New Furniture!

We got new furniture! And it's coming today!!! We're getting a new bed with drawers, and a desk, for Bobby, and a new table and chairs for the kitchen. I'll post pictures when we get it all set up. For now, me and Bobby are gonna work on the electric trains.

Yeah yeah yeah

Ok, I suppose I should post a new one. Awesome song: Hysteria by Muse. Its on their myspace. And my myspace. Check it out. Speaking of myspace, I put up a new background picture. It's pretty sweet. If you read this a lot, you'll probably recognize it. Lets see. I have band practice tonite. I think we might try playing that song. And I went to guitar center yesterday and saw the amp I wanna get. It's pretty sweet. Judging by the reviews, though, I might have to get new speakers for it. ARgh! Myspace is bein weirdd...
Oh well. I should post a couple more pictures.

I like big knives and i cannot lie...

Boats

Woohoo. Oh yeah, you need to analyze my eagle write up so far. Its not quite done, but here's what I have.

Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project Workbook

Scout's name: Dan Kristan

Address: 2100 Meadow Brook Drive, West Des Moines, Iowa, 50265

Telephone No: (515) 267-1236

Unit No: Troop 280

District: Raccoon River Valley

Local council: Mid-Iowa Council

Unit leader's name: Brian Helland

Address: 1602 Marcourt Lane, West Des Moines, Iowa 50266

Telephone No.: (515) 224-5990

Unit advancement committee person's name: Rick Wood

Address: 328 31^st Street, West Des Moines, Iowa 50265

Telephone No: 223-0399

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Describe the project you plan to do.

I am going to do some landscaping work for Stilwell Junior High School. There is currently a patch of grass where I am planning to work, but it is dying because it is exposed to a lot of sun. Behind the grass is a wall with some unsightly plumbing and mechanical equipment. After the project is finished, the equipment will be hidden by some large bushes. First of all, I am going to remove the sod, and till the soil. Next, I will use some structure and till it in so the dirt is more like clay. I will then plant 2 Hearty Hibiscus, plants. 3 Burning Bushes, and 2 Miss Kimm plants. The Miss Kimm will hide the pipes mentioned earlier. After everything is planted, I will put edger blocks around the outside of the area where the work was done. I will then put down mulch around the plants inside the area surrounded by the edger blocks. I will water everything, and continue to water it every day or two.

What group will benefit from the project?

Name of religious institution, school, or community: Stilwell Junior High School

Telephone No: (515) 633-6000

Street address: 1601 Vine Street

City: West Des Moines

State: Iowa

Zip code: 50265

My project will be of benefit to the group because:

It will beautify an area of the school, and it will hide some unsightly pipes.

This concept was discussed with my unit leader on (Date):

The project concept was discussed with the following representative of the group that will benefit from the project.

Representative's name: Tim Miller

Representative’s Title: Principal

Phone No: 633-6000

Date of meeting: 6/5/06

PROJECT DETAILS

Plan your work by describing the present condition, the method, materials to be used, project helpers, and a time schedule for carrying out the project. Describe any safety hazards you might face, and explain how you will ensure the safety of those carrying out the project.

If appropriate, include photographs of the area before you begin your project. Providing before-and-after photographs of your project area can give a clear example of your effort.

Description:

The first thing I am going to need to do is to raise some money for the project. The current budget is approximately $620. Mr. Miller, the principal at Stilwell, is going to supply half of that from the school budget. That leaves me with the rest. I am planning to do a carwash at the Kmart here in West Des Moines (10331 University Ave., Clive, Ia, 50325, 515-222-0868). I talked to a friend of mine, Nick Jacques, who is an eagle scout, and has helped with car washes for the troop in the past. He told me that we would probably need about 8 people, and if it was a good day, we might be able to make the $310 we need in one shot. If not, we will schedule another one. If we have any extra money, I will donate it to the troop fund. I am going to call the manager at Kmart to schedule a carwash as soon as I can after my project is approved. I think we will probably wash cars for about 3 or 4 hours, hopefully on a nice sunny afternoon. Car washes will be $5. Nick told me that Kmart will let us use their hose for the water supply, but we will need to supply soap, car wash mitts, buckets, and anything else we might need. I am going to announce the car wash at a troop meeting, as well as send out an email. Attendance has usually been pretty good when volunteer opportunities like this arise in our troop, so hopefully I will have enough guys for the job.

