Love, Family, and Why That's Important

I am writing this on the couch in my grandparents' house with limited Cell service and internet in the beautiful village/town-ish place called Petrolia. I am here on the occasion of Western Easter* with my maternal family. It is kind of nice to be able to celebrate a holiday with most of my family.

In doing this, I have been default babysitter for my 6 cousins which is, to say the least, interesting for an age range of 2-12. Being in a semi-rural area, the older ones decide to burn some stuff in the back yard, and naturally the younger kids gravitate in that direction. The issue - IT ISN"T THE LEAST BIT SAFE to have small children around the older kids and their fire.

This is a recipe for me being semi-exhausted and drive me to three conclusions. Number 1, I am not in ANY position to handle small children in bulk anytime soon. Number 2, I have come to love these small children who seem to have no purpose in life other than to do exactly what you tell them not to do (Don't run out in the street---and, oh, he's gone) and Number 3, this is what family is.

By definition, family is relatives. Family is the lineage that bonds a group of people together who can trace to the same last name. However, there is a meaning that far goes beyond these simple technicalities. These are the people you love just because.

In reading for theme (I never do this unless prompted [Rather, Required], mind you) one looks for an idea that is universal. Now, every English teacher in history (except the crazy ones perhaps) would disagree with the idea that a theme could be, quite simply, family. It fits all of the definitions, and it bonds us all together. So, I am rolling with it.

I guess another thing one could consider is what the definition of this "love" truly is. {The next part or so of this post may prove irrelevant to anyone but me or those around me, so I recommend skipping it if you're not feeling particularly philosophical today}

Love, as defined by Dictionary.com, is "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person." That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I see love as an understanding between two people that there is something more. Love is this concept one cannot quantify in mere words, but rather through this mental understanding. There are ways of showing this love, but in the end the love itself is this understanding of one another. The understanding goes as far as knowing who that person truly is as well as this universality of being human, and having an attraction to one another.

Now I tie it all into something amazingly profound. Bottom line, we can all identify with the ideas of Family and Love because we have all have attachments as humans. This is the closest thing I could manage to type to an Easter Sermon without a church service. Happy Easter.

*For those of you playing at home, I am Eastern Orthodox and celebrate on the Julian Calendar. In other words, 2012 Easter for us is on the 15th of April**.
**For those of you playing at home, my birthday is the 15th.***
***For those of you playing at home and feel compelled to do something, send cash.

Spending Some Time In The Studio

This past Saturday was spent hiking up yet another hill (This was a hill as opposed to the magical mountain of West Virginia (Wild and Wonderful) and then orienteering a bit followed by yet another trip to WYEP.

There's something amazing that happens when I am on a hike anywhere, call it a sort of awareness of what's around you or whatever, but bottom line, something amazing happens.

There's also something to be said for getting to a point where you have a map in the woods and need to decide how to get a group of eight people out of those woods and back to the cars from which they parked earlier. I don't know how to explain it, but something snaps and I go into this weird quasi-leadership mode, where I suddenly know more than I consciously realize.

After getting out of the woods, I hitched a ride down to the WYEP studios. I just love going down there. We start out in a conference room and then split off into groups working on the various projects that Re(Imagine) has taken on. We filmed a promo for the Re(ImagiNATION) contest that I am a part of, but (amazingly) I didn't make the video for.

Anyway, after helping take part in that, I went to one of their state-of-the-art recording studios with another Alex (not the Unicorn Alex, but another Alex) for about an hour just kicking around what will (Cross your fingers) become the podcast Alex Squared which will basically be our random podcast where we talk about stuff. It's still in EARLY development, but we're working on it.

There is something completely free, or possibly even carefree in radio that you don't have in television. Don't get me wrong, Television is absolutely amazing to work on. My point here is that you don't need to care about physical appearance to do radio.

Radio focuses solely on content, which I kind of like. Television and YouTube have this pressure of making things LOOK fancy as well as having good and short enough content to keep the viewer's attention, and it is stressful.

So keep tuned to our blog (moderated by me) at http://reimaginemedia.blogspot.com/ for more on our project.

Wild, Wonderful, and Apparently Not Wireless

So this past weekend, my backwards troop fulfilled a tradition that has been going on for about 15 years and took a trip to the West Virginian wilderness to spend a weekend at a Girl Scout camp.

It is kind of a feat just getting there. As with many places, there is no direct way to get from my house or for that matter, the Greater Pittsburgh area, to the tiny town of Bruceton Mills. So, what should take about an hour directly takes about two going further south than needed via the highways, and then the magical back roads to this camp.

I didn’t know why we went to a Girl Scout camp until we got there. The “cabin” we were in was basically a secluded ski lodge with indoor and two outdoor fireplaces, bunk beds, heated floors, and a huge kitchen. This “camp” was a hotel in comparison to winter camping in Guyasuta in tents.

So Saturday rolls around and our Scoutmaster Extraordinaire proclaims that we have a “mandatory hike” to a place called Coopers Rock. I am not a huge fan of large rocks, or hikes for that matter, but because it was mandatory I went.

He had proclaimed that this hike would take a little while and would be a short hike. What he hadn’t accounted for was the fact that the road leading to the part where we would have started was closed. So we start at the trailhead which proclaims about 3.2 miles to go.

Anyone that has been to Laurel Caverns can testify that the signs proclaiming usually one mile are in fact terribly wrong. Coopers Rock is no exception.

About 4 miles and a change in elevation of at least a good 300 or so feet brought us to the actual site which had a drop of about 1700 feet. To say the absolute least, the view was fantastic.

After successfully injuring my ankle and my knee, we hiked the 3.2 miles back to the car. Unfortunately, when I got back to the luxury cabin, it donned on me that I had not even tried getting WiFi to publish my previously written blog. A few clicks and it would have been published. But alas, the beautiful views and amazing wilderness-ism came at the cost of not having Wifi. I also attempted to text from there. I am however trying to piece together a hike video that I filmed as a “Thoughts from Places Video” a la Vlogbrothers.

I learned later (Keep this in mind) that our carrier (Verizon) does not have any towers in the entire state of West Virginia. (I am dead serious here – West Virginia and Verizon almost had a monopoly deal a few years back but decided that they didn’t need West Virginia, so consequentially there are no towers there) So, West Virginia is amazing, mountainous, wild, and wonderful but apparently not wireless.

The Education Continuum VIACOM'd

{Note - I wrote this post Friday during Eighth Period... I haven't had internet since as I was in West Virginia. I'll post about that next... but as for now, here is a lovely post/rant thingy}

If you were to go ahead and walk in during an English class, you’d probably see some form of the written word being, well, written. Odds are, we would be clacking away at some outdated laptops writing a paper about some old piece of literature, and giving our modernized thoughts on it. What you wouldn’t see is any actual literature being created.

I think it is a major flaw with our education system today that we study works that are out of touch and do not encourage the creation of anything new. However, as my last blog implied, I am not qualified to give comments on this matter.

 I think that we are victims of a flawed system. As a video that I talked about in an earlier post said, our education system is designed to work with the thoughts of the Enlightenment, not two hundred years later in a modern school system.

I believe that if we threw out the archaic thought that only PhDs should write a curriculum, and let retired teachers, or even teachers currently in the workforce write the curriculum, we will once again be on top of the education game.

I bring this to your attention not because I want to have a revolution, but rather to use it as an exaggerated segway into talking about writing itself.

This past Wednesday, our school had a community service day where we as high schoolers gave back to the communities in which we reside. I got to go (huge surprise here) to the Andrew Carnegie Free Library. I organized, dusted and went through their entire {American} Civil War collection, and also cleaned up a hallway or two and part of their storage.

