Saturday, September 25, 2004
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!
Sunday, September 12, 2004
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!!!
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
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!
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
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! :-)
Monday, September 06, 2004
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!
Friday, September 03, 2004
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!
Thursday, September 02, 2004
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!
Monday, August 30, 2004
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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!
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!
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.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
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!
- We've also made s'mores...
- Celebrated a few birthdays...
- Done some skiing...
- and a 550-piece puzzle!
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Friday, July 23, 2004
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...
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
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!
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
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!!!
Monday, July 19, 2004
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.
Saturday, July 17, 2004
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!
Thursday, July 15, 2004
More on the beta tomorrow... or another day.... g'night!
Monday, July 12, 2004
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.
Friday, July 09, 2004
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!