A VERY High Adventure, Part I

Whew... been a while since I last posted here, huh? Well, I just got home from possibly the most adventurous trip ever just an hour and a half ago, and it was cool enough that I've decided to resume blogging starting with telling all about it!

To start, I borrowed some really neat camping stuff from Aunt Linda and Uncle Eric when we visited them last Sunday night: a huge hiking backpack, a light sleeping bag, and a self-inflating sleeping pad! Cindy and I went shopping for all the stuff it said to bring on the info sheet for the trip (called our "High Adventure", last year it was the Oregon Coast bike ride which you can read about here), like snacks, a mess kit, etc., at REI and Tar-jay (for those who haven't heard it called this before, it's our way of saying "Target"). I also got $60 of spending money, as well as my very own tent!

I took advantage of some of my spare time by practicing putting the tent up and taking it back down, and packing it away, first with Cindy's help, then eventually all by myself.

The fun began when our young men's group and three of our leaders (Bishop Betteridge, Bro. Bateman, and Bro. Carpenter) met at the church at 5pm on Tuesday. We packed our stuff up in our three vehicles and took off for Lake Chelan!

We stopped at the McDonalds in North Bend for dinner, where I went all out, getting two McDoubles (double cheeseburgers), a Reeses McFlurry, and a medium fry, all paid for with my own money. We then continued on over to the dry side of the state, headed up US-97 to US-2, and from there to Wenatchee, and from THERE to 25 Mile Creek State Park.

We stayed the night here, and the next morning drove up to Fields Pt. to catch a ferry that would take us across the lake to a nice little place called Stehekin.

After the long 3-4 hour ferry ride (going clear across the lake, lengthwise), we got off, grabbed our stuff, and wandered around for a while, eating a quick sandwich lunch at some point. Then we boarded a "shuttle", basically a short school bus with the words "School Bus" painted over with black, though you could see "YAKIMA SCHOOL DISTRICT" through the paint ;).

We rode up to Harlequin Campground, where we were staying for the majority of our trip, and got our tents set up and everything. We were then going to go out for a swim, but the bus left before I even got on!!!!

All right, before you get angry at any of our youth leaders for doing something like this, let me explain: there were 15 of us total on this trip, so the shuttle was very crowded, and as it was explained to me later, everyone was split up into two groups, and each group figured I was with the other group, so it wasn't until some 20 minutes later that they finally realized I was missing, at which point Bro. Carpenter broke into a run back towards our campsite to find me.

Meanwhile, I was initially appalled that my group would just leave without me and not come back. I ran down the road a ways, then went back, then again and back, thinking they might have returned on some back road after they realized I was gone, and they'd come back and see I was missing... Anyways, I eventually decided this was a job for my Heavenly Father, so I sat down and prayed for help. On my third attempt to run back towards town, a couple that I had run by twice already spotted me and asked me if everything was OK, and I told them about my situation, and they said they would head back to town (they were on bikes) and give my group a message that I was alone back at camp. Shortly afterwards, the guy (never got his name, unfortunately) rode into the campsite to tell me he had flagged down a shuttle to take me back to town for free!

In the end, I was reunited with my guys, and Bro. Carpenter met up with us back at the famous Stehekin Bakery, and was VERY relieved that I was all right. We all got something good (I got Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream and a bottled A&W root beer), and made the long hike back to our campsite. Oh, and apparently I didn't miss much, most of the guys said the water was freezing cold, and if you weren't already aware, I'm not a huge fan of freezing cold water...

(continued in Part II)

Classic Rodney and Jim Wednesday: Turkey Edition!

Happy Thanksgiving, readers!

OK, so what if Turkey Day is tomorrow? It's good to get in the holiday spirit early!

All right, on to the post...

I realize that I didn't post a classic strip last Wednesday, and I'll try to get back on that, starting with this week. Today, in honor of Turkey Day tomorrow, I'm posting a Thanksgiving-themed strip! It's pretty old (from exactly a year ago), but I'm confident that it'll still generate some good laughs!

Just a note to those who don't regularly read "Rodney and Jim", Rodney's mom is a TERRIBLE cook. This strip right here proves that:

And with that, here's to a HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL! (and hopefully a safe Black Friday!)

Andrew Brinkerhoff, OUT!

Seminary Surprise, Part II, and Shakespeare Fest

Hello again, readers!

Well, to start, getting up at 5:30 AM yesterday morning and having Dad drive me to seminary turned out to be a total waste of time. There really was nothing there at the door when we pulled up to the front (which is what I was half-expecting, but I was still a bit disappointed). Bro. Dyer didn't even ask this morning who got up early for those make-up days and who didn't. Dad had to be up early anyways, so I didn't get him up early for no reason, but still, waste of time.

Okay, enough negativity, let's move on to Part 2 of this blog post:

I got out of 2nd period this morning (U.S. History, so I wasn't too broken up about it) to see two guys from the "Oregon Shakespeare Festival" do a presentation for us.

Now the only Shakespeare I've read in my life was "Julius Caesar" last year in Sophomore English, and it was ridiculously boring, so I wasn't sure I'd like this presentatation. But these two guys were really animated and funny, so that got my hopes up.

The presentation was just them acting out bits from some of Shakespeare's plays, starting with "The Comedy of Errors", which was actually a riot! Then one of the guys put "dog ears" on his head, and the other guy went on about the dog and what he's done wrong and right (I had some difficulty understanding everything he said, but the visuals were still fun).