After we get the money we need, we will buy, rent, or borrow everything we need for the first day of work. This will include the sod remover and the tiller. Our eagle advisor, Ernie Steward, said that he has a tiller we can use. That just leaves us with the sod remover. I did some research, and the cheapest sod cutter we found was $86 per day at Home Depot. This is probably what we are going to use. After we remove the sod, we will till the structure into the soil. We will probably only need 3 or 4 people for this day, including one adult.

The next day, we will plant the Hearty Hibiscus, Burning Bush, and Miss Kimm plants. We will dig holes where we want the plants to go, then we will fill in the space around the holes. For this day, we will need the plants, obviously, and also shovels. I am going to ask whoever volunteers to bring shovels. If we have time, we will also lay the edger blocks that day. We will probably need about 7 people, or one for each plant. This number includes at least one adult.

The third, and last day, we will lay the edger blocks, if we haven’t done so yet, and we will put in the mulch. We will probably have a large pile nearby and bring it over in wheelbarrows or with shovels. The mulch is the largest part of the budget….

We will need about 10 people for this day, including a couple of adults.

For each day, we will have plenty of bottled water for everybody, and on the last day, depending on how much extra money we make at the car wash, we might have pizza.

Yep.

Thats it.

Whodathunk...

HAHAhahahaha....Lance Bass is gay....

Uughghhhhh,,,,

I'm so futired. I just played 9 holes of disc golf...and about 5 minutes of ultimate frisbee. And i lost a disc. I hate that hole. Damn. I'm tired. I dont feel like doin a bigger post 2day.

Engrish

HAHAHAHA!!!!!! This is hilarious. Check it out.

Tuesday...finally

Tuesday. The hotel was pretty sweet. The beds were AMAZING, the breakfast was good, they had free wi-fi. There was only one kinda weird/bad thing:


Cameras. All over the place. In the breakfast area, in the pool, at the front desk…this one happened to be in the hall. There were none in the rooms, thank god. That woulda been weird.
Yeah, as I sed, the breakfasts were really good. Tuesday, there was eggs, sausage, cereals, danishes, bagels, donuts, toast, oatmeal, and fresh fruit. And juice. Good stuff. After breakfast, me and bobby went climbing on some more rocks right behind our hotel. They were really big, and it was really cool cuz there were a whole buncha caves kinda things that you could go into.





Lotsa fun. You couldn’t stand up in them, but most of them were still pretty roomy. So yeah, then we drove back up towards where we had been before, except we didn’t go all the way back. We stopped at a restaurant in Two harbors for lunch, and then headed up to Gooseberry Falls. Near the falls was the rock that my parents got engaged on. Awwww…

The falls

Yeah, it was pretty fun. After that, we drove back to Duluth and had dinner at this really great restaurant called Bellisios. They had this HUGE winelist. It was 45 pages long. Freakin massive. The cheapest thing they had was $3.75 non alcoholic bellini. The most expensive thing: a $995 3 liter Magnum bottle of Brunello di Montalcino Gaja. We asked the waiter and he sed he didn’t think they had ever sold one. I had ravioli. It was very good.


So yeah, I think that was pretty much it. As far as i can remember. While watching snl. Ok. Time for wednesday...

Singapore!

I got a visitor from Dakar. Woohoo. Yeah, I know i haven't put up a big post yet. Shut up. I'll do it later.

Grrr....

Argh! My phone is pissing me off. First, we get the phone bill. Did you know that text messages cost 10 cents each? I sure as hell didn't. Didn't you know you have to pay for the internet? I sure as hell didn't. Do you know why my phone deleted all but 4 of my contacts in my friggin address book? I sure as hell don't.

I'll have sumthin about tuesday up in a minute. Or 60.

Monday

Ok. So we left Bluefin Bay on Monday. We had some lucky charms first, then we headed down to Duluth. It was a very long drive, and we had a kind of rough start. We went up to this restaurant kinda by lutsen mountain. Actually, went to lutsen to look around since we had gone there during January of 2005. Then we were going to go to the restaurant, but I accidentally missed the turn. I was gonna turn around, but mom wanted to go to this restaurant by the lake. When we got there, it was closed, so we went back to tracks (the original restaurant), and got there 6 minutes too late for breakfast. So we had lunch. After bobby freaked out about them not having pasta. Which they actually did.

It was pretty good. Its weird though…the last 10 or so burgers I’ve eaten, the bottom bun has been soggy. How strange…

So yeah, we finally go started, only to stop again after about half an hour to go to a waterfall or something.

