Well, its been a pretty exciting week. I know I need to make a new post since I have been relatively inactive poster the last few days. Of course, I can always use my fallback topic - girls and technology (yeah, odd combo, I know). Fear not, this post contains only a few paragraphs devoted to the above topic!

First off - college.

For those that haven't heard I have been accepted to BYU-ID and BYU-P. The real dilemna is that I haven't been able to decide which college to go to. There are so many factors that it makes my head spin. To think out loud (or in this case, type out loud), the first factor in determining which college to go to is money. My parents have already told me that one of the major deciding factors - regarding college - is money. Between BYU-P and BYU-ID the monetary difference isn't much, but is existent. BYU-ID is cheaper than Provo. Another factor is scholarships. I haven't heard back from any of the scholarships from either BYU. I did hear back from the Armsfield Foundation...and I'm a finalist! As a sidenote, the Armsfield is for between $4,000-$7,500 per year for four years. Objectively, Idaho is likely to be cheaper moneywise.

Second factor - rooming.

Rooming. I wouldn't mind having some random roomate for college, but the thought is slightly daunting, especially considering I've lived in Mount Airy (population: 8,484) my entire life. Oh well. Eventhough I don't really know anyone who I could room with in Idaho, a lot of people from the Winston-Salem Stake are going. As far as Provo is concerned, I know several people, most importantly, my Brother goes there. It would be really cool to go to college with Ethan. Also, Phillip (one of my friends from Dobson), is going to Provo and I could room with him. Stupid colleges.

Third factor - me.

One of the last vital factors is me. What do I want? I'm not even sure is the problem. Both colleges have seperate appeals. Idaho is cheaper, although the no-shorts rule is pretty lame. Yet again, I'm going in the fall/winter, so I doubt I will even need to worry about shorts. If I go to Provo, I will get to hang out with Ethan and Phillip before I leave for my mission. If I go to Idaho, I will get to come for the summer before my mission. If I go to Idaho, it may be harder to get into Provo when I come home. ARGHHHHH!!!! I guess you can understand my confusion. The biggest problem for me so far has been money. I always thought it would be soo nice to get a full-ride scholarship to one school or the other, then my decision would - essentially - be made for me. That has yet to happen, so the tough choice is left more so in my hands. I guess only time will tell. By the way...any good college tips from those readers who have already been through the college gauntlet?


Aside from college choices, I thought I would point out the almost completely revamped Summer Break Playlist. The only songs that carried over were "Stars" by Switchfoot and "Lights and Sounds" by Yellowcard. Some of the new songs include performances by: Amber Pacific, Brand New, All-American Rejects, Story of the Year, and others! Enjoy the songs. Don't forget to check out all the songs ever played on the Summer Break blog by visiting the Music Archives!

This post will be a little HOW TO post. I know many of you (you being the readers) have many blogs to visit and use bookmarks or such to scroll through the blogs to check for new content and posts. Some of you may not know about RSS/Atom feeds.

RSS/Atom feeds are basically standardized XML documents published by newsites and sites that update their content often. RSS/Atom feeds can be found on almost all major sites (Google News, CNN, MSNBC, the list goes on and on). Any site worth their salt has RSS/Atom feeds.

Including all blogs (unless the blog owner has done some modding to the blog code and disabled/altered the feed).

What does this mean? This means that one can view recently published posts and such from multiple blogs...and all in one place. There are multiple RSS feed readers that display desktop updates involving your favorite site feeds, but I will ignore that for this post.

In order to take advantage of these feeds, go to www.google.com and click on the link in the upper right hand corner that says "Personalized Home" This will take you to a screen - similar in appeareance to the Google homepage, yet with extra information displayed.

From there, either sign in with your google account (hopefully you already have one) or, click "Personalize Homepage." Clicking that link will help you create a personalized homepage without creating a google account. However, that homepage will only be viewable on the computer is was created with...unless you use your google account.

When you click the "Personalize Homepage" button (after signing in to your google account), click the "Add Content" button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. There are several RSS feeds alread available there, so please feel free to experiment and see what you like. To use your Google Homepage with the blogs, click inside the text box right beneath the "Search by topic of feed URL."


