MidWest Home School Convention

In April My Family and I, are going to Cincinnati for a Homeschool Convention. There are a bunch of people that are going to talk about homeschooling, and there is a program for teens. Plus my personal favorite Tim Hawkins. If you have never heard of Tim Hawkins go click the link and watch the videos. Okay, you back? Duh you're reading this. Anyway we are going to watch that man. Live. Eat it.

On a random note. I watched The Matrix Reloaded last night. Pretty cool. Also today I downloaded Google desktop. It is very nice. I can check my E-mail, the weather, the time, Search Google, watch Youtube, see football ticker, use Google translate, and play Tetris, MoonLander, Sonic, Pacman, DK, Pong, and Simon while posting on my blog.Well See ya.

Go Birdies!

On Tuesday night I went with Ryan, Cora, Adam, Mom, and Ryan and Adam's Dad, Jeff to see Psycho, and The Birds.  Okay, I am going to be frank and honest. Psycho freaked me out. Also the story line is stupid. However the music was very well implemented.

 The Birds on the other hand ROCKS! It is about Birds that go around killing people. Awesome. Simply Awesome. The whole time when the birds were attacking, Ryan and I said to ourselves "Go Birdies!" It was awesome. What was really cool was that at the theater we got large drinks.These drinks are not your normal larges, they are 5" across and 9" tall with free refills! Yeah! AWESOME!
But yeah see The Birds. It is well worth your time.

Mom Making Post Poetry

Yes, as my title states Mom is making me post poetry. Yippee! NOT! Anyway. Here I go. Oh by the way I wrote abut seasons.

Spring

Spring is the burst of life after the dead of winter

It is the sounds the newly living bugs

The touch of sports crap after being put away for winter

The awesomeness of new garden veggies

The fresh sent of a new beginning!

Summer

Summer is the wave of green that hits you in the face when you walk out your door.
Summer is the sound of Cicadas chirping
Summer is the touch that you feel when ever you touch a leaf
 Watermelon makes me think of summer
Summer smells like a steak that sizzles on a grill.

Fall
Fall is a multi-color relief from the green that was the scene for 6 months
Boom! The sound of a deer heading for my freezer
The itchy touch of hay from your ride
Comfort food going down your throat
The whir that is pencils being sharpened for school that has just begun.

Winter

Winter sucks
Winter is depressing
Winter is cold and gloomy
Winter is the wost
Winter is horrible
Except for Christmas
Christmas rocks.

AGGGHHHH!

It's still Summer, it's still SUMMER!! Go it? It's still Summer! I am in denial!  I don't care that it is half way through October! It's still Summer! Not Fall! Okay maybe not. Maybe it is almost Winter, is that why Grandma was asking for our Christmas lists? I don't know. Another Grooveshark link, this time it is There Ain't No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant.  Pretty good song but a little on the adult side.

We got a new mouse for our computer yesterday. Also yesterday I went to an Edgar Allen Poe play. It was a little but horribly acted. Then I went to the 4-H camp for Lydia's bug hunt, where Nolan got stung by a yellow jacket who's nest we literary walked on. After that Mom kicked my butt in tether ball. I guess the old lady still has it. The day before yesterday, Mom & Dad went to see Despicable Me at the $2 Theater, after which they went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. Meanwhile Ashley and Miles came over here and hung out with us. Miles Nolan and I, played Super Mario Bros. 3 and messed around on my guitar. The Girls however, baked cookies, and watched Veggie Tales: Jonah on Hulu. A very fun night. Also on my parting note go to Google and search for LOL Limewire, and click on the first thing that pops up. Bye-Bye.

Random Spewings From My Mouth

Photo Credit Reggiocomics.blogspot.com

Hi, It's been a while since I have posted. Rather than chose one subject to post on today, I am going randomly talk in a slightly organized way. Did you know that right now I'm listening Zelda music on grooveshark? I am. On Thursday we went to the Pumpkin festival in Milton. It is kind of cool. I walked around with my friends, and tried to avoid Makayla. We found this guy that was selling football cards, movies, comic books, Nintendo 64s, SNESes, GameCubes, and the respective games. But probably the coolest thing he was selling was a statue of Luke Skywalker getting eaten by a rancor. I also bought one of the coolest movies EVER from him! The Matrix!

