(no subject)
I'm here in the time period where I'm in my parent's house after graduating college and before movinginto my own place. I thought it might be fun to look around my childhood room and recall the stories behind different things (OK, junk) lying around my room.
OK, so in the back left corner we have a mesh skimmer, I think it's used in Chinese cooking for...straining? Frying? So why the heck do I have it? One summer, when I was 15 maybe? My dad was out of work so he decided to cancel our Internet service to save money. Around the same time I read an article about using a parabolic skimmer to boost Wifi signals so I bought one, a USB wifi dongle, and a bunch of USB extension cords. I tried going out on the roof with the dish to try to leech of the neighbor's signal, but I never really had any luck, so I returned the USB Wifi dongle and the extension cables, but I think the cooking store where I got the dish from went out of business, so I still have it.
Next you can see the yo-yos. When I was in fourth grade, yo-yos were the cool fad. I had a Yomega Fireball yo-yo, which was great but it got stolen. However, I don't believe these are the yo-yos I had when I was in fourth grade. My freshman year of college I had food debit from the meal plan, and at the end of the year I had a surplus. THe food debit can be spent in any of the convenience stores, so Idecided to use up some of it buying some yo-yos. Finally, another Yomega Fireball!
Under the yo-yos, you will see a Krispy Kreme hat. I got this in high school on one of the days some group was doing fundraising by selling Krispy Kreme dougnuts. In biology class, Eric Lanouette and I were wearing it. And Ms Lawson told us to take it off. Then we started taking turns wearing it, keeping track of who could wear it the longest before she yelled at us to take it off. I believe I ended up winning. There's probably a blog entry on here somewhere where I mention doing it, but heck if I feellike finding it. It would probably be in 2005 or late 2004 if anyone wants to go searching for it.
The Krispy Kreme hat is resting on a homemade fez, that my mom mad for me. She made it by wrapping white felt around an oaktag cylinder. I added a tassle made up of yellow yarn. In seventh grade Peter Brown and I had to do a project on Morocco. There was something called the World's Fair and each pair of people had to set up a booth about their country, and they had little posters and dioramas about their country, and possibly had food and wear the clothing from that country.
To the right you will see the model rocket I made in FACS (Family and Consumer Science) class in seventh grade. My sister said when she had the class they did a unit on cooking instead of making model rockets. I'm not really sure how making rockets makes you a better homemaker unless it's just supposed to be the general craftiness of the project. I labelled the rocket "STEALTH BLACK JACK X-22J" which I believe was one of Jason's rockets in the comic strip Fox Trot. On the wings I had a pi symbol and some of the digits of pi. I guess I thought that was cool.
To the right of the model rocket, you will see the CB radio I got when I was in fourth grade. Matt Govoni and Peter Brown all got them as an upgrade over kid's walkie-talkies. I remember I had all these Radio Shack catalogs I would read and I found one that would meet our needs, but when I called the store they said they didn't carry that model anymore. Matt Govoni said his dad had gone in and the store didn't carry anything that was in our price range, but my mom took the three of us to the Radio Shack in Derry to look anyways, and we found this one. The thing was pretty comical because it had a belt clip, although it would probably cause your pants to fall down, since it took like 8 AA batteries. The antenna extended to be like two feet long, and it only worked on Channel 14 IIRC. You could add crystals to support up to three total channels though, something I considered but never did.
To the right we see a cassette player. When I was a little kid we used this to listen to all of our books on tape and that sort of thing. The thing was very well made and really solid and heavy. When the thing died I was probably about 11, and since I had fond memories of it I decided to keep and try to fix it, which I never did.
On top of the casette plyer you can see the "Optic Wonder", a little gizmo I probably got when I was 7. It's basically a little thing that has different magnifying glasses, but you can flip them in different ways so that you can use it for a magnifying glass or binoculars. It also had a compass and a mirror.
On top of the casette player and Optic Wonder is a balsa wood bridge Nate Jellis and I made for physics class our senior year of high school. It was kind of a dumb project because he had partner's try to make bridges with the best ratio of strength to weight, but never explained any of the theory needed to do so. I think our bridge ended up finishing somewhere in the upper half of the class.
In the foreground you can see a collection of empty contact lens solution bottles. I think I just put an empty one there and forgot about it so I decided to keep doing it to see how big of a collection I could amass. I really should get rid of them.
The contact lens solution bottles are resting on a 24 port 3Com 10mpbs hub that my dad gave me a couple years ago because they were getting rid of it from work (for obvious reason). Since I really have no use for it, there it sits.
In the background of the image you can see the bottom of my "HACKERS AHEAD" poster from Microsoft. When I was in eighth grade I found out Microsoft was giving away packs of posters with computer security messages. I think they were supposed to be for teachers, but I signed up and got them anyways.
In the middle of the picture, you can see my two-way FRS radio (walkie-talkie). When I got the CB radio, my dad said if I took care of it for a year, he would buy me something better. So a year later I got these Motorola FRS radios with a "two mile range". I remember these being cool, because in fifth grade I was starting to become friends with Jeff Isaac and I found out that he had FRS radios, too. He only lived 0.2 miles from me, so we would get on at a certain time each night and talk. Even though he was only two tenths of a mile from me we where really about at the limit of the range as there was a lot of interference and at times it was hard to make out what was being said.
In the bottom right corner, you can see the medal I got for getting summa cum laude on my National Latin Exam. This was funny because I had like a C or a C- in the class because I never memorized the declensions. Fortunately the exam was multiple choice, so once I was able to see the answers, I could tell which one was right.
