Vacation check up

Alright everyone as I said I'm not going to stop posting and I guess this means that it is about time for a check up on the holidays. The major holiday has passed and that is Christmas but that doesn't leave me in the clear. Up next is the new years and plans have already been made for family to get together and celebrate the new year. This means that New Years eve will be prep work to get ready for New Years. I don't know how much work will be required but like I expected I'll be happy to have it. I've come up with the theory that is along the lines of you give someone complete freedom and they will usually want some restriction. In this case it's one of the biggest breaks of the year and if I didn't have some kind of responsibility every once in a while I would be left bored with having so much freedom. Of course its having complete freedom that is hard. For example living out in the desert with food water and entertainment for the rest of your life would get boring eventually. With nothing outside of the usual entertainment provided you will start to slowly stop enjoying it. I don't know if this little problem is just for me or if there are a lot more people that go through the same thing but I know I am lucky when I start getting something to do over the weekend other then reading or being on my computer.

I deliberately did not jump right into info on Christmas because it seems almost like bragging. Even if you get something like socks and underwear for Christmas to jump right in immediately is like bragging to the world. I did not get socks and underwear but I did get a bunch rather spiffy clothing like khakis and other nice looking long sleeve items. Along with this I got a sled, new blanket, and other miscellaneous  stocking stuffer. The big gifts this year were a new mattress and my very first phone.
I know it sounds like all I have been listing is my gifts I got and I could continue towards the gifts that I gave as well. The thing is though that Christmas nowadays doesn't mean very much outside of this anymore. Family is already well connected for us so were not that distant and getting together for the holiday makes sense but it doesn't feel that much more special than usual unless there is the presents and the tree and the decorations. I'm trying to start saving money to get presents for everyone in the family which isn't going to be easy but the idea is that it shouldn't be that hard to get done. Money isn't everything but I feel cheap otherwise. This is how Christmas has progressed. Its a year to receive while trying to give to others and feel that you got something to everyone else that doesn't disappoint. When you don't have to worry about the presents as a kid other then receiving things are easier. Now I'm making sure that everyone is happy during this time of year.

The holiday's will never be the same for me but friends will always be there when you want them too. I have few friends at the moment that I can honestly call friends and not just acquaintances.  These are to the people that have been there with me through thick and thin even if they don't realize it. I hope they realize how much help they have been and how good of friends they have been but if they don't I have to remind them. My best friend Alex has been through the rougher times of life with me and still feels like he owes me and despite telling him he owes nothing he always feels indebted to me making him one of the most loyal friends I have ever seen in my entire life. Then there is Kale who is very close second with Alex and will drop by occastionally just to hang out. The most interesting part is that these two were friends before I was ever around and they get along perfectely despite them being so distant half the time. Alex is very quiet and ends up being secluded most of the time unless I go over and visit him and Kale is almost boisterous and likes being loud and funny. They are different types of people but both are the kind of friends that can last for ages through thick and thin. If I can help it even if I were to move I will work hard not to lose these friends like so many before.

Progress Towards the Future

.Finally I have started working on my beloved Nerf gun. I'm getting what parts I do have ready. In fact the piston for the gun is almost complete at this point and could be finished in a few minutes if I was allowed to finish it. The problem is that today was supposed to be the end of this project which should show you how badly this has turned out but as I mentioned yesterday its also not that bad. The reason behind this is that I needed to have this all done by now but because I don't have it done I now have something to do over the course of break to make things a little bit more interesting.

I am also here at Hammer space right now with my brother who is working on his own project. I'll leave that to him to discuss if he wants.. Still it's always nice to be back over here with some amazingly awesome people. One of the people over here finished up a little robot that would hunt down sunlight or an equivalent for the plant that it carries on its back. This is awesome stuff and I got to see this little robot move slowly but surely towards the brightest part of light. If this doesn't convince you yet the owner was discussing today about one of his classes which was like an evil genius class where you do just fun stuff like make what looks like a doomsday device but can't do anything but look pretty. Other things like logos for your lab coat and just miscellaneous things that would fall into this category like proper compensation for minions. I love this place if you couldn't tell and for some darn good reasons. The place is helpful and the atmosphere is perfect but the thing that makes this place so cool is the people. Everyone has something to do that will make you stop and want to know what they are doing. I honestly could not hope for a better location to work on my project.

I bet you all out there can guess what today is. If you don't know this is my last day of home school for the year and probably ever if I can help it. This means that I have to sit down and acknowledge what has happened throughout this year and a half of learning. First off a section about my teachers for the year. Starting off the bat is my main teacher Kristi. She wrote my curriculum and was there with me for the entire time I was home schooling. Next up is my grandma Kathy who has helped me through some of the more emotional times along with some of the rocky starts. I can say that there are many people that helped from friends to family through my time in home school but to list every one of them would be very hard to do off the top of my head,

I've read a lot of books in the last year or so as well. Easily over 10,000 pages at that. Thats more  then most kids can in all of college. But lets look at one of my first books that I read back then. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. That book will always have a special place in my heart as the kid in that book reminded me of me. I was actually kind of scared and even refused to admit to how similar we are at some points. I in fact love the book now and looking back I see just how similar we are even now. The point is that I remember those first days and how bad I was at learning in general.

The goal in all of this time though is that I have changed since then. Well lets go over the facts over the years because now I'm really curious. My grammar has improved along with my reading and writing. I'm not nearly as stuck up as I used to be.  I think the best part is though about all of the trials I have gone through is that I am still as much me as I was back then. I have not lost my identity and if I were to meet up with an old friend when going back to public school they would notice me as almost a new Galen hopefully. I feel that over the years I have been pollished and not just changed which is exactly how I had hoped I would be. I didn't need to be torn apart from the bottom up as I had the ability to many of the things that I have now done like get work done and become more friendly towards people. Still working on these things as there is always room to improve but more then anything I have an obligation to return to the hallways of school along with the schedules and the teasing and I guess even the teachers that hate my guts. The reason for all of this though is because I have worked hard to learn to become a better person to make it so that I can appreciate the world in front of me and what I had. I can honestly say there was never a boring day in school and even the teachers that seemed to hate me were always looking out for me. Friends were there to comfort me in times of need and even help me get some work done while I fantasize over a better tomorrow that never needed to come. I was content but wanted more. I will miss home school honest to god but out of an obligation to myself and my future and all those that are waiting for me I'm going back. For my friends like Jack Connor, Sean Higby, Carson Schutter, and me. I have gained techniques and perseverance I could never have had in public school but without the safety net I have in my head I can't progress. This is why I must say goodbye. Not for someone that wants to see me back in public school or someone pushing me to go. This is for me which sounds selfish but I'm the only person that can make me go out that door when the day comes. I have a cozy life with a cozy routine and now I'm ripping the carpet out from underneath my feet. I know what happens from here but its through choice and I will keep you all posted but this is goodbye home schooling and I may never see the ability to wake up at 10:00 in the afternoon or work the entire days to finish my work for the week and all of the other perks I'm going to miss but this is for me and to all of you out there I'm not abandoning you either. I'll work on posting still and this entry will remain untouched from the moment its released. This is for everyone to see that I never ran away but I was preparing for the storm I caused for myself. May the original Galen Seaton rest peacefully where they remember him but let teachers and foe remember the new Galen as a friend, a hard worker, and someone that would always pull through.

Nearing the end.

It is almost time to end my time in home school. Of course that is after the 3 week break which will be used to finish my project. That's beside the point though and I just have to say I have enjoyed every minute in home school but I feel that I need to return to public school for my own personal gain. Some opinions never change because of how hard you have believed something. For example my opinion on the other kids in school and the social circle. Opinions like this should not influence who I do or do not like because of how they treat their day to day lives. Everyone figures things out at some point or another and I had and have no room to criticize all of my peers back in public school. The point of this is saying I have changed in some ways but many of my original opinions remain. I'm more patient, determined, and even relaxed then I was back in public school. I have learned enough discipline to get back on the right track from where I was the only hard part is to start going down the right tracks.

I still have some work to do during the break so I will probably still be posting something at least once a week since its break. The Nerf gun project must be finished before I can go back to school as is the requirement from Kristi. Since I don't have everything done at this point I have to work through break and I'm honestly not as mad about this as I thought I would be. The main reason for this is because this going to be about 3 weeks worth of break. In consideration things will most likely get rather boring around the house during some of the more free days if I were to have them. Also if you don't keep your mind sharp when on a break or vacation going back to school and learning something is that much harder.

