Return of the Blog!

I do live! and I have been experiencing! Excuses suck and mine is hard to believe, so I'll move ahead and share my latest new experiences.

I'm not going to go over every weekend I missed, but I am going to go back two:

Two weekends ago I got to go on a road trip with two of my very best friends which was chalk full of new experiences. I got to see a new city, do new things in a city I have already been, and I got to see a Drum Core Internation Finals event live, another one for the bucket list! To list all of the experiences of this trip would take forever, so I'm going to move on to:

Last weekend! I started college! and college marching band! and living in a dorm! and meeting new people from all walks of life! Needless to say, it's been exciting, but I have come to miss my family and my friends who went off to different schools (like both of the ones listed above :( )but I'm learning lots! and at least I can come home on weekends!

This last Friday (Saturday morning), I got to experience the ever fun 3AM fire scare. I hadn't even been asleep half an hour when I hear a voice over out PA system saying "An emergency has been reported, please evacuate the building." So I climb out of bed, throw on shoes, and grab my keys, mumbling curses all the way. We waited outside for an hour because some drunk idiot thought it would be fun to make it snow with a fire extingusher, but I got to meet tons of people from my dorm that I had never met before, including a poor chap that happened to be getting in the shower when the alarms went off. He had to stay out in the cold in nothing but a towel. My other favorite story came from my friend Hannah (name changed to prevent embarassment)and Sarah (name changed) who brought back our other friend Michael (name also changed) to the dorm completely trashed. They dropped him off at his floor's bathroom (in nothing but his boxers mind you)so he could throw up and decided to get a pizza delivered, and were waiting for it when the alarms went off. They evacuated, remembering Michael, and went in to get him. During all this, their pizza was delivered. So Hannah and Sarah took their pizza to Hannah's car, leaving Michael half-naked and still throwing up on the sidewalk. Sad but funny :) If I ever make a college movie, that's going in!

Keep Austin Weird

Yesterday I returned from the family vacation from hell. My extended family feeds off drama like no ones business, but hey, it's over and I've experienced LOTS.

1. City Life. First off, I got to meet a real life prostitute. She was stumbling drunk around our hallway for a good half hour before her client came and got her. She was very amiable, and horrendously funny, but I'm sure that was the alcohol talking. Second, I saw a homeless person steal a lit cigarette from my cousin who was holding it outside the passenger window of the car. "I would have given him a fresh one if he had just asked," she later said. Finally, not so funny, I saw an innocent pedestrian get assaulted by three guys who weren't too much older than me. In the middle of a busy street no less. Granted, it was great to see my mom throw the car in park and yell "GET THE FUCK OFF HIM!" and see them run for their hides, but they beat him up really bad. I was really shaken up afterwards, and I wasn't even the one assaulted. My same cousin who lost her cigarette said gang violence typically doesn't occur in Austin, so let's hope it doesn't.

2. Austin itself. There is a lake straight damn in the middle of Austin, and we got to take a dinner cruise and see the largest metro population of bats in existence. There is one bridge that houses almost a million and a half of them, and people line this bridge before the sun even sets. When it's dark, the bats come out in swarms and it is a sight to behold. I'm not seriously going to count this, but I got lost with my father and ended up driving on all four of the highways that go through Austin. I'm also gonna state how frustrating it is when you're trying to find something in that town, because almost all the streets are one way, so if you miss it, you have to make a massive circle to come back to it. Also I got to swim in a Texas swimming hole. It was pretty awesome and very cold.

3. Random stuff. I got to drive a segway, which is a lot easier than you think it would be. I also got to experience drinking chocolate, which is the most fantastic thing I have ever had in my life. AND BREAKFAST TACOS! Everywhere had breakfast tacos, some places 24 hours a day. And finally there was four British soccer teams staying in our hotel :) That made for some fun times, especially when the world cup game rolled around.

And that was my Austin week. Grand isn't it?

"Practically Perfect" except not at all...

Last week, I had to cover for my sister. She is a Nanny for three kids: a 13 year old, an 11 year old, and a 9 year old. This new experience made me never want to reproduce. These children were god awful, threw fits over just about everything and nothing, and loved to scream and stomp. This new experience will be short, because I don't care to relive it XD Looking back, I'm sure these kids are not every child out there (I've watched some pretty sweet kids over the years), this just showed me how truly AWFUL kids can be. But hey, that's people right?

