Word Up

-Edit- So... there's some funky ads at the top of my blog. That's sorta hilarious. Yay for adwords. Sorta off the wall though.... So... let's see if we can rock the vote eh? DDR. Dance Dance Revolution. I'm looking for cheap Dance Dance revolution pads. Maybe for the PS2, or for the Xbox? I want a sturdy pad that will hold up. How about one for cheap? Free shipping? Score! -End edit-

No excuses. No time for them. No drawn out introductions. It's 11:05, and I've got to write something, mostly because I want to. So, here they are, the top two stories from Christopher Thatcher's week.

You know what? No. I just wrote a bunch of hud. It's not even good. It's a long drawn out story that doesn't need to be long, or drawn out. In fact, it can be pretty short. Here's the condensed version, take it or leave it. The big version is underneath it, but you can really ignore it. I left it unfinished. Here's the real version:

Yesterday was a tri-meet, and I was prepared to dominate. I really wanted to run super fast, and beat my old record. My old record was 5.22, and I set that in 9th grade. It's embarassing that I hadn't beat it yet, but hey, whatever.

Yesterday was the perfect day for a meet. School went well, and the weather was beautiful. Nothing stood in my way. I was going to break that record with a fierce fury.

The race started, and I went out strong. Everything felt great, systems were go. The race went just normal until the last lap. Coming in to the last lap, I was in 4th place. There was a guy ahead of me, but I knew that If I tried really really hard, I could catch him. He was definitely within reach, but it wouldn't be easy. It's hard to judge sometimes what we are capable of. Sometimes we never know what we truly are able to do until we go as far as we can go, and then we fail. Often, we never really do make that breaking point.

Well, philosophical questions aside, I knew that I could catch this guy. He had a decent lead on me, but I'm tenacious. I picked it up for that last lap, and so did he. It was a footrace, and I was gaining on him little by little. He was ahead of me all the way down to the last 200 meters. Entering the curve by the flagpoles, I picked up into my end race pseudo-sprint. It wasn't quite my end race sprint, but it was close, a little warning for him.

He still had me by a couple feet coming into the last 100 meters. I knew now that he knew how desperate the situation was. It's hard to sneak up on somebody in a mile race. If they know that you're coming for them, they're going to do everything that they can to avoid the humiliation of getting passed in the last 100 meters. You've just run 1500 meters, and you do not want to lose all that hard work to some pansy boy that's been behind you the whole time and is about to sprint in to beat you. It's just not something that people want to do. Now, if you can sneak up and pass them without them realizing what you're doing until it's too late, it's great. Nobody randomly speeds up to make sure the imaginary man doesn't pass them. But when they know, they're going to fight you all the way to prevent it.

Now, some ninja runners can sneak up and pass people pretty well. I am not one of those. Imagine a winded rhinocerous trying to sneak into the whitehouse. I'm over here snorting, and breathing like a madman. You could hear my nose whistle all the way in the top row of the bleachers. This guy knew I was right on top of him, and he wasn't going to let me have it.

My pseudo-sprint proved insufficient. He held the lead as we rounded the curve for the last 100 meters. I really considered taking a proud 4th place for a minute. It would be the best place I've ever taken in a meet. There's no shame in 4th.

There's no shame, unless it's go time.

...It was go time.

So I poured it on. I left it all on the track. He was there, and I was there, and I took him. I don't know this guy's name, I don't remember what school he's from, and I've got no idea if his neckbeard was cooler than mine or not. The mystery man was sprinting it in, leaving it on the track, and I was too. I passed him with 60 meters left in the race. I was up on my toes, arms pumping, knees high, everything burning. As I passed, I knew it wasn't over. He would fight me all the way to the end, and fight he did.

It all happened in the span of 20 seconds. In those 20 seconds, I had to figure out if it really was possible. I had to figure out if I was willing to attempt the insane, and push my body that much harder. It was go time, and I went.

I crossed the line, knowing full well that I had just taken 3rd place. I give my sticker to Ms. Ward, and then find out my time. 5:03.

A new personal best.

That's right, I smashed my old record by 19 seconds, and got 3rd place. I really shouldn't have gotten third... Clements wasn't running, neither was whiting. Both of whom would have smashed me. But ya know what? I don't care. I'm crazy happy to limp off the track with a 3rd place and a new record.

Region is coming up this wednesday, and I'm gonna break 5 minutes. No battle.

So, I got 3rd in the 3200 too. That was a good race. But what can you say about 8 laps? You run it, and you try to pass people. You try to run faster than they do, so you can get to the finish line before they do. It's a nice race ,I finally enjoy it. I pushed it, and I got 3rd. I am very happy about my performance.

So, that's my track story. 5:03. I love track.

The following is very long, pointless, and quite boring. I encourage you to read it only if you are ready to hear something very redundant, overly dramatic, and quite fruity. It's all yours if you want. if you don't, well. Go find out who is Brandon Hu. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read the post underneath this)

Jason Liu has already found out who Brandon Hu is. I will release the first hint today.

Brandon Hu is a very important person. What was his impact on the history of the world?


Begin Drivel~
Yesterday was a tri-meet. Like I've said before, tri-meets are alot of fun. Very few schools there, it's small, it's fast, and it's fun. The weather was absolutely beautiful. The sun was up, there wasn't too much wind, the temperature was beautiful, and there wasn't any precipitation anywhere except my armpits. In short, it was the perfect meet.

All day I had been excited for it. I woke up, and thought to myself, "You are going to dominate today." All day I was waiting for my chance to go out there, and really see what I am now.

See, the sad truth is, I ran a 5.22.25 mile in 9th grade at the district meet. That was a killer time for me, way faster than I had ever run before. I was super excited about it. Well, I hadn't ever been able to beat that time. All through cross country I never timed a mile. All during indoor track I was a slacker and didn't try my hardest. At the Jordan meet, it was super super cold and wet, so I know I didn't run my best. I haven't been able to run too many miles this year that were timed. I was still a sophomore that wasn't as fast as his freshman forebearer.

So, that's been embarassing the whole year, but I was ready to change things. There was nothing standing in my way. I was going to go out there, and run my best race. I was going to put it all on the line, and then come back and see what magical numbers my efforts produced. It was all about ME. I wasn't running for the team, I was running to find out what I really am capable of. To find out if I really was a pansy boy who couldn't match last year, or to find out if this whole track bit really was worth anything. I just had to know, otherwise I was wasting my time.

It's go time. The girls are running their mile, and I'm getting suited up. My mom had bought me new socks the day previous. They were way thick, but super comfy. I like them alot. They're really tight, so I can have my fruitsnacks in there, and they won't slide down on me and cut me. So, I've got my sweet shorts on, and I'm trying to squeeze my foot into Trevor's spikes. See, Whiting is a stud. He's got two pair of spikes, one pair for distance, and one for sprints. He wasn't using his distance spikes, so he let me borrow them again. So, I squeeze my feet in there, and I'm feeling pretty good about things. I down some fruitsnacks just for good measure, and get ready to face my destiny.

Girls finish, nothing spectacular to report about that because no T-ville girls run the mile. What's with that? I have no idea, but whatever.

We line up, and things are looking pretty good for me still. No sudden change of weather. No javelin related accidents, just a clean track, a clear sky, and some really, really short shorts.

So, the gun goes off, but I'm sitting here in lane 2 or 3. The way the mile race works is a little different from most races. All the short distance races are staggered. So, the guy running in lane 8 starts way ahead of the guy running in lane one. That's because he's going to run alot longer in lane 8. So, the distances are really all the same, they just look like they're not.

With the mile, you all start on one line, but it's a curvy line. It starts out with the straight finish line for lane one, but the curves out in a gentle arc. So, the guy in lane 8 is standing pretty far ahead of the guy in lane 1. The idea is, the guys in the outside lane have an opportunity to cut in instead of getting owned.

Unforunately, it's sort of a broken system. It gives a huge advantage to the guys way on the outside. No matter what, somebody is going to cut in too soon, making all the inner lane guys slow down to prevent death. So, I was thinking that I'd be safe in lane 3.

And, true enough, I didn't die. But I sure did get cut off and then boxed in.

When you get boxed in in a race, you have a two options. One option is to try and find a way out, and then bust out to the outside lanes, pass the box, then re enter the good lanes. The other, more favored option, is to sit there and slow down and be a pansy boy.

Nobody likes being a pansy boy. I hopped out a few lanes, and proceeded to dominated. I was going sorta fast all the way up until I found myself in 4th or 5th place. I decided that was as good a place as ever to hop back into the real world.

And so there I was, just running. I felt pretty good, my legs were solid underneath me, my breathing was coming pretty easy, and the spikes just made me feel cool, lets face it.

Coming in to the 2nd lap, things were pretty stable. There was one guy that had a pretty good lead, a guy in 2nd that was moderately behind him, and a guy in 3rd moderately behind him too. I was sitting in 5th.

