Hello, people! Sorry I haven't been blogging but I broke my left arm roller skating at my cousin Josh's birthday party. It's almost healed now. The break was a distal radius fracture, otherwise known as breaking your wrist. I had to get it set twice, and I was sedated the first time. That was freaky! I kept waking up with an oxygen mask on my face. Then I had dreams about skeletons dancing around with their bones broken.
The second time I was awake and this nurse guy kept pounding on my arm to get it to go back where it should be. He was an adult and his facial expression was like one you or I would get when we're using all of our muscles. I was so nervous that my legs kept having spasms! Now I've got a cool red cast with a lot of signatures on it. Anita signed it too, even though she had to take over doing most of my chores!
School's been going well, although I can't believe the school year is almost over already. We've got a new kid in our class named Liam who's from Australia. His little sister, Chloe, is in second grade. They've got really awesome accents. They're from the city of Perth, which is on the coast of the Indian Ocean. I would love to go to Australia one day so I could see all the animals like the platypus, koala, dingo, Tasmanian devil and the kangaroo. That's just a small, small, small fraction of the animals native to Australia! So cool!
Max the Fox
5/1/12
Last week was awesome! I went on a class trip with Mr. Burke to a museum! There was a dinosaur skeleton (Brontosaurus, to be exact), stingrays that you could feed and pet, and a whole room designed to look like King Tutankhamen's tomb! It was so cool to see all those fossils of shark teeth and stuff.
Mr. Burke bought us all some small fish to feed the stingrays, then took us to the Egyptian wing to see the "mummification" process. A kid from our class, Aidan, was chosen to be "mummified." They put some "oils" on him (it was water) and put some bandages on him. Then the man playing the high priest and the boy playing his son left for a period of about a minute that they called 40 days, and then came back to place the "body" into a sarcophagus (the Egyptian word for coffin) and place the sarcophagus into a tomb. Not much audience participation, unless you were Aidan, but it was cool to watch! After the play, Aidan was let out of his tomb (that sounds really weird!) and we went to the gift shop. I bought some papyrus made to look like it had ancient Egyptian writings on it.
Benjamin was sick a little while ago, and having dog puke on your carpet not only looks disgusting, it smells horrible! He's fine now, but that was one of the most unpleasant few days of my life. Ugh!
Max the Fox
12/2/11
Hello, folks! School is awesome but a little challenging. Well, math is hard, not so much the other subjects. My math teacher, Miss Johnson, is my second-favorite teacher and is really helpful and nice, and really smart. Her nephew, Kyle, is also in the class, and he's as smart as his aunt. My other teachers are OK, but Mr. Burke, my science teacher, is my favorite. He's so interesting, the way he'll compare a human cell to a banana's, or how he shows us little movies about the differences between coniferous (cone-bearing) trees, like pine, and deciduous trees that lose their leaves, like oak.
Also in science, a guy, Nick, brought in some mold he had been growing for an experiment at home. We made a slide of it with a microscope, and when we slid it under the viewing hole, it moved for about three seconds, because it had been alive but was detached from its life source. It was black and kind of looked like a water drop. It was really awesome, and Mr. Burke said it was one of the coolest things he had ever seen.
As for Halloween, I'm going to be a pirate. My costume is really cool, with a black eye patch and a plastic sword, and a baggy, "torn-up" vest, shirt and pants. I'm going trick-or-treating with my friend Bob, who lives in my neighborhood. Bob also goes to my school and is in English and science with me.
Benjamin is doing great! He's a lot bigger now, and he's still pretty young. And yay, he's finally housebroken. That's a true relief, because it means no more stained carpets. Yuck!
Max the Fox
10/28/11
A few weeks ago, I went to a robotics camp. We learned to build and program robots there. I made a friend, Alex Smith, and I think he's a programming genius! At the camp, we had a competition where we had to program the robots to complete missions. The missions are where the robots travel over a map, blocking plastic building-block dams, powering windmills and cleaning up trash. Mom, Dad and Anita came, and even Anita was impressed.
I had fun with friends and family when I went camping, swimming, hiking and, yes, kayaking, but I can't wait to see friends that I haven't seen all summer. Just a few more days!
Max the Fox
8/30/11
Well, school's about to start. I'm not sure whether to be excited or nervous...
Max the Fox
8/28/11
OK, that took longer than I meant it to; I've been surprisingly busy this summer. And now it's almost school time again! What?!
Anyway, the trip to Washington D.C. was great, even though we got up at 6:30 every morning. We went to just about every monument, the White House, the National Archives, the Capitol building, Arlington National Cemetery (where we saw John F. Kennedy's eternal flame), Gettysburg battlefields, the Smithsonian Institute, and even rode an elevator to the top of the Washington Monument!
When we were at Arlington National Cemetery, our guide explained why the graves are in a line, or diagonal, or whatever pattern they're in. The graves are like that because, if the soldiers were alive and marching in battle, they would be standing in the pattern that they're gravestones are in.
Our bus broke down on the 4th day, but since we were near a mountain with a forest, we got to play in an open green area. Because we broke down, we weren't going to be able to go to Jamestown and Williamsburg, but our awesome bus driver got us there anyway! When we were in Williamsburg, we molded clay for bricks. Williamsburg uses the old customs that people used in colonial times to show visitors what colonial America was like.
You know that it's rainy on the East Coast, right? Well, the only major rains we got were on the first day, at Arlington, and on the last day, at Williamsburg. The rest of the time it sprinkled, or didn't rain at all. We had a great time. My favorite part was the Smithsonian Institution because I love airplanes and the Air and Space Museum is totally awesome.
Speaking of the Smithsonian, did you know it's more than one building? It's the largest museum complex in the world, in fact, with 19 museums, a zoo and nine research facilities (I looked it up). Eleven of the museums are right along the National Mall, which is this big park area that you can see from the top of the Washington Monument. See that dark red building in the middle, just to the right of the grass? That's "The Castle," the Smithsonian's headquarters. Then just above The Castle is a round doughnut-shaped building, and then, just above that one, the light tan building that looks like four rectangles is the Air & Space Museum. Everything looks so small from up there, but I assure you, it's quite a walk.
Mmmmm... doughnuts... Must be lunchtime! More later!
Max the Fox
8/8/11
Hi, guys! The trip to Washington D.C. was great! And really busy. I'm getting my photos and stuff organized for a big blog entry, so check back soon!
Max the Fox
7/8/11
Hallelujah!
Max the Fox
6/10/11
Hi, everyone! So, the musical went great, and I didn’t even fall asleep! (You know, the songs were boring.) No one fell, tripped, or messed up!
Benjamin is doing pretty well, and he’s house-trained now. He only occasionally chews up Anita’s stuff. Not that I mind…
I’m so excited we’re going to Washington D.C.! I can’t wait! We’re leaving on the 20th of June (and we have to be at the airport at 4 o’clock in the morning. Yuck!), and we’ll be coming back on the 26th (at 10 o’clock at night I’ll have you know!). A whole six days without parents… even though there will be two teachers, the Kindergarten teacher, Miss Gonzalez, and my teacher, Mrs. Smith. We’re going to see all the memorials and the Smithsonian, and, if our hotel has a pool, go swimming! Unfortunately, though, my mom heard that it’s very humid there in the summer. Oh, well… I can cope.
Max the Fox
5/31/11
Our school musical is very soon, and we haven't memorized all the songs yet! Some are way long, or don't really have a tune, or are kind of sleepy and slow-sounding. But one song is kind of like a competition between the boys and the girls. We totally beat 'em! But then again, there are only six of them. I'm getting a bit off topic. A bit this, a bit that, now I sound like a British guy! Off topic again.... Now, what were we talking about? Oh, right, the musical! Well, I've told you all I can about that.
So what else? Oh! I'm going on a trip to Washington, D.C., with some classmates. I'm rooming with John, Thomas and Nick. Thomas is kind of a nerd, but he's nice — and let's face it, I'm fairly geeky myself. We'll be getting up at, like, 6:30, and we'll be going to bed at 9. I'll give you updates about the trip when I can!
Max the Fox
5/23/11
Well, we’re doing a pretty cool thing that is kind of like the Oregon Trail journals, but they’re about the Civil War. I’m in the Union, and my name is Sergeant Andy Smith. I lived through the battle, and I was promoted to Sergeant Major. Cool, huh?
Anyway, our school picnic is in a few days, and I’m so excited! There’ll be a raw egg toss for the older kids, crazy relays with stuff like holding beans on a spoon and running without any falling off, and burgers and hot dogs, and some funny songs that we sing while eating Popsicle®s! Our class is playing a kickball game against Mrs. Wilson’s class, and they’re really good. But we have John, and that guy can kick a ball so far he can walk in slow motion and still get a home run! And Nick can catch a high-flying ball without really paying attention. Or, at least that’s what seems to happen.
Oh — Benjamin is doing great. All right, so maybe he did poop on the carpet. So what? I mean, he isn’t really house-broken yet. Wait, what...? Oh, no, Benjamin! Don’t poop… all right, you did anyway. Sorry I have to go, but Ben just pooped on my carpet. MMMMOOOOOMMMM!
Max the Fox
5/6/11
Well, we finally finished those Oregon Trail journals, and no one died! Or at least in my “family.” Anyway, on Thursday we did Coffee House Poetry, kinda like last year. We had to memorize one or two poems, depending on their length. Mine was two pages long and called “The End of the Dragons” by David Bankson. It was pretty cool, especially the treats we had afterwards! Our parents were invited to come, and there was coffee, tea (iced and not) and hot chocolate. There were these little biscotti cookie things, cake balls (I guess you can tell what those are made of!), breads like pumpkin and banana, and baklava, which is a Greek pastry that’s all flaky and layered and has nuts and honey or nuts and chocolate, and they are so good! The food always makes up for having to memorize the poem.
Another thing I want to mention is this guy named Michael. He’s been mean to me ever since we were in first grade, and this year it’s been the worst yet. I tried talking to my parents… not helpful. Mom sympathized and said she'd talk to my teacher. Then Dad said he'd talk to Michael's dad. Yeah. Not exactly what I was looking for. But the next day at school, I just said, “Leave me alone, Michael.” He’s been glaring at me ever since but is obviously so surprised that I talked back that he won’t speak to the Max-man. Really though, I just got so fed up that I told my teacher, and she talked to Michael.
