Cheesecake Factory

Last night we went to the Cheesecake Factory, the most ludicrously glitzy restaurant in the state. The architecture was horrifying mash of classical Italian and ancient Egyptian, if you can even imagine that, and the storefront itself was about 40 feet high. There was only one story, so about 20 feet of that was wasted space for the vaulted ceilings painted with hieroglyphs.
Amongst the 500 other people there we finally found a place to sit. It was on their patio, with a lovely view of the 700-car parking lot. We opened our menus to find them filled with ads for diamonds and spas and the like. That's right, adverts in the menus. I don't think there was a single thing there that cost under $7.00. But the only reason we'd come here in the first place was to spend a gift card my grandparents had given us, so we were good to go. I got a $10 burger, my little sister got an $8 quesadilla. My brother had a $1o pizza, etc. etc.
When my food came I was amazed to find a burger so large that, once I had out it all together, it was about 6 inches high. I sort of dislocated my jaw to take a bite or two, but when I was half done, everything just squirted out the back because of the pressure I was putting on the front of the bun. The food wasn't bad, but I came away from this experience glad that there would be no reason to ever go back there again. :)

Party on!

It's my birthday today. I'm fourteen. Cripes. I still find it hard to believe. It was pretty low-key, I didn't have a party or anything. My parents gave me an awesome T-shirt with an Asian dragon on it. The shirt is white and the dragon is red, and my grandpa said I looked like a Chinese food takeout box. It's true, ha.
I went downtown with my friend Hannah who's moving to Indiana, which sucks. She'll be gone for THREE FREAKING YEARS. We'll be 17 when we see each other again. Unfortunately, we were both too lame to think of anything to do, so we had coffee and watched "Harry Potter" and went home. It rained, too, which it hasn't done since I was born. But we went out to dinner and it was all cool.
In other news, I'm reading the final Harry Potter book. It's well written, but not really worth all the hype. Really it's just another HP book. Some people were so obsessed that they wrote an entire, 200-page book about what would happen in Book 7. Ridiculous. :P

Over the last two weeks...

Quite a bit has happened. I'm just a loser who doesn't write much...

On the 28th, I went over to Anders' house with a whole bunch of other homeschoolers to meet this guy named Travis Zariwny. His favorite phrase is "That's totally rad, man" and he works as a set designer and cameraman for various film companies, but makes movies on his own as well. He wanted to meet us and make a movie with us, which I think is totally awesome. The details aren't exactly clear, but there's no way I'm missing this.
On the 4th, we of course went to see fireworks. We went to Blue Lake county park, where they have a huge fireworks display every year. We'd gone last year as well and it was really cool, but this time there were at least six thousand people there, and the park's only so big. We had to settle for a bumpy hillside covered in blackberry vines on which to have our picnic. Better than nothing. There really was no where else to sit.
The display was nice, we watched it with some friends of ours. It got a little bit boring after a while, but I noticed something cool. The big ones are launched far enough away that there's a noticeable delay between when it goes off and when you hear it. The light hits you before the sound. It was helpful in a way, because there were some that they launched that made a very small explosion, basically a white flash followed by some sparks, but they were crazy loud. The light/sound delay gave us enough time to wince and cover our ears.
On the 5th, I went to Anders' house again, with some of his friends, to say goodbye to Travis as he is going away for a month to work on some horror movie in Hollywood. The party was held on a dock, at the Willamette river, at midnight. First time I've had a party on a dock at midnight. How awesome is that?
We slept over at his house. In the morning, we went outside and set off all of the fireworks he hadn't used. I finally let my retarded teenagerness take over for a while, and we took a bunch of little plastic soldiers and blew the crap out of them. We had too much fun. The finale was a "battle" between firework tanks. Little did I know Anders had doctored mine so that it had a large amount of extra gunpowder inside. I lit the fuse, and the tank fired off and then went up in flames. But Anders' tank shot forward while doing a barrel roll, twirled, landed upside down, and exploded spectacularly. So it was a draw. Anders took some videos, which should eventually be on Youtube.
Here are some pictures:
Lily pads at Blue Lake. There was a small pond close to where we were, and I photographed it.

