I reject your reality, and substitute my own.

Moving Hosts

2010-09-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

http://amhou.wordpress.com/

Soon, this page will automatically direct you to the new site.

Projecting

2010-09-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

How many times can I get on a project before I call it good? How many times can I fall before I finally give up? How much effort will I put into a climb to make progression?

This summer, I set a goal to climb .12a, 7a+, E5, VIII+, V4 highball, whatever you want to call it. I believe that the lofty grade of .12 is a breakthrough grade for any self-respecting rock climber, a point at which they can finally call themselves a real participant of the sport. But until recently, I have been intimidated to even attempt anything that hard, for fear of being shut down and making no progress.

The local climbing crew from Olympia has been nothing short of inspiring and motivating, and last Thursday Jimmy and Micah pushed me to give a try on Rainy Day Women, the .12a testpiece at Little Si. It's a climb that's kind of a coming of age for the crag, a gateway that opens up all the harder projects on the wall. Last Thursday, without ever giving it a top rope burn, I hopped on to lead the climb, falling low then working out the beta bolt to bolt. I was inspired, and psyched out of my mind. Suddenly, the .12a monster didn't seem so great, and didn't seem so difficult to achieve.

Monday rolled around. We hiked back up to the wall. Dom put up the draws for me. After a quick warm-up on Aborigine, I got on the project. I climbed through the lower bulge, took a big rest, chugged up towards the second rest at the good jugs, thrusted upwards, and pumped out just below the last crux! I took the hang, and finished it up in good style for the elusive one-fall. I was psyched out of my mind, having been able to one-fall my project after just one burn.

Half an hour later, I got back on. Made it through the crux, got to the next clip. Then blew it because the carabiner was facing the wrong direction, and fell off trying to clip. One-falled it again.

Third burn of the day. Made the clip. Hit the good sidepull. Gaston, cross for the jug, and MY HAND SLIPPED. I let out a yell that I'm sure people heard in the parking lot below. Dejected and disappointed, I pulled through for my third one-fall of the day.

I should be happy. I made progression on each attempt, and really cannot possibly be closer to achieving my goal. But I am with a heavy heart, for the feeling of failure cast a dark cloud over me on the entire hike down. I hate leaving business unfinished. But at the same time, having a project to return to has left me inspired. How can I not be inspired with so many people climbing so hard around me? Dom warmed up on my project, a stout climb that requires some guts to get on so early in the day. Jimmy got a fourth repeat of Chronic (.13b), arguably the most well known climb on the wall. Micah had a phenomenal day, linking up Technorigine (.12c), Psychosomatic (.12d), and Californicator (.12d) all in one day, coming painfully close to sending Californication (.13a). This is what it's all about - trying hard and coming back.

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday. This project's going DOWN.

Trying to Grow Up

2010-07-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

I am currently staffing at the Boy Scout National Jamboree at Fort AP Hill, Virginia. It's going to be a wild experience, as this is the 100th anniversary of Scouting in America. As a 20 year old, I am accustomed to serving as adult staff at many different BSA events, rather than as a youth. Typically, this involves sleeping in a cabin with old men, with lots of stretchy and wrinkly parts.

But since this is the National Jamboree, there is a very high concentration of young adults (18 years and up) here. In my tent, there are 9 other people who are all 18 to 19 years of age. And I don't understand why they're all trying to grow up so fast.

They're all talking about what their summer jobs are, trying to compete over who makes more money, about who got into a more prestigious college for the fall, over who has a hotter girlfriend, over who's man enough to try and sneak a smoke in the woods, over who's ever hit a blunt of weed, over who drives the fastest car, over who's gonna get away with the least amount of work while staffing this camp. The verbal pissing match is wearing me thin. I spend as little time as possible in my tent.

I'm here for fun. For a relaxation from worldly responsibility. To focus on what's important: bringing Scouting to 50,000 visitors at this Jamboree. I play games, work hard, eat good food, and get excited for the next few days as we prepare for kickoff on the 26th.

Being here is like being a kid in Scouts again. I don't want to grow up so fast.

Making Up For Lost Time

2010-06-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

Way back in February, I was more than stoked to head out to Little Si and hit the ropes. It was a bright, sunny day, with temperatures well into the mid 60's. I on-sighted Violent Phlegms (5.11b), and was sure that this was an exciting beginning to a very long summer climbing season.

And then, Washington decided that it was instead a nice time for winter to catch up.

The following months just saw weekend after weekend of rain and poor weather. In between February and mid-June, I was able to get outside a total of two more times. Adding to the chronic pain was the constant build-up of school and research, including the preparation of a poster for a national conference in Anaheim, California. With all the needs and responsibilities of the world surrounding me, even my climbing gym sessions totaled less than ten times. However, all of this was rectified as of last week by this:

Smith Rock State Park

Jessica, Kevin, and I trucked the five hours down to Terrebonne, Oregon last Monday, staying until Friday afternoon. A fourth was to join us on Tuesday afternoon, but unfortunately was unable to make it. Regardless, we had a great time. After some mild adventure on the way down (including McDonald's breakfast and falling asleep at the wheel) we pulled into the parking lot of Smith Rock State Park right around noon. The camping facilities there are amazing compared to most camping/climbing locations. Running water, hot showers, and clean bathrooms were all readily available within 100 yards of the tent sites. Town was a mere 3 miles from camp, so a grocery store and restaurants were also minutes away. With the responsibilities of the world behind me, I was more than ready to kick back and enjoy five solid days of beautiful climbing.

After some quick sandwiches, we headed down into the gorge to see how much skin we could lose on the first day. Armed with the 1992 first edition of the Smith Rock guidebook and asking lots of directions (shhh...insider beta: GET THE NEW EDITION), we found ourselves at the base of the most popular route in Smith: Five Gallon Buckets (5.8). Surprisingly, only one other party occupied the popular Morning Glory Wall with us, and we were able to hop right onto the route. Thanks to our mid-week climbing trip, we actually didn't have to wait for any routes at all for the entire week. After getting over the hollow rock (it's solid, I swear) and figuring out the technical high-step nature of the volcanic tuff, I found myself warmed up and ready to try harder things.

Jessica at the top of Five Gallon Buckets (5.8)

Some fun, intermediate .10's later, I found myself at the base of Zebra Direct, a super classic 5.11a right up the middle of Morning Glory Wall. Appearing to be more featured than the rest of the face, I was quickly surprised and pumped at the super delicate crimps and side-pulls required to ascend the route. A lower crux with the first bolt at about 15 feet up was not very helpful either. After pitching just above the second bolt, I made it up to the chains with the beta figured out, ready to give it another go. Kevin, the local wunderkind that's been seriously climbing for less than 9 months, gave it his all and came out with a cool flash of .11a on his first day sport climbing outside ever. Awesome, yet disgusting at the same time. His send got the train started, and I hopped on right behind for the second-go. A beautiful line, that everyone should definitely try.

Zebra Direct (5.11a)

The top half of the route exits through some fun, easy bucket climbing. On the last bolt just before the anchors, I was reminded why even on such high trafficked rock, you must always be prepared for the possibility of disaster. With just a light tap of the foot, I shifted and dislodged a block of stone that easily weighed 10 pounds. Fortunately, it stayed put and didn't fall. Quickly warning everyone to back far away from the wall, I finished the route (not about to give up my red-point) and set up my rappel. Fearing that someone would attempt to pull on the block, I brought it down with me back to the ground, looking as if I was bringing the Ten Commandments down from the mountainside.

The next few days continued similarly, with many beautiful 5.10's, a few easy but super fun trad lines, and some more difficult 5.11's. Smith is surprisingly skin-friendly, with the soft rock allowing hours and hours of climbing every day without turning the fingertips raw. I managed a tricky on-sight of More Sandy Than Kevin (5.11a), which got me super excited. Kevin came super close to flashing as well, sticking the crux moves before pumping out at the very end. Regardless, super fun climbing and great company was plentiful. It was also great to gain perspective on climbing ability at the same time. While I was on Nine Gallon Buckets (5.10c to the third anchors), Matt Spohn of Mad Rock Climbing was just 100 feet to the right of me, running laps on Churning in the Wake (5.13a). Yet we were all just having a great time, pushing personal boundaries rather than chasing numbers. That little number is a fun way to quantify my improvement while climbing, yet as long as I'm having a great time, I'd rather climb 5.8's and .9's all day outside than to be stuck inside a cubicle.

Kevin pulling hard on a near flash of More Sandy Than Kevin (5.11a)

Blue Light Special (5.11b), the one that got away

In an effort to get stronger, Kevin and I spent some time throwing ourselves on Latin Lover (5.12a), and getting spat off super hard in return. Great movement was consistent throughout the route, but the small crimps, side-pulls, and pebble-pinches continued to get smaller and smaller until I felt as if I was pulling on the edge of an envelope. Even though we both eventually made it to the chains, we agreed that Smith is a very difficult place to push grades, and that Latin Lover would have to wait for another day when our skin was fresh and our fingers were strong.

Latin Lover (5.12a) not lovin' back

Wednesday met us with some light but consistent rain throughout the day, so we headed into town to find some entertainment. A climbing store, two grocery stores, a post office, a hardware shop, a hair salon, and a quilting supply shop later, we found ourselves having happy hour food at the Terrebonne Depot. Between the hours of 3-6 pm, all climbers in the area should definitely make the the Depot a regular destination. Since we're known as phenomenally cheap people, a $5 pizza satiates both the stomach and the wallet. And it was just the right amount of energy to get us back on the wall in the evening as the skies finally opened up.

On Friday, I hooked up with a friend Matt whom I had met in the campsite to head up the ol' Pioneer Route (5.7 A1) of Monkey Face. A 350 foot spire of rock with a simian appearance on the peak, Monkey Face is a classic multi-pitch not to be missed. I led my first bolt ladder that day, while also seconding on probably the most mind blowing traverse I have ever done, a 5.9 thin and hairy move out and towards the summit, with nothing but air underneath you. A short but sweet climb, we finished the 3 pitches in around an hour and forty minutes of climbing. The local dirt-bag who lives in the campsite just recently set the free-solo speed record of the Pioneer Route, finishing the same climb we did in a mere 7 minutes and 43 seconds. Graciously, he left the fixed rope he used to get down for others to rappel off the top, allowing us to do a 300 foot free hanging rappel all the way to the base of the Monkey.

The top of the first pitch

Leading the A1 bolt ladder

Matt following into the mouth of the Monkey

Rappelling off the summit

Five days later, and I found myself back in Olympia, more psyched than ever. Smith is a little slice of heaven nestled away right in our corner of the country, and I hope to find myself there again and again. More pleasant company couldn't have been had, and such good climbing is found in places few and far in between.

Notice that I am in a surprising amount of photos that I have posted, a rarity for climbers who normally end up photographing others. For this, I cannot thank Jessica enough, who spent the majority of the trip taking over a thousand photographs of me, Kevin, other climbers, rocks, lizards, and llamas.

Texas voting

2009-09-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

I realize that the election has been past for over nearly nine months already. There are no longer any votes to be tallied, no more Presidential candidates TV commercials to be aired, nor any more conventions and rallies to attend. Even though the season is over, politics are still firmly engrained into the Americain mind.

I was touring the Stockyards of Fort Worth, Texas this afternoon, enjoying the sights of an area formally devoted to the exchange and sale of hundreds of thousands of heads of livestock a year. Now, in this era of auctions and computers, the Stockards have been rendered obsolete. Insead of cattle, they now welcome tourists year round who wish to experience some of Texas' agricultural history. Pens that used to hold sheep and swine have been converted into shopping areas and eateries.

In the corner of one of these areas was a little bookstore, specializing in used volumes of Texan lore. Books about cowboys, Jesse James, and combine harvesters lined old dusty shelves. An elder gentleman sat behind a glass counter, shooting the wind with another senior citizen outfitted in the garb of a true native Texan. Honestly, the books were of little interest to me. As most students will understand, there is little time for recreational reading during the school year anyway. What laid under the glass counter that he man was leaning on caught me eye, though.

Political buttons of many generations of American history laid there in protective cases. Experiencing the last election as a student on a large college campus was very exciting. It was easy to get caught in the wave of rallies, parties, and campaigning that was at the University of Washington. Somewhere in a drawer in my room, I still have a collection of stickers, buttons, and posters. And here was a collection that spanned not only the last election, but all the way back to Kennedy.

I couldn't help myself. I bought a "George Bush for President '88" button. It will join the ranks of many other buttons on the strap of my book bag. I feel like I am safer from the wrath of people who did not support Bush senior, being that most of he political activist on camps were just born during that area. As I placed he button on my bag, the two older gentleman engaged me in an excited discussion of past Presidential candidates. As I had chosen a button from an extensive collection, it would make sense that I would be familiar with all of he candidates in the glass case, wouldn't it? I believe that both gentleman forgot they were speaking to a man of much fewer years than they, as they debated with me the effectiveness of Spiro Agnew as a vice President, and whether or not Ross Perot's stand on healthcare was still applicable now. I smiled, nodded, and tried to paricipate in the conversation that began to drift to simply between he both of them.

Both men were obviously politically active in this past era. And in '88, both men voted for Bush.

The University Way

2008-10-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

So I have to say, living on a college campus is something else. Staying in a dormitory is quite amusing; about forty people on my floor that mill about during all hours of the day and night. Certain people are only available at certain hours - most likely, my roommate can be found in the early afternoons and late evenings, while either studying or watching his new obsession - Firefly. My girlfriend likes to be up in the mornings, so if you want to get a hold of Jessica, be at her door between 10:30 and 12:30. I'm generally at home from 10:30 - 1:30, and after 5, my breaks between classes. There will almost always be someone in the lounge watching TV, though.

Living with forty random people is kind of like flipping a coin forty times. If you're lucky, all of them will be great, and none will rub you the wrong way. Generally, the mean edges towards a few that you really like, a majority of which you just don't speak to, and a few that make you feel like living in the dorms is akin to picking the most whiny people you have known your entire life and compressing them into one person that just happens to live next door. I got a mix of each.

My roommate is a pretty neat guy. Even though it's election year, his political views have been wisely hushed in order to avoid dramatic conversations. Apparently he's well known on this floor already - his nickname is "Naked", in reference to his lack of shirts while walking through the hallways. He likes mostly organic foods, listens to funny music, and has a preference for very loudly crunching cereal. We're living together pretty comfortably, though some issues have arisen. As good a match as we are, the cereal has become a problem. Kashi designed their food to be healthy, not to be quiet. When my first class isn't until 11:30 on Fridays, my roommate's crunching can sound like his molars are jackhammers on cheap plywood. Which is my opinion on how his cereal tastes, but that's not my job to judge. We go to church and hit the climbing gym together, though, so I suppose all is forgiven.

There are lots of people on my floor whom I am acquaintances with. I don't know them very well. This empty paragraph symbolizes the lack of knowledge about my newly found friends. Until I can acquire more information and develop my own ideas, there's very little I can say about them. Yeah, that's what they teach you in English Composition 1.

Then of course, there's that one guy. Our introductions were quite droll. My neighbor knocked on my door and asked:

"Andrew, will you do me a huge favor??"

"..."

"Can I keep all my stuff in your fridge?"

I'm not sure how to respond to a question like that. A Residence Hall at the University of Washington is not a very private place to live, so any semblance of personal space is closely guarded. My fridge is hidden away in my closet, away from prying eyes and mooching hands, and is also shielded by a laundry basket of dirty clothes. If my new neighbor thinks it's perfectly normal to enter my room every morning to pour himself some milk to have with his cookies, I think a discussion on boundaries should be held. This was one request that I did not have to discuss with my roommate before I gave an answer.

Other than that, living here isn't half bad. The food's expensive, the appliances are cheap, and the lounge doesn't always stay clean. But hey, college is the best years of my life, right? I love it.

thinkandrew

Pulau Redang

2008-06-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm kickin' it back in South East Asia right now. Eating local food, visiting friends, and all in all becoming a little brown boy as the sun shines hotly on 4 degrees north of the equator.

Life seems to go at both a slower and faster pace over here. There's not a time in the day when I can't find someone that's willing to sit down at the nearest hawker market, drink some tea, eat some noodles, and talk about life, politics, music, or whatnot. But when we cross the street back home, you've gotta have not only eyes in the back of your head, but on each side too, for motorcycles and rogue compact cars will barrel down the tiny gap between trucks and the curb. If you don't want to get hit, you've got to have your sixth sense aware.

But there's still time to sit in a hammock, with sandals on, and stare out into the beach.

thinkandrew

It's all planned

2008-06-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

I was extremely disappointed when I wasn't given a spot on the Mount Rainier climb that was scheduled to go up last weekend.

For the past few years, it's been my goal to climb Mount Rainier on the summer of my 18th birthday. Sort of like a culminating project of school, scouts, and all the bruhaha that goes along with the 18th year, I imagined a summit of Rainier as sort of a crowning achievement to all that I've done. Originally, the plan was the pay the some $800 ridiculous fee offered by various guiding services for a shepherded trip. That plan had many holes in it to begin with, starting with an obvious lack of fundage. However, upon joining the Mountaineers (Boy Scouts for big boys), a whole new world of trips were opened up.

There was a trip scheduled for June 6-7, last weekend. I was psyched beyond psyched to sign up for it, and called the leader. It was to be led by someone from the Seattle branch of the Mountaineers, rather than from the Olympia branch, so I'd not met this man in person. However, upon calling him, I was told that "I really just made this trip for my friends in Seattle. So thanks for telling me, I'm closing registration now." More than a little miffed, I disappointedly resigned myself to a weekend of no climbing.

Come Saturday, the rain began to pour and pour and pour. The snow level dropped to 3,300 feet. Looking out the window at the torrent of water flooding our driveway, I was very happy not to be climbing at that moment. Miserable is not a word sufficient enough to describe how I would have been feeling if I had been in the middle of clipping onto a fixed-line on Disappointment Cleaver, soaked to the bone. I decided then and there that God was watching out for me, and hadn't let me gone on that trip on purpose. Either that or it was retribution to the Seattlites for not allowing me on their trip. Just kidding.

So when my July 18-20 trip to Eldorado Peak was canceled due to leader injury, I had mixed feelings. I wasn't sure if God had something better in store for me, as it's kind of hard to imagine that such a great coincidence could happen after being disappointed by trip cancellations twice in a week. However, things are planned more in advance than I thought.

