The Chronicles of Calvin

Woo!

dJeopardy! Host Dude: Random Guy, please pick a category.

Random Guy: Hmm... how about 'Calvin Killian' for $400, please.

Host: 'Calvin' for $400 it is, then.
Your question is: 'What is Calvin doing, or what has Calvin been doing?'

Random Guy: What is having tea with the Mad Hatter?

Host Dude: ...No.

Random Girl: What is 'Blogging about what he's been doing, which is:
a) going to a swim meet today, where he swam the 100 yard freestyle and 100 yard breaststroke, taking 9 seconds off of the former, and 3 seconds off of the latter
b) getting all excited because he took time off, therefore getting another qualifying time for his swim meet in Bermuda which is coming up in June
c) blogging
d) listening to the Sherlock Holmes movie soundtrack, even though he hasn't seen the movie?'

Host: Wow, Random Girl, that's amazing! You got everything right!

~fin~

Did I mention that we're going to Bermuda in June?


Calvin

"Sure! Let's throw a party!" WAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOO!

It's warm. Like, 70 degrees warm. Warm is gooooood.

Aja and I took advantage of the warmness yesterday by getting four socks, six buttons, one jar of glitter, and Jimmy the video camera. We then proceeded to make... HOW TWILIGHT: NEW MOON SHOULD HAVE ENDED! With sock puppets. =DDDDDD Aja's working on editing it (or, at least, she's supposed to be), and it's going to be pretty epic when it's done. If I can somehow get it up here (or at least a link to it if it goes on the Internet), I will, so you can understand the epicness of sock puppets.

Also, there is, for some reason, a bubble in our roof. We have no idea why it's there, and frankly, we're somewhat worried. After all, we wouldn't want it to be a bunch of squirrels taking up residence in our roof, because that would be bad. Very. Bad.

Calvin

Oh my loquats!

Holyquenelles it's SNOWING.

AGAIN.

FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS YEAR.

We've never gotten this much snow before!

...it's awesome.

Also, you should totally check out this webcomic Aja found.


Calvin

Elementary, my dear Watson./Yurt. Yurt. Yurtyurtyurtyurtyurtyurt.

Yurt.
Yurt.
Yurt.
Yurt.

Try reading that aloud... you'll find it extremely fun to say.
Yurt.

The meaning behind all of this yurt-ness? Well, my history book has a list of projects at the beginning of each chapter, and I noticed one of the projects for the chapter I am currently reading was 'Build a model of a yurt.' A documentation of what I thought (in order) would go like this:
1. 'Ooooh, that's fun to say! Yurt! Yurt! Yurt!'
2. '...What's a yurt?'
3. '....YURT!'

I then proceeded to look at a picture of a yurt, and I now report to you the very important fact that yurts look funny.

So I built one.

OUT OF LEGOS.


Yep, it's a LEGO yurt. But, scroll down for an even more epic yurt picture!



I call it... the RumbYurt! For you see, that is my tiger, Rumba, INSIDE THE YURT! Also, this is the very first 'Find Filbert' picture, so... find Filbyurt--I mean, Filbert.

About an hour after I finished the RumbYurt, Nana stopped by and gave Aja and me our Christmas presents from our aunt and uncle. Aja was given a book called Alibis in Arkansas, which neither of us had ever heard of, but oh well.
     I was given the book shown below:


Oh, yeah, it's 36 Sherlock Holmes short stories, plus 2... long stories.
And that's only Volume 1. There is a Volume 2 out there, and it is now my mission to find it.






Yurt.



Calvin

Of Snow and Rubber

Snow.
Is.
AWESOME.

Yes, I followed up on what I said earlier,  I went outside into the 5 inches of snow and had a snowball fight with my friends. =D Then it got dark and I had to go back inside. =(

Then, on Saturday, Mom and I built the most epic snow fort in the history of all the universe, using nothing but a small cooler, enough snow to fill that cooler 87 times, and every back muscle we have. But it was so worth it, even if my arms are still hurting. After that, we had a snowball fight with our neighbors over the fence, and we discovered that dogs are surprisingly good at catching snowballs.