In a period of downtime, I talked to the executive director of the library about the building itself, and if anyone had ever written a complete history of the place. The building is well over 100 years old, and yet she informed me that no one had ever taken on anything of the sort. I have made it my mission to over the next few years publish such a project.

I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I am strapped for time.

Qualifications, Kony, and Other Stuffs

So recently I have been working on too many projects. This usually leads to my temporary insanity as well as increased tiredness. Bottom line, if the below lines in this blogpost seem murky, that's because I am on limited sleep and a tad distracted.

Apparently in order to have an opinion, one now needs to be "qualified" to do so. All to often does the phrase at my lunch table get thrown out that "YOU CAN'T SAY THAT!" Which leads me to the question of what, exactly is qualified, and who Can say that.

Qualified as far as designing a corporation website (or at least helping) means having an incorporation myself or the three letters LLC (What does that mean?) tacked on to your name (Oh yeah, from now on I am calling myself "Alexander Popichak and Associates Web Firm, LLC") and did I mention you apparently needed to charge an arm and a leg?

Due to moral and practicality issues, I cannot charge much (So far I have never had a paying customer - YET; I have mainly been doing volunteer work) for a website design job. I do some talking in a prospective client meeting session, some fancy work on the part of my image editing programs, and coming up with something that looks pretty cool.

I work on the idea that the content builds the website, the images draw the users in. Basically, if you don't care about what you are putting out there as far as content outreach goes, no amount of flashy imagery can fix that. It WILL shine through.

Qualified as far as CPR goes is having a magical little card, and taking a course. Does that necessarily mean that you need to have an EMS or CPR certification to save a life? Heck, no! That's what the scouts are for!!!

Qualified for being an SPL on paper is a Star rank (yeah, I have one of those). As for in reality, one would need character, a sense of adventure (IM GOING TO JAMBO!) and a real belief in the people he leads.

Qualified as far as tech goes, well, you got me.

As for what I can and cannot say can be debated, and I welcome any feedback.

So one of the internet trends that made news this week was #KONY2012. You can Google all 900,000 different opinions on it but here is what I learned by watching CBS's take it. Basically, the firm pushing this ad campaign took in about $17 million last year, and of that only $3.3 million went to aid. The "charity" is pushing itself as a wonderful cause that is worthy of your patronage. Please please please look into any charity before donating anything! I am not saying that the KONY guy is not bad (in fact he is just plain terrible), I am just saying that these "action kits" that they are selling are not going to be as effective to direct aid as would be calling your congressman, and urging your neighbors to do so also.

I rarely plug my own things, but my WYEP teen group is sponsoring a band competition for high school students and we will be accepting submissions from MARCH 12 2012 UNTIL APRIL 14TH 2012.  If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at alex.popichak@gmail.com with the subject Re(imagiNATION) Contest.

As for the Re(Imagine) Media website project, it is still a work in progress, but I do have this awesome animation thing that I can't post here due to issues with my incompetence at 10PM with HTML coding.

Other than that, I'll give a shoutout to my secret sister Mikaela as I hope she is doing well.

Culture. Cultured. Culturing.

So I guess this week's "theme" if you will, was the arts. Tuesday morning I spent on Pittsburgh's North Side to see The Elephant Man (to be detailed later). Wednesday brought TIED to the arts. Today, well, I did the morning announcements — does that count? {The only reason I felt obliged to have three things in that sentence is because three-thing sentences are much better than two-thing sentences.}

Tuesday. So I went to Pittsburgh's North Side with my school's GATE group to watch The Elephant Man on stage. This group called the Prime Stage Tehater was putting this on at this neat little theatre called the New Hazlett. The show itself was about the true story of this man who was born horribly disfigured into a circus family (his mom was trampled by an elephant when she was pregnant-get it, elephant man?). Anyway, when I go to theatres I look at three things — the acting, the content, and the tech.

The acting was phenomenal. This theater is set in an intimate fashion, and the acting made you ask yourself whether or not they are talking to you, the audience, or to the offstage "public".

The content was not overly amazing, rather it was the way in which it was presented. Each scene was divided by a 30 second music break with a slide with a quote from the upcoming scene. The interesting thing about the set is that it started quite bland — Just a circle set with a drawing in the center. As the performance went on, things were added to the set — A Bathtub, a bed, a chair, a desk, etc. — But nothing was ever taken away. It was a unique technique, so that at the end of the show you saw this progression as well as what the final original set looked like.

On Wednesday, I took part in a Carlynton Event called TIED to the arts. Basically, it is a pep rally for the arts in our District. The chorus sings, the band plays, and the Musical — oh, the musical — Musicate. I have been on all ends of this event. This time, I was in the chorus and in the musical.

The chorus sang this lovely song about believing and whatnot, but I think the most interesting part from a Choral member standpoint is just how this whole song got put together. The High school learned our part, the Junior High theirs, the soloists theirs and the Elementary— well, theirs. It was only about an hour before our actual performance that we ran through the song all together— once. Amazingly, it was lovely and wonderful and all of those things that you don't hear choral directors say but parents told them to pass it on so they will... 

As for the musical, we performed one of the numbers in our show in our Musical Promo t-shirts as opposed to costumes; and sang unaided by microphones, or you know, a stage or orchestra. Check out the final performance April 19-22nd At Carlynton Jr. Sr. High school. Tell them the 2015Blogger sent you (that would actually be really cool, just to confuse the ticket people :-) ). 

It is very different to be on the other side of a performance. I think we all do something that has another end to it, it's just that we rarely get to be on that other side. If you get a chance, try it sometime.

Honus Wagner, Unicorns, and Peter McKay

Note/Warning: The following post contains a lot of links. -AP

Source: Baseball Hall of Fame

So for those of you who didn't know it, today was Honus Wagner's Birthday. For those of you who don't know who Honus Wagner was, please drop your laptop (Please not your desktop) on your foot, and then click this link here.

The reason I bring this up is because it is trivia that came to me via twitter, and Honus Wagner was from Carnegie (Originally Chartiers [#TheCarlyntonProject for the win!]). I have somewhat of an interesting connection to Mr. Wagner. His house is across the street from one of my troop member's houses, and my grandfather used to run beer to his house when he was a kid. Just goes to show, when not looking too hard for something, you can find stuff you never know you were looking for.

Anyway, my secret sister Mikaela was texting me earlier when I was gathering my thoughts to attempt to write another post. I at that time, as almost every other Friday, was wondering what to write about. She suggested the existence of Unicorns.

Source: Wikipedia

Unicorns, for those of you in the future who are without knowledge of what a Unicorn is, are magical horses with a horn protruding from its head and, in some depictions, can fly. However, loosely defined, anything with a singular horn protruding from its head can be considered a "unicorn" however it is not what we will call a true unicorn.

My friend Alex recently discovered that he is, indeed, a unicorn. (Again, loosely defined in this case). He has this bump that appeared square in the centre of his forehead. When he had it scanned for tumors or whatever, it turned out that this was actually Just his Skull. When I approached him on the matter, he said that "I could start my own RELIGION now that I'm now a unicorn."

As to whether or not that actually happens (Its just as sketchy as Tarvusim) is to be determined. Either way, know that my blog will be the #1 source for coverage on this Modern Unicorn-Driven Religion.

So Tomorrow is Saturday. Other than being the one day in a week where I can (rarely recently) sleep in and go to WYEP, it is also the one day where I actually read a portion of the paper. I usually just read page 2 (Because Page one is SOOO Mainstream :P ) the comics, whatever seems interesting in the Local News, and this magical column that I discovered.

This column is published once a week by a Ben Avon resident named Peter McKay who writes under the title of "Homemaking". Now, this really almost never has to do with actually making homes, or decorating homes, but rather what really makes up life. He talks about the things that make up life - the little pet peeves, the relationships, the stories that we all share but never publicize.

