blog 68

Over the break I went to this flea market and while I was there I bought these cool looking padlocks, they looked pretty old and they were cheap so I bough all four of them for $10. When I got home I looked at them more carefully and I noticed that two of them had “Made for O.S.U.” engraved on them and both of those locks also had two key holes. I did some research and I found out that people collect padlocks and stuff like that and after looking at a few collectors websites I saw the exact same padlocks that I had. I found out that the two non OSU ones weren’t really worth anything but an O.S.U. lock that looked exactly the same except for the serial numbers sold last year on ebay for $85. I was pretty excited when I saw that so now I have to decide what I want to do. They’re cool locks but I’d rather have $170 than two padlocks. The two that I have might actually be worth more money because the one that sold on ebay came with a new key that was made by a locksmith rather than the original key and both of mine have what I believe are the original keys. I know I want to sell them but the question is, how? I’m going to sell them on ebay but I don’t know if I should sell them together or separately. They may be worth more as a set but I might get more money if I sell them one at a time. Any suggestions?

blog 67

Continuation of blog 66… I put on my coat, grabbed my duffle bag, got directions to where the bus was from my iPhone, said goodbye to a few people, then ran for it. I ran 2 miles uphill in 15 minutes with a hangover while wearing a coat, jeans, and carrying a duffle. I was pretty impressed with myself. I got to the bus just in time and I slept the whole way back to Columbus. As soon as I got home I went to bed because I hadn’t gotten much sleep that weekend. From Friday night when I got there to Sunday morning when I woke up I had probably only gotten four hours of sleep total and out of all the time I was awake I think less than five hours were spent sober. It was a pretty intense weekend. When I woke up Monday morning I felt like shit. I was still a little hung-over and my entire body was sore. I think my right ankle is sprained which is probably from running to the bus, my back and neck hurt from sleeping/passing out in random locations and positions, my arms hurt for some random reason and I couldn’t stop coughing. To make matters worse classes started again on Monday so I had to deal with that. Overall it was a pretty successful weekend. I got to hang out with a lot of my friends who I don’t see too often and I partied harder than I have in a while. Monday sucked but it was definitely worth it.

blog 66

Every summer for the past eleven years I’ve gone to Emma Kaufmann Camp, which is a Jewish overnight camp in West Virginia. This weekend there was a camp reunion in Pittsburgh, which is where most of the campers and staff that go to the camp are from but there are also a lot of campers and staff from Columbus so there was a bus from Columbus to Pittsburgh on Friday that I was on. At the end of the weekend on Sunday there was a bus back to Columbus that was scheduled to leave at 9:30 that I was supposed to be on. At 9:35 Sunday morning I woke up to my phone ringing and it was the director of the camp wondering why I wasn’t on the bus, I told him I overslept and he informed me that the bus had to leave by 10:00 with, or without me. I had originally planned on staying with my friend Wyatt whose parents were going to take me to the bus Sunday morning but Wyatt and I went to this party and never made it back to his house. The good thing was that the place the bus was leaving from was only two miles away from the house we stayed at, the bad thing was that everyone who had a car had already left so I had to get myself to the bus before it left. What I did next was something I hope I never have to do again… to be continued

blog 65

Over the break I went with a few friends to a flea market and I saw a cool watch there. If you have been following my blogs you should know that I’m really into watches so it should come as no surprise that I immediately went over and checked it out. It was in a locked case and the price tag on it was $250 so I asked the guy if I could see it. I picked up the watch and the first thing I noticed was the name on it. Towards the top of the watch it said Patek Philippe and had the logo underneath the name. My first thought was holy shit, this can’t be true. I was surprised because Patek Philippe is one of the most prestigious watch companies and their watches typically range from $10,000 - $30,000 so you can understand my surprise at finding one at a flea market. My next though was, this can’t be real. Unfortunately, I was right. Upon closer inspection I noticed that some of the marking were wrong and the engravings on the movement were machined rather than hand carved. The watch also felt light and the metal seemed cheap. Although I was disappointed that it wasn’t a real Patek I still wanted it because it was a decent looking watch but it wasn’t worth $250. I asked they guy if he knew that it was fake and he swore to me it was authentic but he had to have known that it was fake because this particular watch would have cost right around $32,000 if it was authentic, not $250. I offered him $60 for it which is closer to what the watch is actually worth and he told me he couldn’t come close to that. After a few more minutes of attempting to haggle the price down I got it to $150 but it was still too much for me so I had to walk away.

