My Birthday/Christmas List

15 days until my birthday! 17 days until Christmas! I'm really looking forward to being with all of my family and seeing friends who will be home for Christmas break! I love this time of year!

Anyways, I thought it would be fun to put my Birthday/Christmas list on my blog. So without further adieu, here it is (in no particular order):

- 6 lb. Bag of Gummy Bears (≈ $6.00 at Sams Club)
I. Love. Gummy bears.

- DIY Music Box Kit (≈ $13.00 online)

This little kit allow you to make your own music box with whatever song you want. I know the perfect song... :)

- Star Wars Force FX Removable Blade Lightsaber (≈ $99.00 online)

As close to the real thing as you can get (and the real thing has yet to reach this galaxy). These are so cool! For real. (p.s. I want the Darth Vader one...)

- V-Cube 7 Supercube (≈ $45.00 online)

This is a 7x7 Rubik's cube. I have wanted one of these ever since I first knew of their existence. I looks like a beast but give me a half hour and I'll see what I can do.

- Rubik's TouchCube (≈ $70 -- $100 online & in stores)

Rubik's cube + touch-screen technology = the Rubik's TouchCube. Each square is it's own touch-screen. You slide your fingers across the layer that you want to turn and it turns. Pure genius.

- Shock Ball (≈ $14.00 online)

The Shock Ball shoots out random electrical shocks (obviously). It is ideal for a fun game of hot potato. If you hold onto it for too long, you will suffer the consequences. 

- Swedish FireSteel (≈ $15.99 online)

Makes really big sparks. Sparks make fire. I like fire. Need I say more?

- Nerf Stampede Automatic Heavy Blaster (≈ $44.00 -- $60.00 everywhere)

This thing is a beast. It is battery-powered, fully automatic, and it doesn't jam as much as similar guns. It comes with 18-dart magazines and practically enough darts to supply an army.

Halloween Over the Years

I love Halloween. I mean, come on, what's better than free candy? Not to mention carving pumpkins, eating pumpkin pie, and dressing up as whatever you can dream up. Those are some of the reasons why I love Halloween. Every year I want to dress up as something both unique, and something way better than what I was the previous year.

This year I was Optimus Prime for Halloween. I made the costume below out of cardboard, duct tape, spray paint, and some other odds and ends. When I'm standing up, I'm a robot. When I lay down on my stomach, I "transform" into a semi-truck cab. I won an award for best overall costume at a Halloween event at my church.

Here is a video of me "transforming":

Last year I dressed up as Vince, the guy on all of the ShamWow commercials. I memorized the entire commercial word for word so that I could spew out the lines, in the same obnoxious tone that Vince uses, at any time.

Two years ago I dressed up as myself, "Thinking Arby's". I got quite a few laughs from people when they saw this one. I made it using a pool noodle and a wire coat hanger.

I don't know how long ago this was exactly, but I do know that it's been a while. I dressed up as a dinosaur. I was scary.

Here is a pumpkin that I carved three years ago. It's Chauncey Billups' face. He used to be on the Detroit Pistons for everyone out there who is illiterate when it comes to sports. 

Here is a second pumpkin that I carved three years ago. It is a picture of Toby Mac. He was my favorite musical artist back then. This picture was the album artwork on one of his first albums.

My "Joker-lantern"

It was rather discouraging when I was carving this pumpkin; It was very time consuming and it seemed like the more that I carved, the uglier the thing got. For example, take a look at the first picture below. I almost gave up but the amount of time that I had already put into it kept me going. Tell me what you think! =)

Here is a picture of my finished pumpkin in normal lighting.

Here is a picture of my pumpkin in the dark with candles inside with the camera flash on.

Here is a close-up picture of my pumpkin with candles and the camera flash off.

He, the Joker, is currently chillin' in the fridge (pun intended) covered in saran wrap to keep him fresh until Halloween.

The Viral Video of the Day

This is one of the newest viral videos. It's just flat out hilarious. It is more than worth the 3 minutes and 22 seconds of your life. Or in my case it's more like 3 minutes and 22 seconds per day. Ok maybe a little more....



Leave a comment and let me know what your favorite phrase from this video. One of my favorite phrases is when Marcel says 'Hello, this is me...' when he answers the phone.

Joel + Pumpkin = Awesome x 760?

Two nights ago Deanne, Trevor, Emily, and Kaity came over to carve up some orange vegetables. Deanne, Trevor, and my mission was to carve everything "Joel" into pumpkins. Kaity came over to carve with my older (but shorter) sister Emily. The other Emily came to watch us and and I quote "do homework".

Emily was the first one to arrive. We played some ping pong while we were waiting for the others to get here. It took her a while to understand the fact that you switch who serves when the total number of points scored is divisible by five. It was pretty funny. I took a few big swings just for fun. I think she's afraid to play ping pong with me now.

When Deanne and Trevor arrived we went to Meijer because I was the only one who had a pumpkin already. We found the pumpkins and tried to find the best ones. Each pumpkins had a little sticker on it with a number. The one that I picked was #4435. Trevor wanted to find pumpkin #760 (*inside joke*) but had no luck.

When we got back to my house we went in the garage to start carving. Originally the plan was to carve the pumpkins outside on my deck but it was all wet because it had just stopped raining and it was getting dark.

