A sunset, a sunrise...

Hmm, maybe time for another quick update? A lot has happened for me in the last week, starting with being dumped five hundred miles from home, and having to find out how to scrounge out food and scratch out an existance...

Well, mostly it's the newness of everything that's bothering me. Lots to have to adapt to in a short time - tons of new people, a totally new place and a new environment, kind of a different weather, though not by much for me. New food and strange sleeping patterns. The fact of having to deal with everything on your own.

School starts tomorrow, well, technically today, since it is already past 12AM. But today was a really fitting last day of summer for me. I went with some friends to the beach this afternoon, and we ended up staying around just long enough to watch the sunset. I took that picture as we watched the sun dip into the cloud layer, lighting the clouds in a magnificent neon glow. Within fifteen minutes, the cloud had reappeard below the clouds, and it went dipping lower and lower until it disappeared as a pinprick into the horizon...

Only later did we realize, this was our last day of summer.

Such a perfect and fitting way to end summer, if you think about it.


I know we start school really late and that most everyone else has started long ago, but I still want to wish everyone luck in the months ahead. Every day is it's own opportunity. Make the most of it. The sun sets, but it always rises again. Perhaps illuminating something different each time, but still always there. In two Latin words, Carpe Diem. :)

And the bird has flown the nest...

What might be next,

Over the horizon?

What might be behind that sunset,

As time goes on?

So...

This screen here, do you know how threatening it looks? The big white blank spot in the middle...it's very intimidating. Like some swirling vortex of doom.





I can think of only one thing scarier than that. Well, not really, there's monsters and entropy and politicians and homework and ... ... ... ... ...but anyways. I digress. Take a look at this, if you will, and may it strike fear into your heart:




The great circle of life has rolled around to this time again. Again will life be captured into an endless cycle of torturous routine. Summer is over now.

Speaking generally, I will assume that we've all had, more or less, the same kind of routine in our lives over the past however long we've been alive. School, summer, school, summer. It almost seems like an endless cycle where the phrase "oh, next summer" is enough to palliate whatever pains you have from something you missed out on this year.

But I found this comic a few weeks ago I feel is quite accurate.



Senior summer is a sad summer. In the back of your head, you know that June means saying goodbye to 90% of the people you spent the last zillion years with, and that by September, you're on a totally new frontier.

On a lighter note, sorry I haven't written in a while. To those of you who are already caught under the monotonous cycle of school, still remember to make the most of everything, still remember to stop and enjoy the simple things in life, okay? :D

Good luck to a new year. :)

Make A Wish

Hmm...it's been a month since I wrote something. New record...time to write something again. I've been spacing out over the last month. :P

*tries to produce something vaguely meaningful*

First, I need a topic to write about.

Lets see, since we're talking about spacing out and about space, I guess I'll talk about space then.

The Perseid Meteor Showers start this week. They peak tomorrow night, between midnight and dawn if you're a night owl. But if you have some clear skys around you can definitely see them tonight as well.

So look up and make a wish. :)

The Perseid showers are the strongest ones we get all year, peaking around 60 streaks per hour, so that averages to one per minute. If you stay away from streetlights, then you're sure to see quite a few streaking by into the night. If you are willing to stay up/wake up early at dawn, and you live in a fairly dark place, the shower is expected to rise up to around 100 or more streaks per hour!

This meteor shower is called the Perseid showers because it seems to radiate from the constellation of Perseus, which might be of some interest to you if you like the Percy Jackson series. :) The "+" sign labeled "Perseid radiant" is where all the meteors will appear to be coming from.

So see if you have fifteen minutes, half an hour, before you go to bed tomorrow night. Go outside into a yard or something, if you have streetlights see if you can find a wall or tree or something to block it out. And look up. See any dots in the sky? They have been inspiring mankind for the last two thousand years.

Earlier in the evening, maybe a bit past sunset, you can probably find a huge bright dot low in the sky to the west, brighter than airplanes really, and shining yellow. That'd be Venus, what they call the Morning Star or the Evening Star. Venus will always be the brightest object in the sky when it is up, well, short of the moon and sun, of course. It does really glow quite beautifully, its hostile atmosphere of thick carbon dioxide reflecting off a good deal of light. Beneath the atmosphere though hold many features not unlike Earth's; mountains and canyons, plains and valleys. If only it wasn't like global warming on steroids; Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system averaging around seven hundred degrees. But if you have some binoculars or a telescope, you should take a look at it. You would never guess it to be a violent place from its peaceful shine. It is, after all, named for the Roman goddess of beauty and love.

If you look sort of above and to the left of Venus, you might notice a dot that looks like any other star, but has a definite reddish or orange color to it. If you take a guess, you might guess that that's Mars, the red planet. Living on Mars would be a lot more hospitable than living on Venus. The sky would be a pale red reflecting on the rusted soil that covers the planet. Mars may only have a radius half of Earths, but it is home to the most magnificent geological features in the Solar System. Take Olympus Mons, for example, Latin for Mount Olympus which stands ninety thousand feet high, over three times the height of Mount Everest. Or Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of the solar system that, if on Earth, would stretch from San Francisco to New York. It was probably the red color of the planet that inspired it's name - Mars is the Roman god of war. Two of the god's sons were named Deimos and Phobos, which also happen to be the name of the planet's two moons. These moons are really more like captured astroids. Being very irregular shaped and only a few kilometers across, they're too small to be seen through any Earth-based telescope. Deimos is the god of terror, and Phobos is the god of fear. His name is where we get the word "phobia" from - personal fear.

To the right and a little bit up from Venus, we have a third planet in the sky, Saturn. Without any optics, Saturn would appear just as any other star, sort of a pale yellow, not extraordinarily bright that you would give it a second glance. But if you peek at it through some high powered binoculars or a telescope, (maybe around 20x or 25x magnification) you can see very clearly the rings around the planet as well as some of its moons. The rings appear nearly edge on right now, as Saturn is tilted in pretty much the same plane as we are viewing from Earth. They go through a fourteen year cycle, so every seven years, we can see from Earth the rings full on in their entire beauty. Seven years later, the rings will seem to vanish as we view it right from edge on. The rings really are an endless collection of dust and ice, each piece no bigger than your fingernail, circling the planet.

Living on Saturn would be quite an adventure as well, as there really is no solid surface to stand on. The planet is a giant ball of gas, but it actually has a density so low that Saturn would float on water. If you were on Saturn, the sky would probably glow a warming yellow while you try swimming from place to place. It would be a rather calming place in the solar system, sort of like drifting along at the beach or in a swimming pool. It's here that you can let your problems go, and let them all just float away. If you want to stand on some solid ground for a change, you can visit one of Saturn's moons; it does have over sixty of them in addition to the rings. The largest moon would be Titan, named for the Titan gods, of whom Saturn is one.

