Why Alex's Life is Meh

about me addition.

2009-03-22T20:27:00.000-05:00

Edit- march 22, 2009

Senior year is approaching its end now. I only have a few more months in high school, so i thought i would update some of the things that i have done this year.

Marching band this year was magnificent. I had a chance to be close with some of my dearest friends, and created some great memories. I attempted to play baritone for the marching band, it was pretty much a fail, but im okay with that.

In the fall i was invited to the alburnett high school homecoming by a very attractive young lady, Kristy Owen, who I met out at the airport. We enjoyed a relationship together for a while before it was disbanded by a few of my more major character flaws, such as inability to cope with reality, and poor decision making.

I started playing bass for 2 great bands around this time. Sage River Satterfield and the Wayfarers, and a band based out of marion that currently has no name, but we like to call it ULTRASONIC MEGABLAST for fun. both groups have a lot of talent, and im not talking about myself, and have already played countless (non profit) gigs.

Phil and i have hung out alot this year. especially when i started to train for MMA. I trained very hard for my debut MMA fight, and won it in 14 seconds. The second i Won in the first round. Right now i plan on taking a break for a little while, and want to explore the Idea of gaining 15 lbs of solid muscle and moving up a weight class.

A friend of mine asked me the other day. Why do you do it? and it provoked some thought. I have actually thought about it alot. And i have come up with a lot of B.S. ansnwers over the months. but ive come up with the one that i like the most: I am second strongest person i know. And when i speak of strength i mean the power of will. the ability to impose your will over other people, and to drive after what you want and achieve your goals. and thought the person that is stronger than me is twice as strong as i am, i am 10 times as strong as the next best person i know. That being said, with all my strength, i feel powerless in my own life, so i use my will in a place where i can: the cage. It is a way for me to use my strength, and at the same time i am searching for the person that will be stronger than me, and will be my undoing. in short: im a sadist on a suicide mission.

I asked a girl to prom, and she said yes. but then she said no. So i decided i would just go with Phil and Sam and maybe Joe. I would like to come out of the closet and announce at this time that i am in fact a heterosexual and always have been, and always will be.

I didnt really try the first two trimesters of school this year. I still managed to get good grades the first term, but not in the second term, so i feel lots of added pressure to do well this term.

and i think thats about it. we will see how the rest of the year pans out. and maybe this autobiography will see another update before i go to college.

sincerely,
alex

About Me (for all you facebookers out there)

2008-10-22T22:18:00.002-05:00

My name is Alex, and this is a little piece I like to call, about me.

I was born in Brevard County, Florida in 1990, on November 4. My mother had long hair then, and was very pretty, just like she is now. I don’t remember much from before I was 3 or 4, but my mom said that I liked to walk a lot, and apparently I was born with a full head of hair. I have only a few memories from my 5 years in florida. I remember the neighbors having 4 dogs. I remember loving to visit my grandma’s house, and eating little weenies and ice cream (not together). I should mention, because it is important, that I began playing video games from the ripe young age of 3 or 4. I beat super Mario bros 3 at the age of 4, which I feel is quite the achievement. This really influenced my future video gaming career.

When I was 5 we moved to Cedar Rapids, IA. Right next door to my cousins on staub ct. i must have spent 3 months or so before school started playing with my cousins in the summer, but it felt like an eternity. My 3 cousins, Brittany, Ben, and Blake, along with my older brother L.C. had many adventures together, often parading around as superheros. I should mention I had glasses at that time. My cousin Blake, and my older brother picked on me (as is perfectly natural), and occassionaly I got into fights with them. Mostly with blake, he was quite a jerk.

I started school at Garfield Elementary in the fall. The first few years at Garfield seemed… unimportant. I was very smart, but I did not know that until 3rd grade. It was quite funny, they would pull me out of class every now and then to do IQ testing and all sorts of mind games to see how smart I was, and I blew through them with ease. And then one day I confounded the person I was working with by telling them I was having trouble understanding how to do subtraction. She tought me and I picked up instantly.

I made had a few good friends, Nathan Gordman in kindergarten, and Keenen Davis in 2nd grade (can you believe it? Me and keenen were best friends once! I will probably keep telling people that, because I think he is going to be a very successful football player) But my real friendships started to develop when I met Luke Reynolds. Luke was smart like me. In fact, although I never would have admitted it then, I think he was smarter than me. I started to identify myself as a nerd at this time, and luke was a bit of one too.

In 3rd grade I had met a guy named Michael Wendt. He was kind of a bad kid, so I didn’t really like him that much. He was always causing trouble and creating a ruckus, and getting sent to the office. We got put in an advanced reading group with Mr Wendt (no relation), a student teacher, along with luke and cody van bogart (I believe… I may be wrong about this… maybe it was someone else).

Before I continue I need to note some things about this time period, and point out some things that I missed. My sister was born when I was 7. shortly after, my father moved out of the house and my mother and him eventually got a divorce. In 3rd grade I began playing the clarinet, and with some skill I should say. I also began taking tae kwan do lessons somewhere around that time, making it all the way to brown belt. I also started going to church around this time, but it didn’t really effect me until later in my life. Also around this time, I fell in love with Final Fantasy VII, and became the final fantasy fanboy I am today.

One day I found out that Michael Wendt had played Final Fantasy vii. That was all it took for us to become best friends. We stayed at eachothers houses every Friday and Saturday, and watched adult swim (which actually had good shows on at the time), and played final fantasy vii, viii, ix, along with legend of legaia and star ocean 2. we thought we were gonna be best friends forever.

But then I moved in the summer before 5th grade. I moved to a different part of Cedar Rapids. My mom married my step-dad colin, and we lived in a semi-chaotic happy dysfunction ever after. I met a couple of friends around this time: chris grahm, jerry maddox, and phil koong. We all got along, and they all loved video games like I did.

5th grade was fun. I went to Jackson for one year and learned a lot of things. The first thing I learned was this: no matter how good my ghetto basketball skills where in the ghetto, they were no match for the 800 dollar basketball camp skills of the rich preps that went to Jackson. Nothing against rich preps… just sayin they got more game. I picked up 2 friends during the year, Caleb D’arensbourg, and Mason Anderson. Chris and Jerry moved away, and Phil, Mason and I became the greatest force of destruction known to man. We were the best friends ever. There was nothing better than going to masons house on a Friday night, playing video games, watching movies, shooting fireworks, shooting bb guns. It was epic. Sometimes we would go out and do crazy stuff at 2am, like terrorize the Xavier kids making out in Seminole valley park late at night. But eventually we slowed down a little bit with the terror, because I shout out some dudes window with a bb gun, so we laid low for awhile.

Then middle school. And puberty. I don’t remember a lot about 6th grade… other than it sucked.. Mason, Phil and I continued to tear it up. That’s about it. In 7th grade a lot of things changed for me. First off, I joined the bible quiz program at church, and met one of my greatest friends, Stephanie Graham. I wasn’t very good at bible quiz, but only because I spent my time playing video games instead of studying. I also got contacts that year… which also represents the transition for me from COMPLETE NERD to pretty cool guy that is also a nerd. I also started playing bass guitar around this time, and joined the jazz band. I also switched from clarinet to bass clarinet, the worst decision of my life. I liked a girl named Torin Mallonee around this time... but she never returned the favor. I picked up a couple more friends, Isiah and Justin. we also got together occasionally to play video games.

