Science Fair

This year’s science fair will hopefully be better than all my last ones. I hope I’ll win an award this year. Last year, I did “Volley!: The effect of a projectile’s weight on its range” and got into the Finalist section in the school contest. It also made it to the Synopsys county fair but again–no prizes. In sixth grade-same thing as last year, no awards, nothing (but I did make it to Synopsys and Finalist also). This year, I’m working with a partner for the first time in my life. Bah. So far I think I would have been better off alone, at least for the machining/creation of materials/experimentation part. My partner’s really good at designing the board, so I’ll let her do all or most of that. We’re doing the Effect of a Wind turbine’s Blade Shape on the amount of voltage generated. It’s coming along quite well as for now. I’m creating the blades out of sheet aluminum provided by my dad’s friend who works at a machining shop. They look dangerouussss… especially the scythe shaped one. Hahaha lollicopter. Anyways, I’m confident in making it to Finalist section again this year, and hopefully win an award. After all, my partner’s won an award twice in a row already! I have good hopes.

To be NINJA…

This is so funny. I saw it in Video ed class today over when we finished filming for the day over my classmate’s shoulder on the computer. XD enjoy. I know it might be old for some, but it’s still so funny I had to post it.

Flash!

This is my first flash animation, featuring a somersaulting stickfigure. Enjoy!

Schoolzzzz….

     I haven’t written in my blog for sooo long. I apologize to my viewers for any boredom because of this . School’s been going on and eating my time lately. Weekends have been busy, and sometimes I’ve just been tired and lethargic (in English: Lazy).

     I joined cross-country this year, so at least I finally get to do some exercise and athletic stuff a bit. We run about 2 some miles each practice and a bit more on meets. I got faster, but still not fast enough (at least to the coach). So I’m trying. I found cross-country to be one of my only athletic strengths besides hockey and badminton.

     I’m in Video Ed for the first trimester (and then back to choir! Whoohoo! although I WILL miss video ed, it’ so fun) and I got a really cool movie made, sorta funny, didn’t have enough time to fully complete it but it’s still good:

Comment and tell me what you think… lol::

Ace Combat 5 **SPOILER WARNING**

I bought this game for the PS2 quite a while ago, but I was stuck on a mission that I couldn’t beat. Finally, though, I got to beat that mission over the last couple days of summer vacation, and go ALL THE WAY to beat the game! It turns out that was one of the easy missions of the game. Mission 27, “Aces”, in my opinion, was the HARDEST (you had to maneuver your aircraft through a tunnel and two very low arches inside the tunnel, and the mission was really long so whenever you lost, you had to start at the very beginning).

     I loved the storyline, though. It was very creative, and seemed very real, like a movie (or even real life). In the beginning, an unidentified aircraft is found and shot down within Osean (a fictional country) boundaries, and it turns out that the aircraft was from Yuktobania (also a fictional country). Then, Osea is attacked by Yuktobanion forces and the war is started. You are a character by the name of Blaze, part of Wardog Squadron (including Captain Kei Nagase– a woman, Captain Alvin H. Davenport, and Grimm– I don’t know his full name). Over time, you gain respect of the Osean army and are elevated to higher and higher ranks. Pretty soon, you’re the core of the army itself, and you become the official escorts of the President himself. You come across two major, huge, and hard to defeat submarines of Yuktobania, the Hrimfaxi and Scinfaxi, and defeat them. There is a legend of a monster named the Razgriz, that it was a demon that comes to destroy the world when history witnesses a great change, comes into a long period of slumber, and then comes back as a great hero. Soon enough, Wardog Squadron is nicknamed “Razgriz” because of its awesome reputation (I love that part ). In the end, it turns out Yuktobania was not the one that started the war after all— it was Belka, and its ace pilots. You come to face them over time, and you have to escape from and actually defeat them sometimes. In mission 27, Yuktobania and Osean fleets join forces after a meaningful speech by President Harling of Osea and the Prime Minister Nikanor of Yuktobania, and come together to defeat the great Belkan Aces. There was one other important part in the storyline, but if I gave that out, it would be a real spoiler for everyone .

