Another Adventure

 

Daddy's latest kick is "adventures" on the weekend. Mostly these consist of going to various outdoor places and walking around to see pretty things. Naturally, I'm against all this since life is so much simpler if we just stay in the house and play Wii or watch Road Runner episodes. Nonetheless, he persuaded Mommy to go on an adventure today, so I had no choice but to come along.

Today's adventure was to Lafayette Reservoir--a big lake in Lafayette. There's a nice trail around the edge and, more importantly, paddle boats for going out into the lake. Initially, the adventure looked terrible. I was going to ride my scooter along the path, but the rules are that scooters are only allowed Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then, when we got out of the car, it was windy, really windy, so windy that I was cold enough to need my fleece jacket.

From 2009 09 05

But things got better after that. I saw a lot of cool stuff and really liked the paddle boats. Somehow, these adventures turn out a lot better than I think they will.

Road Runner

We're back to watching my favorite cartoon of all time--Road Runner. I find myself asking why about lots of things happening in this cartoon. Daddy offers a stock reply,

Cartoons are filled with nonsense. There is no why.

Must be true. But I cannot help asking a fundamental question---given how hard it is for the coyote to catch this particular road runner, why doesn't he go after a different one?

In other news, we saw a coyote roaming the streets of Alamo a couple of nights ago driving back from the club. It didn't look much like the cartoon coyote. Wonder if it was after road runners?

Stuff I'm Doing

Thought you might like a snapshot of what I'm currently doing:

Books: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Videos: Thomas the Tank Engine
Wii: Super Mario Galazy
Toys: Hot Wheels orange track, army men, Thomas the Tank Engine (press the cab series)
Games: Chess, Uno, Sorry
Outdoors: Swimming

I'll be offering weekly updates so you can track my changing tastes.

King of the Galaxy

From Drop Box

I'm back to trying to tame Super Mario Galaxy. I've made it pretty far, but it's getting very tough. Fortunately, Mom and I are a good team. It would be nice to win this game.

Under the stars

Lately, we're doing something new and fun after dinner--going to the club. For the last several days, we hit the hot tub and the lap pool for a little swimming action under the stars. I love how the sky looks at night. There are also a bunch of trees at the club decorated with lights. They look very pretty. Evenings are great.

Weekend update

Composition: King x Knight, originally uploaded by John-Morgan.

Another busy weekend of playing. I really try to jam stuff into every available minute on weekends once school has started. The highlight of the weekend was a Sunday filled with chess. We played a standard game. Then a "coach" game, where Daddy coached me on what to look for in moving. Then we played some variants. In one version, we each had only one of the major pieces (i.e. 1 knight, bishop, rook) instead of the usual two. The other variant I came up with was a pawns game. Here, the board consisted only of the king and the 8 pawns. This second variant was quite interesting.

We did some other stuff too. Went to the club for some swimming during the day and then, even better, swimming and hot tubbing at night. The hot tub is only available to me at night since the club has a rule that you have to be >13 to be in the tub. This rule is not enforced after the life guards go home. Also did some kickboarding. In fact, I'm making progress on actually having some swimming skills.

All in all, a great weekend.

Reading

I've discovered that there are some very good books out there. Who would have guessed. Daddy introduced me to Captain Underpants--what great literature. I thought for sure that nothing could compare to these stories.

And indeed nothing does. But Roald Dahl comes close. We first read James and the Giant Peach. While I had some misgicings, it was nice to see the peach crush Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. Then we went Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This took all Dad's voice talents. In the story there are 4 kinds of English people, plus Germans, Southerners, New Yorkers, and a bunch of other regions. Daddy seemed to like the challenge. Now we're reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Roald Dahl is pretty cool.

Weekend before school

I'm not looking forward to school. I'm really not. But this weekend was fun. Daddy apparently didn't look forward to school either so he thought we should have maximum fun for the last weekend before the start of the school year.

Saturday was an amazing day. We went on an adventure where we climbed a big mountain. Then we hit some golf balls. At night, we played Wii baseball. Then, to top it all off, we had a backyard campout.

Sunday was equally cool. After church, we went kite flying. I set a new record with the height of my kite. It was so high I ran completely out of string. More baseball and then a campout with Mom.