On Saturday we butchered 40 chickens. Num-Nums! Here is how we do it:

1.  We catch the chicken.
2. We hang the chicken upside down in a traffic cone nailed to a tree. 
3. We take a knife and slit the jugular artery in the chickens neck.
4. We take the chicken and skin it.
5. We then take the chicken and pull out all the guts.
6. We then plop the chicken in a gallon freezer bag.
7. Num-Nums!

Then after we got done butchering, I downloaded The Legend of Zelda for the NES  through the Wii. Dad must have played it to much when he was a kid, because it has been 15 + years since he last played and still knows where all the secret caves are. Odd.

Photo credit Apple.com

Photo Credit Wikipedia.com

Yesterday, I went over to Cora's house and helped her foster care sister move into her new apartment then went to Cora's Grandparents house for a little bit. I got to mess around with their Macbook Pro. W00T! Then we went to Gamestop where Cora bought, Dragon Quest IX one of the most awesome games for the DS. Speaking of the DS have you heard about the 3DS? It is looks awesome. I hope they take the price down from Japan's $300. Well see you later people!

The School Creative Writing Lunch Assessment.

For school I am doing a creative writing book. Today I have to do a paper evaluating my lunch today.

As I walked into The Kitchen I was greeted by the warm and inviting smell of lamb liver, fried potatoes, glazed carrots and turtle bars. As I sat myself on the wooden chair, there was a plate of food thrust in front of me. As I crunched into warm liver I discovered that it was not at all to my liking. However the same could be said with almost all liver. After that livery little nightmare, I advanced onto the potatoes. The potatoes were quite hot, buttery, soft but at the same time crunchy. I then moved onto the carrots. The some what slimy texture, complimented the dish.. The turtle bars were divine.

I'm in Canada! Part Two.

Hi! Well I am once again, going to post about Canada. On a random fact, did you know that it is J.R.R. Tolkien week? Well it is, Mr. Frodo. Anyway let me post.

Two days ago, We went to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It is a really cool museum. We saw a the Imax movie, Hubble 3-D. Yes an Imax in 3-D. It was kind of redundant, but cool. When they zoomed out to the scale where the galaxies were dots, the 3-D effect was great! Right before the movie, we went to the totem pole exhibit. It  was really nice, and I did not know that the poles were so high! The tallest were probably 20 meters tall, and 4 meters around! When you think about how each pole was carved from a single tree, that makes it much  more spectacular. Then after the movie we went to the children's museum. It was designed for people Lydia and Nolan's age but I had a lot of fun. Lydia made me put on a play with her at the theater thing about a war between Night, and Winter on one side, and Summer and Day on the other. It was a lot fun whacking Lydia with my wooden Sun mask. Yeah we got photos of  it.


Yesterday, we went to The Montebello. For those who don't know, The  Montebello is this huge hotel/resort/go play something/thingamabob where you  hang out and do stuff. It is about halfway between Ottawa and Montreal. The main building is the largest thing made out of logs in Canada. It has a six sided fireplace, and is right on the Ottawa river. The hotel owns 65,000 acre plot of land for this park. They have lots of activities like kayaking (which was my first choice of action) ATVing, skeet shooting, and horse riding. If you know my family, you will guess that Lydia wanted to ride the horseys, and so, of course we did. I would not have ridden, but Mamaw made me. So, I went, and I got the most boring horse. The one that did not do what you told it, but stayed right behind the one in front. Also The Montebello, has this great  Buffet that has everything. Even Coffee Cheese Cake!!


Today we went to The Science and Technology Museum. This is my favorite thing we have done so far this week. When we left for lunch I didn't want to leave. However once we got to lunch I then marveled everyone else, by drinking 7 glasses of water and still eating the four plates of food. At the museum we saw stuff on trains, cars, space, nuke reactors, light, Canadian inventions, computers, and, more. The thing we spent a lot of time at was a ski-mobile simulator. It took you through a track, while bumping and tilting you. We also went to journey to mars simulator. You went on movie theater seats, then the movie starts and the seats tilt 45 degrees. also as your ship moves, the whole theater moves.There also was a electricity demonstration. First she put a metal sheet on a glass sheet then put more metal on the other side. The first sheet was then hooked  up to the current. The juice, shot up the first sheet then retracted with the air to make mini lightning bolts that aced over the glass onto the next. There also was a static generator, copper melter, and electromagnet.