Just ten minutes ago, I received an e-mail with an updated climb list offered by the Olympia Branch this summer. Mr. R, my favorite instructor in the Mountaineers, with whom I also go to church with, is leading a Mt. Rainier summit climb on July 18-19! Seems as if someone was watching out for me all along, letting me get on a trip with good company and fair weather. I'm very excited.

thinkandrew

Birthday! - Part 2

2008-05-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

Thomas generally doesn't wake up until 12 noon on LAN weekends; most of his evenings involve a lot of fragging anyways. So when given the opportunity, he'll sleep until lunch time. The rest of us, seeking to maximize gaming time, were up and running Crysis by 9 am. Which is really kind of ridiculous when you think about it, but hey, it's a birthday party, and I'll do whatever I want.

Gaming time was drawing to a close by around 11 am, though. A hearty brunch was sitting on the dinner table upstairs, and once the meal was done, it would be time to pack up our computing hardware. I think it's important to note at this time that my mom did an incredible job cooking, even with the amount of limitations placed on her. In the group of 8 guests I had over, three of them can't eat any pork, one is lactose intolerant, and one of them is allergic to a list of foods bigger than a stack of punch-cards for a 70's computer science grad student. But her food still received many praises, and leftovers were still popular during brunch. Not that the breakfast pizza, french pancakes, and quiche weren't all tasty as well. With 10 boys to feed, the more food the merrier.

Because climbing all day at Mount Rainier simply wasn't enough, I brought the party to go climbing all afternoon at the Warehouse Rock Gym as well. A bunch of geeks going out to go rock climbing was a pretty funny image, as we continuously made references to doing it "Sam Fisher/Logan Keller style" (Tom Clancey characters, from Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six respectively). It was a complete and total blast, climbing on all the routes in the gym. I never realized how big the Warehouse Rock Gym really was, until we fit so many of us in there comfortably, along with a few other people that trickled in on their own. Belaying each other, we never really had to worry about waiting our turn, as we could each just pair up with another and switch off on different routes. When our arms would get too fatigued to hold onto the wall, our belayer would start hoisting us up the face, giving the illusion of amazing skills.

Our given time slot was up at 3. If anyone ever needs a venue for any sort of party, I'd definitely recommend the Warehouse. It was an amazing time, and I think quite a few of us will be headed back there quite soon. However, that didn't turn out to be the end of our party. On the drive home, we were drawn to the side of the road by a myriad of tents and kayaks on the shores of Capital Lake. The Spring Outdoor Festival was in town, and letting people test out their kayaks for free! Within minutes, our little saunter around the lake turned into a fierce race, one that ended in many of us getting the seat of our pants wet. Fortunately, nothing capsized, even though some of us tried.

So the party consisted of so many things, that it was difficult to count. I guess if every day of my future years are as fun as the single day I had to celebrate my 18th, I'd be a pretty happy camper. Kudos to all who made it a great time for me, too. Thanks for coming!

thinkandrew

Birthday! - Part 1

2008-05-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

A pocket-knife and a comic book. What more could a guy ask for?

There's a myriad of things that I'm now able to do, since turning 18. I can go to a Federal Prison. I could buy cigarettes. I could gamble. I can sign my own liability-release waivers. I can get a credit card. Possibly most exciting, I can call the *must-be-18-years-or-older-to-call* phone numbers from late-night infomercials. I always wanted to own my own Bedazzler (tm)! A wonderful birthday, indeed.

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty crazy weekend, involving a 22 hour day, 12 computers, a rock wall, 8 kayaks, and one very tired dog. Having planned the weekend's events for almost a month, I was wildly anticipating it's coming. The entire event was split apart into two days. On Day 1, I woke up at 5 am, and spent the entire morning and afternoon at Mount Rainier National Park. With the Olympia Mountaineers, I was practicing Z-Pulley rescues. To put it simply, I would jump over a cliff, and three guys would pull me up by using a 3-to-1 mechanical advantage pulley system. In the mean time, I would just hang by my harness in the air. It took a few minutes before I realized that I could reach into my pack, after which I began eating my sandwich. Climbers not doing anything threw pieces of chocolate down to me, and I picked up some giant icicles. It's a heck lot of fun, and I came back tanned, even though clouds were sitting on the mountain all day.

Just as I got home, the guys showed up in our driveway. My friend Jessica and her fruit salad were already there, when a bad-smelling Acura and an old station-wagon pulled in. Over about half an hour, we hauled in 10 computers, an extra table, and network hardwear for all. Adding in my own computer, we were sitting at 11 Crysis-compatible PC's and 12 people to share it among. Throw in a brand new video game (Rainbow Six: Vegas 2) that I got for my birthday, along with 6 pounds of gummy-bears, and we had a recipe for an amazing night. After an incredible dinner and cake, we were ready to dig in. Bear in mind that by that time, it was my 16th hour of being awake.

It's a funny thing. Every time I go to a LAN party, we end up playing slow-moving Real Time Strategy games that have as much excitement as peanut butter on stale bread. Creamy peanut butter, not chunky. But being my birthday party, I had the honor of choosing the games that we were playing, a responsibility that I did not take lightly. Vegas 2 was followed by Unreal Tournament 3, which lead to Battlefield 2 and Savage. In the morning, we were rolling out Crysis before we packed up all of the hardwear. I think we converted my mom into a LAN-believer: she actually stayed up until midnight, watching us game. Jessica left around that time, the two women ready to go to bed.

I believe the official time that Andrew went to bed was around 3:30, too gamed-out to continue the mindless clicking. The other 7 people trawled on until 6:30 in the morning, playing Savage non-stop. But just like then, the story won't continue until the next day. I'm going to sleep now, too.

thinkandrew

Moon

2008-02-13T23:12:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here, staring at the moon. It's staring back at me, in a somewhat sleepy state. It's eyelid is half closed, giving me the impression of drowsiness. Perhaps he's just as tired as I am. Tired of this day, tired of certain people, tired of the crap that happens in this world. Every discussion in my Multicultural America class turns into a political debate, whether it's against Christians or against Republicans. The moon might be angry because of people not taking care of this Earth we live on, dumping raw sewage into oceans, and letting people live on the streets. It's a sad state of affairs.

But I'm also happy! I'm exuberant beyond belief! God has given us this short time of our lives, and we have to do with it whatever we can. Relationships grow and flower, academic work leads to work worth doing, and I'm going camping this weekend to explore God's creation. The moon is happy because she sees how people across the world are gathering in prayer, how charities are giving their time and resources freely to those in need, and even because of the joy of a child that receives his first puppy.

The moon's shining brightly tonight.

thinkandrew

The U.S. of A.

2008-02-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

In response to discussions from my Multicultural America Class, which will be elaborated further on.

I'll be the first to admit. Our country isn't perfect. It was based on perfect ideals, but, as human nature goes, things fell through. People fell victim to racism, prejudice, and vast discrimination. Japanese were placed in Internment camps, Blacks were lynched, Native Americans were placed in Reservations, and even many whites fell victim to their own ignorance.

However, I think it is completely unfair for someone to say that America is a terrible country, that we don't believe in freedom anymore, or that "if so-and-so is elected President, I'm moving to Canada". We're a country based on freedom, and we've still got it. It's repressed in some areas, but it's still there.

Where else are you going to be able to speak out against the government in such a fashion? I've lived overseas for over half my life, so much of my experiences are first hand. In Malaysia, the government has become increasingly afraid of people's outspoken beliefs, a freedom of speech that is so widely exercised in this
country. The G-men have jailed political activists, and the Federally-supported newspaper sued a blogger for slander, in reaction to unfavorable posts towards their articles. One government official is even suggesting that Malaysia-based bloggers should have to register, putting their content to the subject of filters that can
remove anything deemed "un-print-worthy". With MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Xanga, and many more, there is an unlimited amount of resources for us, Americans, to speak out not only against our country, but against any country in the world. And we're not being pulled out of our homes by the police while we're at it.

Freedom of religion? That's a heavy argument. Supposedly, religion is oppressed throughout this country, with society blocking out beliefs that aren't widely accepted. This may be true, that society is not completely open sometimes. But when has this ever not been true? Has there ever been a people that was so widely accepting of everything different from themselves, with absolutely no prejudice towards them? There is no such record in history, I guarantee it. Sure, Islamics and
Buddhists are not that widely represented in the United States, at least not in the favorable light that other beliefs are. But if you practice Christianity in certain parts of China, you'll go to jail for it. Pastors are being beat up. In parts of the Former Soviet Union, Islamics or Christians face much more prejudice than any sort that we experience here. Be happy with the bowl of soup you've got, cuz ain't
nobody gonna give you the ladle.

One more note on the topic of religion. I believe one of the rules that we suggested for the "safety for classroom discussion" was to argue points, not people? To single out a certain culture or people as "f****d up and selfish" certainly seems like the very prejudice that our class is preaching against. It's not worth it, really.

History is to be learned from, so not as to be repeated. However, History should never be resented, either. Because of a man's mistake two hundred years ago, we suddenly find ourselves justified to declare him completely and morally bankrupt, with no place in being a hero of our country. But history is what it is, the past. Don't hate it. It's made our country what it is today. And I'm pretty sure the people that decided that Andrew Jackson would be on the $20 bill were fairly educated people, and aware that he was responsible for the Indian Wars. He's still a war hero, even though he did bad things. He saved us from the British during the War of 1812. I'm pretty sure we don't say that America was prejudiced and racist towards England.

The United States of America is a proud nation, a nation that is said to protect and defend, to welcome and shelter, and to serve its people. It doesn't always do that, but that doesn't mean that we resent it for what it is. We praise it for trying, and praise it as the mother of over 300 million people. You don't like the way this country is run? You've got it better here than anywhere else in the world, I guarantee it. Nobody I knew moved to Canada after the last election.

thinkandrew

Instant Messaging

2008-01-31T22:21:00.000-08:00

Morning Andrew. It is now in Singapore 12:30 midnight the beginning of Feb 1st (or 8am in the morning of Jan 31 in Seattle). Correct? I am going to sleep now, looking forward to read your IM at 8 am of Feb 1st in Singapore(4 pm of Jan 31st in Seattle).

Yes, Grandpa, I look forward to speaking to you too.

Andrew: sorry I am late to write to you. I was having my lunch when I spoke to you over the phone. Now my lunch is over.

It is alright, I forgive you for eating your lunch.

To ensure that we always get his messages, he will call us on the phone from his residence in Singapore. He will call us one time before sending the message, to inform us that one is on its way. Then he will call us again during the conversation, to ensure that we are receiving everything he has said. And when we're done talking, he'll call a third time to make sure that we know that the conversation is now over. After all, the Inter-web (as he calls it) is different in Singapore than it is in the United States, so we might get different messages.

Once a University professor, always a University professor I suppose. We introduced my Grandpa to Instant Messaging a few years ago, and I don't think he's quite fully incorporated into the l337 sp34k1ng h4x0r cul7ur3. However, if anything, he is very very polite. We love him for it.

I called my grandpa this evening, because I didn't receive the message he had promised earlier in the day. He's a little hard of hearing, so I had to speak very loudly at 11pm at night into the phone. It turns out that he had already sent one earlier, but due to a hiccup in cyberspace, I never received it. He said he'd send another one.

I waited for about ten minutes, and that one didn't show up either. I called him again, and he said:

Hold on! Hold on! I'm composing it right now, aah? You'll receive it in a few minutes, aaah?? Okay hold on! *click*

At this point, he hung up. It's been ten minutes, and I'm still waiting for his message.

thinkandrew

Drive

2008-01-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

You know, I'm not really sure why I suddenly lost the drive to blog. Life is tough. It's hard to keep up with everything, and something had to slide. It seemed that I'd get hit with a really hard day just about once a week, a day where I'd be S.O.L. (look that one up yourself). I suppose at one point in time, so many of those days happened in a row that I simply stopped blogging. I just didn't care anymore. It's a loss to the world, perhaps. But it's definitely a loss to me.

The words just stopped flowing. My head got chocked up with English research projects, math assignments, programming projects, and Chemistry post-laps. I just simply couldn't do everything. It's too cold outside, or I'd go on a bike ride to clear my mind. Right this very moment. Maybe even try those new bike clothes I bought two weeks ago.

But I feel better now. Today was one of those hard days, but I got past it, and I'll be alright for the rest of the week. My headache is prevalent right now, but it will pass. I have so much to look forward to. I applied to the University of Washington and Harvey Mudd College, and am awaiting their reply. I've applied to three different scholarships, in hope of paying for my education. The Chilly Hilly Bicycle Classic is coming up in February, and the STP in July. I'm returning to Philmont in July, and Superbowl XLII is in two weeks! I totally pegged it, too, a Patriots vs. Giants game. The Patriots are going to win, no doubt.

Perhaps I'll return to my place to type, my place to rant, my place to write. It's good for me. It's therapeutic. I love it. And I'm back.

thinkandrew

Revoke It

2007-12-30T15:53:00.000-08:00

Remember that hubbub about Hannah Montana? The Emmy-Award nominated tv-show? It's a kid's show on the Disney Channel, about a thirteen year-old average girl that just happens to be a superstar pop icon at night. No one at school knows about it, other than her best friends and closest family. I remember when it came out last year - a funny show at times, but generally very annoying. But then again, it's geared towards young girls, not towards 17 year-olds in high school. In spite of my opinion, the show has become wildly successful, with a national tour of the "actual Hannah Montana in concert". It's so popular that entire concerts of over 17,000 people sold out in less than ten minutes after tickets went on sale, all to girls under the age of 15. The average re-sale value of a ticket soared to hundreds of dollars, some even selling at prices above one thousand. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

Well, if the public is willing to pay.

Of course, it's not uncommon for some lucky girl to get the chance to go to such a wonderful event for free. A deserving girl it was this time, a girl who won four tickets and airplane-fare in an essay competition. Her essay was heartbreaking, starting with the sentence "My daddy died this year in Iraq." I'm sure that she, her mother, and two of her closest friends will be completely thrilled.

Only problem is, she lied.

She has no father that died in Iraq. Her essay was a fake from start to finish, and "'"we did the essay and that's what we did to win,'" Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. 'We did whatever we could do to win.'" The girl is 6 years old.

It's unbelievable that a mother would condone a blatant lie simply to give her daughter the opportunity to attend a frivolous concert. Sure, the girl probably loves the fact that she got four tickets, but doesn't it bother her conscience at all that she lied? Maybe some other girl wrote an essay on the same subject, but was not nearly as coherent in her writing. Wouldn't she be the more deserving one? In future years, will a lying girl continue the cycle, just imagining that she can get whatever she wants? It's not unlikely. Survival of the fittest, to be sure.

I suspect, though, that the daughter didn't pen the essay. I don't think she even knew that she entered the competition. Most 6 year-olds don't have the capacity to lie at such a level, or to handle so much attention. The mother, on the other hand, seems to think it's perfectly alright to lie for her daughter. She's an egomaniac, believing that her daughter can have whatever she wants, even at others' expense. When questioned by news reporters, the mother responded: "No comment."

Society believes in entitlement. The competition was open and free, and if the system can be worked around, why shouldn't I? Everything that I'm capable of doing should benefit me. Now go have fun at that concert.

But the organizers are considering revoking the tickets. Good for them.

thinkandrew

Scratch

2007-12-28T22:04:00.000-08:00

I've never built a house. And neither has my friend's father. But I suppose a three-car two-story garage certainly counts for something. It's really quite a marvel, my friend's dad built the entire thing from ground up, with only help from his family and a buddy. The foundation was poured by a contractor, but he even wired and put plumbing into the darned thing. A studio apartment is just being completed in the upstairs, and insulation and drywall is being installed downstairs.

I helped put up the bales of fiberglass insulation this afternoon.

Which is why my chin feels like it's breaking out in peach-fuzz itchiness. I was wearing long sleeves and a turtleneck, so the fiberglass wasn't able to irritate anything else, except for my exposed chin. It's protrusion is very useful to help hold stuff up against a wall, but fiberglass has a tendency to leave little splinters that itch like mad.

But I will not scratch.

thinkandrew

White

2007-12-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

I got to Level 18 in Tetris today!

No, that was not the high-light of my day.

Whenever people sing the carol "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas", they're really singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas except in Florida, around the equator, in the Caribbean, and any other warm place I know of." Generally, though, Olympia of Western Washington seems to be left out of that list of exclusives - we hardly ever get any snow, too. It seems ironic for us living here in Olympia. The Cascade Mountains are a mere two hours away, a mountain range of which Whistler is a part of. The news channels always speak of snow in Bellingham and the Seattle-area, but the snow flurries seem to avoid our little city at all costs. People dream of a white Christmas, for sure.

Feh. It never happens.

Which is why today probably blew the socks off of all the skeptics living in this wonderful town. It SNOWED, and it SNOWED ALL DAY. It stuck on the ground, sprinkled the roads with white, and provided a beautiful backdrop for our house's Christmas lights to shine off of. The wind blew, we were all warm in our house, and flurries whirled past our window from dawn 'til dusk. What a beautiful sight.

Do you know what I know?

He came down. Can you believe it?

thinkandrew

Christmas Eve and Pecan Nuts

2007-12-24T23:46:00.000-08:00

I had a piano recital the other day. My friend Jessica came to see me play, I was excited as can be expected. She really is such a thoughtful person. With the air at the temperature of general nip-iness, she rightly assumed that my hands would be cold. You know how that is, when you get your hands wet or something, and the water seems to freeze right through to your bones? Your joints seize up, and you can't hardly move your fingers at a pace faster than molasses. That's death to a pianist, and I was going right through that an hour before my recital. Anticipating such a possibility, Jessica brought me a hand-warmer. A big ball of something, slightly larger than a baseball, wrapped in wax-paper and aluminum foil was placed in my hands, and it's gentle warmth radiated into my knuckles and limbered them up. That ball certainly smelled good, too. I took it home with me, not really knowing what it was. When I opened it up, the big ball of sugar-roasted pecans rolled out, and I looked forward to lots of good snacking.

Unfortunately, by the time I had unwrapped it, the sugar had stiffened up, and the pecans retained their shape of an approximate baseball-sized lump. I put them in a bowl, left it on the kitchen counter, and presumed to think about it later. Apparently my mom was hungry that afternoon, so she peeked into my room, and asked:

"Andrew, can I stab your nuts?"

"...sure, mom."

thinkandrew

Merry Christmas

2007-12-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

It is a travesty, isn't it? Nearly an entire month's worth of inactivity, with not a single word nor photograph posted up on my blog. It's sad. I've been busy isn't really the proper excuse, what would be more correct is that I rearranged my priorities. Even though I wasn't posting anymore, most nights were still late ones - gaming, hangin', or more often than not, home-working (or home-funning, as my peers and I have named it). But the Quarter is over, the holidays have begun, and I think I've finally got that itch to write once again. My mom's been threatening to pen her own words on my blog as well, so that's quite a good incentive to prevent anything...embarrassing from being said. Besides, I really do like my blog.

