Wow, this July is gonna be crazy to say the least... Other than my Mexico trip, which is in August, almost all of my summer highlights are in one insane, super busy month, July. This next week (of which only half is July but still counts), my brother is coming home from being in Armenia for his second time (on July first, what a way to kick the month off :o). After that, the rest of the week is boringly uneventful, which probably means I'll be practicing a ton of viola and guitar, maybe learn a new song or two.
After the one "boring" week in July, VBS starts at my church the next. Currently, I am sort of a reserve person for the skit, and I don't think I'll be doing anything with that since they already have a pretty solid crew and cast. If anything, I'll be doing the soundboard like I did last year. If I'm not needed on the skit crew, I might go to a friends house for the time and play a lot of tennis, or just serve by myself, hence my big tournament Thursday-Sunday (or whenever I lose, which will probably be the first or second day). To cap off that week, my church has a tradition of having a barbarcue and presentation from all that the kids have learned that week.
Now comes the fun part. The Sunday (the 12th) after my church's VBS I'm leaving for a leadership camp called WORLDVIEW. All my older brothers have gone and said it's either the best week in their life or one of the best. The only thing that I'm worried about is my roomate. I just hope I get a cool one. The thing that I'm paranoid about is getting a roomate that shares some crazy ideology that I completely oppose, and then be one of those people who has to debate it and will just drive you crazy because he's too stubborn to realize the problem with his position, and yet wants to continue debating it. I don't think I will get a roomate like that, but if I do... well lets just put it at this, it'd suck. Other than that paranoia I'm super excited about WORLDVIEW.
I get back on a Saturday from WORLDVIEW, then, after dying from exhaustion, I have to get up the next day and get myself on a train to DC, where my brother is driving me from the train station to yet another camp. If your completely lost, this day that I'm talking about now, is Sunday the 19th. I hope I don't have to say which month we're on. The camp that I leave for on the 19th is a Strategic Intelligence camp at Patrick Henry College. I actually wouldn't be going if it wasn't for a friend from my online logic class last year, who is also gonna be there. Needless to say, it's definitely gonna be an awesome week.
To top off the awesomenss factor of the week/weekend, instead of going straight home after SI camp, my brother Shant who lives in DC is picking me up, and I'm staying at his place for the weekend. =) After a weekend there, I'm coming back on Monday, and then finally, after a hopeful trip to Six Flags with Peter, my awesome month comes to a close. *sigh*
But wait! I have Mexico to look forward to, because once I get back, from DC on Monday, it's less than two weeks away. Very very cool indeed. Well, there's my month of July. Gonna be sweeeet.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Transformers 2 review
Just a heads up, this is hardly a review, moreso just my thoughts on the movie in an unorganized couple of paragraphs.
If you think about it, there wasn't much room for a good sequel plot after the first Transformers movie. The good guys win, the leader of the bad guys is at the bottom of an ocean abyss, Sam gets a super hot girlfriend, the good transformers have an alliance with the humans, and the thing fought over the whole movie is now destroyed. If you ask me, that's a pretty happy ending. One that doesn't merit a sequel... or does it?
In the extremely anticipated movie, Transformers 2, the continued "happy ending" plot that follows the first movie is, to no surprise, a total flop. A complete failure. Not only does it succeed a movie that was not intended for a sequel (or was, but director Micheal Bay just did a horrible job in anticipating it), but it has the most holes and unanswered questions than any other movie I can remember watching (or at least was paying attention to).
The plot just doesn't add up. All the sudden, the decepticons have the makings of their very own army?? Where were these guys in the first movie? Why weren't they there to aid them in finding the cube? There's no explanation to why that is. That's one huge problem in Transformer's plot.
Apart from random deceptacons dropping out of the sky from who knows what planet, there was another problem in the plot that struck me weird. If Sam had a piece of the cube, why couldn't he just touch Optimus Prime with it to bring him back to life? It worked with Megatron, and the cube shard obviously still had enough power if it awakened the entire Witwicky kitchen into a little army of culinary equipment. Practically the whole end of the movie was based on something that didn't even have to be done. That's two huge problems with the movie's plot (or at least a very large unexplained detail).
Other than having a terrible "plot", Transformers 2 also had an obscene amount of dirty humor, practically all of which wasn't even funny at all, just annoyingly inappropriate. I was very surprised at the amount of inappropriate humor in a movie that was solely advertised for it's special effects and action. If Micheal Bay focused on more plot, and less money and appeal, he could have maybe came up with something half decent.
Conclusion:
The new Transformers movie is nothing more than an attempt to make money through it's astounding special affect, intense fight scenes, and dirty humor. The only thing that was left out was a good plot.
If you think about it, there wasn't much room for a good sequel plot after the first Transformers movie. The good guys win, the leader of the bad guys is at the bottom of an ocean abyss, Sam gets a super hot girlfriend, the good transformers have an alliance with the humans, and the thing fought over the whole movie is now destroyed. If you ask me, that's a pretty happy ending. One that doesn't merit a sequel... or does it?
