Sledding for the first time... What a weekend.

Woot! This three-day weekend just keeps getting better and better! Everyone skated today, and I got home at about 5:30. At 5:35, Elaine, a neighbor I've come to befriend and three of her friends drive by and invite me to go sledding, like, right that minute. I can't refuse! I've never been sledding before (unless you count once in cub scouts, but I was so little it doesn't count).

So we went sledding at the Arb, which is this huge square mile of hills, trees, and otherwise beautiful sledding terrain up by North Campus. It was about 7pm and dark when we got there, but it was still a blast. I ran into one tree, but not very hard, and in fact I stopped just short of it.

After sledding we went back to Elaine's for hot chocolate and a few rounds of Scattergories. Loads of fun! I'm so happy that I finally get to hang out with kids my age in Ann Arbor.

One Helluva Sunday

So I guess I'm staying another night at Stasia's. I hope we have a Snow Day at school tomorrow, 'cause I'm missing it anyways. I'll just go straight from Novi to the Cube with Anastasia and Patrick.

I just got back from a movie with Stasia and her family. It was "Alvin and the Chipmunks". I won't get into it, but let's just say it is in NO WAY suitable for teenagers. The writing/directing/acting just sucked. It was full of simple slapstick humor only a three-year-old could appreciate. Granted, for small kids, "Chipmunks" was very entertaining, but it was really hard for me to stay in the theater when "I am Legend" was playing in the theater RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

Snow is already starting to get old. Especially when the car gets stuck on the way home, and you have to get out and push.

Playing in the Snow

Haha, this morning was so much fun! After pancakes for breakfast, Brad, Rachel, Patrick, Anastasia and I played outside in the snow. We had snowball fights and [tried to] build snowmen, and made snow angels, and raced each other. I got most of it on video with Patrick's camera. I can't wait to edit it and put it on Facebook when I get home!

SNOWED IN

OMG WE GOT SNOWED IN. LIKE EIGHT INCHES OF SNOW OVERNIGHT, AND IT'S STILL COMING DOWN HARD! NO SKATING TODAY. CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY OUTSIDE, GLAD I BROUGHT WARM CLOTHES.

Snowstorm and My First Snowball Fight!

Ah! Tonight was so fun! Elyse and her mom picked me up and drove me to Patrick's house in Northville for Christmas food and caroling. A bunch of other skaters and their parents showed up, and brought/ate lots of Christmas goodies. I learned the words to so many songs, and we took lots of pictures and videos that are soon to end up on Facebook.

It started to snow... heavily. So all the kids went outside and I had my first snowball fight. I think I've been playing too much Halo 3, because all I could aim for was headshots. I now know I'm good enough at snowball fights, because I managed to get everyone against ME! It ended when Patrick dumped a bucket of water on my pants, and everyone went back inside to more food, games, and singing.

After that I went to Stasia's house (where I am now) with Brad, Rachael and Patrick, and we're watching "40 Year-Old Version" in the basement. Roman has the most awesome home theater setup downstairs. It's a 720p HD projector on a huge blank wall complete with a 6.1 surround sound system, all connected to a custom-built PC housed in a small room behind the couch, and controlled via wireless mouse and keyboard. The computer has an HD satellite receiver and a 300GB hard drive filled with recorded HD movies.

I asked if I could install the Halo Demo, and it runs amazingly on an Nvidia 7600GT, though Roman didn't build the computer with gaming in ming. Even Halo, a 5-year-old game, takes complete advantage of the surround sound system, and it's such an experience to hear aliens screaming from all directions, and playing smoothly on a giant wall with 1280x720 resolution. Ugh, I'm all geeked out. I'm going to sleep.

They say we might get 8-12 inches of snow overnight. I wonder if we'll make it to Ann Arbor to skate tomorrow.

Poem - Black Ice

Today in AP English we were to turn in a page-long analysis of several Romantic Era poems. But because we had a substitute and he's really nice, we could instead write our own Romanticized poem about a personal event, complete with a Romanticized illustration.