There's tons of news to report, some of it interesting, not all of it worth reading about. We got a new puppy, but I've spoken of that before. It's his third week in our house now, and he's definitely become a permanent fixture. It seems to me that our puppy Oreo has more toys than I did when I was eleven weeks old, but I don't doubt that my parents love me every bit as much as this little fuzzy fur-ball that makes holes in the drywall when we're not looking. Oreo's basically taken over an entire bathroom - the floor is lined with newspaper for his use only. Nothing of value can be put on ground level anymore, his teething instincts are to chew on everything in sight. It's like having a baby in the house, and it's going to be like that for the next ten years at least. What a joy.

Christmas time is befalling us soon! With a sense of urgency, I finally convinced my family to put up our Christmas tree a week ago. It's always a toss-up between an artificial and a real tree; the latter requires someone to have the responsibility of watering it, and that responsibility invariably ends up with me. The artificial tree that we have as served us well, with over ten years of use. However, after setting it up, we realized that a six foot tree looks a whole lot bigger when you're only twelve years old. When you're almost as tall as the tree itself, that won't cut it. Dad and I then drove out to the nearest Christmas tree lot, where we picked out a beautiful Noble Fir and stuffed it in the back of our minivan. I drove home.

Singing is befitting of Christmas-time, is it not? I'm in a Men's Chorale now, ten people strong. We're not the best, nor do we have the loudest voice, but we can certainly dig into "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" for audiences that are hundreds large. We actually did perform at such a concert, an annual charity concert that is free to the public. I didn't expect that we'd get paid to do gigs, but I have lots of fun singing anyway. And please don't laugh, I do in fact have a lovely singing voice.

thinkandrew

SNOW!

2007-12-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

Baby, it's cold outside!

There is no mood more jovial than the one brought about when SNOW! begins falling from the sky! Western Washington is often bereft of such a privilege, but SNOW! flakes were floating down onto the ground all day today, and it stuck! Our driveway was laced with over two inches of snow, and the streets near our house were lined with abandoned cars that couldn't make it up the hill to the apartments on the summit. Egg-nog and Christmas Wreaths, that's the mood I'm in for right now. On the way back from helping a friend stuck at the bottom of our hill, I felt like a little kid, gazing upon all the beautiful lights strung up by some of our neighbors. We need some on our house too! I got home, ran up to the attic, and brought down the crates and crates of decorations. Being 10 o'clock at night, it was already too dark to begin decorating the inside, we'd never stop. Instead, I grabbed a ladder and strung up five strings of icicle lights on our house outside, all while being covered in white flakes.

Gosh, I love Christmas!

thinkandrew

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

There is truly much to be thankful for. There's family, friends, the opportunity and freedom that we have in this country, and even life itself. The sustenance of life is food of course, and there was no lacking of that this Thanksgiving holiday. When shopping for food on Tuesday evening, my mom commented that "the shelves looked like pictures from Poland before the end of the Communist Bloc", in the sense that nearly everything was gone. But even so, our table today was overflowed with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, green bean casserole, and stuffing, though the stuffing was cooked separately in a dish, I can't stomach the idea of food stuffed inside an avian body-cavity. All the food was wonderful, and a late lunch at 2pm left me digesting on the couch for many hours.

We can be thankful for puppies, too! My family has had a decidedly bad history with pets, we've never been terribly successful with them. Somehow, we always end up with sickly animals. Thus, we've never graduated to a pet larger than a hamster. Puppies were always on the list of wants, who couldn't want such an adorable pet? But years and years of my older brother and I asking simply didn't cut it, and we never got one. My older brother's in college now, and I'm graduating from high school. My younger, 13 year old brother asked for a puppy recently, and my dad said "sure, why not?" Go figure.

So, we have a new member of the family to be thankful for. His name is Oreo, due to the black coloring and the white socks and soul-patch. He's a MaltiPoo, a cross between a Maltese and a Toy Poodle. For the next 15 years or so, we're going to have a chronic toddler in our house. But he's such a joy to have around. With unbounded love, he hops around like a bunny, doing little two-steps with his front paws. Teething at the moment, he lovingly nips at everyone's toes and fingers. House-training is an adventure, just like potty-training a child. I love our new puppy.

And lets give thanks to that.

thinkandrew

Cut my Finger

2007-11-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

I cut my finger practicing piano the other day. A glissando, where a whole series of notes is played by dragging fingers across the keyboard, is a hazard that seems to come with the territory. Piano keys are hard and angular by nature, and fingers are not generally designed to run across them that rapidly. I have a gliss in my concerto, and I was practicing it repeatedly when I realized that my finger hurt. I looked at my finger, the skin on my knuckle was torn. Kind of like a really bad rope-burn. I squeezed, and a tiny drop of blood emerged.

Cool.

thinkandrew

Not Attending

2007-11-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

For some reason, my math professor has decided that it is somewhat commendable to bend to students' whims. A previously scheduled math exam has now been shifted two days later, as well as all the homework assignments that were previously due on the day of the exam. Instead of turning in my three assignments and testing on Wednesday, none of them will be happening until Friday. This is the second time that my teacher has allowed such a postponing, and I really don't understand why. The test and the homework assignments were placed on the schedule two weeks ago, with ample time to study. A three-day weekend seems like just the perfect place for me to begin catching up on what I've been lax on. However, the majority of the class apparently didn't make use of our Veteran's Day holiday, and claim that "there isn't enough time to prepare". And thus, our change of schedule.

I prepared for the test already. I did all three of my homework assignments, created my notes sheet, and studied for the test as if it falls on Wednesday. And so, I shall take it on Wednesday. My teacher has given me permission to take it during class tomorrow, I shall sit outside in the hallway. If I've already prepared, why not? And when Friday rolls around, I'll be hanging out, not attending class.

thinkandrew

Bathroom

2007-11-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

A new bathroom has been established in our home. For the past month or so, it has been completely non-functional, and I've had to use the bathrooms in other places in the house. It's really terribly inconvenient, to have to go downstairs in the middle of the night when I have the urge to go. But a water-damaged shower-wall and construction work all over the floor made it difficult to get inside. The shower had been water-damaged for quite a while, and needed some major repair work; our intention was to have it completely re-tiled. I'd suggested to my dad that I could probably do the job, but he made the very realistic statement that it would probably be nice to have it done within a certain time-period, rather than a lifetime of weekends that never seem to end. It's a very astute point, such major construction work is certainly within our own capabilities, but unrealistic to think that we can actually finish it within a respectable amount of time. Fixing our bathroom would involve demolishing a wall, installing water-proof backing-board, tiling and grouting, cutting a hole in the wall, and many more menial chores. I'll be the first to say that I was rather over-ambitious.

And so we paid someone to do it.

And now I have a bathroom to use!

thinkandrew

Chauffeuring

2007-11-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

I do not understand why driving is a taboo only for me. While I don't think I'm the best driver in the world, I believe that I'm somewhat competent enough to be on the road safely. If I can ride a bike for 200 miles by myself, from Seattle to Portland, I should have the ability to drive from the mall back home, when my parents pick me up. But the innate sense of protection that parents have for their children has extrapolated into the stopping of self-destructive behavior, in essence, driving. And so, even though I need the practice, I'm rarely allowed in the seat with the steering wheel. I'll get to drive soon enough, I suppose, but it's just an annoyance of mine. Perhaps if I just stop asking and completely lose interest, I'll be pushed in an effort to stop the chauffeuring that my parents often end up doing for me. I don't know.

thinkandrew

Mines

2007-11-07T21:59:00.000-08:00

Simply a bad cable connection can cause a lack of Internet connection that lasted from Friday evening until this afternoon. After over two hours on the phone, it was determined that 64 disconnections in the past 48 hours was highly abnormal, and that a technician should be sent over. In less than five minutes, he pinpointed the problem - our telephone cable was no good, and we simply needed to run a new one to the phone jack. I grabbed one out of the basement, snaked it along the kitchen floor, and voila! the Internet lives! The white telephone cable is just lying on the kitchen floor, though, most likely breaking fire hazard codes, acting as a trip-hazard in a high traffic area. Soon though, we'll run it through the wall, through the ceiling, or some equivalent method that will allow us to hide the cable. Or perhaps we can just leave it where it is. It reminds me of the trip-wires used to set off mines in World War 2. It adds the the gaming experience when playing Call of Duty on the PC.

thinkandrew

Reese's Pieces

2007-11-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

I've got the SAT II Subject Tests tomorrow morning. At 8 am, I'll be sitting in a classroom at Olympia High School, taking tests in Physics and Mathematics. It really kind of sucks to be taking the Physics test now, because having taken a full year of Engineering Physics last year, I completely wiped it from my brain over the summer. Now, it's a race against time to see how many formulas I can re-cram into my brain. I'm glad that I decided to use an SAT prep-book, as most of the questions posed are theory-based rather calculation-based, as it was for my course last year. If I had only studied from my old notes, I'd be pretty much screwed. But that's the nature of the SAT, where we attempt to standardize the varied knowledge of very individual people. The same goes for Mathematics.

It's nice that the weekend is finally here. It seems like the days just seem to drag on through the week, and the very first thing we look forward to on Monday is Friday afternoon. I had a light load today, only having two classes. Even better, I was informed that the Monday after this coming one is Veteran's Day, meaning a surprise three day weekend is imminent.

It seems as if my life is of common interest. The gossip of the week at the Math Center is Andrew's life, especially pertaining to Boy Scouts and his HP Graphing Calculator. It feels nice to be loved, I suppose. But that was before my co-worker punched me in the stomach and stole the Reese's Piece that my friend gave me from his Halloween stash. Ow.

thinkandrew

2007-10-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

A day off for Advising Day really isn't a day off at all. Weekdays by definition are not days off. If there are no classes to go to, that simply means more studying. If I'm all done with studying, I'm sure there's some housework that I could scrounge up somewhere. My room is still a mess. I need to practice piano. I need to install curtains all around the house, which I spent three hours doing. But all in all, it was a good day. Halloween, too. I didn't dress up, though I saw a few local people dressed up around town. My friends tried to convince me to wear a business suit to school, and carry around a Nintendo game-controller while bowing to random people and saying:

"Wii would like to play."

It didn't happen.

thinkandrew

Drool

2007-10-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

I am in a blah. This blah zone is a zone that is very uncomfortable, yet so very difficult to leave. It's a zone that's akin to the Doldrums of The Phantom Tollbooth, where the schedule for the day involves lagging, brooding, and procrastinating. I've been completely out of it this entire day, with almost no penchant for any sort of work at all. If only the world would follow me and slow to this lazy crawl whenever I feel in the mood.

I skipped the second half of my Chemistry class this morning. There is very much overlap between different sciences, what I learned in Physics last year covers pretty much 50% of everything that we're going over in Chemistry now. We spoke about the wonderful world of PRESSURE today. We spoke of blood pressure, atmospheric pressure, SCUBA divers, weather reports, and car-tire pressure gauges. The only thing that we didn't speak of was the PRESSURE that's building in my own head, as my ears are being compressed by the over-egotism of my Chemistry teacher.

Arrogant teacher + material I learned last year = intense boredom.

Which is why I left. There's too much homework for me to do in my Writing class anyway. I've been writing a research proposal for Paper #3, a first draft for Paper #2, and various daily homework assignments in between. All of it is very engaging homework, though, so I've not had any problems with completing it. My writing teacher is an excellent professor, she's really got a way with words. Haha, that wasn't a predictable and ridiculous pun at all.

Perhaps this blah-zone is best exemplified by the fact that I fell asleep in Calculus today, waking only to realize that I had drolled all over my hand.

thinkandrew

Grow on Me

2007-10-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

I have yet to decide whether or not I should purchase these cycling glasses. It's really convenient to have a professional in the field that I enjoy as a hobby, a friend of mine at school races mountain bikes all over the Northwest. He's really a great guy, and I've learned a lot about cycling from him. We talk bikes at school, and he's offered mountain bike lessons for homework-trades. I think that's a pretty fair deal. The reason I say that having him as a friend is very convenient is because as a professional racer, he's also sponsored by several different companies. Being sponsored means that he gets great deals on equipment all the time, and he's not unwilling to pass some of those great deals on to me. Last year, when I first got my bike, I bought my pedals and cycling shoes from him, and have been using them ever since. We wear the same size shoe, too.

For the longest time, I've been wearing Wal-Mart $8 specials for sunglasses. They're cheap, they were polarized, and the price was right. It was the day after my ride in pollen-season that I decided purchasing a pair of glasses would be a good idea. Cleaning yellow powder out of the corner of my eyes is not very favorable, neither is blinking hard when I see a black speck that turns out to be a fat fly going straight for my eye. Anyway, Wal-Mart was the first place I looked, and I bought them. They worked for a season, but with anything that cheap, it's something that I'd have to replace every year. They've gotten scratched, the lenses don't clean well at all. They've been cracked at the seams, I've had to glue part of it together. They're always dirty, the lenses just seem to attract dust and grime. When it began to get irritating, I began researching online about different glasses I could get. When I mentioned it in passing to my friend, he said he could get me a great deal on a pair. With about 5 pairs of his own at home, he said it probably wouldn't be too difficult to part with one.

And so, he's letting me take them home for the weekend to give 'em a whirl before I decide. They're pretty awesome, and they work really nicely. They have interchangeable lenses, and it came with two sets. The colors are listed as "Racing Red" and "Lazer Blue", go figure. While the lenses cover all my peripheral vision, my face is fairly wide, so I look somewhat like a bug when I wear them. The look is beginning to grow on me, though. After all, I am a fashion statement.

thinkandrew

2007-10-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

I've got too much homework to do and not enough time to do it.

thinkandrew

Incorrigible

2007-10-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I don't have a Totin' Chit. It's a little card that is presented to younger Boy Scouts, when they've completed their knife-safety courses. The class is part of rank advancement requirements, and enables the Scout to use knives, axes, and saws at recognized Scouting activities. If anyone in charge ever finds the Scout using a blade improperly, a corner is torn off of the card. When all four corners are torn off, the Chit is revoked, and they have to retake the course. If a Scout is found with a knife but no Chit, the knife is confiscated until the end of the event. These are rules that are seldom enforced, though we still teach knife-safety. I've taught the classes on several occasions. But I don't have the card itself.

Having made Eagle Scout and taught the class myself, I'm pretty sure that I've completed the requirements several times over. However, I didn't join the Scouts until I was 14, so I suppose it was just assumed as I assimilated into the Troop that I already had the card. Older Scouts are seldom asked to present it anyway, it comes with age and responsibility that they'll know how to properly handle a knife. Undoubtedly this is true, though there may sometimes be exception to the rule. I've seen many older Scouts get their knives confiscated for abusing them. Anyway, it was at our Scout meeting tonight that the subject of Totin' Chits came up between my Scoutmaster, a younger Scout, and myself. Once the conversation was over, I mentioned to my Scoutmaster that I myself had never earned a Totin' Chit. He jokingly warned me that I better not be caught with a knife, at which I presented my 3-inch blade.

"Andrew, you're incorrigible" he said.

I suppose that's true.

thinkandrew

Markers

2007-10-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

I feel like my computer desk is a printing press. I've printed already over a hundred pages this first 5 weeks of school, three out of four of my classes are very paper-heavy. Especially my English class, in which I have to print nearly 20 pages a week. I like all of my pages double-sided, in order to save room, but it takes up a huge amount of time to print, flip over, and print again. It will probably be more economical for me to simply print in the College Library, where the use of a laser printer is completely free. Recently in the news, there's been talk about a new machine that's been installed at a few bookstores around the nation. It's a publishing printer, books can be purchased and they'll be printed, bound, and presented right before you in a complete volume. That's what our school needs, so that I might have all my reading assignments in one volume for the year. Or, I could go to FedEx Kinko's. If I were willing to pay a price. I'd print my assignments in the Math Center, but we can't even get an ink-jet that works. This year was an improvement over last, though. We actually bought 20 boxes of new dry-erase markers!

thinkandrew

500

2007-10-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hello Friend!

This marks post number 500 on ThinkAndrew.net. I've written on a few milestones, including my hundredth and one-year posts. 500 is another milestone, I suppose, but it seems like these posts just come and go now. Recently, I haven't been consistently writing daily, mostly due to the fact that my readership has been dropping dramatically. At only fifteen visits a day, it feels kind of pointless to write so much for everyone to see. However, when I began writing this blog, I was writing mainly for myself. An expression of thought and journalistic entries. On occasion, I want to broach a topic that is too personal for a wide audience, and I have turned to my Moleskine notebook. I've been doing so more and more often now, as I find more and more to think about. One entry can very easily lead to another. This blog will not be dying anytime soon, though. I still post, and I hope that people still read.

thinkandrew

Eagle Scout Court of Honor

2007-10-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

I received my Eagle Scout packet today. I finished my Board of Review about four weeks ago, on September 18th, but the actual award - certificates, medals, etc. - did not arrive until this afternoon. My dad got a phone call, and we hopped into the car and went to the Scout Office to pick it up. I drove.

A velvet box and a large manila envelope sat under the counter for me. Inside the envelope, there was my Council certificate, National certificate, two copies of the Eagle Challenge, as well as information on how to join the National Eagle Scout Association. The NESA holds members such as Robert Gates, Donald Rumsfeld, and Neil Armstrong. All the men that ever walked on the moon were Eagle Scouts. In the very corner of my envelope sat a wallet-sized plastic card, with my name embossed on it. Not only am I an Eagle Scout now, but I'm a card-carrying Eagle Scout. The velvet box looked like those that you give engagement rings to loved ones in, except quite a bit larger. Inside was my Eagle Scout patch, my medal, and three pins. One pin for my mom, one for my dad, and one for an adult whom I select as my mentor. It's pretty exciting to get all that stuff, it brings a sort of closure. And now, I'll begin planning my Eagle Scout Court of Honor.

thinkandrew

Club Fair

2007-10-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Club Fair comes around once a quarter, and that day for Fall 2007 was today! It's always a day of great fun, and today was no exception. I'd been telling my classmates for a week that I was going to blow up the school with my jet engine, and I promised to deliver today. Club Fair was here, and we all headed down to the Student Union Building!

As Club President, I was the person that manned our display in the Fair. We were only given two week's notice to the Fair itself, so there was almost no time to plan at all. All that we had ready was a poster board from Fairs last year. To make sure that we didn't have an empty table, I brought multiple projects from home, including levitating magnets, Mousey the Junkbot, and my Reynst Combuster pulsejet engine. With those three things, plus a poster board and sign up sheet, I must say that our table looked quite impressive. A lot of people stopped by and took a look, and I had a ball explaining how everything worked. I was the only person from our Club present that day, so I received all the glory.

