Life of Blake

First of all I’m sorry that I missed the last couple weeks, but I have an excuse! I was at Summer Camp. The camp was called LYC, and you were probably there too, and if you weren’t, you should have been!!!

So anyways. LYC stands for Living Youth Camp. It’s “Living” because it’s my church’s camp and my church is the “Living” Church of God. Get it? Yay! (*claps excitedly*)

Anyways I had a lot of fun. Basically you do a lot of activities like Archery, Canoeing, Ultimate Frisbee, Speech, Christian Living, Orienteering, and lots of other things while you’re hanging out with your church friends, and it ends up being a lot of fun.

My sister went too, but she’s 18 so she went as High School Staff and was assigned to Life Roles for girls so she helped teach the girl campers about nutrition and good things to cook. I got a little bit more variety in my role as a camper, so I’ll explain some classes. Canoeing was fun because I got in either Evan (my cousin) or Mariah’s (a cool girl) canoe every time. If I had gotten with a lame person, it would have been a lame class. No offense. But really the point of Canoe class is to teach everyone the strokes, and safety procedures for canoeing since every year we go on an overnight 12 mile trip to an island. Personally, my canoe trip was terrible. You go in groups for the canoe trip. One boy dorm, and their sister dorm at a time, so first of all you don’t get to hang out with all of your friends. Second, you’re rowing for (hopefully, if you’re not lazy) 3 and a half hours out of a 4 and a half hour trip to get to the island. I got tired. I would explain the people in my canoe, I would point out flaws, tell about how lazy they may or may not have been, (except you, Mariah, you’re awesome.) but that would be rude, so I won’t. Besides that, I may not have been any better despite my feeble attempts. As for the island itself, there was a competition between teams and my team came in third place out of four groups. The activities were fun though– they were rolling up a sleeping bag, starting a fire, answering canoe questions, filling a rain meter with a sponge, and breaking plate thingies with slingshots. After that, it rained and thundered a lot so we all had to go in our tents an hour early and we missed the canoe trip tradition of playing Mafia. Also unfortunately for me, my sleeping bag had gotten soaked in the canoe, my clothes were soaked from the rain, and there was A HOLE IN THE TENT ROOF OVER

@

@

MY HEAD SO WATER WAS DRIPPING ON ME WHILE I TRIED TO SLEEP IN WET CLOTHES IN A WET SLEEPING BAG IN A WET TENT. SO MUCH FUN. I’M BEING SOOOO SINCERE RIGHT NOW!

Anyways, this awful situation (the dog was biting and the bee was stinging!) reminded my good friend Jonny Patterson and myself of what you should do when things are looking down– simply remember your favorite things!! Yea, hopefully you all got that reference, it was to the Sound of Music. We sang just about every song from that movie as loudly as possible and it was great because the girl tents which were nearby couldn’t hear us over the torrential rain. Jonny made the Canoe trip bearable!

So while canoeing wasn’t great, Archery was!! Mr. Forrestier, the Archery head director, (Well, there are two, so I should probobly point out that BOTH Mr. Forrestier’s teach Archery!) is awesome. You have three classes of each activity, so for our first archery class we learned about form and then shot a little, second class was pure practice, and the third class was awesome– we got to go through a 3D archery range with several foam animals set up in the woods that we shot at. Then we got try to shoot an apple. It was fun, and you got scored for where you hit each target. I got the best camper score at camp. I love compound bows! <3

Orienteering was taught by my Uncle. Orienteering is the skill of reading and following maps. My name is Webster and this is my dictionary. But no, it was a lot of fun. We got to follow maps to checkpoints hidden all around camp, and one class we got to hide targets in groups, and make a map of where we hid them, then switch maps with another group and find their targets. It was fun.By the way, this was the boy version of Life Roles.

Speech was easy. We gave Speeches. I pretty much made up all of mine on the spot– notes are for losers.

Ultimate Frisbee was pretty good. We played Ultimate Frisbee which is like football with a Frisbee, but you can’t run with the Frisbee, so you pass a LOT. For awhile they tried zones that people had to stand in and you couldn’t run near the person with the ball because one Boy Dorm dominated the other two. Zones sucked.

Speaking of Boy Dorms, though, I was in 1B with Phillip Kovanis as counselor and Ryan Dawson as assistant. I think I reall improved their camp experience.

Other than that I had…

Roderick. He was nice. Roderick and chemicals do not mix so he uses all natural everything. He is a professional photographer, (yes, already) and he is named after my grandpa. Cool kid.

