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New Blog!
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I've decided to retry blogging, but using a little bit more user-friendly setup. I'm not really too sure what I want to do with this current website, but you can see the new blog here.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan. 8 2008 at 6:30 pm by brian
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Joe's Goals
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I'm using an online web-app called Joe's Goals (reminds me of Eskimo Joe's) to keep track of some goals this year. One of my goals is more writing activity on my website, hence this post. I will add this, though:
I found out my Computer Systems class today is also a teleconference/class with OSU-Tulsa. I thought the whole thing was pretty neat except that teleconferencing is only good at letting the people on the other end know that they can't hear you or see the documents you put on the screen.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan. 9 2007 at 12:34 am by brian
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Hope Not Hate
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Last night I went to an event OSU organized. It was called (something like) "US-Muslim Relations: Hope, Not Hate." (I went to get extra credit for my American government class, but it was still an interesting topic. I thought it was a good discussion/lectures that sort of mirrored my feelings from a TV show I recently watched. It was Morgan Spurlock's (from SuperSize Me) 30 days. If it's an older show and isn't on any more, I apologize (I don't know because I don't have cable and rented it through Netflix). In this episode, a middle-aged Christian man lived with a Muslim family for 30 days and had to adhere to all their cultural traditions. It made me realize there is a lot of misinformation out there as well as a lot of unnecessary stereotyping of Muslims. I have taken note of this and have been trying to be especially careful about what I think when encountering Muslims/people of Middle Eastern decent. The OSU lectures basically mirrored the same thing -- stereotyping and realizing that not all Muslims are terrorists. The question that kept occurring in my mind was, "Why aren't we hearing more outcry from the Muslim community about these outrageous acts?" Maybe it's a problem of perspective...I mean, if some group of radical Christians went around bombing places (such as abortion clinics), I think it'd almost go without saying that I don't approve of those actions. I don't need to be protesting every day against it. In fact, looking at CAIR's website, I found this page.
I thought the lectures ended on a somewhat sour note. One of the closing statements was about Muslim dislike of the Colonial occupation one hundred years ago. It almost sounded like someone was holding a grudge of hate. :\
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Posted on Friday, Nov. 3 2006 at 9:07 pm by brian
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Sadness is...
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I am very sad that we got no trick or treaters last night.
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 1 2006 at 4:04 pm by brian
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Going through Norman is 30 more miles
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In case anyone wants to know, if you drive from Stillwater to Lawton through Norman, it's 30 more miles than just going through Oklahoma City.
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Posted on Monday, Oct. 2 2006 at 10:11 am by brian
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Diff Eq
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Note to everyone: Differential Equations is HARD. But it pays off to study for the test.
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Posted on Friday, Sep. 29 2006 at 11:32 am by brian
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The State Fair
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Happy 100th, State Fair. I haven't been in a few years and it was great to go. Something about the food is so spectacular...the roasted corn, funnel cakes, cotton candy...I'm hungry. It's a great time to people-watch, as well. All sorts of people come out and enjoy the activities. I noticed quite a few OSU fans as well. :)
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Posted on Thursday, Sep. 28 2006 at 2:34 pm by brian
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Update
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In case anyone didn't know, I've transferred to Oklahoma State University. And it rocks.
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Posted on Saturday, Sep. 23 2006 at 10:54 pm by brian
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Freakonomics
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I finished Freakonomics last night. It was a good book, but not something that I felt was really all that "revolutionary" as some made it out to be. The book was a few examples of some good economic principles and techniques at work, but nothing else really. I still found it a good read.
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Posted on Saturday, Sep. 23 2006 at 10:52 pm by Brian
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Why I don't have a Flickr Pro account
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Besides the money, of course. When I had bought my camera, I had opted for a UV filter, as I read it's a great way to keep your camera lens clean and protected. When it arrived, I couldn't fit the lens on the camera. I thought they had sent me the wrong size and put the lens away. Today I started thinking about it and got the lens out again. This time I turned it around and it screwed in perfectly. D'oh.
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Posted on Monday, Jun. 26 2006 at 12:35 am by Brian
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I've disabled commenting
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Sorry everyone, but I was starting to get spammed pretty bad from having the comment form open, and it's currently disabled for a bit, until I can find a better solution.
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Posted on Monday, Jun. 5 2006 at 6:25 pm by brian
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Some more photos
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I've updated my flickr page with some photos from the Altus AFB Air Show that I went to last week. The temptation to upgrade to a pro account is very tempting.
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Posted on Thursday, May. 25 2006 at 8:11 pm by brian
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Springboard 2006
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Our church's annual youth rally, Springboard, is this weekend. I encourage you to come if you can.
Yes, I designed the website and it's quite a bit different from what I'm used to. I'm not too happy with it. These things seem to always get dropped on me when I'm busiest with school and other things. At least the venturing into light on black was interesting.
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr. 25 2006 at 12:57 am by brian
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My feeble attempts at photography
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For my birthday I bought myself a new camera, and have been playing with it when I get the chance. I've got to shoot some different things, like Sarah's niece (more of my favorites: 1, 2, 3, 4), and sunsets, various night/long-exposure shots, Sarah at night, and others. See all my photos on my flickr page. Comments welcome, more coming soon.
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr. 25 2006 at 12:11 am by brian
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You know you're in college
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You know you're in college when a majority of your happy birthday greetings come through facebook.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 17 2006 at 8:02 am by brian
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Nice Shirt, dude
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No comment.
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Posted on Sunday, Apr. 16 2006 at 12:42 am by brian
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Jon Simpkins has a blog
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I can't believe I forgot to link to this. Link Jon Simpkins is a super-genius, by the way.
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Posted on Saturday, Apr. 8 2006 at 12:20 am by brian
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Some thoughts
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My dad said that he finds it amazing that we can have days like today where the wind blows and who knows how many millions of cubic feet of dust is blown into the air and no one cares, but if there is a grain processing plant the EPA and everyone around is up in arms about a bit of dust it might put out.
I made the observation the other day that if you want to get really good in CS class, you have to spend some time on your own developing programs and figuring out just what you can and cannot do. I suppose this is the same with everything.
I heard a car drive by playing rap music and heard these lyrics, "Got a buddy in Iraq / I'll drink to that / I'll drink to that." Not really sure what the rest of the song was about, but I think that nod to the soldiers right there is a lot more than most of us would do.
Have you ever thought about Microsoft Word? It's been used to write wonderful essays and weird poems, speeches for Republicans, speeches for Democrats, letters from an anarchist and letters from a capitalist. So versatile.
I ironed a few clothes today for an upcoming talk in Wichita Falls I'm going to. I found a simple joy in taking a break from all the running around and being busy...and just doing something mindless and repetitive. Everything in moderation, I suppose.
I bought 4 pairs of pants today for $45.
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Posted on Friday, Apr. 7 2006 at 1:04 am by brian
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Math Pedagogy throught the Years: 1950 – Present Day
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This is great. Math Pedagogy throught the Years: 1950 – Present Day
Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and as she went for my change, I pulled 8¢ from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and three pennies, while looking from her screen to the register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried. Why do I tell you this? because of the evolution in teaching math from the 1950s to the present day.
Teaching math in 1950.
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
Teaching math in 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
Teaching math in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?
Teaching math in 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Underline the number 20.
Teaching math in 1990
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. Topic for class discussion: What do you think of this way of making a living? How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? There are no wrong answers.
Teaching math in 2005
Un hachero vende una carretera de madera por $100. El costo de producción es $80. Cuanto hizo de ganancias?
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 30 2006 at 1:48 pm by brian
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Lesson for today
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Today I learned that if you have a package to send and it barely fits into one of the UPS dropoff boxes---DON'T FORCE IT IN!! It will get stuck, and you'll have to call UPS to come out and help you, and they will not be happy. But, you can still get your package out with minimal damage to the box by using the jack tools that come with your car at the expense of looking like a criminal trying to vandalize a UPS dropoff box (which happened to be right outside a bank, by the way).
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Posted on Tuesday, Mar. 28 2006 at 9:38 pm by brian
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My short writeup about the Mexico Scouting trip
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This past week I got the opportunity to travel to Monterrey, Mexico to take part in the “scouting” trip—that is, setting up for our multi-church effort to be temporary missionaries in July. It’s a valuable experience; one that I would recommend everyone to take if they get the opportunity. While our mission trip during the summer is a great experience, I gained a great deal of behind-the-scenes knowledge this past week. These are the findings I discovered on this trip.
This is a good church to be a part of. Many churches in the States are now touting the way of the “cookie cutter” mission trip approach—a short trip to do some work and feel good about it, but often the “church” set up in its wake shortly withers away, like the flower planted in the shallow soil. The church in Monterrey and Monte Krystal is an established church in good soil (almost quite literally) that is truly concerned about the people of Mexico. This is evident in the free medical services provided to the community by the church in Monte Krystal. Also, 2006 will be our sixth year working with this church.
This is a church with vision. As Harley might say, these are “doers” and definitely not “slackers.” Arnufol Santillian, the head minister of the Iglesia de Christo (Church of Christ) in Monterrey, is a devoted servant with vision. Within one or two years, the church compound at our worksite will be across the street from a 2000+ government housing development. Talk about opportunity for growth! The area of Monte Krystal is quickly growing and the church there is gaining members by the dozen. In fact, our latest project is to build a 400+ member auditorium with a two-story building of classrooms. Those who went with us last year will remember the hard work going into each of its 22 foundation posts.
While our trip is only one week, the planning is a year-long adventure. An immense knowledge of the inner-workings of Mexico is required to pull this trip off. It may seem that a few phone calls may set up everything we need for a few weeks, but it requires a little bit more effort in Mexico. People/management/circumstances change, and more is required than a simple agreement over the phone. Not to mention, getting seven identical white Ford F-350 cargo vans across the border requires a skill an order of magnitude higher than flying an F-16 fighter jet while solving a Suduko puzzle. Next time you see Mark, the other youth ministers (Kevin and Bobby), our elders and deacons, or anyone else involved in this mission, give them a pat on the back.
Passports make things a lot easier. Speaking of getting across the border, having a passport makes the crossing much easier. They take a while to get, so get yours now!
One thing I did notice was that after a few days, the language barrier seemed to dissolve. I couldn’t exactly understand everything being said, but I began to pick on up on a few words and body language. I began to feel a personal connection to the people and the work in Monterrey, one that I hope will continue to grow after five years going strong. I hope it’s one that you can feel as well.
-Brian Schettler
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Posted on Monday, Mar. 27 2006 at 5:27 pm by brian
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I'm really liking del.icio.us
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I'm really liking delicious. It just seems to help keep things I find on the web more organized. Even though it's just a glorified version of keeping favorites/bookmarks, there is so much more you can do with it. Just like flickr, you can add tags and search for different tags to find many different types of websites. I like it because it gives me a history of sorts of my web usage. I hope that this will solve the problem of "Well, I saw that one website so long ago, but I don't remember where it was at!" Now I can just search for it!
I'm always finding neat things, so make sure to look at my delicious links.
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Posted on Sunday, Mar. 26 2006 at 12:29 am by brian
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Google releases Google Financial
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I noticed Google has a new tool: Google Financial. This sure would have come in handy in Market Analysis! Dang! It makes some pretty charts, too.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 24 2006 at 1:09 am by brian
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I think I shall try this...being an early riser
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This is making the rounds: a set of posts on waking up early in the morning. I've definitely noticed the effect...on days when I get up early I seem to be much more productive.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 24 2006 at 12:34 am by brian
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New...things
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I've added two new things in the side bar to the left. One is a link to my del.icio.us links, links which I think are pretty neat or maybe just to keep track of. Secondly is a link to my flickr photo set. I don't know why I haven't put these up here before.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 24 2006 at 12:28 am by brian
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One Million
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I got an email talking about our debt and it got me on a search for large numbers. I've found a pretty cool book, that consists of only dots counting up to one million. There's also the MegaPenny Project which gives you a nice visual representation of very large numbers. And for sticker shock, see our current US public debt.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 24 2006 at 12:04 am by brian
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I'm in Mexico again
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Photos are here. We had a good crossing, only a few minor mishaps. Somehow we always seem to get off the wrong road leaving Wichita Falls...we wanted to take highway 281 but it isn't marked very well (45 minutes lost). In compliance with Murphy's law, the wrong vehicle was marked when trying to register our vehicles for crossing into Mexico (1 hour lost). And lastly, it seemed the hotel thought we were coming tomorrow, so we didn't rooms exactly how we planned (30 minutes lost). It worked out in our favor, though, as we each got our own single room. It's not that bad. :)
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 17 2006 at 1:05 am by brian
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Interesting article/experiment about the perception of time
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link.
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Posted on Friday, Feb. 24 2006 at 10:13 pm by brian
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Comment Spam
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Well, I'm getting comment spam now since I've done nothing to lock down my comment form (things like CAPTCHAs would solve the problem but I don't know how to do them [yet]). It's all a matter of time because I have plans to revamp the whole website and make it BETTER, ie user logins, automatic email updates, an RSS feed, etc, but I school+job puts me in a pinch.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 19 2006 at 6:06 pm by brian
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I used to garment steamer the other day
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It has saved my life twice now. Amazing.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 19 2006 at 5:53 pm by brian
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Man says no to selling to Walmart
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Interesting article on Fast Company. The CEO of Snapper lawnmowers says no to selling to Walmart for fear of a future decline in product quality. Way to go, and it gives me hope. Every time I shop at Walmart I feel like I just gave a little piece of myself up, never to get it back. It's like there's a bad taste in my mouth after shopping there, but I continue to do so for the low prices (what is a poor and lowly college person to do?).
(I think Fast Company is against Walmart because the only other article I've read from them was about Walmart as well. It was the one about the gallon of pickles, a good read as well.)
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 12 2006 at 1:00 am by brian
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Big company ad execs should be impaled.
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I didn't think the superbowl commercials were very good. Or, at least I heard they weren't. I didn't waste my time this year. I heard that all the commercials were for was new/old ABC shows. What did you think?
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Posted on Monday, Feb. 6 2006 at 12:25 am by brian
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Enjoying the sky
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Last night whlie at a birthday party for my cousins, my uncle brought out his very nice telescope and gave us a tour of the skies. It's quite interesting to see everything up close from so far away. Some interesting things I learned:
-It's best to view the moon when it is not full. This way you can see the mountains and valleys along the terminator--the place where the shadow ends. Since the moon changes phases constantly, you get a nice little tour of the moon every night.
-Most of the pictures you see of faraway galaxies have vibrant colors, but the colors are absent or very faint when looking at them in real life. This is because those photos have very long exposure times to collect the color
-It's best to look straight up because you're looking through less atmosphere.
I enjoyed it and my favorite was probably Saturn. Even though it's not quite as magnificient as you'd see in the pictures, it is still very neat to look at--a small planet with a small ring. My uncle also pointed me to a nice PDF publication at universetoday.com, a 365-day tour of new things to look at each night. Even though I don't have a telescope, it is still an interesting read.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 5 2006 at 5:46 pm by brian
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Oh Amazing Garment Steamer
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I am thankful for this amazing garment steamer. Today, I had to speak in front of a large number of people. I was running a little late and the shirt I grabbed had some bad wrinkles, so I plugged in the garment steamer and it worked fantastically. Thank you, amazing garment steamer.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 5 2006 at 3:20 pm by brian
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What bothers me a bit
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You have probably heard of Google censoring China’s search results. All I see to hear is wailing and gnashing of the teeth from those who think this is such an atrocity. Yes, it is bad, but like Google points out in its blog, it is better to have a censored Google than no Google at all. To me, this brings to light the people who are so caught up in their ideals of freedom, censorship, privacy, whatever (note this can be both sides of the political spectrum)…they become so caught up in their ideal world that they lose the ability to see both sides of the issue. That bothers me a bit.
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Posted on Friday, Feb. 3 2006 at 3:25 pm by brian
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A friendly email
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I got this email the other day: READ THIS VERY SLOWLY... IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.
Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because
they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't
know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.
I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who
passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut
back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't
suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed?
Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?
How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while
you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?
I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going
to lunch in a half hour?" She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I
have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known
yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain." And my
personal favorite: "It's Monday." .She died a few years ago. We never
did have lunch together.
Because North Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to
schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make
to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!
We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve
toilet-trained We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of
college.
Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter,
and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we
awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm
going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a
bit."I'll go on the diet after Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter,4th of
July Laborday, Halloween,and lastly when hell freezes over!!
When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to
adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new
ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for
five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of
Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.
My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's
just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a
spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped
the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on
the way home, I would have died happy.
Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to......not
something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and
had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what
would you say? And why are you waiting?
Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you.
Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to
the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic
flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through
each day on the fly? When you ask "How are you?" Do you hear the
reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred
chores running through your head? Ever told your child, "We'll do it
tomorrow." And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let
a good friendship die? Just call to say "Hi"?
When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened
gift....Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the
music before the song is over.
It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care.
Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you,
then you'll know you have a circle of friends.
I looked it up. THERE IS NO NATIONAL FRIENDSHIP WEEK. Tell your friends.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 26 2006 at 11:53 pm by brian
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An Essay I wrote for Comp2
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Public Schools – Principles and Principals
Since their inception, public schools have always been the target of public critique. Because the American people realize the importance of a good education, it is demanded fervently. But the goal sought after and actions carried out to achieve that goal can be very different. Even though school systems have their own set of problems, these can be traced back to the source. A vast reorganization of our priorities is in order if we ever want to achieve the goal of a good public education.
Many believe that bureaucracy is an inhibitor of school excellence. Bureaucracy seems to be the catch-all phrase thrown at schools as being the cause of all problems, the root of all evil, etc. Despite some shortcomings, bureaucracy does have a positive effect on some outputs of school performance. Studies have shown that in general, a larger bureaucracy is more effective at keeping students in school. However, the gut of the problem is schools are expected to perform many functions at once (Smith 278). They are expected to increase many outputs all across the board, when in reality, limited resources (inputs) dictate that for some outputs to increase, others must decrease, a simple principle of economics. The example of bureaucracy keeping students in school has an adverse effect on test scores, a common measurement of school performance. Usually, “at-risk” students in danger of dropping out do not make as high test scores as do their non-at-risk counterparts. When the “at-risk” students stay in school, their low test scores harmfully affect test averages. Compromises like these should be recognized and factored into a school’s performance rating.
A second conflict of interest is the accountability of the administration. Like a monopoly, the school district can ignore the requests and demands of their consumers (students and parents) and focus more on their own goals. The school system’s consumers have no recourse against this monopoly; it is difficult to leave and choose another “company,” and they are required by law to consume the monopoly’s “product.” However, school districts do respond to ones that have little to do with their product—higher-up government officials and committees. And as such, school administrations spend more time trying to maximize their inputs (money) from their superiors than paying attention to the wants and needs of the parents and students (Smith 729). In economics, a better product creates more demand, higher prices, and more profits for the company. The way our current system set up, performance is not tied to “profit,” and there is little incentive to increase that performance. In fact it is almost just the opposite—a failing district warrants more money to “fix” the problem. It produces a vexing conundrum—failing schools need more money to fix problems, but this is a disincentive for excellence. Likewise, a school rewarded for excellence tends to become a drain on resources…more students and money start flowing into an excellent school and out of the poorer schools, creating an imbalance not only in the school system but the community as well—housing prices, population growth, etc. Perhaps a majority of the funds (say, 95%) should be spread out as evenly as possible, meaning that per student spending is fairly even across the board. The other 5% could be used as a reward for excelling schools, but not so much that it causes a major sway in the economics of the school system and community.
Adding to this confusion is the widening gap between administrators and teachers. While teachers are focused on the learning process, administrators are focused on maximizing their inputs (getting more money) to solve problems, and not actually solving the problems themselves. Since leaders are disconnected from the task to which they were selected to lead, problems do not get solved. Bureaucracy starts to breed more bureaucracy—more programs and committees are created to try and solve the problem. This produces “‘excessive bureaucratic influence,’ with administrators increasingly divorced from the realities of the classroom and preoccupied with the goals that are secondary to the primary mission of quality education. The ultimate result is that bureaucracy acts as a drag on school performance.”(Smith 730). Even more drag on performance is the fact that for a teacher to move up the ladder in the school system, he or she must quit doing what they set out to do—teach. In this environment, the higher up a person goes, and the more power he or she has to change things, the less connected this person is to the ultimate goal of the organization. To change this, new policies should be implemented to keep every big decision-maker grounded in the classroom.
Fueling these flames to strive for excellence is the hotly-debated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. In the act, schools are held accountable for their actions—excelling schools are rewarded and failing schools are sanctioned (Bush 2). While this is a step in the right direction, the shoe is on the wrong foot. NCLB uses standardized testing as the primary means of gauging school performance. As the example illustrated above with at-risk students and test scores, multiple outputs are produced in the school system and test scores are just one of these outputs, among others—drop out rates, student/parent satisfaction, student-teacher ratios, class size, percentage of college-bound students, etc. In this example, a school district could be focusing on keeping more students in school, surely a dignified goal, yet as a consequence, average test scores are lowered. Under NCLB, this school is failing.
This also sets up another side-effect: passing tests become the focus rather than true learning. President Bush allowed states to use their own accountability tests (Marshak 3). As such, each state can set the bar—as low or as high as they’d like. In dire circumstances, a “D” can become a “C” and the percentages of “excellent” schools increases. In fact, some states have already started doing this (Marshak 3). Take a look at a recent Texas high school exit exam:
At a candy store, chocolate costs $0.35 per ounce. Hector bought 8.25 ounces, Jeanette bought 8.7 ounces, James bought 8.05 ounces, and Shanika bought 8.42 ounces. Which list shows these weights in order from least to greatest?
A. 8.05 oz, 8.25 oz, 8.42 oz, 8.7 oz
B. 8.42 oz, 8.05 oz, 8.25 oz, 8.7 oz,
C. 8.05 oz, 8.7 oz, 8.25 oz, 8.42 oz
D. 8.7 oz, 8.05 oz, 8.25 oz, 8.42 oz (Humes 357-358)
The skills required to answer these questions are usually covered in the fourth or fifth grade, but questions like these “and others of similar difficulty are being used to identify college readiness.” (Humes 358)
An underlying problem of our schools is that they are set up to be assembly line-style factories. A student spends some time here with teacher X, another here with teacher Y, and yet the school district is able to exactly quantify the amount that that student learned. What a student truly learns is a fuzzy amount (tests are inaccurate indicators because they only measure short-term memorization). Our current measurements cannot define exactly what a student learned, and thus, and how well the school district is doing. Even so, this is what school systems consistently do. Scores of demographics are assigned numerical values and used to assess the efficiency of our schools. Is it possible that another dimension of learning is going unevaluated?
With such a vague meaning of “school excellence” and the finger on the wrong pulse, no wonder our schools are having trouble. The NCLB dictates that even if a small subgroup of students fails to make the mark, the entire school is put on the failing list (Bush 8). This leads itself to some interesting possibilities, such as a school receiving both the Blue Ribbon excellence award and a failing grade under NCLB (Thomas & DeBarros). Under such pressure to perform, an administrator doesn’t matter if a program is ineffective or is a horrible tradeoff for a majority of students; she just wants to raise scores of a certain group to make sure her school meets NCLB standards. The effect is especially pronounced on small, rural school districts (Reeves 1), but hurts others as administrators start cutting “non-essential” programs such as band or the arts in favor of beefing up their core courses, a stricter requirement under the NCLB.
Schools were also set up in an industrial era where many students were designed to be left behind and take up low-skill jobs (Marshak 1). It should be decided whether we take the approach ideally or realistically. Ideally, everyone can be equal and achieve the same success. However, not everyone will be a rocket scientist. (Note the difference here between can be a rocket scientist and will be a rocket scientist. Everyone has the potential, but not everyone has the drive and determination to succeed. It might be said that class or natural capabilities play a part, but the most disadvantaged person can far exceed expectations because the will to succeed is present. Even so, not everyone will be a rocket scientist, just as everyone cannot be a toaster salesman, because then we’d have no person to bake us bread to put in our toasters.) If we are to believe that everyone is equal, then reform the classroom environment around these ideas and create a more personal, “mentor-like” environment that encourages students to grow and chase their dreams. Create smaller class sizes [although some studies indicate this does not improve performance (Humes 355)], and let teachers evaluate and guide a student on his high school and college paths, not some guidance counselor who only knows this student by name and number. A teacher who spends 180 hours a year with a student is more likely to know the abilities and weaknesses than a guidance counselor who spends maybe two hours a year with the same person. But, if we’re to believe that not everyone will achieve the same amount of success, then schools should support that decision as well. Internships and programs could be created to remove students out of school and into the workplace. Of course, a program like this would not exist in the first or second grade, but as an option to perhaps high school juniors or seniors. And even so, these programs may in fact encourage students to stay in school after it becomes known what awaits them when they don’t have a proper education.
Many decry the fact that U.S. schools lag terribly behind their other developed country-counterparts. Even though the United States puts everyone through school, not just the “cream of the crop” as in other countries, there is some validity to this statement. Of the developed nations, the U.S.’ 180-day school year is the shortest. Public spending per student as a percentage of GDP per capita ranks us 51st in the world (UNESCO). Compared to the rest of the world, U.S. teachers are not as highly regarded, and U.S. teachers require fewer years of study and training to become a teacher than the rest of the world (Humes 361). Perhaps the most condemning words come from Edward Humes, author of the book, School of Dreams, an account of a top-ranked American high school, where he opines on the state of importance of education today:
A majority of Americans say they find little or no time to get involved with their children’s schools and would do so only in the event of a major crisis. Yet few make the connection between this lack of involvement and poor student achievement. (Humes 361)
Even more frightening is the U.S. Department of Labor’s consumer spending statistics for 2003: $2,211 for eating out, $3,732 for vehicle payments, $2,060 on entertainment, but only $783 for education (which includes college tuition!). The lowest category the Department of Labor surveys at $127 per year is… reading. Could anyone imagine the leaps and bounds we could make if we could reverse that pyramid? If spending on reading materials and education was in the thousands?
The picture becomes clear. Many realize the importance of education and thus become highly critical in order to improve it. This induces unsuccessful measures such as No Child Left Behind to be passed, and school teachers and administrators fail at keeping up with such strict measures because they receive no help from the parents, who criticize education but at the same time do not participate in the basic measures to help their children succeed. A child spends 12.3% of the calendar year in school. Where is the other 87.7%?
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec. 14 2005 at 4:29 pm by brian
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IBC and "Merry Christmas"
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I asked my friendly teller at my local (actually it wasn't local...I had to go across town to get a signature guarantee that wasn't available at my local bank) IBC Bank if they're allowed to say "Merry Christmas." She said, "Only if the customer says it first."
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec. 13 2005 at 8:05 pm by brian
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Flickr photos updated
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Link.
I have some more on my phone, but I'm at work now waiting for my next final at 1pm. I found out today that I can't write about poetry before 10am. It's a law.
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec. 13 2005 at 11:19 am by brian
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Glenn Beck's Christmas Tour
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This sounds bad. Wednesday night church was cancelled. Mark, my youth minister, had tickets to see radio talk show host Glenn Beck's Christmas Tour in Oklahoma City. We decided that the tickets would go stale if we stayed home, so we made the trek in the *snowy* weather to go see him. It was a great show.
The first half was stories of his past Christmases and about the true meaning of Christmas. The second half got very serious about some of the serious things that had happened to him and about the real gift of Christmas--redemption from Jesus Christ. I was amazed it switch gears to such a serious tone (and was halfheartedly waiting for the other shoe to drop...I felt that at any moment he could turn a serious moment into a joke). But in the end, he didn't, and it left a powerful message.
I got to take a picture of him, Mark, and Mark's little baby, Alex, in the lobby after the show. I felt priviledged.
The next day on his radio show he commented about the crosses formed in the large office buildings of OKC, and felt that it was amazing they would do something like that in the age of political correctness. I felt proud to be an Oklahoman.
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Posted on Sunday, Dec. 11 2005 at 1:24 am by brian
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How to make a million dollars
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I found this interesting article on how to make a million dollars. I realized it's excessively optimistic though, and doesn't mention anything about laws and lawyers and competition and other things like that.
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 8 2005 at 3:59 pm by brian
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I beat Halo
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...on the PC, that is. I really liked it. In fact, I liked it so much, I wrote a poem about it:
Halo is a mysterious ring,
a curious place where Gregorian chanters sing.
Com'on, Master Chief, grab your assault rifle,
a group of marines is under fire and their message stifled.
Quickly now, sensors say the Covenent Hoard
has penetrated the ship, they're now on board!
Captain says our ship, the Pillar of Autumn,
is under attack and may soon by forgotten.
For when things look as if they might be breif,
we have our only hope, the Master Chief.
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec. 6 2005 at 10:34 pm by brian
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More neato videos!
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"You might also enjoy this movie i made of a large-scale painting project. The elapsed time is approximately a month and a half. My methods are a bit unusual so I felt that this would be a good way to document them." Link to video (22.9MB). This makes me want to paint and draw more. I seem to be stuck in a left side of the brain funk lately, though (at least I think it's the left brain...the one that is not artistic, the more numbers/science oriented side...I'd look it up but it's late and wikipedia is so slow lately).
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 16 2005 at 1:26 am by brian
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Bouncy Ball Commercial
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This makes me happy. Link. Note: You need QuickTime 7. I don't think previous versions will work.
While we're at it, I like this commercial, too. Probably the best one I've ever seen. Update: Link Fixed.
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Posted on Saturday, Oct. 29 2005 at 5:37 pm by Brian
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Last book I read: The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
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Last book I read: The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. It's a good deviation from some of the more non-fiction books I’ve been reading as of late. I really enjoyed this one though...I've always sort of had a fascination with Antarctica and that sort of extreme climate.
In around 1914, the Endurance and her crew set out to be the first to trek across Antarctica by foot. Before they even reached land, however, their ship got stuck in large ice floes by Antarctica. They set up camp to wait out the several months it will take for the ice to float back around, break up and drop them in warmer waters. After some time, they are sort of there, but the immense pressure from the gigantic masses of ice causes the ship to break apart and sink. The crew camps out on the ice and then makes a daring boat journey to Elephant Island. Shackleton, the captain, takes a few people and makes the most amazing open boat journey ever…nearly 800 miles to a whaling station in South Georgia in a small, 22ft boat. Shackleton then finds a boat and rescues his men and the amazing part is after nearly two years on the ice, none of them died. I heard that a group in the early nineties tried to make a similar expedition with all the high-tech gear and barely made it through, making Shackleton’s adventure all the more awe-inspiring. I liked the book and the pictures were very cool. Literally!
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct. 19 2005 at 12:05 am by brian
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Oops, I think I neglected to mention...
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The van has been parked out in the country. On my uncle's land. Out in a field. Redneck style. It's been out there for a month or two...I'm just now getting over the emotional trauma so I can talk about it. I checked it out the other day, and it started up just fine on the first time. Good ol' van. There are a lot of stickers on the ground nearby (for protection from vandals) and my uncle says that the cows really like it...sometimes they lick it.
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Posted on Monday, Oct. 17 2005 at 12:28 am by brian
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I had the most peculiar feeling the other day...
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I got up the other day and I put on my socks, and I had the distinct feeling I had another foot to put a sock on, even though both feet already had socks. Weird.
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Posted on Monday, Oct. 17 2005 at 12:24 am by brian
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Finished "Everything Bad is Good for You"
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I just finished Everything Bad is Good for You by Stephen Johnson. It was a pretty good read. Very interesting ideas put forth, but I kind of felt that it was somewhat repititous. However, I may just be below the targetted reading audience since it was more "researchy" reading than "fun" reading. What may be repititous to me could be thorough to someone else.
The idea is that popular culture (video games, movies, TV) is actually making us smarter. If you take a look at any medium from then and now...The Sims vs Pong, Lord of the Rings vs [some old movie here], The Sopranos vs Starsky and Hutch. Even reality TV shows require more cognitive effort than shows of yesteryear. Video games are more demanding, they not only require good reaction skills but also require you to explore -- the author calls this probing and telescoping -- your environment and mentally map out your objectives to obtain your goal. Usually there's no right or wrong way of doing something (Grand Theft Auto) and no bright and flashing arrows telling you where to go and what to do. Just like in the real world, you have to explore, gather information, and make choices based on that information. TV shows also require more effort, especially reality TV programming. In reality TV you must keep track of multiple variables...who likes who, who did what to whom, etc. It's much more mentally demanding from the scripted storylines and gags-a-minute shows from a few decades ago. Characters and subplots are far more numerous and often requires much thought and discussion -- just look at some of the online discussion boards talking about a certain episode. Also, movies are deeper and often require multiple viewings before the full meaning is grasped. All in all, it's pretty convincing and I think the author is right. Why is the joke about, "the 10 year old can program the VCR but the parents with their college degrees can't" so prevalent? Because it's true. The 10 year old hasn't memorized every VCR manual out there, but rather he old is used to the concepts of exploring limitations of hardware and understands the basics of the technology and can use these concepts to figure out how the task is performed. All in all, a very good read, and recommended if you're into popular culture and its effects on people. A little slow in places, but still a good and informative read.
