Connor: Weekly Blog #2

There are people of every race.  People are walking to and from the various stores and shops.  Lots of men and women all walking to some place or another.  Thousands upon thousands of people wearing bright flashy colors as if in a modern Da Vinci painting.  The crowd is full of adventurous people going off to try something new or returning from trying something new.
    There are big bright yellow taxis driving toward their destination.  Hundreds of vehicles of one brand or another.  There are Fords, Old fashioned automobiles, Mustangs, convertibles and any other car or brand of car that come to mind.  The cars range in colors from blues to reds to fabulous purples and every other color of the rainbow.  There are American built cars, European cars, Japanese cars all in one place.  There are old out of date cars and new hybrid cars.
     There are stray dogs and feral cats running about.  Positively perfect poodles being walked by their pompous "parents."  There are kitties and puppies in purses being carried about by their owners.  There are deer attempting to cross the road.  There are bulldogs and tomcats barking and hissing at each other.  There are gators escaping from the sewers and hungry for food.  There are rats and other little rodents rampaging about.

Connor: Weekly Blog #1

      Nagasaki was hit by an atomic bomb on the ninth of August 1945.  The bomb was dropped by the United States.  The bomb was supposed to do more damage than the bomb that hit Hiroshima.  Fat Man, the bomb used on Nagasaki, was a plutonium bomb.  The second plutonium bomb to be used, as a matter of fact.  The first was tested in New Mexico.  This bomb, being a plutonium bomb, was meant to cause a lot of damage and had other negative effects on Nagasaki.
   The atomic bomb had caused a lot of damage to the city.  It also killed several thousand people when it blew up and after it had blown up.  The total death count was about 73,884 and the number of people injured was 74,909.  Several thousand people died afterward of radiation caused illnesses and diseases.  Buildings were destroyed and it left the city in a bad state.  It was an example of the problems with nuclear powered warfare.
     The government of Japan had protested the bombing on the tenth.  They had to rebuild the town and added new buildings to the original.  They built an atomic bomb museum and left the gate at the entrance to Ground Zero as it was.  Some of the torii, traditional gates, were destroyed and a few were left on one leg.  As stated before some of the people died from radiation.  The town was left in shambles and was rebuilt.
         The town has many monuments in memory of those who the bomb killed.  The city is now famous as an example of what nuclear warfare is capable of.  The town is still a port city, as it was before it was nuked.  Many towns in the same district became part of Nagasaki.  The city has partially recovered from the disaster, as far as building damage.  As for the people, some citizens still have radiation related illnesses caused by the bomb.
         Fat man's detonation caused a lot of damage to the city.  Since and because of the city's destruction and the deaths of so many innocent citizens, nuclear warfare is now outlawed by the Geneva Conventions.  After the detonation of these atomic bombs there has not been any attacks on other cities involving atomic bombs or other nuclear weapons of mass destruction.  There are now atomic bomb museums in Japan and documentaries on the cities and the lab in which the bombs were created.  The Japanese government has repaired most of the city.  Nagasaki has thus become one of the most famous cities in the world.

Avery: Weekly Blog Post #1

       In the end of December 1945 something terrible happened.  There was an atomic bomb that went off in the the city of Nagasaki, Japan.  It killed and injured many, many people, destroyed thousands of houses, Destroyed a lot of land, and gave diseases  to people.  It still leaves a mark on the town and the people today.

       Before the A-bomb the population of Nagasaki was 240,000 people.  After it 73,884 were killed and 74,909 were terribly inured.  It also damaged and destroyed 18,409 houses.  That means it destroyed 36 percent of the houses there.  Another thing the atomic bomb did was give many people a sickness that they called "Atomic Bomb Disease".  They got it from the heat rays and radiation.

       Basically it destroyed most of Nagasaki, Japan.  Many people had to be rushed to many hospitals and lots of poor people had to fin new places to live.  Lot's of the hospitals were destroyed so there were people  being taken to medical colleges and schools to be fixed up.

       Today People still suffer from the "Atomic Bomb Disease".  The town made a little exhibit about it.  With old pictures from the explosion, lot's of information about it, and people that will tell you all they know about what happened.

Gabe: My Blog

Please go check out my blog.

Gabe and Nature

Powerhouse: Air Conditioner

Today in our Powerhouse science lesson we learned about something very important here in Texas...

air conditioning!

We are learning all about how to use the heat of evaporation for cooling and how to install an air conditioner and refrigerator in our Powerhouse.  All air-conditioning systems need some sort of fan so we built one from our kit and tested it out.

