CHLA -- Blogmeister

This is a tin etching we made when our grade went the Higgins Armory Museum.

The Terrible Day at Camp.

My dad, my brother, a lot of our friends and I went up to a camp in northern Maine. We had to drive a good whole day to get to the road that leads there. We then had to park the cars at our other friend's camp and snowmobile in. We hooked our trailers up to the snowmobiles and rode to the camp. The camp was a long ways away. It took us at least six hours on snowmobile to get there. Which means we were miles away form any other people. After a while I looked back and my dad's trailer that was being pulled by his snowmobile was empty. It must have flipped over and everything fell out. I stopped my snowmobile and once I did everyone else did too. They asked what was wrong and I told them to look at dad's trailer. We had to go back to get the food so we all headed back and searched for what fell out. Of course it was hard to find because it was food in the snow and it was probably already buried by the snow because it was snowing. We went back and found most of it but not the milk. I mean how were we supposed to find milk out in the woods, while it was snowing, that was probably covered with ice and snow? Anyway we found most of it and headed back in the direction of camp. Once we got there we put our things away, ate dinner and sat by the fire.

The next day we went out to the big pond where we would go icefishing. Half way there a huge snowstorm started. It was so bad that we could barely see our own hands. We all went extremely slowly. After a while we all got into a straight line and slowly inched along. Right as we were about to stop and talk, the first person came to an quick stop. The next person who came was a friend named Brett. He didn't notice the person in front of him had stopped as he came around the corner so he kept going. He ran into the person in front of him, but luckily the people behind him had noticed and stopped. Soon everyone was around him and asked if he was alright. He said that his arm and shoulder hurt. We thought he had broken his arm and we should take him to the hospital, but there was no hospital anywhere near here. We brought him back to the camp and made him a makehsift sling. We then put him on the back of a snowmobile and took him on the four hour drive to the hospital.

Once we got there he was brought right in because there was nobody there. We waited around for a while while they did x-rays. We found out he broke his wrist and just dislocated his shoulder. We learned that we should be a lot more careful when there is a big storm and probably not go out that far. Later that day when we got back to the cabin we went icefishing. The ice was covered with snow. When all of us got to the middle of the pond we started driling the holes in the ice. We then realized that some parts of the ice weren't frozen through. Nick's leg went half way down through the ice before someone caught him. He entire leg was soaked. We brought him back to the cabin and called it a night. We ate, had smores and went to bed.

That was probably the worst night we have ever had there. That is my severe weather story. What's yours?

This is a spreadsheet our math class did. We were following the stock market. We each choose three or four companies to follow and we made a spreadsheet to calculate how much money we had made or lost. Someone of us made a lot of money and some of us lost a lot of money,

This is a title card of a memorable speech we each made, My speech was about when we got my dog and when he stole my sandwhich.

Stock Market

Laura Carroll yellow

Company Shares Price Price Total Price Total Price Gaines/Losses

Week 1 Week 17 Week 1 Week 17

GSK 193 $41.47 $37.84 $8,003.71 $7,303.12 -$700.59

EXM 134 $7.40 $6.44 $991.60 $862.96 -$128.64

PM 20 $50.14 $50.66 $1,002.80 $1,013.20 $10.40

Total Price -$818.83

Our modern type of hockey actually came from the British. Hockey comes from the french word “hocquet” which means stick. It is believed that the British used a stick to push a snowball across the ice. The British then brought this sport to North America. Hockey has come a long way since then. Men's hockey first started in the 1920 summer Olympics but was moved to the winter Olympics in 1924. Woman's hockey wasn't in the Olympics until 1998. The rules were first set by the students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada in 1879. Supposedly ice hockey wasn't played in America until 1893.

