And the reason for that is this sharply colder weather we've been having. Summer is now a distant memory, though we'll probably have about 4 or 5 more days above 70 F, including two this coming week.

Yesterday night, we had another football doubleheader. And yet again, it was another nightmare. The sophomores, who are really bad this season, lost again, this time by the margin of 41-0. And once again, all the points were scored in the first half. 'Course, nobody was really expecting the sophomores to win in about a million years (not just because they suck), but because the opposing sophomore team had already clinched the conference championship, were undefeated and had given up exactly twelve points in seven games. A touchdown, field goal and safety. Now that's a good team.

I believe that the sophomore team is 0-7-1 this year. I'll eat my hat if they've actually won a game. For God's sake, they didn't even beat Seneca last week, and the Seneca football teams haven't won a game in three years on either level.

Varsity wasn't much better, but at least they hung tough for more than two minutes of the game. And they actually scored a touchdown. But that touchdown was way too little, way too late. It came in the fourth quarter after the two minute warning. Nonetheless, us SuperFans are relentless... we'll turn up in 38-degree weather (like we did last night) in shorts and t-shirts (with a few layers underneath), hurling insults at the opposing team. Odd thing is, after I instantly got cold (I had on three layers anyway), I warmed up throughout the rest of the night, even if I wasn't really doing all that much cheering because there was NOTHING to cheer for!

Final score: Away 31, Varsity 7.

Today, we had the Cross Country Independents/Interstate-8 Conference Meet. This is our second year in the Interstate-8 Conference. I got to sleep in until 7:15 (for once). I had to be at school at 8 am, so I had plenty of time to get ready. Unlike Columbus Day's marathon bus rides (two hours both ways), it was a quick fifteen-minute ride. While the team did their warmups, I just sat around and tried to stay warm. I'm the manager for the team -- so I get the mile times and finish (3-mile) times and the two-mile times if I'm able to. If not, one of the coaches gets the two-mile times.

At 10:00, it was time for the girls' race, and the girls did well, they had some of their best times of the season, by far. Fifty minutes later, the boys ran. The boys had some very, very good times, considering that it was actually 3.1 miles, not a round 3.0 miles. So, when we figured out the adjusted time, we had three guys under 17 minutes for 3 miles. That is, to say, that they are keeping a mile pace of less than 5 minutes and 40 seconds for all three miles.

After that, it was time for the Awards Ceremony:

Overall, the girls came in seventh place out of eight scoring teams.

Overall, the boys repeated as champions for the second year in a row in the Independent Cla.ssic division.

In the Interstate-8 Conference division, the girls finished fourth, which is the first time they've finished outside the basement in the conference meet of any conference we've been in since their State runner-up season of 1994.

Since the boys won the Independent Cla.ssic, that guaranteed them the Interstate-8 Conference championship for the second year in a row.

The frosh/soph teams are now finished for the season, but Varsity isn't for another week at the least. Up next is the state series, starting with Regionals next Saturday. The girls will probably not advance out of Regionals (the top five teams go to Sectionals); but the boys already pretty much have their goal of three-peating Regionals locked up.

After Regionals is Sectionals. That will be two weeks from today. This will be an extremely competitive Sectional, as four of the top ten teams (us included) from the Cla.ss A State meet last year are all in our Sectional. We could three-peat as Sectional champions or we could just barely qualify for state, finishing fifth, but yet, we'll still be one of the better teams in the Cla.ss 1A State meet, which will take place on Saturday, November 3. The IHSA expanded to three cla.sses, 1A, 2A and 3A in Cross Country this year.

And just this afternoon, speaking of State, the girls golf team finished tenth in State. It has been an incredible season for the girls golf team, they won the first Golf (for either guys or girls) Regional in school history, and advanced downstate by beating out third place in Sectionals by one point.

Two days; two different aspects of Homecoming.

First off, let me say that the Sophomores won Double Trouble Day on Thursday, followed by the seniors, freshmen, juniors and staff in that order.

