Fishing in Alaska

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:21:42 -0700

Alaska, the second-to-final frontier. What’s the final frontier, you ask? Space. But Alaska is what I’m talking about. And I’m not just talking about Alaska. I’m talking about fish. Alaskan fish. Fish you’ve probably heard about, but have never seen. Like the halibut. You might mistake it for a flounder because it looks like a flounder. It doesn’t taste like a flounder. Well, I haven’t proven that yet because I haven’t tasted a flounder yet (that’s another thing on my to-do list of life).

Back to halibut. Halibut do look like flounders. But salmon is a different story. Salmon looks like a regular old fish: scales, fins, nothing fancy. I don’t know every single fact about salmon. But if you ask my brother, Arthur, about salmon, he knows a lot about salmon because he’s done a report called an MGRP on salmon. An MGRP is big report based on one thing. I did mine on Coca-Cola. Arthur wrote his about salmon.

Now the yellow eye is another fish. Yellow eyes are really weird. They have big eyes that are hollow, their skin is red, and they have giant spikes coming out of their backs.

We went fishing in Alaska. We stepped into a boat full of the smell of fish and set out onto the water. I’m gonna make this quick. Quick and clean. Unfortunately, when you catch a fish, it’s not very clean.

You might think that fishing is care-free and relaxing. That might be true for some fishing, but not for bottom fishing, like when you fish for halibut. When you pull a halibut from the bottom, it feels like pulling up a barn door. Though I never pulled up a barn door through 100 feet of water, I would think it would be tiring. And when you get a halibut, you get tired really fast.

In conclusion, fishing is a hard way to get your dinner.

This might be my last blog because we will run out of things to write because now that we have been to Alaska, that is the 50th state, and our trip is over.

Bye,
Henry (ba-dump-chhhhhhhh)

Finding a Fossil

Sat, 23 May 2009 07:14:02 -0700

Have you ever seen a fossil in a rock? A fish or an animal set in stone? Have you ever wondered where people find them... in the ground or a lake or a mountain? We went to one of those places where they actually dig fossils called Fossil Butte, Wyoming.

We had to hike up a big hill. At the top of the hill, it looked like it had been carved away because there were no dirt or plants, only rocks. There were about 10 different colors of rocks, each color represented a different layer. The rock layers were thin, only a couple of inches high. Some layers were really thin, about the thickness of a piece of paper.

This was once a bottom of a lake, 50 million years ago. The lake drained away then there was an uplifting of the ground. The place that was the bottom of the lake moved up and became a butte.

When you’re up there at the butte, there’s a lot of rubble because the thin rocks wear away in the wind and rain. We looked at all the rubble for any black pieces in the rocks--the black pieces are the fossils.

I found a rock that looked like sandstone (light color). It had a black piece inside. So I went over to pick it up. The black piece looked like a little spine. It had a main pillar with horizontal pieces going across. I knew it was a fossil because I had seen other spine fossils in the museum.

We took some photos then the edges started to crumble so we put it back to let other people see.

Omaha Zoo

Thu, 14 May 2009 14:09:17 -0700

The zoo, the zoo, the zoo! The other day we went to the Omaha Zoo. Boring, right? Well, it’s not boring when you get the head caretaker of the animals as your tour guide. Because he can give you behind-the-scenes tours.

We got to go in the back door of the penguin enclosure and get up close and personal with the penguins. We got to see people looking at us on the other side of the glass! And we got to pet some penguins. They feel like wet leather even though I was touching feathers.

Another highlight was the giraffe enclosure. We were able to feed two different giraffes and one of them allowed us to pet him. Did you know giraffes don’t have an upper row of teeth? And they’re the only mammal that doesn’t make a sound.

We also got to see some butterflies. But since we had bug expert tour guide, he was able to pick them up and place them on our hand. There was a giant butterfly that had a huge wingspan. That butterfly lives for only about five days. As a butterfly, it never eats. It lives off the fat stored from when it was a caterpillar.

We got to go and hold some bugs like a giant stick bug and a tarantula. Henry hates spiders and he learned they aren’t so bad. But he also learned that ALL spiders are venomous.

Do you know the difference between venomous and poisonous? Venom works when it is injected into your bloodstream, poison works when you eat it. So no snakes are poisonous--you can eat them and you will be fine. But many snakes are venomous--if they bite you, beware!

I thought this zoo was a lot better than the San Diego Zoo because it has aquatic animals, too. So it’s like a combination of the San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld. Plus it has an Imax like the San Diego Science Center. So it’s really like three attractions in one.

This is Arthur. Over and out.

Do they Really Eat KFC in Kentucky?