Mason moved away. One of the most sucky things that ever happened to me. Phil and I remained good friends, but we were sorta on and off. I think in 8th grade I spent more time with isiah than I did phil, but I don’t remember exactly. 8th grade was pretty cool. I had a lot of friends, and started to develop more into the person that I currently am. I sharpened my sense of humor, broadened my social networks beyond that of friends that I play video games with, and so on. I should not at this time that I really really really started to like Stephanie, who was still at the time on my bible quiz team. She liked me too, and that was all fine and good.

In the summer after 8th grade, I began learning Je Ying Kuen gung fu, which really opened me up to the world of martial arts. I learned a lot from Mr tsang, and my Sehings, and continued to hone my skills for 2 years under their instruction. I also became an employee of Donutland before high school, which is an incredibly wonderful place to work, despite the dysfunctionality of the shop.

High school for me has been a very good experience so far, I have liked it a lot and done a lot of cool things. Dating Sally Johnson was not one of them. That’s all that I will say about that. Freshman year I did Marching band, got into wind symphony, and played for jazz band II. I took one AP class. I was still in bible quiz at that time. I occasionally hanged with Phil.

Sophomore year I started to hang with Sam Amer, who I forgot to mention up to this point, Phil, Joe, and Suhaib (a friend of sam’s). WE DID SOME CRAZY SHIZZAM!!!!!!!!! Every Friday night we would get together. Phil and sam had 2 really neat computers, and we would play BF2, and WOW and have so much fun. We would walk to walmart, and buy food and all sorts of stuff. We had 3 great pranks that we pulled that I will never forget. For me, this represented a return to the crazyness that I used to do with mason and phil.

1st. we went to Covington, where joe lives, stole 2 plastic deer from a neighbors house, and put them up in the middle of a highway, and watched. Aobut 5 minutes later, a truck drove up, swerved around them, stopped, reversed, got out of the truck, picked up the deer and put them into the truck, and drove away. We were laughing so hard, it was the funniest thing ever.

2nd we went to walmart and bought sausages, magnum XLs, and Vaseline. Then we went near blairferry road, and hid behind bushes and fences, combined the three products into what became a slingshot like projectile resembelling male genitals, and flung them at oncoming traffic. Then we almost got gunned down by some gangsters. But we lived

3rd we built a smoke bomb. See the video on my facebook.

Later on in the year the band went to san Antonio, and we had a Magnificent time!!! It was really all jolly good.

My brother joined the airforce around this time.

Also around this time, I realized that I wanted to be a pilot when I grow up. No relation to the statement made above.

Junior year. LOTS OF THINGS HAPPENED. First. My clarinet teacher tought me how to lift weights… and I fell inlove with it. I quickly became a ripped beast the likes of which the world has never known, and decided I would try and break the school lb for lb bench press record by the end of my senior year (im getting there, btw). He also tought me some wing chun. I broke up with Sally, finally. And a few weeks later, asked her step sister out, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

500 people paid me 2 dollars that year, to do something amazing. I joined Colorguard. I was a flag girl. A flagit, or if you prefer, a flaggot. It was realy a lot of fun, and I saved up the money for my pilots license. I built my computer around this time, and continued on rampaging the nights with sam and phil.

My relationship with Sally’s step sister was was banhammered/nerfed by her parents, and set in course a series of events which drove me into the furthest depths of depression I had ever experienced in my life. But towards the end of the year things started to brighten up again. My good friend Caitlin Bradford helped me out a lot, and as a result we became even better friends.

Last summer: I worked anywhere from 40 to 58 hours a week, and dumped every cent of the money into flight training. I got 2/3rds done with the training before I went broke. I aso started training for MMA, which I hope to do a couple of boughts in when I turn 18.

I am a senior in high school now. I am busy a lot, doing a lot of things. Most of which are in some way related to band. I have a lot of good friends, most of whom are in band, and I get to spend a lot of time with them. I am planning on going to ISU next year, and continuing my flight training, in the hopes of one day becoming a professional pilot.

And that’s about it. If you think I left anything out, or would like me to edit anything in here, just let me know. It was kind of a rush job. I just tried to cram my entire life into an hours worth of writing.

Thanks for reading,

Alex

Edit- march 22, 2009

Senior year is approaching its end now. I only have a few more months in high school, so i thought i would update some of the things that i have done this year.

Marching band this year was magnificent. I had a chance to be close with some of my dearest friends, and created some great memories. I attempted to play baritone for the marching band, it was pretty much a fail, but im okay with that.

In the fall i was invited to the alburnett high school homecoming by a very attractive young lady, Kristy Owen, who I met out at the airport. We enjoyed a relationship together for a while before it was disbanded by a few of my more major character flaws, such as inability to cope with reality, and poor decision making.

I started playing bass for 2 great bands around this time. Sage River Satterfield and the Wayfarers, and a band based out of marion that currently has no name, but we like to call it ULTRASONIC MEGABLAST for fun. both groups have a lot of talent, and im not talking about myself, and have already played countless (non profit) gigs.

Phil and i have hung out alot this year. especially when i started to train for MMA. I trained very hard for my debut MMA fight, and won it in 14 seconds. The second i Won in the first round. Right now i plan on taking a break for a little while, and want to explore the Idea of gaining 15 lbs of solid muscle and moving up a weight class.

A friend of mine asked me the other day. Why do you do it? and it provoked some thought. I have actually thought about it alot. And i have come up with a lot of B.S. ansnwers over the months. but ive come up with the one that i like the most: I am second strongest person i know. And when i speak of strength i mean the power of will. the ability to impose your will over other people, and to drive after what you want and achieve your goals. and thought the person that is stronger than me is twice as strong as i am, i am 10 times as strong as the next best person i know. That being said, with all my strength, i feel powerless in my own life, so i use my will in a place where i can: the cage. It is a way for me to use my strength, and at the same time i am searching for the person that will be stronger than me, and will be my undoing. in short: im a sadist on a suicide mission.

I asked a girl to prom, and she said yes. but then she said no. So i decided i would just go with Phil and Sam and maybe Joe. I would like to come out of the closet and announce at this time that i am in fact a heterosexual and always have been, and always will be.

I didnt really try the first two trimesters of school this year. I still managed to get good grades the first term, but not in the second term, so i feel lots of added pressure to do well this term.

and i think thats about it. we will see how the rest of the year pans out. and maybe this autobiography will see another update before i go to college.

Emit Remmus

2008-06-02T07:30:00.002-05:00

SUMMER TIME!!! HADOUKEN!

there is only 1 week of school left. i am very excited for this summer. It is going to be the most structured summer of my life. i like short sentences. here is what i am going to be doing:

WEEKLY:
50 hours of work split between Ackly, Copecky, and Kingery; Donutland; and Marion Airport
7.5+ hours of flying
3 hours of MMA
1.5 hours of jump roping
3 hours of Kanji studying
5 hours of bass clarinet practice
and various other things such as eating and sleeping which i have not included hour amounts for

SUMMERLY:
1 week of vacationing in saint martin with my grandmother and family
2 weekend college visits, one to F.I.T. and one to U.D. and E.R.
1 saturday of attending pickle days in walker.

If i follow these plans religiously, i will have had a very successful summer, afterwhich i will have my private pilots license, 410 kanji memorized, be thoroughly prepared for All-state band auditions, be able to beat a friend of mine in a jump-roping compeition, be able to bench 1.66 times my weight, and have my senioritis throroughly polished and ready to go for the school year.

HADOUKEN!

500 HITS!

2008-05-26T22:54:00.003-05:00

pop some champagne (though i wont be having any). 500 hits. thats a big deal. thats alot of people. at this rate i only need to have my blog up for another 1000 years to get 1000000 hits. i can do it. it would be nice to know how many of those hits come from classmates and how many of them are coming from outside people that are stumbling apon my blog. i almost feel bad that 500 people have seen this blog, because i havent really taken good care of it the past month or so. im starting to get lazy. i still havent put in my last 2 or 3 flight lessons. i will have to blog about them soon i spose.

but really. 500 hits? thats like the number of pushups i can do on one hand ever since i started taking bull shark testosterone. unfotunately it can only be taken rectally (kind like meth. shout out to CS).

