Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Alright, I am in love with Dan Brown books. After I read the Da Vinci Code I can't stop. If you have never read a Dan Brown book, I highly recommend them. Be warned however, once you pick them up, you can't put them down.

I just finished reading Digital Fortress this afternoon. Digital Fortress had a slow start, but it definitely picked up the pace midway through the book. Before I knew it, I couldn't put it down!

Digital Fortress is about Susan Fletcher, one of the best code breakers at NSA (National Security Association). She supervises the code breaking machine TRANSLTR that can break even the most complicated codes in less than 3 hours. She is called in to work on a Saturday when TRANSLTR has been trying to break a code "Digital Fortress" for more than 12 hours. While she is working her fiancé is in Spain desperately trying to locate a special ring. This ring has the code engraved on it that will break the encryption program "Digital Fortress". While in Spain her fiancé realizes that someone is trying to keep the ring away from the NSA. The story that follows is a roller coaster ride of thrills that will keep you reading.

Definitely check this book out if you are into computers, programming, tech stuff etc.

Summer!

School is out, and summer vacation is finally here! Summer means long runs, bike rides, picking strawberries, swimming, and enjoying the sun. I just got back from picking strawberries today with my family at Heller's Farm in Bainbridge, New York. Picking the berries was a lot of fun, and we ended up coming home with more than 6 quarts!

The beauty of summer in upstate New York is incredible. The lush green trees and valleys captivate you as you hike, walk, or travel around the area. I believe it is important to stop and appreciate the beauty of this area because, one day it might not be here for us to enjoy.

I sent some film out to get developed. Hopefully, it will come back soon so I can post some more pictures! Happy Fathers' Day!

1 Week Down, 2 more days to go

This week was the official last week of school. Next week students are expected to attend Monday and Tuesday. I do not know if that is going to happen. Most students (like myself) are most likely not going to wake up Tuesday morning with the intention of going to school. On the last day of school, students aren't expected to do anything. Everyone just watches movies, eats, and cleans out their lockers. The cleaning out of lockers can be done on Monday. So why wait until Tuesday? Everyone can watch movies and eat at home. There is no need to attend the last day of school.

I just got home from work about a half an hour ago. I'm wiped out. I work as a bus boy at a local restaurant, and work is pretty tiring. All night I serve food, clean tables, set tables, and smile at complete strangers. Tonight there was an Italian guy at the restaurant. Him and his wife were completely drunk, and they told me that they loved me. This made my work seem less tedious and definitely more entertaining.

So this weekend I have to work again on Saturday, and possibly Sunday as well. Tomorrow I'm taking a photography class that I'm very excited for. The class should be interesting, fun, and I hope it will help improve my photography. I will also be taking a nice long run this weekend, it's time to get back into shape!

One More Week of School!

              I cannot wait for summer. Next week is my last full week of school, and then I have to go to school Monday and Tuesday the week after that. Summer vacation is so close I can taste it, and I can hardly wait for school to be done with.

              Unfortunately next week is going to be hell week. I have tons of final exams I have to plow through right up until the last day of school! I don't enjoy finals at all. How are you even supposed to study for a final in the first place? There is a reason I am in school for the majority of the year. To learn. Now at the end of the year I'm given a test on all the stuff we have learned since day one. I'm not complaining but, how can you expect anyone to do really well on a final?

             Anyway, Track season ended yesterday and I am very glad. I'm supposed to be at a track barbecue right now, but I decided staying as far away from track would be fine too. I had a pretty successful track season . This year for sports I did varsity cross country and track. I learned that track is a lot harder and more competitive than cross country is. I definitely enjoy cross country a lot more than track but, I think I'll be doing track again next year.

             I just finished reading another great book; The Da Vinci Code was a very good read. After reading it I can understand why it stirred up so much trouble in the Christian and Catholic communities. The book was a little offensive towards all God worshiping religions. The book was fiction however, there were many facts in the book. I definitely learned a lot. The Da Vinci Code proposed a very interesting theory. This theory was that Jesus was married to a woman named Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' favorite disciples. The theory claimed that Jesus was married to her, and they had a child together. This child was the vessel of the Holy Grail. The book was very interesting, and it is a MUST read for anyone.

           As for this weekend I think I'm going to take a break. I'm going to read Dan Brown's Angels&Demons, study, take a long run, swim, and enjoy the weekend.

Memorial Day Weekend

It is only Sunday, but my Memorial Day Weekend has been pretty crazy. Yesterday my family and I put together a garage and bake sale for the benefit of the cross country team. We raised over $600 for the team! It was great, I had a ton of fun, and I got some pretty cool stuff for free.

