Ugh...

So far my summer has been very boring, almost too boring. Since I last blogged, I've gotten the music for the marching band show. I have To have 23 measures memorized by the second ewwk in July. It shouldn't be too hard since there are two four bar phrases that are nearly the same, and about 15 bars or rests. I'll probab;y start memorizing tomorrow.

Also, tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment to get a physical so I can get a work permit since I need one as I have a good chance of getting hired at Wendy's.

In other news, the whole mid-Atlantic area of the United States has seen ton of rainfall the past few days. Here, it started raining Sunday afternoon and it rained most of the time until Wednesday morning. There were a few breaks in the rain on Monday afternoon, though. The reason it rained so long is that the system that brought the rains was "training," which means that the storm was moving over the same areas, as if it were on a train track.

On Monday night and Tuesday nothg, after I had band practice, it was raining, and when I stepped outside it felt like I was in a steam room because it was so humid outside. Most of the rainfall was tropical in nature since there was an undeveloped tropical low in the Atlantic ocean, and that got cought betewwn a ridge of high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean and a stalled front over the Mid West US. Those two elements worked to suck up all the tropical moisture along the Appalachian Mountains like a funnel, thus causing the training.

The Weather Channel's Dr. Greg Forbes has more info on this at his blog.

Summer vacation: week 1

Well, I;ve been out of school for over a week now, and it's felt like a typical summer, so far. Here's a summary:

Friday was the last day of school.

On Saturday, I went over to Spencer's house for a gaming party. At one point we had a total of four XBoxes, one GameCube, and one PlayStation 2 running, with three of the XBoxes in a LAN playing Halo 2.

Monday was my first "normal" summer day for me. Suprisingly, I woke up at 9:00 AM, which is very irregular for me over the summer.

Tuesday, I went out for dinner at the Hungry Parrot.

Then I wrecked my bicycle in the evening. I got some nasty injuries on my knee, elbo and wrist, along with general soreness the for a few days afterward.

How'd it happen? I was riding wioth my dad, and he I thought I heard him say to turn right at the next street, then I looked back, while riding at a good speed, and he said to contunue going straight. By the time I heard him, I was about to hit the curbing on the side of the road. I clipped the curb with my front tire, and I started to do down. I think I tried to over-correct myself so I'd go back into the street, and hopefully remain in control of the bike, but I wrecked into the street, and I slid for a few feet on the street. That's how I got the brushburns on my right wrist, elbo, and knee. I belive if I hadn't tried to over-correct myself, I'd of landed in grass, which would've probably been much more pleasent to hit that asphlat.

I picked up my bike, and I noticed that the handlebars had been turned around at least once, so flipped them around, and I noticed my front brakes had become tight, and the cable was almost unscrewed. But I didn't care, I just wanted to get home and clean my open wounds. I rode home, not caring about my front brake, sonce my back one still worked. Once I got home, my dad looked around at my front brake, and it looked fine after the cable was reconnected. I'll have to take the bike out for a test sometime to see if everything is functioning at it should be.

Wednesday: I went for a consultation for my senoir pictures, which will be taken in August. Then I went to York to get my photo driver's license taken, since I was driving with my stamped permit for the past month.

Thursday, I called Nell's and Wendy's about the applications I turned in. I was told, in the Wendy's call, that I could come in at 7:45 to talk to a manager. So I got to the restaurant at 7:40, and I asked for the manager. She was busy, so I was told to take a seat. 8:00 came and went, as the the various people comming in, ordering food, and leaving. At one point at least twenty people entered as part of a softball team, and they must;ve been in the place for near thirty minutes. Then Dan came out, and told me that the manager would be out in a few minutes. At 8:45, after an hour of sitting, I finally got to speak to the manager. The meeting was brief, lasting not even a minute. I was basically told to come back and supply a Social Security card, work permit, and I'd get an interview.

On Friday, I was over at school for most of the day. The Cadets Drum Corps were on campus for the day since we're cloce to Gettysburg, their seasons first preformance. Students from our school, and other area schools took part in a workshop, called "Music is Cool" with the Cadets and their staff.

The day started off at around 9:00 AM, with registration. All the students taking part had to wear some wristband and nametag. Tehn we went over to the middle school, where al the day's activities would take place, for an orentation. After that, we had about two hours of music sectionals, where we played some warm-up excerizes, then played an easy version of "Cadillac of the Skies" that we would preform with the Cadets later in the day.

After lunch, we were outside the rest of the afternoon. First for some marching basics, which practically everyone already knew. We did that for about an hour, taking water breaks about every 20 minutes, sonce it was about 90 degrees outside. Since we left our instruments outsode in their cases, the staff told the brass players to take their mouthpieces out of the case since we'd "burn our lips" if we played on them after hours outside. I took that message as a joke, but about two hours later, I got my trumpet out of the case, got out the mouthpiece and nearly burned my fingers since it was so hot. I quickly poured some cold water on it, and it cooled down some, but it was still warm. At about 4:00 PM, we got a chance to preform the music we worked on, playing it with the Cadets. The day ended a few minutes after 5:00 when we watched the Cadets preform their field show.

