The Empire of Parkachii

• Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
• NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.
• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.
• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

In celebration, I made this!  I also made a Medic version!

Well yesterday I went up to the lake with some friends to watch fireworks and eat yummy scotcheroos.  In the morning mom woke me up to a giant male great blue heron standing on the edge of our dock.  I went out on the deck to take pictures.  While that happened, a female landed on the dock two houses down.  At the same time, Olga showed up from next door!  I need to figure out what breed Olga is.  She's around five years old, is smaller than the average cat you see, and her fur is the softest fur I have ever felt on an adult cat.

My hatchet fish isn't looking so great.  His age finally seems to be taking it's toll.  He looks a lot worse than when I saw him yesterday.  His fins are looking more like they're rotting away, his bulged eye is looking terrible and both eyes are clouding on the outside, and his condition is even evident on his scales.  Even though I'm a little sad to see that he might not live to see tomorrow, or next week tops, I'm still surprised at how long he and my cherry barb have lived.  I mean...5 1/2 years...that's a lot for a tropical freshwater fish.

I stayed up late several times within the past week.  I got out of bed just before noon on Sunday morning, got on MSN, and read "Billy Mays found dead" on a little corner of the MSN Today window.  My first reaction was that my heart sank and I said "OH MY GOD, WHAT?  WHAT?  WHAT?"  I read on several websites about the incident and I'm practically having a Pitchman appreciation week right now.  Seriously.  No other pitchman can stand up to the awe-inspiring amazement that is the great, bearded, and loud TV personality who screams from your television sets every day to buy products that range from OxiClean, Kaboom, and Mighty Putty to Impact Gel, Dualsaw, and Green Now.

Watch Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel or simply tune into Billy's infomercials and you'll see what I mean.  In homage of America's best pitchman, I have worked a Photoshop painting of him in pop art style, which is a style I don't normally do, for several hours at a time for the next two days.  I finally finished it at 1:30 in the morning today.

CLICK FOR GREAT JUSTICE, OR BILLY WILL FOREVER CAST SHAME ON YOU :C

Okay, fan craze out of the way.  Mays is obviously one of my favorite people next to Steve Irwin, and I will miss him greatly.

Well I wasn't a HUGE Michael Jackson fan, but that doesn't mean I didn't like some of his songs.  I like Thriller, Beat It, and Bad.  My mom was the huge Michael Jackson fan.  Like I said before, she owns every adult album of his, plus a Jackson 5 album.

Yesterday was pretty sudden.  I was told of Michael Jackson's death at 5:09 PM central time yesterday, so I turned on FOX news and watched/listened to it for at least an hour and a half.  At least 45 minutes later was when FOX confirmed that Michael is dead.  Later I got to see the live footage of his body being transported to the coroner's office via helicopter.  I was on the verge of crying, almost like when Steve Irwin died.  Steve was an inspiration to me and especially my sister.  But back to Jackson.  My mom has a Jackson 5 album and all of the albums Jackson made as an adult.

Sure his last few years have become quite weird, but that shouldn't make anyone forget that he was overall a great guy who changed music forever, a worldwide icon.  He was even going to go on a comeback tour in London and it might have been a huge success.

I was texting aerodotus  last night since he went to California for national FBLA, and apparently he got stuck in traffic shortly after he arrived at the airport.

This is just...wow.  50 years old, a very young age.

Old post is getting old, and I really need to say what more is happening.

I ordered a new pen tablet from Amazon a while back.  I got it last Tuesday, and I just love it.  I'm definitely not going to college without it.

I took the ACT the week before the last Saturday, and I got a 27.  My last (and first) score was a 26.  English pretty much stayed where it was at.  I got a much higher score on mathematics because I knew more about the stuff that was on the test.  Reading went down a lot surprisingly.  I thought science would be my lowest score, but it pretty much almost stayed where it was at too.  Science is all graph reading.  Don't get me wrong, I love science, I just despise graphs.