In the extremely anticipated movie, Transformers 2, the continued "happy ending" plot that follows the first movie is, to no surprise, a total flop. A complete failure. Not only does it succeed a movie that was not intended for a sequel (or was, but director Micheal Bay just did a horrible job in anticipating it), but it has the most holes and unanswered questions than any other movie I can remember watching (or at least was paying attention to).
The plot just doesn't add up. All the sudden, the decepticons have the makings of their very own army?? Where were these guys in the first movie? Why weren't they there to aid them in finding the cube? There's no explanation to why that is. That's one huge problem in Transformer's plot.
Apart from random deceptacons dropping out of the sky from who knows what planet, there was another problem in the plot that struck me weird. If Sam had a piece of the cube, why couldn't he just touch Optimus Prime with it to bring him back to life? It worked with Megatron, and the cube shard obviously still had enough power if it awakened the entire Witwicky kitchen into a little army of culinary equipment. Practically the whole end of the movie was based on something that didn't even have to be done. That's two huge problems with the movie's plot (or at least a very large unexplained detail).
Other than having a terrible "plot", Transformers 2 also had an obscene amount of dirty humor, practically all of which wasn't even funny at all, just annoyingly inappropriate. I was very surprised at the amount of inappropriate humor in a movie that was solely advertised for it's special effects and action. If Micheal Bay focused on more plot, and less money and appeal, he could have maybe came up with something half decent.
Conclusion:
The new Transformers movie is nothing more than an attempt to make money through it's astounding special affect, intense fight scenes, and dirty humor. The only thing that was left out was a good plot.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Lobbying in DC
For a long time, I've always wondered about what lobbying is like, and what you actually do and talk about... That imagination was answered last Wednesday when the South Jersey Homeschooled JSA chapter went on a lobbying trip to DC in accompaniment with the organization Freedomworks. Freedomworks is a conservative grassroots organization dedicated to political activism. After connecting with them as an extra JSA activity (to which all the credit goes to my mom), we were able to muster up a group of all but three members from our club (who all desperately wanted to come), and five friends (12 total) who came for the unique experience.
We left from my house about ten of six in the morning, and all convened at a gas station at about quarter of seven. From there we split up into respective cars and drove down. The car ride down there in the Boyajian car was interesting to say the least. It consisted of me absolutely destroying the pants off of Josh and Aaron in black jack and five card (I've never gotten so many full houses in my life), and then on a more serious note, it consisted of an interesting "debate" about whether Christian rock music is appropriate for Sunday worship. Soon after that debate settled, we arrived in DC and finally found the correct parking garage.
After parking, we convened with everyone else and walked to the Freedomworks office nearby. Upon arriving at the office, we were briefed for almost an hour and a half my three different people on how we would be treated and how to argue the issue at hand (the Government takeover of healthcare). After that was over, we all took taxis to the building in which we were first lobbying. Because of some time restraints, the schedule was changed so that we ate lunch before lobbying, where as before we had planned to speak with Congressman Adler's assistant.
After finishing lunch in the cafeteria, we split up into two groups and lobbied to two different Congressmen, Adler and Andrews. The majority of the group went to lobby at Adler's office, whereas Josh, Aaron, and two other Freedomworks representatives went to lobby at Andrews' office. We spoke with Adler's assistant who explained that because there was no current bill describing this issue, the Congressman was "open" to different opinions, although he was a liberal. Despite his seeming support of socialized medicine, his assistant still listened for much longer than the scheduled appointment, and took tedious notes of our argument and alternative plan. After speaking with her for almost an hour, we finally wrapped up and got back on our way to reconvene with the group that met with Andrews.
We met up with Aaron, Josh, and the other two Freedomworks lobbyists in the lobby of the building, and exchanged stories of each meeting on the way to the next building where we were lobbying next. Unfortunately, Aaron, Josh, and the two other Freedomworks lobbyists got completely rejected because he was "busy eating lunch."
We arrived at the other building and hurried up to our next appointment, which we were desperately late for, hence the longer stay at Congressman Adler's office. As we entered Lautenburg's office (the Senator we were supposed to meet with), his assistant explained that she had a very important meeting at the time, and that we could come back in an hour and meet with her then. After that, we currently didn't have anything to do, because our next appointment at Senator Menendez's office wasn't for another thirty minutes.
After discussing the issue, we decided to meet up with my older brother's girlfriend, Annie, who works for Kansas Senator Brownback. We met up with her, and she took us into his office and spoke about her job, and what it's like to intern in an office like his (which she did when she was in college). As we left, we met up with the Senator, who greeted us all and even apologized for not letting us be in his office at the time. In the lobby of his office, one thing that me and Aaron took notice to especially was the debt clock. Annie explained that it is in fact very accurate at calculating the National debt. If I remember correctly, the clock's number was increasing at an amount of about a thousand dollars every couple seconds (pretty dang freaky I know).