Pretty Leaves

Here are some pretty leaves I found in the driveway. I like how they're yellow and green--my favorite colors.

Captain Underpants

From underpants

As you know, I generally don't like to read. While I can do it, I'd rather not. Mostly because nothing interesting has ever been written. Fortunately, I finally ran across a series of books worth reading---The Adventures of Captain Underpants.


These are the first books that are so exciting, so insightful, so amazing, that I'm happy to pick them up and read them myself.

From underpants

Pretty weird, huh?

Striped Shirts Stink

This morning before church, Mom and I had our usual fight about what I should wear. She wanted me to wear a striped golf shirt. I did not. Here's a short photo essay about my feelings.

Sleepover

 

Summer is great. Play dates, sleepovers, fun! Tonight, my friend Chris is sleeping over. Of course, not much sleep is occurring, but I'm still having a great time. I introduced Chris to my two favorite things at the moment--Super Mario Galaxy and Dungeons and Dragons. Our D&D friend, Cynwyd, unfortunately died by being squashed under a rock trap. But we managed to defeat some Morlocks thanks to the sleep spell of Chris's character, Jones. He's a wizard. My character is a priest named Lightning. I had some close calls with the Morlocks but have so far been unharmed.

My Least Interesting Photo

wine2, originally uploaded by John-Morgan.

My Daddy has uploaded many, many photos to Flickr over the years. Some were better than others, but the one above is, according to Flickr, the least interesting photo he's uploaded. It's more uninteresting than this photo:



which is a sign for bubonic plague in Lake Tahoe.

It's vastly less interesting than this photo:



A houseplant.

Weird.

Backyard Campout

I'm looking forward to this weekend's excitement---a backyard campout. Only here's the twist, it's not in my backyard; it's in the Cubmaster's backyard. A bunch of my friends will be there too. Should be fun!

D&D...

Can be pretty scary. Last night our party ran into a wererat. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I knew something was up when he grew a tale. We defeated him and his rat friends. Tonight challenge was ghosts. Mom picked up some haunted goblets and ghosts attacked us as we headed for the exit. Apparently, they don't like their goblets disturbed. Ghosts are really scary.

Yahoo is Mean

My website, which has been hosted at Geocities since I was born, is now to be deleted by my Daddy's friends at Yahoo. Here's the announcement:

GeoCities is closing on October 26, 2009.
On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files.

If you'd like to move your site, or save the images and other files you've posted online, please act now by downloading your files or upgrading to AT&T Yahoo! Web Hosting. See details in the help center or upgrade to Web Hosting now for only $4.99 a month.

Now you would think that they would at least make it easy for you to pull your content off their server and send it somewhere else for hosting. Sadly, they don't. Here's their solution:

The simplest way to download your published pages and images is to visit your GeoCities web site:

Right-click on any page and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears. (If you're using a Mac, hold down the Ctrl key and click the page.)
Choose a location on your computer to save your files.
Click OK or Save to save the code and images associated with your page to your computer.
Repeat these steps on each page of your site.

But this is completely obnoxious since, during the save you end up saving the AD CONTENT displayed on the page as well. So if you want to move your site, you then have to strip out all the windowing and ad hosting code Yahoo inserted.

This is really not a nice way to treat longtime users. Yahoo is mean.

Courses

I like to design courses for people to compete on. Last evening, I designed a series of ring toss courses for Daddy and I to compete doing. A lot of my courses had the goal posts located in the garden and at other tricky spots in the yard. It's great fun when someone manages to put a ring on one of the goals in my course. I also like to see how the difficulty changes as I move things around the course.

Dungeons & Dragons

I've fallen in love with a new/old game--Dungeons & Dragons. I cannot remember how this game came up in conversation, but when I heard about it, I thought it would be super fun to play. So far, it has been. My characters are based in the town of Seaend, which is menaced by a terrible dragon in the hills. My characters have gone up an attempted to plunge into the many caves in the hills, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. We recently completed a big adventure where we defeated the king of the Bugbears and his horde of hobgoblins.

At times I find the game scary, exciting, and even sad. When my character Superman died recently while battling the Bugbear, I was definitely sad about it. There's a kindly priest in town where I take my characters who died to be buried. But I'm not too sentimental. No character gets buried with armor and weapons since these are useful in other adventures.

