Sunday, August 21, 2016

Seafall, School exists

Seafall instructional video is out made by Rodney Smith (I mean, who else would it be?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJjoxACoVuM
Haven't watched it yet, but I plan to watch it a couple times and read the rulebook while I wait for a time to play it.
But how are we going to play it? My brother Eric mentioned this in his blog post: Bingeing Seafall.
And, yea, they did get gobbled up quick at GenCon. There were only a few copies left by the time the pre-hour was up. (pre-hour isn't the official name, but you can buy a special ticket thing that let's you get in an hour before everyone else, so you can buy games and stuff). They only had very limited quantity, however, due to the fact that they had to fly them in. They made very little money on that first exposure of Seafall.
Anyway, Seafall is not something that should be binged (at least according to Rob Daviau (the designer). But the problem is Rob also suggested (I forget where) that Seafall is a game where you want a core group. In Risk Legacy and Pandemic Legacy it was okay if you had a person or two switch out every game or every other game. However in Seafall it's best if we get the same 3-5 people to play every single game. That is going to be very difficult to get around since we don't want to binge the games. If bingeing the games was good. We would just wait for a Christmas Break where My brothers and I were all at home at once and the play all the games over the course of a week or two. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
Also, school exists. And man is it scary. I'm taking Spanish 2, A.P. English, Video Production 2, Honors Algebra 2, World History, Honors Chemistry and A.P. Psychology.
My easier classes are: World History, Honors Algebra 2 and Video Production 2. That doesn't mean they don't have work and stuff, it's just the easier work out of my classes.
But what I'm really afraid of are the other four: Spanish 2, A.P. English, Honors Chemistry and A.P. Psychology. A.P. English + A.P. Psychology = a lot of notes. Spanish 2 + Honors Chemistry = a lot of studying.
We'll see how it goes.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Scout Camp and Grandma's house

Fun Fact of The Day: in my last post every time I typed the word 'the' I put it there twice. Did you notice? Always wanted to do that.

Another Fun Fact of The Day: apparently twenty one pilots is normally not capitalized, went back and fixed that.
Anyway, right now I'm in a predicament where I just finished an emotional anime and, man, it was good. The ending was so perfect even if it made heart cry a little. And now instead of writing about how awesome it was I'm writing about Scout Camp and my Grandma's house (huh, guess we never do say grandpa's house, always grandma's).
Tis' fine though. They were a great two weeks.

Scout Camp:

This was my first time going to Camp Fleischmann for an actual scout camp. It was interesting week due to the fact that only two other scouts went with me instead of the normal 5 or more. But it was fine since we got the same campsite as two other troops. One from Fernley and the other from Silver Springs. I recognized several of the them and over the week I felt as if the young men all grew close together.
All three troops group photo. We called ourselves the 'Triple Treat'.
There were three major things I accomplished there (other than merit badges (of which I got: Archery, Art, Camping, Reptile and Amphibians, and a partial on Astronomy)).
Archery was one of them. I shot pretty good, I guess. I got the top end of the summer (top score with 6 arrows (I got 51, was latter beat with a 56)) and the top round of the summer (top score of 5 ends consecutively (but if you kept going you can replace a lower score with a newer, better one (I think I went 8 ends. The best 5 totaling with a score of 238 (I kept this high score))). So, yeah, that was pretty sweet.

My dad and I posing with our amazing targets filled with arrows.

Weekly scores pass from week to week meaning I beat all the other weeks' scores too.

Off topic, but: slaughtering Ben in some Capture the Flag.
Next up is when I got my Free Trapper. In order to get Free Trapper award you need to do five things: 1. Compete in the Blanket Shoot (I did so (obviously), however it was my first time shooting black powder, so I did not do so well).
2. Start a fire with flint and steel within a minute. Did this on my first try.
3. Tippee etiquette. Took about 15 minutes, and I learned some cool stuff about tippees while I was at it.
4. Teach a younger scout to throw a tomahawk properly. I taught my cousin Ben who got the hang of it pretty quick.
5. The toughest one of all. Stick 15 tomahawks consecutively. I think my entire chain history (other than the beginning when I was just trying to stick one) was: 5, 7, 5, 5, 8, 16. Your heart is beating rather fast when you're about to throw the 15th. It was a lot of fun.
I got this award:

Got a cool pin.
And now my favorite one. The Seneca Run.
Start of with Tomahawk throwing. 3 Tomahawks. 3 points per stick. +1 point if you get all three. I stick two: 6 points. (except for the fact that they only gave me 3 points (probably because one wasn't stuck fully and was kinda of just hangin' around on top of a log (but earlier when we were practicing they said those counted, so....))).
Run over to Shooting. Do all proper procedures, but miss target. 8 points.
Go to fire starting. Goal: Start a fire in under a minute with Flint and Steel (and Char Cloth). This was the second time I have ever tried. My first was for my Free Trapper that I got on my first try, so it had to be easy, right? Indeed. 10 points.