Jon Patterson is Michael Patterson’s awesome brother. He is an amazing artist, he’s very funny, and people tease him way more than he deserves. The great part is, he teases them back, they’re often just too stupid to realize when he’s doing it. Awesome guy.

Josh Rivera is a nice guy. He’s a gamer, and he’s hooked on Monster. He claims he doesn’t drink it at home, but he sure did drink a lot of it at camp…Nice kid.

Bleys Hazen. Great name, great kid. He was in my dorm last year aswell, and he’s a great guy with good intentions.

Travis Pate. Do not underestimate this 5′1″ challenger– he is an Ultimate Frisbee master. He asks a lot of questions, but that can be a good thing. Honest, good guy.

I didn’t get to know Steve very well. He plays Runescape and sometimes talks in a scary voice.

Ryan was cool. He didn’t talk a lot, didn’t bring any topics up, but no matter what topic you brought up it seemed like he knew at least *something* about it. I think he’s a gamer in disguise, but I’m not sure. I think he may have worked out just for camp.

I’m really tempted to start this description with a continuation of the last guy’s description, but that would be mean. I don’t have anything nice to say, so I won’t say anything at all!

Wesley Bowles is awesome. He’s funny, and he has a good attitude.

I wish Cody would have participated in activities more. Other than that, I don’t have anything nice to say so…

I feel like a really mean person right now, but if you knew Richard, you would know. IYCTOAN2SDSAAA. Think about what that could stand for.

Everyone else cooperated. That’s something nice I can say about them all…But there’s always one. I explained to T.J. that I wanted to get a picture of everyone in the dorm in that area of the dorm. I explained I would retake the picture if he didn’t like it. He refused, so I got an alternative photo. IYCTOAN2SDSAAA. (I’ll give you a hint: If you can’t…)

Anyways so yea. I went to topics with Kelsey Stevens. I went with her to Final Banquet last year and I think she hated me because she thought I had lily dipped (barely paddled) on the canoe trip that year. Anyways this year she said she didn’t hate me and I was glad because she’s pretty cool.

For Final Banquet I went with Brittany who is a cool girl who used to go to my congregation when I lived in Georgia. Final Banquet was fun.

The bus ride back home was not. I hate the bus, and leaving camp made me sad. It was only fun because I was sitting near some awesome people– Adrian, Alex, David, Chris, Ben C…You guys made the bus ride decent. Oh, and since I didn’t mention it already, I got sick at camp and coughed on David a ton at this point. Sorry David.

The trip back home was alright. We took two planes, the first of which the Stephens were on. On the second one, I was seated next to a crazy girl who was weird. Apparently she didn’t like sitting next to me because she switched with her I’m-way-to-old-to-be-goth-but-i’m-still-trying boyfriend. I was glad to learn that I was seated in an exit seat which I was too young to be seated in, so I got switched. I slept between two fat people.

So yea, this year at camp was great. I had a ton of family there, and it was even better than last year which was my first year. This is amazing because everyone normally says your first year is always best.

When I got home things took a major turn south. I found out Mr. Kennel, a blind family friend who goes to our local congregation has cancer. Then I found out my friend got in a motorcycle accident. Now she’s in a coma with severe brain damage. Those things on top of the fact that I was home from the best part of my summer made me really sad.

Things got better, though, and I saw Batman the next day. It was great– scary at times, and the Joker is a psychopath, but that’s a good thing I guess. Then today my sister and I went shopping for school supplies. On the way we got a Rice Cooker, which is sweet. My sister’s been doing lots of healthy things since she got home from being on Nutrition/Life Roles staff at camp. She made really good salad dressing, too…

Anyways, we also got school supplies and looked for phones for my sister. The Verizon Blackberry Curve is like…1,000,000x uglier than the AT&T one. Explain please?

Anyways we also looked for a blender since my sister broke our last night. We were watching The Mummy, and being the nice sister that she is she tried to make me a smoothie. She is scared of the loud blender though so she pushed the buttons with her toes while she plugged her ears with her fingers. Then she pulled the pitcher off of the gears without turning the blender off and stripped the gears. She didn’t mean to, though, so it’s okay. The smoothie was still good. Anyways, I wanted the Magic Bullet, she wanted a different one, but we decided not to get a new one without our mom’s consent seeing as the last one we got without our mom’s consent (the one Alex broke) was super loud and my mom hated it anyways. Now, however, my mom found the VitaMix 5000. It is a beast because it can:

Get more nutrients out of food than your teeth could

Cook soup with heat friction

Make dough

Crush ice in 3 seconds

Go over 2 Horsepower at max speeds

Yes I know the first one sounds weird. It is true though– your teeth aren’t powerful enough to break down all the walls to release all of the nutrients from the food we eat. this blender releases all those nutrients for your teeth so the nutrients are ready to be absorbed easily. I know, it rocks.