Here comes the fun part. Type the address of the blog, i.e. http://yourblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Thats all there is to it. The name of your blog + /atom.xml

A little box will be added to the homepage with links to the 3 most recently published posts from that blog. 3 is the default number, but can be changes to as many as 9 and as few as 1. I use this system to keep up with all the many blogs I visit. This way, I can check for new posts on ALL the blogs from one page, without checking through four or more blogs from a favorites window.

Anyway, enjoy the added functionality, and feel free to comment this post with any questions or problems encountered. Enjoy!

Today is a great day. Why? Because I got my very first "A" in Dr. Cozzens (AKA President Cozzens, Mr. Cozzens, and occasionally just Cozzens) English class. This is indeed a VERY big deal. Coming into the class, I was soo worried because I had heard nothing but horror stories about supposedly great writers heading into his class, only to resurface with low B's and C's. In fact, Sister Hutchinson told me that she had never heard of anyone getting an A in his class.

Wow

Yeah it scared me to death. I had just come from Mrs. Ridolfi's class where I easily aced any essay by throwing in a few flowery sentenced elegantly spiced with advanced vocabulary. Next thing I knew, my head was spinning from a low B paper (actually i think it was an 83 on the 10-point scale). Don't get me wrong, I was glad to get a B, but I wanted more.

Ironically, I got the inspiration (if you can call it that) for my essay from doodling in class. I was drawing stick figures (whoops) when one of my fellow classmates suggested I write an essay about them. I didn't know what else to write about...so I went with it. To make a long story short, I wrote the paper, turned it in, and nervously awaited my grade. The paper came back...and BAM! Like lightning from heaven, their stood my beautiful, gleaming penciled-in 90 at the top of my essay. Like a prince atop his throne, so majestically sat my grade.

Ok, it wasn't quite that exciting, but I was still very excited to have made my first A. Part of the drive to get an A was because everyone said it couldn't be done. That just made me want an A more. I've made - mostly - A's all my life and I wanted to prove that I wasn't the product of grade inflation; that instead I was a genuinely dilligent (and talented) student. I don't have an overall A average yet....oh but I will!

By the way, the contents of that essay can be read Here

As a final note, the new 'Flavor of the Day' has been updated and is now in rotation. The playlist will also get a major overhaul with nearly a completely new lineup. Stay tuned!

Why does Kristen call my blog "The Teen Scene?" Well, for the simple reason that all I have to post about is dating. And today I will prove her wrong! Wait, this is actually just another post about dating. Alright, fine. I can live with that. So anyways, on with my narrative. Me, Kelsey, Shaylon, and Sydney all went out on a date this weekend. The only problem was that we only had a few hours to do the date (around 3, give or take). Due to unforseen circumstances (i.e. Kelsey's parents) Kelsey and Sydney didn't make it to Mount Airy until nearly an hour late - yeah. I didn't mind though, so Shaylon and I nixed the first part of the date; the park. On to part II, going out to eat. We hurried through supper in time to make it to Amy's wedding reception. Kelsey was supposed to leave at 830, but we didn't even make it to the reception until 845.

To sum up before I get too carried away, Kelsey left about 900-915, and is now grounded from driving up to see me.


Don't get me wrong, the date was aweosme, and it was great getting to see Kelsey again. That part was awesome! In fact, dare I say, the best part of the weekend :)

I'm not even entirely sure what I'm complaining about. I guess I'm just griping that Kelsey got grounded, to sum up everything. But after all, I'm not grounded from going to see her! Forgive me a cruel chuckle (hahahahahaha) I guess what really worries me about the whole deal is the fear that Kelsey's parents really must not like me. I feel like Kelsey's parents are punishing her more becuase she was late coming back from seeing me. Maybe I'm way off here, but those are just the ramblings of a love-struck 17 year old (sheepish grin) :)

So any - advice/"been there, done that"/helpful tips for the future - would be greatly apprecieated.


P.S. to shawn, have you tried out the Beat 2 of IE 7? If so, what do you think. For me, the jury is still out.

Sorry that I haven't written in so long; I guess the summerbreak blog has become more of a template changing arena than an actual place to post topics and conversations. Seriously though, I am curious for some user feedback. Is the 'flavor of the day' really that interesting? Does anyone visit the archives? Is content or presentation better? Personally, I really like the 'flavor of the day' and the ability to choose a song. I'm thinking about adding a cookie to store settings so visitors may choose to always view the prompt box, or never. That is neither here nor there. (Cool saying).

