What’s going on in this place? It feels like I’m trapped in an atmosphere encompassed by Gouaould motherships, except not so hopeless, but likewise. I’m sitting in a pit of doom that’s called British Literature and wondering why people throw tomatoes at people who are put into shackles in the middle of the city. Why not a cucumber or a piece of cabbage? Let’s roll out the cabbage and give the poor people a concussion. That and why do people have concussions? Yeah, getting hit hard to the head juggles out some brain matter, but it really shouldn’t give you a headache if you don’t have any nerve endings in your brain. In fact, all you are doing is thinking that you feel pain, pain is caused by your body essentially, not by other sources. If you did not have any nerves, you would not feel any pain, eh, that simple? Pain is something that one cannot live without, but must also learn to endure. Oh, by the way, I just thought of someone who is a great pain in the who knows where, but that’s a whole different story. Ok, so now on to random ranting to waste some time in Miss Hicks’ 5th period class. If some people are tall, then why are some people short? If all people were short, nothing could be reached, so what is that advantage of being short? There is none, if one wants to be short, then one could just bend down, but if one wanted to be tall, they would have to grow. And some people cannot do that very well so why are there still genetic codes for short people if they are at such a disadvantage? Shouldn’t we just be getting taller and taller until we grow to the height that we couldn’t be able to breathe anymore because of the atmosphere? Well, if so, this disproves the theory that all elephants originated from Africa, because if they did, there wouldn’t be any elephants. No, not really, I’m just rambling on again. It’s somewhat weird, but then again, not really. I’m just not sure anymore. Tech support really sucks. Yeah. I think I’m going to fall asleep very soon because I don’t think I can hold this up any longer, besides, I still have to go through yearbook and hopefully have another successful day of not having to kill Gavin. I might just not be so successful today, but that is to be seen by his behavior and his lack of intelligence. Sokar seems to have nice furnishings over at his place, but he needs a few more plants around, I think. And the whole, “I am your god” crap really gets annoying after a while, so I’m not quite sure if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to go out and attack the Gouaould. I’ll have to see, all in its own time. My laptop battery is about 50% now and I just heard that someone just received an email, must be Miss Hicks because she opened up her laptop and is staring at it now. I try not to stare at my laptop, just because I think it is very rude. I’ve almost got a page down, and about seven minutes left in class. I am reminded about the time when I would write a page or more in Amanda’s yearbook, but that time has past as now I’m the one making the yearbook in a way. That, and she hates my living guts. I would too if I ever actually saw them, I think. I just realized that my laptop, if positioned the screen properly, could serve as a reflective mirror. This purpose could launch a new face of cheating, by laptop reflection. Muahaha. It shall be called the Alex cheat, named after the one who thought of it. I shall be known in history books for my great invention and intellect and shall live a great life of teaching others my way. I am yet to test the method, but I am already anticipating the great results that may come out of the yet to be experimental “Alex cheat”. Two more minutes remain before I escape the tyranny of this teacher and escape to the bathroom, because I really have to go.

Firstly, my new laptop had arrived on the 20th of December, and here are the specs:

Inspiron 9300 – Intel® Pentium® M Processor 760 (2GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Display – 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
Memory – 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm
Video Card – 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800
Hard Drive – 100GB 5400rpmHard Drive
Operating System (Office software not included) – Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Network Card – Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software – Adobe® Acrobat® Pro 7.0, Adobe® InDesign® CS2, Adobe® Photoshop® CS2, Adobe® Illustrator® CS2
CD/DVD Drives – 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Wireless Networking Card – Intel® PRO 2200 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) – Corel WordPerfect word processor, Microsoft® Office 2003 Pro
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) – Symantec AntiVirus 9.0
Primary Battery – 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr)
Hardware Warranty – 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
Dial-Up Internet Access – 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Digital Imaging – Corel Photo Album™ 6 Starter Edition, Adobe® ImageReady
Miscellaneous – Award Winning Service & Support
Operating System Backup & Recovery – PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
Media Center Enhancements – Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition

That 256mb video card really kicks serious kicking places, and the speed of the entire thing is phenomenal. It was quite pricy, though.