Long story short, I crept up on number 4, and then passed him. Coming into the 4th lap, the 3rd guy was pretty ahead of me, but I knew that I could get him. I knew that if I tried really really hard, he was within reach. I picked it up for the 4th lap, using strength I really don't usually use. He was ahead of me all the way to the very last 100 meters.

~end drivel.

Well, G'night all. I'll write something good soon, I promise. Until then, keep watching the skis.

Who is Brandon Hu?

Today was a very unique and interesting day. Messed with my brain a bit. Someday soon I'll write about it. Right now though, I need to go to bed.

However, I promised a good post. Well, this isn't quite what I was planning on doing, but it's something else that I've wanted to do for a while, so here it is.

With the Paint Competition wrapping up (we're basically waiting for Levi now) I wanted to give you all something to do again. This is perhaps less difficult, or perhaps much more difficult. Some will find this task very easy, others will find it terribly difficult.

Your task, is to find the answer to the question I posed earlier. Who is Brandon Hu?

Brandon Hu can not be found with google or wikipedia, I already checked. Brandon Hu is a mystery man, but someone within reach. When you find out who Brandon Hu is, you will know for sure. There will be no mystery. He won't be found, then wondered whether it's 'the' Brandon Hu. Oh no, when you find him, it will be him.

The first person to email me telling me who Brandon Hu is will recieve the prize. No idea what the prize is, but it's gonna be good.

The rules for this contest are very simple. You can use any means you want to determine who is Brandon Hu. When you find out, email the answer to me, don't leave a comment. If you are stumped, I will release clues periodically.

I would like to remind you all that Brandon Hu is a real person. He is not hidden. You are all very capable of finding out who this real person is. Who is Brandon Hu, and why is he important?

Go my friends, run, and find out.

Adventures in C Minor (finished)

Happy wednesday evening everybody. It's been a crazy long day, and I haven't written for a while, so let's get down to business.

In reality, I don't have any business. Nothing really. No pressing things I gotta talk about. I've got plenty of stories to tell. So, without further ado, it's story time.

We had a track meet today, but it was just a tri-meet. Tri meets are pretty fun, because it's just 3 schools. Sometimes there's 4, but usually just the 3, and it's inter-region play, so it's not too competitive. They only last 4 or 5 hours, and they're generally alot of fun. So, I was looking forward to it. Not too much pressure, and the weather was looking great. I was gonna smash my mile time into the ground, and just dominate.

So, I get my awesome shorts on, and we book it on the bus over to Alta. Our track has really spoiled me. When I show up to a meet I expect a world class track with awesome field stuff and some quality bleachers. Nah, they've got a 6 lane blacktop. Not bad, but not amazing. I don't really mind what I run on, but I sure mind what kind of rake they use on the longjump pit.

I don't long jump. I tried it once, it didn't work. Basically, you run along a little bit of track off to the side of the real track, and then at a certain point you jump, propelling yourself up and forward. You then proceed to land in a big strip of sand. The sand is supposed to be soft and happy and great, but for some reason it never is. So, you run and jump into a bunch of sand, sounds like kicks.

And sure, it is. I'm not sure why, but coach henderson was in charge of the long jump pit today. Why wasn't it some alta guy? No clue, but usually at tri meets we switch jobs around. So, henderson is over there, and he says he needs some people that don't have early races to go help. Since I don't have any races till after the mile, I figure I'll go help.

Screw it all. I'm tired. I didn't get home till 9:00 tonight. I'm finishing this later. Just you try and stop me. Cliffhanger? Nah, that story wasn't going anywhere anyways. I'll finish this tomorrow, of, if not then, later. Yeah, have a nice night y'alls, I'm sleepy.

Alrighty, I'm back. It's now 11:32 Thursday night. I'm a little bit sleepy, but tomorrow is friday, and if there's nothing good up here by then, bad things happen. So, happy times!

Anyways, I'm put in charge of raking this long jump pit. See, when people run and jump in the sand, it gets all screwed up. It's supposed to be a happy level strip of sand, but when somebody jumps in it there's a huge hole where their feet went and a bunch of sand that they pushed. The next person can't exactly jump right into that, that'd be terrible, so I'm supposed to rake it onto nice even action so it's fair and not dangerous and happy.

If you'll notice, alot of emphasis was placed on keeping the sand happy.

Anyways, it was a terrible sand rake. Not even good. It was a one way rake. You could rake it one way all nice and even, but if you tried pulling it back, oh no. You dug holes when you tried to pull it back. Bad things happened when you pulled it towards you. You only get to push, no pulling. Don't even try to pull.

So, with my strategic options cut in half, evening out the sand pit was a daunting task. I however, prevailed. I suceeded in thoroughly dominating that sand pit. That sand now fears me as the greatest sand-leveler ever, even with a crappy rake.

The moral of the story? If you're going to run a long jump pit, be sure to get a good rake. Honestly.

Anyways, the other cool part about the meet. Generally I run the mile. That was my main event back in junior high, and probably my best event. I did alright in the 800, but I was definitely a mile guy. So, that's what I expected to run in high school. Well, either I didn't make that clear enough, or coach just likes to mess with my brain or something, cause I rarely run the mile these days.

I was way excited to run it at the meet though. I was gonna get myself signed up for it no matter what they said. I was gonna smash my time into the ground. My personal best is 5.22. That's great and all for junior high, but in high school that makes me look like a fatkid. So, I was way excited to beat it, and I was confident. The weather was great, my body felt ready to go for it. Don't worry, coach didn't put me in the mile.

I got signed up for the 400 open, the 3200 (that's two miles) and the 4 X 400 relay. You've got to understand here, 400 meters is just one lap around. That's not very far. That's a sprinters race, not a distance race. I guess coach wants me to work my speed or something, but wow, I got tramped. I ran a 59.6, just barely barely under a minute. Not too great, I'll have to work on that.

So, that was a draining race, but I had alot of time to chill out before the 3200 started. I was pretty excited about the two mile though, because I ran a pretty good race last meet, and I was just excited to run today. I don't know what it was, I usually dread meets, but I was so ready, it was gonna be great. So, they do first call for the 3200, then second call, then final call, then final call again, and then a third final call. I don't know what it is about these guys, they did about 3 final calls on each event. It sorta cheapened the whole experience. Final call is supposed to be final call, but it wasn't even close to final call. I was infuriated.

So, we line up, and since we don't have too many people running the 3200, we run the guys and girls together. There's only 4 girls running or so. Whiting was awesome and let me borrow his spikes for the race, and I was pretty excited about that. Spikes are pretty amazing things. They are these tiny tiny shoes that weigh almost nothing, and they've got spikes on the bottom. Like, spiky things, that did into the track, giving you pro traction. They're designed to make you run like a gazelle. You fly with these things on, I don't know what the deal is.

The catch is, they're like 60 bucks a pair, so I've never invested in them before. So, I'm excited to be wearing spikes, and I'm excited to run. We line up at the line, and I look around. Checking out the line, I figure out that I'm probably the biggest guy there. It didn't look like there were any seniors around. There were probably only 15 or 20 people running anyways. Nobody likes the 3200 anyways, so none of the all stars were running.

Now, you've got to understand. Sometimes people do dumb things. Seeing that there were no amazing all stars at the line made me think: "Hey, you've got spikes on. You've got amazing track shorts on. Your hair looks good, and your neckbeard is coming in great considering it's only been 3 days. You can win this race champ."

And so I decided then and there, that I was going to win this race. I was gonna be a mad man. I was determined to anihilate everybody else in that race. It was go time.

Now, aside from not having a good rake, the guys running the meet were short on ammo. About halfway through the meet they ran out of bullets for the start gun. So, the commands were "Runners, on your mark" and then a man shouting "go!". So, we all line up, and I scoot out to the outside of the waterfall, so I'm a tiny bit ahead of everybody else, but on an outside lane.

The guy yells go, and I just sprint out of there like a madman. I'm pretty sure I cut some people off, and for that I apologize. I was just a little too enthusiastic. But anyways, I popped out there in front, and I was definitely in first place coming around the first curve.

Being in first place is a new feeling for me. I'm never in first place. That just doesn't happen, but yesterday it did. I was the man. I was it. It was me. I was in front of EVERYBODY. and good crap, it felt good. With my spikes of death, and the happy sunshine pushing me on, I was running like a graceful giraffe.

Now, I'm not sure why, but every time I passed people from Taylorsville, they'd shout "Good job Thatcher, pace yourself!" This was markedly different from what they usual yell; "Good job Thatcher, push it!" I wasn't sure what the change was all about, but I sort of liked it. I was booking it.

The important thing to remember about a 3200 is that it's 8 laps. That's 4 more laps than a mile.

Graceful Giraffes can only run for 2 and a half laps until they start to want to die.