These three planets form sort of a right triangle shape, making them fairly easy to find in the sky as soon as the sky gets dark enough. The three planets would drop below the horizon and set though around 9PM now, so they are early objects to look for. This is a little map of the western sky as how it would appear around 8:30PM tonight.

We skipped Jupiter, so let me talk about Jupiter a little bit. Jupiter is late to the party, showing up as it rises on the other side in the eastern sky around 11PM, the brightest object in the sky now that Venus (and Mars and Saturn) has set. It would appear looking like a bright star with perhaps a hint of red, but if you point some optics at it, you can begin to see it's reddish coloring and the bands on the surface, along with a line of four dots around it - its four largest moons. Jupiter also has over sixty, but these are the big four that Galileo observed in evidence to disprove the geocentric theory. Jupiter would be another unique place to live, with gaseous winds constantly blowing at hurricane forces. You would never need to worry about it being warm there, because there's always going to be a cooling breeze around! It's a gaseous planet too, so you would be sort of swimming or sinking in the atmosphere, going places driven by the wind currents. It could probably be easier to live on one of the moons though; Jupiter also has well over 60 of them. The largest four that you can see from Earth include Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede. Each one is a unique environment of their own; the hot, active world of volcanic activity on Io, a cooler place of methane and possibly underground springs on Europa, the cratered and shattered surface of Callisto, the dark icy shadows of Ganymede. Being the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter is named after the Roman god of the sky.

The naming of the planets just so happen to flow so well though. Jupiter is the father of Mars. Saturn is the father of Jupiter. So when the seventh planet was discovered in 1781, the natural thing to do was name the planet Uranus, the father of Saturn. The one strange thing I notice however though, is that Uranus is Greek, while all the other planets so far have been named based on their Roman names. Hmm.

I guess won't get into Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto that much because you can only very rarely see Mercury when it is at the right angle from the sun, and you can't ever see Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto with just your naked eye because they are too dim. Also, that would make this post to long, but if you guys want, I can talk about them a little bit in my next post too. Gives me a topic to write about next time. :)

Until then, go outside, look up,

and make a wish. :)

Clocks go tick tock. I've written a frikin essay.

It seems like everybody is pretty busy nowadays. Like many of the last few blogs on my dashboard seem to include some form or variation of "I'm sorry for not blogging lately I promise to write more soon!"

Well, I suppose that means that people have stuff going on irl, meaning they have a life to live and stuff to do. Which might not always be a bad thing.

Until it gets way to hectic. And there's too much stuff going on. But I might as well post this anyways, even though some people probably won't bother reading a whole frikin essay. 'Cause if I don't post something, I'd be among those apologizing for not posting as well. :)

After all, there's only 24 hours to a day; how much can you squeeze into 24 hours before everything spirals out of control?

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I remember this interesting news article from a while back, from New Years Eve, 2008, actually, which was titled "Hold On a Second, 2009." Basically, it called for a leap second, adding an extra second to the clock to account for the Earth slowing down.

Heh, that's not exactly relief time, but that gives us an extra second to each day. Um, yeah. Thanks. That helps. No really, it does. The Earth getting old and tired and slowing down helps us. Really. Even though the Earth is too busy and tired trying to support all of us.

One interesting thing about the article though, is that it said that leap seconds can't be predicted; they are added as needed. One question stands out in my head though: with all this advanced science and technology, scientists can't forecast these leap seconds, but they can measure that this six-sextillion pound of rock is slowing down by one second? Really?

Going further into this article, it suggested the idea that Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, might be growing out of date now. Some developed countries are considering switching to International Atomic Time, or IAT, based in France instead of in England. The IAT system boasts that it can keep time with nanosecond accuracy (to the billionth of a second), so accurate that in 1,000 years, noon would occur at about one in the afternoon.

Wait, what?

This is accuracy? Really?

Haha, so suddenly the Earth itself isn't reliable enough to use as a standard to calibrate time with. The Earth isn't constant, it slows down. Oops.

Do you know what the SI definition of a second is? Go ahead, sit down, grab a glass of water, and take this in. Defined in 1967 by the 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures, one second of time is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom."

Mm hmm. This, using a caesium atom, is where the term "atomic time" comes from.

Later, they found that that wasn't accurate enough. Amendments had to be added that the definition refers to the caesium atom as being at absolute zero, with no electric or magnetic fields, not be in motion, and corrected for gravitational time dilation.

So now they calibrate time with a caesium atom. Wow. Scientists get paid good money to trifle with trivial stuff sometimes.

Lemme go back a few hundred years, back to when the mechanical timepiece was created, sundial or clock or hourglass or waterwheel or whatever. Since people work in the day and sleep in the night, and since for the majority of human history, artificial lighting was not common, a timepiece based on the sun seems pretty logical. Makes sense. So how do we divide up the time in a day?

Lets go further back. To list a few examples, the Egyptians, with the then-common duodecimal (base-12) numbering system, had the day divided into two twelve-hour divisions by 2000BC.

Ancient Greeks and Romans defined an hour as 1/12th the time between sunrise and sunset, so for them, one day hour in the summer is longer than one day hour in the winter, and vice versa. Zero hour was at sunrise, sixth hour at noon, and twelfth hour at sunset, letting them know exactly how much time they had to work with before the sun set and the light disappeared.

The Babylonians, with their sexagesimic (base-60) mathematics, divided the year using 1/60th parts, with now obsolete and unfamiliar units down to three and a third SI seconds.

(Just if you're curious, the numbering system most of the world uses today is known as the decimal (base-10) system.)

But the modern second, as a unit, could not be accurately measured until the invention of the pendulum clock in the late 1600s.

Nanosecond accuracy could not be measured until not that long ago.

Yet, somehow, humans have lived just fine for centuries without nanosecond accuracy. Scientists calibrate time to stuff happening in a caesium atom, but for all I care, time can be calibrated to the eruption of Old Faithful. If people have a system to wake up and go to school or work on time, to set up schedules and coordinate plans, and know what a reasonable bedtime is, then that is good enough. Would being two nanoseconds off hurt anybody?

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Time is supposed to be special. People come up with a bunch of witty sayings about time.

"The days are long, but the years are short."

Time is relative, pushing everything along. We live our lives in it, we live our lives for it, we live our lives according to it, we live our lives unable to comprehend a dimension without it.

"Life's short."

In one way, yes, life is short enough that there has got to be better things to do than measure the speed of a rock moving at 66,000 mph through space. In another, it's not so short that we need nanoseconds to measure it.

"For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the
eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work."

