The Youth Unite: Deanna

Deanna will be the beautiful dark haired girl sitting at the piano playing heart-melting music. You will see her as realistic, and normal. You will be deceived. Deanna has a lot of quirky tricks up her sleeve as well, only hers are unexpected. First thing you will notice of her is that she is cold. All. The. Time. There is almost never a time in your life where you will see her warm. This is why in 90 degree whether, she will be wearing a sweater. If you ever eat with her you will experience once again, an unexpected quirk. You can find Deanna mixing the strangest food together. Of the sorts, she adores chocolate milk on almost everything, including lasagna, and on top of that she will put ranch. Her favorite food is probably bananas in a bowl of chocolate milk. Wow. She is also allergic to everthing, including grass. I am 100% serious about that. Her last quality is that she doesn't speak during fellowship. Not that she doesn't fellowship with us, it's just she developed of habit of silence during this time. We think it has to do with childhood tramatic experience, but that is still undecided.
Deanna is also a great ministry example. Deanna has always shown something great has innocence. You can look at anything she does and it is innocent. She is always helpful when it comes to taking care of her mom and everyone else in the church. But as well as that she is careful to not throw herself into sinful or tempting situations. She does as the Bible says and flees from sin. Her greatest compliment is that she knows the scripture well. She always is reading everyday and she knows references and verses. Her goal is probably to memorize the whole Bible someday. I believe she could do it. How inspirational?

The Youth Unite: Toby

Toby is another one of my strange brothers. I hope you meet him someday because he truly is a show to watch. Toby is the kind of person who would get sucked into the Dungeons & Dragons world because he loves the idea of chainmail and weapons. He's with Levi on the whole "duct taped weaponry." It all confuses me. I can also see him obsessing over cats... a lot. I don't know why? When you talk to him for the first time you may laugh a little because of his "accent." It just doesn't match his appearance at all. But that's not all that is unexpecting. I suspect he may be going deaf as he has a tendency to speak MUCH LOUDER THAN IS NEEDED. And if you think that's loud you should hear his laugh. He could silence a marching band.
But I digress, Toby has some amazing qualities about him as well. Toby has obsessions about reading the word too. His mind complexes me too, because he has the stranges bizarre and complicating theology I could ever imagine. I like how he challenges you to think about a subject a lot. He also backs up a lot of his arguments with scripture. He shows a great deal of knowledge of the scripture and it shows some good qualities for him. He's now a care-free adult who I believe is ready to tackle the earth, with a scream like a war cry. So there is my friend Toby for you. I hope you enjoy him.

A Photographer's Troubles

I am having the most troubling time with my photography research project. I have found extensive research from a variety of photographers on opinions, techniques, tips, guides. They have discussed everthing from the kind of film to how imaging works. I can't believe how many different fields of photography there are.
I found a lot about imaging and changing your photograph online to make it seem something a lot more unrealistic but with more collage and variety to it. I don't think I want to go into this because I am more fascinated with the original photography and all these new techniques dealing with the computer are not ideas that I want to explore right yet.
The second thing I found, and that I already knew, was that there is a very scientific side to photography and that side is closely linked. (Funny how scince and art are so much in sync with photography.) I found a scientist who has PhD in science and has studied photography as well and I think he has a great website explaining how good photos are made using a scientific structure. This sounds interesting to me but it also takes a little away from the beauty of it as an art form, so I wonder of how much of it do I include if I include it at all.
However there are a lot of things that I am interested in that I found. The first thing is this photographer named David Julian. I read an interview with him and I looked at his site and he has a great array of photos and I love how he thinks of photography. I definately want to include the essence of what Photography is in my paper. Maybe that is what it will be.
I also liked reading this article from Dan Smith about darkrooms and how they work as well. He wasn't scientifical and he offers greate advice on beginner and advanced photographers. I've only read one of his articles but I'm anxious to read more.
Of course I had to visit the national geographic website and see what they had to say. (Photographing for NatGeo is my dream job.) They had a good article about digital photography which is almost inevitable if I want to talk about photography essence, even though I prefer manual film cameras.
Just recently I typed in the types of photography in google and I got a lot of results. That may be another option as I move on, although I am not nearly as interested.
I've already talked about Varp and Photo.net as two of my favorite. Varp suggested some books that I want to get a hold of and I would love to read a lot more on Photo.net. They both seem to have a lot to say about both the spirit of photography, if you will, and about the improvement and learning about pictures. Of course, I have already learned that the best way to learn is to just take a lot of pictures. I want to do that. If only I had a camera. Well, as I am still very undecided all I can do now is allow my audience, if I have one, to give your comment. Please, I'm desperate.