blog 64

Thanksgiving was awesome. This year thanksgiving dinner was at my parents house and a family that we’re good friends with came over and my grandma was supposed to drive in but she didn’t feel well so she just stayed at home. It was nice to see the other family though because we used to do a lot of things with them but I haven’t seen them in a while. For dinner we had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, creamed corn, and some other things that I can’t remember. Then for desert we had pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, apple pie, and black cherry pie. We didn’t have the black cherry pie but I got that at the store right before dinner. So once the other family got to our house we realized that we didn’t have any whipped cream for the pumpkin pie and so me and my friend Nikki hopped in the car and drove to Kroger’s to pick some up. We went to the store and we got the whipped cream but when we were walking towards the register Nikki saw the black cherry pie and we both agreed it looked really good so we bought it in addition to the whipped cream. When we got home our parents were kind of annoyed that we bough the pie because we already had three others but we ended up eating most of the pie so it was OK. After dinner we just hung out and watched a movie, then the other family went home and we cleaned up.

blog 63

So I ordered these UGG moccasins a week ago and they just got here yesterday. One of my friends had a pair of similar UGGs and we have the same shoe size so I tried them on and I really liked them. I never really thought about UGG as a mens shoe brand but those shoes are damn comfy and they look pretty good too. I wanted a pair so I went to Nordstroms in Easton to get them but they didn’t have them in my size but while I was there I saw a different style of them that I really liked but they didn’t have those in my size so I just ordered them off of the UGG website. I love these shoes. They’re moccasins so they’re kinda like slippers but they have a rubber bottom so you can wear them outside which is nice and the outside is this really soft leather and the inside is that soft fluffy material like you find in all of the UGG boots or shoes. Not only are they really comfortable but they’re also extremely warm. My only complaint would be that they’re too warm to wear sometimes. It was really cold this morning when I walked my dog so they kept my feet nice and warm but it got warmer later on in the day and now it feels like my feet are on fire. I guess from now on I’ll have to check the weather to make sure its going to stay cold before I wear them.

blog 62

Battle Star Galactica was a lot different than I thought it would be. I was expecting some weird geeky show with aliens and spaceships and stuff and there was a little bit of that but the majority of it wasn’t too bad. The whole alien sex thing kinda weirded me out though. How could that dude not have known he was boning an alien? Its been like a week since we’ve watched it so I don’t remember the entire thing but I remember that it wasn’t that bad compared to what I thought it would be like. Now I want to know what happens in the next part of the episode. Didn’t this one end with the world being blown up or something? Ok so I just looked at a few other peoples blogs about the show and now I’m starting to remember more about it. So the world got blown up of something and the robots are back and trying to kill all of the humans but there’s some sort of spaceship that’s intact with a bunch of people on it so not all of the humans are dead but I’m pretty sure the earth just got blown up so I don’t know where the people are going to go. So when are we going to finish this episode? Now that I remember where we left off I want to know what happens next. I don’t really want to know that bad though so if we don’t watch it in class I guess I’ll just never get to find out. Unless its on TV on day and I’m just randomly flipping channels and I land on it. I think I’d watch it if that happened.

blog 61

Okay I’m bored about talking about watch bands and clasps so this blog is going to be about the basic anatomy of a watch. The watch bezel is the circular piece that secures the crystal to the case. Some watch have rotating bezels that can be either multi, or uni-directional. These rotating bezels are generally used to time things such as lap times, or for divers, elapsed time submerged. Some bezels are smooth where others are engraved with numbers. The next part of the watch it’s the crystal. The crystal is the transparent piece that protects the face of the watch. Crystals are generally made up of plastic, sometimes called acrylic glass, mineral glass, or sapphire crystal. Plastic is the least expensive and scratches easily but generally does not crack or shatter which makes plastic a good choice for cheap, or children’s watches. Mineral glass starts out as normal glass but is then treated with either chemicals or heat. This hardens the mineral glass, which makes it more scratch resistant, but this also makes the glass more brittle and prone to chipping and cracking. Sapphire crystals are the most expensive type of crystal but they are extremely durable. Sapphire crystals are made of a synthetic compound with identical properties to natural sapphire. These crystals are so hard that they can only be scratched by diamonds and are more crack resistant than plastic crystals and more scratch resistant than mineral glass which makes it the perfect material for a watch crystal. Because sapphire crystals are more expensive than mineral glass or plastic they are generally not found on less expensive watches.

