Mrs Lani's real name is Roselani Nowicki. The first name is Hawaiian; the last name is Polish. The "MRS. LANI" sign in her bus is in a Chinese-style font. She defies classification.
It's been going about normal. We went to two more contests and Qualified two more times. Or has it only been one contest? I'm not prepared for this entry, really. I just found out what Mrs Lani's name was and thought I'd say so on my blog, so I wasn't planning much else.
It's getting to be fall here in Ohio. I read that we here have even more colors than those guys up in New England. However, I also read Bill Bryson's article about New England falls, where he asserts that they're the best not only because they have so many colors, but because the background is exceptional--nice towns and pretty churches--and the air is superb. Regardless either way, I have to spend my fall in Ohio, so I might as well enjoy it as I can. A while ago, I tried to go online and find a guide to when each tree changes colors, what color it changes to, and so on. There was nothing available. Well dang it, I thought, I guess I'll just have to make my own. But not this year, because fall has already started. I'm going to learn stuff about trees starting now, and then I'll be better prepared to record the changing of the seasons when next autumn rolls around. Of course, I could use some help. I'm probably not going to be able to go visit one of every species of trees every day to see if it's changed or not--in fact, I certainly won't. This is where you come in. If, as you watch that tree in your yard change next year, you were to casually note what species it is, what color you'd say it just changed, and the date, and send that information on over to me, I would be quite pleased. This sounds like a fun kind of project. I'll do it every year, of course, so I can get average dates, not just dates for one specific year... I'll have charts, I'll have... other stuff. Don't you agree that it's a noble endeavor?
-I don't have too much else to say. Uh, I've been eating a lot of Hot Pockets, because Mom keeps buying them, and they're not too bad. And I've been working on Cyril. Gettin' better. And for our latest, last game we all dressed up in Halloween costumes, so I dressed up as Neo. So, uh, that's all for today.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Grape-Nuts
Yesterday, the only breakfast in the house was a box of Grape-Nuts. I had wanted to try Grape-Nuts for a while. That guy on the commercial, and occasionally people I had seen, looked to think it tasted pretty good. So I poured myself half a bowl as a trial. Then I took a bite.
-I figured it would taste like one of two extremes: either like sawdust or like a delicious bowl of fruit. Well, what I discovered is that it doesn't taste like anything whatsoever. That simple: no taste at all. Thus, the texture makes or breaks whether the cereal is tolerable. And the texture, I decided, was like a mouthful of pebbles. So here I was, with a bowl of gravel that I couldn't possibly eat. In the interest of not being wasteful, I drank just the milk from it, and then threw it out. Yes, I know there are starving kids in Africa, but I'm confident they wouldn't have liked them either.
-And that brings us to the starving kids in Africa. Today in history class, Mr Volz told us to get out a sheet of looseleaf and start writing a letter to a person about our age in Tanzania. He gave us a little background on Tanzania: apparently, it's on the east coast of Africa. And judging from the pictures he sent around, it's also very hot, boring, and hot. There does seem to be starvation, too: one picture showed a kid looking a lot like shrink-wrapped bones. I thought, "That really sucks." I wrote a letter answering the four prompts on the board
1) Who am I?
2) What is a typical day like for me?
3) What would I like to see changed in the world by the time I grow up?
4) How can I help make this happen?
I said I had big hair and I'd like to see the environment less dirty, and to that end I never litter, I recycle whenever possible, and I almost always go places by bike. For my typical day, I described a school day, and then said that when I get home I either go to Warder Park, read a book, or work on my font Cyril.
-And that of course brings us to Cyril. I've made all the letters now. That doesn't mean I'm finished--far from it. Now that I've made all the letters, it goes up for critique, to make sure it's the best it possibly can be. Then I make an Italic. After that I make a bold and a bold italic. And of course I'm making all the Russian bells and whistles, which means about seventy characters, even though only 33 or so are used in regular Russian. The rest are for things like ancient texts and Church Slavonic, when they hadn't whittled the alphabet down quite so far yet. I realize that nobody will ever use these, most likely, but I decided that if I'm going to name the font Cyril I should really include the most of the Cyrillic alphabet I can. (Cyrillic is the name for the Russian alphabet, named after a St Cyril who adapted the Greek alphabet to Russian.) In the meantime, if you want to see a bunch of people talking about beziers, x-heights, encoding, boumas, and hinting, and be astounded when I understand almost all of it, tune in to http://typophile.com/node/12860 and don't say I didn't warn you.
-I figured it would taste like one of two extremes: either like sawdust or like a delicious bowl of fruit. Well, what I discovered is that it doesn't taste like anything whatsoever. That simple: no taste at all. Thus, the texture makes or breaks whether the cereal is tolerable. And the texture, I decided, was like a mouthful of pebbles. So here I was, with a bowl of gravel that I couldn't possibly eat. In the interest of not being wasteful, I drank just the milk from it, and then threw it out. Yes, I know there are starving kids in Africa, but I'm confident they wouldn't have liked them either.