So yeah, I had 2 and a half laps of glory. I was running so fast, and I felt so good. There was nobody even close, I was ahead and I knew it. I even tried to look like clements as I ran, because he just looks so cool when he's in first place. I like to think that I made a pretty good likeness. For 2 and a half laps, that race was mine.

And then, I sorta died. Yeah, you can only run fast for so long until you remember how much lap 3 hurts. After a couple seconds of that, you remember that you've got 5 more laps to go fatty. By now people are passing you, and you stop caring. You'd love to take first, but it's just not gonna happen. You had your moment to shine, now you're just here to burn some calories.

And so it was, 2 and a half laps. I got 8th place or something. No girls beat me, that was awesome. I learned 2 very important things during that race. Number one, was that when I begin to think that I'm going to win a race, I should probably sit down and take a breather, because there's something wrong, and I'm gonna end up making a fool of myself. Number two was alot more important though, and alot more life altering. Number two, I learned that they really are out to get me.

So, as I'm out there running, and then subsequently shuffling, I realize that there are alot more people yelling for me than usual. I mean, I knew that the spikes were cool and all, but I didn't think they'd make my life that much better. As I passed the skyline coach, he kept giving me advice, encouraging me. The only problem was, his advice was always 5 seconds late.

In fact, everybody's cheers were 5 seconds late. Random people I didn't know kept telling me I was doing great 5 seconds after I ran past them. I didn't know what was up, but I sort of liked it. I mean c'mon, everybody loves fans.

Coming around the 300 curve for lap 5 or 6, an emotional brick hit me in the chest. I could hear a couple guys coming up behind, and I knew they'd pass me sooner or later, but I was going to delay the inevitable as long as possible. I'm just running along, and then the skyline coach, as clear as a bell yells "Thatcher! Make your move now, get around this guy as soon as you're on the straightaway!"

And then it hit me. The skyline coach didn't know my name. He didn't think I was cool. He probably wasn't even jealous of my track shorts like I had assumed. Right then and there, I figured out the saddest thing since my pet cat died.

There was a kid named Thatcher on the skyline team, and he was definitely about to pass me up.

I got beat by somebody with my own name. Somebody who's cheers I had been riding the whole race. Somebody who probably has a better neckbeard than I do.

My life is meaningless.

All kidding aside, wow, that was a shocker. Sort of a hurtful shocker, I'm not gonna lie. There's another Thatcher out there, and he beat the crap out of me.

You know what this means? I've got two options. Train crazy hard so I can beat him next time, or, better yet, kidnap him and assume his identity. If he's got a better neckbeard, I see no reason to keep on being me when I could just as easily go on being him. He runs faster, and c'mon, neckbeard.

So there it is. Neckbeards and track meets.

Life is going pretty good. I'm trying to install solaris on the Annie-computer I got, but I'm not having too much success as of yet. I'll have to work that all out tomorrow, it's getting pretty late. The T-ville invitational is this saturday, and it ought to be pretty good. It's gonna be forever long, but it'll be a fun meet. We'll see some really good athletes, and then we'll see clements beat them at the mile. Hooray!

So, that's all I got folks. The MS paint competition is still going on, if you want to submit anything else. I'm going to close it down soon, I'm basically just waiting for kyle. Thanks to everybody who participated, I'll figure out a way to vote soon.

There's some good stuff on the horizon, just you wait.

Things are looking up, in fact, things are up. Every time I say that they're gonna be good. Well guess what, things are pretty good. Today, things are good. Yeehaw.

Bienvenidos

Happy Day! It's the week of April 17th to April 22nd. That's only a 6 day week. Who knows why.

What's New:
April 17th, 2006:
-4 new pictures in the gallery
-new welcome post

Events for the week:
-Late Start Day Wednesday
-Track meet weds. at Alta
-T-ville Invitational @ Tville Saturday.

Picture of the Week

Yeah, that's my brother. What a stud.


Quote of the Week

"Having a relationship is alot like peeing in a urinal. Great and all, but if you get too close it'll come back and hit you."
-Christopher Thatcher

That's right, the quote is a Christopher Thatcher original. I'm pretty proud of it actually. It's witty, funny, and accurate. Score. If any of you are offended by that, I apologize. It was just too good to pass up.

So, things are pretty good. I'll write tomorrow or something good. Anyways, happy last day of spring break. I'm still accepting paint art, so hurry and finish it up and send it over. Well, Hooray. Till then~

Back, to the Future

It's funny how our surroundings can have such an impact on our inward feelings.

Starting blogs is hard. My blogs are always too long. I'm going to write this whole thing in 15 minutes so it doesn't get too long. Ready, go.

Today is April 13th, 2006. The weather is pretty typical for Spring in Utah. It smells exactly like spring ought to. In the end, it's spring, and the weather is gorgeous. It's not perfect frisbee conditions, but it's still amazing weather.

My feelings are directly tied to the weather. I mean, I'm almost always happy, but the things I want to do are tied to the weather. They say that smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, and I suppose that's true. Weather is tied to my memory a ton, especially the way that the weather smells.

Today has a very unique smell.

Last year about this time, life wasn't so great. Lets face it, things sorta sucked. I'm pretty sure I missed all of spring last year. It's just not there.

That means when I go outside these days, I'm taken back to the past. Not to last year, but to the last time that I really stopped to notice the weather, the end of 8th grade.

You have no idea what sort of impact this is having on me. Everything about me is yearning to go back to April 2004. All I want to do is capture the flag. Welling up from deep within me is the primordal urge to run, dodge, hurdle, and then grab the bandana and book it. It's an undeniable force. It's just what I want to do.

Spring 2004, here's to you. I long to be there. Before I had to worry about stuff. Back in the day when night games meant playing games outside at night. It didn't mean watching a movie, it didn't mean playing catchphrase again. It was exactly what it said. Sometimes I forgot my belt and we had to play halo, and sometimes we had to play a little DDR, but in the end it was good times.

It was the future. It was really the first time I had ever started hanging out with girls outside of school. It was when we started growing up. We were growing up, but not changing. Now everything has changed, everybody has changed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but things are different now. They're not so innocent. Back in the day, it was me and my boys for life. It was always gonna be that way, things were always gonna be great.

Now, maybe things are great, maybe they're not, nobody knows for sure. The real thing though, is that they're not the way I thought they'd be. They're not the way anybody thought they'd be I think. Back in the day, we got a glimpse of what the future could be like. Well, the future is now an alternate, and it's a good alternate, but I can't help wanting to be back, back when the air was clean, the grass was green, and the flag was within my reach.

I know I can't really go back, but my subconcious really wants to. I find myself sitting here, looking at the messenger window, waiting for all my good friends from 2 years ago to get online. It takes a while to remember that I'm 730 days too late.

The weather takes me back to a more innocent time. A peaceful time. I know that life wasn't perfect, and it wasn't any better than it is now. But ya know, just for today, I want to go back.

Here's to you, timeline at the dollar theaters. Here's to you, capture the flag in that circle over there. Here's to you, DDR in robert's basement, and here's to you, my perpetually lost belt. You've served your country well.

Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome. Last updated 12:18 AM, April 13th, 2006

-What's really new: 4-13-06
- New blog is up. "Bright" should be underneath this one.
- Nick sent two more pictures, I'm yet to upload them. Will do tomorrow
- Also Nick news: Nick made some new pages using googles pages deal. check it

-What's New: 4-11-06
-Added 2 more pics to the gallery, changed them to thumbnails so it'll load faster. Score!

Picture of the Week of April 9th-16th

(From left to right... or right to left..) Levi and James Gardner at scout camp.

Do I have permission to post that? Nah. If they complain I'll take it down. I think it's sorta fun.

Quote of the Week:
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
- Plato

Links:

The Gallery: cjthatcher.googlepages.com

Weather forecast: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/UTZ003.php

Nick's uber awesome google pages deal: clarinick.googlepages.com

Bright

Fact: Sitting on pointy things hurt

Fact: Trees are full of pointy things

Fact: Sitting in trees full of pointy things is a terrible, terrible thing to do on a wednesday night.

Every night I run up and down the stairs at least 5 times. I am the most inefficient person alive when it comes to getting ready for school, or getting ready for bed. I just suck at it. I could be ready for school in 20 minutes if I just went about things efficiently. Instead, It takes me forever. Not because I'm one of those "Spend a long time getting ready" for stuff kinda people, but just because I suck at it.

The stairs become my friend. It's very rare that I ever walk up the stairs. I always run up them. It's faster that way, makes me feel cooler, and it's just a better experience all around. For some reason, late at night, when everybody else is getting ready for bed, I'm pretty sure I can fly up the staircase without touching any stairs. Just like, jump at the bottom of the stairs, put one hand forward like superman, and fly up them. I'm not sure wehre this feeling comes from, but one day I'm gonna do it. Hmm, no clue. It'll be fun when it works though. I haven't worked up the courage to actually jump and try it. It's sorta risky. if it doesn't work, I'm definitely gonna make alot of noise, and even more pain. So, it's a gamble, but one of these nights when I'm feeling risky, I'm gonna fly up those stairs.