Exactly! Where does it all go? Time, it flies. People talk about killing time, while in the background, time is slowly killing them.

"The flower you hold in your hands was born today
and already it is as old as you are."

Doesn't this drive the point home. Life's short. Time passes, ticking along, ticking away, never to return. To everything there is a season...a time to be born, a time to die.

There are 365 days in a year. Okay, 366 sometimes, because of irregularities with our calendar or with our clock or with our planet, or wherever you want to lay the blame. Of that 365.25, we spend maybe 180 in school. For older people, a full time job takes maybe 260 days of the year.

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Every morning the sun rises to the early morning sky, the pale orange tinting the early dawn horizon. Time moves on, straight, determined, forward.

At times like these, you may look back down the road. A road some call "Memory Lane." A road you see as the most beautiful street in the world. Perhaps not the richest road, perhaps not the cleanest, perhaps not the best maintained, perhaps overgrown with weeds, perhaps covered with bumps and potholes, perhaps not even paved. But still beautiful nonetheless. Beautiful simply because it is your road. It's the road where time has taken you, where time as molded and built you, a road where you picked up everything you have along the way, a road where you have gained and lost so much. You tally it all up, and see how far you traveled.

Yet nostalgia still leaves nothing for you; time does not pity anybody; it drives on forward, each second ticking by, never to return. You look up, and suddenly realize the morning sky has given way to the powerful yellow sun beating past the bright blue sky.

You find yourself standing somewhere. In the middle of something. Called life. Today and now. It's here you play the cards out, going through your hectic life. School, homework, chores. Family and friends. Things to do, things to work on, things to play, things to write, things to share.

By the time you look up again, it's already dark, the sun is gone, and stars are twinkling, spanning horizon to horizon. After two thousand years, Canis is still loyally following Orion on his trek across the night sky. The Gemini twins still stand faithfully together. Cepheus is still sitting on his throne, guarding over the night sky.

What is a nanosecond in the span of two thousand years?

Sitting under the stars, you start to think and realize. Where has the time gone? What has happened over the past few days? What have I done over the past few weeks? What have I accomplished over the past few months? Where has the past few years brought me?

You may start to realize. Tomorrow will bring its own journey. A bridge to cross, a path to trek, a mountain to conquer, a canyon to overcome. It may be a peaceful river flowing from the sprays of a vernal fall. It may be an ominously churning ocean covered by dark menacing thunderclouds. It may be a thick, lush rainforest teeming with life. It may be a barren desert void of all but a deep orange sun. Whatever it may be, there is beauty in the world. If you can't see it, you're not looking.

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If you could go back in time, what would you change? If you could go forward in time, what would you see?

Now, if you realize that you cannot do either, what would you do?

Live and learn. Learn from the past, live the present, for your future.

You can't change the past, and you can't write the future. But you can grasp the moment, now, here, today, to live your life and build who you now are for the person you envision yourself to become, somewhere down in that line of time. Seize the day, keep looking forward, keep pressing onward. And with that, reach for the fruit on the limbs of the tree.

Onward, forward, and never forget what you can do.

Carpe Diem

must...get...back...online...

Internet Deprivation. It's a common disease many teenagers suffer from these days, caused by not being fully connected to the internet for many days in a row. Symptoms include but are not limited to going crazy, missing friends, and homesickness.

pfft. Well, maybe that's just me. But yeah, to those of you who noticed my absence, I'm back now, from vacation for two weeks. So now I plan on spending the rest of my summer vacation in front of my computer to make up for the loss of the last two weeks. :)

Anyways, I left you guys hanging for answers to the "Creative Blogger" thing last time. Though I was kinda sad to find only three comments there, it means I have less to do and worry about right now. But since I have some time now, I guess I'll just run down each one for you guys here.

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1. It is hard to think and write stuff about lies about myself when it is so late at night. But 2AM is like my usual bedtime, but I'm still tired. I have a newfound dislike for Zella for passing along additional work for me when I am already swamped.

Yup, sorry Zella, but totally true. You'll be happy to know that I get over being angry very easily though. :)


2. Sparknotes changed my life in that I now use smilies and *insert action here* waaaayy to much, even with my friends. Once I signed an email to my Journalism class with "peace and hair grease," which is really Aly's signiture...

Yeah, I got some sideways glances from them, but this one is true too. Aly never seemed to have copyrighted the phrase, so...


3. Speaking of Journalism, I love that class. It's kinda fun, being able to spread propganda all around campus and manipulate what people think about certain events. I remember the time I had to write about the football game where our school lost, 60something - 6. I write a lot for the school paper.

Our school did lose 60something-6, which was downright pathetic especially considering that it was our Homecoming game, but I didn't write the story, I took photos of it. I was the photo editor of the paper, so I don't write that much. And as for the "I love that class" part, well, lets just say that that's a lie as well. I'll leave it at that. :)


4. Lets see, what else? My life has been ruined by this certain crush who's ruined my life by ruining my life...what else do I say? I wasted four frikin years on her. All through high school. Most people would accept it and move on after four years. Why couldn't I?

Wait, why did I even put this here? Stop laughing. Now.


5. My life revolves around email, facebook, blogspot, and Sparknotes. And food and oxygen and sleep of course, and other basic necessities of life.

Hence, the symptoms of Internet Deprivation are very severe...



6. I'm hungry right now. And I can't think of anything else much to write.

Well, not anymore, because I just had lunch, but two weeks ago while I was writing this, yes, this was true.


7. And I will be gone for the next two weeks on vacation, so unfortunately you might notice my absence in blogging and commenting and on Sparknotes for the next two weeks, so I won't be back until July. But I will miss all of you, (*hugz kevin <3),>

I hope you people noticed something!!! or I will be sad. again. But other than that, boy, was it an awesome two weeks...

I'll probably write something up about what an awesome trip it was for my next post, and maybe try to get back to my story as well. But seeing as how Feathers discontinued her Saturstories, I feel motivated to do the same here...:( I have a plot line and all, but just no time to really sit back and write...

In the meantime, happy July 4th. Have a hot dog. Watch a movie. Sleep. Watch some fireworks. Launch some fireworks. Burn down a house. Wait...

Weird Lying Spam thing

Follow the rules...

1. Thank the person who gave you the award

Thank you Zella!

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog

See left.

3. Link to the person who nominated you

Click here

4. Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself and at least one outrageous truth, or vice-versa

Okay then:

1. It is hard to think and write stuff about lies about myself when it is so late at night. But 2AM is like my usual bedtime, but I'm still tired. I have a newfound dislike for Zella for passing along additional work for me when I am already swamped.

2. Sparknotes changed my life in that I now use smilies and *insert action here* waaaayy to much, even with my friends. Once I signed an email to my Journalism class with "peace and hair grease," which is really Aly's signiture...