Anyway, if you’ve got a bully, just come up with a clever comeback, tell an adult, or tell him to leave you alone — or all of the above. Hope this info helps!
Max the Fox
4/18/11
Our teacher just surprised us by telling us that we're starting an Oregon Trail unit! Two days ago, we "shopped" for supplies at Jim's General Store (it was really just a piece of paper that had the "prices" of all the stuff we'd need; when I was done, I had about $100 left). Yesterday we named our family members and wrote our first entries in our trail journals. We all had to have a spouse, whatever that means, and three kids. My wife's name is Eileen, my sons are 12-year-old twins Noah and Benjamin, and my daughter is 5-year-old Emilene.
It's interesting to me that we're studying the Oregon Trail right now because the Mensa Annual Gathering this year is in Portland, Ore., so I'll be there in July. I'm pretty sure Portland was on the Trail.
I'm so happy right now! My dad just brought home an adorable German shepherd puppy! He said Anita and I could name it whatever we wanted. I wanted Benjamin, because that was the name of my "son" from the journal, but Anita wanted Sydney, just because she liked the name. I won, because the puppy is a boy!
Max the Fox
3/30/11
Well, Anita's party is over. It wasn't half as bad as I feared. She had her group of friends over, mostly girls, and they talked and listened to music and made references to countless jokes and events that I didn't know about. Girls are very loud. I had pizza with them and chatted; they were pretty nice. Then they watched a movie, and I went up to my room and did some homework. I came back downstairs for cake and ice cream.
It was sort of interesting to hang out with a bunch of teenagers. They didn't make fun of me or (as far as I could tell) intentionally exclude me from conversations. I was sort of worried that they would be stuck-up and unfriendly, but Anita doesn't really hang out with those sorts of people. I needn't have worried.
Max the Fox
3/13/11
Hello again!
I was just at a birthday party for one of my friends, Eric. Guess what the main event was? Laser tag! I love laser tag, and I rarely get a chance to play it with my friends. The guests were split into teams, and we ran around in the dim, foggy, ominous arena, simply shooting at any enemy we saw. If you got hit, your vest flashed and you couldn't shoot for a while. After a good half-hour of that simple style of game, we switched to "base tag" mode. Each team had a base, and each person had limited "health" as well as ammo. The goal was to get to the opponents' base and attack it, by shooting at a small, glowing target. If you ran out of health or ammo, you had to return to your own base to recharge. At first, some people did the obvious thing and stayed in the base where they were constantly recharged and just fired at anyone who came near. Eventually, everyone stopped that and we kept playing. I've always had really good aim in laser tag, and I could hit people from much farther than they could hit me. After that, we were all driven back to Eric's house for cake, ice cream and presents. I love birthday parties...
Speaking of which, my sister Anita has a birthday of her own coming up. I'm not sure how that will go. I'll tell you about it later.
Max the Fox
2/27/11
Sorry I've been away so long; I don't know about you, but my life is really busy during the holidays.
I'm sort of excited right now. I just found out that a Games Club has been formed at my school. According to the flyer they gave out, it focuses on role-playing games. Hooray! It mentioned Dungeons and Dragons, which I love, but also plenty of other games, including several war games. I have never really liked large-scale war games; they are fun, but they require way too much dedication. You have to plan, organize, set up the map and, to top it off, you have to buy the hundreds of tiny units and terrain pieces! I prefer games that take no more than a pencil, paper and dice (and the rulebooks...). But to each his own, I suppose. I still think it will be fun at the club.
Max the Fox
12/21/10
Hello, I'm back with the rest of my AG tidbits. Enjoy!
Since the gathering was in Detroit (or close to it anyways), I went to a talk about Henry Ford. He was the one who created Ford Motors and the Model T. He is also commonly credited with inventing the assembly line, but that's not true; he was just one of the first to make it useful and profitable. The most interesting fact I learned at that session was that, during the Great Depression, Ford had some of his executives work on the assembly lines, just to keep them employed!
Later in the week, I went to a program that wasn't so much a lecture as a demonstration. It was a “siege engine lab,” where the man talked about various medieval siege weapons like trebuchets and battering rams, and then he let teams of kids stage a mock battle using two mini-trebuchets to knock down the opponent's castle wall (represented by a stack of cups). During the presentation, the man asked the audience what the most useful siege weapon was. Almost everyone said “trebuchet.” The most interesting thing I learned there was that the best siege weapon was actually the ladder! The best way to take a castle was to get men on the other side of the wall, using ladders to climb over. And ladders are useful because they are cheap; they can be knocked back or destroyed easily, but if you have hundreds of them, the defenders won't be able to keep up.
However, if you could have only one siege engine, I would want a trebuchet.
Max the Fox
11/22/10
I haven't had much happening recently, so I figured I would post a list of random facts (some meaningful, some not) that I learned at Mensa's 2010 Annual Gathering.
I'll start with the funniest thing I learned — or at least the oddest thing. On the last day of the AG, they had toaster waffles out for breakfast, as usual. However, there were no forks or knives. Therefore, I learned how to eat toaster waffles with a spoon. That's not something anyone would expect to learn at a Mensa gathering, is it now?
I also learned something a bit more basic. I play tons of games, and I really like long, complicated ones. I learned that I can stay up until 5 a.m., if I don't mind sleeping until 2 p.m. (and missing breakfast!). I also learned something else that night while playing those long, long games — something should have realized before: that little kids simply do not have the attention span for a five- to seven-hour game!
You might be thinking, "So, Max, did you actually learn anything, or are you just joking around?" I didn't go to all of those lectures for nothing! I'll post some more new nuggets of knowledge later.
Max the Fox
11/4/10
Football tryouts were a nightmare. I got there a bit late, but that didn't really matter. I was one of the scrawniest kids there. I knew as soon as I saw the jocks who were at the tryouts that I didn't stand much of a chance. The coach and his assistants got everyone's name and phone number, and had us line up at one end of the field. When he blew the whistle, we all sprinted to the other end. I was breathing hard when I finished. Luckily, I wasn't last, but I almost was.
Next, the coach had everyone pair up. We would stand facing our partner, and we had to tackle the other person and knock him to the ground. I wound up paired with a kid not any bigger than me and only slightly heavier. I figured I might have a chance after all. However, when the whistle blew, it became obvious that the other kid had practiced for this. We ran towards each other, but he ducked at the last minute and then sprang up straight into my stomach. I was totally unprepared, and I went flying back and landed with the wind knocked out of me. I left after that; I could see that I simply was not cut out for football. Oh, well. Perhaps I'll try something else.
Max the Fox
10/1/10
Max the Fox
9/9/10
Yeah, I know, I should tell you more about the AG, but I've got something else on my mind right now: school.
School is going to start soon. I am both excited and angry. Excited to see my friends again and to go to new classes, but angry because I'm going to have to get up at 6:15 every morning and go be bored all day doodling at a desk. Meh. There are things I like about school — mostly just the science and reading, though. And I have ways to deal with boredom.
I remember the first day of school last year. In one day, I made a giant piece of origami that required 32 pieces of paper! I made all the pieces while the teachers talked about the coming year. The speech is the same for every teacher, and it doesn't even change much from one year to the next! Honestly, we get the picture. Oh, well.
School is boring sometimes, and I dread it by the end of every summer, but if we didn't go to school, then 1) we would be arrested because everyone has to go to school until they are 16, and 2) we would be flipping hamburgers at a fast-food joint for the rest of our lives. That's not something I would enjoy doing, and I don't think you would, either.
Max the Fox
8/20/10
I can't believe it's been a month already since the American Mensa Annual Gathering in Detroit, Mich. Sorry that I waited so long before posting (again), but there was plenty of stuff to do afterwords, and frankly, I wanted a break to rest for a while. Well, I'm ready to post again.
I had a great time at the AG! When we got there late Tuesday evening, my mom, Anita and I (my dad was working that day; he got there Wednesday) were starving, tired and short-tempered. We eventually found a restaurant in the hotel, but it was really expensive. We ate there anyway, and the food was great. It felt wonderful to go to sleep that night, and Anita and I got a two-bed hotel room to ourselves!
The next morning, Hospitality (that's the AG room with free food and drink and lots of tables) still wasn't open, so we got some food at the hotel's coffee shop. Then we registered for the AG and waited around for the fun to begin.
I met up with a friend around noon on my way to a program, and he decided to come with me. I went to another program after that, which he opted out of. Finally, I found where all the rest of my Mensa friends were, and we hung out for the rest of the day, either in Hospitality (which opened that afternoon) or in the Games Room. We spent the rest of the week in much the same fashion, but also spending time in the Tween Room, along with a bunch of other kids our age. We played a ton of different board games, video games (both for Nintendo DS and on the the PlayStation 2 in the Tween Room) and card games. We also had a giant hide-and-seek game, taking place throughout the AG area. One person wasn't found and was almost forgotten until he gave up and revealed himself. I really would've felt bad if we left him there for the rest of the week, but I know that could never have happened. He would have come back to the Tween Room and declared himself the winner, and rightfully so.
Well, the AG was certainly fun, but I was glad to get home. I was traveling for two weeks total, with just two days in between to unpack from the Caribbean and repack for the AG. At least I'm home for now.
Max the Fox
8/4/10
As I promised in my last post, I will tell you about what happened on the way back from my trip to the Caribbean. We had two flights, one from the islands to Miami and then another the rest of the way back home. We got to Miami on time, with about three hours until the next flight boarded. We asked a person from the ticket counter where our gate was, and we went where they told us. It was a long walk. When we got there, we found out that our gate had just been changed to a different place on the other side of the airport. When at last we got there, it had changed again, but luckily only to a gate a bit farther down the terminal.
We finally settled down there, and there were no more changes. We soon found out, however, that the flight had been delayed an hour. We waited. It was delayed another hour. And so on. The originally scheduled departure time was 5:15, but the plane didn't take off until around 7:45 — two and a half hours late!
As it turned out, the original plane had broken down, so another one had to be sent. Oh, well. At least we made it home all in one piece.