Sunday, the girls in the youth group went off to some of the adult counselors' houses and had a Valentine's Day party. This, of course, meant that we had a church full of guys. Sadly, I have been sworn to secrecy about what we did, because if I told you, that would be breaking Rule 3. , ' :-D

Yesterday (Monday), we had swim practice. Calvin died of too much butterfly, and this is a hologram that serves the purpose of blogging for Calvin.
Maybe.
Alright, fine, I didn't die.

Today, I went to the orthodontist, and I know have rubber bands in my mouth. They will somehow get my teeth straightened out, since they've always been a little bit crooked.

Well, not much else has happened besides what I just told you. Except. For. The. Fact. That. Talking. Like. William. Shatner. Is. Really. Fun.


Calvin.

Yay! The blog is back!

I sincerely apologize for my lack of updates over the past few weeks, but a lot of stuff has been going on lately, which is exactly why I am posting this new post.

Thing that has been going on NUMBER ONE: Laser Quest was AWESOME! We only got two games this year, but that's okay, especially since we had the costume contest! Like I said, we had the Pirate, Ninja, Superhero, Villain, and Patriotic categories. The Villain and Patriotic categories apparently forgot to send a representative, as there were none there. The Superhero division consisted of Aja and Aja's friend Loor (Aja won), while the Pirate division consisted of... well... me. The Ninjas, however, had about 10-15 people, but that just proves that pirates are infinitely better, since they go against the flow. =D

Second thing: Last Saturday, I had to get up at 6 in the morning. It was for a good reason though, you see, because it meant that I was going downtown with 3 other members of my homeschool math club. Why were we going, you ask? Well, we were going to compete in the local MathCounts Chapter Competition, which is pretty much an excuse for a bunch of math clubs to come and do a bunch math problems and see who does the best. (It's FUN though!) When we had gotten through all of the rounds (Sprint, Target, and Team Rounds), we went into one of the classrooms (more like a lecture hall) for the awards. We were in Group D, and there were 6 awards to present in each Group, so it took a while to get to us, but they finally did. The announcer dude called the third place team in our group, a different school, and we figured 'Okay, we probably didn't place, but that's okay, we still had fun.' They then announced the second place team, another different school, and we thought 'Okay, we definitely didn't place.' The dude then announced the first place team, and he took his time doing it, but when he got around to saying the school's name, it was us!! This was Saturday, and I'm still happy... that shows you how excited my team and I are.

Third Thing: SUPERBOWL! The youth group had a Superbowl party at the church on Sunday, but we ended up going over to Winter's house at halftime. You should have seen us all when the Saints won the game, we were that excited. =DDD
SCREAMING CHICKEN IN SPACE!

Fourth Item of Importance: It's not raining anymore. Nope, now it's snowing! =) The weather forecaster people are saying we'll get two to three inches by morning, so I'm really happy, since last time wasn't even near an inch, and this'll be enough for a decent snowball fight!

Fifth Thing: I got my Reading, Citizenship in the Community, and Nature merit badges done in the past week or so, an I'm really happy about that, since the Nature MB was one I started at summer camp last year, and I've finally gotten it finished.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going outside to play in the snow.


Calvin

It's raaaiiiining, it's poooouuuuring...

Meh.

It's raining here, and, quite frankly, rain is boring.

Also, tonight, Aja, my dad, and I are going to Laser Quest with the youth group! WOO! We go to Laser Quest once a year, and this year, we're having a costume contest, with five categories, which are as follows:

• Superhero
• Villain
• Pirate
• Ninja
• Patriotic

I'm going in my pirate costume. I would go in my Scott Summers costume (the one I wore to Disney), but the whole sunglasses + dark room + blacklight thing just wouldn't have worked out. Instead, I'm wearing an eyepatch over one eye all day, so that when we're playing, I'll be able to just switch it to the other eye and be able to see! Yay!

