Sunday, December 27, 2009

Some cool gadgets and other stuff

If you're into gadgets, tech stuff, and that sort of thing, here are a few things that might catch your interest.
1) Some cool RC robots from www.inspectorbots.com.
Here's a video of the one I think is one of the most awesome:



2) 


[to be continued...]

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!
We were testing out our new Wii Fit Plus a little bit ago - a Christmas gift from one of my mom's sisters.
Unfortunately, I am still sick with a cold and still have some sort of a rash or hives or whatever it is (although not as bad as some cases of hives I've had in the past).  It looks as though we will be spending Christmas Day by ourselves.  Oh, well.  Anyway, I hope you have a great day.  If it isn't, well, just try to make the best out of it.
-Max out

Monday, December 21, 2009

And more sweepstakes

Well, if you like sweepstakes, here are some more for you, courtesy of hearitfirst.com.
Hear It First sweepstakes
As far as I know, for these, you only have to be 13 or older to enter.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Celtic Woman sweepstakes

If you're a Celtic Woman fan and have wanted to see the group in concert (and you're over 18), here's your chance to enter a sweepstakes to do so.
Celtic Woman sweepstakes

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Yes, very boring

Recently, I've been looking at some other blogs written by teenagers and the feeling I have that the content of my blog is very boring, written in a boring style, with perhaps a boring look as well, is fairly depressing.
However, I can only try to improve it somehow (constructive advice might be appreciated) and look at the disclaimer at the top of my blog's home page...although I'm not exactly sure what good that does.
Hm, I wonder if A Waste of Your Time would be a more apt name for my blog...

Monday, December 14, 2009

Recount of the Cincinatti Trip

Well, everyone (seriously, do I have more than one reader?), I'll try to start telling what our time on the road and in various places was like.
The night before we left, I got to sleep at 2:30 (I spent a long time packing) and woke up at around 6:30, so I got about 4 hours of sleep. If I remember correctly, we left on Tuesday the 8th at about 8:15 am.
We first headed to Kentucky, where some family friends from years ago live, and tried to eat at an Indian restaurant - as in, from India - but we got there in between lunch and dinner and it was closed.
So...we went across the street to a Chinese supermarket and bought a bunch of stuff.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the assorted drinks such as milk tea with "pearls" (you might know what I'm talking about - those black, chewy things), since the store only sells them on weekends. 

After that, we found our friends' house, and after a short visit with them,we headed across the border to Tennessee (only about 15 minutes away) to my aunt's house.
Although she was at some sort of school at the time, her husband was there, and we stayed overnight.
Our next destination was a hotel called Homeward Suites, where quite a few people I know (mostly from our old church) were staying also. 
We stayed there overnight, and left sometime after breakfast the next morning.
I should add that some of us staying there stayed in the lobby that night and played some games like Buzz Word, but I'll have to tell about that later, since it's 11:11 now.

Okay, back to the first night...
Well, now I'll have to stop since it's 11 and I'm getting up early to go to a Bible study tomorrow morning.


[12/25/09] I didn't end up going to the Bible study after all.
I'm going to accelerate the pace of this post by condensing it into a shorter length; I don't really like to write long posts.  So when I make my next update to this post, I should be much closer to the end. 


[12/27/09] 
Let me see…on the night we stayed at the Homeward Suites, I played a few games with some people I know (from my old church, Heritage Bible Fellowship, and another, Providence PCA).  One was Buzz Word, a word game where your teammate who's acting as reader reads your team a "buzz word" and a clue and you have to guess the word or phrase the buzz word appears in.  For instance: 
[reader]"Apple" (the buzz word); "New York is...?"   
[reader's teammates] "The Big Apple!"
It can even be like this: 
[reader] "Stand"; "A well-known soldier who lived with the Pilgrims"
[teammates] "Miles Standish"


Also that day or night, a few of the girls and guys were outside when it was snowing, and when I asked why they were staying outside when it was so cold, one girl (I believe it was Casey Burton), said something along the lines of "We're experiencing the snow!"  Admittedly, it wasn't that cold, like it was when the wind was blowing, when we'd first arrived.  Then it was freezing.  However, I was only wearing a T-shirt and a thin hoodie or something, so I wasn't dressed for cold weather.  Anyway, I let the girls "experience the snow" and went back inside.  After all, it was basically only flurrying at the time.


The next day we went through Tennessee and crossed the Ohio River into Cincinnati.  


[1/2/10] In Cincinnati we headed over to the Apple Store, since my dad's iPhone had gone dead because of a defective battery.  I got to look at a few iPhones and iPod Touches there.  They're pretty cool, mainly because of all the apps.  Well, after my dad got a new iPhone (which, unfortunately, did not have the screen protector he'd had on the one he'd switched in, and it naturally didn't have all the apps he'd put on it either, but hey just needed to be put back on again - not all that big of a deal)   
We then went to the Creation Museum, which turned out to be an interesting experience.
When we first stepped out into the museum parking lot, it was freezing.  Now this might just have been my perception, since I wasn't adjusted to the cold, but considering the wind was blowing pretty hard, I think it really was cold.   

 

After leaving the Creation Museum, we checked in at the Embassy Suites, where several other families we know (several had been at the Homeward Suites with us) were also staying.  The Marriot had a bridge across the street to the convention center where the conference was being held, but since the Embassy Suites was only the next building down, it was ok.  


[1/3/10] Now to the conference itself...
Speakers at the Sufficiency of Scripture conference included such notables as Ken Ham, president and founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum; Voddie Baucham, pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church (he's been interviewed on CNN); Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum; and others.
There were many different sessions covering a wide range of topics, but the uniting theme was - as stated by the name of the conference - how Scripture is sufficient for all of life.
     
[1/4/10] 
The session that had me the most absorbed was Ken Ham's, in which he detailed how not taking the Genesis account of Creation literally leads to many problems, including young people leaving the church (those polled said it was because of hypocrisy - preachers and teachers who didn't believe in a literal seven-day Creation but held to other teachings from the Bible as fact), as well as a host of other consequences.




[-Max out...for now]
  
Some interesting signs I saw on the road (unfortunately, I don't have a camera and I didn't get any pictures of them):
1) "?" 
Yes, it was just a blue square with a white question mark on it.  I believe there was an arrow pointing to a rest stop above the square-shaped sign.
Something like this:                 <- 
                                              ?

2) I don't remember what the second one said, unfortunately...it was the same as the first, but had some words as well as a question mark and an arrow sign as if to say, "this time we think we might actually know what's over there, but we're not sure."

And my personal favorite:
3) "Resume Legal Speed"      

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Back At Home

Well, everyone, I am now back at home; we got back after a long drive just about an hour or a bit more ago.
I'll try to say more about the conference and stuff later.
-Max out

Saturday, December 12, 2009

My Last Night In Cincinatti

Hello readers,
Here I am in an Embassy Suites hotel in Cincinatti for the last night.
I haven't been able to tell about the trip here or the Suffiency of Scripture conference I've been at with my family so far, as I've been busy and haven't had time.
Besides, even if I had my own device to access the internet so as a laptop, netbook, or something like an iPod Touch, this hotel charges you $13 per night for wireless internet access.  Ridiculous.

Well, I'll say more about what's happened later, since it's nearly 11:30 pm.
For now I'll just say that I've gotten to listen to quite a bit of good preaching, meet a lot of people, and visit the Creation Museum.  More later.

-Max out