Letter to the Editor

To the Editor,

An armchair survivalist believes the nation is falling into chaos, and he wants to help! On Monday December 1^st there was an article titled “Survivalist cashes in on fear of chaos”. My idea is that we should be prepared but not go to extremes.

What is a survivalist? According to the online Urban dictionary survivalist means; “A person that believes in self reliance. A "survivalist" does not wish to depend on other people, or the government to take care of them or their family.” What causes people to become survivalists? Info according to Wikipedia shows in the 80's the “arms race” and “energy shortages” were reasons. In the 90's fears of the Y2K computer bug. This century it has been terrorist attacks, increased awareness of environmental disasters, global climate change, and economic troubles.

I believe in being prepared but that we should avoid extremism. What is extreme? The Herald article mentions not only stockpiling food and water but also weapons as people anticipate a breakdown of civilized society. What is reasonable? Its always a good idea to be prepared for unexpected disasters, but do we really need to be prepared to shoot it out over a can of green beans?

Encouraging people to be paranoid seems to be trying to help cause some disasters instead of preventing them. Be prepared but let's not go to extremes! Be prepared for catastrophes but don't be the cause of one.

The Essay of Doom

Stupendevacation

I was forced into a torture trip, locked up in a mini-van... for what? In August I got to go on a trip for a week seeing 6 states, a water park, and a wedding! Two-thousand miles in a week takes a lot of sitting. On the first day we had to drive 700 miles and sleep in a motel. On the second day we finished half of the driving for the week.

When we finally go to the cabin it was sunny and windy. The next day we drove to Yellowstone to check out the sights to see. A lot of buffalo slowed us down going through it. After we saw everything we drove back to the cabin, had dinner, and slept for the night.

Four days later I got to go to my favorite place of the trip. The water park! I got to stay there for 5 hours unsupervised while my lungs filled with water. I’ll just say I screamed half the time and they stopped heating the pools in the middle of the day. After that we ate pizza, slept in a motel, drank chocolate milk, and drove home! I guess you can say it wasn’t really torture!

The End.

Your Mission: Move the Dirt

Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday I had to do service projects at the Church, our neighbors, and Totem Middle School moving ALOT of dirt and bark. Each day doing it took about 1 to 2 hours. They each needed wheelbarrows moving the dirt, rakes smoothing the dirt, and shovels scooping the dirt. On Wednesday when we were doing it at the church I pushed a wheelbarrows the whole time. On Thursday at our neighbors I did the same thing. On Saturday I raked the dirt on the holes in the ground.

The time it took to bring the dirt from 1 place to another was tiring but also short at church. On Thursday when we went to the neighbors house I had to go back and forth over large bumps that kept getting the wheelbarrow stuck in holes and sometimes making it spill some dirt on the grass. On Saturday I pushed the wheelbarrow back and forth twice but the track was way too long so I got a rake instead. the rake was still a little difficult because it was hard to not ruin the grass. Well there you have it. A COMPLETED mission.

The Wii Fits Mii

Last week on Wednesday my family got Wii Fit.Wii Fit is a game that involves a balance board and the occasional Wiimote. It's an exercise game that will help you lose weight at an average rate. The balance board is even a scale so you don't need to leave the room to weigh yourself! It's made for those couch potatoes that never want to leave the living room and for the troglodytes that don't want to leave the house.

The game includes these sections: Yoga, Strength training, Aerobics, and Balance games. The Yoga is just for loosening your joints. The strength training is like the yoga except it includes stuff such as side planks and push ups for your core workout. Aerobics includes stuff such as hula hoops, short to long jogs, and boxing. The Balance games include stuff such as marble madness, skiing, and snowboarding activities.

The game also includes a system where you can set your goal of how much weight to lose in 1 week or more. At my rate I should lose 3 pounds for the 2 weeks I set it for. This is a game that your are supposed to do daily! Including on weekends. I have to say my favorite activity was hula hooping I even got a total of 1850 hula hoops in 6 minutes. For hula hoops the faster you go the more hula hoops you get to have on you. Anyway I recommend you go to the store and try it out now!

Feel the Burn!

Last week on Friday I went camping and got fried! It's been painful since Saturday from sunburns and I think I'm peeling like... a potato! I applied too much aloe to my skin where I got burnt! The burns are on both my arms completely and face completely and my neck some! Because I put on too much aloe I have hives all over me!

When I was camping I went fishing and caught three big trout! What really got me sunburned though was the canoeing for an hour in the hot sun and not being able to go back to land until everyone was done canoeing! My sunscreen did NOT last the full hour so eventually I started to turn into some bright red monster! Right now I can't open my mouth enough to talk clearly because my face is swollen and looks like a blob! I think my lesson is to apply sunscreen every ten minutes or you will be fried, don't use too much aloe or you'll get hives, and don't trust anyone who says let's get in the canoes!

Spring Recital

On Saturday I had a full hour recital that had some very short and some very LONG songs. I thought some songs had no end. One song mom wants me to learn is called Maple Leaf Rag.

The songs I played were Super Mario Bros. Underwater Theme, and Marines Hymn. On the Mario Bros. one I couldn't possibly do left hand becuase it was huge stretch for my hand and played quickly. Luckily it sounded the same without it which was strange.

One song was written entirely by Caitlin who is 13 and somehow the song sounds very familiar but is also extremely long its probably near 5-6 pages long. It was like some Through the Fire and Flames remade for piano.

Now I end my post.

The Never Ending Download

Yesterday I downloaded a program that downloads a program and downloads each file in the program separately taking nearly 3 hours! I thought it would only take 10 maybe 15 minutes but it just kept going and going. I originally thought it would be 300-400 MB but within the first half-hour it turned out it was already 900 MB! Which was almost 3 times more then I expected I started to wonder if it was in some never ending loop but just in case it wasn't I waited an extra couple hours and found when it finished downloading it ended up being 3.5 GB total!

This is a program that was from 1999 in which it originally was 350 MB and it was around 40$ now its free but originally it was only 300 MB oh also the program I am talking about is a video game and SDK "source development kit" also the game it was can be viewed Here. In the end it turned out to be 10 times more then I expected I couldn't figure out why it was that much more then it originally was but it was still taking a lot of hard drive space.