Anyways, I added Pandora Radio to my blog– it is amazing. I have an iPod Touch and with the new software update you can ge third party applications often for free. One of them I saw was called Pandora Radio. Anyways, I tried it and it’s amazing, especially for a free service. You type in an artist, it analyzes their music, then provides a “station” that plays only music you like– music of them and similar artists which it picks for you. It’s cooler to have on a Mobile device, but you can also use it on your computer, and it’s awesome. No I am not advertising. Anyways thank you for reading this blog and I WILL try to get back to this and edit this to put in all of the members of my dorm with Pictures/Descriptions. Sorry it wouldn’t work this time.

I LAWF YOO!

-Blake

P.S. Go view all of my pictures on FACEBOOK!!! http://www.facebook.com/people/Blake_Emm/604282140

My awesome, loyal, and totally Canadian friend (who SHOULD be going to camp this year, I might add!!) Kristen James sent me a text message the other day; “HAPPY CANADA DAY,” the message had said. Now after a brief explanation I realized that this day, July first, is kindove like the Canadian version of the Fourth of July! The difference is, while we as Americans celebrate our country’s independance, they celebrate everything that Canada is, and stands for, and even the fact that they decided to stay loyal to their British ancestory unlike us, their free-loving counterparts. Hmm… Anyways, I hope all of you had a lovely Canada Day, AND a happy Fourth of July!

Sure, sure, Canada day was fine for me, but it was the Fourth of July where the problems began. You see, the daytime on the Fourth of July was fine– I woke up, commented on my cousin Christopher’s page, and ate breakfast. It was a pretty normal day for me other than it being Christohpher’s birthday, (*Sigh*, I wish my birthday was on a national holiday…Everyone would be partying with me on my birthday, and how cool would that be?) but later that night we had the Vauxs over for dinner, and they are very nice, but I remembered that it was Friday night and that it the night I am supposed to write my blog posts, so I chased around my dog for awhile, then called some people, then decided it was blogging time. I had just taken a sip from my water bottle, though, when I tried to unplug my laptop and I guess my hands were a little wet because I think I got electricuted. Yes, I know what you’re thinking– “You would know if you got electrocuted!” Well trust me, I know. I think. I have definitely been electrocuted twice before last night, so I know how it feels.

The first time I got electrocuted was when I was home alone, and very bored. I was cleaning out some bins of old random junk when I found an old disposable camera from who knows when. I decided I would like to see the insides of a disposable camera so I broke it open. I guess, though, that I thought that just because it was out of pictures that the battery must be dead because I then tried to pluck the battery out with my soft little fingers when it zapped me. Trust me when I say that I jumped back involuntarily, and that getting shocked by a disposable camera battery hurts. A LOT.

The second time I for sure got electrocuted was when I was trying to set up my new computer. Y’know those big brick extension cord things with lots of electrical plugs in them so that you can plug in like ten things from one electrical outlet? Well I was pulling a plug out from one of those tugging at the very tip of the plug, and I guess my fingers were too close to the metal because my hand vibrated I heard a shocking sound. That too, hurt very badly.

Well this time I think I got electrocuted. My hand felt very very very asleep after I tried to unplug the laptop, and my fingers kept curling in involuntarily a lot, and I couldn’t control my hand that I tried to unplug the cord with that well. Anyways, after that I guess the electrical current ran through my body which is made up mostly of water and shocked my eyes and brain too, because then my eyes hurt and I got the worst migrain I’ve ever had. This is why I didn’t blog last night, by the way, as I was laying awake even at late hours last night simply wishing and praying for the stupid migrain to go away. It finally did. But once again, sorry for being late on this blog post and stuff, but remember– Canada Day is just as cool as the Fourth of July, and CAMP IS SOON!! Wow that was weird and off topic. But seriously– you guys should all be super excited for camp. It’s so soon and…Well, this year will be good. Seriously guys, let’s make this year at camp super-NOT-lame!! LYC IS THE PLACE TO BE WOOO!!!

Love,

Blake, proud Canada Day celebrant!