Maybe the most successful character is Bob the Priest. (He's level 2). He managed to kill the bugbear and acquired a bunch of treasure including a magic pearl of spells. The weird thing about Bob is that, being a priest, he's determined to give all his loot to God. MY other characters have tried to discourage this sort of thing, so now Bob is only giving half his stuff to God.

My Daddy was telling me about the most successful D&D characters he ever worked with (he's dungeon master). Their names were Duke, Scaggament, and Moritor under the control of Uncle Dave. He mentioned that they founded their own giant church (Church of Zeus) and had armies of guys. I want my guys to be as successful.

Concert

We had a big concert in church yesterday. I had a performance with the chimes and sang two songs with the choir. The second song was an extravaganza where all the choirs, even the adults, sang together.

It was a great event. I'm especially proud of my chime playing. I was in charge of the melody since I rarely screw up when playing chimes. It sounded terrific. Best of all, no dreaded chime injuries. The last time I played, I accidentally hit myself in the head with a chime during the performance. However, being the professional that I am, I played through the pain and completed the song without incident.

You can check out a few photos here.

Get Well Greeting

My favorite team, the Oakland A's, is having a ton of problems with injuries. Here's how bad it is: Last night, the starting pitcher got injured when he cut himself reaching into the A's medical kit to get a band aid. I thought I'd try to cheer the players up by sending them a get well card. I made a picture of the A's logo on the front and wrote something like:

"Dear A's,

My name is Aidan. I am 7 years old. The A's are my favorite team. I hope your hurt players get better soon.

Love,

Aidan"

We sent the card off to the A's stadium this morning. I hope this helps the players to feel better.

Aidan Obama-ized

I thought this was pretty cool, so Daddy and I made an Obama-ized version of Aidan. For some reason, I picked Easter as my slogan.

What a Game!

Last night, Dad and I were watching the A's on TV. We noticed that they were playing the Diamondbacks. Since the D'Backs are also a favorite team of mine, this got us thinking about going to the ballpark. A quick check on the internet revealed that the A's were playing a night game with them tonight and, best of all, Danny Haren was on the mound. That settled it, we were going to the game.

It looked like a mismatch. Haren was pitching against rookie Edgar Gonzalez (5 + ERA in the minors). Seemed like the DBacks and Haren should win. First inning, Gonzalez gets in a jam and gives up a run. But Haren gave up a 2 run homer in the first to Jack Cust. After that, it was all A's for a time. Three homers later, the A's lead 5-1 in the 8th and Haren is lifted for a reliever. But in the top of the 8th, the DBacks storm back with 4 runs of their own to knot the score at 5-5.

Both teams threaten but neither breaks through in the 9th, so we're going to extra innings. Now I've been to two A's games so far this year, and they both went to extra innings. In the 11th, the DBacks score three runs in consecutive singles and doubles. Things look bad for the A's, but they manage to score 2 runs and have runners at 1st and 3rd with one out in the last of the 11th. Jack Hannahan comes to the plate. All he has to do is hit a fly ball to tie the game. But Hannahan instead hits a sharp grounder to short, flip over to second and then on to first for the double play. Game over. A's lose. Since I was sort of rooting for the DBacks, this was fine with me.

After that, it turned out it was a fireworks night, so we caught some cool fireworks too. Another great (and late) night at the ballpark!

Frisbee

I've discovered a new skill--the art of throwing a frisbee using the classic backhand technique. My previous technique was a kind of semi-discuss type of throw. This could produce long distance, but I had no idea where the thing was going. The backhand enables me to throw it where I want to throw it. I was playing catch with Daddy in the backyard and was able to throw accurately enough that he could do an assortment of trick catches.

Wolf

Last week, we had the cub scouts court of honor, kind of our graduation ceremony. I got merit badges for a bunch of sports: baseball, football, basketball, bowling, and golf. More importantly, I got my Tiger Cub badge, which puts me on the road to Wolf scout. I'm really proud of all my accomplishments in scouts this past year.

Open House

Yesterday was the open house at my school. It was a day that I got to present all the cool stuff I did over the course of the year. The highlight was the coral reef window, were we made things like sea urchins, kelp, starfish, and jellyfish. I also got to present my writer's workshop stuff. My particular niche is writing about Wii games. I wrote an extended piece about Wii pool. Currently, I'm working on a piece about the Wii Play tank game.