I received an old organ yesterday. A very old organ. The organ was made in the 1960s, but it is still in beautiful condition today. The organ is also very unique, to the left it has a pad where you push down buttons to play chords. On the right you have all your keys. I've been taking piano lessons for about 2 years so I thought it would be smart to pick the organ up. Right now it is sitting in my room waiting to be played.

When I wasn't working at the bake sale yesterday, I was walking around checking out other garage sales. Since it was memorial day weekend, there were a ton of other garage sales in town. I ended up falling in love with an old record player I found at one of the garage sales. I bought the record player, with 2 speakers, and 3 records. When hooked up to the speakers, the record player sounds beautiful. My Mom is happy because, now she can listen to her old records as well.

Aside from garage sales, I've been training for the steeplechase in track. The steeplechase is long distance hurdling on a track. You have to jump over 5 barricades (hurdles) per lap. One of the barricades has a water pit you have to jump over. Falling in the water pit usually spells disaster. I'm going to the state qualifiers for steeplechase which is as far as I will probably go. I don't expect to go to states for steeplechase. So I have practice tomorrow, and then a barbecue after practice. Happy Memorial Day Weekend! 

Holga 135BC Photos

Water for Elephants, an amazing movie!

Just got home from seeing Water for Elephants! I was planning on reading the book before I saw the movie, but unfortunately I never got around to doing that. I think I would've liked the book better than the movie. Most of the time books ARE better than the actual movie is.

The movie took place in the 1920s during the depression era. A veterinary student (Jacob Jankowski) about to graduate from Cornell University, when he receives the news that his parents had been killed in a car accident. He leaves short of school when he finds out that his father is deeply in debt. His dad had been spending a lot of money on his education. Jacob immediately packs his possessions and leaves home. He ends up hoping a train that belongs to a circus show knows as The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

He ends up working for the circus, and meets the head-trainer August and his wife, Marlena. Jacob ends up falling in love with Marlena. I can't tell you about the rest of the movie because if I did, I would spoil it for you.

Overall it was a really good movie. I just wished that they had picked different people the play the rolls of Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson) and Marlena (Reese Witherspoon).

Photos from my Holga camera are coming in on Monday for the first time! I'm really excited, and I can't wait to upload them to the blog!  

A Pretty Good Book

Just finished Impossible by Nancy Werlin. Overall, it was an okay book. Impossible was rather silly, over dramatic, and cheesy. I would recommend the book for teenage girls, not teenage boys.

The story takes place in some suburbs outside of Boston, and the story follows the tale of Lucy Scarborough. Lucy was raised by foster parents when her mom went mad after her birth. Lucy becomes pregnant at 17, just like her mother, and when she does she finds her mom's old diary. The diary tells Lucy about the Curse, and how she will go mad after she gives birth unless she can complete 3 impossible tasks. These tasks are named in the Scarborough Fair ballad (a different version) and they are, make a seamless shirt, find and acre of land between saltwater and sea strand, and plow the field with a goat horn and sow it with one grain of corn. The Elfin Knight, (the one who brought the curse upon Lucy's family) lurks in the background as he tries to make completing these tasks more difficult.

Overall it was a pretty fast read. The book was fast paced, and the end of the book will suprise you! Right now I'm reading a dark and depressing book called The Boy From the Basement. The book is scary, but good. I'd recommend reading The Boy From the Basement as well as Impossible.

Jalapeno Eating Contest!

Last night, I participated in a Jalapeño eating contest at a local restaurant with some friends. The winner of the contest received 100 dollars, unfortunately I was not a winner. You got two bowls of Jalapeño peppers, and one minute to eat as many as you can. The winner of the contest ate 15 in one minute! I was only able to eat 4....

The peppers were huge! I had a hard time trying to eat as many as I could in one minute because, they required so much chewing. The hotness of them didn't bother me until after the contest was over. It was great fun, and afterwards my friends and I went to Price Chopper to do some terrorizing.

In Price Chopper we did everything that teenagers would do in a Price Chopper. We took bottles of cooking oil and stuck them in the freezers, rearranged the cards, and played dodge ball with the bouncy balls. It was a ton of fun.

The track meet this past Friday was fun as well. I had personal records in both of my events. I ran the mile (1600) in 5 minutes and 20 seconds, and in the 2 mile (3200) I ran 11 minutes 27 seconds.

Happy Mother's Day!
  

Tired Out!

Resting at home because I am exhausted. On Sunday I ran a 5K race in Troy N.Y. The 5K was nice, it was a road race, very flat. My time for the race was 18 minutes and 22 seconds a personal record for me! I got fourth overall and third in my age group.

Then on Tuesday I ran in a track meet. This track meet was all relay events, and boy did I hate it. I did the longer distance races, and running long distances on tracks is one of the most mentally and physically exhausting things you could ever do.

