I'm back from the 9th Grade Orientation thing now! Here's my report on school, Taconnet, and this very blog.

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School

Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to meet the new kids joining our class. However, we did meet several of our teachers and learn a bit about our schedule. Kids playing a sport in the fall went on to start pre-season, but since I'm doing tech crew for the play instead I got to go home -- which I feel very lucky about, since the kids who DID attend pre-season say it was a pretty grueling experience.

However, before leaving I attended another web committee meeting about BCDS' new web site. I saw the new logo, as well as a few potential designs.

Taconnet

You learned about most of what I did at Taconnet a couple posts ago (I actually wrote that post while at Taconnet!). Here are a few other things.

• We saw a kid blow a giant bubble in the annual Freaky Talent Show.
• I learned the name of the next Star Wars film. :-D
• We made a movie with some friends. The plot was that Rozie, the managers' dog, actually had a secret plot to slaughter all the humans. Sound interesting? It was!

This Very Blog

You may have noticed a couple new features in the past week or so. The first is that nifty toolbar at the top of the blog, which replaces the ad that used to be there. You can use it to make your own weblog (aka blog), see other blogs, and -- best of all -- search my blog! I'm not sure how well it works, though.

The other new feature is that little envelope icon at the bottom of every post. You can use it to email that post to a friend! Cool, huh?

And don't forget the other features this blog has had for... well... a while, such as comments (just click that link at the bottom of each post) and the archive, which lets you see every post I've ever written.

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Well, that's all for now folks!

Howdy!

I'm back from Taconnet, and have been for a little over a week now. It was really fun! I'll try to give you a more complete recap later, but currently I'm only half an hour away from going back to school again! THE HORROR!!! Hehe... ;-)

Although, fortunately, this is only a couple-hour-long orientation session. People taking sports in the fall then have preseason for the rest of the week, from 9:00 - 3:30 or something like that. I, however, am not playing soccer this year. I'm probably going to do tech crew for the play instead.

As for summer reading, I'm almost done (it's due on the first day of actual school). I've calculated that by a week from today I will have read 14 books over the summer, which equates to about 5,000 pages. Yippee!

Adios, amigos.

Hi everyone! I'm writing this from Taconnet, so I have to be quick. We're now a little more than half way through our stay, and so far it's been great. Here are some highlights:

TUBING

• Tues. Aug. 3: We were caught in the middle of a torrential downpour, and I managed to flip a collossal tube while driving.
• Wed. Aug. 4: That same collassal tube was deflating, causing (at one point) one of two occupants to get squished and the tube collapsed onto itself!
• Wed. Aug. 4: One 6-year-old went on a slow roller-coaster type ride, as multiple wakes collided and the tube balanced on top of three-foot-waves.

ROCKETS ETC.

• We've set off one 1-or-2 foot rocket and two 2-or-3 feet mini-rockets. We got a great picture of one -- I'll have to post it when we get back!
• We also (with a friend who's a rocket scientist) got two cheap RC planes. One kind of worked, and the other didn't really work at all. So, we strapped a rocket engine to it and launched it a few times. :)
• We also got an RC boat, which works great and is perfect for chasing ducks with!

OTHER STUFF

• We've also made s'mores...
• Celebrated a few birthdays...
• Done some skiing...
• and a 550-piece puzzle!

That's all -- I really have to get off the computer now. Adios!

T-minus 5 minutes and counting...

Well, tomorrow's the day folks. Bright and early (well kind of -- around 10:00) we're off to Taconnet for four weeks. It'll be lots of fun, with swimming, boating, tubing, skiing, ping-ponging, tennis-ing, s'more-ing, eating, sleeping, walking, running, breathing, canoeing, drawing, writing, and more!

For the first time ever, we'll actually have a laptop there, which means I might have a chance to update this while we're up there. Wish me luck! And now...

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Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
Rosie is by now too big to fit properly in her kennel, and thus is forced into a "submissive position" whenever's she's sitting in there, with her head lowered. If she lies down, she doesn't have that particular problem, but instead she's long enough that she has to sort of drape her front paws over the front of the crate. It's very cute. :-)

Web Site Update:
Sadly, I won't be able to get any work done on my site for the next four weeks, though I will have two weeks after we get back (and before school starts) to work on it. (I had previously thought I only had one week afterwards -- oops! Pleasant surprise!) Anyway, I'm almost done with the Reviews section now. I still have a whole lot of work left to do, though, and there's little-to-no chance of me finishing before Winter Break. Oh well.

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T-minus 9:45 and counting...

Well, there's another birthday today -- my mom's! I made her a card that accidentally said "Happy Mother's Day..." oops....

Now, you remember what to do! What? You don't know what I'm talking about? Check the archives for one year ago today, then come back.