3. Speaking of Journalism, I love that class. It's kinda fun, being able to spread propganda all around campus and manipulate what people think about certain events. I remember the time I had to write about the football game where our school lost, 60something - 6. I write a lot for the school paper.

4. Lets see, what else? My life has been ruined by this certain crush who's ruined my life by ruining my life...what else do I say? I wasted four frikin years on her. All through high school. Most people would accept it and move on after four years. Why couldn't I?

5. My life revolves around email, facebook, blogspot, and Sparknotes. And food and oxygen and sleep of course, and other basic necessities of life.

6. I'm hungry right now. And I can't think of anything else much to write.

7. And I will be gone for the next two weeks on vacation, so unfortunately you might notice my absence in blogging and commenting and on Sparknotes for the next two weeks, so I won't be back until July. But I will miss all of you, (*hugz kevin <3),>

5. Nominate seven "creative" writers

I will assume that I can only pick people who havent done it before yet...

Gummy

Kevin

Amar

Rebel

Aly

Adhit

Jgrud

6. Post links to the blogs you nominate

Eh, actually, I don't really have a lot of time for this...to busy...:(

7. Leave a comment on each blog letting them know they've won the award.

They have two weeks, I'm sure they will find out. I'm breaking this rule too.

And with that, I will give you a hint: #7 is true. So, see you all in two weeks then!

To wish, or to try

You know what's caught my heart this week?

(no, not that Feathers. btw, I'll bet you 10 e-cabbages and a round of Mario Kart that you've ruined my life.) :)

Anyways, it's this girl here, Abby Sunderland. You've probably seen her in the news this week. And boy does she have one story to tell...

In a nutshell, she is a 16 year old who was going for the record of being the youngest person to circumnavigate the world alone and nonstop, leaving from California in January and planning to return sometime in the next few weeks. But some rough storms in the Southern Ocean this week ended up damaging her boat, Wild Eyes, knocking the mast off, leaving her without a sail and without much of a way to pilot the boat.

I've been seeing some news reports the past couple months of this girl trying to sail around the world, and I followed it with some mild interest. I mean, it's interesting, but not unique. I was pretty much following the same media coverage when her brother was doing the same thing last year. This other 16 year old girl from Australia, Jessica Watson, recently finished her lap around the world last month. There was another news article about Laura Dekker, a 14 year old Dutch girl who is dealing with government issues and regulations trying to keep her from sailing the world.

But of course, like anything else, the thing that catches people's attention is trouble. So of course when the press gets hold of the fact that she launched two emergency radio beacons, they have to blow it out of proportion because thats how the media gets the readership. (I say that with cynicism from simply working at a high school newspaper.) Well, it caught my attention. Wild theories about what might have happened and critizism of letting young people have adventures. Gosh that made me angry.

Luckily, everything turned out alright, she was safe and has been rescued.

But the one thing that makes me think is the kind of drive and determination it takes for these people to try to accomplish such a feat. While we sit at home doing homework, playing video games, or browsing on the computer, someone else is out there completely living life. I'm jealous. Sometimes I wish I can have an adventure like this. Something that proves you can live life. Something special, something that "builds character."

I started thinking. What would it be like to be on a 40-ft boat by yourself for weeks and months? What does it take to fight bad weather to keep yourself moving towards the finish line? What kind of character do you build after such a journey? What is your attitude when your journey doesn't end quite like you hoped? What do you learn after an experience of life like this?

I started imagining. Smooth sailing, light breeze pushing your sailboat along. Fierce winds for days on end, knocking your sailboat left and right. Knowing the ocean, learning the winds, reading the waves. Accepting success with joy, recognizing failure with acceptance.

Reports say that her mast was knocked over with stormy waves some 25 feet high and winds at some 50 knots, which, combined with a bit of bad luck, spelled a death sentence for her voyage and for her boat.

I felt really quite sad when I heard that they had to leave Wild Eyes behind in the middle of the ocean which, for now, is condemned to remaining adrift at sea, until it will eventually sink. That's another thing that I sort of feel, having to leave a part of you behind when an era ends. There is a website out trying to raise money to try and retrieve Wild Eyes from the middle of the ocean; they've raised over $2000 in the three days the website was up. However, when I went to take a look today, they replaced the Paypal symbol with a note, saying "We have exhausted all efforts to locate and retrieve Wild Eyes...Donors will be contacted about a refund." Having to leave a part of you half way between Africa and Australia...well, sometimes that's how the story goes. I was almost ready to cry...

But despite the failure, it's people like this and stories like this that bring inspiration to countless people. Strength, ambition, determination, bravery, independence, any other words like that in a thesaurus. The people complaining about the wisdom of letting somebody so young do something like this? As a young person myself, I find that to be insulting and take offense at that. I feel that I'm levelheaded enough. There's more dangerous people out there driving cars. It's when you're young that you get the chance to be physically able to do something like this, and mentally, this would build so much mental character as well.

And so a few waves got in the way and the story didn't end as expected. Isn't that true of so many other things in life? In the end, I would rather have failed saying "I tried" rather than staring into the sky saying "I wish..."

Life is a learning process, whether you are young or you are old. You cannot live life without learning a little something new every day. And there's no better way of learning than being in the middle of it all.

While we were sitting here, that girl has lived a lifetime and a half. The skill, the guts, the pride it takes to take a challenge like that. Sure, there is excitement and there is danger, but staying completely safe is just existing, not living.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." - Helen Keller

Survey: so...who actually cares?

Hey, it's not my fault life is insanely busy right now. Okay, maybe it is, but it seems like a lot of other people are insanely busy too, so that makes me feel better.

I'm sorry for not posting in ages and ages...

But I can use an ego boost right now. Feel free to help:

Those who actually noticed I hadn't written anything in 2 weeks and missed me, please say so in the comments so I can feel a little better and it might make me a little more dedicated to writing stuff because I know people care about me!!!!!!

Those who noticed but don't care, feel free to comment too. Place yourself in catagory 2. :)

Those who didn't notice but care, I can use your support even though you have bad observational skills! Place yourself in catagory 3. :)

Those who didn't notice and don't care, but don't want to say it out loud and plan on lying in the comments saying that you notice and care, just say you're in catagory 4. :)

Those who didn't notice but do care, but are planning on lying in the comments saying that they did notice my long absence, place yourself in catagory 5.

Those who did notice and do care but want to lie and say that they didn't notice and don't care in order to make me feel bad, that's catagory 6.

I am interested to see the results of this survey. I had better not get any catagory 6s. :D

So fill out the survey, if nothing else! Reading the rest of this post is optional. :)



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Anyways, how about another update?