I also got to show Mom and Dad a coaster with a rainbow on it that I made. It's really cool.

Hoedown and other stuff

Last weekend was the Alamo School Hoedown. It's a sort of carnival with games and prizes. While it was a rainy weekend, I had a lot of fun nonetheless. I ended up taking home a giant watergun shaped like a crayon. It shoots out tons of water. I can't wait to spray Nainnie when she arrives.

Here are some photo highlights.

Ninja

It's a raining this weekend. That's unusual since it rarely rains here after April. That means we have to invent fun inside activities. I came up with the idea that Daddy and I should dress like ninjas and strike various warrior poses. I shot the pictures of Daddy and he shot those of me. To make them even crazier, we used posterize mode in Photoshop to make them seem more like cartoons of superheroes.

Here's my most menacing shot:



Check out the whole stream here.

Trefethen

We visited wine country on Saturday. As usual, I love to see Shannon, and I got a bunch of small toys to play with, so it was pretty fun. Even cooler is that I learned that my photo of "skull guy" was featured on the Trefethen website as part of the shots taken of their Halloween decorations. Apparently, several people asked about which member took the shot and they were surprised to discover that the "member" was a 6 year old boy (at the time of the shot).

My first publication---cool!

Best Game Ever

Last night was the best baseball game ever. It didn't start out that way. There was a lot of traffic, and it was very cold in the ballpark. Once the game started, it got even worse. The A's pitcher, Dama Eveland, was rocked for 3 runs in the 1st. But the A's came back and took the lead off of Dice-K in the bottom of the innning. The scored stayed that way until late in the game. Then, the Sox managed 2 runs to tie it all up.

Now even though it was a school night, and even though I had to get up early tomorrow, and even though I had a playdate after school, and even though I had baseball practice, and even though I had scouts after that...Daddy let me stay up for the game. (Clearly someone with the right priorities). I stayed up really late...and got on TV!



And, happily, the A's won in 12 innings. What an amazing game.

Check out the photo highlights here

A's v Sox April 14, 2009

Let's go Oak-land!

Happy Easter

I got up early this Easter Sunday to hunt for eggs in the yard. I was so excited that I neglected to put on shoes or change out of my jammies. I found 24 out of 33 eggs left around. There was lots of good stuff in the eggs including chocolate, magnets, and toy cars.

After this, we went to church, and I had to wear a collared shirt. Yuck. I hate collars, and I hate buttons. But I put up with it and ended up wearing my Easter outfit all day.

After we returned, I hunted down the remainder of the eggs and participated in a photo shoot. Mommy has the family photos, but here are some Aidan ones.

Happy Easter.

New Shoes

My feet are getting bigger. I got some cool new shoes over the weekend. Some silver sneakers to replace my "bouncy ball" sneakers and a new set of spikes. My spikes are customizable--you can change the color and logos of them with inserts. Right now, they're red since I'm on the Red Sox. I like my new stuff.

First Game of the Year

Yesterday was our first game of the year. Daddy was pretty nervous because I hadn't been hitting well. We went out early in the morning for extra batting practice. Well, it really paid off. My stance was much nicer, and I crushed the ball twice.



I also made some excellent fielding plays at second base. We rotate positions, so I played third, left-center field, and second over the course of the game. My best plays came at second.



My coach thought the improvement was remarkable. One of the coaches said I was 500% better than the preceding week.

Interested in your own copies of these lovely pictures? You can make prints using the Snapfish album I've uploaded here.

Opening Day

It's opening day in Little League although our first game is tomorrow. There was a big parade where all the Little Leaguers marched around the big field. Interestingly, San Ramon Valley is one of the most successful Little Leagues in the country. It has more LL World Series appearances than any other Little League.

There were more than 400 Little Leaguers in attendance.

Aidan Morgan - Handicapper

I might have found my one true calling--sports betting. As you know, I did very well at pigskin pick 'em this past season. This is my first year filling out an NCAA bracket an guess what, I'm in first place! Thanks to Villanova's win over the Dukies, I vaulted over Mommy and Auntie Max to claim the lead. If Pitt wins the whole thing, I believe I'll be the champ.