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Ok, back now? Good! Now sing!

Happy birthday to you..................

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In other news, today we overloaded the circuits in our basement with the computer, the laptop, the TV, Xbox, and dehumidifier. Is that how you spell it? I think so...

Well, that's all for now! Adios!

Ooh, just noticed something else. That last post there was my 111th blog post ever! How special! :-) And one other thing: check out my newly revised profile by clicking the link on the right.
 
Adios!

Happy birthday to this
Happy birthday to this
Happy birthday dear blog
Happy birthday to this!
 
Yup folks, it's the one-year anniversary of this blog! Wowsers... it feels like just yesterday when I started this! I'm so proud -- 93 posts and counting! :-)
 
One day, when I'm old and gray, I'll look back on this and think "Wow. I remember this." Or perhaps I'll think back and think "Wow. My memory's gone. I have no idea what this is." Or something like that. But I think that one day I should create a giant book full of all this stuff -- English journals, personal journals, word documents, emails, instant message conversations, blog entries -- showing all the events of my life. I think that'd be pretty interesting! Of course, it would also take forever to create... still, it could be a neat little "Story of my Life" thingy.
 
I think that's part of the reason I like blogging. It lets me create a record that I could look back on one day and say "Hey, what day was this? What happened this day?" and so on. I love keeping records. For example, just today we got rid of our old red Ford Ranger named Hank and got a new black Toyota Rav4 (we're still thinking of a name). I took over 50 pictures of Hank so that I would remember just what he looked like. Yikes. It's a good thing they're all digital, and thus free!
 
Digital pictures... they're wonderful for the same reason this blog is. They let me remember things I would otherwise forget. Like what Rosie looked like when she was only 2 months old, or what that snowstorm was like back in February 2003. It's for that reason that I have about 2,000 photos on this computer. :-)
 
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In Other News
 
Work continues on my web site. I had a link crisis earlier today, where I had to fix these same four broken links on every single page manually -- and then I made a formatting mistake when fixing them, so I had to do them all over again. Ugh. Now I'm mainly working on the Fun & Games, Reviews, and Star Wars sections. Wish me luck.
 
In More Other News
 
Today my friend came over for a couple hours and we played lots of Halo (with Willy, too). We were trying to have my friend, Willy and I all in a line with Willy in the middle and my friend and I facing each other. My friend and I were both supposed to shoot a rocket at each other (and thus Willy in the middle, too) at the exact same time Willy ducked to avoid the rocket. What was supposed to happen was that my friend and I would be killed by each other's rockets, and Willy would survive. (Who came up with this plan, anyway?) However, I... umm... "accidentally" ended up killing both my friend and Willy, while my friend's rocket just went right over my head. Hehe... oops. :-)
 
Speaking of Halo, yesterday I met a family who's just moved here from northern California. They have two kids -- one who's going into 9th grade (like me), and another who's going into 6th grade (one year below Willy Tucker). The older one has a Halo PC clan, which is what reminded me of this in the first place. Only 5 1/2 more weeks! I'm going to miss vacation... :-(
 
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Well, that's all. Tomorrow's my mom's birthday, and this Saturday we're off to Taconnet for four weeks, so it's an exciting time. But before we go, I have one more treat in store for you lucky readers... a picture! 

Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She loves jumping up on the kitchen table now. She's gotten even more spongs since I last mentioned this, and she's also gotten a good amount of food. While we're in Taconnet, Rosie will be staying in a kennel recommended to us by the local marina owners (who breed puppies themselves, including "Parker," a cute yellow lab who looks just like the puppy in the K9 Advantix ad). The kennel is only about 15 minutes from Taconnet, so we might actually get to visit Rosie!!! YIPPEE!!!

Work on version 4.0 of Tophtucker.com is going quite well. The home pages for every primary section are done. I've just about finished the Family section, the Fun & Games section and the Multimedia section already have several pages, and the new About the Site page is done.
 
I still have to fix plenty of links, though, and there's still a ton of image work to be done. Nevertheless, the overall structure is complete, and I think it's all coming along rather nicely.

Sku! Just saw I, Robot. It was great! Yubnub! :-) Doesn't exactly make me feel too optimistic about robots, though.
 
Anyway, about the tophtucker.com beta...
 
On the site, you can currently preview the entire new family sections, one "flavor" of the new home page, and one totally new photo album. In addition, you can read over the outline that describes virtually every new feature of 4.0. (It reminds me of the NS-4s in I, Robot...) This winter (or so), the whole thing will go online. To see all this for yourself, head on over -- click here.
 