I got my first sunburn last weekend. I was riding my bike. I rode for 30 miles. It was fun and very tiring. And I'm not really a biker, so 30 miles is a HUGE accomplishment for me.


If there's anyone else into astronomy, Venus, Mars, and Saturn are all visible in the night sky now. I can tell you how to find Venus, but I don't know if I can describe online how to find the others. I guess you can try a starmap, but I don't know if you would actually be able to match up the map to the sky...anyways, for Venus, go outside around sunset, maybe 7 or 8 or 9 PM, look up in the sky, (in my place it's on the west, maybe northwest, so I'm assuming it should be the same everywhere...), anyways, look for the BRIGHTEST thing in the sky. Look up and if you see something that makes you go "Whoa that star is bright" then that's Venus. Sort of a bright yellow. Brighter than all the other stars, brighter than a lot of airplanes. Feel free to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at it, if you have one. If you look at Venus every half hour, or every hour or so, you'll notice it slowly going down lower into the sky. Venus would have set by around 9, 9:30PM, but still, that should be plenty of time for you if you want to see it. :)


Did you know that your past can be affected by the future? Stuff that hasn't even happened yet might be affecting your past and your present? Yeah, confusing, huh? Space and time and the fabric of Spacetime can be very strange. Don't pick an extra credit report on cosmology if you don't like confusing things.


I had a nice conversation with Feathers last night where I was complaining about my crush. After discussing what happened and helping me with interpreting a few turn of events, we agreed that it was a rejection. :( Cue depressing music.


My graduation is next week, then I'm done with high school and moving on to college. I'm kinda scared, really. Well, I have three months to figure out what the heck is going on in life. Well, I hope I don't spend all summer moping around from my first rejection. :P


And, finally, I PROMISE to post more story as soon as I can! (though I have just a tiny small history of not keeping a few promises, so believe at your own risk.) :)


Yup, so I guess thats all I have for now...if nothing else, comment filling out the survey!!! Thanks all you people!!!

Story Pt V: Some More Story That Doesn't Work...

Skys pushed open the door and they walked in.

Suddenly, a vat of sulfuric acid fell on them.

Skys screamed. “We’re gonna die!”

Gummy sighed and slapped Skys. “You can’t end the story like this! We haven’t even gotten into the future yet. Close the door and try again."

“Okay, fine. Killjoy.”

There, that counts as more story, at least until I have time to write something a little better. :)

.

--------------------------------------------------------

How about an update instead?

Here's some more squirrel pics, if you remember my other post from a while ago. (here it is, if you feel like taking another look: http://skys417.blogspot.com/2010/04/kit-kat-and-skwirly-friend.html) I'm still trying to make friends with some squirrels running around school, though I've added a variety of nuts and dried fruit to the menu in addition to kit kat. :)

It's going well. I leave food out there every day or two, when I remember and when there aren't too many other people around. Sometimes I run into the squirrels also skittering around, other times, no squirrels are around, but I leave some nuts anyways. They're always gone the next morning. :)

Last Saturday was our Senior Prom...I didn't go though. Everyone else was prepared months in advance, tickets, dinner, limo, tux/dress, etc. though I must say I was very tempted to just go and show up in regular cloths with a laptop and just chat on Sparknotes all night, being the typical loser I am. I decided it was more comfortable at home though. So while everyone else was at prom doing who knows what, I was at home trying to figure out how to make an appointment with the DMV.

So yesterday I took my driving test for the first time...and I passed! I am officially a good driver. Because I made only 1 error on my driving test. :D:D:D They allow you to make 15, and usually the DMV people are really picky about everything. So I guess that's why the examiner didn't give me a perfect score. But I'm happy because now I have my drivers license! But I'm sad because now my parents won't let me drive anymore. :P Because if I have a license then I need to get insurance before I drive. So that will take a while more. :P

But yeah, that's about it. I'm still spending an obscene amount of time on Sparknotes, reading everyone's blogs, and facebook and not enough on homework. I should work on more homework, actually. So the story will be coming along a little slower, like, not every day. (in case you haven't noticed.) :) But I'll keep it going when I have time and introduce more characters as I go along.

Story Pt V: More Story

So nobody except Gummy actually cared that I skipped a day...maybe I should be like Feathers and skip more days just so I can maintain my life a little better. ^_^

To ramble on, here's more story. I'm writing this at like 2AM, so forgive me if it's a little incoherent. I'll ask for forgiveness from everyone right now that I haven't gotten around to adding more characters yet, so that's still coming up in, if I were to guess based on the story and timeline, two more posts? :)

This story is turning out longer than I like it to be...looks like I'll be dragging it out for quite a while.

Anyways.


---------------------------------------------------

From Part IV: Gummy and Skys follow somebody they saw wandering into the forest.

---------------------------------------------------

“We’re lucky the grass is pretty thick here, so that makes the footprints easy to follow,” Gummy said.

“But that also means anyone can follow us. Plus, we left our car way back there. I wonder how this weird scientist guy got here? I didn’t see any other road or place he could leave a car…”

They followed the footprints for a good half mile, until it ended at a tree. A gigantic tree.

“Wow, this tree has to be at least a thousand years old. It’s huge!” Gummy whispered. “What’s that whirring sound? Oh gosh! Hide!”

Gummy and Skys leaped behind some bushes just as the base of the tree slid open, and the figure in a white lab coat walked out.

“It’s an elevator!” Skys whispered. “An elevator hidden inside a tree!” They both traded glances as the figure walked away. “That’s gotta be the lab. Let’s go!” he said, and they both leaped from their hiding spot and dived for the elevator before it closed.

Skys peeked back out through the closing doors. “I don’t think that guy saw us. But I don’t see him anymore.” They breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator started going down.

“What now?” Gummy asked. “I’m scared, I wish we had a weapon or something.”

“I have a stick from outside in the forest…it won’t do us much good though, I don’t think…”

The elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors silently slid apart.

They peeked through the open door into a long hallway lit dimly with a line of eerie glowing lights running along the floor. “It feels like an old office building, kind of. I think it’s deserted,” Skys said.

“It feels creepy.”

“I guess they’re saving power or nobody is here. These are just emergency lights. Like nightlights. There’s regular lights in the roof. There’s gotta be a light switch here somewhere.” Skys pulled the flashlight out of his pocket.

As they stepped out of the elevator into the hall, though, all the lights suddenly came on, blinding them for a second. Skys winced as Gummy let out a startled cry.

They stood frozen for a few seconds, half expecting someone to appear in the hall and accuse them of trespassing and kill them or something. But nothing happened.

