positive

December 22 was the solstice. Do you know what that means????
It means now the days start getting longer. More sunshine everyday now, yipee :D

first of all, Sprout was found dead when I got back from the senior trip.

On the plane my face was basically glued to the window. I read some of Eldest (erogon book) while we were waiting on the other flight of people to arrive. once they did we drove to sedona (spelling?) and we rode the pink jeeps. That was fun :D. Then I think we retired to the hotel, I read some more. The next day we visited the Grand Canyon.

Man is it HUGE. and verrrry deep. we hiked around the rim a little, then ate, and went to a gift shop, I got batteries, that's it. Then after eating lunch we hiked down the grand canyon, some people went back early, but I stayed for the whole thing. We only got around 3 miles through, and that took around a hour. Then some people had the "Brilliant" idea to race up... 3 broke free from the rest. I considered it for around a minute, and thought "why not?". I caught up to them, so that made 4. A girl, Emma, decided to take the initiative and forced us to get as far ahead as possible, jogging up parts, and walking others. Jogging up the whole thing would've killed us. One then fell back, and around less then a mile left caught up. They decided to stop (I was in the back), but I kept going, so I powerwalked ahead of them, around the end Emma tried to sprint past me. As soon as I saw her I sprinted, and she stopped, she apparently didn't have that much energy left. I won :P. Dad's not entirely thrilled I did this...

Oh, the next person that arrived at the top was 20 minutes behind us ^.^

We traveled back to Pheonix, and the next day we did some work, reminding people to get their free turkey at this church, but I mostly watched. The conditions of these people surprised me. I'd never been around run down houses before.

then we learned about the dream center. The next day we hiked, one set of people took off, and we hiked some other trail. Oh I forgot to mention the first day we did stop our trip to sedona and hiked.

then we went to the airport. I arrived back in the wee morning hours on Monday.

oh and on the third day I saw my First sunset!!!! the only bad part is I didn't have a camera. We climbed on this rock mound, and I being the bright person I am, chose to go higher, it was a tunnelish thing (that we were in) I decided to go above. I'd say the slopr was around 40ish degrees for around 15ish feet. the others were around 30ish degrees. it was around 25ish feet higher up then we were. Then I got up, and around 30 seconds later thought (wait a minute... how am I going to get down... -_-).

I realized it would be harder to get down. and if I had slipped... well... you wouldn't be reading this in all likely hood. But I did. Though I did pray first. I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid. Plus I think he's used to this by now. :P

I was very careful on the way down. I really didn't think about it. It seems as if my liking of planes, is slightly dulling my fear of heights.

Oh the irony... the kid whose afraid of heights, loves flying in a plane 30000 feet up *rolls eyes

Some people in my class won't let me live it down lol

Oh did I mention we saw a couple baby scorpions? :D


I'm thankful for...

family, friends, fun, windows on planes, praying mantises, fishies (:D), life, eternal life (by far), Jesus, technology, imagination, Spiders (inside joke :P ), books

Sadly I finished reading all the erogon books on Tuesday, I only began the first one the Monday prior. I liked those books :(

Oh I found out my uncle made peanut butter, mayonnaise, and cheese sandwiches when he was younger... He he liked them a bunch :DDDD
hahaha

See I told you they're good :P



One of the baby guppies (a male) is almost as big as the adult male in there. He looks beautiful.

Life just keeps getting more and more interesting, through the good and the bad, the twists and turns of life, are unpredictable. No fiction book can capture it. No one could predict it. And I love it. It may be tough, but without tough how would we ever learn. The hardest part is admitting when somethings wrong. Once you've done that you're on your way to fixing it.

But there is one danger. Thinking you've fixed something, and you no longer have to worry about. One thing I've learned is once you do, it comes back to prove you wrong. You can never grow complacent, be on your gaurd at all times. It's not the seen enemy that will get you, it's the one you've ignored.

I've got to go eat a piece of pumpkin pie with my name on it :D

That's all I got. laters...