Then we got to "Henry VI" and "Hamlet", which is where things slowed down a bit and I tried to catch all the dialogue, but didn't quite get all of it. However, I got to ask the two guys a couple of questions before they dismissed us: "How many 'Henry' plays were there?" and "What exactly is the OSF?". I learned there were 3 plays Shakespeare wrote that began with "Henry", and that the OSF ran on an interesting schedule: for 6 months they performed many of Shakespeare's plays (these were just two people out of the 300 or so that are part of the OSF), and then they went out "on tour" for a couple of weeks, then got back to performing.

I don't know if what I just said was completely accurate, and if you're interested in learning more, I just looked up the website, found here.

That's all for now. Andrew Brinkerhoff, OUT.

P.S.: Added later!:

I forgot to mention that during lunch today, there was this pull-up bar that anyone could try out as long as they filled out a form showing their address, age, whether they wanted to join the military (the people running the table were from the Marines), etc.

Anyone who got up to 20 pull-ups or above got a free Marines sweatshirt. A couple of guys who went before me got to 20, but when I tried, I got 6.

Well, at least I tried it.

Okay, that's REALLY all for now...

Classic Rodney and Jim Wednesday

Click for full size...

Everyone hates to get their blood drawn, but it's even worse when they take ALL OF IT!

Andrew Brinkerhoff, out.

Seminary Surprise, Part I

OK, I know it's pretty late, but I've got to get this up tonight...

Tomorrow, since it's Veteran's Day, we don't have seminary. But my teacher, Bro. Dyer, said that if we still came at 6:15 AM tomorrow morning, we'd get three make-up days. I have a feeling that there may be a surprise waiting at the church tomorrow, so I'm going for it!

Tomorrow, Part II: The surprise (or maybe not...)

Andrew Brinkerhoff; round and round he goes, where he stops, NOBODY KNOWS!!!

Katching Up with A Brinkerhoff

Hello, readers!

It's been a while since I last posted, so let me catch up on some stuff...

Well, bad news first: The last game I played at for pep band was NOT the game that decided if we got to go to the playoffs. It turns out that was last Thursday, and the sad part: we DIDN'T WIN THAT ONE!

Oh well. At least there's still basketball season coming up, right?

Okay, with that negative junk out of the way, here's something cool:

I'm selling Ring Pops for a fundraiser in Band, and while I got off to a slow start, business suddenly got booming, and I believe I'm on my 3rd bag now (each bag has 10 Pops, 75 cents each).

Oh crud, another bad point: the first day I was selling, I had to squeeze through a group of black kids in the hallway (there's a lot of them at Foss), one of which I remember as one of my fellow T.A.s in Special Ed P.E. last year. I asked if she wanted a Ring Pop, and after she said no, this big black guy who was with them, at least a head taller than me, said he wanted one. I told him he needed 75 cents, but he wouldn't pay the price, so he snatched the bag out of my hand and ran down the hallway with it. His group and I chased him down, and he only got to a corner about 30 yards away. I told one of the assistant principals about it, but unfortunately I didn't have the guy's name, so he got off on that one. Scumbag.

Okay, done with the negative, back to the positive.

Currently in Junior English, I'm reading the literary classic "Animal Farm", by George Orwell. Funny, I actually read it two years ago in Freshman English. But my reading must have improved since then, because I'm having a much easier time reading it now than I did back then. I think I remember just dragging myself through the book 2 years ago, but this time I'm actually enjoying it!

It was an interesting week in Chemistry, too. On Wednesday, we got to turn copper pennies silver, and then GOLD. I wanted to do it again on Thursday, but instead we got something out of the book.

Something very COMPLICATED...

We learned about electron configuration for an atom of an element. Did you know that Argon, which has an atomic number of 18, has an electron configuration of S1 2S2 2P6 3S2 3P6 (I think...)? Did you even care? If you didn't, I don't blame you. Ble-ECH. Even Dad was totally lost (though he didn't take Chemistry back when he was in high school).

I've gotten into something Kaylee got into a long time ago: watching movies on my laptop. I've watched quite a few movies again recently: I watched the movies "Arachnophobia" and "Beetlejuice" on the night before Halloween and Halloween morning, respectively, then watched "The Emperor's New Groove", "The Sandlot", and "The Karate Kid" all from Thursday afternoon to this morning.

Oh my gosh, I forgot to talk about Halloween! D:

I didn't think much about my costume for Halloween during that week leading into it, due to school and trying to complete the "Rodney and Jim" for last Sunday, so I just went wearing my "Will Scare for Candy" shirt and wore a paper bag over my head with eye holes. Everyone at the Halloween church activity thought it was awesome, but I couldn't keep the bag on forever, because a.) It would be hard to eat all of that chili we were having for dinner, and b.) I was starting to have breathing trouble after a while.

All right, that's pretty much everything. Oh, and I'm taking a vacation from "Rodney and Jim" for this week and possibly next week as well, just so you know.

Andrew Brinkerhoff...

Classic Rodney and Jim Wednesday

Click for full size...

OK, I lied, there IS one more Halloween strip. Only this is more like "post-Halloween", isn't it? Anyways, Candy Time's over, and in a couple weeks, it'll be Eat-All-The-Food-Your-Stomach-Can-Hold-And-Sleep-For-Rest-Of-Day time! (Or you can just call it "Turkey Time" if that suits you better)

Andrew Brinkerhoff, signing off.