Friday's Spirit Day was the craziest Spirit Day in the 3 Homecoming Spirit Days that I've had at my school. The juniors won narrowly with all four levels separated by less than 1% in c.lass participation. (I think the final tally was Juniors 83.7%; Freshmen 83.5; Seniors 83.4; Sophomores 83.3%; Staff 81.1%)

Then Friday we had the Pep Assembly which was a bit cheesy, but it was one of the better ones that we've had. After that, I went home and got ready for the doubleheader.

And this is the "Hell" part of Homecoming 2007.

The Sophomore Homecoming Game was ridiculous. They gave up 51 points in the first half. And then they didn't give up another point the rest of the way. (Which is impressive, considering that they were well on their way to the century mark in points). Final score for Sophomores: Away 51, Sophomores 6.

Varsity was better, but not much. They also lost, but it was the first full-fledged SuperFan game of the year. And losing the game provided plenty of opportunity for profanity-laced ranting which was well taken advantage of. Final score: Away 21, Varsity 0.

Saturday morning, I had a cross country meet to work again. The Freshmen Boys were impressive, they placed 7th, out of 14 scoring teams out of almost 50 represented at the meet, and to top it all off, they were the top-ranked 1A team in the meet. That's impressive and that bodes well for the future of our Cross Country team.

The Varsity boys had a bad day and still wound up 9th out of 25 scoring teams, out of, again, almost fifty teams. Following in the footsteps of the freshmen after the frosh had run their race, the Varsity boys were the top 1A team in the meet.

The girls... well... they weren't that great, but they still had a better Mane Event (the name of the meet) than they had in years.

*NOTE* There are 3 classes here in Illinois for Cross Country, 1A (thats where we are), which contains the smallest schools in Illinois; 2A (middle-size schools; and which is where most of the teams in the event were) and a few smaller 3A (larger schools) teams. The IHSA divides up the c.lasses by student population. The smaller the school, the smaller the c.lass number you have. Other sports have different numbers of c.lasses. For example, football has eight. Basketball has four. Track has two, A and AA, but might expand to three for 2008-09.

Saturday Night, (now this is the Hawaii part of Homecoming) we had the DANCE! The dance f---ing kicked A$S! It was awesome! We were truly Lost in Paradise! 10 of us guys (me and 9 others) teamed up into twos, and we just roamed about party boying anybody we could victimize. xD Anybody, whether they be guys or girls or freshmen or seniors or sophomores or juniors. And there was about seventeen conga lines throughout the night. And then continuing the tradition here at my school, we got like 30 others to help us and we all play boyed the Homecoming King. :D

And with that, I'm very tired, and I'm heading to bed.

Now, I must quote a friend of mine's comment in my last blog...

And you have WAY to much school spirit! [Butters782]

Is that really such a bad thing?

Anyway, this week's Spirit Week...

Monday: Class Color Day
Seniors wore blue.
Juniors wore red
Sophomores wore green
Freshmen wore yellow
Staff wore orange.

Daily results: 1st place Seniors; 2nd Juniors; 3rd Staff; 4th Sophomores; 5th Freshmen
Overall results: Same as daily.

Tuesday: (Pirates of the) Carribean Day
Dress up like a pirate or just wear Carribean clothing (like a Hawaiian shirt)!

Daily results: 1st place Juniors; 2nd place Seniors; 3rd Freshmen; 4th Sophomores; 5th Staff
Overall results: 1st place Juniors; 2nd Seniors; 3rd Freshmen; 4th Staff; 5th Sophomores

Today: Pajama Day
Wear your pajamas to school!

Daily results: 1st place Juniors; 2nd Sophomores; 3rd Freshmen; 4th Seniors; 5th Staff
Overall results: 1st place Juniors; 2nd Freshmen; 3rd Seniors; 4th Sophomores; 5th Staff

Tomorrow: Double Trouble Day
You can either be twins with someone by dressing the same together or you can pair up with someone and cause chaos all day throughout school more than usual!

