The Doorbell Scare

It was a dark and stormy night (really), and me and Anderson were watching TV at around 5:40 P.M. Mom was running late and Dad was due to be back anytime. We heard the doorbell ring...surely it was Mom. We checked and nobody was there. Odd. Maybe Mom was wanting to get in the back door. After all, it was raining. But then again, it wasn't raining too hard. So I went to get the back door. When I was halfway there, the doorbell rang again, this time with a rhythm: A ring, a small space, a double ring. We heard footsteps. A few seconds later, ring, small space, double ring. More footsteps. What the? Anderson went and hid behind our currently unornamented Christmas Tree. More footsteps, more ringing. Barely peaking my head into the Dining Room, I told Anderson as quietly as possible, "Get down, come on through, grab the phone, and stay low." Anderson got to the phone, stood up and grabbed it, then ran the rest of the Dining Room to me in the Kitchen. Not the smartest thing to do having considered our situation, but hey, anything works if you can stay alive right? Anyhow, we got behind the washer and Anderson called Dad. We moved through the hallway, into our room, and upstairs. Dad must have picked up then because here is what I heard. "Hey Dad, um, somebody keeps on ringing the doorbell. I couldn't see anybody, but, uh.....yeah, we're hiding upstairs. I'm a little, uh, scared." After Anderson got off the phone, he said Dad was gonna get here ASAP and not to worry. So we sat around....I layed on the bed up there. Best bed in the world. Anyhow.....the door opened. Crap! We hear a voice. It's Mom. "Guys?" Mom comes upstairs.

Behind the scenes............

Mom has gone to the store after work to make this awesome cheese dip. She gets home. Normally she would just run in and have Tyler and Anderson help her. But this time she rings the doorbell, drops off the bags, and goes to get another load. Tyler and Anderson will realize it's her and bring the bags in, right? She comes back up and the door isn't open. She rings the doorbell multiple times now, to get our attention. She goes back to the car. On her third trip she saw Anderson peaking out from the curtains. She waves but he doesn't acknowledge her. She does this again and again. She finally comes in and carries the bags in. No trace of Tyler and Anderson. Odd. She searches the house. The door to Tyler and Anderson's bedroom is closed. She checks. Nobody is in the room, but the lights are on. She goes upstairs. "Guys?"

What a relief when we found out it was just her...............

Oh yeah, I was seriously gonna call the cops, but Anderson got Dad instead. Glad I didn't........

NOTE: This IS a true story. Ask my MOM Ask my DAD. Ask ANDERSON. Ask ME even.

The excitement never ends at Robinson Street. If you don't know what I mean, got to my Dad's blog (link on sidebar), and check out about the AK-47 incident, or the "Carrot Kelly" account.

Hamsters! Hamsters! Hamsters!

Yahoo! We've got hamsters! A special type...the Dwarf Hamster!

Mine:
The white one
- Clutzy

Anderson's:
The brownish one
- Lucky

Once upon a time, Anderson went to one of his friend's house. This friend of his, named Cody Carpender, got a cute little dwarf hamster while there. Anderson said we should get one.

After some extensive research which included trips to the local pet store, public library, and of course the Internet, (yes, we took a trip there...) we gathered money and bought the little gals. Gals? Oh yeah...they're girls, for the reason that males would get into fights. We've had them for some amount of weeks now.

The awesomeness of the whole thing is that they are the perfect housepets for us. A few reasons:

1.) They are absoulutely adoreable.

2.) They keep themselves clean.

3.) Their food is very cheap

4.) Cage cleaning is easy and not at all dirty

5.) They are the Exclusive APP (American Pocket Pet)

Mine is called Clutzy because on the first day we got her, she was very clumsy. Clutzy was somewhat tame when we got her...she only bit a few times.

Anderson's is called Lucky because she has survived an amount of falls from the 3-5 foot range that it is amazing she isn't dead yet. On a human scale, we'd all be splattered on the ground. On the day we got her we named her Fiesty because she bit so much. She has mellowed out a lot now.

If you haven't come and seen these little guys yet, you need to. Until next time...

(P.S: The Wierd Factor X-19 has been dormant for a long amount of time...it's goingto strike sometime VERY soon...NO!!! Not now! Go away! I don't...I do...NO! I don't like you! Do you understand I'm nearly 13! Stay wawy from me! Get away! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!)

