Summer 2013 Kickoff

I just graduated from middle school a few days ago, so I have a lot planned for the summer before I get to High School.
I started by inviting my friends to my house to have a vacation party. We do this every single year. We started by playing man hunt, which is basically hide and seek in the dark. After that, we took all of our homework and threw it into the fire. It was all really fun. Half of them slept over and we used my Dad's tent to sleep in the yard. In the morning, we watched an episode of Doctor Who. Its a TV show about an alien time traveler. After the episode, they all went back home.
2 days later, we started getting ready to go to the airport to visit our grandfather in Florida. When we went down to the Westchester Airport, we had to go through security to get to our gate. We waited for the plain for nearly 3 hours to find out that our flight had been cancelled because of the storm that it would have gone through. I was really annoyed about it but I also realized that it could have been a lot worse. We tried again the next day and that time, got our flight. It was almost the middle of the night when we got there, but it was worth it.
The next day, we mostly just went swimming in my grandfathers pool. Maria accidentally dropped her flipper in the water. my mom went to go get it, but she accidentally rammed her nose into the wall. The scrape that it left still hasn't gone away. Besides that, we went to go see the new Man of Steel movie. It was pretty terrible. Right next to the theater was a seafood restaurant. I had a crab sandwich and some fries to go with it.
The Day after that, We went to go see the Star Trek sequel which was a lot better than Man of Steel. We went to a beach after that. I thought it was really cool how the water was so blue. The sand was also almost completely white too.
Today is our second to last day in Florida. So we went down to an arcade that had a go kart track and an arena that was similar to paintball shooting, except the balls were bouncy balls. Maria (my little sister) and I were supposed to shoot 3 10 year old kids.When the game started, the three of them started trying to shoot us, but I kept jumping out into the middle and shooting everywhere. I accidentally got Maria at one point, but she was okay about it. One of them claimed that I got him on his index finger and the other two said that I got them in the face. By the time we got home, it was pouring rain. That was when I started writing this blog.
We have tomorrow before going back home, so I better make that day count.         

Computers Merit Badge and Monopoly Game

My computers merit badge is most likely finished now. I finished it off by telling how copyright laws work and different jobs in computer Technology. I also had to write a letter to my fellow troop member's parents, inviting them to a court of honor. You remember when I showed those graphic organizers of a computer and program on two of my last posts? With my grandfather's help, I made another one that showed a campsite plan for my troop. It was another one of the requirements. I could probably show it on my next post.
In other news, I found something quite embarrassing today. I found that there were at least seven merit badges that i earned last summer, and never sewed them on. I sewed on four of them today. I can show you in this photo.

 The ones that i sewed on are the bottom four. From left, the above ones are painting, reptile and amphibian study, and kayaking. The one below them is geocaching.

Return to Croton

I left my Grandfather's house today. On the way home, my dad took Maria and I to a Greek restaurant to have lunch. When we finally got home, Maria got an idea to get out a table so we could play monopoly on it. After that, we started watching a movie called "The Lost Prince". Tomorrow, we don't have anything big planned. Mom and Dad are going to go to work leaving Maria and I at home to do our duties and other activities. I still have a lot to work on for my computers merit badge, but I believe I could complete it.

A Simple Computer and Program

I said on my last post that I was working on my computers merit badge with my grandfather. Today he helped me make these diagrams of a simple computer (above) and a simple computer program (below). The computer diagram above includes a lot of the parts of a computer. He also told me that the part where you see "Arithmetic Unit" is the part that does all of the math in a computer. I know that software is also part of the computer. Grandpa said that the control held the soft ware. The diagram below is a little harder to understand for me. But I think it shows how an application is run inside a computer.

Computers Merit Badge

While going to my grandfather's house this weekend, we started getting to work on The Computers Merit Badge and he was able to get a picture of an old IBM computer from the 1980s. I was working on a plan for a troop campsite. I used a graphics program that my grandfather uses. I put in one fire pit, five tents and a picnic table. After that, I started using this Blogging site for a requirement. Later, I took a bunch of old and recent photos from scouting and put them into a power point presentation. I believe that the next requirement that I should work on is to write a letter to the parents of my fellow scouts, inviting them to a troop court of honor. A court of honor is a troop ceremony where you are rewarded the badges, medals, etc. that you have earned.

The Arrow of Light

 I found a few pictures from when i crossed the bridge for the arrow of light almost three years ago. I cant believe ho small I was back then! 

 This is a poncho that my dad gave me when i turned 8 years old. Today, there are a lot more patches than there are shown in this picture. I might be able to get a picture of it so that I may blog it on my next post.

Lots of people from Croton and from my family came to view this. My school's assistant principal, the town mayor, the priest from our church, and the scout master that would be in the troop i was crossing over to.

Thomas Edison

I went to my grandfather's house for winter break today. We went to go see Thomas Edison's laboratory and library. When we went to go see the library, I thought it was absolutely amazing! I was told that he usually spent his nights at his library as apposed to his home. It showed that there was a bed for him in the corner of the room.

The strange thing about it was that they displayed different paintings and pictures all over the place. But, where else could they put them, but hanging off the railings?

After the library we went down to his work shops. I could recognize a type writer that he made, but I didn't think It would be shaped like so:

There were also a lot of things that I couldn't even recognize. But I think that this one was some type of message writer:

But that wasn't all that he physically constructed. There were lots of things that he powered with his motors and belts.

Last, we went down to his chemistry lab. It showed all of the toxic chemicals that he used in his experiments. When the place was turned into a tourist attraction, they apparently cleaned off all of the ash that was on the walls. But to show us the comparison of how it looks today to how it looked back then, they left a square of dirt and dust on the wall.

It reminded me of how people often got sick in coalmines. I asked our tour guide if he ever got sick, but he said that he did not spend much of his time in the lab. Therefore, he did not get sick at all.
Taking this trip taught me a lot about how he changed society and the technology that we have today.