Basically, for those of you who know who Tom Bodett (again, if you don't educate yourself, then throw a dart at something) is, Peter McKay is a Pittsburgh version of Tom Bodett. If you want to check out his more recent columns, or the sort, check him out at http://peter-mckay.com/.

Sorry no adventure stories this week, but I will go someplace soon! And I will add another Super Special Bonus Blog Thing!

Side Note: From now on I am going to have a tag for blog posts that is "Unicorns"

Super Special Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!

Do I ever use my own pics?
SOURCE: OrthodoxCarnegie.org

So yesterday I was texting my sister (No, not my real sister, but you get the idea... [maybe this is what Jay Scribble means by "Secret Sister" and "Secret Brother"]) and she invited me to church. Granted, I can go to church down the hill anytime I want, but I got invited, so I decided to come...

So this morning I woke up and walked down the hill, over a block or so, down the hill some more, and eventually made my way to Mansfield Boulevard where the church is. I walked into the church, greeted the greeters (Its a bizarre feeling to be formally 'greeted') and then got the reader(My not-real sister's father)'s permission as well as the priest's permission to serve (I'm an alter server, not a priest, or deacon, or bishop, or anything else).

It has been a long time since I have served solo with another priest; and it was, to say the least, interesting. It isn't, at least in my eyes, my "home" parish. That title goes to Slickville, and will forever be Slickville. But it was nice to be able to experience church through the customs of my geographic home parish.

On a side note, the priest was absolutely amazed I walked the five or so blocks to church.
"If your dad and brother are in Slickville, and your mom is in Butler, how did you get here?"
"Um, I walked"
"Woah. Oh, thanks for coming"

Anyway, I stayed for the Parastas, and then attended Sunday for the first time in about seven or eight years. Again, it was a tad taboo for me to go into a church basement, sit with people my age, and discuss what had just happened upstairs. I won't go into too much detail (Feel free to ask, I just am not trying to be a blogevangelist), but it was bizarre to me, or at least foreign. Slickville has an average age of about 75, making my brother and I the youngest "members" of the church (legally and canonically, we can't be members, but again, I am not going to go into detail). Our Sunday School was my mother brother and I talking in the basement of the church about the miracles of Christ, as well as what the parts of the liturgy meant, et cetera. It was very much the same in the content respect, only it wasn't two small children and their mother talking one-on-one.

We later went next door to the hall, where I talked for a while with people I hadn't seen in a while, greeted other people, and then my sister's mother gave the two of us a ride to musical practice.

I am not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the show (See it at Carlynton live April 19-22nd) but basically, we took pictures, sang a little, attempted to dance (Or rather, I attempted to dance whilst the people around me actually danced), and then went home.

Yay, this is something I actually own!

"Going home" was staying at my house for about an hour, and then descending the hill I already had walked this morning to the basement of another church for a boy scout meeting. We discussed upcoming events, and then had some team-building stuff that we went over as well as chain of command.

According to my friend, the girl scouts are a classroom-oriented organization. You are sorted by age group and have one year or so to accomplish a rank. The boy scouts is quite the opposite. You gain a rank by earning it with your own initiative (You can be in the program for six or seven years and be a tenderfoot... we don't encourage it, but you can do it). We are very much boy-led, and its kind of amazing how it all is brought together.

I finished my Sunday by texting my sister and the before-mentioned friend and coming up with a blog post idea. I decided I was going to talk about my Sunday. I texted my sister a name, and that was "Super Special Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!" And she liked it.

PS: Why is Blogger telling me Slickville is not a word... or texting?

#Hashtagging, Texting, and Explaining JayScribble

So I was watching NCIS on CBS (No, they don't pay me to say it, its just what is always on at my house for some reason...) and in the bottom left I saw during like the first two minutes of the show "#NCIS" which to anyone who is unfamiliar with the internet or Twittering (Tweeting? Tweetering?) doesn't know what this means.

Anyway, about Julyish my friend Dave introduced me to this idea of kind of "Tagging" things in facebook, twitter, etc. posts. The idea was, you place a Pound Sign (#) before whatever you wanted to tag the post with, and then people could search the tag and see how many other people had the same tag.

Here a few months ago, I find that I was only a small part of this idea, and that it's on Twitter (Yeah, I'm on twitter, feel free to follow me @AlexPopichak). I also found out that if you go to the web version of twitter, you can click on a hashtag and it'll take you to a thing where you see the Hashtag's search page. I don't think there's anything yet for #The2015Blogger. Hmm...

So on an unrelated note, I have been texting like crazy for the past few weeks. I have found that I am quite good at texting, albeit almost never in a timely manner. It helps a lot that I have a keyboard cellphone, though.

Anyway, my teacher claimed that text communication and internet communication are a step backward as far as communication goes. I have to say I disagree with that. At first we only had talking. The only way to reach someone was to think of something, then form it with your mouth, and then hope they interpret what you really mean. Then we had this thing called writing, with the same aim, only using physical characters instead of words. This made it easier to get a point across, because you didn't need to rely on the telephone (the game, not the instrument) method or be everywhere at once. Now we have texting.

In my opinion, texting is the closest thing we can get to telepathy. It combines the ideas of writing with the words coming straight from the mind. I might be going out on a limb, but I believe I have some form of a point here.

So the next best thing to telepathy or actually being in a place in person (and I hope you'll agree with me on this one) is appearing via video. Jay Scribble and his brother do this once a week.

Anyway, JayScribble did this series in his Vlogbrothers videos back in 2010 regarding the French Revolution. I enjoyed it personally (although he talks really fast) because it got all of the information in your head in a memorable way with visual aid.

So we were studying the French Revolution in class, and I asked my teacher (She prefaced class with "we're watching a video today") if she was talking about some dry half-hour video with a video sheet. She was. So I introduced her to JayScribble and his French Revolution series. I just asked her to take a look at it.

My American Cultures teacher prefaced her class the following day with "We're watching a video series today that Alex found." And then for the next half hour we covered the entire French Revolution a la John Green. At the end of the series she made the comment that she feels that she talks REALLY SLOW in comparison to JayScribble.

I find it ironic that about a month before that, he had created a World History series on a separate channel. You can check that out online at YouTube.com/CrashCourse.

Why I Enjoy College Campuses, and Broomball

So Friday I went to this ice rink to meet with some people from 262 to participate in this thing called Broomball. Broomball is kind of like ice hockey, only its not. You basically attempt to hit a ball (or three or however many Mr. Z throws out) into a net on the other side of the room. You hit it with this broomstick-like thing, oh and did I mention that you're on an ice rink with no skates, but rather either sneakers or hiking boots.

Anyway, so that was what I did on Friday from 10 til about Midnight. I originally planned to rant about this one kid who kept hitting me for no reason, but that runs along the lines of the "This is NOT a Coat" incident. For this reason, I will not be slanderous.

So on Saturday I woke up earlier than my average (ha) Saturday and took a ride to Oakland to visit the campus of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). I went there for a merit badge class and, above all, just to visit Oakland.

There's something magical and enchanting about snow in Pittsburgh. This Saturday brought a lot of snow down onto the campus with a strangely quiet and serene reception. Of course there was a little hustle and bustle about the campus naturally with college students going wherever they were going. I also saw the increasingly snow-covered "fence." Bottom line, its this random fence in the middle of the green at Carnegie Mellon that every year gets painted in the dead of night. After like 60 years or whatever of being painted, its about a foot and a half in diameter.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Anyway, this green containing the fence, as well as the CMU drama dept's posters proclaiming "Les Enfants Terribles" and "Sweeney Todd" amongst the upcoming attractions has a large drop off cliff thingy to the right of it as you pass between the drama building and the Humanities and Social Sciences building. This drop off serves some importance I assume, but bottom line, there is a building in the middle of that called "Hamershiag Hall" or whatever that has this round thing on top of it that is the sole piece of architecture that CMU is known for. See the picture to the right.