Ice hockey is a very fast moving and physical sport. Hockey is a sport played on ice where the players push a puck with a stick and try to get the puck into the opponent's goal. Almost every part of their body is covered in protective gear. They wear helmets, mouth guards, shin guards, gloves, neck guards, shoulder pads, knee pads, hockey pants and more. They wear skates that are enforced with a rigid shell to protect a blade from cutting through it. They have a rounded heel and no toe picks so the skates are not dangerous in a pile-up. The players have more equipment on but those pieces are not as important.
There are many terms in hockey. There is body checking, boarding, charging, cross-checking, elbowing, forechecking, holding, hooking, icing, and much more. They is also off-sides, clearing the puck, power plays and more. There is wrist shots, slap shots, penalty shots and one-timer shots and more. Off-sides and boarding are probably the most important. Off-sides is when an opponent gets behind the last defense man. So you can not go behind the last defense man on the other team. Boarding is when a player hits another player with a boarding check.
There are six different positions. There is right, center and left forward, right and left defense, and goalie. The goalie protects the goal and has special equipment. The have a different helmet, a special glove to catch the puck with, a wider stick, and bigger shin-guards. Also they can use their hands to catch the puck. The defense help protect their half of the rink. They stay back on their side most of the time but sometimes come out to help the offense. They stop the breakaways and stop the other team from getting to their goal. The offense are the players who play up. They are usually the ones to score. They are the ones who goes all the way to the other teams goal and tries to get a goal. All the positions are equally important.
Ice hockey training is very intense. They have their workouts personalized to focus on their strengths and weaknesses. They focus on lower body strength, balance, strength, speed, agility, and hand-eye coordination.
In the 2010 Winter Olympics Canada's Women Ice Hockey team took home gold. The USA took home silver and Finland took home bronze. The USA was doing great. They won every game except the last game which was where they took home silver. The last game they played Canada and lost 2 to 0. Finland won their game against Sweden and won 3 to 2 and brought home bronze. Ice hockey is a complex sport but it is very popular and has many fans.