I was over at Specner's house most of yesterday (Saturday). I woke up at 8:00 and felt my like I was getting a cold. I had a sore throat, and was blowing my nose. But regadrless, I had to be at Specner's to help him woth his Eagle project, constricting Owl Boxes. I got there, and forst drew the layout fot the boxes out on plywood, and the wood was cut by Spencer's dad. Then we had to put the boxes together. Since I had never operated a power drill before, I was relegated to holding the pieces while Rob operated the drill. By lunchtime, the team of Rob and I got two boxes built, and I felt like crap. I was blowing my nose about every ten minutes. At that point I realized that I probably had really bad allergies, and not a cold. After lunch, Rob and I played some Metroid Prime Hunters, while ther others played Diablo 2 on Spencer's computer, which is a Penttium II 350 with 128 MB RAM, and can barely handle the game. At 1:00, we got back to work, and moved the building into the shade, to avoid the afternoon sun. By 3:00, we were finished, and I still felt really stuffed up and sick.

I got home slept for about an hour and then I took a shower since I had to be at my aunt and uncle's house for a Father's Day cookout.

Last day of school

Today was the last day of school for me this year. I can now be officially be called a senior, which I suppose is a good thing.

Regardless, I had to take final exmas. Yesterday, I took the Algebra 2 and the 156-question English 11 A. The English exam seemed more difficult than I expected, since there was alot more grammar than I originally expected, and maybe it was my fault for not studying more than one hour the night before the exam. On top of that, the exam was averaged with the Vocabulary unit 1-12 exam we'd taken on Tuesday, which I scored a 68% on.

The Algebra 2 final was easier than I thought it would have been. The test was 28 questions with ten or so vocabulary questions at the beginning. Though there were some questions that I struggled on, like one where I had to find the perimeter of a rectangle be factoring the sides. I had no clue what to do, so I used the guess and check method to find the answer. I'm sure I got some points taken off for that.

Then Thursday night, I had to head back over to school for the Band Picnic. We started off be wating dinner, then played some class vs. class games, like softball and volleyball. By the time I got home, around 8:30 PM, I knew I had to study for my Photography final. I wound up reviewing for twenty minutes.

Then this morning, I left for the last day of school. I took no backpack since I had no books to bring. My shorts pockets were full of pencils, my house keys, Nintendo DS, MP3 player, and cell phone. I was ready to take oy one final for the day, Photography.

After homeroom, I arrived in the photo lab, and was ready to take the final. The exam itself was very easy, and it took me less than 30 minutes to complete the 90-question test. Since everyone was completed with the test in a short time, the teacher took the tests to the Scantron machine to be graded. I found out I got an 88% on the test, but when the three extra credit points were added (since my team won the review game yesterday), I recived a 91% on the final, and an 89% in the course.

After the period one test, everyone went back to their homerooms to clean out lockers. It took me lass than a minute to clean mine sonce I raraly use my school locker. Then we had 80 minutes to waste in homeroom, so the end-of-the yearvideo was played over the school's closed circuit TV system. While that was going on, a group of people, including myself started to play a Monopoly game, but before long, it was lunch time.

I didn't expect to eat lunch bwcause we were to dismissed at 1:30, but I had a slice of pizza anyway. After lunch, I headed down to to my English class room to see what I got on the final. With the two tests averaged together, I got a 73% on the final and an 81% in the class.

Afterword, I had to return to homeroom since there was still 30 minutes in the period. With about 10 minutes laft in the lubch/homeroom period, it started raining. Then a clash of thunder. Again, another crash, the lights went out for a few seconds, then came back on for near 10 seconds, then went out again. The clocks were stopped at 11:44. As what happened six weeks ago, there was another power outage. I've been going to school in that building for three years, and had never experenced a power outage, then withtin two months, two outages.

The generators kicked in, and the halls were lit. The bell rang, and were disimissed to go to fourth period. For me, it ment band, and no final. I got into the bandroom, and saw that the emergency lights had kicked in. It looked quite neat seeing the soamm lights on, and gave the room a different "atmostphere." Quite cool.

Despite the outage we stil had to go set up seats in now poorly-lit the gym, for graduation was later in the evening, and the weather was still pending.

As we were about to leave the bandroom, the principal gave an announcement saying that lightning had struck a pole across the street at the middle school, and it'd take some tome to restore power.

We got ourselves set up in the gym, and got back to the band room, quietly, so we didn't disrtub the students who'd been sent out in the hallway to take finals beacuse the outage.

At that point, it was 12:30, and there was an hour left in the school year. I did get toghther a big group (six people, including me) to play Tetris, and we did that most of the time until the end of the day.