Yes, that is kool aid. Noticing a theme yet? Me too. So we stopped a couple more times, for more waterfalls and lake side hikes and crap. Eventually, we ended up at the Hampton inn in Duluth. We got there at 530, which was still remarkably early for us. We went to this diner kinda place on lake avenue. I had pizza margherita. It was pretty good. Dad had this pork thing with peach bbq sauce. It looked pretty good. Then we went walking around and looked at some ships go through the aerial lift bridge.

That whole thing on the bottom raises up to let boats through. Its pretty sweet. After that, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. Then we went back to the room and went to sleep.

Man, I am making good time! I’m almost caught up with the present. I guess that’s what happens when you drive…in a car…I guess…

The dates...on summa them...

Ok. A couple days ago I sed the dates were wrong. Indeed, they are right. They're just backwards. Like, 14/07/06. It's supposed to be 7/14/06. Whatever. You're not that stupid.

Titles!

Yay!!! I figured out how to get titles! I'll have a post about monday tuesday, and possibly wednesday 2morrow. Oh crap! I didn't post about saturday! Oh well, I'll do that tomorrow. G'nite.

Ok, Sunday. It was actually kinda boring. We had a nice breakfast of…sumthing. I don’t remember. It was kinda tired. We went to lunch at this fish place. We all had fish and chips. There were lots of flies. Then dad went to do the laundry from our boundary waters trip while me, mom and bobby went climbing and stuff. We went out to this lighthouse thing, and sat on the pier and drank kool aid. We saw a buncha pretty cool boats. I should say, we saw one pretty cool boat. The rest were just boats. Here’s the cool one.

The rest were just boats.

Yep. Lotsa boats. Then we went back and contributed to “the stonehenge of grand marais”

It’s kinda hard to tell what I did-so I outlined it in green. What an amazing feat of balance and perfect aesthetics!!! I should sell it to the Smithsonian.

After that, we went back to get dad since he was finished with the laundry. Then we went to get some frozen custard. I had a hot fudge and caramel sundae. It was really really good. I skipped some rocks, and tried to teach Bobby, too. He wasn’t very good then, but he’s getting better now. I think his record is 3.

Then we went back to our room. We were watching the news and we found out that there was a tornado warning. We were gonna go swimming at the outdoor pool, so we went to the indoor one instead. Good times. So after that, the tornado let up, and mom and dad went out for a date. Me and bobby had macaroni back at the room. When we finished, we went to a campfire by the beach and had smores. Yummy. So yeah, then we went back to the room, the parents came back, and we all went to sleep. Woohoo.

Saturday

Haha, I'm so sneaky! I figured out how to sneak saturday in before sunday! Isn't that just the sneakiest thing you've ever heard of? Probably not. But oh well. Here we go.

Ok, Saturday. We got up nice and early-about 5, I think.

We wanted to get going so we wouldn’t get caught in the fire. We make oatmeal for breakfast, which was really good. We made sure to clean up camp really good.

I took this right before we left. I thought I had gotten everything, but I didn’t. A dollar goes to the first person who figures what I left.

Yeah, so we left the same way we came, except we did one more short portage so we wouldn’t have to paddle all the way around the peninsula kinda thing we had been camping on. We took a lot less time too, because we didn’t want to get caught in the fire. Whereas it had taken us around 7 or 8 hours to get to the campsite from cross river bay, it only took us 5 1/ 2 hours to get back.

I think you can understand our motivation.

Once we got back to the dock, I had to hike about half a mile back to the lodge to ask them to come pick us up. While I did that, Dad figured out how to take pictures of himself with the camera, lol.

Then, we had to wait under a little shelter with some picnic table for mom to make the hour and a half drive from our hotel to get us. We took showers at the shower house while we were waiting. They kinda sucked. I took a Jacuzzi bath when we got back to the hotel. That was better. I got a couple of bottles of root beer. It was pretty good. When they finally did get there, Bobby was pretty happy to see us.

Woohoo. So yeah, we walked around on the rocks when we got back to Grand Marais.

Then we went back to the hotel. I took a shower, and then we went to dinner at the Bluefin Grill by our room. It was really…really….really….rreeaallllyy…..r e a l l y……s l o wwwww……. It took like an hour to get our food. I hate slow restaurants. Especially with my parents. Then we went back to the hotel, and went to sleep. Zzzzzzzz.

Friday. The day the big fire got started. Ugh. So yeah, there was a big storm overnight. It kinda kept us up a little bit. Dad woke me up at 3 or so when he was putting everything under the rain fly and in our tent. This is what i look like at 300 in the morning.