Spinning and Cherries and Soccer, OH MY!

Well, I have three new experiences for this past weekend. Maybe I was hoping to make up for my two past epic-failure weekends (they weren't for lack of trying I promise!)

New experience #1: I'm learning to spin yarn!

It was always something I thought would be cool to learn, but I never had the tools. Then my friend Marci Blank lent me EVERYTHING I would ever need to make yarn! I'm SO EXCITED to get good at it!



New experience #2: I learned how to pit cherries with a hairpin.

I know it sounds kind of weird, but I was amazed. Mama is obsessed with cherries, and Dad got to pick a whole bucket of 'em last Friday morning. We never had a cherry picker, I've come to learn, because my Mom during her childhood learned how to pit them with hairpins so she could eat them right off the trees. It went really fast between the two of us. Here's maybe a fourth of our harvest:



New experience #3: I watched the USA vs. England World Cup game.

This was a VERY new experience (I never really used to watch sports), and the United States hadn't played England since the 1950 World Cup. Everyone was amazed the United States won the game in 1950 (I thought it was interesting that the winning goal was scored by a Haitian), and this years game was exciting to watch. It was a 1-1 tie, but hey, for us that's a win!

One Month Later...

So I again failed to keep this up. I want to say right now this act was concious and it was not for lack of new exerpiences. I just graduated high school this month...

So every waking moment was spent preparing for the actual ceremony, attending partys, and making presents.

Which meant no time for blogging :(

But I'm here now! And now that the bulk of the chaos is over I promise to be better! and it's summer! Which means for more fun experiences!

Anyway, back to my new experiences for the past four weekends:

I went to my senior prom wearing a dress I crocheted, and that was a grand old time. I stayed up all night on a school night after the midnight primere of Iron Man 2. I graduated high school and had a graduation party (which was too much fun). I became a guide for Chacha. I even set a new record for myself: I spent 14 straight hours crocheting. I was trying to finish a blanket in time from my friends graduation party XD

and that pretty much wraps it up. Until next weekend!

That's right Ladies and Gentlemen, two for the price of one!

Okay, so I obviously failed to make a post last week. It wasn't even that I didn't have a new experience. My excuse will be that I was waiting on pictures, but I'm sure my utter laziness and massive "To Crochet" list had something to do with it too. However! I shall make up for it! I will just use one post for two weekends!

So, first off, last weekend:

I got to be in charge of the children's section of the Blue Springs Health and Wellness Fair. It sounds like a vast undertaking, but all I really had to do was round up some volunteers and test out some kites. The day of the actual fair I helped watch blow up moon bounces and I got to do a little face paint. All in all, the day was a marvelous success in spite of how sleep deprived all the female volunteers were, and I got to see a paramedic run around with a kite and a nun try to sneak a popcorn bag under her habit. Priceless.

All the volunteers were wonderful, a big shout out/thank you to all of you!



And this past weekend:

To be honest, that same bit of crazy crocheting prevented me from doing anything too adventurous on the actual "Saturday Sunday" weekend. I got to go to a fancy smancy restaurant for my father's birthday, but other than that nothing too new to speak of. But then! A horrible craving for Tad's had me in Lawrence and a good friend recommended Crilla's. Oh....my....goodness.... did we have fun. We saw everything from Velcro enabled bed spreads to genitalia shaped cookware XD and then of course we had to go to the back room to look at the movies and the books. I got to learn a lot about my friends through this experience...kinda weird, but bonding is bonding. Then a creepy old man walked in, and, we were out of there. It was too much fun... SO worth the trip.

And that's that! I promise I won't slack off again for a while!

TECHNOLOGY!

So, this weekend I've had TWO new experiences! Two for the price of one! They are, however, somewhat related.

As I did turn 18 last week, I realised this morning I had not yet registered to vote. Needless to say, I was a little intimidated. I thought it would be this long, arduous process, but it turned out to be easier than I thought:

Step 1. Google "register to vote Kansas"

Step 2. Click first link

Step 3. Give the computer your name, address, drive license number, sex, and party affiliation

Step 4. Print for your records

The entire process took me all of five minutes :) and now I have nifty piece of paper that shows my eligibility to vote in the state of Kansas.