Wow look at that, it's raining like crazy, with a touch of hail.  It was in the 90s moments ago and now it's in the 60s.  While it was hot I went to FFA officer training at Mozingo.  I got on the easy side of the rock climb last year and barely made it to the top.  I decided to try the hard side this year and I failed to even make it halfway up.  Oh look, it's sunny, and there's a rainbow sitting right on the street.  And it's still raining and thundering like crazy.

In other exciting news, I got TF2 to work again!  While uninstalling Steam, I moved the steamapps folder to the external hard drive.  After I installed Steam and before I moved the steamapps folder back into the main hard drive, I downloaded and installed TF2 as if I was getting it for the first time.  I started it up, and it worked!  I then proceeded to move the other games back into the newly created steamapps folder.  I put in all the TF2 files without replacing any files that already existed.  In other words, a file or files in the steamapps TF2 folder may have been corrupted.  Well, I'm happy I can play TF2 again!

And now to continue digitizing this BLU Scout vs RED Spy sketch while listening to Nightwish and I'm Your Medic.

Oh look, it's heating back up quickly again.  It's in the 70s now.  I assure you it will be much higher in a few minutes.  And LOL the cat is like soaking wet.  Wait what?  Now everything's drying up as if nothing happened!

I know this is old news, but it's better that I know late than never know at all, right?

HOLY CRAP

KARI BYRON'S PREGNANT

HOLY CRAP

SIMON COWELL IS LEAVING AMERICAN IDOL

Well today has just been a day of frustration.  I'm trying to find a way to fix Team Fortress 2 and the printer.  Ever since the computer was last fixed, I got an error every time I started up TF2 that required terminating the program.  The message box that pops up reads as follows:

The instruction at "0x00010100" referenced memory at "0xffffffff".  The memory could not be "read".

Click on OK to terminate the program

I've encountered this error sometimes while I was playing, but now it occurs every time I start up the game.  I've looked up the error several times, and so far I have found no possible solutions to the problem.

My printer has not been able to print also since the computer has last been fixed.  I tried everything and then moved onto port checking.  I've removed the printer from the list and I downloaded the driver for my printer.  I know that the default port the printer was somehow set to a USB connection, which is my printer/scanner/copier that I only use for scanning, so now I'm trying to see if it's LP1, LP2, or LP3 since I know it's a parallel port.
Well, I just got the printer to spit out a test page, but it still isn't printing what I want it to print, plus when I try to open up the add printer wizard to put it on the list an error message box pops up and says "Operation could not be completed."

On the bright side: Hey, I'm organizing my money!  I just put all my accumulating change in coin rolls to put in my savings account.  I also took a jar and decided to use it for putting money aside for college every time I get a paycheck and whenever I have too much money in my wallet.  Mowing season is a great time to be doing this too, since, on average, I get paid 6 times the amount I normally get paid when I'm just doing hardware and not mowing.

Today I also ordered a new tablet from Amazon.  The tablet I currently have is an old Wacom Graphire3 with a 3.5x5" drawing area.  It's a hand-me-down from my sister.  The drawing area is too small and it's gotten kind of buggy.  The tablet I ordered is a Wacom Intuos3 with a 6x8" drawing area, the exact same tablet my sister has.  I tried hers out and thought it was really nice.  Sure, it's going to drain my checking account to almost nothing, but now that I came up with a clever plan for saving for college, all I need to do is manage my money better.  Go to Casey's less when there seems to be nothing to eat at home, wait on re-subscribing to City of Heroes/City of Villains, download songs instead of purchasing them on iTunes (piracy FTW...oh, did I say that?).

Well, now I just came up with another possible solution to fix TF2: Uninstall and reinstall Steam.  Apparently if the error is not caused by the game, it must be Steam.  I'm currently moving my steamapps folder into my external hard drive so my games don't get deleted.  If this works, AWESOME!  If not, great.  I'll try some other methods.

Oh, another random thing.  My new favorite Facebook application is Dragon Wars.  I will soon be up to level 25 and I am just swimming in gold with all the land I own.