Relics of our pyrotechnic massacre. The guy in front got in between between the tank battle, and had to be picked up with a stick. His legs stretched out while he was stuck to it. It's hard to see, but the one to the far right was completely unharmed, save that his gun was bent straight down. In the middle is a victim of a small fire caused by crackling balls, the puddle on the left got shredded by a ground bloom flower, and the shapeless mass in the back is six of them fused together after being melted by a snake.

So that's what happened these past two weeks. Woohoo!

Another weekend away

This time we went to Anacortes, in the San Juan Islands in northern Washington. Anacortes is a pretty cool place. It's on Fidalgo Island, the easternmost in the archipelago, and there's an oil refinery nearby. Not helping prevent air pollution, but it's cool to draw.
My aunt and uncle live there, on a hill overlooking the ferry dock. There's an amazing view. You can see the heavily forested Cypress and Decatur Islands over a couple miles of water. Here's a map to clear things up:On the second day, we went into downtown Anacortes, to the bookstore where my aunt used to work. It's got a very good selection of books for its size. I bought "Lady Friday" by Garth Nix. It's very well-written and original. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy stories. But read the other books in the series first.
On the second day, we took the ferry to Friday Harbor (Accessible only by air or water) on San Juan Island. It was a long ride, about an hour. The ferries are amazingly spacious, though, and there weren't a lot of people on board, so it was a nice ride. We rode the "Hyak". Sounds like a bad cough.
After arriving in Friday Harbor, we wandered around for a while, ate lunch in a little cafe, and I accidentally stole something. That's right. It was a little brochure that amazingly cost $3.00. I took it, believing it was free. Whoops. I realized it cost money after about half an hour, and my mom convinced me to buy it from the bookstore where it came from. I would have just returned it. That would have made the most sense, but mom wouldn't let me. Not exactly sure why...If I had returned it, I would have had enough money to buy another book. Damned sales tax. That's why I like Oregon. No sales tax!!!
I bought it, and bought a manga that I was unable to find anywhere in Portland, at a different bookstore. Then we had some ice cream that was really perfect. I visited four bookstores in 24 hours. That must be a record or something. We went back to Anacortes in the Hyak--*ahem* Excuse me.
The next day we left. The drive home is 300 miles and five hours or so, but fortunately I came prepared. I had the Knox podcast on my iPod. Knox is a genius. He's an animator that makes really funny and sometimes retarded clay animation movies, and his podcast is hilarious. I entertained myself with that for several hours.
It's really fun going up there. We haven't visited my aunt and uncle in several years, and it was nice to do it again. They live in such an awesome place.

An awesome way to spend a weekend.

My brother and I went with Anders and Molly and Lucy and their families out to Smith Rock in eastern Oregon for the weekend. I'll tell you, that is like the coolest place I've ever been. We camped near the edge of a cliff. I will say, thanks to my slightly BORING PARENTS, I have never been camping before. This was a great place to do it for the first time.
Smith Rock state park is made up almost entirely of basalt and volcano slag. At "ground level", you're already 2800 feet off the ground. Then, add another 700 feet of solid vertical rock and you're getting there. There are two main peaks, Smith Rock and Misery Ridge. (Damned pioneers, coming up with such depressing names...) They both just shoot up. Smith Rock is five hundred ft. high, and Misery Ridge is up at like seven hundred. Most of this is straight up vertical. It's so FREAKING HUGE! I was having serious perspective problems looking at the view. The hill slopes down into a valley, with a river that looks to be about a mile away and 500 feet down from the campsite. It is. Which is why it hurts your brain to then see, just beyond the river, there's a massive rock wall that you have to strain your neck to see the top of. Here's a picture.
It's a big rock climbing attraction. That was one of the reasons we went there, was to climb. Molly and Lucy's dad is 52 but he's an expert rock climber. Me? Acrophobia. We hiked up to one of the climbing walls and I could already see there was no way I was getting up on that. We were high enough up already(that's where this pic was taken) and there was so much vertical space I was starting to tip sideways. My brain was thinking, Which way is up? Every one else climbed, though. If we do this again, I'm gonna try. Conquer your fear! and all that.
There were all kinds of animals in the area as well. The campsite field was positively infested with rabbits. There were lizards everywhere, too. Vultures populated the crags near the peaks, waiting for some climber to fall off, I guess. There were also lots of deer, and a magpie perched on top of our tent at four in the morning yesterday and WOULDN'T SHUT UP. It kept on with its "AAIP! AAIP! AAIP!" And woke everyone up about six times.
It was an awesome trip. I'd write more, but it's late and all the hiking had worn me out. Enjoy the pics. Ten-four. Over.

