Camp Chawanakee

The first camp of the summer was Camp Chawanakee on the beautiful Shaver Lake in California. It was a four-hour drive up to the lake, and I rode with Matthew. We watched both National Treasure movies on the car DVD player on the way up. Saturday and Sunday were basically both days to get situated and get familiar with the site. I went to Chawanakee last year so it wasn't that hard; I already knew where just about everything was. We slept in tent cabins with noisy cots that would creak as you moved at night.

It turned out to be a rocky start when late Sunday evening a certain scout in our troop whose name will not be mentioned threw a trash can in the lake. He then fished it out, threw the lid in the lake, and fished that out too. However, Scoutmaster Randall found out and our whole troop got in a lot of trouble. Also, Dean Randall, the previous Senior Patrol Leader, got in a bit of trouble and was replaced by Matthew, who did a great job for never having been SPL before. Not that anyone listened to either of them.... These incidents put everyone on high alert and our troop's behavior turned out to be pretty good for the rest of the week.

Merit badge classes started on Monday. My first class was Environmental Science, taught by Natti. Even though it wasn't the most enjoyable, it turned out to be the best Eagle-required badge I have done. We discussed methods of conservation and the effects of erosion on the environment, and also did a decomposition experiment with orange peel, paper, and styrofoam.

The next period was Nature merit badge, which turned out to be my favorite. The instructor was Sam, and it was basically an overview of all the nature things they offer, including a nature hike where we identified different plants, and a plaster casting of a grey fox footprint (the bobcat and cougar were already taken). I also took some really cool macros of the plants we identified.



Cooking, my only ScoutCraft class, turned out to be much of a disappointment. The time in class was pretty boring because the instructor Chris would ask everyone the same exact question and it would take an entire class period to finish one requirement. He was funny and nice outside of class, but I think he was assigned to teach cooking at the last minute, since he didn't know anything about it. Much to Oliver's annoyance, he pronounced Oliver's last name Buiertin, to which Oliver would yell, "IT'S BUNTEN!!!" and Chris would follow with "whatever." On the last day of class, we watched him pour brownie mix into a dutch oven and then he said to come back in free time to get the brownies. Free time came around and he said to come back at 7:00, and when we came then he showed us a rubber hand and said, "this is the hand of the last scout that asked for my brownies."

It was also pretty odd because the people in ScoutCraft put up a giant Republican flag next to the American flag at the entrance. Why? "Oh look! An elephant flag! I like elephants!" Very odd....

4^th period was Soil and Water Conservation, my second favorite class. I had the teacher, Grace, for my Geology merit badge last year. She enjoys going off on tangents about random things and was very fun to talk to. We learned about topics of erosion, water treatment, and other such things. When we were to draw Animal Erosion, I drew some Generic Quadrupeds in the picture, and Grace loved them so much that she showed all of the staff.

At lunch, one patrol every day would be assigned to go get the lunch tubs from the mess hall. My favorite lunch was the bean and cheese burritos with peppers. There were Lays potato chips available every day. Mmmm....

My final class was Reptile and Amphibian Study, also taught by Sam. We learned about differences between reptiles and amphibians, frogs and toads, lizards and salamanders, etc. We also met Cherry, the rubber boa in the nature lodge. She would wrap around Sam's finger while she was teaching and stay there the whole time. One of the commissioners also brought in a king snake to show us. The only thing I have left to do is take care of a reptile for a month.



Free time after 5^th period was very fun, and we would spend a good portion of the time playing the card game BS. People would often try to kidnap Oliver's pillow, dubbed "Mr. Puff-Puff" by Matthew. During free time, Malcolm taped ears to his hat to look like Batman, and he would turn it to the side and do a "Pimpin' Batman Rap" which I videotaped. Another funny happening was Wednesday afternoon when I found a rubber rattlesnake behind my tent. I gave it to Ryan, Matt Helms, and Anthony, who proceeded to put it in Dean's sleeping bag. That night at 10:00 we all heard a yell: "IT'S A RATTLER!!!" followed by a huge commotion, before everyone realized that it was actually fake.