Disclaimer: i am not really taking bull shark testosterone
Disclaimer Disclaimer: and i dont encourage the use of it

the point im trying to get at is this: my blog is a big deal.

post #12

2008-05-03T11:39:00.000-05:00

the school year is almost over. tomorrow i have 2 AP tests, and the day after that i have 1. the 4 classes that i have AP tests for will become considerably easier after the exams. 3 of the 4 i have already taken finals for. which means i will only have 3 Finals to take at the end of the school year. I may decide to take my computer competency test as well. The point is this: summer is almost here!

Although, make no mistake, my summer will be anything but a vacation. Well in one respect anyway, for i will enjoy it as a break from school and a chance to pursue activities of my own choosing including 50 hours of work every week, 4-8 flight lessons, 3 trips to the gym, 2 MMA classes, 2 extreme jump rope sessions, 3 music practicing sessions, and 3 kanji learning sessions. If i do all that i will be busy from 8 AM to 9 PM every day, sunday through saturday.

I do Plan on taking 2 small vacations. at the beggining of summer i am taking a 5 day trip to Virginia with my dad, to see my grandpa. then in late june i am taking a week vacation to saint martin in the carribean. These trips will of course be fun, i just wish they didnt cut into my RIGOUROUS schedule of working and learning stuff.

Flight Lesson #5

2008-05-03T11:25:00.000-05:00

i went to the Marion Airport for my flight lesson, and i met two guys there. There names were Meredith and Kim. i will give you a moment to reflect on that.

Anywho, one of them owned a 6 seater Cessna with twin engines. It was super awesome. They asked Josh if he wanted to go up with them for a flight around the city and he said he had a student. They then offered to take me with, and i accepted. So we flew around cedar rapids and mt vernon and such. It was really cool. I also learned that the bigger the plane you are in, the smaller the runway looks when you land. I thought we were going to die.

Afterward i had my flight lesson with Josh. We went over coordinated turns, where you use the rudder as well as the yoke. We also reviewed S-turns, Turn about a point, and did the Rectangular Course. I didnt get sick this time around, because i tried to look at the ground as little as possible, and also it wasnt very windy out. I did all of the maneuvers within passing FAA guidelines, and then we flew back to the airport for a lesson on landing in crosswinds. We used the rudder to fly straight with the runway, even though there were winds blowing us to the right. because of this we landed the plane one wheel at a time, starting with the wheel in the wind, and ending with the nose gear.

I was very happy to do two lessons this week, and i think i will do two next week as well. This summer i hope to do anywhere from 4 to 8 lessons a week.

Flight Lesson #4

2008-05-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

I had two flight lessons this past week, which made me extremely happy. On the first lesson we did take offs and landings. Takeoffs have been something that i have been working on during every lesson, but during this lesson i finally started doing them myself. they are not extremely difficult. you just gun it down the runway at full throttle, and try and pop a wheelie with the yoke, maintaining about a 5-10 degree climb angle while using the rudder to keep the plane on the runway.

Landing however is much more difficult. When you think about it, when you are trying to takeoff you are trying to go from ground to sky. you can go anywhere in the sky as long as you get off the ground. landing is the exact opposite. you are in the sky and you have to get to the ground, but you can only go to one spot, the runway. During landing we start by flying on the right side of the runway, heading the opposite way, in the downwind leg. We pull the carburetor heat and lower the power at one end of the runway, and then reduce the power some more and lower 10 degrees of flaps at the other end of the runway. that point, as we circle around to land is the most important part of landing, we have to make judgements based on airspeed, wind, altitude, as to whether or not we need to raise the nose, increase bank angle, lower more flaps, increase or reduce power, all so that we hit the runway at the right spot. Josh still has to help me with this every time, because i dont have enough experience to make the correct judgements. After the judgement calls it gets pretty easy. you line the plane up with the runway, and decend down to it. once you are abuot 15 feet off the ground you bring the nose up and land on the runway with the back wheels. you then use the yoke to maintain a wheelie for as long as you can, that way you reduce the damage to the front gear.

We did 4 takeoffs and landings. i never landed compeltely by myself, but i was certainly doing the majority of the work.

plagiarism

2008-05-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

In instructional settings, plagiarism is a multifaceted and ethically complex problem. However, if any definition of plagiarism is to be helpful to administrators, faculty, and students, it needs to be as simple and direct as possible within the context for which it is intended.
Definition: In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.
This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers.
Most current discussions of plagiarism fail to distinguish between:
1. submitting someone else’s text as one’s own or attempting to blur the line between one’s own ideas or words and those borrowed from another source, and
2. carelessly or inadequately citing ideas and words borrowed from another source.
Such discussions conflate plagiarism with the misuse of sources.
Ethical writers make every effort to acknowledge sources fully and appropriately in accordance with the contexts and genres of their writing. A student who attempts (even if clumsily) to identify and credit his or her source, but who misuses a specific citation format or incorrectly uses quotation marks or other forms of identifying material taken from other sources, has not plagiarized. Instead, such a student should be considered to have failed to cite and document sources appropriately.
What are the Causes of Plagiarism and the Failure to Use and Document Sources Appropriately?
Students who are fully aware that their actions constitute plagiarism—for example, copying published information into a paper without source attribution for the purpose of claiming the information as their own, or turning in material written by another student—are guilty of academic misconduct. Although no excuse will lessen the breach of ethical conduct that such behavior represents, understanding why students plagiarize can help teachers to consider how to reduce the opportunities for plagiarism in their classrooms.
• Students may fear failure or fear taking risks in their own work.
• Students may have poor time-management skills or they may plan poorly for the time and effort required for research-based writing, and believe they have no choice but to plagiarize.
• Students may view the course, the assignment, the conventions of academic documentation, or the consequences of cheating as unimportant.
• Teachers may present students with assignments so generic or unparticularized that students may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses.
• Instructors and institutions may fail to report cheating when it does occur, or may not enforce appropriate penalties.
Students are not guilty of plagiarism when they try in good faith to acknowledge others’ work but fail to do so accurately or fully. These failures are largely the result of failures in prior teaching and learning: students lack the knowledge of and ability to use the conventions of authorial attribution. The following conditions and practices may result in texts that falsely appear to represent plagiarism as we have defined it:
• Students may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their texts.
• Students will make mistakes as they learn how to integrate others’ words or ideas into their own work because error is a natural part of learning.
• Students may not know how to take careful and fully documented notes during their research.
• Academicians and scholars may define plagiarism differently or more stringently than have instructors or administrators in students’ earlier education or in other writing situations.
• College instructors may assume that students have already learned appropriate academic conventions of research and documentation.
• College instructors may not support students as they attempt to learn how to research and document sources; instead, instructors may assign writing that requires research and expect its appropriate documentation, yet fail to appreciate the difficulty of novice academic writers to execute these tasks successfully.
• Students from other cultures may not be familiar with the conventions governing attribution and plagiarism in American colleges and universities.
• In some settings, using other people’s words or ideas as their own is an acceptable practice for writers of certain kinds of texts (for example, organizational documents), making the concepts of plagiarism and documentation less clear cut than academics often acknowledge and thereby confusing students who have not learned that the conventions of source attribution vary in different contexts.

cute kitties

2008-04-30T20:21:00.000-05:00

I have something to confess to you. This blog was originally supposed to be about aviation and such stuff. but because of my slow progress in the world of aviation it has been particularly difficult to write on the one subject alone. And since i so cleverly named the blog in a manner that would allow me to, i think i could write just about anything and it would be properly covered by the topic of this blog, my life.