-And that brings us to the starving kids in Africa. Today in history class, Mr Volz told us to get out a sheet of looseleaf and start writing a letter to a person about our age in Tanzania. He gave us a little background on Tanzania: apparently, it's on the east coast of Africa. And judging from the pictures he sent around, it's also very hot, boring, and hot. There does seem to be starvation, too: one picture showed a kid looking a lot like shrink-wrapped bones. I thought, "That really sucks." I wrote a letter answering the four prompts on the board
1) Who am I?
2) What is a typical day like for me?
3) What would I like to see changed in the world by the time I grow up?
4) How can I help make this happen?
I said I had big hair and I'd like to see the environment less dirty, and to that end I never litter, I recycle whenever possible, and I almost always go places by bike. For my typical day, I described a school day, and then said that when I get home I either go to Warder Park, read a book, or work on my font Cyril.
-And that of course brings us to Cyril. I've made all the letters now. That doesn't mean I'm finished--far from it. Now that I've made all the letters, it goes up for critique, to make sure it's the best it possibly can be. Then I make an Italic. After that I make a bold and a bold italic. And of course I'm making all the Russian bells and whistles, which means about seventy characters, even though only 33 or so are used in regular Russian. The rest are for things like ancient texts and Church Slavonic, when they hadn't whittled the alphabet down quite so far yet. I realize that nobody will ever use these, most likely, but I decided that if I'm going to name the font Cyril I should really include the most of the Cyrillic alphabet I can. (Cyrillic is the name for the Russian alphabet, named after a St Cyril who adapted the Greek alphabet to Russian.) In the meantime, if you want to see a bunch of people talking about beziers, x-heights, encoding, boumas, and hinting, and be astounded when I understand almost all of it, tune in to http://typophile.com/node/12860 and don't say I didn't warn you.
Sunday, October 2, 2005
The Suspense
Hi, BJ. Hi, everyone. How's it going? Long time no see.
Sorry I didn't write anything. It's because junior year is quite the busy year. I've had barely any time to write. When I did have time to write, I usually used it on working on my font instead. In fact, Cyril is coming along very well. It's so much better than that version of it that I posted under critique on that one website. It's also getting very complete. Matt, as soon as I get done with it, I'll e-mail you the new version. And then, then I get to start working on the italic. When I haven't been working on the font or busy with school stuff... band, homework... I guess those are the times when I ought to have posted. But, I forgot about the blog at those particular times.
-As I've mentioned, this month has been busy. Band is a leading factor. Every Friday a game, and for the last three Saturdays there's been a competition that took up the entire day. Oh, these competitions... oh, these competitions. A typical competition involves getting to the school at about 1430, then marching in unfailingly hot weather for an hour. Then Mr Canter lets us go back into the band room and usually feeds us; this food break is an hour or so long. Once we've all finished eating and changing into Chafe Brand Band Pants, which go up to your armpits and hang off your shoulders by suspenders, we siphon ourselves onto the buses. Of course they're hot. They cool down some as we ride to another school somewhere, which takes at least 45 minutes, though the first two of the three trips we've taken so far took upwards of two hours. Bored, we tumble off the buses to start waiting for our practice area to clear out. From there we play some parts of the show, tune, and start accumulating into a block of bandmembers, whence we walk up to the area behind the field. There, we watch while another band finishes marching, and then we get into the stadium to start things going. We herd to about the fifty yard line, depending on where we are in the form, and stand at Parade Rest, and then some airheaded guy announces, "Finneytown Band, you may begin your preplacement/warmup." So we do. Next we all march onto the field. Only when we've all gotten onto the field does the announcer say, "You may take the field for your OMEA adjudicated performance," which always seemed peculiar to me.
-Now, during the show, the emotions are so varied that it's impossible to just generalize a typical show experience: it's different from person to person, and competition to competition. Usually there's plenty of tension. Sometimes there's confidence, sometimes nerves. But at any rate, what mood someone's in doesn't matter to the competition, so we put it on the back burner and just march. That's the way it has to be done. Our show is pretty exciting this year and everyone's gotten pretty well into it. So we do well.
-Once we get off the field we filter into a holding area somewhere, where Mr Canter stands on something (yesterday, a tractor tire) and briefs us on how we did. Then, depending on how many bands are left, we either change or don't, and go to the stands to let the competition finish out and the awards to be announced. This year we've done very well as comes to awards. At our first competition we swept the board for Class B bands and got third place for the whole competition, even beating out a AA band and all the A's; at our second one we didn't get many awards, and we were feeling pretty rotten when suddenly the guy announced we were going to State--afterwards we found out that the scores were all within about three points of each other, and that's why everyone got a little bit of everything and three of the four bands qualified for State--; and at our htird competition, yesterday, we marched even better, swept the board again--though we didn't get third place, because judges always seem to favor AA bands and Lakota East was here with all 300 of their members, and plus there were more bands than at the other one--and qualified again. Qualifying again only means that you haven't deteriorated in quality since last competition: you can't go to State twice.
-Finally we load the buses, drive home, and scatter to our respective houses. Usually that's at around 1 am. Yeah.