That was all of the things we did this week. I will post best of pictures, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

I'm in Canada! Part One.

Hi there! After a 4 month leave of absence 100 Acre Wood Times is back on the air. Sorry about the wait, but we live! Time to talk! 

As some of you know that I was going to Canada this week, but some of you might not  have.. I am now about 30km east of Ottawa, and into Quebec. All this French crap is driving me crazy! And did you know the stop  lights in Quebec are sideways? However we are not going to dwell much on that today.


 Since it is a 13 hour drive from our house to Ottawa we had to make a stop in the middle. Mamaw thought that it would be nice to to stay in Niagara Falls. What she didn't think was that as it is September we would have to book a room somewhere. Wrong.We looked at 3 hotels that were full, Then finally The Giacomo said they had rooms, however it was very pricey. We went in and found to our delight, that however more than budgeted the room was well worth the price. Our room had two wonderful 3/4 meter thick queen size beds, an eight decimeter wide LG plasma HDTV, refrigerator, and huge bathroom that came with luxurious robes. We then found out that there a 19h story sky lounge that we could visit 24/7. Hey, you know how every hotel has that wimpy little meal of bagels and fruit and calls it breakfast? Well the Giacomo has those for breakfast, but also had homemade waffles, fresh scrambled eggs that you can watch them make, bacon, fried potatoes, pastries, cereal, and toast. After that, great breakfast we went to see The Falls.

The Niagara Falls are truly magnificent and can be heard form almost a km away. As we walked to the falls, Lydia was introduced to crazy city noise.We went to the American side of the Falls before bed, which are not nearly as pretty. The next day we saw the Canadian side, then drove and drove and drove. Then drove and drove and drove. After 9 hours we got here, Ottawa. We ate dinner, talked and went to bed.

Yesterday we went to The Diefenbuncker. This Nuclear War Bunker was designed to be the temporary HQ for the government in the case of a nuclear blast. This bunker was 27 meters under the ground, and was designed to withstand a 5 megaton  blast from 1.1 miles away. To put that in  perspective a bomb that big would be 33 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima that killed over 120,000 people. The bunker has 100,000sq ft of floor space and could house 535 people for 30 days.

Only the top government and military bozos would be invited into the bunker. Funnily, no member of  the Prime Minister's opposite party would get an invite. The people who went into the bunker would not be allowed to bring their family, not even the Prime Minister. For this reason the people who built the bunker did not think that all of 535 invitees would use their invite, that or would get killed in the blast. Prime Minister Diefenbaker (who was the head honcho at the time of building) refused to ever visit the bunker because he could not bring his wife. His successor was the only PM to visit the bunker he came he looked and cut funding in half.

Once we got inside the bunker, we saw everything was designed with two things in mind, practicality, and cheer. Every room has at least two jobs, and all the furnishings are bright colors. For example, the hospital overfill room is, 1. The before mentioned. 2. A bedroom. 3. solitary confinement room. 4. Did I mention that this room is small? Well if you got a case of claustrophobia under 27 meters of earth you were thrown into the room at once.

The rest of the bunker is what you would  probably expect, bedrooms, bath rooms, meeting rooms, cafeteria, and huge freezers that  double as dead body storage if someone should die in the bunker. There also was a huge vault in the basement that  would hold the country's gold in the case of an emergency. After the tour of the bunker, we found the gift shop had MRTE for sale.The bunker was a very interesting museum, and a favorite of mine!

I will probably post again in 2-3 days about more that we did, and more we will be doing!

Assassination

Assassintion is the act of killing someone silently, sneakily, and hopefuly undetected. This usually happens to political figures. I will now tell you about three different famous Assassinations.

1. March 15, 44 B.C.  Julius Caesar,
Julius walked into the Senate building when a group of Senators confronted him. Then one showed him a petition to return his exiled brother to Rome. When Caesar waved him him away, the man ripped up his tunic and stabbed him. Then all the senators started stabbing him. In all there were 23 stab wounds on him.  It is said that Caesar said "You to Brutus?" when he saw his friend Brutus among the crowd.

