Hope all of you had a great holiday! I will have a post about the holiday later today, this is the "non-holiday" post.
This might qualify as holiday-related, but today is the first day that really feels like winter, this morning was very cold, but not because it was raining or windy, just because it was cold. I realized that I have come to expect a certain kind of weather at certain times of the year. Falling leaves, falling tempertures, bright colors=Halloween. Jackets, hats, and gloves are required for Thanksgiving, and Christmas means snow, bare trees, ice. Some of the grass/landscaping on the side of the road is covered with frost, which is the first such winter phenomona I have seen this year.
I have a project for all of you readers. (However many of you there are) What was the most recently written Christmas song? Bonus project, top 5 Christmas songs, including the artist.
When you are driving (or riding) down the road, do you look at other people in other cars? Over the last week I have seen some intresting things in cars, and wished that I could see the events leading up to whatever it was that I saw. 1. Sitting at a stoplight, I looked at the car next to us, and the passenger, was a Caucasian female, between 70 and 80 years old. She was wearing a cowboy hat, made from red velvet, with white feather trim on the brim. This hat was so huge, and so showy, I couldn't belive it. 2. We parked in a parking spot, and as I was getting out, I noticed a man in the passenger seat, sleeping. Then I looked in the back seat, and saw what I presume was the man's daughter, dancing and singing to whatever she was listening to on her Ipod. 3. This is not a spefific event, but something that happens a lot. People talking in their car, moving their hands around quite empahticly. My favorite varitations on this theme are the people who are by themselves talking, I guess, on the phone, or the people who are arguing with someone else in the car. Hilarious!
The Nutcracker was a smashing sucess, I got huge laughs in my "solo". My character has a family of "Barbies", and I was supposed to communicate a sense of being overwhelmed, which wasn't too hard, because my "family" was a bit overwhelming. The men in the audience laughed, and I didn't hear the women doing much of anything. I also got to help with backstage work, which was great.
This post has been broken up into two parts, one on the bus to Monterey this morning, and this one, at home. 30 minutes ago I finished a run on our local bike/hike trail, this was my first intentional excercise in 3 months. Now Mom, Dad, Alex, and myself are watching Doctor Zhivago and I guess that a 3 hour movie shouldn't be judged from the first 34 minutes.
The MBA was fun, another high-volume, high-postitive interaction day. I was awarded a "Sand Dollar" which is good for one meal at the Portola Cafe, and is awarded when a volunteer is comendded by a guest.
I sent out my Liberia letters to everyone in my family's address book, now I need to make a list of those not in our address book. I will have updates as things progress, and fundraising totals.
In 5 minutes I will begin my Christmas post, so tune in!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Merry Christmas!!
At long last, Christmastime! In Novemeber I was ready for Christmas, and then December came rushing in, and swept away about 10 days, and now I finally have the chance to look back over that time, and look forward to the end of the year.
Nutcracker was, no pun intended, nuts! Rehearsals were not too demanding in the on-stage aspect, but the off-stage aspect was hard. My mom, aside from being a totally awesome house manager, was also the clean-up chair, which meant I was part of the clean-up team. During performances, I wanted to be in the wings to help with things, and watch the dances, and read. By the last performance, I realized that I was in the wings to help with things, listen to the music, and look in the direction of the books I brought with me. Jokes aside, I had a great time, thanks to everyone who came!
A few funny things of note have happened. 1. For the past 2 days, Dad has been wearing a pair of my pants. This is funny because he didn't know he was. 2. For reasons totally unrelated to anything, I beat Dad at armwrestling! First time ever! Oh yeah!
I'm really just glad to be done with the busy part of the holidays, and looking forward to spending some time hanging out with friends and chilling at home.
Merry Christmas, have a great time, whatever you do!
Nutcracker was, no pun intended, nuts! Rehearsals were not too demanding in the on-stage aspect, but the off-stage aspect was hard. My mom, aside from being a totally awesome house manager, was also the clean-up chair, which meant I was part of the clean-up team. During performances, I wanted to be in the wings to help with things, and watch the dances, and read. By the last performance, I realized that I was in the wings to help with things, listen to the music, and look in the direction of the books I brought with me. Jokes aside, I had a great time, thanks to everyone who came!
A few funny things of note have happened. 1. For the past 2 days, Dad has been wearing a pair of my pants. This is funny because he didn't know he was. 2. For reasons totally unrelated to anything, I beat Dad at armwrestling! First time ever! Oh yeah!