Well I hope you enjoyed exploring that corner of my room, and don't hold your breath for another installment.
OK, so in the back left corner we have a mesh skimmer, I think it's used in Chinese cooking for...straining? Frying? So why the heck do I have it? One summer, when I was 15 maybe? My dad was out of work so he decided to cancel our Internet service to save money. Around the same time I read an article about using a parabolic skimmer to boost Wifi signals so I bought one, a USB wifi dongle, and a bunch of USB extension cords. I tried going out on the roof with the dish to try to leech of the neighbor's signal, but I never really had any luck, so I returned the USB Wifi dongle and the extension cables, but I think the cooking store where I got the dish from went out of business, so I still have it.
Next you can see the yo-yos. When I was in fourth grade, yo-yos were the cool fad. I had a Yomega Fireball yo-yo, which was great but it got stolen. However, I don't believe these are the yo-yos I had when I was in fourth grade. My freshman year of college I had food debit from the meal plan, and at the end of the year I had a surplus. THe food debit can be spent in any of the convenience stores, so Idecided to use up some of it buying some yo-yos. Finally, another Yomega Fireball!
Under the yo-yos, you will see a Krispy Kreme hat. I got this in high school on one of the days some group was doing fundraising by selling Krispy Kreme dougnuts. In biology class, Eric Lanouette and I were wearing it. And Ms Lawson told us to take it off. Then we started taking turns wearing it, keeping track of who could wear it the longest before she yelled at us to take it off. I believe I ended up winning. There's probably a blog entry on here somewhere where I mention doing it, but heck if I feellike finding it. It would probably be in 2005 or late 2004 if anyone wants to go searching for it.
The Krispy Kreme hat is resting on a homemade fez, that my mom mad for me. She made it by wrapping white felt around an oaktag cylinder. I added a tassle made up of yellow yarn. In seventh grade Peter Brown and I had to do a project on Morocco. There was something called the World's Fair and each pair of people had to set up a booth about their country, and they had little posters and dioramas about their country, and possibly had food and wear the clothing from that country.
To the right you will see the model rocket I made in FACS (Family and Consumer Science) class in seventh grade. My sister said when she had the class they did a unit on cooking instead of making model rockets. I'm not really sure how making rockets makes you a better homemaker unless it's just supposed to be the general craftiness of the project. I labelled the rocket "STEALTH BLACK JACK X-22J" which I believe was one of Jason's rockets in the comic strip Fox Trot. On the wings I had a pi symbol and some of the digits of pi. I guess I thought that was cool.
To the right of the model rocket, you will see the CB radio I got when I was in fourth grade. Matt Govoni and Peter Brown all got them as an upgrade over kid's walkie-talkies. I remember I had all these Radio Shack catalogs I would read and I found one that would meet our needs, but when I called the store they said they didn't carry that model anymore. Matt Govoni said his dad had gone in and the store didn't carry anything that was in our price range, but my mom took the three of us to the Radio Shack in Derry to look anyways, and we found this one. The thing was pretty comical because it had a belt clip, although it would probably cause your pants to fall down, since it took like 8 AA batteries. The antenna extended to be like two feet long, and it only worked on Channel 14 IIRC. You could add crystals to support up to three total channels though, something I considered but never did.
To the right we see a cassette player. When I was a little kid we used this to listen to all of our books on tape and that sort of thing. The thing was very well made and really solid and heavy. When the thing died I was probably about 11, and since I had fond memories of it I decided to keep and try to fix it, which I never did.
On top of the casette plyer you can see the "Optic Wonder", a little gizmo I probably got when I was 7. It's basically a little thing that has different magnifying glasses, but you can flip them in different ways so that you can use it for a magnifying glass or binoculars. It also had a compass and a mirror.
On top of the casette player and Optic Wonder is a balsa wood bridge Nate Jellis and I made for physics class our senior year of high school. It was kind of a dumb project because he had partner's try to make bridges with the best ratio of strength to weight, but never explained any of the theory needed to do so. I think our bridge ended up finishing somewhere in the upper half of the class.
In the foreground you can see a collection of empty contact lens solution bottles. I think I just put an empty one there and forgot about it so I decided to keep doing it to see how big of a collection I could amass. I really should get rid of them.
The contact lens solution bottles are resting on a 24 port 3Com 10mpbs hub that my dad gave me a couple years ago because they were getting rid of it from work (for obvious reason). Since I really have no use for it, there it sits.
In the background of the image you can see the bottom of my "HACKERS AHEAD" poster from Microsoft. When I was in eighth grade I found out Microsoft was giving away packs of posters with computer security messages. I think they were supposed to be for teachers, but I signed up and got them anyways.
In the middle of the picture, you can see my two-way FRS radio (walkie-talkie). When I got the CB radio, my dad said if I took care of it for a year, he would buy me something better. So a year later I got these Motorola FRS radios with a "two mile range". I remember these being cool, because in fifth grade I was starting to become friends with Jeff Isaac and I found out that he had FRS radios, too. He only lived 0.2 miles from me, so we would get on at a certain time each night and talk. Even though he was only two tenths of a mile from me we where really about at the limit of the range as there was a lot of interference and at times it was hard to make out what was being said.
In the bottom right corner, you can see the medal I got for getting summa cum laude on my National Latin Exam. This was funny because I had like a C or a C- in the class because I never memorized the declensions. Fortunately the exam was multiple choice, so once I was able to see the answers, I could tell which one was right.
Well I hope you enjoyed exploring that corner of my room, and don't hold your breath for another installment.