EHS - First Assignment

So this summer my mom has my signed up for EHS. It's an online schooling thing and I'm taking Health so that I have an extra period during school to do something I actually WANT to do. So anyway I started it today and I was compelled to do my first assignment.

Great.

So the assignment was on decision making. At first it was hard. But then as it progressed, I found that doing these assignments could be kinda fun (as you'll soon see). So in my teacher's eyes right now, I'm probably a punk kid who never takes anything seriously. But in my eyes? Well, I'm me. :)

The Assignment
(These are my exact words)

1. Identify the question
Should I go to college?

2. Gather information
What kind of jobs do people who went to college get compared to those who got a job after high school?

3. Brainstorm alternatives
a) Have my parents pay for college
Positive
I. I wouldn't need to worry about it
II. I could spend my time that would have been spent earning money doing something that I'd rather do
Negative
I. My parents might get angry at me for being "lazy"
II. I might start expecting my parents to fund everything I do

b) Pay for college myself
Positive
I. It would "build good character"
II. I would learn how to work
Negative
I. I would have to spend all of my free time working
II. I would miss out on a lot of fun activities my friends might be doing

c) Get a job after high school
Positive
I. No more school!
II. I could start earning money right away
Negative
I. After a while I would be earning a lot less than I could have been earning had I gone to college
II. I probably wouldn't be as happy

d) Drop out of high school
Positive
I. Again, no more school!
II. Get a jump start on the money earning. More hours with less school!
Negative
I. Everybody would know you as "that one kid who couldn't last through a few years of school"
II. My parents would kill me

e) Live on the streets of NYC playing the harmonica with a jar for tips
Positive
I. Harmonicas are cool!
II. I would be able to grow a beard without anybody caring
Negative
I. Let's face it. Who really even tips harmonica players?
II. I'd probably get mugged and all of that hard earned money of the day would be gone

4. Forgotten aspects
Do I really want to spend a whole another six years in school?

5. Your choice
I've decided that I will go to college, because I figure that it's definitely worth it. Plus some things are fun to learn

6. Action plan
I plan to save up as much as I can, and earn as many scholarships as I can so that I can pay for most of my schooling

7. Evaluate
I feel confident in my choice

House of Glory, House of God - Choir Tour

Wow! Well, as some of you might know, I disappeared for a whole week. Where did I go? Well, brace yourself, 'cause you're about to get the whole rundown (not super detailed though, because you would be reading a novel if I did). Oh yes, this post will be quite long, so you might just want to pour yourself another glass of milk and get cozy if you're sane enough to read all of this.

June 11, 2011

Bus day! That's right, a whole 14 hours on our tour busses. (Le Bus was the bus company we had, and we had two of them) So we had to be at the American Herritage school by 5:45 AM. After saying goodbye to my dear mother, we departed at 7:00. About 3 hours into our drive, the bus in front of my bus suddenly got a surprise tailgater. That's right, a police car, lights and everything! Heh heh. They were speeding. The funny thing was that my bus was going the same speed, but I suppose they were first so, bummer. We arrived in Redding, CA at 9:20 PM local time. Longest ride of my life. Oh my gosh. To make it worse I only got about half an hour of sleep!






June 12, 2011

The host family I stayed at were the Cobabes. And it happened to be one of their 5 sons' birthday today! His name was Ben, and he was a bacon fanatic. So we had that for dinner! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Their church was at 11:00 so that's when we went. After church we played games like UNO and such. At 5:30 we were back at the church to get ready for our fireside that started at 6:30. Unfortunately, not everything exactly "flowed smoothly." Although, it did flow smoothly out of my nose! That's right. Another one of my famous bloody noses a half hour before our fireside that night. So I hurried to the bathroom and stopped it, but unfortunately the blood got all over my shirt, tie and jacket. Fortunately my jacket was dark enough to conceal the blood so that it wasn't visible, and the jacket covered up the blood on my shirt, but my tie was another story. Good thing Mr. Swenson (choir director) allowed me to use his tie for that night! He just grabbed somebody elses. Then about halfway through the fireside, a kid standing right in front of me passed out. No joke. He swayed, and then just fell over! He got up after about 10 seconds, but sat for the rest of the fireside. It was scary and funny at the same time. After the fireside, the Cobabes took us to see the Sundail Bridge in Redding. It's a foot bridge that has a sundail on it! But it's only accurate on June 21. Bummer, I know.

