Well, as of yet, there is not winner in the opening lines for my blogger contest, so I am currently deprived of any form of greeting.

Yesterday was quite a day. We (Mom, BonnieJean, Anna and I) went to the rec center in the morning and I ran and juggled some. When we got home (after stopping b QT for a 49 cent quart of fountain drink!) Ethan told us that Sam B. had called saying they were going to be doing another demonstration up by RSU. But he couldn't remember when it was. So we called her and got a busy signal. We did finally get through and learned it was going to be 2-3:30, so BonnieJean, Anna and I headed up there at about 2. Sam gave us all signs and flyers. I had a sign that said "Kangaroo court at RSU" and had a picture of a kangaroo with a gavel on it. I took up position on a concrete triangle in between the exit from RSU and the road (if that makes any sense). It really was a good spot, because everybody leaving the campus had to stop at the stop sign and there I was, holding out a flyer. I think between me and the lady standing on by the stop sign (across the road from me) we passed out more flyers than everybody else combined. At one point "everybody else" totaled about thrity people, so we had a pretty good turn-out (turnout? turn out? turn-out?) The only problem was that we forgot to get any sunscreen and I was standing in the direct sun for about two hours, so I am now beet red. Not fun. But other than that we had a great time. There is something very fun about handing a flyer to an RSU administror and telling her that we're here protesting the violation of student civil rights. (For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, try visiting www.rsusaga.com and you'll find plently of info. there.)

We headed out for karate right after getting back from the demonstration. I didn't do too much during the first class: just streched out and fought Ethan and Anna a little bit. Something I find very interesting is that Ethan is a very defensive fighter who throws no combination and lots of very obvious kicks. The odd thing is that when we fence, he is a very fast and versitile fighter, excelling partitularly at hitting me in the legs. And although he doesn't have a defense to write home about, he can manage pretty well when I come at him with a stick. Yet when we're sparring, he's almost without a prayer when I come at him. He can block most of my kicks, yet if I come in with four or five things in combination I almost always get him.

During class we didn't do much of interest (other than lining up in time, so the black belts did push ups...it was fun to stand there and watch them do it) but afterwards I fought Jordan, a brown belt who's a friend of mine. He was also an interesting fighter in that he is TOTALLY defensive. At least Ethan will come at you every once in awhile: Jorden didn't come at me once. And every time I moved in close to him, he'd back up. In fact I chased all the way across the dojo once, without him doing anything but backing up! It was actually kinda humerous. He does have a mean snap kick though, and would hit my arm repeatedly. Another interesting thing that happened was I knocked him the ground once and tried to come in with a punch to the cest. Notice I said TRIED. What happened was he came up with several ridge hands to my chest and I half ran, half fell right over him. It was rather funny.

After fighting Jordan I fought his sister Rachel, also a brown belt. She is a much more agressive fighter and was very adept at hitting me in the side whenever I came at her. She was also very adept at hitting me in the face: three times in fact. (You're not supposed to have any face contact unless both people are brown belts or above.) I think I did pretty well against her though: I managed to slip several side kicks under her gaurd and get her in the side. One of these was perhaps a little too powerful, so after we were done fighting she kicked me in the stomach when I wasn't looking at her. *shakes head* I think she has a tendancy to go a little bit far. Still, it was a fun fight.

Well, Saturday I went to the tumbling clinic and I am now certain that the fellow teaching it is not gay. In fact he acts a whole lot like BonnieJean's Sunday School teacher. I worked mostly on back hand springs and back tucks. I'd never even tried a back tuck before, but he had me doing them into the pit and I actually didn't do that bad. We had the pit built up almost level with the floor and I was still able to land it about half the time. I also got a punch front on the floor and did some front hand springs. Oddly enough, I find front tumbling much easier than back tumbling. Most people are the other way around, because all your front tumbling has a blind landing. I guess I'm just a wierdo.

Sunday the water pump on the new car went out and Dad had to replace it. He went ahead and replaced all the hoses while he was at it. I went out and helped him towards the end of the day and we finished about 11 o'clock. Then on Monday Dad didn't show up at karate because he had to go home and pull out the radiator because it was leaking. Hopefully once he gets that fixed there won't be anymore problems.