(For those of you who don't know, Laser Quest is a laser tag place, and laser tag places are typically dark, therefore, I want to be able to see well. Also, if you're ever going to Laser Quest, don't wear any color besides black. White. GLOWS. LIKE. CRAZY.)

I'll post how it went either tomorrow or Tuesday. =)


Calvin

Bye, alligator! Please don't eat us!

Yes, I just said there was no Internet in the swamp, because, this past weekend, I went on a camping trip to the Okeefenokee Swamp. We went canoeing, which is really fun, but reeeeeeaaaallllyyyy hard, especially when the guy in front doesn't paddle.

But besides that, I had a really good time. Friday night, we drove part of the way down and stopped at a church for the night, got our stuff unpacked, then took a visit to the s l o w e s t W e n d y ' s o n E a r t h . When we woke up Saturday morning, it was raining. =( We got our stuff packed up, then we drove the rest of the way down to the campsite, where we put up our tents (IN THE RAIN), moved all of our (WET) stuff into them (IN THE RAIN), then set up a dining fly (IN THE RAIN). We ate lunch (sandwiches), then just kind of sat around and did nothing (IN THE RAIN.) Later, we had dinner (hot dogs) and tried to build a fire (IN THE RAIN.) It took us five tries, but we eventually got a fire going, and it had to be under a tree so it didn't go out. But it still worked. =DD

Sunday morning, we woke up, got out of bed (dragged a comb across my head... sorry, couldn't resist the Beatles reference!), found out it had stopped raining, ate breakfast (sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits), discovered that EVERYTHING was wet, then we got in the leaders' cars and drove to the Okeefenokee Swamp. It was a long and uneventful drive, but once we got to the swamp, it got fun. We got our lifejackets on, picked up our paddles, and got into our canoes. I ended up in a canoe with the two other guys who were in my tent.

We started off canoeing down the main river pretty well, but then it got windy. The wind was pretty strong, because even though you technically weigh less in the water, these canoes weighed about 20-30 pounds each, and mine had about three hundred pounds of people in it (three to a canoe), but the wind still crashed us a few times.

We got off the main river onto a little side stream called Cedar Hammock, where we paddled for at least an hour to get to the floating dock-rest-stop thingamajig that was sitting randomly at the end of Cedar Hammock, in the middle of the swamp. When my canoe made it to the floating dock thingamajig, everybody else who was already on the dock (which was pretty much everyone else) was screaming 'Holy crud, there's an alligator in the grass over there! Paddle harder!' I figured, 'Whatever, they're just trying to scare us,' until the wind picked up again and blew us towards the spot with the alleged reptile. We paddled until we reached the dock, where I finally saw that there was actually an alligator over in the patch of marsh grass, and we had been on a collision course with it until we paddled away, and it turned around and started swimming away.

We paddled out of Cedar Hammock a few minutes later, but everyone had switched around in the canoes, so everybody was in a different canoe than on the first trip. The trip out of Cedar Hammock didn't take nearly as long as the trip in, and when we made it back out onto the main river, we paddled up to the fork, where we turned left and went down the Day Use Canoe Trail. A little ways in, my canoe ran up onto a rock, and we had to push it off, then, a few minutes later, we passed a HUGE (and by huge, I mean eight or nine feet long) alligator. When we passed him, he just kind of stared at us. Gators have REALLY black eyes... very creepy, since you never know which way they're looking.

After we passed Tim (the gator [NO, I did not name him after Tim Tebow, he just looked like a Tim]), we paddled calmly along for a while, until we saw yet another alligator, but this one just poked his head up, looked around, then swam away. After we passed THAT alligator, nothing much happened until the end of the trail, where I saw one of the other guys from my patrol waving at us. The first thing I thought was 'Aw, man, we went the wrong way and have to turn around,' but then I saw the place on the river we had started from, so we paddled into there, got out of our lifejackets, beached our canoes, then got in the cars and went back to the campsite.