Max the Fox
7/20/10
The trip to the Caribbean Sea was amazing, but I'm glad it is over. My family and I have had our share of bug bites, sunburns and various other bruises and pains. I have a bite on the bottom of my big toe! I have no idea how that could have gotten there. I am also sunburned a bit on my shoulders and arms. Still, it was fun. Even all of the annoyances couldn't prevent that! I got to go snorkeling in the coral reefs; and Anita, my cousins, and I all got to dive from the side of the boat and swing on the rope swing attached to one of the masts! We visited several different islands, and we even got to take a tour of a turtle sanctuary on one of them! How many kids my age get to do that?
Still, when all was said and done, I think that one week was enough. I had a great time, but by the end I was really looking forward to getting home. Some annoyances occurred on the way back too; I'll put that in another post.
Max the Fox
7/4/10
I can't wait! Very soon — tonight, in fact — I am leaving on a vacation. And not just any vacation — I am going to the Caribbean! My extended family has rented a private (though slightly small) cruise ship for about a week. We are going to start in Grenada and then sail around to various other islands. The only problem I can foresee is, surprisingly, boredom. The trips between islands will take a long time, and the plane flight is 12 hours each way! I won't be able to bring any hand-held gaming systems either, because there will be nowhere to charge them on a sailing ship. I suppose that I will simply have to be “unplugged” for a week, as my mom puts it. Oh, well. I think that it will still be fun to spend a week in the Caribbean!
Max the Fox
6/26/10
An interesting topic arose during history class toward the end of the year. We were talking about the domestic (inside the U.S.) events that happened during the Vietnam War. One thing that came up was the lowering of the voting age to 18. This happened because a person could be drafted into the military at 18, but he couldn't vote for the Congressmen who were sending him to war. You can bet that made a whole lot of people unhappy!
I think that the law still needs to be altered, though. One thing that strikes me as wrong is that Congress can make decisions about schools, kids, etc., but the kids themselves, who are the ones most affected by it, have no say whatsoever. I'm not saying that kids should be allowed to vote for the President. Most of the time I don't even understand all of the things that go into being a good President, so I would probably not improve the country much with my vote. However, for a law that affects a certain group, such as the young or the elderly, the people targeted by the law should get to vote on it after it has gone through Congress. Don't you agree?Max the Fox
6/15/10
Happy Memorial Day, everyone! I used to get Memorial Day confused with Veterans Day. The difference is that Veterans Day is to honor the soldiers who are still alive, and Memorial Day is to honor the ones who died. I remember it like this: The word “veterans” contains “vet,” and a veterinarian is a person who keeps pets alive. It works for me.
Anyways, some people say that Memorial Day is a sad day. I disagree. Why would there be so many happy parades and parties if it were a sad day? Also, a whole bunch of people died defending the country so that the rest of us could be happy. We should honor them by being happy, rather than mourning them and being miserable.
My family always has a big party on Memorial Day weekend, and this time was no exception, though it was smaller than usual. We usually have between one and 15 people over, but this year we only had six. We would have done croquet, but there were not enough people. It was fun anyways, though.
Max the Fox
6/2/10
I just wanted to update everyone on something. In January, I posted a few goals for the new year. Well, I have good news and bad news about them.
My first goal was to end the school year with an A- average or better. I am almost there, with a current total of 86.4. I really need to work that up if I am to have any fun this summer. (Remember what happened to me last summer??)
My next goal was to win a contest of some kind. My class had a mini spelling bee, and I won. This goal is complete!
Third, I wanted to be elected to the student council again. I didn't quite make it. I was a runner-up, however, so if one of the winners has to quit, then I will take their place.
Fourth, I wanted to beat every video game that I own. So far, so good! I have them all complete, except for one really long and complex one called Chrono Trigger.
And lastly, my fifth goal was to discover and finish a new series of books. I have done this twice already! First I read the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but that doesn't quite count because I knew about it beforehand. I also read a fictional series about mythical creatures, called the "Companions Quartet."
Two goals done, one half-done and two in progress. I will keep you updated on any more progress!
Max the Fox
5/28/10
Sorry to keep you waiting! After the Poetry Cafe, there was just a crazy bunch of projects and tests flying about, and I didn't get a chance to resume blogging. I think things have settled down now, though. I'll try to post more regularly.
The poem recital was a breeze. Most people in the class did fine. Everyone gorged on junk food. I probably ate more than anyone else. All of this was what I expected.
The poetry anthologies, on the other hand, were a different matter. There was a very wide range of grades, from a few perfect scores to the 20 percent for one kid who just turned in a binder with a cover, title page and table of contents. He failed miserably. I actually got a good grade – 146 out of 150! And guess what? One of the poems I wrote was about my teacher, because I was too lazy to come up with anything else. She asked for a signed copy to put on the wall by her desk! I suppose that sometimes being an (unintentional) teacher's pet pays off.
Max the Fox
5/21/10
I'm worried about next Tuesday. I have a huge assignment due for my English class. Since the beginning of the year, our class has done a big focus on poetry of all kinds and topics. We have memorized poems, written poems, revised our poems and discussed poems. All of this work is culminating in one massive assignment, due next week. We have to make an anthology binder containing all of the poems that we have written, as well as a bunch that we get to pick out (or write) on our own. The binder will have a total of 25 pages and is our biggest single English grade that we receive all year!
We also have to memorize a poem (no short ones — at least 100 words) and recite it in front of the whole class. It is a terrifying prospect, believe me. The upside to all this horror, however, is that we will get plenty of snacks (in other words, cookies, brownies, cupcakes and more cookies!).
Max the Fox
5/11/10
I recently discovered something for the computer that is not quite a game, but more of a fun tool. It is called Endorphin, and it's made by a company called NaturalMotion. It is a three-dimensional animation/simulation tool, the full version of which is intended for professional use. I don't even feel like trying to scrape together $1,600 or so for the full version, but there is a free download of the “learning edition” that works just fine. (Ask your parents before getting it, though.)
I have tried programming before with various tools, but this is by far the most complex and also the best. Endorphin is a timeline-based system, where you click and drag various events (like behaviors, poses, forces, etc.) and they take effect at certain times.
There is no way that I could fit all the details into one post, so you can see for yourself.
Max the Fox
4/30/10
Something very, very scary just happened. I got a tooth removed.
Alright, fine, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. As a matter of fact, the novocaine (numbing goo) hurt more than the actual removal. It does that sometimes. I was also given some “sleepy gas” (nitrous oxide, I believe) to help with the removal. I am sort of surprised at how simple it was, given all the semi-horror stories about getting teeth pulled. I didn't feel a thing. However, my right upper lip area was completely numb for the rest of the day. That made it hard to eat the spaghetti we had for dinner that night, but I managed.
So if you ever have to get a tooth removed, don't worry, and be thankful that you don't live back when the only painkiller they had was whisky.
Max the Fox
4/22/10
Wow. I have an awesome family. You won't hear many kids saying that these days, but for me it's true. I just finished my Spring Break, which I spent in the Carolinas, first in South and then in North. In SC we had a rather sad time, as we were going to my grandpa's funeral. It was at least nice that so many people showed up. (Over a hundred were there!)
After that we spent a happier time in NC, celebrating my other grandpa's
80th birthday. My dad's side of the family is very large and rather
uncoordinated. He and his six siblings do not see each other very often —
two live in Germany, one lives in Colombia, and the rest are spread through
the U.S. from coast to coast. It was interesting because, while everyone there
(including spouses) spoke English, they all spoke other languages too (mostly
German and Spanish). I do not get to see much of my widespread family. Several
of them I had not seen in nearly five years!
Max the Fox
4/15/10
Just recently, the national Mensa office sent out a survey to 10,000 members, chosen randomly. And guess what? I got one! The survey made me reflect on what my local group offers to people my age, and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you.
Personally, I think my group is great. They have meetings every month, and everyone treats you like an adult, even if you are only teen/preteen. There are plenty of kids in my area, and I have made friends with most of them. It is really nice to hang out in a place where everyone is intelligent.
Max the Fox
4/8/10
Speaking of up, here’s another update about my trip to the MOA.
While I was there, I met one of my friends whom I had not seen in a long time. I only ever see him at Mensa Annual Gatherings because he lives in another state. He and his family live very close to the Mall, about 20 minutes away. He, his sister, and his dad were there, and after a long day of riding roller coasters and walking around the HUGE mall, they invited me over to their house for a sleepover. It was great!
One of the nice things about Mensa is that you can make friends all over the country. I have several friends, from many different states, whom I only see at AGs. Speaking of which, the AG this year is a joint gathering between American Mensa and Mensa Canada. It should be interesting, and maybe I will make some international friends!
Max the Fox
4/1/10
PS. Hey, it's April Fool's Day! Let me know what great pranks you pull today!
Recently, representatives from the Mall of America in Minnesota contacted Mensa about a media event for the opening of a new ride in the theme park area, Nickelodeon Universe®. The ride is called BrainSurge, after one of their most popular shows. They wanted brainy kids from Mensa to be the first to ride it. Guess what? Anita and I were selected as two of the 16 kids who got free trips to the Mall, and free passes and coupons to almost everything there! We had a great time, arriving last Friday and spending the whole weekend there.
The new ride almost didn’t work. The first time around, the seats wouldn’t tilt like they were supposed to. The engineers were able to quickly fix the problem, and we went around again. I think several people almost lost their breakfasts!
Max the Fox
3/26/10
Now that spring's officially beginning tomorrow, I got thinking about my favorite winter moments this year. One communications (a/k/a speech) class project was fun. We were doing newscasts with small groups of 1-3 people. We each wrote stories to fill the 7 and a half minutes of allotted time for our mini show, and we took a few videos as well. The videos were the most fun. In the weather report video, it showed my friend Tyler standing in the middle of his driveway saying, “I'm out here in some random place in the middle of a blizzard,” and then my other friend Matthew ran in and started pelting Tyler with snowballs! He ran around avoiding snowballs for a bit, talking innocently all the while as if he was a reporter in the middle of a real blizzard. It was hilarious!
