I suppose its good I didn’t know about it.. I probably would have gotten into trouble. Who knew you could buy potassium nitrate (stump remover) at the hardware store, mix it with plain old sugar, and make rocket fuel? So fun! My friend Steve and his son made a half dozen of these this afternoon. It’s simply 3 inches of 1 inch PVC with a hose adapter as a nozzle. The performance was impressive! The sugar is the fuel, and the potassium nitrate is the oxidizer. You can read more about it on Wikipedia: Rocket Candy.
🙂
Anyway, here is one of them being launched today. Sorry, I should have gotten pictures of the process.. but I was too wrapped up in it and forgot to document it.
I took the pledge at “30 days of biking” to ride my bike every day this month. Some times its around the block, other times its farther. This morning, I took a ride around North Augusta!
It was a really nice ride! I did the hills in fine fashion. Good start to the day.
🙂
Last night We went to the clubhou.se and participated in the “minisumo” competition. What a great time! We did not win, but we will next time! During this, I talked to Rockwell.. Turns out the 8th graders where doing minisumo that day at school!!
That is, Rockwell, and a Race.
Here is a great picture of Rockwell and his best friend Croix.
And Here is a picture of Lexi Cruz, Me, Richard Rogers, and Sam Eaton at the “Heart and Sole 5k” race to benefit the local Hospital. I did better than last year, barely.. 27:30. Be we were also stopped for traffic once. (Only in Augusta, or at least the south would they stop a timed race that has upwards of 400 people in it so traffic can go through.)
So; Hannah and I went to dinner the other night with a friend / business associate of mine. This Gentleman is a genuinely good guy. A knowledgeable Engineer. He also happens to be a creationist. Somehow genetics got brought up, and he was talking about how it fits in with creationist theories. Now this guys is no pushover here… He actually helped create the creationist museum in Kentucky. I tried my best to be polite. He had some good points, even though some of the reasoning he was using had holes in it you could drive a truck though.
But all that is beside the point. What I observed was; Hannah held her tongue the whole conversation. While she was participating in the general conversation, she never said a word on this subject. And Oh, I KNOW she wanted to.
When we where in the car on the way home, I commented on her self control and her knowledge/intuition to know she should probably stay out of the conversation. “that was hard, I’ll tell you”. I bet it was. And it was NOT prompted by me. I never said a word to her. She just knew it probably was not the best time, even though I ventured in a little bit!
That was notable. I was impressed. But what prompted me to comment here was something she said on the way to school this morning. I had asked her about how she was doing on her German program. She has Rosetta Stone German. She has been working with it regularly, but I had not seen her on it in the last two days. She said “It’s addictive! I’ve tried to train myself to walk away from addictive things on the computer”. Are you kidding me? she is 14. And my 14y.o. knows to try and use some self control?
Cant help but feel good after receiving a letter like this from a teacher:
Can you please get their mailing address for us? I want to have the class write Rockwell letters. Wish I could go with him! I will be sure to get all of his grades in and the paperwork from the office.
I will miss him. He is a bright spot in my classroom and it makes my heart sad to see him leave!!!!!
Julie
Julie Greene
3rd Grade Teacher
North Augusta Elementary School
400 East Spring Grove Avenue
North Augusta, SC 29841
Arthur raised this turkey from an egg. He would have had more, but the eggs only produced at about 10 percent, and then he lost a few to predators. I don’t think he had any intention of befriending them, rather they were going to be nice meals in the fall. However, this one follows him around like a baby looking for its mom, and I think Arthur is going soft on it. I think I even heard him call it a name!
This guy has a lot of growing to do.. I don’t think Arthur will be able to coddle it much longer. (Note, this pictures was NOT staged.. that bird found its way to Arthur’s lap by itself.)