June 13, 2011

We went to the Jelly Belly factory! Woot woot! Haha the bus drive from Redding took about 3 hours until we got there. When we did get there, we went on a tour inside the factory and found out all about how they made their jelly beans. It was... an experience. Too bad that they didn't let us take any pictures on the tour! Another disappointing thing was that the factory was in its annual 2 week check up. So there were no machines running. We just watched semi-lame videos instead of the actual real deal. But I found out another cool thing! Jelly Belly makes candy corn and a bunch of other candy too! Fun fact. After our tour we had deli sandwiches in front of the factory, then we got on the bus again and rode another couple hours to a secluded beach where we got off and streched. Then we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge! It was really neat actually. When we got to the hotel that night, we went with our excursion groups to find a place to eat. Our group wandered a long time, finding nothing decent. It was starting to get dark, so we just walked into a place that looked good enough. The moment we walked in, we realized that this was probably a bad place to be, but the bar attendant had already spotted us and was walking to greet us. So we stayed at the sports bar & grill for dinner that night! Wow...

June 14, 2011

I woke up with a very satisfied tummy. The dinner last night had actually turned out to be pretty dang good, and as far as I could tell nothing was spiked. But anyway we drove down to Fisherman's Wharf in San Fransisco and wandered around there for 4 hours. It was quite fun! We first went to Pier 39 which was pretty much an outdoor mall on the side of the sea. After Pier 39 we went exploring a little bit more and found a submarine and a huge, HUGE battleship, or something! It looked like a battleship. Right next to these was an old fashoned arcade that we went into. They had an old photo booth, a hammer/bell thing, and an arm wrestling machine! Just to name a few. After Fisherman's Wharf we went to a chapel next to the Oakland Temple and performed there.

(And oh yes. The new Owl City album came out today. Gosh dang it I had to wait until I got back to listen to it!)

June 15, 2011

We woke up a whole hour early, thanks to Walker. He had set his alarm according to Utah time, not California time. After waking up an hour LATER, we got all dressed and about half of our choir went to the Oakland Temple and performed baptisms for the dead. The temple was so pretty! After baptisms we went back to the hotel and grabbed everyone else, and headed back to the temple to take a group picture. After our picture we had lunch on the temple grounds, and went into the visitor center and stuff. We later departed to our next fireside location and sang. After our fireside, the host family we would be staying with that night picked us up and we went to their house. And from 9:00 - 10:00 we watched "Through the Wormhole - With Morgan Freeman." And may I just say, this is my new Wednesday show. Not that I have regular shows on any given day, but this is my Wednesday show. Mostly just cause it has Morgan Freeman.

June 16, 2011

We woke up, packed a sack lunch for the day, then headed out on the busses to Old Sacramento. The first place we went to when we got there was the Railroad/Train Museum. And I didn't know that train museums could be interesting, but alas! This one was awesome! They had life sized trains and everything! Well, except the toddler area with the Thomas the Train sets. But it was cool! After the museum we had our sack lunch, then explored the rest of Old Sacramento. The town looked like one of those towns you see in old western movies. Eventually we came across a school house. With a pump organ! And a rope that rings the bell on top of the school! I pulled it. It was quite fun. After Old Sacramento we departed for the stake center and got picked up by our host families about an hour after we arrived. Our host family this time was the Kartchners, and they had a REALLY nice house! They even had a pool! So guess what Steven (my bunking buddy for the night) and I did for 45 minutes? Yep. You got it. Fed the homeless.