The real reason I'm posting is just to give a little job news. I recently got my first real job -- as a tutor! Yeah, I'm pretty sure that must come as a shock to a lot of people who know me...lol. I'm tutoring my dad's boss's daughter in Geometry, of the Euclidian variety that is. It's kidna interesting and brings back disturbing childhood memories of those long gone days. Seriously though, it is pretty intereting. After taking AP Calculus, Geometry and Algebra really aren't intimidating at all. Such math classes used to challenge me, but now that's just run of the mill in AP Cal. I do wonder though, will I ever find AP Cal as easy as I find Geometry and Algebra now?

Well, that's difficult to say. The answer is: a whole friggin lot! Between school and scholarships, I don't think I've really had a moment to stop and relax! Well, except for the several hours I spent in front of the 360 today - but that doesn't count. Seriously though, applying for college, getting accepted to college, and then applying for more financial need (scholarships included), it's beginning to feel like one really bad nightmare. So it goes. Let me give a quick rundown of other exciting stuff that has been happening.

The blog has been updated. In the top their, some may notice a weird picture thingy next to the words "summer break." This is my gamertag. It's basically what I do online via Xbox Live. Kinda interesting stuff, if you're bored - or just really like video games.

By the way, I've been trying to alter the embed tag at the top of the page by hyperlinks and form buttons, but have been unable to manage either. If anyone has any tips, it would be greatly appreciated.

Many of you visit "the blogs" quite often. The question is, have you ever fooled around with RSS/XML feeds? I thought Kristen and Mom would especially like this feature. Basically, you can check new posts on all the blogs from one location. One way is by configuring Google Desktop to show the XML feeds from all the blogs. The second way is by setting up a personalized Google Homepage. Click "Add Content" in the upper right corner of the screen (on your personalized Google Homepage) and in the search box at the bottom of the add content pane, type in the blog address (i.e. http://summerbreak05.blogspot.com/atom.xml) and add a /atom.xml to the end of it. From then on, you will be able to see recently published posts from all the blogs you so desire. Very handy for the avid blogger out there.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. Keep an eye out on the weather and pray for snow (specifically 4-8in. in the Northwestern NC region, close to MA). Everybody have a great night. Last but not least, Congratulations Kristen for the beautiful baby girl. Hope you guys are doing well.

Yes, this post is a break from the mold. My blog has primarily been a journal/editorial column of sorts. Well, I've been thinking, and I've decided to do my first commercial product endorsement. Google Talk is one really neat program. I mention this software specifically in light of a recent announcement by Gmail. Apparently, Gmail and Google Talk will be seamlessly integrated (more than they already are) into one useful application. For those who don't know, Gmail is a webamil program by google, with over 2.6 GB of storage (more than any other free e-mail service). Gmail also provides the same services as other webmail programs, yet without the price tag of such providers as Yahoo! Mail. Google Talk, on the other hand, is an Instant Messaging program that simultaneously provides alerts as soon as you get an e-mail in Gmail. Gmail has many other features, and of course allows for talking via the web.


Ok, so now that you know what the programs are, you may ask why these programs are worth getting?


Because, now Google Talk and Gmail will be integrated. You can IM via Google Talk from inside Gmail. In addition to this, all Google Talk conversations will be saved inside Gmail, thus saving hard drive storage, and adding the powerful searching capabilities of google to help find specific conversations. Please keep in mind that these features have not been released yet, but will soon be (two weeks tops). Another plus of Gmail is the fact that is doesn't allow just anyone to sign up. This seems bad, but it prevents spammers from using gmail. If anyone needs an invite Gmail, just tell me and I will be happy to send you an invite. Trust me, even if you are concerned about switching email addresses because everyone knows your old one, its worth switching to Gmail. (Contacts can be imported from Yahoo! Mail, Outlook Express, and anywhere else you might store your contacts).

By the way, if you get a Gmail account or Google Talk, send me your screen name so I can IM you every once in awhile :)

Let me preface this quickie update with a story. At my school, there has been a recent plague of bomb threats. This has resulted in lunches spent under the supervision of many teachers, and eating with our classes. I know several senior journalists from my school, and I told them about an article idea I had. This idea spawned from a joke I made about needing a hero to save the school from bomb threats. Yes, this hero's name is, MacNorris. Here is the article--enjoy!