Monday morning, we woke up, packed our gear up, took down and packed up our tents, then got in the cars and started the loooooooooooooooooooong drive home.

When we got back to the church six hours later, we got our gear out of the Troop trailer, then discovered that the tents we used were so wet that each one used had to be taken home by a Scout who had been in it. I volunteered to take my tent home, so we took it home, where we set it up in the backyard to dry.

So, that's what's been happening over the weekend. =)

Calvin

FILBERT ATTACKS!

OMAIGAWSHHHHH!

Calvin

YAY!

Calvin

In this way, Mister K. will challenge the world!

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MisterKWillChallengeTheWorld/

Yes, there's only one post, but I just started it today, so.

Calvin

When two eggs collide...

Hello from the land of the magical platypus unicorns!

I just thought I'd tell y'all that today I did a science experiment involving MASS DESTRUCTION! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

In other words, I beat up some eggs.

But it was really fun, because Aja drew faces on the eggs and named them, all four of them! I give you... pictures.


^These are the eggs in question. From left to right, their names are Alberto, Fredrick, Stanley, and Matthias. It's kind of disturbing how Matthias has that gleeful look on his face, as if he draws pleasure from the destruction of other members of his species.


^Mom helping hold the egg-slide in place. Because, you see, I had to roll the eggs down a slide.


^Stanley about to roll down the slide and crash into Alberto.


^Poor, poor Alberto. Stanley, however, was fine until Aja used him to bake cookies.


^It looks like Alberto sneezed on Stanley with his last breath. That would explain the disgusted look on Stanley.


^Fredrick and Matthias before I set up the Slides of Doom.

((The Slides of Doom were set up like this:
_  _
=\/=
Where the = and the _ are books and the \ and the / are the slides.))


^The aftermath of the Slides of Doom. You see, I rolled Fredrick and Matthias down opposite slides so they slammed into each other. Frederick cracked, Matthias is still living happily in the refridgerator.

A summary of this experiment: Rolling plain eggs so they smash into each other is boring. Rolling eggs with FACES and NAMES so the smash into each other is FUN! >=DD *laughs maniacally*

*clears throat* Composed.

By the way, I'm starting a new blog to post my drawings on, and I'm going to set it up as soon as I finish this post and get the first drawing rotated, so be on the lookout for it.


Calvin

Dramatic Music Time!

Hyvää päivää, everybody! A couple of somewhat interesting things have happened today, which I shall now relate to you.

First of all, we got a new game for our Wii; Wii Music. It's pretty fun, I played it a bit today, but I think it'll be better with more people.

Secondly, we went to the mall today, and I discovered that my new Converse are the most comfortable shoes on Earth.

*dramatic music comes to a screeching halt* Wait!

NEW CONVERSE???

Yep, that's right. I got a my first pair of Converse at Journeys today.




They're amazing. I'm probably going to get some black laces for them later, but they're still amazing.

And comfortable.

Andandandandand...

So, that's what's been going on lately. =D


Calvin

Happy 2010, everybody!

Happy New Year, everybody! Hope you had a great New Year's Eve, whether or not you stayed awake until midnight.

New Year's was pretty good here, we went to the 1st annual New Year's celebration at the Town Green last night, and I discovered that:

a) It's COLD here.
b) Churros are really good.
c) Magicians are comic geniuses.
d) Most people cannot tell what a giant disco ball with flaming wings is supposed to be.
e) My new hat is amazing!


^My new hat. I had $15 in gift cards at Target, and we had to go there anyway to get hand warmers, so I looked to see if they had any of these hats, and, well, they did! It was a tie between that one and this one:

But ^^that one didn't fit.

Overall, it was a good New Year's Eve, and hopefully 2010 will turn out to be a good year!