And now to write out what I'll say to tacster002 in my letter, so I can finally send something.

UPDATE
Well, Team Fortress 2 is still getting an error at the same spot, only it's a different error, which reads as follows:

The instruction at "0x0010105" referenced memory at "0x09e22961".  The memory could not be "written".

Click on OK to terminate the program

And when I Google just each code individually, I get no results!  Great...just great...

Wow, it's been forever since I typed something.  I hardly remember what all happened right now, so don't be surprised about these short lines xD;

Summer school's going great so far.  Personal finance is mostly stuff that I've learned in introduction to business, except with a lot more math.  There is only one student in my class who has been in all three of the same summer classes as me, and there are just a few more from my class just from last year.

My sister got herself a new camera recently, so I got her old one, which is pretty good.  I immediately bought a 4GB memory card for it.

I drove my dad somewhere to get measurements at a tiny church out in the country.  I discovered a red-tailed hawk and her three fledglings in a tree on the property.  The young hawks sure made a lot of noise.  I wanted to get some good pictures, but they were too high up.  I also saw a couple of fresh molehills, so I started digging into them with a thick chunk of bark, hoping I would find something, but I didn't.

I get to take the ACT a week after tomorrow.  Unfortunately the college I want to go to in Maryville isn't doing the summer ACTs, so I have to go to St. Joseph instead.

A few weeks ago I started planning some stuff for my senior pictures.  I came up with eight ideas, all relating to a theme, some of which are FFA, a few art projects, and spelling bee awards and memorabilia.

I got Twitter!  I've been getting a few invitations over the span of a long time.  Today I got another one and decided to check it out.

Yes, I'm awake at 2 in the morning.  Yesterday we had our last day of school.  Hooray, I'm finally a senior(?)!  I hope it isn't lonely on the top of the food chain.

One of my guppies was looking really sickly for days now and it finally died.  I've been trying to get rid of my fish before I go to college.  I don't want to do it by forcing them to die, I just want to make them live as normally as they could.  When I went and flushed away my freshly dead guppy, I just then noticed that I haven't seen my iridescent shark for at least a week.  I haven't taken my fish out for a while.  I found it strange that something that big could go missing somewhere in a 10-gallon aquarium.  I have a turtle decoration in there that fish can hide under.  I searched the aquarium until I finally decided to look under there.  I lifted up the turtle and found a pile of bones picked clean.  It was rather interesting that it could just hide somewhere to die and then get eaten away quickly by just the five fish I had left before one of my two remaining guppies died (well, I guess it would be four, since hatchet fish are surface feeders, given their shape, look up "freshwater hatchetfish").  The four fish I have left are a guppy, a silver hatchetfish, a cherry barb, and a penguin/hockey-stick tetra.  Ironically, the hatchetfish and the barb are my last remaining original fish from when I first got my aquarium five years ago.  It's hard to believe they're a couple of the remaining survivors.

Well, I better get off to bed, I have mowing to do in the morning and a horrible ear infection to recover from.

This weekend was the time mom spends a bunch of money on plants, so I came along to buy some experimental stuff like every year.  I got some habanero pepper plants, a zucchini plant, and a wandering jew.  The FFA floriculture contests made me want to get my own house plant.  Maybe if I walk down to the greenhouses on another day I can get an English ivy, those are cool.

Here it is, Tradescantia zebrina, sitting on top of the filing cabinet in the computer room, where there's two windows to give it sunlight.  Hopefully this weekend I can get it put in a hanging basket.

( Dude, BEST THING EVER )

Tomorrow I go on a field trip to the Harley-Davidson plant in Kansas City.  My mom loves motorcycles, so I figured I'd take pictures for her.

This entry is uber long, so I divided it up.

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( PROM NOM NOM )

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Today I had my last vocabulary test for the year, and my last biology test for the year.  When I come back on Monday I'm going to be dissecting a fetal pig for the next three days!  Also, I finished Ridley today!  Huge Success!  I should be able to take him back home on Monday and take pictures of the final product.  I'm currently putting together a powerpoint of his entire progress for my art teacher.  I'm hoping I can make an appropriate stand for Ridley when I want to enter him in the Atchison County Fair's Home Arts and Horticulture Exhibit this summer.