These are perilous times, students being escorted to and from lunch, bathrooms constantly monitored, and the ever-present oppressive stench of uneaten cafeteria food. Yes, I am talking about the new fad of making bomb threats. School has become an over strict camp, one where free will is gone.

For example, I was walking back from a quick “conference” with Mrs. Refveem when I heard a call, the call of my bladder. No teacher was in sight as ducked quickly into the bathroom. I checked over my shoulder several times to make sure that no one had observed my “criminal” action. Amazing how something as simple as going to the bathroom can give one such a feeling of guilt and fear of doing wrong.

After pondering about such hard times, I have reached but one conclusion; this school needs a hero. But who can fill such a need? Ingenuity and strength are both required for such a man. Like lightning from heaven, or perhaps one of Chuck Norris’s lightning fast roundhouse kicks, the answer hit me. MacNorris! Who is MacNorris you might ask? MacNorris just happens to be a hybrid of the most deadly and feared characters of all time. The ingenuity and fast thinking of MacGyver—the deadly roundhouse kick of Chuck Norris.

As I followed this train of thought, I realized that in less than 20 minutes, MacNorris could not only find a bomb in the school, he could also disarm the bomb, find the culprit, roundhouse kick him into submission, and all using only two toothpicks and a roll of duct tape! Even better, since MacNorris has a heart bigger than his muscles—earned from OMNI-gym workout videos—MacNorris would do all this for free. Of course, after MacNorris completed his task, he would get on his horse, give the school a large thumbs-up, and ride off into the sunset.

In all seriousness, times like these do not require a hero, but instead necessitate that the student body should band together in an effort to catch the person (or persons) behind the threats. Wait, what am I talking about? Scratch that; I just hope I get the chance to tell my grandchildren about the time the legendary MacNorris saved the school from imminent destruction—using primarily no. 2 lead pencils and a dry erase marker

Alright public, sorry for the delay, but the along awaited update is here. This will be a quickie, with more to follow, but I can at least release a few details. To continue with my narrative, some of you may have noticed a few posts about Kelsey. I recently asked her to prom, via poem in the mail. :) Let me just tell you, since I put that little letter in the mail, I have literally been dying to hear back from Kelsey. I think as soon as I mailed it, I was waiting for a response. Before I gross anybody out with the....ahem....sappy details.....let me just share a little example of how hopeless I am... ;) This week I made sure to keep my cellphone fully charged at all times -- in case I needed the extra battery life for a long conversation with someone. In other related areas, I finally found out what denial means. After I sent the letter, I pondered multiple scenarios. One of them included Kelsey reading the poem, thinking I was kinda going stalkerish, and she never speaking to me again. Fortunately, my minds natural defenses kicked in and erased such thoughts, thus preventing a breakdown right then and there. In all seriousness though, I really like Kelsey, and just want to go to prom with her :) I think that Kelsey however, is sending her response via mail also. I think that's cute, but seriously, I have patience issues...lol. At least in cases like this. I don't think my adrenal system can handle many more days at 'high alert.' :) Well, it's definitely past my bedtime, but at least I made my posting deadline! Come on, which blog really comes through in the clutch?!? That's all for tonight, so everyone have an awesome night, and stay tuned to http://summerbreak05.blogspot.com for more details; your source for the latest 'teen scene' breaking news!

Ok, So the big promised update did not happen as planned. I can deal with that. Sorry to keep dropping little teasers about a big blog update, but that time is not yet. Tonight I promise to at least reveal what the update is about, even if I can't give the actual update as planned. So it goes in the world of teenage dating and computer programming. Besides the point and on to the matter at hand. My last post was an album review about Lights and Sounds. Today I thought I would provide some more media sutff for you guys to check out. The first link is a link to view the Lights and Sounds music video. The quality isn't great, but at least it works. The second link is a music video hosted on Google.com to the music of Yellowcard's last album, Ocean Avenue. The actual song is called "Believe," and is a song written to commemorate those who gave their lives on September 11th. The movie is extremely moving, and brings back a lot of patriotic feelings. I do caution that parts of it were a little hard to watch, and even I felt my eyes water just a little. Anyway, feel free to check these videos out, and I will begin to integrate the music to Lights and Sounds into the music player at the top of this page. Enjoy guys, and be prepared for an update tonight. (No later than 11:00pm) This is Adam from MAHS, signing off.