So anyway, this green is high enough and far enough behind that you can look straight out and see simultaneously this circle thingy and the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning. This was quite beautiful with the snow falling and everything.

No, I didn't take this, but its what I was trying to illustrate.
Source: WIKIPEDIA

Here you have two universities known worldwide for their technology and medicine (CMU and Pitt, respectively) less than a mile or two away from each other.

On my way home, I tried figuring just where CMU ends and Pitt begins. In reality, they are intertwined, with buildings dotted amongst each other splattered all across Oakland. Its an interesting idea, just how two things can coexist like this.

The English Language, WYEP, and School Boards

Again I feel the need to apologize for posting a day late.

So yesterday I took two tests. The first being an American Cultures test which is semi-irrelevant to this post, and the second being an English test. It was a reading/vocab quiz (WHY VOCAB‽‽‽) on the first act of Shakespeare's Masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet which he stole, but that's irrelevant to the point here. There is always an essay to these things; some way for the teacher to pick inside your head, and call your train of thought wrong, or right.

Anyway, he wrote up on the board something along the lines of "What type of literary devices did Shakespeare use to build suspense in the first act of Romeo & Juliet?" I immediately saw room for creativity (along the lines of my before-mentioned toaster story) in citing a bunch of different things, for I would make it my mission as blogger extraordinaire to somehow make literary devices half-exciting.

He then did the predictable move, and decided to come up with a "better" questions. Predictably, he switched it to something along the lines of "Explain how Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to create suspense in the first act of Romeo and Juliet."  This, of course ties into our study of irony which, may I add, we have been studying since the first week of school. I, needless to say, was quite sad, so in answer wrote this lovely simile about how Shakespeare's suspense kind of is like standing in a line at like Kennywood or some theme park to ride this crazy roller-coaster and seeing the loops and stuff beforehand, inevitably having to ride it, as you're already in line, and asking yourself "Why did I do this again?" and the rest of the story is the actual riding of this roller coaster, and the worst part in this tragedy is the fact that you know what's coming.

Today I was at WYEP for their "Teen Center" Now known as Re(imagine) media. I was working alongside yet another gentleman who I've come to know being named, of course, Alex. We were finalizing this news-esque story about the Occupy Pittsburgh movement.

Well, thanks to technology, we aren't done yet. However, we did get together with the rest of the WYEP crew to start work on this crazy "Battle-of-the-Bands"-esque thingy yet to be named. Bottom line, the idea is to take a bunch of local teen-created bands and have them judged and chiseled down to a top 5. These top 5 will perform live and be judged, who will chisel them further into a top 1. Look for more posts on this later... We are also talking about starting a website where we'll host videos, podcasts, and various other stuffs from the Re(image) media project. I will probably be working on this website project, but once again, details will come later.

So this past Thursday I had to fill in for the guy that usually films the School Board meetings. This was incredibly convenient since I needed to attend a school board meeting anyway for a requirement for a merit badge. In the meeting, they talked about various stuff, mainly Stage Curtains, fill in front of the Carnegie Elementary building, and then they got to my favourite part - The Open Forum.

Since the Public didn't want to talk about anything, the board discussed some headlines involving textbooks coming to the evil Apple devices. It was interesting how the board wasn't overly sure what this was about; but wanted to look into trying to do this anyway. I talked afterward with a board member about my thoughts on the topic, being the student that would be on the receiving end of this. I talked to him about how I preferred actual paper textbooks for certain applications, and how it'd be beneficial for history (1984 references) class to have paper textbooks, while technology would be beneficial for certain applications like science class models and things.

He was fascinated that A) I came up to him and B) my position on this. He pulled over like two or three board members (one being the Vice president, the other being the wife of a gentleman who owns a technology company). It just goes to show that if you know how to talk to people, you're opinion can be heard.

My Past Week

It always seems that there is a "theme" or something to each week. Its as if each week is a television episode, in which you are the main character and by the end of the episode you learn something great and wonderful, or are left to fix whatever you broke in the next week.

Then again, it probably is the other way around. Episodes of television were probably modeled after a week of a lifetime; leaving the gaps to be what distinguish who we are... you know, those times that truly define you, those times when you aren't really the "main character."

I have been talking recently with my friends about writing,  and my one friend has been talking about the novel she is working on. It got me to thinking about this whole "main character" idea, and how we all kind of seem pre-occupied with our own lives.

So local news this week was reporting about this new "Facebook for the Neighborhood" thingy. I forget what it was called, but the basic premise is that you can now interact with your neighbors through this magic website. This kind of brings me back to Hank Green's video on SOPA. He talks about the internet kind of being like an infinite street, how there are bad sections of it, and fancy sections, and run down sections. The more people connected to each other, the longer this infinite street gets.

But the thing that irritates me is that THIS IS A VIRTUAL STREET, and albeit the neighborhood idea is great, but why not just knock on the doors of your real neighbors and actually talk to them. I am not condemning the internet, I just think that us internetians need to get in touch with the real world as well as this virtual paradise.

So I conducted another social experiment today. I had this little nametag thing when I went to the Science Center/Sportworks. In anticipation of seeing those "Ask Me About [Insert Product/Exhibit Here]" buttons, I decided to write on mine simply:

Interestingly enough, I was asked by the Science Center people "So tell me about the internet" and I basically said this - The Internet is like an infinite street... and I got some interesting reactions.

One gentleman proposed that we create a new internet... one that has decency and is kind of what the internet is supposed to be - Creative people collaborating and creating awesome things as a result. I was taken aback at that, but I shouldn't have had been surprised. I ran into an Eagle Scout there afterall, and so I was kind of taking whatever was going to come to me over the course of the day.

I believe that is the best way to live life. Live it in segments, and live it by taking in stride whatever happens.

The Bishop Comes to Carnegie, I go Sledding, and Some Other Stuff

I have this habit where I write some amazingly profound three-thinged title, and then get too lazy to write what the actual title was. First off, I'd like to apologize that this isn't my regular post day, but I have been busy doing stuff.

Again Stealing from another site;
Source: UOCOFUSA.ORG

So this past weekend I did a lot of "church-ing". Being the son of an Orthodox Priest kind of puts you in this alienated bubble. You see, my geographical church is in downtown Carnegie, Pa., but in reality I end up going to my appointed church in the center of the Universe Slickville, Pa. The median age in Slickville is 75ish, ergo I am the only highschooler other than my brother. But nevertheless I love it.

SO anyway, I had the chance to go to my geographical church and serve (I'm an alter server and sometimes fill-in reader) with the bishop of Greater Chicago, Bishop Daniel. He's a fascinating gentleman who, if you didn't see him in some fancy robes, you would think him just a regular 30ish gentleman.

It was, to say the absolute least, an interesting experience. I met people who apparently I knew at one point; but had sincerely forgotten. I had last been there about two years ago. It was amazing how many people had just welcomed me as if I had been there every Sunday since I knew consciously what Church was. (Depending on how this gets received, I might blog more about church, but I do not want to offend anyone.)

Anyway, backtracking, the Saturday before this visit I decided to go and sled ride at Carnegie Park. I ran into a former scouting friend Eric. He and I crossed over together, and we immediately recognized each other. Its amazing how paths are crossed and people remember who each other.

I honestly think that in order for anyone to truly appreciate what they have, they must step back and take a look at what you actually have.

Sorry I didn't post much, or about anyone in particular, but I am doing this on my own time; which between musical and WYEP and school and scouts, is QUITE hard to find.

If you want to get in contact with me (Feedback on posts?), I network socially (Tweeting is quickest, @AlexPopichak).

Speeches

STAT: This blog is fast approaching 3800 pageviews! Amazing! Thanks to everyone!

