The Painting of a Room and Other Touching Tales

Well, my grandparents are moving in today.  They haven't arrived yet, but my little brothers are up north helping them pack and the older kids are at home. Now that may sound nice, but the older kids (I am one of these) are at home.... painting the room that my grandparents are going to live in.  I had no idea how labor intensive painting a room was. Luckily, it was super fun (for most of it.)  We painted the walls and each other, listened to Enya (I just can't stop listening to Enya,) and joked around.  After that we did a bit of clean up just to get ready.  This was definitely my least favorite part.  After that Red, Ellie, and I went to McDonald's. I got two Spicy McChickens and a mango smoothie.  I love mango smoothies. They are  by far the best smoothie possibly bought.  After McDonald's we took Red home and Ellie and I headed to Walmart (or as my family knows it, SmallFart.) We bought some stuff and headed home. That's where I am now.  So after giving a synopsis of my day I provide for you a touching story that I recently read on Facebook.

A young man was getting ready to graduate college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box. Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily, he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy book. Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care things. When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL. How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not packaged as we expected? Please share this :)

I really like that story, kinda describes life really well. :)

Computer Get!!!

Well, this is my first post that I am sending from my own personal laptop. This is one of the most exciting days of my life.  After school today I came home and my mom mentioned that they were having a surplus sale at the district offices.  I had already been to one of these, where I bought a pretty nice computer for the mere price of twenty-five dollars. I convinced my mom to come with me to this one, for I have been looking for some speakers for a time. When we arrived we found that they were selling some great laptops... Like super great. This one was only eighty dollars. Definitely worth it. But that's not all. I then bought a forty-eight port router (LAN party!!!!) for ten dollars and two keyboards for free.  I hit the jackpot. This laptop runs like a madman on a sugar rush.  It makes me happy.

In other news, I participated once again in one of my favorite freshman activities.  I was TAing fourth when I realized that it was class debate day.  I asked if I could join in and permission was granted.  So, I argued with plebes and wound myself up so tightly that I could have destroyed one of them. It was probably bad for me, but whatever. It made me laugh.  The freshmen are so awesome this year.  I don't think I have met a lame freshman yet... wait scratch that, I have, but most of them are pretty awesome. And they can argue really well (though nowhere near as well as I can.)

Wait.... YAY!!! Juliansmith.tv is back online. After about a week of anger they have returned... They may have no new videos posted, but who cares.  Its up! W00t! I have even reverted to speaking in partial l33t for this.  That is how excited I am... but now the excitement dies. Well, I'm still a happy man. Did you know that juliansmith.tv uses Wordpress, the same program we at the NS Times use to run our website.  Pretty cool in my opinion.

So, check out our website at nstimes.us, no www. needed.
:)

On Lemons.... and Julian Smith

When life gives me lemons... I find myself making a lemon pie with graham cracker crust and a plentiful layer whipped cream on top.

Actually... That is almost the truth. The metaphor that I am trying to get across is this: I may be one of the busiest guys I know, but I have a generous helping of fun times to keep me running strong.  Mostly, keeping busy keeps me running. I don't have time to be tired.  I will explain.

I wake up in the morning, go to school, and find myself doing homework... that is due first period. (winning!) Luckily, I dodge that bullet using SparkNotes, one of the greatest inventions ever created.  I go to first, do what I must (and get full credit for it) and continue on to flex. There I engage myself in a battle to the death against Dakota. We fight for about fifteen minutes, and as always, get pwned by the words, "Check Mate." On to second period, where I watch a movie and waste time. Next I go to math... oh dreaded math. We will skip over this part. Then comes lunch. I eat a chicken sammich, deliver some technology for my mom, and laugh with my friends. Just before fourth I learn of a stash of stray chicken sammiches and find myself toting two of them into fourth, where I T.A. for journalism. The plebes (derogatory term for freshmen, see also nooblet or nooble) in his class were very surprised by my epicness. Who else walks into fourth period with two chicken sammiches? Plus, I happen to be a junior, which helps a bit with my standing among our resident plebes. I than research for my next story. After school I go to the UB meeting. Very long, a wee bit boring, but nonetheless, interesting. I head to the library, give Levi a ride home, and find myself at home with nothing to do but get on Facebook... and blog.

