Working For the Haus

This past Monday and continuing until Sunday evening,  I was running the online small business of some family friends. They run a profitable ProStores, eBay, and Amazon business that sells many different types of fans and umbrellas. If you want, you can check them out here for the fan store and here for the umbrella store. Basically their entire garage is full of inventory and boxes and I take orders, package them up, and have them shipped out. It was also fun because I was actually living at their house right now with no one but 2 cats to keep me miserable company. Heh. Great thing to say on a public blog, but who actually reads this blog anyway? Anyway, I had a blast because running it is something you do all throughout the day, but definitely not all day by any means, so I got to hang out and read and they’ve got AT&T U-Verse so it’s pretty nice. I was listening to Dean Koentz’s Phantoms, but after a point, it just got so scary and dark and even demonic for my tastes, so I deleted it. Horror stories and movies really aren’t my thing at all. Another cool thing is having unlimited access to…you guessed it…FOOD! I have always requested Home Run Inn cheese pizzas and I had a mini stock in the freezer (For those of you who don’t know, Home Run Inn pizza is the best frozen pizza you could ever get. It has about 7 ingredients so there aren’t any weird artificial chemicals in it). I also was able to for the first time ever, sleep in a king sized bed. (I figure the qualifier “by myself” is quite unnecessary). The best part was simply being on my own and having absolutely no one to annoy me. It’s like a taste of what my life will be like when I’m older. *Sighs* So wonderful…although there was a subdivision-wide power outage that basically shut everything down for 2 hours. Anyway, I also mowed their grass, which had gotten really long. Problem was, their mower was not self-propelled. Now, I'm no lawnmower wimp, because I mow mine every other week, but ours is at least self-propelled. Combine that with the crazy heat and I was sweating buckets. Oh, I also got to watch some cool TV shows I don't get to watch because we don't have a TV. There were some cool old MeTV episodes of Hogan's Heros, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and others. The History Channel also had some great stuff. So yeah, overall, it was a fantastic time and a great opportunity to catch up on reading and being away from everyone else.

If it’s Worth Doing, it’s Worth Overdoing

A few days ago, my mom mentioned that the fruit drink Fuze was on sale at Jewel for 69 cents a bottle. For unfortunate souls who don’t know about this lovely drink, it’s an all-natural fruit drink that’s low sugar and has a lot of cool different nutrients depending on the flavor you get. And there are flavors galore. I can’t really name any off the top of my head because there are so many and some with odd names, but all the ones I’ve tried so far are amazing. So anyway, my mom, a few siblings and I head over and we buy lots of Fuze. Precisely 28 bottles:

So yeah, I got 5 bottles of my own, the people who came got some, everyone else was allotted 2 free ones, and mom had the rest though anyone could pay her 70 cents to get one. So I’ve gone through a few and one that really stood out was Strawberry Guava. Not only was the taste excellent, the drink also had skim milk in it, so the rich texture was incredible. It sort of reminded me of those drinkable yogurts you could buy, but way better. So if this sale is anywhere near anyone, I would highly recommend stocking up.

Jesus has my Soul, the Republicans have Everything Else…

I love attention-getting titles, don’t you? But then when that’s all they are and the article is just stupid or not really related to the title, then I’m so disappointed. Oh well, this one is kind of true. Volunteering for the Roskam campaign for 3-4 hours a day, 5 days a week (when I don’t have other mandatory obligations, which are few) has really galvanized my love of politics. Going door-to-door, calling people has really allowed me to see the direct interaction side of politics. We hear about the policies in Washington, we see Congressmen on TV, but we don’t often think about all the interns running around the neighborhoods, whether by phone or car.

Another thing has been that I subscribe to and follow a bunch of (mostly) conservative political sights. One of the ones I forgot to mention in a previous post was the Drudge Report (The link is here). This is basically a plain site with text and pictures that captures headlines form a smorgasbord of different websites, all with different topics. The vast majority of the news is about politics and the headlines are usually sort of hyped-up to slam the Democrats. It’s very informative though because it also has foreign relations news and of course, a smidgeon of the most essential celebrity gossip (Like Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston). I think that I’m going to really try to let my political views show more in my high school this upcoming year. I mean, there isn’t too much room for it because a lot of people just don’t care, but I think now the atmosphere might be a bit different because it’s an election year (albeit not a Presidential one) and Golden Boy Obama’s not what many people thought he’d be. It’s actually kind of frustrating to see how many people whose parents generally are more conservative be quite Democrat. Again though, I think this was part of the Obama-effect because DuPage County (and all the usual conservative counties surrounding Chicago) went Democratic in 08. Obama won in our school’s mock election with 63 percent of the vote or something. I just figure it was the “popular thing to do”.