One night during free time, I found out that they sell Totin' Chip badges at the trading post, but that you need your card to get one. The Totin' Chip gives permission to use a knife, saw, and axe. Michael and Mackenzie Ryan taught a refresher course which was really easy, but enough to get a card. For some reason, when I got my Totin' Chip at Pico Blanco last year, I didn't even get a card, even though the requirements were signed off.

For dinner, as well as breakfast, a person from each patrol would be selected for stewards, and they would go 30 minutes early to set up the tables. The food was very good; much better than Pico Blanco's, but the problem was that they only gave us 7 minutes to eat. When I was a steward, by the time I sat down and started eating my food, they were already calling for dessert. It was very stressful.

After dinner on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were campfires. Monday's was at Eagle Point by the lake and the staff sang songs and did numerous hilarious skits. Wednesday's fire bowl was up on the mountain, and it was short. The purpose was to pick out scout-led skits for Friday's. Kyle sang the song "Stand Out" from the Goofy movie. The fire on Friday was very fun too, and the scout's skits were enjoyable, even though they weren't all quite as funny as the staff's.

On Friday night, my dad came to stay and Saturday morning we drove back down to San Jose to prepare for the Walker River trip the following week.

The First Day of Summer (the season)

The first day of summer was certainly noticible today! Temperature in Pacific Grove got up to 81º in the afternoon, which seemed really hot. Until later on...

I went over to Michael's at 10:00 for the last time for the next couple of weeks. Walking down, it was already about 75º and getting hotter. For the morning, we played the usual games, added "grass" to the Warhammer models, and had pizza for lunch.



After eating lunch, I found out that we had to go to Carmel Valley to pick Katie up from her horse camp and watch her Horse Show.

Around 1:00, we left for the Valley, which we expected to be hotter than P.G., to see the Horse Show. As we drove up listening to Rush music in the air-conditioned car, we watched the outside temperature raise from 80º, to 90º, to 100º. We passed by the mid-valley shopping center where the big display board confirmed at 104º, and by the time we got out to the Hoffman Ranch where the show was, it had raised to an unbearable 108º.

We watched Katie ride around the horse (whose name happens to be Kate) and perform simple tricks. At the end, they awarded the prizes, a tie between all participants for 1^st place. We figured they found it was cheaper to buy a bunch of 1^st place trophies in bulk than get different ranks. After the show, we got cold lemonade and warm, mealy watermelon. Mmm...



On the way back into town, we spotted a huge plume of smoke in the sky, and I stopped to take a picture at the coast guard pier. It turned out to be a brush and vegetation fire in the Santa Cruz area.

RE: Painting at the 17th Hole

This morning I decided to make a Photoshop picture of the scene we painted yesterday...

Painting at the 17th Hole

Today my dad did another art lesson with me, this time in Plein Air, painting on location. We set up across from the 17^th hole of the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, which has a small lake in between the teebox and green. It took about three hours to complete the painting, with my dad's help.

RE: Goblin Green

I went back to Michael's house today and we did more painting on Warhammer miniatures. This time, I worked on a goblin standard-bearer holding the signature moon standard, a musician with a gold gong, and a "champion" goblin with a blood-stained sword.

Earlier on, we played Brawl, and this was the first time I had played with a Wiimote, as I usually hook up a GameCube controller. We also played more of Guitar Hero. I got a 149-note streak on Knights of Cydonia on Medium, as well as high scores on a couple other songs. However, I tried playing a song on Hard and miserably failed. Oh well.

Around 1:00, we went over to Carmel Valley to pick up his sister Katie from a Horse Camp, and hung around for about 15 minutes looking at the horses. We went up to a horse named Logan and said Matthew's signature "Eyyy Logan!!!" It seemed un-phased. On the car ride back we listened to Stairway to Heaven and Carry On, Wayward Son via the car's auxillery port and Michael's iPod.

Preparations for a NERF Battle

To prepare for the church NERF battle coming up next month, I made two flags out of my old home-ec materials and a long wooden pole. I sawed the pole in half and sanded it smooth, and then attached squares of cloth with wood glue.