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Today in American History, we discovered that a squirrel had snuck in the classroom through one of the open windows while everyone was at lunch.  My teacher and some of the boys chased after it, caught it in the trash can, and threw the bag outside (yes, the bag was wide open, so the squirrel could get out).  I didn't see any of it, but I could hear what was going on.

Exactly one more school week left.  It's really odd that this year ends on a Friday.  It normally ends on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, but never Monday or Friday.  After that, I'm looking forward to summer school.  I'm taking personal finance.  I can at least get that class out of the way so my schedule for my senior year won't be as crammed.

I'm also looking forward to a whole summer of mowing the lumberyard and going to the pool.  I've mowed twice now for two weeks in a row.  Since I get paid a pretty decent amount of money for that, I just might reactivate my City of Heroes/City of Villains subscription.  I've been getting into tacster002 's superhero series lately, and I'm using my CoH/CoV characters in it.  I just might come out of retirement and get to roleplaying again!

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My sunflowers have popped out of the ground.  I have decided to conduct a neat little experiment.  We have bird feeders in the backyard.  Huge amounts of bird seed shells have accumulated below the feeders and created a mat.  Dropped and uncollected seeds were buried by more shells and moved down to the decomposing layer, where they were able to sprout.  I decided to grab a small pot, dig out some of the decomposed layer of the mat, and put it in the pot.  I then poked one of my sunflower seeds in there.  Within a few days it sprouted.  I decided then to transfer it from the pot to the ground outside with the rest of my sunflowers.  It had disastrous results though, my choice of a  pot wasn't very smart.  The lip of the pot was narrower than the base, which made it difficult to carefully dig out the entire seedling, so I ended up breaking the stem in half.  In place of this, I decided to do another experiment.  I saw some small sunflower sprouts from the bird seed that were growing in the mat of decomposed shells.  I knew these were probably not the same as the ones I use for growing only (those are supposed to grow about 12 feet tall), but I did this anyway.  Since the mat was soft, I carefully pulled out some of the little seedlings whole and transferred them to spots with the rest of my sunflowers.  It's been a couple of days since I did that now, and they're doing fine, although I may have...slightly different looking sunflowers along with the 12-foot ones.  They might end up being wild sunflowers.

My class had three End-of-Course exams to take this week.  One was in American History and the other two were in Biology.  We were supposed to have an Algebra III one too, but somehow the state ran out of tests so we were not one of the schools selected to receive tests in that subject.  The American History test was 36 multiple-choice questions.  Almost all of the questions were composed of very obscure stuff about what we learned, so it was horrible.  The first Biology test had 47 multiple-choice questions and it had everything we learned, so it was as easy as it could possibly be.  The second test, however, was a written-answer test with experiments and graphing.  I'm strong in the science department, but lab work is a big gaping weakness.

I'm currently partially dressed for the FFA banquet tonight.  Yesterday we had officer interviews, which I attended since I was running for sentinel.  I ran for sentinel last year and ended up being elected parliamentarian.  This year I achieved my goal.  I am now the sentinal for the 09-10 year.

Two more days until prom!  I'm so excited!

Finally I'm back!  The computer's hard drive corrupted, so we needed to send the computer in to transfer all the data into a new hard drive before the old one died.

I think it's finally spring.  The weather isn't going back and forth between warm and frosting over in APRIL.  Another sign?  It's mowing season!  The grass at the lumberyard looks like it will grow to cutting height in another week.  I also planted some sunflower seeds in the backyard a few days ago.  I bet they loved the rainstorm last night.

State FFA was fun.  We didn't have to sit in all four sessions of the convention forever this year.  We were in there to see two of our girls performing in the State FFA Chorus and one of our officers receiving the state degree.
The floriculture contest was overall easier than I thought, other than the tools.  The tools was the hardest part.  Diseases were okay.  The two things that were just easy-peasy were plant ID and the written test.  When I saw our results, though, our team was second to last, and individually I placed 71st, which was somewhere in the middle.  I guess my individual placing was okay.