The Carrier

As you know, I've been battling strep throat these past 6 weeks. We finally found the problem. Turns out that Daddy is the carrier. He's apparently had a low grade version of strep for a while only it got worse this weekend. He went to see the doctor today and, despite not having any tonsils, he still managed to get this illness. He's now on Cephalexin and will not be contagious by tomorrow. In the meantime, we're trying hard to avoid passing the disease back to me.

Masterpiece

It was kid generated art week this week at school. This is a project that I've been working on since the beginning of the year. I made flowers. They're made from fired clay, and they're really colorful. I sculpted them, made some patterns in the flowers themselves (one contains my initials another has a nice pattern of eraser circles in its center), and painted them. My teacher helped with mounting them on the green sticks and setting them in the vase. They're a lovely centerpiece.

Happy Trails

To Daddy's Miata. The Junior Giants guys came to pick it up yesterday. While he was sad to see it go, I think his new car is a lot cooler. You can talk to it...and it talks back. We went for a ride this weekend, and I asked it all sorts of things. It also has an actual rear seat, which is a big plus. Daddy likes it because it's quick as can be and corners well. I like the color. Now we have a whole fleet of red cars.

OOTM: After Action Report

Our team got a medal for Odyssey of the Mind. Also, a number of judges commented about my energy and how I made them laugh. We had a cool after-party yesterday with iced cookies. Yum. I think I ate every cookie. I can't wait to do it again.

Happy Trails: Bobby Crosby

In their attempt to make sure that none of my A's t-shirts contain current players, the A's have signed Orlando Cabrera to replace Bobby Crosby. See press release below:

Free-agent shortstop Orlando Cabrera has agreed to a one-year, $4 million contract with the Oakland Athletics, who also are closing in on a deal with veteran infielder Nomar Garciaparra, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney on Monday.

Cabrera, 34, will replace Bobby Crosby as Oakland's starting shortstop. Cabrera hit .281 with eight home runs and 57 RBIs and stole 19 bases for the White Sox last year.

The Athletics have had substantial talks with Garciaparra in the past 48 hours, and the player's choices are between the A's and retirement, the sources said. Oakland also is negotiating with veteran reliever Dennys Reyes.

If Oakland were to sign Garciaparra, Crosby could be moved to a utility position. Cabrera is a two-time Gold Glove winner at shortstop, having won the award in both leagues (2001 with the Expos and 2007 with the Angels).

In 1,572 games, Cabrera is a career .274 hitter with 105 home runs and 684 RBIs.

The Detonators

It was a rainy weekend, so we enjoyed a couple of episodes of "The Detonators." It's a show about demolishing structures. We decided to put the information learned on the show to good use in checking how large a wedge one needs to make in a cylindrical tower (like a toilet paper tube) to bring down the building. According to the formula, the size of the wedge, W, needed to bring down a structure like this is

W = D^2 / 2 H where D is the diameter of the structure and H is the height. We quickly measured our tube to learn that its diameter is 2" and its height was 8". Using the formula, it revealed that we need a 1/4" wedge or larger. To test the theory, we first cut a too small wedge in the tube and simulated the explosion by placing a block under the tube in the area where the wedge was cut out. Removing the block simulated the explosion. The theory seemed to work, the tube didn't fall. Next, we cut a larger wedge, one that was just a bit bigger than W. Redoing the experiment, we got the expected result--the tube fell.

Then we did another experiment. We chopped down the height of the tube. According to the formula, the old "successful" wedge will no longer work for the shorter tube. A test confirmed this. We then expanded the wedge and obtained a positive result.

Finally, we tried some building implosions. The one that we were able to simulate caused the building to fall in a particular direction by means of timed explosions starting in the direction you want the building to fall. To simulate this, we built a base of small blocks connected by tape. We then placed a sheet of wax paper over the base to enable us to pull out the blocks in a timed fashion. Finally, we built the building on top of the wax paper from colorful blocks. We also set up some nearby buildings that were not supposed to be harmed if the explosion went according to plan. This test was also successful. We triggered the desired chain reaction.