Senior trip

These are the best pictures I took











also
http://youtu.be/NTQPFpjJiUI

Senior trip pictures

These are pictures that are good, but not the best I took. enjoy them too ;)
















Post number 125 :D

a list of what I've been listening to. (all newsboys)
=====================================================
*Something Beautiful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkdMOauMAys&feature=related
I Am Free http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR7bBEBIC9g&feature=related
Miracles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78nLqPK1fk8&feature=related
Way Beyond Myself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwfWSgAers&feature=related
*Save your life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9o-7PaAjOw&feature=related
Escape http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDLiMm1c7EQ&feature=related
Impossible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdT0oKgmLL0&feature=related
Jesus freak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzMKjD4P0xU&feature=related
*Born Again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C88QjFVCnuc&feature=related
One Shot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqFYFcKefPk&feature=related
On your knees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1imS8FpbHeU&feature=related
Running to You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFbsyc80jUQ&feature=related
When the boys light up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaS7uRfPbHY&feature=related
I'll be (mostly around 2:00) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVT_1InNECY&feature=related
Build us back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-V8--zqq68&feature=related
We remember http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaxA0zWOBm4&feature=related

* = favorites, each for a different reason


As a side note I decided to read even more ahead in Mere Christianity, I think I have < ten pages left, I probably read 70 pages or so. great book.

now to go and sleep...

*changed: now to go and sleep :) (leaving the previous one as what I had thought about going back to sleep, every once in awhile you'll have some creepy dream. Better now. *breathes deeply

here's something I've been working on for art class, I started drawing in school a few days ago, and now Ive found I seem to focus more when I do, strangely. But it's only been a few days, so I don't know if it does.

well here they are

Age

I calculated what Sprout's age would be. Either he is 156 or 154 days old, depending which eggcase he came from.

I forgot this, the pancakes that are missed, are thrown away.

made my second bow (bow and arrow) yesterday, turned out much better. The first one had a maximum range of around 30 feet, but needed a lot of force to do so. It wasn't very bendy. The second one, has a maximum range of around 80 feet. The string is actually weedwacker line. I have one arrow, which was an arrow I found in the ravine awhile back, it's a practice arrow. So the past few days I've been shooting it, it's entertaining.

Oh both bows were made out of honeysuckle, which if you don't know, tends to break easily, one reason I made the first one so thick, so it wouldn't break. The second one doesn't seem like it's going to break, it's one of a few honeysuckle branches I plucked during winter for this exact purpose... to make a bow.

oh I think a few posts back I said "But now it's nice and clean, except that 10 gallon with the baby guppies, but it's not that bad. (just a little algae in it) :P" I was refering to the amount of algae in it. I may have underexaggerated how much algae was in the 10 gallon aquarium with the baby gups, just a weeeee bit... eheh

but really, it's not that bad. Though still it's not that big of a problem. it's worse then I said above, but It's not That bad...

Is it dad? :P

Today we had pastor's appreciation breakfast, which we got to participate in. Oh did I mention you get to catch pancakes on a plate?



I took the picture, so that's not me catching them. I went 3 of 3, and I got two more later, but it was near the end so those weren't thrown. Actually I don't think I ever dropped one in all the times we did this, though I came close a couple times.

Oh, this would happen to me. We were sitting at a table and all of a sudden the legs of the table come out, and on my side too. Fortunately it lands on my legs (don't worry these were plastic tables, light but strong (I have one in my room, and it's holding a ten gallon aquarium). But as we were trying to put it down, my orange juice spilled :(

I got another one though :)



you had a camara dad, you could've taken one of my face ;)

Maybe I should've predicted 24-0 then. (read previos post's comments to see what I'm talking about)



I also cleaned the aquarium, which I haven't done since... uh... mid July... e
eheh, you're really supposed to do them every month :P

you wouldn't believe how dirty the water gets when you're doing it either, or when you clean the filter in a bucket, dark brown to be precise. I should take a picture next time...

But now it's nice and clean, except that 10 gallon with the baby guppies, but it's not that bad. (just a little algae in it) :P

I had dream last night about senior night, in which we won 17-0, and I scored 4 goals. In actuality we won 10-0 and I scored with 30 seconds left, I was overjoyed, my feeling of building sadness, gave way to joy. Personally at the time I did not think I was going to score, but I believed it anyways, teammates encouraging me. and I thought that was to be the high point of the day but no, I got quite a surprise, by meeting someone I've been chatting to for sometime. I was in disbelief, and when I get into disbelief I look away, walk in a different direction, and look again to make sure what I saw was in fact real. The possibility of something like this crossed my mind, but I said to myself "that's crazy, that would never happen, so stop thinking about it".

Today was far better then my dream, even though I didn't score 4 goals, that surprise was well worth it. It's beyond words, to describe the day. How about Fantastic, Happiest, best day of the year :D

one mantis remains, Sprout is the very last one. I can't believe it's fall already...