Free lunch is always served at Club Fair, and today was chili and cornbread. It wasn't half bad, either, as opposed to some terrible meals we've had in the past. Every club was doing something different, with video presentations and papers being handed out everywhere. My buddies at the Computer Club at the adjacent table included me in an impromptu LAN-game of Rainbow Six Vegas. A lot of free candy was being given out at tables, but we had no such candy to hand out. Instead, every twenty minutes or so, I went around the SUB telling people to come outside, as I prepared to set off my jet engine. And it certainly didn't disappoint. The reaction didn't last as long as I would have liked, but it certainly worked.

Now, my former Physics Professor has given me an open invitation to demonstrate my Reynst Combuster in his weekly physics labs. I certainly want to, and I'm definitely bringing it back next quarter!

thinkandrew

Memphis

2007-10-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

I've had one math test right after another, with Calculus yesterday, and Statistics today. Most wonderfully, I have a Chemistry test tomorrow morning as well. This is not bad news, I revel in large amounts of tests. Large amounts of tests mean that if I am well prepared, I get to leave class early. They're exciting for me, with lots of adrenalin pumping through my veins just as I sit down to begin. The anxiety that comes with wanting to know the results is just all part of the experience. Call me weird, but I enjoy tests.

Especially when I pulled a 98% on my Calculus test!

I made a purchase recently, a pair of shoes and a pair of sandals that are soon to arrive via UPS. I looked up my order online, and they provided me with a shipping tracking number. There are both benefits and downsides to this. The benefit is that I can immediately know where my package is, where it's going to, and when I can expect it to arrive. The downside is that every time I'm provided with such a tracking number, a Firefox tab stays permanently open, and I hit F5 to refresh the site every ten minutes to see if it's finally left Memphis, Tennessee.

thinkandrew

Vectors

2007-10-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

So the day turned out not to be too bad after all. I seem to have gone through a few fatalistic cycles recently, when I am entirely depressed and frustrated, rising up to tolerable and maybe slightly cheerful, and then dropping back down into being downtrodden. This cycle has repeated itself, but today turned out to be an enjoyable day. I woke up early in the morning, was nearly late to Statistics class, semi-slept through Chemistry, and then went to work in the Math Center. A tough Calculus test awaited me at noon, after which I had about 20 homework problems to complete and turn in. I was on campus from 8 in the morning to 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

All of this made for a very long day. It was a good day, but I was ready to sleep by the time I got home. However, I still had to teach my piano class at 5:30. That ended up being a somewhat embarrassing experience, though I doubt my 7 year old student even noticed.

I was completely out of it, by the time I started giving that lesson. I had slept fitfully the night before, and had not gotten much rest at all. A very full day with 8 hours on campus had led to me being extremely tired, and sitting down on a comfortable swivel chair just made me want to fall asleep. I didn't, but I kind of turned to auto-pilot mode, simply teaching without really paying attention to what was going on. Suddenly, after a series of questions on music theory, I looked him in the eye and asked him this:

"So what's the magnitude of the vector?"

Too much tutoring + tired day = getting different subjects confused.

thinkandrew

Incentive

2007-10-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of frustration that happens when things simply don't match up. In the accounting I did for my popcorn sales over the past month, my numbers simply aren't matching up. Monetary amounts don't reflect the donations or the sales that I have received, that's one of the most frustrating things that can ever happen in accounting. My mom and I spent hours searching for the discrepancies, but weren't able to find them. I was digging and digging and digging, but all that happened was a whole sheet of numbers that melded all together and meant absolutely nothing to me as my mind burned out. At the very least, I have enough money in my envelope to cover all the sales I have made, the money missing is simply the donations that I received. However, each dollar of donations accounts for three times as much as the money I earn on a dollar of sales. That certainly is an incentive to find it.

thinkandrew

MIssing Summer

2007-10-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

I just realized that every one of my posts for the last two weeks has begun with the letter "I".

I am not ready for the weekend to be over. The previous week was entirely overwhelming, as evident by my near-mental breakdown on Tuesday. I recovered with ice-cream and a good night's sleep, but it was still tough to move on. As Friday drew closer and closer, I got more and more excited for the week to be over. Assignments started draining away, as I turned in more and more homework. And when I finally left my school's campus on Friday afternoon, I was completely done. I had made it through the weekend, and I could finally sit down and enjoy the fruits of my labor. There is nary as tasty a treat as the ability to relax and do absolutely nothing.

This afternoon, there was a lot of nothing going on. My mom and dad were out for the day, and my brothers and I had the house to ourselves. Two back-to-back football games offered the chance to sink down on the couch and grow some roots, which I proceeded to do for about two hours. The New England Patriots completely smashed the Dallas Cowboys, letting me, a New England home-boy, cheer on. When the Seattle Seahawks barely even made a dent in the St. Louis Saints, though, I turned off the TV. I doubt that our local team will have any chance of going anywhere at all this season, so I'm going to default and start rooting for my original favorite team. The point wasn't the football games, though. The point was that I could sit in front of the TV, chat with my friends on a laptop, and prop my feet up on an ottoman, all at the same time.

However, my alarm clock is going to go off bright and early tomorrow morning, at 7 am. Not even bright and early, as as winter draws nearer, the sun doesn't come up until a little past 7 o'clock. Rain is likely too, though I like the rain. Going back to school is a good thing. I am excited for this following week; Club Fair is on Thursday! My jet-engine and I will make an appearance, though I have yet to test it out. I'll be having a post-essay conference with my writing teacher, where I'll get one-on-one feedback on how my paper really was. But at the same time, I'll be inundated with extra Chemistry labs. On Tuesday, I have both a Calculus homework assignment due as well as an in-class test. Piano lessons roll around again on Wednesday and Thursday, and Tuesday nights are always crazy. Just one week at a time, though, and I'll make it through.

Isn't it terrible that I'm missing summer already?

thinkandrew

Explosion

2007-10-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a jet engine in my spare time this weekend. Designed by William Gurstelle, the jam-jar jet is a Reynst Combuster pulsejet. Spitting flames at twenty times a second, it's a highly efficient model of possibly the simplest jet engine ever created. Club Fair is this Thursday, and some flame and buzz would probably draw quite a bit of attention to our club. I'll probably have to get it approved by security first, though, as I'm sure they would like to know about methyl-alcohol combustions on campus. There's always some chance of danger, but this design is proven and safe. And all it took was a Mason canning jar, two copper plumbing fittings, some wire, and of course, the jet-fuel. All for under $20.

thinkandrew

Done!

2007-10-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

I feel an undeniable sense of excitement. I just came back from a two and a half hour long concert, a night of phenomenal jazz. My piano teacher Joe Baque played an hour-long set, with his New York Trio. They were opening for the main performing artist of the night, which was Kyle Eastwood and his Quintet. The first name may not sound familiar, but the last name should. The son of legendary Clint Eastwood, Kyle plays jazz bass, and has released many albums.

Another reason for my excitement is the coming end of the week. Having felt completely overwhelmed on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm glad that it's all finishing up. I'm turning in assignments, and homework is slowly disappearing for the week. My big essay is due tomorrow morning, and I've already got it in its folder, ready to go. I'm done!

thinkandrew

Drive-Thru

2007-10-10T22:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like I work in a publishing house. For some odd reason, every single one of my teachers this quarter requires students to print out an inordinate number of assignments. Whether it's for essays, lab reports, or mathematical graphs, I'm constantly printing out things for school. Two days ago, I printed 12 pages, for three different classes. It's a good thing my dad believes in buying in bulk: he went to Staples and bought a few thousand sheets of printing paper that came in a large crate.

Feeling very hungry yesterday, I felt an urge for a large hamburger. The cafeteria in my school sells them for dramatically high mark-up prices; a small plate of french-fries costs $1.25. There's a Jack in the Box about a quarter mile from school, but I was unwilling to walk that far uphill. One of my classmates was just leaving campus, so I convinced her to take me through the drive-thru and bring me back. We went through, got my meal, and I went back to work in the Math Center. Upon opening my bag, I was extremely pissed to find out that my small coke was missing. Immediately calling the phone number printed on my receipt, this is what they said.

"Oh, sorry about that. You can just come back in, and we'll give it to you."

We went through a drive-thru. Think about it.

thinkandrew

Overwhelmed

2007-10-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

I feel completely and totally overwhelmed. I know that I'm what would be considered by many to be a successful teenager. I have good grades in school, I play the piano (somewhat) proficiently, and I know exactly what I want to do in college. I'm an Eagle Scout, I'm a cyclist, and an accomplished backpacker. I know for a fact that many younger Scouts in my troop look up to me. But so many times, I just feel inadequate.

I know I'm not inadequate by anyone else's standards. I'm on the verge of being very prideful here, but I don't think it would be unfair to say that I'm an impressive kid. However, I just don't feel like I'm reaching standards that I should be. I have no lack in confidence, but there always is just this unattainable sense of accomplishment hanging over my head. In the past three days, I've had to lead an Annual Planning Conference, finish a Chemistry lab-report, do about 40 Calculus problems, write an essay (and edit it, and edit it, and edit it), spend over two hours on the phone for Scouts; those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Being somewhat of a procrastinator, but at the same time a chronic overachiever, I feel the urge to do all of those at the same time. The deadlines for them were all so mashed together that I had to. And when I wasn't able to do all of them to my satisfaction, I was crushed.

Tonight at our Scout meeting, almost nothing seemed to go as planned. Opening ended up lasting over forty-five minutes, with so many announcements. This left very little time for the Merit Badge class being taught, and we had an emergency fire-drill on top of that as well. Patrols had no time for their meetings, and I had no patrols to introduce a new scout to. People came to me with so many questions that I had no answers to, and a depressing meeting about some damage that we did at Trollhaugen Lodge was held. At the end of the night, everyone was gone, and I was among the last people to leave the building. I just threw my hands up, and went home to forget about everything.

A scout mother came up to me and said: "Andrew, you're very good at what you do. You did an excellent job tonight."

It was nice, and my floundering spirits managed to raise just a tad.

When I got home, I realized that I still had homework to do. I reached a point where I just want to go to sleep, and not wake up for a month. I want to take a long vacation to the other side of the world. I want to go on a bike ride, cruising down the California Coast. I want to go far far away from Olympia, Washington, and not look back. This place is still home to me, but I need to disappear.

I turned on some music, ate some ice-cream, and poured myself into my homework. My best friend IM'ed me and offered words of encouragement. My mom gave me a hug, and told me she was proud of me. I finished my assignments, and am now ready to go to bed. I pray to God to give me strength to continue. Without him, there is no way; I would have broken down by now. I feel like I've broken down already. But I have confidence that I will rise above it.

Keep me in your prayers, please.

thinkandrew

Excited

2007-10-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's a lot to ask of 11 to 12 year old boys; to have them sit in a chair for over five hours. But that's just what we had them do this weekend, during our Annual Planning Conference. We spent the weekend up at Trollhaugen Lodge in Snoqualmie Pass, for a day and a morning of training and planning. We went over the leadership roles of these new Patrol Leaders, the goals they have for the next six months, as well as the events of our Troop for the summer of 2009.

Traditionally, we've held the APC at Camp Thunderbird, an ideal location only twenty minutes from town. There's woods, cabins, and a room in which we do all our planning. We'd eat sack lunches, have pizza for dinner, romp around playing Capture the Flag in the dark, and then return to our cabins in the evening. This year, Camp Thunderbird was unavailable to us, so we headed up north with a two hour drive. Trollhaugen Lodge is a skiing lodge; understandably, it's sparsely used during the summer and fall months. This was ideal for us, as 20 rowdy Scouts is not something that many people could live with, even for just a weekend. And this place served us just as well, with rooms full of bunk-beds, a full service kitchen, fireplaces, and even a hot-tub! When our troop returns this winter, it'll be covered in snow, and we'll be sledding down the hills we drove up.

It was an exciting time, we've got many things lined up on our calendar. Many of the Scouts present just joined this last February, and it's their first time as Patrol Leaders. I taught much of the training, trying to foster leadership and goal setting. Those goals really came out this weekend, and will make for a very interesting next six months. People are going for rank advancement, patrol activities, and summer camps. In the summer of '09, we'll be canoeing in Manitoba, motor-boating in the San Juan Islands, and hiking down the Grand Canyon. I'm excited.

So excited that I wore myself out, and slept for three hours upon returning home.

thinkandrew

Nothing at all

2007-10-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

I left work early today, because my mom was waiting for me in the parking lot. My services were required at home, so we rushed back from school to get there on time. When I arrived, it was obvious what my mom needed me for. Manual labor, a strong pair of hands. The popcorn had arrived, and the mission was about to begin. The contents of two trucks, a minivan, and a U-Haul were to be transported from our driveway into our once-empty-now-full garage.

Leaning over and repetitively lifting boxes from the floor can be quite tiring, and I'm pretty sure I exercised my lower back quite a bit today. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of boxes of popcorn in our garage, filling up about five or six pallets. It's all sorted by variety, and is really quite an impressive sight. Small lots of it have already been trickling out the door, a few boxes at a time, as Scouts come by to pick up what they need to sell. Because our Troop is expected to sell all of it, all two-car-garage-full of it.

I have a sense of overwhelming right now, from Boy Scouts, multiple school assignments, and just life in general. It seems as if so much is being thrust upon me right now, and I'm expected to simply deal with all of it. Being successful generally means that people will put more work on me, but with the same expectations of achieving success. It's a tightly wound spiral, and I'm afraid that I'm reach a catastrophic point where everything will blow up, and I'll lose all contact with reality. I know it won't happen, but that's what stress does, I suppose. However, I've been practicing a very simple plan for that, for the past few hours. If I simply do nothing, then nobody will expect me to do anything. It's worked for this evening, at least.

thinkandrew

Significance

2007-10-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

I have no sense of writing today, it feels as if nothing of significance happened at all. October 3rd 2007 could simply drop out of the calendar, leaving a blank box, and I doubt that I even would have missed it. Days like these are forgettable. I feel forgettable. Was anything I did today of significance at all?

thinkandrew

Completely Dry

2007-10-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

I know that I toyed with the idea of simply going to school at 10 am tomorrow, but I didn't. Instead, I woke up at 7:45 and hurried down to my 8 am class. The snooze alarm function on an alarm clock really serves no purpose whatsoever. It encourages people like me to press it again and again, putting off the waking time again and again. Eventually, I just got fed up with pressing the button, and turned off the alarm, telling myself that I would just lie down for a few minutes. I knew somewhere in the back of my head that that would never work, and just as expected, I slept an extra fifteen minutes, nearly being late for class.

Rain poured down like cats and dogs today. I could almost hear the barking and meowing, though it sounded more like hailstones hitting the glass of my classroom's windows. I haven't seen such heavy rain since I moved from Malaysia, where tropical thunderstorms were a common occurrence. When I exited the building, the concrete pathways looked like rivers, and the gutters were overflowing like waterfalls. About twenty people were standing underneath a balcony, not daring to brave the sheets of water. Me, I like the rain. And I laugh at the people who were scared of stepping outside. Wearing a raincoat and sporting a waterproof backpack, I ventured out into the pouring rain. And I went to my next class, completely dry.

thinkandrew

Skip

2007-10-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

It's not a good sign when I do homework for Chemistry inside my Statistics class, nor when I just about walk out of my Chemistry class to go to Math Center early. Statistics is fun, but it's an introductory-level mathematics course that has yet to reach a point of interest for me. My Chemistry class spent the whole hour talking about Significant Figures, after a week-long discussion on the wonders of The Metric System.

I may just go to school at 10 am tomorrow, and skip my first two classes.

thinkandrew

Overflowing

2007-09-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

My cold persists. My jobs today didn't. Due to my lack of health, the inclement weather, and general laziness, I didn't leave the house at all after church. I didn't go to sell popcorn, make any phone calls for the Boy Scouts, or even step outside to get the mail. After getting home, I spent the entire afternoon and evening in sweatpants and an over-sized sweatshirt, watching football and chatting on the computer. And it was really nice.

I did keep myself somewhat busy while at home, actually. I lied in the first paragraph, football and IM weren't all that preoccupied my time. I really was pretty efficient. Practicing two consecutive hours of piano is a luxury I haven't had in a long time. I did a lot of homework for tomorrow, as well as wrote one out of two essays for my University of Washington application. The prompt was "Describe an experience of cultural difference, positive or negative, you have had or observed. What did you learn from it?" I'm Asian, and a minority at that, so the essay wasn't really too difficult to come up with. I did put some thought into it, however, so I'm looking forward to asking for comments from my writing teacher.

My left nostril is thoroughly stuffed right now. I'll try to explosively inhale to try and clear it, but all I end up with is an excess of pressure inside my head that makes it feel like it will explode. That feeling slowly goes away after a few seconds, but is most unpleasant for a short while. Tissues are imperative, and I've been actively wiping down every surface I touch with Lysol clean-wipes. In a family of five, one person getting sick normally means that everyone gets sick. I'm doing my best to try and prevent that.

It really rained for the first time in a few months. It wasn't just a drizzle, or the overcast skies that sometimes haunted our summer. It really came down, with enough wind that the falling leaves looked like snow when illuminated by car high-beams at night. The roads are slick right now, and littered with debris. I most definitely have a skunk-tail tomorrow: the spray of dirt and mud that's kicked up onto my back by the tires of my bicycle. I might borrow my brother's bike, it has fenders on it that prevent skunk-tail. But right now, that's the least of my worries.

My nose is overflowing.

thinkandrew

Boy Scout Uniform

2007-09-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

I believe I am building on the prospects of a cold. Perhaps that's why I'm sitting here in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, with the hood tied up so tight that only my eyes, nose, and my upper lip emerge, in an effort to stay warm. It probably didn't help that I was out selling popcorn in the rain this afternoon. Nor that the sale was not very successful, I didn't sell very much. It can be discouraging, hitting the streets for hours on end, yet barely pulling enough to make it worth my time. I've worn my Boy Scout uniform for five days a week for the past three weeks; I feel like it has become a job. When the popcorn sale is over, I will look forward to hanging up my uniform to rest for a few days.

thinkandrew

Cookie

2007-09-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

I got a free cookie at my school's open-house today.

Free = Good

thinkandrew

College Applications

2007-09-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have begun the deep, dark spiral into College Applications. It is a foreboding subject, as people tell me. Endless applications with so many essays that it will make any sane person cry. It's the end of all social life, my peers have said. I was scared to start my applications at first, but eventually sat myself down tonight to do so. And they really weren't that bad!