I will also be going back to Hammer Space tomorrow to start getting things prepped for putting the gun together. I don't know if it's going to work but it doesn't have to at this point it just has to be assembled with all of the pieces. I also have to actually try because if I wanted to I could launch a dart out of the barrel already with my breath at a somewhat decent speed. The idea is that it has to be made and it has to be attempted properly because there is no guarentee that my modified design is actually going to work. Even then, if my design works it is not the final design as I still have to try to make it smaller with some more work on my part.

Ranting to the teacher!

I've been known time and time again to start ranting on something that I feel strongly about. I have a couple including teachers not doing anything about bullying, Disney and where it has come over the years, and the one I had to go on about today which is today's kids in school and how everything is a bigger beauty pageant then there should ever be in school. The popularity contests that decide how easy things are going to be socially in school. If you rank low or decide not to participate in this large circle of perpetual ego boosting then you are immediately ignored by almost everyone else. If you do happen to fall into this clever trap though you will be acknowledged as cool as long as their is someone else to back you up on this. In other words this contest of who looks more gangster or pretty is just absolutely ridiculous.

The rant from the previous paragraph was a conversation that I had with Leif after we were done tutoring for the day. I honestly felt really judgemental about saying all of this because I feel that I never got to know some of the other kids even if I did see them multiple during each day for a few months before not seeing them for 3 months. In other words I wonder if this will happen again even if I'm aware of what I'm doing. I might just be like this at the moment and it could pass but feel like this caused my problems the years in public school.before I started home schooling. Lets just see where this takes me when I actually acknowledge my behavior though since not addressing problems in the past have caused me troubles in the present. The point is that I have the power to change these problems. I noticed this yesterday as well for my original post but that got edited due to some very negative opinions towards someone I've only met once.

I am looking forward to the holidays about as much as the normal person. The only problem that I do have with the holidays is that there is so much stuff going on. The prep for the holidays, the celebration of said holidays, the clean up of said holidays, and then celebrating them with different people at different times. Even birthdays are delayed to make way for this one strip of constant celebration. I feel like the season is good and the festivities are in good spirit but they are drawn out so much and since there is so much of it the holidays are just to much at times. My birthday is 10 days from Christmas which is definitely not easy for me or anyone trying to get me gifts for either of these. Simple things like a gift card are all I ever want but it ruins some of the feel of things and people want something that I wanted specifically. This is sidetracking though so let me sum this up before I lose my mind. The holidays are good but they are not easy to get through because of how much goes on during the month of December.

Another day at the Shop

Today I worked at Hillcrest which is good since I haven't been there for a week. This doesn't sound like much but since the entire place runs on volunteers they need someone that they can rely on to be there when things need to be done. I really don't mind going to work in fact my major concern is that when I start back up into public school I won't be able to show up as often to help out. I planned for a little bit to go and work on Saturdays but I only ever did it once and even then I don't know if I will do it again at any point.

Lets move onto some of the more memorable stuff I found while working the electronics table. One of the items was a disk set of never aired episodes of the original Green Hornet. By originals I do mean the old radio version as well so this thing was really cool to see. While I didn't work on it myself we found a functioning Ipod on the table as well which I have to say was a huge shock for me. We get in cases for those things way to often but I never expected to actually find one that worked. Not to mention all the other bits and bobs that there were around there.

Not much else has happened today after all of these other things. but I do have to say I love my new hat from my mom. I love to collect unique and awesome hats and this one is my favorite so far.

For some very obvious reasons as you can see. Honestly This hat is just fun and that is why I love it so much. The other hats I have is the minion from Despicable me and a very festive Santa Claus like hat with two tails intstead of one. This one is really cool since the part that goes over the mouth can be moved up to the rest of the hat which goes with the looks of the hat and I don't need a scarf anymore. I'm definetely posting this to my google plus account and maybe Facebook just to show this hat off. If anyone wants something similar I can get you some contact info on who made it for me. Just send me a question through either my Facebook or Google plus account.

Birthday bash

Yesterday was my birthday which means that I have to say something about it on my blog at minimum. I woke up in the morning to fresh home made biscuits that would make a southern mom happy with some awesome sausage gravy. I usually don't like to eat breakfast but I couldn't pass up a meal like this. After breakfast I got to relax while prep was being done for the December birthday celebrations. At about noon we all start packing up and heading out so that everyone can get together and celebrate. We all ate some carnitas for what was something like Dunch or dinner and lunch. Presents aren't that important for my birthday considering that it is ten days from Christmas. I was lucky to get a couple of gift cards so far. Especially since I'm so hard to shop for apparently.

I get back from the weekend and check on my blog and what do I see? I see that I am 4 views away from 6000 views so I'm going to say thank you all as this is perfect since I have been doing this for a decent amount of time but considering the actual time put into finding new people well I just have to say that this all means a lot to me. I'm not really consistent as using the hash tag brought in  many extra views to my small blog but I never seemed to use it after a couple entries. I might just have to set myself a reminder which I think that this little entry will help me do as well.

also for a reference I'm sorry that I get sidetracked so easily. I have noticed this for a while but I just can't help but start branching off slowly from one subject to another. I can't help it most of the time but I wonder if this is a bad thing. I type things how they come to mind and moving through subjects like this is how I would talk to someone in real life if they let me. I'm one of the people that starts talking about Wikipedia and somehow get to what does cheese have to do with Steam the software distributor. Not really but this is all just an example I try very hard nowadays to be as much of me on my blog as I can be.

Easy as Snow

Today all of Missouri is getting a possible snow warning right before the weekend. Of course since we live in Missouri its not that simple because it first has to create ice on the ground in the morning. This is followed by a confusing level of rain which later in the day is supposed to turn to snow as the temperature drops. The ice on the ground is gone over here at this point and the rain is definitely coming down if not just lightly but this means that 2 of them are predicted so I'm really hoping that we get the 6 inches of snow that is being broadcasted on the news.

Other then the weather today has been rather uneventful and that is exactly the way I want to be at the moment. As I mentioned yesterday this weekend is going to be pretty hectic no matter what happens due to all of the events going on right now. Birthdays and holidays along with all of the little stuff working towards these events make this season just that much harder to get through. A day like this can easily be welcome right before all of the things that will happen between now and Christmas.

Every year I end up wishing for some snow but half the time I don't get any. This happens to come with the territory as I have mentioned already about Missouri. Since the weather is so unpredictable here snow can be predicted but that doesn't mean that there will be any because at the last second the temprature could rise or the warm front hits the cold front in a different spot. Even worse then both of these though is when snow falls but you can't do anything with the snow. I know that people out there know what I'm talking about. The really powdery stuff that doesn't stop anyone from doing whatever they were planning on doing. I want the snow that is so thick that you can hide it by laying down. I can only hope at this point but so far I'm not seeing any signs of snow yet. In fact the forecast has pushed the time of it snowing all the way back to 11:00 tonight so we'll see what happens.

Birthday Time!

The time has come where everyone around me starts celebrating their birthday's. The first one that comes to mind is my dad whose birthday is today and when he reads this happy birthday. Next up will be my birthday this weekend which shows how hectic this time of year is for us. Instead of just celebrating a couple birthdays though they will be celebrating most birthdays all together. Yep thats right on Kristi's side of the family there is still more people with birthdays during this month and there is so much in fact that we'll be celebrating all of them at the same time. This just shows how difficult things are at the moment when it comes to events.

Speaking of events I managed to get my next belt in Tae Kwon Do. I am officially a purple belt which is putting me on the fast track to getting my black belt. You see the next belts if I remember correctly go in the order of blue belt, brown belt, red belt, recommended black belt, and then black belt. This is sounds awesome but there are two very little known facts. First off recommended black belt can take a year at minimum to surpass and finally move onto your black belt. In one year I have gotten half way through all of the previous belts which should tell you something about how it affects the overall time required to reach the next belt. Finally there is the black belt which many people would describe as the beginning of your actual education as their are about 9 achievable ranks in black belt alone which is not including the grand master rank which is 10th rank and only one person in the world may have it at a time. While I am close to getting my black belt it is a lot farther away then it initially appears from the viewers angle.

Grandma Kathy is in town currently to help out around the house while all of this other stuff is going on as well. Certainly sounds good to me because we really need someone else to help out around here. The main reason for this is because while all of this other stuff is going on around our lives Kristi is currently in the hospital and I don't want to say how much we rely on Kristi in our daily lives but apparently it is a lot more then there should be. In other words Kristi is what keeps this entire house from collapsing around us without warning. I feel that there is really no better way to sum this all up as when Kristi ends up going to the hospital things around the house slowly seem fall apart starting with Zoe who doesn't want to listen to anyone other then dad or Kristi and even then she puts up a fight a good chunk of the time. She's not as bad as she used to be but there is still the fact that without one of the two here at home she seems to want to do anything else other then what she has to do at one point in time. This is all one of the most elaborate ways to say Kristi we all miss you and I hope to see you again soon because the house is just not the same without you. While there is easily more reasons to miss you then just keeping things in order like missing you as a step mom who is horribly sick it is still a good way to some up how things are when you are gone how much you affect the actual household.

