I thought about posting an April fools joke yesterday, but I couldn’t think of anything clever enough, and I was too lazy, anyway.

So it’s been a while since I last posted. I went home last weekend, for Easter, and that was nice. The knowledge bowl team at my high school was competing at state last Saturday, and my sister is on the team, so my parents and I went along to watch.

I was in Knowledge bowl last year, and the team did really well then. Actually, the previous year, the old advisor quit, and there was a mixup over who would be an advisor, and the league ended up being told that we didn’t have a team. Due to that mixup, and the lack of experience of the new advisor, last year, we only had a JV team for the regualr season. We rocked the JV teams, winning all four meets by a lot. For regionals, one of the schools with a lower scoring Varsity team offered us their spot, probably more to improve their chances at a JV championship than as a nice gesture. We came into the championship round in 1st or 2nd place, and 3 made it to the championship round. However, only 2 teams advanced to the state level. Aftr the 60 question round, we were tied for second place. A tiebreaker round was held, and the other team won the tiebreaker by a considerable margin (6-2 out of 10, or something). So we never went to state.

This year, my sister has joined, and they also have a freshman on the team, as well as the genius that carried the team last year, Ray. The whole league is afraid of him. He is very smart, has been to the state geography bee twice, can do math in his head faster than I can do it on a calculator, and is pretty good historically. He has a few chinks in his knowledge, but they aren’t very deep.

This year’s team advanced to state, and went into the championship round in first place. After 59 of 60 questions in the championship round, it was 12-12-12. Whichever team got the point on the final question won the state championship. Unfortunately, another team rung in just a bit faster than Stevenson, and answered correctly, taking the championship. Once again, Stevenon found themselves in a tiebreaking round. Unfortunately, once again, they were unable to take the victory. Stevenson took third place in state. An immense improvement from the JV team last year, and from the team’s performance my freahmn and sophomore years.

After I got back to UP, I returned online, and discovered there had been a bit of a dustup in one of the forums I visit frequently. (I’m not going to bother with details, but rather post an oversimplification) One of the longtime posters stepped a bit out of line in one forum, and other things had been happening. The person who runs the website was offended by the posts, and told her so. Another person took offense, and left in a huff, only to be banned by the owner of the site. I don’t totally agree with the reasons for all this, but I don’t deny Ben’s right to kick people off his site, and Velvet was indeed a bit out of line.

I’ve been typing this in small bits all day, it is now about midnight, so the title is now even less appropriate.

At school, we are in the middle of registration. I’m still not sure what major I want to be, but I’m thinking that I probably don’t want to major in CS. A minor or something, perhaps. I’ m still debating between mechanical and electrical, which has the computer and the electrical tracks. Computer track electrical engineering is actually kinda similar to CS, and I’m leaning that way if I do decide to go electrical. However, now that I’ve decided that I’m not doing CS, i discovered that I have at least next semester, and maybe even until Junior year before it makes any difference which way I’m going. EE and ME have several common classes, so I don’t have to make a decision yet.

I’m tired of blogging right now, and so I declare this a complete post. Until next time.

–Nathan