I never fell asleep, but I got to lay down  in my seat and close my eyes for long periods of time on the ride home, which felt good.  After I got home I think I got a decent amount of sleep before District Quiz Bowl.  I thought it was kind of funny that our first match there was against Tarkio.  We lost by a longshot, and then we beat Mound City and Fairfax.  At the end, the top four teams that scored the most points were in order starting with the most: Tarkio, St. Joseph Christian, Rock Port, and Mound City.  The 1st and 4th place teams went against each other while the 2rd and 3rd place teams did the same.  We lost the lead over SJC on the second to last question.  Next year I know things will be a lot different, but even so I really need to gear up and give my brain some exercise, I've had a delay in my reaction time during the season.  One thing I probably need to change is how much I use my iPod, since my brain just turns off and you don't expect to actively do something.  Of course another thing is to study.

My art teacher had a clever idea for the art show yesterday.  She put everything in the hall instead of in the gym so there's a much bigger audience.  I've been getting compliments from several more people on my work than ever before.  I also went to see a play that evening, and I thought it was great.  I noticed there were a lot of names of famous people in it, and it was overall humorous.  The ending was very surprising.  It left me saying "oh no!" and laughing.

Oh boy, what a busy week coming up.  We're doing something new this year.  We have end-of-course exams in biology, language arts, American history, and algebra spread throughout the week.  I also have to help set up our prom every evening that week even though I'm going to a different one.  We have a special NHS lunch, FFA officer interviews and elections, and an FFA banquet on that week as well.  I'm happy that prom seems to signify the end of all that tiring activity.  7 more days!  As they continue to count down, I get more and more anxious.

It looks like it will be just one or two more weeks until I finally get Ridley finished!

Well, I'm currently packing for my trip to State FFA in Columbia, which is from Wednesday afternoon to late Friday night.  Hopefully I'll get enough sleep on the bus that I won't feel so bad for District Quiz Bowl.

I spent the night at Northwest Missouri State University on Thursday to study for the floriculture contest.  I stayed in the dorm of my sister and her three roommates.  I had a lot of fun discussing stuff.  One of her roommates loves Team Fortress 2, so she and I went on and on about that.  I got to talk about high school and college with another roommate who stayed up late with me.  After I showed her pictures of Ridley, she gave me advice relating to what I can do when I major in art.

The next morning I helped my sister pick up stuff for an experiment she was doing with one of her classes for her wildlife ecology major.  We then headed to the library and got a book that had info about house plants and lots of helpful photos.  After that we headed into the greenhouses so I can look at house plants and show my sister my AMAZAZING plant identification skillz.  We got free bananas out of it.  The botany teacher had a small banana tree in there, and, out of the blue, it started growing bananas.  She's been encouraging people to eat them, I mean, it's not like they've been sprayed or anything!  The bananas were oh maybe over half a foot long, but they were delicious.  We had to get back to the dorm before my sister had to go to class.  She only had one class that day, so that week was a good time for me to go over to the college.  While she was at class, I stayed in the main room of the dorm and played some campaign on Halo 3.  For some reason I never ever play Halo unless I have my friend over or on extremely rare occurrences when I feel like there is absolutely nothing to do and I feel like dinking around with the physics of some game.  For that reason, my Halo skills aren't uber yet, but I've been getting better.  I have taught myself a few methods on conserving ammo (and myself), quick aim, and surprise attacks.

The day I got home from the college was aerodotus 's birthday.  I spent the second half of that day at his house.  I gave him a hoarde of candy and a root beer can, and we ate pizza.  For the rest of the night we browsed the internet for knowledge and great lulz, but mostly for great lulz.  I was introduced to Know Your Meme, which I can use to my advantage so I won't feel like I'm horribly behind on memes anymore.