After making observations about how the fan works it was time to install our AC and fridge in the Powerhouse.  The kids installed the fan first.  Next they installed a wooden skewer across the room with a wet paper towel hanging from it in front of the fan.  On to the refrigerator, a simple glass baby food jar pushed through a hole in the side of the house into the AC room.

Here is a photo of the complete system with labels.

On Thursday we will be building a hygrometer to measure the level of humidity in our Powerhouse.

Avery: Weekly Blog Post #2

        The people are all different in their own way. Some of them enjoy shopping in clothing stores, sports stores, grocery stores.  And some enjoy impressing others with talents of singing and dancing.  The people in the picture all act nice, and some of them are actually nice.  But for some of the people, if you get on their bad side... you'll regret it instantly.  They have a type of glare that frightens almost everyone.  As long as you're nice to them they will be happy and nice to you.  Every person there has their own style too.  Most of them wear colorful clothes.  Everyone has something colorful item on their outfit. When I say colorful I mean oranges, yellows, mints, and reds.

        The road was new and fresh.  The lines separating the lanes were not just any yellow, they were paint color Yellow #72.  It's a rare color, but they decided to make that road special because so many people can see the beautiful shade of yellow that lays on their smooth road.  The asphalt was flattened perfectly so that people can walk across the street barefoot without damaging the bottoms of their feet.

         The weather is strange there.  It's hard to tell how humid and hot it is sometimes because of the large amount of pollution in the air.  Every day the temperature is somewhere in the 70s.  The air is a little bit humid in the mornings, but that goes away around lunch.  The worst time of the day is 2:00 pm, when It gets really hot and dry in the air.

8/13/12 Weekly Blog Post No. 2

For today's blog post, I want you to write a descriptive scene.  See the picture above?  I want you to write three paragraphs about that picture.  Each paragraph, however, needs to be a detailed description of some part of the scene in the picture.  One paragraph can be about the types of people.  Another can be a description of the road, sidewalk, buildings.  Another can be about the weather.  You can even describe things you'd expect in the scene, but aren't actually in the picture-- like wildlife.  You pick what you want to describe in each paragraph.  But remember, it's not a story your telling-- you're going to be describing things in each paragraph.

8/13/12 Weekly Blog Post No. 1

The town of Nagasaki, Japan is famous for a great tragedy that occurred there.  For today's blog post, I want you to research it (using any of your online sources) and then write a five paragraph report on Nagasaki.  In your report you need to discuss the following things: (1) what tragedy occurred at Nagasaki; (2) what effect did that tragedy have on the town; (3) what happened in the aftermath of the tragedy; and (4) how is the town still affected by it today?

Connor: Elven Chronicles: Volume 1: To Slay A Murderer: Our Heroes Embark

After we left we traveled for five hours.  By that point everyone wanted to relax and prepare camp.  Not long after we set up for the rest of the day, a pale man in noble garb walked up to us.  He said "Hello there.  I am Harold from an empire in the distance."  He grinned at us and I saw some very sharp incisors, most likely used to puncture humanoid flesh.  I noticed that Harold wasn't protecting himself from sunlight, but he wasn't completely embracing it either.
  I said "Well Harold we are looking for a dwarf, about yea high.  Maybe you could tell us if you've seen him or you could give us some physical assistance."  He smiled and I thought to myself this guy probably wants something in return for this deal.  He simply nodded to me and I asked "How many people here can read my mind.  I want some privacy in my own head sometimes!"
   Harold only said "I can help you in both ways, but it requires a form of payment.  I can tell all of you are rather rich.  Especially you, Elf, in what I desire.  All I want is a bit of blood, or an entire soul, from a partner of your choice."  Harold looked as though he had done this several times and was looking rather thirsty.  The vampire said "Make your choice already or I will kill you all!"  Frightened by this threat we gave him the one who needed their blood least.  Harold drank Heinrich's blood and then complained about the god awful taste.
  Suddenly he told us to take a nice long trip toward the west.  When we tried to thank him he told us to go away and said his last name was Alucard.  We stayed camped out all night long and each of us took shifts to keep vile beings at bay.  While I was on shift Amy had been sitting by the fire, she couldn't fall asleep, and we discussed the meaning of life.  Which was ironic, considering I had already died.  After Amy fell back to sleep Harold came back and said "You idiots! Prepare to lose all your blood, except for the extremely stupid one."
  Harold had an entire army of vampires with him.  We had a bunch of stakes and garlic and crosses.  Amy had cast a spell that slew the undead.  I stabbed Harold through the chest with a stake, but missed the heart entirely.  Heinrich was asleep and was slain by vampires, unfortunately.  Leo, on the other hand kicked vampire butt.  After the vampires were dead we mourned the loss of one hero, although Leo was the only one who liked having him around.
      Eventually we came to a town that had been overrun with vampires, until last night.  The townspeople thanked us by letting us stay at the local inn.  There we recruited our sixth party member known as Danny.  Danny was a local half-elf who wanted to save the world.  She had heard of our exploits and decided we were better than most adventurers.  I could tell from the way she acted that she had a crush on me, but I was more interested in Princess Amy.  We now had our normal number of party members and this time no idiots.