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Posted on Wednesday, Sep. 21 2005 at 10:51 am by brian
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Hooray!
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As you can clearly see, this map shows Hurrican Rita hitting Lawton, Oklahoma at approximately Monday morning. I'm excited! I'm ready to get my $2000 debit card from the government!
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Posted on Wednesday, Sep. 21 2005 at 10:33 am by brian
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Arr! Talk like a pirate day be today matey!
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Tis me fav-o-rit holiday, arrr. link, shiver me timbers.
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Posted on Monday, Sep. 19 2005 at 4:37 pm by brian
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Found WWII photos
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This kind of stuff is so cool. Guy buys a book at a public library auction and finds arial WWII photos hidden within. Very neat photos.
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Posted on Saturday, Sep. 10 2005 at 12:36 pm by brian
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Photos from Astrodome
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Link. More photos from NOLA.
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Posted on Thursday, Sep. 8 2005 at 5:08 pm by brian
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Hurricane Katrina Satellite Photos on Google Maps
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Woa.
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Posted on Wednesday, Sep. 7 2005 at 10:43 am by brian
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Bad Usability hurts EVERYONE
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Take a look at a page from my online class:
(click for larger)
See anything fishy? Look at the "DUE THIS WEEK" section. Whenever someone says something is due this week, when do you think it's due? At the end of the week? Friday? Well now look at the due date beside each assignment. Due Monday. At the beginning of the week. Not very user-friendly in my view, and I missed turning in assignments because of it.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep. 6 2005 at 11:01 pm by Brian
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My Reading this past summer
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I’ve read some really good books this summer. Here they are:
Michael Chricton – State of Fear
This is probably one of the best books I’ve ever read. I was somewhat disappointed with his last book, “Prey,” because someone pointed out to me that it read just like a movie script (although when I read it I greatly enjoyed it…so maybe I was just swayed). Anyways, this book is about global warming and is written fantastically. In it, Chricton basically says that it’s very difficult to get the true picture of what is going on in the world, because everything is so biased. It’s hard to dig through the muck of scientific “reports” out there, because you’re able to buy your results. Studies have been done with scientists who were told to do surveys or experiments, then given an idea of what the outcome should be. In all these tests, the outcome was always close to what they expected it to be. Chricton suggests that scientific studies need some sort of tenure-like system so they won’t be afraid of funding being cut if the results are unfavorable and also double-blind experiments to weed out a researcher’s bias. This doesn’t really have to do with the plot of the book, but it’s what he hints at throughout the book, and then says in the notes at the end. I wonder if book is a accumulation of frustration when Chricton is researching the subject matter for his books, having to deal with the false and stupid reports that are blatantly obvious.
Richard Feynman - Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!
Pretty interesting semi-life story of Mr. Feynman, one of the worlds greatest physicists. He was a very smart dude and always very curious (and usually to our enjoyment). I enjoyed reading about all the crazy stuff he did, and it sort of makes me want to be more curious…spend my days researching something, or taking up something completely new.
Matthew Yeomans - Oil: Anatomy of an Industry
Very thought-provoking book about the oil industry. The author has sort of a liberal/environmentalist slant to the subject matter towards the end, but the history of the oil industry (the first half of the book) is a must-read. Oil is a growing problem and every bit of knowledge about the subject benefits everyone, instead of people just running around like their head’s cut off screaming what we need to do when they don’t really understand the underlying principals beneath what’s going on.
Preston Gralla - Windows XP Hacks
Hacks for XP. The book was alright, I knew about most of the stuff, except for a majority of the registry tweaks. When I told people I was reading this book, they got a skeert expression on their face, like I was some terrorist. Then I’d explain that “hacks” is a widely-misused term, all it means is that you’re taking something and making it do something that was not originally intended. If you took your blender and made a rotating Christmas tree out of it, that would be a “hack.” But, doing things that are bad (what people normally think of) can fall under this definition as well.
Bernard Goldberg – 100 people who are screwing up America (and Al Franken is #37)
Pretty good book about…well, the people screwing up America. Outrageous stuff people are doing in there. I enjoyed the first 50 pages are so, which isn’t “The List”, but rather short 2-3 page summaries of problems in America that not really one person is to blame for its existence. For me, towards the end of the list you know the pattern that develops, so it gets sort of tedious. My reaction was, “What? Another guy like this? Reminds me of number yadda yadda…”
I’m currently reading: Stephen Johnson – Everything bad is good for you
In this book Johnson has a revolutionary idea: that the TV we watch and videogames we play are actually making us smarter instead of dumber, as most people are screaming. He calls this the “Sleeper Curve” after an old Alfred Hitchcock episode were scientists from the future are baffled at the fact that the current day society missed out on the nutritional merits of cupcakes and ice cream and fast food. It’s pretty interesting. I’m curious to see what he has to say for Reality TV. I can understand video games (they’re interactive, not just in the hand eye coordination department, but induces real thinking and problem solving skills, not just rote memorization). I started the chapter on TV the other night, and he’s talking about how TV has become much more complex, with varying plots and characters and increasingly demanding storylines that require more thought to remember and figure out what is going on.
I’ve also got quite a few books that I’ve started, but are reading very, VERY slowly:
Simply Einstein – A book about Einstein’s theory of relativity. It looked pretty interesting and I don’t know that much about it.
Max Lucado – Come Thirsty – My nightly reading, although it’s kind of dry after coming off of C.S. Lewis.
To Read:
Al Franken- Lies and the Lying liars who tell them
Dick Morris – Rewriting History
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Posted on Sunday, Aug. 28 2005 at 7:40 pm by brian
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College
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Different, in a good way. I greatly enjoy just going to classes for 2 hours a day, but I still do a lot of reading and homework…a LOT of reading and homework. I think I’m pretty lucky this semester…I don’t really have a problem with any of my professors, although there is a great percentage of them that are foreign.
Class Breakdown:
Calculus and Analytic Geometry I: I took this class in high school, so I’m familiar with everything. But, I think if I hadn’t, I would probably struggle. My professor is pretty….different, some of the things he says are really funny. The class is pretty long though, since there is nothing new. I have it for an hour every day, so that doesn’t help either.
Intro to Computer Science I: Basic C++ stuff, stuff I’m already familiar with. The class isn’t going fast enough.
Operating System Utilties I: This is basically learning Linux. Again, this class isn’t going fast enough. I don’t think one hour a week will cut it, especially when we have to use our knowledge of linux in Intro to CS to program.
English Composition II: Professor seems alright. I think the writing assignments are going to come fast and hard. Not my idea of fun. I finally got the book in though, so I’m glad.
Principals of Economics I: This is my online course, and it will be very easy to get behind. I think I’m going to have to read a lot. I’m on page 8. No where close to where I need to be.
Sometimes when I look at everybody that lives on campus, I feel like I’m looking in on a party I wasn’t invited to, and it makes me a little sad. But then I realize that I’m saving a bunch of money by living at home (and switching my car insurance to Geico…) and that I’m not really the partying type.
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Posted on Thursday, Aug. 25 2005 at 5:44 pm by brian
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Yesterday I saw Tom Coburn at a public forum thing
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Yesterday Tom Coburn came to Cameron and had a public forum. He talked a bit about an energy bill and a few other things, then opened the floor to questions. It was pretty interesting.
He talked about the immense government waste today. He put a bill through the Senate that would require Senators to KNOW what’s in the bill they’re voting on. It failed, only 33 voted yes. He gave an example of aid to Africa…they allocated some $80 million to Africa, but only $4 million got there. The rest was eaten up in accounting and bureaucracy costs. He said that the real government deficit is much larger than the recently released some $302 billion---it’s really closer to $600 billion. Washington and the press up there doesn’t want you to know that. They get around this by not counting some programs, like social security and Medicare and things like that. I got the impression that he feels this is a very important issue that’s been downplayed in recent years. He said a day is coming when other countries will no longer lend us money…what happens then? What happens when crude oil is no longer traded in US dollars? He thinks that our fiscal policies are important…it’s like our reputation. He said that he’s on a committee that oversees the federal debt and he wants to get out of Washington (where those views are stifled) and tour around the country bringing attention to this problem. I thought it was a good idea.
He is a proponent of the FairTax by Neil Boortz and the other guy. I felt good about that as well. I still haven’t got to read that book yet, but I want to soon.
Someone asked him a question about Native American benefits and I thought he had an interesting proposition. I know it made some people in the audience mad, but he said that if you’re a quarter Native American, then you pay ¾ of your medical expenses and the government gives you the rest. It’s not fair that a 1/256 Native American can go in and get treatments, pushing out a full blood. Yeah, they’re 1/256 Native America, but they’re 255/256 something else.
I think he said he felt good about John Roberts, that he felt that Roberts reflected Oklahoma values.
When asked about stem cell research, Coburn felt that there were ways to avoid the ethical issues, and to be uniters, not dividers. Research is coming out that we can get stem cells from other places instead of embryos.
My memory is blanking on some of the other things he talked about. But all in all, I felt that he was very forward looking, focusing on the long term instead of the short term and wanted his fellow Senators to do the same. I admire him for that. I agreed on most everything else he said, too.
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Posted on Thursday, Aug. 25 2005 at 5:15 pm by Brian
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I plead the 5th
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I think Computer Science guys are some pretty nasty people. We're all proud of what we know and are ready to show it off. Case in point: today in class someone says, "I'm pretty computer illiterate, what does FTP mean?" And several people nearly jumped out of their pants to scream "FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL!!!!" with that aire of superiority. I know I've probably done something like that before, and seeing it from the outside makes me realize how disgusting it really is. So, I'm going to keep my knowledge to myself from now on.
More on college soon. It's keeping me pretty busy so far.
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Posted on Wednesday, Aug. 24 2005 at 1:05 am by brian
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Bah
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I think my comments form is starting to become spam-attractors. I think I'll move to a register/login system so you have to be registered to post comments (I'll include an option to post anonymously as well). It's just...bah! Evil of the world!
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Posted on Friday, Aug. 19 2005 at 1:46 am by brian
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I knew it would happen...
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Hollywood's next offering: terrorism. And guess what side of the fence they sit on?
It kind of troubles me, because I think these movies will reach out to a demographic that's been historically hard to reach in the political realm: the 18-35 year olds. Most of people I've talked to my age are against the war. You ask them why and they say, "Well war is whack (bad)! I've got a friend over there and I want him home!" But when you sit them down and explain the reasons behind the war, how it's better to squash this threat over there instead of when it grows to over here, they realize the war isn't as bad as what they first imagined. And I use the word "imagined," because most do not want to find the facts. They don't want to search out the accounts of the soldiers and people on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan; they want some small, compartmentalized tidbit of propaganda to ingest, with no regard to neutrality. It reminds me much of the way books became in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where as time went on people wanted condensed versions of books, then summaries of the condensed versions, then summaries of the summaries of the condensed version, and so on and so on. So what do these movies do? Many will now see a skewed account and base their decisions off that. Movies are a powerful media…many won’t remember a news article or blog entry on the war, but the imagery of a soldier holding his fallen brother in his arms, the emotion conveyed through a scene like that is far more memorable.
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 15 2005 at 1:44 pm by brian
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I was thinking
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I was thinking about this article I read some time back. The gist of it was that a college guy (I think he was from OU) was drunk and wandered into the wrong house, thinking it was his, at 3:00AM. It scared the tar out of the people who lived there.
I think the bigger question here is, why did they have their doors unlocked? I think it is for the sense of security. You would think that he would be secure by locking his doors, but think about it...wouldn't you be secure if you knew you lived in a neighborhood where you didn't have to lock your doors at night? That would be the ultimate security. But the catch is you have to really believe it, not just unlock your doors and hope no one comes in and burgles you.
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Posted on Saturday, Aug. 13 2005 at 4:15 pm by brian
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Way to Go Coburn
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I'm reading the 6-month checkup on Tom Coburn's website when I found this little gem (emphasis mine): I have introduced S. 1279, the Parents Right to Know Act of 2005, which requires parental notification before federally funded clinics can distribute contraceptive drugs or prescription devices to a minor. If a child needs a permission slip to take aspirin at school, I think parents should be notified before their children receive prescription contraceptives that could have long lasting health affects.
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 8 2005 at 11:19 pm by brian
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Need Photos printed? You might try clubphoto.com
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Shameless plug alert. Well, maybe it’s not a shameless plug, but it’s a service I use and like, so I thought I’d share it with others.
I would probably be considered a 100% digital guy, but I like paper products too, every now and then. Digital photography is one of those areas. There’s something special about flipping through photo albums that you don’t get by looking at images on a monitor. There is a wide array of inkjet printers, specializing in photo printing, but I have never been quite satisfied. I can usually spot the professionally printed photo and the home-grown photo. Sure, you can get all sorts of high quality papers and printers and ink, but in the end, you’ve spent more if you would have just got them printed somewhere professionally. The “convenience” isn’t worth that extra to me.
So I started looking around. Sam’s Club and Walmart would probably be the cheapest to get photos printed (11¢ and 12¢, respectively), and you don’t have to pay for shipping costs, since you can pick those up in the store. But there was one problem, and it’s pretty specific to me: they don’t offer 3.5x5 inch prints. I like those size because that’s what I get printed when I turn in REAL film (it’s cheaper than 4x6) and I also made a photo grid out of a bulletin board and thumb tacks arranged in such away that a picture can be slid in and held in place. It’s arranged for 3.5x5 inch photos, so I need those size prints.
I’ve done a few orders from Club Photo and I think they’re pretty good. Print quality looks very nice. They’re 19 cents a print, and once you factor in shipping and handling, I think it goes up to about 25¢ or 26¢. BUT every now and then they run specials with 15¢ prints and free shipping, so it’s good to buy then.
Some other things: they do glossy and matte printing. Some like glossy, some like matte, I like to choose (mostly matte, though). They have a format called “4XD” which is pretty helpful when printing digital photographs. Digital pictures are usually shot in an aspect ratio of 4:3, four units wide and three units tall. This is slightly different than your standard 4”x6” print, which can be reduced to three units wide and two units tall (grr…they’re backwards…screens are in the format WxH but photos are HxW, although I guess it really doesn’t matter if you tilt the pictures the right way :P ). 4XD printing prints images at 4”x5.33” instead of 4”x6”, preserving the aspect ratio and preventing heads from being cut off or things like that. They’re a little bit more square than usual, but it’s not really that noticeable. And since they’re smaller and not larger, they should still fit in your photo album without much trouble.
So I like using them, as long as I can catch a special. They’re based out of Texas, too!
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 8 2005 at 5:27 pm by brian
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Gosh
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It's just pictures like these that make me want to be an astronaut.
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Posted on Saturday, Aug. 6 2005 at 2:10 am by brian
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College Experience
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A few things I recommend to seniors in HS this year to get the ball rolling on the whole college thing.
-Start doing a little bit at a time now so it doesn't all pile up right before the February 2nd deadline.
-Start thinking about all the things you've done, like organizations you've been in, awards received, special honors, etc, and writing them down, like a resume.
-Go to website of the college of your choice (or choices) and print off an application. You might print off an extra copy of the essay questions, because those usually take the longest. Carry it around with you and if you have an extra 10 minutes in class, you might think about it.
-Go to fastweb.com and register, and fill out as many applications as often.
-Do campus tours early. They only accept so many people per tour per day.
-FASFAs are stupid! You have to have done your tax returns to fill it out, so you have to do it after April 15. Don’t try to do it before, because you’ll end up stopping and forgetting about it (like I did).
If you’re kind of lazy, don’t worry too much, because you’ll be pushed along (or you’ll push yourself along when the Feb 2 deadline looms). But the more prepared the better.
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Posted on Thursday, Aug. 4 2005 at 11:09 am by brian
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Rest of the photos uploaded on Flickr.com
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Link below, because I'm lazy.
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Posted on Thursday, Aug. 4 2005 at 11:01 am by brian
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I maxed out my bandwidth on flickr
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Almost all of the Mexico photos are here. I'll get the rest next month when my bandwidth resets.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul. 27 2005 at 6:57 pm by brian
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A little bit more on Mexico
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I always like to hit two birds with one stone. I’m doing this year’s video for Mexico, and I’m creating a timeline of what all went on, so I’ll just share that here. When I wrote my previous post I don’t think I was in the mood to write.
Saturday: We drove all day, making several pit stops along the way. When we got to the very southern tip of Texas, around King’s Ranch, it started raining pretty good, and we got to thinking about Hurricane Emily. It kind of got everybody shook up a bit. But the rain was quick and we were soon out of it. We saw several cars that had slid off the road after that. We also saw some illegals jumping the fence around here. They knew there was a border checkpoint ahead, and the car they were riding with must have said, “Hey, jump this fence and I’ll meet up with you a few miles down the road” and I guess that’s what they did.
We got to our hotel that evening, and made a trip across the border to get our visas. It’s hardly ever a quick process, since someone almost always never has their paperwork. We got back pretty late and hit up McDonald’s for dinner. I feel like the guy from “30 days” at the end of the trip, although for me it’s more like seven.
Sunday: It’s decided that instead of getting up and usually going to church, we’re going to go to Monterrey. The reason for this is that in the past, people have complained that we don’t get to spend enough time with church in Monterrey. Usually on Sunday it’s too late by the time we get to Monterrey to go to their evening services. So this time we leave early and are able to go to their services.
Coming in to Monterrey is always awesome. Usually we go through Laredo, but because of the political problems on the Mexican side of the border, we went through McAllen this time. Coming in from Laredo is very scenic though, you get to go through the mountains and all of that, and BAM! There’s the city. This time we kind of came in from the side, but it was still pretty neat. There were clouds that were hugging the tops of the mountains. I realized when capturing the mountains with a camera you really lose the sense of scale they have. This is because with the photograph you’ve eliminated the depth of the object you’re shooting. When you’re moving, you realize how massive those mountains really are because you’re speeding down the highway at 70 miles an hour and those mountains aren’t moving an inch. They’re huge!
The service is Monterrey was good. It was two hours long. Everybody seems to talk about that. To me, it only felt like an hour; maybe that’s because I was occupied with filming somewhat. It was all in Spanish, but I sort of followed along by leaning behind me and point to different verses in the Bible. St. Juan is the book of John, for instance. That was interesting. I read those verses many times, because I didn’t know what was being said on the podium. Also, I recognized quite a few songs, but they’re hard to sing when you only have the tune and not the words. But I was never really that tone friendly…that’s why I play the drums.
That night we ate at the hotel I think. There is a very nice restaurant on the lobby of the hotel. There was a potato soup that I thought was good, but no one else really liked it.
Monday: I realized the hazards of sharing a bed with someone. My guy liked to sprawl out right in the middle of the bed. One time, I tried to wake him up. I pushed and shoved and kicked him but he wouldn’t wake up. But I kid you not, as soon as I gave up and tried to go back to sleep in my little corner of the bed, he rolled over on his own.
We made our way to the worksite, and we were kind of nervous because I don’t think we had taken our big bus down there before. Most of the road is paved, but there’s about a mile or mile and half of the last way that isn’t paved, and usually the road is washed out or flooded. We got to drive all the way, except for the last 500 feet or so, so we parked the bus elsewhere and drove in another bus. By the end of the day the road had dried out and we could drive on it.
At the worksite there were only two big jobs to do this time. One was hauling cement to the roof of the medical complexes, to finish them. The other was digging some 17 to 27 (I counted 17 holes, but someone else said there were 27, but that might be the final number and I just didn’t know) holes for the foundation of the NEW, BIGGER church. They have about a 25 foot by 14 foot (wow, I just realized I way overestimated the size of this thing, sorry if I told you different) pavilion that they used for worship services. Their church has been growing so much that they can’t fit the 65-70+ that are coming there now. Plus, the government is coming in by that area and putting government housing, improving roads, and getting power to that community (in the years past there were hundreds of wires going through the trees and the road and the mud puddles. People would just go outside their homes at night and “borrow” some electricity from a guy that borrowed electricity from a guy that paid for it), and building highways and all sorts of things. They’re growing, and they need a bigger church. I’m proud to say I helped dig the first foundations for it. We dug whatever number it was holes for the foundation. They were about three feet by three feet, and the depth varied. At one time, we were told to dig until we hit rock. Then it was dig until we reached yellow dirt. Whatever it was, the ground is not very dig friendly. I remember last year I was on the crew that helped dig a much larger hole (although it was just one), for burning trash in. It was good about 3 feet down, then we hit rock, and it took forever. We rotated crews, a crew to pick axe the rock, a crew to shovel it into buckets, a crew to lift the buckets out of the hole. This time it was much of the same thing, except for more, smaller holes. I think I liked more holes better, because if I got tired of one hole, I could just go to another one and it might be a little better. We weren’t very lucky on some of our holes though, some only had six inches of dirt before reaching rock. Also, there was a water line that went through about five holes, and it got an average of one puncture per hole, but it got fixed.
We put in a huge day. Usually the first two days are not so bad and then our last day (Wednesday) is a killer, because we want to get everything done. Monday was a Wednesday. We worked from about 7:30 or 8 to 5:30. Usually we leave after lunch time, but we wanted to finish the roof of the medical complexes, so everyone helped haul buckets of cement. I put sunscreen on only as far as my arms could reach, so my back got pretty crispy, and is still peeling today. I tried talking with a local I was working with. We enjoyed it so much when the clouds blocked the sun, so when the next cloud passed over I jokingly held up my hand, palm to the cloud and said, “Alto! Alto!” which means “stop.”
I think that Monday we ate a very nice Italian restaurant. It’s great, usually you’d never be able to afford a place like that. But Mark is excellent about arguing and bartering, so he can use his bargaining power to get a group of 60 people in there and get us a decent meal. It was pretty nice, although I didn’t care too much for the Italian dressing on my salad. I found this out after I had already poured quite a bit on there.
Tuesday: More of the same work, except we didn’t work as long. Also, I can talk about lunch. Lunch is my favorite. I know that at least three days a year, I will get some real, authentic Mexican cooking. The ladies from the church come and make us all lunch, and it is the greatest thing ever. On Monday we had tamales. Tuesday was more of a general stuff, with rice and beans (well, rice and beans is every day), and some other things as well, but I forget. I remember on Monday we have this green things, and I think it’s cacti. There was a cheesey spaghetti mix too, and it was good, but had a strange aftertaste. I couldn’t eat very much of that.
I must talk about the beans, or frijoles. These are the best beans you’ll ever eat, period. They’re refried beans, but unlike any other. It’s just a consistency…it’s almost like whipped cream. And they’re sooo good. I could eat a ton. Unfortunately everyone else knows this and they go pretty quickly.
For dinner, we went to Carl’s Jr. It’s okay. I think the first year I went, I noticed the meat had a slightly different taste, but not much. This year, I couldn’t tell the difference, I think because we don’t have a Carl’s Jr. in Lawton anymore, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. We always go to this particular Carl’s Jr., and sit in the same place, too.
Wednesday: It starts to rain. We can’t go to our worksite, so we go to the church instead, and paint all the walls and ceilings. Personally, I don’t think they needed painting, but we had to have something to do. It didn’t work out very well, because there wasn’t very much space and not everyone could do anything. But no one wanted to do one of the easiest jobs, which was just going around with a rag and wiping up any spilled paint. I painted the tops of the walls around the ceiling. The ladies came and brought us tacos, and a very very very very good frijole soup. It is one of my favorites of Mexico as well.
We didn’t go to their church services that night, and instead stayed and had a devotional to ourselves. A few of us shared testimonies, and I thought it was very moving and very powerful. We had sandwiches afterwards. I noticed that in Mexico they never have regular chips. It’s always two weird flavors mixed together, like cheese and spicy chili for Cheetos. There’s never any “original” and that kind of bothers me.
Thursday: Thursday is usually our fun day where we tour Monterrey and the surrounding area. We usually go to Cola de Caballo, which is a very beautiful waterfall up in the mountains. Also around this area is a hotel/restaurant that is right on the mountain, on a cliff almost, and has huge, beautiful windows and you can look out across the valley at the mountains. Unfortunately this year, the rain caused the road to be washed out, and we couldn’t go. Also we usually hit the markets, but the road was washed out there, too. We went to a nice mall in the morning, and spent the afternoon back at the hotel.
We went to the best restaurant in Mexico. It’s called, “Tinaja’s” in a suburb of Monterrey, close to the worksite. We like it because it has goat cheese!! You get to eat like a king! The first round is chips and salsa. Next, they bring out a plate with the best guacamole on it, and some flat, three or four inch diameter flat bread, I guess for dipping. Then you get some goat cheese. It comes out hot on a frying pan, with some hamburger meat on top. It’s delicous. Next is a bowl of the same frijole soup that we got at the worksite. And finally, corn and flour tortillas, and some of the best beef and onion fajitas ever. The meat is so tender and so full of flavor, it’s unbelievable. It’s one of those dire situations, where your body tells you you’re full, but your mouth just wants more and more. For desert, there is this little pecan/caramel/chocolate candy that you get and it’s pretty good.
We got our shirts that night. I think everybody really liked the design this year, although there weren’t enough smalls and mediums. That made me sad.
Friday: We left Monterrey at 5:00AM and had trouble at the border. We spend two and a half hours waiting on border security. The actual process of running us through and checking our stuff only took fifteen minutes, but it was waiting on the five charter buses full of people ahead of us that was a problem. We recommended an express lane for American citizens, although then you’d need an express lane for the people who really ARE American citizens out of those claiming to be citizens, and so on and so on. We got to San Antonio and walked around downtown. I found a used bookstore and found a copy of Michael Chrichton’s Timeline (a hardcover!) for only $4! I was ecstatic. We saw the Alamo, but everybody had already seen it and we went through very quickly. I always like to read the things and look at the actual buckshot, and the old belt buckles and knives and everything, but I was rushed through. I guess some can only take so much.
We walked around town and ate…actually, I can’t remember where we ate. I think people might have already been full because we didn’t eat breakfast until 11 or so from the border patrol mishap, and then consequently didn’t eat lunch until much later, so I guess we didn’t eat anything in San Antonio.
I got to meet up with my good friend Jon in SA as well. Every year we always try to meet up, and each year more and more people remember him! He was actually supposed to go this year with us, but it didn’t work out in the end. Ah well.
By this time in the trip, I’m really getting tired of filming. And I’m starting to not see the point in San Antonio. Our groups have split up, and now they have to sit through the DVD and watch what only WE did? I’m not too sure about that. But I still filmed anyways. But if I run into time constraints, that will probably be the first thing I cut. I did end up shooting nine hours, after all. That means I’ll only use one in nine minutes that I shot. Hmm.
Saturday: We moseyed around Saturday. Drove around and realized that the McDonald’s was only a few blocks away from our hotel (ooh, I forgot about the hotel), and we could have walked and saved our parking spot, but oh well. The hotel: In San Antonio we stayed in the Crowne Plaza. It was the nicest hotel I’ve ever been at, I think. Everything is new, and it seems like they really but much emphasis in sleeping. They have extra soft and extra nice beds. Five pillows on each bed. A VERY nice clock radio ($60) with a neato touchscreen and also with a “how to go to sleep” CD. It was all very nice.
Anyways, the rest of the morning we walked around the mall down by the Riverwalk, and it was nice, but I’ve seen it before. I enjoyed walking around with Jon; he was with us again. Then we decided to leave, and Jon abruptly said he ought to go as he turned a corner, so I said bye. We started the eight hours back to Lawton, and I didn’t feel like filming very much anymore (again). I decided that for the end of the video, it will just be a shot of us driving out of San Antonio, a clock-like transition sweep, and then we’re in Lawton. Easy enough.
We got in right at 8:00, unloaded and left. Back to the real world.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul. 27 2005 at 1:37 am by brian
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I'm back
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It was a good trip. We got a bit more rain than usual, but it was still fulfilling. Every time I go down there I always seem to fall in love with the country. It seems like everything is simpler, there’s more culture, and people just seem more content with themselves in general. Of course, I’m probably wrong. How would I know what people think without even speaking the language? Places always look better from a distance, but once you’re there, they’re not as great. Even so, I still want to try a learn a bit more Spanish than last year so I can talk a little bit more than “muoy bueno!”
I’m still trying to figure out what to do with all the pictures. All of them are a bit much for flickr (even resized), and I don’t have all that much space here on my site. Humm.
I started serious work on the video today, and it’s coming along nicely. I’ve actually loosely planned out the video, so hopefully it won’t be too hard. I just want to get it done, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 26 2005 at 9:01 pm by brian
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Flickr Updated
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Link. Check back often.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul. 20 2005 at 4:35 pm by brian
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What I don't like about Mexico
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Last night, I'm in the business center with my laptop. The AC is on, and there is this girl sitting next to me, and I'm wondering if she's getting cold. So I pull up my laptop to babelfish and translate "Are you cold?" into Spanish and show her my screen. She looks at it for a few seconds, looks at me, then nods. I go over to turn off the AC behind her, and she says, "You know, I speak English."
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul. 20 2005 at 4:34 pm by brian
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Here's where we crossed the border
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Google Maps link.
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Posted on Monday, Jul. 18 2005 at 11:41 pm by brian
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More Photos updated
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On Flickr.
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Posted on Sunday, Jul. 17 2005 at 11:54 pm by brian
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Made it to McAllen, Texas
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I guess I didn’t make a “goodbye” post. I suppose I got busy and forgot. Well, I’m on my annual mission trip to Mexico. We left at 6:00 this morning and I felt we made good time.
We didn't have a problem making it to McAllen, Texas today. We ran into a good amount of rain, and it looks like we’re going to hit the tail end of hurricane Emily on Wednesday. Hopefully we’ll have most of the work done by then (we should, it sounds like we’re just putting the finishing touches on the preaching school). We saw some real life illegals jumping fences just a few hundred yards from a border patrol checkpoint. That was pretty neat, but it happened so quickly I couldn’t get my camera out to capture the action.
We also crossed the border this evening to get our passports and visas taken care of. As usual, there were issues getting our vehicles and drivers registered, but Mark handled it like a pro. It seems we’re going to take a change of plans tomorrow. Instead of going to church in the morning, we’ll head out to go to Monterrey. That way we can get there and have enough time to go to Sunday evening services with our church down there. I like that idea.
I’ve mainly been video taping, so I haven’t taken very many pictures. I did take some, and uploaded them to my flickr account.
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Posted on Sunday, Jul. 17 2005 at 1:27 am by brian
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AOL Alerts
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I'm signed up for AOL Alerts on my phone to let me know of top news stories. Although, I really wonder how they choose their stories. Case in point: I received a notice that Chief Justice Rehnquist is not stepping down from the bench, but I didn't get anything on the London bombings. It always seems to do things like that.
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Posted on Friday, Jul. 15 2005 at 6:19 pm by brian
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Oh how painful
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Warning: another bad experience with a cellphone company ahead: We've been with AT&T Wireless (Cingular) for many years. Our contract has run out. Me, my sister, and my mom are all on a shared plan. My phone suffers from the horrible battery memory syndrome, where the longest it can hold a charge is for 20 minutes. So, it's time to upgrade. My parents get on the phone with them, and it's just painful to watch. They don't really know what they're talking about, or what they want or anything, so it's like listening to nails on a chalkboard. I would have been much more forceful. I would have said, "Now, tell me if this doesn't make sense. You give us three $50 phones for free. You're out $150. However, you get to keep us as a customer for the next two years, which gets you about $2000 at our current rates. But if you don't want to give us these phones, then we'll go to someone else who will. You've just lost a customer." What's so difficult about that? I'm bartering for my phones. But alas, my phone skills suck.