P.S. I am making a trading card game called Picards. Picards is derived from the words “Pictures” and “Cards” because the cards themselves are made up of pictures on notecards…But way classier. Sortive. Anyways, basically the object of the game is to make your Picards beat your enemy’s Picards. There are three types of cards: Picards, the fighters, Items, cards to enchance or restore health/energy to your picards, and Battlefields, arenas or areas for your Picards to fight on which may aid your Picards in battle. Please comment here requesting any specific Picards you would like me to make for you. Maybe I can mail them to you. Anyways, I would like to one day see some people playing Picards on the street. Maybe I can even make a T.V. show. I put some pictures of some Picards I have already made below. If you want me to make a Picard, just send the picture that you would like on the card, and tell me the card specifics. Try to be fair. Also, if you just have any ideas for Picards I could make, email me, message me on AIM, call me…IDK, contact me please.

Just so you all know, this has been really annoying me; Word-Press, no mater what I do will not let me indent. I have tried and tried, but to no avail. Please forgive this perpetual grammar mistake and realize that yes, I do in fact know how to compose a paragraph correctly…

So quite a bit has happened since I last blogged. For one thing, last Saturday I went out to dinner at Mai Kai with the Stephens, the Vauxs, and D.W. (No, not the short brunette who has come to be known as Arthur’s little sister, but rather David Wakefield king of the goatee himself!) Dinner was special. There was a hawaiian luau show which consisted of three girls dancing while two guys beat the floor with sticks. It was incredible– so incredible that I’m going to forget for a moment how horribly sarcasm translates over the internet and just make a short feeble atempt at using harsh or bitter derision or irony over the online, sadly undiscovered blog of a fourteen year old boy. Anyways.

Despite the strange rituals that the hawaiians performed, it was a fun dinner and we even got to see Chris Fritz who had come down for the weekend dancing on stage with the Hula girls! Now that really was a show! He’s a nice guy, and I felt sorry for him because I could see that he was obviously uncomfortable onstage. But what am I blabbing about, anyways, because I would be embarrassed to dance on stage with hawaiians who lacked clothes while my dinner guests whooped and cheered and aimed flashing cameras into my sensitive blue eyes too! Oh, well, Chris has blue eyes too so…You get the connection, the reference to blue eyes, whatever it is…Right? Guys?

Now would be a great time for me to distract you from my poor literary skills by posting a picture…Oooh! JPEGs!!

Props to Brittany Vaux for actually bringing her camera. I didn’t bring mine, so I should probobly point out the fact that I totally hijacked this picture.

So after dinner my fam. went home while D.W. and I slept over at the Stephens Family Home. (Yes, it has a title.) Here, we enjoyed the unique stylings of Brandie Paige as she belted “I Think I’m Paranoid” on Rock Band. Please note that she has a nice voice. I, on the other hand, totally mastered the strange song “I’m So Sick” by Flyleaf. No, you shouldn’t listen to it. I have to admit, though, if you can get past the notion that the girl singing it may be demon posessed, it’s actually a pretty catchy song. Oh, and the screaming parts? I nailed them…In fact, I think it was more the actual singing parts I had the most trouble with…

So we ate Creme Brulee ice cream ’til two A.M. then retired to prepare for the awesome wakeboarding we would do the next day. Nevermind. You see, the next day we went out on the boat when a large storm started heading towards us. That and the fact that it was a Sunday so tons of boats were out (all of which were interrupting our wakeboarding experience) led us to decide to decline to the serene peace and tranquility of the public pool. Here, D.W. and myself explained to Brandie and her friend Michelle who accompanied us on our failed wakeboarding mission that because Brandie had watched Food Network on the Sabbath, she was going to be struck by lightning and die. That never happened, so I guess she got off the hook this time.

The lightning did, however, get very intimidating once we had gone back inside, but not until then luckily. It was a huge storm and the huge gusts of wind actually blew my $5 flip flops off of the deck and into the intercoastal where they will now be forced to drift for the remainder time.

After owning Rock Band for a little while longer, and after obliterating D.W. repeatedly at air hockey, I went home, and guess what? I bet you thought the title of this blog post was solely because of the Flyleaf song that I mastered. Well, if this were the case, you would be severely mistaken! Why? Well, because I am now, in fact, SO SICK.

