Church Swim Party

This past afternoon was the annual church youth group swim party at Rev. Marcia Lockwood's pool in Carmel Valley. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive, I played billiards with Colin Daunt. At 2:00 everyone arrived and we started by eating some assorted potluck dishes including garlic bread that we brought, sushi, and a really good 7-layer Mexican dip. After a planning meeting about the different events for the next year, Michael and I went swimming in the pool, which was a perfect temperature: not cold and not warm. At four we had to leave for the Court of Honor starting in an hour.

Orange Julius

This is one of the simplest and most refreshing drinks for a hot day. We got the idea from a taste testing stand at Trader Joe's a couple of months ago. They called it an Orange Julius and it consists of about one third orange juice and two thirds vanilla soy milk. More complicated variations include crushed ice, cream, and sugar, but the soy milk is a healthier substitute for the sugar and cream. According to Wikipedia, these are sold at fairs and at special Orange Julius outlets. Yummy.

Summer COH

After church today was this year's annual post-summer Court of Honor at the Indian Village picnic grounds in Pebble Beach. Everyone in our troop received their badges and ranks earned over the summer at Chawanakee and Emerald Bay, as well as other awards completed individually.

This is always the biggest of the three over the course of the year because everyone comes back from the camps with a ton of awards. Over 100 merit badges alone were given out this afternoon, and the event included a potluck lunch/dinner and lasted for almost three hours.

We arrived around 1:30 and spent the first hour-or-so playing around the area with a random baseball bat that appeared in the area. Finally, the awards ceremony began. I earned the Environmental Science, Nature, Cooking, Soil and Water Conservation, Rifle Shooting, and Swimming merit badges, the BSA aquarist and snorkeling awards, the Sea Lion Swim and War Canoe rocker patches from Emerald Bay, and the rank of Star.

After the ceremonial part was over, Mr. Ryan put on a slideshow of the summer camp photos and we had a potluck meal. I had some tabouli that my mom brought, as well as some really good pesto pasta salad.

A Red-Tailed Hawk

Today on the way to the Court of Honor (see next post) we saw a red-tailed hawk sitting on a boulder by Point Joe in Pebble Beach. Other scouts on the way to the event saw it too, apparently.

Right before we were about to leave after taking some photos of it sitting, it took off and flew away. I managed to get a good photo of it in the air soon after taking off:

Morgan

For the next couple of days, we will be taking care of the tortoiseshell cat next door, Morgan. Her owners moved in a few months ago and Checkers immediately discovered her out the window. For a while, they've been staring at each other through the windows of each house and later warily greeting each other outside.

Beijing 2008

American gymnast Shawn Johnson and swimmer Michael Phelps. (source: Flickr)

For the past two weeks, I've been enjoying watching the Beijing Olympics in the evenings. Every day during school everyone would be talking about last night's coverage, and some teachers were making Olympics lesson plans, including a few instances in Spanish that involved translating sentences like Michael Phelps is a good swimmer.

The opening ceremony was really cool, with the giant roll-out LCD screen and the 2008 drummers in unison. Usually the first thing that came on every night was beach volleyball, which is interesting but gets kind of annoying that every night that was all they'd show during prime time. The best volleyball match was the final which, of course, was on much later. Gymnastics and swimming were two of my favorites to watch, especially with Michael Phelps' 8-gold-medal record.

Last Saturday night we went over to my mom's friend Whit's house in Carmel to watch the women's marathon and the final swimming race in which Phelps won his 8^th gold. Tomorrow night we are going to go back over there to watch the men's marathon.

Historic Automobile Races

For the first scout community service project of this year, we worked the admissions booth at the Laguna Seca racecourse. The event this weekend is the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races, which has a fair featuring historic cars in the middle of the loop, with a race going on on the outside.

We had the 6:30 shift so I had to get up before 6:00 to make it there on time. We shared the shift with Sam Pontarolo, Matt Helms, and their families. At 9:00 the Ryans (Michael and Mackenzie) and Liam Cunningham came, and at 10:00 Jason Gnibus and his family arrived. Our job was to direct traffic and check for and sell tickets (for $55 apiece) to the customers as they drove through.




