As you may or may not have heard, I have decided to become an author. I am sure that we have all, in our youth, have dreamed of flying, or having incredible reflexes, or being a warrior elf like in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, but how many of us go somewhere with that? Have you ever noticed that when you read a truly good and well-written book, you ARE the main characters? In your brain, you are going to your own movie theater, with the movie just the way you want it? In Eragon, for instance, I felt like I was on Saphira's back casting incredible spells at the Urgals below, and then sliding down the ramp and battling Durza. I felt right THERE with Eragon as he did this, because Paolini used INCREDIBLE descriptive writing. I am aiming to, in this short story, have my readers feel RIGHT THERE as--but you will have to read it to find out. I have placed my story as a Microsoft Office Word 1997-2003 compatible document on Windows Live SkyDrive, and you can download it below. I will be updating it once a week-ish as I add to this story, so check back regularly. I would also like you to give me feedback on what you think of it so I can continually improve and (if I get EXTREMELY EXTREMELY lucky) maybe be published (in fifty years). But first, I need YOU to add your little flair so it can become, like America, the melting pot of ideas and something truly great (now tell me I'm not an optimist ).

Enjoy, or not. But feedback, please.

myrrlyn@msn.com

Today was Weird Al's concert at JCC (Jackson Community College) in Jackson, Michigan. He was performing from the Straight Outta Lynwood Album and had several episodes from Al TV playing while he prepped for the next one. My favorites were Amish Paradise, Canadian Idiot, You're Pitiful, and I'll Sue Ya. Amish Paradise is a parody poking fun at, of course, the Amish. Amish Paradise the music video, as well as the music vids and songs of other Weird Al and Bon Jovi works, can be found in the SkyDrive embed below. Canadian Idiot focuses on the other side of Green Day's American Idiot--what if we were Canadian, the opposite of America, like Green Day says? I don't think I have that piece yet, I will add it when I have it. You're Pitiful (You're Beautiful) is just terrific (don't have it either...I think). For the concert, Al had on many different T-shirts inside each other that he regularly took off for the one below, ending in Spongebob Squarepants. When he was at Spongebob, the next molting was scary at first--he took off his pants. Calm down, calm down. He was wearing a pink tutu and white pantyhose underneath. Didn't care for that view either, but a tutu is better than boxers (or briefs, but I wouldn't know). I'll Sue Ya shows the true underworld of the courts--people sue for ANYTHING nowadays--and Weird Al shows how. (MV is on YouTube). He also performed two songs not from Straight Outta Lynwood--Cell Phones ("We all have cell phones, so come on, let's get real" are the lyrics, repeated to an improv tune. It is from an Al TV episode.) The second song, also improv, was a ten-minute encore about some journey from New York to Albuquerque and the events on the way, including a plane crash, arguing with a donut seller, and being attacked by starving weasels. Really LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG and boring, but mildly interesting. All in all, the concert was really great, but for some weird moments (but he IS Weird Al.....) and, of course, Albuquerque.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THESE ARTICLES DUE TO SECURITY REASONS. THIS WILL ACCOUNT FOR THE THE SLIGHTLY CONFUSING NATURE OF THE DOCUMENTS AND LACK OF NAMES. THANK YOU.

Saturday, August 11th, 2007

Today six boys, one adult and I built ten standard "one-board" bluebird boxes. More details can be found under Day1 on my SkyDrive module, Eagle Work folder. Here is an embed for it.

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

Today six boys, two adults and I built ten Petersen bluebird boxes. More details can be found under Day2 on my SkyDrive module, Eagle Work folder. The embed for Day2 is below.

My first foray into this Eagle project began on June 25 when I spoke to Mr. Gainer about approval for it. He declined as I was missing a few essential bits. June 27 saw me speaking to Kenneth McCosh on my project--approved. All of July I was at summer camp, but in August I finished preparations and spoke to Mr. Gainer again--approved. August 8th saw me speaking to Joe Madison, the Hillsdale Eagle Counselor--approved. I am now all set to start the project.

This is the first part of my blog tracking my progress in Eagle. I am going to open my Eagle Work folder for 'reading only' from Windows Live SkyDrive for all you blog readers to see how it is going so far. If you want to help with the project and live reasonably close (Hsiao or Paul, please don't apply), please leave your name and available dates on the GuestBook. I will reply with the date of my project and whether or not it is full with you in it. I will be contacting Scouts from my troop, so you might not get in. (Sorry). Also, if a Scouter is reading this, this is NOT part of my Eagle project and therefore not recorded in the time. It is only my on-the-side publishing of how well it is going.