In English class over the past two days, we presented speeches about what we thought were important to us. I picked three rather cliched topics - My writings (This site, WYEP Stuff, newspaper fails), the outdoors (scouting, the summit, biking), and videography (eugh... you lost me).

I gave my (horrid) speech, and then proceeded to listen to my classmates' speeches. I learned a lot about the people whom I pass in the hallways everyday. Granted, this was a scholars class that had grown close due to the smallness of our class and our school, but still we learned of each other.

There were gamers, dancers, indie music (TALLY HALL) lovers, travelers, cheerleaders, basketball players, baseball players, card trick wizard/relgionesque dude, and there was even an actress/artist/figure skater. It occurred to me that the true meaning to high school is CERTAINLY not learning something academically, but to learn about the people and relationships and interactions with those around us. It is only when one walks 10,000 steps in one's shoes that one can begin to comprehend the complexities behind that individual (and WOW is that cliched).

Anyway, I learned things about my class that quite frankly surprised me. I was told once that you are a person who is either creative or intellectual. There is the very small few who are both. She told me that I was both, but I constantly question how creative I am (Considering I come up with ideas that have already been done) and exactly how smart I am (Umm, I still can't find theme in most written pieces... forget finding one in my own). Regardless of my personal situation, there are definitely people in my class who posses the gift of both. Take the actress/artist/figure skater for example. She is perhaps the best novel interpreter (finds crazy literary stuff I can only hope to catch on to) that I know behind, like, professional novelists (shoutout to JayScribble!) and people who read Greg's comics (No Andrew you CANT Read "Carrot"). She also can draw quite well.

The thing that I indirectly stated in my speech is the fact that I absolutely loathe English Class writing assignments. I am one of those bratty writers who want to be completely freeform. You tell me to write a third person story about a magic toaster or something, and I can do it. Tell me that I need four paragraphs, the toaster is unpersonified, and I must use at least seven vocabulary words, then you take the story and squash it.

Finally, never are we given prompts about alpacas or toasters or anything good. It all must have a tie in to what we are doing, use some mechanism of the mind control that education has been instilling into us (umm, when am I going to be given a list of completely impractical vocabulary words and need to work them into, say, a blog post?) and then it gets sent off to be judged by someone.

I digress. Bottom line, I have learned more from my fellow classmates about life and reality in the short 60 minutes of speechifying than I have doing proofs in Geometry, or finding a specific theme in a short story written hundreds of years before I was born.

Literature only becomes irrelevant when one tries to look at it from a modern perspective and try and find modern aspects to it. If you'll excuse me now I am going to memorize some literary terms revolving around literary techniques for a midterm test.

Reading - TFiOS Becoming Legit

NOTE: There will be another post not unrelated to this post coming also today.

My Jay Scribbled copy on mon laptop
avec mon website

So This past Tuesday (Question Tuesday) Jay Scribble (John Green)'s new book, the Fault in Our Stars was released. It has been asked by the author that no one reveal spoilers, ergo I won't comment on plot. I will rather comment on something else.

Prior to the production of his book, John Green decided that he would sign all 150,000 copies in the first printing. You can see the full story as a part of the Vlogbrothers series on YouTube, but the important part is the fact that the first page of each copy is signed.

John Green had the piece of paper inside of your book in his hand, and with him as a part of history. Its kind of amazing if you think of it. The author took the time to sign a piece of paper and shipped it off to become yours exclusively.

Well, I got my copy on the 25 December 2011... due to a pre release error thingy. My aunt and uncle who the year before introduced me to John Green handed me the book... I made a pact not to read it until it became legit - on January the 10th. I looked on the first six pages - Signature, Title, Copyright (2012, making it the FUTURE at the time), dedication, title again, quote, and authors note. And yes, I realize that's more than six pages, but I read NO PART of the book until the day it was released.

I finished it shortly before writing this post, after carrying this hardcover signed book with me 24/7. There was no way it was going out of my sight... minus of course the videolab this morning, but I won't get into that.

The day it became legit I brought it to my 1st period class where there was a girl who I had known to be a fan of John Green's. I showed her the book. She just looked at me. I handed her a book like any good Nerdfighter would, and let her glance through it. I then read it for the next 3 days.

And to be honest, it was a pretty good book.

This, In Turn, Kept the Professor Higher than His Students

Source: Wikipedia
PGH's Cathedral of Learning

That was what our tour guide Jamey told us in the German Room on the first floor of the Univ. Of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning.

I think the Germans get a relatively bad rep for having Hitler (HE WAS AUSTRIAN!) and, well, the Nazis. NOT ALL GERMANS Were/Are Nazis!

Anyway, last weekend I got the chance to go to the Cathedral of Learning on Pitts Campus. The Univ. of Pittsburgh has a beautiful campus (Minus the construction and hospital bustle) and some really unique buildings. The Cathedral has this grand hall on the first floor open to the public and students to study.

Anyway, surrounding this magical hall is a square-ish hallway with large brown doors with a plaque on each door and a coat of arms above the archway. Coats of arms have always fascinated me not for their intricacy or abstractness, but the fact that they are completely and utterly useless. Honestly, when am I going to use my family's coat of arms? I guess that's why I don't have one.

Anyway, when the university was building the building, they needed money to help build it. They told nationality groups (Germans, Greeks, Slovak, Russians, etc) that they would be provided with a room, but they would have to furnish and pay for everything in the room, keeping in mind that this was to
be used as a college room.

Its a unique idea that you cannot find anyplace else. Germans have the idea of a Professor above his class while the Chinese room focused on Confucius's teachings that the teacher can learn just as much as his pupils.

My favorite room by far was the English room. It was modeled after I believe the house of Parliament with more coats of arms (Including Ireland being the Unicorn) . I liked the room for three reasons - The first being that it had a brick from 10 Downing Street (PM's house), second being that its England and modeled after real England, and the third being that it is unexplainably haunted.

So if you get a chance, and you are in the area, check it out.

For the record, this post was written on the 5th, but posted on the 6th as it is Orthodox Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to all of my fellow Orthodox friends, Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Oh, and HAPPY 2012!

I Should Write about My Adventures

So my week has been rather busy. Christmas was amazing, but Boxing Day was a tad boring. For those of you who don't know what a Boxing Day is, its a magical day where Canadians and English are supposed to give their servants gifts for working over the holiday, while the masters either play football or (regretfully) shop. Nowadays, there aren't many masters or servants, but there are shoppers.

To anyone following BBC or a national station, you saw a report of people using mace and other various weapons to get past other shoppers in order to get after-Christmas sales. In my opinion, that's quite un-awesome of those Canadians. But what do I know, I am just a Pittsburgh Blogger! All I did was fly a Canadian Flag!

Speaking of being a Pittsburgh Blogger, on the 29th, my awesome aunt (introduced me to John Green [now known here as Jay-Scribble]) took me to her workplace - KDKA Television in Pittsburgh. She took me out to DeLuca's in the Strip beforehand for a breakfast including my Belgian Waffle that was a tad larger than my head.

Following the large waffle, she took me into Gateway Center through the back offices of KDKA into the editing suites. There I met a man named Marty, who was the KDKA master of Final Cut. Apparently what KDKA does is they record tapes, and digitize them into a form for Final Cut and then re-burn them onto tapes for the tape people to run in their master machines.

After talking to the Final Cut Wizard, we ran into the morning anchor Rick Dayton. He talked back and forth with us for a good 10-15 minutes, and then he had to prep for the Noon News. After making our way through the newsroom (running consequently into the producers, Dave Crawley, Ross Guidotti, John Shumway, the Dispatcher, and Satellite man) we took a journey into the Satellite pointy room where a kind man (his name eludes me) showed us how the tape decks work and how using this mounted iPad-looking thing, he points the Satellite receivers so they can pick up the signals live in the studio.