Secondly, a nice article on dating computer geeks. The fact that it’s almost entirely true makes a nice bonus.

http://www.completeevil.com/geek.html

And lastly, the essay that I submitted for a scholarship on how technology will advance within the next 50 years. I never really covered that 50 years part well, but instead I inserted great 1984 ideas. It’s not like anyone really reads the essays anyways, I think…

Technology has advanced at a great rate throughout the nineteenth century and continues to grow in both power and speed. Simple mathematical calculations that took hours on the first computer model now take milliseconds to figure on a modern computer. Information is transferred at phenomenal speeds from computer to computer; at the current rate of technological advance, computers will be able to access terabytes of information within databases in mere seconds. Any news, past or present, will be available to anyone who needs it, in any form of media (text, images, or video). Paper books will be replaced by electronic documents or devices and libraries turned into storage areas for servers and e-books. Technology will also be easier to use and be more user-friendly for those who are not technologically apt. More people will be able to work at home from their laptop or desktop computers while achieving the same level of productivity. Cars and other automobiles will have advanced GPS systems that will auto-pilot the car to its destination with less of a chance for collision and avoid other road hazards as well. The issue of privacy will ultimately deter the advance of technology in some aspects, such as recording all the information about a person in one common database (records like current address, phone number, occupation, salary, crimes committed, etc.). If privacy were not an issue, there will most likely be cameras in every room recording every second of everybody’s life. This will be an advantage to the crime fighting force to determine who committed which crime and when. A person’s statement may no longer mean anything, as technology will take the place to determine the truth. This level of technology will not take away anyone’s freedom, but it will make others aware of exactly what people are doing with their “free” time. The advance in technology will aid the field of medical practice, not only with information of current discovered diseases, but also with a method of curing the disease quickly, efficiently, and effectively. Robotic devices could take on the job of the common nurse or of an advanced surgeon. All in all, the advance of technology will bring an advance to society as a whole, making every day tasks of life simpler and more productive.

Oh yeah, to carry on the tradition of computer naming, I have given a name to my laptop. My first computer, Trevor (still runs well, only with 98, though). My second computer, Tanya (still a great computer for any sort of gaming, even with the most intensive games like Call of Duty; now it is owned by my parents). And my third computer, which is my laptop, is named…

…

…oh monkeys, I just remembered that I have homework in about three classes that I need to do, including a stupid 8th grade collage for Family Living. Monkeys. On drugs.

Our soccer season had gone undeniably better than last year’s. Valley Christian Panthers – we started out rough against Post Falls losing our first home game. Then the Bonner’s Ferry team had also defeated us at their field. Then we went over to Sunnyside and crushed Trout Lake. This was mainly because they had lost half of the team from last year due to seniors who had graduated. The next day, we also played Sunnyside and won. Then we won twice against St. George’s, and lost twice to Northwest. Northport was split open by our entire league pretty much and they ended up not even scoring a goal the whole season. Then St. George’s beat Northwest twice putting three teams into first place at our league, but somehow St. George’s got placed “1st” officially, followed by Northwest, and then us. We still got a cool trophy for that though, but we needed to beat Northwest in order to continue on to districts (or regionals, I’m not sure which). So now, this is where the story really comes in, and you can kind of guess by the title of what’s going to happen. But there is a twist…

Northwest. Soccer. Eat some sushi.
We packed into a van covered in all kinds of decorative crap and headed towards Northwest. The decorative crap fell off on the way, so we didn’t mind it much. We got there and it was freezing cold. Freezing as in it’s always been freakin’ hot at Northwest, so why is it like freezing cold now? kind of thing, if that makes any sense. Then it started to rain while we were warming up. One thing I noticed though, is that I could actually shoot now – I always had trouble shooting the ball low and hard (defenders kick hard and high, which is what I did, since I was mostly defense), but on this day I could shoot it low, hard, and straight into the corners. Vitaliy had a bit of trouble trying to block my balls, which hardly ever happens. So then, once we warm up, coach puts in the starters and leaves me on the bench, dripping wet as it started to rain harder, and defiantly cold. Oh how could it get any worse!?