blog 60

In the previous blog I began talking about different types of clasps found on watch bands. For this post I will expand on what I talked about in that posting so if you have not read that post or the three previous ones this post may be a little confusing. So buckles are found on watch straps and can only be used on watch straps but deployment clasps, which are found on bracelets, can also be used on straps. Deployment clasps on leather straps aren’t that uncommon but they are generally found on more expensive upscale watches. Although deployment clasps cost more than a buckle they can be worth it, especially if your watch has an expensive leather strap. Using a deployment clasp on a leather strap, or any strap for that matter, can improve the straps longevity because rather than pulling the strap tight every time you put it on or take it off you only do this once when you first put the deployment clasp on because, where as with a buckle you pull the strap so that you can insert the pin in the right hole on the strap every time you put it on, you only have to do this once when you put the deployment clasp on the strap. After this initial time you just use the deployment clasp as you would on a bracelet. With watch straps you can generally remove the deployment clasps or buckles when you move to a new strap so you only have to purchase a clasp/buckle once.

blog 59

Sorry if you’ve been following my blogs and your getting tired of all of this watch talk but for the moment it’s all I can come up with to write about. The past two blog posts have been about different types of materials used in watch bands and a little bit of terminology relevant to the topic. This blog post will be about types of watch clasps on bands. For watch straps (non-metal bands) the most common type of clasp is a buckle clasp. Buckle clasps are simple clasps extremely similar to, if not identical to, the clasps used on most men’s belts. These buckles are simple and secure but because you have to bend the watch band and stretch it to use buckle clasps they shorten the lifespan of a strap, especially leather straps. The other main type of clasp is a folding clasp which is found on the majority of metal bracelets. Folding clasps are, as you may have guessed from the name, clasps that fold onto themselves and snap into place. Folding clasps are more complicated than buckles so they are typically more expensive and there are many different forms of folding clasps. On men’s watches the most common clasp is a deployment clasp which is made of three pieces that fold onto each other and lock into place using a small latch or hook. On women’s watches with metal bracelets you will typically find pushbutton deployment clasps which, like standard deployment clasps, folds into thirds but instead of simply pulling up on the clasp to open it, push button clasps open by, you guessed it, pushing a button, or more typically, two buttons on opposite sides of the clasp.

blog 58

So last blog I talked about different types of watchbands such as straps and bracelets and the difference between them and what they can be made of. I talked mostly about bracelets, which, as I discussed in the last blog, are made of metal, so I’ll talk about straps this blog. Incase you didn’t read my last blog straps refer to basically any watchband that isn’t made of metal. These straps are generally made of leather, rubber, or cloth, but can be made of many different materials. Generally speaking leather straps are made from cowhide but leather straps can be made from many materials. Some of the more exotic materials are crocodile, stingray, snake skin, fish leather, ostrich, and lizard. All of these different materials are used to make watch bands and although some are harder to come by almost all of them can be found online. When it comes to these different materials its hard to say which one is the best, or most expensive because you can buy watch straps made of these materials of different qualities. For instance if you could bought a genuine Jaeger-LeCoultre ostrich strap it would cost in excess of $100 with out the buckle but if you bought a generic ostrich leather strap you could easily find one for less then $20 including a buckle. The difference between these two straps is the quality. The Jaeger is most likely a softer more conditioned leather strap with more padding while the cheaper generic one is likely a stiffer band with little to no padding.

blog 57

I’ve been sick all weekend so I’ve fallen a little behind on these blogs and I’ve already missed a few so I can’t afford to miss anymore. I’m going to blog about watches again because that’s something that I know a lot about so it’s easy to write about it. I’m going to write about watch vocab and watch terms. For watches there are two types of watch bands, a bracelet and a strap. A bracelet is a metal band with links which many people prefer for their durability and aesthetic appeal. A strap refers to a band made of cloth, leather, rubber, or any nonmetal material. Although watches with bracelets are more durable and better for sports and such, most people prefer leather or crocodile straps for dress watches because they look more sophisticated and are easier to match to a suit or dress shoes. Now, back to the bracelets. With bracelets there are several materials that they can be made of. The majority of bracelets are made of stainless steel but gold is also a popular choice for more expensive watches. When it comes to gold bracelets there are a few types. There are two tone gold bracelets, which are generally yellow, 14k or 18k with stainless steel. There are also solid gold bracelets which can also be made of 14k or 18k gold but can be made with a range of different golds including rose gold, pink gold, yellow gold, and a few others. I hope you learned something about watches, read my next three or four to learn more!

