Up, Up, and Away

Today, my dad and I got to go for a hot air balloon ride. It was really nice. It all started at about 4:35ish in the morning with a shower and a couple pieces of toast. We left the house around 5:00 and got there a half an hour later. Its pretty cool the way they get these things off the ground. They start ‘em out on their sides, and with these really high-powered fans, fill the balloon full of air. Once it’s pretty full, they ignite the propane torches to heat it all up. Then, we hop in and get going.

It was a little after 6:00 by the time the 10 of us lifted off. (My dad and I, 7 other people and the pilot) We flew for a hair over an hour, and an amazing hour it was. Standing underneath those burners, you could really feel the heat on the back of your neck. But it was really nice. The air was cool and calm, and when the burners weren’t on, and people weren’t talking, it was completely silent. At about 1,000 feet, you could hear the cows mooing, and the dogs barking (at us).

When it came time to land, we were about to set down in a field, but our chaise car (they fallow the balloon while its in flight to pick it up when it lands) couldn’t get to the home owners to ask if it was ok, so we flew up over a hill to the next house (never getting much more than 20 ft. off the ground) and ended up circling it. As we came around, inside the large glass windows, the homeowner could be seen looking out in his underwear. I wonder what was going through his mind as he was standing there watching a hot air balloon with 10 people staring at him fly 10 feet off his front lawn…

Anyway, as it turns out, we had the best pilot there, and he was able to, going down hill, set the balloon down on a driveway no more than 10 feet wide, coming at it perpendicularly. Thankfully, they guy in his underwear had a good sense of humor and was really nice about all this.

French Math

So, in math today, we had one of Mr. Cortez’s “work days” and so Bekka and I pretty much spent the whole time talking in French with each other. It was pretty amazing. I mean, really, it was cool to actually have a normal conversation, and discuss normal things, all in French. She also shared a few words with me in her native Icelandic, which was really amazing. That has to be the coolest language ever! However, she tried to teach me some, and that just aint gunna happen. The weird nasals and other sounds were just impossible for me to replicate. Still though, it is such a fun sounding language. If only more than 75,000 people in the world spoke it, they might teach it in school… Just a random thought. Anyway, I must commence the studying for the History test.

A Weekend At The The Theater

This past weekend was filled with all kinds of running around. On saturday, i pretty much did a lot of lazing around, until about 5ish, when i found out that i would get to go to the school play "Of Mice And Men". My sister was going with her friend and needed somebody to drive her over. So, of course, i was put on chauffeur duty. Thankfully though, when i got there, I ran into Bekka, her brother, Perry, and his sister, so i was saved from having to sit by myself.

The play was really good, Connor Bond played Lennie and did a really amazing job. There were only 2 critiques i have about it: the clapping in between the scenes just seemed very awkward, considering the tone and such of the play, and in the very end, the gun (they used a track starting gun) didn't end up going off, so they had some crappy sound effect they used which took away from the affect. Other than that though, overall, the acting was great, and the overall performance was as well.

Then, last night was pretty amazing as well. My sister was going to go see the Da Vinci code with a few of her friends, and again, i got put on Chauffeur duty (though, I'm not complaining). And about 5 minutes before we (my sister and I) left, i was able to get in touch with Bekka and arrange to pick her up, so yet again, i was saved from being a loner.

The Da Vinci Code was really good, and with exception of the ending, if allowed the book pretty much to the letter (as far as i can tell). As the book was, the movie was very thought provoking, but whether or not it was better than the book, im not sure. I think they are both really good in terms of their own medium, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Batteries for us all

It seems to have been forever since my last post, though im not sure if I have anything yet to post about... im currently sitting in Photography with nothing to do, due to lack of images and batteries for the cameras. As a random side note, curse every camera company that doesn't have a rechargeable battery pack for all of their cameras. Its just good practice. Im sure the landfills have more than their share of AA batteries. Despite the fact that in photography, we use rechargeable AA batteries, still, it seems people have been siphoning them off, and there are no longer enough batteries for all the cameras. Tis sad really...

Good old SE

Well, it’s Friday again, and that means its time for random thoughts from me. I start out today’s scribblings with the very exciting news (for me anyway) that I have recently (today) come into possession of an original Macintosh SE. It’s pretty much a vintage Mac for all of you non-geeks. Yes, this 19-year-old computer still runs strong, and even comes with Microsoft Office. Yes, it’s got a whopping 8 MHz processor, yet, has a start up time of about 20 seconds. Microsoft Word has like, 10 fonts, and you have to ask it to give you a suggestion on how to spell a word when using spell checker. Overall, pretty sweet! My only complaint is that I can’t reformat it because I don’t have an OS System 7.5 floppy disk lying around. Consequently, there are some files on there from the previous owner that I don’t want, and a ton of files that the previous owner deleted that I do want. But at the end of the day, I will probably not use it much, just due to the fact that I have a slightly newer version of Word running on my PowerMac, but that doesn’t mean I cant still have it out to look at.

That is all for today, I don’t have a picture of it, but I’m sure that a quick trip to Google Image Search will show you all exactly what I'm talking about. And if anyone had a Mac OS System 6.0 through 7.5 floppy disk they are looking to get rid of, lemme know.

Until next time…

TV Turnoff

This last week was national TV Turnoff week, and I, being such a good citizen willingly observed it (by willingly, I mean it was assigned, and by observed I mean, I did it pretty much all the way through with only 1 exception) What fallows is my write up on how TV turnoff week changed my life:


TV turnoff week was not so much as assignment for me, as an excuse to give myself a little more time. I don’t usually watch TV all that much, just 24 on Mondays and some science channel thrown in there every now and again. The largest amount of my free time is spent on the web, a place where I tend to go, even when I'm sick of it because I don’t feel like doing anything else. The great thing about TV turnoff week was that it forced me to step back from my internet connection and work on some things that I probably wouldn’t have worked on nearly as much as if I had all of my conventional means of media consumption open to me.

The hardest part of the whole project was trying to get my sister to shut it off as well. However, she is more addicted to watching Dr. Phil than I am 24. My parents also weren’t all that supportive (though they watch the least TV out of all of us) so I ended up spending almost as much time in front of my computer as I normally do. Only instead of surfing the web, I was watching the iTunes visualizations and working on my capstone project and commercial.

It was also difficult not to post on my blog (as I already post far too rarely), or go and read the blogs of my fellow friends, one of which has taken a year off to go to high school in Washington. These, along with my RSS news feeds, are feeling quite lonely right about now, sitting in my favorites menu waiting to be clicked.

This was a worthy sacrifice though. The results of the extra time included a much-needed redirection of recourses to the search for the rest of my life (college research), a completed capstone projects and our movie trailer’s storyboard revamp.

When everything was said and done, TV turnoff week was quite successful and not hard for me at all. As a matter of fact, it seemed surprisingly easy. By the end, I was able to convince my parents that we should set aside such a time one day a week, though, I doubt any of us will remember or have any inclination to do it by the time that day should roll around.