some fun 'would you rather' questions I found somewhere. enjoy
would you rather...
-be 4'1'' or 7'9''
-live without music or live without tv
-lose your legs or lose your arms
-live in Antarctica or death valley
-have 3 eyes or webbed feet
-find true love or 1 million dollars
-always have to say everything on your mind or never speak again
-have x-ray vision or bionic hearing
-be stranded on an island alone or with someone you hate
-know it all or have it all
-give bad advice or take bad advice
-own a ski lodge or a surf camp
-take a math test or do a lab in science
-be a deep sea diver or an astronaut
-not be able to talk or hear for one day
-have a kangaroo or koala as your pet
-write a mystery or a poem
-be forgotten or hatefully remembered

into yesterday

traditional vs. split fins

Being that I'm a scuba diver I figured I'd give my input on gear. The gear of the day is fins. Believe it or not what kind of fins you have makes a difference. Though there's at least 20 brands of fins there's two different types: traditional and split. (both are shown below). I personally prefer traditional, because for every type of diving other than getting certified in a pool traditional works better.
First let me tell you about why people like split fins. When people start diving they generally do the bike kick. This, needless to say is extraordinarily ineffective. Split fins allow divers to do the bike kick or a similar modified flutter kick (both inefficient) and gives them some propulsion. Many divers like the fins because they allow the divers to do as little work as possible with some result. For most divers it's all about doing the least work necessary->the less work the less gas used->the longer you can stay underwater.
But here's the downside. Though a diver with bad form can get some propulsion out of those fins they are not able to keep up with the pace of a correct diver with traditional fins. In its core the traditional fin is better than split simply because of physics. The split fin is two flimsy pieces of plastic that bend significantly when pushed against water therefore creating little resistance which means little propulsion. As opposed to a traditional fin which is a rigid single fin that resists more, which gives the diver more power to move in the water. Another point can be proved by looking at every other kind of divers other than recreational divers. No one: including naval, salvage, research, and especially not cave divers use split fins. One reason is because of its inefficiency, as stated above, another is because traditional fins allow the diver the power and control to kick in many different ways.
One instance: for survival cave divers do the 'frog kick.' It's nearly impossible to explain so here's a video. It keeps the divers feet and fins off the silty ground of the cave. It's as simple as this, if your fins hit the bottom and silt flies everywhere and your hand comes off the line you're dead. It is nearly impossible to find the line again, and without visibility there's no way out. Split fins do not from a physics standpoint have the ability to allow divers to do the frog kick.
It is all a matter of personal preference. Split fins sell quite well because they are lighter and "easier" for a lot of divers. But I've had two pairs of fins in my whole diving career they have both been dive frogs (shown below). They work extremely well and the only reason I had to get a new pair last year was because I grew out of the old pair. I suggest traditional fins for diver or snorkler. But like I said it's a matter of personal preference. I know plenty of people that love their split fins, but I also know plenty of people who are tired of them.

family business

here's a fun game I recommend for everybody. The basic gist of the game is that each player has a family of 9 mobsters. The goal of the game is to kill off everybody else's mob family leaving yours as the only ones standing. You do this by using a series of cards that accomplish different actions and by making alliances with other players. It's a really fun game if all the players already know what each card does. I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars simply because if you haven't played it before, figuring out what all the cards mean can be challenging. But once everybody figures out the cards it's a whole lot of fun and it's the kind of game that's addicting. It's guaranteed that there will be a lot of yelling and alliances made when this game is around. Here's a link that describes it in a bit more detail.

behind the scenes of the Fox

iceberg climbing wall

The place we went on for senior retreat had a really fun iceberg climbing wall in the lake. I don't know if you've ever been on one but they're a lot of fun. This picture shows the side you climb on but the other side doesn't have any handholds so you get to slide down it. It's about a 15-20 foot slide and a lot of fun.

the curse of being a techie

A little while ago I realized that being sound person for my (former) high school's band made me not be able to listen to a live band without going crazy. Apparently it happens to everybody who knows stuff about EQing (it's basically making them sound on pitch) and balancing the voices with the instruments. We're constantly thinking: this needs to be louder, more bass drum, his voice sounds muddy turn up his highs and mediums. I was at my senior retreat this weekend and the worship team had 3 singers, two guitars, and a bongo-esque drum. Even though that kind of a set up is very simple and basic and doesn't require very much balancing it does require somebody who knows what they're doing to at least listen to them for their first song and at least somewhat balance and EQ things. They didn't do this they simply put the volume on a certain leval and it stayed there the whole time. It drove me crazy. This is where I rant and talk about things you proabaly won't completely understand so bear with me: the two guy singers were way too loud and the girl's volume wasn't loud enough. One guy sounded muddy and his lows needed to be turned down and the mids up. The other guy sounded tinny and his lows needed turning up. The bongo (which doesn't need a mike) was letting out horrible high feedback that only techies who have been doing it for a while can hear it.
Here's the curse: I simply can't stand there and enjoy the music for what it is. It's not the end of the world but it's a prick in my side enough to annoy me. So when I get to college I'm deffinetly going to be involved in tech theatre, if not minor in it. I absolutely love working backstage as a stagehand/propmaster/set changer person during performances. That's my favorite thing to do and that's why I do theater. But here's part two of my curse. What I consiter second nature with balancing voices and instruments, others do not. I forget that it took a lot of work and a lot of doing stuff wrong to be able to confidently run sound. I know stuff that most people don't and I feel like I should be helping with sound simply because of that knowldege. So even though I'm pretty sure I'll be sticking with all black and running around back stage I really don't wanna throw away what I've learned this year.