Max the Fox
3/19/10
We did a really weird (and fun!) activity in English class today. We have been reading a short story called Flowers for Algernon. In the beginning there is a young man named Charlie who is mentally challenged. The story is written in the form of reports to his doctors. Charlie is a really poor speller because of his disability. To try to give the students in my class a feel for what sort of problems he faced in trying to communicate, the teacher had us write a brief summary of our day yesterday, but spelling things phonetically (as they sound rather than as they are supposed to be spelled). Mine went like this:
"Yesterday I wok up and got dresd and ate brekfast. Then I went owt to the bus stop and wayted for the bus. The bus took me to skool and I was rely bord ther. But skool ended and the bus took me hom agen. Wen I go hom I did my homwork then I surfid the web and had fun on the compyuter. Then it was tim for bed so I went to sleep."
Interesting, huh? After 10 or 15 minutes of writing we traded papers with our friends and had to tell them about their day! Mine was at least understandable, but I can't say the same for Bobby's. It must be a real strain to try to get people to understand you if you can only talk like that.
Max the Fox
3/9/10
Guess what? I just got braces. They hurt so much, it’s driving me crazy! I can tell I have a sensitive mouth; the orthodontist said that the braces might start hurting by dinnertime, and, as it turned out, they were starting to hurt by lunch!
Luckily, I’m not the only one getting them. My friend Jack just got a “pendulum” put in to get his mouth ready for braces. He says it hurts worse than getting braces will. But, I wonder, how does he know if he has never had them? Perhaps someone just told him, but that confuses me. No two people who have talked to me about braces seem to agree, and none of them seem to be right about my experience. I suppose it’s different for everyone.
Max the Fox
3/3/10
My birthday is coming up at the end of the month. It's going to be great! I am inviting a bunch of my friends over, around midmorning, and we will begin (and hopefully finish) a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. We have the extended editions of all three movies, and we are going to have cake and ice cream in between! I can’t wait. But I do have one fear: that we won’t be able to sit through 9-10 hours of movie watching. Without going crazy from sitting still so long. Combine that with a load of sugar, and you can be sure we’re going to have enough energy. But do we have long enough attention spans? I guess we’ll find out.
Max the Fox
2/18/10
I've been thinking. You know what I really like about Mensa? The adults don’t treat you like an annoying little kid. I can have good conversations with people several times my age! I talk casually with adults. I make friends with adults. And they don’t care if you are 10 or 90. This is good, because I get tired of many adults who aren’t Mensans always treating me like a kid and not talking about interesting things like nuclear physics.
OK, so I’m not that scientific, but I don’t like to have to talk about good books and school all the time.
Max the Fox
2/11/10
Hey, I'm back — sorry to be away so long. I've found yet another favorite series of books! It is the rather inaccurately named Hitchhikers Trilogy by Douglas Adams. The “trilogy” actually has five books. They are "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy"; "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"; "Life, the Universe, and Everything"; "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"; and "Mostly Harmless." I started the first book last week and was hooked by the time I finished the introduction. By now I have finished the first two and started the third.
How good are these books? Imagine the funniest book you know. Now imagine 10 times the hilarity of that packed into one book. You are beginning to grasp the concept.
Max the Fox
2/5/10
Yeah, it's me.
What the heck? My Facebook stopped working. I woke up this morning and tried to log in, but it says I have the wrong password! I didn't give it away to anyone in particular, just one or two of my friends. What could have happened?
(Later) My friend just called me, and he said someone hacked his computer. So that's what happened! I told him someone had hacked my Facebook account, and as it turns out he had saved my password that I had emailed to him!
Let this be a lesson to everyone: NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR PASSWORD TO ANYONE! I seem to have learned that the hard way.
Max the Fox
1/19/10
Hello, it's me.
Wow. I have been begging my parents to let me join Facebook and they finally said yes. I signed up last weekend and have been stuck in it ever since. I have been messing around with the applications on the site, and there are still millions more. I have been chatting with my friends and sending them tiny gifts on the various games.
I am even thinking of helping to set up a “Mensa for Kids” page on Facebook! Wouldn't that be cool? I can't wait to start! What I find strange, though, is that there are several pages on Facebook all named “Mensa” in some way. Which one is real? I guess you just have to look at who owns or runs each page.
Max the Fox
1/11/10
Hello, everyone! You know who it is.
Happy 2010! The New Year makes me think about what I want to do in the year MMX. (Roman numerals for 2010.) I decided to put together a list of my goals:
1. Finish the school year with an A- average or better.
2. Win a contest (I don’t care what kind).
3. Be elected for student council.
4. Beat every videogame I own.
5. Discover and finish a new series of books.
I hope I manage to finish these. Less than 365 days to go!
Max the Fox
1/4/10
Hello, everyone, it's me.
How was your holiday season? Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Mine was great. The religious aspect of the holiday is mostly lost on me, but if people want an excuse to give presents, why should I stop them?
It was almost ironic that we had a green-ish Christmas. There was some snow, but most of it had melted. Then, the day after, there was a HUGE blizzard that lasted the entire day! I would swear we got two or three feet of snow. It makes me thankful we have a house! And you know what was funny? My dad cleared off the driveway with the snowblower while my mom was out, but by the time she got home, nobody could tell that he had done it!
It was a very fun Christmas. I hope yours was too.
Max the Fox
12/28/09
Hello, everyone! It's Max.
Once upon a time the holiday season was a time of worship. It became so integrated into our society that it went from being religious to cultural. Then it became so integrated into the shopping season that it became commercial. My family and I do not have strong religious beliefs, so we don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, but rather as a seasonal time of goodwill. (And I like the presents, too.)
This brings up an interesting question: should “Christmas,” originally a Christian holiday, be celebrated nationally? I think it should be celebrated as a general time of gift-giving and happiness.
So whatever you and your family are doing right now — or whatever holiday you're personally celebrating — I wish you peace and goodwill.
Max the Fox
12/21/09
PS. BTW, it's the shortest day of the year today, a/k/a the winter solstice, a/k/a the first day of winter, a/k/a Yule. Have a good day and a warm (though long) night!
Hello, it’s me.
Wow! I just finished a Lord of the Rings movie marathon! It took the whole day, but it was worth it. They are one of the best movie series I have watched. The battles were stunningly intense. You could see the swollen sores on the orc general’s face.
Often, when movies are made from a series of books, the first is great, the second is OK, and by the third it becomes uninteresting. One example can be seen in the Shrek series. But not in LOTR. Every movie was magnificent, getting better if anything.
Max the Fox
12/14/09
PS. Hey, someone at the Mensa office noticed I write a lot about books, movies, games, etc., so they made me a page in the American Mensa/Amazon online store. You can visit www.us.mensa.org/smartbuys anytime and see whatever I'm reading, watching or playing on the page called "Max Recommends...". There's a bunch of other fun stuff too, like Mensa's puzzle books and all the Mind Games® winners going back about 20 years. (Just don't buy anything without asking your parents. But you knew that already.) (Oh — tell them about the gifted-children resources there, and maybe they won't mind so much.)
You guessed it, it's me.
Have you ever heard of American Mensa's Top 50 Web Sites? It's an online list of sites submitted by members, who can submit all their favorites. Then, after hundreds of sites have been submitted, there is a vote to determine the best 50. Any and all members of Mensa get to vote for the top site in various categories, such as “news” or “gaming.” I submitted one of my favorite sites, Fantastic Contraption, to the voting. (Remember? I told you about it on Feb. 25.)
Do you know any good Web sites? If you're a Mensa member, it's almost time for voting, but nominations may still be open! Visit www.us.mensa.org/top50sites right now!
Max the Fox
12/7/09
Hey, it's me!
Hooray! Things are looking up for me. Report cards for the first trimester are being compiled, and I think I am doing well. According to my half-trimester grades I wasn't, but I have improved greatly since then. My grade in English has gone from a D to a B, and my other grades have climbed, too. I believe I have an A in gym, a B in French, an A+ in programming and robotics, an A- in algebra, a B- in history, and a B+ in science. Nothing even as low as a C! The average for that would be... 89.14%! That's a B+, almost an A-! I am home free for the winter!
Max the Fox
11/30/09
Yep, I’m back.
Have you ever heard of an RPG? It stands for role-playing game. Perhaps the most widely known RPG is Dungeons & Dragons. Some people say it is for geeky nerds who have no friends, but I find it fun. On a weekend, sometimes I like to call up my friends, sit around the table, and play D&D. I especially like being the Dungeon Master. Then I control the game. What I say goes. The rulebooks are just guidelines. So what if that monster has a billion hit points? It’s just a game!
Just kidding. I would never do anything like that (wink).
Max the Fox
11/23/09
Hello, I’m back.
I have yet another favorite series of books. My new favorite is His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. It is a trilogy, and the books are, in order, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The series focuses on two kids, Lyra and Will. Lyra comes from a world like our own, with an England and a Europe and even similar street names. But in her world, everyone has a Dæmon, which is a physical manifestation of the person’s soul. Lyra and her Dæmon lived at Jordan College in Oxford, but she becomes an assistant to Ms. Coulter and is whisked away to London, then into the Arctic, and eventually into another universe.
Honestly, you have to read it to understand it.
Max the Fox
11/17/09
Hey, everybody! I'm back!
Many families have "inside jokes" that would never be understood by others. I know mine does. Many of them come from an old TV show called "Dinosaurs." It centers on a family of dinos who live in a house with modern technology. They can talk, and they view the cavemen as barbarians, as all the dinosaurs do. The family has a baby who puts everything in the universe into one of two groups: "Mama" and "not the mama." I often call my dad "not the mama." The baby also seems to have a knack for getting thrown across the room, hitting a wall, and always saying the same thing, which leads to another of our jokes: "Agaaaiiin!"
We have many more, and I'm sure your family has some of its own.
Max the Fox
11/10/09
Hi, everyone! It’s Max again!
I just found a new favorite board game. It’s called Stone Age. In it, each player acts as chief of a tribe of ancient humans. You have to collect food to keep your people alive, advance agriculture, create tools and buildings, and collect points to win over the other tribes.
My next favorite, The Settlers of Catan, is similar to Stone Age. The players build towns, cities and roads on an island, competing for space and resources. But unlike Stone Age, players do not simply rack up points and compare at the end. Players race to meet a goal of 10 points. Sounds easy? Wrong.
I urge you to try these games out. You are sure to love them!
Max the Fox
11/2/09
Hello, I’m back!