Powerhouse: Natural Food Preservation

We learned how to make fresh water last week, so this week in our Powerhouse science studies we talked about natural food preservation.

We found out that there are LOTS of ways to preserve foods by natural processes: freezing, canning, packing in oil, packing in salt brine, fermentation, smoking, salting, pickling, drying and sugaring.  In our class today we used two of these processes.  First we used the Powerhouse greenhouse to turn an apple into a chewy treat.  All we had to do was slice an apple into thin pieces, stick them on a wooden skewer and place them in the greenhouse.  Then we set them out in the hot (104 degrees)Texas sun for a while.

.... 8 hours later we had homemade fruit snacks, from the sun!

Okay, they didn't taste too good- but we could still eat them if we had too.

Next we tried out a little fermentation- making sauerkraut.

All we needed was some cabbage, some salt and a glass jar.  We put layers of shredded cabbage and salt into the jar, tightly packing them down after each layer.

A liquid started to collect on the top (that's the brine).

After a few hours the fermentation process started and we could observe small bubbles rising to the surface.

Now we have to wait 10 to 14 days for the fermentation process to stop (when the bubbles disappear) and then put it in the refrigerator for a month.  We'll try to remember to update on how it turns out!  

Next week in our Powerhouse class we will learn about heat absorbers and how to cool our house.

Mason: Weekly Blog Post

We are all gathered here to say good bye to Jone, he was a good friend to me and to all of you.  When we were kids we played out on his back yard, we played hide and seek and tag.  When he grew up he worked as an artist and painted paintings for all of us.   How he died was his house was set on fire.  We will all miss him.

Avery: Weekly Blog

Bertram was a great guy.  He always loved to make people laugh and have lots fun.  He came up with the funnest ideas all the time.  His imagination never stopped for even the slightest second.  I remember when Bertram decided he didn't like his name.  So he changed it, he changed it to Voldemort. What still confuses today me is he never liked Harry Potter.  Didn't see the movies, read the books, he didn't even let anyone talk to him about it.  But he chose that name.  It made everyone laugh very hard when someone called him Voldemort.  We found it to be the funniest thing, but we still went with it.  He was a great man and he will always be in my heart.

Connor: Weekly Blog #2

     He was a funny guy, always making goofy faces when his picture was taken.  He got a job as a clown, which was the one occupation everyone had recommended for him.  He passed away doing what he loved, making people laugh.  Gregory F. Bone had brought laughter to the town of Humorless.  It's unfortunate that we will never hear his laugh.  We will never again see his most hilarious pranks.  We will never again hear his jokes.  His legacy of hilarious antics and wonderful comedy have died with him.  I'm sure he is still playing pranks in heaven.

Kiki: Weekly Blog Post

We are here today to say goodbye to our friend, Dove.  Dove had such a great job, he had the job of a wood cutter.  We used to go play games up in his tree house when we were younger.  Sometimes when we went up there we would play so long that we fell asleep in the tree house.  When we once went to the park to go watch birds we saw one bird that was eating a squirrel.  We caught a bird and I gave it to Dove for his birthday.  When Dove become a wood cutter he decided that he wanted to make a wooden chair first.  He made his wooden chair and carved him name into it and kept it forever.  When he made that he made another chair for me.  I tried making a chair once, but it didn't work because I didn't know how to make one.  It was so sad how he died, he died because he was on a train that crashed into a tree.  I will miss Dove.

8/6/2012 Weekly Blog Post

For today's blog post, I want you to write a eulogy to read at the funeral of the person in the picture above.  A eulogy is a speech that someone gives at a funeral that talks about the dead person's life and the things they liked and admired about the person.  So for this post, pretend that you were the best friend of the person in the picture and write out your eulogy.

Marney: weekly blog post 2

     The Three Gods 

By Marney

     One day there were three girls, their names were Jane, Jack and Charlie.  They all wanted to become famous and they were all thinking of ideas.   

     Jane said, "We could tightrope-walk over a giant cliff and try not to fall." 

      Jack and Charlie thought Jane was crazy so they both said  "No way."  They all went on a walk together and thought of a perfect idea.  

     Jane said, "We can do gymnastics and become famous for it."  Jack and Charlie both thought if they can become famous from doing gymnastics and they thought for a very long time.  Then the ghost like thing came down from the sky. 