Following the primary updates to Tophtucker.com will be updates to the TuckLyne section, including updates to the Athena and TuckLyne Studios sub-sections. The new TLS site will include short video clips from our movies, and there'll be a whole new sub-section -- the TLO ("TuckLyne OnLyne" -- hehe, get it?) Store. There you can find simple instructions on how to order... well... anything! :-)
 
That part will come later on -- due to the school vacation schedule, probably sometime around Spring Break or even possibly later. Yut ehda... yeha!

Just now I uploaded the beta version of tophtucker.com version 4.0 -- check it out here! I also uploaded small updates to the School and Lessons sections and a bigger update to the Star Wars section. Check it out, and be sure to send me any feedback!
 
More on the beta tomorrow... or another day.... g'night!

I'm typing this from our new Dell laptop (they must love us right now), and I'm doing it wirelessly over our WiFi network! I've been having fun assigning the touch pad to do all sorts of fancy stuff, like launching a web site by tapping the upper-right or opening up Windows Media Player with the upper-left. Fun fun fun!

Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She learned to swim yesterday! Well, she could already swim -- she had gone in once at Taconnet -- but yesterday was the first time she really went in, retrieved stuff, etc.

Just finished the document announcing all the exciting changes in store for tophtucker.com version 4.0! Actually, even it doesn't touch on some of the other longer-term things I've been working on...

I'm starting to distribute the document to select individuals for review. Then, in just a few days(maybe more, maybe less), I'll post it online along with the Beta section going up at tophtucker.com/beta so that everyone can take a look!

I'm writing this from our relativity new downstairs computer, which has a newer motherboard and an even newer hard drive.

Even after we got the motherboard replaced (to fix a faulty Ethernet adapter), we were having plenty of problems. Just yesterday a guy contracted by Dell to replace our hard drive came by and did so. Everything seems to be running smoothly -- so far.

Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
The day before yesterday (Tuesday), she managed to snag the singing little hamster we have in our kitchen. Yesterday, she did it again -- and I got pictures! Those pictures will be on my site in a matter of days, as part of the coming preview of version 4.0.

Also the day before yesterday, Rosie had a brief encounter with the neighborhood killer cat, Max, who catches and eats all sorts of animals. (We love him, though!) Max was sitting on a chair and Rosie came by and kind of sniffed him. I grabbed her by the collar, and Max hissed and basically ran off.

Finally, Rosie got her stitches out today. Yay!

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I'm off to watch Waiting for Guffman, a great movie that I highly recommend. Adios!

This past Thursday, June 1, we went to Spider-Man 2. It was really good. :-) Funny, action-packed, et cetera. Yesterday, as you know, we watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. Wow -- quite a difference there.

Also yesterday, we got the Spider-Man 2 videogame for Xbox. Willy and I have been playing it pretty much non-stop ever since. :-) This time around, you can swing, walk or jump literally anywhere on Manhattan Island. Jump on a car and ride it around. Catch little kids' balloons and get "hero points." Save the city. And so on. All in all, a great game.

Today -- just now, in fact -- we went to see "The Terminal." It's very funny. Tom Hanks plays an immigrant from the fictional country of Krakozhia who gets stuck in JFK International Airport when a coup in his home country renders his passport and visa worthless. For more information, check out the official web site.

Adios, amigos!

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

We just rented and watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, and boy is it weird! Still, pretty interesting...

Currently, going to tophtucker.com displays version 3.2. That's basically the most-updated version. The original plan - though you might not have known it - said that there would be a version 3.3 before the jump was made to 4.0. However, in the interest of time that is no longer true. Rest in peace, version 3.3.

This basically means that, while there will be little updates here and there (a picture or two, a page update) between now and version 4.0 (scheduled for a winter release), nothing major is planned. That, in turn, means I have more time to work on 4.0, which means that it'll come sooner. Yay!

Note that no functionality is lost -- only a worthless interim site version is. ;-)

Very soon, a complete overview of plans for version 4.0 will be distributed to select individuals. Soon thereafter, a copy will be placed online, complete with a couple examples of the new site. Comments are welcome. :-)

Stay tuned!

Hello hello hello. Here I am, back again, for another great blog entry. :-)

First off, I now realize something. Look two blogs down. See how I say that my whole entry just dissappeared and that I thus had to do it over? Look one more entry down. There it is! The missing entry! I suppose it hadn't gone missing after all, though I maintain that it was not there immediately afterwards. Anyway, now you can compare the two, seeing little details that I forget or other ones that I remembered to include in the second version. :-)

Anyway, on Sunday, June 20, we left for -- Dallas. Yup, that's right, to go to Anchorage, Alaska we for some reason ended up in Dallas. While we were there, we saw a little Dell store and - BAM! - bought a laptop. Hehe... that was sudden!

Next stop, Anchorage. Alaska was lots of fun. We saw a giant glacier, several bears, some moose, and lots of mountains! One thing we didn't see was nighttime. In summertime Alaska, it never really gets dark. I took a picture at 10:30 or so PM, showing it was still broad daylight!