At 10:30 when our shift ended, we got free tickets for volunteering and went to the show. They had a display on a recreational airplane (the ICON A5) that ran on car fuel and got over 20 mpg. Very cool. I also got some photos of the cars going around on the racetrack. I had to set the ISO really high on my camera for them to come out clear. We also got a really good cheese quesadilla and looked at the old cars.

RE: Lord of the Rings meets Warhammer

I've slowly been making my way through the Lord of the Rings models that Michael gave me a while ago. When I was at his house last time, I borrowed a couple of paints that I didn't have, and some modeling grass. Today I did the bases of the models. First, I spread on some Super Glue and sprinkled sand from our yard. Once that dried, I put on patches of modeling grass the same way. Now I've completed 7 of the 12 models he gave me, with only 5 to go.

Speaking About Macros...

Here's someone's really good bug macros, keeping in the spirit of Wasps!
A link to this video showed up on the side of my wasp video on YouTube, and this is the high-quality version.

Wasps!

After a long while, I finally compiled the video of the wasps at Emerald Bay. This was the first time I tried out taking videos on the Macro setting. I figured Flight of the Bumblebee would be fitting background music, even though technically these aren't bees. Oh well!

Enjoy the bumblebee wasp video...

High School Begins

Today was the first day of school at Pacific Grove High. The first stop was to put all my books and backpack into my locker. A couple of nights ago was orientation, where we got our books, locker assignments, and school pictures. Since my locker was bright pink (a lot of people's were), we came in the next day and repainted it dark green, which apparently is allowed. The lockers are slightly smaller than the middle school ones, but not too bad.

When we arrived, we were ushered into the gym where they were playing Welcome to the Jungle on repeat. We were put into groups with "Breaker Buddies," two juniors or seniors who were assigned to show us around. My group had a few people I know, including Casey Reeves and Callum Gilchrist. We did some icebreaker activities and then went to a rally back in the gym. This included some very random games. First of all was an awkward sort of activity (volunteers only, luckily) where the object was to pop a balloon by hugging with the balloon in-between. The next was something that looked like a pie-eating contest. One person from each grade came up (ours was Cameron Barretto) and used their mouth to find a stick of gum in a tray of flour, then blow a bubble with it. Finally, even more awkward than the first was a variation on musical chairs that involved the girls eating cookies out of the boy's mouth. I'm glad I wasn't chosen for that.

After these activities was lunchtime, where we got free pizza and cheetos. I sat in the outdoor amphitheater with Riley, Michael, Matthew, and Oliver. Following lunch was a short introduction to each class, with little over 15 minutes for each class. My first period is band, with Mr. Hoffman my 5^th grade band teacher who first taught me clarinet. We didn't play, but just talked about complications this year with budget problems. Hopefully we will begin playing by next week.

My second period (homeroom) is the honors history class, American Civilization, with Ms. Griffiths. She seemed nice, but very strict at the same time. Next was Geometry, taught by Ms. Chupka. I got to be in the same class as Riley this period, which was nice. P.E. with Mr. Buller was fourth period, and fifth is Spanish 2, taught by Señora Buller (the P.E. instructor's wife). I got my same Spanish nickname as last year, Guillermo. Most of the same people as last year's Spanish 1 were in this class, and I was seated next to Emily Long. The entire period, Sra. Buller spoke only Spanish, which at first was confusing as I was out of practice. However, it seems like a very effective way to teach the class.

For my 6^th period I had Mr. Bliss for Biology. He was very nice and turned out to be a world traveler and an environmentalist. Tomorrow and Friday we will be watching Dead Poet's Society in class (the phrase Carpe Diem from the movie is plastered above his door). I also got to be with Riley in this class. My final class of the day is honors English I, taught by Mrs. Selfridge. English is usually one of my least favorite classes, but I'll keep my mind open. After all, I was surprised last year that history (with Mr. Gamble) turned out to be my favorite class.

After school, I went to the first official cross country practice, which I am doing with Michael. We have three courses that we do: a loop through the Rip Van Winkle Open Space (our home course for meets), a run down by Sunset Avenue and along the old railroad track, and a third from the school through Pebble Beach and looping around the old quarry near my house. Today we did the quarry loop, which takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour. I got home around 4:15 to do a small amount of homework from Ms. Griffiths and to get a couple of additional school supplies.

Timber!

A while ago, we discovered that the Monterey Pine in front of the house (my mom's) had died, and that we had to take it down and, by law, replace it.