Lights and Sounds

September 11th Video

Ok, some people may be wondering why I'm posting during school hours; well, let doubt linger no more. I'm in CET (Computer Engineering Technologies) class right now. I finished all my work (and some extra...like networking the class :) and thought I would post an album review. This morning, after seminary, I decided to buy my first new album. I bought Yellowcard's new album, Lights and Sounds. All throughout today, I've been listening to the music. The story behind this goes back several years to when I first got into music. The first band I ever really liked was, surprsisngly, Yellowcard. I downloaded the entire album (legally, of course) and before a week had passed, my favorite band was born. Anyway, it's been about 4 years since their last release, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out. The album contains 14 songs, including the soundtrack to the music video Lights and Sounds. Overall I've been very pleased with the purchase. The music is reminiscent of Yellowcard's last album, Ocean Avenue. The music sounds more grownup, but the Violin that seperates Yellowcard from other bands remains vibrantly strong. I'll give a few of my favorite tracks here. Also stay tuned as I update the music player with a few new Yellowcard songs. Favorite tracks:

How I Go
Lights and Sounds
Three Flights Up (Instrumental)
Words, Hands, Hearts
City of Devils

Alright guys, I'm out for now. Check out Yellowcard's new album, and stay tuned today for a VERY special update. Thanks for the support guys. Adam, over and out from MAHS.

Yes, many of you may think that all I post about these days is JavaScript, and you would be right! Just a little teaser here, but coming soon to the Summer Break blog will be an exciting edition that will grab the attention of millions! I'm serious, stay tuned for some very exciting updates. In the meantime, I have been heavily engrossed in a project to create a JavaScript Calculator that actuallyworked. It took me several days to finally come up with a successful code that worked. Well, the good news is that my JavaScript calculator is up and running. I will post the calculator below. Ironically, when I wrote the code for it, i never used a single < script > tag. All scripting is done by event handlers inside HTML tags. Pretty nifty, or at least I thought so. Anyway, feel free to use the calculator below and try it out, whatever you feel like. As a side note, the calculator will work by typing in equations (127+419, then clicking the "=" button) or by clicking each button with the mouse. Enjoy! Please note!Please Click "Clear All" before trying to enter straight calculations.

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Ok guys, quick post today. My internship period is almost over, but I wanted to post a link to the website that I'm designing for my dad's company. Right now the website is in its alpha-test or v.1.01. Please remember that about half of the pages don't yet have anything to link to. The reference page and the submit a job pages both work, and the subsequent pages as well. Anyway, just check it out and give me some feedback. I'm having quite a bit of trouble with cross-browser compatibility, so it's best if the site is viewed with INTERNET EXPLORER 5.0+ Sorry FireFox fans, but I'm working on it. Back to the matter at hand, the main page can be found here.

Ok, enough is enough. Let's not overdo the commenting thing here. If you want to hear about the date, all you have to do is ask :) Anyway, I'm not going to go to in depth here, but enough to assuage my public. So here's how the date went down. Shaylon and I decided to ask Kelsey and Sydney out on a date for this weekend. I went over to Shaylon's house around 3:30, and I cleaned out my car while he went to pick his up from the shop. Shaylon and I drove down in his new car (a green Plymouth Breeze) and we made it to Kelsey's house around 530 id say. We visited with her family for a few minutes then headed to Sydney's house to pick her up. We played Apples to Apples with her family, which was surprisingly fun. As a sidenote, Brother Adams took a page out of dad's book with the interview. Shaylon passed, and soon we were on our way to Macaroni Grill. We ate there, and we had the coolest waiter ever. He was really funny as well. Oh yeah, before going to Macaroni Grill, there was about a 45 minute wait, so we chilled at Sports Authority for awhile until our places were ready. We ate, and then took Kelsey and Sydney to a park in Winston (for the mothers out there, it was well lit and public). After we left the park, we took Sydney and Kelsey home and then Shaylon and I made it home by midnight. Overall the night was awesome!! ok, so that's what we did. Whenever anyone asks about a date, they don't really want to know about what you did (well...partly) but what people really mean is "was the date fun and why?" Let me just answer that by saying...that was quite possibly the best date ive ever been on! It's hard to really describe what makes a date fun...oh wait...its acutally really easy....the company your with made this date. it was cool being in a group and we just kept laughing at anything and everything. Lastly, i thought another thing that made it fun was that me and shaylon are best friends, and kelsey and sydney are best friends, which somehow made the date even more fun. Now the best part would if i got to do it again very soon!

