared to the Sock Hop.

Ummm...

These weeks are almost hard on me. I know, I can't complain, especially after hearing what college students are going through. Trust me, I haven't a clue what it means to be bogged down by "all that work", but you have my sympathy.
Even after that disclaimer, I will say that my Algebra 2 is getting annoying. Circles, ellipses, hyperbolas, and parabolas are apparently a section that nobody likes. I certainly don't.

As the summer goes on, I find that I can be home on weekends more and more. I suppose you heard about the fiasco of spring debating? Gone or sick almost every weekend. I start to miss listening to pastor Mark's sermons, even if they are long. More weekends means more working out to try to be ready for Double H wilderness in New Mexico. They drop us in the middle of nowhere, let us hike around for a week, then pick us up again. It's supposed to be a lot of fun. I really hope so.

Ok, so I need to get off now, mostly because I can't type forever and my source of info starts to get tired of typing. Farewell.

Another month passes

It is now past the end of April! Yippeee!

Big whoop.

So for the most important thing right now, I just want to say to anyone who gets caught, "White Rabbit".

Where to begin? It's really been a long month. And yet a short one at that. So perhaps I should start with the 21st.

My birthday. And yet still Dad made me mow the lawn and go up and down stairs and ramps and around in circles at the SFA stadium. Sure I got some good presents. Gus sent me a card (with valuables in it!), my sisters got me a Sony E003F (go look it up Shadow--for the rest of you, it's an mp3 player/fm tuner), Mom and Dad got me a... something off of my wishlist (hasn't yet been gotten), Aunt Susan sent a coupla nice shirts--that fit!--anyone I missed? Snail mail takes too long. It just does.

So the week after, I got to go to another debate tournament, only this one I didn't have to compete in. This was the Regional Invitational (the region being Texas, Arkansas, and New Mexico--I think). So I mostly sat around and watched :D Joshua Jones got 8th in the region!!! And another person from my debate club got 2nd in the region!!! Unfortunately, they only gave 4 slots for people to go to nationals. So only one person from WHSDC (debate club in Houston that I'm working with) went to Nationals. But that's still impressive!

Do I need to write anybody some emails? I guess I have a few emails sitting in the inbox that might need to be re-read. Och. So TTFN. Toodles. G'bye. Farewell.

North-South explained

I don't wish to comment about this particular subject at this point in time. Follow the link. Get off the computer and go do something more productive. :)

http://singdanceandplay.blogspot.com/2007/04/north-south-finale.html

Strange times are upon us

Well, yesterday was an ordinary spring day in an ordinary Texas small town with an ordinary April shower... with a couple variations on "ordinary".

For example, it was below 50 degrees Fahrenheit all day long, but strangely enough, never below freezing. (off topic--have you noticed how much I like "..."? Bad habit or just strange habit? I wonder...) :)

And there was that slight change in the precipitation itself... "ordinary April shower" might be changed to "ordinary April blizzard". It snowed all day long. And on top of all that, that was mowing day. So Andrew and I were mowing in the snow. Kind of unusual for Nacogdoches, considering we rarely get more than a couple flakes of snow at all during the entire year. Coincidence? Maybe not. If we are to believe the "experts", this unusual occurance is due to *gasp* GLOBAL WARMING!! This is just the beginning! Today snow, tomorrow... SUPERCELLS! GASP!!

I assure you, this is almost purely sarcastic musings. But I was interested by the amount of snow we got. Had it been cold enough, the snow would have stuck and we would have gotten 1-2 inches, maybe more. As it is, we got the equivalent of that much rain, because it was all melted by about noon today, even in Lufkin, where they got it heavier and longer than in Nacogdoches.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this was, as said before by F.B. (Evelyn on my links), was that the snow was lying on top of such things that you would see in Spring. The trees covered in green once again, the grass growing at an alarming rate, such that I had to mow it, the, erm, flowers (I'll let someone else deal with the descriptive term for them :D ), surely you get the idea by now? It was nothing usual.

OK, now that I typed all that up, is there anything else interesting going on... ah, yes. Older news than you are used to...

JCP finally figured out how to go North-South. Would she be so kind as to explain that for us? *ahem*

Well, as far as my debate stuff is going, its not really going. I didn't make it to regionals (kinda bummed that I haven't won anything since January), and although I may be useful as moral support to the people who did break, I'm not actually debating anymore this year. Sort of intend to next year. I have the assignment of helping the people who broke by critiquing their cases and strategies and stuff, but it won't be quite as hard core preparation as fixing my case was. But you may still see "gone to debate tourney" signs on this blog.

Nothing else that really need to be posted about, so toodles.