Oh man, sad story of the day. So, this week I was super excited, cause we were gonna play frisbee this friday. Friday was supposed to be pretty nice weather, a bunch of old folks were gonna be in town, and it was gonna be spring break, you couldn't argue with that. I told everybody at school, and there was a whole lot of people saying "Yeah, I'll be there." I was pretty pumped.

Well, come to find out, the old folks scheduled frisbee for saturday, and not friday. That's definitely not even the right day. That'd be fine and dandy, but saturday is the region dance. I'm torn between two of my favorite things. Frisbee offers physical exertion, sweat, glory, triumph, and honor. Region dance offers girls, and sweat.

So, I think I'll probably end up going to the dance, but if it tanks I'm gonna be flying to that field as fast as I can. There's something about it, you just can't turn it down.

Has anybody else noticed that I just write forever? These things are so long, I can't believe anyone reads them. I go to bed every night feeling crappy because I monopolized so much of you nice peoples' time. Anyways, I'm done for tonight mostly, but I wrote some junk yesterday that I'm gonna toss in with this. I wrote it last night, but didn't post it because I didn't want to overload everybody on posts. So, yeah, here's my shoutout from tuesday night. Go team.

~So, I'm listening to some groovy music right now. I've got Coldplay, Counting Crows, and They Might Be Giants all in one fun playlist. It's sorta crazy, but I'm liking the feel of the mix.

Well, happy tuesday everybody. Today was actually a really good day, but it had its crappy parts. The physics test was this morning, and that was just super easy. C'mon, it's physics. I love physics, it makes so much sense. There are genuine laws that everything operates within unless it's moving really really fast. Since not too many things move that fast, we can use these fun laws to figure stuff out. The great thing about physics is that it's proven. Repeatably, you can figure it out, and it will pan out in the laboratory. This isn't crap that you can't measure accurately. This isn't crap that "ought to turn out like this, but never does unless you've got that special gray labcoat on that I keep locked up on." Physics works. Chemistry doesn't. Chemisty is a bunch of ancient french people trying to make up rules that govern particles that they cannot see, and never will see. To this day we don't see stuff, we just assume it ought to act like this, and it generally does. It's all a bunch of shaky science that keeps getting proved wrong. I'll stick to newton you stupid frenchies.

Anyways, the test wasn't too bad, I got 100, so that's pretty cool. Are you the guy that hit me in the eye?

So, band was 50% great, 50% terrible terrible terrible today. See, in jazz two, I was grooving out like a madman. I was hitting stuff pretty decent, and playing good. It was fun, I enjoyed it. We sounded pretty good, and it was just like "Shabam, look at us go." Then, jazz one comes in, and we transform and start working on concert band crap. I suck with a fiery passion at concert band stuff. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the fact that it's not easy. It's like, different. Trombones don't do cool stuff, we do crappy crap in the background that's crap. In Jazz, we generally do cool stuff in the background. Oh no, this is crappy stuff in the background. Not only that, but alot of it is too low for me and my trombone to hit. When I say that, I don't mean it like "Oh man, I can't hit that note, I need more mad skills," I mean, "Oh man, in order to hit that note my slide needs to be 5 inches longer." Since I'm playing 3rd trombone, and since my ebay pony doesn't have a trigger, I couldn't hit some of the notes. So, I'm sitting here, thinking "Ok, I'll just pretend they're rests, and play the rest!" Sounds great.

The problem with that situation is that I can't play things when they're written normally. When you start making me make my brain change the way I see things, then hop in, it's even harder. When you remember that I'm playing way below the ledger lines, and that I suck even harder than usual down there, bad things start to happen. I was just getting owned. Ridiculously hard.

So basically, it was a traumatic experience.

Then, lunch wasn't halo. Every gold day me, jason, and robert go to robert's house to play halo. We don't do this because we're halo junkies, we do this because we don't have anything better to do. So, we go to 2nd lunch today for various reasons, and that wasn't super cool. Since I never go, I don't have many friends in the lunch. So I sit there with a couple friends and alot of people I don't know, and then I wander around with Jason. Yeah, not very cool, and I feel lame. The highlight of the day was when Jason got two cookies.

So, get to english, and I'm just frustrated, a little irritated, and feeling very much "Ughhhhh..." (that's in levi's voice by the way...) So, all of English bites, but that's ok, I survive somehow without destroying anybody. That was good.

And then we go to the track meet, and I'm all mad still. I don't wanna run, and I'm not nice to anyone. At this point, endorphins start to kick in. I have no idea when it happened, but I got distracted, and then endorphins started pumping, and I'm still smiling.

That's why running is so cool. Because really, I was having a crappy day, for no real reason, I was just feeling like poop. And here I am now, feeling like the day was a great success. I blame the endorphins, the happy weather, and the 3200.

That's right, i got 6th place in the 3200. Now, that's not really a great place. The 3200 isn't run by all that many people, but I still feel pretty good about it. That means only 5 people beat me. One of them was clements, and there's no shame in that one. I figure the other 4 people deserve it. I was really happy with how I ran though. I know I could have pushed a little bit harder coming into those last 3 laps, but it was still cool. I felt pretty good, and passed a bunch of people. It was a good feeling to finally be competing instead of just surviving.

However, let's not get the idea that the track meet was all bunny rabbits and rainbows. Since it was at Taylorsville, we needed people to run the timing stuff. It's a pretty cool device they've got. It's this little tri-corder looking deal with 8 inputs for phone jacks. We had 8 cool buttons, each with a phone line running out of it, and into the little dealio. They were numbered one through eight. So, if you're holding button number 5, as soon as the person in lane 5 gets his or her chest over the finish line, you press the button. The time starts as soon as anyone pushes the button, so as long as someone starts the race when the gun gets fired, your timing works out great, it was cool.

So anyways, we're over there chilling out, because there's one more heat of the 200 or something like that, and I'm over by the finish line, where the mile starts. I'm looking over at the start zone for the 200, at the opposite corner. So, just to give you this picture, I'm looking across the field diagonally. From the South West corner of the field to the North East corner.

Since it's a track meet, we've always got the field events going on. People are shotputting, javelin-ing, and discus-ing constantly. You're not supposed to walk in the field when they're doing this. if you've gotta be in the field, you're supposed to avoid the big painted off areas.

Well, I don't know how or why it happened, but some girl was walking across the field through the javelin zone. From what we can guess, she was coming from the 200 start zone, maybe after holding the blocks for someone. We're not sure, but either way, as I was looking out across the field, I saw her walk out, and then I saw a javelin fly through the air, hit her leg, wobble up and down twice, then fall out.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with all this track lingo... A javelin is pretty much a spear you throw. It's long, weighted, and very pointy. It's got a metal tip. The object of the game is to run up and chuck this spear as far as you can. The catch is, the throw only counts if it sticks in the ground. So, you've got to throw it up there with enough height to go far, but enough arc to make it land front end down.

So, here's this jav, thrown by someone trying to win, and the pointy end sure sinks into this girls thigh. The front part, it goes in, and the tip comes out 2 or 3 inches over. It bounced, then fell out.

I was the only one over by the timing table that saw it, it was just crazy. For a couple seconds nothing happened, and then she sorta wobbled a bit, and some coach ran up, helped her walk off the jav sector, then had her lay down. Around this point, people started figuring out what had happened. EMT Trevor ran down there with his cool bag, and Jessica's mom went down there cause she's a nurse. Some guy came running and told Molen to call the paramedics.

So, long story short, she's ok. She didn't even get carried off in the ambulance, her mom showed up and took her to the hospital. It was a really terrible thing that happened to her, but it's amazingly lucky at the same time.

That jav hit the perfect spot. Your thighs are big bricks of muscle. Had it landed a foot higher, she would have punctured organs for sure. A few inches lower than it hit, and she'd have a broken kneecap. A few lower than that, some torn up calves. In all reality, if you're gonna get hit by a jav, you want to do it the way that she did it.

So, yeah, pretty insane stuff. Track meets are vicious.

And that's the story of the day. It's 11:05, and I'm going to bed early. have a good night all y'alls.~

Ok, now it's 12:14, and wednesday again. Wasn't that fun? Yay for time travel. Everybody say "How fun"

.....

You all suck at saying "how fun"

Well, that's it. It's now 12:15. Dangit. That means it's thursday. It's not even wednesday. So, this blog is about 3 days long. Definitely bed time. G'night y'alls, I wish you the best.

It's Huge

Update-

Due to the fact that blogger isn't exactly designed to handle a ton of pictures in one post, I have moved the gallery to google pages. It can now be located here:

http://cjthatcher.googlepages.com/home

It might take a bit to load, because there are some pretty high res pics getting shrunk down, but it's definitely worth it.