I had to sit next to cheerleader Lauren, that’s how.
Then again, I also put on about three layers of coats so I was okay for the game. Then the game started and Northwest scored a goal. Then another. Then halftime. Then they scored again. And again. At the last minute, coach called me up and told me to get ready to go out. Thanks a freakin’ ton! My last game I get to play in my whole life for a whole freakin’ minute. Good monkeys. I didn’t outright complain to him, as it wouldn’t be of any use, unless I didn’t even want to play in that minute, so I shed all the layers of my clothing into my bag and went out to play. The ball was put into play and within a few seconds it was kicked out by Northwest at their end. Hooray, our first corner kick of the game! Mostly because Northwest kicked balls out to the sidelines instead of the endfield. The secret move could now be used. What is the secret move exactly?

The Secret Move(s)
When a corner kick is available for your team, right before it is kicked, have one player sprint towards the corner (towards the ball) screaming, “BALL, BALL, BALL!” The corner kicker then kicks the ball, on the ground, to the screaming person. The screamer, once the ball gets to him, jumps over it, and the ball will continue rolling to a third person, the power kicker, who directs the ball into the net usually. Very effective and works every first time (notice keyword first, otherwise the other team will be like Borg and adapt – and that’s bad).

Back to the game
Will screams and runs towards Joe. Joe kicks the ball and it goes to Will. Will lets it go and Trevor rips it hard! It gets blocked but we regain control within a second. I run towards the goal and plant myself dead center between the posts about five feet away, making sure not to go offsides. Denis on the near post kicks the ball in towards Vitaliy who is a about five to six feet away from me. He turns the ball but he doesn’t kick it towards the goal because….tun-ta-tun-tun…I run towards the ball, give it a good hard kick (getting selfish as Coach calls it)…and it goes upwards, darn my defender foot! BUT, it deflects off of a Northwest player and goes into the corner of the net, real high. But it went in and that’s all I cared about. Then the game ended, but I had accomplished the goal I made when I began soccer my Freshman year – and that was to score a goal. In the last minute of my last game, against a team that we had never beaten (and still have not), who had shut us out for a good two years of soccer. That is what I call a tragedy.

Goodbye forever soccer, and this time, I mean it, because even if I didn’t mean it, there’s not really going to be a chance of me going into soccer at a college level. So yeah, forever goodbye and coach still owes me a letter. I’ll let you know if I get one, and I’ll surely let you know if I don’t. Yeah.

Yes, it is a stupid title, but I really don’t care. ^_^

The next day
We wake up. Nice and early. Oh joy. It is kind of sad that some girls got up extra early to put on makeup, they just cant live with anyone seeing them otherwise. And for some girls, “caked-on” is not an exageration. Those are usually the girls that need an “extra” boost of self confidence and security. I personally think they need a fire hose, though. Well, in any case, the day started with us having to do a prayer walk. Now, I really thought that the ASB had gotten rid of this event, but it decided to rear its head anyways. The prayer walk is where you get into your group and walk around and pray. Well, that’s what it was for all the other groups, while ours decided to walk to the boathouse and hideout. Also, when we were walking to that boathouse, I for some reason decided to take out the schedule for the day out of my pocket, look at it to check for the prayer walk event, then I exclaimed, “The prayer walk, oh shi…”. I never finished the forbidden word (I don’t really cuss in public, or not intentionally anyways, sorta) and added an “oot” at the end but quietly to myself. So what? you might ask. Well, a few days later in Drama class, the teacher was talking about that day, specifically about the prayer walk. She said she saw a person pull out their schedule and say “The prayer walk, oh shi…”. I, trying to be a class clown at that particular moment, raised my hand and said, “Oh yeah, that was me”. The sad part was, I was joking, and I didn’t realize that it WAS me until I started to think about it a bit later. Thankfully, the teacher could not remember who the person was, so I think I’m ok. ^_^
Back to the retreat, after the prayer walk we went and had breakfast. Blah, nonchalant stuff. Then we went in to have chapel and left midway for soccer. And the soccer trip was basically the same as last year, except we managed to dominate everyone at cow-land AND get a good night’s sleep – well, at least for the people who are able to sleep through basketball dribling at 3AM in the gym. I was one of those tight sleepers, but I heard stories the next day…and I also have pictures of the soccer trip included with the retreat pics. Email me if you want them.