Tomorrow Night:
Parade Downtown in my town
Bonfire at the school

Friday: School Spirit Day
This is easy. I'm dressing up in my SuperFans outfit with my friend's football practice jersey over my 2006 SuperFans tshirt, as well as this massive black afro, and then I'm gonna paint my face.

7th period: Pep Assembly

After School: Homecoming Football Game

Saturday: Homecoming Dance

And then we have two short weeks, because on Friday, October 5, we don't have school because of Teacher Institute, and then it's Columbus Day on October 8, so it's a 4-day weekend for me! Whoo-hoo! :D

Summer's over. Literally. The fall equinox was at 4:51 AM Central Daylight Time. So as I'm writing this sentence, it's been autumn for 13 hours and 6 minutes. We're headed for winter.

Not tomorrow though, we're gonna have what we call an Indian summer day. An Indian summer day is a day where it is like a warm summer day at the end of September through October and occasionally even into November:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_summer

We usually have one or two that are unusually warm (like well above 80 degrees) after the autumnal equinox occurs, and tomorrow's one of them -- 92 degrees. Anything but fall, eh? We can expect 70s regularly here until about Columbus Day, a little after, but then that's about it for the warm weather, because if we're lucky, we'll get above 70 about three or four more times before the truly cold weather sets in for good. A perfect example occured last year. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving (like November 26 or something) it was 74 degrees, and I went out and I ran two miles on the track in 15:45. On Friday, December 1, we had six inches of snow, and school got cancelled and then on Saturday it dropped into the single digits (I want to say that the low was like 2). Crazy, I know..

And speaking of winter, we're already looking ahead to it, even if it's gonna be 90-plus tomorrow.... this winter, January 16th, I'll be 17 years old. And I've already gotten an (really) early birthday present, courtesy of my Honors Advanced Algebra teacher, Ms. Polhill. On Wednesday she announced that she was already looking ahead to final exams.. and she is going to break up our final exam into two separate days: Thursday January 10th and Friday the 11th. Now, our scheduled final exam was to be January 16th, my 17th birthday. However, with this schedule, we will already know our semester grade on January 14th, and we don't even have to bother coming in on January 14 and 15 until 8:50 am, because we're first period. And then for finals on the 16th, we don't have to come in until 9:40 AM. :D Thanks, Mrs. Polhill!

Also looking ahead to winter, that will be the time of SuperFan basketball games. I have a new outfit this year: dye my hair red and yellow (our school colors; our nickname is the Sentinels), and occasionally just wear this massive black afro that my brother got at Navy Pier the other day, with my SuperFan t-shirt underneath some sort of athletic jersey from my school whether it be a long-sleeve volleyball uniform from 1979 or my friend's practice football jersey from this year, my gym shorts, and then of course my yellow knee-high soccer socks that are yellow. :D

I've gotta go now, so peace out!

Fall is in the air.

How can I tell?

One, the fall equinox is only a week from tomorrow. It was actually in the paper today, it begins at 4:51 AM Central time. So for your Britons, that's 10:51 AM. And spring begins for you Aussies, wherever you are! Winter's almost over for you guys! Two, the huge temperature swings that are starting to pop up. It's going from consistent to inconsistent, and for most of October and November, it's going to be that way here in Chicago, which will explain my title...

The first one comes from between this morning through Tuesday afternoon. This morning was bitterly cold (by this time of year's standards) -- only 38 degrees at daybreak. A record low. However, by Tuesday afternoon, temperatures could rise by as much as 54 degrees -- soaring up into the lower 90s. Wild, eh?

That's Chicago for you!

At least until the Bears game tomorrow afternoon. :D

And I'm stealing Kametsou's questionnaire that he filled out (which is 60 questions) and I'm gonna put MY answers.... 'cause I'm bored, and I feel like committing theft right now.... :P

1. Where is the last place you held hands?
Last night at the football doubleheader. (The doubleheader was a nightmare. Sophomores lost 34-6 and Varsity lost 42-7)

2. If you were drafted into a war, would you survive?
If I were drafted, like everyone else I'd pray to God that I survived. But, if I died, then by God, let me die serving my country. I'm very patriotic.