After that, we went into Studio B where they film the Nightly Sports Call and the mini-kitchen for PTL. Finally, we made our way into the control room (Video, as we had just met the audio dude) to watch the opening of the Noon News.

If I thought running WCHS (Morning Announcements) video feed was tough, KDKA's is impossible! They are watching 17 or so different monitors ranging from video bugs (logos in the corner) to camera angles to satellite trucks to CG stuff to the tape room. Needless to say, I was awestruck.

Big Promotion from WCHS, huh? - DavidWov

During the break, we worked our way onto the studio remote-control/teleprompter deck. There, we watched the studio from inside the actual room. During the next break, I actually made my way onto the set, about 20 feet from the anchor and Floor Operator.

After the news was over, I sat in the anchor chair as Rick Dayton recorded the ID Tags (Whats Coming up at 4, 5, etc) And once that was all over, Rick and I posed for some pictures:

Overall, it was a great day. Special thanks once again to my aunt who not only took me there, but introduced me to everyone as well as took these three pictures. Also, thanks to Rick Dayton for putting up with us two


IN THE NEXT BLOG (Scheduled, at least): I will talk about my adventure to the University of Pittsburgh's Nationality Rooms. Oh, and just a heads up: In 2012, I will work on bringing you a blog at least once every week, usually on a Friday or Saturday.

Don't Unplug Me, and the P4A

I was inspired by the lyrics to ALL CAPS's song entitled "don't unplug me" in acoustic version on Grooveshark.com. If you have no clue what that is, you should open a new tab in Explorer or Safari or whatever and type in GROOVESHARK.COM. You can stream music from its website for free, and save it into a playlist. And yes, ALL CAPS is a DFTBA (#Nerdfighters)-written artist.

I haven't posted on this blog in about two weeks. Since then I have been busy on-stage as well as lighting stages. On stage, I have been performing with CHS's Guys Ensemble group. This is perhaps my favorite group to sing with. Honestly, we are there just to have fun.

So our director shows us the drifters version of "White Christmas" in Sheet music form. We all kind of look at her like she is absolutely crazy. She calls for some sort of weird falsetto thing (check out audio from the original here: http://dft.ba/-1gL6) and then two weeks before the concert she utters the words that bring bad mojo to any guy attempting to perform on stage: YOU WILL DANCE. I am going to eventually post a video, but it didn't end great.

Project For Awesome Press Kit Logo

This past Saturday was December 17th. It was the annual PROJECT 4 AWESOME on YouTube. For those who aren't aware, the Project for Awesome is a Youtube initiative where creators of content post (instead of their regular content) videos about Charities that they either support or have taken part in.

To those who say that Youtube doesn't care, boy it does. As of 12/22/2011 at 9:36PM EST, they had raised $71,348.30 USD. This doesn't put into account the fact that DFTBA artist Alex Day is releasing his single with the proceeds going to a P4A charity, and that John Green's new Zombie Novella is going to be released for the money going to the P4A Projects.

Another post coming soon... and sorry if this one didn't make too much sense. In other news, I got a twitter. Feel free to follow me @AlexPopichak. Thanks!

Eat'n Park Blog:Christmas Commercial

Eat'n Park BlogThe Story of the Eat'n Park Christmas Star Commercial:

Visiting with the Occupiers and Education Paradigms

So for those of you who are unaware, one of my recent projects has been working with a Teen Media project at Pittsburgh's WYEP radio station. This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Occupy Pittsburgh movement with this group.

So along with the 13 other mediamakers (I need to come up with something better...), I took a PAT bus ride to downtown from the South Side. We walked a block or so until we reached the Occupy movement across the street from the Creche and the USX tower and were given some field recorders and groups to talk to the occupiers about who they were and what they stood for.

After wandering around the encampment around this large bulletin-board style fence around a fountain, it was quite clear that this group was angry with what was happening with America, and were willing to stay indefinitely. It kind of reminded me of a boy scout tenting excursion. So we decided to walk up to a guy and identify ourselves as media people from WYEP. He had a lot to talk about. He was a man who had taken odd jobs: moving boxes, a registered massage therapist, before joining this movement.

When asked if he thought that this movement would help any job prospects when I (or in this case, the girl asking the questions) graduate college, he laughed. He said that he wished that he could say so, but he was being a realist. He thinks that change will come out of this, but nothing immediate.

We also asked what the reactions the encampment had gotten. He said it was mainly positive. He mentioned a time (as did two other protesters) where there had been a few people about four weeks ago that had screamed "GET A JOB" out the window by passing at a high rate of speed, to suggest that they might have been drunk. Others said that they'd join, but they had to work. To be honest, some of the protesters do have jobs (See Below).

Two other protesters talked to us about their thoughts. The one man described himself as "Underemployed." They mainly shared the same views as the first man, but had an interesting perspective coming back and forth from a job (I think the one said he was laid off, but I am not sure).

Afterward, we talked about what we had seen, and who we had talked to. One of the common misconceptions that media outlets had given us was that this was a band of angry homeless people. They were people who wanted the top 1%  of Americans (the rich) to take responsibility and help those below us. They wanted solidarity which, although they have separate political views, we all kind of want.

Later during that discussion we talked about how this ties into relation with education. Education impacts all of us as teenagers, and quite frankly everyone. Alexa (coordinator) pulled up a video that I put up on my share link site thingy (or at http://dft.ba/-1bbV) which talked about how education affects GDP, the future, the economy, politics, etc.

For more info on Occupy Pittsburgh, check out http://www.occupypittsburgh.org/
For more on my adventures at WYEP, I am going to start posting those into a tag labeled "WYEP Teen Center" find it on the sidebar.

WYEP and an Eagle Project

FORWARD:No, BSA National, please don't sue me. Two things A) I'm a scout and B) FAIR USE.

So recently I attended Sam's Eagle project and helped finish off the "TEEN ROOM" at the ACFL. It kind of seems that I am almost always doing some project somewhere indirectly (or directly in this case) involving the Library. I know the exec. director there, the old exec director, the library director, and the kind lady at the front desk that just happens to know everything.

So anyway, Sam's (not my cousin, friend from school, WYEP group person, friend's cat) project is to turn this useless room into something-well, less useless. I helped put in lighting, a couch (NEW COUCH), some chairs, a bookshelf, and a cart for a Wii. Now, of course the Wii needs a television to work properly. So the library lords decide to look in storage and find this monster 39ish inch projection television. So Sam and I attempt to take this monster off of the cart and get it up a flight of stairs into the 100ish year old building. We barely made it off of the cart (this thing weighed like 200 pounds or something). It took four guys (yay, Sam's dad and Scoutmaster Extraordinaire to the rescue) going up a narrow flight of different stairs to get this back on to the original cart. Luckily, it actually worked after all of this jostling.

After that I went to WYEP's Community broadcast center to be a part of their TEEN CENTER. I took a tour of the magical building and learned how to use a professional recording studio... well, kinda. I learned how to work the various microphones and record using Adobe Audition and replay over studio speakers. I proceeded to learn how to use a field recorder and interview people using a magical device called a ZOOM.

So this is going to be a good project. I am bound to blog more here about it; as well as possibly on the Teen Centre's eventual thingamajig.

Finally, I will sound off on the creeper thing on Facebook. They call it "Top Stories", but I find it just a tad creepy. I do indeed talk to some of my friends more often than others, but I don't need those particular people's posts in my face. I'd like to find them myself, thank you.