I did two papers for two different classes about this retreat, and I posted them below. Yeah, that’s what those things are. The first is a shortened version of my blog posts basically, for Family Living. The second was a retreat recap for ASB purposes.

Retreat Overall Review
I personally thought that the first day of the retreat was excellent with just the senior class. We went up to the Ropes Course and I managed to get a lot out of the lessons they were trying to teach us. Through the low ropes challenges, they showed us a whole bunch of examples of how what we were doing was related to life, like teamwork, life’s frustrations, communication skills, and other analogies. I was later surprised to see most of my class overcome their fears and undertake the high ropes challenges. Later, within the tabernacle at Riverview, I realized just how important encouragement is and how much people will remember the things that you may have forgotten about but made an impact on someone else’s life. It also made me get out of my comfort zone and find other people’s impact on my life, something that I could earnestly thank them and appreciate them for. All of the games were pretty good besides the “Find the Seniors” one, and it may be due in part to the lack of enthusiasm on behalf of the lower classmen or just the “it happens every year” kind of thing. Lunch – food was great, seniors got to cut to the front of the line, everyone was happy. The speaker was good for the evening service, although I’ve heard some mixed reviews from others. It certainly wasn’t an altar call kind of sermon, more or less it was a discussion of Christian Literature, but it was still nice to know about. I guess it also served me as a reminder that everyone has some special talent and through God, it can be brought out to its fullest.
——-
- Find the seniors game was um, not as good as expected…enthusiasm was at an all time low as the freshman and sophomores (from what I’ve heard) decided not to even try to find the seniors. Asking some seniors, they commented that they didn’t even like the game that much as well.
- Save the Egg game was great and messy, but the Freshmen were again kinda not enthusiastic. Whether it be the fault of the atmosphere or whether the Freshman were just in that type of mood for the day is unknown, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.
- Lunch – food was great, seniors got to cut to the front of the line, everyone was happy ^_^.
- Ultimate Relay Game – very organized, but you couldn’t see what was happening! That was one of the downsides. The other one was that the up-down thing at the end was somewhat unorganized and the class size was an issue, but otherwise it went well.
- Oatmeal game – should definitely be longer! Possibly have another bucket or two with oatmeal, as I’ve heard from some people. But then again, we’d just knock over the buckets in the end so yeah.
- Class meetings went well, nothing to say there.
- Free time is good too, everyone was pretty much occupied with whatever they were doing (some sleeping into dinner time…)
- Honor the Seniors dinner was great, mostly all of the seniors were honored and the entrances were nice.
- Talent Show was great again this year, not a lot more to say about it.
- The speaker was good for the evening service, although I’ve heard some mixed reviews from others. It certainly wasn’t an altar call kind of sermon, more or less it was a discussion of Christian Literature, but it was still nice to know about.
- So far, I heard no complaints about not having any night games, the Talent Show pretty much took care of it, but it still felt like some part of the day was missing.
- Park and pray – I thought we got rid of it, but then again it came back and I really only found out (or paid attention to it) on the day of. Some people like it, some people really don’t, our cabin didn’t really think much of it. It might have been better just to have gotten breakfast first and saved the prayer for the worship time (session #2).

Riverview. Alone. With Classmates.
No free time…ABSOLUTELY NO FREE TIME on that day for us. Which wasn’t a bad thing, since we were fully occupied and all. Came back and ate some pizza, then we had a kind of chapel, except it was an interactive kind of chapel. Holding hands with every other senior and saying stuff that you appreciate about them, which wasn’t too hard for me at all, and I managed to keep a decent conversation with everyone after the appreciation thing with them. Then we went off for more snacks and food and walked back towards the gym. I arrived and set my stuff up in the cabins up above the gym and walked downstairs. All of a sudden, I hear Trev yell, “Holy crap, there’s a freakin huge rat in there (may not be his exact words).” He pointed towards the closet that kept the balls. I grabbed a couple of broom hockey sticks and picked up the tube that supposedly had a rat in it. HOLY %&^*@* MOTHER – This huge gigantic rat jumped out of the tube and I took a run like it was for my freakin life. I guess heights aren’t the only thing that scare the crap out of me. And the worst part was that the rat ran away and we could not find it. We slept with broom hockey sticks for the night after doing a thorough search of the premises (I actually have the picture of the hockey sticks, see my post below for details on how to obtain the pictures). It took a while for us to get to sleep but we managed and we woke up the next morning…