Our itinerary stated that we'd be in Alaska for about 5 days, then in San Francisco for 5 days. Unsurprisingly, that remained true. The trip from AK to SF was uneventful, and we arrived in time to see two things that were absent in Anchorage: our older brother Johnny, and darkness. (All the other things unique to San Fran would have to wait until morning.)

In San Francisco, our hotel was right accross the street from the Sony Metreon, a kind of Sony-only mall that we first discovered on our trip to SF three years ago. Unfortunately, 3 years ago it had a store called "Microsoft SF" with fun PDAs, software, games and more. Currently, it doesn't. Apparently, Sony took offense at Microsoft releasing the Xbox (which competes directly with Sony's PlayStation 2) and kicked them out. Very sad indeed...

At the Metreon, we played with projected marbles, ate ice cream, and saw at least a few dozen fancy Sony TVs showing the trailer for Spider-Man 2 -- which, might I add, is a Sony movie. (It also wasn't out yet during our visit. It is now, though, and I hear it's great.) In addition, there were tons of Spidey posters and giant Spidey wall displays. There were even more ads for it once you stepped outside, on busses, billboards, and so on. Despite its supposed greatness (I haven't seen it yet, so I can't be sure!), I think that's a bit much.

In SF, we also went to the beach (and made two giant sea forts -- the second only after the first was obliterated by a giant wave), saw plenty of restaurants, and saw my older brother's apartment. (In there, the day before yesterday, we played a board game called "Settlers of Catan." If you've ever played the computer game Civilation III, it's a lot like that. I love them both!)

The day before yesterday -- our last full day in SF -- we saw the best thing of all: Skywalker Ranch! We saw the giant sound/screening room, their artificial lake, and original props from Lucasfilm movies! I took at least 100 pictures of that place -- I hope to post some photos from the trip on my site soon, and those will be included.

Of course, I've been talking about putting stuff on my site "soon" a lot, and not much has actually gotten up there. We have plenty of free time ahead, though, so I assure you: there WILL be more updates SOON. :-D

Speaking of the web site, I spent some time discussing that with John while in San Fran. Fear not, version 4.0 is still on the way, and looking better than ever!

Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
We just got her back from her stay at the kennel today! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!

Well, that's all, folks. Check back next time for another edition of...
TOPH'S AWESOME BLOG!!!!!!

Hi everybody! Just got back earlier tonight. While I suppose that was technically yesterday -- it as, after all, 1:24 -- that equates to only 10:24 San Francisco time.

Anyway, I'll update with all the details... umm... later today, I guess! In the meantime, I better get some good ol' sleep.

Adios!

Uggh, my ENTIRE last post just dissappeared into the ether due to Blogger problems, so I'll have to do a brief recap:

Random Rosie Comment of the Day:
She's just realized she can jump up onto the kitchen counter, so over the past week she's eaten 5 sponges, 1 wooden spatula, quite a lot of cheese and a little bit of coffee frappe. Yum!

Our cousin Alex came over today for most of the day -- we played LOTS of Super Smash Bros. on N64! Then we went over to my friend's house and played Halo PC multiplayer -- with Banshees! That was a lot of fun. (We had another couple cousins come over... was it Tuesday? Or Monday? Or Wednesday? Somewhere around then. We went to Shrek 2, which was fun.)

Yesterday a guy from Dell came over and replaced the motherboard on our downstairs computer, complete with a functional Ethernet adapter, which means that we now have internet access down there! Yippee!

Also yesterday, I went to Dodgeball with some other kids from school. It was so-so... nowhere near as good as Star Wars, that's for sure! :-D Hehe... I love Star Wars...

This'll be my last post in a while. Tomorrow we leave for Anchorage (by way of Dallas -- how odd)! (Rosie's already gone to her little puppy camp, where she'll stay for the next ten days or so.) We stay in Anchorage for 5 days, then go to San Francisco to see our older brother and sister and stay there 5 days! That'll be fun... while I might get my hands on a little internet access during that time, don't count on it!

While I've tried getting a little web site work done, it just hasn't really worked out for me. :-) However, when I get back there's plenty in store for good ol' tophtucker.com. Updates I'm working on include a better News page and plenty of new Photo Album content, as well as finished off the School and Lessons section. To top it all off, I've started planning out version 4.0. That'll be a mighty big update -- bigger than 3.0, I'm guessing. That might come by September, if I'm really productive, or by next summer if I'm not. :-) (I'd say early January would be the most realistic guess, though I'll do all I can to get it done before going back to school.)

Well, that's it! T-minus 9 hours and counting (that's until we leave for the airport). Adios!