Wireless Telegraphy, and the DROWSY CHAPERONE

So I get one of those Google Calendar notifications each week to my email address reminding me to post something to my blog every Thursday or Friday. So I sat at my dinner table today thinking... what to blog about? With nothing else fresh in my mind but songs from The Drowsy Chaperone, Coldplay songs, and Vlogbrothers quotes, I was forced to google "random google search thing". Even though it was redundant, surely enough the first result produced a URL generator that took me to Wikipedia's page on "Wireless Telegraphy." Ironically, what had inspired this search was the "random article" button on Wikipedia. I think that Google should look into that.

Anyway, Wireless Telegraphy (according to Wikipedia) is the historical term used for attempts of wireless communication before radio started becoming radio. Now I need to explain how this is relevant.

So recently I decided to audition for Carlynton's production of The Drowsy Chaperone. The play is about a man (Man In Chair) who tells a story about his favorite record from the 1920's, a fictional soundtrack to a broadway show called the Drowsy Chaperone. I got called back for a part of the show-within-the-show's butler. Almost needless to say, I didn't get the part, but it got me to thinking just how far communication has come long before I was even a thought.

Stage shows date back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans as ways to to allow playwrights to convey certain messages or to entertain. Then came along type, then movable type. Over the past 200 years we have gone from telegraphs to now reading my blog on a computer, iPad, or whatever. However, we still act in a play on a stage to entertain. We still sing and dance to entertain others.

Finally to how this is relevant. I am about to embark on an experience at WYEP where I may end up (talking like 3 or 4 years from now) landing a spot on public radio.

It just goes to show you (oh no, I used "you" in a writing piece... where's my English teacher now?) that even though society may progress, we still stick behind the mediums that get us closest to real people.

On Minecraft, and Musicals, and Daytime Television

First off, I decided to write a blog about Pop Culture. I am not 100% sure as to why, but here goes nothing.

I am not a fan of television anymore. I drew the line at NCIS never-ending reruns on USA network. I got fed up and went straight for the internet. Honestly, the internet is a television that you choose your own content (Youtube) and Channels (Also Youtube) and can interact with them. However, sometimes my parents think I am too involved with internet, and force me back into reality. Rule of thumb is that if its dark outside, I'm either on my computer, sleeping, or otherwise doing something of that nature. This leaves me to only be watching occasional daytime television.

Daytime television is really the shows that could never make it primetime, or have too involved a plot for the night dwellers. These shows are what we call "soap operas." These are the most pointless bits of professional production that I have come across so far. And there are MAGAZINES for this stuff! Not only do they assert their pointlessness after the noon news, they also have to invade the stands around where people check out with their bread and milk.

This is a Creeper ^ He says hi
(Source:thinkgeek.com)

Moving right along, one of the most happening thing on the internet and gaming world is something called "Minecraft."  Its this magical little game where one's objective is, well, whatever he/she wishes. I have taken a liking to mooching off of my friend Clay's computer and building this insanely huge railroad thingy (yeah, creative mode, I am just that awesome) that defies gravity and runs into itself and stuff. Otherwise, I don't care too much for building houses with the little blocks and whatnot. I don't particularly understand the fascination of it, but I will keep plugging along at Clay's house with the magical railroad.

I have debated at great lengths as to whether or not to actually get this game for myself. I don't have the time really.

Speaking of not having much time, I am about to audition for a musical. This brings up two things: my lack of dancing skills, and the return to a stage. I haven't been on a stage in front of a crowd performing for about three years. The second isn't much of an issue because I enjoy the stage for no apparent reason. Take for example anchoring the TV announcements when they needed a fill in on Thursday. I enjoyed it being alongside co-anchor DavidWov and Host Clay Bodnar. But back to the first issue. I am concerned that not being able to dance might play a factor in auditions. However, as my chorus director told me - You're a guy, they won't expect too much. Find a girl and have her help you.

Well, that presents a whole other problem with "finding a girl", but not one involving a musical.

Post-Blog: I believe that I have developed a style of writing here. I title a three-topic blog and add a picture of something semi-related and then write some semi-depressing note before a closing that looks semi-optimistic. You like?

Can I Write a Blog Post in 10 Minutes? Sure!

So over the past few weeks, a topic for discussion in my house has been that of the microwave. No, we aren't battling over some 1980 microwave on its last leg or whether or not to upgrade from some magic pot-bellied stove. Our arguments have been over leaving time on the microwave.

My mother likes warming up things (Coffee, Leftovers, My Food, etc). She sometimes decides that the time she put into the microwave is too long. To remedy this, she takes whatever it is out of the microwave, and eats/drinks/serves/cooks whatever on her merry wave. However, the time she usually leaves left on the microwave is about 5 seconds. She just leaves it there until I growl at the bloody machine and clear the timing on it to bring it back to whatever time it is. My question to you would be, what difference does 5 seconds make on toast or soup or coffee??

Much like Tom Bodett, I fancy myself a writer of random essays. So I'd like to (Much Like Him) call upon the great office lords at Black and Decker or Sears or whoever makes microwaves to design the next new microwave oven with a function where if you take the food out (Yay Pressure Sensors) it automatically clears the time on the microwave.

Why did I rant about this? I want to know if anyone else has this issue. Is this a good idea? Probably not. Why would the office lords listen to a high school freshman? I am not sure.

Speaking of listening to a high school freshman, I have recently been accepted into WYEP's (Pittsburgh's vversion of NPR) Teen Center. What exactly is this? Its a course on Radio Production as well as Journalism that the eventual aim is to turn high school teens into local advocates for issues.

This is an interesting project for a few reasons. 1) It gives real teens some sort of training with an aim of getting people interested in journalism and radio production 2) I might end up working as a summer job there (This is a stretch...) and/or 3) Public Radio finally can make itself relevant to people like me by simply reaching out.

To WYEP Listeners, Hello. To Microwave office lords (I like that... I think I'll use that), fix your Microwaves. To everyone else, take a look at my site :)

A Eulogy for A Man I Never Met.

So recently I logged onto my magical Blogger account (Why must they always change designs and whatnot?) and the stat thingy told me that this website has 3000 pageviews. My question is... why? Then again, I shouldn't question the logic of the internet.

SO this past weekend I was in the woods. I spent Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning at camp Guyasuta in Pittsburgh. It was sort of a homecoming for me because this is the same camp where I discovered what camping actually was about 7 years ago as a Cub Scout. My experience this time was quite different though in the minor fact that I was an SPL (basically Ruler Of Scout Troop) for the troop that I had just joined 4 years earlier. It was also different in the fact that it was about 20 degrees (Farenheit) overnight as we slept in tents. Please remind me not to do that again.

I emerged from the woods a different person yet again. Its something about fresh air and being a small person in large wooded areas that gives perspective as to what matters to a certain degree. At least, it kind of clears your head.

I emerged from the woods and into my parent's car and after about three or four blocks they said "Im sorry...". I didn't know what they meant until they explained that while we were at camp, Andy Rooney had died.
{Source: Wikipedia}

Rooney was hospitalized on October 25, 2011, after developing postoperative complications from an undisclosed surgery,^[40] and died on November 4, 2011, at the age of 92, almost five weeks after his last appearance on 60 Minutes

So now why does this matter? Mr. Rooney was one of the unique journalists in a dying breed. Walter Cronkite pioneered cable news, and Mr. Rooney the video editorial. In a way, I guess people like John and Hank Green owe it to Mr. Rooney for being one of the first to speak his mind and have other people actually care.

I admired him because he spoke his mind and never cared what others thought. He told it how he saw it and wasn't warped otherwise. I only learned of his existence about a year ago... It seems that every time I discover some relatively old guy that does good journalist stuff (Andy Rooney, Walter Cronkite, etc.) they either retire or die. I don't like this track record. Luckily for me though, I think Scott Pelley is locked into a contract with CBS for the next few years or so.

So thank you to those who pioneered speaking their mind. Thank you Peter Zenger for paving freedom of press and thank you Andy Rooney for being the cranky old guy at the end of 60 Minutes that everyone hated to love.