"Grampa, tell us about when you were a soldier in the war," Pippo requested. My name is Decimus. I was a sodier in the Roman army. I was also a skilled blacksmith. While I was serving in the army i also supported our soldiers with new weapons that the blacksmiths made. I served for 5 years. Every soldier has to serve for 20 years but i am retired now. I have been retired for 3 years now. I enjoy telling my grandchildren the stories of when i was a soldier in the army. My favorite story to tell was when we found a spy in our camp. The story goes like this.
We had just arrived in Melrose, Scotland. We were setting up our fort. We were setting up our barracks or the buildings where we sleep. We were putting our belongings in one of our two common rooms were we cooked, gambled, polished our kits and kept our belongings. We had barely been there an hour when we heard someone screamed, "Spy. He's a spy!" By the time we got to where the scream came from other soldiers already had the spy captured. Apparently he had fallen in the ditches we dug ourside the walls of our fort so intruders couldn't get in. Nobody reconized him as a soldier in our century so we had 2 soldiers run to the commanders quarters to get our centurion or our commander while we tied the spy up. We looked through his belongings while we waiting for our centurion. He was wearing a helmet made out of metal and covered in leather and had a horned beast on his hemlet. I figured he wore it to make himself look taller and fiercer but he was at least a whole head shorter than most of our warriors. We all wore bronze helmets with a skull cap of iron underneath that was lined with fur to make it more comfortable. We laughed at the spy's jewelery or as he called it a "torc". It was a copper necklace that was coiled like a snake. We would never wear jewelery. He was wearing a bright dyed wollen tunic . Our tunics were very much alike, but ours went down to our knees. They also wore wollen trousers called bracae or breeches. He wore a bright, checkered cloak that was fastened around his neck. He had dyed his bright yellow but we didn't dye ours so it would staywaterproof and warm. We later learned that only the rich wore undergarments and women wore sleeveless linen blouses dyed purple. The Celtic warrior also wore leather boots that kept their feet warm because it was very cold here in Scotland. The boots we wore were leather but we also wore fur socks for warmth and comfort. His shield was a joke to us. His was made of wood and covered in leather where as ours was made our of strips of wood with an iron rim that had a iron boss in the middle to protect from stones or missiles. Their shields were designed with wild beasts on them. They had also stolen our ideas of weapons, but the only weapon he was carrying was a long sword used for slashing and cutting and a spear with a spiral pointed iron head for creating deep wounds. He also had a slingshot. We carried a hasta or a spear and a two foot long sword. The advantage of our spear was that when it hit something hard it would bend so it was useless to the enemy and we could throw it and kill someone from 90 feet away. A headless spear was given to a brave warrior in honor after a battle. Our sword was 2 feet long and 2 inches wide and was double edged with a sharp point. They were used to thrust and stab. The handle was made of bone and we kept them in a leather pouch. The warrior didn't wear body armor as where we did. Our armor protected our chest and back and it was made our of metal plates and strips so we could move easier. The Celtic warrior did not carry anything else. We carry a kit bag because we had to bring our own food for three days. We carried a bronze tin food box, a kettle, a hand mill and building tools. We were nicknamed mules because we carried so much with us. Once our centurion got to us he told us all to return to our barracks and go to sleep. We all did what we were told but none of us slept. We sat in our beds and wondered what had happened to him. He obviously wasn't a Roman but a Celtic soldier. We all knew that if he was trying to blend in he would have done a better job of disguising himself. After a while two other soldiers and I snuck out to see what happened to him. If our centurion found out we had snuck out knew we would be in trouble but our curiosity got the better of us. We snuck over to the head quarters. We figured they brought him there because that was where we kept our weapons. Once we go to the window we ducked and listened. All we heard was mumbling. We couldn't quite make out much, but what we did hear didn't tell us anything. Just as we were about to go back to our barracks we heard screaming. The man let out a blood-curtling scream so loud the entire fort must have heard it. After that we went back to our camps wothout a second thought. We had all assumed that they tortured him to find out what he knew, what he was doing there and what he knew about us. Nobody wanted to see the man tortured so we left.
No one ever actually found out what happened to him. We had asked our centurion but he never really gave us a straight answer. We all thought he was dead but had no proof. Soon after we went back to our normal routine. Waking up at the brink of dawn. Training and working until the sun went down. Going to the bathhouse or gambling in the common room then going to bed. Same routine every day with no change. Out of sight really does mean out of mind because nobody saw him so nobody found a reason to talk about it.
"Grampa, tell us the story when you were injured in the war!" Pippo demanded. "Oh, that is a story for another day. I think it's bedtime for you my grandson," I replied. I picked Pippo and his sister Tullia and tucked them in bed. "Goodnight my precious grandchildren," I whispered. That is one of my stories. A spy was captured because of the way we built our fort and was then captured and never seen again. Every night i still wonder what happened to him. I guess we will never know.

Fog Poems

Fog
Creepy, scary. Lost.
Stalking, mocking, humming. Lost.
Shadows, darting. Lost.
Haunches, shatters, slithers. Lost.
Dwellers, stalkers. Lost.
Musing, giggling, prow. Lost
Lashing, lunging. Lost
Fog

Fog is...
Fog is like when you are running,
You can see everything and yet nothing.
Everything goes by fast and yet slow.
You can hear everything and yet nothing but your heartbeat.
You feel the wind whipping through your hair and yet you feel nothing.
You taste the mist rushing through you lungs and yet you taste nothing.
Everything is black and white and yet everything is bright.
You are harmless and yet you are lethal.
You feel as light as the air yet you know you are not.
You run to get away and yet you run to something else.
Fog is like when you are running.

The "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is about not judging people. Dr. King was trying to show people that things aren't so black and white. Nobody should be judged by the color of their skin but by their character. He was trying to open people's eyes to the way black's were treated. For example blacks were not allowed to go to the same restaurants as whites or use the same bathrooms as white's. We know this because in his speech he says, “All men are created equal,” and, “...where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I think that Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to get people to realize that blacks men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics all come from the same planet and we are all the same and therefore we should all be treated the same. No man was created better than anybody. Martin Luther King Jr. stood up for what he believed in and that was that people wouldn't be judged by the color of their skin. I have a dream.....