Sorry about the last post being posted twice. I tried several times to delete one of them, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The problem with blogger is that although it works great when things to right, when things go wrong, they are very hard to fix. Oh well. I have to get off now. Math is calling!

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The following is my last post that somehow got deleted.
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Hello, hello, hello! Do you think I need to get a new greeting? It's gotten kinda boring to say "hello, hello, hello!" at the front of every blog, but I can't think of anything else to write. So, I am happy to announce the first annual international blogger greeting contest! To the winner will go hundreds of $$$!!! Along with instruction on how to make much more $$$ on your own! There is no selling involved and no cost! It's all pure $$$!
Today was a tiring day. Dad stayed home to get the refrigeration lines installed for the new A/C unit and I spent the morning and half the afternoon up in the attic or out in the heat working with him. We used 3/4 in. copper tubbing that was very difficult to bend without kinking. In fact the first two hours of work were wasted because the pipe kinked too many times and we had to pull it all out and get new pipe. Not fun.
Tomorrow I'm taking a three hour tumbling clinic at work. I've been planning on taking a tumbling class this fall and figured this would be a good way to get ready for that. The interesting thing is that I've heard from several people that there is a guy at work who is "obviously gay". There are only five guys who work there (counting me) and I know four of them (counting me). I'm certain that none of them are gay. This clinic is taught by the one guy I don't know. Although I haven't worked with him, I have seen him working before (he taught a cheerleading class at the same time I was teaching a 6 and up class one night a week) and he is not "obviously gay". Everybody says that you can tell from a mile away that who their talking about. So I'm wordering if they might not be all wet. For one thing I doubt my boss would hire someone who is obviously gay. So anyway, I guess I'll know tomorrow!
Monday night I got to fight one of the black belts, the younger Mr. G. Interestingly enough, he isn't actually all that great of a fighter. He did score more points than I did, but all his kicks were very obvious and he hardly used his hands at all. And I made multiple scores by simply throwing a single roundhouse to his chest. Next week I'm going to be sparring Jordan (a brown belt who we've met through ATI and various home school events-he's a cool guy) and the younger Mr. M. I don't know if Jordan is a very good fighter but I do know that Mr. M is very good, so I'm looking forward to that. It's actually funner to fight somebody who is better than you. I also like sparring the upper belts because although you get hit more often, you get hurt far less. We are going to be tesing for our orange belts at the end of the month. That includes six minutes of sparring (three-two minute fights) with no rest. I've been running for about five minutes every day and should have it up further by that time, so it shouldn't be a problem. BonnieJean will be testing for her yellow belt at about the same time.
We're going up to Chicago at the end of the month for my cousin's wedding. It will be fun to get to see Dad's sisters and Grandma again.
After leaving Chicago we'll go over to Memphis and spend two nights and one day there. It's going to be so fun to get to see everybody again! We'll be there for the first day of school and us older ones will get to go with the couches and help some. And the really fun thing is that we'll get to go to Speedway! Speedway is a church in inner-city Memphis were they do a Good News club and a English as a Second Laungauge class. We do the first club and then watch the kids of the parents taking the class. It's really cool. Mom called Miss Karen today and she said that they were kinda counting on BonnieJean and I to be there in the month of October and we're really hoping that doesn't cause complications because....
KIWA IS COMING TO SEE US!!!!!!!!!!! She emailed saying she was hoping to come in October or next spring. We're hoping we can get her to come at the end of September or the beginnnig of November. It'd be such a blast to have her over here again!
BonnieJean is applying to go on a mission trip to Tiwain next year...for six months! I'm still not sure what I think about that. If it's God's will, then of course she should go, but...SIX MONTHS!!!!!! is a long time! What am I going to do without my sister for six months?
Speaking of BonnieJean, she will be graduating from the paralegal course right after we get back from Memphis! We get back on 4th and she has finals on the 5th and 6th and then she's all done! Yea! I'm very excited and I'll be I'm not nearlly as excited as she is!
The 15th through the 17th BonnieJean and I will be going on a retreat with the college and career class. BonnieJean went to the same place last year and really enjoyed it. I'm really looking forward to it.
Well, I'd better get to bed now. Talk to y'all guys later! God bless! Jude 24-25