You may think that is the end, but alas, tis never the end. At six I and many others are going to prepare for the arrival of my grandparents. So we must engage in hard labor for the remainder of the night. Luckily, there will be pizza involved, and as the great quote goes, "Where there's some food, there's a way." At least, I think that's how it goes.... But it will be fun.

Moral of the story, life is good for all the time.

In other news... juliansmith.tv is down.  I miss Julian. He better be doing something epic. I love all of his videos. They make me laugh. And his songs, well, his songs get stuck inside my head. (That was a great pun, if anyone noticed.) 

Anyway.... Adios, the time has come for me to finish this post, and it will be done.

The Daily Life of a Working Teenager

Houston... we have a problem. I have no life.  I seem to either be at school or working. I rarely have anything to do in between.

So here's how it goes down on a daily basis. I get up in the morning. Get ready for school. All is well. I leave soon after my mother and drive myself and my younger sister to the high-school, which is about fifteen minutes away. I than engage in journalistic and educational activities. These last until school begins. I go to my classes, eat lunch, play some ping-pong or tennis, and the bell rings.  I talk to people after school. This lasts about forty minutes. I then head over to the friendly neighborhood Shave N Cream. I work there until ten or eleven at night, and head home.

So that's my daily life (although exact details may vary slightly).  The only problem is, did anyone notice a time to hang out in that synopsis?  I am beginning to realize that the answer "I have work that day." is a lose-lose situation. Neither side is happy with the answer.  I am finding that I actually.... enjoy.... going to school.  The truth is, thats the only time I have to really hang out with my friends and acquaintances.  It has become my place of solitude.

But then again, maybe this whole work thing isn't all bad.  If I didn't work this hard, I wouldn't be able to drive to school, I would have to throw away all dreams of heading to Europe, and I would not have all of this extra cash floating around in my wallet. ;)

So... I guess i'll live, and squeeze in all the partying I can. :) But in the meantime, I'm nearly rich, and all my friends are stuck scraping by on their parent's funds. :)

First time on the blog.... (Did you get it... blog sounded like job... nevermind) :)

In the beginning:

So... this is how it all began... I was on facebook today when I saw that Andrew had posted yet another blog post. I decided to check it out and after reading found that I could comment on it. So, naturally, I did. But it made me sign up to leave my message. I did that, too. But then it asked if I wanted to create a blog of my own.  That was the beginning of the end. Now I find myself typing a blog, listening to Enya, and chatting on facebook... all at the same time.  I really don't know exactly what to write. Maybe I should talk about my life. Here goes:

Europe:

So I have recently decided to start saving up to go on a trip to Europe after my senior year.  My journalism teacher decided to take a few students and parents. He thinks that Greece and Italy are our possible destination. I think that would be awesome. But then came the number crunching. After a few minutes of headache, I emerged victorious (as always). I realized that if I were to save a sizeable chunk of every paycheck until then, I could scrape by. The trip is supposed to cost 3000+ dollars. That is a large sum. But for Europe, definitely worth it. Definitely.  Now I just have to start saving.  Wish me luck.

Journalism:


I am managing editor in my journalism class. The only problem with that is this is the year we may actually die from insufficient funding.  We are doing all in our power to print, but the fact of the matter is, we may have to go all online.  Jacob has been working intensely on creating a working website, and he succeeded. Now all we have to do is post up the stories and the site will be fully functional.  If you were to go there now you would find that the only story up was written by yours truly. But that is because I am the only one who has taken interest in this new development in our journalism class. So i guess that I am excited and not excited for the fall of the journalism class.

Pros to losing the print edition:

• no more layout
• no deadlines
• no more stressed teacher
• more time in class to work on stories

Cons to losing the print edition:

• no more layout
• no more pizza
• Jacob becomes infinitely more important
• technical difficulties may ruin the plan

So... all in all, I think we will just press on and go with the flow. Hopefully we survive.