Geeky Yet Waterproof

Waiting at PDX at 5:35am for my flight to Atlanta for USAS Convention 2008! I’ll be running the web design workshop again. Expect (possibly very random) updates soon.

Last night at 9:30pm about 18 of us hooligans and fun-seekers met in a parking lot to play Commandos. The way it works is like this: there’s a starting point and an ending point, and everyone has to make it from the starting point to the ending point without being caught by whoever is driving in the car. It’s like sort of like hide-and-seek, with the seeker being in a car.
The fun part is trying to find an obscure path from point A to point B that the driver(s) won’t expect. Luckily for us, I had Google Maps in the palm of my hand thanks to my iPhone! Without it we would have been completely lost, because we used almost all back-roads so as not to be seen. Oh the uses of the internet these days…
We did three rounds of Commandos, and by the end we were all ready to collapse from exhaustion — we had basically just sprinted about five miles.
Afterwards Sammi and her friend, Tori, Kyle, and I all went back to Sammi’s house to crash there for the night so we wouldn’t have to drive home after all this. But when we got there, oh no! The Lucky Charms source had been depleted! So, at approximately midnight, we got back in the car and drove to Roth’s, Wal•Mart, and finally Winco in search thereof (the last one being successful).
None of us ended up going to bed until around 3am for Reasons Unknown To Man, but I can tell you, when we did we all slept soundly.
And woke up sore, but ready for more! (Maybe in a week…)

Winco, the Final Destination

Treasure hunters…

Yes, I know. I haven’t blogged in two weeks. My entries are always late. I’ve become a lazy bum when it comes to blogging, and I’ve lost all my mad writing skillz.

But at least I’m blogging!

As you may be aware, last Friday was the 4th of July here in the USA. We had some Bearcat people over and went swimming/boating in the lake, then made a campfire and roasted s’mores. After a while we went inside and everyone participated in a ping-pong tournament, while Sammi and I jammed on my Les Paul.
It was a smaller party than we usually have here, but nice and relaxed.

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The next day I had to get up brutally early (for a 5th of July morning), because I had track racing state championships that day. So we headed to Alpenrose velodrome in Portland, and as soon as we got there it started pouring rain! Now, because the track is so steep, it’s impossible to ride around the banks without imitating an amateur skier, so they had to postpone everything until the track was dry.
Two hours and 500 towels later (not really) Alpenrose was dry, and people started zooming around the track. We soon discovered that my 17-18 year-old age category consisted of myself and Richie Suditu, an unfairly fast 18 year-old national-caliber racer.
We both did two matched sprints at the beginning. This happened to be the very first time I did a matched sprint at an actual race (yes, at the state championships). Of course Richie beat me both times, but the second one was by less than the first. Matched sprints are about 90% strategy and 10% legs, and I used better strategy my second try.
Our other races were a 1k time trial and a 20-lap points race. The points race was interesting — every 5th lap there would be a sprint, and the first four finishers would get points. The race basically consisted of myself, a couple unattached guys, and four riders from team BBC. Three of the BBC guys worked together for the whole race and I hung with them most of the time, drafting here, bridging a gap there… I came in 4th in each of the sprint laps, and I finished 4th at the end of the race.

I ended up getting a silver medal for the overall, because Richie and I were the only 17-18 year-olds (even though I am, in fact, 16). This (state championships) was a fun little break from swimming, and an opportunity to try out my new track racing skills.

Although it was at the time still Winter here in Oregon, I spent the last weekend at the beach in Waldport with Iza, her family, and Mark’s cop friend with his two (younger) boys.
The ocean water being about -200°, we didn’t go wading past about two inches, but we roasted marshmallows on a camp fire and made (many) s’mores.

On the way back, I got a few rather frightening photos when we stopped at a friend’s house for a barbecue…

Although I neither go to school, nor would I be a Junior if I did, last Saturday was Prom. Because Iza, being an exchange student, has certain superpowers here, we went as sophomores.

I met up with Iza and Allison at Iza’s house for Photos Round I. After that we drove over to Trevor’s house (Allison’s date) for italian sodas and then Photos Round II.

After this, we rode in a Cadillac to Corvallis where we had dinner at The Gables, then we went back to Salem where the dance was.
The McNary school regulations were comical. There were teachers wearing identical blue shirts stationed every 10ft on the wall, with the principle standing on a chair (of authority?). There was a rule that the lights had to stay on, but that rule was broken after about 45 minutes. At one point the principal actually went up to the microphone and demanded that everyone “spread out”!
Despite these factors, it was still a lot of fun. At about 10:30 we went back to Trevor’s house to watch a movie before splitting up, and then we all desperately avoided the Keizer cops until safely home (well past curfew).

The next morning we had to get up early for a swim meet in Corvallis, but the last night was worth the 15 second add in my race…

If you’ve been reading my blog regularly for the past two weeks or so, I’m sure you’ve noticed there has been nothing to read (for two weeks or so). After my vacation, it was quite necessary that I take a vacation from writing: on each of the 21 days of our cruise, I spent hours recording what we had spent hours doing, and while sore feet were one small side-effect of the endless fun we had, sore fingers were one big side-effect of the endless blogging I performed. (Not really, but I know you know what I mean.)

Enough of this folly. You see what happens when I don’t write for a while? “Creative” things. To write is to vent one’s thoughts, which is to expel one’s madness. I just expelled two weeks’ worth.

Life after the cruise took some getting used to. Not only is the ground violently still, but we have to do everything for ourselves: cooking (well, I guess I don’t have to do that), laundry (OK, so I don’t have to do that either), room cleaning (hey, just because I don’t - ! )… But besides all this, The Homework is back. Fortunately I still remembered how to speak Latin, but as for the other subjects… well, I couldn’t even remember how Zygotes are produced differently from members of Basidiomycota and other fungi!
But besides all that, it was tough getting back to swim practice. My first day back was an OhNoDoubleTroubleTwoPracticesInOneDay day (ONDTTPIODD for short), and I found it challenging just to swim a 300 straight.

However, after two weeks of fighting to survive each practice (which builds character!), I’m almost back to normal now. From this we can deduce the most probable result of my recent productivity throughput which predicts that you will soon be reading more of my Wonderful blog posts — if this one hasn’t driven you away completely.

As you may have heard from the Sources (uh, me), I’m leaving on a cruise today with my mom, my sister, and my grandparents. The ship departs from New York City, then stops in Bermuda, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and finally Rome. I’m not sure how the internet will be on the ship, but I’ll try to post daily reports (and maybe even videos :D), should the Fates permit the doing thereof.

Salem, OR has finally reached the civilization level of Federal Way, WA. There is now a laser tag place.
Not only that, but it’s located inside a pizzeria.
In celebration of this, some of my high school friends and I went laser tagging and pizza-eating on Saturday night. Then, by Andrew’s influence, we headed over to the arcade to burn off some pizza fat. It’s fun having a license.

After playing with my new MacBook for several days, I am even more amazed than I was when it first came. It turns out, this is no ordinary computer… As I was getting ready to leave for swim practice yesterday, it somehow knew I was about to go somewhere, and rotor blades unfolded out of the CD drive and then it automatically opened up and flashed a message that said “HOLD ON”! It flew me to swim practice!

Then, when I woke up this morning, there was an english muffin and a glass of orange juice already sitting by my bed, with the MacBook next to it — but I had left it on the desk last night!

And need I mention that nobody’s had to do the dishes since Thursday…?