Little Ghost Girls...

The Wood (over 400 MB....if your Internet is slow, you can just, uh, wait overnight for it to download)

This is a creepy project that we, henceforth named Five Tree Productions, came up with. It all started when Dad (and I) went on this trail looking for spots to put letterboxes. While we were there we took some videos of stuff. Anyhow...

We get back home and I experiment with these video clips and Windows Movie Maker. Awesome program...let's you use Old Style Film and Sepia Tone....together...among other things. So I put this Old Style Film and Sepia Tone Combo together, added some creepy music, and POW! You have a scary movie. We loved it. So my Dad said we'd have to do a movie like that sometime with music we scored. With two or three girls in nightgowns playing Ring Around the Rosie....in the middle of the woods. The brilliancy of the idea was perfect...

So we organize it to happen on some holiday (what was it, Labor Day?) Anyhow, we couldn't get a hold of the third girl's parents, A.K.A. Jason and Nicki. So it was just the two girls now...their parents being the dude and his wife, A.K.A. Matt and Charlie. Everyone mentioned so far is related to me.

Welcome to the Wood....

So we get to the site of the filming.

Nightgowns...check...paper clips on the back part of the nightgowns to hold it together...

Ground is dry...no, it's wet...we'll have to wear tennis shoes (not that you can tell from the movie anyhow...)

Video cam and laptop...check.

All functions working...start film...

We get done filming and put Old Style Filming and Sepia Tone on...but we have a lot of work to do...ideas are still coming, things are getting re-organized, etc. We have what we think we want within a week...but we need QuickTime Player to successfully score music to the video...so we buy it for $30.00. Let the scoring begin...

Good thing Dad knew how to play Ring Around the Rosie on the Midi Keyboard...then we add Orchestral stuff, background music, drums and booms. We get that done eventually...it takes longer because Dad's laptop kept crashing because it couldn't handle the needed work...
We add the music and adjust a few things on the video...we have a ghost story now...refer to the link at the top of the post...and enjoy!

Dumb Blonde Jokes, Plays on Words, and a Copter Game

This post is just what it has been said to be above.

Dumb Blonde Jokes, Plays on Words, and a Copter Game

So let's begin, shall we?

Yes.

No.

(Please select your preference)

Let the Dumb Blonde Jokes begin!

A readhead, a burnette, and a blonde were riding a rusted out truck in the middle of a desert, exactly 100 miles away from civilization in any direction. In fact, it was a wonder the truck hadn't died out by then. As it turns out, the truck died on them from a lack of gasoline. They got out of the dead truck, the redhead bringing food, the burnette bringing water, and the blonde struggling with the truck door. "Help me get this thing off!" she said. The redhead and burnette looked at each other, and said in unison, "Why?" The blonde replied, "Isn't it obvious? We can carry this with us, and when it gets hot, we can roll it's window down and cool off."

A redhead was driving her car through the country, when she saw a blonde in a canoe, trying to paddle across a cornfield. The redhead pulled over, got out of her car, and shouted, "What are you doing?" The blonde in the canoe shouted back, "I'm trying to get across this river!" the redhead shouted back, "It's a cornfield! Get out of that canoe!" The blonde replied, "But I can't swim!"

Two blondes were sitting on a bench about 100 miles away from Florida, talking. The first blonde said to the other, "Which do you think is farther away: Florida or the moon?" The second blonde, somehow amazed at the stupidity of the question, turned to the first blonde and said "Hello! Can you see Florida?"

A police officer stopped a blonde for speeding and asked her if he could see her license. She got angry and replied, "I wish you guys would get your act together. Just yesterday you take away my license and then today you expect me to show it to you!"

There was a blonde who was walking next to a river. She saw another blonde on the opposite bank. She shouted to the other blonde, "How can I get to the other side of this river?" The blonde no the opposite side looked up the river, then back down, and shouted back, "You ARE on the other side of the river!"

A redhead went into the doctor's office and said that her body hurt wherever she touched it. "That's insane!" said the doctor. "Show me." The redhead took her finger, pushed on her left shoulder and screamed, then she pushed her elbow and screamed even more. She pushed her knee and screamed; likewise she pushed her ankle and screamed. Everywhere and anywhere she touched caused her to scream. The doctor said, "You're not really a redhead, are you? "No," she said, "I'm actually a blonde." "I thought so," the doctor said. "Your finger is broken."