3. Do you sleep with the TV on?
Occasionally. Like last night for example. Fell asleep watching the White Sox game (in the top of the 13th inning)

4. Have you ever drank milk straight out of the carton?
Cartons... no. But of those plastic things? XD I drink out of them all the time. Usually when there's just a little trickle left at the bottom, I'll finish it off.

5. Have you ever won a spelling bee?
Wut? Wut spalling beh?

6. What is your longest fight with one of your friends?
Never really had one. Except for brawls in water polo last year.

7. Are you a fast typer?
Hell yeah, I can type upwards of 80 wpm. I'm the fastest typer in the junior ****at my school.

8. Are you afraid of the dark?
Never been afraid of the dark.

9. Do you like someone right now?
'Course I do.

10. What ended your last relationship?
Haven't had a serious relationship... might be getting close though.

12. Do you knock on wood?
Not literally.... unless I'm really pissed off about something. Oh, wait you meant that kind of knock on wood... then no.

13. Are you drinking anything right now?
Well, I've just washed down a gallon of milk...

14. Do you think you're smart?
I'm smart, but there's always going to be people smarter than I am.

15. Have you ever eaten a bug?
Yummy. Oh, wait, that was when I was four... now... BLECH!

16. Do you miss someone right now?
Yeah.

17. What do you want for Christmas?
A lot of things: My driver's license, a car, and my parents to shut up about school.

18. Do you know the muffin man?
Who doesn't?

19. Do you talk in your sleep?
I probably do.

20. Do you remember your first crush?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

21. Have you ever flown a kite?
Plenty of times. I live in the Windy City for God's sake.

22. When was the last time that you went swimming and where?
I snuck out of PE and went swimming on Friday with the sophomores.

23. Do you consider yourself successful?
Yup.

24. How many people are on your contact list of your cell phone?
*counts* Too many. And still growing.

25. Have you ever asked for a horse?
The only time I would ask for a horse is if that horse could win the Kentucky Derby by fifty lengths for me.

26. Plans for tomorrow?
Online all day long. Also, text-messaging. And, Bears @ Chargers, 3:15 pm Central.

27. What did you do this past weekend?
Labor Day weekend? Cross Country meet on Saturday, and nothing else. This weekend? Football doubleheader Friday night, cross country meet this morning, and then tomorrow Bears @ Chargers.

28. Miss being at school right now?
Summer just got over. Does that answer your question?

29. When's the last time you told someone you loved them?
Thursday night.

30. Do you want to be single?
Hell no.

32. Who's your hero?
Anybody who's a friend of mine. We're all heroes for each other.

33. Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school?
Never even gotten a detention. Come close on numerous times though.

34. What are you looking forward to?
Chicago Bears vs. San Diego Chargers tomorrow afternoon. Also, my Operation Snowball meeting on Thursday. It's a program at my school that I'm heavily involved with.

35. If you could be stranded with one person for 24 hours, who would it be?
My dear friend Caitlyn.

37. Have you ever eaten dog food?
Woof.

38. Can you handle the truth?
Sure... most of the time.

39. Do you like green eggs and ham?
Green eggs, no. Ham, love it.

40. What three things do you always bring with you to places?
Red and yellow paint, and my SuperFan costume.

41. Any cool scars?
Not really, no.

42. Are you missing in action?
Uh, no. Unless you count the time that I went down with a kick in the nuts in water polo last year.

44. What's your deepest secret?
Why the F*** would I share MY deepest secret with y'all?!

45. How often do you talk on the phone?
I prefer to text with friends. But I talk on the phone with family.

46. Do you believe in love?
Yep.

47. Is there something you want that you can't have?
Yep.

48. Four things about the opposite gender that you first notice?
.....I'm a guy. That should explain it.

49. When was your last time you cried?
Tuesday night.

50. Who did you last hug?
At my meeting on Thursday, I hugged my friends Caitlyn, Dan R, Alyssa, Dan O, Jason, Colleen... lots of people.... the list goes on.