I'm really just glad to be done with the busy part of the holidays, and looking forward to spending some time hanging out with friends and chilling at home.
Merry Christmas, have a great time, whatever you do!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Untitled Post
A lot has happened since my last post, and I assume the same is true for you too, this is a busy time of the year. Hopefully you have some way to process what happens with you, this is mine, and I thank you for listening.
As I recall, my last post dealt with the Great Giveaway. After that was Monday, which was mostly finishing up the Great Giveaway, taking tables back to whoever we borrowed them from, taking to the dump whatever wasn't taken, and then collapsing, and recovering mentally and physically from the weekend.
Tuesday was a lot of fun. This particular Tuesday was Student Oceanography Club (SOC), at the MBA. The theme was "Seabirds" which can be really broad, but was focused on two kinds of seabirds, penguins and albatross, which included a visit from the only albatross in captivity, IN THE WORLD! Pretty cool, I even got to touch her, such a unique experience.
Wenesday was fairly quite, as I recall, just school and Nutcracker. The one really memorable moment was with the whole family watching a movie called "Christmas in Conneticut". The plot is irrelevant to the best part of the movie. All of the main characters are at a dance, and one of them hits a woman in the face with his elbow! I know, darkly funny, but his ignorance, the woman's reaction, and the fact that it made it into the movie added up to be something very funny. Props to Mom for spotting it!
Thursday was filled with school, Nutcracker practice, preparation for a trip to Fresno (more on that later!), and watching 3 episodes of CSI. That last event is mostly my brother's fault, he just had to get something when we went to the library. I got some very intresting books from the library, and I have really enjoyed them all. (All the ones I have read at least) So far I have read Freakanomics by Steven Levitt and Steven J. Dubner, Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venktesh. I am working on reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollon. All of these books are very interesting, but for different reasons. I would have to say that Gang Leader For A Day and The Omnivore's Dilemma are the most to my liking. Both are to some degree systemic studies, and explorations of how to fix the flaws in those systems.
The trip to Fresno began early Friday morning, with everyone piling into the car, at varying degrees of wakefulness. 3 hours later, we arrived at our destination, the Vhears house, family friends who we have been friends with for nearly my whole lifetime, if not longer. Our families are the kind of families that just go together, they have 7 kids, my family has 5 kids, they homeschool, we homeschool, we are a rag-tag band of holigans in public on occasion, they are too. Put us together, hilarity is bound to ensue. Over the three days we stayed with them, plenty of hilarity ensued.
Friday was a time of settling in, reaquainting, and Josiah sleeping. Josiah, 14, slept more than 5 hours in the time after we arrived, which was a bit crazy, because he was just fine. The only major event besides Josiah sleeping was the fetching of the tree. The husbands, and all the children over 3 went to purchase a tree, which ended up being a blast! Someone had brought along a soft leather ball sized like a softball, and the whole patch of trees turned into an arena, with games of catch, monkey in the middle, and dodgeball. Eventually "someone just walked by that beam and it totally broke", causing trees to fall to the ground. Right about then my foot began hurting (it had (has) a nasty bruise on the big toe) so I sat in the car, waiting. Most of the rest of the time was playing games, eating (Thank you Sherri and Mom!), and being silly.
Saturday morning, for me at least, was spent tagging along with Josiah to his debate team's practice event. I was conscripted as a judge, and ended up hearing (twice!) why the U.S. should stop giving food to India and give more money for food to India. The first round was intresting, the second redundant. I could have argued both sides the second round, because I heard the same 5 or so points repeated ad naseum the first round. Once Josiah and I arrived back at the house, we played more games, ate more, and then after dinner watched a movie. "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". WOW! Just the sheer amount of comedic talent made it fun, seeing all the greats working on one project. The movie, without any big names, stood on its own feet, 3 hours of incredibly humor, on a couple levels, some great slapstick, but also some very funny puns, references, and double ententredes. While we were watching that, Gabi came home from her debate event somewhere not within a day's drive. Gabi is very similar to me in how we fit into our families, her older brother is out on his own, so she is acting oldest sibling, I am also like that, but because of Alex's handicap. Both nights, everyone went to bed later than 12, and some of us slept in. That night a bit of packing was done so that the next day we could easily jump in the car and be ready.
