Accordion

Yes, I do have an Accordion.
And No I do not play it.
It ways about 2 trillion tonnes and there are approximately 4 million ladybug sized buttons on the side that you are supposed to memorize and be able to play them without looking at them.
that's right, ladybug sized.

not happening.

Anyway My Grampa bought it for me about a year ago, and he drove through the mountains in B.C during a blizzard to pick it up in Vancouver.
It is a very cool accordion though, and every once in awhile I take it out and play with it, pick out a few tunes and then put it back.
this time I decided to take some pictures and show all you guys.
here they are.






It's gotta be good if it has a name like Camillo.
well that's and accordion for you.

Josh.

Boxes

Today I decided that I am going to post about my boxes.
not cardboard boxes but wood boxes. (or any box that looks cool!)

every time I go on holidays I look around and try to find a really cool box to take home as a souvenir and I have come across a few very cool boxes. and here they are!.


First up we have this chest that I bought in Mexico at Loreto. I think that I bought this on the last day of holidays... it looks really good on my shelf :p

then we have puzzle box 1, I bought this one at Pike Place Market in Seattle, the Lady who makes these cuts them out of one piece of wood!, gotta have a lot of patience to cut this out... wow. here's some pictures of it being taken apart.




this is puzzle box 2. (featured in my last post) I got this one in Chinatown in San Francisco, there was a bigger box. but, of course, it was WAAAYYYYY overpriced. :( but this one is a LOT of fun to play with!. I wont show you how to take this one apart just in case you come to my house, then you'll have to figure it out by yourself :)

and this one I didn't get on holidays, actually I found it in my garage (who woulda' thunk???)
but it looks really cool so I decided to put it in this post. and next holidays, well, you'll just have to wait and see what kind of treasures I bring back.

Have fun and post YOUR boxes, then leave a comment with a link to your blog, I'd LOVE to see them!.
until next time,
Josh.

Ten Tiny Things.

Hello there, I have been tagged by Bea at Creative Sandwich to participate in the Ten Tiny Things challenge.

here are the rules.

take ten tiny things that you like and take a picture of them all together, then (if you want) write a little bit about each object.

okay, here I go.

hmmmm.... lets start at the top left.

• This little pagoda is just so darn cool, I have had it forever and it has that cool something about it that just makes you want to hold it in your hand and turn it over to look at it.
• The spiky ball. how else can I describe it?. I found it under a tree when we went on holidays to San Francisco. I don't know what it is, but I like it a lot.
• My puzzle box. I got this in China town in San Francisco, you can only open it if you know where to slide all the little panels hidden in the intaglio. very cool.
• My little jade turtle. Mom bought this for me at the Chinese garden in Vancouver. it's one of those things that you just love!.
• My tin roman soldier that Nialle gave me. he's about an inch tall and stands proudly in the display case on my wall.
• A piece of Dinosaur egg shell, I had to have it!
• A slice of Lapis Lazula from Afghanistan, my favorite stone!.
• A small Turquoise rock. look at the color!.
• A cool coin from India. it has a wavy edge that sets it apart.
• And last but not least, a tiny rock with a hole in it I found on the Oregon coast. did I mention it has a hole in it???

well those are my Ten Tiny Things. now YOU go do this, and when your done leave a comment on the Funky Art Queens post and maybe you can win some of her art!.


happy ten tiny thing-ing!
Josh.

Camp Shakespeare.

This year at Camp Shakespeare my class did a (very) abridged version of As You Like It on the Main stage of the Heritage Amphitheater in Hawrelak Park.
every year Camp Shakespeare runs during the performances of the River City Shakespeare Festival, in which the Freewill Players perform a comedy and a tragedy. the Camps work on an abridged version of the Comedy playing that year and then Perform at the end of the week on the Main stage in the amphitheater. this is the second year I have taken the camp and we had a small group of 6, so we all had really good mentoring with our teacher.

I played Orlando, the younger brother in a family with no parents and only a jealous older brother who has withheld my inheritance and conspires to have me killed in a boxing match.
of course I win the fight and then fall in love with Rosalinde.

of course the full length play has many more twists and turns and a larger cast, but we had a lot of fun putting on a small performance and getting to talk to the people who put the entire show together. we had the privilege of talking to the Assistant Stage Manager, a couple members of the cast, and the Fight Choreographer. I am looking forward to next year and I want to Audition for the Dream Team, which should be a blast!.

Here are a couple pictures. (that's me in the white shirt)





thanks,
Josh, making his way back into the world of blogging.