blog 56

I can’t wait for next weekend. I’ve been going to the same camp every summer for the past eleven years and this passed summer I was hired to work at the camp. Next weekend there is a camp reunion is Pittsburgh and I can’t wait to see everyone. I used to live in Pittsburgh and most of the people that go to the camp are from Pittsburgh so I used to see my camp friends pretty regularly but when I moved to Columbus, when I was thirteen, the only time I would see my camp friends was over the summer and at the reunions. It changed a little bit when I got my license because there were a couple camp people that lived in Columbus so we went on a couple road trips to visit Pittsburgh and just last month I drove to Cleveland to visit someone but I’m still excited for the reunion. Also, one of my camp friends joined the Marines and he finishes basic training a week before the reunion so he’ll be there so I’m excited to see him. I still haven’t decided whose house I’m going to stay at because when I visit Pittsburgh I almost always stay with my friend Jesse who I’ve known since elementary school but this summer I became pretty good friends with a few other people who I kinda want to stay with because even though Jesse and I are really good friends I think I’ll have more fun if I stay with Caleb or David but at the same time I don’t want to hurt Jesse’s feelings. Any ideas?

blog 55

My stomach is hurting really badly and I don’t know why. I have this sharp stabbing pain on the left side of my stomach about halfway down, a little bit lower than my bottom rib. I have no clue what this could be from. I drank about two bottles of water and an apple juice and I ate two granola bars, and everything bagel, an orange, chips, two slices of pizza, some more chips, cheese, and some dried mango slices. Actually, that is probably why my stomach hurts. I usually eat a lot healthier foods but I was running behind, time wise, all day so I didn’t really have much time to get something healthier. I remember when I first started eating healthy, after about two months I had a fish sandwich from Wendy’s and I felt horrible. I had eaten the fish sandwiches before but not since I had changed my diet and I guess I just wasn’t used to greasy fast food anymore because I thought I was going to vomit. It reminds me of this episode of the Simpsons when one of the main characters, Lisa, who is a vegetarian, convinces the rest of her family to try vegetarianism and after a week of not eating any meat they become ill because of the shock to their bodies that a lack of meat has caused. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on now because I don’t feel like my body is trying to reject the food, this just kinda hurts. I’m going to take some aspirin and sleep, hopefully when I wake up this pain will be gone.

blog 54

What do write about today? I have no clue. It seems as if every day it becomes harder to pick a topic worth writing about. I don’t know what I should write about today for my blog post. There are a lot of things I could write about but I can’t thing of anything off the top of my head that would be interesting, easy to write about, and complex enough that I could write an entire two hundred and fifty words about it. The thing about choosing a topic to blog about is that it can’t just be about anything at all, it has to be about something that you can write about for two hundred and fifty words. It also has to be a topic that you will find interesting enough to write that much about it and just because it has the ability to be expanded into two hundred and fifty words doesn’t mean that you have the attention or knowledge to do that. For example, I bet that there is someone out there that could write two hundred and fifty words about stained glass windows, but that person is not I. I possess neither the knowledge, nor the enthusiasm about stained glass windows to be able to fill two hundred and fifty words with information regarding stained glass windows. I can however write two hundred and fifty words about how I don’t know what to write two hundred and fifty words about as I have just done.

blog 53

Today was really unproductive. I was out late last night with friends and I didn’t get to bed until around three so I didn’t wake up till around two today. When I woke up I just laid in bed for a while then I got up, showered, and got dressed. I was going to go to the gym and work out for a few hours but I had a really big breakfast/lunch so I didn’t feel like doing anything so I just lounged around and watched TV for a couple of hours. I was also planning on going to the zoo with a few friends but that didn’t happen either. I just remembered that our common place paper is due Thursday so I feel like I should work on that but I probably wont. Other than this blog post I have literally done nothing productive today. I feel like I just wasted twenty four hours of my life. I didn’t do any laundry either which I need to do, and I didn’t make a writing lab appointment for this Wednesday and I waited too long so now there aren’t any appointments open. I need to start making to-do lists. I think that if I realize what I need to do and I write it down so I don’t forget I’ll have a better chance at actually doing it because I’ll have the list as a constant reminder. I’m going to do that now, I think I’m going to do it on my phone because I always have my phone with me.