I told you that my science teacher sounded fun, right? I was wrong. She is, as Anita put it when she met the teacher, “an old lady who thinks she's still cool but isn’t.” She always says to us that “scientists are lazy” and demands perfectly straight lines in our tables and charts; putting in the units in every data box instead of just at the side of the row; and being so, so, so specific in our hypothesis and conclusions. She seems to detest the word “it” and the phrase “the thing.”
I also mentioned programming and robotics class. It's turned out to be even better than I thought it would be. So far we have programmed a “lucky 7s” game, which is like a virtual slot machine, and a rock-paper-scissors game. I finished the RPS game early and was bored with it, so I added “lizard” and “Spock.” (If you don’t know what that is about, you can find out here or just watch the show "Big Bang Theory." Trust me, it’s awesome, and funny too.)
Max the Fox
10/26/09
Yep, it’s me.
My Mensa Local Group is having an RG (for "regional gathering") soon. They've been having it for more than 30 years. It's called “HalloweeM” for Halloween-Mensa. It is awesome. It was supposed to start on Friday and go until Sunday, but people show up Thursday to help set up so the coordinators decided to let it start Thursday.
Hundreds of people come from all over the Chicago area, and we occasionally get people from out of the state. Last year there was someone from England! There is a serve-yourself ice cream table, a room (sometimes two) for board games, a costume party/contest and of course a bunch of speakers on various subjects.
Because of its size, HalloweeM is sometimes called “the other AG,” which is a reference to the Annual Gathering, which I went to back in July. That's the Mensa national convention, and thousands of people go to that. But as far as I know, HalloweeM is the largest of the regional events.
My whole family has been registered to attend for a long time, so I assume I still get to go, too — but I'm still working on my grades anyway, just to be sure. (Besides, I'd like my door back. Among other things.)
Max the Fox
10/19/09
Hi, everyone! I'm back.
I have just found — well, I did before I got into trouble with my grades — two new excellent series of books. One is the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini (who wrote the first book when he was 15). Set in the fantasy land of Alagaësia, a young farm boy named Eragon is hunting in the Spine Mountains when he finds a perfectly smooth, blue stone. He takes it back to his house, learns days later that it is actually a dragon egg, and is launched on an adventure to save the land from the rule of the evil king Galbatorix.
The second series is the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. In it, a teenage girl named Juanita, or Nita, is combing the library shelves for a book to read when she sees a book that was never there before. It was one of those "So You Want to Be a…" books that are usually about becoming a writer, astronaut, etc., but this one was titled "So You Want to Be a Wizard." If it was a joke, it was a good one. But it wasn’t. As she learns the art of wizardry, she meets Kit, a boy who is also a new wizard, and together they set off to save the universes. All of them.
I hope I get to read them again soon.
Max the Fox
10/13/09
That's right, it's me.
Not even a sixth of the way done with the school year and I have already gotten busted (again…) for poor grades. I have a B in science class, a C in history and an F in English. The funniest thing? Last year I avoided so much algebra homework, I failed the class. This year, I have an A. I get no credit for that; all my parents see are the C and the F.
I am amazed that my parents can keep finding things to take away for punishment. Just recently, I lost my ability to enter the basement. I have even lost the door to my room! No fun is allowed, not even reading.
It's time to start trying to bring those grades up and to actually do my homework.
Max the Fox
10/7/09
Hello again!
Wow. I guess that wasn't so hard after all.
I asked my mom if she had a solution for quarreling friends. She said the best way to stop a conflict is to get all the people involved in one room and have them talk it out. I decided to try it.
I invited Eric and Jack to a game night, along with other friends. Neither Eric nor Jack wanted the other kids to see them fight, so they talked politely to each other until the party was over. At the end they agreed that the things they had been fighting over were really stupid and that they should stop fighting. Looks like it all worked out for the best, huh?
Max the Fox
9/30/09
Hello, everyone!
Well, we're one month into the school year and already there's a conflict. My new friend Eric came to my house yesterday, along with my other friend, Jack. They got into a big fight, and now they seem to have stopped talking to each other. Jack gets angry when I invite Eric to my house, and Eric gets mad when I invite Jack.
I asked Anita for advice. She said that when her friends quarrel, she takes them both shopping and then they quiet down. I don't think that will work for Eric and Jack, though.
Any ideas? I don't want to lose either of my friends.
Max the Fox
9/25/09
Yup, it's me again.
My sister is always worrying about how she looks (although maybe that's girls in general). It usually takes her 15 minutes just to get dressed! My record time is 15 seconds. I asked her why today. She says that at her grade level, people judge her based on what she wears. Apparently, some clothes are more popular than others because of who makes them. The more popular brands also cost more. It's easy to tell who makes most popular shirts because of the brand name spelled out in big letters. That confuses me even more. It seems to be popular to wear advertisements. By that reasoning, NASCAR races should be the most popular thing in the world. I once counted over 50 ads on one car.
I'm glad I don't have to worry about clothes yet. The only bad thing is the "yet."
Max the Fox
9/13/09
It’s me again!
Are you afraid of forgetting your locker combination? I used to be, but then I figured out how to memorize it easily. For the first few days, I carry around a slip of paper with my combination on it. Every time I open my locker, I first try to do it from memory. If I can’t, I look at the slip, then repeat it over in my head a few times. Some years I’ve had to make up a short song to help me remember, like: 18-22, buckle my shoe, 37-24, I’m out the door. But remember: Never give your combo to anyone other than your parents or your teacher.
Wishing you a great school year!
Max the Fox
9/4/09
Hello everyone, I’m back.
The past three months went fast! School is starting again. My first day was Wednesday, Aug. 26. No homework yet, but a lot of things to get signed. My teachers are OK, and my science teacher seems fun (unlike last year; Dr. Bob was ReAlLy BoRiNg). And I have one of my favorite classes, too! Programming and Robotics. I have been excited about it ever since I heard it would be offered. We get to program in Visual Basic (a programming language) and make RCX robots go through a maze. My dad has an RCX so I already know how to work one.
It seems like it will be a great year, but I still think summer was nine months too short!
Max the Fox
8/29/09
Yep, I’m back.
I just got back from a summer camp. We went swimming in a river every day for the whole week. We hunted for salamanders in a creek. The camp was in the Smoky Mountains National Park, which has the highest salamander diversity in the world. Everyone loved salamandering so much, we did it again on the last day of camp. We played games and did arts and crafts and walked around on stilts. And, of course, the summer camp favorite, we roasted s’mores! We made friends and we made enemies, but mostly friends! It was an excellent week away from home.
Max the Fox
8/24/09
Whew! What a vacation! (Have you ever noticed that, no matter how busted you are, you still get to go visit the grandparents?) I didn't see my dad for a whole week.
Anita and I took a plane from our house to our grandparents in South Carolina and stayed there for several days. They live by a lake, and they own a motorboat. They would take us together or separately on an inflatable raft towed behind the boat at high speeds and try to throw us off. They succeeded many times. We also went hiking and swimming.
After that we flew to our other grandparents in North Carolina. There we went for go-cart rides and played Monopoly® twice. I won them both (not). We also went to a natural science museum. After a few days in NC we flew back home.
Max the Fox
8/13/09
Yep, I'm back.
I have worked out a deal with my mom regarding privileges for the summer. I can earn "points" by doing certain things, such as making my bed, reading, etc. When I get 30 points in one day, I get to spend them on something, such as computer for a day or Nintendo for a day. Luckily, I almost automatically get 14 points to start with (basement clean, room clean, curtains open, bed made) and I actually managed to get the other 16 this morning — all before breakfast! That plus vacations and summer camp. Looks like I will have some fun after all!
Max the Fox
8/6/09
Hi! It’s me, Max. Nothing exciting has happened recently, and my sister asked if she could write a post; so here she is. Get ready to meet Anita!
Hi! I’m Anita, as you know. Like my brother, I’m a member of Mensa. I like Mensa because at school I get teased as a “nerd” but in Mensa, being smart is cool. There are a lot of people who understand that when you’re a kid, it can be hard to be smart, especially in middle school and high school, where people who are different from the majority in any way are teased harshly. At first I felt really depressed about it, but then I realized, why should I care what these people say? Now that I stopped worrying about the bullies, my life is pretty good.
What do I like to do for fun? I like to hang out with my friends and read a lot. I joined a team for a competition called “Battle of the Books,” and my teammates are two of my best friends in the world. For the competition, your team needs to read 12 previously selected books and then answer questions about them. The questions are something like, “In which book did a character do/say this?” Your team gets 4 points for answering with the correct book and another point if they name the correct author. My team got 5/5 points on almost every question! Maybe it’s because we worked really well together. I also love to swim, and I love summer when the pool’s open.
Well, that’s about all I have to write about. If you’d like to learn more about what Mensa offers its “Young Mensans,” come into my room. See ya!
Anita the Fox
7/31/09
That's right, it's me.
I haven't been getting any ideas for posts lately, so I asked my mom. She told me to pick up all the comic books from the coffee table and then to do a post about putting away books. I knew she wouldn't like it if I just crammed them in the shelf and wrote, "Putting away books is boring," so I decided to alphabetize the books. My house has a room lined with alphabetized books in book shelves, so if they can do over a hundred in a few hours, why can't I do 10 in a few minutes?
I can, but it is boring. Many of the books have similar titles, so I couldn't decide whether to put them this way or that way.
Wow, I can hardly believe I did a whole regular-sized post on this. What do you think I should write about? You can email me here.
Max the Fox
7/26/09
Hey all, it's me. And I've been thinking about summer vacation.
What would you do if you could spend your summer vacation any way you wanted to? I would start with few trips. The first would be a chain. First I would go to North Carolina to see my grandparents, then to South Carolina to see my other grandparents, third to the Caribbean because it is really warm and I have never been there, and finally back home. Then I would rest at home for a week or so, then haul off to Germany to see various other relatives. I would spend a while there, maybe two or three weeks, before going home again. Then a relaxing month at home with a week or two of camps, then a quick trip to California to see my grandmother and back home again and off to school.
Max the Fox
7/20/09
That's right. It's me.
The AG is finally over. It was really fun! I went to a program on origami, or Japanese paper folding. I also hung out in the Tween Room a lot. I peeked in the TeenSIG room but I didn't go in; that was where Anita spent a lot of her time. I used to go to the Kids' Trek room a lot, but not anymore. They've got cool programs, but it's where the younger kids are.