I’ve had a sore throat for several days now, and initially I was just going to wait it out, but when it got progressvely worse over the course of four days,  gave in and decided to go to the doctor. He’ll call me sometime by 10 A.M. tommorow if it’s Strep Throat. If not, I sit home, eat lozenges, and wait for the virus to subside. So unfortunatley I can’t go to church tommorow. This is espescially unfortunate because tommorow is a Gourmet Buffet, and all of the interesting conversation always occurs during Gourmet Buffets. Then again, Pot Lucks mean early church, and I hate getting up early. Anyways, it’s not in my hands any more. Plus, I don’t exactly mind eating popsicles or anything…

What a week. A fun luau. A screaming performance done by yours truly. Being seduced during Brandie Paige’s rendition of “I Think I’m Paranoid.” It really has been good. I just wish I had been able to go wakeboarding…Oh, and the fact that I’m sick is lame. But camp is soon! That’s exciting! Plus, my Aunt Liz is getting married is about two weeks, and that is very exciting. Sorry I didn’t have that much media (pictures/music/videos) for you guys this week, but hey, i’m sure there will be plenty thousand pictures from all of you guys once camp rolls around!

I love you all, but no hugs this week– I could be contagious, y’know!

Love,

Blake

So you may So you may or may not know that my sister graduated High School recently, and for her graduation gift my parents decided to take us all to Italy because Alex has wanted to go for eleven years or so. I was glad to go, and escaping the tomato epidemic was a nice bonus.

I was lazy before the trip and actually didn’t pack until the night before we left, but things worked out and I actually remembered everything that I needed. I didn’t have a sweatshirt that I liked during the trip, but being a little cold was fine.

The plane situation on the way there was a 3-hour flight to Atlanta, a short layover, and then the long 9-hour flight to Rome. The flights there were pretty good. I sat with my mom both times, and it was pretty peaceful. They had food on the flight to Rome, and I noticed that Delta has made a lot of changes recently. They have nicer pillows, nicer blankets, and a largely improved menu created by a woman named Michelle Bernstein. The food seriously was good- not like most airplane food I’ve had. It was a 9-hour flight, though, so most everyone on the plain tried to sleep. Luckily Delta provided an eyemask to help people relax and sleep. I found mine to be very…Interesting.

Once we actually got to Rome, it was a taxi to our hotel where we would stay for only a few days despite our week-long stay in Italy as soon we would relocate from Rome to Venice. The hotel was really nice, but after a quick rest at the hotel, we were all ready eat, so we ate at a little cafe across the street from the hotel. I noticed that there were a lot of Police on duty, and some outside the entrance of the cafe. I soon realized that this was because President Bush was staying near our hotel, and would be meeting in areas near our hotel. By the way, some small wonders of our hotel…Two shower heads on the shower, European 220 volt plugs, and…To flush the toilet, there’s a huge metal box that you push.

We went to the Spanish Steps, and then to the Shelley and Keats museum which is right next to the Spanish Steps. Then we went to the Trevi Fountain which was really very beautiful. It was very well illuminated, and the statues on the fountain were very unique and precisely chiseled.

The next day we met up with some friends of ours- Connor, Aislinn, and their Mom. They had been in Europe for about three weeks already, traveling around and various countries, so when they heard we were coming to Italy, we arranged to meet. This was fun and especially unique for them since they had been in Europe this whole time without anyone else their own ages, and my sister and I are just around their ages.

Together we all went to The Vatican with a tour guide. She explained to us that the Vatican is a state in its own, separate from Italy despite the fact that it is “within” the country. Originally it was just a part of Italy, but its citizens saw that The Pope was losing influence and power there, so they separated themselves so that he could be the sole political leader of the area. She also said that The Vatican is the smallest individual state. Inside the Vatican there was so much art! We went inside the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. I really enjoyed myself, but at times I really felt overwhelmed. At the beginning of the tour, the guide showed us a post that listed all of the sections of the art we could visit, and there were a ton! After every section, I would realize how long just one section was and wonder how we would ever get through all of them. The answer? We didn’t. I found out that most people don’t, and that it would take several days to really cover all of the exhibits. Even with only the brief explanations that we received in each section, I felt like we were learning so much about each section.

By the way, I have been to both the Louvre in Paris, and the Vatican in Rome, so I would like to make a few comparisons. I think the Louvre is great. The glass pyramid on top is ugly, but it’s huge with tons of famous artwork, but  I think it’s a little bit overhyped in comparison to the art in the Vatican. I mean, the Louvre is huge, but the Vatican is HUGE. The Louvre may have a glass pyramid, but the Vatican has a huge wall, and is a separate country. Plus the Louvre seemed to be less well organized than the Vatican, plus I (personally) preferred the art in the Vatican, but hey, whatever floats your boat, right?

After the Vatican, we ate lunch with our friends, and then separated from them because they had to pack for an early plane the next day. We, however, went to see the Coliseum, Pantheon, The Forum, and Palatine Hill. A taxi driver also told us that supposedly most of the ancient exhibits in the world are not only in Italy, but inside Rome itself.