51. Do you get along with your family?
On a topic OTHER than school, yes.

52. Where is your phone?
Right here, by me.

53. What was the last thing you ate?
Edy's chocolate ice cream Dibs

54. Favorite color?
Greeny green.

55. Last movie you saw?
"Casino Royale" (James Bond)

56. What song are you listening to?
The clock chiming to say that it's 5 pm.

57. What do you want?
A lot of things.

58. Favorite car?
My first car. Whenever I get it.

59. What TV show are you watching?
None right now, the last one I watched was Match Game '76 on GSN.

60. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My Aunt Chris.

Yeah, summer's gone.... to an extent.

It was 96 today. That part of summer sure isn't gone.

And I now have a nice big hole in my PE shirt right under my armpit thanks to my friend Kyle. We were playing football, and he was guarding me. I caught the ball and I was pretty much out of his way. But his hand grazed my shirt, and he was able to rip it pretty good. lol

And we had early dismissal today.... :)

Sorry that I haven't posted lately, I've been so busy with school already: Cross Country matches, football games, Snowball, Geography Club... busy busy busy.

I suppose. Milestones of this weekend:

• No homework. Only weekend of the year that I won't have homework except for Martin Luther weekend after finals
• Last weekend until November 17-18 that I will get to sleep late on both Saturday and Sunday, including long weekends.
• No football game on Friday night or Saturday for the first time since 1979. Heavy rains forced the postponment of Friday's game to Monday night. So now we have a Monday night tripleheader.
• Chicago White Sox dropped to last place, the latest they've been in last place since they finished last in the AL West in 1989
• First weekend as an upperclassman!

I think that may be my longest blog title ever.

Anyway, today was my first "day" of school. I wasn't even in cla*ss for two hours. The district finally got their heads out of their $%&^$@# a$$e$ and allowed sophomores, juniors and seniors to start late on the first day of school. Tomorrow is my first full day... translation: Syllabus Day. How fun.

As said, we started late, so I was able to sleep late. I had to be in the auditorium for the "Welcome" (which was anything but) from Mr Carr, the principal at 11:30 AM. I took full advantage of being able to sleep late, and got up at precisely 11:10 AM. In less than twenty minutes, I showered, wolfed down breakfast and grabbed my books (which thankfully, I had organised before I went to the Sox game last night) and headed off to school.

Mr Carr started lecturing us on all that mundane stuff that nobody really gives a flying f--- about: Cell phones, iPods, blah blah blah, whatever.

Then came homeroom. My homeroom is insane. This is the third year that I'm with this homeroom, and each year it gets crazier. This year we started off the year by tossing around a football smack in the middle of homeroom - and my homeroom is in the Science Department to boot - which has windows above the rest of the classrooms so everyone could see what a party was going on in there.

First period, Honors Advanced Algebra, with Ms Polhill. As in my title, after she gave us the list of materials that we needed, we got to play with paint. It was for our class so that we could slap our hands on the wall for participation points. Ms Polhill is really nice, and this should be a better class than Geometry

Second period, AP U.S. History, with Mr Beguin. This should be a fun class. Beguin is always cracking really funny jokes. The class will be hard, but it'll be worth it. And one great perk-- if you maintain a B average for the entire year, and also take the AP History exam in May, then you will be exempt from the spring final exam! And as I was walking to Mr. Beguin's room, Kappy (my former Spanish teacher) asked me what shirt size I usually wore - which is Large - for the shirts that we're getting for our 2007 Track Interstate-8 Conference Champions and the 2007 IHSA Track Lisle Sectional Champions!