A secondary education has always been important to me. My parents both went to college, and I've been ingrained with the idea that without a college education, it is impossible to be really successful. While that statement may not be true for everyone, it is true in general, and I definitely believe it. It's always been expected that I would go to a college, and even now, I'm enrolled at a Community College through Running Start. But my true secondary education looms ahead, in only one more year. And so I've started applying.

I worked on my application to the University of Washington. I was afraid that it would be very difficult to work on, with massive amounts of forms that I wouldn't be able to recall the information for. However, the online application turned out to be quite fun! It's twelve pages long, and the first six are simply general information of where I've lived, my parents, my family's education, etc. There were lots of little buttons to click on, and I filled in my birthday at least three times. That made me happy, I enjoy talking about my birthday.

But page six is where I stopped, as that's where I had to begin itemizing my previous classes taken. Being homeschooled for most of my education, that will be something of a challenge. But that's my mom's department, not mine.

thinkandrew

An Important Phone Call

2007-09-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

I spoke to Mr. Nordstrom today. And I do not lie.

The Popcorn Fundraiser is not an unfamiliar topic to my blog. I sold almost $2800 worth of Boy Scout popcorn last year, financing my trip to Northern Tier this past summer. Percentages of that amount also went to the Troop and the Council, letting us run our programs for the year. However, the popcorn fundraiser last year is long over. And about three weeks ago, we began the fundraiser for this year. With even great goals, I hoped to sell thousands of dollars of popcorn. The top seller last year sold over $20K worth of popcorn, more than imaginable. But I imagined, and figured that corporate sales were the only way to go.

There are many large corporations in the Pacific Northwest, many centered in Seattle. With Seattle being our own backyard, I decided to find the most approachable business there to give a try at my salesmanship skills. Nordstrom Inc. is entirely famous for their fabulous customer service. On a PBS interview called CEO Exchange, Blake W. Nordstrom spoke of how he answers his own phone during the day. And so, Nordstrom Inc. was the first corporation I tried.

I was completely amazed at how easy it was to reach him. Business phone calls are notorious for giving people complete loop-arounds, never actually speaking to the one person to whom you wish to speak. But when I called Nordstrom Headquarters, I simply asked to speak to Mr. Nordstrom. The secretary replied: "Which one? There are three brothers." I asked for the CEO, and was given a "One moment please." This process took place at 4 pm yesterday afternoon, and Mr. Nordstrom's assistant said he was already out of the office. However, she offered to leave a message for him, and that she would have him call me back.

You have to realize how very exciting this is. There aren't many teenagers who can say they've spoken to a Forbes 500 CEO, much less say that the CEO called them back on their own cellphone. I left my phone on in school all day today, looking at the caller-id whenever it rang. And when a Seattle area-code showed up, I immediately stood up and left class.

Mr. Nordstrom was the most approachable executive I've ever spoken to. He was very friendly, and sounded very nice. When you're only 46 and leading a company making $678 million dollars last year, it can be easy to be intimidating. But no, Blake Nordstrom listened carefully as I explained what I was doing. When I was finished, he said:

"Well, thank you very much, but I'm afraid popcorn is not something I'd be interested in. I am impressed, though, with the initiative you've taken. Good luck!"

And in less than two minutes, our conversation was over. It was after he hung up that my knees started shaking from the adrenalin.

thinkandrew

First Day of School

2007-09-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

The first day of school was everything, and at the same time, nothing that I wanted it to be.

If you happened to be on campus early this morning, and saw some guy walking around with a goof-ball look on his face, that was me. Trying to look my best for the first day, I picked out my fancy-pants outfit last night. I was excited to be back on campus for the first time in three months. I saw faces that I recognized, some that I'd never seen on campus before. I have some friends doing Running Start for the first year, so it was nice to see them at school. I went around to different offices, saying hello to all my favorite professors from last year. Checking up in the Math Center, I scheduled all my work hours for the next quarter, getting in 11 hours a week. All of this I did before noon.

However, the actual classes that I attended were completely what I expected, and exactly what I was dreading. Don't get me wrong, I am very excited for my class load this year. The first day of class is always just an introductory session, where syllabuses are distributed and monologues are given. My Chemistry professor made it very clear that in his opinion, Chemistry is the hardest science of them all, and most likely we will all die in his class. I've already dubbed him as a fatalist. What I hate about the first day is that there's never any closure, with nothing really being done. Except in my writing class, where I was already assigned homework for tonight.

Homework will be an adventure this quarter. I was fortunate last year that in none of my three classes was regular homework ever assigned. A take-home quiz here, a lab report there, those were given on a sketchy basis. This year, though, will be the first time in years that I'll have a daily homework collection. My writing professor assigns daily work, while my math professor collects once a week. I suppose it's a routine that I'll have to get used to. I expect to do a lot of writing this year, with a blog to maintain, a writing class I'm taking, as well as a personal notebook I sometimes pen thoughts in. If I sit down and work on assignments once I get them, it should be no problem.

School is really kicking off tomorrow, so I suppose I'd better go to bed soon. There's a long year ahead of me.

thinkandrew

Cape Disappointment

2007-09-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Seventeen pictures is how many of Cape Disappointment that I deemed upload-worthy. My free Flickr.com account's picture limit is 200, so that's quite a fair chunk. But can I help it if the final destination of Lewis and Clark's cross-continent trek is as picturesque as described in their diaries?

Ocian in View! O' the Joy!

It's a grand ol' time, out at Cape Disappointment State Park. Seated on the mouth of the Columbia River, it shares the estuary with several other parks, both on the Washington and Oregon sides of the river, as well a National Park. It's a very historical area, being the very grounds that the Corps of Discovery walked in Jefferson's quest to explore the Louisiana Purchase. There are also three military forts triangulated in the mouth of the Columbia, protecting the inner-waters of the Pacific Northwest up until the end of World War II. With all that history, it can be pretty easy to feel immersed. That's not to say that we didn't enjoy some modern amenities while camping....

It's called a Yurt, and it's fully heated, fully electricized, with bunk-beds, mattresses, and wood floors. One allowance for easier camping a year, I suppose we deserve at least that much, after living in rain all summer. It's true, Western Washington has experienced it's wettest, most dismal summer in recent memory. But with the exception of the first night, the sun and skies shone at us the entire weekend, creating lighting for the most spectacular images.

Most of our days were spent driving around, looking for different places to explore, whereupon we would get out of the car, and go on an impromptu hike. Never very long, as we would stop to take pictures what seemed like every twenty paces. Fort Canby, Fort Columbia, and Fort Stevens had lots of concrete bunkers that we could romp around in, exploring dark and damp rooms that haven't been occupied for over sixty years. There were even a few 6-inch guns left on display. Two lighthouses marked the entrance to the river, and a shipwreck even lay on the beach. It really is a beautiful area.

Pictures, pictures, pictures. I have a lot of them now, and I'll gladly show them to everyone. Right now, I'm preparing for my first day of school tomorrow. I am altogether too ready to go, my bags are packed, and I've already picked out exactly what I'm going to wear. Goodnight!

thinkandrew

Change

2007-09-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

My family and I are going camping to Cape Disappointment State Park tomorrow, where we'll be until Sunday afternoon. It's an ominous sounding name, but I'm told it's really a very nice park. With no Internet connection, there will be no blog postings. But with cellphone signal, I will maintain contact to the outside world. I'm really looking forward to this trip, the last camping trip of the summer. It's sort of a completion of a very busy season, as well as a relaxing escape before we dive back into a new school year. To get away from the stress of the world will be nice.

So many different things are going on. Starting on Monday morning, I'm going to be back to my 8 am to 1 pm school schedule, except for Mondays where I have a 3 hour Chemistry lab in the afternoon. I am entirely ready for school to start, but it's somewhat foreboding, to return into such a system. Eight of my good friends, including my best friend, are moving up to Seattle on Friday, where they'll start their own schooling at the University of Washington. They'll be missed, especially by me. My brother will be up there as well, and we'll no longer have the luxury of his presence at home. I was re-elected as Senior Patrol Leader, which means non-stop Boy Scout work for sure. It just doesn't stop!

You may have noticed a lack of photographs for the past few weeks. This isn't because I've lost the urge to be a photographer. It's because life has been such a whirlwind that I haven't had the calmness of mind to document any of it artistically. I still tote my camera everywhere I go, but it's been impossible for me to actually make any use of it. I expect it to find a lot of use this weekend, though, as I capture picturesque images of the Washington State coastline. Crashing ocean waves, soaring seagulls, and footsteps in the sand. It all sounds like a Windows Vista default screensaver, but I have a feeling that it will actually be pretty nice.

We're leaving tomorrow morning, closer to noon. The park is two and a half hours from Olympia, so we'll probably have a fairly un-rushed morning. I've still got packing to do, and food to prepare. In true opportunistic fashion, I'm cooking for us, so that I can fulfill a requirement for the Cooking merit badge. When I get home, everything's gonna be different. But change is good, I suppose.

thinkandrew

Eagle Scout

2007-09-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

I reaffirm my allegiance to the three promises of the Scout Oath. I thoughtfully recognize and take upon myself the obligations and responsibilities of an Eagle Scout.

On my honor, I will do my best to make my training an example and my status and my influence count strongly for better Scouting and for better citizenship in my troop, in my community, and in my contacts with other people.

To this I pledge my sacred honor.

It is a powerful tradition, nearly a hundred years old. Millions of young men have grown upon the trail of Scouting, and many continue to do so. Those most committed to the ideals of Scouting become Eagle Scouts. People like Neil Armstrong, Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Stephen Spielberg, and J.W. Marriott. As of tonight, I am also an Eagle Scout, and I can only hope to live up to the standards of such incredible people.

Being an Eagle Scout means that I've culminated all of my aspirations and achievements, and brought them together in one solid goal. And now that I've reached it, it is like a stepping stone to the rest of my life, where I can use the skills, citizenship, and character that has been built into me to great use.

Tonight was the night I had my Board of Review. It's an interview, where the three member board makes sure that the Scout before them matches the application that he turned in. I was told that the Board would last between 45 minutes to an hour, but I only warmed the chair for about 15 minutes. It wasn't a huge deal; just a conversation with three men about my journey in Scouts. But it was a big deal; it was a sort of capstone, some closure to my achievements. I'm telling you, it's an incredible feeling, walking out of that door and realizing that you're an Eagle Scout. And I plan to live up to what that means.

thinkandrew

Tomorrow

2007-09-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

I am absolutely ready for school to start. I am absolutely ready for my Eagle Scout Board of Review. I am absolutely ready to head off to college next year. I am absolutely ready for the Seattle to Portland next summer. I am absolutely ready to get married, have kids, start a family, and retire a rich multi-millionaire.

But tomorrow isn't here yet, is it?

thinkandrew

Obvious

2007-09-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

Hikes are fun. The beautiful scenery, the fresh air, the nip of cold, misty mornings. It was such a beautiful day yesterday, when we left for Snoqualmie Pass. And it was a wonderful hike, even with all the adventures that came along. It was quite an adventure, ending up at the wrong trail-head, when coming to the end of our trek. Indeed, we turned left when we should have turned right, ending up with a five hour adventure.

The hike started out as any other. It was an early morning, and the clouds were low upon the mountains. A group of five were heading south, while a group of two was heading north. We would switch keys for cars in the middle, and make our own way home. It was really a beautiful day. Fairly cold, I was hiking with a long-sleeved shirt on. However, once we crossed a ridge, all the clouds fell away, and the sun shone through. There were a surprising number of people on the trail that day, I must've seen at least 40 other people that day. Not just people, there was a dog that followed us for the first hour of hiking, until the its owner caught up with us. Laura was a friendly puppy indeed, with all the energy of a three month old retriever.

When we reached a fork in the trail, though, was when we had to make a decision. Having done this hike before, I recalled that we turned left rather than turned right. Not maintained in my memory was that we were to turn left at the second junction, not the first one. Thus, we ended up on a steep, switch-backing trail that led us two miles of course, onto a trail-head with no cars. Going back was not an option, or we'd be hiking for at least another three hours. The sky was nearing darkness, and there wouldn't be enough time. We were most definitely stranded.

An Assistant Scoutmaster from our Troop is definitely my hero for the weekend. Fortunately enough, the trail-head we exited on was within eye-sight of Interstate-90, and thus, we had cellphone service. A phone call later, he volunteered to drive all the way up from Olympia, an hour and a half trip. We bought him dinner, and gave endless thanks. It was about 10:45 at night when we arrived home. Isn't it obvious why I didn't blog last night?

thinkandrew

The Alpha Course

2007-09-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

The Alpha Course. It's an introduction to the basics of Christianity, the core ideals of what we believe. My Youth Group has begun the 12 week series, with the first night kicking off tonight. It's a place to go to be fed. I'm not trying to speak metaphorically here, dinner is actually served every single week. It's good food, too. Can't beat pizza in a group of teenagers. But in the metaphorical sense, there is definitely a lot of spiritual feeding. Even heading in with the intention to help, lead a group, play some music, or just hang out, there is always fulfillment, or at least the introduction of new questions to ponder.

I'll admit it, I had somewhat of an arrogant attitude before tonight, though I tried to avoid it. I didn't feel as if I was above it all, but I kind of felt like I was there to help, as if that honors me some special treatment. But when the very depths of what I believe in were discussed, I was quickly humbled. That's the Alpha Course. It can bring anyone in, and give so much to them. Join one soon, if there's one around you. You won't regret it.

thinkandrew

The Puyallup Fair

2007-09-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the un-clear focus of this picture, which would otherwise lovely-ly depict a sharp and high-resolution image of two cow's rear-ends. For the light was dim today, with overcast skies throughout the entire day. A weather report of low 80's was entirely inaccurate, I doubt that the temperature ever broke 70 degrees. In fact, a light drizzle persisted in the morning, just barely clearing up as we approached the parking lot of the Puyallup Fairgrounds. And none of that foul weather prevented us from enjoying any of the various smells, sounds, tastes, and sights of The Fair. Especially the sight of cow derrières.

A slightly dismal morning didn't prevent my friends and I from excitedly piling into a car, and leaving on the highway towards The Fair. It took us about ten minutes to realize that none of us actually knew where The Fair was, leading us to call home and ask for the address. With the aid of a GPS, we eventually found our way. Having arrived early in the morning, we had our choice of parking. Many people in the neighborhood had opened up their lawns and driveways as pseudo-discounted parking lots, charging us two dollars left than official Fairgrounds parking. This was an opportunity we didn't pass up. Parking on a grass lawn is always fun.

Livestock, pets, expos, food, vendors, and rides filled up over 169 acres of fairgrounds, lending us hours and hours to explore. We ended up spending 6 hours in The Fair, going into different barns, listening to live music, and tasting snacks. There were certainly a lot of cows, in all shapes and sizes. Large cows, skinny cows, dairy cows, beef cows, and even baby cows wrapped up in blankets to protect against the cold. A special room was set aside to display how the modern milking process works, with machines, pumps, and everything. Other barns held goats, raised predominantly by kids in different farming clubs, such as 4-H. My friend wanted to pet the llamas, but unfortunately, llamas weren't on display today. Teams of wagon-pulling Clydesdales were displayed though, a fitting compensation.

Fairground food is never meant to be especially good, it's more about the experience than anything. Elephant Ears, Funnel Cake, and Caramel Apples are all unnecessary sweets, but that never stopped people from buying them. I didn't, but my friend and I did make a concession to strawberry shortcake on scones. It was awfully good. Saving up our money and our stomachs for a more hearty meal later, we ate dinner around 5 pm, after having left The Fair. It was fun, I'll say, but it was sort of a do-it-once experience. But I did enjoy it.

thinkandrew

The Fair

2007-09-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

It has remained fairly warm for the past few days, and will continue to be so for the next few. Temperatures will peak in the low 80's tomorrow, as my buddies and I head out to the Puyallup Fair. I've never been to The Fair before, but I'm told it's great fun. Watching llamas and very large cows in warm air just adds to the experience. A headache has been persisting throughout my evening, though, having had very long days the past few days. That's not to say they weren't good days, but they were exhausting nonetheless. So as I bed myself early tonight, I can sleep with excitement of the day tomorrow.

thinkandrew

Boy Scout

2007-09-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

And my Scoutmaster said:

"It seems that for the next six months, the theme for our Troop is "Back to the Future"! Andrew has been elected our Senior Patrol Leader again!"

That's right. You may have thought that I'd had enough of it the first time through, but apparently not. I was elected Senior Patrol Leader on September 12th last year, and tonight on September 11th, I ran and was elected once again. The job hasn't changed much, though my view on it certainly has. Bushmaster certainly helped to inspire me, teaching me methods of leadership that I want to employ throughout the coming six months. It'll be a wild ride, but having ridden it before, I might be able to travel through with a bit more skill and finesse.

When I finished my six month term as Senior Patrol Leader last time 'round, I very nearly got elected again. I had enjoyed that term immensely, and learned so much from it. In fact, the first five months of those six seemed like a very steep learning curve. Only in the last month did I feel like I was really doing an effective job. Having been elected once again, I'm hoping that those skills I picked up, plus those I learned this summer, will be fully utilized. Working with the Scouts has always been of interest to me, and I want to set a positive role model that they can look up to. They've got so many more years in Scouting left, and I want them to have the time of their lives.

My Scoutmaster posed three questions to the four of us running for the position. Why did we feel that we were qualified for the position, what we were willing to devote, and what our goals were. I gave some thought into each question previously, but the answers were pretty simple, really. I'm qualified because I am a Scout, through and through. Soon-to-become an Eagle Scout, a former Senior Patrol Leader, Philmont Crew Leader, and Bushmaster attendee. I'm willing to devote everything that has been given to me, all my skills and knowledge received from Scouting, in order to give back. And my goal? To bring the true spirit of Scouting back to our Troop.

I'm a Boy Scout.

thinkandrew

Tired Scout

2007-09-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

Grocery shopping + cooking lunch + new video game + selling popcorn + washing dishes + playing new video game + 2 hour and 45 minute Troop Committee meeting + wearing a Boy Scout uniform for 10 hours + nighttime driving practice + late night blogging... = One very pooped but happy Scout.

And as my Assistant Scoutmaster would say, a good Scout is a tired Scout.

thinkandrew

Frustration

2007-09-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Frustration is readily apparent when you let it creep into your life. It's a state of mind that you allow yourself into, though not always intentionally. But when it's there, it can be almost impossible to get rid of. Some how, through one way another, frustration has found its way to me, and has been needling at me.

I'd been working hard all day, when I suddenly learned that there were alternative options that we were going for, and that all my work had been futile. What's worse, I was told this halfway through completing the job. If there's anything worse than finding out that all my work was for nothing, it's that I didn't even do a good job of what I was working at. No sense of closure, no pride at a job well done. It's simply left hanging, with the promise that someone else will come along later, and do it some other way. They'll feel good about themselves, they'll get to enjoy the pride at a completed project, while I don't. And that's frustrating.