Anyway, I’ve also linked up my GMail account to Youtube (I didn’t know how useful a GMail account was simply for all the other OpenID places you can use it with) and subscribed to a bunch of GOP Congressmen whose ideas I support. Besides my own Congressman, so far I have Jeb Hensarling  whose articulations during the Financial Regulation C-SPAN debates were quite moving and Eric Cantor, the main Republican Whip and also the header of the YouCut initiative. I’ll definitely be adding more as time goes on. But as a note, it’s awesome to watch the short Congressional speeches made by guys like them. They just sound so articulate and line up well with my beliefs. But it’s also cool just to see anyone speaking in Congress. There’s an air to it that’s pregnant with authority and awe.

Another project I am going to be doing is the Republican Illinois Victory campaign, which is this massive calling program that’s there to take advantage of the best Republican chances for victory in IL in a long time (For those of you who don’t know, IL is a very blue state, but it’s mostly because of Chicago and a few other counties near the Mississippi and by the Southern tip). So you can do things like calling from home, which sounds cool to me. It also sounds cool because when I said I wanted to go to a call center, the nearest ones were far away, so they became unviable.

Feedly

Now, I normally don’t devote blog posts to a single program, but sometimes, one comes around that is so useful, it demands blatant advertizing. If you want to check out many of the other programs I’ve personally found to be useful, check out the page on my website  here.

Anyway, Feedly is a Firefox, Chrome, and Safari add-on that is basically a personalized online magazine with all of the RSS feeds you follow (It also tries to add some of it’s own in the beginning to get you started, but you can easily delete or not subscribe to them). So basically, I’ve got all my feeds and articles all in one place. It’s integrated somehow with Google Reader, so if you use that, this is like it and somehow connected to it, but even better. You’ve got a cover page with all the highlights and everything, and you can make “pages” with topics. Like I’ve got one for politics and another for finance. There are also little cool things like a stock ticker that runs from Google Finance. Also, feeds are really easy to integrate into this. In Firefox, depending on the blog, you might have a button on the URL bar that allows you to add it to Feedly with one click. Otherwise, you just hit the subscribe button like normal in Firefox, then go to its properties where you copy the feed URL, and then you just paste it into the “Add source” bar. Feedly also offers a lot of customization, which is always something I like. I wish it could track my email. I only have a Google account for GTalk, Blogger, and Youtube. My main account is Windows Live Hotmail, which I love and will never change from. But I digress….

Devil in the White City

Yes. Yet another book I’m reading. I do that a lot, where I start reading a book and don’t exactly finish it quickly. However, this one is required for AP Language and Composition so I have to read it. But it’s good. I mean, you can’t really tell that it’s nonfiction. Well you kind of can but it’s a wonderfully made book.

Basically, the book is a parallel story set in 1892-3 Chicago, one of the head architect of the Chicago Columbian Exposition, the other of a psychopathic murderer who is obsessed with women and killing them. He also lives in Chicago at the same time. So the story can get really creepy and disturbing at times, but the author’s diction is masterfully woven, just drawing you in. And this occurs more with the murderer’s side of the story. Eerily/funny, the murder has blue eyes, like me; has dark hair, like me; weighs 155 pounds, like me…but is only 5’ 8”. Phew. That was getting scary.

Anyway, I’m in the early hundreds of the book and there’s like 370-400 pages, but it’s a quick read. I’m also annotating it, something I don’t like doing but am realizing that it helps, and SO MUCH with novels where you can write down things you notice like literary elements.

I can also definitely say that I have gained a new appreciation (and disgust) with Chicago. The first skyscraper was there, the massive hog butchering industry was there, but it was also a city of horrible vice, I guess even worse than most other big cities.

 

Completely random thought: Wouldn’t it be funny to wear a shirt that said “I [heart] muscle spasms” and then just to go around walking twitching madly the whole day? It’d be hilarious! It’d also creep out a whole bunch of people.

An Incredible Reagan Speech and Other Political Things

This speech was given in support of Barry Goldwater in his presidential campaign in 1964. This speech is so good because it rings so true today. The advance of government, restrictions of liberty, and other things that we as conservatives are fighting today are almost the same things they were fighting decades ago with the Great Society. And this speech is not only true and relevant, it’s simply masterful. I didn’t realize how excellent of an orator Reagan was and I really almost wish I lived in that time when he was president.

In addition to this, I have either found out about or stumbled across some excellent websites that support conservative (and libertarian) ideals that are fighting this administration and present Congress that’s heck-bent on spending the shirts off Americans. Some of these I found recently, others I had known for a long time.