Review time!

Usually I would send this stuff directly to Kristi and the people that read my blog would never see any of this but I thought why not. Kristi will read this all anyways when she gets around to it. Because of this I have decided to post my Review of my collection of Charles Dickens collection. I will say that all of these opinions are subject to change because despite finishing the books I feel like I am not done with this collection due to the time to soak up some of the material of the books in the later parts. Also since I have finished most of my other books this seemed like the perfect chance for one of my rare book reviews. I will also say that the collection that I have was worth every penny I spent since it was fairly cheap and good quality everything.

Charles Dickens Review

With the finishing of my collection of Charles Dickens it is time to give some of my opinions on the entire book. To start off lets go over which one of the book was my favorite. I don't want to rely on tradition for this but due to how much I have heard and loved the story A Christmas Carol certainly wins right there. The main reason for this is because from a young age I have heard the story many times and loved to here it. The story of a greedy man becoming the nicest man ever after suffering through the wrong deeds that he has done. Notice how I did that without mentioning the fact that it was Christmas based? Well thats because this goes for all of us out there and no matter the season we learn from our mistakes in the past, and we make the right choices in the present to make the Future a better place.

While my favorite book was A Christmas Carol it certainly does not have my favorite character. Oliver Twist takes the lead here and for its own special reasons. I love the small orphan primarily because Oliver's life in the beginning was based on the writers actual life and while later in the book wasn't near what he lived there was still many references to his childhood. Along with all of them including Dickens first friend inspired the name of Mr. Fagin the main villain in the book which there is still no explanation for this at this point in time but it is always fairly interesting to think about. I enjoyed seeing Oliver as he starts out as an orphan from off the street and you see how terrible his life happens to be. This sounds horrible but this is how life used to be like back in those times for a person in his predicament. While Dickens makes character that people love young Oliver just spoke to me the most.

How is Dicken's books still relevant to today? This is actually quite simple because while most of his books were fiction that does not mean that each one doesn't have a useful story to tell. The moral of a story never changes and a moral's usefulness comes from how much you would need the advice that it gives you and if you can spot the advice. For the most part even if the books are old they teach the same lessons that they did a couple years ago and since many books do not even attempt to do something like this anymore it makes books like Oliver Twist that much more valuable. This is why there are classic books because a classic book will teach you a lesson no matter the mood, setting, characters, or plot.

Final question is How has reading Dickens influenced your own belief about life choices? Well this one isn't exactly simple but I think I can do this one. First off life choices are important no matter what you do but these books show you how one decision can take you to very different places then someone else. Lets look at two characters from Oliver Twist. One is Oliver himself and the other is the thief Dodger. Dodger decided to stay as a thief despite being able to run away and make a living for himself. We don't know his exact fate but he doesn't get that much said about him after being a thief. Oliver on the other hand decided that he didn't want to remain in this occupation and ran away. Because of him running off he managed to have the entire crime den destroyed without intending for this to happen. No matter what you may think Oliver may have done the right thing but he destroyed a few lives on the way there. Even if this isn't voluntary he still affected someone else without meaning too. Dodger on the other hand seemed to lack any impact on the other hand even if it did mean running away from the life that he knew. The point is that no matter your choice you can help or hinder others without even realizing it. Dodger lost his “family” due to Oliver's choices.

This wraps things up so I hope that you have enjoyed my opinion on some of these topics that coralate with my recently finished Charles Dickens collection. Thank you everyone for giving your time to read this far and have a good day.

No Exscuses

Alright sorry guys but there was seriously no reason for me to be posting this late at night without consent for anyone out there. I apologize for this and now that the elephant in the room is addressed lets jump right on in. Today was for the most part a break for the simple fact that after a couple things to do in the morning I was free for the day. This did throw me off and make me forget that I had a blog to do since I didn't work on actual school but instead worked ahead in my work for the week.

For the things that were accomplished today there was first off the finishing of the Book Thief which I will say is an extremely depressing book at the end. Other then that though the book was an extremely good read after you get past the really hard to read parts. Next up I was reading ahead in my Important decisions book but I didn't get nearly as far in that one. Next up is the most exciting that that happened to me today and I'm quite happy about this one at that.

Next up is I went and met the counselor at my new High school. She seemed fairly distracted even though she was definitely working with us. It doesn't matter though because she also sat down and went over what classes I might be able to attend when I start. After this though dad had me renewed on my shots which will allow me to participate in school now and yes the shot did hurt but nearly as bad as I remember my first one being and trust me that first shot I remember in my past was extremely painful and I will always remember that moment when I got my first shot because of that.
The main reason why I was only doing work ahead work is because Kristi my teacher and my usual ride to and from volunteering is in the hospital again and this time she isn't doing to hot. When you read this Kristi I hope your doing alright.

Success is Sweet

I have finally done it everyone! I have finished my collection of Charles Dickens. Due to me finishing this though and despite how ecstatic I am I sense an oppurtunity here to expand on this. Also since the parents are requesting that I do this tomorrow I'll be going over my favorite book out of the whole thing. I don't know if anyone is going to be willing to guess which one but if you do I think that will make things a little bit more interesting. While I mention this I do know that the comment section seems to be screwed up but I will catch what ever you guess if you use Google plus or something similar.

While on books I got another book that I have been reading that has gone with one of the other books I just recently finished. This book is The 6 most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make. The book is designed to make you consider what you are doing with your life currently and see where you want to take it. It pairs very well with the first book Life Strategies for Teens and by this I mean that the first book readies you for Important decisions and while the first one helps you get yourself on the right path the second one helps you make the decisions. One of the decisions that it starts off with is who do you want to be in the future and how do you want to be looked at as a person. This helps as it is designed to be step by step on who you are and where you want to be. Of course this all just happens to go with the chapter about what job you want in the future which makes things that much more interesting.

As you can tell it is nearing the end of my time in Home School and I would love to start doing the woe is me how I will miss the wonderful times that I have had but first off I cannot due this until my final post for this semester and secondly I just don't think that the whole thing is appropriate at this point. The woe is me act wouldn't fly with the parents first off and even for me I don't think that it would work very well unless the final day of home school was going to be my final post. I plan to not have to do this but I will say that posts might just be a little bit more infrequent when the next school year comes along. Other then that though things will be somewhat the same. Much like a good sequel to a book. Things will change but just enough so that you recognize the book and what came before the sequel.

I've Done it!

I have finally found the last parts that I needed and it is relieving to the point of peace. I feel kinda sad about the last couple of days though since I spent almost 2 whole days looking for parts when I could have had them in one day. It feels almost like I wasted two days looking for something just to find that I had been sitting on those exact items and it leaves me feeling pretty stupid alongside the relief. It kinda balances out in the end and due to the work today my weekend is now free!

This morning I got to go around with dad laughing and chatting the entire car ride. I have been loving my time with dad as at this point in time we are the closest that we have ever been and it has been this way ever since Nate went off to Job Corps. I have enjoyed our quality time together and all the fun times we are having together no matter how small. We are simply closer and because of this we are able to enjoy each others company and understand what the other person is talking about more.

This has been a fairly small post so far but I think it is time for yet another restaurant review. This restaurant is called 75th street and I once again got to eat at a wonderful restaurant with a unique spin on things. The main thing is though that this place isn't exactly a restaurant and instead it is a brewery with a restaurant attached which is fairly unique but to top it all off there is still the menu which definitely has its own personality. Along with the beverages I cannot have yet there was a large assortment from steaks to burgers to salmon to salad.  Now these things aren't exactly cheap but for a menu with such variety they were able to carry out the items that we got extremely well. The atmosphere is perfect for the area resembling a old fashioned factory and it fits so well I barely realized how much I loved it until I sat down and looked around. Of course once again this place isn't exactly cheap to eat at but certainly worth looking at when you have the extra buck or so. It may not exactly be cheap but it isn't fancy either which means that you could go there for a casual eat but I don't recommend going there in torn jeans or equivalent.

New day same tune

I have to get this blog in today at some point and I just remembered an hour before bed so I once again apoligize about any of you who were expecting this earlier today. Once again I have been working all day to the point where I haven't finished some of my other pieces of work. Icing on the cake just happens to be that the thing that has kept me from posting earlier today is the same thing as last night. I'm making some progress on looking for the parts for my project but this has got me working from the minute I wake up to the second I take my shower before bed.