I also made a poster advertising it in Photoshop and on the way to Michael's put it up on the Edwards Hall bulletin board.

Goblin Green

After going on a morning walk around Asilomar and 17 Mile Drive, I went over to Michael's house. Aside from the usual activities... Guitar Hero, trampoline, and Rome Total War (as well as practicing clarinet/bassoon for almost an hour), I helped him paint some of his Warhammer miniatures. Warhammer is a fantasy battle game that Michael, Riley, and Matthew all play. It involves painting small miniatures, usually about an inch tall, and playing a huge battle game with them that can sometimes last all day, using dice, measuring tape, and a terrain table (the dining table covered with fake trees and grass).

I personally don't care much for the game; it is extremely pricy and turns take way too long in my opinion. However, painting the miniatures is still a lot of fun, and I ended up finishing four goblin archers in the half hour or so we were painting. I used, as would logically be expected, the color Goblin Green for the skin, and the cloak was Bestial Brown with a red ink wash. Various other paints were used for the weapons and such, including a metallic gold (what the "official" name is I have no clue).

Michael invited me back over for more of the same sort of activities.

By the Lakeside

This is my latest claymation that I did today while waiting for my mom to get back from a run. Its kind of short and goes a bit fast, but besides that it turned out pretty well.



I think I will make a fish taco animation sometime. Hmm...

The Demented Cartoon Movie!

A couple of years ago, Riley found this hilarious and quite odd animated Flash movie online:

Download the flash movie file here.

The Blog Widget

I created this blog widget that anyone can put on their site, showing the past 15-or-so posts with images. I've actually had it for a while, but just recently decided to put it up.

If you want to put it on your site, click the "get widget" button at the right.

Faking a Macro

I was experimenting in Painter again and made this "macro" closeup with some bugs, after finding out that there were additional nozzle tools I had not seen before. I used the soften and depth of field filters under focus to create the effect. Because of the crude nature of the older program, it looks better at a small size, like below.

Art Lessons

Today my dad taught an art lesson to Lauren Ryan, the granddaughter of one of the artists in his gallery, and I. We worked on painting a scene based on one of his older paintings. Personally, I didn't think my painting was very good, but everyone else seemed to like it.

A New Clarinet

For the past couple of weeks, I have had no clarinet to practice on because Ms. Priest collected them at the end of the year. Today I went to the high school and got a new clarinet from Mr. Hoffman, the high school band director. It is a Yamaha, which isn't nearly as nice as my old wooden Buffet. However, it's still nice to have a clarinet again.

Another Day at Tijmen's

Today I went over to Tijmen's house for the last time in a while, since he is going on road trips and camps for most of the summer. I walked over to his house around 9:30 and we played MarioKart Wii for about an hour until Oliver arrived. For the morning, we did video games, mainly SSB Brawl, and drew with chalk. He got this really cool chalk (and "chalk-paint") that appears 3D when you put on glasses. Much to the annoyance of Oliver, I drew a giant wall-eyed weirdo.

Around noon, we finally got in touch with Yann and he came over soon afterward. We tried to have a water balloon fight, but there were hardly any water balloons. Tijmen got the idea to walk over to Rite Aid and get some balloons, so we walked over and also got ice cream at the stand in the back of the store. After we got back, we had a really awesome water balloon war for most of 2 hours in his front yard. Many times, Tijmen would get on the roof and bombard an unsuspecting Oliver below. As well as using regular water balloons (styled to look like grenades) we would fill up normal balloons so they could hold what seemed like a gallon of water. When we ran out of balloons, we switched over to sprinklers, watering cans, and just about anything else that could hold water. I left and walked home around 5:30 and was home by six.

The Divide

I finally came back to the Fractal Design Painter program on our old Mac, which would later become Corel Painter X. With a similar nature as Mediterranean Village, I made this using the Nozzle tool, excellent for realistic scenery.

The Past Few Days

I've been kind of busy and lacking on writing, so I'll briefly run through the last couple of days...