As I was working on transferring Joel's face from the pumpkin stencil to my pumpkin Deanne and Trevor were gutting and 're-gutting' their pumpkins. Why did they have to gut their pumpkins more than once, you ask? Deanne would take the guts out of her pumpkin and put them in Trevor's. I bet you can guess what happened next. Trevor would then take all the guts in his pumpkin and put them back into Deanne's pumpkin. Believe it or not, this went back and forth maybe somewhere around 80 times. All I could say was "Oh my word! You guys are ridiculous!". I said that at least ten times during this whole ordeal. When the little war started to get intense, Deanne asked me: "How much do you care about your garage?". I replied with something along the lines of "Ugh... I don't know...". An intense pumpkin gut war then broke out. Deanne, Trevor, and myself flung the guts at one another. It was disgusting, while, at the same time, rather amusing. Deanne had a bunch stuck in her hair. It was funny. Trevor put some on his eyebrows. Pumpkin guts were all over the floor and  walls of the garage.

 After a while the pumpkin gut war turned into a stalemate so I started carving Joel's face again.

Here are some pictures of us displaying our finished pumpkins:

We opened up the garage to take some pictures of our glowing vegetables in the dark. Everyone had to leave soon after that because it was starting to get late but I asked if they wanted some pumpkin bars before they had to go. My Mom made them a little earlier so I went inside to get some to give to them. The garage was still open, so, being the 'creeper' that I am, I went out the back door around the house, got down, and began creeping. I was also displaying the plate of pumpkin bars while creeping. I just sat there waiting to be noticed. Trevor was the first person to see me. Right when he saw me he literally burst into laughter for about half a second. He then pulled himself together to try to not give it away that I was over there. He took Deanne's camera and said something like "Deanne look over here!" in a tone of voice that conveyed a combination of desperation and creepiness. She kind of faced the camera but I think she was looking over at Emily with what I'm guessing was some sort of "What in the world is going on?" sort of look. Trevor took the picture below with Deanne as I just described her and with me creepily creeping in the background. Kudos to Trevor for not completely losing it before snapping the picture.

She still hasn't seen me at this point. Saying this picture is priceless would be and understatement. I love it.

I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to see some of my friends that are home from college this weekend and that I'm going to see some more of them at church and Lighthouse tomorrow!

Turning Heads

So I'm going to assume that if you are actually reading my blog you are aware of my extreme size. I'm 6'10''. I'm thankful for every inch. I love being tall! It is quite an advantage in basketball and ultimate frisbee and many other sports. Walking around in public is interesting though, as I'm sure some of you can attest to. I don't know what it is but I have come to the realization that a lot of people think that I am blind and deaf.

A couple weeks ago I was walking in to the church to go to Lighthouse. There were like three little groups of people standing and talking in little circles. This is usually how it goes: The person on the opposite side of the circle to me, who can see me clearly, tries to subtly whisper to the rest of the group, informing them of my existence. The whole group, then, thinks that they can all turn around at the same time and stare at me without my noticing. I notice. Occasionally, depending on how blatantly they stare at me, I respond by smiling, nodding, and saying something like "Yeah, I'm tall...". So I walk past the three little groups of people and what I just explained happened every time.

It's hilarious when I'm walking around and as I get close to a couple people having a conversation, and as I get closer the person who is talking, stops. After they think I'm out of earshot whispering ensues. I usually hear every word.

Here is a list of popular phrases:
-"He's SO tall!"
-"Did you see how tall he was?"
-"Did you see the size of his feet?"
-"He's a giant!"
-"He's HUGE!"
-"AHHHH!"

I could go on for hours.





All this to say: I always prefer when people tell me directly apposed to whispering behind my back. It just gets really weird when everyone stares and whispers. It wouldn't be so weird if it only happened occasionally but it literally happens everywhere I go, with practically everyone I see. It just gets a little overwhelming sometimes. This is the kind of constant awkwardness that defines my life.

Then and Now

One thing that I like to do is remake old pictures. Whether it's a picture from an old family vacation, or just one of my favorite pictures. Here are a few that I dug up mostly out of my facebook pictures:

I'm not sure what year this was taken exactly but here is a picture of my older sister Emily, my little sister Jenna, and yours truly next to the Lego's dragon in Florida:

And here is a picture of my Dad, my little sisters Kayla, and Kristyn, and myself from our family vacation to Florida this past summer:

Here is a picture of my sisters and I standing in a welfare line with statues in the FDR monument in Washington DC:

And here is a picture of my sisters and I standing in line with the same statues two summers ago:

Here is a picture of my little (and I mean little) sister Kayla and myself (I love the size comparison):

And her is a picture of Kayla and myself again in relatively the same spot (we had to back up to fit in the frame):

 Another thing that I like about these two pictures is comparing our old kitchen with the remodeled one.

Pixel Art

I like to think that I'm a creative person. A couple years ago, during the commercials of the March Madness games I designed and assembled my first pixel art project: a picture of Richard Hamilton.

I cut little squares of white printer paper on which I drew random letters, numbers, symbols, and other designs with a black Sharpie. I'm not sure the exact number of pixels but it's around 600 total. It took a long time. It took even longer after my older sister Emily dropped a blanket near my attempt at creativity sending the little squares airborne in all directions. I finally finished it after a few days. I felt like it was a success.

Earlier today I finished my latest pixel art project. This time I used paint samples from Home Depot and I taped them up on my wall. I made Blinky, the red Pacman ghost. I think the fact that this one is in color makes it look a lot nicer. It only took me two days to finish this one because it doesn't have nearly as many pixels as the Richard Hamilton one does.. I had to cut the paint samples up into little squares (around 200). It was fun! It took a while, but it was still fun.

      Creeper eyes...

 

Here are some amazing examples of pixel art that I found online:

Sweet Shoes

Nike Blue Chip II:

I have a pair of these except they're blue. I think the orange one's look sweet though.

 K-Swiss Parkour Shoes:
(They don't come in my size)  :(

 Nike Zoom FP:
These were my basketball shoes senior year.

 Nike Air Uptempo:
These were my basketball shoes my sophomore year. I had the black ones. They were sweet. No matter how ugly my teammates say they are, I LOVE these shoes!