The one that we weren't able to simulate was an implosion of a building into its own footprint. They do this with timed explosions in the center of the building and moving outward. Despite many attempts to get the timing right with blocks, we couldn't do it. Still, it was very cool to put the principles of the detonators to the test on our small scale experiments.

Blockbuster!

My recent film, The Railroad Crossing of Doom, has turned out to be a Youtube blockbuster. It's had more than 100 views in the past week. Since I love the disaster genre, I'm starting on a follow-up, DHL Deathflight!, The picture above is a sneak preview.

Odyssey of the Mind

Today was our performance of "Candy Factory" in Odyssey of the Mind. MY role was "salesman", and I was the star of the show. The idea is to think of healthy sorts of candies and show how eating well and enjoyment go hand in hand (well sorta--I still like Kit Kats and donuts even though they're not all that healthy). Anyway, it was very exciting getting ready for the show. We did pretty well though a lot of my colleagues seemed to forget what they were supposed to do. I reminded them from time to time. The judges really enjoyed the show and laughed a lot at our zany antics. I really enjoyed it, and hope to do it again next year.

Little League

Today was the first day of Little League. It was just a practice, but I was excited nonetheless. This year (and perhaps for several years) I'm on the Red Sox. While I'd most prefer to be on the A's, the Red Sox are a good second choice. I hit the ball hard today and did well at fielding too. Baseball is great.

Stuffy X Games

As you know, I love to make up stories with my stuffed animals. This weekend was Stuffy X Games. The stuffies took turns doing crazy stunts--jumps, half pipe, and so on. The viewers were supposed to text in their votes for the best stunt. It was sort of like a TV show, so I would tell the viewers to text "A/1" if they liked the first contestant the best. It ended in a four way tie!

The picture above is of a stuffy named "roar". He's named that because I wasn't sure if he were a bear or a lioness when I first got him. I figured that since both creatures roar, that was a safe name for him.

Mario Kart Expert

While I've tried lots of things in my life, Mario Kart is the first thing that I'm so passionate about that I've become an expert. I get up early every morning to practice. Usually, this time is spent experimenting. I run through various courses slowly and then quickly to learn all of their tricks and shortcuts. In the evenings, I mostly play for real, trying to win. There's an online mode and I usually finish near the top of every race I enter. I've even surpassed Daddy (who seems quite good at video games) in skill. I'm an EXPERT Mario Kart player. Sure, it's not the most useful skill in the world, but it sure is fun.

Ring and Sing

I performed today in bell choir and children's choir. It was our most deluxe bell performance ever. We did kumbaya. Everyone had to play separate parts and keep time. It went really well. We got a big round of applause at the end. As usual, our press agent (Daddy) was on hand to record the proceedings. Check out the highlights here

New Toy

Check out this video of my newest toy, a magic eraser. It lets you write all sorts of interesting things on whiteboards.

Railroad Crossing of Doom

And now the sequel--railroad crossing of doom. This one features a soundtrack and professional quality sound effects.

Disaster!

Remember the golden era of disaster movies...Airport 76, Poseidon Adventure, and so on. Well, I don't. But I still think disaster movies are cool, so we made some this weekend. The first of the series is "Rock in the Road". Check it out here.



You will notice a whole bunch of home made special effects in this movie. First, the road is Oak Knoll Road in the Napa Valley. The aerial stunts are performed via Mommy's invisible thread. The pyrotechnics are courtesy of a scented candle. All of the sound editing and effects are homemade as well. Still, I think it's my most professional movie yet.

Blue and Gold Dinner

 

Earler this week, we had the blue and gold dinner at Cub Scouts. While I didn't win any awards for my pinewood car, I had a fun time. We played a whole bunch of bingo games, there was a slide show of photos of the studd we did, and I got a cool pinewood patch. Cub Scouts is a lot of fun.

Sick

nap
Originally uploaded by John-Morgan

I've been off and on sick this week. I missed school on Wednesday, then seemed to recover, but I was feverish today so I stayed home. My throat is very sore, I've got no appetite, and I'm very sleepy. I hope I get better soon. I don't want to be sick on a weekend day.