. . .

Hahaha no I'm kidding we swam. It was quite... hmmm how do you say it... AWESOME! Yep. That's the word. After all that we went back to the stake center for our fireside, sang, and came back to sleep.

June 17, 2011

So after waking up we packed our sack lunch for that day, and drove to the Sacramento Temple. We soon came to find out that Mr. Swenson got married there! It was also a really pretty temple. After the temple we went to a rest home for seniors. And we sang 5 songs from our program to them! It was surprisingly spiritual for not being in a chapel. I think I might have actually felt the spirit stronger there than I had at any of our firesides prior! Strange. But definitely a great experience! After the rest home we went to a cemetary and had lunch, and wiped off and weeded around the tombstones. When we finished with that we went inside a building next to the cemetary, but was still part of it, and went into a moseleum where we sang two of our songs acapella. Since the room was practically all marble, the acoustics were amazing! When we finished singing, we went into a chapel inside the building and had a testimony meeting for an hour, and THAT was amazing! Talk about spiritual! Wow. That was what our tour was all about. For our fireside that night, we performed in Sparks, Nevada. And wanna know the neat thing? A youth conference was going on, so we where supposed to perform for them, and their youth conference theme was temples. Just like our choir tour theme. Without any planning between the choir and the Sparks stake. And I'm sure that this was more than just a convinient coincidence. Anyway, after that fireside, (which was probably our best one in my opinion) there was a stake dance happening! So we went to that and boogied!

June 18, 2011

Oh boy. The bus ride home! Well, there really wasn't anything exciting that happened this day. Just another 10 hour drive home. (It wasn't 14 hours this time cause our departure location was Sparks, not Redding) But nonetheless, we still got back at 9:00 PM. Anyway, all in all, a great tour! Amazing spirit, and great friendships. I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to go. It was awesome!

So, if anybody read all of that word for word, give yourself a pat on the back from me. 'Cause that was no lite reading! Anyway, 'till next time!

-Trevor

Top 10 Things - Moon

The Top 10 Things

To do on the moon

1. Have a jumping contest with that other guy you're with. Long Jump: Choose a starting point. Whoever can jump to your rocket ship in the least number of jumps wins. High Jump: Whoever jumps the highest wins. If you jump higher than your ship, you get bonus points. If you jump out of orbit, double bouns points.


2. Flipping contest! No special effects or talent needed.


3. Try to brush your teeth without any special tools. Just you, your toothbrush, and your toothpaste.


4. Try to brush your teeth without using your hands!


5. Puppet shows! No strings needed. For even more fun, film it and broadcast it back to Earth.


6. Dissassemble your rocket ship. Now put it back together. Careful! That screw might be important. Don't let it float away.


7. Do it blindfolded.


8. Juggle. Best to start easy in low gravity! Boost your self esteem by juggling heavy things like boulders you find. Boost it even more by juggling 5 or 6 boulders.
   


9. Try to gargle water. I dare you.


10. Talk back to Houston with witty comments like, "Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?" Or, "I'd like to see you try to do this!"

Biology

Biology

Behold the class
Where evil resides
Where school grades crash
Where doom seems to hide

Stare through the glass
In the window beside
You may try to pass
But the others have died

What makes the sound
Echo inside?
I could say I've found
But I would have lied

The blackness blankets you
The darkness drapes
Do you think you can make it?
'Cause you can't escape

The tattered old books
Laugh in your face
The bone-splinting looks
Slowly dim without trace

The deafening silence
Is the only thing here
Interesting science
Has now turned to fear

Marked by the sleep
Shown heavily in bags
Counting the sheep
Cease after being tagged

The blue marker squeaks
Hope long since sailed
Students' face bleak
Scratch onwards to fail

So what can you do
To escape this demise?
To bid this adieu
And grasp at the skies?