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Posted on Thursday, Jul. 14 2005 at 5:08 pm by brian
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Weird
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Okay, I'm doing this years Mexico video. I've read up on working with digital video, and it's been my own experience that you should "stripe" your tapes before using them. I probably will get some of this wrong, and those who know please correct me, but it is my understanding that the camera creates a timecode, that 00:00:00 you see at the top of the viewfinder on the tape. Ever notice how it doesn't always go from 0 to 60 minutes when you play back the tape? It might go up to 23 minutes (or any amount really), and all of the sudden, it resets back to 00:00:00. This is called "breaking the timecode." Well, when you're importing this video into your computer, these breaks in the time code can mess up the capture process, so you have to rewind a little bit and start it over again. This results in multiple copies of the same clip, and not good when space is a premimum (I'll probably have 10+ hours of video to look through after the week is through). So, I read of a process called "striping" the tapes, and all it is is rewinding the tape to the beginning, putting the lens cap on and hitting record and let the camera record an hour of nothing (well, except audio, I guess) to the tape. This is supposed to create one timecode that shouldn't be broken. I suppose I shall test it out and see.
Anyways, the weird part of it is that I have 8 tapes to stripe, and the past several tapes that I've looked on to check on the progress, the timer is always around the 26 or 27 minute mark. Isn't that weird?
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Posted on Thursday, Jul. 14 2005 at 2:18 pm by brian
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The "t" word
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Meanwhile, we can't even get the words straight.
Bomber, attacker, insurgent, militant - all are fine by the Beeb because they carry no "emotional or value judgments". And heaven forbid anyone get emotional about the deaths of at least 52 people in the London bombings last week.
I've noticed that lately the media is more in the media than the things they should be reporting on. I think I'll start just watching CSPAN.
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Posted on Thursday, Jul. 14 2005 at 1:14 pm by brian
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Hmm...What's important?
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I don't get the uproar over Karl Rove. If he did something wrong, then he should be punished. Let the guys that are figuring that out figure it out. Put an end to the media conjecture. But now isn't there a more important thing we should be talking about? Wasn't one of the largest cities in the world just bombed like, uh, a week ago? Shouldn't we be trying to find those guys? Where's the uproar over that?
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Posted on Thursday, Jul. 14 2005 at 1:08 pm by brian
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Mexico Mission Trip 2005
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Someone asked some questions about our mission trip, so I thought I’d answer them here.
Every summer we’ve taken a mission trip to a small suburb of Monterrey, Mexico. Usually it’s the 3rd week in July and my church is part of a three-church group that goes down there every year. Usually we average about 60-80 people (although I’m not 100% certain). We stay in a hotel in downtown Monterrey and travel to the worksite by van each morning. The trip is a week long. Usually we have a day going down there, three days at the worksite, a day for recreation (going to see the sites of Monterrey and the surrounding area), and then two days coming back. We usually spend the night in San Antonio on the way back, which works well for me because I have a good friend in San Antonio I like to see every now and then.
We’ve been working with a church down there for over four years now. The actually history has gone back further, since my youth minister has been working with this group since before he moved to our church. Since then we’ve helped complete their church.
Their church is an actual compound that covers about an acre, I think. It has a pavilion for worship. It’s got a doctor’s area that serves the local community, and also is home to a preaching school. There is also a small 2-story apartment designated as housing for the student preachers. Also on the compound is a small orchard with various fruit trees, a well that provides water for everything, and a soccer…erm, futbol…field. Keep in mind these buildings are made mostly out of cinder blocks and concrete, amazing stuff.
Also another little tidbit is that nothing will ever look finished. Almost every building you see will have re-bar sticking out of it. Why? Because the tax on unfinished buildings is lower than the tax on finished buildings. Hence, the building is never finished.
Mexico is always a treat for me. The trip provides a break away from the normalcies of life and truly provides for a different perspective. The first year I went to Mexico I was floored by the difference between our two countries. At the same time, I was greatly thankful. I must admit, the impact of that realization lessens each year, but it is still a strong, powerful reminder to me.
The next thing about working in Mexico is the chance to turn “talk” into “walk.” It’s finally a time to put our money where our mouth is, and do the action we often talk about doing in Sunday morning services. Simply put, it’s servitude. I’m taking time out from my job, my familiarities, sometimes my comforts (O dear Internet access, how I adore thee…), to serve. I must admit, however, it’s not like we’re doing Superman-esque work. It’s only three days out of a week. We’re there from about 7:30 in the morning to about 2:00 in the afternoon, when it starts getting hot. And, usually the majority of us aren’t very experienced in construction work, so we’re somewhat limited in that aspect as well. Probably the most strenuous activity is mixing concrete, putting it in buckets, and passing them up the line to the men working on the roof. Also, digging a DEEP hole can be pretty demanding, but people take turns and watch out for each other so it’s not too difficult. Water breaks are fairly often, of course. And there is almost always some people just wandering around, avoiding work at all costs. I guess that’s always the case wherever you go.
Even so, our Mexico Mission trip is an exciting experience. Perhaps the greatest things about the trip can be found by just a little reflection on the differences in our cultures and languages, yet we’re still one body under Christ.
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Posted on Monday, Jul. 11 2005 at 11:58 pm by brian
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Like that one Twilight Zone episode
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Does anyone ever wish they had an indefinite amount of time to devote to projects and just things they want to do? Because I know I do.
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Posted on Friday, Jul. 8 2005 at 12:58 am by brian
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Finished Shirt
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Maybe somebody wants to see the design. I rather like it:
Click for larger versions.
Front:
Back:
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Posted on Friday, Jul. 8 2005 at 1:00 am by brian
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Why are Iranian children vaccinated against smallpox?
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Very interesting.
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Posted on Monday, Jun. 27 2005 at 10:51 am by brian
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Mexico Mission Trip 2005 Shirt
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In the making. Click for larger version. Comments welcome.
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Posted on Monday, Jun. 27 2005 at 1:16 am by brian
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Still enjoying Flickr
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I think it's the user interface. It's really easy to use, and I like things that are easy to use. I've put up some pictures from my recent hiking adventure.
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Posted on Sunday, Jun. 26 2005 at 6:22 pm by brian
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Playing with flickr...
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I'm enjoying Flickr, the photo sharing website. You can see my photostream here. I'm divided if I want to use it for my main photo storage, instead of my onsite gallery (located here, and I just realized I never really made a "formal" link to it). Flickr is much easier to use and edit, but I can only put so much on there monthly, and the size is limited. Onsite pictures will stay there forever, but it's more difficult to upload, there's no commenting (actually there is but it is a pain), but I run into size limitations as well (only 50MB on this server, I believe). Decisions, decisions...
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Posted on Friday, Jun. 24 2005 at 1:07 am by brian
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I wonder...
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What if you could keep adding the "new skin" liquid bandage stuff so that you could create a new appendage? Like a sixth finger or something...that'd be strange.
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Posted on Thursday, Jun. 23 2005 at 1:15 am by brian
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Thought Provoking.
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Especially for me, since I'm on the lookout for an extra job this summer. Link.
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Posted on Monday, Jun. 13 2005 at 11:12 am by brian
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Last Month's Cereal of the Month
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I've got the pleasure to experience the latest from Cap'n Crunch...it's like a berry berry crunch that turns the milk blue. It's really good, and I like it...but when I drink the milk at the end, it makes me feel like I've just drank half a gallon of gasoline. It's like the concentrated sugar and color dyes sinking to the bottom of my stomach in a digestive process that mere mammals weren't meant to process.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 8 2005 at 1:22 am by brian
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This…is college
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Today was “Gold Rush” at Cameron. Verdict: informative.
We all got into the theatre in the morning for welcomes and skits. I think the same thought went through everyone’s mind when the first skit came on: “Omigosh, I’m still in high school.” So yeah, I suppose that not everyone becomes stoic and, as one put it, Ghandi-like, after high school. But no matter. I think the goofiness in skits is good, because it’s more memorable. That’s what they want…for us to remember the information. Good deal.
I enjoyed the strenuous walk through the campus. Lots of interesting stuff, and I think that no matter what college you go to, it’s exciting to see all the activities, stores and shops and such they have to offer students. It seems so much that you’d never get bored, but I’m sure that’s not the case. :) I know one thing is for sure though, I’m getting a good backpack and not using my trusty messenger back anymore. I like the messenger bag (man purse? European handbag?), but it gets too heavy and I’m sure I have back problems now. The only reason I used it was to get around the “no backpacks” rule at school. It’s not really a backpack, mkay?
I did enjoy the wireless internet access around campus. Very nice.
Enrolling is difficult. I think I’ll try to write some little web applet that can scan the current class listing, input your class preferences and find your best schedule with as little problems as possible. It’s not that hard to find classes at different times, it’s just that I seemed to run into the classes that ended 10 minutes before the next class. I don’t want high school again.
Dorm and their pricing is the most confusing thing ever. I spent all day musing over it and figuring up pricing. I think I have it figured out though. Basically, this is how it goes: You can get a dorm room or the new Cameron Villa (Village?) apartments/things. Now, regular dorm rooms are $551/semester. If you get a dorm room you MUST purchase a meal plan. The cheapest meal plan you can get is a 10 meals/week plan and it is $956. So, you add the two together and you get $1507. If you have scholarship that has room waiver, it is just that—a room waiver. You can take off the $551 but you still have to get the meal plan (unless you’ve got a meal plan scholarship too, I guess).
Now, the Cameron Village is pri$y. (I know that’s not how you spell ‘pricy’ but I had to get the meaning across. On second thought, maybe expen$ive would have been a better choice.) The apartments don’t require you to purchase a meal plan, but you have to purchase a $250 convience card that can be used at the various restaurants and stores across campus. So far, so good. However, the cost of the apartments is much greater. You have various lease periods (9 month and 12 month…but don’t be fooled into thinking the 12 month is cheaper—you have 3 more months to pay for!). I’ll just use the two bedroom, 9 month lease as an example. It is $525 per month per person. That’s one little fact they like to leave out. Each person has to pay the $525 (or whatever it is), not just $525 split among 2 or 4 people. That’s a little under $2000 per month per room. Not a bad little heist, if you ask me. I talked to one person and she said when you add it all up, not having to do a meal plan with the regular dorms and such, the apartments are about $750 more per semester, per student. Also, if you have a room waiver it waives just a normal dorm room. So if you decide to do the apartments, you only get $551 off, or pretty much your first monthly payment. So, let’s do some math, in search of the great dorm formula (dormula?).
Price of a Regular Dorm for two semesters
Room: $551 * 2 = $1102
Meal Plan $956 * 2 = $1912
Total: $3014
Price of the Villa…2 bedroom on a 9 month lease
Room: $525 * 9 = $4725
Conv. Card: $250 = $250
Total $4975
So my estimates are a bit off from what they told me…I’m getting a $1961 difference in price between regular dorms and apartments (they said $1500 for the year or $750 per semester). Divide our difference by 9 months, and you’re looking at a $217.89/month difference in pricing. $217 a month for much better accommodations. Is it worth it? It’s up to you.
I’m curious what the difference in pricing would be if you could share the cost of the apartment and not have each person paying some $500-odd bucks. Let’s say a two bedroom is a bit more expensive now, $600, but hey, all your utilities are paid for. A four person room is now $550.
Apartments IF you could share the price…2 people
Room: $300 * 9 $2700
Conv. Card: $250 $250
Total: $2950
Apartments IF you could share the price – 4 people
Room: $137.50 * 9 $1237.50
Conv. Card: $250 $250
Total: $1487.50
So if you could get four people together it’d be a really good deal. Everything would work out to about $165.28/month/person, plus your food and other expenses. Not too bad. I’ve got an email out to my cousin at OSU, to see if they charge everyone the same rate, or split the cost among the number of people living there. It’s late, I’m tired, and usually I’ll fact check a post like this, but tonight I’m not. Corrections welcome, I’m sure I’ll never hear the end of it in the morning. Hopefully Cameron won’t get too angry, either.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 8 2005 at 1:21 am by brian
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Thoughts about Graduation
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Well, I’m out. It doesn’t really feel any different. I don’t feel taller. Maybe it’s because the day after I graduated, I went back to school to help move some things. Dang it. I just can’t get away.
I’m sure it’ll hit me sooner or later. I’ll definitely know when I start the college life. I go to the store and all I can think about when I look at some unobtrusive object, such as a frying pan, and I think, “My gosh, I’ll have to buy this one day.” It’s a strange sense of excitement and fear.
There are people that I’ll miss, but those people will be the ones I’ll try to stay in touch with. Sitting in the graduation ceremony made me realize that graduation does have its plusses: I’ll get away from the idiots who want to talk during the ceremony itself. (I’m sure there are no idiots in the world after high school!...)
The last weeks go by as a blur, it’s exciting and scary at the same time. You’re ready to get out, but at the same time want to hold on to the things you’re familiar with, the people you’ve grown up with the past few years. It goes by fast, too. It’s like you’re sliding off an edge of a cliff…you can steady yourself, but you’re still going to fall off. And then you’re out.
Humm…I didn’t see Mr. Garner at the graduation. I thought he said he’d be there.
A word to people in the next years: Get your stuff in order. Start now working on scholarships, because if you wait until after Christmas, it's too late (you've only got a month...on top of your regular school work). Get your pictures taken early. Get classwork out of the way, beacuse senior week and all those activities really hurt your schedule (although teachers are usually nice in this reguard). Don't agree to do a senior slideshow and video the last week of school, because you'll end up staying up until 4AM getting it done. Oh, when you send out your graduation announcements, pick up a package of thank you cards. You'll probably get graduation cards at the rate of 2 or 3 a day, and write the thank yous the day you get them, that way you're not waiting to do them all at once, and it takes a full day (unless you like that sort of stuff). I wish I had thought of that before I got all my cards. Put all that money in the bank, too.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 8 2005 at 12:18 am by brian
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Senior Farewell DVD's
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I still have some Senior Farewell DVD's. $5. Contact me.
Now this doesn't sound very good coming after that, but...if you bought one and you have a problem with it, just let me know and I'll get you another one or give a full refund. I will say this though...if you can, try to clean out your DVD player. I've seen some DVD's not work in some players and work in others, just because of dust on the lens and such. But even so, and it doesn't work, you can still get a replacement or full refund.
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Posted on Monday, May. 30 2005 at 11:09 pm by brian
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I graduated with security
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Posted on Saturday, May. 28 2005 at 1:04 am by brian
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Wow...
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For some reason, I just don't see paying this much money for this.
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Posted on Wednesday, May. 18 2005 at 12:47 am by brian
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Man this is weird.
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Some Sculpture.
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Posted on Wednesday, May. 18 2005 at 12:29 am by brian
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Eek
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I forgot to renew my website. I got an email two days ago saying it was expiring today, so hopefully it won't go down the tube.
PS. PS's are so cool.
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Posted on Friday, Apr. 29 2005 at 12:21 am by brian
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error
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overload
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 25 2005 at 12:30 am by brian
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Market Analysis Oil Report
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I'm hijacking brianschettler.com for school purposes. We're going to use it as a hub to organize information.
Scanned papers: I scanned everyone's notes and put them online. You can view them here (note: I've noticed that this gallery engine I'm using sometimes has trouble. If you get a message saying "brianschettler.com could not be found" when clicking on the link above, try this link and then click on "oil report").
More info as it comes.
Update:
An early version of the report breakdown is online. See here (right click and "save target as..." to save document locally to your computer).
Update:
I'm constantly updating the report breakdown document (above) throughout the night. Constantly check back to see if it it's updated.
Update:
I've got what looks like it'll be final (I hope the power doesn't go out) PDF of the report outline here. I'd really like to put all the desks in a circle, print out several copies, and go over it, pointing out any errors and any other directions or areas we need to explore.
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 20 2005 at 11:38 pm by brian
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We have some news!
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For some reason, Fox News' headline, "WE HAVE A NEW POPE" did not settle well with me.
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 20 2005 at 1:01 am by brian
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Stupid Game
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Reflex. I've made it to level 15.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 18 2005 at 1:05 am by brian
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Focus!
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It's despairing to really be into a lesson or sermon, and all of the sudden the thought of what you have to do after this arrives in your head. You think of all the little things you have to get done, the school day ahead, the tests this week, the projects to get done. And it’s bothersome. That’s what I learned today…to focus on the good stuff and not the bad.
In other news, it sucks to have a laser printer die on you. Mine won’t turn on, but it’s not terrible because it’s one I salvaged from the garbage. It has served me well. I just don’t want to put down a fat wad of cash for another one.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 18 2005 at 12:31 am by brian
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Thoughts about Prom
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Prom was nicely decorated. I think the DJ could have been a more equal opportunity in regards to genres played. I suppose the rap/bump n’ grind/R&B stuff is what “gets everybody going” but I think everybody is already going pretty well. More country! Michael was awesome at the Powerpoint. Mrs. Pirtle is an excellent organizer. Koby and friends did a great job of decorating. Umm, my feet hurt after a while from standing, but that happens anywhere. I enjoyed the white and yellow cheese cubes best (as in, the cheese cubes that were both white and yellow), with the solid cheddar in second, and the white mozzarella did not fit my fancy.
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Posted on Sunday, Apr. 17 2005 at 2:28 am by brian
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Bankruptcy Bill, oh my!
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From Mr. Boortz: Just imagine this. If you make above the median income this horrible bill might actually require you to pay a few bucks a month to pay back the credit card companies you took money from. You have the goodies .. the big-screen televisions, the clothes, the jewelry, the cars .... the bling ... and now you want to stick the credit card company with the bill. Well aren't you special. The credit card companies are evil because they want you to abide by the terms of your contract with them, and you are pure because you want to bail out. Yeah ... makes sense to me. It's good to see some fiscal responsibility-centered policies out there.
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Posted on Friday, Apr. 15 2005 at 9:19 pm by brian
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Thoughts about Shoplifting
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Today was our band contest in OKC. Afterwards we visited the mall. As we were getting ready to leave, it came to our band director's attention (and somehow instantly to everyone thereafter), that someone was in big trouble. It turned out that two girls were caught shoplifting.
It was two people who you wouldn't suspect. Actually, I don't even know them, but they're mainly quiet, stick-to-yourself kinda people (or at least from what I've perceived). However, what intrigued me was the reaction from everyone else how stealing is so wrong, looking down on these girls, "they're idiots!"-kinda comments, etc. What intrigued me is that most of the people who said those kind of comments are the same sort of people that a) use every swearword under the sun religiously; b) brag about all the 'bad' stuff they did over the weekend with their girlfriend or at the party with all the beer; and c) for the most part have no respect for anyone besides themselves. So is it just that everyone is all talk and no walk (and should we be thankful for that?)? Is everyone completely preoccupied with their own gratification that it's okay to do stuff that's considered risque as long as it's not hurting someone else (like stealing)? Just some thoughts...
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Posted on Thursday, Apr. 14 2005 at 12:12 am by brian
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Excellent
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From Instapundit: Guess who dropped in to Kanadahar Air Field (KAF)? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Earlier he flew out to a Forward Operating Base, returned to KAF and then reenlisted 11 soldiers, gave a speech, did a question and answer session and then posed for photos with soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors.
...
One soldier asked the question on why America gets such a negative view of events here. Rumsfeld asked the soldier to repeat the question to make sure that he understood then smiled and laughed. He said "do you think I control the press?" That got a good laugh out of everybody; then he said if you look at any newspaper or TV news program all the headlines are negative. Negative headlines sell. He said with our (military) emails and letters that we send home, people in America will see the good that the military is accomplishing. Also Americans can sort through the news and see the truth. I totally agree with him.
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 13 2005 at 10:18 pm by brian
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Point
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Yesterday someone told me, "The worst mistake you can make is living day to day and not thinking ahead to the future. The future comes and you're not ready for it and get whipped in the process."
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 13 2005 at 12:17 am by brian
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Say it ain't so!
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So yes, you may have heard or seen the new wheels. I'm not in the large tan minivan you may be accustomed to seeing.
The reason? The van went from bad to worse. My dad and I had exhausted our options. We replaced fuel pumps, oxygen sensors and everything in between. It suffered from the sporadic loss of power. It'd be running seemingly fine, and all of the sudden it'd be like the engine was barely turning over. It was especially notorious for doing this when pulling out into traffic...which is never a good thing. All in all, we decided we were in the domain of diminishing returns...it was not wise to invest in a $190 fuel pump when the vehicle's trade-in value was less than that.
So, after some looking and a great deal of luck, we found another vehicle, a 2002 Chevy Cavalier with 51000 miles and a good set of features. It's a nice dark blue, the paint job could be better in some places (the hood has quite a few very small dings, as if the car was on gravel often), and two plum sized dents on the passenger side. I'm spoiled with wonderful features such as a CD player (amazing!), power windows (ooh! ahh!), power locks (neato!), and the most amazing of all...REMOTE KEYLESS ENTRY! How have I ever lived without it? It also has some things that are nice but could live without, such as aluminum alloy wheels and a little spoiler on the back. It may sound like I'm supremely excited and taken with this new vehicle, but make no mistake about it, I am not. My heart will always lie with the minivan.
Even so, I'm amazed at how quickly I can adapt. After having the car for only a few days, I feel almost right at home with it. I thought I would never be able to get used to driving so low to the ground, but all in all it's not that bad and I'm quite used to it already. I'm still having problems knowing where my front and rear bumpers are (it's quite different than the van), but that will come in time. Most of all, I'm excited at the gas milage, which, computed for the first time today, was a tree-hugging 26.6 miles to the gallon. I was estatic when I filled up half a tank today...normally a $20 investment...for $12. It sure helps a poor high school student such as myself.
And now some questions:
What happened to the van? Did you sell it?
The van still sits in the driveway. The trade-in value for a FAIR condition van (i.e., running) was only $190, so we decided to not bother with it. Right now my dad and I will try to fix it up for my sister when she becomes of age. I'm not sure how that will go.
Will you redo your website and all your shirts and everything?
No. The minivan is/will always be special to me, and in effect it's become part of my identity. The van is still mine, and I don't feel like I've parted with it. It's just that I now have a slighty more reliable mode of transportation. That's all the Cavalier is...a mode of transportation.
If anyone's interested, I'll post some pictures as soon as I get the chance.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 11 2005 at 11:36 pm by brian
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The reason behind gas prices
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The reason gas prices won't go down soon: if they did, people would go crazy. They'd fill up their cars, and when their cars were full, they'd buy jugs and fill them up, too. They'll fill up spare milk bottles and probably bath in gasonline, if it was cheep. They'd pour gas all over them at the pump, letting the gas run down their hair and into their nostrials because they'd be so happy. This would harmful.
I seem to recall this post as well. The agony. The agony.
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr. 5 2005 at 12:55 am by brian
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NO MORE RED INK
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Red ink is too 'stressful' they say, so let's stop using it. After much meditation on the subject, they're right. Stop signs are too stressful, so let's make them blue or pink or even better, let's not have them at all! And those stoplights, too! They flash...and that's distracting.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 4 2005 at 10:33 pm by brian
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My computer needs your help
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I've decided that I'm going to take my computer to the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. I want them to say my computer is alive. I just know it is. It blinks and makes little sounds and sometimes things come up on the screen on its own. But there are some people that say my computer isn't alive; it's just a collection of parts that are designed to do something but will never do something on its own. Save my computer!!
EDIT:
I should say I go back and forth on this matter. My original post was in an (uneccessary) humor, but it was intended to look at the subject from a different angle. Maynard brings up some very good points, ones that I would miss since I am neither a spouse nor a parent.
I think that if you suppose that Terri _DID_ in fact tell Micheal that she didn't want to be kept alive by artificial means, and then you look at:
1) Micheal spent nearly all of the insurance settlement on experimental treatments to revive her.
2) Micheal could have walked away with his reputation intact and millions in his pocket, he could have let the parents take care of her, he could have done all that for himself, and yet he is still trying to carry out his wife's wishes.
Yeah, his parents will say bad things about them. What else do you expect from someone who is trying to prevent someone from ending the life of their daughter?
If you take that premise, then the question becomes: should each person have the right to decide if they want to die or not under certain circumstances?. Euthanasia? Suicide? Maybe, but what if the costs of you living are worse than the costs of you dying? How many lives will be destroyed on the false hope that you may suddenly get better? (e.g., money is spent for hospital care, that money can't go to other children for college, etc, people go more into debt, those people lash out and destroy federal buildings or shoot students in school, etc etc, the snowball keeps rolling). That may seem farfetched, but consider this: had Terri died ten years ago when this all started happening, her parents would have moved on by now. It would still be painful, but they'd be on with their lives.
NOW, if Terri DIDN'T say that she didn't want to be kept alive by artificial means, then we should error on the side of life. But if someone makes that decision to allow his or her life to be ended for the sake of others, then that is their decision and should be respected.
Also note, this is all hypothetical. I think the evidence points to the fact that Terri did say what Micheal says she says. However, there's no proof, so error on the side of life.
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Posted on Saturday, Mar. 26 2005 at 1:52 am by brian
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Terri Shiavo
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If you shot and killed Terri Shiavo, could you be prosecuted? It's being argued that she's brain dead, yet she's still "alive." But her feeding tube is removed, so that is, in effect, killing her.
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Posted on Monday, Mar. 21 2005 at 8:37 pm by brian
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Just to let everyone know
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I hurt my foot the other day. But it's better now.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 11 2005 at 12:49 am by brian
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A quick update
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Things are pretty busy again, but I'll share my latest projects.
I'm redoing a website for Springboard , a large youth rally my church is putting on in a month. My work so far is here.
There is also much work to be done to MacArthur's webpage, currently located here. That's the design I did last year, however right now I'm working on a "feature" I suppose (can't really think of the word for it right now) that will allow the librarians to create a schedule for who has reserved what spots and what equipment in the library for a certain day. I've done projects somewhat similar, although this project has the potential to get really complicated, really quick. I want to spend as much time as I can on this, including time at home, but other (paying) projects and homework/work load dictate how much time I can spend on it. I like it though, because I'm getting to know classes a little better (PHP classes, not 1st, 2nd or 3rd hour classes).
"Winning the Future" by Newt Gingrinch is pretty interesting, although it doesn't really present both sides of the story as well as I'd like it to. Ah well.
I started another book today called "Sophie's World." It's a novel about the history of philiosophy, and I'm reading it a chapter at a time and discussing it with a friend. I think when you're in the "philosophy" mode, things tend to get really deep, really quick.
I bought a book of anatomy for artists off amazon's new and used section (not a bad book for $13), and I'm trying to spend a little bit each day sketching out of it, learning how the body works and is composed. If you ever want to really learn how something works, draw it.
I'm sure there is more, I just can't think of it right now.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 4 2005 at 1:08 am by brian
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My Own Modest Proposal.
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Okay, so we have idiots like this who commit violent crimes with the reasoning that they can get away with it because they’re minors. The Supreme Court agrees. The Supreme Court decided that they will no longer rule on what is or isn’t Constitutional, they’ll rule on what meets a “national consensus” and an “international opinion” instead. Well, since most of the rest of the world is against the death penalty, I’m sure we’re about to illegalize that as well.
The death penalty: It does seem somewhat odd that the crime and punish both end up in the same thing – someone dead. I agree that people need to pay for their crimes, although I’m not sure if the death penalty is the best system that makes people pay. There are a lot of crazies out there with no real wish to live, so their line of thinking is, “Why not cause some ruckus before I die?” Let’s get some harsher punishments. But harsher punishments cost lots of money. Our prisons are already full. The taxpayers pay for someone to live their entire life complete with daily exercise routines and a meal three times a day? Wow, sign me up.
So here is my modest proposal. Let’s deport them. Let’s make a trade…we can deport these people to other countries in return for goods or a reduction in their debt to us, if they have one. They can do to them whatever they like—that is outside our jurisdiction, so it wouldn’t be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Now our society is better off, bad people are off the streets, there's an incentive to not entice violence because some of your body parts may end up on Osama's mantle, and we’re no longer paying for them to live a carefree life for the next 78 years.
In other news, I need an oil change for my van.
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Posted on Wednesday, Mar. 2 2005 at 6:26 pm by brian
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The Rift
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What do you get when you combine the right and the left? A rift.
That’s what I see today. I see tons of pandering to each side and no real confrontation. This is like a grown-up version of a high school football game. We have two sides, neither likes the other, and each spends more time talking about how bad the other side is instead of how good their own side is. What nonsense! Don’t they realize this sort of bicker turns people off to politics?
I think I’ll start a political blog called, “Donut Politics — where’s the center?” Perhaps I could write stories about certain issues, and people vote on the “position” of the article. Is it too far right? Is it too far left? What changes could be made to be more in equilibrium? What are some issues that will never be agreed upon?
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Posted on Wednesday, Mar. 2 2005 at 12:53 am by Brian
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Word of the Day
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Teetotalism.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 27 2005 at 6:34 pm by brian
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Books I'm reading
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-just finished "I kissed dating goodbye" by Joshua Harris. Yes! I am kissing dating goodbye! Not quite, it's actually a good book about dating from the Christian perspective and gives you much to think about.
-Winning the Future, by Newt Gingrinch. Lots of interesting thoughts
about political topics - America, the world, and how we can...win.
Lots of interesting ideas, and I like to say, "that'll never work" to
a few things.
-My english teacher let me on to a Japenese author called Haruki
Murakami. He's a bit author in Japan and some of his books are just
being translated. Right now I'm reading this book that's just sort of
excerpts from his writings. He has a strange writing style, it's
almost like Seinfield, at least that is what my teacher explained to
me. You'll read for 200 pages and not really know what you just read
exactly or how it pertains to the plot, but it was the most gosh
darned interesting stuff you've ever read. And in the end, he wraps
everything together in a wonderful epiphany. Some of his books are "A
Wild Sheep Chase" and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." My teacher also
let me know about a book called "Naoko" by Keigo Higashino. The
premise of this book that a wife and her daughter are going on a trip
and the husband offers to drive them. They decline and take a bus. So,
of course, he's sitting at home alone and newsflash! There has been a
bus accident! They report that there are no survivors. The husband
checks and sure enough, it is his wife's and daughter's bus that has
crashed. A little later they come back on the news and say that one
person has been pulled from the wreck, it's his wife. Soon thereafter
the rescuers realize that it was really two people they pulled from
the wreck, the wife was clutching on to the daughter so tightly that
they didn't even realize she was under her. The husband goes to the
hospital. The wife has massive injuries and isn't expected to live
very long, and the daughter is in a coma. The husband wheels the beds
close to each other, so the mother can hold her daughters hand.
Shortly there after, she dies. The husband returns home, and a few
weeks pass before the hospital calls with the great news that the
daughter has come out of a coma. However, somehow, the mind of the
wife is now inside the daugther. She knows everything about their
relationship, when they met, everything. This is the first 20 pages of
the book.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 27 2005 at 6:33 pm by brian
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Hello, band people
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Yes, if you weren't paying attention, towards the end of band today, Mr. Hatch made an excellent plug for my website. I'm excited. So many more visitors! Well, you'll be happy to know that the topics in question are a few months old, and they'll still be on the main page since I haven't had the time to make regular updates in forever. I blame it on RealLife™, and plus, my keyboard is a little broken right now (space bar keeps sticking! but worry not, another is on the way).
Honestly however, this site has been in my thoughts often lately, and I'm really pushing to start updating more. It's just taking a while to get my ducks in a row. College/Work/2 AP courses/everything else.
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Posted on Tuesday, Feb. 22 2005 at 4:26 pm by Brian
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An Update
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Honestly, I didn't put "make daily updates to my website" on my New Year's resolution list. I think it's partly beacuse when I write here, I try to write in the mindset that no one will read it. I know it's dangerous, but it's a way to get a raw, unfiltered image of me. Unfortuntely, it also gives me a "if no one reads it, why post it?" complex. Thankfully, those with dietary resolutions will be thankful to know that brianschettler.com still has less carbs.
So what's new in 2005? Mainly just lots of work. I've been operating at maximum capacity, working other people's computers. Always much fun. I'm trying to work on a few projects. I changed up my room some. The van still runs. Classes need to be passed. College applications need to be completed. Fun times.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jan. 12 2005 at 12:19 am by Brian
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Resurrection!
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THE VAN LIVES!!!
...$224 later.
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec. 14 2004 at 12:34 am by Brian
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What makes it bad
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What really makes you not want to get up and go to school is when your first class is the one you don't like the most. For me, it's band. I usually like band but this year it's not very fun. It's not very fun when our director has to yell at (part of) the drum section every day for not playing their parts. Grr.
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Posted on Friday, Dec. 10 2004 at 1:53 am by Brian
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Augh
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The van is dead for the moment. I went to start it Saturday and it did not rumble to life. Dad and I have been working on it since then, and we're running out of things that we can test to see what's wrong. I'm fearing that it may be time to...sell...it. And really, this makes me sad.
As much sense it makes logically to sell it and get another vehicle, it's almost a test of endurance. I'd really like to see how it compares between getting a new(er) car often, or just sticking with what you have and repairing it yourself when things go awry. This has its downturns of course.