“Um...I guess the lights are activated by motion detector?” Skys suggested. “But still, wouldn’t that trigger some kind of security response?”

“Maybe this place really is deserted.” Gummy replied.

“But then who was that person? Well, still, we have to be careful. We don’t know what kind of high tech security traps might be in here…”

They slowly started to walk down the hall. The hall led to a T-crossing; to another hall that was unlit except for the eerie emergency lights. Skys pointed his flashlight left, and then right. “So, which way?”

Suddenly, the lights to the right all lit up. “Um, okay, I guess we go right then,” Gummy whispered.

They walked on. “This place is like an underground maze.” Gummy remarked as they came up to another hall. This time, the lights on the left lit up.

“I don’t think this is motion sensors anymore.” There was a hint of fear in Gummy’s voice.

“Someone’s playing with us. The place isn’t deserted.” Skys managed.

“Do…do we go on?”

Skys nervously cleared his throat. “Somebody already knows we’re here. We’re being watched, and they’re leading us somewhere. If we turn back now, they might do something, you know, a little less friendly…”

“So…we’re being led down a trap?”

“I think so…”

They turned left and walked slowly, tense and sharp for anything that might appear. Down this hall, there were doors every twenty or thirty feet, each with a numerical keypad and a glowing red light by the doorknob.

As they approached the fourth door, the keypad emitted a startling beep, and the light by the door turned from red to green.

Skys and Gummy glanced at each other, then at the door.

“In here?”

“Take a deep breath, lets go.”

Skys slowly, cautiously, turned the door handle and pushed open the door.

Story Pt IV: Less Explaining. More Stuff Happening.

lets see, I'm supposed to ramble about something before I'm allowed to dive into the story...hmm...I notice that Kevin's been strangly absent lately...she's supposed to have contributed one paragraph to this already...you still alive out there Kevin???

-----------------------------------

From previous part: Skys and Gummy plan to outrun cops by firing up rocket engines on their car.

-----------------------------------



Skys smiled. “Time for some fun.” He pointed to the computer on the dashboard, and told Gummy, “open the program on the desktop called “rcktcmd.” It’ll take a second or two to load before the windows pop up.”

“Okay, then?”

“See the bar on the left of the screen titled “Throttle”? Shift that up to 0.005%, once I make this turn. The road is straight ahead for at least a mile. And since we’re already in the mountains, I hope there won’t be any other cars on the road. ”

The flashing lights were following close behind, and the police began speaking into his loudspeaker, yelling for “the strange car to pull over.”

The DeLorean lumbered around the curve, and Gummy shifted the throttle slider as Skys watched the speedometer max out and the lights fade from the mirrors.

“Oh, we are in so much trouble,” Gummy grinned.

After a few seconds, Gummy shut the engines back off. “Pretty sure we outran them. Though I hope the guy doesn’t radio for backup.”

“The turnoff to the compound should be just up ahead anyways.”

Five minutes later, Skys found the hidden and obscure unmarked dirt road leading off of the main highway.

The road got continuously worse as he drove on, with rocks and shrubbery covering much of the road.

“You sure this is the right way?”

“Pretty sure. I’d check Google Maps, except this place isn’t on Google.”

The road kept growing worse. Soon Skys found it impossible to drive over 10 miles an hour. “I hope I don’t damage this thing…I don’t think it can take too much of this.”

Trees started appearing around them; the road took them into a forest. They drove in a tense silence for half an hour. The forest grew thicker until the sky was completely covered.

“Wait, stop. I think I saw something.”

“Huh? What?” Skys slammed on the brakes.

“Back up…”

Skys put the car in reverse and backed a couple feet. Gummy opened the door.

“What are you doing? It’s not safe out there!” Skys snapped.

“I saw someone out there.”

“SomeONE? Out here?! We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

Gummy glanced around. “Is the lab underground?”

“I don’t know. Get back in! We’ll find out when we get there!”

“I think we’re already there. Look!”

“What?!”

“Get out here and take a look!”

Skys cautiously leaned over in his seat to peek out the car. Gummy pointed up at a tree. “See there? An old security camera. And there, it looks like some laser etchings.” Skys nodded.

“What about the person?”

“He, or she, I couldn’t tell, he disappeared into the forest. Get outta the car and come help me take a look.”

“Um, well, okay…” Skys shut off the engine, slipped a flashlight out of the glove compartment, and slowly stepped out, walking up next to Gummy. “Do you think he knows where the lab is? Is that where he’s going out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“He looked like a scientist, I suppose. Might have been a white lab coat he was wearing.”

“So…do we follow?” Skys asked.

“Duh, or else how’s the story continue?”

“Alright, you win.”

They followed the fresh set of footprints into the forest.

Story Pt III: Rock 'n Roll

Okay, I suck at making up titles, but at least I have something for the rest of the story, right? I'm going to try to post a little bit of the story every day this week, just too keep it rolling out. Yeah, that's right. EVERY DAY. It's not that I actually have the time, but I'm in a writing mood, so yeah. I have a basic plan for the story, so that will help. Let's see if I can actually do it though. :)

In the brainstorming, however, I realized just how long this story is going to be, since I'm just dragging it out. Perhaps with this I'll be able to include more characters, but just as a note, I can't really find any convienient place to add any new people in the first few parts of the story, so if you want to be included in here, it'll sadly have to be a little while. But in the meantime, I'll need one or two people who are really interested in science for the part after that. Any volunteers? ^_^


-------------------------------------------------------


“Alright then!” Skys said, erasing the whiteboard. “We ready to go?”

“’Course! Let’s rock ‘n roll,” Gummy replied, opening the door to the DeLorean.

“Hang on a second. Help me get all this stuff into the machine.” Skys went to a cabinet in the corner of the lab and heavily dragged out some rather large cases, filled with food but mostly water.

“Why so much water?” Gummy asked.

“The car runs on fuel cells. Gasoline is inefficient and may become obsolete in the future, but no matter where we go, there will always be water, so we’ll never have to worry about a fuel problem. But I’d still like to carry some with us, just in case.”

Fifteen minutes later, everything was all set and ready to go. Skys snapped his laptop into the mount on the dashboard, started the car, and slowly backed out of the lab into the driveway, and steered the car onto the street. Skys traded a nervous glance with Gummy, and a chill ran up his spine.

“So, exactly, how do we get from here to space?” Gummy asked.

“There’s a hideout deep in the mountains about an hour’s drive from here that used to be used for rockets and weapons research back during World War II. As far as I’ve heard of, nobody’s been there since it was decommissioned over 50 years ago.”

“An old abandoned military compound? Isn’t that where scary stuff happens?”