Which is precisely why the topic of todays post is cute kitties. i like them alot. especially ones that are funny. Lolcats as they ahve come to be known as on the internet are all the rage. in fact, one of my favorite websites displays up to 10 new lolcats everyday. the website, is by far the most useful thing on the internet since the advent of wikipedia, and before that google, which was preceded by yahoo.

time to digress: i began using the internet when the internet began. my father began my internet jedi training at the age of 3, in 1993, when the internet began to take a major role in public use. when yahoo spread its wings in 1994, the first search engine of its kind, my father began to teach me how to search the vast internet using yahoo. looking back on the experience, its a miracle i never once stumbled apon pron on the internet.

so dont tell me that when i say i can has cheezburger is better than yahoo that i dont know what im talking about, because i do. i was there.

also, if you would like some more information about cute kitties, this may help.

PANTS!

2008-04-28T20:05:00.000-05:00

SO! you may have heard this rant of mine before, and if you have... maybe you will get something new about it. But for those of you who have yet to hear this rant, i hope you enjoy it. Many of you may be aware that there has been a trend in jeans in the past 5 years or so towards tighter jeans. of particular interest are the guys jeans that are beggining to take this tight turn in design.

It occured to me when i got my first pair of these designer tight jeans, aeropostale i think, that they were extremely uncomforatable! my grandmother gave them to me for christmas, so i felt compelled to wear them at least enough times for their moneys worth. unfortunately, since they came from aeropostale, that meant i probably should wear them more than all my other jeans combined. But that is besides the point. The point is this: tight jeans leave no room for stuff that us guys need room for. It was then that i came to the conclusion that only men with considerably small, or non existent parts of which may conflict with these jeans would ever shop at stores such as Aeropostale or American Eagle.

When i was in colorguard i was also forced to wear uncomfortable pants. In fact they were girl pants. They had room on the side for things that women usually have (hips) that i did not, and not enough room in front for things that women usually do not have, but i do (male genitalia). I did not quit colorguard, and was not discorouged despite the fact that they wouldnt get me male pants, but this was probably because of the 1000 dollars i was supposed to recieve for joining colorguard.

Recently my mother went shopping for me, and got me some pants and shorts. they dont make shorts for tall people like me, i think you should know. But that is off topic, like everything in this post. The pair of slacks my mother got me fit wonderfully, and respectably fit the male body in a way that made me proud to wear them. The jeans on the other hand, to my horror, were tight! perhaps the manufacturers are trying to save denim by not putting enough crotch room into their jeans...

behind... again

2008-04-27T22:01:00.002-05:00

i dont have the energy to write about anything right now. i just wanted to let you, all of my many wonderful readers out there, including Steven Johnson, that i am behind again. I have 3 short entries to do and 1 long one to do for tomorrow. i dont have the energy to write them, so i will be writing them throughout this week in addition to the 2 short and 1 long entry for this week. I expect that one will be about my plan to assassinate the president of the united states of america, and all of the Oil Company Lobbyists. Also, i might post about the secret service knocking at my door for internet terrorism because of my mention of an assassination attemt on GEORGE W BUSH (ALQAEDA IRAN NORTH KOREA IRAQ ASSASSINATION NUKE ANTHRAX SCUD AL JAZIRA OSAMA BIN LADEN AL ZARKAWI). sorry about that. i was trying to get this post flagged by the CIA or something to that effect... if possible. maybe i should just send the white house an email. My friends mom got the secret service to come to her porch once. She told the president that if he didnt take better care of our nations parks he would be sorry.

I would like to mention two things: first, i have decided that since i already have plent of words, and i must make 250 for a short entry, that i am actually going to try and finish this entry and make it an acceptable lenght. Second, the only reason i told you that was to fill up space.

Back to Steven Johnson, whose name i have included in full so that you may look him up and hunt him down. Maybe you should look at his blog? got rape or murder in mind? In Any case, Steven, or Stevie, for short, is a wonderful lad. His long wavy locks are magnificent. AHA! i am well over 300 words. now i only need to write 2 long and 4 short posts.... i shall do one every day until saturday.

lets make a band!

2008-04-20T13:22:00.002-05:00

i feel the urge to make a band this summer. well, actually that statement is innacurate. I feel the urge to make two bands this summer.

The first would be a 4 piece jazz/funk/fusion/hip-hop/rock/blues/raggae/everything sexy band that would closely immitate a band that i have followed for a long time, Times 4. this band would need only a drummer, a bass player, a saxophonist, and a keyboardist.

The drummer is a no brainer, the phat beats of D.S. (ill just use initals, since i dont have anyones permision to post their name online) are the only ones capable of laying a thick enough grove for the rest of the band to funkafy. Not only that, but he has an exellent ability to communicate with the bass player, in order to create a locked in low end that compliments eachother in a way that Mo and Kevin from Times 4 do.

The Bass player is also a no Brainer. A individual by the name of Alex Conn would suffice. he went triple platinum on april 17, 2008 25 seconds after he created the greatest bass line in the world. Also he has extensive experience jamming with Dane, and they feel quite comfortable playing together. Not only that, but why would i make a band and not include myself in the lineup? thats just silly sally.

Theoretically, the other two players would be S.H. on saxophone, who has been the soloist of choice in many songs played by Kennedy's Jazz I. Being involved in a small group like this would be an excellent chance for him to improve his ability to be the front voice in a group.

the Keyboardist is where things get a little fuzzy. originally the plan was to have D.N. do the keyboarding, as he is skillful and also has perfect pitch, which would be an incredible asset to the band, especially if we wanted to do covers of Times 4. however, as he is going to be at a camp for most of summer, we he is out. although i spoke with him briefly about possibly transcribing some music for us, i think i will renig on that. L.H. also is a very skilled pianist that could fullfill the role, and also have an opportunity to grow, and i spoke to her briefly about playing with us. But even if she did, there is still one underlying problem. no-one owns a keyboard of satisfactory sound and quality. I have an uncle that is knowledgeable in the matter, and perhaps could even lend us one, but i have yet to contact him.

But that is only one of the bands that i would like to create this summer (if only there world allotted me enough time to do so). the other one would also be a 4 piece, but it would be a rock-blues band with a drummer, bass player, vocalist/harmonica player, and guitarist. The drummer would be D.S. if he is willing. The bass player would have to be someone young and talented, and most likely B.C. although i havent mentioned anything to him. Why not me on bass? well because i would be the vocalist/harmonica player. yes, i can sing, but the question is, how well? well im not really sure, but its blues, and not something like opera. as for the guitarist (i hate guitarists by the way) he would have to be knowledgeable and also somebody that doesnt annoy me. J.F. or C.R. would do. i have yet to talk to anyone about this band though, and is just something that i toy with in my mind.

MMA lesson #1

2008-04-20T13:12:00.003-05:00

well then. many of you (or at least i would like to pretend that it is many of you, and not just a few of you, or even a couple of you) have expressed interest in my MMA class that i have begun taking. The first class was last sunday, and i will probably start writing about exactly what i learned, either for each class, or weekly.

In the first class, we spent most of the time talking about business and rules. price of gear/ monthly fees were explained to us, and we learned about the rules of the class. The school is a tae kwan do school, so many of the rules are carried down from that. in fact, the only difference is that we use english instead of korean. We still bow to the instructors and the flags, we are expected to respond with a "yes sir" whenever instructed, and we are to treat the instructors, classmates, and school with respect at all times. Although not typical of an MMA training program, this respect will probably allow us to proceed at a much brisker pace in the class.

