Connor: Weekly Blog #1

         The Freemasons is a secret organization that supposedly started in the 1300s around 1390 or so.  The Freemasons had spread into England at about that time and into Scotland in the sixteenth century.  They spread to America in the eighteenth century.  Long before it moved into England it seems to have been in Greece, as the oldest Masonic document mentions Euclid, the father of geometry.  Since the eighteenth century it had spread into many countries.  It was spreading much faster at that time than previously in Europe.
        Some of our founding fathers were Freemasons.  Benjamin Franklin was one of them.  George Washington, the first president, was also a Freemason.  John Hancock was also a Freemason and Just like Franklin and Washington, signed the declaration of independence.  Only 9 of the people who signed the declaration were Freemasons.  Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during WWII, was a Freemason.  Euclid could also have been a member of the Freemasons, as he is mentioned in the earliest known Masonic text.
       There are many conspiracy theories about the Freemasons.  Often made up by those who oppose the organization.  Those who oppose the organization are called Anti-masons or Anti-Masonry.  This is what the groups are called by themselves and by members of the Freemasons.  Some of the people who oppose this range from religious groups to conspiracy theorists.  The religious groups that oppose the Freemasons are some Christians and some Muslims.  They are also opposed by political groups, one being the Anti-Masonry Party.
       The Freemasons started centuries ago in Europe.  When they spread to America they gained several famous members.  Even before that they most likely had Euclid as a member.  9 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons.  Over the years there have been many conspiracy theories about the Freemasons.  They are opposed by religious groups, political groups, and conspiracy theorists.

Avery- Weekly blog #1

       Freemasonry one of the oldest and biggest fraternity organizations.  A fraternity is a group of men who get together because there are things they want to do in the world.  There are things they want to do "inside their own minds".  They all get along and understand and respect each other.
       There are many Freemasonries all over the world.  A Masonry lodge is a public organization of masons. Masons are men who feel good about themselves and want to make a change in the world to help themselves and others.  No one knows how long Freemasonry has been around.  But we do know they were in the middle ages.  There have been old castles found that were built by the masons a long time ago.
       Freemasonry spread really fast from Britain to America.  In 1731 when Franklin joined Masonry it started spreading everywhere much faster than normal.  Many of our founding fathers have been Masons.  For example, George Washington was a Mason when he got a bit older.
       Some will ask if Masonry is an education.  It actually is.  Schools were held at some of the lodges of some of the Masons a long time ago.  You learn how to take on responsibility for your own life and actions.  And that no matter what happens, weather its good or bad, you have to keep yourself under control.  You also learn some other small and big things at their schools.

8/27/12 Blog Post No. 2

NOTE: YOU MUST DO BLOG POST NUMBER ONE FOR THIS WEEK BEFORE DOING THIS BLOG POST!

For the first blog post this week, you researched the secret society of the Freemasons.  In your research, you probably discovered that there's a lot of crazy, unbelievable conspiracies about how the Freemasons were behind everything from the American Revolution to the Great Depression.

We all know those stories aren't true, but for today's blog post, I want you to assume that THEY ARE!  I want you to write an adventure story about someone trying to solve a great mystery, and during their investigation, they discover that the Freemasons are behind it!  Maybe they find out that it was the Freemasons who originally enslaved Egyptians to build the pyramids as a way to communicate with their alien masters.  Or maybe that they have rigged every presidential election for the past fifty years so that their robot candidates win (that's right-- Obama's a ROBOT!).  The point is to come up with something ridiculous  that can potentially effect the whole world (weather control, anyone?) and then make the Freemasons be the force behind it.  Have fun with it and go crazy.

8/27/12 Weekly Blog Post No. 1

Who are the Freemasons?  There's a lot of crazy conspiracy theories out there about how the Freemasons are behind every major world disaster that has ever occurred.  Of course, those stories are ridiculous, but it makes you wonder-- who are these people in this secret organization that have inspired such crazy stories?

For today's blog post, I want you to research who the Freemasons really are.  You can start with this article at wikipedia as a jumping off point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry

Then write a four paragraph report about the organization, what it is, and who some of the famous members of it were.

Gabe: Blog of the Day 1

     Before the tragedy, Nagasaki, Japan was just a normal big city.  The population was 240,000.  It is always at a nice temperature. It was a BIG city. It was like this at least until this.

     The USA did it in World War 2. It was a Nuclear bomb.  There where really two bombs. One was named Fat Man (he was the biggest). The other was named Little Boy ( He was the smallest).  They were both dropped in the beginning of August in 1945. 

     Fat Man was a plutonium bomb.  It weighed 11,000 pounds.  Little Boy was a Uranium bomb. It weighed 10,000 pounds.  These bombs put off a lot of radiation.