blog 51

I’m not really sure what to write about so I think I’ll write about food. Actually, I’m going to make a list of my favorite foods. My favorite breakfast food is egg and cheese bagels. My favorite lunch is… I’m not sure, I’ll get back to this one. My favorite dinner is steak and wild rice. My favorite flavor of chips is sour cream and onion, my favorite candy is Swedish fish, I love cheese. My favorite side dish is mashed potatoes, my favorite desert is cherries jubilee which I haven’t had in a really really long time. My favorite soda is orange crème soda, my favorite ice cream bar is orange crème, my favorite drink overall is water, my favorite flavor of ice cream is salty caramel from Jenni’s. My favorite international food is Indian, my favorite type of olive is Kalamata, my favorite pizza restaurant is Mellow Mushroom, and my favorite fast food restaurant is Subway. I realized what my favorite lunch is, my favorite lunch is Trader Joe’s frozen macaroni and cheese with some added white truffle oil. My favorite type of cookie is a three way tie between snicker doodle, shortbread, and sugar. I think sugar cookies might be my favorite cookie but it has to be a big, soft, buttery, still warm cookie. My favorite hard candy is butterscotch, my favorite fruit is watermelon, my favorite vegetable is red peppers. I hope all of you who read this feel as if you now know me better, because you most likely do.

blog 50

Today was a success for the most part. I got everything I wanted to do accomplished but it took a little longer than I thought it would. I woke up around ten like I wanted to but I turned on the TV while I was eating breakfast and I started watching Board Walk Empire because I had a few episodes DVR’ed. I was just going to watch it while I ate but I got hooked and ended up watching until the end of the episode. It wouldn’t have been that bad if I had stopped there but I proceeded to spend the next two hours watching the remaining episodes on the DVR. After that minor (three hour) speed bump everything went well. Not only did I get everything accomplished but I did some other stuff that I wasn’t counting on doing like cleaning my bathroom, going grocery shopping, and cleaning my car out. When your having one of those motivated work days like I talked about on my last blog post you just get this sort of good feeling of accomplishment every time you check something off of the to-do list and it makes you want to keep on going. I was afraid that after this mornings diversion I wouldn’t be able to get in the right mindset but after a good workout and shower I was ready to get things done. Overall I’m pretty satisfied with how the day went and now that I got all of my work done I can go out and have some fun.

blog 49

Have you ever had one of those really productive days where it feels like you’re getting things done from the moment you wake up until the moment you fall asleep? I really need one of those days. I have a lot of work I need to finish that I’ve been putting off for way to long now and its all about to be due so I really need to get in that work mindset and just knock it all out. I’m going to make tomorrow that day. Its veterans day so there aren’t any classes which makes it the perfect day. I need to make a plan. I’m going to wake up at noonish then eat breakfast and walk the dog. After that I’ll work on my school stuff until I finish it. Seems pretty simple but I feel like its not going to work. I feel like I’ll wake up closer to one or two, eat, walk the dog, then piss around for a couple of hours, eat again, sit down to do homework then end up watching TV or something. Maybe if I start my day out doing something productive like running or something it will get me into that work mindset. I think that’s what I’ll do. Here’s my revised plan. Wake up at ten, eat, walk the dog, run/jog to the gym, workout for two hours, jog home, shower, then do homework. That sounds a lot better, I just hope I wake up on my own before my alarm clocks go off because whenever I wake up on my own I always feel better than when I’m woken up by that loud annoying beeping.

blog 48

For those of you who haven’t read my previous blog post (blog 47) this blog is a continuation of my list of the top five watches I would buy if money weren’t an issue. Just to recap the first three watches discussed in blog 47 were the Rolex Sea-Dweller, The Las Vegas Strip Tourbillon from Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Offshore collection, and the Patek Philippe Nautilus 5712R. The next watch on the list is the Jules Audemars Equation of Time from Audemars Piguet. The Equation of time is made from 18k rose gold and features complications such as equation of time, and a perpetual callender which displays the day, date, and month and doesn’t have to be reset for one hundred years from the date the watch is set for the first time. Although this watch costs almost $80K it is one of the more iconic and recognizable Audemars Piguet watches on the market today. The final watch on the list is the Overseas Date Automatic from Vacheron Constantin. This watch, like all of the others, has an automatic movement. The Overseas Date is one of the more simple watches on the list with the only complication being a date window in-between the 4 and 5’oclock markers. With its stainless steel construction and simplistic face this watch can be worn for any occasion, and with a price tag of only $10,000 its pretty reasonable for a watch made by Vacheron Constantin. Although these watches vary greatly in price they all have several things in common, they are Swiss made automatic chronometers, they are truly beautiful timepieces, and they are all built to last many generations.