“Like time travel?” Skys suggested as he drove. “Rumor had it that, there, well, there was a division there that also studied time travel. The government had multiple secret projects running throughout the war, doing whatever it needed to gain a technological advantage. Teams studied everything, massive weaponry, time travel, interstellar communications, teleportation, mind reading and mind control, how to control the weather, stuff like that, I think. I don't actually know a lot about it. But I do know that with the success of the Manhattan Project, where the nuclear bomb was developed, all these other projects slowly faded into distant memory, especially once the government stopped funding them when we won the war and no longer had any need for them. I know the Internet came about as a subtle result of their communication studies, and I’ve heard of how people can fly planes to sprinkle certain chemicals into clouds that would cause clouds to rain, snow, or evaporate. But time travel was one of the more powerful ones that was never declassified.”

“Wait,” Gummy interrupted, “If it’s still classified, how do you know about this?”

“You really want to know? I was sorting through our garage a number of years ago, and I came across a box filled with these classified documents, schematics, blueprints, and information in general. I had no idea where they came from, but down at the bottom of the box, I found my grandfather’s ID badge…he was apparently the lead scientist for the time projects.”

“What? Really? He never said anything about it?”

“I’m not really sure what happened to him. I’ve never met him before, and my parents won’t talk about it. Maybe that’s one of the things I can find out on our trip. Anyways, a huge chunk of this car was built according to his blueprints. In a footnote, he mentioned that an operational launching pad was already developed and is hidden here at this compound.”

“Hey, um, Skys, check your mirrors.”

“Huh?” Skys looked back. Red and blue flashing lights approached. Skys groaned.

“Oh come on, what did I do? You can’t pull a car over just because it looks weird, you know!” Skys turned to Gummy and asked, “Should we stop? If we do, who knows what they’ll do to us or to our car?”

Gummy smirked. “The story is supposed to be interesting, not boring, you know. All we've been doing is talking so far. It's time for some action, and this thing has rocket engines, right? Show me how they work!”

Story Pt. II: Relativity 101.

Picking up where I left off...since I really have nothing else to write about, and since Gummy has been demanding to see what the future is like, and to prevent war from breaking out, *coughGUMMYcough*, I've written a little more for my story.

I deliberately didn't set any specific publishing timelines (ie "every friday!" or "every saturday!") because I know I can never meet them anyways, but I'll try to keep this coming regularly if you guys like it.

And, if you remember the "experiment" portion of it, feel free to pitch in with a couple paragraphs at any time! *coughKEVINcough* who promised to write "ONE paragraph." :D

And I'll need some buddies that we can meet deep in the future, so if you wouldn't mind being
included as a character in the story, go ahead and sign up in the comments. :)


Well, here we go again...

-------------------------------------

Contrary to popular belief, it was not dark and stormy outside, even though Skys stood hidden deep in his underground laboratory, tinkering with the final circuits of his time machine. It was actually a bright and sunny spring afternoon, the sky was clear, the breeze refreshing, the flowers blooming, the air clear. Skys hid underground not because he was a mad scientist, but because he is allergic to pollen from the blooming flowers. :D

Skys poked a few numbers into his calculator and smiled. "Okay. According to my calculations, this looks good! It should work as soon as I connect this." Skys glanced to the desk next to him, where a glass case held a strange glowing cylindrical tube not unlike the vapor lamps he had used in chemistry classes.

Suddenly, he whirled around as he heard a voice behind him.

"Hey, what's up? Why weren't you at school today?"

It was his friend, Gummy. "Don't SCARE me like that!!! How'd you get in here?"

"Haha, I figured you'd be hiding down here. Your little contraption is going so well that you skipped school today?"

"Yeah," Skys replied. "Within 10 minutes, school's not gonna matter at all anymore," he smirked.

"So, you finally are getting that thing to work after all these years, huh?"

"Yup! I'll show ya. As soon as I connect that electroneutronplasmaenergyvapor lamp to the flash circuit, tinker with the settings a little, and charge the power up, we can be travelling along the fourth dimension! You wanna come with me?"

Gummy thought about it for a second. "Sure."






"Is there anything I need?" Gummy started pacing in nervousness.

"You will need some clothes, food and water... actually anything you neeed to survive. We don't know what the future will be like."

"I'll be back in an hour then." Gummy turns around and walks out the door.

Skys turns back around and keeps fiddling with his electroneutronplasmaenergyvapor lamp. Pretty soon, everything he had ever worked for would be completed.




An hour later, Gummy came back down the stairs into the underground lab. Skys was putting around, cleaning the place up.

“Might as well clean the place up, since since we probably won’t be coming back,” he said.

“Wait, what? You’re saying this trip might be dangerous?” Gummy gasped. Skys always ignored obvious questions. “Gimme a couple more minutes here, then we can set up and get ready to go,” he said.

Gummy turned to marvel at the time machine, an old, modified DeLorean now painted silver and encased in new mechanical components and wiring. “So how does this work, do we just type in when we want to go to and drive up to 88 miles per hour?” she smirked.

“Oh no, you’re not thinking of that cheesy totally unscientific movie again, are you? I told dad to buy the Range Rover, not the DeLorean, just so you people wouldn’t think like that! But whatever, no, it takes WAY more than 88 miles per hour. We’re doing this scientifically. What do you think the rocket engines on the car is for?”

“Wait, rocket engines?” Gummy went to take a closer look. “Just how fast do we need to go then?”

“Oh, somewhere around 299,792,457 meters per second,” Skys replied.

“Wait, WHAT?”

“Approaching the speed of light.”

“THE SPEED OF LIGHT?”

“Yes, the speed of light. Here, Gummy, come here. You should know this anyways before we go. Here’s how time travel works.” Skys pulled out an Expo marker from his pocket and walked up to the whiteboard hanging on the wall, covered with awesometastic calculus equations that Skys totally can do.

“Relativity 101: One of Einstein’s big breakthroughs in scientific knowledge is his idea of the theory of relativity. We like to think of time as being constant, unchanging, and always the same, but really, that’s not how it works. The only constant in the universe is the speed of light. Time, however, can be bent, which is known as time dilation. Basically, how we’re doing it, is with speed. The concept? The faster you go, the slower time becomes. Strange, but yes. Normally here on earth, we never notice it because our speeds are so small. But as we begin to approach the speed of light, time begins to slow based on our reference frame. Meaning for us, time will pass slower than for everyone else on earth. If we are traveling at speeds approaching the speed of light, by the time one minute passes for us, years would have passed here on earth. We use this concept to our advantage, because it basically speeds up time for us as we travel, so we can reach, say, 2050, in not 40 years, but in 30 seconds. Does that sort of make sense?”

“Um, sure, ok, I guess. And those rockets can get us up to the speed of light?” Gummy asked.