Third period, Junior/Senior PE, Mrs Roberts. She's kinda batty, she's been there since 1975. We begin our PE course tomorrow, and for 3-4 weeks in 2nd quarter during our junior and senior years, we have a mini-health segment.

Fourth period, Accounting, Mrs Dervin. Unfortunately, since McCord, the Dean is being such an a$$hole, he won't let us have food in Mrs Dervin's room anymore thanks to a state law he pushed through. Son of a b!tch... But Mrs Dervin is still nice as always. So that's good.

I have A Lunch, so that's the early lunch. Yay. Second semester, though, I have C lunch because I have Junior/Senior PE that period.

After lunch, fifth period, English, Mr Neurauter. He's a nice man, a big White Sox fan, but he's got kinda a dry voice...

Sixth period was AP Human Geography with Mr Landreth. Very nice guy, third time in three years I've had him. This will be a great course - we even get to go on field trips to downtown Chicago for an entire day! He's hoping for at least four - or one per quarter.

To round off the day, seventh period was Advanced Biology (genetics semester, third in a series of four) with Mrs Hootman. Mrs Hootman is a very nice lady, but she's pretty strict -- but she's not too harsh -- she's just like that perfect teacher who lays down the law when needed but bends it as often as she can without looking too suspicious.

Then after school, I dropped in on my sixth grade math teacher, who was my Algebra and Honors Geometry teacher, respectively the past two years, as well as Senora Kaplan, Mr "K", and Landschoot. I've never had to call Landschoot "Mr Landschoot" except for that time Kappy made me do twenty burpies (punishment for screwing off too much in track) in the middle of Spanish cla*ss last year for calling him "Landschoot"...

So, interesting day. But tomorrow will be different -- syllabi all day. *throws confetti*

Summer's over. This time tomorrow I'll have been home from my super-short day of school for less than 30 minutes.

It was a good summer... -_-.. So let me recap.

June: On Tuesday, June 5, I took my Chemistry final exam to finish off my sophomore year of high school, and I was genuinely shocked when I found out from Mr Wolf that he had graded the tests already before the final bell of the year, and that I had passed with a 78% -- which in my chemistry terms, is flying colors. The first week of June was just my usual "stay up till the cows come home and then sleep until the cows leave again" week to start off the summer. I missed the first golf round on the 14th, but the 21st of June was my first round, and I shot a 54. Tuesday the 19th of June was the first Snowball meeting of the summer, and I kept up the tradition of bringing the football to the meetings. The 28th of June was my second golf round and I broke 50, shooting a 46. That afternoon began one of the best periods of my summer vacation, as I left with my friend Nick for his lake house, and we were so active start-to-finish. We chopped wood, wakeboarded, tubed, built a fire, shot BB guns, jumped on the trampoline, water-skiied, rowed the boat, walked for three hours through the woods. That night we went to bed at 1 AM Eastern, and got up around 8:45. We came home that night around 9 PM.