I always had the question, why God couldn't take us as we are, why it had to be the way it was, but I get it now.

God is good, what he is not, is evil. evil is what God is not. Now we were given the ability to chose, now in order to have the ability to chose, there has to be multiple things to chose from. Good and evil. evil is the other choice. Now since we've all sinned, we have been tainted, and how can God accept us, when we contain stuff that is not of him. All of the stuff within us that is not of him, must be taken out, before he can accept us. If he accepted us as we were, he would be accepting what he is not, which is evil, but he cannot do this because in order to do this, he would have to accept us, accept evil, accept what he is not, as what he wants. But this cannot be, which makes a whole lot more sense to me now.

If we didn't have a choice, we never would do evil, the ability to do evil is a result of choice...

I'm glad I separated silvette's 6, since all of them died, sadly.

Oh I'm really enjoying reading "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. I think I realize why things are the way that they are (why we need Jesus' sacrifice on the cross in order to be with God)

Vale jauzi, vale.

(goodbye jauzi, goodbye).

found him barely cling to life, last night, the females live longer, once I had one until Christmas. Two remain

I scored a goal, and I can't wait until the next one, I have a total of 34 baby gups

28 from sunset, 6 from silvette.

Jauzi seems to be the best flyer of the three mantises. Fall is approaching, as the temperature can tell, as well as some trees are starting to change colors.

oh my

I was actually surprised how this turned out, I only worked on it this week, two days less then the rest of our art class, though some got done early. This is probably my best drawing yet. geez!, I didn't know I could draw like that. This was the first project for art, I' pleasantly surprised at the results. I might put some more into it, but not much more.

one that doesn't involve me for once.

but before that I remembered a shirt dad has worn. "live so the pastor doesn't have to lie at your funeral"

I came up with this (from that): "Live so that your body is the only thing that will need make-up"

It dart forward
never bored
glowing bright
with reflected light

it wears them proud
without a shroud
it moves around
without a sound

it moves with pace
flowing with grace
always aware
with it's stare

suddenly it bolts away
like a ray
colors flash by
then they subside

and I'm shown
that I'm alone

another one

The fly and the web
_____________________________
There was a web up in the sky
and in it was a fly
it was wound up tight
about to recieve a spider's bite

all he had to do was wait
for death had him on it's slate

Then out of the blue!
it come not too soon!
From up in the sky!
Freedom came to the fly!

up up up! went the fly
up it went into the sky
it still soars in the sky
Since it did not die

Soon time went by
then came along another fly
but the fly didn't stay away!

for he went in the web's path
and the spider showed his wrath
nothing came to save him
and his life went dim
Never again to take flight
Eyes never to shine bright

and this fly passed away
Never again to see the day
leaving one fly to ponder why
he was the one not to die.

The meal
____________________________
I've been told what I'll eat
but am I to take the seat?
I'm still quite unsure
when this is supposed to occur

I know I'd eat it whole
down into my soul
If I do take a place
I won't be ready for it's taste

But I think I know what it might be
if it's as big as I foresee
and the taste of that I may foresee
which will very like the sea

at first it'll be hard to chew
then it'll be nice and true
then sourness will then come without ease
burning without cease

Then I quickly move it down inside
so that taste will subside
and a new taste soon comes to be
one with sweetness you cannot see

far greater then any dream
unreal as it may seem
this may come to be
but that I cannot foresee

what is it?

Some are given many
rarely you don't get any
some get only a few
what you do with them is up to you

There are too many to see
they stretch farther then the sea
and though they may sought
they cannot be bought

some are bland
while others are quite grand
some last way too long
but other's so short it's wrong

no two are the same
otherwise it'd be a shame

What is it?
What could it be?
though hidden in a tree.
The answer you may see.
that lies within me.

have fun searching the sea

(which is your mind of course :) )

Sprout

Two images of sprout from Thursday, when he molted (yes another male mantis; I wonder if my tendencies to call Sprout "he/him" influenced that :P)
This might be only the third time that I've seen a mantis shortly after they molted (final molt), while the wings were still drying. Sprout's abdomen problem seems to have corrected itself.


pictures of Sprout from yesterday.