We learned how to properly stretch before the class, because we will be required to do it on our own time, as the class is onlly 45 minutes long. After that we learned what the class was going to focus on and how it was going to work. the class will be devided into 2-month segments called terms, in which a particular focus will be set on a certain area of mma. the first several terms are going to be standup, and the first one is going to be boxing. We learned the 4 punches that we will be using and training with for the next couple months and beyond. All of which are simple, but rather difficult to adjust to if you have studied asian martial arts for a long period of time. these 4 punches are the jab, the cross, the hook, and the upper cut. any boxer knows these, and we will have to learn them as well.

We will not be doing any sparring above light contact in this "basic" class. after a year we will have the option of taking an intermediate class where contact sparring may take place. so i guess we wont be training for UFC any time soon.

behind

2008-04-20T13:04:00.003-05:00

I am behind. in what? blogging.

i need to have 4 small posts of 250 words by the end of this day to meet my quota. well now, how could this have happened? after all, i enjoy blogging and have been posting regularly all the way up to spring break. quite simply, i have been very busy. between cinderella and all that stuff, i have had a lot of things to write about and not alot of time to write them. i havent had a flight lesson in a couple weeks, and i will not until the tuesday after this coming one.

i intend to create my 4 blog entries tonight, all of which will probably be on meaningless topics. one of which will probably be an explanation as to why i am behind in my blogging, and what i intend to do about it. perhaps i will just rant in that post about reasons why i am behind, and maybe even post about the post itself, like picture in a picture only more confusing. the other posts will most likely be about my MMA class, and what i learned in that, the bands i hope to form this summer, and perhaps an analysis of a youtube video. in any case, it should not be too incredibly difficult to come up with the remaining 3 posts... however i still have 500 or so words to write for my research essay, and i have to read chapter 28 of my U.S. history text book... and go to a church group class...

1 down

MMA (what it is... yo)

2008-04-15T18:15:00.002-05:00

For a year now i have been interested in watching Mixed Martial Arts on T.V., preferably UFC, because they have the most skilled fighters. Being a Martial Artist myself, and never having had the oportunity to test my skills, i found myself entertaining the thought of learning MMA and fighting locally. This thought was even more provoked when my friend's older brother started fighting Muay Thai. I was hopeful that maybe when i went to college i would be able to find some sort of fighting sport to become a part of.

However, as lucky as i am, a Tae Kwan Do school here in Cedar Rapids (actually its in marion) is starting an MMA training class. I immediately signed up when i heard about it, and told my friend, who also signed up for the class. As excited as i am, ive been telling my friends that i am going to become an MMA fighter, but most of them dont know what MMA is. So i will now give the best explanation i can, and from now on i will just tell people to read my blog.

First of all, and most importantly: MMA is not a martial art. It is a sport. Muay Thai is a martial art, and jujitsu is a martial art, and many times they are used in MMA. MMA (Mixed Martial Arts, for those of you who are just joining us) is a combination of any martial art you can think of, but there are a handful of dominant ones that are most used in the sport.

The Sport involves two fighters, who fight in a ring (usually a cage), and are not limited to fighting while standing up, but also can fight on the ground. There are only a few limitations on techniques that can be used, and only for the safety of the fighters, for instance, eye gouging. The winner can be determined a number of ways: knockout, technical knockout, submission, ref stoppage, doctor stoppage, or judges decision. The judges decision is used when both fighters make it through all the rounds (usually 3) without losing for any of the above reasons.

Now that you have a basic concept of the rules, let me explain some of the key martial arts used in MMA. The first of which would be boxing. there are a lot of fighters in MMA that have boxing backgrounds. Their Forte is stand-up fighting, and their objective is to either knock out the opponent with a clean punch to the jaw, or win by judges decision. The boxer will usually try to avoid being taken to the ground, and if they are taken to the ground, they are usually in trouble.

Muay Thai is probably even more common than Boxing. It is a Thai form of boxing that uses kicks, elbows, and most importantly Knees. Muay Thai fighters are very simmilar to boxers as far as their abilities in stand up fighting, but can also be devestating if they are on top of their opponent on the ground, where they can rain down fierce elbows, and hopefully get referee stoppage

Wrestling is another sport that affects MMA. many of the skilled ground fighters are often wrestlers, some of the best are even state and national champions from high school. These fighters like to take things to the ground as fast as they can and either submit their opponent or "ground and pound" where they control the opponent and bash their face in against the mat.

Now...Lastly, but most certainly not Least... The king of them all, the martial art that has dominated MMA since its beginnings... Jujitsu, Brazilian Jujitsu. Jujitsu figters are masters of controlling the other persons body. They will take the person to the ground as fast as they can, and then they get to work. The Jujitsu fighter's goal is always to submit the opponent, by twisting their body parts or choking them until they tap out. The jujitsu fighter is possibly the biggest threat to any opponent, and is also the most likely to win a fight wthin the first round.

The most successful fighters are the ones that are not only good at stand-up, but also on their feet. Usually a fighter is skilled in two areas, so that they can accomplish this goal. Sometimes a person may be a Wrestler and a Boxer, or a Muay Thai fighter and Jujitsu fighter. These fighters that are well rounded have the best chance of success. This is what MMA is al about. Balance and options.

There has been some debate over which arts and techniques are better. For the longest time, the Gracie family, the greatest family and teachers of Brazilian Jujitsu in the world, who practically invented jujitsu, argued that their way was the only way. For the longest time this was true. And then came Matt Hughes, who won against many Gracie Jujitsu fighters using Boxing, Wrestling, and ground and pound.

At this point you may be wondering any number of the following questions: what martial arts do you want to specialize in? what about your gung fu and wing chun, will that help you in MMA? are you going to wear tight spandex or loose trunks? Well, there are very few people that use traditional chinese gung fu in MMA, and i probably wont, but the principles behind it will certainly benefit me, such as striking quickly and powerfully along the centerline of the opponent. I would like to learn Jujitsu after a while, and i hope to pick up some from the class i am taking, because i dont want to get my ar** handed to me by some short speedy guy with a black belt in brazilian "i break your arm in too". As far as my choice of lower body wear, i think i will probably go with trunks, but i have always imagined that i would look good in spandex.

Flight Lesson #3 (now with 30% less lift)

2008-04-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

Firstly! before we get to the meat of this post, i would like to mention, to you, the reader, comma, why i did not post this post a week ago after i had my flight lesson. Quite simply, i was on spring break. Although it was hardly a break, as i worked 65 hours in 9 days. However i still enjoyed spring break, because none of those 65 hours of work required me to do homework, or any other form of work outside of the scheduled work time.

I was going to have 2 flights last week, but to my UTTER HORROR, one of them was cancled when a fierce and magical (not entirely unlike a unicorn) blizzard/ light snow prevented me from taking to the skies.

However! on tuesday i did in fact go up in my favorite cessna 152, which coincidentally is the plane with the least amount of duct tape on the wings. Actually the reason i like that plane is because it has only one fuel drain in each wing, as opposed to the 5 in each wing that one of the other planes has.

As usual we began our day with the preflight inspection. I completed it by myself and only had to ask my instructor one question, which regarded whether or not we needed to use the fuel measuring stick that we used in the other plane. The answer: we did not, because this tank was much smaller, we could do the fuel quantity check visually.