I don't know if I'll be going to Hammerspace tomorrow because I still don't have everything I need to actually get anywhere else in my project but I will be going with dad to his work still because he says that he might have a place to find what I'm looking for. If so then there is a chance that I will not be having to do some work tomorrow and if so I'm going to grasp that chance as hard as I can and try to grind in my two lessons in Math that I'm missing before I get home tomorrow.

I have been so busy lately I haven't been able to see my friends the last few days which isn't that bad most of the time. Its the fact that I don't even have the option and even then usually I would make a habit of stopping by my friend Alex's house when running a chore or something like that but I can't even do that with the work on my table. I haven't read any of this but I'm feeling s little depressed at the moment if you couldn't tell so I'm very sorry if this is another blog entry that is almost painful to read because of me sitting here moping.

Break at last.

I'm very sorry to everyone expecting an entry today sooner but I have been way to busy most of the day. You see with my project I have been looking for the small remaining parts for my gun that without them the gun cannot be finished. This may sound easy but apparently I'm asking for the equivalent of a dump truck of diamonds to unload all of its cargo in my garage. In other words this entire day of searching for these parts has seemed useless because what I am looking for seems to be rare to nonexistent. Because of this I finally was given permission to stop searching for these pieces today considering that I have been working on this since 12:00 today right after lunch. I only managed to find 3 out of 5 of the parts that I was looking for which isn't bad at all but some of the original idea is confusing to work with.

Due to my work today on my project I have fallen behind on everything else. I have makeup work to do in math sometime this week before Friday, I have laundry to finish up, and I barely got in my reading today. Now, I want to make this very clear that today did end very well for me and that today was successful towards the goal I was hoping to achieve. The problem with today though is that in order to get to that goal I had to give up time on the work that I still need to do in order to finish the main job at the moment. I will not have everything that I need by the end of the week in order to try and get everything back on schedule. This is kind of a problem but I also have time galore coming during the Holidays which is not an ideal time but you do what you have to and by that point in time I hope to be finished with getting the parts by then but with that much time available if I didn't get the parts up until the day right before the vacation I would be upset but I would have plenty of time to work with to still get things done.

Since not much has gone on today outside of project work I can still talk about what I will be doing tomorrow which should be easier. I will be going to a Dentists appointment after not having had a checkup in a couple years now. In fact I can't remember that last time I went for an appointment at all which makes this that more scary for me since for all I know I have something wrong with my teeth that could potentially make this checkup a little bit more interesting then intended. I wouldn't know myself but for people that are trained to look for imperfections for teeth they just might spot something.

Hurtful Trees

Today I went to work over at Hillcrest to see the store in Christmas frenzy. Certainly not the easiest time of year but the icing on the cake was working on the darned Christmas trees for most of the day. I volunteered to work on them without anyone asking me mind you but I still have scratches and punctures from moving and hooking up those trees. The worst part is that large chunks of the pre lit trees just wouldn't light up due to at least one little light needing to be replaced or just other things going wrong like one of the stands collapsed under the weight of the tree that it was designed for. Lucky for us though we had an extra stand available. Either way things were certainly interesting over there trying to keep up with the steady flow of random Christmas everything. If it was slightly Christmas like people would donate it and then come in and try to get something else.

Outside of Christmas things were rather slow today but that doesn't mean anything really because there is still things to do today including working on finding exact locations and purposes of items on my homemade Nerf gun. It should only take a couple hours because I don't need to do all of the parts just the ones that I still need which shouldn't be that bad but because of me not working on it last night I will probably not be able to start working on my gun until sometime next week. Either way I plan on at least starting today in my free time because while the work is going to be tedious it certainly is going to have a good reward at the end.

Finishing up my books for the last of homeschooling which is pretty cool. At this rate I will be done with Charles Dickens in about a week or two at this rate which is really nice considering how long I have been working on it. I also am half way through the book thief but expect me to try and finish that one in my free time in order to finish on time for me and Kristi to go and see the movie before I go back to public school. The main book that I have been enjoying though happens to be the book titled Life Strategies for Teens which is a fairly generic title but it certainly has helped a lot more then I expected it too at all. By going over some of these things I find myself a lot more prepared for some of the things in the future that I will be going through. I find myself striving to break more of my bad habits. The main thing I have noticed though is that I seem to be a little bit more floaty then usual. A good example is almost delivering the rent check over to the house of one of Zoes friends instead of the office. While this is going on though I'm working on getting myself back together because I'm no good if I keep this up.

Ode to Leftovers

It is that time again where leftovers from a Thanksgiving sit in your fridge while you try desperately to finish all of them due to their wonderful taste. Yep its the days after Thanksgiving and while I know that not everyone celebrates this holiday I know that I certainly enjoy the time with family and eating all of the delicious food that people bring to the table only this time I was helping make the dinner for the family to enjoy as well. Mind you it wasn't exactly easy staying up until midnight working stuffing and the Turducken and other miscellaneous items. I honestly enjoyed working on all of it and seeing what the cook has to go through on one of these days does help me understand how hard it is for many of the average person to cook for Thanksgiving. Even with 3 people working in the kitchen took most of the night and some of the morning all the way up until the meal to get everything ready if that gives you an idea.

After the holiday though everything calmed down again which is kinda to be expected after a holiday since all of the drama and other stuff is over most people just want to relax in my family at least. Yes Black Friday was right after Thanksgiving but I don't know if anyone in my family participates at all because I know that my dad's side of the family does not. Either way other then Thanksgiving not much happened this weekend which is definitely not a bad thing at all because it is the calm before the storm that is the Christmas season after all.

Speaking of which this December is not going to be any exception to the history and patterns of this difficult time of year. It makes sense but that doesn't make it any easier because a lot of stuff starts cropping up for people to do around this time of year. A couple of examples are the church potluck this weekend, my dad's birthday on the 12th, my birthday on the 15th, and not to mention the ever loved Christmas. This will all be done around the unstable Winter weather. In other words something to keep everybody occupied and also I plan on having my project finished before Winter vacation but that doesn't make anything easier considering the fact that I don't have all of the parts that I need yet and because of this I can't test out the gun or start building a final presentation. We'll see how my final month of home school works in the end.

Weird Finds

Alright so to start things off lets talk about some of the strange things I have found while I was at Hillcrest. To start things off lets look at half a Nintendo Gamecube with nothing to go with it. I was actually baffled with what to do with this thing at all. The first reason is that I never work on consoles or anything gaming related over there unless you count Leapfrog educational systems in which case I work with a lot of consoles but none of the fun kind. Other then the half Gamecube I ended up having so many cords piled up in my station today all I need was some tomato sauce and I could have a miscellaneous metallic noodle spaghetti. I did not have time to sort them myself but I did manage to clear off my table which is almost impossible most of the time.

Luck seems to be on my side every once in a while in some bizzare ways. For example today I left my lunchbox at the house and we did not have time to go back and get it so I thought that I would need to go and buy lunch that day. I am so thankful that I didn't though because while I didn't know I found out that we were having a potluck that day because the shop would be shut down for tomorrow and Thanksgiving. While I'm not sure why tomorrow since as I have been told most of the people there are not doing any prep for Thanksgiving but despite that they seem to all be some amazing cooks considering what was being served over there including lasagna which was definitely homemade and other assorted things that people must of spent a long time making.

I don't have much to talk about other then my job right now but thats because there isn't that much going on. Thanksgiving prep around the house is going really smoothly thanks to Kristi and being able to wake up at 4:00 in the morning and get started on all of the work for the day. I kinda want to save what I am doing tomorrow in order to have something to type about at all because it isn't going to get anything without something going on and if I spoil whats going to happen then you aren't exactly being informed your just being reminded. Anyway I'll see you all tomorrow and I hope to see you tomorrow with some fresh info for everyone.

Techincal difficulties included.

Lets jump right on in and describe how my weekend went right off the bat. I did not do that hot this weekend because me and dad decided to sit down and work on fixing my problem with my Nerf gun project. I don't think I have explained what happened yet but if I haven't or then it turns out that most of the parts that I had for my current Nerf gun design were just not going to work at all. Because of this me and dad went out to all of the nearby hardware stores to look for the right parts. We found just about everything except 3in. diameter pressure rated PVC. This is certainly an odd item to ask for but the fact that no one had it is kinda sad to see for me because now I need to order the parts off the internet. Because of this it might be a while before I post anything about how to build the gun because I want it to be that the gun can be built by anyone easily from items found at their local hardware store. I don't like the outcome that this provides but the point is that I will be building the gun again in a smaller scale to make it easier to build.