     The bomb really affected the area. The water is still unusable because of radiation in the water. The parts of the land that have radiation on them can not have things planted on them for a long time. After the radiation particles go away plants will grow there again! The  radiation killed a bunch of animals. 

     90,000 thousand people got killed during this.  It distroyed a bunch of buildings. There are lots that were sick. There are over a million people in Nagasaki today. Nagasaki some day will become a nice place again.

Mason: Weekly Blog #1

     What happened at Nagasaki was there was an atomic bomb, it exploded and killed 40,000 people and 70,000 people died after the bomb.  It destroyed a lot of  houses and buildings.  The US were the ones that dropped the bomb.  They did it because they were at war, it was in World War II. They gave Japan a chance to surrender but they refused to surrender.

     After the bomb they rebuilt Nagasaki and made a museum.  They also made sculptures and parks as monuments.  Nagasaki  is now a busy city with almost 500,000 people.

     The total death count was 73,884 people.  Some of the deaths were from radiation sickness and from the bomb.

     Some people are still sick because of the radiation from the bomb.  Some of the effects are some loss of white blood  cells, nausea, vomiting, headache, hair loss, and damage to nerve cells.  

Gabe: Blog Post 2

     There are a lot of cars in New York City.  Yellow, blue, green and even purple ones.  The cars come in all sizes, there are small ones and big ones.  They are also all different shapes.  They are all going fast.  The street loves the cars.

      There are a bunch of shoes in New York City.  The shoes are in all colors.  The shoes are in all shapes and sizes.  There are boots, wonderful boots.  There are cool converse.  New York has cool shoes.

      There are lots of shops.  There are shops that sell toys.  There are shops that sell bikes.  There are even shops that sell cars.  Shops can have so many different things.

Mason: Weekly Blog #2

     There are millions of people walking up and down the street.  They are all wearing different colors of clothes. Some of the clothes are red, some are blue, some are black.  They are all going to lots of stores.

     There are many stores on this street.  There is a shoe store, a sport store and a hat store. All of the stores have all different kinds of ads on the buildings.  You can see all the products they have through the windows.

     There is a hot dog stand on the street.  It sells hot dogs for one dollar and ten cents.  They can put ketchup and mustard on the hot dogs.  Millions of people like to get hot dogs there.

Kiki: Blog of the Week 2

The plants are purple green.  They are hanging from poles and people can walk under them.  They are right next to the street, they are big, big, big plants.

There are so many people.  They are different people, they all look different.  There are more then fifty people there.  A lot  of people are carrying things. 

There are so many cars.  There is a bus and little cars and big cars.  They are all different colors and shapes.  They are all going different places.  

Marney: Weekly Blog Post 1

    In August 1945 during the World War 2 the U.S. dropped two giant bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan.  When that happened it made World War 2 end because they surrendered.  When that happened Nagasaki and Hiroshima had some problems.
     The city of Nagasaki was destroyed and 40,000 people died,  74,909 people were injured and tons of people got diseased during the bombing.  People who did not die when there was the bombing slowly began getting sick and died at least 1 month afterward.  They could not live in the city after that for a while and they had no where to go.
     The whole town got destroyed and tons of people died.  People had trouble finding new houses and did find them but they were bad houses.  Tons of people went to hospitals and some people were shipped away because they thought Japan was not safe.  People donated to the people who were sick and were needing help.
     Now it is a town that is not all fancy and stuff, it has houses and offices and food places. Now there are 1 million people living in Nagasaki and it is a very famous town because there was a bombing.  They get money from people.  There is a bunch of radiation from the bombing and when people did not die they stayed alive but got very sick.
     The bomb that was dropped was called the Fat Man.  They called it the Fat Man because they needed code names for them.  Also the two bombs were both very fat so I think that was a good idea.  They dropped the bomb 500 meters off the ground.  Fat Man is a very big bomb, it was the biggest bomb in World War 2.  

Marney: Weekly Blog Post 2

     The people are all nice, some of them do not get along but most of the time they all do.  They are all rushing to get the last makeup sample in the store Say Ahh.  It is all a mistake, people are mad at each other because they think that they will not get it.  They all have different clothes on and the guys want to go to the sport stores and the girls want to go to the clothes store.
     The weather is in a bad mood and wants to rain.  It is cloudy and it is thundering.  It just finished rainning and it is all foggy.  It is 80 degrees out and it is about to storm. There is a pretty rainbow up in the sky.  It is terrible weather and the clouds do not like it.
     The road is crowded and there are no red lights.  It was just repaved and the fog is blocking the way for the cars to see.  The road smells weird and there are tons of coke tops on it.  The road makes a plus sign and it has tons of taxis on it.  People are walking everywhere and cars are driving everywhere.  

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.