Sorry I haven't been able to update in a while... I'm just getting used to having homework again!

Last weekend we celebrated my grandparent's 50th anniversary up in Sorento, Maine. That was fun. :-) The whole family was there -- which is saying a lot, since my mom has five siblings, and one lives in Alaska with his wife and two kids. While there, we also celebrated a couple of family birthdays. Speaking of birthdays, by brother Willy's is this Tuesday!

This past Monday we had Matt Selman, writer for "The Simpsons" and Beaver class of 1989, come to talk to us. He said some somewhat inappropriate things and generated a fair amount of controversy. We even had an English writing assignment about him!

Yesterday I didn't go to school because I had a cold, but I'm feeling a lot better now. I've been playing lots and lots of the Star Wars Battlefront demo that came on the OT DVD set, which we got Wednesday. I absolutely love it -- I highly recommend it. :-)

Now Willy and his friend are playing Fable, which his friend brought over. It's a really cool RPG (role playing game) for Xbox. Willy has it on his wishlist.

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Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She loves sprinklers. While we're on walks, she'll go up to one and then kind of jump around and snap at it, trying to get a little drink!
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I'm off to do homework now, so bye!

On Friday we got back from our orientation in Maine (we had gone up on Thursday). All throughout Thursday we were separated into twelve groups of six people each (roughly), all competing throughout various activities for points. The finale of that particular competition came after dinner, when each group had to come up with a skit involving certain pre-determined elements. Our group (F, later christened the "Flying Firefighters" by me) did a skit where we were on a bus ride to Washington D.C., but then our bus driver (named Jerry, which is actually the name of our driver for our real trip last year) crashed and we had to camp outside for a night. It was... interesting.

(When the winners were announced Friday, it turns out we managed to come in 3rd place, despite a not-so-perfect showing at the theater -- but we had done really well at paper-cup-stacking and blindfolding activities.)

The next day, and our last day, we had an egg-drop contest. We split into new groups of 6 people each (mine was group 1) and, using some materials given to us like straws, rubber bands, a balloon, string, and tape, had to create a contraption that would protect the egg in case of a drop. Our egg died on the first drop, despite complex rubber-band-suspension, a cushioning balloon, and a reinforced straw frame. Oh well.

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Last night we went to The Lion King at the new opera house. It was really cool -- the costumes were amazing!!! Tomorrow school starts again, which is sad -- but there are only nine days left until the Star Wars original trilogy comes out on DVD!!!

Do you know how many femtometers are in a petameter? I do -- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!

Today in Physics we went over the metric system as somewhat of a refresher. While I know I called yesterday our "real" first day, even that was a special schedule. This was our first regular schedule day -- although even today, afternoon activities were replaced by a short little field trip.

Tomorrow we leave for Maine, at 8:30, for our orientation trip. I'll be back Friday. Wish me luck!

Today was my real first day of school -- not just orientation, but real school, complete with classes and homework and everything. :-(

One plus is that we got to see the new building. It's really cool -- especially the control room for the Black Box Theater, which hopefully I'll get to use some time for tech crew.

We also met all our teachers, which was fun, and learned who our classmates are and so on. And we didn't get too much homework, which is always good.

Tomorrow we go on some quicky orientation field trip, which is kind of strange, since we're going on a full-fledged, one-night trip the very next day. The teachers all say it's a lot of fun. Hopefully they'll be proven correct! :-)

We just got back from the wedding in Virginia. Today's our last day before school starts again, which is very sad. :-(

I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code. It was pretty good, although the endless cliffhangers got to be annoying. One thing's for sure, though: it was clever.

Well, I'm off to enjoy my last day of freedom for a long time. Bye bye!

In just a couple hours, we leave for a wedding in Virginia. We'll be gone until Sunday, and then school starts (for real -- not just pre-season anymore) on Tuesday.

Just now, I installed Windows Media Player 10. I highly recommend it. As I talked about a bit last time, there's a new look, simplified interface, auto-syncing with portable music devices, and -- best of all -- integration with the new MSN Music store. I think I might actually try it out -- MSN Music, that is. I played around with iTunes a bit a little while back, but never actually bought anything. Maybe I will this time. Who knows.

Well, I've got to go now. I'll try to update again Sunday. Adios!

Pre-season continues, for those who're doing it. Yesterday there was a little ice cream get-together for returning students, new students, and some teachers as well. It was also the first day the new Arts Center building was open to students, so a few friends and I spent much of the event giving a new family (with a kid entering 6th) a tour.

For me, work on tophtucker.com 4.0 continues after a month-long break. It certainly won't be ready by the time I start school, but I feel confident that I can finish in time for a New Year's 2005 release. Yippee!

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In Other News:

Check out MSN Music Beta. They're still "stocking the shelves," but eventually it'll have as many songs (if not more) available for download as its main competitor, iTunes Music Store. You can access MSN Music straight from the new Windows Media Player 10, automatically sync your music with any compatible portable music player, burn the music to CD, and so on.

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Random Rosie Comment of the Day:

She loves trying to catch bubbles in mid-air. :-) Also, just the other day she used her kennel as a stepping-stone to get up on the counter and eat a whole peach!