I've been tagged!,

I've been tagged by my good friend at ART of Humungous Proportions. it's a book tag, so here's what you do:
Pick up a book of at least 123 pages.
Open the book to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Then post the next three sentences.
Finally, tag five people to do the same.

since I'm reading Emma by Jane Austen for a class I'm taking I'll use it.
what I meant to say is that I would use it but it just so happens that page 123 in my edition of Emma happens to be and illustration.

so I'll try "Captains Courageous" by Rudyard Kipling. ( the next book I have to read for the class)

here it goes.

"then He swept his hand Musician-wise through the air,regarded the ceiling, and set to work, while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up the continent of America. "K. H. Wade, Los Angeles---- The 'Constance' is at Los Angeles, isn't she, Miss Kinzey?"
"yep." Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks as the secretary looked at his watch."

there.

I wonder what Musician-wise means...

now I tag,

Daniel at Musings of a Liber Boy

Raine at My Commonplace Book

Josh.

(I don't have 5 people to tag so YOU can tag 7 people to make up for me, :) )

W for Wendeta,

I am reading Oliver Twist and I thought that it was very funny that there are no V's in the book, and where there should be a V it is replaced with a W, so vicious becomes wiciuos, which is very amusing to read. I also have the V speech from V for Vendetta and I thought that it would be very funny to write it like Charles Dickens, and replace all the V's with W's. So here's what I got, and I hope you enjoy.

W for Wendetta

written by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, with a twist inspired by Charles Dickens.

W: Woila!, in Wiew,a humble Waudewillian Weteran, cast Wicariously as both Wictim and Willian by the Wicissitudes of fate. the Wisage, no mere Weneer of Wanity, is a Westige of the Wox Populi, now Wacant, Wanished. howewer, this Walorous wisitation of a by-gone Wexation, stands Wiwified and has Wowed to Wanquish these Wenal and Wirulent Werman Wangourding Wice and Wouchsafing the Wiolently Wicious and Woracious Wiolation of Wolition. the only Werdict is Wengence: a Wendetta, held as a Wotiwe, not in Wain, for the Walue of such shall one day Windicate the Wigilant and the Wirtuos. (giggles) Werily, this Wichyssoise of Werbiage Weers most Werbose, so let me simply add that it is my Wery good honor to meet you and that you may call me W.

so that's what the V speech from V for Vendetta would have sounded like if Charles Dickens would have written the script.

but I was curious about the lack of V's in the book so I did some quick research and found that it is purely an accent that seems to be used by the lower class of people in London. I also found a website that has lists of weird words, and I found out that arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.

now isn't that useful!.

well I hope that you had as much fun trying to decipher the V speech as I did typing it out.

fare the well,

Josh.

(who is not arachibutyrophobic.)

2 years of blogging!

Hey there everyone!,  I was looking at my old (OLD) posts and I saw that I have been blogging for just over two years!, so this is a little celebration in honor of myself for sticking to something and only forgetting about the existence of my blog occasionally. Here's to blogging!,

Cheers!,

Josh.

February Song

(mostly) From February Song:

Where has that old friend gone, 

lost in a February song,

tell him it wont be long till I post on my blog...

OK, so maybe those aren't exactly the words to the song, but it suits the situation to a T.

The first line;

where has that old friend gone, well I disappeared from Blogdom for awhile,

the second line:

lost in a February song,

I went to Lethbridge to play my song(in February, mind you,) and then posted once or twice and got lost, far far away from Blogdom.

the third line:

tell him it wont be long till I post on my blog...

I took a little itty bit of creative liberty with the last line, but so what, I think it's a great improvement. (well maybe not great...)

so what have I been doing all this time, you must be wondering, well I have been playing lots and lots and lots of piano, writing a new song,  and playing sheet music (which is abundant in our house, especially movie scores), I am also waiting impatiently for another book to arrive, and reading MAKEezine  and making paper things, I'll post a picture of my semi-latest project in another post(I don't have a picture of it yet).  

I am also in an online class called Modern Classics and right now I'm reading Oliver Twist, such a great and sad book!.  The class is going really well and it was interesting talking to other people about what they thought about the characters in the book and why maybe they all seem so afraid of Oliver, very interesting.

well I'm all out of things to say for now so until next post, Adios Amigos!,

Josh. 

(PS, if your wondering what the real lyrics to the song are, here they are: tell him it wont be long till he opens his eyes...)

Tagged!.

Hi all, I've been tagged by the generous and talented Arlene of ArtDeMe,

Here are the rules. Feel free to adjust them. Or not. Your call.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. My favorite color is blue.

