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.

Eagle River Part 2

All right. It's Wednesday, just about the midpoint of this Eagle River vacation. Let's see, the rest of Tuesday I pretty much hung out, finishing up my audiobook and reading more of History of American Political Theory. I've finished up my 60 hours of Summer reading for the Wheaton Public Library which will net me a free taco at Chipotle. There are other rewards for 20 and 40 and I still have a couple gift cards that I've saved. ::Cough cough:: Anyway, part of the reason for this was that it was either raining or threatening rain the entire day and evening. As a matter of fact, that evening, there was a gigantic thunderstorm all that late evening and night. That has actually happened all three times we've been up here. I must say, Eagle River has provided me with a fantastic opportunity to catch up on a lot of college lectures. Right now I'm going through some of Wheaton College's speaking sessions. This one Indian speaker D'Souza Dinesh or something like that. Anyway, he was talking a lot about combating the New Atheism and made some very excellent points that I added to my intellectual arsenal. He brought up some things that I had never heard about from anyone else before, like the fact that every single physical law of the universe (speed of light, gravity, rate of expansion of the universe, etc) has to be absolutely exact or else the universe as we know it would simply not exist. There were other cool facts to. He was saying that his talks are aimed differently for different audiences. He said that for Christians, he wants to encourage them in their faith, to agnostics or seekers he wants to show them that there is evidence and maybe think twice about disbelief in God, and for often arrogant undergraduate atheists, he wants to give them an "intellectual horsewhipping" which I thought was beautifully hilarious. As much as I really liked the guy, he also held a position in strong support of God-directed evolution and how the earth was 5.5 billion and change years old. I guess that shows how sheltered I've been because I thought a belief in a literal 6 day creation was much more ubiquitous among strong" Christians that it actually seems to be. I'll delve into my beliefs on that in more detail at some point in the near future. Maybe I'll type a draft of it on my laptop and post in when I get home...hmm. Now there's an idea...Anyway, today I listened and read more, kayaked a bit more (and got really sunburned on my lower arms and curiously right above my knees too) and...went tubing. This time however, they went too fast and crazy and really ticked me off because I was telling them to slow down. It was less fear of my life and health and more an anger at a blatant disregard of my requests and a feeling of broken trust. So that sort of left me sullen at the world (except my iPod and Palm of course) for a while. Just a few hours ago, we went to a choir concert at a nearby church that was singing old revival songs of the Great Awakening (I believe it was the second). Some of the songs like "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" were familiar and nice, but a lot of the other ones I didn't know and so I sort of felt a disconnect. It was really cool to hear deep men's voices and the ladies sing really high, especially considering the church I've attended all my life doesn't have one. So that brings us up to the present. I'm writing this and will start getting ready for bed soon. Tomorrow will be our last day of water activities as it has been confirmed that we'll be going to Black River Falls in the UP on Friday. So I'm really looking forward to going and getting pictures, especially considering there actually hasn't been much to photograph (maybe I'll explain later in a more all-encompassing post). Well, it's time to scram!

Eagle River Part 1

Well, here I am, in our cabin, at the table, eating shredded wheat and drinking cherry Pepsi while on my dad's Blackberry. And because I'm using email to blogger, you'll have to excuse my spelling. Anyway, we left Wheaton at 8:52 AM and arrived at 3 or 3:30. I can't remember because I wasn't looking at my watch. The trip was uneventful, and I listened to an audiobook (Born to Run) the entire ride there, so I had fun. We got ourselves situated and everyone went to the dock to swim. I hung back and looked for other ways to keep myself busy. Later, we went tubing and I convinced myself to go, simply on the basis that I had done it before and so would not die. Needless to say, I had fun and did not die. We went nice and smoothly, staying in the wake, but we still hit our share of bumps and water jetting into our faces (it was a four seater thing you sit in). Later, some of us tried (and some of us failed) to water ski. I was in both categories, but I applauded myself for trying. I had a lot of trouble getting my skis on and was getting really cold, so I only tried once. I'm probably going to try later this week (we'll be here until Saturday morning). We also had some excellent pizzas made for us, though the cheese fell off way to easily. Later, we made s'mores with gigantic marshmallows and they were awesome. After that, retreated back to the cabin and continued listening to my story late into the night. Even after I turned it off it took a long time to get to bed, but that's normal for first night's sleep anywhere new. So that brings us to the present, where I will now relax and listen to my story more until it warms up more and we actually know what we're doing today. Apparently, we might go to Lake Superior later in the week, so that should be a blast.

Dupage County Demolition Derby

Today (Sunday) I went to my first-ever demolition derby. After I got home from church I rode my bike to the fairground and for about an hour I was…not overwhelmed. Now mind you, to see old cars with straight-pipe exhausts straight from the engines scream their engines wildly while spinning their tires in mud and smash into each other is fun. The only problem was, the track, or pit really, was really small. I was expecting something with more speed, but then again, if it was faster, people would have a much greater risk of injury. But anyway, aside from that, the derby was pretty cool. I took mostly video after the first heat (Which by the way was a qualifier as the finals are tonight, but I knew it’d be way better for pictures in bright daylight) and my goodness, I’m glad my camera captured even a smidgeon of the noise those “cars” made. Wow. There’s nothing that gets my blood pumping like hearing that melodious roar of a floored accelerator. It’s just…awesome. Anyway, here are some pictures. And yes, some of the cars seem to be standing still, but sometimes it’s just fast daylight shutter speed. And to mix things up and to get some better action shots, I’m throwing in some video screenshots.