2.April 16, 1865. Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham was at the theater when a man snuck up behind him and shot him. The man then jumped up onto the stage and said," The South is avenged!" Then he ran. Interestingly, Lincoln had a dream the night before showing him that he would die if he went to the theater the next day.

3. 12:30 PM, November 22, 1963. JFK.
As John and his wife were riding in a limo in a parade in Texas, he was sniped by Lee Oswald. There were four shots. Two hit Presidnet Kennedy, another hit the Governor of Texas who was riding with them.  The President was hit in the back of his head. Then the limo sped to the hospital.

These are three assassinations that had an impact on history. I hope you liked to read about them Goodbye!

My Summer Goals.

As it is May it is time to start thinking about the summer, As it is I think we are going to be done with school in about 15 days.  As you long time readers know, when I am on summer break there is a huge drop in the amount of blog posts. Sorry. This summer I would like to do a few things. I hope that I get everything done on my list. That would be very great.

1. I would like to get the book I am writing done and ready for a publisher. It is called, Gwencen and AnoR: The Adventures of Sam, I hope someone likes it.

2. I would like to earn  $750 this summer. With that I would budget like this 33% to spending, 20% to a car fund, 10% to a tithe, and 33% to a college savings mutual fund. I would earn it with blackberry's, metal, birthday money, working for Papaw, and misc. earnings.

3.A tree house. Papaw, Miles, Lydia, and I have some pretty cool plans. There is a circle of trees up the hill about 150 feet from the house, and we are going to drill holes through each of the trees. Then we are putting eye bolts in each hole and putting cable on to the bolts to suspend the house between 4 trees. Cool huh?

Those are my goals for this summer. They are (I think.) good goals because, I like finish what I start, like to have a good income, and have some fun. Maybe you can tell me what your summer goals are in the comments?

Banyan Tree

Just to clear things up the Banyan tree is not really a tree, but a vine that surrounds a tree and then becomes a tree on it's own. This is a really cool tree, and I wish I had one. It is probably too cold here though.

These trees, as I said before, are vines that take over a tree to become a tree. They grow up to ten acres. How this happens is like this. Once the vine kills the other tree, it uses it as a prop. It grows huge branches that grow supports. The supports root themselves in the ground. Then the supports grow branches that in time grow supports etc. etc.

There are several species of this tree. There is two species from India, one from Hawaii, two from Florida, and one from Brazil. These trees vary in size from  10 acres to normal sized tree.

The Banyan tree can live up to 2000 years. To tell how old a tree is you look at how much space it takes up. When it is 233 years old it will take up one acre. If any one has seen a real banyan tree that is reading I envy you!

These are really cool trees, but I see now that if I planted one now I would not live to see it when it is huge.Too bad. I wonder if I could transplant one that is not so huge yet?

Government Salaries

I wondered what Government members make in a year.  It is pretty good money. This is what I came up with.

The House and Senate: They both make $169,300 a year. I wonder how they got so high. If they want to cut government spending they should cut it here. They could save $43,104,600 a year if they cut it down to $100,000. 

The Supreme Court: The Head Justice makes $217,400 and the others $208,100. Great job for life. If cut down to $100,000 a year they could save almost $1,000,000 a year.

The President: The President makes $400,000 a year. He also gets one of the best houses for free. It has 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a billiard room, tennis court, jogging track, and a putting green. Also he gets a private retreat. If they cut his pay down to 150,000 they could save 250,000 dollars a year.

Those are the salaries of the main members of the government. They are a lot of money. I will use this knowledge how about you?

List of Top Ten Ways to Blow Your Money on Nothing.

This is a list of ways to blow your money. It is kind of  a stupid post, but you probably should not do these things if you are working for a better tomorrow.

1. Go out to a busy street and hand out $5 bills.
2. Become a textaholic and get charged $.50 for every one.
3. Buy an iPad.
4. Cash your tax refund, and then go to a convenience store and spend it all on Twinkies. 
5. Give it to me. (PLEASE!)
6. Buy a jumbo jet and give people free rides.
7. Start a lab project to try and make a real Harry Potter wand.
8. Buy Stadium Events.
9. Buy one of every game for the Wii ever.
10. Buy a nuclear bomb.

Those are things to do if you want to get rid of money. I would not recommend doing any of these things.

Sharks!!