1) You need to know how to repair it
2) Insurance costs are low (since it's old), but if somebody hits you it totals your car
3) The Reliability factor -- may not want to go on long trips
4) No new car smell
But if it's a van, it shouldn't matter. Vans are just so awesome. I need to put some pictures up.
:*(
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec. 8 2004 at 12:40 am by Brian
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Update
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I think I brushed my teeth four times today.
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 2 2004 at 1:01 am by Brian
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What I've been working on...
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My dad asked me to make some signs for the laundrymat.
I'm also busy developing a complete back end for our school's website. I don't foresee any future computer geeks to take over my job, so I'll create a web-based system where the librarian herself can log on and update the website herself. It's similar to what I've done before with my site, but I'm designing it from the ground up and not taking any shortcuts. It's difficult, not because the task itself is hard, but because I can't work a solid block of 15 minutes before I'm called to fix something. Aurgh.
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Posted on Monday, Nov. 22 2004 at 11:45 pm by Brian
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AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH
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My internet is down.
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 17 2004 at 12:11 pm by Brian
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Thought
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What do you do with the bookmark after you finish the book?
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov. 16 2004 at 12:42 am by Brian
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Yogiisms
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Interesting.
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Posted on Saturday, Nov. 13 2004 at 6:24 pm by Brian
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Freedom!
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Never shall I see another toothpick again.
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Posted on Friday, Nov. 12 2004 at 1:34 am by brian
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Urgh...?!
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Why is it that as soon as you get a big project out of the way, other stuff just starts popping up? It's like it never ends!
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Posted on Monday, Nov. 8 2004 at 5:51 pm by Brian
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Ugh…I’m sad
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Today at church one of our families left. I was really disappointed because I know these people and they’re really great people. The dad was our songleader and always did a superb job. I just feel bad because a few weeks ago I thought of mailing a card to the dad, saying how much I appreciated his sacrifice to lead songs each Sunday, however I never mailed the card and forgot about it. And now they’re gone. The thought remains, if I had sent the card, would they still be here?
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Posted on Monday, Nov. 8 2004 at 12:11 am by Brian
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Thoughts Post Election
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Well, I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad the squeaky wheels have realized that this is what America wants; the majority of people have spoken. We want to stand strong in the face of terrorism and not give in to appeasement. *cough* Chamberlain. Nazi Germany. Munich Aggreement *cough*.
I think we need to stop the bitter partisanship. Let’s take an attitude of finding a common ground, not dividing the ground we have. Be nice…spread the word. We can start by saying good things about people, no matter how much we disagree with them.
John Kerry: He’s a good speaker.
Brad Carson: He’s a blogger. He has a website. Cool.
MoveOn.org: They’re amazing at mobilizing people. They get the word out. They raise awareness. Almost every time I turned around there was another convention. We need a system like this to help people more actively participate in government, supporting issues and candidates and the like.
TheWebsiteThatWillNotBeNamed: There’s a website I visit for news. It’s a fantastic website and has a ton of interesting, off-the-wall stuff, but it’s very liberal. They’re ads are not very pleasing either (I have a plugin installed on my browser that will block these ads). For these reasons I won’t link to them from my website — I want to keep my site family-safe. Anyways, I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with this website’s attitude up to and right after the election. It’s very anti-Bush. Any story that had anything remotely to do with Bush was filled with knee-jerk Bush-is-evil commentary. After the election, they proclaimed, “half of American voters are just **** stupid.” (My response: Actually a little less than half voted for Kerry…hehe). As much as I disagree with that kind of stuff, I must say they do a good job of catching all the little info that floats around and putting it one place. They keep their site more up-to-date than I do.
Butch Hooper: I saw a little chapstick bottle that was from Butch Hooper. That must be pretty cool to have your own chapstick.
Also interesting, I saw…”Mona Lisa Smile.” Augh, yes, I know…chick flick. But it has some very interesting points, and even more interesting in this point in time in our country. The issues of liberal vs. conservative, where we’re heading as a nation, moral relativism, and many more. I jotted down some thoughts I’d like to fully form later on, and perhaps I’ll get it to soon enough. My schedule should be clearing up soon. Today was All-Region tryouts (didn’t play the best I could but still made it, hooray!) and the only thing on my plate at the moment is the toothpick bridge for physics (which is about 65% done). As long as no teacher announces some big project on Monday I’ll be fine. If they do, someone will PAY.
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Posted on Saturday, Nov. 6 2004 at 11:46 pm by brian
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Thoughts about the election…
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Well, I wanted to do a full write up of people and the SQ’s going around, but I just don’t have the time. So, I’ll go through some I know of off the top of my head and my feelings towards them.
Lottery 705 & 706 –
I like the idea of a lottery funding education. I have two problems with it though. 1) My dad pointed out to me that it says that “35% of the NET returns will go towards education.” I would like that much better if it said “35% of the GROSS returns will go towards education.” They could decide that everyone working in the lottery can get a new car, and that would take out of the net return for schools.
I’m also not very inclined to the social problems it could create. Things like chronic gambling and such. If it’s for a good cause however… ?
Because of the net/gross thing, I’m voting against it. I think it will still pass though. And if it does, it may be tempting to not get a ticket (yeah, you read that right).
I’m not really sure what you call this one, it’s like taxes and stuff 707 –
Here. It helps taxes be allocated and such. I’m voting for it. I don’t think it’ll pass though, since it has that “taxes and fees” language that scares you. Taxes are boring too, let’s talk about fantastic issues like GAY MARRIAGE and issues that get big news time.
Rainy Day Fund Thing 708 –
This limits how the rainy day fund can be used. It helps restrict it so we can’t RUN IT DRY. I’m voting yes.
Marriage 711–
Good gosh yes I am voting for this. Marriage needs to be between a man and a woman. Gay marriage is such a small percentage of the population it’s staggering. The majority of gays don’t want to get married anyway. See Norway or where ever it is they’ve accepted gay marriage…most gays don’t get married, but the kids out of wedlock (from gays?? I know) is up to like 80%. Most gays don’t want to get married; they just want this approval of their lifestyle. I hope they get a resounding “no.”
State/Tribal gaming act 712 –
I’m kinda tied on this one. They say, “It’ll go towards education!” Awesome. It’ll probably be passed, then. My understanding is it allows owners to install gambling machines at racetracks and it helps boost the racetrack’s returns. I know Sarah would kill me if I voted yes for anything related to horse racing. You gotta love this, though: “The State would use these proceeds for educational purposes and compulsive gambling programs.” Let’s enact the problem and the solution to the problem all in one, shall we?
I’m not sure if this will pass. Perhaps. There seem to have been a lot of horseracing movies lately. Seabiscuit and….there’s another one that comes to mind but the name escapes me.
Smoking tax 713–
This is a toughie. My girlfriend’s dad smokes, so if he reads this and I’m the wrong way, I’m toast. It seems like it’s a tax on cigarettes that helps pay for cancer centers and help centers for problems associated with smoking. That’s good and all. The problem comes with this question: does a higher tax discourage more people from smoking than it hurts from increased prices? Because while I’m all for people to quit smoking, I don’t think it’s good to tax them into the ground. Also, higher taxes encourages people to go elsewhere. I know if I had to pay a 15% tax on all computer parts I bought in Oklahoma, I’d be going to Texas or just buying them over the internet. Tough questions. I probably will vote no. I’m not sure if it’ll be passed or not. I assume a lot of people would look at this and go, “Ugh! Smoking bad! Me vote smoking tax increase! Me make less people smoke! Me good for amerika!” Unfortunately it’s not that straight-cut.
Property tax exemption 714 & 715 –
This exempts some veterans and elderly from property taxes. I think it’s good. they’ve served our country. Elderly have been around for a while, living in Oklahoma, paying taxes. It’s good to give them a break. I’m voting yes.
I wonder about just the initial reactions people get to certain issues, as described in the smoking SQ. If Bush loses, I have a feeling this might be the cause. Look at the news. They’re preparing for MASSIVE loads of people to vote. This in itself is a great thing. People participating in democracy. Awesome. But I wonder about the motives behind it.
Lots of people means there’s more uninformed people. I have the feeling that loads of the younger demographic will turn out for the election tomorrow. And I have the feeling a lot of the 18-30 year olds have this mindset:
- War = Bad
- Iraq = War
- George W. Bush = Iraq
- George W. Bush = Bad
And that is the sole reason they’re voting. They’re not voting FOR Kerry, they’re voting against Bush. And that’s dangerous in my opinion.
My opinion: war is good if it’s to prevent a greater evil. I’d much rather fight Hitler over there than wait till he gets over here. If I had a neighbor that was crazy and I saw him build bombs in his back yard and throw his wife and kids off the roof of his house, I would rather act pre-emptively and call the police than I would wait until he decides to come to my house and harm me and my family. I would rather spray the wasp’s nest than let it get so big that I get stung every time I walk outside.
Saddam didn’t have WMD’s. Big deal. Was he still not a bad guy? Let’s get it straight…when you kill MILLIONS of your own people, you are a bad man. I don’t give a flip about how you had a horrible childhood, I don’t give a flip how you’re from an oppressed religion, yadda yadda. You’re a problem to society and we need to deal with you. Saddam aided terrorists. If left unchecked, a Saddam Hussein Iraq would have developed into another Afghanistan, a breeding ground for terrorists. Attack the nest before you get stung.
What I find truly scary is that I don’t see a scenario far off into the future where we have people that argue on the side of terrorists. “It’s because he’s Muslim and Muslims are oppressed by the Judeo-Christian religion! He has a bad childhood! It’s not his fault. Osama bin Laden isn’t bad. It’s society’s fault on him. It’s McDonald’s fault his coffee was too hot and he spilled it on himself and he killed a pregnant mother in frustration.” Is there such a thing as treason anymore in this country?
Augh. I feel better getting that off my chest.
President George W. Bush – Voting for him. Sarah says she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to switch leaders at this time in our country. I agree. Bush has made some mistakes, granted. But I don’t see Kerry as any better. Free health care for everyone, yet we’re going to have less taxes and cut the federal deficit in half in 4 years? Wow, I guess I don’t have to put my teeth under the pillow at night because the Kerry Fairy will take care of me!
Dr. Tom Coburn – The main reason is I’d have to say Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family endorses him. I admire that. Dr. Dobson is fervent fighter for Christians and God in the public arena. I agree with him that the family is the basic unit of society and the quality of the family dictates the quality of the society. Back to Dr. Coburn, he answered the call to run for representative. I read about his background: he’s a doctor who became a representative, then a doctor again. Now he’s answering the call. I admire that. Politicians for life scare me. I think they can become too detached from the people they represent.
Plus, I think Brad Carson spreads too much FUD. I don’t think I’ve heard him say anything on what he would do, just want Tom Coburn does and how terrible it is. Let’s not play the word twisting game.
Ann Coody – This shows I’m not just a die hard Republican. Yeah I know, she’s running as a Republican, but she was recently a Democrat who switched, just to make it easier for her to get into the election. If she was a Dem she’d have to run in the primaries whereas the Republican side is unopposed. I heard Mrs. Coody speak at the Dr. Coburn Quasi-Rally. She has strong morals and convictions. She’s also been a big part of the school system and I think she’d be good for it.
I can’t think of any others at the moment. Barrington and Easton, I heard them speak and they seem pretty good guys. I don’t think I’m in they’re district, though. I suppose if they’re on the ballet tomorrow I’ll be surprised and go, “All right! I’m voting for them!”
Umm...yeah, all this was off the top of my head. ;)
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Posted on Monday, Nov. 1 2004 at 8:41 pm by Brian
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What I'm reading
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I just love lists. Here's what I'm reading right now:
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
- Deliver Us from Evil by Sean Hannity
- The Visual Investor by John J. Murphy
- Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren (second time reading it)
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury by...Ray Bradbury!
It's a lot of reading but it's all very interesting. Mere Christianity is good, but difficult to read through. I'm in a Bible/Mere Christianity Study that meets once a week and that is our subject matter. It's a really good study. Sometimes it's good just to sit at the feet of the elder members of the church and just absorb.
Deliver Us from Evil by Sean Hannity is pretty interesting as well. I gotta be careful though, or I may start hating liberals.
The Visual Investor is for Market Analysis. It provides a lot of information about charting and everything financial/stock market related. Mr. Truex, my Market Analysis teacher, said it was pretty dry reading, but so far I don't think it's that bad. It doesn't grab you and shake you, but it's not like reading some of the 17th century stuff we read in English class.
Purpose Driven Life is always good reading. Everyone should read it at least several times a year.
Stories of Ray Bradbury are good, but I've only read a few.
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Posted on Saturday, Oct. 30 2004 at 8:17 pm by Brian
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Thanks
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Thanks to all that voted me "Most Talented" for the MacArthur yearbook awards thing [I guess that's what it's called? I don't really know. :(]. I'm not perfect, though. Here's a list of some of the things I'm not very talented at:
- Cooking
- Tennis
- Holding my temper at underclassmen drummers
- Holding my temper at overclassman band directors
- Toothpick bridges (they always break)
- Buying the right stocks at the right time in Market Analysis
- Listening for important announcements at school that would inform me I need to take the PSAT test in order to obtain scholarships
- Not doodling on any and all papers
- Keeping personal websites up-to-date
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Posted on Saturday, Oct. 30 2004 at 6:57 pm by Brian
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State Questions
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I plan on writing up a summary of the State Questions of the upcoming election and my stances on them. Look for it hopefully this weekend.
(By the way, I wish for another visit from the toothpick bridge fairy.)
...haha.
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Posted on Friday, Oct. 29 2004 at 1:04 am by Brian
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Petals around the Rose
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Mr. Truex told me the secret to petals around the rose. Argh -- I am distraught.
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Posted on Friday, Oct. 29 2004 at 1:01 am by Brian
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WifeSwap
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I find it interesting that so far, there's not any families with teenagers. They use mostly families with younger kids. I suppose it's because that you could swap the mom of a teen and they'd barely notice, they're so far removed from interacting with they're family anyway.
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Posted on Friday, Oct. 29 2004 at 1:00 am by Brian
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Red Sox Win
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I don't care. No riots, please.
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Posted on Thursday, Oct. 28 2004 at 12:40 am by Brian
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Wow, this is cool.
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Everybody knows of ASCII Art, but few are the masters of Domino Art!
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct. 27 2004 at 6:49 pm by Brian
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I met an undecided voter today
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Amazing, isn't it? Considering they're so rare...if the polls are accurate, only 4 in 100 are undecided. Wow. I did the best I could to convince him which way was the right way to go. ;) Not in a domineering way, I just told him the way I see the facts and problems on both sides. I report, you decide. No one should be told which way to go.
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct. 27 2004 at 12:59 am by Brian
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The...."Rally"
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Words are deceiving. In the newspaper it said there was a Tom Coburn rally with Dr. Dobson to speak as well. Maybe I misguided myself, when I heard "rally" I thought of the images of everyone is jumping around waving signs and flags in support for their candidate. Nope, that's not the Lawton way. It was like a band concert, everyone came in and sat down. Then we found out Dr. Coburn and Dr. Dobson couldn't make it because their plane was grounded in OKC due to weather! Ah! So, doing the best they could, they got the two men on the phone and patched it through the sound system. It wasn't anything really new; it was the same stuff I've heard before. If anything it makes me, and hopefully others, more aware of the dangers facing traditional marriage today in America.
Although! On the way home I saw a fire engine that was wrecked and got a few pictures in the gallery here.
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Posted on Sunday, Oct. 24 2004 at 6:03 pm by brian
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I'm going to a Tom Coburn Rally!
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Yippee! I'll blog about it when I get back.
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Posted on Friday, Oct. 22 2004 at 12:28 pm by Brian
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That's some spicy tacos!
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You gotta love translations.
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Posted on Friday, Oct. 15 2004 at 4:16 pm by Brian
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What's on my plate
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So much of my energy has been poured into the drumline in recent weeks. It's really difficult getting people that aren't the best players to play music that is pretty challenging, then march to it. It's also difficult to do that in a week! We got our music for our closer about a week and a half ago, and contest is two weeks away. Our closer has a drum feature, which is fairly difficult and some people are still struggling with it.
My van has been sick. One Friday it wouldn't start, and found it it was the fuel pump, so that weekend Dad, my friend Brandon and I replaced it. It's so fun to siphon a full tank of gas and drop the gas tank. Yippee!
I ALSO BOUGHT NEW WINDSHIELD WIPER BLADES AND THE DIFFERENCE IS AMAZING! Unfortunately it's not raining anymore.
Does anyone want to fill out college applications for me? How about building a toothpick bridge? Uhh.
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Posted on Tuesday, Oct. 12 2004 at 10:37 am by Brian
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Good gosh this is cool!
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Check it out. Shockwave required.
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Posted on Monday, Oct. 11 2004 at 8:26 pm by Brian
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Wow
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Sparknotes does math, too. Cool.
On an unrelated note, Congrats to Michael for *almost* getting elected to chair or co-chair of the External Affairs Comittee for Student Council. I voted for you dude!
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Posted on Thursday, Sep. 23 2004 at 12:14 am by Brian
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Holy Crap this is hard
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Play Petals around the Rose. The name of the game is important. The computer will roll five dice and ask you to guess the score for the roll. The score will always be zero or an even number. Your mission is to work out how the computer calculates the score and become a Potentate of the Rose. Man, this is tough! But I'm going to figure it out. :):) And don't forget to read the story on how Bill Gates did it.
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Posted on Monday, Sep. 20 2004 at 6:45 pm by Brian
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OSU Experience Pictures
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Saturday I visited the OSU Stillwater campus for OSU Experience!, a little program for seniors. I enjoyed it much and took many pictures, which you can see here. I was really quite taken with the campus. And marching bands rock!
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Posted on Sunday, Sep. 19 2004 at 12:38 am by Brian
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Makes you dizzy...
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Check out these optical illusions.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep. 7 2004 at 9:38 pm by brian
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Ah
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I shot some flowers today. Enjoy.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep. 7 2004 at 12:46 am by Brian
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Excellent Bill O'Reilly Article
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I love the way O'Reilly is able to crystalize the current political landscape.
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Posted on Saturday, Sep. 4 2004 at 12:14 pm by brian
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61 days...
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It's sixty-one (61) days until the election. If you haven't registered to vote, you should. Remember, the last day to register to vote is 24 days before ANY election. And if you're going to register Democrat, don't even bother registering. (It's a joke! It really doesn't matter what you register, just go out and exersize that right!)
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Posted on Thursday, Sep. 2 2004 at 8:38 pm by Brian
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Good Gosh that's expensive...
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This game boy advanced cable is $1,149,998.99!
(yes it is a typo.)
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Posted on Thursday, Sep. 2 2004 at 5:03 pm by brian
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The conspiracy theorist within me...
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I was thinking the other day about this whole Chancery online attendance and grade system. It's a system that all the teachers are on in the Lawton school district. It's a web-based manager of attendance and grades, among other things that is required for teachers to use. This forces everyone into the same grading scale (93-100 is an A, whereas some teachers made their scales 90-100). It also automatically tallies inelgibility, so if you're in a class where you only take 4 tests a year, you could be ineligible for 4 weeks. But wait, there's more! This system should be a year from being deployed, but it's in place now with a TON of bugs. There are people that are in two classes at once. There are people that are supposed to be no where according to Chancery. Most teachers can't even login to the system from their computers to take attendence or enter grades.
So why all the problems? Why implement this year instead of waiting until everything is worked out? I wonder....I wonder if it has something to do with the No Child Left Behind Act. The school can now instantly figure who is behind, and they can keep a closer watch on fudging grades and things like that. I just can't see why the school system would do something like this. Most schools abhor the No Child Left Behind Act, because it's extremely difficult to comply with it. 98% of your school could have all A's, but if you have a very small group of a nationality or other demographic that are no excelling, your entire school is put on a failing list, which lessens the amount of funding it receives and also sends letters to parents that allow them to move their children to a non-failing school.
It doesn't really add up, but it's just a thought in my mind.
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Posted on Wednesday, Sep. 1 2004 at 10:45 am by Brian
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Some people are friggin' weird.
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On a few blogs I read (mostly Anti-Bush, but not really Democratic)...they have a lot of talk about how they're going to protest and all these things at the Republican National Convention. It's like really stupid stuff too, like "When Bush starts his speech... everyone, wherever you are, shout out something!" Wow. Like Mark has said, I have better things to do. This is why I like Oklahoma so much. We don't all just leave our jobs and our familes to go gather at a place to hold signs for hours and occasionally shout something. Power to ya, though.
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Posted on Wednesday, Sep. 1 2004 at 12:17 am by Brian
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freeipods !!!
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Okay, so there's this thing called freeipods.com, right? And so like, you sign up, you do a trial offer and get 5 buddies to do the same. And then, they send you a free ipod.
I'm skeptical, even though several proven sources, but I'm still skeptical. I feel as if I've sold my soul to the devil and will be cursed with a barrage of SPAM for the rest of my life. But hey, it'd be worth it if I got a free ipod.
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Posted on Sunday, Aug. 29 2004 at 11:06 pm by Brian
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hehe
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Indeed. In fact there is no light either. The Sun sucks dark. In fact it sucks dark so hard that the friction of the dark moving to the Sun causes the Sun to be very hot. The flow of dark towards the Sun interrupted by the Earth causes the side of the Earth away from the Sun to accumulate dark, thus causing Night. As the Earth rotates the dark caught on the night side can then be pulled off, this causing the absence of dark known as Day.
What we call light bulbs are truly dark suckers as well. That is why light bulbs are hot, just like the Sun. When a light bulb is full of dark and won't suck dark any more, it cools off. If you look in old light bulbs you can even seen the accumulation of dark.
Dark is also heavier than water. This can be seen in the oceans where the deeper you go the darker it gets.
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Posted on Friday, Aug. 20 2004 at 7:36 pm by brian
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Another quote/thought.
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"Don't mistake the signpost for what's signposted." Mmm...thoughts?
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 16 2004 at 12:13 am by brian
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Books...
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Man, the idea of writing my own book and getting it published on Cafepress has really taken to me lately. I've thought of the brianschettler.com Post Recovery Project, but today I thought of other possible ideas. #1, I'd really like to spend an hour a day, in the morning, just reading and meditating on God. I'd like to spend an hour in His Word, just reading and writing down various thoughts. And then, take those thoughts, and putting into a nice, professionally bound book. I need more bookshelves!!
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Posted on Sunday, Aug. 15 2004 at 11:54 pm by brian
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Quote from J.B.S. Haldane
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"If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."
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Posted on Friday, Aug. 13 2004 at 6:02 pm by Brian
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Thought...
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I think we need another Animal Farm to capture the political landscape.
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Posted on Thursday, Aug. 12 2004 at 8:39 pm by Brian
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It makes me sad...
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When I read some of my "buddies'" buddy profiles, it makes me sad. It's stuff like, "Why does the bad stuff always happen to me? I knew I had only known Jake since Tuesday, but I really loved him and I knew we were going to be together forever. But I didn't even have the slightest idea he would try to take advantage of me when I brought beer to that party at his house at 2A.M.!! Why does this bad stuff always happen to me??"
I say "buddies" because it's not people I talk to regularly, just they IMed me once for help on their homework or whatnot. They were added to the buddy list and not removed, for comedic purposes.
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 9 2004 at 5:11 pm by Brian
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Land Rover Footwear
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Land Rover footwear is the most durable footwear ever. I have a pair of sandals I got probably when I was 12 or 13 and I'm still wearing them (yeah, my feet don't grow that much). They've awesome though! They've survived hundreds of miles walking and multiple trips to Mexico, and even spilling macaroni and cheese on them. I've never owned any sort of footwear that has lasted so long. Usually after a year or so the soles start coming off and all sorts of things...but not these! They're amazing.
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Posted on Saturday, Aug. 7 2004 at 6:28 pm by Brian
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Sometimes...
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Sometimes we all need to find the superhero inside of us.
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 9 2004 at 5:27 pm by Brian
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Man...
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Whatever happened to Zoog Disney? You know, the land of the zoogs that played online games and stuff? Did they become extinct?
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Posted on Friday, Aug. 6 2004 at 1:44 pm by Brian
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brianschettler.comballs: The Book?!
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I was browsing the ever-friendly Cafepress.com and remembered they sold books. I thought, "I would love to sell a book! That would be so nifty! Well, I suppose not actually SELL it, because I doubt people would by it, but I would like to have a book that I could put on my coffee table as an interesting conversation piece. I could 'well established author' to my resumé." Well, those weren't my exact thoughts EXACTLY, but it was something like that. The only thing I could think of that I would like to have in a physical book would be all the archives of my site. I still have them somewhere on my computer, and it would probably be a hefty challenge to convert them all into a book-format, but I think it'd be very interesting to have a book of all the archives. What do you think?
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Posted on Friday, Aug. 6 2004 at 8:36 am by Brian
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Mary-Kate and her eating disorder
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You know, I saw a magazine with Mary Kate and her eating disorder on it. And a little thought tantalized my brain cells. Would it be true? Is it really my business? Am I being too cynical? I would probably never find out. But still, the thought remained. What if, just what if, the whole disorder was faked? Because, for the first time, Mary Kate would be different from her sister from the public viewpoint.
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Posted on Friday, Aug. 6 2004 at 8:26 am by Brian, your neighborhood conspiracy theorist
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New Trix...ugh
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Be on the look out...there is a new Trix out with 75% less sugar. It tastes funny and has the dastardly ability to upset your stomach later if you're not careful. It's like the taste of a thousands suns in your stomach. (???)
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Posted on Wednesday, Aug. 4 2004 at 11:56 pm by brian
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Pictures from Mexico 2004
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Here are the picures from the Mexico 2004 Mission trip. It's using a gallery engine from Simple PHP Gallery which, I would have coded myself, but as someone once said, there is no use in reinventing the wheel. Plus, I don't have much time with RealLife™, so this will have to do. Works well though. :)
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Posted on Wednesday, Aug. 4 2004 at 11:54 pm by Brian
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Cereal of the Month -- CHANGED!
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I forgot whatever I put about Cinammon Toast Crunch, but you should have it memorized since it was up there for several months. But hey, we can all agree it's just that good!
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 2 2004 at 9:30 pm by Brian
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Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out
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Good song. Makes me think of "walking away because I just walked in on my spouse cheating on me."
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Posted on Monday, Aug. 2 2004 at 9:22 pm by Brian
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Weird Movies
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I've noticed a lot more movies toy with your emotions lately. For example, you think the movie is a comedy. It starts out as a comedy. But then, all the sudden, it turns into a dramatic love story! What is this latest trend? An example of this is "50 First Dates" with Adam Sandler. It starts off pretty comedic with a little dramatic elements, but then reverses and is mostly serious with a few funny parts. Is this the new trend of movies?
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Posted on Sunday, Aug. 1 2004 at 11:14 pm by Brian
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I participated in our country's democratic process today
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For the first time...ahh, feel the powah.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 27 2004 at 10:34 pm by Brian
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I'm back from Mexico
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I wrote this in Mexico:
I’m here in Mexico and I’m yet amazed at the culture. I enjoy how everything has a culture, everything is vibrant, and how the air is thick with traditions. And I think back to America and we’re so devoid of any culture. It’s like everyone is afraid they’ll step on someone’s toes and hurt their feelings and get sued. It is really surreal getting away from the US. Not only am I physically removed from the States, but I feel emotionally removed as well. All the politics, the suing each other, the ACLU, all political events, everything I was so caught up in before the trip seem so trivial. It’s like I’ve stepped back from a pack of fighting kids and I’ve realized how pointless the fight really is. Is anything accomplished? No. Think back to past events that were making news. Did the Passion cause massive Jew resentment? Did blah blah affect blah blah? Kerry Bush blah blah? No.
So I think it’d be good to take mental breaks now on every once and a while. Are the things I think are important THAT important? Will it really matter in x time? It’s just the trick is to be able to remove yourself from that. It’s easy to do it here in Mexico, but is it still that easy in the States?
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 27 2004 at 11:19 am by brian
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From Laredo
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I'm in Laredo right now. In a few hours we'll be crossing over the border and into Mexico. I've noticed nothing ever seems to go exactly very smoothly, as we had one group with van trouble and some registration trouble at the border. But things will get worked out. Please keep us in your prayers.
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Posted on Sunday, Jul. 18 2004 at 10:59 am by Brian
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Mexico
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I'm leaving for our Mexico Mission trip in a few hours. I'll be down there a week, but I'm bringing my laptop and if I can find a net connection, I'll post some updates and pictures, if possible. Please keep our work in your prayers!
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Posted on Saturday, Jul. 17 2004 at 12:58 am by Brian
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Responsible Voting
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I’m for Bush, because I think our national security is very important. We were attacked and we need to send a message that terrorism will not be tolerated. I want to worry about things other than “will I be killed by a terrorist today?” I also agree with him on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. I believe these social issues are important, because they are what shape America in the future.
But at the same time, Kerry isn’t a bad choice. Just because he’s a democrat and there are some crazy democrats out there doesn’t mean that he is evil. Tit for tat, he’s pretty much the same as Bush. He holds security in high regard and wants to start returning some power back to European nations. He wants to improve the economy. I like how he puts emphasis on moving away from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, which is a very good thing, in my opinion. The only problems I have with him is I disagree on gay marriage and abortion, and I also fear his liberal voting record, as there are a lot of crazy far-lefters out there, and their voices and values are being shouted louder than ever. We don’t need an America where it’s a terrorist’s right to attack the U.S.
So, if Bush wins that’s great, but Kerry won’t be bad, either. Just because your guy doesn’t win doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.
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Posted on Thursday, Jul. 15 2004 at 8:50 pm by brian
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Just say no to gay marriage
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Max Lucado has an excellent article (or here [PDF]) on gay marriage that I encourage you to read. This is a big issue and we need to stand on it. Arnold Toynbee, the historian who wrote "A Study of History" once said, "Of the 22 civilizations that have appeared in history, 19 of them have collapsed when they reached the moral state America is in today." Toynbee died in 1975.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul. 14 2004 at 1:54 pm by Brian
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I like...
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I really like this guy's paintings. I also like the fact that he is selling them for lots of money. It makes me want to get some more canvases and paint some more...I enjoyed oils, as hard as they are to work with. Yeah, selling them would be nice, but painting does have a certain satisfaction. *sniff*, I am sad I will not be able to take Studio Art next year...curse you MacArthur High School!!!
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 13 2004 at 10:18 pm by Brian
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Persecution
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I’m reading a pretty good book by David Limbaugh called “Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity.” It talks about what “separation of church and state” REALLY means, and how a kindergartener can be harassed and disciplined for saying a prayer before lunch. One thought while reading it is, who in their right mind gets SO UPSET over a 30-second prayer that they have to file a LAWSUIT? I mean, with all the lawsuits going around these days you’d think they were a dime a dozen, but lawsuits are a huge burden financially and emotionally. People need to learn how to toughen up and stop trying to get money through lawsuits. Accidents happen. People will do stuff that you may not agree with, but just don’t agree with it and leave it at that. If you were talking to someone and they said “I’m a democrat” and you’re a Republican (which you should, btw), would you stab them in the eye with your fork? Of course not, maybe unless you’re on the far left. I think I’ve said this before, but I fear a lot of people are being raised with this mentality: Why is Daddy a deadbeat? Why doesn’t Daddy get a job? Well Daddy is waiting until he falls off his lawnmower so he can sue Honda and “make” a million dollars. I think the general rule is “As a process is shortened, the morality and ethics involved decrease as well.”
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 13 2004 at 10:15 pm by Brian
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I'm Afraid for the USA
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This is a bit different from the normal FWs, I think. A LETTER TO MY SONS
This was written by a retired attorney, to his sons, May 19, 2004.
Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted,
As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation. We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions. I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left to speak to. To be sure you understand that this is not politically flavored, I will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led us through pre and WWII (1933 - 1945) up to and including our present President, I have without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international conflict. This would include just naming a few in addition to President Roosevelt - WWII: President Truman - Korean War 1950; President Kennedy - Bay of Pigs (1961); President Kennedy - Vietnam (1961); [1] eight presidents (5 Republican & 4 Democrat) during the cold war (1945 - 1991); President Clinton's strikes on Bosnia (1995) and on Iraq (1998). [2] So be sure you read this as completely non-political or otherwise you will miss the point.
Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.
First, let's examine a few basics:
1. When did the threat to us start?
Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us: Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983; Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988; First New York World Trade Center attack 1993; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996; Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998; Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000; New York World Trade Center 2001; Pentagon 2001. (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide). [3]
2. Why were we attacked?
Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.