 

    

 

My favorite aircraft was the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. It always has been my favorite military jet, since the competition between it and the Boeing X-32 (also one of my favorites) JSF protoype in 2002-ish… It’s so sleek looking and advanced…

Birch Bay and July 4th

     Hmmm… I haven’t written in my blog for a long time. Anyways– my family drove to Birch Bay (near the border) after my dad’s pastor’s conference in Tacoma to visit some old friends that we met last year there, only this year: we only visited for 4 days . It was a three hour drive from “home base” (my aunt’s house) in Seattle to Birch Bay.

     When we got there, my friend (BJ) showed me his new rabbits (two cute Jersey wooleys) and then we got into swordfighting with some swords he made. It turns out that he’s been really into Lego Star Wars since last year. I recommended Star Wars Battlefront II (the BEST STARWARS GAME EVA) to him, but he said he liked Lego Star Wars better O_o. Oh well… Anyways, I slept over at his house that night. Really fun. I remember at some point late that night we played Apples to Apples with some other friends that were staying over. It was really fun– we used really naughty inside jokes instead of the intended stuff! I was laughing maniacally.

     The next day was JULY 4th! BJ and I got to making some explosives and fireworks for that night (would you believe it, he had access to gunpowder, fuses, and various firecrackers!). BJ connected 8 sparklers (the little balls that sparkle and explode when you light them up) with fuse and duct tape, and I created… well nothing… YET. >=D Anyways, that July 4th was the best I’ve celebrated in my whole life. His family, my family, and some other friends drove down to the bay to watch the fireworks at around 10 pm. I expected a ‘lousy’ commercial fireworks show, but I was way wrong. All the beachside houses down there by the bay could afford their own PROFESSIONAL fireworks! I mean mortars, cakes, saturn missiles– the whole thing! It wasn’t illegal, either because that was country, not city, so yeah… And one house lasted for about 30-40 mins non stop fireworks! It was really cool. The bay was shaped like a crescent moon, and every house was firing off fireworks at the same time so the bay was literally a ring of fire! :O Once we got back to BJ’s house, which was around 11:30 pm, Dan (BJ’s friend) put up a real fireworks show just for us! He had bought around $1000+ worth of fireworks! BJ and I got to shoot roman candles. For the grand finale, Dan launched mortars (the things that go phweeettttt BOOM crackle crackle)! First were the single mortars (about 5 for each kind), then doubles, then triples, then quadruples, to end with one huge custom cinqtuple! Just for reference, doubles means two BOOM crackle crackles, singles means one BOOM crackle crackle, and so on. Dan has a fireworks license, so everything we did was completely legal. Except for when BJ’s sister, Rachel, was hit by part of a misfired mortar, and it burned through all her layers into her skin! Fireworks are dangerous. That was when the parents said that was enough although we did convince them to let us watch the grand finale. That was awesome.

     The next day, we had some fireworks left and so did some of the neighbors so we had a firecracker “war”– we shot off fireworks and saw who had the last laugh. I made a big daddy firecracker out of 6 firecrackers worth of gunpowder and flashpowder. BJ put it in a firecracker cake we were working on, and it didn’t work >=( probably because it got smoldered when the rest of the firecrackers and ’shotgun shell’ sparklers went off. Oh well. It was a pleasure making it.

     Later that day, BJ and I went kayaking in the house development’s pond, a kayak to each person. It was really fun. We played kayak tag, and raced across the pond. And when we were just about to go up, BJ lost his balance and his flimsy kayak flipped over. O_O He was okay though, because the pond was only 4 feet deep and he had flipped over once before. We were both soaking wet (BJ obviously) by the end.

Over the next day (or was it two), we had fun swordfighting, shooting the bb guns (I brought my Crosman 760 up from California), and fishing in two ponds in the area. On the last day, my dad grilled some Copper River Salmon we brought up from Seattle to eat with sushi! Yummm…

I had a blast in that trip to Birch Bay.