     The ghost said "I am not a ghost, I am a goddess and I am a goddess of gymnastics."  The girls were all surprised that there was a god right in  front of them.  They all ran away until they got home and they ran to their beds.  Then another god showed up in the middle of their room. 

     She said, "I need to get you guys out of here fast, run out of your room now."
     Then the three girls ran out of their house and went to their friend's house until they were safe.  Then they practiced their gymnastics over and over again until they got it right.  Then they went out in the street to show it off.  Then they got it right and got over 1000 dollars and got on America's Got Talent and went to Hollywood, they were all very happy.  They got all the money they could ever win.  Then they went to Hollywood and started to show off wherever they want to.  They were so happy.

Marney:Weekly Blog Post 1

     The tallest building in London is the Shard, also known as the London Bridge Tower.  The Shard is 309.6 meters tall.  It became the tallest building on March 30, 2012.  The Shard opened a month ago and had a laser show for the opening.  It is the tallest building and is right next to the London Bridge.
     The London Bridge has been standing for 2000 years.  The London Bridge is about a sixth of a mile long.  A bunch of movies are made on the London Bridge.  Ever year they celebrate when it is the day of the London Bridge's birthday.  About 40000 people go over the London Bridge daily.
       British Museum has a free entrance and has a bunch of things from prehistoric times in it.  The whole roof is a sky light.  There are a bunch of mummies in the building.  The mummies have had 5.8 million visitors in this year so far.  It is open daily and it opens at 10 o'clock.
     The Big Ben is the big bell in London.  They ring the bell sometimes but not much.  The big bell is not very famous, what is is the tower the big bell is in.  The tower is very old and it is pretty.  At night they have big lights in the tower that light up.  

Gabe: Blog Post 1

     The London Eye is a ferris wheel in London.  It took seven years to build.  When you are at the top you can see 25 miles around.  3.5 million people ride it a year.  It can carry 800 people at once.
     The London Bridge is in London.  It took seven years to build.  It crosses river Thames.  It is 882 feet long.  It has five lanes on it.
     The Queen of England is 86.  She always goes out with a hat on.  Her name is Elizabeth.  Her husband's name is Prince Philip.  Her dad was George the 6th.
     The Olympics are in London this year!  The basketball arena is completely recyclable.  My favorite sport in the Olympics is soccer.   London has a lot of wonderful things.   

Gabe: Blog Post 2

The Goddess of Control

By Gabe

     Thousands of years ago a pebble fell into sand and a grain of sand stuck to it and that fell in a pond and created the Goddess of Control.  The Goddess of Control was happy she had the the whole world.  She could control anything.  Anything but one thing, time was the one thing that she could not control.  She had 3 out of the 4 crystals.  She had the Earth one, the water one and the air one.  But she did not have the time crystal.
     You have to be the best, most truthful god in the world to get the time crystal.  So she started creating men, some were nice and some were mean until she got to Thrash.  Thrash was very nice but also very strong.  Everyone was happy.
     Everyone started building and having fun.  She created some animals.  She also made a castle.  They made a nice town.  Thrash just left to go get the crystal.
     Everything was very good until this happened.  Everyone started rebeling because they wanted her powers.  Everyone just pulled out knives, ready to stab her.  Right before a man stabbed her, Thrash threw the crystal and she caught it and stopped time.  She changed the gods into people and put them on earth. She and Thrash stayed gods.

Connor: Weekly Blog #1

    London is the name of two cities in England.  The first of these two cities was founded by the Romans.  The second on the other hand was once called Westminster.  The city of London is located within London currently and has a longer history than London.  The city of London is surrounded by a wall or the remains of a wall.
   Because the monarchy and the city of London couldn't exactly trust each other, the castles from that time period, and practically ever since, were made to protect the monarch from the people of the city of London. The city of London is considered its own county and houses some pre-Anglo-Saxon monuments.  The wall that surrounds the city is of Roman origin.  The city of London is also run similarly to how it was back before Rome fell.
  London has more of the famous monuments however.  Big Ben is just one of the many monuments that are found in London.  Over time Westminster grew to incorporate smaller cities and the name changed to London.  While London has its mayor and its laws the City of London is different.  They select separate mayors and have different traditions.  The City of London even has a different flag from London.
   The city of London has been around for many centuries.  The motto of the city was most likely adopted in the 1600s and the coat of arms can be seen in several places throughout both cities.  The city of London has a crest that features a dragon's wing bearing the cross of Saint George.  Both cities hold monuments and can be considered part of the same city, while also being separate cities at the same time.  Because both cities hold lots of smaller monuments and the wall itself is a monument.  Coupled with the fact that the city of London is within London.  Thus London has a lot of monuments all throughout itself.