I feel pretty...oh so pretty...lol. So yeah. There was a buncha thunder and lightning, and one of the bolts of lightning started the fire. There wasn't all that much rain, but it was enough that I'm glad we had everything under the fly. We had fried potatoes for breakfast. They were really good. We got through the first of two batches, and then our stove started acting like it was out of fuel. Dad and I didn't know what was going on, but just as I was about to start a wood fire, dad took the cap off of the fuel bottle, and I realized that we needed to tip the bottle on its side. hehe. So we covered the sticks with a frisbee (which we had discovered the night before in fact did not float) in case we needed it later, and resumed cookin our taters. Good times. So yeah, after doin dishes and debating for a while about whether or not to go canoeing, since it was still raining a little bit, we decided to head out. We did the same route as the day before, except at Gordon Lake, we turned right and had a huge 140 rod portage to frost lake. I'm glad we did it though, cuz it was worth it. Guess what we found...A nice sandy beach! And nearby, we found the Hilton of campsites...

Not only were there benches, but the benches had backrests. It was pretty amazing. We had a nice lunch of lefsa, peanut butter, trail mix, and kool aid. unforunatley, we had a little friend who was trying to get at some of our food.
A long time ago, my parents were camping. A squirell came along, and he was trying to get at their food. So, to teach him a lesson, as well as giving him some food, they put a bunch of peanut butter on a ritz cracker. The squirell came up and ate it. His mouth was stuck shut, and he didn't bother them again. lol. So we tried that with lefsa and pb. Unfortunatley, the squirrell seemed to already know that trick, and he ran away.
So yeah, we paddled around the lake, and we were expecting the wind, which was pretty strong at that point, to blow us back to the portage. However, right when we left the beach, the wind turned around. It was really weird. Yep. We paddled back to camp and started making dinner. This was when dad first noticed the smoke from the fire. It was pretty funky. We weren't extremely worried at that point though.
Yeah, so then later, after dinner and stuff, I was refilling my water, and a beaver swam by. It was pretty sweet. I didn't even notice until dad told me, lol.
In case your wondering, yes, those dates are wrong. Sorry. Hmmm...yeah, we tied up the food and went to bed. Good times. Tomorrow later.

Woohoo! So yeah, I'm at the Hampton Inn in Duluth now. Right at the tip of lake superior. Its pretty cool-theres like a big bridge, and all kindsa huge ships go into the port like all the time. But I still have a buncha boundary waters left to write about. Here we go.

So on...thursday, me and dad canoed around long island lake a little bit, tried to catch some fish, stuff like that. we didn't catch a single fish the whole...damn...time. it was horrible. newa, after we gave up on that, we went down the Long Island river. actually, we stopped at this huge rock/cliff kinda thing, and I climbed up it. Me at the topDad at the bottom

So yeah, after that, we went down the Long Island River, then a 28 rod portage to Gordon Lake, then a 13 rodder to Cherokee Lake. At the end of that portage, we saw a bunch (9) of little kids from "a boys camp in northern wisconsin." there were some huge waves on that like, which was called cherokee lake. we went over a little bit to a bay where we tried to fish a little bit. Of course, we didn't catch anything. again.

The waves were pretty bad on the way back too, but they were kinda going toward our portage, so we just kind of road them in. The waves don't look especially huge, but they sure moved the canoe a lot. As you can see, there were whitecaps. Good times, though. Good times.
On the way back, we got really close to a couple of loons. At some point, after vacation is over, I'm gonna do a post with all the animals and stuff we saw. For now, you just gotta see this one. We got like 5 feet away from the loon.Yep. Pretty sweet. I'll put up a more detailed pictures of the loon sometime. So yeah, we had dinner (I had hawaiian chicken, pretty good) and went to bed, after hangin up the food. Good times. More tomorrow.