My next experience was something that I never was that interested to do, but as all of my company of this weekend pushed me to do so, I caved.

I got a Twitter...
and I'm not hooked yet

I'll give it some more time and start following more people/things to reap the full benefit, but if I were to judge right now I'm not that impressed.

At least I can say I was involved in all major forms of social networking in my time...

Taxi! To the Royals game!

This weekend was full of new experiences, it was my first weekend as an 18 year old! However, in honor of Senior Skip Day, I chose for this weeks new experience to be the Royal's Opening Day game.



Now, I haven't been to a Royal's game since I was about 5. Never had I been to an opening day game, AND it was Senior Skip Day! In honor of Ferris it had to be done!

My friend AJ got to make up her Senior Skip Day as well!



Now, let me begin with how crazy this day was. This morning when I woke up, outside was this sickly green color. Later it started to hail, and poured so bad that my sweatshirt is STILL drying on my banister from my run into school. By the time we got to the game though there wasn't a trace of bad weather! It was 73 and sunny! By the fifth inning the Royals were up by 3 (but in the next inning the Tigers were up by 4, so order was restored there) and the funniest thing of all today: I went to use the restroom the men's had a line that reached past the concessions stand, while I strolled right in and had a pick of stalls. NEVER has that EVER happened! Did I mention I'm easily amused?

Apart from the fact that traffic was crazy, and that we were surrounded by druck rednecks (at 3 o' clock no less), I had a lot of fun. I even bought one of those silly, 6 dollar souvenier cups to commemorate the occasion. At least we brought our own peanuts!



and I did quote the immortal words of Cameron:

"HEY! batta batta batta sa-WING BATTA! kennedy kennedy kennedy sa-WING BATTA!"

Who said Recycling was easy?

So, unfortunately I didn't get to travel this past weekend. So I decided to do something a little less exciting (to everyone else that is). I decided to frog a sweater.

For all you non-crafters out there, "frogging" is a way we yarn crafters recycle. You take an old knit item, such as a sweater, and you pull out to the yarn to reuse it. There are businesses dedicated to this. So I shuffled through those old sweaters in the unused side of my closet and finally found a reasonable candidate:



Let me say, I have thoroughly learned my lesson. I went into this thinking it would be a piece of cake, and I'd get some yarn out of the deal. "Yea! This sweater would be enough to make a baby blanket! Awesome!" Oh no... I had NO IDEA.

I feel even stupider because I know how sweaters are constructed: there's a little thread that makes seams that aren't surged (surged seams are hopeless), but in all my research these masterful craftspeople were just tearing through sweater with a pair of scissors and getting skeins upon skeins of yarn. So, instead of trusting that little voice in the back of my head saying "Use the seam ripper! SEEEEAM RIPPPPPER!!!!" I just dove right in with my scissors, and I cut the seams! This gave me only 10 inch, unusable strips of yarn.



Note the computer and How to Train Your Dragon Oreos. The upside is, though I ruined most of the sweater, one sleeve is still unscathed. So, when I trust that little voice in the back of my head, I'll hopefully have enough yarn for a hat. Moral of the story is "Slow and steady wins the race" or "Don't recycle yarn, buy instead." You pick.

P.S. I also got to see a new movie, Dreamworks How to Train Your Dragon. May I say, it was AMAZING (hence the Oreos). It had a really sweet story and the most bad ass pets ever! I would recommend it to everyone!

Sometimes you have to take a step backward before you can take a step forward

I got to travel again this weekend, but this trip was not to a modern museum. I got to go with my mother and aunt to Jamesport, Missouri: a VERY SMALL town (the town had ONE four way stop...) in the middle of Amish country.



It was a touristy niche, the city hall advertised maps and public restrooms and there was a speaker system through-out the ENTIRE TOWN that blared blue grass, but it was still a lot of fun. Amish people make some pretty killer food and crafts, two of my favorite things. There will also tons of antique shops run by not-Amish people... I went in one were Mom found some crochet hooks in the jewelry display case. The lady pulled them out claiming they were all hand carved bone. However, true masters of the craft can definitely feel a difference between bone and PLASTIC, so I was really only interested in two of them: one small, old hook with a pretty carved handle and one smaller and older hook that I was terrified would break if anyone actually attempted to crochet with it. The later was like SERIOUSLY ancient: it was "double hooked" as in both ends of the hook WERE hooks. People worked with hooks like that to make lace before people started crocheting with yarn (1960s...). The woman further proved her lack of knowledge with these hooks by describing it as unique, as if hooks like that weren't used ALL THE TIME when the lace craft was around. I was ready to leave, but Mom got the price down to an offer I couldn't refuse. I took the newer one with a handle, though, cause if I get a crochet hook dammit I'm gonna use it.