The next day
…this was the day that the rest of the high school had to show up. Before that, we managed to eat some breakfast and then we hid in various places on the campsite for the “Find the Seniors” game. This turned into a major disaster, only a handful of seniors were found as everyone else who had just arrived could have cared less that we hid. Then we had our ice-breaker game which turned out to be pretty good (oh, forgot to mention that we had first met in the sanctuary place to get the rules and pick out the costume winners – which everyone was supposed to dress up as a superhero with the colors depending on their class, like juniors were blue, seniors red, etc.). The game was pretty much to put an egg on your head, wrap your head up with a nylon so the egg stayed, and go around smashing other people’s eggs on their heads. YUM. Yeah. I can’t exactly remember how everything else went that day, but we also had an oatmeal fighting game with real oatmeal this year – which was a big plus (each team had a bucket of oatmeal, you went around and threw the oatmeal at other people…simple but fun). And it actually smelled nice. Afterwards, we jumped into the lake (or river, I dunno) which was pretty darn cold but a nice refresher. Robert jumped on Amanda in the water, and I’m never going to hear the end of it…Amanda still complains about it to this day! A little side note about Amanda and Robert…

Amanda and Robert
The perfect couple, Robert decided to take Amanda out one time to the Jr/Sr. Problem was, Amanda never liked Robert. She still doesn’t, but she sometimes pretends to like him not to be mean, which is weird, since she’s a melancholy type of person. Anywho, Robert being the sanguine (yeah, we took a personality test not too long ago) continues to “hit on” Amanda when really he’s just joking about it, as he knows Amanda doesn’t like him. It still annoys the hell out of Amanda though, and to this day they still make that “lovely couple”. *Sigh* It does make for some good laughs though. ^_^

Back to the day
There was also a no-talent show with some pretty amazing skits and no-talent talents. Afterwards, they had a dinner to honor the seniors (or maybe it was before) and we had our names called and we made an entrance and they listed our quotes and everyone clapped and WE WERE LIKE SUPERSTARS BABY. Well, all the seniors besides the two that decided to sleep in *cough*Amanda and Sarah*cough*. Maggots. Anywho, from what I’ve heard, they had waited their entire high school years for that moment and never had it. Sad. Not really, though. ^_^ Then we had a chapel speaker who talked about Christian literature pretty much the whole time. Reviews on that later (as I promised). We had snacks afterwards and left to our cabins (after I did a couple more “appreciation” things with the seniors that I didn’t get the night before). At our cabins, I took flash photography (like I did the night before, with the lights off and everything, forgot to mention that) and my camera pretty much lit up the whole room each time. We went to sleep at about 12 or 1 or so…

Alas, the day came, and the Seniors set out on a fair and sunny Wednesday morning to go to a yearly school event, except today, it was without the school. We gathered up our stuff, loaded up the bus, and headed out for the Adventure Dynamics rope course. The bus ride was fairly uneventful, the only thing worth noting was the taking of pictures, and everywhere I went I took pictures.