2. I used to have a "pet" chicken.

3. I have played a piano with 95 keys.

4. I've been to Mexico.

5. I want to go to New Zealand.

6. I have broken 1 arm. 

7. and one of my favorite songs is Into the West composed by Howard shore and performed by Annie Lenox.

now I have to tag 7 people.

I tag:

Daniel,

Raine.

ummmm...

that's about it.

for now.

I guess.

see you next time,

Josh.

 

threadless T-shirts

Hey everybody, I have been really liking threadless T-shirts for awhile, if you haven't heard of them it is a community based T-shirt design company, which means that you submit designs for T-shirts, and everyone else votes on it, and if you get enough votes they print your T-shirt and you get a pile of money.
Sounds great!, doesn't it!.
I have a couple of T-shirts from them and I love them.
Now there's another thing to,
if you click on the link in the sidebar that says something like: Threadless T-shirts, very cool,
then I get a $1.50 in credits, and if you like a T-shirt and buy it then I get $3.00
So click away my dear friends and let us (me) be merry!.
Josh.

silk screening

Hi, well I'm done my Silk Screening course and I must say it was very very very fun. At the course we learned the basics of silk screening and which materials are best and what to use and how to use them. We started of by cutting out stencils out of newsprint and then we worked our way on to photo emulsion. with photo emulsion what you do is basically pick and image, run it through a Xerox machine and then print it onto a piece of transparent plastic. then you coat your screen with the photo emulsion and let it dry in a dark room. after it has completely dried you place your transparency on top of the screen the way you want it to look when you print and then you place it under a bright (very very bright) light for about 7 minutes. after the time is up you quickly wash your screen under lukewarm water until all the photo emulsion that did not harden under the light is gone, leaving you with a screen with your design on it. what happens when you place your screen under the light is that the photo sensitive stuff in the emulsion hardens, except for where the light cant get through (AKA, the black areas on your transparency.) the image that I picked for my image was a picture that I took in Mexico of the mission in the town we stayed in, and here's a picture of the final project.



this print is on paper, but I did most of mine on fabric.
well I had a lot of fun with this class and I hope that Lee teaches another class again,
Thanks Lee!,
Josh.

fun with kirigami

Well I've been having lots of fun with Kirigami, it's just so interesting to look at and the end result is just so great!. I made a really cool kirigami sphere, it's a sphere that is made of a whole bunch of pieces of paper that slide into each other to form the sphere shape, and another really cool thing about it is that it folds down flat, really really fun. but I don't have any pictures of it, I'll take some and post them later. I also made a card for Aunty Karyn but I wont post any photos until she gets it so that I wont spoil it for her. : )
Well our other computer crashed and we might have lost all our data, which really sucks since we haven't backed up any photos for so long, yikes, I don't even want to think about it. Well we try to get that up and running I'll see if I can load Mom's camera software onto this computer so I can upload some pictures.
I guess the moral of the story is ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS.
now go and back up all your photos and anything else that you can think of backing up.
I mean it.
Really.
Really really.
No kidding.
See you next time,
Josh.

here's some more pictures

well here's some more pictures, there are pictures of the Taj Mahal and of the Echmiadzin Cathedral, yes I know it's a mouthful but it didn't turn out to bad. well here they are,




I built these two today, the cathedral taking up most of the day and the Taj Mahal taking about half an hour to forty five minutes.
well I hope you enjoy!,
Josh.

Kirigami

Hi there, I just found the world of Kirigami, and it looks very, very cool. Kirigami is the art of folding paper and cutting it, unlike Origami, which frowns down upon those who would dare to cut their paper. you've probably done Kirigami before, you know those paper snowflakes that you cut out of folded paper?, that is a variation of Kirigami. I decided that I better try it, it looks so cool once it's finished, so since it was my friends birthday, I thought it would make a really cool birthday card. here's some pictures.




basically I'm making pop-up cards, and it wasn't all that hard to make either, the hardest part was the cutting out since my printer only printed out half the lines of the pattern ( yes, I know, I did use a pattern, and here's the link to the site I got the pattern off of.)
so if you make some Kirigami models, post a link in the comments to the post and I'll have a look at it, cant wait to see what you guys will do!.
until next time,
Josh.

Tumblewing gliders.