On Thursday, a group from the local Urban Lumberjacks came to take it down. They came with a huge truck that elevated off the ground on stilts and raised a large crane.



After setting up the crane, a man from the company was attached to the crane and raised up to the top of the tree, where he began chopping off parts of the tree. They took off the entire top of the tree at one time which looked really awesome. Once the tree was finally taken down...



...they brought out a huge grinder that took care of the rest of the stump. We gave out some of the wood to neighbors as firewood and the rest they took away.



Today we went out to Griggs Nursery in Carmel Valley to get a replacement tree, a marina arbutus (Arbutus glandulosa), a tree related to the madrone with small yellow-and-red berries. Scoutmaster Dave Randall went with us in his big F-450 truck, which really helped with the load. We strapped it laying down into the back of the truck and went back into town. When we arrived at the house, we brought down the tree, dug a hole, and put it into the ground.

Yard Sale'n

Today we got together a bunch of stuff we didn't need and had a yard sale. It included some books, frames, computer equipment, linens, and furniture. No sooner had we started and someone showed up and bought our old wingback chair and table. We posted signs around our neighborhood and held the sale for about 4 hours. Someone wanted to buy the telescope and asked how far you can see with it. Not sure how to answer that.... By the end of the day, we made $255.75 from the sale.

Coming Soon... Mac OS 10.8

If you don't get this, watch Napoleon Dynamite.


© andrew.serff.net

Also, i just found out that May 1^st is "RSS Awareness Day" apparently. Mark your calendars...

Exploring ImageReady

I was looking through some of the other Adobe Creative Suite programs and came across ImageReady, which turned out to be used for GIF animation, with flash-like implements like layers and tween frames. As an experiment, I made this random little graphic of the PG Breakers wave. View the animation here.

I also discovered a random developer's easter egg where if you go to the about screen while holding Ctrl (or Cmd on Macs) it shows the codename with a picture. This also works with Photoshop or any other Adobe program.

Tomatoes and More

After a long while, the tomatoes in our garden have begun to appear. We get the San Francisco Fog variety because they grow well in Pacific Grove's foggy weather. They're really juicy and tasty and also work really great for salsa. It will probably be a few more weeks before they're edible, but when they come, there will probably be a lot. Last year, we had enough to fill a huge mixing bowl every few days when we would harvest them.

Unfortunately, a lot of the plants didn't survive the heat waves and smoke, but our oregano plant did. All of the other plants die out every year, but we've had this same oregano ever since the first year here. Some assorted lettuce, arugula, and mesclun are also present in rows in the planter box.




This is a response to Avant Garden on Keri Marion.

Horchata

A horchata is a thick, creamy, and sweet rice cinnamon drink found at most Mexican restaurants that is similar to rice milk. It is simple and inexpensive to prepare and makes for a refreshing drink in the summer.

Ingredients
• ¾ cup basmati rice
• ⅓ cup peeled (often come slivered) almonds
• Seeds from 6 cardamom pods, coarsely crushed
• 5 cups water
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preparation
• Grind dry rice to a fine texture in a blender. Add crushed cardamom and cinnamon and set aside.
• Grind almonds with about ⅓ cup water in blender.
• Combine rice mixture and almond mixture in a large pitcher. Add about 4 cups of water and mix. Keep mixture covered overnight.
• The next morning, place the mixture and the sugar in a blender. Gradually adding ⅔ cup of water, blend until smooth.
• Pour the rice mixture through cheesecloth or clean paint filter into a separate container. Gently squeezing and stirring, extract the milk.
• Refrigerate the horchata (milk) for about 15 minutes before serving.

Makes about 4 glasses

Camp Emerald Bay

In lieu of Camp Pico Blanco because of the Big Sur fire, our July summer camp this year was Camp Emerald Bay on Catalina Island. We met at the Safeway parking lot to leave at 2:30 in the morning, and drove about 8 hours until 10:30 when we arrived at the dock in San Pedro. From there, we took a giant catamaran, complete with two snack bars, to the island, where we unloaded our gear and went into camp. Since Matthew happens to be fly-fishing in Alaska right now, he didn't come, so instead I was to tent with Logan Weber. When we got into the campsite, we discovered that there was a larger 4-person tent cabin, so Logan and I shared it with Dean Randall and Matt Helms.