The Rope Course
Right, so we get there and start off by carrying around boards and hula-hoops that we had to jump on when a flash-flood came. The whole idea behind this was to fit as many people possible onto a board without anyone stepping off. Easy at first, mostly everyone had their own board or hula-hoop, but then they started taking away our stuff! No more board for you, no more hula-hoop for you, and before long, the whole class had to fit on a couple of 4×4 boards and some hula-hoops (I guess a better word would be “inside” for the hula-hoops). Huggles and snuggles for you, thank goodness no one smelled bad. Next was the noodle part, where everyone got a giant floatable noodle and we had to come up with “art”, kinda like how they do it in “Whose Line Is It, Anyways” with the props. Then we had a “Did you ever…” game and whoever did what the instructors called out (sadly, it was rated ‘G’) went up to the middle and hit the noodles together (really, we should have been able to go up and beat the crap out of each other, but then again, the instructors liked it to be rated ‘G’). Then we moved on to the “mine field” where there were a whole bunch of obstacles that we had to try to get past. The problem was that you had to walk through blindfolded, with your partner directing you where to go. I got through it okay the first time, but when it came my turn to give instructions…well, let’s just say that it wasn’t my cliche. Around thirty tries later, my partner made it through ok, and that was that. We did some other exercises that demonstrated teamwork and unity and all that stuff, it’s too long of a list to pour out into my blog, and I’m too lazy to write it out. Except for the trust fall, where people fell into a zigzag pattern of arms backwards. Yeah, nothing interesting here, except some of the people had red arms afterwards (some heavy girls I tell ya *cough*Cody*cough*) and one of the girls didn’t even try to attempt it (which was stupid, take risks I tell ya! It makes life more interesting. And have no regrets).

Now, the high ropes course, we put on some equipment that better reformed the shape of our crutch and went a climin’. One of the challenges was the vertical climb, where you had to climb up a pretty much vertical course through logs and ropes and tires (well, not through, but you used them to get up). The second was with the dependence of a partner, each person got on a thin wire facing the other person. You would have to hold (and later push) on your partners hand as you moved on the wire. The two wires would slowly get further apart as you progressed, and at the end, you would pretty much be looking at the ground, pushing against your partner for stability. No one made it to the end on this challenge, but some got close.

And the final one was one of the easiest for me – the trapeze jump. Climb up a shaky pole, jump, and grab a trapeze like object. Yeah, simple.

That was about it for the ropes course, we headed back towards Riverview for the rest of the day…

To be continued, yes…

I have the ’06 VCS Retreat pictures for those people who want to see them – go ahead and email me at the address listed at the bottom of this page. The details of the retreat and whatever else I can muster up are going to come soon, or as soon as I can get some free time, which should be soon, but soon is relative. But soon. Yes. Soon. Yes.

Oh yeah, the pictures are zipped in an archive and will require something like WinZip or WinRar to open them, and if you email me with the request, I’ll send you the link, not the actual archive itself, partially because it’s huge – like ~60mb so I don’t want to send it out individually. I can just send you the URL. Yeah. That’s about it.

-RC

So there I was, back at the lake, back to hearing knock-knock jokes and back to insanity…WOOHOO! I can finally get a tan now.

I decided to stay at my house a day and recuperate before going back to Robert’s lake cabin on Saturday. You know, Quake 3, PHP, and Kingdom of Loathing, ah…recuperation. On Saturday, my parents and I headed up towards Deer Lake on one of the most dangerous highways in the state of Washington. Fortunately, they let me drive, so we arrived at the destination in one piece. I got my stuff out of my car and my parents then left me to cope for myself, leaving me to the Wrath of Robert™.

All ends well that begins well. Well, that wasn’t really the case here, but in any case, I was off to my first event for that day. Now the “events” are actually like competitions between people who decide to stay at Robert’s lake cabin during thee 4th of July weekend, and there really isn’t anything satirically bad to say about them, because they’re actually somewhat entertaining. In any case, the first event was the Freedom Throw which is like a freethrow basketball competition where you get ten tries to get the ball in the basketball hoop. Problem was, the basketball hoop was only nine feet tall, and those who know basketball, know that you shoot on a ten foot tall hoop, otherwise you rarely make the shot. Same case scenario here, once it got down to the Harter’s and I, we only got three in a piece. We had to shoot off on the final round and they both got two a piece while I got three again, winning first place in my division. Of course there were other divisions too, and our’s generally got creamed like pie…with a lot of whipped cream on it. Sara managed to chug in 7 whole shots, which is kinda weird, since she’s a cheerleader. I blame it on the hoop size.