Questioned Mentality

So a while back I was wondering where I was going to try and lead my friends into for the next video project. We started with a variety show (JSVH) which demanded 4 hours realtime to film and 15 minutes of a viewer's time. Then we stopped for a while and invented a series that required little effort (The Total Randomness Series) and that kind of worked for us, but it wasn't ideal. Then we invented BBC 2 1/2 which kind of worked again, but it is a relatively repetitive format. Then I met a few creative people, and we created the idea I'd like to call "Questioned Mentality".

Screenshot from Possible QMentality Filming

This idea is modeled after our bizarre lives (Write and Film What You Know) and its ups and downs. My friend Alex (xanderqwerty123 on youtube) and Dan (MrXigbar22 on youtube) as well as Clay Bodnar (JSVH, TR series, Lapsing Reality) and David Wovchko are helping bring to life a youtube channel bent on one mission: The most random and Creative short videos all posted to one channel. Thus, we are starting this project within the next two months.

Yes, I did that just to use "thus" in a sentence. For the record, I am optimistic about this. As Isabella  once said "Negative Attitudes Lead To Negative Outcomes." Granted, she was talking about a relationship with a girl, but it still applies here.

My Questioned Mentality

Sanity is defined by what? Some say its an average of everyone else. Others say its staying out of an asylum. Others say sanity is staying out of love, some in. The issue I personally have is that sanity is almost always defined by comparing to someone else.

Do I not like other people? No, I like people... why else would I be writing to people through the internet. I just don't like how the definition of mentality depends on what others think. If I let them be their own person, who are they to call me insane? 

I am questionably mental because of three main things: the way I interact with people, the way I think, and the way I express myself. What would the world be like without Self Expression?

The name Questioned Mentality is derived from the reactions that we (Project Contributors) get when we tell someone ideas. We want the channel to make people wonder if they are sane, if we are sane, and more importantly, we want to try and redefine entertainment.

And, just to throw this in... NO the Kardashians aren't my idea of entertainment. Try Wheezywaiter or Smosh or RayWilliamJohnson or even Meekakitty on for size.

And because this is running through my head right now, check out Paradise by Coldplay from their new album Mylo Xyloto

Local Blogger Reaches Milestone

Hello everyone and welcome to POST 100! I realize that this is only the beginning, so I don't feel like reflecting too much. Over the past two years, I have met so many people, and this blog has really been a great part of my career. We [Me, as well as my readers!] got nominated in 2011 for a CBS Pittsburgh MVB award, and consequently I have met a few new people. I recently was browsing through some of the comments on this site, and found another nominee, 2 Political Junkies. They are local Bloggers, and are quite good at what they do. Either way, I'd like to thank everyone that has helped along the way.

I was watching the CBS evening news with Scott Pelley earlier tonight, and they brought up yet another story about Steve Jobs. As any of my close friends can tell you, I have and probably will always be a PC. My world revolves around Windows 7, Google Chrome, and Youtube. I don't particularly idolize Bill Gates, but I do commend his Philanthropy. However, I will attempt to have my bias leave this post.

Anyway, the story was about how Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech (So did you Pelley) and how he talked not about his successes, but his failures. In life sometimes it is one step forward, and always two steps back. Steve Jobs quoted a magazine about "Stay Hungry, or Stay Foolish" and to a certain degree, I believe that is true. We must learn from our failures to succeed, or otherwise fail in the long run. I must leave this post to design something, but I promise more failure, so in the long run we can succeed.

The News We Kinda Knew, but Never Wanted to Admit

Okay, so a while back, I was in the Pittsburgh MVB contest as a nominee. They never gave me the final numbers, but bottom line, we didn't win. So that was that. The important part was that this blog was nominated, and for that, I'd like to thank everyone involved.

I must apologize for not posting in about a month. This blog has been extremely successful and has been great to work with, I just haven't found the time to rant about happenings around the area, and other randomness.

So in September, Carnegie had its arts/heritage fest on Main Street. I had the opportunity to go on a Saturday and possibly meet up with one of my friends. So I waited for her by listening to the Battle of bands, and then helping them clean up (I never stop being a stage techie). For once, the artist (Yours Truly from Pittsburgh) actually gave me a free download of their newest EP. Thank you Yours Truly.

After that exchange with the people from the Battle of the bands, it had been an hour since I was to meet my friend, and the skies started to open up and rain.

To the friend:

I was able to find cover in the booth for the 9th PA reserves (I did a project with them restoring a monument back in May) next to the library. There, I waited out the rain, and my friend that never showed up.

This brings me to the point in a story when normally people write the moral or "Theme" to the story. However, because I am not willing to get graded by my English teacher as to how correct the moral to my own story was, I will say this: The author wants you to think about perseverance, and to ask you to relate.

The friend never showed up because of other plans. Another friend cancelled on a different event because of other plans. Other plans are not bad, but in order to truly get a grasp on priority, we need other plans.

I want to reach out to whoever wants to reach out to me. If you like my work, or what I do, please let me know. 100% of people who don't talk never start relationships or friends.

And no, I won't comment about Steve Jobs...

The end of the MVB, 9/11, and why thats important.

Okay, so I need to kill all of the links on this site telling people to vote for the 2011 MVB contest because the CONTEST IS OVER!!!! :-) Unfortunately, they won't announce the winners until 16th September 2011. I will be the first (and probably last) to tell you what ends up happening.

9/11/01 - Why We Never Forget
I need not tell anyone what happened because you can read the story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks. I am not fully ready to prepare a statement on it, but I can share with you a link to vlogger John Green's commentary about the idea of terrorism [see the bottom]. It is horrible, however it cannot be stopped unless people, or society as a whole, can decide to kill it.

To the right is a picture I took at sunset with the American flag flying next to the spinning 9/11 flag. It is kind of like the one I shared last year, only not as symbolic, but as the fact that it is the sunset, but also the promise of a new day.

Regular posts return next week. This is post 98. Post 100 will probably be a vlog debut.

John Green's Vlog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1cUh3GUMkA&feature=player_profilepage

Off The Internet Stuffs

Okay, so lately I have been working on a lot off the internets, and I am considering starting vlogging (yay, I've tried that all last year!) and I have also been working on the Channel. When I talk about the Channel, I mean two things. The first being WCHS AM (Morning Announcements) and Verizon Channel Local 28. I have tried my hand at designing stuff for both of these. See examples to the sides of these words.

Also, I have attempted to do some philosophical thinking. In other words, thinking great thoughts. Where has that gotten me? Well, literally nowhere. But it does occupy my time.

In completely irrelevant news, I have been watching this vlogger WheezyWaiter. He is one of the John Green clan, and has this (almost)thing called EXPLOSION WEDNESDAY! He's a fun guy, if you want to check him out.

I promise to post about the MVB Contest via a blog or vlog on September 10th (the contest ends the 9th) until then, check out something I have done recently, SUPERMAN III Lapsed!

So You Remember Tally Hall? and notes from a Football Game

So right now, I am keeping my laptop on the network so I can simultaneously burn a DVD of a band performance for Carlynton's Band Director.

Getting past that, this past Friday, I was able to attend a Carlynton Football Game. Normally this means a three hour contest where our home team loses. However, it was quite contrary to that. We won, it took four hours, and I still have to edit all of that for a highlight reel. (I should start working on that)

So, Remember Tally Hall? Anyway, Recently someone posted a video (see it off to the side) of 750 pictures played kind of like in Lapsing Reality, only better. Check it out.

Most Valuable Blogger Contest

So, there are only a few more days left in the contest, and I am hoping that if you are reading this, you'll be nice enough to vote a few more times just for now. I promise to make a vlog if I win. It won't be too exciting, but it will be something.