Sunday was probably the craziest day, specifically Sunday night. The morning/afternoon followed the familar pattern of eating, playing, hanging out, etc. That evening however, everyone loaded up into the two Suburbans, and walked through a neighborhood decorated for Christmas, then driving down "Christmas Tree Lane". People are really crazy about Christmas sometimes. There is a fine line between decorating and overdoing it, and that line is pretty hard for people with big houses and small lives. I will admit the fun part was just hanging with my friends. The chaotic event of the evening came at the Starbucks drive-through. I was in the Vhear's car, which Vance, the driver, turned off as we were sitting in line. When Vance went to start the car back up, nothing happened, so we ended up pushing the car out of the drivethrough. Normal type of event for us, things like that happen.
After arriving home at 1:30 Monday morning, I slept for 5 hours, then woke up for my last homeschool day at the MBA. I had fun, like always, but there was one moment that really stuck out as I was recollecting. I was at the coloring table, and a little girl came up and started coloring; she looked to be about 7 or 8, and she enjoyed talking more than coloring (I don't know anyone like that). We talked about animals, which one she likes, how she wanted to work at the Aquarium, how she likes bugs and baby harp seals, and then "Andrew and I really like animals, we love zoos and other places with animals and stuff, we find things everywhere, not just zoos. Andrew is my friend, he's a boy." Not only was her passion for animals encouraging, but her clarification of the fact that Andrew was a boy was so sweet and innocent. Things like that are why I love the Aquarium.
Tonight (Tuesday) is the dress rehearsal for the first act of the Nutcracker, very exciting! Most of today is going to be running errands. I imagine that I will have a post Sunday, probably.
Thanks for reading, have a great day.
As I recall, my last post dealt with the Great Giveaway. After that was Monday, which was mostly finishing up the Great Giveaway, taking tables back to whoever we borrowed them from, taking to the dump whatever wasn't taken, and then collapsing, and recovering mentally and physically from the weekend.
Tuesday was a lot of fun. This particular Tuesday was Student Oceanography Club (SOC), at the MBA. The theme was "Seabirds" which can be really broad, but was focused on two kinds of seabirds, penguins and albatross, which included a visit from the only albatross in captivity, IN THE WORLD! Pretty cool, I even got to touch her, such a unique experience.
Wenesday was fairly quite, as I recall, just school and Nutcracker. The one really memorable moment was with the whole family watching a movie called "Christmas in Conneticut". The plot is irrelevant to the best part of the movie. All of the main characters are at a dance, and one of them hits a woman in the face with his elbow! I know, darkly funny, but his ignorance, the woman's reaction, and the fact that it made it into the movie added up to be something very funny. Props to Mom for spotting it!
Thursday was filled with school, Nutcracker practice, preparation for a trip to Fresno (more on that later!), and watching 3 episodes of CSI. That last event is mostly my brother's fault, he just had to get something when we went to the library. I got some very intresting books from the library, and I have really enjoyed them all. (All the ones I have read at least) So far I have read Freakanomics by Steven Levitt and Steven J. Dubner, Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venktesh. I am working on reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollon. All of these books are very interesting, but for different reasons. I would have to say that Gang Leader For A Day and The Omnivore's Dilemma are the most to my liking. Both are to some degree systemic studies, and explorations of how to fix the flaws in those systems.
The trip to Fresno began early Friday morning, with everyone piling into the car, at varying degrees of wakefulness. 3 hours later, we arrived at our destination, the Vhears house, family friends who we have been friends with for nearly my whole lifetime, if not longer. Our families are the kind of families that just go together, they have 7 kids, my family has 5 kids, they homeschool, we homeschool, we are a rag-tag band of holigans in public on occasion, they are too. Put us together, hilarity is bound to ensue. Over the three days we stayed with them, plenty of hilarity ensued.
Friday was a time of settling in, reaquainting, and Josiah sleeping. Josiah, 14, slept more than 5 hours in the time after we arrived, which was a bit crazy, because he was just fine. The only major event besides Josiah sleeping was the fetching of the tree. The husbands, and all the children over 3 went to purchase a tree, which ended up being a blast! Someone had brought along a soft leather ball sized like a softball, and the whole patch of trees turned into an arena, with games of catch, monkey in the middle, and dodgeball. Eventually "someone just walked by that beam and it totally broke", causing trees to fall to the ground. Right about then my foot began hurting (it had (has) a nasty bruise on the big toe) so I sat in the car, waiting. Most of the rest of the time was playing games, eating (Thank you Sherri and Mom!), and being silly.
