Costa Rica and the Joy of Flying

I got back from Costa Rica on Friday. My trip was very exciting and filled with beautiful animals. I can't explain how cool everything was myself, so I am just going to rewrite the itinerary.

Day 1: I met the group at San Jose airport. I was traveling with my aunt, who teachers science at Keys school. 15 students from the 27 student class had decided to attend the trip. I felt awkward, but 10 hours of flying changed that. We flew to Dallas, Texas and then to San Jose, Costa Rica. We drove in a bus to a small hotel/lodge, where we spent the night.

Day 2: On our way to El Station las Tortugas (Station of the Turtles), we stopped at The Butterfly Garden. There were quite a lot of butterflies there. The entire place swarmed with them. We also say a sloth. Then back to the bus, where we continued the drive to El Station. We arrived at a dock and were taken by boat to the station. At 8:00 that night I walked the beaches patrolling for turtles. We say one leatherback sea turtle. This huge beast gave birth to over sixty eggs, which we took to a hatchery to prevent poachers from stealing. We wandered the beach until 12:00 at which point we slept.

Day 3: The day was uneventful, some fun activities interspersed with plenty of free time on the beach. About 4 kids played spin the bottle. I laughed at them and took pictures which I used to mock them. Losers. At 12:00 Midnight I was woken to patrol the beach until 4:00. It was really, really tiring.

Day 4: Another uneventful day. At 8:00 I walked the beach, this night only till 10. What a relief that was. However, it was short lived because...

Day 5: We got up at 6:00 today. We had breakfast, and then hopped on a boat with our luggage and went back to the dock. On the boat ride we say sloths, spider monkeys, and howler monkeys. Then we drove in a bus for about an hour. We stopped at a river to go White Water River Rafting. It was great, even though it was on a 2-3 rank river. Challenging enough for a noob like me. We slept in a hotel that night. My bunkmate did a strikingly accurate Asian accent, so we made prank calls to the other cabins with other members of our group. We designed two prank calls. The first went like this:

"Herro! You stupid for pick up phone. You know why? This a funny prank call! We laugh at you now. You retarded or something! We making funny prank call and you pick up phone and believe us. You retard!"

The next prank call went like this:

"You want order Asian sensation phone sex? We good, we have pikachu penis! So cute and mini! You wa-ant, you know it. Normally 10 darra for you, 1 darra. We give you sample now! 'Dis a sample of phone sex. Oh, yea. We having phone sex now. It good. Oh yea. Phone sex'"

Quite a funny night. Also, we had lighting that night. One bolt landed 15 meters away from our cabin. The window shook really hard, and scared the crap out of me.

Day 6: We ventured up a mountain and swam by a waterfall. It was beautiful and scenic. Then we went into town and bought souvenirs. We went back to our hotel and continued making prank calls. We did our phone sex call to some girl cabins. They all came to our room in the pouring rain to give us one dollar. They were only wearing panties. Too bad there was only one attractive girl in the group. Then they ran out of the room because they thought a teacher was coming. Once they got back to our rooms they called us and demanded we give them phone sex. What started out as a joke got nasty really fast. We hung up because the girls were getting to into it. I felt sick from the realistic sounds they were making.

Day 7: We left the hotel and drove to our homestay. The group got divided into 5 sub-groups. Each sub-group went to a separate household. We stayed with people who only spoke Spanish and worked on a farm. We had one translator. This was fun, the people were nice. I felt bad for them though, they lived in a lot of poverty.

Day 8: Early in the morning we got up and planted trees. I was covered in mud and soaked to the bone from the rain. Then we drove to a resort. It was amazing! The drive took 5 hours, but it was worth it. 3 swimming pools, a dance hall, mini-golf. (Don't tell anyone, but there was also a porn channel on the televisions).

Day 9: We spent the day at the resort. We went swimming in the pacific ocean, where we spotted some sea turtles. Huge waves, too. Then we went up to a mountain and watched scarlet macaws. We counted 130 macaws.

Day 10: We went ziplining today. I even went upside-down. What a thrill! Then we drove to the first place we stayed, where we spent the night.

Day 11: Early in the morning we got up to catch our flight. Too bad it was delayed 10 freaking hours! It was supposed to leave at 7 in the morning, but it left at 5 in the afternoon! What the heck do you do with ten hours at an airport? NOTHING! We landed in Dallas, Texas at 10:00 that night. We were bussed to Austin, which took 4 hours. I couldn't sleep, but it still brings me to the next day.

Day 12: At 2:00 in the morning we went to an IHOP to get something to eat. We hadn't eaten in 14 hours, and we were starved. Too bad IHOP had a 40 freakin minute wait at 2:00 in the morning. Who the heck goes to IHOP at 2? Texans, apparently. Instead we went to Denny's. I had hashbrowns with eggs over easy. We got to the airport at 4, when it opened. At 7:00 our flight left. I sat on the plane with two people I didn't know. A black guy with dreads and a skinniny white guy with gelled hair. Finally I landed back in Cali. It feels good to be home.