Edit:Ross came by this weekend for Easter break. He also brought with him one of the Mummes who was also at A&M. (friends of Mom and Dad since medical school)

And while I'm on that topic, Happy Easter. (Happy? Why happy? Why not jolly? Or joyful, or something like that? Perhaps I can start a new trend. Joyful Easter everyone! Praise God!!)

Long post...

Well, it is the first of April, so...

WHITE RABBIT!!!

Plus, its the first of April, so...

APRIL FOOLS DAY!!!

That long post promised? Its not gonna happen! I feel so jolly right now...
Alright I'm not quite as jolly anymore. Goodbye, friends, till we meet again.

"Interesting things"

Hello people! This is my first post since... February 28. Long time? Maybe... but not quite so long as (hint hint) certain people who have not even hinted at updating since sometime last year...

Well, anyway, you get the point. Right, certain people?? :D

Here are a couple "interesting" things as keebler requested.

Obviously a quilt, but whose quilt? MINE! Mom just spent the past few months making this quilt. I like it. Don't say you don't like it, or I'll... I'll... um... well, you'll soon /find/ that you like it. >-D












And "Esther". Or rather "Fester" as certain people call him... I sorta like Moses myself. Not a permanent name, but something to call him besides "Esther" or "the gerbil". I hope nobody has any problems with that... ?

Edit:I have actually settled his name as Nathan. Nobody has problems with that. I shall make that a fact.

Latest going ons involve mostly debate. Don't ask again what the topic is every time. It is one topic all year round that we get to debate about, "That Democracy is overvalued by the United States Government", and we get a new topic (I think) either late spring, early summer, or early fall. Whenever nationals happens.

As could be imagined, um, I totally forgot what I was saying. Bummer. I guess you guys won't get as much info from me as you wanted. :) Ah, yes. I was saying that there are many approaches to this topic. MANY approaches. Its hard even to write them all down in the club stuff, not to mention here. Don't ask.

Anything else may be mentioned later, but I doubt it. Tell me if you want more info. Cya later, people. (some of the strangest things...)

Oh BTW, Grace and/or Meagan and/or "Goldilocks" or whoever you are, I know you are reading this, there is no need to withold comments. And if you aren't... there's no point in my posting this... :D :D :D

Debate

Yes indeed I am posting again... or at least will have typed this up by the time you read it. Who is "you", and are you still watching this blog and others for updates? Or have you guys just given up on me?

Debate has finally caught up with me. And Boy Scouts. And Skiing. I have been gone... just about every weekend since January!! The most recent event that I was gone at was yet another NCFCA speech and debate competition, in Bedford. I was gone from Wednesday to Saturday debating and supporting debaters in the West Houston club (joined the club with an online extension). And out of 6 debates that should have happened, and at least three that I really think that I shoulda won, I only won 1, and that was by default because there was no negative side. A 0-5 record?? :( Not very good for one's self-esteem. (inside joke involving Rush Limbaugh) :)

And coming up this weekend is yet another event, something in preparation for a summer Boy Scout event. That will be over a week and many miles. This weekend we will be hiking 28 miles in three days. Quite hard on the legs.

So, who has not heard that I got a gerbil? Or did I already post that? The "Esther" matter. No big deal. I got a used gerbil from the Reeses. It mostly lies around sleeping, at least most of the day, and a good portion of the night. Strange rodents they are...

Mom finished my quilt! Yay!

No pictures for anybody yet. Can't bother with the time involved. :~D

Fairly short post. But aren't those the ones that get lots of comments, regular and... strange?

UpToDate Today

HI!!!

Finally, some of you may say, I am posting again. Yes, I am indeed posting, but don't expect to hear much out of me after tomorrow, at least until this coming Sunday.

So, more pleasant details of my life. um... skiing? We went to Crested Butte, where Ross had a small "incident", as some of you may have heard. He went off a small large jump thingie and came down, surprisingly, on his skis, but lost his balance and hit his head on the hard packed snow. He was out for twenty minutes. The ski instructor was absolutely hysterical!! Probably something to do with legal matters, which we had the great pleasure of not pursuing.

That was five years ago. This year, things turned out significantly better, except for the snow conditions. They should've had around... 40 inches of snow up to that point, and they didn't have nearly that much. Temperatures were above freezing at the base area for at least half the week, but it wasn't quite so bad on the mountain, meaning it wasn't too bad.... In my opinion, a rather decent return trip, though we could've used a larger mountain with all the skilled skiers. Not nearly enough blacks, and nobody would go on the double blacks with me... *muttered*

Then more recently, just this past weekend there was that shooting camp trip, Boy Scouts, of course. We mostly shot off shotguns all weekend long. There was a small factor of eating and sleeping, as well as trying to keep warm in the really cold weather...

This has been a long post, at least from my point of view. I shall now retire to my bed.

