Thursday, May 31, 2012
I'm back in Virginia!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I just got back tonight, and I'm dead tired. My grandpa is still sick, but he was really glad to see us. I'll tell you more about my adventures later on, maybe with a picture or two. (I can't remember if I took any pics on the way back.)
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Life Quote
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
I'm in Arkansas!
That's right! Over the weekend, I packed up my things and moved to Arkansas. Actually, I didn't move permanently, but I'll be here for the next couple of weeks. My grandfather is sick in the hospital, so my family pretty much dropped everything and went as soon as we could. Our cars aren't that reliable, so we rented this:
It's a Dodge Grand Caravan. It's a pretty nice car. I swear, it has everything. You can even open and close the trunk using your key. (Which, actually, doesn't even look like a key. It has no teeth!)
And, of course, we couldn't just leave our two cats at home while we went on vacation for a couple of weeks, so we had to take them with us. I don't know how many of you have owned cats, but traveling with them is just not a good idea. We realized this before we left and therefore had to come up with a solution for spastic behavior. We thought for a while, and then it came to us. How do you make a crazy person shut up and be happy? Drugs. We got this pheromone stuff that is supposed to make cats calm. That's all fine and dandy, but we knew that we'd need something a little stronger. We went to the vet and got some heavy-duty knockout drugs for the cats in case of emergency. (And by emergency, I mean the cats meowing until our ears hurt.) We left Charlottesville at about 10:00 in the morning on Sunday. By the time we got to Waynesboro, everyone in my family agreed that we needed to use the drugs. We gave each of the cats half a pill, and before long, they looked like this:
We put them back in their cat carrier and didn't hear another sound from them all day. We stopped just outside of Nashville, Tennessee for the night, found a hotel that took pets and gave out free cookies, and fell instantly asleep. (The cookie was good.)
Of course, the cats sleeping all day meant that they were awake and energetic all night. The rest of my family got woken up multiple times by the cats, and barely got any sleep. I, however, wasn't even disturbed once. I don't know how that happened, but I wasn't complaining. The next morning, we gave them another dose of the drugs and set on our way. It's been a while since I've been on a car trip, and I forgot just how boring the actual trip is. It's just hours and hours and hours of this:
We finally got to Siloam Springs, Arkansas in the late afternoon on Monday. One of my grandmothers lives here, and we're staying with her. She's incredibly nice. When we got here, she already had a batch of her world-famous fudge waiting for us.I had some and it was delicious. (Much better than the cookie.) I would bring some back to share with everyone, but I would eat it on the way.
Unfortunately, I started feeling a little sick to my stomach later that night. I thought that getting some rest would help, so I went off to bed. I woke up at about midnight, went to the restroom, and barfed my guts out. (Not literally, but I wanted to give you a nice mental picture.) After my violent episode of vomiting, I felt much better, which makes me think that it was something I ate. (Apparently, my body isn't built to run on sausage, quesadillas smothered in hot sauce, mountain dew, chicken sandwiches, and Frostys.) I got a glass of water, and went back to bed.
This morning, even though I felt fine, I decided it would be best for me to not see my grandfather today. His immune system is trashed and I wouldn't want to risk exposing him to any extra germs.
I miss you all, and I hope to be back in Charlottesville soon!
And, of course, we couldn't just leave our two cats at home while we went on vacation for a couple of weeks, so we had to take them with us. I don't know how many of you have owned cats, but traveling with them is just not a good idea. We realized this before we left and therefore had to come up with a solution for spastic behavior. We thought for a while, and then it came to us. How do you make a crazy person shut up and be happy? Drugs. We got this pheromone stuff that is supposed to make cats calm. That's all fine and dandy, but we knew that we'd need something a little stronger. We went to the vet and got some heavy-duty knockout drugs for the cats in case of emergency. (And by emergency, I mean the cats meowing until our ears hurt.) We left Charlottesville at about 10:00 in the morning on Sunday. By the time we got to Waynesboro, everyone in my family agreed that we needed to use the drugs. We gave each of the cats half a pill, and before long, they looked like this:
Of course, the cats sleeping all day meant that they were awake and energetic all night. The rest of my family got woken up multiple times by the cats, and barely got any sleep. I, however, wasn't even disturbed once. I don't know how that happened, but I wasn't complaining. The next morning, we gave them another dose of the drugs and set on our way. It's been a while since I've been on a car trip, and I forgot just how boring the actual trip is. It's just hours and hours and hours of this:
We finally got to Siloam Springs, Arkansas in the late afternoon on Monday. One of my grandmothers lives here, and we're staying with her. She's incredibly nice. When we got here, she already had a batch of her world-famous fudge waiting for us.I had some and it was delicious. (Much better than the cookie.) I would bring some back to share with everyone, but I would eat it on the way.