Thursday night mom called the doctor's back and a different doctor, once he learned that I was getting sicker (twice as bad on Thursday, then when I went to the doctor on Wednesday) prescribed a Z-pack (I forget what that is, except it's a medication that starts with the letter Z). The previous doctor said it was a virus. It's gotten rapidly better overnight, my runnynose seems to have vanished, and unlike Thursday I actually have energy (probably twice as much yesterday compared with Thursday). If you would've seen how I act when I say Thursday you would've known something was off (I tend to not be sarcastic when I get sick like that, and less energetic. stuff like that).

Don't forget all those people in NC right now, as Hurrican Irene made landfall a few hours ago, my prayers go out to them, and for the people around the DC, and NYC areas. (especially the ones the decided to wait it out).

apparently Aunt Linda and Uncle Jim are sending a caterpillar they saw make a chrysalis (note: didn't come close to spelling that right, until Spell checker helped out :P). It was a pretty big caterpillar too. Two triops still living. (heh, same as last time).

Jauzi

Jauzi, who molted making him a stage 8 mantis, an adult. So now I know that after being born a mantis will molt seven times. Jauzi has wings, which appear to be in perfect condition. Oh did I mention Jauzi is a he? I haven't seen him attempt to fly yet. Sore throat, and drippage greatttt.... (reason why I didn't attend soccer practice today). Either it's a cold, or it's my allergies... What a wonderful sight to see in the morning, a mantis who successfully molted into an adult. I know I gasped, and I definetely jumped out of bed, quite fast. Faster then if there the fire alarm went off probably :P

A pretty loud gasp as well

Well the triop life cycle has begun again, 1-2 days ago for 3 triops and >1 day ago for two others. and possibly I might have 7 more triops, as I put all the remaining bottle caps (that potentially contained eggs) into three small clear plastic dixie cups. I saw 7 floating eggs, which I'm not sure how many, or if any will hatch. I also bought a bag of adult brine shrimp, a 2.5 gallon tank, and measuring cup (all the others we have would most likely have soap which is toxic to aquatic life), a small breeding trap (small for fish, but bigger then the tank I use for triops (which I plan to use to either raise triops or have them lay eggs in (not sure yet). The eggs will contrast pretty well against the black sand (pale eggs on white sand are hard to see hehe). I also got some tubing (for the air pumps), and two airstones. That was all I got from Aquarium Adventure. I also basically finished cleaning my room other then the closest (which sooner or later will need to be cleaned out; soon in all likelihood). Also a few drawers will need to be cleaned out (some small stuff like pencils, and coins, and various small items got put in there today). Ideal ate a Cricket.

Oh and yesterday (Soccer wise) we went to something called Lancaster Preview (hosted by Lancaster) where we played two twenty minute games (normally games are 80 minutes, divided in 40 minutes halves). We played against Lancaster (1-0 win for us), and then against Bloom-Carrol (2-0 win for us) In both games we had complete control, and could have scored a couple more times in each one. I just got to watch (other then warming up)

I don't see any triops so I'm guessing it wasn't long enough or the fact I used water from an opened bottle (aged water that has bacteria and such things weighs more, and triops won't hatch with them) may have caused them not to hatch, or even possibly I didn't get any eggs which might be possible since the eggs weigh more then sand. so in the future I may just scoop with the bottle cap, instead of using a pipette. fed the baby gups some brine shrimp. I really don't need to worry about the salt because gups can stand quite a bit of it, actually the fact it would decrease the salt to water ratio for the brine would be more worry some. According to the wiki gups can stand 150% salt in water of that of regular sea water. I did know they can live in brackish water (those are the bodies of water where freshwater and saltwater meet). While cleaning my room (mostly putting stuff in the closest, which I plan to go through after I put the stuff that's already boxes elsewhere (downstairs probably)). I learned some time ago it's not wise to do it all at once for someone who has adhd as I do, You'll more likely then not give up (to those who don't have it, it all just starts overwhelming you, putting it out of sight for the moment (like in a closest) helps reduce that quite a bit). This way I don't get that overwhelming feeling, which is quite nice. in the last eight days I've watched TV < 2 hours. Those two hours coming in the last two days. Though during a vacation that's kinda common. Also yesterday I kept thinking it was Tuesday, though it was actually Thursday, heh, lost track of days on vacation. A pretty good sign I had a good time :).

I can't put anything else in the closest without it starting to cramp the hanging shirts (keep them from hanging all the way down (some already can't), I wonder if I can borrow a closet. eh, probably not the best idea since it's probably a good sign I should start taking more stuff elsewhere, whether it be the basement or the convenient trashcan that gets emptied every week.