Edit:It took a while to write, but now that I think about it, it isn't all that long...

Here go I

Again, I must answer the pressing question that JCP presents. (why must you always ask those weird pressing questions?!)

Why is(are) she and Ellentia on both link lists?
Why not? I mean, sure they live in OK, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still "friends of Texas". (should I maybe change the title to the links? I seem to never be sure of anything...) And besides, this is my blog, shouldn't that choice be up to me? ;)

So... I'm a gonna be gone for the next--entire--week!! Nobody will hear anything from me, unless I can manage to hijack a computer, which is very unlikely, so to all I say "BYE!!!"

And BTW, I'm going skiing in Colorado, in the same place that Ross "bumped" his head... I'll explain later.

So bye again!

Changes and latest updates

Well, the first thing to deal with would be last week... the minivan.

The D's were stopping by our house last Sunday, for some reason or other, and while they were saying "bye" and stuff... some green smelly liquid came out of under the hood, along with smoke (or was it steam?). This resulted in the D's having to stay for a while (2 or 3 hours), eat dinner, and figure out that they would take our Suburban (big blue car) to OK City. It turned out that a transmission hose had come out, getting transmission fluid over the driveway. Well, at least it happened in our drive, instead of on the road!

For more details, ask JCP. That's all I'm gonna say for now.

In more recent updates, Joshua Jones and I, as well as his mother (duh), went to a debate competition in Houston, staying from Wednesday to Saturday night. I'm in the West Houston club... very well prepared! In general, I spose I did OK, but I only won 1 of 6 rounds. Someone in the club did get into the LD finals, Erika got second place! I personally thought she coulda won that round...

But anyway, that is where I have been for the past few days.

So for the changes. JCPenney wanted to be moved to the OK link list. But, if you noticed, I called it "friends of ___" and I have to point out that JCP is still a friend of TX--are you not, JCP? And I also added JCP's sister to the links.

Don't got much more to say...

Boundless joking

A little explanation, that was a joke too, the "JCP situation" deal. It just happened that Shadow and I had a little "chat" after the first comment about "dear shadow" and my "dear post". So right about now, several inside jokes will be started, and nobody will have a clue what anybody is talking about, until they read my comment box.

Apologies, Penny, you weren't the only one taking that too far. :)

I knew I had to post sometime soon anyway...

So in honor of a "new post", I shall bring up a new topic, rather than an old one.

If anyone has been paying attention to the weather around here for the past week, they would know that we have gotten a lot of rain and sleet, and just a couple flakes of snow. It has turned miserably cold (for some people anyway) and driving has been slightly affected by all this weather.

One such occasion of driving being affected was Cada staying here overnight. His ma didn't want him driving all the way from the middle of nowhere out here for chemistry, then back out again, and back in, and back out, and maybe one or two more times, for fear he might get hurt in all that traveling on icy roads. Now this wasn't any really big occasion, which is just one more reason why I am making a big occasion of it...

Nice weather today, wouldn't you (dis)agree?

Because of debate and other such circumstances, it may be a while before I post anything other than comments (on my own blog--wouldn't you know it!), so no begging from anyone (Penney!) to post until it has been at least two weeks.

another dinner quote

These days are crazy, I tell ya. First the girls, then the other stuff...
What other stuff?

I guess the only real news lately is...

Lillian and Annalee went to the homeschool skating whatsit with the Ys and came back about two hours later with Courtney Y and Hannah H, under the pretense that they were going to sleep over. So all yesterday afternoon and evening, five hyped girls have been running around the house, doing all sorts of strange girl stuff.

This hyped up girliness prompted Dad at the dinner table to produce another strange tongue twister.

How many toes could a tow truck tow if a tow truck could tow toes?

Try saying that fast!

BTW, Looney Tunes is good!

Questions, comments, or requests for information will be considered.

comins and goins

If anyone has wondered where I have been, wonder no longer because the explanation is here.

If you don't yet know, I am debating in the national homeschool league, the NCFCA. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I was at a practice tournament with the West Houston Speech and Debate Club. That, as you may or may not have suspected, has taken up a lot of extra time, seeing as how I need lots of evidence and quotes and such stuff like that (Shadow, I know, Google, but there are others, that give results that the average debater might not think about...). "Research".

And tonight, I went to that big Renaissance ball that one of the homeschoolers was having for her 16th birthday party. Really quite different from your typical party...

Short update, more may come later, I make no promises.

Whats new?

WHITE RABBIT!!!!!!

HAPPY umm... NEW YEAR!!!!!

or should that be...

WHITE what now? white what? what is white at the New Year?
CHAMPAGNE!!!
happy new, year guys.

Whats new? I can still sound like I'm confused, but thats not new. ohhhhh...
:)