Very sorry to everyone who read this before it was finished I accidentally published this before it was ready. Anyway this weekend was rather peaceful except for one little event which happened to be dinner. Yep another restaurant review here from Missouri and this one is easily unique from others. Strouds is the name of the place and it serves American comfort in a very country like home. This may not sound very interesting but first off all of the pots and pans are cast iron which means that since they have been opened for a long time those cast iron items would be worth their own weight in gold for some of the best cooks out their. Next up they serve everything family style instead of say one person gets one plate they provide endless sides and main courses are what you primarily buy. I also have like 3 meals worth of leftovers in the fridge right now from ordering for 3 people and all of us eating until we were full and maybe even a little bit more. The atmosphere is also unique for the one that I went too because it was set up in a large house with a very homey feel with just a lot more tables then the average house. It feels very nice to be in and it is defininetely unique but my only recommendation is that if you want to go their for dinner get their at about 4:00 or 4:30 to avoid dinner rush because it gets bad over there.

Busy week though but the problem is that most of it will not be spent on school and will be spent based around the families favorite holiday which is Thanksgiving of course. Tomorrow I'll be volunteering over at Hillcrest like usual. On Wednesday I'll be having a doctors checkup which will also be the day that I go over to my moms for Thanksgiving in order to enjoy the day with the other side of my family. Then I will be back on Friday at maybe noon or somewhere in there so there isn't going to be much time for writing until maybe Friday and probably Wednesday as well but we'll see how things go and then judge accordingly.

Hammering at the space

While I may not have everything I need to finish my Nerf gun project at this point I have a good chunk of my supplies and hopefully these will do for now. I'm not going to be able to finish it and this will most likely not be the final product what I do start on. Either way I will start on my project but when my next blog entry comes around do not expect it to be finished because a lot of the work is waiting for the primer and glue to dry before continuing with the project.

Another early morning but this morning was rather sad for me because Winter has shown its face finally but right when the leaves fell and looked amazing from Autumn. In other words Winter cut our Autumn abruptly and it just isn't as pretty as it could be. I may like Winter but the seasons lately have been running into each other head long and destroying the smaller seasons before they even start. For example this year  I can honestly say that we didn't have Spring but we did have a very long Summer. We'll see what happens but what the first signs were the ice covering the ground and everything pretty much died over night. Certainly sounds like Winter to me but there isn't any snow or anything but there might be some soon.

I feel awesome for finally getting stuff together and accomplishing something but the question remains for me ifr after my Nerf project is finished would I be able to do it again. I am seriously enjoying getting the project done and the final result will definitely be worth it but I have been known to stop doing something even when it is good and hit helps me out or is just plain enjoyable. This is simply a concern that I have and not a guarantee that this will happen but a problem that I'm hoping to avoid at my own discretion.

Down Through Town

To start off today I went on a ride with Made to Serve again after so long. It has been a long while before I have been with them on one of their runs but unlike the last time I went today was slow and cramped due to the cold and the rain. The reason behind these being a problem is that Made to Serve helps feed people in down town Kansas City which means that most people do not want to be outside at that point in time unless they are really desperate to get some help and because of this the day went by pretty slow in the beginning. Later on things went by faster and we ended the day well with the few people that were outside needing help having received help.

After Made to Serve me and Kristi went to this little restaurant that Kristi is absolutely in love with at the moment. I now understand why she loves the little restaurant known as #Chai Shai so much. When you walk in you instantly realize just how different the place is with the casual but somewhat formal nature of the area. The smell of spices that hit your nose were pleasant and added to the atmosphere that much more. When we ordered we both got items off of the appetizer menu which included Papdi Chaat and Samosas. You can find the link to their small but delicious menu here which will help you understand what I'm talking about. The interesting part about his place is that it it started by distributing samosas to other restaurants with a similar purpose and finally grew into a small but extremely delicious restaurant that is driving other business out of the area entirely. If you ever have time in Kansas City then this is one of the places that you should not pass up at all costs. I'm rating this place higher then Rusty Horse on my list because no matter how good both of them are there is just some small charm about Chai Shai that has kept Kristi going there to eat twice a week and has me falling in love with it.

When I got home from Made to Serve and Lunch I sat down with Leif for my tutoring for the week. While I did do some tutoring this Monday with Leif we still wanted to schedule for this Thursday to get in the full amount of time. Also this week was in continuance of last weeks linear equations and the work happened  to be graphing linear equations and then moving on to quadratic equations. This means quite obviously that next up I will be working on graphing quadratic equations which I may not be looking forward to but I can't say that they don't help either. All in all between helping those in need to working with Leif through my problems in math Today has been an awesome day so far.

Progress is Awesome!

Today I have finally started to get all of the materials for my #Nerf gun project. I do not have all of them yet but it is so satisfying to think that I finally have something to show for the weeks before all of this. Because of this I will be able to at least start looking into building the gun when I get to Hammerspace this Friday. This means that my project is finally coming together and other things can be focused on here soon after this.

 While on the subject for explanation for things lets continue with the inspiration for my actual gun. This link is the very first part and main inspiration for the overall gun. I still feel like I am copying his work but there is still the fact that I am doing a lot of work on the side in order to make it work. Along with this video though I had gone through large amounts of Nerf blogs which helped out a lot and through this I learned that no one had even done something like this or even attempted to create a Nerf gun like this before. Because of this expect the building of the gun and a list of materials to be added to my blog when all of this is finished. I hope to be the first person to to truly make this gun and hopefully I will expand on it to make it better in the future.

Along with project talk I have to thank everyone out there that has allowed to make my blog expand so much because today I have had at least 120 views today alone which is more then my average amount of views per week. As I have mentioned before I may not be that popular and because of this I am that much more happy when people show up on their own to my blog. Just have to say I really appreciate the support guys and have a good day.

Explanation required

I don't know if I have ever talked about what Hillcrest does for people and what makes them any better then someone like Goodwill. The basis behind Hillcrest Thriftshop is to help raise money for the main part of Hillcrest which their job is to help people get on their feet and start working on building a life for themselves. For a start they help you get a job if you don't have one and help you start managing your money and look for a new home outside the temporary house that you get when you join the program. I was introduced to the program through my Grandma Cindy who had attended the program her self in order to become independent again which helped her out immensely. I now enjoy helping out around the place and what makes it even better is that every item that I test and put out on the shelf is helping someone get back on the right track.

I have access to a lot of material down at Hillcrest but most of it requires a bit of explanation behind it. For example I thought it was interesting that today I worked on a set of Gateway computer products of everything other then the monitor and computer. The main reason behind this is that Gateway computers is out of business and has been for a while. I know this for a fact because my dad has told me that he used to work at Gateway computers even before I was born which is probably why it came to mind. I know that I don't give very much as I could with my job at a place such as the thrift shop but lets see if that can change.

Today things have been a little bit different with a brand new schedule starting up at the dojo. I am not exactly a fan of it but it comes with so many different perks that I don't have a reason to be annoyed at all.  For example I don't have to scarf down all of my food in order to be out the door at time. I also get all of the time after class to myself which is very nice to have because usually I don't have anything but at least an hour after class until I have to go to bed. It is getting late so for the first time in ever I'm going to end the blog here because its time for bed. Have a good day when you read this because I don't think that anyone will be reading this until tomorrow later in the day. Anyway if that's the case here's a second blog for you to enjoy for the day.

Pigs in pain and people in need.

This weekend was pretty darn busy and while it may not be the busiest one yet it certainly had a lot of good content. My brother Nate was in town this weekend who got to help out with the family project which took up some time this Saturday. The family project was to go over to one of the parent's friend's houses and start doing the final touch ups around the house. This sadly could not happen very easily because much of the house was still not picked up so we did what we could and headed out. Because of this family day though we spent some much needed time after the project together starting with lunch. I have eaten barbecue before but very few places bring back memories like Rosedale's intoxicating meats. I have eaten here once before and funny enough that was around the beginning of last years school year after going out with Kristi to watch Queen of Versailles which is still a movie I recommend watching if you have the time.

After lunch though we went shopping over at Costco and then dropped everything off at home. What happened next is whats awesome and that happens to be that we all went out to see the new movie Enders game which I know I had been wanting see desperately. I always enjoyed the book as I had read it on the side of my work earlier this year. When the movie was announced I was ecstatic and looking forward to going to see it. I enjoyed the movie which is a good way to get started on reading the books but like many book to movie conversions the book was much better due to the amount of detail that was left out. This does not mean that the movie was not worth watching and in fact I enjoyed many parts of the movie. I just recommend going and reading the book afterward.