Super Bowl Champs

HERE WE GO STEELERS!
Originally uploaded by Andy M¢

It was a very exciting Super Bowl as Big Ben and the Steelers managed a glorious comeback over the scrappy Cards. I expected the Steelers to "win handily" (one of my favorite expressions at the moment), and it looked like they would in the first quarter. But the Cards clawed back and nearly took the lead at half before Harrison's amazing pick and return for 100 yards. Daddy and I were jumping up and down over that play.

It still looked like the Steelers had things well in hand in the third quarter until they fell apart with the safety and the huge reception by Fitz. But what an ending. Big Ben connecting with #10, Santonio Holmes, time and time again. The Terrible Towels were waving mightily as the Steelers took their records 6th Super Bowl (two of which I've seen in my young life.)

Go Steelers!

Pinewood Derby Results

 

The pinewood derby was held today. There were many cars competing in the race. There was also a lot of technology including electronic scoring and a computer that projected the results. Unfortunately, the technology was not the most reliable in the world. There were a couple of long breaks when the laptop with the results failed. Anyway, it was a pretty successful day for me. My car had several firsts and seconds in the heats in which it competed. The rankings are determined by average time to finish across all heats in which a car competes. My car managed to finish 5th overall. Not good enough for a trophy, but a nice outing nonetheless.

By the way, in the photo above, my car is the one on the left. It's got a green number 99 painted on it.

Pinewood Pregame

Saturday is Pinewood Derby day at Cub Scouts. My car is all built and painted. It just needs weights, wheels, and axles added. My inspiration for the car was a Hot Wheels car named "Little Red Roadster." LRR is a many time champion in gravity racing on the Hot Wheels circuit, so I figured this would also be an excellent pinewood design since pinewood cars are also gravity powered. One design modification I made was to replace the LRR design, which is gray with a stylized "S" on the sides, to a more traditional (and presumably faster) flame design on the sides of the vehicle.

Daddy is mostly concerned with the speed engineering elements of the design. He found a website with advice for maximizing speed. Here's one odd little tip--it turns out that sanding the axles is helpful. Since the axles are nails, there is some scoring on the side of each near the head, presumably to help them stay nailed to whatever it is they're nailed too. However, this scoring creates additional friction, so sanding it down produces more speed. Of course, we're also going with carefully applied graphite. We also learned that the optimal weight placement is just in front of the rear axles. Mommy bought a bunch of weights and a very precise scale, so we can hit the weight max exactly. Wish me luck!

Odyssey of the Mind

I'm participating in a program called "Odyssey of the Mind." It's sort of a creative thinking and problem solving contest. My team, which consists of kindergartners and first-graders had the task of thinking up something to do with getting people to eat healthy foods. Since I myself do not much like to eat healthy foods, this topic was a challenge. Anyway, we came up with a candy factory that makes healthy candies from things like veggies. Fortunately, for us, we only need to do a mock-up of this factory rather than create a fully functional factory.

We each worked on different aspects of the job in terms of the design. The part that I seized upon is one of the most important aspects of the business--sales. I figured that the factory would be pretty useless if we can't sell the product. So, for my part, I set up a sales table, and am creating a sales costume. When asked what was the most essential thing for a sales person, I quickly hit on something super important--a name tag. All salespeople have name tags, so naturally, this is key. Mom asked me what name I would put on the name tag.

Ax

I answered. There seemed to be no particular reason why I thought Ax would be a good name. Anyway, I'm really enjoying this class. I like coming up with creative solutions to problems, especially problems related to business.

Latrell Sprewell Situation

I experienced a Latrell Sprewell type situation today at recess. Latrell, if you'll recall, got into trouble for choking his basketball coach. Well, anyway, I was playing basketball with my "friend" when there was a dispute. My "friend" decided to "settle" the dispute by choking me, which landed him in the principal's office. I was unhurt but upset. Yeesh. I hate school.

My Virtual Life

One of my Christmas gifts was the Wii game Mario Kart. It's the best game ever. You race around as one of the various Mario characters (my fave is Yoshi) in a variety of vehicles. In addition to the usual pitfalls of racing, there are a variety of things you can pick up and fling at the other drivers including banana peels, turtle shells, and lightning bolts. I've managed to improve a lot and unlocked a whole bunch of new characters and courses while racing. I'm very proud of my driving skills. Mommy worries about what my REAL driving will be like since my favored approach is never to take my foot (thumb) off the accelerator.