A highway patrolman pulled alongside a speeding car on the freeway. He glanced at the car, and was astounded to see that the blonde behind the wheel was knitting. Realizing that she was not paying the least attention to his flashing lights and siren, the trooper cranked down his window, turned on his bullhorn and yelled, "PULL OVER!" "NO!" the blonde yelled back, "IT'S A SCARF!"

Let the plays on words begin!

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

A calendar's days are numbered.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

A short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Copter Game Competition

Guidelines:

1.) This is strictly a fun competition...you do not have to play.

2.) You have 10 tries...any more then 10, and I will remove you from the competition.

3.) If you are participating in this competition, please leave a comment recording your high score out of 10 tries.

4.) Due to the nature of this competition, the winner will not receive any special prizes, save Winner Recognition.

5.) This competition is only valid until Thanksgiving 2006, due to the fact that most of you don't check my blog every day.

Copter Game

My high score was 760 (sorta low compared to what Dad or Anderson could do.)

As always, thanks for visiting my blog!

After a LONG 5 weeks....

Haven't posted for 5 weeks...they've been LONG...so, this post will also be LONG. I sure hope that Wierd Factor X-19 doesn't attack anytime...but be on guard...you never know with a post this LONG. Because of this every time I type long except for just a second ago - maybe two or three seconds ago, depends on how fast you read - it will be CAPITALIZED. So let's start with...

LAKE SHELBYVILLE

The Fisherman's Ultimate Freshwater Destination

At Lake Shelbyville, we spent the week at a real nice cabin in a cabin village called White Tail Crossings. If you don't believe me saying "That's a real nice cabin, I gotta tell you, if I could live there I would," then you're about to. Watch and learn as you see....

The text get REALLY small.

Wait up, that can't be...where was I? Oh yes. Watch and learn as you see the awesomeness of the cabin. See that picture? To the left? That was taken last year and the cabin looks just the same. You can tell it's from last year because my Dad still has his hair in the picture. To give a brief description, you enter to see a HUGE living room. To your left is a good sized table for when people eat I guess, never tried it myself though. There is a kitchen to the right where people cook food, never tried that either. If you are looking out the kitchen window, there is a pantry to your left. That's where people get food from...never tried that either.The room to the left of the kitchen is the sink hallway, right outside of the bathroom. Due to a pathblocking wall, which is really a big, LONG piece of wood, covered with drywall and wallpaper or paint, you have to take a LONG walk around that big, LONG chunk of wood, covered over with drywall and wallpaper or paint. The walk may be extremely tiring, but you'll get there. Anyways, like I said earlier, there is a sink hallway there, and the door in the direction of the kitchen window is the bathroom. To the left of the sink hallway, if your standing looking at the bathroom door that is, is another door that leads into the bedroom where my Mom and Dad stayed. Enough about that area. Now about the loft. The awesome loft. To the left is my brother's bed...and to the right is my bed. In between our rooms is a wall...like one of those typical walls that block your path. And we stayed there.

NOTE: No good pictures of the loft have been taken at all. Sorry. Maybe next year.

INTERMISSION

Okay...I started this post 2 weeks ago...and now I'm starting again. I suppose I haven't told you much about the Living Room at the cabin. Well, this is all that you need to know, to make a LONG story short:

There is a buck head up over the fireplace. So enough with the cabin. We had family over on the day of arrival/first day after the day of arrival. We played Nertz or Nerts or however you spell it late into the night...it's a crazy card game that can get violent quick. We were going to camp out. There were supposed to be 8 of us...crazy. Then the girls bailed out. Then Tim bailed out. Anderson dropped of when we were playing the violent card games. And I bailed out because I didn't want to be sun baked in the morning. Which resulted in me having to sleep on the floor next to Anderson's bed because Gma and Gpa Houpt or Gma Bush was sleeping in my usual bed. I can't remember which. So only Dad and Matt and Kevin slept out in the tent. Charlie snuck out in the middle of the night with some aluminum foil, walked up to the tent window and shook the foil while screaming "BoogaLooga!" or something of the like. Dad cramped up and couldn't move. Probably he yelled. Whole camp might have heard it. Not just our camp but the whole White Tail Crossing Cabin Village. Anyhow, we got rid of the family the next day. Decided the best thing to do without them would be to fish and eat and sleep and bike. So we did just that.