But why is it that important that I allow myself to get mad? There's little good that can become of it. Getting frustrated and angry only allows others an excuse to get mad as well. Lord knows, all humans will jump at such an opportunity. There are certainly times when I have. But still, when a situation forces me into such a situation of frustration, it can be very difficult not to vent. I'll admit it. I got mad. I didn't blow up, but silently frothing in my own anger isn't a very good idea, either. It took nearly two hours by myself before I fully cooled down.

Anger, according to Yoda, eventually leads itself to suffering. Mostly at the expense of the person feeling anger in the first place. How did I suffer? Emotionally, to be sure. Getting mad only tears yourself down. A cheerful spirit is one that you can revel in. Life goes on. You won't remember it in a week. Forget about it. Easy words to say, but not always easy to take action on. But I'm trying.

So go ahead. Get angry. But get over it, fast.

thinkandrew

Midnight Frisbee

2007-09-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

The local elementary school provides a very large field, a field that is perfect for a bunch of friends to have one more adventure-filled night before they all go separate ways. Everyone except for me will be leaving town, heading off to colleges and universities. I suppose that I'll be the only one left lonely, as the entire group that met tonight is split between only three schools. I'll be joining some of them at the University of Washington in a year, though I'm sure everyone will periodically meet up again. But for tonight, it was time to have fun and get together.

It was great for me, only having met this group of people this past year. But eleven of us found ourselves on the field today, playing Tag, Capture the Flag, and glow-in-the-dark Frisbee in the middle of the night. It was nearly eleven o'clock before I went home, riding my bike the quarter mile back to my house. I had to keep looking behind me, to make sure that no one was following me in their cars. It'd be something that we'd do to each other. In fact, every time someone in the group arrived, we'd jump out of the bushes, and all try to climb into their car. If into did not succeed, on top was fine. Being the only person that arrived in a non-enclosed vehicle, I had to watch my back.

Fun it was, seeing everyone together at a single time. Hopefully, we'll see each other all again.

thinkandrew

Excitement Today

2007-09-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

The morning posed a question for me. It said: "This afternoon will be so full of activities that you'll barely have any time to breath. Should you take it easy, in preparation for later, or be as industrious as possible, and work all day?" Feeling tired, and somewhat lethargic, I chose the former. Being pooped as I am right now, I can justify that that was a wise decision. I am tired. It is true. But it's been a good day.

Yesterday was a day of equal excitement. In fact, I got so excited that I went and ignored my blog post in the evening. You can check the logs, ThinkAndrew.net did not receive a post on the 6th of September. Instead, I was out for most of the morning, doing errands during the entire afternoon, and home for all of the evening. My best friend drove me to my piano class at 1:30 in the afternoon, and we just sort of stuck together and hung out for the rest of the day. Not having anything better to do, we even mowed and fertilized the lawn at my house together. Not to mention sanded the deck in preparation for painting, ate dinner, did dishes, and sliced fruit for dessert. I can always guarantee a good time at my house, especially when we break out the lawn mower.

At 2 o'clock this afternoon, a piano technician stepped through our door. He was the same piano technician that's helped me out on my piano project on many occasions, and he was here to help once again. Having had a non-working piano sit in her living room for almost a year, my mom has been pushing for me to go ahead and finish the project, or get rid of the piano entirely. I've already put in many days and weeks of work into refinishing the piano, so I'm not quite ready to simply throw away all that work. My piano technician friend was a great help today, and we went a long way in getting the piano working. All the keys now play, though not all of them shut up after lifting the key. Thus, a constant ringing persists when played on. But it's getting there, and this visit went a long way in boosting my drive to work on the piano.

Exciting things have been happening today. Not only did I get a long way in finishing my piano, two huge packages arrived in the mail this afternoon. Our new computer had finally arrived! Being made to wait over a long weekend for the system to arrive was a cruel, cruel thing. My brothers and I were understandably excited at its arrival, as was my best friend. When building the system, I had asked both her and my brother for advice on picking compatible parts, and both were very helpful. It took a while to get everything to fit into the case, but it's now sitting on the floor, slowly having Windows XP installed on it. By tomorrow, it should be running. It's a thing of beauty.

thinkandrew

Driving

2007-09-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that my mom is absolutely terrified of having me drive while she is in the car. When it came time for us to pick my brother up from work, it took a lot of nagging and addling to finally convince her to let me sit in the driver's seat. Even then, she only ceded to allowing me to drive through our neighborhood, not on the main street. "So that you won't have to make any turns", she said. Even so, I was ready to jump on the opportunity. Until I couldn't find my wallet, which has my driver's permit in it.

Life is cruel, isn't it?

Still, I wanted to go along for the ride, and tried hard to pick up my brother in the most obnoxious way possible. Knowing his hate for country music, my mom and I arrived in front of his workplace with the windows rolled down, my bare feet up on the dash, arm hanging out, and Reba McIntyre blasting on the radio. He rolled his eyes, and climbed in. All of that act only started once we entered the parking lot, of course. And it all ended once we left.

There's always some consolation prize.

Tiring of 102.9, the Kickin' Country Channel, I began surfing stations. Hard rock? No. Smooth Jazz? Maybe later. Hmmm, what's this? The Mariachi Channel!

Aren't car rides fun?

thinkandrew

Problems

2007-09-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

My dad cracks me up. Everybody has their little quirks, and sometimes ridiculous ideas just spill out before we even have the chance to think about it. What happened was that my dad bought a huge bottle of cooking sherry, without knowing that my mom had already bought some. Having no use for it, and seeing that I was already making a bike-trip to the grocery store (to buy ground beef for spaghetti), he asked me to return it for him. It sounded like a perfectly viable plan at the time, though there were several holes that I had to point out to him.

#1. Dad, I don't have your credit card to refund the charge.

#2. Dad, I can't drive on a learner's permit with alcohol in the backseat, what makes you think I can ride?

#3. Dad, I'm underaged.

#4. Dad, what will the cashier say about a teenager returning wine?

Said problems should now be apparent.

I was experiencing other problems today, too. Bodily functions are not typically discussed in polite humor, so I won't get graphic. Antacids were necessary, but weren't available until my dad got home an hour and a half later. My stomach was growing more and more painful by the minute, preventing me from even playing the piano. My mom Googled home-remedies, and then grabbed the jar of celery seeds out of the pantry. I was a little wary when she told me to open wide, but she insisted on putting the teaspoon of seeds into my mouth. I was told to chew, which released a sudden impact of bitter taste. The seeds swelled up in my mouth, too, prompting me to spit it out. They didn't taste good at all. But apparently it worked. Never doubt the power of Google.

thinkandrew

Downtown Seattle

2007-09-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

Downtown Seattle. It's a pretty eclectic place, in case you ever plan on visiting. The last time I was there, my friends and I encountered a Gay Pride parade. On other occasions, I've had run-ins with half-crazed cyclists, dreadlocked-individuals, and general eccentrics. That's not to say that Seattle isn't worth visiting. The Emerald City is certainly a gem of the Pacific Northwest, a city that I've come to love. It has all the urban qualities I desire, yet is still surrounded by so much of the beautiful outdoors. But the urban qualities are something that I seek out, an excitement and adventure that cannot be found in many other places. We certainly found some today.

Nothing in Seattle is as it seems. In the Pioneer Square District, you have to go six feet under to get the real story. Eight feet, in actuality. I'm not trying to be morbid, there's actually something to see down there. Seattle's Underground. Because every sidewalk in that area sits on arches, holding them above a condemned area of the city that has not been used commercially for over seventy years. Due to poor city planning, the lower elevations of Seattle became unusable, so the city government decided to simply raise everything up, avoiding the hazards that came with high tides and heavy rain. In a nutshell, every time the tide came in, the waste water system would back up. And backup of a fancy name for "sewer" is a bad thing.

There's a tour, one that allowed us to explore this underworld that is otherwise unaccessible. The streets themselves are filled with dirt, held in by a retaining wall, but the area underneath the sidewalks, and the original first floors of many buildings, are completely hollow. And believe it or not, all of that area is still owned by the building owners, and the guides have to lease it for public tours. I'm glad they do, or I'd never have known about such an area. It was about the turn of the century when all the streets and sidewalks were raised up a floor, creating basements out of all the old first floors. Down there, we saw a lot of original artifacts, including many of Thomas Crapper's original water-closets. When the whole city was elevated due to poor sewage management, who wouldn't want to see the culprit?

We spent quite some time underground, the entire tour lasting just over an hour and a half. It was exciting and adventurous, something that I'd highly recommend for anyone making a stop in Seattle. I've lived in this area for over three years now, and this is the first time I've headed down under. Fortunately, the above-ground areas of Seattle are much more familiar to us, and we spent some time walking the streets. Okay, it was only the streets between our car, the tour's beginning, and the restaurant for lunch. It still counts though!

thinkandrew

Summer's End

2007-09-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

Aah, it feels good to slip back into a pair of bike shorts. My favorite pair of bike shorts, made of lycra and spandex to help in aerodynamics and muscle support. So what if they're my only pair of shorts, they show off my legs very nicely. And no, I'm not kidding. Today was the first day I've pulled my biking outfit out of my closet in over two weeks, and I regret it being so. It felt great to be back on the road. It wasn't just myself this time, both my brothers and my dad came along for the ride. We did a short loop of about 13 miles at a leisurely pace, arriving back at home around 6:30. It was a relaxing trip, and I realized how much I miss riding. I'll probably be leaving the house a lot more often now, in the few days of summer before school begins.

It's Labor Day weekend right now, the three-day weekend before many people head back to classrooms and hallways. Most of my peers are out and about, trying to savor these last days before Wednesday morning at 8 am. That's when the local public schools start, when students once again fill the school-buildings. I feel somewhat of an urge to rub it in their face that there's only two more full days before school starts. Many of my friends are downtrodden and disappointed that such a fun-filled summer is coming to an end, and that they'll once again be trapped for seven hours out of a day. I look forward to school's starting, when I can enter a structured world that I love. Of course, I shouldn't be talking. Fall Quarter at SPSCC doesn't begin until September 24th, three weeks from tomorrow. And that's why I love rubbing it in.

In preparation for school starting, I've been trying to get into a more productive mindset. Rather than just lazing around all day (which I feel entitled to, after more than a month away from home during the summer), I've been trying to get things done in an orderly manner. The first day of school will be the judge of whether or not I've been successful. I still need to purchase books for my classes, though. Class book-lists are not released by SPSCC's bookstore until Tuesday, in an effort to force students to buy from them. Radically marked-up prices are definitely a poor incentive, but it's difficult to fight against. To make it even harder to purchase them elsewhere, the titles of the books are only available in the store, they are not posted online. On Tuesday morning, I'll be going to the bookstore and copying down every single ISBN number that I'll need for this quarter. eBay will probably be utilized.

A lazy evening is presenting itself. I'm tired, more tired in the past few days than I've been in quite a while. Tomorrow promises to be just as full. But I'm not complaining.

thinkandrew

New System

2007-09-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not huge on complaining, though I must admit that it can be fun in certain situations. But a genuine complaint I've had is over the computer system that I'm currently running. It's an out-of-the-box PC, which by definition guarantees un-geekiness. Being a self-proclaimed geek, only a truly geeky system can be worthy of power-blogging and gaming. When we decided it was time to acquire such a system, my brother and I jumped on the chance to practice our online shopping skills, producing a computer to be proud of.

Said system is being shipped in eight different boxes, due to our purchasing of eight different components. We're building the computer from scratch, rather than going to the mall and selecting a PC off the shelf. Building a computer has allowed us to get a lot more bang for the buck, saving a lot of money in the process. It's customized to our needs, and will last us for many many years. I'm greatly looking forward to receiving it in the mail.

There is a downside to purchasing a computer over the Internet, though. Rather than having the computer in our hands right now, we have to wait for UPS's guaranteed 3 day shipping service. That's 3 business days. Having placed our order on the day before Labor Day Weekend, delivery is projected to be on Thursday. I guess we'll just have to wait that long.

thinkandrew

2007-08-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

Isn't it a beautiful evening?

thinkandrew

Tee-Time

2007-08-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

It's a picture from the Seattle to Portland that I am displaying, but it is of the incorrect sport for today. For today, I am not writing about cycling, I am writing about golfing. For today was my first time ever playing a complete game of golf, a full eighteen holes, out on an actual course. Up until now, all of my golfing experience was on the putting green and the driving range, where I would simply smack buckets of balls and watch them land on the lawn. Never before had I lined up a shot, and aimed toward a real target. Nor have I ever had to chip out of a bunker onto the green, or aim for a putt on a banked green. Until today. And I must say, I'm hooked.

I guess I really have to blame my best friend for this sudden interest in golf. It's a money sucking sport, but I guess so is cycling. Haha. Anyway, a scout in my Boy Scout troop is working on his golf merit badge, and was having a lady in our troop take him to the course for his 18-hole requirement. Knowing that I was interested, said lady invited me to come along with them. I gladly accepted, and prepared for the afternoon. Having none of my own clubs, I borrowed a set from my friend, and proceeded out for a 3:15 tee-time. My golf bag came pre-loaded with equipment - a set of clubs, a pocket full of tees, a towel, a ball-mark fixing tool, and plenty of golf balls. I needed them, I lost four throughout the afternoon.

Playing twilight golf is a cheaper alternative to prime-time full-priced tee-times. But with our late start in the day, we finished our last hole at 8 pm, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon. Not long after we left the parking lot, it was dark. But it was such a great day. We played scramble-format the whole way through, which means that we all hit a ball, and then the group hits from the ball closest to the hole. I surprised myself, I landed a few solid above 200 yard drives from which the entire group played, as well as sunk 3 one-putts (only attempting a putt one time before sinking it in the hole). One of those putts was a 25-footer, too. It was great fun, and I look forward to finding myself on a golf course again fairly soon!

thinkandrew

Ordeal Weekend

2007-08-28T21:30:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed that I missed a post over the weekend, on Saturday. Occasionally, I will miss a post on the weekend, most likely from my not being at home on those days. This previous weekend, I was out at Camp Hahobas, at an Order of the Arrow Ordeal. Not as a participant, I fulfilled that requirement last summer. Instead, I was going through another ceremony, while also helping to staff the main event. It was an exciting weekend, with almost sixty candidates being initiated into the Order, with another fifty Arrowmen staffing. A lot of fun, it was.

The actual event began on Friday night, though I didn't actually show up at Camp Hahobas until Saturday morning. I stayed the night on Saturday, leaving on Sunday morning after all the camp was cleaned up and checked out. Saturday night was somewhat of an adventure. Camp Hahobas is over 200 acres, the largest camp in the council. I've only been there once before, and that was last summer at my own Ordeal. And just like last summer, I got lost on the way to my cabin. My friend had saved a spot for me in one of the cabins, but finding it proved difficult. Carrying a small duffel bag, and only having a headlamp to illuminate the road, every rustle of the leaves provoked a flurry of imagination. Eventually, lights from a window peeked out at me, and I knew that I had found my destination. It was a warm, peaceful night of sleep.

Returning home was somewhat of an adventure, too. As I stayed late to help clean up, I wasn't able to leave until a little before 11. My friend from Auburn offered me a ride home, promising that my house was on his route home. It wasn't until twenty minutes onto the highway that we discovered that it was in the complete opposite direction. My parents were still able to pick me up from a place that was an hour closer than camp was, but it was just such a funny situation.

A fun weekend, it was.

thinkandrew

A Perfect Summer Day

2007-08-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

My friends and I have way too much fun. It's unfair how much fun we have. I'm sure that in the cosmic balance of fun-ness, there is some group of friends out there that have absolutely no fun at all, for whom staring blankly at a blank wall is considered an activity of unusual excitement. However, I'm not sure that I feel bad for them. I guess I'm selfish that way.

Being a kidnapper is fun, being a kidnapping victim is even better. The deed didn't happen at 7 in the morning, but rather at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, which is still a perfectly acceptable time. It was perfect timing, in fact, it saved me from a drab afternoon of vacuuming. Which I still did anyway, when I got home, but I was already in a good mood. Having no plans whatsoever for the day, being unexpectedly dragged out of the home was very exciting. My best friend didn't even come into the house, she simply called my cellphone, and went on and on about how beautiful it was outside, and that I should go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Climbing into the car, we took off into the street.

Ending up at a grocery store was inevitable for us. Shopping is a classic friends-hanging-out event, but no other sort of shopping holds mutual interest for us. But we all love food, so grocery stores are our natural destinations. However, we only buy items on sale. Tillamook Marionberry-Pie ice-cream ended up in our shopping list, as did whipped cream. My friends had already prepared a cooler of sundae toppings, as well as spoons, cups, and napkins. Tumwater Falls Park was our choice of an eating venue, where the load roaring of water accented the beautiful sunny day. We drove all around town, blasting music out of the speakers, a very strange sight of three teenagers listening to classical vocal music.

Finding ourselves back at my house in the evening, after dropping off one of the group, my friend stayed over for dinner. Before eating, though, we vacuumed the house as I promised my mom that I would do. Chocolate milk was served, with the option of whipped-cream and sprinkles. We watched some TV, and then headed into the woods out back to test out my $1 garage-sale golf clubs. Hitting a golf ball at night with a $1 set of golf clubs is a must-have experience, I highly recommend it to anyone. I had a heckuva lot of fun today.

A perfect summer day.

thinkandrew

Ape Caves

2007-08-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

A deep tunnel runs underneath an area of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It is the Ape Caves, a lava tube that's over two miles long. First discovered in the 50's, and fully explored by a Boy Scout troop, it is now a popular destination for those wishing to venture underground. I've known of it for a long time, but never actually headed there until this past weekend, with my Youth Group. The exploring adventure was fun, scrambling over rocks and climbing into deep recesses. I found myself on my hands and knees near the sealed-end of the cave, trying to see how far in I could go. Other times, I was reaching up to climb over a 8 foot tall lava fall. The ceiling of the tube went from head-height to probably 40 feet up in the air, leading to amazing echos. Flashlights and lanterns were our only illumination, without which I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. It was pretty darn cool.

thinkandrew

*edit* My awesome friend Peter was there, and was an awesomely cool hiker, did an awesome job climbing over the rocks, and brought an awesomely cool lunch. And yes, he did ask me to do this.

Practice

2007-08-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

Practicing driving has been fun. I'll admit, I didn't know how much fun driving could be until I actually got behind the wheel. It's akin to the feeling I get while riding my bike, but not as much from the feeling of physical exhilaration. More so of the feeling of movement, the feeling of speed, the feeling of controlling my own direction in a way that's faster than I can go myself. The jackrabbit starts, jerky stops, and bumpy accelerations are all just part of the learning experience.

