Hey All

So yesterday morning was the awards assembly at school. we had to play The Genious of Ray Charles for band and the chorus sang a few songs. I took first place in the Voice of Democracy spoken essay contest by the Veterans of Foriegn Wars. They were there to present the awards for the contest to me and the 2nd and 3rd palce winners. I won $200 in savings bonds and some medals and a certificate. Not too bad if you ask me. And also the awards were given out for all the clubs and organizations at Westwood. Later in the day was our tennis meet against Gladstone at Gladstone. I played #4 singles and had to play my best friend from gladstone Alex Wellman and of course I lost terribly because of our team's coaching (i won't go into this further). So do I quit tennis or not? Apparently i'm on JV now because of the gladstone match and i really dont see the point of being in tennis anymore. a common sign that professional athletes use to tell when they should retire from their sport is when playing the sport each and every day is no longer enjoyable. this is definetely the case for me. tennis just isn't fun. period. but i thought about it today and i think i will stay, because otherwise i really dont think i would get my varsity letter for tennsi this year, which would be pretty bad after paying $80 just to be on the team. but do the coaches actually have a contract saying a student cannot recieve his or her athletic letter without finishing the season? idk. not only that but i also ripped off a bunch of my new grip i put on my racquet handle from slipping and falling when i tried to run up to the net to return a drop shot. but as i said before, im not going into great detail about yesterday.

but today's real topic is what i did today. the paragraph above is actually yesterday's topic but i didn't feel like typing a blog entry yesterday. today i woke up and didn't feel very well (mentally and physically) so i came into school for 2nd hour. turns out i missed a tennis meeting first hour but it doesn't matter anyways now does it. the meet against ishpeming that was scheduled for tomorrow was actually today, so i missd that on account of me being sick. it seems that the school is being taken over by Sudoku puzzles printed off in the library during Mr. Bett's public address class. Easy, Medium, Hard, they show up on nearly everyone's desks, in people's folders, and on the floor. Yes, Sudoku is addicting, but i have a feeling that most of the people doing the sudoku puzzles would only be doing them if they were at school, versus sitting at home solving hundreds of 9 by 9 grids of number puzzles.

Lots of Rain

friday our tennis meet against gwinn was cancelled again, after we drove for an hour to get there they said we couldnt play and the courts we soaking wet. monday we play negaunee, and tuesday we are supposed to play gladstone @ gladstone. but it seems that all the tennis meets this week will be cancelled due to rain. lots and lots of rain. lots and lots of rain as in lake superior flooding the coastal village people of marquette rain. lots and lots of rain as in creating mudslides killing tens of thousands of people rain. not really.

this week is spring fling week meaning dress-up days each day. monday is group-day meaning you try to get as much people as you can to dress up the same. my idea was to try to get a bunch of people to dress up as mexicans, but the problem with that is there is a lot of ways to dress like a mexican. there is the mexican ranchero style, the mexican field worker style, the mexican businessman with the $10 suit, and the mexican gang member style. if you have any ideas about this matter please let me know.

i would also like to announce that i am selling my nVidia geForce 6600 GT graphics card. the selling price has not yet been determined but i am available for bartering. the card is fairly new and ther e is nothing wrong with it, it's just that it does not satisfy my needs for an extreme gaming experience (e.g. the framerate on Pong is vastly diminished when antialiasing is turned to 6X). well it's not quite that bad and no, pong does not have antialiasing settings but if it did im sure i could max it out without loosing precious framerate. but to give you a real example of this is when is play Half-Life 2 Lost Coast with everything maxed out the framerate is about the rate that my heart beats. so if you need a really good graphics card for the money please consider buying my not-an-nvidiageforce7900gtx-graphics-card-graphicscard.

if anyone knows of a free way to easily convert avi files to mpeg files please tell me i am trying to convert 3+ GB of videos so that i can burn them onto DVD's.

i am making it my life's mission to find out what exactly Blotting is.
anyone know?

Lawn Care Business Update: very very slowwww.