Sunday morning was a church youth group meeting, and Michael and I decided to organize a church NERF battle at Cypress Street Park. I made a poster and the date is set for the 20^th of July. Later that evening, I went over to Michael's and we had a movie night and watched Austin Powers, as well as playing Guitar Hero.

Yesterday I went over to Michael's in the afternoon where we did the usual activities, as well as walking on the PG recreation trail. Later in the evening was a scout Court of Honor, where I was presented the Oceanography Merit Badge from last weekend. Following the normal one was Chris Simmons' Eagle Court of Honor, and the night concluded with some cake (from a distance it looked like it was going to be Angel Food Cake, but unfortunately it was normal vanilla cake; still good all the same) and ice cream.

This morning my mom took he and I (Riley was supposed to come as well, but didn't show up) to the Del Monte Forest where we had a NERF gun battle. We also planned for the church event later on, and I will make flags out of old home-ec materials to play Capture the Flag.

Our Garden

Being a long summer day with tons of free time, I decided to take some photos of our garden...

Checkers in the Sun

Here's a really awesome picture of Checkers on my bed basking in the sun. We have it as our desktop background now.

The Start of Summer Vacation

Today marks the start of ten weeks of summer vacation. My stepdad Brian was going on a run at Garland Ranch in Carmel Valley, so I invited Michael and we went with him. We brought two Stream Machine water guns originally used at Brian's friends' annual canoe trip a while back. While Brian went on a run, Michael and I had a water fight, played catch with a football, and ate a bunch of Trader Joe's Veggie Sticks (really good crunchy potato chip snacks) for three hours. Toward the end, we ran into Lauren Dykman from my history and english classes at school, who was on a hike in the area. Unfortunately, when we got back to the car, Brian realized he had brought the wrong car key. Luckily, my mom was at work at the Treadmill at the crossroads not too far away, so Brian went over and got the key from her.

8th Grade in Review

Favorite Music Led Zeppelin Rush Queen The Beatles	Teachers Period 0) Mrs. Murphy; P.E. Period 1) Mrs. Rookstool; English Period 2) Mrs. Terry; Spanish I Period 3) Mr. Gamble; US History Period 4) Mr. Godfrey; Physical Science Period 5) Ms. DeMarco; Algebra I Period 6) Ms. Priest; Advanced Band
Popular Music Rap and Hip-Hop Genres

Friends

Michael Woodruff	Matthew Johnson

Tijmen Teering	Yann Brown	Austin Myers

Riley White	Oliver Bunten

Caledonia Park Picnic

Today was the last day of school, and the promotion picnic for 8^th graders at Caledonia Park, near the post office in PG. I woke up around the normal time, 6:30-ish, and wrote the entry for last night, and then got ready to leave. I got to school around 9:15 and waited for 20-or-so minutes for us to group in our homerooms before leaving. Cody stopped to listen to The Final Countdown on my iPod and was singing along through the whole song. The walk took about 15 minutes total, and we talked about numerous things on the way, while Oliver played his Nintendo DS while walking.

After we walked down, Oliver began taking pictures of everything and I, after eating a chocolate muffin, played catch with a football with Riley, Michael, and later Matthew as well. This lasted for the majority or the picnic and was very enjoyable. Other people were playing with giant beach balls that had somehow come into the vicinities. Later on, as Oliver joined in, we began a game of "monkey in the middle" with Oliver as the monkey. Mr. Godfrey, Mr. Gamble, and Mrs. Riedel were the only teachers I saw there, as most others had classes in other grades as well.

We took a break at a picnic table and Oliver and Matthew began playing a game of checkers on a huge checkerboard on the table. It soon turned into chaos, and checkers were scattered all over the grass. Nikki began listening to my iPod and singing along... "Riley in the Sky With Diamonds" and "Riley's Garden" along with other songs by the Beatles with Riley thrown in.



At noon the picnic ended, and I rode back to Matthew's house, where we had fish sticks for lunch and then played Wii and jumped on the trampoline. I also helped him set up a new Yahoo! email address.