I LOVE Sharks! Sharks are awesome. I have not seen a shark personally, and would not swim with them too gladly, they are my favorite fish. Whale sharks are my favorite kind of shark. Sharks are fish that are very large, and have a stereotype as killing machines. Sharks are dangerous but are not often aggressive to humans. There are a few fatality's but they are rare.

Sharks have cartilage skeletons, and their skin is barbed. Bull sharks have been known to swim up large fresh water rivers like the amazon, and the Mississippi. Tiger sharks are garbage disposals they have been known to have licences plates in their stomach. In the popular movie Jaws, the real life contender was a bull shark, that was near NY NY in 1910. That is my knowledge of sharks. See you later!

Columns

Right now we are learning about Greece. We had a assignment today about columns.  I think it is cool how there are three main types of columns, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. This is my report.

Doric columns are the most plain of all the columns. Also the most common form of column. They were originally made of wood.Some
of the most famous structures to use Doric forms is the Parthenon, also the Colosseum.This form of column has no base but is put strait into the foundation. This is a Doric column to the right.

The Ionic Columns were not too fancy but looked pretty good. They came mostly form Asia Minor. They had a base and at the top they had some round scroll like thing at the top. Like I said it came from Hellenistic Turkey, then went to Greece, then to Rome. Photo of Ionic at left top.

Corinthian columns are really fancy. They come from Corinth. It was uncommonly used, but the temple of Zeus used them. They were slightly smaller then the Ionic, but not by much. These columns were very hard to make and were very flowery. Photo at  right.


Those are the types of columns. I hope you liked this. You, yes you can pick the topic of my next blog post on Wednesday. Leave your ideas in the comments.

Amazon

Amazon is a online shopping site. I really like it because there is no 7.5% sales tax like there is in retail stores. I buy a lot on Amazon, in fact I am probably going to buy the DSi XL on Amazon. Also I think my Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii game, is broken. If I buy another one, I will get it on Amazon. Amazon also has used stuff, and if you buy more than $25, you get free shipping. I always spend more then $25.

Last year I did almost all my Christmas shopping on Amazon. I got it done before Thanksgiving, and never left home. It was pure awesomeness. The other stuff I got at Target, where they were having a giant Wii sale, and I got 6 Wii games for $100. Retail: $140. That is why I love Amazon.com! Adios Amigos!

Hunting With a Camera

I went on a walk today and found these thing-a-ma-bobs. The pictures are labeled with their common and scientific names.

Frog eggs: Rana Tigrina

Pine Tree: Pinus

Green Briar: SMILAX ROTUNDIFOLIA

Red Raspberry: Rubas Idaeus 

TT: Cat: Felis Domesticus

Chicken: Gallus Gallus

Peter: Rabbit: Sylvilagus Floridanus

That is what I found. I found them along the drive way, in the woods, by the pig barn, and in the back yard. I went walking today 3/17/10 at 10:30 AM. It was very hilly terrain, almost on the edge of mountainous. All of these photos were taken by me, Kellen Appleton.

When Nolan and I went out today it was 60 degrees F. Nolan wanted to catch frogs.It was fun, and I had a good time. I hope that next time there are more frogs!

Nolan Miller Appleton: Human: Homo Sapien

Photo Shop

Photo Shop is a Adobe program that lets you edit photos, to make them have different backrounds and more people in them. i.e. (at right) This is a really cool program, but I have heard it is hard to use. I have wanted to use this for a long time. So, today I signed up for Photo Shop.


I am going to try this, it might be hard. OK it is hard, and very slow, might do this later. This is frustrating, I will wait till Dad gets home to do this.  I am sorry but this is going to be a two part blog post. 

Day Light Saving Time (DST)

Day light savings time is coming! That said, let us dive into info on the subject. Also some things are pretty cool like, that during daylight savings time the amount of car crashes goes down.

Day light savings time was invented by Benjamen Franklin. It never did anything but he did invent it. George Hudson reinvented Day Light Savings Time. Then in 1917, the Germans and their WWI allies went to day light saving time. The rest of Europe followed. 

On the last Sunday in March, we set our clocks forward one hour. This means that instead of the sun rising at 6:00 it rises at 7:00. The red and orange on the map do not use DST blue does. On the first Sunday in November, we set back the clocks. On this day we have 25 hours.