Unfortunately, I started feeling a little sick to my stomach later that night. I thought that getting some rest would help, so I went off to bed. I woke up at about midnight, went to the restroom, and barfed my guts out. (Not literally, but I wanted to give you a nice mental picture.) After my violent episode of vomiting, I felt much better, which makes me think that it was something I ate. (Apparently, my body isn't built to run on sausage, quesadillas smothered in hot sauce, mountain dew, chicken sandwiches, and Frostys.) I got a glass of water, and went back to bed.
This morning, even though I felt fine, I decided it would be best for me to not see my grandfather today. His immune system is trashed and I wouldn't want to risk exposing him to any extra germs.
I miss you all, and I hope to be back in Charlottesville soon!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
What should I post about???
I'm seriously running out of ideas for creative posts, guys. So instead of posting something witty/funny/complete crap, I'll post about my friend Allison. (And Quinn, because she just asked me to.) We're all sitting together in history class right now, not doing much of anything. We took a practice test, but we finished earlier than the rest of the class. I've known Allison since 4th grade, or so I've been told. I've known Quinn since kindergarten. (Kindergarten sounds German, doesn't it? Allison just informed me that it is in fact German. It means 'child's garden.') Okay, well school is over, so I had better stop talking about my nice friends.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Pascal's Triangle
Recently in my math class we were taught about a thing called Pascal's triangle. I am not sure if this is my synesthesia kicking in (post on that coming soon!) or if its something else but I find Pascal's triangle to be one of the most amazing things, like ever...
I am writing this post to raise awareness to Pascal's triangle since many people I have talked to have no idea what it is. According to Wikipedia, "Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients in a triangle." This here is Pascal's Triangle (and it goes on forever.)
See a pattern?
One of the cool things about our friend's triangle is that it is simple to write. All you do is start with 1 at the very top and then go down and put 2 1s. The rows are created by adding the two numbers above it. Say you want to create row 3 (#1 is the zero row so we are talking about row 1 3 3 1) then you just look at row two and see, "Oh, 1+0=1 (the first digit), 1+2=3 (the second digit)..."
Don't think its neat yet?
Well! Prepare for blastoff Elwood, because I am about to make you think this is so neat that...I dunno... but its neat.
So say, your teacher gives you the problem, (a + b)^4
You would find the 4th row in the triangle, (1 4 6 4 1)
Then you would write
1 4 6 4 1
Then put in 1a 4ab 6ab 4ab 1b
and add the exponents starting at 4 for a on the left and 4 for b on the right
and you would get:
a^4 + 4a^3b + 6a^2b^2 + 4ab^3 + b^4
I just think this is really neat and my apologies for bursting into geek mode...
I am writing this post to raise awareness to Pascal's triangle since many people I have talked to have no idea what it is. According to Wikipedia, "Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients in a triangle." This here is Pascal's Triangle (and it goes on forever.)
See a pattern?
One of the cool things about our friend's triangle is that it is simple to write. All you do is start with 1 at the very top and then go down and put 2 1s. The rows are created by adding the two numbers above it. Say you want to create row 3 (#1 is the zero row so we are talking about row 1 3 3 1) then you just look at row two and see, "Oh, 1+0=1 (the first digit), 1+2=3 (the second digit)..."
Don't think its neat yet?
Well! Prepare for blastoff Elwood, because I am about to make you think this is so neat that...I dunno... but its neat.
So say, your teacher gives you the problem, (a + b)^4
You would find the 4th row in the triangle, (1 4 6 4 1)
Then you would write
1 4 6 4 1
Then put in 1a 4ab 6ab 4ab 1b
and add the exponents starting at 4 for a on the left and 4 for b on the right
and you would get:
a^4 + 4a^3b + 6a^2b^2 + 4ab^3 + b^4
I just think this is really neat and my apologies for bursting into geek mode...
Friday, May 4, 2012
Video of the Month: May 2012
Sorry, but I don't have anything witty to say. It's the end of the school day on Friday, and I just want to sleep. Anyways, here's the video of the month.
Happy May, everybody!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Welcome, 0ld_Sp1ce!
Please give a warm welcome to our new author, 0ld_Sp1ce! We happen to know each other in real life, and since the blog's quality is crashing and burning, I came to him for help.
Yeah, that's pretty much the way it happened.
UPDATE
I have also changed the look of the blog to welcome 0ld_Sp1ce. I particularly like the way that it looks now, so I'm considering making this the norm. If you want your opinion heard, weigh in using the comments section. (Not that anybody actually will. Seriously, guys. Are you afraid of the comments? I feel like I'm talking to a wall here.)
Elwood: Hey, 0ld_Sp1ce.
0ld_Sp1ce: Hey.
Elwood: My blog sucks.
0ld_Sp1ce: I can help if you want.
Elwood: Okay.
Yeah, that's pretty much the way it happened.
UPDATE
I have also changed the look of the blog to welcome 0ld_Sp1ce. I particularly like the way that it looks now, so I'm considering making this the norm. If you want your opinion heard, weigh in using the comments section. (Not that anybody actually will. Seriously, guys. Are you afraid of the comments? I feel like I'm talking to a wall here.)
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