Neighborhood Improvement!

Yesterday I went with my dad to a meeting that aimed to improve our neighborhood. It's not the nicest. It was the second of two meetings, and I didn't get to go to the first, which is annoying, because that was the one where people could comment and come up with ideas and suchlike. This one was more of a presentation of the results. I still learned some interesting things though.
The thing about this project is no one is really sure when it's going to take effect, and how long it will take. The eventual goal is to remove all the crappy bars, adult-oriented businesses and other undesirable storefronts. Along with that, people want to host more neighborhood events like a farmer's market or street fair, and also lower the crime rate and increase safety. It sounds good all in all, but once again I don't know how long it will take.

AGONIZINGLY HOT...among other things.

Wow. I haven't written anything in 18 days! Is my life that boring? :)
Anyway, today the whole family went on a walk hike thing up by Forest Park. It was nice enough. After walking for a while, we ended up by a stone building that, according to my dad's ever-helpful hiking guide, was built in the 30's as a sort of rest stop. In 1962 the roof blew off in huge storm. Now it's a decrepit four walls, with various graffiti. Originally there were bathrooms in the building, but they've been walled off with cement. I shudder to think what they look like now...there were also candle stubs and burn marks in a lot of places. Satan worship?? Who knows. Equally odd was what someone had written 0n a sign..."here there be goblins" and "become one with the sacred light" or something like that. How weird is that?
We continued along the path, running into what was supposedly the largest tree in the park and probably the entire city, come to think of it. It was a good hundred and seventy feet high, and five feet wide. For scale:
See that little man next to it? My dad. Six feet. Cripes.
After that, we encountered some random guy on the path who said "Hey, want me to take a picture of you all together?" Admittedly I thought he was trying to steal our camera. It's a nice camera, and getting a total stranger to take your picture is often something you have to beg them to do. But he didn't. He took our picture. He seemed to be in a very good mood.
By the time we got back to our car it was beginning to bake. We went to Powell's after that. I love Powell's. It's the biggest single bookstore in existence, so obviously there's a lot to look at there. I didn't have any money though :(
Still it was fun. Every time I go there I'm reminded of how freaking cool it is. Whenever I have extra money, I'll probably end up there.
That wasn't all, though. At this point, the air was reaching the point where it could melt cheese. And we were going to go help some friends move stuff so they could remodel their attic. After half an hour of this, we were all half dead. We slowly began sinking towards the floor, until most of us were lying at ground level. Then our friends decided to reward our help by taking us out to dinner. Very nice of them. My dad, for some crazed reason, felt like going home and washing dishes. Dishes! Ah, well, more food for us. I think. We went out to eat, and saw a sailing ship going by on the river. It started firing cannons, too. That pretty much wrapped up the evening, and we went home. A very long day.