It was a long day, but then we went to dinner with our friends from previously that day. I had Spinach Feta Ravioli, and trust me when I say; Italian pasta is amazing.

Before dinner, Aislinn had showed us the shoes she was wearing and explained that she had gotten them here and that she loved them. They were pretty cool- pink high-heels with bows and sparkles. After dinner her feet hurt a lot so she had to resort to walking around like a turkey and nearly collapsing. Her brother carried her for some distance, but when we got to a place where we had to cross the street, she tried to be assertive in traffic. The problem was, she didn’t have a car, but still, she ran in the middle of the road, ignoring an oncoming bus, and held out her hand simply yelling “Stop!” I think it was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. She moved out of the way of the bus, and luckily the car in the other lane stopped. She remained unharmed.

The next day we headed over to Venice. We went in a train, and the conductor had to kick out some hooligans who were purposely sitting in First Class with Coach Tickets.

In Venice we spent our days walking around and seeing the city.  It was far more relaxed than Rome, but despite my lazy affinity I still felt compelled to prefer my experience in Rome to my one in Venice.
We had a ferry from the mainland to our hotel which was a Hilton on a little island about 300 meters from the mainland, and I have a weak stomach, so that was not something I enjoyed. I shouldn’t complain though, I mean, seriously, I was in Italy!

Venice was unique though, and it involved a lot of shopping. They had some nice boutiques and shops, and, of course, designer stores. Oh, and though we didn’t purchase anything there, I must admit that simply walking into Dolce & Gabana suddenly made you feel that fashion was very important.  Perhaps it was the music? The models? The stuck-up, chatting employees in the corner?  Anyways, it was fun to look in the shops, and Alex bought some Venetian Masks.

Finally, we took a train to Florence. This place was, for me, the most peaceful of all. All we did was walk around and look at cool things, but nothing really specifically well known. I definitely started to realize that Italy is not all like Rome. Alex and my dad did, however, go to see the statue of David in The Academy.

One day, however, we did hire a driver to drive us to several castles and vineyards. The Chianti vineyard was cool, and I drank lots of wine and got very tired…Did I mention that I really like the lack of age requirement on alcohol in Italy? I had a Rum and Coke, a few beers, and lots of wine during my stay in Italy, but seriously, if I had grown up there I probably would be used to the ability to drink alcohol and would have had like…One beer. Whatever, it’s America’s choice, not mine.

Our driver was cool though. He got us lost in the mountains once, but it was fine, and he was nice and said Italians treat taxes as optional, and Alex said he reminded her of Michael Moskovitch from Princess Diaries. What, you haven’t seen that movie? LOSER! (Just Kidding)

After this we took a train back to Rome, slept a night in a Hilton near the airport, and headed home the next day. This plane trip was even harder because we had the long haul, then once we were tired we had a layover and ANOTHER plane back home…Luckily, to cheer us up, there was a grand finale to our trip once we got home; Just as we were walking out the automatic doors of the airport back home, my dad was rolling his suitcase behind him and it caught on the door, and he was walking really fast, and the automatic door broke, turned on it’s shattered hinges, and now faced straight instead of flat. It was so funny but we were just like…Wow…Keep walking before someone notices!!! So I had to take the picture from really far away. You can see people hovering around the broken door though.

It really was a great trip.

Now that I’m home things have been good too, though. Today I cooked and make Olive paste, and Almond-Butter paste from scratch, without a recipe or any help or direction. I’m serving them with Wheat Thins…MMM…Don’t you wish you had some?

It’s great though. I had a great time in Italy. I’m having a great time back home. It’s a good summer, and I’m looking forward to even more fun with my Aunt’s wedding and camp coming up soon.

Love always,

Blake

So last night I had a pretty awesome dream. Basically I was standing in line with my Uncle Jim and my cousin Michelle when I noticed I had what looked like spray-on sunscreen. When I read the bottle, however, I realized it was actually sound-muffling spray. Who knows why I had it, but I was like, hey, this could be fun, so I went on to spray other people in the line we were waiting in with the spray which would muffle all of the sounds they would make. It was cool.

Then I realized, oh yea, I’m waiting in a line, what is this for, anyways? So I asked my Uncle Jim who explained we were in line for a little roller coaster in a mueseum type thing. I assumed from this description that it was basically just a track that went around the mueseum and went at the pace of a snail. Nope.