America Speaking Out This website was created by House Republicans (one of them mine I proudly say) that gives the American people a forum to discuss measures that they themselves make to put America back on the right track, from wasteful spending to national defense, to promoting good values, it really is a great site.

YouCut This website was primarily made by Eric Canter the main GOP Whip is one that’s kind of like America Speaking Out, but it’s main function is more specialized. It’s main thrust is a few spending cut options that voters can vote on, and the one that gets the most votes is actually brought up for a Congressional vote.

The Heritage Foundation The Heritage Foundation is a Conservative think tank that really discusses a lot of things that conservatives should be well-versed in. It’s got some great blogs and great information and insight as to what we should be doing in reaction to what the government is doing. 

The Cato Institute The Cato Institute is also a think tank, but it’s decidedly libertarian in it’s beliefs. As a note, I agree with many things libertarians believe, as they and conservatives agree on many things. However, their views on US foreign policy, drug restriction, and gay rights have left me unable to support some of their ideals. However, the site contains a great deal on making government smaller and limiting spending, and of course, preserving liberty, which I’m all for. As a side note, they have a free eBook called The Cult of the Presidency that’s available for a limited time, so if you’re simply interested in getting free enlightening stuff to read that agrees with your political ideology, then go.

Americans For Prosperity Do I really need to say anything more? It’s basically a bunch of Republicans fired up about taking back our country (or at least the House of Representatives) in November. And who doesn’t want prosperity?

Eagle River Part 3

All right. As of now, I'm on my way home, somewhere in Wisconsin. Just tried out McDonalds' new berry smoothies with coupons we had and they were pretty good. Anyway, Wednesday we went to town and window shopped through all the tourist stores. It was quite boring, especially considering the fact that I didn't bring any money. Basically I read most of the rest of the time, still resentfully wary of any tubing trips. I did go out with an inflatable raft/boat/kayak and suntanned in the middle of the lake while listening to Wheaton College speakers on my iPod. Earlier I had actually kayaked around the lake with it to, and I fell out into the water when I first tried to get in. Thankfully, my Shuffle was clipped to my shirt collar and so was spared from the watery assault. Thursday was more of the same considering reading and iPod listening except that instead of hanging out inside or on the dock, I went out walking. I had a semi-ulterior motive for this as I also wanted to find and photograph deer, nonexistent in the suburbs of my residence but ubiquitous here (that was an awesome sentence...) Because it was midday, I saw only a few deer, including a doe with two fawns. If the deer were alone, they tended to let you get pretty close, keeping still and their eyes locked on you until you got too close. Then they'd lope a short distance away. Once you started stalking them, they would act a bit more skittish.
Friday, we went to Porcupine National Forest in the Michigan UP. In short, it was stunningly gorgeous and as a photographer and explorer, I had a field day. "In long" we went and saw some waterfalls right on a river feeding into Lake Superior, which was about half a mile from our starting point. After going to one waterfall, we went up to another parking lot, then went down the path to the beach. I went up the beach, taking pictures and collecting cool rocks (they were amazing). I then decided to go back upriver on the other side from where we had come, one that had no path. At first, the pseudo-path was okay, as one only had to navigate over numerous dead trees that had fallen over down the hill right near the edge. I was easily able to switch between the upper pat and the rock layers jutting into the river that gave me spectacular views of the river and waterfalls. (Side note, I'll run a slideshow of the trip pictures after I get home, edit them, and upload them to Picasa Web Albums). Later, the trail became non-existent and to get down to the river's edge and back up took some major rock climbing/gymnastics skills. Not exactly but it was really tough and perilous too. Well, I ended up getting to the waterfall I wanted to get shots of and then the trail began to get really  tough and I began to realize that I was taking a lot of time. So I made my way back to the beach, saw no one I knew there and quickly (relatively speaking, because I was exhausted and had done the whole exploration with a full backpack that happened to have rocks from the beach) made my way back to the car. Upon my arrival, I was angrily  informed that I had been waited/searched for for about a half hour. Oops. Anyway, we then went to Lake-In-The-Clouds. Wow. It's basically an overlook with this lake and valley hundreds of feet below. Again, stunning. We then made our way back "home" and some of the younger guys were shooting off fireworks. I later went out looking for deer before dinner. I found a few, but the flash caused their eyes to flash, sort of ruining the picture and it was sort of dark so to not have the flash increased the shutter speed too much. Later after dinner, I worked on making paper airplane carriers for bottle rockets, but the planes had to be released right before they went off; otherwise, the plane would tip down and the rocket would go off, sending the little contraption right into the lake. Well, one later kind of worked, and with another one, I forgot to count and it went off in my hand. No damage to me whatsoever thankfully.
Today, we all got up and cleaned the cabin and got packed. Then we left. Now we're in the car. The end.