NY State testing also started this week. We've been taking tests all day long and doing nothing else. This is when school begins to bother me. School is so inactive, boring, and stressful. People only enjoy school when there at lunch eating. School lunches are yet another thing that bothers me so deeply. I always bring my lunch from home for 2 reasons.
1. School lunches are disgusting
2. They are unhealthy

If the U.S. wants to solve it's obesity problem, the U.S. could start with proper health and nutrition education, and better lunch programs. You walk into the lunchroom and you see tons of ice cream, muffins, desserts, and unhealthy snacks. The main meal is normally unhealthy as well. People need to realize that this food is pre-made, frozen, and shipped thousands of miles to get into the mouths of the students at school. The food is salty, fattening, and loaded with sugar. The meat comes from cows that are abused and fed hormones. The chickens are fed hormones as well. If there was an organic lunch program that would probably be a good place to start.

Piano lesson tomorrow, then another track meet on Friday. Jalapeno eating contest on Saturday WooHoo!!!

Why This Week Sucked

TGIF. This week seemed to drag on forever. Not only did the weather stink this week, but the teachers at school seemed as though they wanted to make every second in school as painful as possible.

Track practice this week was also painful. The weather just made everything depressing and I think I'm getting sick. To top everything off this week, my film came back blank! I was very dissapointed to find that my camera took 0 exposures. However I located the problem and solved it.

On the brighter side, this weekend I will be traveling to Albany NY to run in a 5K race. I love 5K races because they are an actual distance race. Not some stupid sprint race on a track. Afterwards I hope to get some sushi and go shopping at the mall. I know that my next roll of film will have actual pictures to post :)

Welcome Back School

First week back to school after spring break was okay. I'm not excited for the end of the year. However I am very excited for summer.

The end of the school year means piles upon piles of homework, endless studying, and capitol S-T-R-E-S-S. However horrible all of this seems, we all tend to make it to the end of the school year okay.

So the first week back was fine. Nothing really exciting happenend, math teacher seemed to be in a bad mood. This weekend I'm looking into having a deep fried party. At this party, some friends of mine are going to get together and deep fry anything and everything. We plan on trying deep fried cheesecake, pickles, oreos, peanut butter cups, everything. Sounds unhealthy right?

I'll be blogging about how that goes later. Tomorrow I'm going to get my camera film developed. So pictures of NYC on the way!

Woah, NYC

I Love New York City. I just arrived back home a few hours ago from New York, and I miss it already. My family and I left early Thursday morning and took the train down to Penn Station. The train ride was really cool. It reminded me a lot of Germany, and the scenery was great! The train went along the Hudson River. There were many interesting houses looking out onto the river. We got to the city around 10:45 and that's when all the adventures began. My family and I started out by going to Greenwich Village (my new favorite part of the city). I really liked the village because it was cute. The shops, the cafe's, and the people were all plainly cute. In Greenwich Village I purchased a lomography camera called a Holga. The Holga isn't a digital camera. The one I bought takes 35mm film and I love it. The other cool thing about Greenwich Village was Washington Square Park. The main attraction of the Park was the Washington Square Arches. From Greenwich Village we walked to Soho. I liked Soho as well, it was just much more expensive. After spending a little time in Soho we went to the Little Italy and Chinatown areas. We got foot massages in Chinatown which was a little weird. I hadn't trimmed my toenails and my feet were sweaty from walking. I felt bad for the Asian woman massaging my tired feet. Chinatown and Little Italy didn't keep my family interested for very long so we took the subway to Times Square to check into our hotel. Our hotel was pretty crappy. From the lobby it looked nice, but after you left the lobby it wasn't very nice at all. The hotel beds were lumpy, the shower water wasn't very warm, it was very hot in our room, and the breakfast at the hotel wasn't very good. So we decided to try and spend as little time in our hotel room as possible. For dinner we went to a delicious Turkish restaurant. I had an organic salad, eggplant w/ penne, and a slice of new york style cheesecake. It was all very good. After dinner we went to the lower part of Central Park. I didn't know Central Park was going to be so nice. The jogger's and bike rider's created a neat atmosphere. Seeing the horses trot along was cool too. After walking around the park for a bit we turned back into the hotel. The next morning after taking a painfully cold shower and eating a terrible breakfast, we began to walk around Time's Square. The square was a lot less busier then it was the previous night. This morning we were going to see the Harry Potter Exhibit in Discovery Time's Square. The Exhibit was fantastic! All of the Harry Potter props were there including the clothes the characters wore. There were a few hands on parts but most of the stuff you couldn't touch. I can't wait to head back to the city. Next time I go I want to visit Tribeca and spend more time in Greenwich Village