The contest is coming along super nice. So far, we've got 8 pieces of quality art up for your viewing pleasure, with at least 3 more on the way. We've had contributions from Myself, Nick, Jason, Leslie, Autumn, Molly, and Peter. Kyle, Levi, and Marissa have art on the way.

So go ahead, email me your creation. The rules are pretty simple; make a painting in MS Paint. It has to be original, no pasting in anything that wasn't made by you in paint. That's about the only restriction. After a sufficient amount of time, we'll vote on the paintings, and the winner recieves a poem written especially for them by me. But that's not the real prize, the real prize is letting the world see your art. Already culture has blossomed on this little blog, it's been very cool. I'm super excited for this, it's shaping up great. So c'mon people, show me the talent.

In other news, there's going to be some changes coming to the blog. Readership is up, so I'm looking for new ways to improve things. The plan so far:

1. Picture and Quotes of the week. This means that when you show up, there's gonna be a new picture, and a new quote every week. Something to keep you coming back, enlightened, and entertained

2. A welcome post. Instead of having the new post at the top, I'm gonna have one constant welcome post that tells you what's new, and has the picture and quote of the week in it. So, if I write something new, it'll show up below that, but the welcome blog will tell you when I last updated, what the new stuff is, where to find it, and all that good stuff. It'll be an easier way for you to see what's going on, and for me to keep track of things.

3. More branching. The Gallery got moved to another location because it's easier that way. Expect more of this fun stuff. There's going to be all sorts of new things coming, and so some of it will have to be located elsewhere. I'm gonna start relying on google pages alot more, because they've got a pretty nice setup over there.

4. More You. I know you all like listening to me rant on all day, but sometimes it's more fun to see what you guys have to say. This paint competition is only the beginning. If any of you have anything you want me to adress on this here blog, or anything you want thrown up, email it over to me, and I'll see what I can do. I'm gonna be doing more competitions in the future, as well as some other fun stuff. Right now the fields wide open, and I'm very open to suggestions.

5. More Cowbell. *cowbell noise cowbell noise cowbell noise cowbell noise*


Ah, I'm excited for the future, things are looking good.

And now, it's time to go back to the classics. All this talk of new and improved crap, it's cool and all, but we all need the good old classics.

So what's new? The wind still smells really nice outside, Track is still alot of fun, and I still dream about frisbee. Track was a super easy practice today, because we've got the makeup meet tomorrow. I'm excited for it. It's only a half meet, because we're just finished what we had to cancel because of the rain a while ago. We got halfway through the meet, then decided to call it because it was freezing and raining and all sorts of terrible. So, basically, i'm running the 3200 tomorrow, and I'm gonna be raging. I totally got ownt at the 3200 at the jordan invitational, but I'm gonna do good tomorrow. We had a pasta party tonight at the school, so we're all full of spaghetti, and ready to dominate tomorrow. It's gonna be good stuff.

We talked alot about summer cross country at practice today, and I'm getting pretty excited for that too. I didn't get to do summer CC last year cause I was a slacker, but this year I'm gonna dominate. We're going to go around to the junior highs next week to recruit people for the team, and that ought to be good. We really do need more people, but it shouldn't be too hard to recruit. I've already got Peter signed up, so that'll be fun no matter what happens. It's really gonna be cool though, because it's gonna keep me in shape through the summer, and help me improve a ton. As it stands now, we've got morning practices every monday, wednesday, and friday, and evening practices tuesday and thursday. That'll be good, cause that means I can wake up and go running before work. I'm excited for it. I've been trying to recruit people, but it hasn't been too successful as of yet. I don't really wanna use this paragraph as leverage to get you to sign up, but c'mon, it's gonna be good. There's gonna be food, and girls, and more food. Mike Garudo's gonna be there.

No but really, if any of you have any desire at all to get in crazy good shape, hang out with a bunch of cool kids all day, and make your summer worth something instead of a waste of time, contact me about this, because it's gonna be good. The more people we have, the better it's gonna be, but it'll be great no matter what. However, I respect your right to stay and get fat over the summer. If that's your thing, well, more power to ya.

In the end, I'm excited to where my cool meet shorts to the junior high for some mad seduc- err... recruiting.

In other great news, There's gonna be some mad action frisbee this friday night, 7:00, at bennion elementary. Any and everybody is welcome to come, and it's gonna be good stuff. We've already got quite a few people coming, and I'm way excited for it. There's gonna be a bunch of new people, but at least 2 old people, so it'll be swell. Come get your groove on.

Also noteworthy, region dance this saturday. w00t! I'm gonna be there, and so you all ought to be too. There's gonna be food, and girls, and more food. Mike Garudo's gonna be there!

So, I took the ACT this saturday. Good crap. 5 hours of testing isn't as fun as it sounds. And lets face it, it doesn't even start out sounding like all that much fun. See, you don't really need to take the test as a sophie. Everybody told me that I didn't need to, but for some insane reason I wanted to. It all stems from 9th grade. Well, even before that I guess, probably 7th grade.

See, back in 7th grade, the year started pretty good. I had had 4 siblings go through the school before me, so I like to think I had a name that preceded me. Since I had had 4 siblings go through, I pretty much wanted to be like them.

So, things start out. English becomes my favorite class of the day, but the other classes aren't too bad themselves. About a month or so into school, they start making announcements about tryouts for nerd team. I knew I wanted to do nerd team, so I definitely showed up.

If you're trying out for the buzzer team, Peck gives you a little test. It's got about 20 questions, ranging from "Whos the current President/prime minister/wahtever of Mexico?" to "If a man is 6 feet tall and casts a shadow of 3.5 feet, and a building next to him casts a shadow of 20 feet, how tall is the building?" All sorts of good crap. So, I fill that out to the best of my ability. The last question on there is "Is there anything I should know about you?"

Well, I sat there and looked at that for about 5 minutes. See, I really wanted to make the team. My brother Andrew had been on the team the last 3 years, and Peck loved him. I sat there and debated as to whether I really should write "I'm Andrew Thatcher's little brother" or not. In the end, I wrote it, then erased it in shame, then turned the paper in.

Long story short, I made the team, good job Chris! whooo. I show up to the first couple practices, and don't do too well. I'm classified as a "Seventh Grade Boy" and that means I won't shutup. The first couple weeks I spend about 70% of my energy with flirting with Tanya, and the other 30% on getting down to nerd business.

So basically, I was a frito, a weeshbag. I just wasn't kicking butt like I ought to be. This was a problem. After the first few weeks though, we finally broke out the buzzers. Before we had just been going around in circles answering questions. No more, now it was hand to hand combat.

At this point, things heated up. There are few things I really don't like to do, and one of those is lose. I'm a terrible loser. I just don't like doing it. Another thing I don't like doing is getting shown up by anyone, especially Jason.

Lets face it, I'm a competitive jerk. I wasn't willing to study just for the merit of learning and doing good for the team. But as soon as Jason thoroughly wiped the floor with me in practice, I knew what I had to do. Jason was one of the nerdiest kids I know back in 7th grade. He was one of the kids that asked his teachers for more homework. His life revolved around school, piano, and pokemon. Ultimately, he was the ultimate 7th grade Asian. He worked dang hard those first few weeks of practice, and I slacked. Once the buzzers came out, he proved his superiority.

I was trounced, humiliated, obliterated. In front of Tanya.

My pride was hurt, and I vowed to beat Jason. I went home and I studied like mad. I studied all 7th grade year way hard. Jason, catching on, did the same thing. He was just like me, he didn't want to get beat. He loved his position as the golden boy. Peck thought he was amazing, and she thought the rest of us were lame-os. He loved that, and he wasn't about to let go without a fight. It was a classic arms race. USSR builds a big missle, so we build 2 of them. We build 2, so they build 4, then send a satellite into space. in response, we build 8, then put a man on the moon.

It was just like that. I learned the capital of Sudan, he learned who wrote moby dick. We were mortal enemies, locked in a battle of wits and sacrifice. He always had the edge on me, I'm not ashamed to say it. Jason was a better nerd than I was.

But, 8th grade came, and Jason got a smell of the real world. Something clicked, he wanted to hang out with girls or something. I'm not quite sure, but you could tell that things were changing. One day he confided in me, "Ya know, I'm starting to think that maybe pokemon aren't as cool as they used to be..."

I was shocked, frightened, but above all, I was excited. Jason changing could only mean that part of his nerd powers would have to slip. I saw my opening, and I took it. I was the nerdiest kid alive in 8th grade. I studied during independent reading time. While all of you were reading fun stuff, I was busting out the nerd packets. I spent ages in those things, and I learned how things went.

In jason's defense, he didn't lose it all. He was still right there, but for the first time ever, I had a slight edge. Some days he still trounced me, but I still felt the power of winning more than losing.

