We just got back from our 1-week 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. It was really fun! I took over 100 pictures -- I hope to post some of the best on my web site in the near future.
We went to the Smithsonian, the Capitol, all sorts of monuments and more! I'll be posting a more complete report on my web site soon (probably coinciding with my photo updates and a new School section update.)
Gotta go to bed now -- adios!
Friday, April 30, 2004
Saturday, April 24, 2004
I just got back from a birthday trip (not my birthday; my friend's) to Boston Paintball, where I played (surprise!) paintball for the first time ever. It wasn't full-fledged paintball, though; they had some strict rules and they weren't using the really painful paintballs. It was indoors in this big room with all sorts of bean-bag "bunkers" you could hide behind. Some were in the shape of right triangles (called "Doritos" by the people there; i.e., "there's one behind the left big dorito."). Others were cylindrical. We all got helmets and wore especially thick clothing as protection.
Some guys had REALLY fancy guns, with custom paint jobs, double barrels, scopes and laser sights. The people running Boston Paintball separated those with rental guns from those with special guns in order to level the playing field, but a rental person was allowed into the non-rental game if they wanted to. We ended up playing in all the games.
The game started off with each team crowded behind a barrier of netting on either side. As soon as the ref said "go," you had to spread out across the bunkers -- you weren't allowed to stay behind the net. When a lot of people got playing -- sometimes we had ten or more guys on each team -- it got really crowded, really loud, and really chaotic.
I'd say the best part was the teamwork involved. Before the game started people told their friends "okay, we'll go to the big left dorito first, then you cover me while I move up..." Once the game started, everyone was yelling out enemy locations and requests for covering fire.
The other three people "at the party" (for lack of a more appropriate phrase) all got bruises, but I pretty much stayed behind the bunkers the whole time and thus came out perfectly alive, with no real bruises and only four or five hits. The more experienced people we were playing with, even though they were clearly verterans, were still really nice to us. (You can tell they're veterans from the *literally* eight bottles of refill paintballs strung around their belt, the mohawks, the special helmets and guns and the fact that they carried their equipment on IN TWO OR THREE SUITCASES.) Also, they weren't really way way way better than us -- we could hold our own against them.
In conclusion, it was really fun, but I would NOT want to try serious paintball. I've seen some of the giant bruises that can cause. ;-)
Some guys had REALLY fancy guns, with custom paint jobs, double barrels, scopes and laser sights. The people running Boston Paintball separated those with rental guns from those with special guns in order to level the playing field, but a rental person was allowed into the non-rental game if they wanted to. We ended up playing in all the games.
The game started off with each team crowded behind a barrier of netting on either side. As soon as the ref said "go," you had to spread out across the bunkers -- you weren't allowed to stay behind the net. When a lot of people got playing -- sometimes we had ten or more guys on each team -- it got really crowded, really loud, and really chaotic.
I'd say the best part was the teamwork involved. Before the game started people told their friends "okay, we'll go to the big left dorito first, then you cover me while I move up..." Once the game started, everyone was yelling out enemy locations and requests for covering fire.
The other three people "at the party" (for lack of a more appropriate phrase) all got bruises, but I pretty much stayed behind the bunkers the whole time and thus came out perfectly alive, with no real bruises and only four or five hits. The more experienced people we were playing with, even though they were clearly verterans, were still really nice to us. (You can tell they're veterans from the *literally* eight bottles of refill paintballs strung around their belt, the mohawks, the special helmets and guns and the fact that they carried their equipment on IN TWO OR THREE SUITCASES.) Also, they weren't really way way way better than us -- we could hold our own against them.
In conclusion, it was really fun, but I would NOT want to try serious paintball. I've seen some of the giant bruises that can cause. ;-)
Friday, April 23, 2004
Hi there!
Beaver had this past Monday and Tuesday off, Monday for Patriot's Day and Tuesday for some teacher work day thing. On Monday we went out to the marathon, where I counted the first thousand male runners just for fun. :-)
Yesterday I had a pleasant surprise when I signed into Blogger and found, to my delight, an offer to join the Gmail beta-testing. What is Gmail, you ask. It's a new Google-powered free email that gives you ONE GIGABYTE of storage! Yippee! It's really cool.
