Random Ramblings

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- Answer using ONLY titles of songs by that singer/band/group

Rich Mullins!

( Hilarity Ensues )

Well we made it to Indiana, though not for lack of trying. Some how a 6 hr bus ride ballooned into 11 hrs! :faint: I think it was because we missed a few turns, and ran into traffic through Chicago. Additionally the bus broke down, which would have been bad had it not been full of Engineers and mechanics. Turns out it was a problem with the pneumatics system, which was lucky, because some of the robots had pneumatics, so we were able to repair it using spare parts. It makes the geek in me feel warm and fuzzy knowing we fixed a bus with spare robot parts. :D

We got in so late that we were unable to get to the school to set up, so it will be cray this morning trying to get our pit area set up and our robot ready before matches start. I hope we do well, but we are the third youngest team here. It will be fun at any rate. :D

Still here and still Extremely busy. Today I'm headed off to Indiana for the last FIRST competition this year. The Indiana Robotics Invitational is the "All Star Game"of first robotics, the all best teams will be competing all together for the first, and last time. It promesses to be a great deal of fun. I hope I have internet down there, if I do you may see another update.

I haven't felt like doing much since I got back from my trip on Sunday, mostly I've been playing games and piano. I'm working on getting my thoughts together about my missions trip, but progress has been slow do to my total lack of energy.
I almost have my new laptop set up the way I like it, It's taken me several days due to Portal and Mario...

I underestimated in my earlier report that I would be visiting 5 states in three days. Since we went through Ohio I have now visited 6 states in one week.

The trip down was long, but we arrived safely. We almost didn't though.

On the way down, just inside the Indiana border, we we driving though heavy traffic. Up ahead of us, about a car length, was a small trailer, suddenly a black SUV tried to merge behind it and clipped it. The trailer began to fishtail horribly, at one point in almost tipped over. The diver of our van fought to avoid hitting the trailer and the debris that was flying off. By this point the trailer and the vehicle that was towing it were almost stopped. The trailer gave one last fishtail and the back door flew off and out fell a bail of hay, and a horse! The poor animal hit the concrete hard and rolled a bit, got onto its feet, then proceeded to wander across two lanes of traffic on rout 90! Just then our diver spotted a cop a quarter mile down the road, he had pulled someone unrelated to the accident over. So we, who were now at the front of a rapidly developing traffic jam, sped up and pulled over behind him. One of our team's mentors got out and informed him what had happed. He let the speeder go and turned around and started driving against traffic sirens blaring. After checking over our vehicle to make sure that we were not damaged, we debated staying, but decided that doing so would risk a second accident, so we moved on.

I found out later from one of my team members that the SUV that caused all this took off, that made me mad. It's one thing to cause a life threating collision because of bad road conditions, but I can't believe what kind of coward would leave the scene like that. Grr!

The rest of the drive was uneventful, and the practice rounds went well for our team, we'll see what tomorrow will bring. I don't anticipate us being high on the list, there are a lot of good teams here. The way the alliances are chosen for the finals means we could still end up on a winning one though, we'll see how that turns out.

I returned from my missions trip to Missouri on Wednesday, but I have not had a chance to update until now. The trip was awesome and I am planing a longer post about it latter. For now though I'll still be offline because I'm headed off to Michigan with my FIRST team for a mini competition. This means I will have visited or driven through five states within one week!  Travel is fun, but I am wiped out. I have my new laptop with me, so if the hotel has internet access I will probably update, if not, I'll see you on Monday. :D

I've not been online much these past few days, the lack of a laptop means a lot of competition for the computer, And I discovered Gameboy emulators. I've also been very busy preparing for my upcoming missions trip to Missouri.

As to the completion of my summer list, I've been parked in front of my keyboard quite a bit these past few days, working on a song by David Nevue. (Take a listen, he generously provides many of his songs to listen online for free) I've decided to change "Learn to write my music down." to "Learn to read sheet music at the level I play music." I think it is a better goal to work towards, and will help me in the long run with my original one. It will be tricky without a teacher, but I still have Google. :D

Some Great News:

Thanks to some absolutely amazing people, I will have a new laptop shortly. As early as Friday. Since that is the day I leave, posting will pick up when I return from my trip next Wednesday, if you don't see any updates until then: I haven't died or anything.

( Art Here )

Busy day today. Our family is getting a new van. It's a nice twelve-passenger (Though it only has seating for 9 due to a missing seat). This is good news because our old minivan is too small, and falling apart.

My brothers finally sat me down to play Risk with them. We have two versions, the original Risk, and Risk 2210, So naturally we played double-board Risk. I won, which is not unusual.

I had time today to practice my scales twice. I found that playing them is quite relaxing. I don't know why I bucked my teachers so much. Had I not, I might be farther along than I am now. If any one out there has the privilege of taking piano lessons, Please practice those seemingly pointless exercises, you will regret it dearly latter on if you don't.

Been working on a new drawing in my sketchbook, I've spent about 5 hours on it so far and I'm only half done. I hope I don't get to fed up with the piling up errors, I would really like to see it finished, its coming along nicely.

 For some reason, I did not catch why, the city told everyone to avoid using water. I'm sure it was in someway related to the flooding, but I don't think it was contamination. I suspect the sewers are overtaxed. Been without a shower for three days now, good thing the internet is between us... At least it hasn't been too hot...

Random question:
These fox emotions are really cute, but rather limited in selection, is there any way to add different ones?

( Today was a bit crazy... )

One of the bad things about having an electric piano is that I have to shut it off during thunderstorms, or risk frying a years savings. We are supposed to get storms until late tonight, which means I won't have a piano to play, and I'll have no computer when my... er... the school's laptop runs out of juice in about 2 hours... Argg!! *Goes stir-crazy*

That means I'll probably spend the day drawing and/or reading, though my brothers have been after me to play Risk with them...

Finished another chapter of Team of Rivals last night, it is most interesting to see the trials and triumphs of great men. I had erred in my previous report that it was the first biography I read not aimed at kids or teens. I realized I had read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? both by Richard Feynman. I'm rather shocked I forgot them since they were a major influence on me, and in many ways inspired my present path. They are both very different from Team of Rivals, and I recommend them both to anyone who likes science, especially physics.

These past few days have brought mixed success with regards to the completion of my list.

Decided to start updating here, I feel funny talking about myself anywhere else...

Anyway, for the big news all my high school work is in, so my summer has begun!




Doubt I'll get everything done, but we'll see... I might use this Journal as a log and see how far I get...

Have a good one!!

I just created this account because I want to be able to comment on others peoples blogs, so you may not see many entries from me. However you are welcome to head over to my deviantArt  gallery and look around: http://benrr.deviantart.com/