We were still competing though. I knew if I took a breath he'd reach up and strangle me. And so, I pushed on, and he pushed on. The only difference was that the tables had turned a little.

Through it all we were still good friends and all, we just secretly hoped the other one would make a fool of themselves in a game. To this day, we still compete at almost everything. That's where the ACT idea came in. Back in 9th grade, we decided that we were both gonna take the ACT that summer, and then compare scores. That would be the ultimate test. Nerd games can be biased, whatever. The ACT is supposed to be pure. If we both take the same test, we'll both know what we did good on. We'd both know who was better at english, and who was better at science. It was to be the ultimate test.

Then, for some reason, it never happened. I don't know why, it just didn't.

And so we never really knew. The mystery was unsolved. This school year though, I saw the possibilities again. I wanted to take it, and I wanted Jason to take it as well. It was finally going to happen. We talked it over, and we decided we'd take it April 8th, at cottonwood, together. Winner take all. Of course, we didn't ever say that "winner take all" thing out loud, but we both knew it. I don't care how you say it, I still want to beat Jason.

And ya know, I know he wants to beat me.

So, we both signed up for it. We were ready, I took some online practice tests, read up on it, got some advice, I was ready to go for it. I can only assume Jason did similar things. Then, one terrible day, Jason informed me that he'd have to bail, on account of some piano competition.

Once again, my ultimate test fell through. I was still signed up though, and it costs alot of money to change the date, so I went through with it. So, without my little jason to accompany me, I braved the halls of cottonwood, and took the test of death.

In the end, it wasn't too bad. Multiple choice is a pretty nice feature, and it comes standard. I'm pretty confident on everything, but I'm pretty sure math was my weakest subject. One of the big problems for alot of people on the ACT is the time factor. They give you a limited amount of time for each test, and it's no walk in the park. I was on pace for every single test except for math. I had my trusty watch on, and I paced myself through. There were 60 math problems, and 60 minutes to do them. As I got towards the last 6, she said we had 5 minutes left. Among those 6 were 3 that I couldn't get really easy. One would have taken a ton of plugging into the calculator, the other was a bunch of trial and error, and the third just confused the heck out of me. So, I did the ones I could, and made good guesses on the 3 hard ones.

Other than that though, I finished all the tests with pretty good time, until we got to the writing test. The writing test is a new deal mostly, and it's not required yet. It's optional so far, but alot of colleges are starting to require it, and I figured if this was to be the ultimate test, I might as well go for it.

You've got 30 minutes to choose a side on a topic, and then write for that side. It's a classic persuasive essay, I've been doing them since 5th grade. They give you a topic, and you respond. Cake.

Well, except for the 30 minute part. My topic was a pretty easy one to pick a side on, but I spent way too long brainstorming and thinking about it. The first 10 minutes were devoted to thinking and other various wastes of time. By the time I finished my intro paragraph, the lady stood up and said we had 5 minutes left.

Good crap. I've never written so fast in my life. I guess it's a good thing that I had thought before hand, because I definitely wasn't thinking anymore. I have no idea what I wrote really... allI know is that my hand hurts, and I started talking about bus boycots and who can drink at what drinking fountain. Don't ask.

So yeah, I tanked the writing test, but I'm pretty sure that everything else went Ok. it'll be way interesting to see what I get, I'm excited to find out. I could find out in 2 weeks, if I wanted to pay 8 bucks. But ya know, I'm not going to. The ACT is just one big scam. Well, I guess it's half test, half scam. It's super expensive, and it takes 4 to 7 weeks to get your scores back. It's a bubble sheet guys, I could have my results the same day if I really wanted to. They just hold them to make you pay extra to get the early ones. Blasted scam.

Anyways, I figure I've written for way too long. This thing is going to be huge. The moral of the story is, life is on the up and up. I always write about the future, what I'm going to do, what's gonna happen. Well, I'm starting to make things happen. I'm starting to be able to say "Today I did great in track" instead of "Tomorrow, I'm gonna work hard in track." Things are working pretty good, the paint competition is coming along. I finally get to play frisbee this weekend, you all ought to come. Region dance saturday, spring break, and things are going to be great. Things are great. Sure, life has its downers every once in a while. I don't understand alot of things that are going on, but I'm working on it. I've been working on it for the past 15 years, but I'm still working. And ya know, I'm not going to stop working on it. In the end, life goes on, but it's up to you to make it go the direction you want it to go. This is Christopher Thatcher, -out-

There goes that plan

Don't worry, it's 11:32. My plan was to be in bed around 9:00. Oh well.

See, there's a reason I'm up so late. Today I got home from school, and I was super super pumped. The weather was amazing, track had been a good workout, and I was ready to get to work. So, get to work I did. I went outside, and I'm like "That's it, I'm gonna get the garden ready." So I put some shorts on, grab a shovel and some gloves, and go to work. I totally owned those weeds.

This next summer I really wanna work on that fun garden. We used to always have pretty good ones, but in the past couple years we haven't had anything super great. I'm pretty interested in the whole "growing stuff" idea, so I'm gonna try it. Who knows, might be good for me. Everybody loves tomatoes though.

So anyways, back to the logan story. So I go outside, garden, and then I'm like, booyah, I'm gonna pick up all the sticks that fell off the tree during the wind. Now, you've got to understand, out in my front yard is some mammoth globe willow. It's ridiculously huge. Every time there is a wind storm, or snow storm, or perhaps a windy snow storm, branches are everywhere. No kidding, they're all over the place. I get the feeling that none of you are grasping how many sticks there really are. Cause wow, there's alot of them.

Anywhom, so I go around and start picking up sticks. And I do that for a while, and I get alot done, the yard looks nice. On my 3rd or 4th trip back from the stick pile, I'm walking along, and I notice a duct tape object nearly grown over by grass.

This is weird, cause usually there aren't duct tape objects nearly grown over by grass in my yard.

So, I pick it up, and investigate. Come to find out, it's kyle's long last wallet from last year. That night we played frisbee in the backyard and everybody started tackling me and kyle was the night he lost it. We spent quite a while looking for it the next couple days after that, but couldn't find it. I figured it was gone forever, and I totally forgot about it. But wow, what a pleasant surprise.

There's a really cool property that duct-tape displays, it's known in the scientific community as "Indestructibalityness" and it basically means that you can't create or destroy duct-tape, it can only be changed. Kyle had 22 dollars in his wallet when he lost it. It was left outside in my yard all summer long, under rain, snow, heat, and the occaisional Zebra attack.

Of the 22 dollars inside, 21 of them were salvagable. Kyle made 21 dollars today. Good work duct-tape!

So, back to my logan story....

So, I'm sitting here picking up sticks, and mom is like "Dinner time!" and I'm like "Oh my gosh, score!" So I totally go inside, after taking off my shoes which are still muddy from weeding, and I'm like "Oh my gosh, food." and mom is like "Oh my gosh, you did yard work, this is so cool!" and I'm like "Oh my gosh, my bloodsugar is like, 112, that's so good!" and she's like "Oh my gosh, good job." and then, dad's like "Oh my gosh, we've got to go pick up Andrew in logan. As well, Oh my gosh, you need practice hours for drivers ed. Therefore, oh my gosh, you are going to drive to logan." and I'm like "Oh my gosh, Logan, that's forever away, but ok."

At about this point, we stopped talking like a bunch of 6th grade girls, and proceeded to drive to logan. Driving is sorta fun, but only for the first 10 minutes of it. After which point, you realize that there is 80 minutes left until you get there, and then 90 minutes till you get home. Then you realize how much your butt starts hurting after sitting there forever.

Long story short. My butt still hurts, and I'm up late.

So, on to the important stuff. Quickly now, but I'm gonna talk about what I wanted to talk about yesterday. Ready, go.

The Train Horror

Very few things in this world scare me really bad. Like, some things startle me, but never plain out scare me. I'm usually pretty cool with everything, I don't freak out about dumb stuff. So, we're in drivers' ed the other day, and mr. railroad man comes in to talk to us about trains. He showed us some videos, and talked about stuff. Yeah, I am not officially afraid of trains.

As we were sitting there in class, watching car after car after car get obliterated by trains, I just thought to myself, "You are going to die a terribly painful death at the hands of a train." It wasn't one of those happy jokes, it was one of those "You're going to die." moments. I was honestly scared, my heart started pumping harder and everything. Sorta funny looking back on it, but yeah, nobody likes trains....

The Cheese Horror

Went to the Region Band festival yesterday, that was cool. I left before I could have dinner though, so when I got back home I was super super hungry. From the looks of the table as I walked in, we had has some sort of crazy taco situation. We had the tortillas on the table, and some cheese in a bowl and some other stuff. So, I walk in, and my natural reaction to cheese on the table is to grab some and eat it. That's just what you do, cheese is great. Whenever there's grated cheese on the table, you've got to take a pinch. It's just common curtesy.