The Youth Unite: Levi

I come from a pretty strange familiy but it's a huge one. In fact God talks about that a lot. I have a huge family all over the world because, unlike most western culture people, I have my roots dug deep into something that puts me in a family all over the world. In Psalm 68:6 David said that God puts the lonely in families. Isn't that great?

Well anyways, I was specifically talking about my youth group at church. We're the strangest bunch that I think I could ever get into, and I love every one of them. I can't understand how a group of youth would try it's hand at trying to be so strange as to scare our visitors off, but then I guess that filters out the squemish and the weak. Let me show my youth group.
First there is Levi. Levi likes to be as loud as possible sometimes and he likes to try and be one of us. You know he gets himself into so many things like duck taped weapons and black fingernail polish.

He's actually graduated and he's our game leader but it's really that he never wants to leave youth group. Sometimes though his ideas are too crazy and can get us into a little too much danger. That's why we have adult leaders who help us stay out of that. He's fun to hang out with but you have to keep under control otherwise you'll find him with black hair and a sequin vest, or even worse he'll be without a shirt with a bowtie doing some strange dance. But don't worry. As long as you keep in line he's harmless. Harmless as a hamster.
There is one thing to beware though. He has an aweful habit of growing disgusting facial hair. Be warned it is gruesome and hideous. But we still love him. Well that was Levi. Next blog I will say more about others in Youth Group so be prepared.

Magical Kittens Pt.2

Back in the magical land of the magical rainforest where the magical kittens were spawned, the magical kittens threw a magical party because the magical wizard was pwned. Now the magical fairies that had sided with the magical wizard had magically sided with the kittens. So they threw the magical party and in the middle of this fiesta the magical pixies came to magically break it up. They said to the magical kittens, "We r 1337. U ez noobs. DIE." Now the magical kittens new the power of the magical pixies. They could magically conjure magical armies of tomatoes and squash to magically trample all over the magical rainforest. So the magical kittens decided to turn to their magical fairies. The magical fairies tried to magically create a magical oven to cook the magical armies of the magical pixies, but they didn't have enough magical power points to buy the magical oven from non-magical banker. So the magical pixies pwned the magical fairies and the magical fairies magically became extinct. So the magical kittens made a magical potion to create a magical dimension to summon a magical ogre with magical powers to destroy the magical pixies. So then he magically succeeded to pwn one, and then he magically poofed due to the automatic-magical poof effect, which is not covered in magical ogre physics books. Then the magical kittens combined their magical powers to make a magical super kittenby the name of "Super Magical Baby Kitten." But the magical Baby kitten was too afraid of the magical pixies and she magically poofed away home. (Until another day.) Now the magical kittens were being magically cornered in the corner of the magical rainforest on the magical world of Cigam. Then the magical kittens made a magical octopus and he magiaclly sucked up the magical poof power of the magical fairies. Which made him into a super magical octupus with super magical poofing powers. Then he poofed the pixies into a magical poof-proof jar...and he ate the jar. This caused a magical chain reaction again which magically poofed the octupus away too. (Until another day after the first.) So the magical kittens lived happily ever after for a while.

Failure Is Success

You know what the most relieving thing is...Failure. You know when you fail its amazing feeling that you just can not get enough of. Some people are going to give the the cliche remark about "Success is 99% Failure" and then you will have a restored sense of yourself. No, I'm telling you that Failure is a good thing when it means your best isn't good enough and it never will be. Failure gives you the chance to give up, stop trying, and belittle yourself in front of your friends. Its a great product that could be yours for only $699.95 plus shipping & handling which is an additional $599.95. (What? It's hard to ship something that isn't tangible, it doesn't stay in the box.) With Failure you will be able to fail school, drop out, and become a telemarketer for the future McDonalds businessman. And then Failure doesn't die then, you will fail at this too, and be forced out of your home and into the streets where you will get the chance in a lifetime offer to live with the androgenous hobo people. And then the Failure's side effects will kick in and you will gain a huge sense of depression, crisis, and boredom. If you are the luckiest of the bunch you may even tap into the sacred Failure side effect of suicidal. These blessed individuals will go through a special period of attempted suicides, and failure will show up every time to bestow it's powers upon the suicidal. So don't wait another second, get your Failure today.