Saturday morning, for me at least, was spent tagging along with Josiah to his debate team's practice event. I was conscripted as a judge, and ended up hearing (twice!) why the U.S. should stop giving food to India and give more money for food to India. The first round was intresting, the second redundant. I could have argued both sides the second round, because I heard the same 5 or so points repeated ad naseum the first round. Once Josiah and I arrived back at the house, we played more games, ate more, and then after dinner watched a movie. "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". WOW! Just the sheer amount of comedic talent made it fun, seeing all the greats working on one project. The movie, without any big names, stood on its own feet, 3 hours of incredibly humor, on a couple levels, some great slapstick, but also some very funny puns, references, and double ententredes. While we were watching that, Gabi came home from her debate event somewhere not within a day's drive. Gabi is very similar to me in how we fit into our families, her older brother is out on his own, so she is acting oldest sibling, I am also like that, but because of Alex's handicap. Both nights, everyone went to bed later than 12, and some of us slept in. That night a bit of packing was done so that the next day we could easily jump in the car and be ready.
Sunday was probably the craziest day, specifically Sunday night. The morning/afternoon followed the familar pattern of eating, playing, hanging out, etc. That evening however, everyone loaded up into the two Suburbans, and walked through a neighborhood decorated for Christmas, then driving down "Christmas Tree Lane". People are really crazy about Christmas sometimes. There is a fine line between decorating and overdoing it, and that line is pretty hard for people with big houses and small lives. I will admit the fun part was just hanging with my friends. The chaotic event of the evening came at the Starbucks drive-through. I was in the Vhear's car, which Vance, the driver, turned off as we were sitting in line. When Vance went to start the car back up, nothing happened, so we ended up pushing the car out of the drivethrough. Normal type of event for us, things like that happen.
After arriving home at 1:30 Monday morning, I slept for 5 hours, then woke up for my last homeschool day at the MBA. I had fun, like always, but there was one moment that really stuck out as I was recollecting. I was at the coloring table, and a little girl came up and started coloring; she looked to be about 7 or 8, and she enjoyed talking more than coloring (I don't know anyone like that). We talked about animals, which one she likes, how she wanted to work at the Aquarium, how she likes bugs and baby harp seals, and then "Andrew and I really like animals, we love zoos and other places with animals and stuff, we find things everywhere, not just zoos. Andrew is my friend, he's a boy." Not only was her passion for animals encouraging, but her clarification of the fact that Andrew was a boy was so sweet and innocent. Things like that are why I love the Aquarium.
Tonight (Tuesday) is the dress rehearsal for the first act of the Nutcracker, very exciting! Most of today is going to be running errands. I imagine that I will have a post Sunday, probably.
Thanks for reading, have a great day.
Friday, December 5, 2008
December In All Its Glory
December can be a great month at times, it can be awful sometimes, it can be a time for reflection, and it can be a time of frantic busyness. In just the first week of December I have already experineced all of thosee aspects of this month. Besides my typical activities (Nutcracker, MBA, school), I have added one more of intense physical demands.
For the last 3 years, my awesome mom has organized a event called: "The Great Giveaway", which is far too innocous a name for such a killer event. The premise is that there are people in the community who have too much stuff, and want to get rid of some of the stuff, and there are other who need stuff, and would be willing to take the unwanted things from the other people. Most people agree with that idea, and most fit into one of those categories, but connecting the two groups is the slightly tricky part, unless you are Elaine Hays, social connector extrodinare! How does the Great Giveaway impact me? Besides the couple of things I get (Jaws, in paperback!), I do a lot of the heavy lifting and moving for the GG, which can be hard. In previous years, this has not been too much of a burden, but with everything else I am doing, my body and mind are tired. (Small aside, Mom and I had a conversation about the GG. She was wondering if I liked helping with the GG, or if I disliked it, and she knew she could find out by reading my blog. If only my feelings about it were that simple, sometimes the work can be ardous, but seeing the results are incredible, the amount of blessing that can be given with just a little bit of work. Sorry Mom, no solid answer, you have to decide yourself!)