Blog 47

This blog is going to be about the top five watches, listed in no particular order, that I would buy if I had unlimited funds. The first watch on the list, which is the cheapest, and probably the most practical is the Rolex Sea-Dweller. The Sea-Dweller is made out of extremely tough stainless steel, features an automatic movement, is a certified chronometer, and is waterproof up to an amazing 3,900 meters. Not only is the Sea-Dweller one of the toughest watches around but it also has the same sleek easily recognizable Rolex look to it. The second watch I would buy is the Las Vegas Strip Tourbillon from Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Offshore collection. The Vegas Strip Tourbillon is powered by an automatic movement and it’s functions include a chronograph, date, hours, minutes, seconds, and, of course, a tourbillon. This watch weighs in at a staggering $190,000 but it is more of an investment than a purchase because this watch was manufactured in a limited edition of 35 pieces so it will only appreciate in value. The watch comes with both a leather and rubber strap so it can be worn for formal dress occasions, or as an everyday watch. The third watch on my list is the $38,000 Patek Philippe Nautilus 5712R which is another self-winding dress watch. The Nautilus is made of 18k rose gold and is sold with a leather strap with a matching 18k rose gold deployment buckle. The Nautilus has several unique features in addition to hours, minutes, seconds, and date, such as a power reserve indicator and a moon phase complication. I’m at the 250 word mark now so I guess I’ll save the rest of my list for the next free blog since it’s so hard to find a good topic these days.

blog 46

My weekend was pretty chill. Friday night I hung out with a few friends at Easton and we were going to see the movie Due Date but one of my friends Kody didn’t want to see it so we ended up walking around for a while in the freezing cold and then we went to steak and shake for some food. I got the grilled cheese and cheese fries but I was still hungry afterwards so I got another order of French fries and that did the trick. Saturday I went to a rummage sale at a church with the same group of people and I bought one of those peg jump games like they have at cracker barrel. Saturday night I went to a poker game with two of my friends from eight until one in the morning and by the end of the night I was up $60, which is decent especially considering the shitty luck I was having. I didn’t see a flop for the first half hour and I pissed away over ten percent of my stack to blinds, I even had bad luck with my good hands. I was dealt pocket fives in the small blind and no one raised pre-flop so I played it and I flopped quads. This normally would have been a great hand but I was first to act and the best hand next to mine was two pair queens and fives so I didn’t get nearly enough money out of the hand because there were three cards to a flush on the board and an obvious strait draw so the dude who had the two pair was playing it conservatively.

Blog 45

There were a bunch of apples in the fridge that were about to go bad and I wanted apple sauce so today I made apple sauce. To make apple sauce you peel the apples, core them, and dice them up. Then you boil the pieces of apple until they become really soft. After the apples are softened you put them in a blender and then add sugar and cinnamon and blend it again to mix everything well. After this the apple sauce is supposed to be done but my applesauce was too watery so I poured the applesauce into a pan and boiled off some of the water until it was at a consistency that I liked. After that I ate it. It was some of the best applesauce I have ever had and it was also warm because I had just finished cooking it. I enjoy apples by them selves but I generally don't like applesauce but for some reason I was really in the mood for applesauce today. It kind of like chipotle, some times I can't stand the thought of eating it but other times that's all i want. For me it's just one of those foods that you have to be in the mood for. I just hope I'm in the mood for it later because I made a ton of applesauce. I used almost a dozen apples which, at the time, didn't seem like that many but in hindsight maybe I should have used less.

Blog 44

There were a bunch of apples in the fridge that were about to go bad and I wanted apple sauce so today I made apple sauce. To make apple sauce you peel the apples, core them, and dice them up. Then you boil the pieces of apple until they become really soft. After the apples are softened you put them in a blender and then add sugar and cinnamon and blend it again to mix everything well. After this the apple sauce is supposed to be done but my applesauce was too watery so I poured the applesauce into a pan and boiled off some of the water until it was at a consistency that I liked. After that I ate it. It was some of the best applesauce I have ever had and it was also warm because I had just finished cooking it. I enjoy apples by them selves but I generally don't like applesauce but for some reason I was really in the mood for applesauce today. It kind of like chipotle, some times I can't stand the thought of eating it but other times that's all i want. For me it's just one of those foods that you have to be in the mood for. I just hope I'm in the mood for it later because I made a ton of applesauce. I used almost a dozen apples which, at the time, didn't seem like that many but in hindsight maybe I should have used less.