Seattle + REALLY good food!

My family is on vacation to Seattle, Washington right now. We’re staying at my aunt and uncle’s house, where they have GREAT food (mostly because they know where to get the best ingredients around here). Over the last couple of days, we’ve had fresh raw oysters served with lemon and fresh grated horseradish, Alaskan Copper River Salmon served grilled and in sushi, delicious and fresh hamachi (it’s a kind of fish), and also Vietnamese ‘oc’ (it’s kind of a sea snail, but it isn’t realy– there’s no suitable English word for it) in ‘gio’ (Vietnamese pork that has gone through a process and is suitable for molding) and just cooked and dipped in a Vietnamese sauce… yummm… We’ve also gone to a few delicious pizza restaurants–Tutta Bella’s, where they have real Italian pizza cooked in a super hot oven, and Paggliacchi’s, where they have great calzones. All this writing about food is making me myself hungry as well :L lol. If you’re reading this and don’t have a single idea what I’m talking about, well— I don’t know, I guess I just have an expensive taste , probably because I grew up eating gourmet and really good food, thanks to my mom! Well actually, we just came back to their house from a Vietnamese Christian Conference in Tacoma. We ate all that good food before we came to the conference, and we’re likely to eat more good food tonight . But at the conference, it was amazing how cafeteria food there tasted sooo bad after eating delicious food at my aunt and uncle’s house. It actually took a few days to get used to eating the cafeteria food! Hmm, interesting… Oh well, we’re back here in Seattle and back to the great food now, that’s all that matters.

Rest in Peace, Mac!

Mac tending to her kids

I was going to post about this a while ago, but I haven’t had the chance. Mac, my favorite and oldest guinea pig, died from heat and thirst! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (times infinity) She was the mother of five guinea pigs (three of which died, two of which still live– we gave them away), and was the nicest, most gentle guinea pig I had ever owned. I am soooo sad… but over the course of a lot of losses in my family of pets, I have learned to let go. In fact, I don’t know why I wasn’t so sad as I thought I would have been before she actually died. Mac had a good, fairly long life though– about two years. And during those two years, I had loads of fun with her. She used to sit in my lap while I was at the computer, and sometimes I would have fun letting her roam around in the backyard eating grass, other times just comfort me when I was overly stressed out about something. Actually, it seemed like she died very peacefully, unlike some of my pets that died, because she was just lying sprawled out on the cage– not biting or holding onto anything… So I know she was happy when she left. Well, she had a great life, and now she’s happy and content in guinea pig heaven. Good bye, Mac!

However, we got two new bunnies! Ladies and gentlemen, meet Baby and Ninja.

School’s OUT!

     SCHOOL is OUT! YEEEAH! I plan on having a GREEEAAT (hopefully) summer. Still, I have to go to some retreats and stuff that my parents have to go to, but THAT won’t be much of a problem, since most of the retreats have something fun about them anyway . Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish all my projects I’ve started but haven’t finished, for example— the bow i was making (still have to tiller it), the zappers and lasers, blah blah blah… Man, seventh grade was awesome, though. It was totally different from 6th grade, a lot more fun and field trips (like the advanced music groups going to Disneyland, Boardwalk Beach in Santa Cruz for the seventh grade students, as well as a whole bunch more).
     I look forward to eighth grade, partly because I’ll get to be at the top of the “food chain” at school… MWAHAHAHAHA (don’t worry, I won’t be too mean to the lower grades)! Of course, I’ll probably get more homework, but oh well… that’s school, right? Well, that’s all for now. I’ll definitely be posting about different vacations during the summer…

My New Forum!

Hey everyone, I just made a new forum! It’s really neat- check it out! (It’s mainly supposed to be for my ‘to-be game developers’ of a new game I’m thinking about making, but it can be for others too- visitors of my blog, and of course my friends, too) I’m in need of moderators, so if you’re willing, create an account and PM me. Tell your friends about it! Here’s the site (it’s on the sidebar, too): http://www.themurof.nightforum.net/

Have fun!