TLDR: Super fun trip, American airlines has lame service. Delayed flight. Animals. Cool stuff.

iPhone

The iPhone comes out at 6:00 PM today, Friday, June 29.

I want one.

There are however, many significant hurdles in accomplishing that goal.

• They cost $500, plus $60 a month


• There is too much demand, and not enough supply


• I currently use Sprint, not AT&T


• Did I mention they cost $500, plus $60 a month? How the hell can everyone in those lines afford that?

Maybe someday.

Electronics

So, I ordered this electronics kit to put together the other day, and it finally came. Everything was going great, until I opened the bag. All of the sudden the whole bag exploded and sent parts flying all over my kitchen. I managed to find every part except for one, which meant I needed a replacement. Luckily, I found a replacement part in another electronic kit I had lying around. So, with all the parts, I started to solder. After soldering two pins I successfully burnt myself. After icing the burn, I continued to solder the rest. Two down, only 98 to go. I finally finished, the whole process took about three hours. The instructions to the kit said it should only take about 10 minutes. I guess I have a lot to learn.

Late

It is 11:44 and I am not really tired. What the hell is wrong with me? I'm gonna lay in bed and stare at the light on my laptop. It's one of those iBooks where the light on the front fades on and off. I'll count the times it turns on... like counting sheep. Why do people count sheep? I've tried it, it doesn't work. iBooks are probably more effective.

Completely unrelated: If you want to see a funny website, go to Uncyclopedia. If you've been to Wikipedia you'll get it.

Summer Camp II: Tales From the Picnic Grounds

Another day of summer camp has come and gone. The main difference between this day and the others was the weather. Yesterday, we had overcast skies and cold, windy weather. Today it was completely blue skies and uncomfortably hot. Mother Nature's having mood swings.
The highlight of the day, for both me and the campers, was the pirate ship jumpy. Complete with canons and a mast, it managed to slightly resemble a pirate ship. The campers, however, thought it would be a brilliant idea to crawl all over me inside the jumpy. Needless to say, I wasn't too keen about this course of action. I managed to get them off with my new method of instructing the campers, counting down from 10. Try it. It actually works pretty well.
Stay tuned for Summer Camp III, the last in this series, and also the last multipart post until further notice. Why no more multipart posts? Because we never finish them. I probably won't even finish this one. Talk about going out with a bang.

Summer Camp

This year, I am once again enrolled in a summer camp. However, I am not one of the campers. This year I am a counselor in training. What is the difference between a counselor and a counselor in training, you ask? The difference is that I am younger and do not get paid.
So far I have been to camp three days. On Monday, I arrived after an extremely long bike ride (approx. 2 minutes) from my house. Once there, I had to choose a camp name that the campers would call me. Due to my previous experience, or lack thereof, I have been dubbed "Rookie".
I soon found that the campers' favorite activity is chasing me around and grabbing on too me. Once about eight have done so, there combined strength is able to pull me to the ground. Everything besides that was going well.
Then it was lunchtime.
I was surprised at some of the disturbing things that the campers talked about. One was talking about shooting the president because the weatherman predicted the weather inaccurately, another was talking about how an intoxicated adult with a chainsaw would cut people into bite-sized pieces. I feel like one of those adults talking about how everything is wrong with the new generation.
I wouldn't worry, though, because you can't stop kids from thinking about these things. After all that they just resumed chasing me. I'll have to post again after Friday, when the camp ends.

It's Graduation, Man! pt. 1

It's been two days since i last went to school, and i have a good reason. I decided to stop going, and just leave the torture and triumph of this year behind me. Also, it was over, but the school year didn't give up without a fight.


This epic battle between the forces of good and the forces of awesome, the final showdown between boredom and nervous laughter, and the brutal struggle for a place atop the bloodstained alter of disinterest and heatstroke, graduation is hard to define, and even harder to undergo. To put it simply, it was a sequence of long, agonizingly boring events, punctuated by opportunities for extreme catastrophic failure in front off all of our family and friends, much like a car wash.


After 3 or so hours of valiantly defending our last refuges of lingering sanity against the endless waves of boredom zombies, we realized it wasn't all that bad. I realized that the wrinkles in my pants distorted my shadow so it looked like i grew an extra finger, someone in the audience yelled out "Party Like a Rockstar!" a few times, and fellow AKOKK blogger K-Rizzle gave an inspiring speech about the values of education and understanding in today's world. That, and the incredibly awesome dance party that followed, were a fitting conclusion to the school year, and ultimately, made the summer far more worthwhile.