Next event was video-games between Robert and I. I pawned in SSBM. That’s all that needs to be said. After was a bucket-toss event, but we unfortunately missed the call for our division because we were occupied. We weren’t eliminated, but we were given a chance to give it a shot, and if we were to beat the Harter’s, we would have to both face off again. Eh. So here’s the aim of this game, two people join to make a team and each stand about 3 yards or so apart from each other (or maybe it was five). One bucket is filled with water and the person with the watered bucket got a regular drinking glass. With that glass, you are supposed to throw as much water as possible and get it into the other bucket, which is held by the other team-mate. There is no time limit for this game. Robert and I managed to beat the Harter’s record by a good amount of water with my stretchable ninja tactical position and Robert’s superior water-from-a-glass throwing moxious maneuvers. And we beat them on the second round, too, making ourselves champions of the bucket throwing water catching world.

The last event for the day was the seed spit competition, which tested our ability to spit a sunflower seed as far as our mouths would allow us to. I managed to spit mine a whopping thirty feet, beating everyone in that event.

The rest of the night was dedicated to making smores and doing random stuff that I can’t remember…

Edit: Here’s what happened on that night, now that I seem to remember – Robert and I were watching MST3K on full volume on the TV. Why? Well, because all the little kids decided to use our temporary room as a playground and the screaming and such abounded fully within our quarters. I didn’t mind it much as I had already watched this episode before and same with Robert, well, only slightly. That is, until he exploded with furry when his sister hit him with a baseball, then the whole room was filled with fury as Robert literally threw everybody out of that place. I was a bit shaken up at what just occurred but shrugged it off and labeled it as another “normal for Robert”. A bit odd that he screamed louder at the kids than at the dog from the last visit to his cabin. No wait, nevermind, they were siblings after all…

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the horrible agony of boredom in the summertime. Fortunately I got a call on Sunday evening from Robert’s parents for an invitation to go ride over to the lake and stay a couple of days. I accepted, knowing fully well that I would have nothing else that I had to do that couple of days (besides play Grand Theft Auto, which is fun but very, very…uh, evil in ways). I was to be picked up on a sunny Monday morning and carried off into the wilderness. Unfortunately it was not sunny. It was a deep dark cloudy day when we arrived at the cabins on Deer Lake, the rain was falling at a misty, gentle pace.

Well, rainy day, no sun, time for video games! We strike out the GameCube and stash in the Super Smash Bros. Melee. Needless to say, I was the reigning superior of that game during our entire stay. Robert only beat me twice (or possibly three times) for the 40+ games that we played. But if that was all we did, it would have been boring. Unfortunately, that was pretty much all we did.

Of course, we did go out on the boat a couple of times as well, Robert drove and hit some power waves making the boat go airborne. Then he gave me the wheel and I let loose. Not only did we hit power waves, but after going airborne about five feet, we landed with a thud. A couple of bones in my back cracked, but nothing serious, so we continued on. Then I decided to hit the waves sideways, so I wouldn’t go through them, but rather “with” them. This is accomplished by riding to the waves and then turning sharply right before you hit them, so you’re coming into them sideways. Needless to say, it put the boat at a good forty-five+ degree angle before we hit the waves, and a sixty-five+ afterwards, a bit more power into the waves and we might have tipped over – I’m not sure about it, so I’ll try it a bit later when I return, k Robby?

Other events included watching MST3K episodes and overusing internet abbreviations to the point of annoyance, but only by one person, ahem – zOMG. Well, it could have been worse, since last year it was LOL, over and over and over. And the knock-knock jokes were overwhelmingly “AHH I’M GONNA BASH YOUR HEAD IN WITH A BASEBALL BAT IF YOU SAY ONE MORE KNOCK-KNOCK LINE!!!” Yeah.

Another event was the walking of 3.5 miles to the candy shop when it was only .25 miles away. Robert’s mom had made us walk the distance before we could enter the sweets parlor and we did, I being the only one that was really not objecting to it. Considering that there was only one other person with me, who came chalk-full of knock knock jokes, I really wanted to run those 3.5 miles. Unfortunately, I was (and still am) terribly out of shape with Track having ended more than a month ago, so I had to walk along side of the unidentified mysterious person and hear the zOMG and knock-knock jokes. It wasn’t really all that bad until a stupid dog started following us. Robert decided to try to lure the dog into the lake by throwing rocks into it and seeing if the dog would go after them. It worked, but the dog always came back. Then I had the bright idea of having the dog go away by simply telling it to go away – directly. It works for humans (mostly), so why not on dogs? And it worked, as the dog dropped its tail and ran off for home. We finally reached the candy shop, bought the candy, and headed back for camp where we gobbled down the goodies while I kept on beating Robert in Super Smash Bros.