Parkrose High

Yep. I may be breaking my 8-year homeschooling streak and take a stab at high school in September. i went and visited the local high school and everything seems cool there. By the way, that's the lobby in the picture. Best picture I could find.
I got there at 7:45 am (I don't think I've gotten up that early in years, heh heh). There was a freshman named Brandon there to show me around. I was "shadow" him all day and I couldn't help thinking of sneaking up behind this kid and whacking him with something heavy. They need to think of a better term. Anyways.
First was English. The teacher there seemed pretty cool, sort of laid back. He gave me a spare literature textbook to read, and while everyone else worked on a 1-page essay, I read a creepy story about a man who loves hunting more than anything else, but is so good at it no animal is anywhere near a match for him. So he hunts humans instead. The survivors of shipwrecks that wash up on his little island in the Caribbean. But eventually he makes the mistake of hunting someone who's an expert hunter himself. The man eventually shows up behind his window curtain after presumed dead, and apparently kills said creepy person-hunter. Rather grim...
After occupying most of the 1-hour English class with that, Brandon and I moved on to art. he art building is this awesome warehouse-like place, covered in paintings by the students. Cartoons, portraits, landscapes, manga, politically-oriented painitngs, you name it. The class itself was pretty cool, if a little obtuse. Something about color layering and contrast. It also didn't help that they decided to have a simulated earthquake in the middle of everything. When it came on over the intercom, there was much eye-rolling and "Oh, gawd." Fair enough. There was one kid who made some ridiculously funny joke about it, but I can't remember .
So now we were sitting under the tables. I was busy picking the gum out of my hair, Brandon was apologizing for how boring this was, and various others were listening to iPods. It was all very unenthusiastic. We eventually wasted 15 minutes after being told to go stand outside until it was "Safe to reenter the building".
After painting in the art class for 2 hours, we moved on to PE. I didn't have a uniform so I got to sit on the gym floor and be bored. The most exciting thing that happened was when I came close to being accidentally brained by a soccer ball kicked by Brandon's girlfriend. She could probably kick a ball through the gym ceiling if she wanted to.
Then there was lunch. I got my first ever sampling of cafeteria food. My options were: Greasy tater tots, greasier pizza, and cookies. I got the pizza. Yay.
The final class was Computers or Tech Literacy or whatever. This was the longest. It also kind of sucked because some annoying girl told me to get off the computer I was using. I figured there was some reason she had to be at that exact spot, so I moved, only to later be told by Brandon that she was generally annoying and just wanted to sit there because it was her favorite spot. There were plenty of other computers available, but I couldn't log in because I wasn't a student. So I was left with the funnies from today's paper. I made do with those for the next three hours.
I don't really understand the setup of that class. The teacher gave an assignment but mostly didn't care when only a few of the kids focused on it. Most were on Myspace, and the one closest to me was watching "Naruto" on Youtube. It wasn't very focused.
That was the last class. After that I said bye to Brandon and walked home. It was a pretty neat experience, though, and I think I'll enroll in September.

Crazy Weather

Man, the weather these days. Maybe it has something to do with global warming, but it's been all over the place. In Portland, "April showers bring May hailstorms". I was riding my bike to the library a couple days ago, and I started hearing plinking noises on my helmet. Five minutes later, I was hiding under a tree, soaked, probably bruised in a couple places, hoping this would only last another few minutes. I got lucky.
And now, like two days later, it's sunny, about seventy degrees, and I'm sitting on the patio, writing this post and listening to our little fountain bubbling away. What the heck. Yeah, I blame global warming, especially since it was 89 degrees in my room last night.

Definitely worth writing about!

Yes it is! We went to hear John Edwards today, 'cause he was in Portland. It was raining when we got there, and my mom an I were fighting over who got the umbrella. We ran, soaked, down the street and into the building. There must have been about 600 people there, and the room was only about 80ft. x 70ft. It was quite packed. We sat near the back, but still got a decent view.
When he came on, there was of course a lot of cheering. After things quieted down, he started talking. He had a lot to say about labor unions and what they could do (which made sense, I suppose, because all this was taking place in a union hall. Flatter your hosts).
Edwards also had an excellent college plan. If the kid is willing to work ten hours a week, then tuition and textbooks are free. Sounds great to people like me! On top of this, he said on the first day he was in office, he would close down Guantanamo. This got the biggest cheer 0f all.
I agreed with pretty much everything he said, except for one thing. He doesn't seem to be in defense of gay marriage. This is a flaw. However, the good news is he also doesn't think the government has any right to tell people who to marry. All in all, I agree, though.
On the way back we passed a warehouse with graffiti all over it. It's like the most I've ever seen in one place, so I took some pictures.