While that was just Saturday lets continue on to Sunday. I usually don't do anything on Sundays but this weekend was an exception. This weekend we have scheduled me another field trip and this time I went to a local butchery known as the Local Pig for a lesson on sausage making. They also do a class on pig butchering but I am too young still in order to participate in that class. Still, the sausage class was an experience on its own. While I was apart of the group that made the breakfast sausage there were three other groups. One group made a beer bratwurst, another made a garlic and rosemary sausage, and the final one made a kinda spicy Chorizo sausage. They make some much more interesting stuff as well including a spicy Thai peanut sausage which I absolutely love. The most amazing thing about Local pig though is that it is all local just like in the name. They even post up where they get their meat from on the walls and then who supplies it and where they are located at. In other words this place is amazing and Local pig is dedicated to bringing its clients fresh meat right from around your area.

I still have a little bit more to talk about today so this calls for an extra paragraph. I have been working very hard lately on getting my work done and catching up to speed on my work. This week though is going to be somewhat interesting. For example this week I will be riding with Kristi this Thursday with Made to Serve. If you don't remember who Made To Serve is then they are people who work here in Missouri who are dedicated to feeding the homeless around Kansas City. Along with this busy Thursday I will checking out Kristi's favorite restaurant at the moment which I will be going into further detail when Thursday rolls around.

 have also been working with Leif recently on my math more then anything which is good because this means that I am catching up where I need to while also keeping my project moving to still be on time. Leif is primarily focusing on Algebra due to the fact that I will have to take this class as one my very first classes for the year or else I cannot continue on my math classes very easily. Starting things off we have been going over basic algebra where you use letter in substitution of numbers and afterwards we started going over graphs, slopes, y intercepts and more. This is helping out so much that things are going rather smoothly and I hope that things don't get too out of hand this week.

Weekend events

Starting off my blog is some more good news for me and my family and that is that my brother Nate is coming from Job Corps to spend the weekend at home. Since he has not been able to do this for a while this is going to be the first time in a couple months that I will get to see him after a long time. I know that I am certaintly looking forward to seeing him again but even better is that the family will also get to see him again when Thanksgiving rolls around.

For the weekend, While Nate is in town I have a pretty busy weekend. Some of the work includes helping out one of the parents friends with cleaning up their house to help them with moving out. Next up I will be attending a sausage making class over at the Local Pig. I understand that the parents are close with the owner of Local pig but other then that I myself have never been there. This means that when the weekend is done then I will have something new to talk about.

Of course I happen to be writing all of this in the morning so nothing has really happened yet but I do have something to do later today. Yep, its Hammerspace day again and today I aplan on finishing up my bill of materials, prices, and a printed schedule to be presented to the parents this Saturday  For me this is huge because I can't continue to actually getting the parts and making the Nerf gun until the presentation is finished. Either way things will work as long as I keep on top of things today.

The Hashtag

As many might know if your into spreading the word about your posts is that the almighty hashtag is a good place to start. Since so many people are willing to read my #blog nowadays I think that I will start employing this technique in my blog in order to get some new people reading as well. The reason for this is that today has had the most views ever in all of my blogs history of 89 views in one day. This may not sound like much to those that have a large blog that they mantain but to someone as small as me I am absolutely astounded to get this amount and hopefully I can keep new people coming over to look at my blog and add to the ranks of people that read my blog.

I am currently concerned about what will happen when I get back into public schooling. I hope to continue my blog but  if I were to stop then it means that right when my blog is starting to get popular then I will have stopped blogging right when the most people in ever will be let down to know that my blog is no longer being maintained and is instead being neglected and everyone reading it will be let down. I have a very good feeling that a chunk of people reading now will quit when I get back into public schooling due to how boring it can be but for people that want to continue reading I have always had a nasty habit of forgetting important tasks involuntarily and because of this I might end up forgetting to write my blog for long periods at a time. Whatever happens I hope that something of what I have described can be diverted.

What is the most hated subject in school for most people out there? I don't know myself but from how much I have heard complain about math I would say that math is the most hated subject in school. I know that there are people out there that love math and the infinite possibility that it holds but for people that are learning the art of working all of the problems out there then they will most likely not enjoy it. I fall into the category of people that do not enjoy math very much and would rather be doing something completely different. That means its a good thing that I have a good teacher for my classes otherwise not only would I feel stupid in comparison to him I might just all around dread the moment where I would have to work on math in general. This is the reason why I enjoy Leif as my teacher. He isn't some kind of professional teacher that has to read rules to me out of a book but instead teaches me what I need to learn alongside with me and answering any questions that I have for him. I look at Leif and he is the teacher that I want to see when I get back into the public school system. I know I can't get one that won't read out of a book directly but I hope it isn't too much to ask for a teacher that works alongside his students and makes the class enjoyable because if there is someone like Leif in the world then there has to be someone in the world that can teach somewhere at least near to this.

And Pumpkins!

I have been for a while begging kristi to make her pumpkin spice muffins and she has finally made them. I absolutely love these pumpkin spice goods so much that when last year that she forgot something in a batch I just ate the extremely dense muffins right up and loved every bite. The main thing though is that this is the start of the beloved baking season which is right when things start getting cold outside and everyone starts wanting cookies. I don't actually know what makes late Fall and Winter so good for baking but I honestly don't care very much and always look forward to this time of year due to just some of the awesome stuff that is only brought out around this time of year.

Recently I have started up a couple of new books. One of them is called the Book Thief and it is another book that takes place in Germany during the Nazi regime. The story follows a child who had stolen a small book and is hiding it from the Nazis which is big deal considering that books are outlawed at this point in time. The second book is a nessecity for me going back to high school and this book is called Strategies for Teens. This book is pretty much not supposed to tell you how to live your life but instead help you be who you want to be as a teenager. I certainly have already found it interesting and I look forward to continuing.

Thanks to everyone out there that is giving me a chance by the way. For a while my views have been higher then usual and I'm trying to wrap my home schooling well for the audience. This does not mean that problems are being ommited but Thank yous all around because my page will have over 5000 views before end up going back and this may not seem like much to some of the people out there with the bigger blogs but I have been looking forward to this for a while. The main reason for a lack of expansion is my fault and that is because I don't work hard enough to expand my blog and seem to rely on everyone else to spread the word. This has been working well enough but work can be done to make this all better and who knows I might try to employ a couple here soon in order to introduce some new people to my blog.

Clean house

Today the house has gotten more then just a little spring cleaning. Instead the house got the carpet cleaned by professionals which means that the floor looks awesome. Along with the floors though in preparation the entire house needed to be picked up and because of this the house is looking really nice right now. In other words the house got its spring cleaning really early this year.

Along with the house my day was spent over at the Thriftshop and I had a pretty good day over there while helping clean up the electronics table. Also loading miscellaneous stuff onto a truck to be taken to other stores was really fun out in the coldest part of the day reaching around 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Anyway other then the heavy lifting most of my day was spent just fixing electronics and enjoying the company of my co workers over there.

I don't have very much to talk about today honestly so sorry if todays blog entry isn't that good. I just needed to put something up to keep track of my days. I am sorry if today isn't that good but I honestly didn't have that much left to write about today. I honestly was starting to lose most of my focus by this point in the night and couldn't think of anything to really write about that would make this blog anything special. Because of this I really need to apologize to everyone.

Change of pace.

Usually by this point I would be going over most of the stuff that I have been working on today like my project progress but I'll get into that later and instead start out with how my weekend went with my time at my moms. I spent my time this weekend over at my moms which unlike my usual lazy weekends included quite a bit of work to do. Starting out the weekend with some yard work in the mornings included collecting sticks around the yard to have them chipped into mulch which went into the gardens in order to prevent weeds from sprouting. That was before noon but later in the day I went over to my grandmas house who I call Grammy and helped out with some yard work in preparation for hanging up Christmas lights around the house. The reason for the yard work is that Grammy has some huge oak trees in her yard and they rain acorns all over the yard and it wouldn't have been safe to work with so many of them in the driveway. The family always works together to hang up the lights and we all have a good time half the time as long as we do it before Thanksgiving so that it isn't freezing cold outside when we put them all up.

For Sunday I was helping my mom get her dryer out of storage which was no easy feat because she has quite a bit in storage and then getting it up the stairs was no fun. Got to go to the hardware store while looking for a new vent pipe and clamp so I got a chance to check out some of the parts for my Nerf gun project so I have a better idea of what the parts are going to look like. Anyway after the dryer was out of storage and set up properly I got everything together and went back home to get ready for the week to come. I know that this whole weekend doesn't sound like it was that good but there were many good aspects about it that I haven't explained yet. First I got to try out of couple of new restaurants which I will probably review at a later date and I got to spend some much needed time with my mom this weekend which I haven't been able to do for a while now due to some unforeseen  circumstances. Either way it was a good weekend which has left me with a lot to think about during my free time.