It was fairly windy that day, so my instructor gave me some options (or more specifically, 2 options), we could finish off the ground reference meneuvers that we didnt cover in the last flight, which didnt seem like a good idea, because it was so windy, and i would probably end up spewing all over the cockpit. The second option was much more to my liking, we could climb to 3000 ft and do some high altitude training.

So we got ready for takeoff and the usual mumbo jumbo. although i will mention that i am getting much better at steering the aircraft on the ground. You would think that that would be the easiest part... but its not. for that takeoff i did throttle and rudders, and my instructor did the yoke.

once we were airborn we began our climb to 3000 ft. best climb speed is 76 knots, if you were wondering. i learned three maneuvers on tuesday, the steep turn, slow flight, and stalls. the steep turn was probalby the most basic. It is a 360 degree turn at a 45 degree bank angle. the FAA regulations for passing this maneuver on a check ride are that your bank angle remain within 10 degrees (i think) of 45, that your final heading be within 10 degrees (i think) and that your alitude loss be less than 100 feet. On my first attempt i think i lost 200-300 feet. WOOT! But im a quick learner. By keeping the nose a little bit higher up on the horizon during the steep turn i was able to complete the maneuver a second time with less than 100 ft loss from altitude, and then again a third time.

the second maneuver was also not very difficult. Slow flight is achieved by first lowering the engine power to 1500 rpms (cruise flight is usuallya bout 2300 rpms). Then the nose is raised until you lose lift, and the stall warning horn sounds. At that point you increase power up to 1900 rpms, and you have achieved slow flight. i learned some more things about slow flight and how you use it to land an airplane, and then we went to the last maneuver.

The stall was the final maneuver i learned on tuesday, as well as the most fun. Nothing makes my day like losing all lift in an aircraft 3000 ft above the ground, and going in to a death spiral which you have to recover from before you hit the ground. okay... maybe im exageratting a litle bit. The stall starts out like slow flight. You lower engine power, and raise the nose. Only this time you ignore the stall warning horn and keep raising the nose until you begin to feel vibrations in the yoke, and eventually you stall. all that happens in a stall is you lose lift, and drop out of the sky like a rock. But this only takes place for about a half second or less, as lift is immediately regained by lowering the nose and taking the engine back up to full power.

We learned a little bit about emergency procedures, which i dont remember anything about (hmm...), and then we landed the plane. or rather my instructor did. I just sat and watched. tomorrow i will begin landing the plane, with help from my instructor of course.

well! im not dead... yet

research paper progress

2008-03-27T22:04:00.003-05:00

My research topic is the F-22 raptor and the F-35 lightning II. after doing much research, it has become apparent to me that there is probably going to be only one good way to write this paper, as a compare and contrast between the two. I have uncovered enough differences between them to write a thoughtful essay contrasting the two, and not only that but explaining why the differences between the two exist.

Why I play Harmonica

2008-03-25T07:28:00.002-05:00

I started playing harmonica in 8th grade. I wanted to take a sweet harmonica solo in one of the jazz band's blues songs. I cant remember what exactly motivated me to start playing harmonica, but it was most likely extensive listening to songs such as "hook" by Blues Traveler, or "Spokey Dokey" by the Seat Belts. It took me about 3 years to figure out how to play the harmonica correctly, and possibly well. Although, i still have much to learn, especially if you are comparing me to John Popper from Blues Traveler, who is the greatest harmonica player known to man. It is rumored that he sold his soul to satan in return for his god-like harmonica ability.

Here is Spokey Dokey, performed by Nobuo Yagi (i think, possibly ryuichiro senoo) from the Seat Belts. This song demonstrates a full range of the harmonicas awesomeness, and the player has excelent control over the instrument, allowing him to make all of the bends and growls and other sounds you hear throughout the song. Ive probably listened to this song a thousand times, and so far i can play the chorus riff and thats about it.

Here is John Popper taking an awesome harmonica solo on hook, by blues traveler. The song is very good, both in music and lyrics, but the harmonica solo is the finishing blow that unleashes the songs true awesomeness, and made the song a hit.

Bruce Lee vs Ohara

2008-03-25T07:14:00.002-05:00

here is another fight featuring bruce lee, for your enjoyment. This fight, taken from Enter the Dragon shows Bruce fighting Ohara, a criminal who assaulted his sister many years ago and forced her to commit suicide.

The fight begins with a sticky hands form of sparring, where the hands and feet are placed next to eachother, and you feel your enemies movements and react to them. One of the first techniques that you are taught when doing this kind of sparring is to punch the opponent in head. Bruce Lee does this twice, with great enough power to knock Ohara off his feet. Bruce lee could knock an opponent down to the ground with a one inch punch that he become famous for, so imagine what it would feel like to get hit from one or two feet. Ohara repeatedly proves himself to be a very slow learner in this fight. Bruce often repeats the same actions and has the same effect.

After realizing that he cannot beat bruce lee in sticky hands, Ohara tries to street fight with bruce. The result of which is Ohara being kicked in the groin, chest, face, along with numerous other punishments from bruce lee. Then Ohara grabs two glass bottles in attempt to arm himself against bruce. However, bruce quickly disarms him with his powerful foot.

The fight ends when bruce lee kicks Ohara to the ground, via the face, and jumps into the air and stomps on Oharas chest, all while making the coolest facial expression/ vocal expression known to man. In fact, that was my entire reason for posting this video.

Why you should comment on this post

2008-03-23T11:07:00.003-05:00

[if you dont like math, skip this paragraph]
well then. If you will look to the right, at the hit count for this page, you will notice that it is probably getting close to 200 (unless you are reading this 3 months after it was posted). Then, if you count this post and all the ones before it, there should be about ten posts. Then, if you consider that the most amount of comments i have received on any post was about 5, that means i have receieved somewhere around 20 some comments on this blog. Which means every time someone visits this blog, they only have about a 1 in 5-10 chance of commenting on what they read. This needs to be improved.

Commenting is great, thats all i got. Commenting on posts allows wonderful things to happen for both the commentor, and the comment recipient (or author of the blog). First, for the commentor, they can openly express their feelings about the post. They can rant about how much it sucks (and even post annonymously if they feel that will protect them), and they can argue with the topic of the post. They can also say how much they liked the post, or present new information to the author, or to other readers who have read the post. They can also post completely random crap taht has nothing to do with the post, like for example, how much Mr Ayers rocks the commentors socks.

The author of the blog is also benefited by these comments. They provide him with feedback on how he is doing. By reading the comments the author can improve apon his writing, get ideas for new posts, or learn new information about the post that he was unaware of. Also, reading comments is an excelent pass time activity, and can be very entertaining. For the author, comments are the fuel that keeps him going.

Now, if you would, go ahead and comment on this post. I have made it very convenient for you in a number of ways. First, you have the option of posting anonymously, which means you dont need to sign in. Second, you do not need to do word verification when you post, which means you can post quickly and even run a program to spam my comment sections. And, if there is any confusion, the name of my comments has been chagned to "verbal massages", but its basically the same thing, with a different name. Like diet pepsi and pepsi one.

HADOUKEN

2008-03-20T07:03:00.000-05:00

there comes a time in every persons high school career when they realize, "hey, i dont want to be here... so im not gonna do any work anymore... ill just wing it until i get to college." This event known as senioritis plagues the majority of high school students, even if it is only in a small way. Well... for me its the exact opposite. Last term i recieved some RELATIVELY low grades. for the sake of not making me look like a complete jack-ass, i will not tell you what the gpa was. Because of my poor performance, i now am 3 ranks lower than i used to be, and am going to have to try even harder for the next 4 terms if i am going to accomplish my accademic goals that i set as a freshman.