There was also a games room. Tables stacked with board games lining a giant room — a true gamers' paradise. The most crowded room of all, though, was Hospitality — a grand-ballroom-sized room with bowls of snacks and drinks and candy and other food. Now that's a kid's paradise!
I have a deal with my mom: she will pay my Mensa dues and my registration to certain Mensa events, but only if I volunteer. So I signed up for a shift in Hospitality to help with collecting trash from tables. I also volunteer at my local group's Regional Gathering (which is a smaller version of the AG put on mainly for people in the region instead of the whole country). A little bit of time helping out is worth all the fun the rest of the time!Max the Fox
7/9/09
Hi, everyone! It's me.
I can't wait for the American Mensa Annual Gathering in Pittsburgh! It starts Wednesday. My whole family is going. This will be the third AG I have been to; the first was two years ago in Birmingham, and the second was last year in Denver.
The really cool thing is that I won't see my mom, aside from chance meetings in the hallways or if I wake up early or go to bed late. Other kids always have to ask their parents before going anywhere or doing anything, but not me! As long as I don't leave the hotel, that is. I remember last year when I was with a group of kids and I asked them if they wanted to go to the hotel's pool. They said yes, but it took half an hour for them to call or find their parents and get permission. We had a great time after that, and they were all surprised that I didn't have to ask my parents before swimming. It was really fun.
Hey, if you're going to be there too, stop by the Tween Room and find me!
Max the Fox
6/29/09
Hi, everybody! It's me!
Building the trebuchet didn't go as well as I had hoped. The golf ball either wouldn't come out of the sling or came out going straight down. The sand-filled counterweight exploded once, but I fixed that by triple-lining a new bag and filling it. I tried to fix the releasing problem by sliding the sling's release ring further towards the end, but then the golf ball went backwards! I ended up just using a fixed cup (like a classic catapult) instead of a sling.
In the actual contest, the ball only went about five feet. The winning entry went nearly a hundred feet, clear across the field! I didn't have a chance. And the funny thing is, the winner's trebuchet looked a lot like mine had when I had a sling! A little more well-sanded, but that's it. Why did theirs work so well when mine was so pitiful? I got nuthin'.
Max the Fox
6/26/09
I'm back!
It's almost the end of school, and our school is holding an interesting contest. The challenge is
to build a working trebuchet ("TRE-bu-SHAY") that can throw a golf ball farther than anyone
else's. In case you don't know what a trebuchet is, let me tell you. It's a type of medieval stone-throwing device that hurls giant, heavy boulders to knock down castle walls. An actual siege trebuchet would be as tall as a large house, but the ones for the contest will only be four or five feet tall, possibly shorter.
I begged my parents to let me build one and enter the contest, and they finally said it was OK. My dad has a bunch of wood in the basement left over from when we were getting some small additions on our house, so I plan to build one out of that. I can use a bag filled with sand for the counterweight and an old washcloth for the sling. This shouldn't be too hard!
Max the Fox
6/22/09
Yep, it's me again!
I can't wait for the American Mensa Annual Gathering! It's the first week of July in Pittsburgh, and I get to be the coordinator of the Tween Room. (Yeah, I know, my summer is busted, but going to the AG was planned months ago and my parents are counting this as a volunteer experience.)
The Tween Room is for preteens who are too old for the kids room (I call it the day-care room) but too young for most of the adult programming. We hang out, play games and eat junk food 'til we explode. We also get a Nintendo Wii! Last year, everyone played that and did little else. Hopefully I can devise a way to keep that from happening again. Any ideas? You can email me here.
Max the Fox
6/19/09
Yeah, it's me.
My life is officially OVER. I didn't do so well on my test. I got a C. This stinks! Now I only get to do five things over the summer: sleep, eat, use the bathroom, breathe and sit on a couch. Imagine: three months of summer with no swimming, no games and absolutely no fun. But all hope is not lost! If I am good, my parents say I can read books or something like that.
My parents say I did so poorly because I wasn't prepared and I didn't study. But I did study! I was probably the best-prepared kid in the whole class! At least my archenemy, Jacob Smatherson, did worse than I did. He got a D and has to retake the course next year.
Max the Fox
6/9/09
That's right, it's me again.
I'm getting nervous. I have a pre-algebra exam tomorrow. My parents have been mad because I haven't been doing my homework recently. This test covers everything we've learned this year, and I have more than a good grade riding on it. My mom has taken away videogames, TV, LEGO®s and even the door to my room! If I get a B, I am allowed to have fun over the summer. If I get an A, they say I can basically write my own ticket. If I get a grade in the F-C range, I will be allowed to sleep, eat, use the bathroom and sit on a couch. A very boring summer to be sure.
So I have been practicing. We are allowed one notecard full of notes, and I have filled one back and front in 10-point font. I went over all the things I had trouble with this year and isolated the most important. I am likely to be the best-prepared one in my class! Wish me luck!
Max the Fox
6/2/09
Hi! I'm back.
My school reopened last week, and I have an update on the swine flu situation. As it turns out, there wasn't any reason to close schools for it. It's a different strain of the common flu virus but no more dangerous. The big scare was apparently because of what was happening in Mexico city, where it is running rampant. My teacher says that he taught there before, and that any time you coughed or sneezed, even cleared your throat, everyone ran away from you as if you were suddenly holding a live grenade.
Also, the name "swine flu" leads many to the conclusion that it comes from pigs. This is not true. Another teacher said they heard that people in Egypt were rounding up and slaughtering pigs. It doesn't come from them, but it was first seen in them and they gave it to humans. The National Board of Health has changed the official name from "swine flu" to the "H1-N1 Virus" to keep Americans from doing similar things.
Max the Fox
5/18/09
Hey, everyone! How do you like the new Max's World section they built for me? I think it's kinda cool. And I'm still ahead of Anita; I heard she only gets one room. It's coming soon, so maybe she'll want to write a blog entry when it's ready, or something.
At the bottom of the Max's World page, did you see the link where you can enter your ideas for a name for the new gifted-kids' magazine? That contest I heard about a couple weeks ago is up and running now. I've also heard since then that they want to launch the magazine by mid-summer, so turn your entries in now! Here's the link again. Good luck!
Max the Fox
5/4/09
Yep, it's me again.
There have been a number of cases of an illness called swine flu in the U.S. recently. One of the kids in my school has a potential case of it. My school is currently closed; I think, however, that the school overreacted. Last I checked, in the entire country, 140 cases have been confirmed and there has only been one death, which was a baby in Texas. And now officials say the threat "appears to be easing." I could see maybe one day closed to confirm the case, but up to a week or more? Oh, well.
It's sort of funny, though, that there is a potentially deadly sickness in the school and all anyone can think about is that we get all this time off…
Max the Fox
5/4/09
Hi, everyone! Yeah, I'm posting again today because I just heard something cool. Those of us who use the Mensa For Kids Web site are going to have the chance to help name a magazine for gifted kids! That's all I know right now, so stay tuned — I'll write again when I know more!
Max the Fox
4/29/09
Hi everyone! It's me.
I have been having a problem with bullies lately, particularly in gym class. The first thing coming to mind was the water fountain incident. I was second in line to get a drink, and the kids behind me were practically yelling for the person in front of me to finish. He did and walked away, much to the delight of the others. As soon as I had bent over to drink, the kids started yelling again! They told me to hurry up and to save some for the fishes. Not only was it rude, it was also bad grammar; the plural of "fish" is also "fish," not "fishes."
Another time we had what the teachers call a "cardio day." Many of the kids call it a "Torture the Kids Day." On this particular day we had to run for 20 minutes continuously. This time, though, the teacher kept track of the kids she saw cutting corners. There were 10. At the end of the 20 minutes, we all sighed gratefully and slowed to a walk, but the teacher made the whole class run for an extra 10 minutes! Many of the other kids, not wanting to risk getting on the bad side of the popular kids, blamed it on an unpopular one — namely, me. It's just not fair!
Max the Fox
4/29/09
Yep, it's me again — and now, we return to my report about what I did on my spring break.
I wanted to tell you about the Kangaroo Conservation Center. That's right, kangaroos. There are about 150 species of marsupials (mammals with pouches), and around 50 are kangaroos. The KCC has more than 200 kangaroos and many species. A baby kangaroo is called a joey, and they are the size of a lima bean at birth. The mother licks a trail up into her pouch, which the joey climbs along and then stays in the pouch for several months.
I have two favorite experiences on that trip. The first is seeing a joey in the pouch with a leg, a tail and a head sticking out. It was right up by the fence, too! The second was seeing an albino wallaby. White fur and red eyes. It was awesome!
Max the Fox
4/21/09
My mom was really impressed with the whole exploding Peeps® thing, which is why, when we got a big box of candies from my aunt and uncle in Germany, the first thing out of her mouth was, "Oooh, gummy bears! Let's blow them up!" So we did. At first it was disappointing, as nothing happened; then, after several seconds, they melted into puddles of goop. My mom, Anita and I all cheered as they suddenly fizzed up, filling half the microwave! When we took the plate out, all that was left was a bunch of fizz. It's hard to get good pictures through the microwave door, but here's a quick look at before, during and after:
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Some people have even microwaved batteries! I saw it on YouTube. But I wouldn't try it at home.
Max the Fox
4/15/09
Hey, everyone! We now take a break from vacation talk to bring you this important news:
That was a fun Easter! It has become a tradition at my house to have waffles for breakfast on Easter, but they aren't normal waffles. They're homemade jellybean waffles! They are delicious; 'course I've never had them without a quart or two of maple syrup.
Another thing we did for Easter was something even better. You know what Peeps® are? The little marshmallow chicks? Try putting one in a microwave, but ask your parents first. They blow up! I put one in for five minutes. I had set it for 10, but I saw smoke and stopped it. The Peep had become a giant blob over half a foot in diameter. I scraped it off as best I could, but there is still a big back patch in the middle. Hopefully it will come off in the dishwasher.
Max the Fox
4/13/09
Hey, everyone! It's me!
I went on a vacation to South Carolina to visit my grandparents. They have a house by a lake, and they own a kayak, a canoe and a motorboat! In case you don't know what a kayak is, it's like a one-person canoe. We went on a three-hour canoe trip, up one of the rivers that makes the lake.