Yes, the Template for Summer Break has finally taken a moderate overhaul. Nothing real big, but I just wanted to call attention to a few items. A visitor to this blog would first notice that the music has changed. I finally put in the code for some new music. Just a little hint, visit this blog several times in a row, and listen carefully to the music. You'll notice something...lol. Anyway, that was done with a little handy piece of JavaScript. If you look at the source for this site, the very top contains a tiny piece of JavaScript. It's pretty cool to finally find a use for the JavaScript I've been learning. Also, I removed the Google Ads from my site, because in IE they caused the sidebar to locate itself at the bottom of the page. Anyway, the ads are gone now. That's about it for now. Oh yeah, I will be updating the JavaScript so that it will use random numbers to generate the randomness, versus my current setup which uses time to create the appearance of randomness. The affect is the same, that is, to the untrained eye...lol. Anyway, everyone enjoy the new music and see you around

I just got back yesterday from a fun trip down to my sister's house over MLK Jr. weekend. Thanks to Kristen for the awesome meals and scrutrulescent desserts. And of course Elise and Ian were cute as always, providing plenty of entertainment. One particularly fun moment was getting to see Ian playing in the bubbles in nursery. Elise was cute playing with her dolls and just being a four year old! I think that Logan and I probably spent the majority of our weekend jumping on the trampoline. It's pretty amazing that something as simple as a trampoline could be so much fun. In the following days, I'll try to post some pictures of us jumping. I got pretty good at it, well, as good as somebody can be at "trampoline." Logan was the real pro, performing front flips, back flips, aerials, and several no-handed carthweels. I was duly impressed. Aside from all that, I really enjoyed the night when we all sat back and watched movies/TV shows together. It was fun actually watching TV (since my house conspicously lacks modern television) and spending time together as a family. Were I to actually rate family weekends together (which I won't), I would give this weekend a 10 out of 10. Thanks everybody, it was a lot of fun!

Yes, and now by popular demand, I have returned from the underground to return to the blogging world. I don't have long to post, since school started my life has been way more that just crazy! I'll give a little update on the Xbox 360 situation. Logand and I finally got our brand new 360 from microsoft on saturday. It took alot of finnagling (or however you spell it) and luck to get the shipping service (DHL) to finally agree to get it here on saturday. The reason for the delay was that DHL didn't want to leave the package here with loose dogs and no one to recieve it. Anyway, enough about that. I wrapped up last semester with all A's, three of which reached into the 4.0 GPA range (I didn't even attempt to figure out the weighted equivalent of my grades). My lowest grade was in drafting II with a 93. Overall I was very pleased with how things turned out. In other news, I've taken on an internship with my dad. My job has bascially been to created a website for his company. From start to finish, the task is mine. So far I've just been reasearching XHTML, DHTML, HTML 4.01, JavaScript, and any other online web design technique/code I can get my hands on. So far I've managed to scrape together the beginnings of a rough homepage. I might post the code on here before long, but I'm going to try and get a little more work done on my own before I open up the source code to "public viewing" (lol...since I know my work is probably in pretty high demand on the web these days :) Lastly, I have my Branch President for an English teacher, since I'm dual-enrolled at some college classes. He is quite possibly the toughest teacher I've ever had. In hind-sight, I've realized that perhaps Pres. Cozzens is actually tied with Mr. Bretz as being one of the hardest teachers I've had. I enjoyed Mr. Bretz's class, so I'm hoping the same rule will apply here! Anyway, that's all for today. Everyone take it easy and gear up for the graduation of the class of 2006 (coming to high schools everywhere this summer).
P.S....if anyone wants to throw in a good word to my parents about a ski trip, I'd be eternally grateful :)

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Everyone Together 

Me looking cool....plus a nice outfit...thanks Ethan 

Cool Sparklers