Of course I started mine at the last minute; in fact, at about midnight of the due date (Friday, today), but I think it came out well nonetheless. I read my poem to the class for 5 desperately needed extra credit points. And now I'd like to share this poem with you, the reader. Criticize it how you may: I praise I deserve is proportionate to the amount of effort I put in, which wasn't much.

My poem is called "Black Ice", as it is certainly an experience new to me!

"Black Ice"
by Jordan

Tramping trudging towards school
Sidewalk frozen, air is cool
Breathing crystal, fingers tucked
Left my jacket, I'm a fool.

To my right, a similar friend
Front of us and round the bend
Walks another boy like us
Parents to whose school they send

Doesn't talk, but walks with haste
Straight ahead he's firmly faced
No time to scan the ground ahead
The blackened mud, in ice encased.

Without a clue, nor chance to act
The boot and ground, they lose contact
Arms flail up but he doesn't go down
He looked absurd, but skull's intact.

There is silence for awhile
Then I can't hold back my smile
I glance right to mute concord
Stuff like that makes life worthwhile.

I'd attach the illustration, but it's crappy anyhow and I drew it on my poem one period before turning it in, so I couldn't have scanned it.

No... Of course we weren't eating cookies! What gave you THAT idea?!

So today after skating Elyse and I were coming up the stairs at the Cube when we passed by Yasa, who was on her way out. I smiled politely, and then realized Elyse and I were both holding chocolate chip cookies we stole from Quint's room downstairs. In fact, I was right in the middle of taking a bite!

I quickly stuffed the rest of the cookie into my mouth and my hands into my pockets, but she wasn't fooled. I can only imagine how guilty our faces must have looked.

Yasa asked what was in our pockets, and we just smiled and kept walking, the blood rushing to our faces. I guess Yasa kept walking too, 'cause when we were considerably far away I looked back and it appeared she had left.

It's kinda all my fault too, but Elyse says she's forgiven me.

You're not still on MySpace, are you?

Wow, I haven't logged into MySpace for ages. It amazes me how anyone does. But apparently I still have 4 MS friends currently online. And the reason I'm online? I keep getting spam messages from two of these people, so I'm logging in to disable the pesky, uninformative email notifications.

In the meantime, kudos to Facebook for now including a preview of wall posts and messages in their email notifications!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Crank That (Santa Claus)

Man, today has been a long day. I was at the rink from 11 to 8, which is longer than I've ever spent in bed this past week. Though my training started at 2pm today, I came in early to volunteer for the Winter Exhibition at the Cube. Before the recital, there was a special "Skate with Santa" session open to the public. Can you guess what I did? *Hint: I'm in the picture.*

Members of the Ann Arbor FSC have to volunteer a certain number of hours per year or pay $100 extra in club fees. I hope this, Snowplow Sam, and the Porter competition last week cover my share of hours. That Santa suit seemed older than me, and the beard/mustache was right up my nose.  Let's just say Fabreeze made up only half its smell.

There was a lady who took pictures of me and the little 'uns. Later I saw that she was selling the pictures with Santa for $6 a piece! I feel like I, being the very reason for the picture's existence, should be entitled to a percentage of the profit, or at least a few free pictures. I didn't ask though, and the only picture I got (the one you see above) was by a dad I suckered into taking my picture.

I think I'm done dressing up and skating in mascot costumes, at least until next year. Who knows though, it might be a good career when I'm forty and starring in Disney On Ice's "Monster's Inc. On Ice"...

Who needs a fridge? Cool your soda/pop OUTSIDE

Winter came late this year, but boy did it come.

And yes, this is in Fahrenheit

1/2 & 1/2 versus 2%

This morning I accidentally poured half & half into my cereal instead of 2% milk (we were out of 1/2%, I swear!) In case you didn't know, half & half is half milk and half cream, and is equal to 12% milk. The first few spoonfuls were delicious, but then it got pretty overwhelming and I had to dump it. It was sad.

Driving after a snowstorm is much more fun with rear wheel drive.

Driving in a Winter Wonderland

John scrapes the ice and snow off the windows after last night's snowstorm.

Yeah it's what you think it is.

It's a couple days old but you get the idea.