The thing of it is this: I have never really tried in high school. I come, i sit, i sleep, i go home, i dont do my homework, i come back, and i get A's. perhaps i have some natural talent for being lazy and getting away with it, or perhaps i am just really smart. In any case, there will be no senioritis for me. Instead, i am now more focused than ever before. This last term of spring is going to be a test for me, to see what kinda of crazy juju magic can happen when i actually put 100% (and possibly as high as 120%) into my schooling.

I have set a GPA goal for this term, this time i will tell you what it is, so that perhaps you can laugh at me: 4.62. Now before you go telling me the potential health risks, let me tell you that i am completely aware of what i am trying to do, and there is no history of stroke, high blood pressure, or heart attack in my family.

There are three pivotal classes to me pwning this GPA. First is Advanced Herkleman, in which i must achieve an A. This will probably be the hardest goal of mine. Although i think i may have gotten an A in fall term, most of the material that term was review, and the material this term is new and sometimes confusing. I may have to do something that i have never done in his class: homework. He assigns a homework assignment every night, which we dont turn in for a grade, but the problems are assigned so that we can practice and get better grades on the test.

The second class of which i must severly pwn to meat my goal for this term is A.P. Lang, which i must also get an A in. Hopefully i can achieve this goal if i write all my RN's on time, study for any tests, get a good grade on my essays by not writing them 5 hours before they are due, writing lots of wonderful blog entries for Mr Ayers to enjoy, and complimenting Mr Ayers in all of my Entries

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READ THIS
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Mr Ayers is AWESOME! He no longer has his Mystical Goatee of Might (+ 5 all resistances, +120 strength, +100 intelect, and +3 to all English skills). However, there are many advantages this new "clean shaven" ayers has. First, aerodynamics. If you thought Mr Ayers got from one end of the building to the other realy fast last time he had to run to his office to get a book, imagine how long it would take him with less drag to deal with! secondly, his mother can recognize him.

Regardless of whether or not Mr Ayers' has facial hair, he will always be awesome.
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Third, i will have to get an A in ap psychology. As this term is the hardest of the three, with very few completion points, and everything else being test taking. I suppose there is nothing a little of the good old elbow grease cant solve, perhaps by means of studying for tests... and maybe even actually reading the chapters.

SO! the point im trying to make in this... is that i am not only focused, im am PUMPED! im going to 1337 sauce this trimester. PWNAGE! HADOUKEN! DO YOU GET MY DRIFT!? RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! (battlecry)

i bring you some research

2008-03-16T22:52:00.000-05:00

I have decided to do my research on the f-22 and f-35, probably doing some kind of comparison between them, and perhaps comparing them to top fighters of other countries, and the ones they will be replacing. It is a very geeky topic i will admit, and there are some pros and cons to having a research paper on such a topic. I will have to make sure that the paper doesnt become dry and boring by rambling on and on about facts and numbers that only a military aviation enthusiast would understand. Because, although i am sure that such a person would drool over my paper, not one such person will be reading and grading my paper.

In any case here are a couple (or more accurately, a few) sources i have found that may end up being a part of my research paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F22

of course i probably wont be citing these sources, but if you look at the bottom of the page there is a PLETHORA of links that i cannot wait to explore and encorporate into my research.

which reminds me of one of the pros of my research, asside from classified information, it should be pretty easy to find a wide range of data and sources on this topic, as apposed to something more obscure, such as the history of the harmonica, or anything harmonica related for that matter.

http://www.airforce.com/technology/index.php
click on hangar, and a display will come up where you can take a look at a large ammount of specs for both the f-22 and the f-35.

http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/miltutorials/aircraft.html#Military%20Aircraft
this website has a lot of general information on almost every military aircraft in existance, unfortunately they just renovated the site and made it inconveniently difficult to navigate.

i also plan to get some sources from ebscohost, but i cant remember the password.

Flight lesson #2 (now with 30% more ground school!)

2008-03-11T22:52:00.000-05:00

Today i had my second flight lesson, and it was full of excitement and learning and all sorts of wonderful things. We began with the usual, i did the pre-flight check, engine start up, and part of the taxiing procedures. My instructor controlled the yoke and throttle on the takeoff, but this time around i used the rudders (in other words, kept the plane on the runway). Once we were air born he gave me the controls and i maintained a climbing attitude until we reached 1500 feet, at which point i lowered the nose to the horizon and eased back on the throttle, yada yada yada airplane terminology yada yada.

Then we began something completely knew to me, ground reference maneuvers! we started with S turns. in which the plane follows a road weaving in and out. It was a very windy day out, so in order to make my s's look pretty and even i had to make steep turns when traveling with the wind, and shallow turn when going against the wind. i did a pretty good job on those. despite the wind and turbulence.

After about 3 or 4 S-turns we went to the next maneuver, which is turn about a point. In which the aircraft makes a circle around a point (such as a intersection, or a cow) trying to keep an equal radius the whole time. I did a pretty good job on this as well, when i started heading in to the wind on the last quarter of the circle, my turn angle was too steep and so i cut into the circle quite a bit. However, after 3 circles i was doing pretty good.

Now let me explain something to you. The plane is moving pretty fast. not only that, but im looking sideways out of the cockpit at the ground for my reference point. It is also windy, and there is some turbulence making the plane go up and down tipping it left and right and such. and we are circling around a point 4 times in a row. When we finished the last circle, josh my CFI said to me "are you feeling nauseous at all?" and i responded honestly and said "no" and he replied with "take a south-east heading". And then i started to think, oh yeah... im in an airplane right now... and if i were to get motion sickness it would really suck.... cuz i would have no where to go except wait to land the plane... but i dont usually get motion sick... except when i ride a roller coaster 7 times in a row... and hey... i dont feel to good right now. so about 30 seconds later i say to josh, "hey... im not feelin to good. im getting a little nauseous"

Josh took over the controls and started heading back to the airport as i sat with my eyes closed taking deep breaths, trying to prevent myself from puking (i did a good job by the way). josh was trying to find the barf bag in the back of the plane, but decided he was doing more harm than good by not putting his full attention into the plane. its a good thing i didnt need the barf bag, i guess.

By the time we got 3 miles east of the airport, i was actually feeling normal again, and when josh asked if i wanted to do the landing procedure i heartily agreed, completely forgetting that i had no idea whatsoever how to land a plane. in any case we pulled out the carburetor heat, lowered the flaps, reduced the throttle, and began descending into the airport. I had full control of the airplane until we were about 100 feet from the runway, when josh helped me a little bit (actually a lot) with the rudder and yoke, and we had a very smooth landing.

Josh told me later that many people get nauseous when flying ground reference maneuvers, so it wasnt a big deal or anything, which made me happy considering i am planning on going to college to get my degree in aviation sciences (or aerial school bus driving if you prefer).

in any case, it was a successful lesson, and i racked up a whopping .7 hours to my flight log, which is now up to a complete 2.1 hours of flight. only 1497.9 before i can get my Airline Transportation License! WOOT!

test

2008-03-11T07:52:00.000-05:00

this is a test

Bruce Lee Vs Chuck Norris

2008-03-09T21:31:00.000-05:00

Many will tell you that Chuck Norris is the greatest man to ever live, but there are some out there that wish to propose a new man for the title, and his name is Bruce Lee. But which of these two men is superior? well lets break it down and decide in a completely unbiased way, even though i am the author and greatly favor Bruce Lee. We shall judge them in 5 areas: Overall Awesomeness, Influence, Combat Skill, Manliness, and Latissimus Dorsi Size.