“Mm hmm.”

“And, um, where do you intend to find enough space to drive a car at, *pulls out calculator* 186,000 miles PER SECOND?”

“Outer space, where else?” Skys smirked.

“OUTER SPACE? ARE YOU FRIKIN CRAZY? Is that why you say we might never come back?”

“No, it’s not the danger, its another one of the annoying laws of physics that prohibit us from coming back. Should I explain?”

“Sure.”

“You notice when I was talking earlier, I always said “approaching the speed of light.” It’s a mathematical limit. Theoretically, we can get up to 99.9999999999999999% of the speed of light, but it is impossible to reach 100% the speed of light because doing so will require an infinite amount of energy, which we clearly do not have.”

“Time slows as we approach the speed of light. At the speed of light, time stops. And if we go beyond the speed of light, time runs backwards. But since it is impossible to go at or beyond the speed of light, there is no physical way, that I can work with, for us to be able to travel back in time. Are you sure you still want to come?”

Gummy thought about it for a second. “Yeah, of course. Otherwise, the story can’t continue.”

Skys couldn’t resist a smile.

Nostalgia

Gummy was threatening war over my lack of posts, so I will quickly post something for you guys right now. I'll probably get back to my story when it's less hectic, since that'll take more time. Gummy was the only one who contributed...but anyways, how about the lyrics to an old Sonic Underground song? Sonic is awesome. ^_^ I wish I was a kid again...







Being a kid is cool,

Theres so many fun things for kids to do.

Making funny faces and acting like fools,

Playing chase, singing songs, hopscotch too!

Games and toys and ice cream really rulez,

Being a kid is cool!



Running thorugh the house,

chasing each other.

Jumping on the bed,

hiding from your mother.

A bubbly bubble bath

washes of the days dirt,

Put a band aid on the booboo,

where you fell and got hurt



Being a kid is cool!

There's so many fun things we used to do,

Making funny faces and acting like fools,

Baseball, bicycles and ballet too,

Dogs and dolls and ice cream really rulez,

Being a kid is cool!



Being a kid is cool,



Being a kid is cool,



Being a kid is so very cool!

NOTICE: PLEASE READ!!!

This is an unpaid *cough hack cough* advertisement for Gummy's new blog, at http://gummiesgorawr.blogspot.com/. :) For those of you who have missed Gummy's work, it's all now posted here!

As a side notice, Gummy's blog still shows all of her original followers; however, her new posts might not show up on your dashboard if it is still following her old url. (I hope you have noticed this!) You have to re-follow her to get your subscription back! So go to http://gummiesgorawr.blogspot.com/, un-follow her, then re-follow her to make sure your dashboard links to the new url. Make sure you do the re-following part. We will feel very bad if you gave up half way. :):):)

Because I was bored in class...

Well, it was history class. Lecturing about the effects of the Cold War, all the way up to the collapse of the USSR. Sure, I can half pay attention, but the other half I was just doodling in class. Hey, lotsa people do that, right? It's better than falling asleep in class!

Well, after history class, I just happen to have graphic design class, so I have access to this cool computer with Photoshop and Illustrator and Sparknotes access. But yesterday I was just using Photoshop, tinkering a bit with my sketches. Sure, I'm just copying Kevin, like pretty much everybody else, but Owl City is pretty awesome...

I'm trying to figure out how to link stuff, not sure if I did it right. You can make the pics bigger by clicking on it, I think...

Squirrels, huh?

Hey. Imagination is entertaining.

Experiment: Storytime!

So, it seems like a common theme that quite a few people are trying their hands at writing a story! Last time I gave this a shot was in eighth grade when my teacher assigned it, then failed me for not liking my story, so I've been scared of writing since then. But, perhaps it's time to try again?

It was a dark and stormy night, so terrible that it seemed that the world was ending...

Yeah, I know. cliche. But then again, who doesn't like the end of the world? :D

Ahem, *scared of writing*, let me start over.

---------------------------------------------

Contrary to popular belief, it was not dark and stormy outside, even though Skys stood hidden deep in his underground laboratory, tinkering with the final circuits of his time machine. It was actually a bright and sunny spring afternoon, the sky was clear, the breeze refreshing, the flowers blooming, the air clear. Skys hid underground not because he was a mad scientist, but because he is allergic to pollen from the blooming flowers. :D

Skys poked a few numbers into his calculator and smiled. "Okay. According to my calculations, this looks good! It should work as soon as I connect this." Skys glanced to the desk next to him, where a glass case held a strange glowing cylindrical tube not unlike the vapor lamps he had used in chemistry classes.

Suddenly, he whirled around as he heard a voice behind him.

"Hey, what's up? Why weren't you at school today?"

It was his friend. "Don't SCARE me like that!!! How'd you get in here?"

"Haha, I figured you'd be hiding down here. Your little contraption is going so well that you skipped school today?"

"Yeah," Skys replied. "Within 10 minutes, school's not gonna matter at all anymore," he smirked.

"So, you finally are getting that thing to work after all these years, huh?"

"Yup! I'll show ya. As soon as I connect that electroneutronplasmaenergyvapor lamp to the flash circuit, tinker with the settings a little, and charge the power up, we can be travelling along the fourth dimension! You wanna come with me?"

______ thought about it for a second. "Sure."


---------------------------------------------

So, next, I guess the next thing people do when they write a story is say, "so who wants to be in the story i dont want to use your name without your permission because im afraid you might sue me even though this is the internet and i technically can do anything i want on the internet but let me know if you want to be in the story ok."

But I'm not gonna say that. Like the title says, this story is an experiment. *evil cackle*





Remember the Rio post? Bubba the Turtle? And remember how that worked?

It wasn't one person writing a story. It was everybody. Each person wrote a few lines of the story, then the next person would write, then the next person.

SOOOO....I was wondering if that kind of writing might work here.

This way, I can pass the story along into the hands of more capable writers, let everyone be in the story however they want to be, AND, best of all, you guys won't have to wait until I have free time to write the next part of the story.
*(friendly) glare at feathers*

First person to comment gets to be the friend who goes into the future with me. :D

Write in the comments. You can write a few lines, a few paragraphs, or a few pages. Whatever you want to do with the story. If the experiement works and people participate, I'll periodically repost the entire story, with everyone's contributions. If the experiment fails and nobody participates or everyone hates me/the idea, then...well...nothing will happen. I'll just say that it's not a failure, I just learned one of 2000 ways not to write a blog post. :D

First though, some rules for the experiment:
1) Keep it nice, and PG. No killing people.
2) Except hannah. If she runs into some hannah-eating monster or something in the future, thats okay.

alright then...

*clicks the "publish post" button...and begins experiment.*