National Chimney Safety Week

Yes, today marks the official beginning to that one week a year where we raise "awareness of issues relating to chimney and venting safety."

Sorry for the lack of an update last week. It's getting to be that time of year where we might see a few of those in the coming months so just keep that in mind before starting the hate comments. Last week my mom, dad and I went down to USC to see their wind ensemble play. They sounded incredible (as expected) and played some really good stuff like John Adam's Lollapalooza.

We had out second football game on Friday. All went fairly well, or at least as expected. Music was fine, marching wasn't. Nothing new. We're about 9 sets away from finishing the show so we had most of it down. In the third song, there's a part where we turn around (can you say death and destruction?) and I get to run to the back and conduct. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing, but apparently I bounce a lot when I conduct.

My sister was admitted to the hospital with preterm labor last week. Little Micah just couldn't wait but we're trying to let him cook a little longer for now. Hopefully all will turn out well. It's definitly been an experience passing Matt around these past few days.

I always thought Amazon was a nice peaceful company, but apperently it's different in Canada. Those darn Canadians. Or I guess you could blame MSN.

Leave it to DirectTV to call customers of the Do-Not-Call list and ask if they are sure they don't want to receive promo calls. Doesn't that kind of defy the point?

There are some pretty awesome Rube Goldberg Device videos out there that people have come up with, but this is by far the best I've seen. It goes on for almost 4 minutes doing some pretty crazy stuff. That thing probably took days to make.

While we're talking about doing nothing, it seems fit show this video of the Texas Legislature and how they vote. Scary thing is I can see it happening all over. I hate politicians.

That's it for now...it's almost nap time.

The Bavarian Club

I must say...It's been a very interesting week. The scary thing is, the weekend was even more "interesting," but thankfully in a different way.

I took the ACT for the second time on Saturday. I feel halfway decent about it...at least I was somewhat prepared for the science section this time. I don't know if it was really worth it (i.e. I did any better) but we'll see.

Saturday evening my mom somehow talked my dad and I into going to the LA Bavarian club. It was a very interesting experience. I'll leave it at that. I wish I knew how to speak German. It was very "cultural" but there were some pretty neat people there. Hey, the sauerkraut was pretty good.

We got home around midnight so the natural thing to do was call Karl and go for a run. We went over to AVC for the Relay For Life, and despite the fact we weren't really sponsored (or supposed to be there) and ran a few miles on the track. The weather was absolutely perfect and the atmosphere really cool. It was a lot of fun. I'll have to do 1am runs more often.

Luke got fitted for his DocBand yesterday. I haven't seen him in person yet but it looks pretty cool. He doesn't really seem to mind it either. He has to wear the helmet for a few weeks while his cranium is under construction. Good stuff.

Pig's are flying. Great...now a bunch of weird stuff is going to come true.

I came across this pretty awesome video of a guy playing along with the William Tell Overture on a drum set. It's pretty cool...and about time we found a set drummer with some class.

Speaking of YouTube, Pitzer College has begun offering a media studies class focusing on watching and commenting on YouTube videos. I wish I could get college credit for sitting here and watching these stupid yet addicting things.

That's it for now...fresh Tehachapi apples are beckoning me.

Ghosts Are Real!

There's finally proof...just keep reading.

Our first football game was on Friday. Since it was the first game, I stayed the traditional 17 hours at school. We had a nice little pizza thing (on Disney princess plates of course) and it was pretty fun. We sounded halfway decent at the game but looked a tad weak. We'll clean it up in time for the next game. QH actually won (amazingly) and shutout Rosamond 42-0, so that was quite nice also.

Karl, Jon, my dad and I saw the first Jethawks playoff game last night. It was a really good game and a fun time (despite my unremitting bloody nose). They pulled it off in the bottom of the 10th with a sacrifice fly...good stuff.

My Senior Project oral board is on Wednesday. It will be so incredibly wonderful to not ever think those two horrible words again (and even better to rub in in the face of those doing it this year). I'm not too worried...all I have to do is pass.

Local commerce tip of the week: Don't buy from Duke & Slims.

Our wonderful president has once again represented this country in a manner only he could. While speaking at the APEC Summit, Mr. Bush started off by calling it the OPEC summit, continued by insulting Australian Prime Minister John Howard by implying that he was part of OPEC, then moves on to insult the rest of Australia by calling them "Austrians," and concludes by walking off stage the wrong way. If you don't believe me or the AP, here's the video. I don't blame the rest of the world for hating us.

This is a neat little site will let you view 360° panoramas from the seven wonders of the world. Pretty cool stuff.

Finally, you may have watched shows like SciFi’s Ghost Hunter, but you’ve never seen anything like this. Everything you’ve seen up to now is either faked, misinterpreted or worse. But this, obviously, is real. Finally, proof that ghosts exist.

That's it for now...I need some food.

Horse or Moth?

Happy Day of Labor

Or, hopefully, lack thereof.

The AV Fair ran last week. I didn't really spend too much time inside the fair (other than a quick walk through and a deep fired Twinkie), but spent plenty of time riding around the parking lot. I worked the trolley for about 2 and a half shifts. Luckily I didn't get the horrid weather shifts (although there was some pretty gnarly wind on Sat...check out the funnel cloud), and there weren't to many drunks either. So nothing overly exciting there. Karl drove on Saturday, and I think he actually somewhat enjoyed it (either that or he was too busy laughing at Josh and I havening to walk confused old ladies back to their missing cars). For the most part it was pretty fun.

Band finished the drill for the first song last week. We're moving along at a really good pace and actually sounding halfway decent (which is much improvement over last year at this time). Our first football game is on Friday. It'll be neat to start the good 'ol football season again.

College application season is in its infancy and my head is already spinning. For some odd reason, I was inspired to organize the paperwork/online junk/essays I have to do this weekend. I took a two hour nap after that one.

I'm going to think twice before biting into Chinese chocolate. Recently some chocolate has become "contaminated in the manufacturing process." In other words, it's now infested with live worms. Yummy.

Google Earth never ceases to amaze. While it's a third party add on, you can now use Google Earth as a flight simulator. I haven't played with it yet, but it's gotta be pretty awesome.

I guess it's too much of a burden to actually look at the ad before placing it in public.

There are some weird commercials out there. I'm not a huge fan of those don't even hint as to what they are trying to sell, but this one is just plain weird. Keep in mind it's an ad for milk.

That's about it for now...enjoy your day off.