4. Who were the attackers?
In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.
5. What is the Muslim population of the World?
25%
6. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?
Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along with the administration or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests). (http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm). Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities. Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others. Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way - their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else.. [5] The point here is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing - by their own pronouncements - killing all of us infidels. I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die?
6. So who are we at war with?
There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting.
So with that background, now to the two major questions:
1. Can we lose this war?
2. What does losing really mean?
If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions.
We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean? It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one can get. What losing really means is:
We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them.
We would of course have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see we are impotent and cannot help them.
They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do, will be done. Spain is finished.
The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast. See the attached article on the French condition by Tom Segel. [6]
If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.
Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.
So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win.
Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.
- President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war. For the duration we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently. And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.
- Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.
- Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying. We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police. These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein. And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq. And still more recently the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of an American prisoner they held. Compare this with some of our press and politicians who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real? The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can. To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned - totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world. Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us for many years. Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels. That translates into all non-Muslims - not just in the United States, but throughout the world. We are the last bastion of defense.
- We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant'. That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world. We can't. If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated. And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, equal rights for anyone - let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the World.
This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read.
If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by little on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?
Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power. They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?
I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I believe that after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking about. Do whatever you can to preserve it.
Love,
Dad
[1] By the way on Vietnam, the emotions are still so high that it is really not possible to discuss it. However, I think President Kennedy was correct. He felt there was a communist threat from China, Russia and North Vietnam to take over that whole area. Also remember that we were in a 'cold war' with Russia. I frankly think Kennedy's plan worked and kept that total communist control out, but try telling that to anyone now. It just isn't politically correct to say so. Historians will answer this after cool headed research, when the people closest to it are all gone.
[2] As you know, I am a strong President Bush supporter and will vote for him. However, if Senator Kerry is elected, I will fully support him on all matters of international conflict, just as I have supported all presidents in the past.
[3] Source for statistics in Par. 1 is http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html
[4] The Institute of Islamic Information and Education. http://www.iiie.net/Intl/PopStats.html
[5] Note the attached article by Tom Segel referred to in footnote 6 infra, the terrorist Muslim have already begun the havoc in France. (The note was not attached to the E-mail I received. Gene)
[6] I checked this article with two sources - Hoax Busters and Urban Myths. It does not come up as a Hoax on either. I also then E-mailed Mr. Segel and he confirmed the article was his.
[7] "I don't think the Army or any branch of service runs any type of war any more. It's done by senators and congressmen. There are too many civilians involved." Returning Iraq veteran, Sgt. 1st Class Greg Klees as quoted in the Cedar Rapids, IA Gazette on May 13th, 2004.
[8] There are 64 Muslim countries. This does not count countries like Spain that are controlled by the Muslim terrorists.
Carl Hutchinson
There is no #3 and two #6's.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 13 2004 at 10:02 pm by Brian
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Update
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The kitten ran away the day after I put the ad in the paper that I had found a kitten. Of all the luck! What do I say when someone calls? "Well, I had that kitten but if you'll look down the classifieds a bit you'll see the found kitten is lost again." At least no one called. And at least I have this CUUTE picture below.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul. 13 2004 at 9:46 pm by Brian
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Holy Kittens Batman! I found a kitten!
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I was leaving work and there was a kitten in the bushes! I put my hand out and he poked his head out but then he'd go back into the bushes. I finally got him out and showed the work people but they said "GET THAT CAT OUT OF HERE BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT HIM HANGING AROUND!" So I put him back in the bushes and left. I called my girlfriend and told her about it, and she...suggested in rather strong terms...that I go back and pick him up. So I did. I don't know who's it is; it doesn't have a collar. I'm going to put a "found" thing in the paper tomorrow.
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Posted on Friday, Jun. 18 2004 at 1:10 am by brian
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Miracle the movie
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Ahh, Disney movies. However, this one wasn't really Disney-esque, it was pretty good. But after sitting through 15 minute Disney commercials for Disney merchandise (which only consists of old movies -- like Snow White and Alladin -- that are all of the sudden coming out on DVD. But yet, they're just the same old same old, not even digitally remastered to look good. I really like Disney, it's just Micheal Eisener has run it into the ground.
Everyone yelling at Abu Ghraib: I think it's reasonable to asume if Al Quaida got nuclear weaponry they'd use it against the US, most likely on our soil, just like they ran planes into buildings on 9-11. We need to get this information to deter terrorists. Unfortunately, they don't usually tell us right off the bat so we have to go to other, less-than-stellar means. And if we don't get the info, we'll have another 9-11 and another hearing (yes, remember the 9-11 hearings with Condoleeza Rice testifying? The CIA and FBI pointing their fingers at each other??) We'd have another hearing about why we didn't get the info needed from the terrorists, and the reason would be because we didn't extract the info when we had them.
Drum practice takes a lot of time.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jun. 15 2004 at 2:16 am by brian
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Recent Movies
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Cat in the Hat: Ok, but not a great kids film. Why is it so border-line adult? It's like their just itching to say bad words, but then they back out at the last minute. It was pretty goofy, but so is the original Cat in the Hat (I prefer green eggs and ham, myself).
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: One of the weirdest movies, but it's good because it's by Stephen Speilburg. It's quite different from what I expected. It's the future and this company builds a robot that's designed to love, but things don't really work out the way they planned. It's just so bizarre during the end, it makes you think about what will happen to the earth in 2,000 years, will robots rule the earth or we will still be here? Crazy crazy. But, at least I went to the commissary.
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Posted on Friday, Jun. 11 2004 at 12:12 am by Brian
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I visited...
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...the commissary today! It was an exciting new adventure, because I had never been before! And I realized...I really like Fort Sill. It's pleasant at night. Everybody goes to bed early, or they just sit around enjoying the night air before they turn in for the day. You can feel the relaxation in the air. Unlike Lawton, which runs around 24/7. God bless Fort Sill.
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Posted on Friday, Jun. 11 2004 at 12:05 am by Brian
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My Soapbox
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I remember a long time ago I read an article on how to make a $14 steadycam. Well, I go back to his site but he's gone political on us. I read his FAQ and found myself mentally replying to what he was saying, so I'll just type it down and put it down here. Here's his soapbox: I am generally a very apolitical person, so it takes A LOT for me to take a strong poltical position and go so far as to abuse the popularity of this tutorial... but this upcoming election has me VERY WORRIED. Now, I love America and I have been traveling around Europe for two months and I cannot wait to get home. But, do you realize that MOST of the world DOES NOT LIKE US for what Bush is doing in the middle east? The Bush Administration has used our intense fear of terrorism to scare the American public into giving them unchecked control of the country and with it, they have made mistake after mistake and abuse after abuse, dragging our name through the mud causing anti-American sentiment around the globe to GROW BY THE DAY. It all started okay, but now after so many mistakes and deadly witch-hunts many countries consider us NO BETTER THAN THOSE WHO ATTACKED US ON 9/11. Regardless of domestic policy, re-electing Bush is a sign to the rest of the world that WE APPROVE of the unjustified and wrongful use of military power. Such an event will only galvanise anti-American hatred around the world and possibly result in MORE TERRORIST ATTACKS on the American people for decades to come (when Bush is long gone). Despite what we sometimes like to think, we are not alone in this world and in order to survive in it, we need the rest of the world to like us. Not only are we loosing our global allies, but we are quickly gaining many dangerous enemies that wish no mercy on us or our children... so, the way things are going makes me very worried. I am reminded of the fall of the great civilzations in history who all collapsed under the weight of thier own egotism and abuse of power. It makes me wonder if the history books of the future will describe of the fall of the United States during the early 21st century. I dearly do not want to see that happen. But if Bush gets re-elected, you might want to consider shopping for a new country to live in. Thanks for your attention, now on with the tutorial... And then you can follow to his FAQ here.
Q: How do you win the war on terrorism?
A: Stop making potential terrorists mad at you.
The few people in the Middle East that may become terrorists don't hate us because we are Americans, or because of our way of life, or because of our freedom. That's a reason to not want to move here, but not a reason to dedicate thier lives toward killing us. You don't fly yourself into a scyscraper half-way around the world killing thousands because you disagree with thier beliefs. No,... that kind of hatred, the kind where you are willing to foresake your own life to simply harm someone else... that kind of hatred comes only from revenge. Such a great injustice has been done unto you that you become obsessed feeling that your only remaining purpose in life is to correct that wrong at ANY cost. This suicidal revenge is born from the grave injustices that we (the United States) have done unto them. The fact that we have a lifestyle that mocks thier beliefs is just icing on the cake that gives mere "revenge" that sweet yummy glaze of "holy duty". Ok, I want to see the “injustices” that we’ve done to them. Q: What injustices did we (the United States) do unto them?
A: Many...
We supported thier evil dictators who made thier lives miserable (financially and militarily). We gave weapons to thier religious enemies. We gave weapons to their evil dictators Sometimes their own evil dictators killed them with the very weapons we gave them.. I don’t really know too much about these. I think we gave weapons to Osama like 15 years ago, but wasn’t that to fight socialist Russia? And people change, especially when given lots of power. And then, for good measure, sometimes we blew up their homes (with their familes inside) all by ourselves. Okay, in a war you’re bound to have things like this happen. It’s called an accident. It will happen. We’re not blowing up their homes on purpose. We've killed 10,000+ innocent civilians in our quests for Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. That is more than THREE TIMES the number of innocent civilians that were killed in 9/11. Imagine how pissed WE would be if some random country blew up 10,000 Americans looking for one guy. Imagine if you witnessed your own family get blown to bits by some overseas power without explaination. You would probably be ready to fly a plane into one of THEIR skyscrapers. 10,000 isn’t all that many people, when you consider Iraq’s 22 million population. I’m not saying it’s good, but I’m not saying it like it’s the end of the world either. Civilian casualties are going to happen, especially when your enemy likes to hide in people’s houses and use kids as human shields. As an engineer who is familiar with some of the basic underlying technologies, the precision and sophistication of modern US military weapons makes this number of civilian casualties INEXCUSABLE. I don’t have anything to say on this. The ONLY reason for this outrageous misuse of military weapons is because Bush and his administration are far too trigger happy and likes to act on weak intelligence. He is pissed, has a machine gun in his hand, and doesn't care where his stray bullets go. P>Yeah, I was a little pissed as well on 9-12. We all were…now its like, “huh? A war??” Not only are we going after the bad guys and sending a message that the US won’t be threatened, we’re doing a service to the people of Iraq by ousting their psycho dictator.Each sucessive screw up just makes it worse. In Iraq, the "cure" of US intervention has become worse than the "disease" of Saddam's dictatorship. NEVER SAY THE US IS WORSE THAN SADDAM. Saddam was a freaking psycho. He killed 1 million people. He would gas entire CITIES, killing EVERYONE, and the runoff from these dangerous chemicals would harm and disfigure many people. Anyone that could even be considered “an enemy of the state” was tortured and killed. They had red hot iron shoved up their anuses while they were conscious. They were hung by their hands for long amounts of time. And they didn’t even stop at just you, they went after your family. The raped your wife in front of you, but let her go to endure shame in the community. They killed all your children and brothers and sisters. It was freaking insane. This is my source.
Are we doing this? Are we torturing all these people? We had Abu Ghraib. Yeah, that was a handful of rotten apples in the bunch, and it happened, and those people have been arrested, and Abu Ghraib will be demolished. We’ve realized that mistake and we’re making sure it won’t happen again. The Iraqi people now live in a constant state of fear of death because we have turned thier front yards into a warzone and created a severely unstable government that may swing in unpredicatable directions. A warzone is created when you’re having war, yes. This “severely unstable government that may swing in unpredictable directions” is just opinion. We don’t know what will happen when we turn over their government on June 30th. But we’ll be there watching so nothing screws up. Despite what Bush claims, the Iraqi people are NOT happy with us. Maybe not now, but I think later they’ll thank us for throwing off Saddam’s regime. It’s amazing how people forget what Saddam did. Why don’t people want democracy to spread? Does everyone want all the Iraqi’s to be oppressed by evil dictators forever?
Then the next part, the guy says: Bush is a business man who knows the business of oil. He knows how to do business in and with the middle east and he does it very well. If that is so, why are we paying $1.85 a gallon for gas? If Bush is such a great businessman. I think Bush is putting ideals of America over the business portion. He’s saying no to evil, even if it hurts our economy. Money will always come back, but these are people’s lives.
Some of the other stuff he says aren’t so bad. He suggests that we take the $400 billion we’ve spent and put it towards creating a better energy source to replace oil. That wouldn’t have been so bad. He also talks about getting involved, which is very important no matter what side you take.
And here is a neat infographic about the earth’s population.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 9 2004 at 3:48 pm by brian
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Homeschooling isn't all that bad
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I used to be against home-schooling. Home schooling is just parents that want to protect their children from the world. And while they may grow up to be a little brighter than the rest of us, they do so at a loss of social skills.
But, I saw some things from a different perspective. Someone from church (who home schools his children) asked me to run the AV equipment for their home school graduation. There were only three graduates, but 150 people showed up.
The speaker at the event got me thinking about it. Instead of the usual “Graduation means new beginnings, so much opportunity, yadda yadda,” it was pretty much a “Why home schooling is better than public schooling.” In retrospect, I guess they get a lot of flak for home schooling and have to go on the offensive.
He spoke of how home schooling is more of a “thinking outside the box” approach. Parents don’t know their child to just have “cookie-cutter” public education (I guess he has a point there), but they want their child to know beyond what the state dictates a child must learn. That makes sense. Our public school system could be upped a notch. You read: “The Indians attacked the Russians in the War of 1812.” Then on the test: “Who attacked the Russians in the War of 1812?” Easy enough. Another thought about our school system is government altering standards to receive more money. For example, schools can be the top of the nation, but if they’re not IMPROVING, or if they have 1 or 2 students in a minority group failing, they can be labeled a FAILING school under the No Child Left Behind Act and get their funding yanked. So, just lower standards on tests so it appears more people are passing. This is what Texas did a few years ago when Bush was governor. Texas would put 3rd or 4th grade level questions on their high school exit exam. (Read more about this in the end of “School of Dreams”…good book.)
So yeah, home schooling isn’t all that bad. And plus, it’s not like the kids are in total isolation. There were a lot of kids there and they were all friends. So, home-schoolers unite!
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 9 2004 at 2:28 pm by brian
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I'm still here
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It's just that I forgot how to spell my last name so I didn't know how to get to my site.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 9 2004 at 2:14 pm by Brian
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'Troy' in one word
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justokifyoulikefightingandbattlesandstuff.
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Posted on Tuesday, May. 25 2004 at 1:19 am by Brian
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Site going kaput
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I know something strange is going on with my site. I know it's not my end though; I think my host is upgrading my server. Yippee!
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Posted on Wednesday, May. 19 2004 at 1:14 am by Brian
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When trying to get a job, DO NOT...
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...mistake the head boss for the secretary. The scene just plays over in my mind. Every time it makes me cringe and want to choke myself (not REALLY choke myself, but you get the picture).
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Posted on Wednesday, May. 19 2004 at 1:17 am by Brian
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I miss Bill O'Reilly
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Mr. O'Reilly has been taking a vacation this week. I miss him. I want to know what Talking Points thinks about Nick Berg's execution. I don't really know what to think about it. At first it makes your blood boil and you want to nuke the other half of the planet. Then you think, "Well, we sort of did the same thing in Abu Ghraib, so we sort of deserve it." Some take it as "We need to leave!" and others say, "We must stay!" Myself, I'm in favor of leaving as soon as possible, once a suitable government is in place. (At least this is what Powell said.) Someone made an excellent point on TV the other night; I think it was the O'Reilly Factor with guest host TONY SNOW (where is O'Reilly? *sniff*)...One person said it lessens your sense of independence when another country comes in and liberates your country for you. We as Americans wouldn't be as proud if FRANCE came in and defeated the British for us. Humm...Proverbs 16:5.
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Posted on Saturday, May. 15 2004 at 12:46 pm by Brian
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Just finished "School of Dreams"
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It's a very good book. If you're at all interested in public education, read this book (and don't skip the notes at the end!) My favorite part is the end where it sums up some very good points about our public education system: (paraphrasing) It doesn't really matter how much money and resources we throw at our public education "problem." Every generation, back to the Founders of the Constitution had some problem about the schools. There was no "golden age" that existed a long time ago; there has always been problems. The biggest problem today is that we as families, parents, and students spend more money and time towards superficial entertainment like TV and hair products, etc. The average adult reads one book per year (at a 7th grade reading skill and comprehension level). The average student spends 72 minutes a week reading, and 12 hours a week watching TV. If these times could be reversed we would have a nation of the brightest kids in the world. As students we need to THINK more and use our God-given brains. Parents and other adults are quick to opine about our school systems, but when it comes down to actually DOING something, they're resistant to participate in their children's schools, only doing something if it was an emergency. Parents need to be involved in their kid's school life. This connection is what makes academic excellence, not just how many tax dollars are spend per student. Again, it reminds me of the fact that change on a national level has to begin with the individual. Like the proverb, "A man set out to change the world, but after some time trying, realized he couldn't. So he set out to change nation, but couldn't do that either. So he set out to change his state, but also failed. He decided to set out to just change his community, but failed as well. He set out to change just his block, but could not. So he set out to change just his family, but even that was too difficult, so he decided to change himself. Only then did he realize that once he changed himself, he changed his family, his block, his community, his state, his nation, and the world."
That's basically what author Edward Humes said, but I think I got carried away in some places and added some of my own opinions.
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Posted on Saturday, May. 15 2004 at 12:56 pm by Brian
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Excellent Interview about National Security
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Excellent Interview about security. Basically, it's about the measures we've taken after 9-11 to increase security and just how ineffective they are. Doug Kaye: Now a recurring concept in your book is probably typified by this example: “A terrorist who wants to create havoc will not be deterred by airline security; he will simply switch to another attack and bomb a shopping mall.”
Bruce Schneier: This is, I think, really important. I just did a hearing two days ago on Capitol Hill about CAPS II, about airline profiling, and one of the things I’m always struck with is how good we are at defending against what the terrorists did last year. We’re spending a lot of money shoring up our airlines, we’re now talking about shoring up trains. And money that we spend that simply causes the bad guys to change their tactics is money wasted.
You have a red and a blue door, and the terrorists go through the red door, and you say, “We must secure the red door,” so they go through the blue door the next time. What did you actually buy?
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Posted on Thursday, May. 6 2004 at 4:46 pm by Brian
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Idea
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As much as we hate reality TV shows, I bet of someone made one about school life it'd be really sucessful. Everyone went to school when they're young, so they could relate to it. We can see just exactly what problems are going on in our much criticized school system. It'd be interesting. I don't think a school system would go for it though, unless the TV networks paid them $100 million.
I think the school bond issue will pass 80%/20%. Place your bets now. Question: if we have metal detectors at the doors, will we be able to untuck our shirts? Will we be able to have backpacks in class? Because they already know we don't have guns or weapons of mass destruction on our persons.
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Posted on Thursday, May. 6 2004 at 4:41 pm by Brian
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Wow!
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Reese's Cereal is good. I'd put it as the Cereal of the Month, but Cinnamon Toast Crunch is nice so it'll stay up there for a while.
And did you know there's now "Ketchup Blast" Pringles? At least they're not green.
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Posted on Thursday, Apr. 29 2004 at 12:32 am by Brian
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Church Gimmicks
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Today we (the drumline) played at First Assembly church. It was awesome, playing in front of 800-1000 kids. It was the opening of their new youth center costing over $1 million to build. I have mixed feelings over it. On one hand, I’m glad there is money available to invest in that kind of thing (we did it too at our church, spent several thousand dollars to fix up our loft to make it more of a café setting).
But on the other hand, I feel that things like that are very “gimmicky.” It’s great to bring people to Christ, it really is. But if they’re just coming because of this new facility or new “x,” what good really is it? It’s like the seed sown on shallow ground, it just doesn’t grow strong.
I think it’d be better if we focused on creating a strong foundation, that is creating a strong relationship with Jesus and the people around you. Then, wouldn’t you naturally attract others to come? Humm.
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Posted on Thursday, Apr. 22 2004 at 1:15 am by Brian
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Thought
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Easter is like faster but with an E.
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 21 2004 at 12:19 pm by Brian
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Reminder
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It is never a good idea to dent the door of your girlfriend's dad brand new car.
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 21 2004 at 12:39 am by Brian
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GWAP Teaser
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 19 2004 at 11:33 pm by Brian
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I predict...
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I predict news of the future will be more cinematic. You know, they'll use more closeups and possible lighting effects. These news channels have to compete with CSI and everything! They want good ratings, too!
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 19 2004 at 10:38 pm by Brian
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San Antonio Trip Itenerary
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Just in case you want it. San Antonio Trip
Itinerary
Friday, April 30, 2004
5:30 am - Load Red Carpet charter bus
6:00 am - Leave MacArthur for San Antonio
8:00* am - Stop in Decatur for bathroom break
10:45* am - Lunch in Waco
1:30* pm - Austin-Bathroom break
3:30* pm - Arrive in San Antonio; Visit the Alamo
5:30 pm - Walk to Dinner on the Riverwalk
8:30 pm - Check into the Amerisuites Motel on the Riverwalk
11:30 pm - Lights out
Saturday, May 1, 2004
8:00 am - Breakfast
9:00 am – Depart for SIX FLAGS FIESTA TEXAS; Lunch and dinner on your own
7:00 pm - Depart for motel
11:30pm - Lights out
Sunday, May 2, 2004
7:00 am - Rise and shine Eat-pack-check out
8:45 am - Depart for Sea World (Must have on Band Shirt)
9:30 am - Stand up performance at Sea World
10:00am - Put instruments back on bus and return to Sea World
Lunch on your own
3:00 pm - Depart
5:45*pm - Dinner in Waco
7:15*pm - Leave Waco
9:15*pm - Decatur bathroom break
11:30*pm - Arrive in Lawton
Times with * are approx.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 19 2004 at 8:36 pm by Brian
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School of Dreams Exerpt
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I love Tom Brock (principal at Whitney High School, subject of the book "School of Dreams")'s stance on disciple and student conduct: If they're doing their work and not disrupting the class, I don't care if they stand on their heads." This is in response to someone bringing their own beach chair to class. Cool, huh?
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 19 2004 at 7:35 pm by Brian
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School Elections Today
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I didn't vote for anyone. Why? Well, I'm not too certain just how effective StuCo really is. It seems to me if it was, we would have had several rallies protesting the shirt-tucking rule by now. (Speaking of which, Coach Manning has suddenly gone shirt tail berserk, does anyone know what the deal is with that?)
Micheal, I know you ran for an office, what are your thoughts about it?
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 19 2004 at 7:30 pm by Brian
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Augh....TV
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The TV is on...someone said, "I know me because I spend a lot of time with myself." Humm.
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Posted on Thursday, Apr. 15 2004 at 6:02 pm by brian
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We need to do this, Mr. Garner!
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Hehe, reading "School of Dreams":
The kids loved that one: Seven teams had to calculate how far their balloons would theoretically travel, draw a chalk target for Ziolkowski [their physics teacher] to stand in, then fire their water missiles across the school yard. An A went to any group accurated enough to soak their physics teacher.
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Posted on Friday, Apr. 9 2004 at 1:23 pm by Brian
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"School of Dreams"
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I got School of Dreams today at the library. From what I read of the inside cover, it's a writer who go an inside look of one of California's top public schools, much like how Eric Schlosser got an inside look at the fast food industry. Looks to be very interesting. I'll say if I find anything good. :)
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Posted on Thursday, Apr. 8 2004 at 7:48 pm by Brian
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NOW WITH LESS CARBS!
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I'm please to announce brianschettler.com now has less carbs. Thank you, thank you.
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Posted on Thursday, Apr. 8 2004 at 7:21 pm by Brian
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Mini-chemotherapy
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I feel like I'm doing mini-chemotherapy on my thumb. I'm starting to get a wart there. So the doctor told me what to do. I put this stuff (poison) on there and put a bandage over it. The next day I scrape off the dead skin cells with a nail file, and put more poison on it. At least it doesn't hurt. A bandage on your thumb isn't too great though.
An assistant principal stopped me in the hall today to tell me to tuck my shirt in. It took a lot within me to not say, "I bet you've said that a million times by now, huh?" I have some thoughts about the issue that I'll tell later.
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr. 7 2004 at 12:27 am by Brian
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!!!
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I want to visit the Oklahoma Aquarium.
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Posted on Monday, Apr. 5 2004 at 12:59 am by Brian
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Why I like my van so much
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Well, besides the fact that it's so cool, I figure it's more economical to like what you get instead of spend on what you want. I suppose this could be applied to lots of stuff.
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Posted on Saturday, Apr. 3 2004 at 10:55 pm by Brian
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Red Iceberg
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It's not a joke. Cool. (literally!)
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 25 2004 at 11:06 pm by Brian
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Thanks
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Thanks to all those who've said good things about my site. :') I love you guys. It's the greatest compliment to have someone come up to me and say, "I spent an hour reading your website last night!" And I always get good feedback...I think I've only had one person that said I sounded gay. Right.
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Posted on Wednesday, Mar. 24 2004 at 11:50 pm by Brian
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Support the MacARThur Art Dept! Buy a card thing!
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Buy a card, support art. You know, I really think this is the best way to fundraise. We're not spending $15 for two and half ounces of chocolate. The money isn't going to some big company in California or New York. These cards promote spending in the community, keeping money inside the community. Isn't that what it's about?
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Posted on Wednesday, Mar. 24 2004 at 11:20 pm by Brian
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Thought
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It must be great to be 'celebrated.' You know, they say, "He was the most celebrated [whatever] in [place]." You know you're doing something good when people celebrate you.
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Posted on Monday, Mar. 22 2004 at 10:43 pm by Brian
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Woohoo!
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Posted on Sunday, Mar. 21 2004 at 7:47 pm by Brian
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Paint != Kitchen
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Dad painted the kitchen. Somehow the smell lessens my appetite.
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Posted on Sunday, Mar. 21 2004 at 2:25 am by Brian
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Brain Dump
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Let's see...if I had lots of money, I'd put an Atlanta Bread Company in my kitchen. It's not that they're my favorite restaurant, it's just they're expensive and I like their food. So I get their food for free, for life. As much as I want too, because I think their portions are a little small.
Does anyone watch the Food channel just to look at all the food? I do.
I hate it when we're out of milk.
I'm hungry.
My van isn't doing too well. It's kind of...not very smooth. But that's okay...it's got...personality. I should be looking at a better vehicle before college, but I can't force myself to part with my beloved van.
I'm glad Spring Break was good weather. The only downside is I can't wear my hoodie to school anymore.
I'm really tired of the school issues and I think I'll just drop it. I already know our class will be screwed royally our senior year, so might as well face it.
Applesauce jars rock.
I've gotten back into cycling. Mainly it's because I would like to play tennis this year and I want to get back into shape. ("You're just mad because I'm IN shape and you're A shape." hahaha)
I'm thinking about playing tennis this year. Actually, I'm pretty certain I want to play tennis this year. The only problem is it will interfere with my job. I've talked with them at the workplace and they'll work around my schedule (although I'm not sure how well that will work).
I'm going through cereal withdrawls. We need milk.
I watched all of The Shield season 2 on DVD. Pretty good show, although I think Season 1 was a bit more intense at the end. I've got the first episodes of Season 3 taped and can't wait to see them.
Didn't get a chance to work on my site any...thinking of taking off the comments part if people keep screwing around with it.
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Posted on Saturday, Mar. 20 2004 at 1:21 am by Brian
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How to solve America's Weight problem -- by brian
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They say Americans are getting larger...so how do we solve it? Just make the average person bigger! I mean, if everyone is big, then that will make the average jump up some. So there, we're not fat anymore.
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Posted on Saturday, Mar. 20 2004 at 1:06 am by brian
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Ug
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Ever have one of those days where you're just disgusted with your town, country and world? Today is one of those days.
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Posted on Tuesday, Mar. 16 2004 at 8:14 pm by Brian
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(Last) Cereal of the Month
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This month's Cereal of the Month is not as very special as it was last month. This month the award goes to Froot Loops (yes it's really spell that way! Two O's make OO, not UI!). It's the cereal of the month because it redeemed me from my exile in Weatherford during All-Region. A trip to the local dollar general got me some bowls and a big box of Frui..erm, Froot Loops. They saved me. But big bowls are harder to eat out of, because you don't have a good gage for how much cereal you're getting. What I thought to be one bowl turned out to be three.
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Posted on Tuesday, Mar. 16 2004 at 1:16 am by Brian
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Saturated
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Happy Spring break everyone!
I've seen a lot of violence lately, it seems. I've seen The Passion, Hidalgo, The Missing, and I've been watching The Shield TV series. All this violence and I feel...saturated would be the best word for it, I think. Saturated. I think I need a take a few days break from it. I read in a Christian magazine once...and this has stuck with me: Someone wrote in and asked, "bad music doesn't affect me! I just listen for the music, blah blah whatever" and they wrote back saying, "It's like a lake with a factory on the edge of it, pumping in bad sewage. After a day or two it won't seem like much, but after a while it'll add up." So I think it's adding up. Now we get into the entire..."do video games affect kids to go shoot their neighbors, etc?"...but none today. It's late. And it's spring break.
Happy spring break everyone!
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Posted on Monday, Mar. 15 2004 at 1:26 am by Brian
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National Corndog day is coming!
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yippie! corndogday.com.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 12 2004 at 4:18 pm by brian
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Cheeeseburger Bill
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So now you can't sue fast food resteraunts because you're fat. Good deal. But what scares me is we have to spend money on research to say not eating right + not exercising = fat.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 12 2004 at 12:53 pm by Brian
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You are here
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Earth viewed from Mars. Neat. :) I want a telescope. And here is earth from 4 billion miles away. I love this: Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 12 2004 at 12:36 pm by Brian
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Solution to outsourced jobs?
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Just move to India. I don't think I could do this, though. Maybe a visit for a week or two, but then I think I'd like to get back. I've been to Mexico on a mission trip, and it was interesting to see other people and their cultures. But to move there?
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 12 2004 at 12:18 pm by Brian
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Just say No to gang colors
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I've created a nifty gang-color identification system so people can avoid being identified as a gang member and wrongly prosecuted.
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 11 2004 at 10:19 pm by Brian
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Who should you vote for?
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Here's a neat way to see how your opinions stack up to the presidential candidates.
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Posted on Friday, Mar. 5 2004 at 7:21 pm by Brian
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Good Read
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O'Reilly's column: This Bud's Not for Me (although it'll be taken down in a week).
I wonder if music would still be the same way it is now if Congress instituted a fine system...every bad word, racial slur, degrading comment or whatever...if they imposed a $150,000 per instance fine? Call it a recycling fee for degrading America or something. And instead of just "Parental Advisory" stickers we had an actually rating system called OPM, Obcenities Per Minute, which listed the average obcenities per minute. Let's just hope it doesn't degenerate into a contest on who can get the most obcenities.
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 4 2004 at 10:16 pm by Brian
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Comments
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I think they're broken. Sorry if they don't work...I need some more time so I can redo them!
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 4 2004 at 9:30 pm by Brian
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Tornado __________
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So what do you call a tornado drill when there really is a tornado? A tornado ______?
We had a real tornado thing (tornado? hurricane? high winds? gust natos?) today. Everybody stayed pretty calm. It went well. Two things I noticed though:
1) Everybody had his or her cell phone, calling people on the outside to get more information about the storms and letting his or her family know they're okay. Since no one went to their locker (where the phones are supposed to be), you know that everyone is carrying them around in class. I don't see how it's a problem, unless they start going off, which is fairly rare. And in this type of situation, it greatly improved safety. What if the storm had gotten worse and part of the building collapsed, trapping people underneath? What if they used their cellphones to call and get help? I know there were many situations similar to that during 9-11.
If you pause to think about it, the school system has been all about safety and security lately, trying to prevent gangs and guns. So it's almost like they should be passing out cell phones for students to carry around. "They're a distraction in class," is the reason they're not allowed. But I thought safety was greater than the ability to learn in the school bored's eyes?
I bet they're going to really come down on people's cellphones in class. Hmm.
2) This is a short one, but they need to get a bullhorn or some sort of announcement system so people can know what's going on easily.
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 4 2004 at 9:29 pm by Brian
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Thought
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Do they make black cakes? Like really black, not just dark chocolate.