Daylight savings time is for more time in the evening to relax, or work. Also sports stores have more sales from more sports being played in the afternoon. Also the golf industry has estimated that without daylight savings time there would be a $300,000,000 drop in sales.  DST is not a year round thing because some argue that in the winter children may have to get up, and go to school in the dark.

That is why we use Day Light Savings Time. Hope you enjoyed this more then I did.  It is kinda cool though.

DSi XL Fund

For those of you that did not check out my website, Lydia, Nolan, and I have a DSi XL fund. We have $39, and need $190. To raise funds we are selling stuff at the Kids Sale, and I am doing metal. After that we have no idea what we are doing. This is our second fund, the first being the Wii Fund.

If you are wondering what we want to drop almost $200 on, this is what it is. The DSi XL is a portable gaming system made by Nintendo. It is the 4th generation in the DS line. The line is DS (2004) DS Lite (2006) DSi (2009) and DSi XL (2010). The difference between them is this, the DS was really big dim and just about twice as heavy as the later DS Lite. The DS Lite had  a bigger screen then the DS, was smaller, and brighter too. The DSi was slightly bigger than the Lite, but had a bigger screen, a camera, MP3 player, internet connectivity, and could download games. The XL is just a blown up DSi, but has almost twice as big a screen for $10 more.  That is our DSi XL fund!

History of Nintendo.

Nintendo today is a video game company. They own the Wii, and the Nintendo DS systems. But did you know that they have a history that dates back to before the 20th century? Obviously video games were not invented then. What was a video game company to do?

When Nintendo was founded in 1887, they were a playing card company. They made hand made hanafuda cards made on mulberry bark. They kept doing this for a while then they went to plastic cards. They were the first to do this and were very popular. Then they put Disney people on the cards, this made them even more popular. By 1963 they were looking for ways to make even more money. Nothing made them much money, but the toy market did pay for its self. Then cards became unpopular in Japan. Nintendo sunk and was doing nothing. Then they saw a fixer guy they had hired made an arm to pick things up for you so that you would not have to bend down. They marketed this and Nintendo was going again.


That same fixer guy got moved to development, and started making electronic toys. These made more money, and were Nintendo's ticket to success. Seeing their success, Nintendo then started making video games. They started with a simple game system called the Color TV Game 6. Then they started making arcade games like Donkey Kong, and Mario Bros. (Not Super Mario Bros.) Then they went into more home consoles releasing The Famicom (NES) in Japan, along with Super Mario Bros, and R.O.B. They were a blowout success, and in North America they had a 95% market share.




In 1990 they released The Super Famicom, (SNES) they were pushed down at first by SEGA and their Genesis. But Nintendo fought them out with Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, and more. Then in 1996 they released The Nintendo 64, but Sony released the PlayStation. Sony then just destroyed Nintendo from there out. Then in 2001 they released the GameCube. Again Sony released the PlayStation 2, the best selling system ever. Again Sony destroyed them. Microsoft this time helped kill Nintendo with the Xbox. In 2006 Nintendo released The Wii. Sony released the PlayStation 3 (at $700) Microsoft the Xbox 360. This time Nintendo absolutely destroyed everyone, and still is. (I forgot to put in the handhelds history, I will do that another time.)


There you have it. Nintendo is an adapter. They change a lot. I don't see them changing again very soon. Video games are here to stay, at home, and at Nintendo.

Check out the new web site! Still be posting here though. Click to enter.

Quilts

I know odd post. I found some awesome quilts though and have to share them. They are mostly video game quilts so if you know nothing about video games stop reading.

This is the one that got me started

This shows some 8 bit Mario love.

Now some Zelda goodies.

Also some more Mario but a face.










Now go to the lesser known Nintendo game Kirby!

Now for you Atari 80's people Space Invaders!

Also for the Atari lovers, Pac-Man!













More Mario!

 Now Mega Man!

NES/Arcade lovers feast your eyes on this!

Piggies! 

     Now this is kind of a quilt but it is really cool and I want one sooooooo bad!

Hope you enjoyed this quilt tour!

Eragon

I was reading a very good book a couple of days ago and I am now doing a book report on it. Eragon is a fantasy book written by Christopher Paolini. It is about a boy that rode a Dragon and had a bunch of adventures in Alagaesia. It part of a four part series that has three books published.


