Today I watched a special about Pompeii on the History International channel. They talked about what happened in Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. The cloud of ash that came out of the mountain, went high up into the air, spread out at 100-200 miles an hour, and rained back down in solidified chunks. People were trapped all throughout the city, either in their homes, or out in the open trying to escape. When Pompeii was covered, it hid all sorts of information about the lifestyles of the Roman people. For example, there were many pieces of artwork that came from the Greeks. Some inhabitants of Pompeii had Greek slaves to make fine arts for them.

Another town that was destroyed by the eruption was Herculaneum. This city was for the wealthiest and the most famous. Here, the city was vacated, so archeologists assumed that it's people had fled before the volcano erupted. Though this was not the case as has been recently discovered. By the shore of the city, the remains of over a hundred citizens of Herculaneum were unearthed. The people didn't survive the volcano.

On sunday, we went to see 1984, in play form, at the Olney Theater in Montgomery County. We had just finished the book on tape the night before we went to go see it. The play was a lot different from the book. In the play, the characters were all a bit strange. Julia was terrified of the party in the beginning, but half way through she didn't seem to care to much about what they were doing, more the way she was in the book. O'Brien seemed to have more emotion then usual and therefore was less creepy. Winston was about the same I suppose, though he did seem to care less about what the party did in the beginning. The book is a lot longer then the play and because of that, a lot of important details were cut out to fit the time-frame. Also, for some reason they kept all the violence in, but took all the sex out. No Julia being rather... skanktasic and no spreading of venereal diseases. Also, instead of having everyone dressed the same in blue overalls, they all had on fancy grey suits that were slightly different from each other. The play was very strange to watch after having finished the book.

If I was making a play out of 1984, it wouldn't be much different from the book. First of all, I would have everyone dressed in blue overalls, except for the Thought Police who would be dressed in all black. Winston would have been a bit more disturbed by what the party was doing to the past and by New-Speak. Julia would not care about the party and would have gone with the flow of it, mostly. Julia and Winston would have gone off and had a secret meeting at least once and they would have at least implied sex. O'Brien would be extremely creepy and would have little to no emotion in whatever he did. When Winston is in the Ministry of Love, O'Brien would play back what Winston had agreed to do to people went he was trying to become a part of the supposed Brotherhood. This part is very important. Winston would had heard the rhyme about the churches from the junk shop owner, Julia, and O'Brien.

Yesterday my sister got a car, under not the best circumstances mind you but she still got one none the less. Its a 1995 Honda Accord Ex and well...it looked its age. It was in pretty good condition...just dirty. So we got out some cleaner and some newspaper and started making the car look SMEXIFINE. We cleaned off the inside of the windshield, then the outside. Since the windshield was clean I guess my sister figured it would only be right to clean the back window as well. Then she cleaned the sunroof and the hood. After that I joined in. We both started cleaning the sides of the car and it shined as if it wasn't quite as old. We finifshed cleaning the sides, trunk, and roof. After cleaning off the windows on the inside and out, we shined the tire-rims. Then we went down the drive-way to observe our work. The car truly looked...Smexilious.

Hours of work put into car: 4

An abandoned house. Is it just some nasty old rotting place, or is it a mysterious cave which no one has ventured into for possibly, years. Today me and my sister went into an old abandoned building off the side of a road. It probably wasn't used as a house seeing as how there was a lot of office equipment there. Strangely enough, outside of the building and in the garage part, there were a lot of long pipes and a bunch of things to connect the pipes. I'm not quite sure why all those pipes were there or what they were used for.

The building was covered in vines. The first door that we saw was locked so we went we went all the way around the building and found another door that was wide open, although it was partially covered by vines and leaves. So we went into the building. The first room that we saw had some papers, a few old computers, old printers, and computer boxes. The boxes had the year 2000 on them so it make you wonder, when is the last time someone when into that building? Across from that room were the bathrooms, one of which still had toilet paper on the holder. As we went into the building father, we saw a water fountain and a few chairs lined up outside of the second door leading to the room with the computers in it. The biggest room on the floor we were on was at the end of the hall. It was pretty empty except for the debris of insulation from the ceiling, more pipes and pipe connectors, some seats that looked like they belonged to a car, and a road sign. After exploring that room we headed for the stairs that led to the attic. The door for the stairs was directly outside of the bathrooms.

We never actually made it into the attic. The reason being...the bird from hell, otherwise known as, Hell bird. I was making my way up the stairs to the attic and as I was almost at the top, I heard a sort of growling noise. I looked over to my left and there it was, the bird from hell, standing up like some sort of human/animal thing. I didn't know what it was then because I was to scared to get a better look. I thought it was a lemur. My sister was right behind me on the stairs so the both of us just quickly went back down the stairs. We were going to go down the stairs to the basement, but it was to dark and we had no flashlight. So we decided that we needed a picture of the thing that was still growling at us. Shaking in fear, I took my sister's camera and went back up the stairs, with her right behind me again. I tried to take a picture without the flash, but it cam out way to dark to see the bird. We went back down the stairs and we took pictures of the water fountain and chair, but then we decided we needed a picture of the bird. So I took the camera again, with the flash on, and I went back up the stairs while my sister stood at the base of the stairs. The bird had stopped growling so I wasn't as scared and I got a pretty decent picture. That was when we found out that it was a bird.