From Saturday, 071407 to Saturday, 072107, I was at Mackinac Island as part of the annual summer Scout Service Program for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We arrived at Shepler's Dock, Mackinaw City, at 1030 and hauled our stuff onto a trolley to be taken on the ferry with us. However, because of the influx of passengers and several of our scouts being late, we did not leave until the 1230 ferry. When we arrived, the fifty-four scouts and several leaders were marched up Main Street and Fort Hill to reach the Scout Barracks, located north-east of the fort. Once there, we sorted our luggage, hauled it upstairs, unpacked, and then had a tour of the fort and our duty stations there. After this, we stayed in the barracks for about an hour and a half and then trooped of to dinner. After dinner we had Barracks Flags (at Scout Barracks), then Duty Flags (at fort or downtown), then free time in barracks until 2300, which was lights out.

Sunday:         2-Today we had our first duty shift. We woke up at seven, cleaned until 8:30, and went downstairs for breakfast in civvies. From there we changed into Class A's (now Parade Dress) for Duty Flags, then Barracks Flags. After this we had announcements and duty station selection, to which we would go at 1000. I chose South Sally, which was the south entry gate to the fort. I greeted visitors and gave them brochures and info on the next events. Today I was fidgety, but got better over the week. Also, I overheard the other PL's telling their South Sally workers to do it just like they described, using my methods! After our shift (second, hence the 2 at the beginning of today), we had a service project of picking up trash on North Bicycle trail for an hour and heading back. After this was free time until Post Cemetery flags, Barracks Flags, and Duty Flags. After flags, we went up and changed into civvies for dinner. Free time until 2300.

Monday:         1-Usual morning items--wake up, clean, breakfast, flags. Today I took Parade Grounds, where you yell at people to get off the hill. Bad idea. I got in trouble for fidgeting a lot and got spooked when Kim was near and got in trouble for that too. I decided South Sally for the rest of the week. After duty I went around town with Mom and Dad for a bit, then headed up to barracks for dinner. Evening routines, bed.

Tuesday:        3-Morning routines, toured town with Alex Wilcox and Devin Pascoe. Toured fudge and fun shops. Headed back at 1430 for shift, did South Sally like I decided, came back for flags, had marching competition drills for Thursday after dinner. We are doing double helices, flanks, butterflies, clovers, and finally the rainbow, where we have big guy in middle, shorter two ends, and the shortest kid and I in front as leprechauns holding pot of gold. Evening routines, bed.

Wednesday:   2-Morning routines, trained for marching competition more, stayed in barracks. South Sally again, practically perfect. Today is Honor Guard day, so we are short two so relief is strained. However, luckily the two Honor Guards (Mitch Birk, the other leprechaun, and Alex Wilcox) are sent back for their shift and do relief. Stay in barracks for free time, do evening routines. Post cemetery flags again because of second shift.

Thursday:       1-Repeat of Wednesday except I tour town with Alex and Devin again. We get rosaries blessed by the local Catholic father. Buy some fudge, meet family, head up to barracks for evening routines. Marching competition this evening, we take second. Frank, the PL and cadence caller, screwed us up a bit, but we were the best but for the cooks. Oh well.

Friday:            3-LAST SHIFT TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!! Tour town with Alex, Devin, Mom, Dad, and Grandma. Eat fudge, shop at various stores, buy a switchblade comb--very realistic.

Saturday:          Today we pack up and leave. We head to the ferry dock, go to mainland, collect luggage, head home. We had a great week.

As any of you who have Windows Live Messenger, have me on your contact list, and actually signed in (that's you, Paul!), you know that I am technically NOT AVAILABLE THIS MONTH, as my little Messenger notice says. I'm not shouting, don't worry. The first week of July I spent at a Scout Camp in southern Ohio, hence the title of this blog. I had a great time there and finished practically all of my merit badge requirements for Eagle (all that is left is a thirteen-week track of my budget for Personal Management). This requirement and my Eagle Project and included paperwork are the only barriers between myself and the Eagle Rank, Scouting's greatest honor and one that opens an innumerable amount of doors in future career options. But I digress. At WTSR (they should get a radio station of the same call sign), I learned to spar-pole, which is basically shimmying up tall straight trees stripped of branches using a loop of rope and spikes on your inside lower legs. Quite fun. I also learned that aerosol spray cans explode tremendously in fire, daddy-long-leg spider torsos take forever to burn while the legs shrivel immediately, a certain cat survived a train, drowning, a balloon ride, and a global nuclear holocaust (Live Search "the cat came back"), that America has a historical flag that looks like a blue version of China's, a wrong pull on a climbing/rappelling harness can have you partially or wholly neutered for life, even non-aerosol bug spray is great for fire, and other things along those lines. Not to mention the merit badges, which were also great. For instance, first-year scouts (those we call noobs) can be deathly afraid of something just because the species has never been seen before. In other words, we found a spider about half the size of my fist on a web and the two youngest scouts freaked out at camp about how it could come and kill us all in our sleep. And shoot acid out of its eyes. It took an hour, but we finally got them to shut up. Our main weapon for this cause was my stunning logic, followed closely by our counselors BCL (Big Censored Log). Needless to say, they slept deeply that night and woke with a pretty egg on their heads. It was a great week. In my next blog I will talk about either Mackinac as part of the Governor's Honor Guard or Eagle stats, whichever I post first.

