Peter Bland

Last night I was watching Dateline on TV with my mom. It was 6 and nothing else was on so we decided to watch it. It was a 2 hour special, and one hour was completely devoted to the story of Peter Bland. This man had no fears. He was a true adventurer. He was the first Australian man to have ever gone to both the North and South Pole. On his trip to the South pole he did something that some people might say is crazy. When a rope fell overboard and got caught in the propellor it looked like the whole trip would have to be scrapped. They were only a few miles from Antarctic shores and Peter was determined to reach it. The problem was the only way to reach it was by diving in the 30 degree water and reach the rope underneath the boat. The doctors on board said that any more then 5 minutes could be deadly, but he did it anyways! So without even a wetsuit, just taped up rain gear he went under the boat and saved the whole trip. Staying in that water for a little over 5 minutes was like threatening to everyone but especially him. He had already had open heart surgery as a child. One week before his trip to the north pole the doctors found an aneurism in his aorta. The doctors told him this was partially because of the risky dive he made in his last trip. He had to undergo open heart surgery for the second time in his life. After his recovery and his trip planned later to the north pole he wanted to do something even harder. He wanted to be a world's first. He planned to travel across the Antarctic Peninsula unassisted with his best friend. To find out what happened on this awesome jouney (which I defintly recommend) go to the link above.

Doughnuts now are political statements

Barrack Obama is now officially president. Even if you were for or against him you couldn't avoid the explosion that was inauguration day. People were going crazy. It was an event for sales in stores and even free doughnuts! Krispy Kreme decided to give out free doughnuts of your choice to everyone who came to a store. It was supposed to be "honoring America's sense of pride and freedom of choice". But the American Life League just couldn't leave this one alone. They turned the whole thing around. Instead of being a nice thing to honor our new president it was a political statement. They decided that Krispy Kreme was supporting the freedom of choice in reference to abortion. By handing out free doughnuts they were telling people that is was okay to get an abortion.

I don't know about anyone else but I think that this is ridiculous! By trying to do a nice thing and celebrating our new president Krispy Kreme was basically accused of making a nationwide petition for abortion. Media and news has always flipped things around like this before but this is just getting out of hand! The only thing that they were trying to do was a nice thing. So maybe the musical Wicked had it right. Maybe it is true, No good deed goes unpunished.

Accepted.... NOT!

50 excited new students were accepted into Kellogg School of Management earlier this month. Then a couple days later they were told it was a mistake. Apparently a computer error caused 50 applicants who were actually rejected to receive their acceptance letters via email. It only took the school a few days to sort out the confusion but the damage had already been done. One of the fifty had even already had a congratulatory dinner in his honor for his acceptance.  The school had apologized for the inconvenience and is planning on returning the applicants $235 application fee to them.

I know that I would extremely embarrassed if that happened to me. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to be accepted to a college and then be told later that it was a mistake. You weren’t good enough. Both my sister and brother had gone through the process of college applications and the whole thing stressed them out a lot. They had gotten into fight with my parents over it. When they weren’t accepted to a school that they wanted to go to, it was hard for them. If they had been accepted to the school of their choice and then were denied later, I think they might have exploded. I know some seniors that are going through the process of applying right now. It would be scary to think that you could be accepted and then to be told that they just didn’t quite make it. That would be so sad.

TWILIGHT!!!!

I can't wait for this Friday, but what else is new. Not only is it the weekend and the end of another school week but this friday is different. This friday I am going to see the movie Twilight. If you haven't heard of this book you have been living in a hole for the past 6 months. If you haven't read it, and you are a girl, you should go pick up a copy. It is a great and easy read. I am not one for reading books but I couldn't put this one down. Guys I understand but I know some guys who have read it and they liked it. I am actually going with a group to see this friday and some boys are going with us (and no we aren't forcing them!).

So when I was deciding what to write about in my blog this week I decided to talk about what I am hoping this movie will be. I have seen every single trailer and I feel like I could have seen the whole movie. But there are so many scenes I am hoping they kept in the movie. The meadow was my favorite chapter from all four books. I am worried that they weren't able to get the right sense that people get from the book. The reason that this book is hard to capture as a movie is because everyone has different opinions about every aspect of the book. The way the cast was made I personally like. Many people do not see Rob Pattinson as Edward. Or they think that the actress that plays Bella isn't right. Also this book is all froms bella's  point of view. This makes it hard to capture anyones point of view in the right way or the way the people who read it thought of. Twenty pages of the book at a time could all be about one moment that Bella is experiencing. It would talk about her thought and what she feels, smells, and hears. They can't show these pages in a movie. They had to alter the movie to be long enough and to say everything they wanted to say. I am excited to see this movie and even though I didn't want them to change anything I am excited to see what have done with it. I hope it will live up to my expectations.

Living with the Dead

Recently a women in evanston was found living with her three siblings. Her three DEAD siblings. One of which had died in the 1970's. The full story is found on the Chicago Tribune. The three that were found consisted of a sister named Anita who died in may of this year, her brother Frank who died in 2003 and finally another sister Elaine that is believed to have died sometime in the 1970's. When I first heard about this story I thought that it meant that Margaret had killed all of her siblings. As I read the article I found out that the police have found out that they all died of natural causes. As they searched the house all three bodies had been covered in blankets. They were just sitting in different rooms of the house slowly decaying. The article also says that Margaret has a reputation of a "pack rat" but I just think this is totally over the top.

When I heard of this story I was totally disgusted. I don't know how a women could live with 3 dead bodies just simply sitting there. There was in no way an attempt to keep them from decaying. The smell of the house with a 30 year old dead body must have been unbearable. I don't know how crazy this lady must have been to be able to justify this act. What I also don't understand is if her first sister died in 1970 then the other two siblings must have known about this as well. Did they all just plan on living in that house forever? Was this some sort of crazy pact to let this family stay together forever!?!

No Hitter

The cubs won another game on September 14th, 2008. The game ended after the ninth 

inning with the score 5-0 Cubs. But there was much more to it then just the win. In a very exciting game this week

 that Cubs starting pitcher, Carlos Zombrano, pitched a no hittter. He went all nine innings without letting up one hit. The game was a historical event. Not only was it his first personal no-hitter for Zambrano but the first no-hitter from

 a cubs team in a long time. The last one was pitched by Milt Pappas did on September 2. 1972. It was also the first no hitter ever that was played at a neutral field. Because of the hurricanes in Texas the game was cancelled at the Astros home field where the game was supposed to take place. This led the teams to meet up north in the brewers home field at Miller park. The full story is available at the Cubs website.

Being a cubs fan the whole game was exciting to watch. I was

 on the edge of my seat the entire game. Inning by inning went by with no hits. I was just waiting for someone to go up and get a hit and ruin the no-hitter. But after that last pitch in the 9th inning I could breath a sigh of relief. Zambrano had done it! A no- hitter!!! Not only did it offer us another win toward the goal of clinching the National league Central division but it gave us the confidence that the fans needed going into the playoffs. With a shaky start in late august I was worried about Zambrano with a record of 14-5 and when he was taken out of the game

 for some shoulder pain I thought that it would be just another thing working against us as we make the stride for the long awaited cubs victory in the world series. But with this win and no-hitter it jsut shows that we are ready for anything. It is finally our year and the Cubs are going to shine!

Test Post

Testing