Eragon is about a young  boy named Eragon, son of None. (In Eragon, his father's name is not known.) He lives in the village of Carahall in Alagaesia. (Map at bottom. Also I have some background on the races and country's in the area. This will make more sense if you read that first.) When hunting in The Spine, Eragon comes across a odd blue stone. The stone appeared with a bang, scaring the herd of deer that he was hunting. He brought it home thinking that it might be valuable, and that he could trade it for meat. He found no value for it in the village. Then he brought it home. After a week, he found it to be hollow, and the next morning it was gone. There was a Dragon instead. The Empire then destroys his farm and his Uncle looking for the stone. Then Eragon goes on a quest with the village storyteller,  Brom who knew all about the Dragon Riders of olden times.


 By going to Teirm, and looking at the shipping records for the deadly poison used on Eragon's Uncle, they tracked down the servants of Galbatorix. (The Evil King of the Empire.) During the journey, Eragon learns magic, sword fighting, and about dragons as a race. (Dragons are as intelligent as humans, and had their own culture, and homeland. They had been almost destroyed, by the King, and there were only two eggs, and two dragons left.) Also Eragon was having weird dreams about a woman that was imprisoned. They went to Dras-Leona, the place of the killers lair. As they searched the city they were ambushed by the Raz'ac (the killers) and caught. They then escaped with the help of a strange stranger named Murtagh. Brom was mortally injured in the attack, and died later. Before he died he revealed that he used to be a Dragon Rider. Then Murtagh, and Eragon travel to Gil'ead were there is an agent of the Varden. Then there they find then the woman that Eragon was dreaming in the town prison. Finding that she is an Elf, he helps her escape, but has to fight a Shade first. (A Shade is a sorcerer that is possessed by evil spirits. They are very strong sword fighters, and spell casters.) They then go to the Varden with the Elf in a coma. Once in with the Varden, which were staying with the Dwarves, the Elf wakes and The Empire attacks with Urgals, and Durza: The Shade. They win, and destroy Durza. The Book ends.
  


That is the book Eragon. It is in my opinion very good, and very well written. I love fantasy, and this book is a prime specimen. Also Christopher Paolini, was home schooled, and I have a preference to that too. He wrote this book when he was fifteen. All around this is a great book, and an even better series. I hope you enjoyed this. Maybe you will get the book and love it too! 




This is not an entire map but almost, and you don't need to know about the far east in the first book. Also The Empire has no official name, but has borders not shown on the map. It starts at the edge of the Hardac desert, and goes to the east coast. The forest is not controlled by the Empire, but the Elves that live unknown to the general public. Other than the forest the Empire goes to the top edge of the map, and continues down to Surda, whose borders are clearly marked. The Beor mountains are in the control of the Dwarves who also like the Elves, live in secret, to the citizens of the Human Empire. The Dwarves reach goes to the Far East then up to The Du Weldenvarden forest. Surda is a country that succeeded from the empire.  Surda is in a cold war with the Empire, the Empire really wants that land but does not want to show open war. The Southern Islands are part of Surda. Shark tooth Island is part of the Empire, and the Empire has claimed Vroengarg, but has no real control over the bandit run island. Urgals, are a race of war loving monsters that lives hidden in The Spine. The Varden are a band of rebels that hate the Empire, and have no real land, but are contently shifting.

Are You a Pig, or a Goat?

 My mother and I have an argument. Is a baby pig cuter, or a baby goat? I "LOVE" baby pigs! Goats are cute, but pigs are cuter. My mother however likes baby goats SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much! She thinks that goats are the cutest thing ever. I disagree, I need your support! Help me win this argument! Or are you weird and think that new born rabbits are cuter? You there? You think that new born rabbits are the cutest! You disgust me!  This is why.

Also vote in the poll! win my argument!

rabbit photo http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/new_born_rabbit.jpg

The Electoral College

A couple of days ago I wondered why do we use an electoral college? Why not popular vote? Mom gave me an  assignment to find out. Here is where I did my research . This is very interesting, how the  founding fathers made this, is very cool.