Yesterday was also the Beaver Spring Concert. Congratulations to everyone involved (especially the middle schoolers, who I actually know)!
The whole 8th grade leaves for Washington D.C. this Monday, where we'll be for a week. We have to get to school at 5:30 in the morning, and it's a 10-hour bus ride! Since time flies when you're having fun, we have a really "fun" event planned: watching Schindler's List!
(That was a joke, by the way.)
We've watched a little in History class, but we haven't had time to finish it -- it's over 3 hours long! (Of course, with our 10-hour bus ride we could watch it three times and still have time to spare.) It's just about the least "fun" movie I've ever seen.
Random coincidence: we're watching a Liam Neeson movie in both History and Science. In History we're watching the aforementioned Schindler's List, and in history we're watching the PBS series Evolution, narrated by Liam Neeson.
Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She loves playing with all her doggy friends! Casey, who's a black lab in our neighborhood, is one of her best friends; she also enjoyed play-time with fellow golden retriever Dante while at the marathon.
Beaver had this past Monday and Tuesday off, Monday for Patriot's Day and Tuesday for some teacher work day thing. On Monday we went out to the marathon, where I counted the first thousand male runners just for fun. :-)
Yesterday I had a pleasant surprise when I signed into Blogger and found, to my delight, an offer to join the Gmail beta-testing. What is Gmail, you ask. It's a new Google-powered free email that gives you ONE GIGABYTE of storage! Yippee! It's really cool.
Yesterday was also the Beaver Spring Concert. Congratulations to everyone involved (especially the middle schoolers, who I actually know)!
The whole 8th grade leaves for Washington D.C. this Monday, where we'll be for a week. We have to get to school at 5:30 in the morning, and it's a 10-hour bus ride! Since time flies when you're having fun, we have a really "fun" event planned: watching Schindler's List!
(That was a joke, by the way.)
We've watched a little in History class, but we haven't had time to finish it -- it's over 3 hours long! (Of course, with our 10-hour bus ride we could watch it three times and still have time to spare.) It's just about the least "fun" movie I've ever seen.
Random coincidence: we're watching a Liam Neeson movie in both History and Science. In History we're watching the aforementioned Schindler's List, and in history we're watching the PBS series Evolution, narrated by Liam Neeson.
Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She loves playing with all her doggy friends! Casey, who's a black lab in our neighborhood, is one of her best friends; she also enjoyed play-time with fellow golden retriever Dante while at the marathon.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Oh, wait! I almost forgot!
Today was "Service Learning" day at school. So, my advisory & I went to Shattuck Shelter to stuff informative folders for a legislative fundraising meeting Friday. On the bus ride there we watched Teletubbies, and on the way back we watched Barney -- how much better could you get!?!? ;-)
(The bus was REALLY nice!)
Adios for real this time. :-)
Today was "Service Learning" day at school. So, my advisory & I went to Shattuck Shelter to stuff informative folders for a legislative fundraising meeting Friday. On the bus ride there we watched Teletubbies, and on the way back we watched Barney -- how much better could you get!?!? ;-)
(The bus was REALLY nice!)
Adios for real this time. :-)
Today a couple of other kids from Beaver and I went to the Bowen (my old school) production of The Wizard of Oz. It was really good! Afterwards I talked to the cameraman doing the recording, who I had met the previous year at Bowen's 2003 musical. Here's my rough transcript of how it played out:
ME: Hi!
CAMERAMAN: Hi! Wait a second.... do I know you?
ME: Yup! I talked to you last year. You were the one who filmed the President, right?
CAMERAMAN: Yup.
We then found out that he had filmed every Bowen play since... 1994? Yeah, I think it was since 1994. (Either that or 1996.) That means that he's filmed every single Bowen play I've been in or seen! :-D Pretty cool, huh? As for the president thing, during my discussion with him last year I learned that he had filmed some U.S. President -- Kennedy, I think -- only a couple of weeks before they were assassinated. Yikes!