My project is coming along really nicely and this week is going to be the hardest of all of my weeks because this weekend is the presentation for my project to the parents. Now they obviously know about my project already and they are already willing to contribute money but this is supposed to be treated like a buisness project for the most part and in order to do this I must properly present my budget, materials, schedule and overall knowledge of project in order to start building and accumulate my materials that I will need in order to continue with my project any further. The thing is that I am refineing my actual list of things currently and a good chunk of it has to be done at home but considering that I have a good week to get these things done there is no reason not to have everything completed.

Look to the Horizon

I have been working very hard on my few subjects but the one that I have been focused on the most happens to be my Nerf project which is taking a while considering how I have to do this. I am writing this early in the morning so I haven't accomplished anything other then planning what I am going to do on my project. What I do plan to do is start working on my prelimenary drawings and finally get my materials down to the proper measurements that is needed to make the design work and all around more flexible for firing ht preferred ammunition. Later on during the project I will start posting links and pictures to help people who are following me out there that are interested in the results and where I am coming from with each idea.

I will also be going out to visit my mom this weekend which is the primary reason for me writing my blog so early in the morning. By doing this I can spend more time with my mom and I don't really know if she has a computer available over there that I could use to post this. The final reason why I can't do this later in the day is that I absolutely despise the keyboards over at Hammer space and because of this it makes it very hard to type anything up over there making my blog more complicated and frustrating for me to write out.

Its going to be really cool to see my mom this weekend because I haven't seen her in a while and that is mostly my fault. The main reason why I can't see her often anymore is because of the fact that she has a new job and is trying to set up a steady position at the job and because of this I can only really get in contact with her on weekends. which leaves me pretty lazy about all of it because usually I would look at the weekends and hope to leave them completely open for me in order to enjoy the weekend that much more. That has changed recently and now that I have been setting up my weekends to have more things included in them it won't hurt me much at all. Besides, my weekends have always been sporadic with so much stuff going on without me noticing that I don't think that I will have much free time on the weekend for a while.

Pushing forward

Today I met up with Leif again and I went over one of the subjects of math that I missed out on completely. This happens to be square roots and for some reason I never learned them. I think that I never managed to learn them because they were always taught when I was sick or away from school which did not happen often which makes that much more interesting that I never once learned them up to this point. The good news is that I now know that they are the opposite of squaring an number but to think of all of the tests I might have failed because of such a simple process is maddening.

Along with my work on math I have continued on my work towards a proper project. By a proper project I mean one that requires time, research, materials, and most of all a plan. My plan is to take something that already exists and make it even better for the most part because I am not creating a brand new design to launch the small darts hundreds of feet away but instead utilizing one design and making it possible and more available for a smaller dart. I am using a design that was made by someone else but I have to make the conversions of the original plan to make it more accessible for this type of ammo as well as modify it so that it is more efficient and eventually something completely different with several major modifications that I already have in mind for it.

I know that by the sounds of the last paragraph I am simply taking someone elses ideas and using them to make something exactly the same but smaller. Well yes you are correct for the most part and the reason for me doing this is because first of conversion of something so big to something small enough to fit in your hand is hard enough for someone with no experience in this. And that leads into my second point which is that since this is my first project and due to how limited my knowledge is I don't have nearly enough experience to be building the entire idea from scratch by the end of the year and have it built before the next semester.

looking into Extracurricular

With the upcoming public school transition I have been told that I can enter an extracurricular activity and while I have been looking at them there isn't that much that to do after school but there might be something a little bit more interesting. here are a few that I am interested in. First off is debate which is just awesome and leads to quite a few opportunity and scholarships along with some interesting arguments to go through. Next up is French club which sounds interesting but with my experiences with French in the past I wonder if it would be a good idea. Finally there is Anime club which is purely for the sake of looking into what makes it so popular with people. Other then that though there isn't that much that I'm interested in.

Continuing with my books like usual and have been given the task to write a comparison with the book known as the Grapes of Wrath with the great depression and the Dust bowl. The comparison was certainly interesting because of the fact that the book takes place during both of these events is even more interesting. The story of The Grapes of Wrath is that there is this family who is trying to make a living for themselves and during there struggles they arrive at a farming community in which they try to make a life for themselves and in order to do this the father gets a job on a grape farm during the dust bowl which is terrible due to the amount of work that is required to keep the crops alive is just amazingly difficult.

I'm planning on getting a preliminary drawing for my project for hammer space. The problem is that I will need a little bit of help with it. Like last time with Leif I hope to get some help with it during our work with our next subject I have two hours with him and during this time I only have a few subjects in my day and apparently along with his tutoring on the side he does design and planning work which I didn't know but helps me out a lot so I have to give a big thanks to him for his help and also for his work with me on making my schedule

Cleaning House

Today we are having guests over along with Kristi who is finally back from her job and brought home another dog. Besides that though we have been preparing our house for company while Kristi is making an awesome meal. I have been working my butt off to help Kristi make the house presentable before even getting to start my blog. Doesn't matter now though because now I am working on my blog and I hope to have it done before company comes here so that I can truly enjoy my time.

Other then getting home and helping out around the house I did help out around the Thriftshop again today and while this house was getting cleaned I was making sure that the shop was clean as well. What I mean by this is that I was helping trying to clean up the back room and get stuff out on the floor which is extremely difficult for where I work. The reason for it being so difficult is that for the most part anything remotely related to electronics is instantly thrown into the pile of electronics. Fore example on the table today we found a handkerchief that had the blackberry logo on it. I understand why it was on the table but I don't have to like myself but either way it gives me work to do.

I didn't get to finish my blog before eating dinner but it gave me a good idea for a blog and that was the dinner itself. I enjoy a good dinner and I am under the firm belief that dinner is the most important meal of the day due to the ability to bring together friend and family for one meal that everyone can enjoy. Anyway for dinner it consisted of roasted beef short ribs with risotto, duck fat roasted brussels sprouts with bacon, and five spice glazed carrots. The meal was amazing and what makes it even better is that it was at home with friends. Mind you this if the first time I have met the guest but it doesn't matter very much to me because a friend of the parents is a friend of mine. I wish I could've learned more about our guest but I didn't even manage a name before Zoe started jumping down her throat with a bunch of stuff about herself.

Making some decisions

Recently I have started working on getting back into high school which is going to be something new for me while also another trial I have to go through. While going through the stuff that I will be having to do in order to go back into the public school system I have been looking at the A+ program which is used to help people who are willing to work for it to get into college using scholarships provided from the A+ program. The interesting fact is that if I actually try to work on the A+ program I will be able to have the first couple of years payed for college which is just so important nowadays which makes it important for me and my family that I at least attempt to get through all of my years in this group.

Along with making some decisions for my future back in the public school system we have also been working on giving me some more things to do during the week. One of the reasons for this is the amount of use my computer gets from me even though I should not be on it as much. Also just so that I can get out and do something else around the community instead of sitting at home and not getting to meet anyone. Because of this I will be going to Hammerspace on Fridays which helps keep me occupied on such a laid back day. I will also be going to Hillcrest on both Tuesdays as well as Saturday which will get me out of the house on the weekends. In other words I won't be sitting at home doing nothing during the weekends anymore.

With the thought of going back to public school is the fact that I will be going to see some of the people that I used to be in classes with before. Whether I liked these people or not I will be seeing them again and this raises a very hefty question for me and that is how will I deal with seeing friend and foe alike. I wasn't exactly a nice person when I left. Not to the point of being a bully but still not exactly the person people would hang out with. I don't know how it is going to end but I look forward to the consequences because all of them come from what I have done in the past and in the end it should all work out.

Short day

Today I was supposed to go over to Hammer Space but due to the fact that dad couldn't bring me over today I didn't really do very much today. I did make sure  that the parents both got some of my schedule even though I had wanted to wait to make it look nice and present the schedule on paper but I see the reason why they would want me to email it too them. Either way I have continued my work for today as well which was some reading but that was about it for the day otherwise I just sat around the house and read a book for most of the day.

I have had my very first casual Halloween and I actually enjoyed sitting down eating Jambalaya and watching Dr. Horribles sing a long blog with dad and Zoe. While Zoe did go trick or treating she came home home within reasonable time with a large supply of candy which she accumulated from a nice well kept neighborhood nearby with her friends. I don't know if I would really go back out and do Halloween again but who knows it is a welcome break from doing the average day but I still find it the most mediocre of all of the holidays do to how many people will actually celebrate is pretty small around here.