We went disk golfing, too. What's that? In disk golf, you start at a marked spot and throw your Frisbee at the goal basket. If you miss — which is almost always, as no creature I know can throw that far — you throw again from where your Frisbee landed. The goal is covered in chains, so any Frisbee that hits it will stop and fall in. It generally took me several throws just to get near it!
Whoops, almost time for dinner! I'll tell you more about our trip later.
Max the Fox
4/9/09
Hey! It's me.
Guess what? I went to an American Mensa Committee (AMC) meeting. That's the board of directors for American Mensa. The meetings were boring and long, so I sat in the back and read. I didn't really pay attention, but my mom did; she's on the board! They did some planning for the future, discussed taxes (Mensa pays no income taxes), and gave reports on what they've done lately.
We all went out for meals as a group. I got a breakfast buffet twice. That means two waffles and a banana, two days in a row! All that and I went swimming, too!
Max the Fox
4/2/09
PS. Hey, yesterday was April Fool's Day. Did anyone prank you, or didja put a good one over on someone else? I want to hear about it!
That's right. It's me again.
Great news! I got best in class for our Word Masters test. It's a countrywide test that everyone takes. Previous to the test, a list of 20 words is published that the test will be based around. The words are not commonly known to kids, such as "beguile" and "frippery." The test had 20 questions, few of which were easy. Sure, I'm smart, and I'm in Mensa, but several of the questions left me thinking, "What?!?"
And I didn't get a perfect 20. I got 18 questions right, but the average score was around nine or 10! Wow, that was a hard test.
Max the Fox
3/26/09
Hi! It's me again.
Wahoo! The prank went off without a hitch. She sat down to do an essay for school and started to type. The words on the screen (or rather, letters, as they didn't resemble any words I know) were totally mixed up. She looked at the keyboard and noticed something odd; "QWERTY" had become "HIONFR." It took her about an hour to rearrange the keys.
Then, she finally sat down and typed her essay. I stuck around for this part, pretending to be making a duct-tape hat. I didn't want to miss the look on her face. She finally hit "print" and waited while the printer hummed to life. It printed a page, and she grabbed it and walked off without examining it. After she left for school, I quickly stopped the printer. No need to waste paper.
This went better than I hoped. When she got home, she was steaming mad. She chased me around the house, with me laughing the whole time. It was hilarious!!
Max the Fox
3/17/09
PS. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Didja remember to wear green? Let me know if you didn't, and someone pinched you!
Hi! It's me!
You know what? Anita getting busted for her last prank wasn't enough. I have to get her once, to even the score. I could try the warm-water trick, but she might expect that. Something more subtle, perhaps.
I know! I could do a series of pranks. Several things that are hard to fix. Let's see... she uses her computer a lot. I could scramble the letters on her keyboard. That would be hard to fix, or at least take awhile.
Oooh, I just got an idea! After messing up the keyboard, I can put an essay in the print queue about how awesome I am. I can have it set to print 50 times! That would be annoying. Check in next time to see how it turns out!
Max the Fox
3/11/09
Hey, everyone, happy Square Root Day! Didja see our cool Feature of the Month about it?
I am so excited! Does anyone want to guess where I get to go this summer? It's the 2009 American Mensa Annual Gathering in Pittsburgh! If this one is anything like the one I went to last year, it is going to be terrific! Last year, in Denver, my parents let me go wherever I wanted to go, as long as I didn't leave the hotel. Yes, you guessed it, a beige hotel.
Let me tell you something about beige hotels. Since my parents often go on business trips, they end up going to some pretty nice places. Sometimes they will be going to a beautiful place and everyone will envy them. Nobody understands that all they will see is the airport, the inside of a car and a beige hotel. Very exciting.
Max the Fox
3/3/09
Hello again, everyone!
I just found a great game online called Fantastic Contraption. It involves thinking, but not so much that it hurts your brain. The game involves getting a goal square or circle to the goal area. You do this by building carts, catapults, cranes or just about anything else you can build using rods and wheels. You can buy the full version for $10, but you don't have to and the game is pretty fun without it. To play, go to www.fantasticcontraption.com. It's a great game, and you could almost call it educational. Almost.
Max the Fox
2/25/09
Hi. It’s me again.
I just got my report card. It wasn't good. It went like this: A, B+, B-, C, A-, C-, B. Doesn't sound too bad, right? My parents think otherwise. They say they won't accept less than a B. Why don't they realize that a C is average? They say no Cs because they know I'm smart and that my grades should be better than average. An "average" report card would be all Cs and maybe a few Bs. An A is great — and I got two!
Why can't they ease up a little? Anita gets all Bs — shouldn't she have to do as well as me?
Max the Fox
2/18/09
Hello again!
Many of you may get allowances. Some of you may have to do chores; some may just have to survive. But doubtless, some of you have paid memberships to online communities. I do. I try not to have too many, but they are all so fun! The thing is, even though I get $25 a month in allowance, I rarely have much to spend on things like movies with friends. Generally about $15 a month goes to online memberships. The really bad thing about the Web, though, is that someone may hack your account! Then they change your password and you can't play anymore. The evil part is that you will still get bills for the membership, unless you cancel it. I have been hacked twice. Not fun.
Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! And be careful out there!
Max the Fox
2/13/09
Hey, everyone! It's me.
I just went to a big gathering put on by my Mensa local group. It was called A Gathering Of Gamers, or AGOG for short. It lasted two days, and several people went a full 40 hours without sleep.
I slept a little, going to bed at midnight and getting up at 6 a.m. I learned several new games, such as Galaxy Trucker and Carabande. Galaxy Trucker involves building a ship out of scattered tiles and racing the other players to deliver supplies for Corporation Incorporated, all while dodging meteors and picking up extra commodities for selling.
Carabande is simpler but just as fun. A racetrack is set up out of wooden sections and plastic guardrails. Players then take turns flicking their player disk around the track, possibly going over the edge.
All in all, AGOG was awesome!
Max the Fox
2/5/09
Hey, everyone! It's me again!
I just found a really cool computer game at my friend's house called Robot Arena 2. In the game you fight with remote-controlled robots with a variety of weapons. You can use a starter bot or build your own from scratch. There are lots of different parts, so each robot is completely unique. I like this game because it has so many design possibilities, and the physics are awesome. The game can be bought for around $20, but I found a copy on eBay for $7! I am definitely going to buy it.
Max the Fox
1/30/09
Hello again. It's me.
Wow. It's the end of January, and I finally got my last present. My family had some friends over so we could exchange presents one last time. I forget what Anita got — probably makeup or something. But what I got is way cooler! I got an R/C mini helicopter! I have flown it around a bit and it works really well, but it's hard to fly as there is no "forward" control, just up/down and turn left/right. As you turn it, the 'copter moves forward. Very tricky. There is no way to fly in one straight line! But still, it is cool.
What we got them was a pair of boards with plastic needles through them. You can make handprints and faces in them, and they are fun to mess around with when you're bored.
Max the Fox
1/23/09
Hey, everyone! I’m back.
One more post on my trip to California. I still haven't told you about the zoo. We got to go into an aviary and saw a whole bunch of cool birds. One was a scarlet ibis; it looked like a tiny flamingo except it was red instead of pink! We got to go inside a replica of a common rainforest research hut, which was about the size of an average one-car garage. The cool part is that my uncle is a rainforest researcher specializing in frogs. He moves around through Panama, Costa Rica and rainforests like that.
Also in the zoo were a whole bunch of different kinds of monkeys. I liked watching them nonchalantly walk across hanging vines, climb trees and swing all over the place. It was really cool!
Max the Fox
1/16/09
Hi! It's Max again.
Last time I told you about my trip to California. Well, there’s more. First, the science museum. It was awesome! And it used clean energy; nestled on the side of the museum was a giant black cube turned on its corner, and on the top sides of the cube were solar panels. Inside was a big contraption with little balls rolling down a track and being lifted back up by a chain. I stood there for nearly half an hour watching the balls go through loops and bounce off drums and do a whole bunch of other things. Some other things in the museum were a virtual volleyball court, a flight simulator, a wave simulator and a tube you could go into to find out what the winds of a big hurricane feel like. Like I said, it was awesome!
Max the Fox
1/14/09
Hi, everyone! I’m back!
Whew! I am exhausted. I just got back from visiting my grandma in Southern California at about 9 p.m. last night. I can't believe they call that winter! During the week or so I was there, I was able to walk around in a T-shirt and shorts! It was like a normal summer, in the middle of winter! Wow!
Also, guess what amusement park I went to? Disneyland! It was awesome. I rode a roller coaster that goes upside-down for the first time in my life. That may have been the highlight of my trip. Well, that or having fresh homemade pancakes for breakfast every day…
Max the Fox
1/12/09
Hi! It’s me again!
After I did some serious whining, my mom finally agreed to search Anita's room. At first, we just found makeup and other girl stuff. However, I noticed Anita getting nervous anytime we got near the bed. I decided to look under it, and guess what I found? She had a whole folder full of prank ideas! The warm water trick was in there too. She got sooo busted! Mom forbade her from going out with her friends that night — the ultimate punishment for a high school student!
Me? I wouldn't really care. I don't much like dating.
Max the Fox
1/3/09
Grrrrrr… hi again…
I should have seen it coming. The old sibling rivalry. Anita pranked me this morning. Very embarrassing, and it was one of the oldest tricks in the book! Have you guessed it yet? She put one of my hands in warm water. And I wet the bed! Can you believe it? I guess after I pranked her a couple months ago, she wanted to get even. I remember seeing the look on her face after I got busted for pranking her. Something about it told me that we weren't even yet.
Anyways, how on earth will I ever prove to my mom that the reason she has to do extra laundry is Anita?
Max the Fox
1/2/09
PS. Happy New Year! Hope yours has started out well!
Hey, everyone! It's me again!
Guess what I got for Christmas? A snowboard!!!! I just got back in from trying it out. It was fun! The first time I went down the hill, however, I ended up doing the splits! Ouch! But after that it got better. By the time I went in, I could go down standing and swerve side to side without falling (usually).
I also got various kinds of candy. I got lemon drops, mints, a candy cane and a bag full of chocolate coins! I also got a piece of coal. But you know what? It was actually a big lump of chocolate wrapped up to look like coal! Yay!