Calvin

Extereme Makeover: Bed Edition

OK, so remember how I told you yesterday that we were going to eventually cut my bed's legs down?

Well, it turns out that it didn't take as long as we all thought. I got my room cleaned out today, and we cut the bed down to the floor. So, I present to you a PHOTOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTATION OF CUTTING A LOFT BED'S LEGS.

Step 1:


Get out your tools.

Step 2:


Unbolt the ladder.


Hooray,  it's unbolted!

Step 3:


Draw the cut line.

Step 4:


Cut the first leg.

Step 5:


Clamp the leg together.

Step 6:


Cut the other leg on that side.

Step 7:


Turn the bed on the cut-leg side.

VIII:


Get the whole family involved! (That's Aja in the black coat, Mom with the headphones, and Daddy with the power saw.)

IX:


Continue to get the whole family working on the project! But suddenly...

TRAGEDY STRIKES! The power saw used to cut the bed legs has run out of battery!

Step Diez:


When all else fails, BREAK OUT THE MANUAL SAW!

Step ELEVEN!


Move the bed into place and take a picture!

And now, some random pictures that each have something to do with cutting my bed down in some strange, non-apparent way!


The hallway outside my room after I moved all my stuff out. If you look closely, you can see my lamp, a flashlight, and a Mars rock. And maybe a camoflauge machine gun.


My room right before we started cutting the bed. It looks... hungry.


I suppose five years of having a heavy loft bed in the same place would put a sizeable dent in the carpet.


Our dog, Roxie. She watched us cut the bed.


The other spectators. Left to right: Tiny the Chihuahua, Rumba T. Tiger, Jack, Tango the Bouncy Tiger, Percival the Swim Meet Giraffe, Crush the Awesome Orange Spaced-Out Turtle, Kazoo the Kitten.


A pile of sawdust. It looks like a turkey jumping off of a flattened Camry.


Now that my bed is cut, I feel like I'm in a lunar rover. Why, you ask? Well, isn't it obvious?



Still don't see it? *sigh* What does it take to get you people to notice things?

Here, does this make it any clearer?



Does this help?

 [   ]    [   ]
yes    no


In other news, there's no other news.


Calvin

WHOA.

Greetings, all, from the land of madness, spaghetti squash, and Waldo!

This morning, my dad asked me if I wanted the legs of my loft bed cut down, like we did to Aja's when we re-did her room a few months ago. I decided that I did, but I had to clean out the various stuff from under my bed.

Not. Fun.

But I'm almost done cleaning it out, so here's some pictures of the work in progress:


^My room after about a half-hour.


^The shelves under my bed after about an hour.


^The shelves a little later.


^Shelves are done!!!


In other news, MERRY LATE CHRISTMAS! Sorry I didn't get around to posting on the actual day, but it was a little busy. Anyway, it was a very good Christmas, during which my mom got a Charlie the Unicorn notebook and a Charlie plushie from Aja, and the Mom's Book on How to be the Best at Everything from me; my dad got a stadium seat with a slipcover from my mom, a pad to go under his sleeping bag from me, and the Dad's Book on How to be the Best at Everything; and Aja and I got Charlie the Unicorn t-shirts from our parents (It's a MAGICAL liopleurodon!!!), amongst many other things. We had dinner with Nana and Grandaddy on Christmas Eve (chateaubriand FOR THE WIN.), then we had dinner at home on Christmas Day (turkey gooooood), then, on the day after Christmas, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. =D

In more other news, IT'S COLD.


Calvin

Om nom nom nommmm.

-- Stir-fry is good.

-- Syfy's mini-series, Alice, is AMAZING.

-- 4 days until Christmas! YAY!

Calvin

Hey y'all! Read this!

Manah manaaah!

^^My Airsoft gun.

^^The squash, which we named Harvey.


^^Harvey after a good half-hour of shooting.


The third thing we did was find this video.

Yep, it's been a pretty good few days since my last post. =D


Calvin