The reading I did today was primarily my Charles Dickens book that I have and it is going well. A Tale of Two Cities is a pretty awesome book and while his writing makes it harder for me to read it just means that I have to slow down in order to read it properly. Due to me having to slow down it  makes it so that I have issues finishing it on time each day which means that my days last longer then usual which isn't a problem as I have learned but it does mean that I have a lot less time to go out and visit my friends most of the time and over time I have found that they even end up waiting on me a good chunk of the time because I'm usually busy when they come over. Work comes first though as we all know.

Help from home

As you might all realize by now I am seriously dead set on finishing my project but I don't really know what to do with what I have right now and because of this I had decided to talk to my Tutor, Leif about my project. Little did I know that he actually has a history with engineering and planning out projects so that's exactly what we did today. I had intended to talk to him about working on the conversions of the original potato cannon into a small enough mechanism to be safe but instead I managed to start setting up a decent schedule to help me get on track properly.

I am extremely thankful for the help on my project but it also shows how little time I actually seem to have left. After the end of this week I only seem to have 7 weeks left which may sound like much but considering what I have to fit into there it isn't much at all. Because of this the plans I have been setting up have left me a little bit iffy on whether or not I will be able to finish my project in time for the end of the year which while you might think that the end of the year is the New year I would say that the time I should have the project done is around December 21st so that it does not interfere with the Holidays and also so the holidays don't interfere with my plans for my project.

In all things are working out better today then I actually intended but there is no reason not to give a good long reminder that today is definitely Halloween. While last year I gave a review on the history of Halloween there isn't anything quite as fancy this year. I don't have anyone to celebrate it with and because of this there isn't that much to do today thats out of the ordinary. I don't  really mind though because I haven't been too focused on making a costume either and going as someone like Spider man without being Spider man isn't going to fly again this year. I might try to do something next year but I don't really know what I would do only because there isn't time to think about that right now since I have work to do and that is to wish you all a happy Halloween and follow everyone else's experiences for the rest of the day and see how everyone else is enjoying themselves.

Getting somewhere a little bit at a time.

Today I went over to Hammer Space and continued my work on my homemade Nerf gun and I am getting somewhere but not very easily. Today I have researched the flaws of the design of the gun and some of the safety hazards that would come from a similar design and certain materials. For example if this gun exceeds a certain amount of pressure there is a chance of it either hurting someone else or the wielder of said gun due to the built of pressure being able to turn the gun into a small bomb for the most part sending shrapnel everywhere. This is just one of the many problems and honestly it isn't very encouraging.

Despite some of the problems I will be trying to continue with the model and maybe add couple of safety features too it including a air release valve directly connected to the location of the air so that if the pressure were to be too high I could safely vent out the air from the storage area. Also something important is that this gun should not get too difficult because while this gun will be something completely new to the Nerf community I am not really experienced enough to take this the extra mile that it needs to be taken. Because of this the gun should remain simple enough to fire at least one dart a large distance using the design that is being presented without causing anyone any major harm. I have heard some really bad things about air guns on the forums while I have been comparing my current notes.

Funny thing for all of you people out there is that the original for this gun is based entirely around a large potato cannon. Yes this is a cannon and not just a potato gun because the original is absolutely deadly if it were to be fired at a person. What makes this gun a lot less worse is that this is going to be scaled down to fire darts and nothing even half the size of a potato. This would be more like launching a french fry hopefully because if this turns out to be more powerful then expected I might have to have something to slow down the speed of the dart. Either way the overall design of the whole thing seems so promising and with a little bit of conversions and some help from other people at the Hammer Space I should be able to easily convert this large gun into the main mechanism for my homemade Nerf gun.

Not that much of a day off

Alright so today I did not have to go over to Hillcrest to work only for a couple of reasons though. The first reason is that my dad would not be able to bring me while Kristi is out working on her final job and the second reason is that I wasn't able to ride my bike over there either due to the fact that it was raining outside and the parents wouldn't let me because it isn't safe to do so. Either way because of these things I did not have to go to Hillcrest and because of this I stayed home to work on my usual work.

Finally moving onto some new books including Tale of Two Cities which is the next book in the large book of Charles Dickens. I have been looking forward to the point where I would not be stuck on David Copperfield anymore because as I said in my last blog entry that David Copperfield is an extremely hard book to read at all and that can deter a lot of people from ever reading it. Because of the fact that I have started a new book I have been doing a lot better and once I learn a little bit more about whats going on I will try to give a small review when I can.

I feel really bad on my computer most of the time because I don't keep track of time on how long I have been on. The first thing you will have to know is that I have a limited amount of time on the computer each day and that is usually about 3 hours each day which is still pretty generous. The problem is that since I don't keep track of time I just assume that when I am asked about how much time I have used that I have used all of it. A prime example is that yesterday I hopped on my computer at 4:30 PM and played until 7:00 PM which is under 3 hours and when my dad asked how much time I had left I said that I had used all of it and even over the amount that I had been allowed. I went to Tae Kwon Do and when I had some free time I did the math and realized that I hadn't even used all of my time. I really need to start thinking those things through because by doing that again and again I am just punishing myself in the long run because if I keep it up the parents won't believe me when I keep on lying inadvertently.

Finishing the hard part

Today I have finished the longest book within my entire Charles Dickens novel. Yes I have finished the very long book known as David Copperfield and I am fairly relieved by this because that was one of the hardest reads that I have ever had to do at all. The book wasn't as hard as something like Les Miserable but at least Les Miserable had some more exciting parts in the book while David Copperfield was the story of a man which made it feel more like an auto biography then reading the fiction book that it really is. Either way if you have the time you could try to sit down and read it but I myself was not to entirely enthralled by this book.

This weekend was a Halloween event over at Kristi's church and our family made out like bandits. Our theme over at this event known as Candy Crush is Duck Dynasty which is currently the most popular show on TV. Dad was Phil Robertson and Kristi was Mrs. Kay. I would have participated if I could but by the time that we were all ready to go I had just gotten back from an extremely long bike ride to the barber shop and back on my bicycle. During this event the parents won best costume for adults, best group costume, and best setup which is just awesome but to put the icing on the cake they had one of those guess the amount of gumballs within the jar and I managed to win that one with a guess of 138 and I was off by one with a grand total of 139. In other words we went we conquered and left extremely satisfied.

To top off the night we all ended up going to another new restaurant that I have never been to. This restaurant is known as Sakura sushi which was really awesome as I was able to get things here that I would never be able to get at Zara's. The problem that I had is that there seemed to be quite a lack of service there at the time before ever being addresed and there were only 3 groups there with only one group sitting at the bar. The food there was amazing but since I was not expecting Sushi I ended up eating stuff at Candy Crush destroying a good portion of my appetite. The problem is that my opinion might not mean much due to the fact that I went on a Sunday and that means that most of the employees would most likely have the day off. The atmosphere of the place was calm and laid back with a little bit of style so you wouldn't walk into this place wearing torn up jeans and a tank top but you won't be coming in Khakis and a polo either. In all this restaurant gets a good review from me but the hardest part is that it was pretty hard to find for us because its in a shopping area making it hard to find while also finding parking and that the place is just annoying to go through in car or on foot.

First time for everything! - Revised

Today was my first real day over at Hammer Space and I had one awesome time over there primarily while learning about the Coaxial Piston which is the system which is going to make my gun better then some other homemade gun that someone else comes up with. The secret behind all of this is that the entire gun is going to be based on air pressure so that you can launch darts long distances without modding a normal gun to the points of it being unrecognizable. Either way I really enjoyed it over there and there was just so much to enjoy that I can't contain it into one paragraph.

I honestly loved it over at Hammer Space but for more then just the fact that everyone was almost exactly as I expected. What I mean by this is that everyone that I had met was awesome and the only problem that I had is that no one was around my age so it could've been a lot cooler but there was no reason not to like any of the people at all. Many of the people were concerned primarily with making costumes because of how fast Halloween is coming up so I wasn't too concerned with that at all. I was really happy with the fact that I could ask anyone there for help or their opinion so I am definitely not working alone on all of this.

My day is doing pretty good and hopefully it gets even better tomorrow with the Nerf war at my dojo tomorrow. I don't know how many people will be participating but there is no reason not to be happy for the next couple of days. I am seriously enjoying myself lately but I also seem to be losing a lot of my free time I used to have over time. The main thing that brought this to my attention is that yesterday both of my friends had the day off and came over looking for me so that we could have some fun with the day off. Sadly I was working and also both of them had the day off. I am losing time that I have come to love for so long but now I seem to be losing it all before my eyes but is it really a bad thing. The reason why I say this is because I have been trying to make a name for myself and start making my own money in order to start doing this. I may be 14 but I have things set up against me and in order to continue I will have to give up the time that I have held dear for so long now.