Fire soon to be.
Run all the way up the hill to Archery. (well, walk part of it, got to get my breath controlled for shooting) The day before I had gotten the top end and top round, so I felt pretty confident.... Wait a second these are re-curve bows, not the compound ones I was used to. Aimed in the same spot I did for compound. Was not a smart Idea. 0 points.
Run all the was down the hill, by all of the campsites, pass a couple of scouters where I make the joke that the Seneca Run was the only time I could run in camp, so I had to take it, right?, passed the medic shaft to the climbing wall. Which I hadn't been to before this week, so I had to ask for directions... hurt my time a little, but it should be fine. Scurry across the wall earning a solid score of 7.
Run down to the waterfront, where I paddle as fast across the river as I can. Followed most of the procedures earning a score of 9.
Then the long run all the way back to the ridge where I clocked in at a time of 20 minutes and 49 seconds. Pretty good. Turns out I made (time-wise) third place giving me 11 extra points (you get one point per person you beat including yourself (there were 13 kids participating)).

During award ceremony, I was announced as 4th place with a total score of 48 (would have 3rd if they counted that one hawk). I was pretty happy with myself. But there are two more cool nuggets. 1. The top 5 (which is what they announced) was all from our campsite. Go Triple Treat! The other cool nugget was that I beat Noah (the guy who came in 5th) by one point, but you see the thing was he had 7 more points than me from the activities. However I got 11 points from time and he only got 3, putting me at one point above, nice!

Grandma's House

After hearing my exciting, riveting adventures at scout camp you get to hear my laid back adventures at Grandma's house. Yay!
Being in Oregon was also pretty different this year due to the fact that I was the only kid there. I kind of just did my thing each day. It was kind of like being at home except grandparents were there and I could watch TV.
I did several things when I was there including:
1. Playing Tennis. Although I did not have any siblings that actually played Tennis to face against, we got my dad a tennis racket. We hit a ball back and forth a little bit and after he got tired I would hit against the wall that was there. I knew that Tennis practice was going on back home and I didn't want to fall behind, so I went and hit against the wall by myself (with a parent reading/watching me) also.
2. Playing some games with parents / grandparents.
2. Finish Bands of Mourning. Man, this book blew my mind about the world of Scadriel, now it's time for Mistborn: Secret History to do the same.
3. Finish the last few episodes of Steins;Gate. This was the time travel anime that I mentioned I should talk about in my post: 'Anime'.
4. Start (and finish the next day at home) Your Lie in April. The anime that I mentioned at the start of this blog post. And, man, my wounds haven't finished closing yet.
5. Watched some new episodes of Cutthroat Kitchen. One guy actually played really well and saved his money until the very end while his opponent did not. He had, like, 22,000 dollars and the other person only had 5,000. In the last round for every single sabotage he bid 5,000 dollars giving the other person all three of them and still having 7,000 dollars left over. He won, obviously, and left with a good chunk of money.
Also there was a round/episode where the dish was French Fries. This guy got sabotaged with having to give away all of potatoes and getting only mashed potatoes instead. He was awesome and ended up making the best French Fries out of all of them.
Oh yea, and another round/episode where one person bought the exclusive right to salt/seasonings and yet ended up with the least seasoned dish out of all of them. Alton gave her a confused look when he was passing.
6. And of course, the ocean.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Reality

         This is just a post, not the the 'real one'. You'll get a lengthy-er post in a week or so. (yea! back to back posts!)
         Okay, has anyone had a minor problem about getting your dreams mixed with reality? For example last night I had a dream and during part of it I talked to my cousin about what place I got in the the Seneca Run and my whole experience during the the Seneca Run (an experience which I will retell to you during my next post).
         But before I told him I asked him if I had already told him. Which confused me when I woke up. In case you don't know I'm kind of half-lucid during all my dreams (I'm able to control many major and several minor actions), so I assumed that the the me when I was dreaming knew what he was talking about. Had I already told my cousin about the the Seneca Run? What? No, of course not. I hadn't even seen him since the the Seneca Run and have had no contact with him.
         Being half-lucid during all my dreams has added this layer to my memories. Did that happen in my dreams, real life, daydreams? Etho (youtuber that I occasionally watch) once talked about one of his friends having this problem. His friend had the the ability to be lucid in all of his dreams, controlling his actions and so forth. He was having trouble distinguishing what was real and what wasn't. At first I was confused. Whenever I had a lucid dream I could easily tell that I was dreaming. But it turns out he wasn't talking about during the the dream or real life (AKA inception version) but after the the dream / real life. Not knowing what you have truly done or not. He has it a lot more than I do it appears.

         Also a note about Music that I've been listening to. I did not include Tyler's album No Phun Intended due to the the fact that it was made by Tyler and not the the band twenty one pilots. Perhaps in a later post I will redo my list of my favorite twenty one pilots songs and include it. I would also make the the categories much more specific including only 5-7 songs max in each one and preferably having only 3-5 in most of them.

Happy Esther Day! Love you all!