Alex Payne, myrrlyn@msn.com, signing out.

My birthday gift this year was a Toshiba Portege Convertible laptop running Microsoft Windows Business. Seeing as the best OS before Vista that we used was Windows XP, I discovered that Vista had a lot of surprises in store for me. The 'breadcrumbs' mode of navigation, the odd style of users (your user folder is on your desktop instead of hard drive access and it comes preloaded with all the folders you should need--Documents, Pictures, Videos, Games, Downloads, Links, Favorites, Music, Contacts, and Searches), the weird Start Menu, the transparency of certain items, Windows Flip 3D, etc. for example. Breadcrumbs are the directory of the folder currently open, but instead of Username\Documents\Custom Folder, it is Username (down arrow), Documents (down arrow), Custom Folder. The down arrows open up into menus with every folder in the folder for which you hit the down arrow. When I brought all my data over from XP and put it in my Username folder, it automatically took the contents of each folder (Documents, Music, etc.) and put them in the corresponding User folder. The others it left alone for me to deal with. Microsoft Office 2007, as a warning to all possible Vista buyers, comes AS A TRIAL in most cases. Make sure that the laptop comes with a product key for MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007, not just MICROSOFT OFFICE ONENOTE 2007. There is a huge difference--OneNote does notes (more than one, I might add), Office 2007 is Word, Powerpoint, the whole 2003 suite upgraded. The trial only gives you 25 runtimes per application before they revert to the most basic mode. On Vista's upside, it has very powerful programs, updated security software making it impossible for a program to carry out a malicious act (we hope) because any installations must be verified by user. Internet Explorer is quarantined from the Operating System, and the Temporary Internet Files folder is inside the quarantine as well. IE only bridges the quarantine when downloading to a user-defined spot, and then requires user verification. It is like a castle and moat--plague in castle does not affect countryside until someone leaves, and then you need the king's and gatekeeper's permission. Windows Vista also comes with a whole suite of antivirus and malware programs such as Windows Defender to ward off any programs that attempt to bypass IE's quarantine or enter through the email portal if you have a separate email program like MSN or Outlook. Vista also has revamped Contact, Calendar, and Mail programs if you do not like Outlook or Outlook Express. The Contact program simply opens the User\Contacts folder where all its data is and allows you to add from there, requiring less CPU than running a Contact/Mail/Calendar/More program like Outlook. Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D allow the user to 'flip' (hence the name) through all running programs without putting them on the screen, one by one. The user, you, simply starts the Windows Flip or Flip 3D program, the little blue button in Quick Launch with three windows on it, and uses the arrow keys to navigate through the open windows and presses enter to select the foremost one or simply clicks the window they want to bring to the forefront. Flip 3D gives an image of the windows in a diagonal down perspective (desktop, window1, window2, etc.) facing at about a 45 degree angle away from the screen so they are visible, but from the perspective of a front side. Using the arrow keys takes away the image of either the front or back program and moves it to the other end, depending on the key. Enter always selects the program in front. A good battery in Power Saver mode can provide a quality runtime of Vista and any programs inside for over three hours with less CPU power and therefore slightly lessened performing power and speed, and High Performance gives about an hour forty-five of exceptional performance. The difference is not greatly visible on simple programs, but games such as Civilization IV are incredibly different--medium graphics, slightly delayed for Power Saver, smooth graphics, instantaneous response on High Performance. You may also add your own power schemes of various battery use and CPU drain levels. On computers with a fingerprint sensor, the user can store password information for sites in the fingerprint storage database and have the fingerprint program fill them in for appropriate sites with a simple finger-swipe. Your fingerprint can also be used as a password to log in on startup or access various parts of Vista code. All this (and much much more) is simply the middle version of Vista. For true power, try either Premium or Ultimate. For less expensive, simpler needs, see Home Basic and Home.

This says--

A warning to potential convertible tablet buyers:

1. CD Drive--If you want it, purchase the tablet with it included. Finding the correct bay CD drive separately will be a pain.

2. Screen Hinge--Although this flipping the screen around and down is handy [for drawing and sending handwriting], you usually only get two directions--one way to go down, the reverse to go up. Spinning the wrong way puts you back in the market for a [new] tablet--a bad thing.