Fishing results: Nothing but an 11" bass, some bluegill, a few sticks, bunches of moss, and a rock.

Eating results: Stayed alive and well.

Sleeping results: Was ready for the next day after.

Biking results: Got a nice workout I guess.

My Dad's Account of our Lake Shelbyville Vacation:

"...we took a week off for a family vacation and got away for a bit down in Shelbyville, IL. Good times. Boating, late night card games, camping out, biking, tons of fishing, visiting a local wine vineyard and sampling some of their finest, campfires, getting terrorized in the middle of the night by my prankster sister (she snuck-up to the tent and screamed at me from point blank range through one of the screen windows while rattling some aluminum foil -- I screamed like a little girl and she wet herself laughing about it after the fact -- paybacks for all the crap I put her through when we were younger I suppose). Good stuff. Had perfectly mild weather the whole week as well although I only caught one stupid little 11" striped bass during our entire vacation. What a rip. Lost lots of meal-worms and wax worms to various unseen fishes, but I did manage to catch three good sized tree branches, four or five decently sized clumps of healthy moss, and an 8" diameter rock. I've never heard of anyone actually hooking a rock while fishing but somehow I managed to do so. And at first I thought I had a really big catfish or bass, or maybe even a huge snapper......you know.....the kind of critter that just stops your line cold and makes you think you got snagged. But alas as I reeled in my quarry, it offered no resistance, no fight, no struggle whatsoever except for its own geological girth. It was a pretty rock to behold though. One of those nicely shaped white rocks they use on lake dams and river banks to prevent erosion. And wouldn't you know that we were fishing right off of one of those banks in my Gpa Bush's boat. Wow. Next time I need a good looking rock like that I'll know right where the hot spot is."

The Lake Shelbyville Vacation Part of this Post is Over.

Congratulations! You have read one third of this post! I commend you!

And now for...

Red Mask Presentations

Blarney, Blather, and Balderdash

The play that I was in. Some of you saw it, some of you didn't. Well, I'm here to inform you. The storyline is that some Finn O'Grady guy wants to marry this Pageen girl. But Pageen's Mother Flaherty won't let Finn marry her unless he can tell her a story. "But I don't know any stories...wait! The Three Little Pigs!" Finn says, to which Mother Flaherty responds "That's nice, boyo, but a story of your own is what I'm looking for..." And so the story unfolds in Irish Cornball Tradition as Finn runs into Leprechauns, who teach him how to tell a story by illustrating three for him. The one I was in was "The Hunchback of Knockgrafton" where some Hunchback by the name of Lusmore runs into Little People, who sing about applesauce and butterbrickle and then hum hum hum. Lusmore realises that they are missing a part where the humming is, to which he exclaims "Boiled potato and a pickle!" The Little People somehow miss it, but are very interested. So they scare him half to death and he finally remembers. Lusmore tells them. They tell him thank you so very much. He replies it was nothing, to which they get mad and scare him again. They were going to give him treasure, but not anymore. Now they're gonna give him nothing. Nothing at all. Zusherate and Zuno (Witherato for nothing and zero.) Nothing...on his back??? That's right...they take his lovely looking hump off.

Oh how he loved that hump. It was his faithful companion.

Is the statement above true or false?

FALSE

He hated the hump. It kept him from making friends (and running.) So he goes off without and makes friends. Word spreads and this Evil Hunchback in a black suit with a mustache goes out with a net to find the Little People and force them to take his hump off. So they outsmart the Hunchback called Madden and give him a second hump.

The End. Oh yeah, did I mention? I was Lusmore! See the picture to the right? Tis' me, Lusmore, in full costume. Trying to do a smile with teeth that I'll never perfect. That's why I prefer the closed mouth picture technique. And that wierd dude in the back is Blather or Blarney, I never could keep track.