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 4 2004 at 12:26 am by Brian
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News n stuff
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Gay Marriage: I used to not care about it. I thought, "Well, if they want to do that, that's fine. They can do it. It won't affect us." But I think it can have an effect on us indirectly. Start allowing gay marriages, and what is down the road? Will it be something like businesses have to employ a certain percentage of gays or something? I don't know...but I don't think it's too good.
What is the Budwieser and Ludicris thing? I liked O'Reilly's talking points tonight, saying that it's amazing the media can attack The Passion so fervently but not saying anything about rappers and the like. Well of course! Rappers tuck in their shirts.
Hmm...I don't even want to get into that. I thought I could wait and take time to get all my thoughts together and organize them and put them into a really well essay...but that sort of thing takes time. I guess I'll let it all just come out here, in whatever way, shape or form. You've been warned.
Let's fix the problems we have instead of creating new ones. The first thing is off-campus lunch. Schools have always hated off campus lunch. Why? Because they're legally responsible for the students even though they're miles away from campus and completely out of their supervision. This is ridiculous. I think it's this way because parents got angry when something happened to their kid after school, and they demanded the school take care of it. I think it's reasonable if the school is still legally responsible for you if you're on the school bus after school. But if you leave school in a car/on foot/however, whether at lunch or after school, then the school shouldn't be responsible for you. Let's get parents and students to sign slips forfeiting the school's responsibility of them the moment they leave campus at lunch. If the parents has a problem with it, they shouldn't sign it. And after all, if the person has a driver's license, they should be old and mature enough to be responsible of his or her self.
Tucking in Shirts: It's beyond me how this combats gang violence. But then again, my head isn't as far up my...hmm, nevermind. Question: what do "gangs" fear the most? The "Po-Po" of course! So let's get rid of these dinky security guards that do nothing and get the LPD back in the schools. Did anyone read the editorial in the newspaper the other day from the police officer? A world of information! It turns out LPS used to employ police officers to maintain games and such, but this year they were all let go and replaced by the "security guards." Since then the rules have seemed to go out the window (the police officer who wrote it went to one of the football games and was appalled at all the rules they had had set in place were now gone, or they weren't being enforced). I think LPD is a good choice. It's not invasive. They're there, but they're not there. They can attack the real problem. And lest we forget, gangs don't soly exist inside of schools, as some would like us to believe. Gangs are a city problem, and it should be the city that takes care of it. If you're car is having problems, you should take it into a mechanic, not just fill up the tank with gas and hopes that fixes the problem.
Those are two major issues I've been dealing with. I just think our school system needs a reform. We need to let it be more low-level authority. Get teachers and students involved with issues. Give more powers to each individual school. Something may be a problem at one school, but it may not be a problem at other schools. Form a committee that could meet together and discuss what they're doing about the problem, if the problem spans multiple schools.
Is it just so hard to get people talking? That'd solve a lot of problems right there. Communication. It's like you're married to the world.
Another thought, but this deviates from school issues, sorta. I thought we played really well today in band. I thought about it, wondered why we played well. I realized that yesterday Mr. Hatch was gone and Mrs. Allen from the junior high directed us. She pretty much just ran through our music and let us play all the way through, without pausing much to fix things. I thought, "What a great confidence builder!" Because before, we never played out music all the way through. We stopped countless numbers of times to fix things, and I think in the process, degrading ourselves. And so, we were confident today. I'm sure this can serve as some real-world metaphor, but I'm not sure what for.
I feel like a news commentator or something.
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Posted on Thursday, Mar. 4 2004 at 12:32 am by Brian
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Oh Boy!
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I found three shiny pennies today.
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Posted on Wednesday, Mar. 3 2004 at 11:18 pm by Brian
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I saw The Passion
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Excellent story, told in an excellent way. It's easy for us as Christians to think of a "Fisher-Price" crucifixion and forget the real brutality that took place. This is a nice wake up call.
I think it's sad though, because the spiritual high that I had is already fading not barely two hours after getting out of the movie. The rawness of it, the detail in my mind, is vanishing. Why can't I stay on fire longer? Why do I get tired and want to mold back into the world? It's something to constantly fight and often it seems like I'm losing the battle.
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Posted on Tuesday, Mar. 2 2004 at 12:31 am by Brian
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The Passion
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Nope, still haven't seen it yet.
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Posted on Friday, Feb. 27 2004 at 12:40 pm by Brian
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Haha
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I like the metaphor made in this article:VeriSign sues ICANN over delay in services: "Working the ICANN process is like being nibbled to death by a duck. It makes no sense, and in the end, you're dead in the water."
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Posted on Thursday, Feb. 26 2004 at 7:32 pm by Brian
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Why you should vote for John Purcell as Mayor
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I have the pleasure of working with mayor-candidate John Purcell at the office. I know him personally, I've even been to his house to fix his computer. He's a great guy. And no, he didn't put me up to this.
OH IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY I WON'T BE OLD ENOUGH TO VOTE FOR HIM, because I would if I could. John has a level head on his shoulders, and he won't dive head first into a decision. He'll check it out first. For example, someone complained to him (when he was a city councilman, I believe), about the turn lane on highway 7, turning south onto 45th street. They claimed they had to wait three cycles of the light changes before they could turn. Well, John went up there himself and sat and counted cars, and it turned out no one had to wait three cycles.
I just think he's a really good guy. Cecil's been there a while, and sometimes, change is good.
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Posted on Thursday, Feb. 26 2004 at 6:39 pm by Brian
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Cough
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I'm still alive. Just not really...brain wise. It's shot, pretty much. I feel a big post coming down the pipe...dealing with school and everything. It's like a hairball I'm about to cough up. I can feel it. It's just not quite ready yet. The idea of the post is..."let's fix stuff instead of creating new problems."
My eye twitches a lot now. Monday, when I put my contact in my left eye, I didn't quite do it the right way. And it hurt like thousands of furious bubmblebees inside my eyelid. I took it out. Ever since then, it twitches involuntarily. I told the people at work (the eye doctor), and they said it's stress. I blame it on school.
I read "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" in under two days. It's a really good book. I like the way it's told the most. The book is a story, but it really is a story, told by a masterful storyteller. It's like you're five years old again listening to stories your uncle told you. :) It's much better than "The Piano Lesson" that we're reading in English. And poor English Teacher Mrs. Gillis! Someone put gum in her chair and she sat on it, and it's the end of the world. We were supposed to just watch the movie, but now we're having to read it, and it's very difficult reading. I never care to read plays, because I become numb to the names. Pretty soon I just start reading what people are saying, and not who is saying it. This can lead to confusion often. But the Five People is a good book. :) I liked it. I'm checking out his other book, "Tuesdays with Morrie", next.
A few people caught Virusesii at work today. It was hectic. But I got some chocolate and that made it better. :) But still...what compels someone to sit in their parents' garage and write viruses? I don't know. Luckily, the viruses we had weren't damaging and I got it taken care of. But still, it's needless stress, and made my eye twitch.
I'm ready to see the Passion movie. I won't see it until Monday. But if you've seen it, don't tell me how it ends.
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Posted on Thursday, Feb. 26 2004 at 12:55 am by Brian
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error
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brain is empty. old posts from two years ago. gosh two years ago seems like a long time. i was a lot more exuberant (sp?) back then. I think it has to do with not getting enough sleep now.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 22 2004 at 2:13 am by brian
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Sorry!
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Sorry I haven't said much lately. Frankly, school stresses me out. And it's not just the homework/learning part...it's all the new rules and everything going on. It works me up, and I'm tired at the end of the day. I've got some thoughts about it...they come and go. I just need some time to get them down, I guess. Until then, watch the O'Reilly Factor. :)
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Posted on Wednesday, Feb. 18 2004 at 11:28 pm by Brian
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The O' Reilly Factor
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If you're not watching it, you should. I'm reading his book.
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Posted on Wednesday, Feb. 18 2004 at 11:11 pm by Brian
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Finally it makes sense
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Look closely. His shirt isn't tucked in.
Also, I'm glad the experts could agree that a person could be either dead or alive. Thanks.
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Posted on Saturday, Feb. 14 2004 at 2:11 am by Brian
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Good things
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It's taken me 17 years to realize it, but cherry jello is one of the Good Things™ in life.
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Posted on Saturday, Feb. 14 2004 at 12:59 am by Brian
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Defender of Justice!
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Posted on Thursday, Feb. 12 2004 at 4:34 pm by Brian
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Nip/Tuck: Don’t Tuck and You’ll Get Nipped
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Aside note: I think “tuck” was the most said word at school today. Ever. Also: a lot of this was taken from what someone said in a certain class today. You know who you are. Their identity will remain a secret, in case they face prosecution.
What’s the problem? Okay, we have these two schools that are fighting and cause problems for everyone, even those who didn’t do anything. Yeah, no one really agrees with punishing the innocent, but I’ll get to that later.
Why are these schools having problems in the first place? It’s the economic situation. Lawton High and Eisenhower house students from lower income families. This is a problem (duh). I look at myself as an example. What would it be like if my parents weren’t as well off as they are? Well, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into computers, I wouldn’t have this website, and be able to express myself like I can now. When you don’t have good influences in your life, you’ll turn to the wrongs things. Mostly all people want a sense of belonging. If you don’t have that solid family foundation, you’ll go searching for it elsewhere, and this is where people got into the “gangs.” Bad influences. They become a product of their environment, as my youth minister Mark always says.
This right here makes me rethink my policy on poverty. I realize this wasn’t a very Christ-like attitude, but my attitude before was something along the lines of, “They screwed it up, they decided to drop of high school, get pregnant, all those other things. They get what they get.” But this isn’t the case. What about people born into these families? They have no choice, and that’s why we need to be able to give aid to help out. It is because, like it or not, our community affects all of us.
But our current aid system fails us greatly. Without a solid, good moral family foundation, people turn to other things and don’t learn the responsibility they need to. Government aid needs to be able to say, “You’ve got to be responsible. We’ll only give you this money while you have a job. You’ve got to be working and you can’t just sit around the house and do jack. It doesn’t matter what job, as long as you’re doing something. McDonald’s is fine.” Don’t just hand out money, because that teaches nothing, except you can ride on the backs of others the rest of your life. And maybe there already is a system like this in place, I don’t know
And friggin’ food stamps! Food stamps need to be “THE MINIMUM.” My dad sees people all the time walk into grocery stores and buy T-bone steaks and all other fancy foods with food stamps. It should be a privilege, not a right.
So that’s one problem. The other is the school administration, which I think I’ve already made pretty clear I think a bar of soap in a toaster oven could do a better job than they’re doing. Why? I think public education is a job no one really wants. I know some teachers who enjoy and have a passion for teaching. But they’re actually teaching. The people with a passion to teach teach, they don’t sit around in offices all day. And this is where the big problem is; the people making the decisions are totally out of touch with the factors in the decision. Heck, I’m not even sure if they’re still focused on education anymore.
They view everything from a money standpoint. How much does this cost? How can we make sure people don’t do something stupid and we don’t get sued? Why are these the questions being asked and not, “How can we improve our education to tomorrow’s future?” How sad.
This is where the problems arise. They’re making decisions for the wrong reasons. This is where blanket punishment comes into play. A few people are stupid, and because of this, everyone suffers. What?
What does this teach people? “Well, it’s really the luck of the draw. Either you’re in a good class/school/community, or you’re not. If not, well, too bad.” Whatever happened to reaching for the stars, achieving your dreams? Oh, that was elementary stuff, I’m sorry. The real world isn’t so kind.
The effects are disastrous. My sister, who is normally one of the happiest people I know, is severely traumatized because of the events at the junior high school. The look in her face screams, “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” There is no answer. It’s just that she’s in the right place at the wrong time, according to them.
And if you look at it, what else does it say? I think it says, “We’re taking the easy way out. This is a big problem that needs a big solution, but we’re not going to spend the resources to pursue the answer. We’re going to take easy street, and instead of dealing with the people that are causing the problem, we’re just going to punish everyone. It’s a lot easier but not effective at all.”
Ineffective is the keyword. Since when does tucking in your shirt equate to less gang activity? You might as well say the color of your hair affects your driving ability. There may be some slight correlation, but you’re over-generalizing.
It’s such a shame the Board of Education has lost its focus on teaching and learning. It’s no longer on how much we can learn, how we can prepare ourselves for tomorrow. It’s about the money, the, “We’re responsible for you—now let’s put them in a box so they don’t hurt themselves and we get sued” attitude. This attitude makes them make decisions like, “Let’s spend $1000+ for a camera and a guy standing there at the game, so we know who was there and who wasn’t there,” instead of. “Let’s get new graphing calculators for math classes.” “Let’s spend money on security cameras and rent-a-cops,” instead of, “Let’s spend money on computers so today’s youth will be better prepared for tomorrow.” How incredibly selfish it is of them to only think of themselves, when they’re in this position. You guys need to go run Enron or something.
I really think they should call themselves “Bored of Education.”
But it’s not entirely their fault. People need to stop trying to get money from frivolous lawsuits. Realize that accidents happen. If you were the other guy, how desperately would you want to be relieved of the charges? Have some compassion.
So now, what should we do? As much as I would love to start a little rebellion, I don’t think that’s the answer. They’re questioning our maturity. “Are we mature enough to handle these situations?”
From a teacher’s standpoint (because remember it’s the teachers who are seeing and reacting to us, not the bigwigs at Shoemaker Center), which would be more effective of the following?
A) Everyone goes crazy. People are yanking out their shirts and screaming about name tags, causing general riots, flipping over cars, starting wars with other countries over baseless accounts of weapons of mass destruction, general pandemonium, etc, etc.
B) People follow the “rules.” Remember, it’s a question of maturity, and rules (especially thoughtless ones) can be changed. Teachers could quickly see how responsible we are. Even though we rigorously object to the new school codes, we still realize they’re in the position to make those decisions and respect them for it.
And here’s my mandatory disclaimer whenever I speak (read: avidly bash the other guy with my opinionated opinions and make wide generalizations and assume I thoroughly know how the world works): It’s my opinion. Please don’t send me to jail. But at least in jail I would be treated better and would have a better chance of surviving in the world than I do now.
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Posted on Thursday, Feb. 12 2004 at 12:21 am by Brian
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Cheep Game Sleeves
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Jonathan posted his feelings on games with cheep paper sleeves housing their discs. I know I feel the same way...games used to be a big deal, to buy off the shelf and it came with all sorts of goodies that you rarely find anymore. Now I feel like I'm getting a not-as-good version, and paying $50 for it nonetheless!
Although, looking at it from the company's standpoint, I would guess they're doing this to help regain costs lost to piracy. So the question is: do people pirate because they feel like they're getting shorted on the quality of the packaging (and the game as well, it seems more and more games are shipping with terrible bugs and flaws), or do people just pirate because they want the game and don't care about the extras? Hmm.
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Posted on Monday, Feb. 9 2004 at 6:48 pm by Brian
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Last month's Cereal(s) of the Month
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This month is a very special Cereal of the Month. This cereal belongs to the Lifetime channel, but it ventured out of its realm and into our cereal cabinet and I got a taste. The name is Harmony. It reminds me of Honey Bunches of Oats, but some of the flakes are different colors. I mean, two colors on the same flake. It's pretty tasty. :)
And THEN! I realize it is Trix's birthday. Or, at least it says it on the box. So, I have to give the award to Trix as well. Happy birthday you silly rabbit!
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 8 2004 at 11:04 pm by Brian
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The Receipt
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 8 2004 at 10:58 pm by Brian
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How much is inside?
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If you like my site, I think you'll love this site, which asks the question, "How much is inside?". Finally! Someone puts science — measuring, hypothesizing — to REAL uses! This is the kind of stuff we want to know!
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 8 2004 at 10:44 pm by Brian
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Thought (Sorry Sarah!)
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Just remember, it's easier to Ctrl+Alt+Del your computer than it is your girlfriend.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 8 2004 at 10:40 pm by Brian
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All-Region is over
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All-Region band is over. And I can't get the songs out of my head.
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Posted on Sunday, Feb. 8 2004 at 1:06 am by Brian
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"Breast Half Time Show Ever"
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To quote my World History teacher, Coach Harrington, "Something like this needed to happen." I agree. It raises awareness about what is really on TV. People are going to be outraged! ...for a while. Then they'll go back to the normal Survivor XXXIV or whatever is on. Just like the newfound patriotism after 9-11. No one says "God bless America" anymore.
Was it planned or an accident? Who knows. I think it was planned. Even the "it was supposed to be red lace"...still! On primetime television when everyone and their family is watching! We even had a CHURCH Super Bowl party! Grr. But like I said, people will be upset about it for a while, then they'll get bored with it.
I'm sorry I've been too busy to post much...erm, anything...lately. But the real reason is this: I want to throw off all the bandwagoners and see who the TRUE and LOYAL bs.com followers are. Because it stinks being fairly popular, because then you have to start censor what you're writing. For example, I can't say anything bad about Mr. Hatch anymore.
Muffin Films. Because everyone loves muffins.
Try this at home! While sitting in your chair, lift your right foot slightly off the ground and move it in clockwise circles. Now draw the numeral "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will involuntarily reverse direction. Weird.
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Posted on Thursday, Feb. 5 2004 at 11:19 pm by Brian
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I'm back.
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I took a vacation. A week long vacation.
The super bowl commercials sucked, I thought. But, I think every commercial needs to be super bowl-calibre. The game was actually more interesting than the commercials...but ah well.
I like this. Guy names his son "2.0" instead of "Jr." link. Hehe.
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Posted on Monday, Feb. 2 2004 at 12:35 am by Brian
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McDonalds is nutritious....riiiiight
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This guy goes on a McDonald's diet for 30 days and gets really sick. Ew. Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated.
"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post.
His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.
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Posted on Saturday, Jan. 24 2004 at 5:30 pm by Brian
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Wal-Mart is Bad
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Excellent article about Wal-mart. It's pretty long, but if you got some time this weekend, it's a very good read. I think I've even posted this before.
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Posted on Friday, Jan. 23 2004 at 5:05 pm by Brian
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BUTCH HOOPER!
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That was his name, if anyone was interested.
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Posted on Friday, Jan. 23 2004 at 4:54 pm by Brian
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Random Fact
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Nothing is as exciting as a new toothbrush.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 22 2004 at 11:56 pm by Brian
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The Repeating Comes
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School is very repetative, right? I don't think so. We have 6 different classes that we learn all different types of information and concepts for an hour at a time. How stressing on our brains!
But when we get a job it's the same thing every day. Just to get a paycheck. That must suck.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 22 2004 at 11:52 pm by Brian
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Fact
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A larger a group becomes, the more a bunch of collective idiots they become.
I think it's because you get two people together and each of them says, "Wow! There's two people here! I only have to work 50% as hard." So they do. Well 50% times 2 people is 100%, right? I don't think so, because if both people worked 100%, that'd be 200% between them. So they're really only working 50% effectively. And it goes down from there.
Just look at our schools and government. People are running around like chickens with their head cut off. Also, I imagine it'd be difficult to imagine everyone's different interests, so the group just stalls when it tries to process all that information.
So let's get a small group of people together to run large groups. Oh wait, we already do that. It's called "the board." But this doesn't work. Why? Because the board loses contact with the people it's representing. In Roman times they had centurions that ruled over 100 people. Maybe we need CEO centurions.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 22 2004 at 11:53 pm by Brian
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Bru...Hoopey
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I'm at work today and I meet a guy named Bru...Hoopey. I can't remember his first name. It was like Bruce, or Brutus or something. And I think his last name was Hoopy. It's been about 7 hours since then.
Anyways, I meet him. He's a candidate or something, he's running for some position. I didn't ask what. I felt bad afterwards, because:
1) I made a complete jerk of myself. He was intimidating. I came off as just an average high school student who doesn't give a flip about politics. He was asking me "are you a democrat or republican?" Now, I think I'm republican (it's one of those by birth things, my parents are so I am, too.), and I didn't know what he was so I didn't want to offend him and be the opposite of what he is (and what am I saying? I can't even vote anyways). So I said "I don't know." And he said "well vote democrat! I'm a democrat..." and some other stuff. Then he asked where I live and said "I could be your representative."
It just sucked. I was caught off guard and unaware, and in the process I came off as a jerk high schooler who doesn't care. I wanted to ask some questions about his campaign, but the real thing is I felt like I was being a representative of my office and by smarting off I'd make everyone look bad. So I held my tongue.
Everyone needs to have a little list of things they can ask a political person should they arrive. Things like, "What do you think about jobs? How are you going to create new jobs?" and "I think the speed limit should be 45 on 45th street. And it should be 4 lanes, too. None of that getting clogged up at 7:50 AM business when you have class in 10 minutes and need to be there 11 minutes early to be able to get to your locker and get everything you need for that class and stuff. What do you think?"
Brian's Unproven method to win an election:
This is what I would do if I was running for some political position. I would just be completely honest. I'd say, "I'm going to lie, steal, and cheat to get your votes. But at least I'm honest about it." And then when you get companies lobbying (bribing) you, you can publish it and say, "Johnston and Johnston is giving me $5.7 million dollars to reduce baby factory worker's wages. What do you think?" And you could also keep a blog as well, so people are involved. Go to the mall and places and just ask people what they think. Hold lots of meetings and invite the public. Have free food so they'll come. Have catchy slogans like, "Vote Schettler...because nothing really rhymes with Schettler."
I guess there wasn't really a number 2 in the list.
And yes, it was gas prices.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jan. 21 2004 at 1:26 am by Brian
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We're not a salad!
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brian: I think everyone doesn't understand the real hatred behind the junior high and what everyone from there represents
emily: i blame mrs monts.
brian: exactly
brian: and everything within us wants to run as far away from that as possible
brian: and the 9th graders moving up goes against that
emily: she really has become a part of me...it's like...i escaped fromt he junior high and i had to WAIT through 3 long years of her...and now, the sting of the regular cycle of those younger kids comming through is ripped open and worsened by the fact that twice as many kids are comming in to this high school place and their bringing all my old teachers
emily: yes!
emily: and! not only that, but they're threatening our cirriculum for what??
emily: what does this improve?
emily: it does nothing
emily: they're going to cut certain electives...they need moreteachers for some electives like SPANISH
emily: there's no money!
emily: they want to ADD ON to EHS?? that place is falling down as it is!
emily: it's RIDICULOUS
emily: and they are up in their little office having a staff party "woo hoo! we actually made a descision and did something!"
emily: a stupid one, you losers!
emily: there's just no justice...
emily: they toss us like salad
emily: we're not a salad.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jan. 21 2004 at 12:15 am by Brian
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$1.56
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X(
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Posted on Wednesday, Jan. 14 2004 at 7:05 pm by Brian
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The angry door closing man
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I'm at the basketball game for band, and it is 120° in the gym. I step to the front door and give it a crack to get some fresh, cool, crisp and clean air. What utopia! And suddenly some jerk stomps and says, "KEEP...THIS...DOOR...CLOSED!" and slams it shut, giving me no time to move out of the way.
This is the one thing I can't stand. It's people older than me, in a more authoritive position, and they act like they're GOD ALMIGHTY, and refused to use any manners or politeness around other people (students). Their behavior screams, "You're just a useless student...I dispise you and will have nothing to do with you. And that's MR. Jerk to you, bucko."
But I cooled off (not literally since the door was closed...wow a pun!) and later I supposed he just had a bad day.
I'm reading a book for English called Feed. Feed is about people in the future, teenagers, except they're 1000 times worse than they...we... are now. What's terrible is the way they talk. It's a california-hippie-girl on drugs. They overuse "like" like we do today. And I hate thinking about it, because it draws attention to how much I say "like"! I dare you to try it for one day and see if you can go a day without saying the word, "like". Heck, just go an hour without it. You're probably so used to it, you wouldn't even realize you said it anyways.
Anyways, it's called "FEED" because everyone has a little feed in their head. It's a computer connected to a pseudo-internet. It's more centralized than the internet though. It's run by corporations, they follow everyone's thoughts and create a profile on them and bombard them with advertisements they think the person would like. It sounds really bad when you first hear of it, but you think of some of the better aspects of it...you can IM people in your head and talk without anyone knowing, you can look up all sorts of the stuff at your fingertips...or well, closer than your fingertips. That sounds interesting, but would you be willing to pay the price for it? And it reminds me of technology today that's perverted into something it's not supposed to be. We have the INTERNET, this great thing that everyone can share ideas and communicate (remember solving that little communication problem?)...and yet, we use it for things like pornography and spam and pop ups. Everything can be abused.
I'm thinking motorola is coming to a close, at last. Right now I'm in the "checking things over" stage, proofreading and checking for errors. I'm sure there's a lot more I've forgotten, but I'll find them soon enough. And the MHS site is coming apart. I'd really like PHP on there so I can do neat stuff and make the site more automated. But, they're not in any rush to install it (And Matt, if you read this, you have good reasons and I understand. I guess I'm just a bit toasted about it.). So it makes my problems harder. They recommended learning a new language they use. Fine but, um...there's only 24 hours in a day. So I don't know.
BallDroppings is this cool program that drops balls and you draw lines with your mouse that the balls bounce off of. They make different pitches depending on how fast they're going. It's fun to play with (translation: It's a time waster).
Canadian Artist. Kind of twisted in their own little way. Some of the stuff made me laugh. :)
Go to Mars. Requires quicktime.
And I'm eating the scooby doo cereal that I reviewed a long time ago and didn't like. It's the only thing we have. I'm hungry, though...and I bet if I reviewed it right now it'd get a lot higher marks because it's so good.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jan. 14 2004 at 1:08 am by Brian
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Problems with the Comments
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There's a problem with the comments...it appears that sometimes you can type a comment and submit it, but it wont appear. I haven't been able to reproduce it, but it seems to happen on occasion. And how do I know this is happening? Well, I have it set up so that I get a notification email that a comment was added. I get the email, but there's no comment. So, I'll have to work on it soon...it's just there's so much...in...the...way...it'll be on the back burner for a while. :) Curse book reports.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan. 13 2004 at 11:44 pm by Brian
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I hate English.
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It was such a supernatural occurance to me in the 6th hour of the surreptitious duration of the educational system of the inability to accurately and convienately convey ideas between the infantly old and greatly expanded new of conscienceness and ebb and flow of the floobystitities and polyphengnes inside the great swirling globulette of ideas and fastions of the late 1800 century of my fantastical and senality; The grande authors of mystical wisedom and pompous pride of the past and near-far edge of space time reality of the brink of necessity, wrote their idealogies in such a fnart fashion that even the most of upheld minds of this century and metropolitain era of cognetive thinking, is impossible to comprehend in the least of agitatitions by the diagnosed reader; and oftentimes, their symbollic babbling of uncomprehensible, abnormal, celestrial, rumnious and obscure style of prose would be so much as to go off on a tangent unsimilair to the subject and fate of their literature or even the unintelligible gibberish of their loquascious babbling that the maximum of the reader's comprehendability is tested and stressed to the maximum of what it would seem normal for one such person to bear, and the gods of the sky would frown upon it and they would see the children on nigh, in great distraught and suffering, whereas an examination in part or in whole would be given and instruction would be to answer the answers within a given time limit instructed by hosts and ghastly figures of the mind would be tormented and forced to regurgitate the amended antiphon; but whereas the original intent of the devious author was obscurely lost in a sea of meaningless words and their purpose drifted away as a retorted feather in the disputed wind.
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Posted on Monday, Jan. 12 2004 at 8:09 pm by Brian
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Post All-Region
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Well, All-Region band tryouts are over. In a nutshell, I was angered. The cuts of the music I was given by my band director to practice months ago...and the music I was being judged on today...were two completely different things. I just played the part I practiced and tried to play the other part...and still managed to get 1st chair concert. Yay.
But again and again, I notice that the problem always seems to be communication. Is this some sort of common flaw throughout human history I've never been aware of until now? I mean, you'd think with the great advancements of the personal computer and the internet that we'd all be interconnected to one another and there would never be any confusion.
Like today. There needs an all region website with the music online in PDF format that you can easily download and print. It needs GRAPHICAL images of the cuts, not misleading text saying "beginning to first repeat sign." And I think it'd even be neat if they didn't post up the scores on the wall where everyone crowds around to see it. They put it on a website, and people constantly refresh it on their laptops while they're hooked up to the school's free wifi network. :) Maybe in another 50 years...
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Posted on Sunday, Jan. 11 2004 at 1:59 am by Brian
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State of the Van
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The heater doesn't work very good. In fact, it's like a reverse heater. I think it's actually colder in my van in the morning than it is outside. It sucketh.
Dad supposed it could have been a bad thermostat. We got a new one (only $3!) and proceeded to install it. When we got to it, we found out my current thermostat was installed upside down, so it wouldn't work very well. We put the new one in, but it's still not too good. We now think the problem is a "vacuum tube" that's underneath the dashboard. And that will be fun to fix.
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Posted on Saturday, Jan. 10 2004 at 12:28 am by Brian
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Hum.
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I'm having 2nd thoughts about the comments system. Used to I could just put up whatever I thought and never really put mind to pleasing anybody. I give an uncensored account. But now I'm worrying how I'll take negative criticism...humm. I guess I could leave it up a few days and see how it goes. One bonus is that I can link directly to a post now. It's not very user friendly, but it works. For example, this post is getting a lot of attention lately.
I really wish I had more time. I'm getting all these ideas...litterally, snippets of code in my head, of how to improve on my site. Right now...it "works" but the code is as messy and bloated as...something messy and bloated. But as it is I have no room for it, school and then Motorola get in the way. Ah well, I'll write them down and work on them later. Or I could procrastinate!
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Posted on Saturday, Jan. 10 2004 at 12:25 am by Brian
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Comments!
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There's a comments system so that anyone can add their 2 cents to each post. All that I ask is that people don't abuse it or swear or anything...because my grandmother reads this. :)
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Posted on Friday, Jan. 9 2004 at 11:28 pm by Brian
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Ha. Ha.
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Today on the radio they were doing an advertisement for some TV show (um, if I was going to watch TV don't you think I'd watch it instead of listen to the radio?)....but they said, "A CARPENTER NAILED FOR MURDER."
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 8 2004 at 9:55 pm by Brian
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Disaster...narrowly adverted
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I was sent to the office the other day for sleeping in band. Sleeping in band. Let's just say I was REALLY tired.
Anywho, while I was there I got to talking to Mr. Carr about the MHS website I have been working on the past few months. But woe! It was so long ago that I've done anything that I had forgotten the URL. In the process of searching he hit upon my site here, with the big, smackin' rip of the school system right on the front page. Thankfully he didn't read it (in front of me at least...I hope he doesn't go back and read it later). I don't think he's read it yet, since today he asked me if I knew anything about pop up blockers.
But if he does...well, this site may change it's name to http://www.brianschettlertherefugeeinyugoslavia.com.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 8 2004 at 9:55 pm by Brian
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Politics
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It must be hard working in the government. I don't think I could imagine much of a harder job, trying to orgranize people and their different conflicting ideals. You could never be fair to everyone all the time. I was listening to people talking on the radio today about immigration and laws. What would I do in that position? I'd prolly spend all my time reading about the the subject and history, what people did in the past to try and solve the problem and what happened. Then I'd try a few things out and see what worked. I wonder if they run computer simulated models of situations to see what happens?
And then I think about the President and the economic crisis. What comes first, you or others? I wish we did have a strong economy and weren't in a slump right now, but then what about the people of Iraq and people being oppressed? So: myself or others? Bush is a Christian guy, and he made that decision to put others in front of ourselves. I think that's good. I can see it from both sides of the fence. I want to help people, but I don't want our economy to go down the drain. I guess we need to compromise...let's spend a little bit rebuilding our resources then a bit later we can go get some more bad guys.
But then we have crap like this going on. Read on: I like to travel. But I'm not looking forward to a future in which I need to get to the airport five hours ahead of departure to be sure I won't miss a flight, one in which I'm patted down from head to toe several times every time I try to board a plane, one in which I am constantly explaining every item in my luggage and every twist in my itinerary to hostile agents. I've had the chance to think about airline security a great deal over the past few days, and I'll tell you this: After being asked by one security guard to drink from a water bottle in my carry-on to prove that it wasn't acid or poison; after being interrogated by a U.S. customs agent who was suspicious at the number of books I had in my luggage; after the long lines, the hand inspections, the X-ray screenings, the near riots by enraged passengers, the uncertainty and the anxiety -- after all that, traveling to a foreign land, or even just across the state of California, doesn't seem quite so exotic or alluring anymore. That's just rediculous. I think I'd just lay out all my luggage and laminate it so I have a 50-foot strip of shirts, underwear, toothbrushes toothpaste, q-tips, and non-acidic water. But then they may catch on and may make that a requirement.