In the past two days, I've gotten a little less than an hour of driving experience. One trip to the grocery store tonight was in the dark, though, so does that count for more? Signaling, turning, adjusting mirrors, using the headlights, these are things that I've had to get used to. Most of the road reactions I've learned already, from countless hours on the street while on a bike. That road-feel has already been ingrained into myself, and reacting to other's actions has become easier for me. Assuming that all other drivers are idiots is key. While I'm on the road, I'm the only one that can do anything right. I have to act as if others are going to do something wrong, in order to drive defensively. However, it would also be helpful if when I'm learning, everyone just went home. Too many cars on the street!

What I'm not used to yet, though, is looking into the mirrors. I have no mirrors on my bike, I simply turn my head to look backwards. Normally, chairs aren't in the way. I've never had a problem with going too fast, either, I've never gone faster than 30 miles per hour on a bike. I was surprised how responsive vehicles are, and that I had to feather the brake and throttle to get the reaction I wanted. My mom will probably wear a helmet if she ever gets in the car with me, she's afraid to give me any driving lessons at all. My dad, on the other hand, handed me the keys on the trip home from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Practice, practice, practice. That's what I need. Before I know it, I'll be cruising on the streets. But my bike is still my primary vehicle. I wouldn't be surprised at all if my bike will end up costing more than my car. Which is the way it should be.

thinkandrew

Responsibly, of course

2007-08-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, I'll admit it. I was never a big fan of teenage driving. I thought it was overrated, pointless, and nowhere near as big a deal as most people make it out to be. I don't understand why someone would take their driver's test exactly on their sixteenth birthday, or rave about the new car that they're buying. The supposed freedom that comes with a car also ties in with all the responsibilities of maintenance, gas-money, and licensing.

But that was before I got my license.

It's not technically a license. It's a learner's permit, allowing me to legally drive on the road, while under the instruction of an adult. This afternoon, I took a written driver's test that allows me to do so. When I actually get my full driver's license, I will have to take a driving road-test as well, and I don't plan to do that until next year, when I'm 18 years old. Being 18 will remove all the restrictions of an under-aged driver, restrictions that I don't want to mess with. However, my little paper card (the plastic one will arrive in the mail) says I am now a driver. Of a car, not a bicycle.

Driving will be useful. I think it's very important to think of it that way. Cars are not toys, and should never be treated as such. Getting from Point A to Point B is what they were designed for, and shouldn't be used for anything else. Being responsible in a car is very important, to protect yourself, and everyone else on the street with you.

Who am I kidding? There's a rush, something romantic, that you get from sitting behind the wheel. There's nothing much like cruising on the freeway (no faster that the speed limit, of course), windows down, music playing, and three of your best friends in the car with you. I'm going to love driving. I know it.

Call me a hypocrite if you want to. I'll be speeding away. Responsibly, of course.

thinkandrew

A Group

2007-08-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

A group of friends. We got together for the short time of nine days, in the Canadian wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park. We sat on the plane together, drove up through Minnesota together, and canoed into Canada together. Boy, did we canoe. Sitting in the same seat for over six hours a day, with the same people every day, leads to forming a very tight-knit group. I got to know more about them then I learn about most people in a month. We talked, laughed, argued, and went through the whole team-building process that all leadership conferences teach about. We had a blast. We had such a great adventure, and we were reminiscing about it on the plane all the way home.

But once we left the airport, it was all over. We went home, went to bed, and didn't talk again. I haven't talked to any more than two members of my crew at the same time since, even though it's only been a week and a half. We haven't called each other, haven't exchanged anything more than CDs with two weeks worth of pictures on them. It was great, having such a group for two weeks. But such groups never last. The same thing happened last year, when I was at Philmont. I haven't spoken to many of my Philmont crew for over a year. But that's the nature of summer, I suppose.

thinkandrew

The End is Coming

2007-08-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have no meaningful thoughts to post tonight.

Does that ever happen? That a mind can completely go devoid of all deeper thoughts, all ponderings that are truly important? More than likely not. Perhaps I'm just too lazy to think enough to come up with something people would want to read about. Or perhaps the day's events have left me too physically drained to recall what theological epiphanies I had earlier in the day. Being that I have multiple epiphanies every day. Human beings are made to think, and there is much deeper thought in every individual than I think we give each other credit for. Everything we do affects one another, and there is some deep thought process that results from everything we encounter, a process that defines us as who we are. People aren't just simpletons. When we think of others, when we judge them by what they are doing, it's difficult to realize that more than likely, they are doing the exact same thing to us. Not always a pleasant thought, is it? Then try thinking pleasant thoughts more often, so that others might do the same of you.

Boy, what a load of junk I just wrote. I guess that's what happens when I go into writer's block. Perhaps you would just like to read my happenings for today.

Waking up at 6 am is not a regular occurrence for me. Sure, that was my wake-up time every day while at Northern Tier, but that was under special circumstances. A more healthy summer wake-up time would be closer to 9 o'clock in the morning. But I woke up at 6 am today, and got picked up by my best friend at 6:45, so that we could commit a crime. At 7 am. At a friend's house. We drove over to her house, called her cellphone to wake her up, and then yelled at her open bedroom window to come outside. After which, we dragged her into my best friend's car, and sped off. At 7 in the morning. Kidnappings are fun.

Having not hung out as a group of friends since the summer began, it was agreed that we would randomly kidnap someone sometime soon. But an exact date and time were never set, to conceal the element of surprise. After clearing it with our friend's mother, we agreed that Monday morning would be an excellent time to proceed with the plan. We even dressed up, in summer dresses and khakis and polos. A downtown cruise found us at Starbucks, as well as two separate grocery stores. I'm sure they appreciated teenagers storming through before most sane people are awake, but we didn't break anything, and even bought some things. We were the epitome of good behavior, and we perfect ladies and gentleman.

Summer is such a fun time. It leads itself to so many adventures, great times that are so often not experienced. The end is coming too soon.

thinkandrew

In Control

2007-08-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

The cellphones are fine. The old bricks are unlocked. All six of our devices are now fully usable by all of us. It's a welcome relief after a night full of stress yesterday, when I was frantically trying to solve the problem. But I somehow came across the right codes, entered them in, and now the phones are completely free for use. Google is a wonderful thing. So now, I'm enjoying both a Nokia 3200 and a Motorola RAZR V3. A pretty slick deal, if you ask me.

Driving into church five minutes late sometimes happens on Sunday mornings. We're always in a huge rush to leave the house, but somehow are never able to until five minutes before 10:30. It was 10:32 when we pulled into an already nearly-full parking lot. It was a treasure-hunt for a parking space, though we finally found one against the back-side of the main building. It was a tight squeeze, a back-in lot between a minivan and an SUV. Fitting in a minivan ourselves would take some skill. My dad signaled, drove past it, and began backing in. People began lining up on the other side of us, late comers who were trying to squeeze past in their own search for a space. The moment there was enough room in front of us for even a smidgen of a car to pass through, one immediately tried.

We had backed into the parking space slightly askew, and needed to pull forward to straighten out. But instead of continuing down the street to make room for us, the car in front of us simply sat there. With a wide open stretch in front of him. The driver looked at us, over his left shoulder, and began waving at us to continue backing up. I've heard of backseat drivers before, but this guy was in another car, driving his own. How ridiculous is that? He stayed there the entire time, watching and signaling to us, while we had to make minuscule backing and forwarding to straighten out our parking job. When we were finally settled, and the engine was turned off, the driver of the other vehicle gave us a jaunty wave, and sped off. About time.

I found it very interesting, that such a man would spend such a large amount of time trying to teach my dad how to park a car. Even more so, that it was at his inconvenience, and the inconvenience of everyone waiting behind him. I highly doubt that he was concerned about my dad's driving skills. Rather, he wanted to have control of the situation, a situation in which he was not involved. We're always constantly trying to shove ourselves into places where we don't belong at all, no matter what it is. How many times have you simply stopped walking, and tried to explain to someone that what they're doing is wrong? Is there any point in doing so?

Focusing on ourselves is somewhat difficult for us to do sometimes. I mean that in the sense of correcting our own actions. I have to work on it all the time, but I often feel the urge to point out other's mistakes. Why? I'm not sure. But I'm trying to stop.

thinkandrew

Cellphone Issues

2007-08-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

It's a warm night. We just got back from spending over an hour at BestBuy, where we were assured that upgrading our cellphones would be no hassle whatsoever. Having been in the old contract for our full two year agreement, we were told it would be a simple matter to renew our contract, and immediately get brand new devices. This was a very attractive offer to me, being the gadget-lover that I am. However, I was also wanting the use of my old brick cellphone, as an indestructible backup phone, in case I ever needed to throw a cellphone through a wall and still be able to use it. Accessing that connectivity has become a nightmare. Having signed up with the old AT&T (which became Cingular, and then is now the new at&t), the phone was locked out of us. And now it's a battle to find the correct codes to unlock them, and regain electronic use, rather than a fancy paperweight. It's frustrating, and it's making my head hurt.

thinkandrew

A Disappointment

2007-08-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

The dentist told me some sobering news today. While it may just be a regular event to others, his announcement somewhat stunned and shocked me. Yes, I am the proud owner of a brand new cavity. The first cavity I have ever endured in my seventeen years of age. Some might say that going for so long without any dental problems is quite a feat. The dentist was downright surprised that I haven't had one yet. However, a cavity is a cavity. I'm still disappointed in myself, that I let my hygienic standards drop. I guess I'm just a dirty person on the inside.

It's a very small cavity, a pin-hole on the very last molar on my bottom right row. The grooves on the crown of my tooth make it very difficult to clean effectively back there, allowing build-up that led to this hole in my pearly white enamels. I could blame the cavity on many things; my toothbrush wasn't good enough, I was camping so often that daily brushing was difficult. Perhaps I was in a third-world country where clean water was so unavailable that I had to drink nothing but soda to stay hydrated. But I won't make any such excuses. A cavity is a cavity, and it's my fault.

So now I have an appointment on October 6th, at 4:30 pm, to have a filling put in. It won't hurt, will it?

Why am I making such a big fuss over such a non-eventful happening? I'm surprised, I suppose. It's something new, something that I've never experienced before. I'm disappointed in myself, too, though I'll probably get over it very quickly. I suppose I can also join the club of the vast majority of teenagers in the world. To be honest, I'm not sure why I'm making such a fuss. Perhaps because it's something to blog about. I don't know.

thinkandrew

Bed Time

2007-08-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

There is a point of mental exhaustion that I have reached. I am sure that many other people experience such a state quite often, where there is nearly a total lack of motivation to do anything whatsoever. I am not angry. I am not distraught. I am simply...exhausted. Too much thinking is sometimes not a good thing. It makes my mind swell, there's a sort of pressure that builds up inside that makes me want to explode. Or, simply fall asleep right where I sit, to simply disappear from a conscious state of mind for a few hours. That would be refreshing. Thankfully, it's already 9:30 at night. That means I'll be able to go to bed soon. Hopefully, tomorrow will allow myself to relax a bit, and clear my mind.

"Clear your mind of thoughts, Luke."

I'm using the Force!

Mount Rainier called today, and we found ourselves up at Paradise. Paradise being the location of the Jackson Visitor's Center. It's been nearly two years since I've been up on Mount Rainier, and it's the first time that I've experienced the November 2006 flood damage. From what I remember previously, some of the roads we were driving on were re-routed from where they previously laid. Blame the washouts. A ranger slide-show of the damage was incredible to watch, to actually realize the magnitude of the damage caused by the 20 inches of rain in 36 hours. Over 36 million dollars of infrastructure was damaged, and the park was shut down for six months, the first extended period of closure since the park's opening in 1899. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have nearly overwhelmed the park, and it's slowly returning to its former glory. Our mountain is just as beautiful as it ever was.

My mind needs relaxation. I will go to bed.

thinkandrew

There Was Joy

2007-08-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

There are many stories to tell of my trip to Northern Tier. Like the time where my buddy landed two trophy-sized Smallmouth Bass, both at least 17 inches long. Or the time when we had to slog through about a quarter mile of mud and muck, escaping from a swamp created by a beaver-dam. Or like the morning when I woke up the entire crew by singing love songs from the 30's. Why? Because I'm a hopeless romantic, I suppose. I couldn't help myself. Leaving the Boundary Waters, though, I only have one way to describe it all. An adventure.

Northern Tier High Adventure Base is the oldest of three National High Adventure Bases in the Boy Scouts of America. The other two are Philmont and Florida SeaBase, which were instituted in that order. Northern Tier was a rustic, backcountry experience that skirted between the borders of Minnesota and Ontario. Treks into the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park still hold that old-style feel, one of complete wilderness, that no one else is around. It's pristine, it's one of the only times were I've ever been in the backcountry without having seen another soul for an entire day. As we neared base camp on our last few days, though, it began to feel like a highway, were more accessible areas of the park were flooded by campers. Still, they did not detract from the majestic views of deep glacial lakes, babbling brooks, waterfalls both small and large, and the loons that would laugh at us every time we passed. As if it was such a novelty to be in a canoe, rather than swimming.

Our trip began in Atikokan, just north of the Canadian border. There's a base there, one of three that Northern Tier runs. The other two are Bissett in Manitoba, and Charles L. Sommers in Ely, Minnesota - the base that our journey would end nine days later. The trip to get to Atikokan itself involved a three hour flight, and about six hours of driving north from Minneapolis. We were all anxious to get on the water, and couldn't wait to leave the cramped quarters of a 12 passenger van. The nine in our crew finally got on the water on August 1st, and we paddled over 17 miles on the first day in high winds. That would be the story of most of our trip, non-stop paddling. We left camp every morning at 7 or before, and arrived around 3. Our shortest day was 12 miles, our longest, 26. We totaled at 164 miles, far more than we thought we would be doing. My huge muscley arms were worth it, though.

Each canoe held three people, as well as two packs full of food and gear. Hauling nine days worth of food for nine people is no easy feat, it took two packs that easily weighed sixty pounds each. As the days progressed, it was great to watch the packs slowly deplete, lightening our load significantly. The canoes never got lighter, though. Fifty-five pounds of pure kevlar weight sat on my shoulders every time we encountered a portage. We once watched people exiting a portage from across the lake, completely in the nude. Eight men carrying canoes in the buff isn't something that I get to see every day. These portages were measured in rods, which is a unit that measures 16.5 feet. Thus, 320 rods in a mile. We encountered a portage 324 rods in length, and I took it as an opportunity to prove to myself that I could carry a canoe for that long. It took a whole liter of Gatorade, but I made it to the end. Boy, was I glad to see Basswood Lake on the other side.

Eagles were constantly soaring overhead. Loons greeted us every morning, laughing at our peculiar ways. If we ever ventured too close, they would dive into the water, disappearing without a trace, only to surface a hundred yards away, a few minutes later. Beaver dams littered rivers, though we never actually saw a beaver. A small river otter made an appearance in camp one morning, I spied it running down towards the shore. Alas, we saw no moose, no bear, or any other large animals. But there is joy in the little ones. There was joy on the whole trip.

thinkandrew

Northern Tier High Adventure Base

2007-08-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

I must admit, when I knew for sure that I'd be going to Northern Tier High Adventure Base, I kinda walked towards the adventure with expectancies. I thought I would know what it would be like, judging by my previous experiences at Philmont. Even so, I headed for Minnesota with an open mind, and I was entirely pleased to have a great experience. It was a completely different experience from Philmont, and I had an incredible amount of fun. I don't think I've ever been surrounded by so much pristine wilderness, where the number of people per square mile is approaching zero. I love the Northwoods. It's an amazing country, and a trip that I'll never forget.

Such a canoeing trip is very different from any backpacking trip that I've been on. Other than the fact that we were traveling from one campsite to another, there were very few things similar. We traveled 154 miles in just nine days, and even paddled 26 miles in a single day. A mile long portage with a 55 pound Kevlar canoe squarely on my shoulders was difficult. It wasn't as physically tough as expected, though I did find myself having a few nights of very good sleep. The farmer tan came out nicely, too.

A wonderful trip it was, indeed. There's so much more to say about it. There's just not very many words that I'm able to write at this moment. Darned writer's block. I'll write more tomorrow.

thinkandrew

Talking

2007-08-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

I promise I'll write about Northern Tier tomorrow.

Boy, do people love to talk. There seems to be a non-stop chatter that emanates from certain people's mouths. I won't tell a lie, I'm sure there have been many times where people thought of me in that way. It also seems amazing to some that one person would have so much junk to write about daily, for over a year and a half.

We went to a Sizzler Restaurant this afternoon, for an after-church lunch. It's a family style restaurant where you pay at the front, and have food brought to you at the table. It's also well known for its ridiculously large salad-bar, which is a lunch special all in itself. I had the Steak and Endless Shrimp combo, as well as a salad bar order. Deep fried shrimp came and came in bowls, while I could go back to the bar again and again for an assortment of vegetables, fruits, soups, and even fried chicken. Gluttony was never so easy.

Halfway through my plate of lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and about a cup of croûtons (every kid's dream, no?), a waiter brought out my platter of steak and shrimp. He was a taller African-American man, wearing khakis and a purple polo-shirt. About ten to twenty minutes later, our server came back to refill our water, only he was wearing an orange polo-shirt. This continued throughout our meal, the same waiter coming back wearing alternating shirts. The same-looking waiter, I should say. Obviously it was two different people, as constantly changing shirts would probably lower the productivity of wait-staff. Yes, they were identical twins.

Near the end of our meal, the purple-waiter came over and apologized for the slightly slower service, due to the sudden rush of after-church eaters. We assured him that we didn't notice the delay at all, we were having a wonderful time with our meal. We asked his name, whether or not he was a student, and a few other cordialities. And as if on cue, he suddenly broke out into a spiel, telling us how he attended University of Nevada, his major, and how he was going to graduate school the following year. He told us how he worked two jobs when an undergraduate, how easy it is to make money in food-service. He asked my brother where he goes to school, and how graduating from college is akin to getting your first driver's license. The plastic card in the mail, mind you, not the dinky paper one from the DMV. He was an amiable fellow, and certainly interesting enough to talk to. It just struck me as funny that a waiter on the clock would spend almost ten minutes telling us about his life. He finished by saying that he hoped to run for public office one day, and to vote for him in ten to fifteen years. After which, he called over his twin brother.

Purple-waiter left, and Orange-waiter picked right up where the conversation let off. It was at this point where I almost fell over laughing, as it was an identical twin with the same capacity for conversation that took over our table. He was just as friendly as his brother. When they both left, and we were about to leave the restaurant, I noticed them pulling the same tag-teaming conversation with other tables. I suppose when your shift is almost over, you loosen yourself up a little bit.