TKO #2

Today we played Gwinn at home, and to make a long story short it was so easy that it wasn't even that fun. I can only hope taht Ishpeming will put up somewhat of a fight....
The story of this year in high school tennis is rain, rain, and more rain.

It appears that very few people I know use blogger anymore. The only person I know I can't even name on here because it would taint my reputation (not really).
I now have about 15 jobs for lawn care which should provide some considerable work over the summer. A few of them are:

• Old City Hall Building
• O'Dovero Professional Building
• Eastwood Professional Building
• 104 and 106 Coles drive
• 1009 W. Ridge
• Total Image/Itech
• Michigan Works
• Secretary of State Building
• American Mall
• O'Dovero Properties Office

Ever notice that tests seem to come in clusters? For wednesday thursday friday i have a chemistry test, algebra 3 test, law and current issues quiz, economics quiz, and american history test. rediculous

For all who still come here...

Greetings to everyone who is brave enough to still venture out to my grand blog here. Some significant changes have taken place since I last updated, most were not anticipated. First of all, I began the 2006 tennis season very bad, beating only Jon Langness and Kyle Kestila in ladders. This caused me to be put on half JV, half Varsity. However, coach put me and Kestila on a doubles team together and we played about three matches which determined what number doubles we would play on varsity if we played on varsity at all. We ended up winning all three so we are now #3 doubles on varsity. So far we have lost to Neguanee, but we killed Norway 6-0, 6-1 (don't ask how we lost a game to them). My most prominant problem of choking has seemed to diminish as of late and now my main problem seems to be trying to keep my racquet in my hands. aka not throwing it on the ground in rage. So anyways tennis is going slightly better now since me and Kyle seem to be able to work (did i just say work?) i meant play as a team. Chemistry is everything in the sport of tennis doubles. Take for instance the doubles team of Jon and Jeremy Langness. When they play together, they are yelling and blaming each other more than they are trying to hit good shots or return serves. It just doesn't work. Too bad it took them playing a match together for coach to recognize this extreme incompatibility. Another thing i may add is we have already missed 4 meets due to imclimate weather (rain).

And now for the next topic, my new business. They say there is money in entreprenuership, so i've launched my Lawn Care summer and fall business of cutting lawns and raking leaves. This will run in accordance with my dad's summer landscaping business. My estimates for what I will make by the end of the year are around $7000 (this is a real estimate). So if you anyone knows of someone that may need some lawn care services please spread the word. You can also see my signs at Jubilee in ishpeming and at Ace hardware in Country Village, with more signs to follow in the following weeks at various locations. But this is not even close to being enough to pay for my dream car ($13,000), but loans can help too. In reality i really wouldnt buy a new car unless my paretns payed 3/4 of it, which wouldnt happen. And then there is college coming up in the future ($16,000/year??) MSU for Business is my plan.

Next up is PrOm. I have to say that prom actually was really fun, to say the least. My tux was very nice, and there was no problem with that. Everything seemed to go smoothly. I drove the van for the first time in my life with my new license. I was a little nervous at first but it went ok. In The Van was me, kristi (my prom date), christina, chris (umm...), and nikki. We went to some peoples houses, preque isle, and lots and lots of pictures. we ate at Hudson's resteraunt in marquette which was ok but we were the only prom people there. food was good, i ordered a steak but they didnt as kme how i wasnted it cooked but it was fine. in the process of eating i mistakenly sat on my boutaneer (the flower that the guy wears on his jacket). it pretty much died right then and there. we then went to wal-mart where we walked around basically for the sake of walking around in our prom outfits, and then we headed over to WHS for the actual prom. the music was great, it was sort of rediculous actually, the dancing. i almost got killed by tom berry's techno dancing. he is quite the techno dancer i will say. after the prom i went to annie s. after prom party which was b.o.r.i.n.g. that was terrible i wont go into details but lets just say i would have rather just stayed home and got a full night of sleep. but prom was fun nonetheless.

and now for the listing of my failures. i failed to get inducted into national honor society, i failed to get elected class president, i failed to get elected class representative, and i failed to make it to the day of excellance. and i got a 24 on the ACT ahhhh. i may still get some scholarships...... haha

i have some new pictures on facebook too.