We left Brownback's office just in time for both our appointments, which were simultaneous, so we once again split up into two different groups and each took a different office. The majority of us stayed at Menendez's office, while everyone else went to meet up with our re-scheduled appointment at Lautenberg's office. After waiting about forty-five minutes for Menendez's assistant to meet with us, we finally were able to talk to her in the hallway outside his office. She again explained that because there is no current bill on this issue, the Senator doesn't exactly have a fixed position. Daniel, who was the current spokesperson, explained that by taking away the state mandates on health insurance and then allowing citizens of one state to by trans-nationally, it would create much more competition, therefore lowering prices, and making health care more affordable. Menendezs' assistant said she would definitely pass the information on to the Senator and thanked us for our time with her.
After we were finished talking to Menedezs' assistant we walked back to the Freedomworks headquarters where we started our day. Before we left for the day, we met up with my brother who lives in DC near Alexandria. We met with him at a small restaurant near the parking garage and talked for a while. After talking with him, we all left and split up to drive back home.
Thus ends the JSA lobbying trip. T'was awesome indeed.
We left from my house about ten of six in the morning, and all convened at a gas station at about quarter of seven. From there we split up into respective cars and drove down. The car ride down there in the Boyajian car was interesting to say the least. It consisted of me absolutely destroying the pants off of Josh and Aaron in black jack and five card (I've never gotten so many full houses in my life), and then on a more serious note, it consisted of an interesting "debate" about whether Christian rock music is appropriate for Sunday worship. Soon after that debate settled, we arrived in DC and finally found the correct parking garage.
After parking, we convened with everyone else and walked to the Freedomworks office nearby. Upon arriving at the office, we were briefed for almost an hour and a half my three different people on how we would be treated and how to argue the issue at hand (the Government takeover of healthcare). After that was over, we all took taxis to the building in which we were first lobbying. Because of some time restraints, the schedule was changed so that we ate lunch before lobbying, where as before we had planned to speak with Congressman Adler's assistant.
After finishing lunch in the cafeteria, we split up into two groups and lobbied to two different Congressmen, Adler and Andrews. The majority of the group went to lobby at Adler's office, whereas Josh, Aaron, and two other Freedomworks representatives went to lobby at Andrews' office. We spoke with Adler's assistant who explained that because there was no current bill describing this issue, the Congressman was "open" to different opinions, although he was a liberal. Despite his seeming support of socialized medicine, his assistant still listened for much longer than the scheduled appointment, and took tedious notes of our argument and alternative plan. After speaking with her for almost an hour, we finally wrapped up and got back on our way to reconvene with the group that met with Andrews.
We met up with Aaron, Josh, and the other two Freedomworks lobbyists in the lobby of the building, and exchanged stories of each meeting on the way to the next building where we were lobbying next. Unfortunately, Aaron, Josh, and the two other Freedomworks lobbyists got completely rejected because he was "busy eating lunch."
We arrived at the other building and hurried up to our next appointment, which we were desperately late for, hence the longer stay at Congressman Adler's office. As we entered Lautenburg's office (the Senator we were supposed to meet with), his assistant explained that she had a very important meeting at the time, and that we could come back in an hour and meet with her then. After that, we currently didn't have anything to do, because our next appointment at Senator Menendez's office wasn't for another thirty minutes.
After discussing the issue, we decided to meet up with my older brother's girlfriend, Annie, who works for Kansas Senator Brownback. We met up with her, and she took us into his office and spoke about her job, and what it's like to intern in an office like his (which she did when she was in college). As we left, we met up with the Senator, who greeted us all and even apologized for not letting us be in his office at the time. In the lobby of his office, one thing that me and Aaron took notice to especially was the debt clock. Annie explained that it is in fact very accurate at calculating the National debt. If I remember correctly, the clock's number was increasing at an amount of about a thousand dollars every couple seconds (pretty dang freaky I know).
We left Brownback's office just in time for both our appointments, which were simultaneous, so we once again split up into two different groups and each took a different office. The majority of us stayed at Menendez's office, while everyone else went to meet up with our re-scheduled appointment at Lautenberg's office. After waiting about forty-five minutes for Menendez's assistant to meet with us, we finally were able to talk to her in the hallway outside his office. She again explained that because there is no current bill on this issue, the Senator doesn't exactly have a fixed position. Daniel, who was the current spokesperson, explained that by taking away the state mandates on health insurance and then allowing citizens of one state to by trans-nationally, it would create much more competition, therefore lowering prices, and making health care more affordable. Menendezs' assistant said she would definitely pass the information on to the Senator and thanked us for our time with her.
After we were finished talking to Menedezs' assistant we walked back to the Freedomworks headquarters where we started our day. Before we left for the day, we met up with my brother who lives in DC near Alexandria. We met with him at a small restaurant near the parking garage and talked for a while. After talking with him, we all left and split up to drive back home.
Thus ends the JSA lobbying trip. T'was awesome indeed.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Pictures from South Carolina
Been a while since I posted anything... I told a couple people that I'd post some pictures on my blog from South Carolina, but I'm pretty sure my brother already posted them on Facebook, and Blogger is mean when I tried, so I'm just gonna forget about it for now, unless people really wanna see pictures and I was actually wrong about my brother putting them on Facebook... oh snaps, I forgot to do something...
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