We all had lots of fun giving out flowers afterwards, even to people to had no idea who we were and/or weren't even in the play! ;-)
Adios.
ME: Hi!
CAMERAMAN: Hi! Wait a second.... do I know you?
ME: Yup! I talked to you last year. You were the one who filmed the President, right?
CAMERAMAN: Yup.
We then found out that he had filmed every Bowen play since... 1994? Yeah, I think it was since 1994. (Either that or 1996.) That means that he's filmed every single Bowen play I've been in or seen! :-D Pretty cool, huh? As for the president thing, during my discussion with him last year I learned that he had filmed some U.S. President -- Kennedy, I think -- only a couple of weeks before they were assassinated. Yikes!
We all had lots of fun giving out flowers afterwards, even to people to had no idea who we were and/or weren't even in the play! ;-)
Adios.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Yesterday we had a Nobel prize winning scientist guy from NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology, I think) come and give a little speech at our school. It was really fun! He talked about atomic clocks and the need to slow down atoms by making them really really cold.
As a demonstration of just how cold, he brought along a whole lot of liquid nitrogen for the talk. He poured it on the ground, poured it over his hand, stuck 10 balloons into a container that looked like it could only fit one, shattered a rubber ball and a banana, and so on. It was lots of fun!
Beaver really needs to get a lifelong supply of that stuff. Imagine how perfect it would be in the cafeteria when you need to cool down your drink really quickly! ;-)
Gotta go to school now. Adios!
As a demonstration of just how cold, he brought along a whole lot of liquid nitrogen for the talk. He poured it on the ground, poured it over his hand, stuck 10 balloons into a container that looked like it could only fit one, shattered a rubber ball and a banana, and so on. It was lots of fun!
Beaver really needs to get a lifelong supply of that stuff. Imagine how perfect it would be in the cafeteria when you need to cool down your drink really quickly! ;-)
Gotta go to school now. Adios!
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Updates to my web site have been uploaded.
- The FAQ is now updated.
- The Photo Album has two new albums containing artwork I've done.
- The School section got some minor factual updates.
Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
A little while ago she managed to beat the squeak out of her squeaky frog. A couple of days later she got two new toys: Squeaky Baseball and Squeaky Weird Bumpy Rainbow-Colored Ball (aka "Sweburacob").
Happy Easter (and this time it actually is Easter)!
- The FAQ is now updated.
- The Photo Album has two new albums containing artwork I've done.
- The School section got some minor factual updates.
Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
A little while ago she managed to beat the squeak out of her squeaky frog. A couple of days later she got two new toys: Squeaky Baseball and Squeaky Weird Bumpy Rainbow-Colored Ball (aka "Sweburacob").
Happy Easter (and this time it actually is Easter)!
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Howdy! Sorry it's been so long. By now I've pretty much given up hope that I'll ever be able to update this daily. ;-) Oh well. Here's all my updates from the past weeks.
- I'm back at school now -- spring break's long gone. :-(
- Happy Very Much Belated April Fool's Day!
- A few more web site updates are still coming in the next couple of days...
- There have been ten 3-minute episodes of the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon on Cartoon Network over the past couple of weeks. This past Thursday was the big, 6-minute finale featuring GENERAL GRIEVOUS, the new bad guy for Episode III. If you missed the cartoons, you can see all 20 (10 for Season 1 from last fall, 10 for Season 2 these past weeks) online. Chapter 20 was by far the best.
Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She's currently learning to shake and jump over small obstacles! :-D
Happy Easter, everybody!
- I'm back at school now -- spring break's long gone. :-(
- Happy Very Much Belated April Fool's Day!
- A few more web site updates are still coming in the next couple of days...
- There have been ten 3-minute episodes of the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon on Cartoon Network over the past couple of weeks. This past Thursday was the big, 6-minute finale featuring GENERAL GRIEVOUS, the new bad guy for Episode III. If you missed the cartoons, you can see all 20 (10 for Season 1 from last fall, 10 for Season 2 these past weeks) online. Chapter 20 was by far the best.
Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She's currently learning to shake and jump over small obstacles! :-D
Happy Easter, everybody!
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