As if anyone cares, but my room is a hazard to keep clean. I can sort of keep it organized, but when I get home it's a matter of minutes before things explode out of control. The problem is I think I have way too many wires. Clocks, lamps, computers, scanners, printers, everything else just bursts out of control. I've already got two 6-plug surge protectors maxed out and I need another one, but Dad won't let me...if I do, I have to start helping out with the electric bill.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 8 2004 at 8:11 pm by Brian
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Conspiracy, Beware
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I had a very good talk with a good teacher today. I won't say their name because they might be attacked later on. We talked about school, and all its problems.
Basically, it's the gap between the people that know what they're doing and the people that make the decisions. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE. I look at it on a local level, but my teacher reminded me of how well it scales.
I think that the school administration don't know what's really going on. They don't have enough contact with the students. Sure, they know a few here and there, but not really enough to get a general feel of the school population. So I see two choices:
1) Get the administration into the classrooms. Just have the people teach one or two easy classes, so they see some 60-odd students a day. It doesn't have to be rocketsciencology. Just teach history or something. :)
2) Do away with the administration. Get the teachers together, and they form a union and make those types of decisions. Sounds an awefully lot like a democracy, right?
I think option number 1 would be best. The administration still does serve some purpose, and they can serve that purpose the other 4 hours of school that they're not teaching those classes. I hope no one whines about "4 hours! That's not enough time for me to do all the things I need to do!" Lest we remind you that 90% of the population works from 8 to 5 instead of 8 to 3.
But this model leads itself to a lot of scaling. Administration doesn't have touch with the students. The school board doesn't have touch with the schools. I don't think anyone will argue this fact. The rules and regulations and policies they put into effect are flat out ridiculous. I think the school board could use a class or two of world history as well.
And then MyGoodTeacherWhoShallNotBeNamed lets me in on more. The school board likes to give teachers ballots to vote on various issues. They'd vote, and then of course talk amongst each other about what they voted for. Nearly every single time the result would be the OPPOSITE of what they voted for. The board had already made up its mind before they even printed the ballots.
Quite a scary thought. Especially when you scale it to nation-wide. Does the government make up its mind without letting our say into the picture? Do the votes just go away? And often, it seems we don't vote on issues. We vote for a guy. To sit and change his mind on stuff and leave the people he's "representing" high and dry. It seems amazing that all people demand is the right to vote. Why not demand the right for results?
Also, MyGoodTeacherWhoShallNotBeNamed said she's noticed a decline in the good behavior of students over the last 20 years. I often wonder about this. Must be the video games? (sarcasm!)
So there's my blurb on the school. I hope no one comes running after me. I'm supposed to have a right of free speech to voice my opinion. The school may not like it, but they can't shut it down. All they can really do is prevent me from promoting my site (by wearing my bs.com shirt) at school. And when it becomes a secret, quite naturally, the entire school knows. :)
So does anyone feel the need to rise up and protest? Does anyone feel the need to picket in front of people's houses and burn things and cause a general ruckus? If so, viva la revolution!
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Posted on Friday, Jan. 9 2004 at 12:51 pm by Brian
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Yeah, it was from a cell phone
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Yup, that message below was from a cell phone with internet capabilities. Pretty neat little thing. :) I don't think I could justify paying the $50/month for it, though. The browser wasn't too bad. I could actually see my logo on it. :) Badly compressed, but it was there. And everything was squished, so you had to read the text from top to bottom instead of left to right. And typing on a keypad sucks. But at least the technology is there.
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Posted on Wednesday, Jan 7 04 at 0:43 am by Brian
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this is from phone
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Im at a bball game using a cell 2 update my site. cool.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan. 6 2004 at 8:25 pm by brian
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Uh (the day back at school)
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My alarm sounded like a guy talking this morning. It was strange.
I had a cappuchino with extra sugar this morning since I didn't go to bed until about 3AM. It worked for about 2 hours.
It's very cold now. Why couldn't it cold a week ago for Christmas?
In English class we read a story about a girl that got sick in her bed. She died. It turned out there had been this giant leech in her pillow that was sucking out all her blood. The title was called, "The Feather Pillow." Ew.
Do I really be mean to other teachers? I think the only class I've complained about is English. But I have nothing really against the teacher, it's just that I feel that English is not a very good way to spend an hour of my day. It should become an elective around 10th grade. If you don't know how to read and write now, you're probably not going to learn. Humm...what if every class was an elective? I guess that would be college.
I think in workplaces there needs to be a giant buzzer. When you hear the buzzer you pull out your gift-wrap tube sword and start fighting each other. Then the boss turns around and you hide your sword and act like nothing happened.
Oh, and I viewed bs.com on a mobile phone today. Sometime within the next millenium I hope I can make a PDA/Phone web browser-friendly version of my site. :) Hopefully.
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan. 6 2004 at 1:09 am by Brian
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Cereal of the Month December 2003
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This month's Cereal of the Month award goes to Crispix. Yeah, it's usually used in trail mix. But the cereal isn't too bad, I guess. Well, I have to use a fair amount of sugar to sweeten it up. It's not bad though.
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Posted on Monday, Jan 5 04 at 19:15 pm by Brian
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The Teachers have invaded brianschettler.com
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I've been discovered. Mr. Hatch has read all my website and threatens to turn me over to the authorites for ripping on my other teachers. Well, I don't know. A lot of times I'm about to go to sleep and think, "Crap! I must update my website or my many fans will think I've been dragged off by hoodlums or something." So in my drunken tired stupor I say something.
Mr. Hatch is great. Mr. Hatch is wonderful. I love Mr. Hatch. Mr. Hatch is the best band director I've ever known. I wish we all were a bit more like Mr. Hatch. The world would be a better place if everyone was more like Mr. Hatch. Mr. Hatch is so amazing. Mr. Hatch is amazing at everything he does. Mr. Hatch is an amazing person. Amazing, Mr. Hatch is. We should all pay a tax because the great Mr. Hatch lives in our midst. Mr. Hatch is like a god. Mr. Hatch should be President. Mr. Hatch should be king of the world. Mr. Hatch is the best person in the world. Mr. Hatch is a very great person. Everyone I know wants to be like Mr. Hatch.
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Posted on Monday, Jan. 5 2004 at 3:56 pm by Brian
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And so it happens again
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I put a few things up on ebay today. Two joysticks, and some old walkie talkies. Click the link the see them. Feel free to bid 1 million dollars and get me an early retirement. :)
I seem to always say this on my website when I do it, but I'll say it again. I think it's good to clean out your room. It's like you're cleansing yourself. Myself, I threw out 4 trashbags of stuff the past few days. I need to find more stuff to put on ebay.
It reminds me of the "BRIANSCHETTLER.COM 1CENT STORE" idea that I was going to do a while back. The idea was to do some art and sell them on ebay. For one cent. Or at least start the bidding at one cent. I think in the end it wouldn't be very profitable. The cost of printing would outweigh what you *probably* sold, and in the end you'd quit when you found out some guy sold your artwork to the Smithsonian for 4.3 billion dollars.
The Motorola site is coming along nicely, I think. I just have a lot of "busy work" to do to it and touching up (a lot), and then (with luck), it should be finished. Oh, I moved my server to the closet, by the way. I thought it was pretty cool to have clashing computers side-by-side (I had both my main computer and the server set up right by each other. My main computer is black while my server was white. It was cool while it lasted). But I'm on a crusade to clean my room, so it had to go into a more...humbling position. Farewell, sweet Concorde. At least it doesn't make as much noise. :)
In an email with my dear band director Mr. Hatch, I got an idea on how the school population can get to know things about meetings and such. This is what he said: Maybe students should be involved in some of the decision making concerning rules and regulations. This is what I said: Well, we do have StuCo and things like that, but it seems the problem is getting the word out to people about meetings and such. Regular school announcements don't work because they're often missed. Letters go to parents and miss kids a lot of times. I wonder if an email newsletter or website might work, or what would be really cool is if the school sent text messages to everyone's cell phone. :) I mean, it is true. Everyone has a cellphone. I think "technology" may be a way to go, but there are so many that inhibit that revolution! A lot of us are connected to the net and IMs and the like, but there's always that least common denominator of people that check their email biannually and have 720-odd emails. Get with the program!
That reminds me: 101 ways to save the net. Everyone needs to read this, commit this to memory, and then create a faux religion out of it.
Cursed break. I had my biological clock set so that I could go to bed and somewhere in the neighborhood of 7:00AM I could wake up, with or without an alarm clock. Now I can stay up until 4:00AM no problem, and have trouble sleeping then. It's dinner time when I get up. And school starts in...a few days? 3? I'm not sure, I've lost the ability to count. I vaguely remember something about having to study TRIGONOMIC IDENTITIES for a class I think I have...called Pre-Calculus? It might have been a dream though.
There's a new Cereal of the Month, I just need to write about it. I don't know if any of you will have heard of it, unless you have health-conscious mothers. But it's tasty. :)
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Posted on Saturday, Jan 3 04 at 3:09 am by Brian
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Happy New Year (2004)
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Thankfully, it seems my messages get the date right. brianschettler.com is Y2k4-bug safe.
I've been taking a break for a while and now it's time to start getting back into routines. I guess most people worked, but for us students...no one is looking forward to next Monday. And then we look foward to summer...then the end of school, then the end of college...then...retirement? Life sure goes by fast.
More indepth thought about Return of the King. I like how it paralleled the Bible, and Good and Evil type things. I guess this is a spoiler warning...so don't read if you're crazy about not knowing anything about the movie: When Frodo and other people get toward the end of their lives, they get on a ship and sail off to paradise. I like that idea. Gandalf talks about it some when Merry says "I didn't think it'd end this way..." Gandalf says "Death is not the end..." and talks about the paradise, and when he does you just look into his eyes and believe him and a nice feeling of peace comes over you. For me, at least. That's MY interpretation.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 1 2004 at 2:33 am by Brian
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Someone asked about Atkins
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It's a diet where you only eat meat and cheese. Atkins.com. It's supposedly works really well. I guess.
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 1 2004 at 1:53 am by Brian
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LOTR III
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It was good. See it now. I'm under the understanding that LOTR hasn't won best picture yet? I think, if it doesn't win this year, the movie people are blind, deaf, and dumb. Well, I think they are anyways. They think all movies are terrible unless...it fulfills some higher order or something. *shrugs*
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Posted on Thursday, Jan. 1 2004 at 1:51 am by Brian
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Did you hear about the antenna wedding?
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The wedding was good, but the reception was great!
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Posted on Monday, Dec 29 03 at 3:43 am by Brian
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Christmas come and gone
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...and it doesn't really feel any different. I feel like it should be the middle of July. Why did this Christmas not feel like Christmas? I think of some reasons.
1) It wasn't cold enough. Winter and Christmas are two very integral things. If it feels like mid-May then it just doesn't work.
2) The dreaded "getting older." It really stinks. I want the magic of Christmas back. I used to get up so very early, but today my sister had to drag me out of bed at 9:00. I hear that the next time you really "feel the magic" is when you have kids, and you get to see them be so excited, and it reminds you a lot of when you were a kid. But after that? Grandkids, I guess? That sounds insanely far away from my point of view.
3) I don't think it plays a big part, but I think I heard someone saying that Thanksgiving fell at a time where it would have to shortest possible time before Christmas.
I think another thing is the true Reason for the Season. I feel like I'm an old broken record or holiday Christmas special, when Santa decides to not deliver gifts because no one knows the true meaning of Christmas anymore. But I wonder. I know it's Jesus birth, and I thank God for that, today and every day. But yet, our society seems to be hung up on the gift-giving/recieving part of it. "Christmas is too commercialized," they say. I think it is. I bet if you asked people to put down the top ten things they think of when they think of Christmas, virtually 100% would have "presents" on the list. And I bet 70% would have something like "department stores" or "the hectic mall," or something.
Maybe next year. And next year will be the last year I'm at home before going off to college. Eh, what fun.
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Posted on Friday, Dec. 26 2003 at 3:02 am by Brian
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Merry Christmas everyone!
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We're now in the dreaded "charging" period. It's the time during Christmas morning and usually runs into the afternoon in which all the cool electronic gagets you got are charging. It's almost like a 2nd Christmas when they're done charging and you can use them!
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 25 2003 at 1:28 pm by Brian
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It's Christmas
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I asked Santa for an elf. It's the gift that keeps on giving!
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec. 24 2003 at 10:14 pm by Brian
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Humf.
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Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and it doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I want my money back.
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Posted on Tuesday, Dec. 23 2003 at 5:01 pm by Brian
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IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!
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What a great Christmas present! U.S. court nixes Net music subpoenas! I like what the people in the slashdot comments section say about it: Well, it appears the RIAA will have to focus on a different network layer: they'll start suing the cat-5 and fiber optic manufacturers.
Suing fiber optic manufacturers misses the point.
What does fiber optic cable transmit? Light. And who is responsible for light?
"And God said, Let there be light; and there was light (Genesis 1:3)."
-kgj
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Posted on Friday, Dec 19 03 at 21:06 pm by Brian
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More!
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More added to the MAC HAT.
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 18 2003 at 7:39 pm by Brian
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The Junior High
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So they have a problem at the junior high. It seems everyone is failing or getting into trouble. They're frantically doing everything they can to get people to do their work.
So what could be the problem? I only see one constant throughout the evidence — the junior high itself.
I say, "Let 'em fry!" If you have classes with 40 people who are all getting zeros from not doing their work, then they're getting zeros for not doing their work. They don't mess around with that stuff in high school and in college. If you have a zero, too bad. It's up to you to get it up.
So don't do anything about it. Sooner or later they'll realize their mistake, and by then it'll be too late.
But then you have people that are misbehaving. What to do? The school mentality says, "punish them more!" but this is actually just the OPPOSITE of what to do. Isn't it a policy of economics? If you're the government and you need money, what do you do? Well contrary to what you might think, don't raise taxes. Heavy taxes make people not want to spend anything, and then you don't get any revenue from sales tax. I think this has been proven time after time by different government leaders. But I could be wrong, please tell me if I am.
So don't discipline more. I believe this was the start of the entire problem. My class, the class of 2005, had the benevolent Mr. Roshell when we were 7th graders, and then in 8th and 9th grade we had Mrs Monts. Tainted, but not permanently damaged, we waited patiently for the days with Mr. Roshell again at the high school. The people below us do not have that sort of hope. The Rule of Monts was getting appalling, with their “zero tolerance” policies. Well guess what? No tolerance breeds more no tolerance! I remember how hard it was to control myself at the junior high when we’d hear more insidious rules and regulations. But now at the high school, where things are more lax and they allow you more freedom (and respect! That’s the key!), I haven’t had the problem of keeping myself in check.
So do away with the ridiculous rules (com’on, how dangerous are flip flops anyways?), and you’ll see that everyone will be happier. The students will feel more at ease in their learning environment. They’ll feel the RESPECT. They won’t feel like they’re under the microscope as they are now. And if they don’t feel like they’re prisoners, they won’t feel the need to lash out against the school system like they do now. Teachers and students, living in harmony. And they lived happily ever after.
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 18 2003 at 6:41 pm by Brian
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Site Question
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Do you think the line spacing makes the site more readable? Send me a message to my cell or use my contact form (sniff, no one uses my contact form anymore...).
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 18 2003 at 11:19 am by Brian
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Urgh.
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There just aren't enough hours in a day, ya know? But thankfully this is the last week. I still want to speak my mind about the junior high school. Hum.
The motorola site has a new address, if you like keeping up-to-date with my projects. Also, Mr. Hatch of the MacArthur band fame asked me to come up with a few designs for hat...nothing else really on the details. He's been bugging me the past few days about it, so I threw these up in 15 minutes.
And while we're here, let's just take a moment to lament in our hatred of semester tests. 20% of our grade?! What if one day you found out that at your work you had these semi-random "double jeopardy" days, and if you worked well that day, you got the other 20% of your paycheck. But, if by chance, you were sick or gone or something, you didn't get it. Tough cookies.
It's one week and one day until Christmas, and today it was 70° outside. I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable. Everything this year about Christmas seems very forced: the music is annoying and intoxicating. The lights and decorations seem as if they were put up in a half-spirited fashion. It's like the world says, "Oh, it's December? I guess we better celebrate Christmas or we'll get in trouble..."
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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 18 2003 at 11:13 am by Brian
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Need more time
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I hear they're having mucho problems at the junior high with mass failings and discipline and stuff. I want some time so I can really formulate my thoughts about the subject. If you summerized it into one sentence though, it'd be, "Let 'em fry!"
And you know why the school system is in such a bad shape as they are today? Because they don't read brianschettler.com. Studies show those getting their regular doses of bs.com are generally more happy than those who don't. It's a scientific fact, folks.
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec. 17 2003 at 0:42 am by Brian
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Timeline (the book, not the movie)
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I finished re-reading Timeline today. What a great book! The plot, storyline, action, adventure, mind-boggling science...all rolled into one. Like a Deli Sandwhich. If you get the chance to read it, read it. I hear the movie isn't as great. I was going to see it once I finished the book, but now I think I won't. I love the version I have in my head, and don't want it to change. Even though I've heard that the movie is a VERY stripped version of the book...one guy even said "what book DID they base this on?!" So perhaps, if I treat it like a different movie/story, it just HAPPENS to have the same name, maybe I'll be okay. No, I don't think I will. I'll stay here.
I saw, "THE CORE." I liked it. And for the first time in a long time, I thought the special effects were pretty spiffy. I suppose it's because no one has really SEEN the inside of the earth, so you wouldn't know if it looked fake or not. It reminded me a lot of Armegeddon, just inverted.
I guess you could say this! (hehe). Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year. And plus, it's 11 days until Christmas! Each year the "awareness of Christmas factor" seems to shorten exponentially. When you were young it was weeks before Thanksgiving and you were already counting the days until Christmas. Now it seems that with semester tests and everything, you can't really focus on anything else until when you get off for break. Cursed schools, trampling our Christmas spirit.
And Saddam was captured! I bet the most said words on the planet today were, "they got Saddam." I mean, just think about it. What is the best way to say it? "They got Saddam." We don't need to know who "they" is...all we know is it's not us. And "got" is nice, because it only has 3 letters. And everyone knows who Saddam is. It's like "Monica." Who do you think of? Most people think of Monica Lewinsky.
I've started work of another project, for Lawton Communications - Cellpage. Their site doesn't have anything on it yet, but I've been working on some ideas. Check them out here. Feedback is welcome. :) Unless you're just going to be mean, in which case I may not print it out and put it on my wall.
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Posted on Monday, Dec. 15 2003 at 11:22 am by Brian
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Holy Deli Sandwhiches!
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I found a part of a deli sandwhich in the fridge and ate it. That was one good sandwhich! Big, too! I think the cheese slices were as thick as your thumb.
Now I'm eating Yogurt
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Posted on Monday, Dec. 15 2003 at 11:08 am by Brian
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brianschettler.com gets festive
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Posted on Saturday, Dec. 13 2003 at 0:07 pm by Brian
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State of the Van
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It's all okay now. Dad got a new tube-whatchamacallit and replaced it. It doesn't overheat as much anymore...which makes me think perhaps that hose had a crack in that was causing me to leak coolant. It still doesn't like the cold, though. :(
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Posted on Saturday, Dec. 13 2003 at 0:03 pm by Brian
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Uh oh! You're running out of time!
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The-Last-Day-You-Can-Buy-Something-Off-The-Net-And-Have-It-Get-Here-By-Christmas is coming! Better hurry and get those things in your shopping cart!
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Posted on Saturday, Dec. 13 2003 at 11:21 pm by Brian
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Farewell, Cereal of Last Month
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Goodbye cereal of last month: This month's Cereal of the Month award goes to Frosted Flakes. Why? Well, I think this cereal is very underrated. You normally think, "ew! this is just corn flakes...bleck!" but not so. Frosted flakes are yummy. They have a light, sweet taste that is crispily good, even in milk. Frosted Flakes...We salute you! (Because they'rrrrrrre great! Ah I couldn't resist, sorry).
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Posted on Saturday, Dec. 13 2003 at 11:19 pm by Brian
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Fun with scanners
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Posted on Monday, Dec. 8 2003 at 11:45 am by Brian
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State of the Van - Emergency Edition!
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My van had lots of smoke coming out of it from under the hood! I checked it out and it appears a hose has a gaping hole in it. I added a quart of oil to it and refilled the windshield washer fluid as well. Then I filled up the radiator and water reservoir with water since it was very low. Then after all the smoke...well, I guess it was steam...the water reservoir was empty again. Poor thing.
Sorry if posting has been sparce lately...been extremely busy! I've got a ton of books to read. Semester tests are coming up. All-Region tryouts are a week away as well! And the MHS site is taking shape too. Plus I have another website I've been asked to do. Just so much going on!
20-21. Oh well, maybe next year. I'm just kind of sad the drums didn't get to play more than we did. It was COLD, though. I couldn't feel my extremeties. And my hands had blotches of bright orange from when my hands were exposed for a long time at pre-game. I couldn't get frostbite, how could I type then?!
I've been enjoying holiday music through the internet radio stations via iTunes.
The fun never ends.
Trees eating things. Weird.
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Posted on Sunday, Dec. 7 2003 at 1:44 am by Brian
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Career Day
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Today was Career Day at school. For the last hour and a half of school, we got out of our normal classes to go to 3 little career-oriented classes. I did Ministry, Computer Engineer, and Artist. I thought they were okay. I liked the Ministry dude. He used his hands a lot. The computer engineer guy was just what I pictured as a computer engineer. The requirements looked daunting, though. And the artist class was interesting. It was some students from cameron doing a powerpoint presentation. They ran through about a million things you can do with art, from fashion to web design to comic books, everything. Then they showed some student artwork and it was interesting. I reguard it as further proof that you can do anything and call it art.
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec. 3 2003 at 4:14 pm by Brian
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Teehee
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I'm posting this from my mom's office computer. o:) I'm not too sure where she is. I'm supposed to get my flu shot and deliver some grapefruits. But she's not here. Hum.
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Posted on Wednesday, Dec. 3 2003 at 4:07 pm by Brian
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Holidaze
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Thankgiving's over, I hope everyone had a good one. Myself, I played my first game of golf. I feel like golf is a man's purpose in life. I think it's an addiction. Dad says he wants to get some clubs so we can go play later.
I don't know the name of the stuff in the turkey that makes you sleepy. But it's there. And everyone konks out afterwards.
I often think about the putting up of Christmas lights. I imagine there's two kinds of people in this world — those that put their Christmas lights up early and those that...prefer to wait a little later. And I imagine these two types of people always sneer at each other. The people that wait say "I can't believe they already put up their Christmas lights! It's only the day after Thanksgiving!" And the people that put theirs up early say, "Those people aren't even celebrating Christmas! Those lazy bums!" Can't we all get along?!
Hum that reminds me of a thing I read on Christmas. This morning I heard a story on the radio of a woman who was out Christmas shopping with her two children. After many hours of looking at row after row of toys and everything else imaginable. And after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the elevator with her two kids.
She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, making sure we don't forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card. Finally the elevator doors opened and there was already a crowd in the car. She pushed her way into the car and dragged her two kids in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and stated, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot."
From the back of the car everyone heard a quiet calm voice respond, "Don't worry we already crucified him." For the rest of the trip down the elevator it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
Don't forget this year to keep the One who started this whole Christmas thing in your every thought, deed, purchase, and word. If we all did it, just think of how different this whole world would be.
Love will find a way.
Indifference will find an excuse.
-- Author unknown
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Posted on Saturday, Nov 29 03 at 1:46 am by Brian
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My legs hurt.
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My legs hurt. But the problem is I don't know if it's just because I've been sitting down all day and they need to be stretched, or if it's because I've been standing all day and they're sore. So I have no clue what to do. Do I get up and run around or just sit here? Alas!
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov. 25 2003 at 7:30 pm by Brian
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Schools...*thumbs down*
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If our school system were a privately owned and operated company, they'd be out of business. What if it was a private business? And school companies battled each other for the student. You'd get more competition, lower prices (can't beat free, though), but higher quality as well.
On LPS's site they have a link to a PDF document over the feasibility of moving over to a middle school layout. In my opinion I don't think it's too well done (Rule #1: Never use Comic Sans when doing a 'professional' report). But one thing that bothers is this table they have comparing Middle Schools vs. Junior High schools on the first and second page. It just seems to make the Junior High School system seem like complete and utter crap. And if it's so bad, why did we choose to use it in the first place? Look: The Middle School:
The middle school uses many elements of
exploratory curriculum.
The Junior High School:
The junior high school has a predetermined curriculum and does not often vary the curriculum.
Oh. What is the 'exploratory' curriculum? That you get 2 electives or something? Wait...they already do that. MS:
In the middle school, the teachers are organized in teams with teachers representing the core areas of studies. These teachers work together to plan lessons, activities, and other events.
JH:
The junior high school is organized according to departments. All the math teachers work together, all the English teachers work together, and so on.
What? These sound like the exact same thing. Can the "teachers representing the core areas of studies" not be the math teachers, English teachers, and so on? And if they already have a predetermined curriculum, why do they need to get together? MS:
The teaching staff makes many important decisions as a team.
JH:
The administration makes most of the important decisions in the junior high school. I’ll agree on the administration making most of the (irrational) decisions in JH. But wait…isn’t administration part of teaching staff? Or are they? I don’t think they are. And lest we forget, the teachers in the previous point are working together, and on what? We don’t know. The administration is making most of the important decisions. MS:
The teaching is student-centered. The teachers try to meet the needs of the students and adjust themselves.
JH:
The teachers are the center of instruction. There is little variety in teaching and students are expected to adjust to the teachers. Again, it just seems like they’re making out Junior High’s to be terrible. Why did we even go with them in the first place if they’re this bad? MS:
The atmosphere promotes cooperation among teachers and among students.
JH:
Competition is prevalent in the school. There is a desire to see who is best. Competition between whom? Teachers vs. students or students vs students? Or maybe it’s Teachers vs. Administration, because they’re the ones making those pesky “important decisions” and leaving out the teachers. MS:
Social experiences fit 11-14 year olds.
JH:
The social experiences are geared toward high school students. What? Is it just me or does this make no sense? It seems like they got it backwards. MS:
Sports are designed as activity for all.
JH:
Sports are geared for mostly athletic boys. This seems like they’re just reaching out for reasons now. “Let’s bring gender issues into it!” they say. But really…is Middle School supposed to be more like High School? Because in high school sports are…get this…separated between guys and girls. MS:
The team is created for the students to feel like they have a teacher who knows them well.
JH:
The purpose of a homeroom is for administrative purposes. What?! What is ‘administrative purposes’?!? And I’ll have to check with my junior high informants, but I don’t recall having a homeroom. I’m not sure I completely follow this either: “The team is created for the students to feel like they have a teacher who knows them well.” A team of teachers is created? So shouldn’t that be a plural teachers instead of teacher? I’m just so confused.
I feel like I’m playing the devil’s advocate, just stirring up trouble. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I get an email from somebody that puts me in my place and makes me feel ashamed. But hey, whichever…controversy makes things exciting. Plus let’s not forget I’m an ignorant high schooler who has no clue what he’s talking about. I don’t understand half the stuff that’s going in the adult world. This is all a bunch of mumbo jumbo and my thoughts and interpretations of it here are just that… skewed thoughts and twisted interpretations. But if it gets people thinking about it that normally wouldn’t give a hoot, I’ve served my purpose.
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 25 03 at 1:06 am by Brian
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Drum Cadence
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ONE TWO WE'RE GONNA ROCK THIS TOWN WITH THE MIGHTY SOUND OF THE MACARTHUR BASS!
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Posted on Friday, Nov. 21 2003 at 11:30 pm by Brian
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Cereal of the Month
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Today's Cereal of the Month is Frosted Flakes. I think they're underrated.
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Posted on Thursday, Nov. 20 2003 at 5:22 pm by Brian
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Beware! Aurgh!
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I heard a rumour today that if the 9th grade joins the High school, it will have to be a closed-campus lunch. Augh! How can they do that to us? I feel cheated...Mr. Roshell is always bragging on our class, saying that we're a good class and I believe him. Why punish us like that when we become seniors? We didn't make the decision. Bleh.
I read an article in an old newspaper today (it was only like a month old). It was another article about how America is a workaholic country. I learned that America is the only nation that doesn't legally guarantee days off. Some places have 25 days off per year. That's like an entire month (or pretty close to February, at least). I could deal with that. But I think people are workaholics and it'll be the end of us. Just like TV. And now the ruling about the gay marriage stuff? To me, I think if you want to do that go ahead...but please don't let me see that stuff in public. Someone said the judges of the Massachusett's court didn't do their job, because something like 77% of the people voted that gay marriage should not be allowed. A government for the people by the people? I don't think so. How do you deal with it? I wonder if it'll be something like that next civil war, gays vs. non-gays. Has it always been this bad, or have we just gotten the coverage? WHY does every sitcom have a gay couple in it? Is there some hidden quota of gayness we're supposed to have that I'm missing out on?
I think you could be superhuman if you got lots of sleep and learned how to relax. I was extremely relaxed today, and it was very....relaxing. Don't you think the world would be a better place if people weren't running around at 10,000mph?
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 20 03 at 0:31 am by Brian
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State of the Van
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It's hesitating a lot. Still overheating more often. I think it might go soon. But, I have plans to cover it in mud soon. Will get pictures.
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 19 2003 at 0:11 am by Brian
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Japanese Delegates
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We had Japanese Delegates at our school today. As far as I know they're doing some research about American schools. I guess that makes our school pretty average? Am I an average teenager in the average high school? I don't think so...because I don't think the average teenager has a website with a van on it.
Speaking of foreign things, if you get the chance to see the movie Amelie, SEE IT. It's an awesome movie. Yeah, it has some nudity and stuff. But it's FRENCH. You'll have to read subtitles. You'll feel cultured. It's a good movie about life and happiness in general. :) And the music is neat, too.
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 19 2003 at 11:56 am by Brian
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I need an old beat up truck.
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I think it'd be less stressful. To me, driving is stressful. I go out and I'm thinking "watch out! don't get hit! don't hit anyone else!" over and over and over. It's stressing to drive. I feel like it's a matter of time before I'm in another wreck. I want to keep my vehicle in top condition. I don't want it to get stratched or a rock falls out of a truck and puts a ding in the hood. But an old truck! It could get scratched and hit and stuff, and it'd still run. You could all the scratches and dings you want (or don't want) and you'd just be like, "meh, it's another scratch, oh well..."
Getting a new car...must be stressful. You're always trying to be careful and keep it in mint condition. Don't spill the coffee! Must preserve the new car smell! I think I'll just try to get an old car...it still gets me from place to place, right? But a nice, new car has the extras, the really comfortable things. Humm. America places lots of emphasis on vehicles, I think.
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 19 2003 at 11:51 am by Brian
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Welcome!
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Welcome, Japanese Delegates.
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov. 18 2003 at 11:56 am by Brian
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Ah.
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I hope I get a visit from the toothpick bridge fairy. (hahahaha)
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Posted on Friday, Nov 14 03 at 1:49 am by Brian
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To all those....
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To all those working on your toothpick bridge in the wee hours of the morning, trying desparately to finish your beloved toothpick bridge as the due time inches closer minute by minute: Remember: It's only a bridge. Made out of toothpicks. And it'll break anyway.
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Posted on Friday, Nov. 14 2003 at 0:42 am by Brian
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Updates
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The "send message to cell" feature now has a place where you can put your name! If you wish to remain annonymous, that's perfectly okay too.
Also on the contact page is a place for your name as well. And if you want to remain annonymous there too, it's perfectly fine.
Miscellaneous stuff: You might notice the date below the posts should be a bit more easier to read, and it won't be an hour ahead. The grey bar on the right (your left, since I'm the one behind the website), has little lines under each section now. Hopefully it'll be easier to read now. I never quite liked the way I did it in the first place...humm.
I think that's it. Enjoy.
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov. 12 2003 at 11:28 am by Brian
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Buy Stuff UPDATED!
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Okay, now there is a lot more stuff for sale using the regular brianschettler.com logo. Also, I created another store with just the "vandot" logo. Enjoy!
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 11 03 at 12:37 pm by Brian
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New Woyds!
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Wow! This page is interesting to read through. New words in the English language! Here's my favorite: Frankenfood . . . . noun [Franken- (as in Frankenstein) + food] (1992) : genetically engineered food Hehe.
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 11 03 at 12:28 pm by Brian
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Website Update
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I changed some things so the font sizes are scalable. You can now go in your browser to "View > Text Size" and change the text size and it'll change. Wow.