Ok. Let me try to remember some stuff. We went up the gunflint trail to the outfitter, which was called Tuscarora Outfitters. It was pretty cool. The guy who kinda ran the place was called Andy. His wife, Sue, helped us figure out a route to take one we got into the boundary waters. We slept in a bunk house that night. It was weird, cuz you could fit 12 people there, but the maximum size allowed for a group is 9 people, lol. The beds kinda sucked-the matresses were like the nap mats they have at day care centers, except they were super sized, but not quite enough-so yeah, we didn't sleep all that great. We got up at about 530 or 6 or sumthin and had breakfast at the dining hall. We had french toast. It was amazing. I love french toast. If you ever make me breakfast, make french toast, belgian waffles, ham, eggs, hashbrowns, and maybe regular toast. Its the perfect breakfast...
So yeah after that, we got all our stuff together, went down to the dock, and got started. We had a kevlar canoe, which was cool. Its lightweight material, but its really fragile, so it was kinda annoying to kinda be carful with it during portages and stuff. Here's dad loading the canoe after a portage.
The first day, we went down from the dock down to a 50 rod portage (a rod is 16 1/2 ft.), then went to another little lake kinda thing, then a 40 rodder, then to ham lake. At the end of the lake, there was a 24 rod portage. Then we went down a river to cross bay lake. After that, there was a 55 rod portage to rib lake. At the end of that, there was a 37 to lower george lake, then we wend down karl lake, all the way around the big peninsula, looked for some campsites, and found some people who told us there was an open campsite about a mile away. So we went there, and got camp set up. The total trip, according to Google Earth, was just over 9 miles. we did it in about 10 or 11 hours. We were going pretty slow, cuz we didnt know what we were doing, lol.Our campsite. To the left is some benches surrounding the campfire/stove area, kind of right/center is our pile of stuff with a rain tarp over it, and in the background is our tent.
So yeah, wet up camp, and got some water boiling, and the stove started. We had this instant freeze dried chicken rice stuff. It was pretty good. I think I had the sweet and sour chicken thing, and it looked like this.It was pretty good. Very filling. Ummm...yea so we ate, then went off into the woods do clean up the dishes, and went to look for a good try to tie up our food in so the bears wouldnt get to it. We found an acceptable one, but we had a hell of a time trying to get the rope over the branch. It took like an hour. Dad got it stuck, and we just left it there, tied the bag to it, and tied it to another tree. None of the bears got to it. Here's a pic of dad trying to get the rope into the tree. So yeah, then we went back and went to sleep. I slept kind of ok. I'll write about the next day 2morrow.

I'm back!!!!! And now I'm going to dinner...more later.

Hey, hey, hey!!!!! Oh man, this vacation is awesome. Lets see...
I got to drive a buncha the way from Des Moines to the twin cities. We got to the country inn and suites in roseville at about 8 i think. Thats actually pretty early for us. We got takeout from a DQ in clear lake. It took like half an hour to make my burger, lol. The hotel was ok. It had a pool, which was kinda small, and a hot tub, which was ok, and an excercise room, which consisted of a treadmill, a bike machine, and a couple 10 pound barbells. The room was kinda...cozy. The best part of the hotel was that there was a waffle maker, and there was a candy jar at the front desk. That was a plus. So we stayed there for 2 nites. Yesterday, we visited the U of M and Macalaster College. The U of M was really cool and huge and modern and stuff, but I didn't like Macalaster very much. Ima go ahead and cross that one off my list. So after macalaster, which we finished around 5, we headed up here to Tofte, MN. It was about a 5 hour drive. We're staying at this little resort kinda thing right on lake superior called Blue Fin bay. Its really nice. Theres a couple restauarants and stuff. We've got this huge suite room thing. Theres a bedroom, a little kitchenette, a bathroom, with a jacuzzi and a window looking into the living room (???) and obviously, a living room. And a big table. The windows a bit weird. I think it was designed for couples on there honeymoon or something...oh yeah, and theres a patio too. And theres a really great view of the lake. Theres an internet connection, obviously, but it's kinda flaky, so im gonna post pictures later. Tonight, me and dad are gonna go up to the outfitter and stay at the bunkhouse overnight, and then we're gonna head out into the boundary waters tomorrow morning. Leave me sum comments on myspace or sumthin. I'll talk 2 y'all when i get back. Unless i post sum pictures 2day.

Hey. Happy 6th of July. I'm gonna do a guest post with Bobby (my brother) today. Here's summa him:

hi. this week i found a new game called territory war. its pretty cool and i do it a lot even though my mom gets tired of it. ive won almost every round of it ive played. on the 4th of july i went to valley southwoods to watch fireworks with me and dans friend. at christmas i got a new microscope which is really really cool

Okay, getting back to July. This is Dan again. Me and sean and miku are gonna c if we can get out for sum ice cream on friday. On Saturday, we're all gonna be leavin for Minnesota. When we're up there, me and Dad are gonna b goin to the boundary waters for 4 days.This is the route we're gonna take the lake on the right is where we're starting. The red line will either be paddled or portaged. The little red lines that you can see when you click the pic are portages. That isn't the definite route, but its what we're hopin to do. The first day we're gonna do that, then we'll have the lake on the left be our base camp and we'll go exploring and stuff from there. So yeah, it'll be fun. I'll c if i can blog from my new phone. Call me, I'm bored. 419-8880