Alrighty, I have nothing else to say right now, except O MAI GAWD LOOK WHAT I MADE FOR tacster002 .  I've been listening to a load of Nightwish, it's become one of my top favorite bands, so I conjured up this majesty of a drawing.

Okay, wish me luck at state!

Just last Friday was a day when I switched seats with my biology teacher/coach in quiz bowl practice.  I'm always amazed at the most random stuff he knows.  It was really fun listening to people say answers to themselves before buzzing in and then I announce the answer, which is what they said.

I got to dissect a yellow perch on Monday.  It was much bigger than what I expected it to be.  It also felt very much more like fun surgery xD

I MADE IT TO STATE FFA!  Our district is taking 10 floriculture teams, and we got 7th place.  Individually, I placed 2nd, like in entomology.  I was simply shocked when I heard that news.  There were a lot more people in floriculture this year than entomology last year, between 150 and 200 I think, so getting 2nd place was very impressive.  Unfortunately I discovered something on the calendar posted on our school site that gave me an even bigger shock.

Week of April 13
Monday - No School, Spring Break
Tuesday - 12:00 Early Dismissal
Wednesday - State FFA Convention
Thursday - State FFA Convention
Friday - State FFA Convention
Saturday State FFA Convention, District Quiz Bowl

I don't think I saw "State FFA Convention" posted on Saturday on the calendar in the school building.  As soon as I saw this, I had my mom call my ag teacher.  Fortunately, that Saturday post was just counting the time that we get home from state, which is extremely early in the morning.  Well, looks like I really am going to sleep on the bus.  Even though I know this now, I just know I will be stewing over this for the next two weeks.


In other news, LOOK RIDLEY'S GETTING PAINTED!

First of all, the practice contest was a nightmare for me.  I had to do four things in that contest.

1. Identify 60 plants out of the 120 or so on the list we had to memorize (In entomology last year, I had to identify 40 insects out of around 110)
2. Identify 20 floriculture/greenhouse items out of a list of 100
3. View 5 stations each with a plant suffering from a disorder such as a disease, pest, or nutritional or environmental disorder, identify the disorder suffered by each and the best remedy from a multiple choice answer selection.
4. Take a 75-question written test (Same as entomology, dairy foods, and many other contests)

The plant ID was horrid.  Many of the plants were still very small, and those looked very similar to each other since they were spread out with the bigger plants.  When I was reviewing greenhouse items on a powerpoint, my ag teacher wasn't able to find pictures of some of them for some reason, so I don't think I did too well on that.  Written tests naturally have most questions taken from the tests given from the past 5 years.  Around 90% of the test in the practice contest consisted of questions that I've never seen in any of the old tests I was given.  The easiest part of the contest was the plant disorders, not just because it was short, but it seemed easier to identify disorders than to identify plants for some reason.

Today my floriculture group and I took a trip to the greenhouse to look at the plants that were on our list.  There were a lot of small plants that looked very much like what I saw at the practice contest, so finally I could see differences among them.  Also tomorrow, I get to go to school at 7:15 in the morning to get quizzed on, whoopee.  District contests are next Thursday, ouch.

And to make things even more complicated (if I make it to state that is)!  The day we get home from State FFA is the day before District Quiz Bowl, which means I would have to actually make an effort to fall asleep on the bus.  Good thing Quiz Bowl is in the afternoon this year instead of the morning.

I just went to the 275 Conference Spelling Bee yesterday and ended up getting fourth, aerodotus got first, and the girl from Mound City for second.  I don't remember who got third, I think it was someone from South Holt.  I got out on the word obstetrician, meaning someone who specializes in the medical science of birth and its antecedents and sequels.  I have never heard of that word or even obstetrics until yesterday.  I think it's really weird that when you say obstetrics the second syllable is "teh" and in obstetrician it seems that everyone says it as "tih."  I looked through the entire spelling bee book before the bee, and I never saw that word anywhere.  But I shouldn't be complaining.  Like in every bee, it's the luck of the draw.