We progressed in the line, and when we were near the boarding area the lady operating the roller coaster explained that this was a roller coaster because the car was not actually attatched to the track, but the car and the track were both magnetic, so they stuck together. I got on the roller coaster, boarding a two-person car with my cousin Michelle, and off we went! It had a white track, and it was supremely awesome…Nothing like what I had assumed it would be. It was crazily fast, and went over tons of drops. Then, the magnetism didn’t exactly last I suppose, and at a low point in the track, my car fell off the track into the water under the coaster. Luckily the car floated, so Michelle and I tried to lift the car back onto the track. This was when I woke up. Anyways, I thought it was pretty sweet that I atleast got to ride part of a roller coaster during my dream…Oh, and that sound muffling spray? I want that.

Anyways, other than that, not that much has happened. I did my summer reading project today, and I’m getting ready for Pentecost. Don’t forget to set out your offerings! Anyways, I’m gonna go have some fondue…My mom got a really small bowl with a candle under it, so we microwave chocolate and then put it in the bowl, and the candle keeps it warm. Not exactly a routine fondue maker or anything, but I enjoy it!

By the way, my plan is to put up a blog post every Friday night, and sometimes in between. I’m hoping to get on a semi-regular schedule, but I’m going to Italy later this summer, and camp, and Georgia, so don’t expect a full-on schedule or anything. Oh, and the fact that my blog actually got picked up by a Hannah Montana news site? Priceless.

Love,

Blake

Alright, so let me just start off with this; one of my favorite songs, “California,” is by the band Metro Station. Today I was listening to their music on YouTube when I noticed comments saying that one guy was Miley Cyrus’s brother. Now, being the dork that I am, I recognized the name Miley Cyrus as being “pop sensation” Hannah Montana!

Basically I was just thinking…No. No way, this has to be a joke, and after all, there are a lot of lies circulating around in the YouTube comments area. Well, I looked it up on handy dandy Wikipedia and nope, it was true after all. After actually redirecting the page from pictures of an actual train station (I typed in Metro Station, you see) to the actual band’s page, it explained that the band was formed when the mothers of two of the band members introduced them on the set of Hannah Montana. You see, two of the members of one my favorite bands have little siblings that act in Hannah Montana. In fact, one is the son of Billy Ray Cyrus. To say the least, I was heavily disturbed.

On to the rest of my adventures, today I actually read my entire summer reading book start to finish. It was titled Tuesdays with Morrie, and well, I don’t want to be a commercial or anything but I thought it was pretty good. Not my favorite book of all time. Not something everyone would like, but it was decent, espescially compared to the hollow “literature” that the school system normally defers me to. In fact, this year I was pretty impressed because, atleast in my own experiance, normally they give you a book and say “read this,” but this year they actually gave us a list of 20+ books to choose from, so I thought that was nice.

Other than that, I enjoyed some Brawl mania with Josh Crockett earlier today. So, Josh? If you’re reading this, you’re my boy, buddy, you’re my boy.

Love always,

Blake

P.S. Below is a song by Metro Station. If you can get past their relation to the stars of Hannah Montana, they’e actually a pretty decent band.

Metro Station- California

Hey.

I’m pretty sure that you already know this, but just in case, my name is Blake Meredith, and thanks to my good buddy and cousin, Chris from cpgaming.net, I get to use this space for my own personal blog– Life of Blake. No, just because the blog is named Life of Blake doesn’t mean it’s all about my life…Partially yes, but mostly it’s jut about the world, and the things that interest me, and that happen to me.

I’d love for anyone who wants to to join the site to add comments, and please also visit the host site, cpgaming.net if you have any interest in video games…I’m on there too, so feel free to message me on there or call/text/email. If I know you at all I’m sure I will have no problem giving you contact info, but I won’t bother posting it on here because people *can* access this page from search engines and…I don’t want any prank calls.

So the main point of this point is an explanation of my trip to Cali. I got home today, so you guys should all commend me for my restless work, pounding out a blog post mere hours after I got off the plane. But yea, fun trip.

So the first important part of my trip was travel. I flew there with just my dad and myself, so we were gonna try to get a direct flight but when we were planning the trip I was still scheduled to have a Physical Science final on Wednesday when I was gonna leave, so the whole flying direct thing didn’t work out. Later on the final was moved back a day so I could get my finals done early, but still, flights were already scheduled so we had to stop in Atlanta, practically my birthplace, on the way to my cousins’ house in Cali.