Hello everyone, I've been looking at this amazing site, instructables.com , and I found this how to for the tumble wing walk-along glider. I know it's a mouthful, but it's very, very cool. If you don't know what a tumble wing glider is, it's a piece of paper that's folded so that when you drop it from above your head, it spins forward rapidly while it descends. but, if you drop it from above your head, and then hold a large piece of cardboard or Styrofoam at about 15 to 20 degrees from vertical slightly below it and walk along, it will slowly move forward, supported on the cushion of air that is being directed upward by the board as you walk along. Hence the name: walk-along glider. Now, a true walk along glider looks something like a boomerang, and all you have to do is hold you hands underneath it and walk, or run, just moving your hands to steer it. Here's the link on a how to to make the easy to learn walk-along glider. 
If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see that there are a couple pictures of some other instructables that this guy has made, along with a walk along glider he made out of a dead Monarch Butterfly. Kind of weird but very cool.
Well now you go and try it, all you need is an old phone book, some scissors, some cardboard and your on your way.
Happy walk-along gliding!,
Josh.

it's all over.

Hey there everyone, I just got back from our FLL competition, and boy was it an experience.  We were competing against 40 teams from across Alberta and ended up in the top ten, we placed in 9th to be exact.  We even won an award for our presentation on environmental technology and our research on energy efficiency.  The other teams that were there were also amazing and very friendly,  as were all the volunteers and judges, coaches, and the MC. I'm really pumped about how we did and we all got a lot of comments on our costumes and one of the judges for our presentation even said that Dilbert would be proud.

I'll post some pictures later,

josh. 

FLL competition,1 day to go.

well today is our last day before the competition and were going to be working on getting all our programs in working order, so that we know which programs to use when. knowing that all the other teams have probably been doing this for about a month or so is kind of worrying, but it's going to be a lot of fun and we'll be able to go out in public dressed as geeks.
if you guys cant come to the competition you can still watch us ( and all the other teams) compete, because the head honcho people at the Lego competition have set up a live web cam set up for tomorrow starting at 11:45 AM. here's the link

just scroll down the page and look for the part that says: Tournament details. at the bottom of that little area there is a link.

well adios amigos, I'm off to Lego for today.
Josh.

First Lego League

First Lego League, that's the competition I'm in for Lego. we've Been building and programing Lego Mindstorms robots for an international competition on the 26th of January and right now it's crunch time, that's why I haven't been posting for so long, I've been at the Lepines house almost every third day for about two months and were really making headway now. the theme for the First Lego League this year is Environmental awareness and each team has to build and design a robot that will do certain tasks on a table which has Lego models on it, such as a house and a satellite, an off shore oil rig, and a power plant. we (as a team) have to build a robot that will do various tasks on the table and we also have to make a presentation to a panel of judges. for our presentation we had to pick a local building that the entire team is familiar with and then we had to do an energy audit and brainstorm ways to help improve the energy efficiency of the building, and the fun part is that our "recommendations" do NOT have to be feasible and they do not even have use existing technology, so we all whipped up some crazy new (and not so new) technology that we researched and then we put together our presentation. but right now our presentation is about 15 minutes long, where as it should be about 5 minutes or less.

yikes.

well all is not lost, we have got all our programing done (with just a few loose ends) and we have figured out our team costume. now every year teams have been dressing up in crazy costumes with big hair to make them stand out from the crowd, and well, we're really gonna show them now.

we are dressing up like geeks and nerds.

yes, you heard me, geeks and nerds. we are going to wear white dress shirts, plaid pants that are to small, slicked back hair, glasses that are all taped up, ( mine have green masking tape, how delightfully nerdy!) pocket protectors (if we can find any) and last but definitely not the least, Duct tape ties. we have green duct tape ties, black duct tape ties, red duct tape ties, and I am, just to add to the ultra geeky look that I'm going for, going to have a Dilbert tie.

now, if you've never read the Dilbert comics you will not know what I'm talking about. A Dilbert tie is a tie that sticks up, instead of laying down flat like a good tie should. mine is also made of good ol' silver duct tape.

so watch out you other Lego League Members, for the Envirobot Geeks are coming your way.

Josh.

( P.S, if you would like to come and see us at the Competition, it's going to be held at the NAIT building in Edmonton, the table competitions will be held in the main gym on the 26th of January and the madness will begin at about 12:00, about. hope to see you all there!)
(P.P.S, here's two pictures.)

where's willy?

hi there, I just found this really cool site that you can enter Canadian bills and track where they go. so far I've only entered one $5.00 but I plan on entering a whole lot more. ( now all I need is some money... lol)
here's the link, check it out, it's really cool, although they're website is kinda crappy... http://www.whereswilly.com/
lets see how many you can do, eh?.
Josh.