So, there's this bowl of what appears to be mozarella cheese sitting there on the table. I walk up, grab a pinch, and throw it in my mouth. At first it tastes a little funny, and I'm like "Oh man, this is definitely some weird cheese..." After a couple seconds, it started to taste really different, and really bad. It was unlike any mozarella cheese I had ever had. So, I decide that I'm gonna be a man and stick it out, even though it was terrible.

So, I chew it, then swallow the nasty stuff. It was gross, I'm not gonna lie to you. A couple seconds later, my mom tells my dad not to eat that cheese, cause it's rotten.

Yeah, thanks for that bit of info mom.

Just kidding, my mom's amazing. But anyways, who knew that chhese could go rotten? I had no idea, but wow, that stuff was gross. It's got a taste unlike anything you've really ever had before, it's all... gross. Not like really repulsive tasting, but it just gets into you and it's terrible. Anyways, moral of the story is, Don't eat shady looking cheese. For all I know that stuff was Orange when we bought it, but it was sure white when I put it in my mouth. Ewwwww.

The TV Horror

Last night, I was up till 12, watching "mr. mom". Don't ask why I did it. I wanted to go to bed early. It was on TV, and somehow I started watching it, and for some reason couldn't stop. It wasn't even a good movie. It was some crazy madness from the 80's. I wasted 2 hours of my life in front of the TV, for no real reason. What's the deal there?

3 step

33 step is the best night of the year. It is loved by all. It's better than Christmas.

3 step is the crazy sport invented by one of the brightest minds the cimarron ward has ever seen. Basically, you go into the gym with the rival ward, turn off all the lights but the ones on the stage, set up a bunch of tables on their sides on either side of the gym, and then proceed to play dodgeball against the bad guys.

wow, it is amazing. The competition is fiercer than any I have ever been in in my life, except maybe that one frisbee game that tied at 21. So anyways, it fierce, and sweaty, and you get to throw things. wow.

The real deal about 3 step though, is that it's a big test. Out there in the field, it's all about winning. All semblance of good sportsmanship leaves you. All you want to do is win, and take that glory for yourself and for the team. You're not worried about whether that kid that just got nailed in the face is breathing or not, you're just happy he got hit. Out there, it's not about having a good time, it's about winning.

That's what makes 3 step so tough. You're standing there in the dark, and your little toe gets brushed by a dodgeball. You are out, but every single greedy nerve in your body tells you that nobody saw it, and that you should stay in.

There's more cheating in 3-step than any other sport I've ever seen. It's rampant, it's ridiculous. You pelt a kid in the chest, and he stays in. You saw it hit him, it knocked his glasses off, and he stayed in. You don't know what's going on, it's tough.

But at the same time, you can sympathize with them. You know why they stayed in, because you felt the primal urge to lie about it last time you got hit too. You know the feeling.

3 step seperates the boys from the men. Not because the men can hit the little boys really hard with dodgeballs, but beacuse the mean can take a hit, and then walk off the court. The boys, well, they can't. It's a test of strength, but not the throwing kind, the "I'm gonna do the right thing" kind.

I love 3 step.

well, social experiment and the future have to wait till later till they get to be written about, I've got some important news.

First off, me and peter's ultimate plan DID work. Take that nick. You left a comment saying that we were slackers and hadn't done anything. Bull.

This image was previously classified, but I got special permission from the government to put it on the internet, because we all know the enemies of liberty don't read my blog, so they'll never see it coming.


You ask yourself, "Is that Chris with a sword?!"

No, that's Super Saiyan 18 Chris, with a freakin' awesome sword!

Enemies of Justice and Truth beware, super Saiyan 18 Chris is coming for you, with his samurai sword of ownage. Ph34r my l33t 5aiyan 5killz.

Ahem.

Ok, now here's the part I'm really excited about. Starting next post, I'm gonna start putting in "picture of the week"s, and "Quote of the week"s. This means that every post there's gonna be a quality picture, AND a quality quote.

So, come see them, it'll be good.

Also, I'm starting a new contest. See, last time I wanted you all to do something cool for the blog, all I got were a bunch of questions about who I liked. Well, no more. Starting today, the Christopher Thatcher MS Paint Competition of Death!

Basically, you all are required to make a picture in MS paint. I know you all have it, don't try and lie to me. It's a competition. Email me your very best MS Paint productions, and I will slap every one of them up here. My email is CJThatcher At Gmail dot Com. So, put symbols in where they're needed. I think you all know what the deal is. The winner gets a poem written just for them by me, it'll be pretty good.

So, c'mon all. Send me paint drawings. I'll put a bunch of mine up here too, as soon as I make them.

Ok, for reals guys, it's 12:30, and I've got the ACT tomorrow. I should have been in bed 4 hours ago. So, wish me luck, paint some MS paint stuff for me, and watch out bad guys, cause I've got a sword.

Christopher Thatcher -out-

...But I saved a bundle on car insurance

Ok fine, so it's 12:18 AM, and I haven't written anything for a week or two.

In my defense, I did start a post about 3 step, but it ended up crappy, so I didnae post it. I'm not gonna write anything big up right now, because I need to get to bed. I'm just here to say "Hey, i'm not dead, and I'm gonna write tomorrow."

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. It's a friday, and a gold day. Those are the best days ever. I have no real homework due, and all my classes will be fairly easy. Word on the street is that I'm gonna get worked like an animal in track, but if that's the case, then an animal I shall be.

So basically, once friday is through, then it's saturday. I'm taking the ACT saturday, it's gonna be kicks and giggles.

So, basically, I'm going to write something really really good tomorrow. I have no idea what it's gonna be, but we're gonna do it, and see how it goes. Expect great things.

So, list of things to do tomorrow:

1) Wake up, get to school on time
2) Finish my physics
3) Stay alive all through track practice
4) Study for the ACT
5) Finish my foldable
6) Go to bed at 9:00
7) Write something good
8) Keep it real, stay me
9) Throw a frisbee with someone. (Any takers?)
10) Eat a good dinner
11) Do good in band
12) Be a good friend, don't be mean.


I think that's all I got so far. If I forgot anything, well, feel free to yell at me.

I need a haircut, and some rest. I wonder why I stay up so late. Because really, there's no reason to, it's madness. Perhaps one day I will start to get all the sleep I need.

I am thoroughly convinced that if I were to get 8 hours of sleep a night, and drink twice as much water as I do now, I could break a 5 minute mile. Right now I'm running a 5.25. The moral of the story is, when we do nice things for our body, our body is nice to us. Drink more water, get more sleep, and you'll run crazy fast like clements.

Ok, so, just for my benefit. Tomorrow I need to write about:

the train horror
the cheese horror
the TV horror
3 step
the social experiment... horror
The future

Aight, g'night all, this old man is off to bed. I hope all of you are well. Keep it real. In the end, you can only be you. Don't try to be somebody else, cause it doesn't work. Be you, and be the best you. No need to be a crappy version of somebody else.

But I digress.... G'night all.

Keep It Real

Hey again neverland. I know that nobody reads this. I had a pretty good audience for a while, till I stopped posting. So, in the event that somebody reads this, howdy.

Ya know, life is very interesting right now. Thinking about it, it's different than it has ever really been for the past 3 years. Not just different in what happens in my life, but different down to the very core. It's not just like I'm living in a different place, I'm living very differently.

The fact of the matter is, there is no target right now. For the past 3 or 4 years of my life, there's always been someone that I really liked. This made making decisions alot easier. It's friday night, where do you wanna go? Wherever she's gonna be, I don't care. You were always trying to maximize your opportunities to 'maybe' go talk to her. It made decisions very easy.

Well, here we are now, just happy to be standing. When I go to bed, I think about something new every night. Sometimes I think about space, other times I think about the future. Sometimes I think about frisbee, or track, or school, or the how good it's gonna feel when I finally fall asleep. This is insanely different from normal times, when you go to bed thinking about somebody.

So really, neither situation is better than the other, it's just very different. When I say very different, I don't just mean "very different." I mean different down to the very deepest reaches of the decision making processes inside your head. It's a whole different mind set. You find yourself being alot lazier, and having alot less variation in your whole mood. Whoohoo, she just smiled at you. While beforehand that would have made your day, now it just sorta makes you smile a little, but then you move on. It's different.

However, lets not get the crazy idea into our heads that I don't like anybody. I just don't "like" anybody. Yeah, I do like people/person/persons/halo, but I'm not about to do anything about it. I'm not about to go put myself on the line, not until somebody else does at least.

So, aside from that doom and gloom prospect, things are pretty peachy in my life. I went to the doctors yesterday, and things weren't looking too great, but they're gonna get better. My A1c was 8.4, and it ought to be somewhere around 7.4. I'm still not 6 foot, and that makes me cry inside. But, we talked about some stuff, and we got some junk figured out, so I'm gonna take alot better care of myself, and things will be good.