After a great, "home cooked" lunch from a kitchy little restaurant that served you your drink out of a glass jar, we headed home. Another day trip, but I still had a lot of fun. The best part was I saw someone jog through town with her ipod in and I saw a buggy drive by with dice in the mirror. Glad to know some things never change :)

As a kind of added bonus, I got to see the world premiere of "Green Whales" at the Unicorn Theatre, and my I say it was AWESOME. Granted, a little weird, but I really enjoyed it! If you have a chance this week to go see it, I would highly recommend it!

Let's throw that map out the window

This was one for the bucket list: to throw a dart at a map blindfolded and go where it landed. Granted, what I had in mind was a world map or a map of the United States, but for a rainy weekend on spring break, a map of the Greater Kansas City area would do just fine. I got to do this with two good friends of mine: Brynn and AJ.



So after a few attempts with the blindfold, we thought better of it...
After a couple more times, a location was determined!



At the edge of Prairie Village and Mission Hills: The Indian Hills Country Club. Needless to say, it wasn't too fascinating. So we spent our time viewing the lovely homes of Mission Hills, including our dream home:



Coolest house EVER!

Pretty houses reminded us that the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art was right around the corner, so there we went! This also could have counted as a new experience because I couldn't remember the one time I went in 6th grade. This was also before the Bloch Building was ever around which is where we ended up spending most of our time.



We also finished a long heated debate of whether it was the filming location of the Sprint commercial aired during the Oscars.



Despite the fact that we took our dart location and just kind of ran with it, this mini-adventure was way too fun. In fact, I'm sure it was because we decided to beat off the dart-specified path that we had so much fun. Brynn even suggested a random road trip this summer with a US map (I'll have to work on my dart throwing skills...) and I definitely want to do it with a world map when I have the means. And who's to say we won't have detours on those trips.

FIRST things first...

I'm very excited to start this deal with something I had been looking forward to for weeks. This weekend, I got to attend the FIRST Robotics Greater Kansas City Regional. When I say "attend" I mean I got to run around juggling two different cameras with a badge on my neck that said "Press Team 1777" (the press badge made my three days actually :D). Even so, this experience was very exciting, fun, and more than worth the time I had put into it (and it was a lot of hours).

For those of you who don't know of FIRST, it's a program where students in high school try to build a robot to compete in a game. The catch is it's pretty out there and wacky, so there's a lot of problem solving and it's really fun to see what people can come up with. This year's game was called Breakaway:



The idea is basically soccor, except there are two massive bumps and towers deviding the feild into three sections.



Robots needed to try to go over the bump or go under the tower. You could score points by getting balls in the goals. Another way to get point was if the bot could suspend itself from the tower.



There was so much more to the game than that, little rules which made it really interesting. These teams themselves were interesting as in they weren't always what yo expected. Yes, the majority of them were aspiring engineers, but you had programmers and public relations specialists (like myself) as well. Everyone had their own story, which was great fun to follow. There was also this great idea from FIRST about "Gracious Professionalisim." I heard this phrase hundreds of times, but even through it's somewhat annoying persistance, the idea was great for these teams to work together and compete at the same time.

The competition was interesting because all of the teams really cared about the game and wanted to do well. At the same time, none of these students were afraid to make fools of themselves. There was always blaring music playing everything from swing jazz to ninties hits and R&B of today. People in the stands would get up and dance and there were mascots running around. You went to different teams pits and try to get as many buttons as you could. In short: it was a total nerd fest and it was too much fun! I actually asked our Senior Project Manager if there had ever been a movie made about one of these teams. He said there had, but it wasn't very good. Maybe I can make a good one someday.

As a final Shout-out to Viking Robotics Team 1777: You guys were awesome. Thank you so much for this great opportunity!