We got to the airport early, so we decided to pop on in to the Crown Room. Yea, I said it. My dad flies for business a LOT which leads to lots of Sky Miles which leads to a Crown Room membership…Yessss…Well anyways, basically the Crown Room is just like a big room with pretzels and ginger ale and tables and TVs and stuff, but there are little signs in this one area of the room that say Quiet Area and they have a picture of a cell phone in a circle with a line through it. So of course, i’m sitting there…Quietly…and the guy across from me at another is doing the one thing banned in this small area of the room, blabbing on and on into his cell phone in his “i’m an important business man” tone. This kinda annoyed him, but saying anything would be kindove…Rude, right? So I tried to drop a hint. First I as subtle. I just stared at him, then the sign, then him, then the sign. We made eye contact after awhile, but only briefly as he soon started staring down straight at his lap, clearly making an attempt to avoid my stare.

At this point I got annoyed and figured, hey, he’s rude, what do I care? So i dropped a somewhat less subtle hint…I whipped out my camera and…

tard guy blabs on cell in quiet area

So then we’re on the plane, and my dad we’re in coach so there are 3 seats per row, and it’s just me and my dad, and we have tickets for the middle and aisle seats, so my dad demands that he gets the aisle despite my complaints. Long story short i ended up sitting next to a sniffling lady who elbowed me, and the kid behind me kept kicking my my seat and the lady next to me’s seat so finally the lady turns around and asks the mom to make the kid stop. To say the least, he didn’t.

The flight from Atlanta to Cali, I got the aisle and things went much smoother. The snack service came like five times which I loved. That should be customary, once per hour on the plane, right? Right?

When I got to Cali i met up with my Uncle who came to pick me up and I split with my dad because he had a business meeting to go to. I had a good time with my cousins…They taught me how to play Rock Band for PS3… Let me tell you…Best. Game. Ever. I sucked horribly at drums, but guitar and singer i got down pretty well and by the time I left I was scoring like 98% on guitar on easy. Good stuff, I’ve gotta tell you.

So on to the main event of my trip to Cali! The church camp out! It was really fun, really. Basically it was me and Michelle Meredith and Chris Meredith and JonJon and Josh and Justink (More on him later, yes the spelling is right) and Andrew and Hayden and Lindsay and Anthony ‘Ant’ the street fighting master.

Them, and the church congregation. But yea, we played Ultimate Frisbee, and Capture the Flag, and Mafia…Just a lot of really fun stuff. I got to be the pianist during church services, and no, I don’t play piano, it’s just that I got to press play/pause on the stereo that played the hymns…The problem was, the songs were supposed to be in order. They weren’t, but whatever, it all worked out. It ended up I was in a tent with Hayden and Chris. That was…Interesting. But yea, good stuff.

Justink (Also known as Justin Kovanis) definitely inspired me. He was all like ‘lets have deep conversations’ and then I was like ‘how’ and then we all like…tried our best to be deep without bein awkward. But it worked out, and I thought it was a good effort, we just needed more practice. By the way, I’m officially Justink’s “boy” and you may also note that if you get stuck with the tag of being his “girl,” that means that you’re pretty much undateable by his current view of you. But you can still be friends, and as he made very clear to me…His views could change. Please note that beauty is of little or no concern to our good friend Justink.

So when eating the celery from the church campout’s potluck, I asked Justink what he wanted to do fr a living. He said chiropractor, I said LOL. I explained to him the hundreds of reasons why chiropractics were not for him, then suggested a better career.

I got these pages from Sky Mall on the plane…So please, Justin, say “I Do” to cosmetic dentistry!

After the camp out, me and Lindsay and Chris and Michelle and Hayden and family went to Michelle’s masterful piano recital. Trust me– everyone else sucked/was boring, but I have film proof (on Michelle’s camera lol >.<) that Michelle’s performance was fantastic. No, seriously.

After the recital we went to Shogun and saw a guy wearing a bra, either that or a really manly girl. It had a buzz cut, which kinda made it confusing, and It’s voice sounded like a really deep girl voice sortive, but in the face it looked like a guy. I wish that all girls had long hair and all guys had short hair. Now this surely would have clarified things.

Finally, we rented “P.S. I Love You.”

Only comments? Never again. Michelle fell asleep in like the first 20 minutes, and it was kinda inappropriate, and Chris and I left early to go sleep. Yes, it was really that bad.

Anyways, thanks to anyone who actually read this far. If you did, I’m actually really impressed. But yea, in summary? Cali rocks. Justin needs to go to Sunset Beach for the Feast and become a dentist (by the way, Justin, I’ll get you Amy’s email address on Saturday if I remember), and this blog is surely going to flourish into something awesome!

Love,

Blake