the mp3 experiment

Part one and two, two is cooler but one is needed for an intro so enjoy
I wanna do this so bad.

the truth about dogs

ha

alright

Alright - Darius Rucker

our generation

It seems that every generation cares about something different. There was the hippie generation the save the whales generation. I believe that the new generation is set on helping Africa. I don't want to call us the save Africa generation because that sounds too cliche. It's my thinking that Invisible Children started the whole thing off by showing us about the war in Uganda. Because of the power of technology and video this generation is able to see beyond our own borders. Maybe I'm wrong but I think that a lot of why we care about Uganda in particular is that they can't speak for themselves. In essence it's the need to help the helpless. Though people complain that technology and how it has "corrupted the minds of the youth" it has also let us see places that we never were able to before. Telling people about an injustice only goes so far in 21st century America. Showing people takes them into the heart of the problem. Middle aged and beyond complain that the younger people are lazy and have no motivation because the internet is at their fingers. Though this might be true, some people of the same technology generation have used technology to help people other than themselves. They have grabbed the attention of internet, cell phone loving kids and made them truly care about a cause that is worth fighting for.

this is probably one of my top 5 favorite proposal ideas.

euphemisms

We were studying euphemisms today and here are some of my favorites

-visual harassment: staring
-targeting process error: looks like we killed a lot of civilians
-isolated reflection interval: timeout
- psychological violence: disapproval
-robust peacekeeping: killing troublesome locals
-poorly buffered precipitation: acid rain
-occupant restraints: seat belts
-deer management: shooting all the deer
-made possible by: we don't take advertising, but here comes an ad anyway
-intercommunal coexistence: getting along
-involuntary normal attrition: laying off workers
-managing down: laying off workers
-rightsizing: laying off workers

horse show

my barn hosted a horse show this sunday and I figured I'd tell a little about it. It's a barn show so it's not all high and fancy like most horse shows people think of. But it still had those annoying white pants which I disdain. The two main groups of riding that people think of are western and english. Western is the one with the horn on the saddle, some of the events are reigning, barrel racing, and calf roping. English is the one with the white pants and black boots. In english we jump over fences, when you have to jump fences in a certain order that's called a course. A course usually consists of anywhere from 7-12 jumps the typical course is about 8. There's three types of disciplines all judging on different aspects of the horse and rider.
Equitation- it focuses on how well the rider is able to control the horse with as little struggle and obvious cues (telling the horse to do certain things) as visibly possible
hunter- it mainly judges the horse and how it moves. They judge on the fluidity of the horses movements and how well they are able to deal with the course.
jumpers- my personal favorite are the jumpers. It's completely objective with just a timer as the judge. It is almost exclusively for advanced riders because it requires the horse and rider to be knowledgeable in knowing how to get around a course well and fast. There is a set time limit and whoever completes the course with the least faults and lowest time wins. It's a rediculus amount of fun because it's a race of who's the fastest and who can turn the quickest. Though it's the most dangerous of the three it is by far the most fun to watch and participate in.
I did a few hunter courses and a few jumper courses at this show. Though my horse is technically a hunter he is much more suited to be a jumper. Both of us like to go fast and we love to jump. But, jumpers requires intense amounts of skill to be able to do it at a significant height (ie. 3+ feet). It requires being able to turn tight turns while still balancing the horse. So there's the basic gist of a horse show.

I went to my schools version of prom last night. I say my schools version b/c the school doesn't support dance so it's called JSB (junior senior banquet)...yeah I know. Anyways, it's basically a tribute to the seniors. They had a long slide show with pictures from middle school, sports, and just hanging out with friends. It was kinda fun going down memory lane and seeing what everybody looked like 5 years ago. The last picture was the pic we took after we won spirit week and it was kinda weird seeing pics from seventh grade year up until the end of senior year. I've spent 6 years with a lot of these kids and even though I wasn't really close to a whole lot of them I'm kinda gonna miss us as a class. Ever since spirit week this year the class has gotten a lot closer to each other than we have in years past. It's a shame because I'm just now meeting a lot of nice people that I've been taking classes with for half a decade. What I've learned is that you can tell the freshman class and the seventh grade class to hang out with everybody and enjoy the time they have with each other, but nobody will truly understand until they realize that after all these years they're going to be leaving and probably won't see most of the kids ever again. All of us only have a week left and then the six long years at WCA are done. Even though I'm more than happy to leave and never come back to the school, I'm going to miss hanging out with all my school friends. I'm going to a lot of grad parties knowing that it's probably the last time I'll see a lot of them. So here's to the class of 2009.

haha