Six AM the next morning was the swim test to qualify for waterfront merit badges. Usually, I don't take it because the water is absolutely freezing at Pico and Chawanakee so I don't sign up for aquatic classes. However, I heard that the water at Catalina would be much warmer, so I went ahead with it. It was freezing, but nothing near the other camps, and you actually got used to it after a while. The biggest problem was that it was salt water, which stung everyone's eyes and mouth. The test consisted of 3 lengths of crawl or side stroke and one length of elementary backstroke. I passed as a blue swimmer, which allows for water merit badge classes. The next few mornings at the same time we did the Sea Lion Swim which consisted of 12 lengths of whatever stroke you want. The award was a "rocker" patch that goes around the Emerald Bay patch.

For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we went into the dining hall in a line and the staff gave us full plates of food. This made the job of the waiters a lot easier. My Cobra Patrol and the Bobcat Patrol had lunch duty the whole week. The meals were varying and much better quality than Pico Blanco, with a salad bar at lunch and dinner and a cereal bar at breakfast.

Classes started around 9:00 on Monday and lasted through Friday. My first class was the BSA Aquarist class at the Pennington Marine Science Center (an aquarium building with sharks, fish, etc.) and taught about how to take care of an aquarium. Emerald Bay is the only weeklong summer camp anywhere that teaches the class, so it was a good opportunity. We prepared aquariums with filtered water and scenery, and then spent the remainder of the week catching fish and crabs in Doctor's Cove by tidepooling and snorkeling.



Second period was Rifle Shooting Merit Badge, using .22 rimfire bolt action rifles. This class had quite a few Troop 90 scouts which was nice. On Monday we just went over safety rules and other similar concepts, and starting Tuesday we began actually shooting. The two shooting requirements for the badge are labeled K and L. Requirement K is to get five groups of three shots that can each be covered by a quarter. Requirement L is to get five groups of five shots that can each be covered or touched by a quarter. On Tuesday I finished all the K's, and Friday I finished the L's.




After lunch was Canoeing Merit Badge, another waterfront activity. The only other person from Troop 90 in this class was Jake Matthews, so we paired up in a canoe. We learned the power stroke, J-stroke, and push or pull strokes. On Wednesday, we had to capsize the canoe, drain it of water, and get back in it; alone and then with the help of another canoe. On Friday we completed the badge with solo canoeing out to the dock and back, using the J-stroke.

Fourth period was the Snorkeling BSA award, and it wasn't so much a class as just an activity. All you have to do is snorkel a certain number of times, so after Canoeing we would go down and snorkel for an hour. One day we went to the main waterfront area, but the most interesting place was Doctor's Cove, right around the point next to the boat area. The only other requirements were learning hand signals and learning how to empty your mask of water. I didn't bring fins, so I had to rent some from the Snorkel Locker (Davy Jones, proprietor) and return them at the end of the week.

After dinner we had a bunch of free time to go to the trading post to get snacks, souvenirs, or plush frogs with Emerald Bay shirts. Each night, there would be a special on some item, like root beer floats on Monday and Sno-Kones on Tuesday. Some nights we had a campfire where we watched skits put on by the staff or other campers. Our troop put on the classic Shipwreck skit.

On Thursday morning we did a special trip called War Canoe which also gave a "rocker" for the Emerald Bay patch. It consisted of leaving right after breakfast and rowing out in a giant Clipper canoe that seated 5 to 8 people. After about an hour of rowing, we arrived at Parson's Beach where we were to stay the night. For lunch, we had assorted snacks, including apples. There were a ton of wasps on the beach that enjoyed swarming over the apples and eating them. We went snorkeling at Beaver's Cove and then cooked dinner and dessert in a dutch oven. The dutch oven peach cobbler was awesome! We slept "under the stars" (actually, it was cloudy) and then got up early the next morning and rowed back in time for second period.



On Saturday morning I completed the last Sea Lion Swim and packed up. We left on the catamaran around noon and were on the road by 2:30. I rode in Mr. Ryan's car with Michael and Mackenzie Ryan, Brian Long, Joseph Rudy, and Jordan Layne. Mackenzie plugged in his iPod and he put on Steve Miller Band's Abracadabra , along with some other songs, repeatedly until we'd all memorized it. The three vehicles pulled up in the P.G. Safeway parking lot at about 10:00.