-In other news, junior year has been going So Far So Good, though I need to keep my nose at that grindstone and work like there ain't no more working... or something. I have a study hall half a year. That really grates me. And I'm only in one AP. Matt's in three. Rosie, three, and one last year. I'm slipping into the "underachiever" file. I suppose I'll just have to take a lot of APs next year. I figured out that there are seven bells that could all fit together, all APs. Matt said, "If you survive, you'll be valedictorian. And if you get all A's. If you don't, you'll just be dead." I don't know if I'll take AP Chem. Could be, could not. Same with Econ. I think physically one of those two won't even fit.
-Mr Lorenz is turning the ignition for Academic team on the 10th, and we'll be kept idling and warming up until the first competition, which is on the Whatth of Whentember. BJ! You're not here this year! What are we going to do? Now when we don't know the answer, nobody will be here to helpfully let us know it's Byron!
-I leave you with this: can you snap triplets with one hand and eighth notes with the other? Hint: it sounds like "Carol of the Bells".
Sorry I didn't write anything. It's because junior year is quite the busy year. I've had barely any time to write. When I did have time to write, I usually used it on working on my font instead. In fact, Cyril is coming along very well. It's so much better than that version of it that I posted under critique on that one website. It's also getting very complete. Matt, as soon as I get done with it, I'll e-mail you the new version. And then, then I get to start working on the italic. When I haven't been working on the font or busy with school stuff... band, homework... I guess those are the times when I ought to have posted. But, I forgot about the blog at those particular times.
-As I've mentioned, this month has been busy. Band is a leading factor. Every Friday a game, and for the last three Saturdays there's been a competition that took up the entire day. Oh, these competitions... oh, these competitions. A typical competition involves getting to the school at about 1430, then marching in unfailingly hot weather for an hour. Then Mr Canter lets us go back into the band room and usually feeds us; this food break is an hour or so long. Once we've all finished eating and changing into Chafe Brand Band Pants, which go up to your armpits and hang off your shoulders by suspenders, we siphon ourselves onto the buses. Of course they're hot. They cool down some as we ride to another school somewhere, which takes at least 45 minutes, though the first two of the three trips we've taken so far took upwards of two hours. Bored, we tumble off the buses to start waiting for our practice area to clear out. From there we play some parts of the show, tune, and start accumulating into a block of bandmembers, whence we walk up to the area behind the field. There, we watch while another band finishes marching, and then we get into the stadium to start things going. We herd to about the fifty yard line, depending on where we are in the form, and stand at Parade Rest, and then some airheaded guy announces, "Finneytown Band, you may begin your preplacement/warmup." So we do. Next we all march onto the field. Only when we've all gotten onto the field does the announcer say, "You may take the field for your OMEA adjudicated performance," which always seemed peculiar to me.
-Now, during the show, the emotions are so varied that it's impossible to just generalize a typical show experience: it's different from person to person, and competition to competition. Usually there's plenty of tension. Sometimes there's confidence, sometimes nerves. But at any rate, what mood someone's in doesn't matter to the competition, so we put it on the back burner and just march. That's the way it has to be done. Our show is pretty exciting this year and everyone's gotten pretty well into it. So we do well.
-Once we get off the field we filter into a holding area somewhere, where Mr Canter stands on something (yesterday, a tractor tire) and briefs us on how we did. Then, depending on how many bands are left, we either change or don't, and go to the stands to let the competition finish out and the awards to be announced. This year we've done very well as comes to awards. At our first competition we swept the board for Class B bands and got third place for the whole competition, even beating out a AA band and all the A's; at our second one we didn't get many awards, and we were feeling pretty rotten when suddenly the guy announced we were going to State--afterwards we found out that the scores were all within about three points of each other, and that's why everyone got a little bit of everything and three of the four bands qualified for State--; and at our htird competition, yesterday, we marched even better, swept the board again--though we didn't get third place, because judges always seem to favor AA bands and Lakota East was here with all 300 of their members, and plus there were more bands than at the other one--and qualified again. Qualifying again only means that you haven't deteriorated in quality since last competition: you can't go to State twice.
-Finally we load the buses, drive home, and scatter to our respective houses. Usually that's at around 1 am. Yeah.
-In other news, junior year has been going So Far So Good, though I need to keep my nose at that grindstone and work like there ain't no more working... or something. I have a study hall half a year. That really grates me. And I'm only in one AP. Matt's in three. Rosie, three, and one last year. I'm slipping into the "underachiever" file. I suppose I'll just have to take a lot of APs next year. I figured out that there are seven bells that could all fit together, all APs. Matt said, "If you survive, you'll be valedictorian. And if you get all A's. If you don't, you'll just be dead." I don't know if I'll take AP Chem. Could be, could not. Same with Econ. I think physically one of those two won't even fit.
-Mr Lorenz is turning the ignition for Academic team on the 10th, and we'll be kept idling and warming up until the first competition, which is on the Whatth of Whentember. BJ! You're not here this year! What are we going to do? Now when we don't know the answer, nobody will be here to helpfully let us know it's Byron!
-I leave you with this: can you snap triplets with one hand and eighth notes with the other? Hint: it sounds like "Carol of the Bells".
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