My half brother and his wife just moved in to live with us today.  I think I already said he'll be taking the place of the man who worked for my dad for over 20 years and passed away, and his wife will probably be working at the nursing home and also probably the convenient store.

Well. first I have to say the 275 Conference Quiz Bowl was very intense at the end.  Tarkio squeezed past us by two of the last four bonus questions, so we ended up getting second place.  The results were the same as last year.  Now we're moving to the final match of the season: District Quiz Bowl at St. Joseph Christian, and of course there still hasn't been a date announced yet.

The day after the match was the funeral.  I guess it would be strange for someone to actually talk about a funeral, but since this was technically my first real funeral I feel like describing it.  This one was open casket.  I've never seen a person after they died, so it felt very eerie to me.  I could not look directly at the open casket for very long, let alone glance at the face of the deceased.  My cross with ribbons on it was lucky enough to end up getting tied to the floral arrangement laying on top of the casket.

Tomorrow I have to get up early to catch the bus at 6:30 in the morning that's going to Lathrop.  I still don't think I'm very well-prepared, but I'm doing my very best right now to make some study sheets with pictures that I can use on the way there.  Wish me luck (if it's on my side).

Lately, something has happened that is going to change things forever.  A man who worked for my parents at the lumberyard for twenty years, longer than I've lived, passed away at his house Friday night.  He was only 45 years old, about the same age as my dad.  Despite some problems he had, he was a great asset that kept my dad's business going.  My mom and that man were good friends, and he would help her on projects around the store, the current one being turning one of the rooms just outside the main store into the new electrical department.  He was also amusing at times.  His remarks were often humorous (I remember him saying "Kitty!" every time one of the cats went by).

I've decided to get a little creative and make something in memory of him.  I took a small cross that a church mailed to me one day and wrapped some ribbons around it in a fashionable way.  I'll either leave it at his desk next time I go to work or leave it at the funeral, whichever comes first.

My half brother has been on a rocky road lately, so he and his wife will be living with us for a while until they find a suitable place to live.  He will be taking over the spot left open at work.  Even so, the lumberyard will never be the same again.

Many things have happened since I last posted something here.  Unfortunately my cookies are constantly becoming corrupt so I have to clear them every time I start Firefox.  As a result, I have to log into everything every time I start it as well.

I have a picture from the petting zoo!
( Say hello to my little friend. )


The Winter Ball was fun.  At least four of my Quiz Bowl teammates were there.  They so happened to be two pairs of people that have been dating for a long time.  While aerodotus and I were in the dance room (the cafeteria), we could see the four of them together out in the hallway as if they were plotting something.  Later when some slow music started playing, they came out and got us to slow dance.  I've slow danced a few times before, but it was only during my freshman year at Barn Warming, and I did it with a couple of different people, so this basically still felt like my first one, haha.  Overall, we had a fun time.

( PICTURES! )

Just this last Thursday I almost passed out at school.  I felt totally fine until 2nd hour, which was when a load of discomfort started in my kidney area and everywhere around it (my sides and the front as well).  Toward the end of the hour, I noticed that I started to get a little lightheaded and my vision started to tunnel.  At the time I got my nurse's pass and started walking out of the room, I collapsed over the trash can just in front of the doorway with my hearing giving out.  The nurse had to get called into the room, and she said I was pale as a ghost when she saw me.  She could get me only as far as just out into the hall on a bench.

Monday and Tuesday is the 275 Conference Quiz Bowl tournament at Craig, and Friday is the agriculture practice contests at Lathrop.  Floriculture is new this year over there, and I, along with the rest of my team, am way behind.  No matter how much I study during the period, there's just too much to get done.  I REALLY should be getting this done at home.  Unfortunately I don't have Powerpoint (one of the most awesome programs ever) on my computer, which isn't helpful at all.  I've been looking up pictures to make flash cards, which I really need to get on with.  Also, at least two weeks after the practice contests is DISTRICTS.  Holy crap the days have gone by fast.

Well I don't know how to end this entry, so I'll just...end it.