On the first night, I had a very mysterious dream, maybe it was from the candy that I had eaten, or something else, but it was just wired. I had a dream about the place I was in before that night, it was in a hotel with red carpeting and goldish railing. The first time I dreamt about this place, I was exploring the premises and entered a room – which I believe was my room. Somehow, I ended up being chased by the cops to the top of the building and having a shootout there. I won, headed down to the ground floor, and woke up. The second time I was in this place was in my dream on that night – same hotel, same color, same guy standing in the front of the hotel. I was first in one of the upper rooms (by upper, I mean floors, I think it was the 7th story since it was either room 705 or 750, I remember the rooms all had numbers on them). I was helping out Robert’s mom with a computer problem she was having – she asked me how to do a tab space thingy for multiple lines on the Word97 program she was using (I find it a bit odd that I remember the dream in these details). The document was like one for a test, there were numbers going down the page with questions right beside them and she wanted the numbers and questions to all have at least a “tab” of space in between them. I never ended up showing her or fixing the problem as I wandered off to another room on the same story. Some people were having a party in one of the rooms and I decided not to stop by and continue. Down the stairs I went until about the third or fourth floor I see an open door, and inside is a toddler looking at me with wide open eyes – blue as I remember them, and he was wearing overalls. His hair, although limited, was a lighter blondish color. I found the sight to be rather disturbing and I went down a couple of more flights of stairs till I reached the bottom. To my left was a coffee shop and I headed inside. There were two divisions in the shop, one was right when you entered, the main shop, which had a counter/bar (with no stools) having a greenish color and a big coffee brewery machine several feet behind it. In between was a lady who was making coffee and was walking around the area. The other division was the coffee drinking place, adorned with round tables and such, for “in the house” orders. Walking out of the second division, I saw a black man, almost like Torgo (from “Manos – The Hands of Fate”) looking at me. He lifted his arm and almost in a spasm-like motion, the arm shaked a couple of times. And then he grabbed me by the throat and started choking me. Of course, the lady attending the counter just had to turn away at that moment to go and brew some coffee so I was left defenseless. In a final attempt, I screamed out “Help” and woke up, waking up Robert as well. I found the edge of my sleeping bag had covered my throat, not enough to choke me or restrain my breathing in any way, but to put a slight pressure upon my throat just enough to let me feel a “choking” sensation. Ugh, it was weird. That’s all.

Today, I just got back to my house and am going to return to the cabins tomorrow for the 4th of July weekend celebration thing. Hopefully, I’ll survive a couple of more days of knock-knocks.

I guess this is another way of saying what this site is really here for. Some people might not understand the concept fully, so I’ll attempt to clarify it a bit.

This site, and the corporation behind it (Austrian Alex and Reality Corp.), is all a collective journal or “diary” as some might call it about the life of Alex C. What I see in life that’s interesting, and if I have the time to write it out on my blog (or the motivation to do so, usually both simultaneously), I’ll write down. No real point in censoring the content, although it is safe to read for the most part, it just might feel like you’re reading into someone’s personal life. Well, you are, but I could care less, or else I wouldn’t have put it online, so don’t feel too bad. In essence, the purpose of this site is to entertain in a way. Weird way. If you don’t feel entertained, well…that’s ok, too. Some posts may be surprising, some may be boring, and some may make you want to go out and go back in, for whatever reason that might be.

To those who have been around the internet a little, I’ll summarize the whole paragraph above into a single phrase: This is a blog!

One more thing I wanted to mention – you may have noticed all the advertisements everywhere. Well, so did I. They just kind of popped out of nowhere all of a sudden. I apologize, but the hosting service must have found another way to fund itself. Domain names aren’t “totally” free after all, but that’s one of the only reasons I keep my site here for now. Hopefully I can transfer my domain name somewhere else and host my site at that somewhere else, but for now, try to not pay attention to the ads.

-Reality Corp.