Overall Awesomeness- Chuck Norris

Bruce lee and Chuck Norris are both actors, martial artists, and really cool dudes. But which one is Awesomer? Bruce Lee of course was raised in China, where he learned martial arts from Yip Mon, the worlds greatest Wing Chun teacher, and went on to create his own fighting style which he taught for years in Hollywood as he became a rising martial arts movie star in hong kong. Chuck Norris is a black belt in Tae kwan Doe, and has won many international tournaments for the sport, and used the martial art to his advantage in many episodes of walker texas ranger. However, chuck norris does have a couple of major advantages in this area. His tears cure cancer, though he has never cried, he has counted to infinity twice, and he prevented the JFK assassination with his beard, only to have kennedy's head explode out of sheer amazement.

Influence- Bruce Lee

Chuck Norris may be well known, but when it comes to influence, he just doesnt have much. This year he backed Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, who failed miserably in the republican caucuses and primaries. Bruce Lee on the other hand has revolutionized not only martial arts in general with his Jeet Kune Do, and philisophical teachings on martial arts, but also revolutionized the chinese and american movie industries, having a much more lasting effect than chuck norris's support of Mike Huckabee

Combat Skill- Bruce Lee

Manliness- Chuck Norris

Although Bruce Lee may be the strongest man (weight for weight) the world has ever known, in comparison to chuck norris, his lack of height, chest hair, beard, shotgun, cowboy boots, and caucasianness prevents him from winning this category

Latissimus Dorsi Size- Bruce Lee

Chuck norris just doesnt have anything on bruce lee in this category

So! seeing as bruce lee won 3 of the 5 categories, it is therefor decided that bruce lee is infinitely greater than chuck norris.

Flight Lesson #1

2008-03-06T07:26:00.001-06:00

well i had my first official flight lesson on tuesday, and it was quite fun. We started off by fueling the plane, which was pretty simple. he tought me how not to blow up the airplane by accidentally creating a static charge between the nozzle and the gasoline. He also tought me that it is okay to fuel up one side of the aircraft and not the other, because the weight of the gasoline is only about 60lbs, and it is stored at the base of the wing. why fill up only one side though? well its quite simple. There is a fuel tank vent on the left fuel tank. This vent lets fuel out of the aircraft if it expands in the tank, preventing structural damage to the aircraft. However, if you fuel the tank, it also creates a momentary increase in pressure as you are fueling the tank, causeing the vent to let out some of the fuel. Rather than waste some fuel, and since we were only doing an hour long flight, we only fueled up the right side of the aircraft.

After that i did the preflight check, with some minor assistance from my CFI, josh. Actually the only thing that i might have gotten docked for if it were a test, was that i momentarily forgot to check the fuel quality of the left fuel tank. Momentarily being the key word. I started walking away from the wing, and remembered what i had done wrong and immediately went back to check the fuel.

Once we powered up the airplane, he let me use the footpedals to taxi the airplane, which controls the rudder and the front wheel of the airplane. I did pretty well, controlling the airplane on the ground is much more difficult than controling it in the air, and it takes a while to get used to. When we got lined up for takeoff, josh asked me if i wanted to control the rudders during take off, and try to keep the airplane on the runway (of course he would be more than willing to take over the controls if we start careening off the runway. However, there was one problem. My right foot had fallen asleep. I politely asked him if he would be willing to do the rudder for this flight, and informed him of my situation. We momentarily discussed the possibility of me having a blood clot, and never being able to have a career as a pilot, but i decided that it was probably just the fact that i was sitting on my 3 inch thick wallet.

In the air we did the same sort of stuff we did on my introductory flight. I practiced my level, climbing, and descending attitudes, and practiced turning the aircraft left and right and such. I learned how to follow roads, and how to adjust for the wind by pointing the nose slightly to the left or rigth of the road i was trying to follow (this is called crab angle). We worked on adjusting to headings, and how to time a turn in accordance with the wind. None of these things are actual maneuvers, but rather preparations for next weeks lesson, where i will learn three maneuvers, none of which i remember the names of.

After .9 hours of flight (the amount of flight time is important, because it goes in my pilot log, and allows me to qualify for licenses and certificates), we landed the plane. I let him land, because my foot was still asleep, but i did all the radio communication to marion airport. and when we got on the ground he let me control the throttle for the taxiing, which was a pretty simple process.

I learned a lot on tuesday's lesson, even though most of it was very basic principles of flight, but i still had fun doing it, and im sure i will have even more fun as we start doing more interesting stuff, such as practicing stalls and such.

Research Paper Topic

2008-03-06T07:08:00.000-06:00

GUESS WHAT!? im going to write a research paper for AP Lang!

here are some ideas i have so far:

1. the effects of ethanol production/consumption on iowa's economy

2. the effectiveness of various styles of martial arts in practical use

3. the evolution of the harmonica and its use in popular (and unpopular) music.

The Degrading of a Vegan Cookie

2008-02-28T21:10:00.000-06:00

So! i was sitting at my computer, eating a vegan cookie made by the alternative baking company, and drinking a glass of milk, when i realized that my faux pas of a meal was completely degrading the vegan cookie and everything it stood for. I then began one of my many deep thinking sessions in which i had a bit of an epiphany: things dont always work out the way you intend them to, and not every problem can be fixed, but thats okay.

You can probably see that there was a lot of thinking that went on to get from the vegan cookie to the chilaxical epiphany. but my reasoning was this, or something close to this, somebody out there, probably a vegan, started making these wonderful vegan cookies so that all of the vegans out there would be able to enjoy a simple treat without having to worry about consuming animal products. In fact, they did a wonderful job, you can hardly tell it apart from any other cookie, even though it has no milk or eggs in it. But somewhere down the line, those cookies are gonna be consumed by some average joe, or average alex, that happens to prefer drinking milk with his cookies, just as he prefers eating a side of cow in between his sesame seed buns rather than processed soy beans.

and what about the vegans that arnt making the cookies, but the ones that are eating them? sure they eat them because they have a personal preference to not eat animal products because of the inhumane way they are treated... (is inhumane the correct word to be using here... afterall, they are animals...) but they probably somewhere deep down, think that they are helping the problem by not eating animal products, and that there may be a solution in the future where man and animal can live in harmony. But someone out there is eating the same cookie that they are, with not respect for the cause that that cookie represents for both the producer and the consumer. someone refuses to let them have their way and be alone, he wont just let them be.

and somewhere in that thought process i was like, "wow this is some deep stuff, ive got to pull it all together for a bigger meaning" and then i thought, "maybe not everything is going to go according to plan, and maybe thats alright." In that moment of eating my Mac the Chip cookie with its cocunutty and chocolaty goodness, i became peter gibbons, and i was completely relaxed

Ive had a rought past 12 months, some people would call that a year. I wont tell you exactly what al ive been through, youve probably been through worse anyway, but hey this is my first time. Ive had a couple people die on me, and a couple people feel like they're dying on me, and alot of things havent gone the way ive planned them to go, but you know what, i think everything is gonna be alright, and it doesnt matter if some of my plans dont work out. ill just keep eating these vegan cookies, and i will keep drinking milk, cuz thats the way things are gonna be.

and they are pretty tastey

First post (not counting deleted ones)

2008-02-27T07:57:00.000-06:00

I made this blog when i was extremely depressed sometime this winter. I posted one entry about how depressed in typically "woe is me" fashion, and when that was no longer necissary, i deleted the post. However, my Language Arts teacher had us start using blogs to do our writing entries, so i have revamped the blog and readied it for regular blog postage. I think i will keep the title, but perhaps not.

A little about me:
My name is Alex, and i live in a small city in the midwest. I am currently learning how to fly for my private pilots license, and i enjoy playing music on my harmonicas and bass guitar and such.