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Posted on Monday, Nov 10 03 at 17:01 pm by Brian
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Why?? Why??
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Why are we out of school on a Tuesday?? Why not today? Oh why...why did we have to go to school today? Grr.
And plus they're working on our parking lot, slowing down traffic. My bet is that we'll graduate before it's finished.
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Posted on Monday, Nov 10 03 at 16:58 pm by Brian
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CBS...ugh
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I don't like CBS. Something about it unnerves me. It's like I can walk into the room and not even have to look at the little "eye" logo thing and I'll know it's CBS.
One reason is that it just looks funky. The brightness and contrast is different from other channels. CBS usually uses this high contrast that makes everything look 'edgy.' To me at least.
And then another thing...how many shows can you have about crime and cops and death and little girls running away from home and guys with beards and everything else? It's all like the same. Police trying to find the murderer. Police trying to find the murderer...again! Ahh.
And of course this is probably all untrue, because I'm basing this opinion off of the entire 10 seconds I saw of the channel today. Well, I've seen it before also. It just seems that every time it's on in our household it's some grungy cops fighting crime show.
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Posted on Monday, Nov 10 03 at 0:31 am by Brian
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Omigosh!
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Yesterday there were authentic British guys in Chickasha, Oklahoma!
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 9 03 at 1:17 am by Brian
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Today I worked at All-State
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It was pretty fun. :) I don't think I was too good of an inside monitor, though. Oh well.
As soon as I get time I'll get set to work on a Guestbook. For you, the customer.
Humm, the customer. Today at Hop 'n Sack there was a sign above the gas pumps that said "from your friends at Fina." How do they know they're my friends? And why have I not noticed this before?
UsedToBeMacDrummer Nick points me to http://flossncap.aquafresh.com where you can see the new toothpaste with the floss actually in the cap. But what amazes me more is that they made a website for it. Complete with 3D interactive demos. And you can even put in your friend's email address and it will tell them about it. Wow.
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 9 03 at 0:38 am by Brian
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Finally!
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I finally get some time to post. And guess where I am? The school library of all places. On a mac. On a keybard tat dosnt wrok very wel.
TODO: I need to add forms that you can add your name when you send a message to me, both on my contact form and the little "send a message to my cell phone" deal. It's nice to get feedback on my phone. :) But it's frustrating cause it's like "who sent this?!" So until I add that, I'll just assume all the positive remarks are from Britney Spears.
Someone (don't know who) asked me what the "Brian & Sarah" thing means. In a nutshell it is this: when you do something good, you get points and when you do something bad you get points taken away. Now this makes me look very bad (which Sarah thinks I am) but at the same time it makes Sarah look not very good, which she is. It's just I'm very conservative in giving out points, and she likes to take them away...a lot.
Used to be Fellow Drummer Nick Simmons emailed me saying there is some sort of toothpaste with floss in the cap. I need to research this.
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Posted on Friday, Nov 7 03 at 12:53 pm by Brian
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Okay, Mr. Garner...
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Thinking back over my incident with the dog, I think it could have been one large physics problem. The force of my van hitting the mass of the dog with a certain acceleration...
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 4 03 at 0:41 am by Brian
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Ah! I hit a dog today!
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I dropped off my sister and was cutting through the neighborhood since it's faster that way. Well, I'm going along and this dog just jogs right in front of me!
I didn't swerve because:
1) I'm going between two cars.
2) There were kids nearby.
3) Swerving would most definitely flip my van on its side.
So this dog jogs out in front of me and I hit my brakes but still hit him at prolly 10 or 15 mph. I hear a big bump, then see him skidding/rolling like 25 feet in front of my van into the curb. He was a bigger dog though, and started to get up. I confess though, I was running late for school already so I didn't stick around to find out. See what the school system does? I could have stayed around and tried to be hospitable, but nooo, I can't be 3 seconds late for class or I'm grilled like a hamburger. In retrospect, I should have stopped, because I got in trouble in band for not being able to play something right. Ah well. Maybe next time?
Oh, my van wasn't harmed (as far as I could tell, anyways) from the collision.
And oh, please don't send animal rights activists on me please. I just might have to send my brian rights activists on YOU!
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 4 03 at 0:30 am by Brian
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Let's set some things straight
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Okay, you know you have an idea of how much shampoo left. Even if the bottle isn't transparent you can vaguely gauge how much you have left by the weight of it. You know how much toothpaste you have left. You know how much soap you have left. You have a fuzzy guess of how much deoderant you have left.
BUT WHAT ABOUT DENTAL FLOSS??? There is absolutely no way to tell how much floss you have left. It's like, "I wonder how much floss I have left...well, I pulled it out a bit more easily than last time, I guess that's cause there was less floss in it than before. Well, there should be, it's not like I'm recycling my dental floss and stuffing floss back in the little box...aurgh this is so frustrating!!!"
So we need clear floss boxes. Simple as that.
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 2 03 at 23:46 pm by Brian
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Happy Halloween
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Don't take candy from strangers...except on Halloween.
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Posted on Friday, Oct 31 03 at 0:58 am by Brian
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You know you want to
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct 29 03 at 23:11 pm by Brian
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Random Fact!
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Most people sleep during the night time hours!
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Posted on Monday, Oct 27 03 at 21:29 pm by Brian
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My mom said...
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"I washed your clothes in the dryer today."
Huh?
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Posted on Monday, Oct 27 03 at 21:28 pm by Brian
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Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon
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So we rented Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon today. I watch it (Amazing, I know). My Impressions:
Wow! It's from China! And it's Dubbed!
Okay, after about 30 minutes my brain can't follow the plot anymore. The names are too similar. People all look the same. So, I pretty much wait patiently between action scenes.
Wow this is cool! People fly and stuff! The fighting is cool. This is why God invented testosterone.
And oh, my mom called it "Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon."
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Posted on Monday, Oct 27 03 at 0:40 am by Brian
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Daylight Saving(s) Time?
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So I was reading on a page about Daylight Saving Time. It's pretty interesting. But I was confused about this one part: Studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that we trim the entire country's electricity usage by about one percent EACH DAY with Daylight Saving Time. So my question is: WHY IS THE U.S. DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION DOING THESE STUDIES?!?! What does driving a car have to do with setting our clocks back? Don't we have the U.S. Department of Time or something?
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Posted on Monday, Oct 27 03 at 0:35 am by Brian
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State of the Minivan update
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Well, it's going pretty well. I still get lots of shakes and jimmies in the mornings when it's cold. Hesitations do come up every once and a while, but it's not as bad as it has been. I like the mud caked on the sides since I went OFF ROADING in my lovely minivan. It handled the mud with ease. I wish it'd rain more so I can do it again.
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Posted on Sunday, Oct 26 03 at 22:04 pm by Brian
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Whoopsiedaisy
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I realized I had a problem with my Contact form. When people would use it, I'd get an email, but unfortunatly I wouldn't get their email address, so I'd be unable to respond. It's fixed now. :D
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Posted on Sunday, Oct 26 03 at 22:00 pm by Brian
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>:O
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I. Never. Want. To. See. Another. Toothpick. As. Long. As. I. Live.
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Posted on Friday, Oct 24 03 at 21:07 pm by Brian
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It's so fun!
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Getting stuff in the mail that is. You know its on its way. You know it'll be here soon. But you're not sure exactly.
It's like someone owes you something. Whatever's in the package is YOURS, but it's not exactly yours...yet. This is why I love FedEx. And Ebay.
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Posted on Friday, Oct 24 03 at 21:04 pm by Brian
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Is it on?
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I don't really know what to say today. I'm sad the break is over and I have to go to school tomorrow. But more importantly, building a bridge out of toothpicks sucks. A lot.
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Posted on Monday, Oct 20 03 at 0:03 am by Brian
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Thought
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What happened the SARS? Did it magically go away?
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Posted on Saturday, Oct 18 03 at 2:02 am by Brian
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Emily's PLUG
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And now, a special "emily's profile" moment brought to you by emily. you...you...pecans for brains!
"raining down! raining DOWN! clap clap clap!" that was a good one.
"I know we're always sucking up and patting eachother on the back all the time, but i dont care. because we're GOOD!" -guy on tv
"23 is old. Because 23 is almost 25 and 25 is almost mid 20s!" - blonde girl on tv
i had some calamari thursday...a dish my mom always recoiled at...but she TRIED IT FOR THE FIRST TIME, and liked it. ha. hahaha. :-) good news.
elijah wood looks like an angel. and before i just thought so...but now, *sigh* i'm infatuated. oh it's aweful. alas johnny depp, my mega hott pirate, you're still mega hott, but you're no angel!
while jonathan's site is being worked on, visit brianschettler.com. you'll love it!! i do.
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Posted on Friday, Oct 17 03 at 19:12 pm by Brian
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Thought
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Has anyone ever had a tuna fish sandwhich?
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Posted on Friday, Oct 17 03 at 16:19 pm by Brian
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Vague Impressions of the New Strawberry Honeycomb
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So, like most new cereal enters our household, I open the cuboard one day to find a miraculous box of Honeycomb, a cereal I dearly love. I mean really.
But I aspertain (I made up that word) that this is no ordinary box of Honeycomb. It is *strawberry* Honeycomb! The things they think of! Strawberry Cheerios! Strawberry Honeycomb! It's like they're recycing their ideas...like Disney. Poor Disney. Have you noticed they can't put out a decent film? Finding Nemo was good, but that wasn't Disney. That was Pixar. All the stuff they've made recently has sucked. It's been knock-offs of older stuff, like Cinderella II or something like that. Even the new Lion King DVD, they added new stuff to it. Well I saw the new stuff and by golley it sucks. Disney, stay away from the Lion King!
Well anyways, about the cereal. I could have spent more time accurately "reviewing" this cereal, but this is just from the memory of it, since we finished off the box about a week ago (sorry, no picture of the box this time). The box was red, though.I remember that. Maybe there was some correlation between strawberries there? Who knows.
The cereal itself was not as..."poofy" as normal Honeycomb usually are. Normal Honeycomb are poofy and are very light in your mouth, easy to crunch. These were a bit more...shriveled, shall we say.
Strawberry flavor is not good. It taints the milk and gets on the non-strawberry-flavored honeycombs. Each time I ate a bowl of cereal it was a constant battle to eat the red honeycombs before they dissolved and got their nasty red-strawberry flavor on the regulary honeycombs. I didn't really care for it that much.
I don't recall if it turned the milk red or not, though. If it had, that would surely be some bonus points. The only sure thing in life is that nothing is sure, and cereal that makes the milk change color will always get you bonus points. In my book, at least.
Overall, with its red box and not so good taste, and might-have-changed-the-milk-color properties, I reproachfully give the new Strawberry Honeycombs a 4/10. I don't think I'll get it again.
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Posted on Thursday, Oct 16 03 at 2:00 am by Brian
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This is not art?!
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My art teacher, Mrs. Hernandez, claims my website is not art. It has too many words. Well I think it's art. I think it's very much art.
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Posted on Thursday, Oct 16 03 at 1:47 am by Brian
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My life...engulfed...by Harry Potter
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Ahhhh...sweet goodness, like milk and honey. I know the 5th Harry Potter has been out for a long time, but I wanted to avoid the rush and let everyone stop being crazy over it before I started reading it. And by then I would have forgotten the spoilers I had mistakenly read when it first came out.
I must have killer "time-to-read" instinct, because I started it at just the right time. I started reading yesterday at school and we didn't do much all day so I read pretty much all day at school. It's fall break and I have lots of time to read. And the internet has been going screwy lately, but it doesn't bother me too much, because I get to read more Harry Potter!
It's just so wonderful. Everything seems to have a twinge of Harry Potterness. It's like you can't really tell its there, but you feel it. It's like you think of the characters and what's going on, as if they are real people. And best of all, I WANT TO TALK LIKE THE BRITISH PEOPLE AND EAT BISCUITS!
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Posted on Thursday, Oct 16 03 at 1:46 am by Brian
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Hydroponics Report
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I forgot I left my notes online from the hydroponics expiriment I did a 2 years ago in 9th grade. I just reread it, it was pretty interesting (to me at least). Maybe it'll give someone an idea for their science project.
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Posted on Thursday, Oct 16 03 at 1:38 am by Brian
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Bridge made of Toothpicks
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Since I'm sitting here cutting off the pointy ends of thousands if not millions of toothpicks for my beloved toothpick bridge, I have lots of time to think. I think about...who makes toothpicks? Who gets out of college and aspires to start their own toothpick factory? "I want to be a lawyer" "I want to be a doctor" "I want to make toothpicks." It's just very peculiar.
And oh, internet outages suck.
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct 15 03 at 17:34 pm by Brian
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Uh
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Man I'm tired.
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Posted on Monday, Oct 13 03 at 20:06 pm by Brian
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Need Toothpick bridge help?
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All those in physics class looking to build a toothpick bridge...some neat resources: :)
http://homepage2.nifty.com/SUBAL/BCTOPE.htmThis page has some info...if you scroll down you'll find sections about "Force and Shape"...click "Truss" and you'll see some diagrams of a structural stress test program and you'll find a link to the Japanese site that has this program for you to use. It's called "Analysis Truss" and might help you. :) The learning curve is kinda steep though, half of it being in Japanese and all... :\
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Posted on Thursday, Oct 9 03 at 17:26 pm by Brian
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McDonald's English
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Another thought in English class---
How do they come up with these example sentences? "Jill chased the red ball." Will they ever start to put advertising in sentences? "Jill chased the red ball to McDonalds, where she purchased a SuperSized™ french fries and a Large Coke©." Then what about small advertisements on the sides of the pages, kind of like they do now with the "Would you like to know more about this topic? write to..."? What about full page ads?
How far is it away until companies and corporations start sponsoring all school materials? Schools are always so cash-strapped they will be bound to start looking for some sort of extra income soon, aren't they? I can see it now...McDonald's English. Wal-Mart Geometry. "If the average toy's volume is 3 cubic feet and the shelf space in the toy section is 12 cubic feet, how many toys will the shelf be able to contain?"
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct 8 03 at 0:24 am by Brian
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Why We have Weird Names in Our English Books
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Okay, I get really bored in English so I start thinking a lot and I write it down.
Why is everyone's name in our English books some weird name that no one has ever heard of, much less pronounce? This is how I think it happened: When our parents were in high school they had boring names in their English books, like "Mrs. Smith" or "Mr. Brown." And they got tired of them and asked, "Why do we have these boring names? Why not something more interesting?" So when our parents grew up and started writing their own English books, they branched out and started looking in foreign English books (do they even have those?) for some non-conventional names to use. And that's why we have weird names in our English books. But you see...since we're tired of the weird names in our English books, when WE grow up and write English books, we'll use normal names. And then our kids will get sick of normal names and when they grew up they'll use non-normal names. So it repeats forever.
Yup, English is a pretty boring class.
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Posted on Wednesday, Oct 8 03 at 0:04 am by Brian
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The yogurt!
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emily: if you buy yoplait (sp?) yogurt with the pink tops
emily: 10 cents goes to the Susan G Komen BREAST CANCER Foundation
emily: cuz you were like pink tops yogurt cancer stuff.
emily: i filled in the blanks :-)
emily: that's all! and it's true
emily: cuz you asked that too
brian: :-)hey thanks
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Posted on Sunday, Oct 5 03 at 23:17 pm by Brian
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Death to English projects
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I spent all day on mine. And you know where it's going to go when it's graded? In the trash, most likely.
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Posted on Sunday, Oct 5 03 at 2:04 am by Brian
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A Beautiful Mind
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I watched A Beautiful Mind. Good movie. Although, I kept thinking the cover of this movie was the cover to K-PAX, so I kept expecting the dude to put on some big goofy sunglasses at any minute. But then he didn't.
And man, it sucks talking about movies because I don't want to give away the ending. Even though it's not really a surprise or anything, it's just a FeelGood™ ending. Ah, yeah.
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Posted on Sunday, Oct 5 03 at 2:03 am by Brian
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AHHH
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Cursed Cheerios! I'm tired of you! Tracy and I are eating different cereals, so it's taking an extremely long time to get rid of them. She's eating a two pound bag of frosted Mini Wheats. I'm eating cheerios. We're both using about 3 times our normal sugar intake because we smother them in sugar before eating. And we have a big box of Froot (fruit) Loops and Apple Jacks tantalizing us to hurry and finish the old cereal!! AHHH!
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 30 03 at 23:49 pm by Brian
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Shunning Responsibility
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There's all this stuff I should be doing...but I'm not. I have big tests to study for. I have projects due. I need to be working. I need to jump out of bed in the morning and my feet shouldn't hit the ground until they're back in bed at night(/early morning). But yet, I'm strangely at ease. Nothing really matters. I have stuff to do, but I'll get to it when I get it. What's important now is that I'm taking it easy and not stressing. Life is good you know, it's time to stop and smell the flowers and enjoy it.
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Posted on Monday, Sep 29 03 at 23:57 pm by Brian, in a really good mood
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Linus Rocks
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Linus Torvalds rocks. Snippets from an interview (NY times online...free registristration required):
Is file-sharing, which has the recording industry so up in arms, the ''dark side'' of open-source attitudes?
Sharing is certainly not bad in itself. In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved. What the recording industry is so worried about is obviously something totally different -- the ''sharing'' of stuff that isn't yours to share in the first place.
O.K. So what are your views on sharing music files?
I don't actually think about it much; I listen to the radio if I listen to music. What I do find interesting is how the file-sharing thing ends up changing how people think about computers and copyright law. Some of it is a bit scary: just the fact that your question equated sharing with something bad is a pretty scary statement in itself. What also bothers me is the apparent dishonesty of especially the R.I.A.A., claiming that file-sharing is destroying their business and that they are losing billions of dollars on it. There's been a number of studies done, and it looks like the major reason for the dip in CD sales ends up being lack of interest in the music produced. And let's face it -- how many boy bands can you try to sell before your revenues start dipping?
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Posted on Sunday, Sep 28 03 at 14:43 pm by Brian
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Wow That's a Lot of Corn
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photo.
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Posted on Friday, Sep 26 03 at 19:14 pm by Brian
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Milk before sleeping
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Does drinking a glass of milk before you go to bed really help you sleep better? Did I hear that somewhere or did I make it up?
Also, I bought some apples today. They came to about 33 cents per apple. Problem solved...I guess.
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Posted on Friday, Sep 26 03 at 0:59 am by Brian
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Engrish!
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In America, English teachers are the only people who can talk write right.
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Posted on Friday, Sep 26 03 at 0:59 am by Brian
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Good quote in English today
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"You must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures." -Charles C. Noble
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 23 03 at 23:59 pm by Brian
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Today for Lunch
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Pizza, of all things. :)
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Posted on Monday, Sep 22 03 at 12:20 pm by Brian
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?!?
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Posted on Saturday, Sep 20 03 at 23:58 pm by Brian
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Today for Lunch
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Frozen Microwavable Hot Ham and Cheese Sandwhich. In retrospect, I wonder how hard it is to get two slices of bread, and put a piece of ham and cheese between it. I'm also enjoying a cup of "Blueberry Patch" yogurt and I'm thinking of taking a donut with me to eat on the way back to school. We should get snacks at school.
Humm....Homeland => Apple Market => Country Mart.
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Posted on Wednesday, Sep 17 03 at 12:23 pm by Brian
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Questions that Boggle the mind
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Quick Question—How much does an apple cost? Ahh...think about it. It's crazy. How much would you pay for a red, good sized apple? $1, like in 10-10-220 commercials? Nah, too expensive. 50 cents? 25 cents? 15? 10? nah, surely that is too cheap. 25 cents? 50? That's too expensive. 25 cents for an apple? What goes into growing an apple, a seed, dirt, water, air and sunlight? 25 cents for that? Of course it's all free to begin with I guess...except for maybe the seed. And the land, in some cases. AUGH this is crazy. I started thinking about it one day...my thoughts were, "What if one day I'm running late for lunch? What could be a good substitute?" And I thought of running to the local Country Mart and buy an apple and eat it. So how much does an apple cost?
Yeah, it says questionS with an S. There was another one but I forgot.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 16 03 at 23:58 pm by Brian
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Someone told me to post...
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There was a discussion in English class about...yogurt lids? And how a program exists that saved lids mailed in to the company helps prevent cancer. Anyways, a few in class were talking about it and I didn't really catch all of it. But they said I should put it on my site, so here it is.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 16 03 at 23:51 pm by Brian
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English teachers beware!
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I've noticed I've gotten into the habit of not capitalizing my name when I write it. Maybe I'll go crazy.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 16 03 at 0:18 am by Brian
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High School ROCKS!
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When I think back of High School...I'll think of how we had severe budget problems so we couldn't do anything. I won't think of how fun band was going on trips and playing at football games...no sir. I guess it has a positive side, though. Those of us now who had to grow up with no money will (hopefully) want to allocate more money to our schools when we're grown up and in control of things. (and no more polluting either!)
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Posted on Monday, Sep 15 03 at 23:08 pm by Brian
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Today's Word of the Day
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Bird.
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Posted on Sunday, Sep 14 03 at 23:17 pm by Brian
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Where does it end?
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On TechTV they're having an "open mic" thing about the RIAA/file sharing and mp3's and the like. Shows like this...where two groups who devoutly believe in one thing argue against each other...shows like this make me wonder—where does it end? Do the two groups ever come to an agreement? Or does the show always end because they ran out of time?
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Posted on Sunday, Sep 14 03 at 18:47 pm by Brian
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Today for Lunch
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Spaghetti and Peanut Butter and Jelly. Who thought of Peanut Butter and Jelly? Why is it the universal school lunch? And why is it so hard to get exactly the right ratio of peanut butter to jelly?
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Posted on Friday, Sep 12 03 at 0:23 am by Brian
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911
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I don't think anything has been burnt into our minds more than "NINE-ELEVEN." It's like...I'm at the shrink and we're doing random association...he says "nine" I say "eleven." He says "September" I say "eleventh."
But I think those times are comming to an end. I didn't even realize today was 9/11 until they came on the intercom at school and announced it (but then again I never really know what day it is). And truth betold, I think a lot of other people didn't realize it either. Everyone was reverent during our moment of silence, though. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate September 11th or the memorials or anything. I just think...we're moving on, whether we like it or not. And moving on is a good thing. Life goes on.
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Posted on Friday, Sep 12 03 at 0:22 am by Brian
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Today for Lunch
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Today for lunch I had some Fetuchinni Alfrado stuff we got from Red Lobster last night, a few Oreos and some banana/orange/banana juice. Yum.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 9 03 at 14:21 pm by Brian
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Flat Tire/Happy Birthday Mum!
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So I get out of my van comming back from lunch (after eating the cereal), and hear a hissing noise. "Funny," I think, "I don't think my van gets hot enough that it would hiss after I turned it off." So I lean down and oh no! The tire is leaking air! So after a quick dash to my next hour to explain to my teacher why I need to leave class again, I come back and try to fix my flat tire. And darn it, the bubble gum trick only works in the movies.
So I end up changing the tire and putting on the tiny little spare, how neat! First time ever also. I've changed the tires before but never had to use the spare...quite neat little contraption. I manage to get to work and the places I need to go then Dad comes to the rescue and we go to Hibdon's and get it fixed. Another disaster narrowly diverted.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 9 03 at 0:35 am by Brian
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Lunch
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Today I'm eating the universal food: a bowl of cereal. Cheap-brand rice crispies. With sugar. I like what Jerry Seinfeld says about it, "I can eat and drink at the same time and not have to look."
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Posted on Monday, Sep 8 03 at 12:20 pm by Brian
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Times of Change
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Lo and Behold, Brian has updated his website! Finally! I apologize to all my fans (cough) who missed my musings and had to read the one post about the weird dream all summer.
You'll notice the new layout, featuring none other than my beloved minivan. I never really liked my last design much (yeah, it sucked)...so when I thought of this design, I pondered these questions: "What has mass appeal? What does everyone like? What will everyone fall in love with? What goes well with cheese?" And the answer of course is...the minivan. Everyone loves a minivan. They are so practical, yet sporty. Don't forget a shirt also!
This site also features a complete PHP-based posting engine that I wrote. Now I can leave behind PostMaker3 (thanks, Jonathan!) and go headfirst into...um, something. So anyways, I can manage the site all from web-based forms, so I will no longer be restricted to my local computer. Rock on.
I'll still have a few more things I'll be tinkering around with in the next few days, so if you see anything wrong please contact me!
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Posted on Monday, Sep 8 03 at 1:00 am by Brian
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Chariots of Fire
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I feel so cultured, watching old movie(s). Chariots of Fire is an old movie made in 1981. It's about running, and it's where you get that running music you see...erm, hear, in the movies (search for "vangelis - chariots of fire." The movie was peculiar. I think there's a reason why old movies stay in the past. It was hard to follow and I was very confused on who was who and who I should root for. These guys are on the same team? No wait, they hate each other. Ugh, I'm confused. It does have a good message though, one guy won't run on Sunday because he wants to respect the Sabbath.
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Posted on Sunday, Sep 7 03 at 15:03 pm by Brian
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Hello this is a post from the school
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School really sucks. End of story.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 2 03 at 15:15 pm by Brian
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Van Status
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Fear not folks! The situation is under control. Yes, you may have heard that my van was having difficulties. There was a knocking sound in the engine, a water leak, and things just weren't looking good. My precious van would die at intersections, those type of things. But fear not! It is fixed! All this weekend my Dad, Uncle and I tore apart the beast and detirmined that the problem was NOT a knocking rod (meaning the entire engine would freeze up in a matter of days), but rather the problem was a leaking water pump. So, we replaced it. Now my van is much better. It has the new get-go for a van with 186,000 miles. Soon Dad and myself will replace the spark plugs and spark plug wires (never been replaced!) to help with the slight hesitations every now and then. But hooray! Peoples of the town rejoice!
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 2 03 at 0:34 am by Brian
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Stupid Projects
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I almost had my site finished (all I really need to do is write a login system to keep private things private)...when I got bogged down with school and other projects. Curses! The MHS site is almost to a point where I can hault it for a bit (I hope). Mark asked me to design a Western Hills Church of Christ Youth Group shirt (Get your life right!) but he owes me money so I won't start on that just yet ;) And the MACBAND (oh yeah, we went with this design [the first one])shirt has been sent off to printing guys to be printed. Umm, let's see...school sucks, anything else to be said about that? I need to get this off my chest about school. School really sucks. I really feel like from 8:00 (well, 7:30 because of early band) to 2:30 is the biggest waste of my time. I feel like I could learn more in my sleep. Well, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. Band is fun, and we have a good teacher in Pre-AP Calculas. Physics I'm unsure about. Werld Histery could DEFINITELY be thrown out the window, as is English (coloring worksheets, anyone?). Studio art is fun because...well, it's art. So I guess it boils down to: 2 hours of my day could be freed up if I got rid of those two unecessary classes. Werld Histery. Let me say, I like history. Last year I read ahead in the book some (mainly due to bordem in class) but it was interesting. However, I just don't see how it should be a required course. If I want to learn about it I will on my own time. Stop wasting an hour of my life every day. I'm tired of watching movies and copying out of the book. English has potential. Why do we need English? Can we not speek it already? And why is English III considered, "American English"? Will we learn slang? Ebonics? We will just learn about English-speaking American people? If so, why didn't we learn about them last year in American History? Gah, school is going down the drain. This is why I buy my stuff off the internet so I can avoid paying taxes that go to our craptastic school system. *deep breath*
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 2 03 at 0:30 am by Brian
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Latest Project
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They asked me to do a website for my school, MacArthur High School. Check out the Current site. Here's mine.
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Posted on Monday, Sep 8 03 at 1:24 am by Brian
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Thought about Reality TV
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Reality TV is single-handedly the cause of all problems that exist in America today. Think about it.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 2 03 at 0:18 am by Brian
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The Pianist
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Okay, I saw this movie. Everyone said it was great, but I didn't really think so. I seemed to get bored through the movie, it goes on and nothing really seems to drive me toward finding out the resolution of the film. I think it's like this: If you make a movie about the Holocaust, or Nazi Germany or Jews or anything like that, it becomes an instant "good" movie. It's a SureThing™. It's like if you're an actor and you portray some retarded person, or someone with a disability, you'll automatically get an Oscar for your "moving" performance. Not to bash people that are retarded or actors (/actresses) portraying retarded people, or Jews or Nazi's or Holocaust victims...augh, stupid disclaimer.
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Posted on Tuesday, Sep 2 03 at 0:17 am by Brian
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This is how I do my homework
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Homework sucks. This is my take on it: If I don't know it...oh well. Homework shouldn't take forever! If I don't know the answer, I'm putting down whatever sounds good! The war of 1812! 7! Eli Whitney and the cotton gin! This stuff shouldn't be hard! I shouldn't have to think! My primary objective is to get it over with and out of the way. But then I get stuff wrong. Homework sucks.
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Posted on Tuesday, Aug 26 03 at 0:12 am by Brian
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Capt'n Crunch is DANGEROUS
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Cap'n Crunch is the most dangerous cereal ever. I nearly always choke on it when I eat it. I think this is because Cap'n Crunch cereal has this magical property that it repels water. The Cap’n Crunch dust forms tiny microscopic sphericals of dust that won’t dilute in water. So when you least expect it and are inhaling down a big bite of cereal, the sphericals pop and the dust goes into your lungs, making you cough like crazy for 20 minutes. Acursed Cap’n Crunch dust sphericals!
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Posted on Sunday, Aug 24 03 at 17:37 pm by Brian
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I hope...
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I think I *might* be able to reclaim my "web developer" title soon. ...I hope.
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 23 03 at 2:44 am by Brian
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Yay
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I found 11 cents today.
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Posted on Friday, Aug 22 03 at 0:56 am by Brian
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House of Mouse
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House of Mouse is interesting. I like it. It’s cartoons, but they’re...newer. The new style is nice. One thing I noticed was voices...they seem to use the same voices over and over. Ah well, you get used to it. I just wish I could watch more of it.
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Posted on Wednesday, Aug 20 03 at 19:23 pm by Brian
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Hangers
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I think I've said this before but I'll say it again. Why is it that when you have a pile of shirts and you grab hangers to hang them on, you never grab the right number of hangers? Even if you count the number of shirts and get the same number of hangers from the closet, you still won't have the right number because there will always be that one shirt that was hidden underneath the last one. Murphey's Law strikes again.
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Posted on Monday, Aug 18 03 at 1:16 am by Brian
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MacBand
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Working on design ideas for this year's Band Shirt. I hate the words "Mac Band" now.
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Posted on Monday, Aug 18 03 at 0:57 am by Brian
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Thoughts of the movie, Drumline
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Woohoo! A movie called drumline about...get this...drummers! And I'm a drummer in band! I should see this movie! Well, I was going to see it...but then it came out of theatres...out on video...didn't rent it...oh! But then my family rents it! Thank you for saving me!
This movie is a nice movie, but it's like a getaway from reality. Everything that parallels our own universe here is slightly exagerated in the Drumline movie world. I picked up on a few things, the whole persona things gave off. For example, the Morris Brown (that was the name, right?) Band. At the contest, you see the director in his snazzy outrageous outfit. Is it just me or do only supervillians and heroes (objects in completely fictional settings) wear outrageous, eccentric clothing like that? I can even think of the great movie, Unbreakable - remember Mr. Glass wearing the somewhat peculiar outfits? Ah ha! I also noticed this larger than life aspect on the "rapper dude" that came out during their performance. These aspects of the Morris Brown Band seemed to say a subliminal message..."we're good, but being purposely outlandish so the good guys can win." It seemed entirely set up. But it's a movie. It's supposed to be.
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Posted on Tuesday, Aug 12 03 at 1:46 am by Brian
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Gasp!
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Don't make the computer a foreign object!
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Posted on Tuesday, Aug 12 03 at 1:36 am by Brian
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Home Depot vs. Lowes
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Today I went around to Home Depot and Lowes, looking for shelves. It's a wonder to all the peoples of Lawton as to why we built both these stores within 500 feet of each other. Which one is the best? Lowes, hands down. The Home Depot has a nice orange color scheme going on, and I like it, but it reminds me far too much of Sutherlands. Lowes on the other hand has a nice blue tones, which scream, "American Pride! We love corporate America and capitalism!" On second thought, maybe Home Depot is better.
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Posted on Sunday, Aug 10 03 at 1:24 am by Brian
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Update
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About time for an update, don't you think?
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 9 03 at 23:11 pm by Brian
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Design, Code, and Original Graphics by Brian Schettler.
Designed for Internet Explorer 5.5 and later at 1024x768 or above.
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