Photo Giraffe E

Wow. I found a really neat site that had a lot of photography stuff on it. It teaches a lot of techniques and goes over everything basic to the really hard stuff. I went to learn about composition and it reminded me about a lot of the basic techniques I did in my first photography class. They were things like natural framing, rule of thirds, curvy lines and lots more. I also explored the darkroom part of the site, which is my favorite part about photography, developing. Of course I had to see some of the site's own photos so I took a visit the gallery. Some of the photos here were pretty dull and boring, but this guy had some really neat lighting.

I really liked the second site a lot. It was called varp. The author of this particular article had a really good lesson about basic photogrphy, and general photography, plus the anecdote at the beginning was really good. I also really liked the photos he/she used because I like the idea of black and white with one color. It doesn't surprise me that photography is more than just an art form. Photography has a really scientific side. In fact, I think photography has the strongest connection between art and science. When I was rick-rolled to this photozone site it had a technique part that explained a lot of scientific and confusing ways to make better photos. I think I'll have to bring that up too. This will be a very interesting essay.

Update 3/20: This guys site is really good too. David Julian.com

Magic Kittens

Once upon a time there was a magical rainforest, with magical trees. In the magical rainforest the magical trees spawned magical kittens with battle rifles. The magical kittens shot noobs all day and had a great time. One day the magical wizard from the magical tower off to the side got a magical tactical twelve guage and decided to go pwning some magical kittens. The magical kittens got all frightened to turned to their magical butterfly friends who said. Unfortunately the magical fairies had sided with the wizard and casted a magical spell to pwn the magical rifles of the magical kittens. Then the magical kittens combined their magical powers and caused a huge magical explosion that carried the magical rainforest off. But the magical wizard collected the fitey magical power wands and magically transported them back home where he could not-so-magically pwn them. Now the magical kittens were really frightened which caused a magical reaction and all the magical forces around them made a magical forcefield shutting out the magical wizard. But the magical wizard had a magical nade that destroyed it. Finally the magical kittens were fed up with the magical wizard and they made a plan to pwn him. The cutest of the bunch went out to distract the wizard. While the wizard was busy petting the magical kitten another magical kitten would get out a sniper rifle and pwn him. Then the magical kittens declared that Caturday.

Murder In The Hallway

Today in Dr. Bird’s high school transition session we will be talking about the most dangerous thing to your entire high school life. Population inflation. As you go through high school you will find that the number of students navigating the hall during passing time seems to exponentially increase, and yet the school building and parking lot only seem to deteriorate and decrease in size. This causes a problem in the physical routing of several students and we are faced with a problem with accidents in the halls and lots.
First of all you will have to learn that two thousand people CAN fit in one small building and they will everyday, so get used to it. There is no way we can deport half of them. A key way to navigate the hallways is to avoid the front foyer at all times. This is a hazard point as it is the main passageway for most students and the main standing area for circles and cliques. Here is the second rule of thumb, never stop. If the person in front of you starts to stop push them out of the way. It’s survival of the fittest, loser gets eaten, dog eat dog world in the halls. Some people will get hurt badly during the years at school, but don’t let you be one of them. Stopping points can include vending machines, lockers, and classrooms as they are off to the side and out of the way of traffic.
Parking lots can be just as much of a problem and also must be navigated and routed out carefully. It is important to get at school as early is possible. This means about 40 minutes before your first hour no matter when that is. When driving through the lot, do not be surprised if you find yourself all of a sudden in a drag race with people heading for the same row of cars. Secondly, since parking is perfectly horizontal be smart and make the big turn to get in there well. If you are walking through the lot be especially careful not to get run over by speeding cars and racing teachers as they get to there designated lot behind the school. Warning: you may be a target by some teachers.
The third population problem we will discuss is the lunchroom. It is highly advised to stay at school during lunch as getting to and from someplace to eat for lunch is very difficult. Lunch at school may be frustrating but it is far more practical. During lunch you must rush there as fast as possible or take your sweet time, but do not casually get there because the rush will beat you and the “cutters” will make getting through any line impossibly long. During the nice months I encourage you to take advantage of the outside and sit under a tree. Quite possibly you will be enlightened and you will start writing better advice than I can. Hope you enjoyed this session.