([5:56pm] We just just found out that this is a baby American Black Vulture)

After all that, we left and went to McDonald's for some free Southern Style Chicken Sandwiches with the purchase of a medium or large drink. We plan to go back to the the abandoned building, and when we do, we'll be sure to bring a flashlight.

I hate going to the mall. Too many people. The people are a variety of moms and families with their children, boyfriends and girlfriends, groups of preppy girls, boys who try to act "cool", and people who don't have a specific group. I'm one of the "non-group" people. Another thing that I don't like about going to the mall is, there's a lot of cool stuff there. To get the cool stuff, you need to spend money. Lots and lots of money. Well maybe not THAT much money, but it still costs money. Money that I don't like to spend.

Going to mall makes me feel more girly then I usually do. So many clothing stores and what not. I can't stand it. I don't like feeling girly, yet I do at the same time. Ah well. What I do like about going to the mall is the arcade. I can show how much better I am at video games and skii-ball then little kids. Its sounds pretty wrong, I know, but thats just how I am. At the food court, well, there's food! Spending money of food is better then spending money on things that you don't need. With the food, you can just eat it and its gone, not taking up space. Other things and objects, you buy them and they just sit in your house. You might buy some things that you can actually use, but most of it will get lost.

I have mixed feelings about going to the mall all the time, so its a love/hate relationship.

Today, like any friday, we went to go volunteer at the Habitat for Humanity store. The store sells furniture that people donate, and gives the money to the main organization to help build houses for people who need them. When we were there, I dusted, swept, and polished a few pieces of furniture with some lemon oil. This made them shine with a lemony fresh scent. I usually do a lot more, but today I suppose I was a bit lazy. A few people come into the store and try to give clothing or other random household items. When that happens, we send them to the thrift shop and few doors down. The organizations that are next to us are the St. Peter's Thrift Shop, pretty self-explanatory; Clubhouse, a meeting place for addicts; and Open Door, a shop that gives food to people. St. Peter's Thrift Shop and Open door
are both owned by Catholic Churches.

At Habitat, there are some people that come because they were sentenced to community service in court. They aren't really bad people, just people that made stupid mistakes. In some cases, when a person is done with their community service hours, they'll still come back to volunteer because the store has a very good atmosphere. Others will just finish their community service hours and you never see them again, unless of course, they make another mistake and they get sent back to the store to do more hours.

Fridays are usually the slowest days, because there is no one to drive the truck to go deliver and pick up furniture.

Habitat for Humanity is a very nice place to be at and I would probably go there if I wasn't taken by my grandma every friday and if I could drive.

Bowling, a very fun and exciting sport, but not when you bowl badly. Then you just feel bad. Today I went bowling with my grandma because she needed to get more practice in. The majority of my scores were 0, since I kept getting gutter balls. Some just went straight into the gutter after a few seconds on the lane. Others almost reached the pins, but went into the gutter at the last second. During the first game my bowling was extremely bad. It was made up of mostly gutter balls and only hitting one pin. On the tenth frame I got a spare. My total score for the first game was 42. My grandma on the other hand was much better, mostly because she bowls a lot more than I do. For the first game she barely got any gutter balls. Her total score for the first game was 135. The next game, I bowled slightly better. My score for the second game was 63. My grandma bowled not quite as well during her second game. Her score was 109. During the third game, I bowled pretty well though. I managed to get 3 spares and constantly knocked down seven pins. My score for the third game was 87. I was very proud of that score even though it could have been better, but hey, I'm sorta good for a beginner. My grandma in the third game, bowled better then she did in the first game. She got two strikes in a row and a spare on the tenth frame. Her score for the third game was 143. During all three games, my grandma constantly nagged me about how to bowl and "keeping my arm straight." She says it was advice, but it sounded like nagging to me. Ah well, I had a good time. Probably won't bowl again for some time though.

Why is it that Barack Obama is still being pestered about why he stayed in his church for twenty years? Obama says that Reverend Wright is like family to him and he can't just leave him. Lots of people still think that for twenty plus years, the only thing that Rev. Wright was preaching was "God Damn America!" and "We can't complain about 9/11 because we've done terrible things to the world" like the bombings of Hiroshima for example. Rev. Wright only preached those opinions in one or two sermons. If he stated those opinions in the church EVERY time he was doing a service, that means that at the baptisms, "God Damn America!", at the weddings, "God Damn America!", at the funerals, "God Damn America!" Now I'm pretty sure that if that was all that he said in his sermons, that there would not be ANYONE at that particular church. He didn't though, most of his sermons taught things that would be taught in any church. Things about Jesus and what not. Also Barack Obama was not present for the controversial sermons that Reverend Wright preached.

Another thing that I have a problem with is the fact that some people are still saying that you shouldn't vote for Obama because he is a Muslim. I mean COME ON. Sure his name may be Barack Hussan Obama, but that doesn't mean that he has any connection to the Muslims. Very recently, a white pastor in South Carolina put up a sign in front of his church which states, "Obama Osama, Humm are they brothers?" I don't think I even need to say anything about it for people to see how ignorant that is.

In any case, leave poor Obama alone. It isn't his fault that his Reverend said some strange things or that he has "Hussan" in his name.