July: July was a shockingly cool month compared to recent Julys. Not a single day reached 90 degrees for the first three weeks, but make no mistake it was still a miserable month. Too f**king humid. We had another Snowball meeting on the 10th -- my friend Nick's birthday, by the way, and that's where I lost my first football. At least we didn't shatter any pictures like we did last year. On Wednesday night, July 18th, my father and I headed out of Midway Airport for Boston. We landed in Boston around 11 pm Eastern, and went straight for the hotel. On Thursday the 19th, we went on a tour of Fenway Park (We were able to sit atop the Green Monster in left field) in the morning and did the "Freedom Trail" in the afternoon, and that was very interesting. That night, we went to the Red Sox game against the White Sox, with our seats right by Pesky Pole in right field. The White Sox, my hometown team, won the game 4-2 in a game that was delayed by rain for two hours and had a steady mist coming down for the first four innings. We didn't get back to the hotel room until nearly 1 AM. Four and a half hours later, I woke up, getting ready to leave for the train station to take us to New York City. We arrived in New York City at about 9:30 AM and then walked to the hotel that we were staying at in Times Square. On the 20th, we visited in order, Yankee Stadium, Wall Street, Ground Zero, the UN Building (took a tour too), and the Empire State Building. I was tired after that, that's for sure. Saturday morning the 21st, also the day of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which I got in New York), was just a day to stay at the hotel, because we had the Yankees doubleheader that day against the Devil Rays. In the morning, we went early to visit Monument Park and pay respect to the Yankee greats. That afternoon, the Yankees won 7-5, and we went back to the hotel in between games and I continued reading Harry Potter. We went back to The House That Ruth Built that evening for the nightcap, and the Yankees blew apart the Devil Rays 17-4. The next day they won again, 21-3 for good measure. After the nightcap, we went back to the hotel and I read Harry Potter some more before turning in. On Sunday the 22nd, we checked out of the hotel, and we went to the Statue of Liberty in the morning and Ellis Island afterwards. When we got back to the mainland, we took the subway to Mickey Mantle's restauraunt outside Central Park. After lunch, we took a quick walk in Central Park and then went back to the hotel and got our bags for the airport, and grabbed a taxi. We got to the airport around 5 pm, and our flight was at 8 pm. However, when we got there, our flight was delayed by more than two hours, and we didn't leave the gate until 10:20 PM, and we weren't in the air until 10:40 Eastern Time. After getting through security, in the intervening four hours, I finished reading Harry Potter. In those four hours, I read 550 pages of Harry Potter to wrap up the series that I've been reading since 1999. We got back to Chicago at around 11:10 Central Time. So the flight took us just a little more than 90 minutes -- that was record time for New York to Chicago. Tuesday after we got back, I had another Snowball meeting, and Thursday I had golf again. Shot a 45.

August: The first week of August was our trip to Tennessee. This time it was my mother, brother, grandmother and I that went down. It was brutally hot all week - temperatures routinely over 100 degrees F. We arrived there on Thursday the 2nd, My cousin Jimmy, his wife Tina and their son Rudy got back from their vacation on Sunday the 5th. We spent the evening of the 5th, all day the 6th and the 7th together with my cousin Rudy (second-cousin). We went swimming every day, and spent several hours outside playing with the dogs in the heat. When we got back, I finally began working on my summer homework in earnest. And that's when I had that fight with my mother. So I went to my grandmother's this past weekend, and it was pretty good. I was able to watch lots of TV while also completing my summer homework. On Sunday when I got back, I typed up the three essays that I needed to write, and then yesterday did my geography maps. And it's been way too rainy - seven inches of rain this month, more than we got in all of the May-October 2005 period. And today, I'm just loafing, before I go to the White Sox game tonight against the Royals. Tomorrow, at 12:35 PM, summer officially ends.

So, it's been a good summer this time around, with the exception of that fight with my mother. But now, at the very tail end of vacation, I'm getting bored with summer, and am ready to go back to school in some aspects. I just hope I can keep up with homework. I'm looking forward to a great cross country season for the boys (when I write a blog sometime in early November, hopefully it will be me yelling with joy that we're State champions), a great boys and girls' golf season (I have quite a few friends who play golf), and of course, an excellent football season. And then in the winter of course, SuperFans, and then in the spring track (and looking forward to summer again).

And, you've all probably been hearing of that monster hurricane, Hurricane Dean. Poor Jamaica and poor Yucatan. They're a wreck now. Dean didn't even make landfall in Jamaica but still blew across the island with 120 mile an hour winds with gusts to 140. In the Yucatan, it was even worse - winds howled at 165 mph with gusts over 200 mph.

Soo... with that, I'm done. I know it's a really long blog, but I needed something to do on the last day of summer vacation. In exactly 19 hours and 21 minutes (or 11:30 AM tomorrow morning), I'll be in the Auditorium listening to the welcome from Mr Carr, and in another half-hour, in Homeroom finding out my lunch period, and the finally in another half-hour after that, beginning first period with Mrs. Polhill's Honors Advanced Algebra cla$s.