You Will Die Here

What makes this so scary? Could it be the thousands of other students bumping into you like a pinball game? Could it be the adult seniors looking down on you as just a "stupid freshman?" Could it be impossibly hard classes that destroy your life (if you had one)? Could it be the eight feet tall jocks who you couldn't see over if you had stilts? Anyone of these things could cause the post-trauma anxiety and therapy that sometimes comes with the transition into high school.

Well, Dr.Bird is here to tell you that you have no worries. Contrary to this title you will not die. You may be brutally injured, but that's not a problem, is it? I understand that this will be a scary time of your life, but we have lots of advice to answer all of your questions. Today's topics include:teachers, seniors, getting involved, and work load.

First of all we need to talk about the teachers. Now that you are maturing, hopefully, as an adult your teachers are going to look at you differently and you need to adjust. They no longer babysit you and hassle you over every little assignment. When it comes to your work, you do it or get a bad grade. Teachers no longer care more about your grade than you do. In fact, you could almost consider them your peers. Some freshman will still look up at them as the super heroes and mediators of our every little bit of life, but they aren't. Now, they are just our mentors there to teach us something new. You can treat them almost like friends, but don't get too personal.

Secondly, we want to talk about the uppper classmen. During your stay at high school, you may think that upper classmen will always be hounding you and bullying you because you are smaller. It's not like that at all. Most seniors have matured enough to know how you are feeling and also don't worry about you as much. In fact, they really don't care, in an apathetic sort of way. You may get targeted as being immature though and that is just because it is probably your nature to do stupid things and still act childish. If you want to avoid comments like that behind your back, just try to be a little more respectful and decent, but dont' can your fun side either.

The thing you will probably her most in high school, as the number one advice is get involved. When you're sitting in the homecoming assembly on hard bleachers for two hours, and you're bored half to death, they will ask the seniors for advice for incoming freshman. You will hear approximately sixty times, "get involved." They'll tell you to do as much as possible before you leave high school. Well, that's only partially true. You can't join "Feed the Squirrels" if you hate squirrels, and don't go to games if you don't like the sport (unless you're really spiritful.) You should do a lot in high school but only do things that you're truly interested in. Otherwise, school becomes boring.

The last thing we have to discuss is the most important. In middle school there were a lot of people who got away with doing minimal work and gettting great grades. Not going to happen in the big school. Teachers want to see you learn and progress. You can't think about breezing through high school with great grades. Here you will be pushed right off the bat harder than before (but definately not the hardest) and you will have to step up to the plate and realize that you're going to be challenged. Do the work, learn the material, have fun. You are working in classes you chose so you should want to do the work. High school has to prepare you, and you if you won't let it prepare you, and slack off, you will utterly fail and be one of the sixty billion teenagers who fail school anc become hobos.*

So this has been Dr.Bird's school transition session. Please come back next time when we talk about bomb threats and biology.

Last One Picked- Superchic[k]

*Fictional statistic created for dramatic effect.

Re-Search Th-Is !

For my research project in my Language & Comp. Class I have decided to research photographer's, photographic techniques, and possibly do this in a photographic essay, (if my teacher allows me.) Since the majority of people reading this don't care I have left you here with some amazing photos and a great photographer's website.

Dave Beckerman

Rocketbird Reccomends

god Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchins. This is a book I would definately reccomend for any Christian who is strong in their faith enough to not be shaken. Christopher Hitchens is an author we discussed for our Langauge & Composition class, so I have had only a taste of his work. We read one chapter out of his book and he was a pretty angry man from what I could tell. He tries to dismiss every type of religion (not just Christianity) saying that they are evil. I think that this would be a good book to read for stronger Christians because it gives a good view on the perspective of atheistic intellectuals when it comes to religion (as they would call it.) It's nice to know what is getting argued out there. Acutally, not to dismiss this guy, but what our group told us is that when his teacher told that "God made the grass green so you could have something pretty to look at" that is when he knew that God didn't exist and he devoted much of his life to arguing that point. I think the guy is over exagerating just a little bit. In the chapter I read he said that God had sent His Son to "impress" us. I don't know how someone who has read the Bible can come up with that argument. It's pretty plain to see He did it out of love. Anyways I hope you get a chance to read a little of his work because it would be worth it reading it. But just be warned you are reading the argument of an atheist so don't get caught up in it.

Google Reviews of god Is Not Great