There's alot of stuff I want to write about. The big thing I really wanna talk about is the future. I've got 3 big ideas for the future I wanna get written down, but I just haven't had the drive to do it. Maybe some time in the future.

But either way, I've been thinking alot lately, just about everything. There's been all sorts of time to think. Not because I've had alot of free time or anything, but just because I'm always deep in thought these days.

So, the question that I've been thinking about lately has been thus: Is life fair? I mean, I know that life is fair, but then why are there so many differences in people?

The way I see it, life is just like any other thing in the world. You get out of it what you put in to it. I know that that is a stupid concept that everybody has heard before, but let's talk about it. We'll use region dances as an example.

If you go to a region dance and don't ask any girls to dance, you will not have fun. It doesn't matter how fun the fast dances are, or how many of your friends are there. You are not going to have as much fun if you do not ask girls to dance. Granted, asking girls to dance is pretty hard. First, you've got to select a girl. This is probably the hardest part. You've got to ask the right people, and you can't ask the same person more than once a dance, unless it's under special circumstances. We all know why not, and it starts with a "kyle." So then you've got to get the courage to go ask her. This really isn't all that hard, but it's still a major step. Some guys just have trouble with it, I dunno what the deal is. After that, you're forced to talk to this girl. Sometimes that comes easy, and other times it's like pulling teeth.

So, we've concluded that asking a girl to dance is hard, but that if you don't do it, the dance isn't going to be a much fun. Are we in agreement here? If we aren't, skip the next part, cause I'm assuming we are. Life is very similar to this. When we walk in to a region dance for the first time, we are all essentially equal. Sure, some people's clothes look better than others, and your hair might be cooler than mine, but we're all pretty much on equal ground.

So, stupid example time. Me and kyle walk into the first region dance ever. We both spot Girl "A" at approximately the same time. We say "Hey, she's pretty cute, and looks like she's fairly intelligent. I should go dance with her." So, we both want to do this. Slow song comes on, and I don't do it. Kyle goes over there, and asks her to dance. He does so, has a good time. The end of the dance comes, and I haven't danced with this girl.

So, next month comes, same situation. We walk in, and there she is in all her beauty. I think "Man, she's pretty good looking, I should ask her" but I don't. Kyle however, goes up and asks her to dance. Since he danced with her last month, they're both more comfortable, they laugh alot, and have a good time.

This goes on and on. 6 months down the road, they are friends, and I don't know this girl. How fair is that? Kyle has a hot friend, and I've got nothing but cookie crumbs all over my tie. How is this fair?

We both walked in to the first region dance 100% equal. This girl had never met either of us. We're both tall, pasty white, and pretty cool. There really is not a reason just off the bat to choose one over the other. but here we are, she thinks he's a studmuffin, and that I'm a loser.

Long story short, kyle put in the work necessary, and I didn't. He gets the awesome reward, and I get nothing.

So, lets apply it to life. We walk in to this life equal. I'm a firm believer in that. We're not all as fast as aaron clements, but we're all as cool as aaron in our own ways. Everyone has their own "gifts" or "talents". I know that sounds like hippy talk that your 2nd grade teacher used to tell you, but it's true. Everybody is special, and everybody has their stuff. We all walk in equal, and what happens in the end is based upon our work.

If you spend the next 3 years of your life on the couch, you're not going very far. If you spend the next 3 years of your life running track every day, practicing hard, and just working like a beast, you'll be an athlete. Athlete vs. fat kid, the athlete wins every time. Why? Cause he put in more work.

So, get to work slacker.

Therefore, I have made some goals for myself. I really want to do these, and I definitely think that I can.

1) Finish March Madness
2) blog every week, something good
3) Do a shot before I eat every single time that I can
4)Get my homework done before 12 4 out of 5 days a week
5) Go to track practice every day. Stop complaining about it
6) Keep the 4.0 fire alive
7) Never give up, never slack on my world history assignment
8) Do my hair every morning, even though I don't want to.
9) Be patient with everyone, and always listen.
10) Break the 5 minute mile

So, score it eh. Now this list changes into other stuff. Stuff I wanna do, but not necessarily goals. Not sure how to explain it. More like a wish list.

11) Stay me
12) Stop making stupid predictable jokes
13) Be sincere instead of phony
14) Stop being judgemental
15) Read my scriptures every night
16) Brush my teeth every night
17) Work like mad during carpet this year
18) Program something good
19) Write something good
20) Make a difference in someone's life
21) Fly a kite at least once this year
22) Get a good hug that's meaningful. Not sure how that's gonna work, but hey.
23) Get some muscles
24) Get to bed earlier, wake up earlier
25) Grow up, change the world.
26) Go on a mission
27) Be cured of diabetes
28) Have a windmill
29) Plant a tree this year.
30) Get the eagle.
31) Don't die any time soon.

Yeah, that's all I got so far.

So, what's up mystery blank? anything you're interested in knowing? Any questions? Comments, concerns? here's the thing. I'm sitting here writing to nobody. Comforting in a way, dissappointing in another. But in reality, I'm doing this for me and you both. I don't just write for me. Do I affect you, oh mystery blank? Maybe I'll never know, but maybe I will. In the end, it's bed time. Have a good night.

Cobwebs

Wow, it's been a while. I haven't written in 3 weeks or so, maybe more. I really have wanted to, but things have been sort of rough. Well, things are still sort of rough, but I'm writing anyways, because I want to.

I am a comma-nazi. I put commas where they don't belong. I use commas more often than I use periods. Its interesting, because that's how I talk and think, but sometimes it's just not the right way to write stuff. I started an English paper last night at 11. It ended up to be a terrible terrible paper, but I liked the intro. Because I like sharing crap, here you go.

Glory, Honor, and Gyroscopic Inertia

It is funny how a person's goals and values can change over time. As we learn more about the world around us, old notions are tossed out. We see the error of our ways, and must make adjustments. Sometimes we all need to take a step back and reevaluate our lives. These are the times in our existence when we must pause, retreat a few paces, and simply wonder why we aren't playing more frisbee.

Yay for 'research papers' on ultimate frisbee. What a joke.

Anyways, the 3rd term doldrums are hitting hard. Life has settled into a slow and predictable cycle. You wake up, go to school, run track, come home, vegitate, eat, do homework, then go to bed. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Over and over again. 3rd term ends in a week, and hope is on the horizon. Maybe 4th term will bring some decent frisbee weather. Maybe it'll bring some good times on the mile. Only time will tell eh?

I put 2 sem vids up and haven't told too many people about them yet, so hey, they're up.

~Talent Show Getup~

~Morningside Teaser~

Feel free to comment, or to just ignore them. Video editing is hard, but it's sorta cool. There's nothing quite as amazing as a really well done video. There is alot of power behind a well done video. It puts together all the dramatic aspects of a picture, and music, and words. It can have the best of 3 worlds, but only when it's well done. Maybe someday I'll make something that'll change people's minds. In the mean time, share your talent, and go to the morningside.

Has anybody noticed how the weather just repeats itself every day? How there's been a constant wind for the past 2 weeks, and how it's impossible to throw a frisbee. I sure have.

So, this whole post has been rather moody. lets see if we can lighten the mood.

I got my learners permit, that's pretty cool. I haven't been driving too much, but the time's I have been have been super fun. Driving is going to be really cool. Being able to drive, and having a car is just a huge benefit. It's amazing the crap you can do when you've got amazing transportation like that.

State Math Competition is tomorrow. I signed up on a whimsical fancy, and it's gonna be pretty fun. Hopefully I'll do alright. Chances are I'm gonna get smashed, and just feel like an idiot, but oh well. It'll be kicks anyways.

So.... Frisbee this friday night. Anybody wants to come, it's gonna be snowy and amazing. 7:00, bennion elementary. All y'alls are welcome to come, even if you don't wanna play. Come support the cause. There is going to be frisbee this whole summer. I don't care if I end up playing frisbee by myself every weekend, I'm gonna do it. Ultimate showdown, Thatcher vs. Thatcher. First to 15. Loser buys dinner for himself.

Notice how every 4th post or so is just a clone? first I talk about how I haven't written for a while, then I talk about what's been going on in the past, then I talk about what's coming up soon, then i talk about frisbee, and then I flounder around for a bit about philosophy. Interesting eh? You'd think after 3 weeks I could be original. nope.

Ah, I'm behind in march madness, and that makes me sad. Therefore, I am going to go read the Book of Mormon. It's amazing, it just makes you feel good when you read it. I should do that more. So, I'm out of here. Sorry this was all moody and junk. Maybe there'll be something cool coming up soon for you guys. I'll work on something for y'alls.

G'night everybody. Tomorrow is a new day, and a new chance to break out of the cycle. The hamster wheel will topple, just as soon as I get my hands on a frisbee. G'night everybody, I'm off to read.