Heed my last words
And do all that you can
'Cause the best thing I've learned
Is stay away from that man

~ Trevor Howell

Creatures Of Immense Power

An old craving of mine has come up.



Yep. That's right.

Pokemon.

Don't judge.



There's just something about this little yellow rat that is so . . . indescribable. But in a good way! Lately I've had a beckoning back to my old addiction to this old Game Boy Advance game (in my opinion the best one out there). And when a beckoning to the old school comes up, well . . . you can't ignore that! I realize that many of these blog readers have never experienced the tidal-wave of pure AWESOMENESS that the world of pixilated creatures has to offer.

Shame.

All I can say is that I hope that one day your travels around the world will take you to a far away, magical kingdom where the theme is, "Pokemon To The Max." Whether or not such a place even exists is completely up to you. But let me just warn you:

Don't go up against legendary creatures without the intention to either, a) kill it for exp., or b) capture it

If your choice is the later, make sure you have a variety of good Pokeballs with you and high-level Pokemon to get its HP into the red zone (when it's easiest to catch). Of course, if you have a Masterball you can just throw-on-site, because those bad boys will capture without fail. Just use it wisely, 'cause you can only get one in the entire game! (Unless you cheat, but I wouldn't know anything about that . . . )




I have also come up with 10 reasons why Pokemon is so addicting. If this doesn't convince you, well, you're a hopeless case.

1. All of the people on the screen are the same size (Allie, that means you won't be putting up with short people comments anymore ;)
2. It's technically impossible to "Catch-'Em-All" without either a) having somebody who's willing to trade a bazillion Pokemon with you, or b) cheating. (Heh heh . . . ) Thus, creating the state of mind of saying, "I haven't caught-'em-all yet!" And creating the urge to play until you have indeed caught-'em-all.
3. You can fly on them! How cool is that?!
4. You get to command your Pokemon to do whatever you want them to do! . . . Well, except fetch a soda from the fridge. If you want a pop, you'll have to leave the screen and just drag yourself there. Better yet, just take the game with you while on your way!
5. Some of the Pokemon are actually bigger than humans! Like Charizard.
6. Charizard is a dragon!!!!!
7. Pokemon have mind-boggling powers. Literally.
8. You can catch as many as your heart so desires. That is, of course, accounting for the fact that you have enough space to store all of your little minions. If you don't have enough space in your Pokemon storage, well then just get rid of all those stupid bug Pokemon. Nobody likes them anyway. (And the trainers who do always get pwned by your Charizard)
9. Fact: Mew is easily the most powerful Pokemon in the game. (Closely followed by either Mewtwo or Deoxys) . . . (Or maybe even Charizard)
10. Another fact: Nobody doesn't like Pokemon!

So try it out! What are you waiting for?! The digital frontier of Creatures of Immense Power are out there, just waiting for you to show up in their eternal lives. So get out there! And if you have any questions, feel free to throw 'em at me. I'll answer anything you got.

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

P.S. That's Charizard

Top 10 Things - Pockets

Top 10 Things
You would most likely find in my pockets

1. A black pen
2. Paper (either blank or a piece of homework)
3. iPod
   
4. Earbuds
   
5. My hands
6. Candy (sometimes)
7. Nothing (I don't always like carrying things in my pockets)
   
8. Lint
9. A monkey wrench (. . . Ok not really. But my pockets in some of my pants are big enough, and you've got to admit, it might come in handy in some situations)
   
10. More nothing-ness
    

Music Testing

As many of you know, I kinda love music.

A lot.

So lately I've been playing around with this beast of a program.

Yeah.

The program is called FL Studio and it's extremely complicated. I'd be willing to wager that I only know about 15% of everything you can do with it. And I haven't even mastered that! But what I do know is awesome.

This song is just something I was messing around with, y'know, seeing more things in the program and stuff. Hope you enjoy it!

Techno Test by Tikah