blog 44 - School of Rock

What if all classes were taught through music? Would it make you want to learn more? Would it compel you to do your homework more often? We can learn a lot about history by looking at music from that time period so why can’t we teach classes using music? I think that we can. Music is an important part of society and it has been for centuries. By looking at music from the past we can learn a lot about the events that were current when the song was written. For instance if you dissect the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” by Yip Harburg written in 1931 you can learn a lot about what was going on at the time. This song was written during the great depression era and this is apparent from the lyrics that reference things such as bread lines and the mafia. Another, more current, example of history told through music is the popular Barack Obama remix of Lil Wayne’s A Milli. This song talks about Obama’s race for presidency and discusses his political policy as well as the political policies of his opponents.

blog 43

It always bothers me when people use the word bad to many times so for this blog I’m going to list a bunch of synonyms for the word bad: evil, badness, evilness, indiscriminating, pestiferous, unfortunate, ill, unworthy, awful, mephistophelian, unfavourable, meagerly, scrimpy, wretched, tough, atrocious, inoperative, slimy, icky, inopportune, sinister, evil-minded, uncomplete, infernal, grievous, dark, satanic, unskilled, undiscriminating, sorry, swingeing, displeasing, unsound, mephistophelean, worthless, hellish, terrible, distant, fiendish, frightful, diabolical, remote, unsuitable, incompetent, severe, painful, pretty, unspeakable, imitative, rotten, flagitious, stale, hopeless, unhealthy, shitty, hard, vile, naughty, devilish, unhealthful, stingy, diabolic, monstrous, distressing, disadvantageous, meagre, perversive, ugly, fearful, deplorable, unrighteous, uncool, lamentable, no-good, meager, stinking, unfavorable, corked, demonic, corruptive, pitiful, crappy, horrid, rubber, nonintellectual, unholy, lousy, stinky, disreputable, negative, abominable, incomplete, counterfeit, poor, black, corky, dreadful, sad, mediocre, nasty, despicable, evilness, badness, evil, bad, counterfeit, infernal, dark, tough, scrimpy, imitative, atrocious, devilish, unhealthy, frightful, inopportune, diabolical, distant, unskilled, meagre, fiendish, meager, rotten, fearful, vile, remote, despicable, unfortunate, unsound, crappy, worthless, sad, mediocre, icky, satanic, stingy, severe, corky, swingeing, unworthy, lousy, pestiferous, unholy, inoperative, stinking, rubber, hard, monstrous, deplorable, no-good, unsuitable, unfavorable, displeasing, pretty, diabolic, lamentable, awful, unfavourable, negative, unhealthful, shitty, meagerly, poor, nonintellectual, black, perversive, stinky, undiscriminating, ill, dreadful, disadvantageous, distressing, ugly, flagitious, hellish, incompetent, hopeless, unrighteous, incomplete, abominable, pitiful, wretched, uncool, disreputable, stale, evil-minded, slimy, uncomplete, indiscriminating, corked, grievous, nasty, terrible, mephistophelean, demonic, unspeakable, corruptive, mephistophelian, naughty, painful, sorry, sinister, horrid, flagitious, dreadful, awful, severe, poor, infernal, imitative, unfavourable, incompetent, pitiful, unsuitable, stinking, unholy, sorry, pestiferous, dark, evil-minded, unrighteous, diabolic, unfavorable, satanic, uncool, stale, meagre, lamentable, hellish, icky, disadvantageous, sinister, inoperative, indiscriminating, meager, incomplete, demonic, inopportune, mephistophelian, tough, abominable, meagerly, unspeakable, corky, unfortunate, devilish, painful, mediocre, unhealthy, corked, nonintellectual, wretched, horrid, rotten, slimy, unhealthful, pretty, lousy, terrible.

blog 42

I think I might finally be up to date on my comments or at the very least, less behind on them. At the beginning of this class I tried to make intelligent comments on other’s blogs but then when I realized how difficult it would be to do that for all one hundred of them my comments devolved into short sentences or just a couple of words strung together. Now that we have gotten some grades back I’m realizing that I really need all the extra credit that I can get so my comments are starting to improve in quality once again. The only thing is that for some of these write about anything blogs its not that easy to make intelligent comments. I think I may just go back to my old form of commenting and try to do as many as possible so I can get extra credit by doing extra comments. Does anyone know how that works? How many points do we get per extra comment? Is there a limit to how many we can receive extra credit for? Did the teacher say any of this when I wasn’t paying attention (very likely) or were these parameters never set? I guess I’ll have to ask tomorrow. Or if you know the answer you could save me the trouble and just tell me. That would really be a win-win situation for both of us because I would get my answer and you would be one comment closer to the one hundred mark.