Also the time I've been watching TV is the early morning, when I ate breakfast, and it was the news. I've noticed also in doing this I tend to go to bed around 10:30, which is around a hour to 2 hours sooner then I was otherwise.

Jauzi arrived and looking like Hatchet

Jauzi, the green mantis from Maryland, arrived today at around 11:53.
seemed a little shocked at first, I mean Jauzi was scared of a cricket -_-
which I took out. let the fly and he ate it later after I left. It's quite easy to get him to look where I want, just move a finger, and he'll turn and look at it.
This is probably due to the fact he's a bit wary of me, don't blame him though.

First I ruffle where he lived, then I chased him, put him in a box, though did feed him, took him out of the box, then put him back, then when we set off a flea bomb in the house, I left him in there for around a minute, "oopies" (best way I can describe how silly it was to forget him in there), then I leave him to these crazy people who stuff him in a box, in which he gets bumped around, and when it's opened, who else is the one he sees.

I think the first time I had him look directly at me, I could just feel what he was saying, "you left me with those Crazy people!!! How could you!" I also think he was giving me an "-_-" as well

Jauzi means jump in another language. If I had not already named him, I probably would've named him Axe or something along those lines (hatchet was already used). He has the "Hatchet Condition"
as I'm calling it. This means his right antennea is noticably shorter then his left, just like Hatchet's was. I think it's harder to get a shot of a green mantis then a brown one. Not sure how I'm going to go forward, with that in mind. we lost the scrimmage we had today.

flight back home, home, and the creature

I didn't realize how big Columbus is, I mean there were so many houses! I couldn't believe how many there were. There was a lot. I couldn't believe how big Columbus was, and if Columbus is that big, what would a city like New York look like from the air?

It was amazing just looking out the window, It was great, all except the takeoff and before that.
Having dreams that revolved around flying almost all of the night didn't help at all... It really peaked when the wheels lifted off, around 15-30 seconds later I dared to look outside, turned away, and a few seconds later looked again, and pretty much enjoyed the rest.

I was actually disappointed when it ended... hehe




uh I wasn't supposed to take these pictures of downtown Columbus, but I did. (not supposed to have any electronics on so close to landing or something, but when else was I going to get another chance to take a picture like that?)



around Baltimore


clouds when we were around cruising altitude


You know what's causing the smoke of the two smokestacks (look at the one below full size)... Two nuclear powerplants! a Nuclear powerplant's cooling tower! those things are pretty big, and up there they looked really, really small.


if you look very closely you might be able to see the wind power plants on top of that hill... if you've ever seen on of the blades on those things you know they're huge.


the baby gups (18 of them too) I think they came from sunset, which is surising since I thought it would've been silvette.




that's an eel, we believe it was an american eel. This one was almost 2 feet long I think, I was taking a picture on a rock, I look down on a lower part of the rock, and "what in the world?" well... there it was. I got banned from putting it under anyone's pillow... well... except one pillow, which was mine, but I wasn't about to do that.



I came home and one algae eater was dead, the last triop was dead, or dying (probably dying, it was still twitching), I had 18 gups to catch, a hungry molted Ideal to feed, and a miffed Patch to deal deal with.

I took some of the triop eggs and I'm going to see if they've dryed out I put them in water), if they weren't fully dried then they won't hatch until they do, I also put some brine shrimp hatch mix in a bucket, so I can feed it to the gups later. another interesting day

What it looked the sky looked like from using a normal shot from the camera

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Unnamed mantis eating his second cricket

the evening sky using a setting designed for taking shots of a sunset/sunrise


a video of the mantis, narrated btw, though parts at the end weren't intended...


my cousin Jon got his driving license today. So today I'm basically stuck here since Aunt Linda, and mom took the other car to a girls night out, and Jon has the other one. Uncle Jim was explaining Sonar and the problem of fing oput when a sonar went critical from failure (apparently some of the "microphones" can fail and it will still function). Apparently he was the one who figured out a way to well tell you when it was failing... There were over 400 unknown variables many people had tried it, but it wouldn't work, because none of them took into consideration where these parts were when they failed. He explained this over a big length of time, so I'll be brief, he apparently was the one who found the right way to figure out whether it was failing, as his was done by simulation, not sure quite how, but he made a program that would figure it out, and this program did take into account where these parts were when they failed, and location of the microphones, (and the location of which ones) fail is important since if it's in the center of the array it's more important then one next to it, and so on.