 

Four Minutes, Nine Seconds

That is how long it took me to drink 64 ounces of orange juice.

 

After once seeing in the newspaper years ago about one columnist’s attempt at drinking a gallon of milk in under one hour, I had always wanted to try it. Over a year ago, I actually tried. I drank most of it, but the last half hour was me mostly laying on my desk groaning in pain. Needless to say, I failed. But I’ve always been able to drink large quantities of juice, and I love orange juice, so I figured half a gallon would be a more reachable goal. So today, my dad and I were at Aldi getting some juice for my younger siblings as a treat because some of my other siblings were with my mom at a concert. So I happened to spot the orange juice and when I brought it up to him, my dad was like “Go for it.” Well how could I resist? So I had only 2 pieces of pizza for dinner and drank nothing else until 8:43. Then, it was time. I set up my camera in the basement on top of the washing machine and pulled out the OJ, ripped the cap off, shook it, and started chugging. I made sure not to try to drink it all in 3 chugs, because that’s completely impossible, so I lowered the increments and made sure to burp as often as possible to keep the air out of my stomach. Eventually as the level got low, the pain in my stomach increased significantly and subsequently my chugging capacity fell, but I was still going. I eventually finished it and went upstairs, my stomach feeling like, well that it was about to explode with half a gallon of orange juice in it. I was in pain for over an hour and just laid on the couch, feeling ridiculously proud of myself. My mom of course thought the whole idea was stupid, but that’s okay. Guys need to push to see their limits and sometimes girls don’t have that streak in them (Not saying it’s everyone of course). My dad was proud that I did it and he was like “I’m glad you felt pain.” Quite honestly it wouldn’t have felt so cool if I wasn’t hurting so badly. So now that I know that my limits are somewhere between drinking a gallon of milk in an hour and a half gallon of orange juice in 4 1/6 minutes. I think it might be a while before I find that middle ground…

Oh, something that I meant to put on this but forgot to do is to do a rundown of the nutrients one ingests from a whole carton of orange juice, so here it is:

Calories: 880

Sodium: 120mg

Potassium: 3,360mg

Carbohydrates: 224g

Sugar: 192g

Protein: 8g

Daily Value Vitamin C: 800%

DV Calcium: 16%

So yes, that’s a lot of calories and sugar. Kind of…

Psychology?

I recall one Winter night this past year being in a Barnes and Noble bookstore (or Border’s, whatever) and noticing a psychology section. I like psychology so I was immediately drawn to it. And then immediately repulsed. A quick scan of the small section revealed titles with an overwhelmingly sexual nature to them. I was quite disappointed and needless to say got The Republic by Plato instead (Though I haven’t read it yet…). Anyway, I was on Mobipocket.com which is actually a pretty fantastic eBook place, but I use it mostly because of all the Palm syncable content they have on it. My eyes scanning through all the sections stumbled upon, you guessed it, psychology. And once again, I was disappointed. Here are the “Top titles” from said section:

1. The Pickup Artist: The New and Improved Art of Seduction
2. Hypnosis and the Science of Seduction
3. The Secret Language of Hypnotherapy
4. Controlling People
5. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness
6. The Sociopath Next Door
7. How to Win Any Argument

Wow. Psychology? Maybe. Selling sex, self, and pride? Definitely. (Side note: Controlling people is a book on people who are controlling and not a how-to-control-people book, though that would be comical if it was…) So there you have it. This is what psychology is to the modern reader. I guess the works of the great psychologists and actual books on psychology don’t sell well. This is a great indicator of what our society is focused on…comforting thought…

Defense Weapon Idea

You read the title. “Huh?” Yeah, this is why the blog is called “The random thoughts…” With emphasis on the random. Anyway, it’s always nice to have a source of defense at all times, for aggressive dogs or muggers (Though I haven’t heard of a passive or even assertive mugger). But it’s also nice to do that without killing or severely wounding them simply for your conscious’s sake. So, here’s an idea: A compact strobe light. Basically, it’s going to be a handheld device that when activated, rapidly blasts superbright flashes of light in the face of any would-be attacker, causing their sense of sight and balance to be completely screwed up for at least 10 seconds, allowing you to make a quick getaway. And when you think about it, all you need is to modify a flashlight by loading it with higher voltage batteries, higher quality bulbs and mirrors and a bunch of capacitors (Devices that store electricity and are designed for quick release of it like an ordinary camera flash). So if anyone thinks of a way to actually build it, we can patent it, split the profits, and retire in Barbados. Another upside of this device is that it could be used against multiple targets. Unless you’re really experienced with guns, it’s hard to shoot three people quickly enough before they jump you, and with knives it’s even slower. But all you have to do is just point this sucker at the whole party and let it rip. Now something that might be going through your mind is “Well if it’s a light device, it won’t work during the day!” My response being “If someone’s mugging you in broad daylight, I suggest moving out of Tijuana or Kabul.” In all seriousness though, the lights would have to be powerful enough to even work in the light, which is quite possible. When you think about how some people react to camera flashes in pretty-well-lit rooms, think 3-4 times as powerful and 10 pulses a second. Another possibility is range, which might be limited, but unless they’re really stupid, muggers aren’t exactly going to hail you from across the street before beginning their assault. Lastly, the battery life on this won’t be much at all, and back to normal references, think of how long your camera battery lasts when you use the flash a lot. This is going to drain batteries like no tomorrow but unless you’re planning on being assaulted more than 3 times in one day, that should be no problem. If you are, I against suggest moving…So yeah, if anyone has already stumbled upon something like this let me know.