blog 41

I am not a fan of this cold weather, I miss the summer. The only good thing about colder weather is that I can switch to my comfy sweat pants without getting too hot but I would gladly trade that for some nice warm weather. The worst part of this weather is waking up cold. I’ve never been a morning person but when I wake up cold its even harder for me to get out of bed. I always just want to go back to sleep and burrow further under my large warm comforter. I used to put a space heater in my room and put one of those lamp timers on it so that it would turn on 15 minutes before my alarm clock would go off so that when I woke up it would be nice and toasty in my room. I think I might have to do that again. I also need to get some warmer shoes before it gets any colder because the warmest shoes I have right now are my running shoes and those aren’t exactly winter shoes. One of my friends had these really comfortable slippers and it turns out that they were ugg slippers for men. After finding out that ugg made shoes for men I went on their website and browsed around a bit, I found this pair of moccasin type shoe slipper thingies that look really warm and comfortable, the only thing is that they’re $100 which is a little (a lot) out of my price range. Maybe I’ll ask for these for a Hanukah present…

blog 40

I’m sick and it sucks. I definitely should have taken better care of myself this weekend. I drank way to much… water… and I had the worst headache yesterday and I’m still not feeling too great today. I normally don’t get too hung over but yesterday was the exception. I woke up with a splitting headache and after taking five ibuprofen it still felt like I had been bicycle kicked in the head by David Beckham. On top of that I felt nauseous and tired and just overall not well. I thought that I would be fine today but that was not the case. I feel a lot better than I did yesterday but still not one hundred percent. When I finished classes today I took a five hour nap and then woke up to do some work. I really want to just go back to sleep so that I can wake up tomorrow all better but I still have more work to do. I really wish we didn’t have these blog assignments. It seems kind of ridiculous that we have to do these ever day on top of the analytical research paper and common place paper which I should probably start working on. I also want to try to stay awake a little bit longer so that I sleep well because I already took that five hour nap and I don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night. I need to eat too. All I’ve had to eat so far is a granola bar and some toast with cheese. I’m going to go eat and then sleep.

blog 39

Halloween is also a big holiday for my dad. My dad’s always been into Halloween and every year we accumulate more decorations. We have 5 blow up thingies, several dozen strings of orange lights, and countless smaller decorations. Ever since I can remember Halloween has been a big holiday for my dad. I don’t know why he likes it so much but he loves buying new decorations. There’s one rule for his decorations though, they have to be orange. The lights are orange, the blowups are orange, the fake zombies and bats are orange, the fog machine is orange, everything is orange. We have so many decorations that we normally have to designate an entire weekend to set everything up. Before we start putting any of the decorations up we have to bring up the umpteen boxes from the basement that contain the decorations that my dad has amassed over the past twenty years. The hardest part of setting up the decorations is the lights. We put the lights in the bushes in front of our house, we go up on the roof and drape the lights down the side and front of the house and we wrap the lights around the porch railings and the railings leading up to our house. After the lights are set up we open the boxes containing the blow up things. Each blow up thing is around six by six by six feet and is lit up by a bulb inside of the blow up.

blog 38

Halloween weekend was awesome but I fell way behind on my blogs so I’m about to do a few. For Halloween I dressed up as Waldo but apparently my costume wasn’t that good because I was the only one who knew who I was supposed to be. For my costume I wore brown dress shoes, blue jeans, a red and white striped collared shirt, and 3D glasses without the lenses. The only thing that the real Waldo wore that I didn’t have was the hat. Waldo normally wears a red and white striped beanie but I looked online and they were about $20 so decided to forgo the hat. I thought that it wouldn’t make that big of a difference but I may have been wrong. I’m not sure if more people would’ve known who I was if I had worn the hat but I can’t imagine that less people would’ve been able to tell who I was. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I’m sad that it’s over now. I miss being a kid and trick or treating. Me and my friends would always go trick or treating for the whole time and we would normally start in my neighborhood, make our way to my friends neighborhood then drop off a full load of candy and head back out again. After trick or treating was over we would head back to my friends house where we would sleep over and eat a lot of candy. I miss those days.