Anderson had several parts in the play, which varied from a Suitor to a Doctor to a Solider to an Irishman to a Villager. Wow. Some story about Aidan and this griffin's feather he has if he wants to marry some Landowner's Daughter is told. And then some thing about this broke for money Bridget and how she marries a Prince. And then Finn tells some story to Mother Flaherty, who accepts it, and I guess Finn and Pageen get married. Quite a bit of romance. Makes me want to vomit.

The Red Mask Theater Play Part of this Post is Over.

Congratulations! (Again) You have read two thirds of this post! I commend you! (Again)

Hopefully I'll just finish this whole post today with no more INTERMISSIONs.

And now for the final third...

A Trip to Springfield and New Salem

Learning About Abe Lincoln

Abe Lincoln. Interesting guy.

Didn't believe in slavery but thought whites were superior to blacks. Fell into depressions for weeks. Liked to read as a boy, and hated working in the fields. Wanted to be higher and more important then a farmer. Ran a trip with a flatboat clear down to New Orleans. Operated a store in New Salem.

He became a state legislator, married Mary (confusing), went on to be a senator, took a break from politics, left the Whig party, joined the Republicans and POW! You have Mr. President Lincoln. Several states are enraged by his election, and leave the Union. They form the Confederate. He forces the Confederate to start the war, showing he is not at any means hostile to them unless they attack. Against all odds he somehow wins.

Then he goes to a theater and gets shot by John Wilkes Booth. The General or Major what's-his-face (I can't remember for the life of me. Hawthorne maybe?), who was with Lincoln that day, gets up and tries to take down Booth, to which he is stabbed. Then Booth leaves the stabbed General or Major and prepares to jump onto the stage. But the by now wounded beyond reason General or Major gets up and grabs Booth's boot as he jumps. He has those Cowboy style spinny things on his boots, which get caught on a flag. He falls onto the stage and breaks his ankle. But he gets away due to the confusion in the Theater. The Military tracks Booth down and kill him while he is trapped in a tobacco barn.

Tis' what we learned during the last 4 weeks of the first quarter of Homeschooling. Since we've gotten back from Lake Shelbyville to be precise. On Monday we are going back to the Thirteen Colonies/Near-Revolutionary War era in U.S. History and also doing studies of the Medieval times. Anyhow, we went to Springfield with our Gma and Gpa Houpt to this awesome Museum with it's awesome exhibits. Like the hologrammed but looking very realistic "Ghosts in the Library," or the cool movie theater or the Lincoln's Cabin clone exhibit, or the White House Exhibit. Oh, that's all of them. Wow. And they were cool too. As you can see below, Anderson decided he was John Wilkes Booth's Little Sidekick.

So we went to eat lunch at Lincoln's burial site. Apparently the site just down the hill where Lincoln was for a few years before they actually completed the current tomb was planned to be robbed a while back. It was low security too...just a gate to protect Lincoln's coffin.

Now for a small sidestory...it's American History in itself. Until our trip, Anderson was always somewhat gloomy (as seen above,) because his opportunity to touch the Statue of Lincoln's Nose outside his burial site had been stolen when some of his misbehaving classmates had caused the SpringFieldTrip to be canceled. That was quite a few years ago. Well, he got to touch it this time. Now his life is fulfilled, and he has acquired the LLTTFBMLIF ailment. (The LLTTFBMLIF ailment is something that makes you think and say "Live life to the fullest because my life is fulfilled.")

After lunch we went to New Salem to see the small town Lincoln lived in before he became a legislator. It was cool. There were cool horses and some cool but wierd horse/some other horse related animal mixbreeds and there were cool sheep that those uncool Public Schoolers (boo!) were aggrivating. And there were cool cabins with cool things telling you there cool history. Everything there except for the uncool Public Schoolers (boo!) was cool.

The Springfield/New Salem Part of this Post is Over.

Congratulations! (Yet again) You have finished this post! I commend you! (Yet again)

Stay Tuned

Don't stop checking my blog! I'm working on a LONG post that covers the last 5 weeks, maybe 6 or 7 if I don't type fast enough. So keep checking!

Finally, an advancement!

I have moved from Blogger to Blogger Beta. It is here, my new blog which none of you were thinking was ever going to happen. For newcomers, welcome and beware! The Wierd Factor X-19 has made residence in this very blog! But, thanks for visiting anyways. I'm leaving for vacation today, gotta scram! Be back on Thursday!