The event of note at the MBA today was quite cool really. Part of the MBA is what is commonly called the "Great Tidepool", an area that is sheltered from the pounding waves and easily visible from the MBA's deck. Today, two Sea Otters came into the pool, riding a swell. Not was this a great chance to see the otters up close, but also puzzling, because otters are typically shy animals. One of the other volunteers told me that one of the otters had been recently mated because her (it was a female based on this deduction) nose was red and swollen. I asked how that meant she had been mated, and he explained that the male Sea Otters grab the females by the nose. (Be thankful ladies!)
The previous paragraph about the GG was written on Friday, this is Monday. The giveaway is over, and things went great! 52 families went blessed, 5 couches, 3 TV's, 3 loft beds, 5 bikes, and 280 lbs. of produce were taken! This was a great year, lots of donations, lots of attendees! Well worth the hard work.
Church was good, don't know if I mentioned this, but I, along with one of the other youth, are going to be working on developing a youth-generated website. Very cool!! Once things get rocking with that, I will link to it. The Liberia meeting was really good, sounds like this will be a close team, really tight.
Today was clean-up from the GG, returning tables, a dolly, etc. Not too hard, but the funniest thing happened in the car. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, the 3 babies were sitting in the middle row, and Alex was in the back. All of a sudden, a pink marker (open, which just adds insult to injury) flew past my ear, and clipped my hair! With that, war broke out in the car! Markers, gloves, ice cubes, pretty much anything that would not hurt the target was being thrown. Mom and Beth were just sitting in their seats, and Mom was covering her drink, hoping to protect her ice.
Aside from hoping to recover from the GG, things are more or less back to status quo. This weekend we are going to Fresno to visit family friends, which should be great fun!
Have a great day!
More later!
For the last 3 years, my awesome mom has organized a event called: "The Great Giveaway", which is far too innocous a name for such a killer event. The premise is that there are people in the community who have too much stuff, and want to get rid of some of the stuff, and there are other who need stuff, and would be willing to take the unwanted things from the other people. Most people agree with that idea, and most fit into one of those categories, but connecting the two groups is the slightly tricky part, unless you are Elaine Hays, social connector extrodinare! How does the Great Giveaway impact me? Besides the couple of things I get (Jaws, in paperback!), I do a lot of the heavy lifting and moving for the GG, which can be hard. In previous years, this has not been too much of a burden, but with everything else I am doing, my body and mind are tired. (Small aside, Mom and I had a conversation about the GG. She was wondering if I liked helping with the GG, or if I disliked it, and she knew she could find out by reading my blog. If only my feelings about it were that simple, sometimes the work can be ardous, but seeing the results are incredible, the amount of blessing that can be given with just a little bit of work. Sorry Mom, no solid answer, you have to decide yourself!)
The event of note at the MBA today was quite cool really. Part of the MBA is what is commonly called the "Great Tidepool", an area that is sheltered from the pounding waves and easily visible from the MBA's deck. Today, two Sea Otters came into the pool, riding a swell. Not was this a great chance to see the otters up close, but also puzzling, because otters are typically shy animals. One of the other volunteers told me that one of the otters had been recently mated because her (it was a female based on this deduction) nose was red and swollen. I asked how that meant she had been mated, and he explained that the male Sea Otters grab the females by the nose. (Be thankful ladies!)
The previous paragraph about the GG was written on Friday, this is Monday. The giveaway is over, and things went great! 52 families went blessed, 5 couches, 3 TV's, 3 loft beds, 5 bikes, and 280 lbs. of produce were taken! This was a great year, lots of donations, lots of attendees! Well worth the hard work.
Church was good, don't know if I mentioned this, but I, along with one of the other youth, are going to be working on developing a youth-generated website. Very cool!! Once things get rocking with that, I will link to it. The Liberia meeting was really good, sounds like this will be a close team, really tight.
Today was clean-up from the GG, returning tables, a dolly, etc. Not too hard, but the funniest thing happened in the car. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, the 3 babies were sitting in the middle row, and Alex was in the back. All of a sudden, a pink marker (open, which just adds insult to injury) flew past my ear, and clipped my hair! With that, war broke out in the car! Markers, gloves, ice cubes, pretty much anything that would not hurt the target was being thrown. Mom and Beth were just sitting in their seats, and Mom was covering her drink, hoping to protect her ice.
Aside from hoping to recover from the GG, things are more or less back to status quo. This weekend we are going to Fresno to visit family friends, which should be great fun!
Have a great day!
More later!
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