Then at about 1:15, the lights suddenly came back on, and everyone started getting "hyper" and overly excited since school was about to be let out. When we were dismissed, I stopped by my Algebra classroom to see what I scored on the final: a 79%.

I then left the school, knowing that I did well on all my finals, and to my suprise, it was sunny outside as I walked to the bus.

I got home at 2:00, and as I got on the computer, I noticed I;d been disconnected from AIM. This had been happening alot lately, so I figured I;d reconnect. I try, and I see there's no interent connection. I thought it had somthing to do with the storm, like it took out the cable line or somthing, but I tured on the TV but the cable worked. I looked at the modem, and the status LED wasn't blinking, so that must've been the problem.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching The Weather Channel and napping, while occasionally checking to see the internet had been restored. The time then came around what I had to go back to school for graduation. Thee was alot of debate weather to have it indoor in the gym, or outdoors in the stadium. The weather cleared (just barely), to have it outside. The band meet at 6:15 to warm up, then we traveled out to the stadium. The actual commencement ceremony took place at 7:30 under sunny skies. But soon dark clouds rolled in, and it looked as if it would rain. It did, right as the commencement ceremony ended, around 9:00. They were lucky. And I certainly hope that kind of weather doesn't happen next year when I graduate.

My mom picked me up in the back of the school afterword, since it was way too hectic in front, and we got home. I asked if the internet was back up, and she called tech support and they told her to unplug the modem, but that didn't work eariler, so they eventually told her to unplug the router, and it would reset itself, and that worked.

Yay!

All is well with, methinks. :-)

A taste of summer

Today was another warm day around here. And that's been the theme all week, well since about Saturday. The daytime high temperatures have been in the 80°Fs to low 90°Fs, which is unusual for late May. The hottest day this year occured on Tuesday, where unofficially we hit 94°F.

But let's go back before that, to Saturday. I was in school at 9:00 Am working on my portfolio for photography. I basically finished a few slides in Photoshop, imported them into iMovie, then made a few songs for my portfolio's background music in GarageBand. I ended up being at school for four hours. Then in the afternool, after grabbing lunch, I picked up two job applications to Nell's and Ollie's. The weather was very comfortable at that point.

Then in the evening my family visited my grandparents (on my dad's side) since it is my grandpa's and cousin's birthday. We had to order the pizzas (six total) and then pick them up at Domino's and take them over to their house. Later in the evening, my dad, uncle, cousin, and myself played boccie ball, which is a bit difficult when you're in town, having to deal with a small lawn and trying not to hit prople's cars and windows.

Then Sunday, I spent the entire day inside watching auto racing. The Indy 500 in the afternoon, then the Coke 600 in the evening kept me enterained.

On Monday, Memorial Day, I had to wake up at 6:00, which is eariler than I awake on most school. The reason, I had to march in the Memoral Day parade. We played two non-patriotic songs, followed by the Star Spangled Banner (which all the bands played) during the ceremony in the cemetery. Shortly after we finished playing, I got out of my hot, sweaty band uniform. At that point, according to the thermometer at one of the banks in town, it was 78° at 9:45 AM!

Monday evening, we went over to my other grandparents house, since my grandpa's (mom's dad's) birthday is this week for dinner. At this point in the day, the temperature had hit 91°, making it the first 90°+ day we'd seen this year. When I got over to their house, I checked their digital theromometer, and the outside temp. read 96.1° inside read around 91°. As we ate dinner, I started swtating, since they were baking food in their kitchen all afternoon. And of course, they don't have any air conditioning, nor did they have any of their fans running. Needless to say, Monday wasn't a very fun day.

Tuesday was another 90°+ day; the high hit 94°, or at least that's what The Weather Channel's HiRAD system repotred on the IntelliStar.



Anyway in the evening, I had to head over to school for marching band pre-camp, which is where all the incomming freshmen band members who want to be in marching band come to learn marching basics. I had to be there since I'm a candidate for next year's leadership team.

Wednesday was another warm day, but the high temp didn't quite reach 90°. I had planned to stay after school and finish up my portfolio, but I got into the lab at 3:15, and there was already someone om my comouter. Great. I couldn't stay since I had trumpet lessons at 5:30, so I went home.

After trumpet lessons, my mom dropped mt off at school to finish up my project since it was due Thursday morning. I only planned to stay for an hour at must, but then I started creating more music in GarageBand so I ended up staying until 9:00.

Today was another warm, sub-90° day, but with the humidity factored in, it felt much warmer. Also, today was the final day of band pre-camp. It lasted after school until about 8:00 PM. Today, we went outsode, and marched some drill so the freshmen could find out how to drad a drill and dot book, and some bacic marching formations. The evening part, was more technical marching stuff, like slides and stop-and-gos.

Tomorrow's my section leader tryouts, and I'll have 75 seconds up infront the group, and have to call marching commands, and I'll be evaluated on how well I do it. Ugh. I'll find out on Saturday at the Band Banquit if I make it in.