Waiters are funny people.

thinkandrew

The Report of My Death Was an Exaggeration

2007-08-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

- Mark Twain, New York Journal, June 2, 1897

I feel somewhat connected to the great author at this moment. A feigned death is an experience that few people get the chance to live through. I must say that the experience somewhat agrees with me, especially since it spiked my blog traffic. As many of my readers know, I'll do anything to increase my blog traffic. Apparently, it takes a best friend (with a friend like him, who needs enemies?), a eulogy, and many sincere condolences to do so. Perhaps I could capitalize on the opportunity, and introduce Google Ads while feigning an imminent collapse. PayPal donations, anyone?

Ethan feared that my laugh will be one of incredulity, after realizing that there are indeed caring folk in this world. Or that his massive abuse of contributing power would result in a backlash of Andrew-powered retribution. I assure you, a laugh did result at my reading of the drama that ensued from his antics. Tall Indian men would concur, good natured humor certainly makes the world go 'round. I don't think that I've ever had so much fun from dying.

There is much irony to be appreciated from this situation. That a buddy of mine got in so much humor-filled trouble is somewhat amusing to me. Perhaps you're just too good of a writer, Ethan. To have a feigned death elicit so many compliments from such a cynical friend also drives me up the wall. I'm an acclaimed mathematician, AND a Star Wars fanatic. That my blog traffic spiked (I'm dead, so no more posts, remember?), instead of Ethan's, is about the funniest thing that's happened to me in cyberspace.

Of course, there is a downside to all this hullabaloo. As the repercussions from my death have been so exactly described, I will be very disappointed if it doesn't really happen that way. I expect a large wake. (By the way, Ethan, I live in Olympia, not Seattle.) CNN had better cover my funeral, or I will be very sore. And by golly, if I don't make Ethan cry for real, there will have been no point to this entire adventure. Watching his fake tears flow off the pages of my blog was one of the highlights of the entire post.

It's been a wild ride. Being gone for two weeks lends mischievous bloggers some very juicy opportunities, and Ethan certainly seized them. I found it amusing, but there are others that certainly didn't. It would be a lie to say that I don't enjoy this little soap-opera that developed around me, even while on vacation. I laughed, even when not considered fully appropriate. I felt loved, when people showed sincere and real condolences for my feigned demise. The esteemed Bonhoeffer Bug had these words to say:

I did not doubt that someone would be fooled by this. Let this be a lesson: always have a healthy sense of doubt, especially when reading something, especially on the Internet.

But in all seriousness, death is always imminent. As my mom noted, our Boy Scout Troop did indeed fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul. Our driving route took us across the I-35W bridge, on our way up north to Northern Tier. As a real CNN report showed, that bridge collapsed during rush-hour on August 1st, a day after we drove over it. It's scary to think that we're always so close to the edge, yet comforting to feel that God watched over us on our trip. God protected us from driving into the Mississippi River, He protected me from actually drowning in Ontario.

Let's lay the civil unrest to bed, shall we? No more scathing comments will be necessary, nor will guilt-tripping Ethan any more. While initially shocking, all of this should remain as a humor-filled memory. No ill-will needs to be shared. That's not to say that I won't be milking my (personal, no one else may. Because I say so.) gloating opportunities for all it's worth, though. Ethan, you certainly dug a beautiful hole for yourself.

And now, it is time for me to reclaim my rented-out bedroom. And today, I sign off for real.

thinkandrew

He's back...

2007-08-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

So Andrew's coming back tomorrow. A lot of things have happened here while he was gone. First of all, he "died". Haha, Ethan. Then, we rented out his room. I wonder how Andrew will deal with his new roommate. We can't really kick him out; the lease is until the end of the month. Oh well, maybe he'll camp in the back yard. Isn't that what Boy Scouts do anyway?

It's been real quiet with him gone, though - almost unnaturally so. With more than half the family gone on trips the whole house feels a little dead. We've taken advantage of the empty house by cleaning the house from top to bottom. Now it's all nice and clean, ready for everybody to come back and mess it up again. The endless cycle repeats. It's been nice having peace and quiet for awhile, but it'll be good to have a full house again.

The canoeing crew returns some time late tomorrow night. A host of scout parents are driving up to the airport to welcome the returning grungy group of guys and bring them home. There will be no huge welcome home bash for the illustrious author of this blog, however - we're leaving tomorrow afternoon to visit Caleb at camp and bring him home on Saturday. They're going to come home to an empty house. Oh the irony.

Return of the Andrew

2007-08-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

Gotcha.

No, Andrew returns tomorrow.

Yay.

Room To Let

2007-08-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

Owner gone too often and too long, lonely room looking for new dedicated occupant. Comes fully furnished with comfortable twin size bed, down comforter and multiple pillows. Three huge drawers under bed for eclectic storage. White study desk faces west window. Multiple book shelves for displaying books and collectibles. Huge closet space with shelves and double rods for all hanging needs.

Room is spacious, bright and cheery and fully equipped with a plasma sphere guaranteed to make your hair stand on end. Assorted Star Wars action figures stand at attention to protect against intruders. Full set of Star Wars novels comes free with rental, however, the extensive collection of origami books is not available for use by renter without prior consent. Genuine reproduction of Middle Earth map remains the possession of landlord. If interested, renter may negotiate for displaying of map in room with additional fee.

By renting this room, the renter agrees to:
- Keep the floor of the room clear of any debris. Any item other than the bed, desk and shelf is considered debris.
- Keep all clothing items in the closet or hooks on the wall supplied for such purpose.
- Keep all books and study items on study desk or book shelves.
- Dust and vacuum room weekly.

Furthermore, the renter agrees to:
- Take the kitchen waste to the compost bin nightly.
- Take out the garbage bin to the road side every Thursday evening, and every other Thursday, the recycling bin and yard waste bin also. Once every four weeks, the glass recycling bin needs to be set out.
- Collect the various bins every Friday and return them to the proper stowing position AFTER the bins have been emptied by the respective trucks.
- Vacuum and wash the vehicles as needed.
- Mow the lawn at least once a week during the peak growing season of fall and spring, less often during the dry summer months.

Room rate is extremely affordable. House is conveniently located near college, bus route and highway exit. If interested, leave contact information below.

p.s. Meal plan is negotiable.
p.p.s. Complimentary ants in room on wall, bed, and floor.

Guest contributor

Loose change

2007-08-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

And now, something harmless:

We walked up to the counter and handed the teller a deposit slip. Out from the shoulder bag came a bag of dollar coins, a bag of quarters, a bag of dimes, and one of nickels and one of pennies. We had spent a good hour separating the whole jar of coins into dollar piles. There were over $50 worth of pennies and quarters and so on. Now we gleefully handed the coins to the unlucky teller.

His eyes widened with disbelief as we pulled out one bag after another of coins and more coins. Feeling somewhat guilty yet we couldn't control our giggling as we saw his expression. This is a particularly small bank branch tucked into a corner of a grocery store. This was where we opened our accounts and where we normally do our banking. It doesn't have all the facilities of a regular bank office, most importantly, it doesn't have a coin-counting machine.

The teller casted a sideway glance to his colleague and asked, "Do I have to count it all or can I just use their numbers?" Even though he was smiling when he said, "Now I won't be bored," I doubt he was really looking forward to all that counting. We walked away half embarrassed, and yet, what are we to do with all those coins if we can't bring them to the bank? Isn't that what banks are for?

Guest contributor

The importance of not going too far

2007-08-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

This is Ethan writing. I'm one of Andrew's friends and I have a morbid sense of humour. I was made one of the contributors to this blog while Andrew was away. You'll want to read every word I write down to the very end. Just to be clear about that.

I woke up in the middle of the night - about 3 AM - and noticed I had received an SMS (from someone who shall not be named).

Oh God. I wake up in the middle of the night to know Andrew's dead. I take it you went for the funeral? Hope you're doing fine and all that. Best wishes. Night.

It occurred to me right then, with cold, ominous foreboding, that perhaps not everybody had read between the lines and understood that it was all a bloody joke. This may come as well duh, to those who spotted it a mile away.

But as for those who didn't?

For those who didn't, I offer my most sincere apologies for making you shed those unnecessary tears. And now I suppose I'll have to suffer your righteous indignation as I so rightly deserve. Tar and feather me, shackle me to the stocks, send me to the gallows. The guilt is almost unbearable.

Those condolences in the previous post... my God, they're real (with the exception of the first anonymous comment which my brother wrote giggling and chuckling as he did so). They're freaking real. The thought of having written a phony news article so damnably convincing has my hands trembling and shaking like leaves in the wind. I didn't know.

Didn't the part about the news crews tip you off??

Suzanne from the UK was "shocked and numbed" by it all.

I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am.

Andrew will come back in a few days, alive and well, and have a good laugh at all this - the condolences, the SMS, and even my official apology. Only his laugh will be one of incredulity as well, as he discovers that there are people who care about him. Perhaps he may even be angry at my abuse of contributing power. So be it.

My mom told me not to laugh at death after reading the previous post. My God, she was right.

To be on the safe side, this post shall also be posted on my own blog before more emotional damage can be done. Joshua brother-of-Andrew was planning to write Andrew's Last Will And Testament. As a joke, obviously. I suggest you don't do it, Joshua.

It would be the height of irony if Andrew did die, somehow, on his trip. Don't die, Andrew. I don't want you to die. Not yet anyway. You need to come back and assure your friends that you're still alive.

Andrew Hou (1990 - 2007)

2007-07-31T23:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday July 31, 2007

ONTARIO: A Boy Scout troop's canoeing expedition went terribly wrong yesterday at Big Canoe River, Cuttle Lake, with the accidental deaths of two young Boy Scouts.

A Boy Scout to the very end, Andrew Hou, 17, drowned while trying to rescue one of his fellow Boy Scouts after their canoe overturned in a freak accident.

Andrew Hou failed despite his best efforts.

Both he and his friend drowned before their friends could reach them.

"No words can adequately express how sorry we are," A representative of the The Northern Tier High Adventure Base told reporters. "It won't happen again. We promise. Beginning in December, the public may participate in the challenging cold-weather camping program called Okpik. We've lowered rates considerably in the light of this tragedy."

The Northern Tier High Adventure Base facilitated the canoeing expedition that Andrew Hou and his troop signed up for.

"That was how he would have wanted to go," A close friend of Andrew who declined to be named said. "He lived as he died."

A wake for Andrew Hou was held in his home in Seattle, Washington last night.

"What I don't understand is wasn't Andrew in his physical prime? Wasn't he a great swimmer?" A member of the Hou family who declined to be named told the massive crowd at the wake. "I don't understand. I don't understand."

There wasn't a dry eye at the wake as friend after friend, relative after relative, and news crew after news crew took turns to reflect on the life Andrew lived.

Oldest child prodigy alive. Model student. Celebrated pianist. Acclaimed mathematician. Renowned motivational speaker. Indispensable handyman. Star Wars fanatic. Loyal brother. Filial son. Friend of friends. Likable geek.

The list goes on.

The Hou family, already exhausted and emotionally spent, had gone to bed by 1 AM. But the wake continued without them as people flocked from all around the world to pay their respects.

People from China, Malaysia, Singapore, England, Australia, India, and even Madagascar dropped what they were doing and caught the first flight to the United States.

"Oh, no, I don't know him personally," A tall Indian man who declined to be named, but insisted on including his nationality, told reporters. "I just read his blog. He was indeed a talented boy. Very talented. He had very good English. It was only right that I came to say farewell to this boy I do not know personally."

CNN's Kathy Paik who was at the scene was astounded at the turnout.

"This is incredible," She said. "Two Boy Scouts die and only one is honoured? What about the other guy, what's-his-name? This is simply unfair. This is an excellent example of how biased the media is today."

As for me, your intrepid and impartial reporter, I couldn't stop the tears from flowing.

Unfair or not, the crowds, the news crews, and the tears - they spoke volumes about the lives Andrew Hou had touched during the brief period of time he had on this planet.

Rest in peace, Andrew the Boy Scout.

Northern Tier

2007-07-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be gone. For a long time. Until the 10th of August, exactly. Boy Scouts is leading me to northern Minnesota and southern Ontario, where I'll be at Northern Tier High Adventure Base. Canoeing will be my thing for the next two weeks, and I'll have paddled over a hundred miles by the time I return. It's quite a trip, and I expect to get a lot out of it. I'll be stronger, from daily paddling. I'll have made closer friends in my crew. I'll be closer to God, from the daily services we will hold. And, I'll have one heckuva tan-line, one that can almost compete with the one I got from the Seattle to Portland. Look forward to guest posts, some under my name, some not. Have a great summer!!!

thinkandrew

Fishy Fishy Fish

2007-07-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

I decided that a very large picture of a very large fish being held up by a very large Native American carved in stone would make a very nice header-picture for my post today. I took this picture at my Deception Pass camping trip last week; the statue must stand about fifteen feet tall. What's even scarier is that when I walked around to the other side, I realized that the statue had a different face holding the same fish in the opposite direction. The fish is a Pacific Northwest Salmon, though I'm not sure what the significance of the statue is. There was a plaque, but that was covered by overgrown shrubs.

Eagle Projects happen en-mass during this time of year, due to the excellent weather and lack of other responsibilities. I recently finished mine, which I had put off until the summer because I was to lazy to work in the rain. A friend of mine just had the second work party of his project today, which I went to help out at. He was putting in thirty nine steps into a slope that would lead down to a neighborhood park. The steps were made out of lumber that retained gravel, they're also to act as a sort of drainage system when it rains. Being that there was limited workspace (the steps are only three feet wide), it was difficult to have more than two or three people working on a particular step at a time. Even though we split the work group into two teams (one to work up, one to work down), the majority of the work party resembled the Tostitos commercial that was on Superbowl XL. The one with the three people just standing around talking, while the fourth works hard?

Garage sale-ing today led itself to some interesting finds. After quite a few junky sales, I finally found myself at a garage sale with such an eclectic collection of items that I could most likely walk away with something. Having recently developed an interest in golfing, three sets of golf clubs caught my eye. They were in bad condition, and probably not of good quality even in their prime. However, it's really hard to beat a one dollar price tag for a set of ten clubs plus a bag. They'll be great to practice a swing with, and if they turn out to be completely worthless, I'm sure I'll find a way to get rid of them.

After I got home, and cracked open the newspaper, I discovered that the garage sale was one of items from a homicide victim's home. I'm glad I didn't try to bargain the price.

thinkandrew

Hurting Feet

2007-07-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

It's a dull throbbing pain that aches on the bottom of my feet. I have to walk gingerly across the carpet, less the rough fibers irritate my soles. They're somewhat raw. What I learned today is that wearing flip-flops over the mud-flats and clam beds of Puget Sound probably isn't the best idea.

You see, my best friend and I had planned to go kayaking this morning. And we did, though at great expense to our feet. Having planned and gotten excited about our kayaking excursion, a little thing like low tide couldn't prevent us from wanting to go. She has two 10 foot long kayaks, which we loaded onto a little dolly to take down the steep road to the waterfront. It's pretty much walking on our heels the entire way down, leaning back to stop the kayaks from running away. When we reached the bottom of our mini-mountain, I was expecting to see a beach of smooth rocks to the water front, and that we could simply carry the kayaks out to the water. Instead, I saw oyster beds, clam beds, exposed mud flats, and mountains and mountains of barnacles. When walking on muddy barnacles, it's not long before flip-flops get slippery enough to not really do a good job of acting as shoes. It didn't help that my friend didn't have any shoes with her, so we tried switching off for a while. It wasn't long before we determined that the best course of action would be to go back and get her a pair of shoes.

Lifting a forty pound kayak on the mud flats beyond the clam beds isn't terribly difficult. Carrying it any distance, though, is a completely different predicament. Puget Sound mud sucks your feet right up to the knees, and grabs at your shoes. We had to take slow steps, to make sure that when our feet went into the mud, they came back out with all of our shoes and toes. Eventually, we got both kayaks out onto the water, and hopped in. The wonderful thing about kayaks is that they float in minimal amounts of water. The tide was low enough that we could see the muddy bottom from above.

We paddled around for over an hour, talking, laughing, and eating the snacks that we brought along with us. The tide made its way back into shore, and we headed back in as well. Pushing the kayaks up the hill was not quite as fun as holding them back from behind, but we got them up there eventually. The caked-on mud on the kayaks needed to be scrubbed off, after which we left them out in the sun to dry. There was mud on our feet that needed to be scrubbed off too, which in the process of doing which, we realized that our feet were torn up. Oh well. It was a great time, out on the water, out in the sun. I had fun!

thinkandrew

Rough Hands

2007-07-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday night, which means that we have to take out the garbage tonight. Every Friday morning is Garbage Day, where the garbage man comes through our neighborhood to dispose of our household waste. However, the days are gone of a man hanging on the side, throwing the contents of cans into the back of the truck. The garbage trucks operated by Pacific Garbage Disposal have these nifty robotic arms that pick up the can, empty it, and replace it on the curb all by themselves. The driver doesn't even need to lean out the window to watch the arm, there's a camera within the arm. To guarantee service, we have to have the cans out on the street by 6 am, so we'll put it out tonight. There's a separate can for our recyclable materials, but we only put that out every fortnight. Large stacks of newspaper leave my hands black, so I'm glad I won't have to deal with them until next week.

Driving home from golf lesson today, we passed by Capitol Lake, a picturesque man-made lake that reflects the state capitol. The sun was shining its last rays of light onto the dome, and an early moon hovered right around the tip of the spire. It was a beautiful scene, I almost had my dad stop the car to take a picture, but decided against it. With digital cameras, it's possible to take hundreds and hundreds of non-stop photographs. I have gigabytes of image data, and I rarely ever look at any of them. Besides, beautiful pictures of the capitol hold no emotions or memories for me. Photographs of people are the ones worth keeping, the ones of friends and family sharing in certain events. I've begun to weed out the pictures that I no longer care for, the ones that are just eating up space on my hard drive. It's kind of like throwing away that shoebox of slides that sits in the basement, it's just as hard.

Speaking of golf, I got to play with a driver for a while, instead of irons. Hitting a ball over 150 yards is progress, I suppose, but it's better when it's actually going in the direction that I'm aiming. A few good shots really sent my heart soaring, it feels good to finally be progressing somewhat. I'm making blisters and developing callouses on the palms of my hand. That's a good thing. I'm likely to build many more this summer, canoeing up in the Boundary Waters. Rough hands show signs of use, and ability to work. Moisturize all you want, having able-bodied hands is the sign of a true hard worker.

thinkandrew