Still, I think I like the snowboard better. The candy tastes good, but it will be gone soon. The snowboard, however, I can keep for years, assuming that it doesn't break.
Again, happy holidays!
Max the Fox
12/27/08
Hi, everyone! You know who it is.
Remember what I've been telling you about the FLL robotics tournament? Well, we just had our regional competition. I think we did fairly well. Out of the four parts of the tournament (table performance, technical, research presentation and teamwork), we excelled in research. Our team won the trophy for best research presentation! We were nominated for the technical trophy, but we didn't win. Also, we weren't chosen as one of the three teams to move on to the state competition. Ah, well. It was fun. Still, though, it would have been fun to go to the state competition.
Oh, before I forget again — happy holidays, everyone! 
Max the Fox
12/23/08
Hi again!
My mom is really strict. She won't let anyone get away with anything. I think she is like that because she used to work as a teacher in a psych hospital for kids. (That's a school/jail for kids with serious problems — like put-a-kid-in-the-emergency-room kind of problems.) While she worked there, she won the Meanest Teacher award. Not mean as in scream and punish-for-nothing mean, just won't-let-you-get-away-with-stuff kind of mean. Seriously, though, now that I think about it, I guess she's not that bad!
Max the Fox
12/16/08
Hi again, everyone!
I just found a really cool board game called Cogno. You play by moving your piece around the board, making decisions and getting good luck on die rolls. To win you have to collect three fuel cells and return to your ship. Although it has no effect on the game, you can choose which alien to play! My favorite is Cogno — probably because the game is named after him. Most of the others are named for constellations. But do you want to know the really cool part about it? It is also a trivia game! As you wander the galaxy, you answer questions about science, particularly having to do with space and planets. It's a really fun game!
Max the Fox
12/8/08
Hello again!
Wow! My team got a lot of stuff done in robotics! I was assigned to do four missions: the polar bear, scientists, snowmobile and ice core sample. I did the first three easily, but our team agreed that we needed to speed it up and do multiple missions in one program. Well, I thought, the missions I did all involve dropping things in one area, so all I need to do is find a way to carry all of them at once. And guess what? I did it! Separately they took a total of 20 seconds, and now it takes only about 6! That's a big improvement!
Max the Fox
12/2/08
Do I need to tell you who this is?
Looks like I have more bad news for you today. I have a collection of baseball cards, and a few days ago I came across a kid willing to sell me a card I’ve never heard of. He told me that the card was so rare, hardly anyone knew it existed. He gave it to me for $5. I framed it in my room. When my friend Jack came over to see my collection, he laughed! Apparently the kid had just scanned another cheap card onto his computer, messed with the picture a bit, and printed it.
Then the military came to my house and questioned me about copyright infringement because the picture was apparently that of the Russian, uhh, king? President? Prime minister? I don’t know. I told them that I bought the card from a kid at school, and then they left.
OK, so that didn’t really happen.
Max the Fox
11/24/08
Hello!
It is time for me to tell you about the little-known fact of the polar ice. Everyone is talking about the receding arctic ice, but have you heard anyone talk about the Antarctic ice? I didn’t think so. While the arctic ice is melting, the Antarctic ice is growing. Studies by several colleges have shown that the Antarctic region actually has more sea ice than it did 50 years ago. Also, there has been no change in average temperature.
Mysterious, yes? How come one pole is heating while the other is freezing? My theory is that some giant aliens are plowing the heat north! Ahhhh!
Max the Fox
11/19/08
Well this just stinks. My mom saw me going hyper and banned me from junk food! My life ≠ fair. That symbol means "does not equal," by the way.
Anyways, that doesn't really matter now. I found a substitute for sugar. My answer: COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Uh oh, I think I'm going crazy again! Whoop ha!
Aww, great. She saw me typing that (and she saw me bouncing off the walls), and now she's banned me from coffee, too. Oh, no...
Yes, I am sad. Sorry I have been so hyper lately; I think I am just pre-addicted to food that gives you energy.
Max the Fox
11/15/08
Whew! I am exhausted. Last night, I got back videogame privileges. I was so happy; I stayed up until like 6 a.m. I think I need a rest… [YAWN] I’ll get back to you in a minute or two… or three… or 10…
OK, I’m back. That nap really made me hyper! I’ll let you in on a secret, but don’t tell my mom. Last night, she told me to go to bed at like 10 p.m., but I didn’t. So I just ate a bowl of super ultra sugar flakes and now I’m hyper! Oh yeah! Wahoo!
Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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aaaa!
Max the Fox
11/13/08
Remember when I told you my favorite class was reading? Well, it changed. Now I like computer class! We have been learning about how computers work. So far, we are just on how data is stored. Characters (letters, numbers, etc.) are saved as an eight-digit combination of 1s and 0s. When the info is called up by the user, the computer reads the digits and can tell from them what to display on the monitor.
Pictures are stored as sequences of numbers, which the computer reads to tell what color to make each pixel. For example, 23-571-84 might make a sequence of three pixels red-purple-black or something.
Sound is also stored as series of numbers, perhaps one telling note, another pitch, and a third the instrument. An installed music-playing program reads the numbers to tell the speakers what sound to make at any given time.
Wow, computers are complicated!
Max the Fox
11/4/08
Happy Halloween, everybody! I can't wait to see my classmates' costumes. I'm going as the scariest thing of all: me at 6 a.m. on a Monday morning. Several kids in my class are going as ghosts. That's right; a white sheet with two holes cut out. Some kids are more original. One kid is going as the state of Colorado. One girl is even going as a spray bottle! You know, those things that spray out cleaning stuff? Never seen that costume before!
Max the Fox
10/31/08
It's me again...
I knew I would get in trouble. My sister finally convinced my mom that I placed all those plastic spiders. No videogames for two weeks, and no duct tape!
My mom is harsh when she hands out punishment. One time I switched the sugar with the salt. My dad put "sugar" on his toast; he took a bite and yelped. I burst out laughing. (Back then I wasn't so good at hiding myself once the prank was complete.) I got grounded for three weeks. No friends over, no videogames and no biking. But that was before I found duct tape.
Max the Fox
10/30/08
Whoopee! It's me again!
It worked! She woke up screaming! Then she went to do her makeup and she screamed again! Ha ha ha! Finally, she got home saying that she had embarrassed herself in front of her friends. She went up to do her homework, and screamed again! Ha ha ha ha! She kept peeking suspiciously in almost every container in the house, mumbling to herself. It was hilarious!
Max the Fox
10/28/08
Yet again, it is me!
I knew I shouldn’t do it, but it is going to be fun to watch... I set up a prank for my sister, Anita. She won’t get hurt, but she will get very angry. I put a bunch of plastic spiders in her backpack. I also put some in her bed, her bag of makeup, and her desk drawers. Next I will put a blindfold on her while she is asleep. She will wake up screaming, scream in front of her friends at school, and scream when she tries to do her homework.
I hope I don’t get in trouble. My mom really knows how to hand out punishment.
Max the Fox
10/27/08
Hello again! You know who it is!
I just recently found out about a glorious new toy: duct tape! Duct tape is fun to play with and make things out of. I have already made a duct-tape wallet, hat and pencil case. I am currently working on a duct-tape shirt! My mom noticed me playing with a roll of it yesterday, and she bought me a funny shirt. It has a picture of a duck that had been duct-taped to a wall, and at the bottom it says “Duck Tape.”
More posts later!
Max the Fox
10/21/08
Hi! I’m back again!
When I told you about the First Lego League, I left out some things. The competition is not just the robots. The teams compete in four categories: table missions, research project, technical and teamwork.
The table missions and teamwork are obvious. The research project is something the team works on while building their robots and generally has to do something with the environment. Last year the project was to pick a building in your area, report on energy efficiencies or deficiencies of the building and suggest things the owners might do to help costs and emissions. This year the project is to find a climate problem affecting your community and to report on what the community is or could be doing to help. Then we have to find another community with the same problem(s) and their solutions.
The technical category is where judges examine your robot and ask questions like, “Why did you do this? What is this for? Why is the microprocessor hanging upside down?” and things like that.
Max the Fox
10/17/08
Hello, kids!
Do you like working with computers? I sure do. I recently found out about a program from MIT called Scratch, which lets people make their own programs. For example, I have made a maze game, a "dodge the bouncing balls" game, and more! Go to www.scratch.com to download it and make your own games and videos. But remember, always ask your parents or guardian first.
More coming soon!
Max the Fox
10/14/08
Hey everyone! It’s Max again!
Are bullies getting you down? Here are a few tips. First of all, don’t provoke the bullies. If you start the fight, then teachers or other adults won’t be able to help, and it will be your own fault.
Second, don’t fight back. Just walk away and tell someone. If they try to chase you, don’t run. They like to chase people and see it as a reward. If you give them a reward, they will continue to annoy you.
That’s all for now!
Max the Fox
10/7/08
Hey, everyone! Guess who!
I recently joined a program called FLL. FLL stands for First Lego League. It's an organization that deals with robotics. Every fall they host competitions for 5th-8th graders who compete with their own robots in a series of challenges. Contestants build and program their own robots over a few months and then compete for points through several missions on a table. The challenges and theme change every year!
So if you like to make objects do what you want them to, look for an FLL robotics team near you.
Max the Fox
9/30/08
Hey, everyone! I’m Max. I’m just a kid, but I’m a member of Mensa! I live with my older sister, Anita, my mom and my dad. I’m in fifth grade. School may get boring sometimes, but it is very important. I may not have straight A’s, but nobody’s perfect, right?
My favorite class in school is reading. I love a good book. Often, I will get hooked on a series, and I'll read and read and read until I finish it. One suggestion is “Warriors,” a saga about four clans of wild cats living in a forest. This is actually several series, all about the same groups of cats.
My least favorite class would be math. All those numbers and symbols get mixed up in my head. However, math is important. See if you can name one job that does not involve math. Stumped? I thought so.
One of my major hobbies is biking. I ride to the playground every day after school. Remember: Always wear a helmet. A “brain bucket,” as it's also called, can save your life!
Another hobby of mine is surfing the Web. I like to chat with friends, play games and things like that. I know to never give personal info to anyone I don’t know personally, and even then I only do it in real life.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ll post more later. Have fun, and wear your helmets!
Max the Fox
9/23/08