The electoral college is the way we elect our presidents. When there is an election for the president, the people vote, and in most states who gets the majority gets all the electors. Every state chooses their electors. How many is decided by congress. It works like this, Wyoming has two senators and one representative. So they have three electors. California has two senators and 53 delegates.  So they have 55 electors. Maine and Nebraska use another system that works like this. Say presidential candidate John Q. Public wins 2 representative districts, and Joe Shmoe gets 3 districts. Joe gets the 3 he won, plus the two senate votes. John then gets his 2.

Why they did this was because in 1790 it was really hard to keep track of every single vote in every single state. The electors helped because then you only have to record one state at a time. Then the elector will (mostly) vote the same way. There are 538 electors. If each candidate got 269 electors, the House of Representatives would break the tie.  (This was done in 1800 for Thomas Jefferson, and later for John Quincy Adams.)

There are some flaws with this system though. One of them is that the electors are not bound to vote like the people. They can vote anyway they want.(As shown in 1948, 1960, and 2000.) Also people don't like the winner take all system.

Popular vote would now work, but would give Republicans more power that the Democrat controlled congress would not like. It would give the republicans more power, because they control most of the less populated areas with the electoral system. I they used  popular vote, they would have more votes, from the more populated states.

There you have it. That is how the electoral system works, was developed, and what is wrong with it. I learned a lot from this I hope you did as well.

Olympics

Tonight is the start of the 2010 winter Olympics. I am really looking forward to it. I like the summer games better, but these are fine. I may be at the library during the oping ceremony. I like Canada  but I wish the games were in Anchorage.It may be too cold though, and too little population. Hope we can get an American city in 2020!


The gaming population has some games on the games. Such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. Also Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. These are fun games that have gamer appeal and Olympics  people.
Also tell me What is your favorite Olympic sport?

History of Valentine's Day

As it is almost Valentine's Day, I will look into its history. (Half of the history is that Hallmark is a very evil company.) Why is it called Valentine's Day? Why do we send cards, and spend several million dollars on this day? We shall find out! (Also I was reading about this, and Valentines day is the second most card selling day of the year! I told you Hallmark was an evil company!)


Some places say that St. Valentine was a Roman. The emperor deemed that soldiers were better when they had no family. He banned young adults from getting married. Valentine thought this wrong, and married people in secret. He was caught and killed, but before getting killed he started "your Valentine," by writing a letter and signing it, "your Valentine."


In Rome the 15th of February was a festival where Roman priests went to a cave on the edge of the city. There they sacrificed a dog and goat, and dipped pieces of goat hide in the blood. The men then  took the strips of hide and went to the town and hit all the women with them. The women all went into the street trying to get hit, because it was said to increase fertility. Also the men hit the fields of crops with them as they were said to produce more when hit. Also the unmarried men put all the unmarried womens names in a pot. Then each bachelor would take turns drawing names from the pot. Whoever's name was drawn from the pot was paired until the next festival, when they would draw another name unless they married each other. Valentine's Day may have been started by missionaries as a way to stop this festival.


In England they started Valentine's Day in the 17th century. They started with hand written notes. Then when the press was invented used printed notes. By the 1840s they were selling printed Valentine's in America. Did you know that 85% of cards sold are bought by women? Valentine's Day is on the calender in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Australia.

There you have it. Valentine was a marriage outlaw. Valentine's Day may have been started by missionaries to stop a pagan Roman festival. The holiday was popular in England in the 17th century, and America in the 19th. Hope you can use this sometime!


photo http://firenzegold.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/garden-of-red-roses.jpg

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Duct Tape Wallet II

As I said in the last post, I was going to make my own wallets. I made them this last couple of days. I had two rolls of duct tape, one yellow and one gray classic. With those rolls I made a yellow wallet and a gray one for me. I also made Nolan a yellow one, modified my black one. I am going to make Viv a gray one. I used the same video that I posted. I gave Nolan my first attempt at it, then started my own. I did the yellow ones first then the gray.

I put a triforce on the black one that Aunt Delilah made.                                Here is a real photo.

Here is the camo one Aunt Delilah made.

Here is the yellow one.

Here is the outside of the yellow one.

Here is the gray one.

The outside of the gray one.

I got the triforce idea from the same guy that did the video. I really like the Zelda series too, and it was just too good of an idea to resist. His is better then mine though. Hope you enjoyed this virtual gallery!
(I do not know if you noticed, but Aunt Delilah made bi-fold wallets. I made tri-folds.)