Fri, 8 May 2009 19:34:50 -0700

KFC. Some people might go to KFC every weekend, every day of the summer, every two days, once a week, once a month, seven times a year, or zero times a century. Me, I never go to KFC. But since we were in Kentucky, we couldn’t resist going to KFC because KFC stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

It was a rainy, dark day. We were in the town of Fort Knox. Fort Knox is a place where a lot of gold is kept. Only one or two people know how to get in because it’s very heavily fortified. They didn’t offer tours, even though we wanted to go in. Only two presidents have ever been there!

This KFC was also on a road that is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most fast food restaurants on one street.

So back to our dinner at KFC. On the door was a picture of the Colonel. The Colonel is the mascot of KFC. He has a white beard, white hair, a white suit, glasses and he calls himself the Colonel.

When we got in, we had to decide boneless or non boneless. We had to choose some sides. I chose a biscuit and mashed potatoes with boneless fried chicken.

It was the first time I’ve eaten in a KFC. I think KFC is the same anywhere, inside or outside of Kentucky. I don’t think I’m going to go back to another KFC any time soon, because afterwards I didn’t feel very good. KFC owners, or KFC lovers, if you are reading this, please don’t sue us.

Thanks for reading, Henry

Horse Racing

Fri, 8 May 2009 17:48:23 -0700

Have you ever wanted to gamble? Well you can’t, but you can go see the places where you can gamble. Like the horse racing, at Church Hill Downs. For the people who don’t know what horse racing is, it is just that, horse racing. You can bet what horse is going to come in first, second, or third, or the exact order they come in ( like horse 3 is first horse 4 is second so on so on).
There are a lot of different races but the most famous is the run for the roses. In the run for the roses the best horses run and the winner wins the most important race--the Kentucky Derby. We didn’t go to that race, we went to the race two days before it. Anyway, we heard on the radio that the winner of the Kentucky Derby this year is a horse whose odds were 1-50 (one in fifty times he will win). If you bet on him 1 dollar you would have gotten 50 dollars back if he got in the place you bet he would be in. Most people don’t bet one dollar, but let’s just say 100$, he would get (50x100=.......) 5,000$ if you bet 500$ you would get $25,000!!! thats a lot of money. What would you do with that kind of money?
The only problem is that if you aren’t old enough you won’t get any money because you can’t gamble. But you can guess what horse is going to win, you don’t get anything but, hey, you wont lose anything.

Until next time, Arthur

P.S. I’m thinking of making a new “I Hate” book. Henry doesn’t want to but I do. So if you see a new book, its written by me. Good bye.

My 3 Favorite Baseball Games

Mon, 4 May 2009 18:21:02 -0700

Hi I’m Henry and I’m here to tell you about my three favorite baseball games.

The first one was in San Diego. We were sitting in the bleachers when a staff member started to say, “I need a kid with a Padre’s* shirt on.” (*The San Diego baseball team.) I had one on so I went up to him. He led us to an area with a man with a microphone and a man with a camera. Then I played a game called “Guess the Attendance.” I was on the big screen! I won and autographed Jake Peavy baseball.

The next game was when we were at the Padres and Mariners Spring Training. The fun thing was I got a lot of autographs.

The last game was an ordinary game until we got to meet a Hall of Famer. We went to the Memphis Redbirds game in Tennessee. The Hall of Famer we met was the organist! He got into the Hall of Fame for being the only organist to be thrown out of a baseball game. He played “Three Blind Mice” when the umpire made a bad call. So the umpires threw him out!

So I’ve been to a lot of baseball games but those are three of the best.

Mining for Diamonds

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:12:48 -0700

Ok, so you know the gold rush. Well the other day we didn’t go mining for gold, we went mining for something a bit more valuable: diamonds. Let me explain the story.

The other day was a rainy day and we were bored, really bored. So we looked at a brochure and we found Crater of Diamonds State Park. There you could look for diamonds!

There are three ways to mine for diamonds. One of the ways is dry shifting. The way you do that is that by taking dry dirt and sifting it through a sifter and hope there is a diamonds in it. We couldn’t do that because it was raining and the dirt was not dry.

There is also ground searching. Ground searching is looking for shiny things and you might find a diamond. All you do is look on the ground. The park ranger said if there is a diamond, it just appears on the ground like a mushroom.

There is also wet sifting. What you do is you take mud and put it in a shifter with big holes onto of one with smaller holes. You try to get all the dirt out and put the smaller rocks in the smaller sifter. You put the big rocks in away in a bucket. Then you start to shake it in a way that lets all the heavy stuff fall the bottom (diamonds are very heavy). You then flip the sifter on some gravel and look for shiny stones.

We tried ground searching and wet sifting. Lots of other people were at the park, too, looking for diamonds. You can keep whatever you find. We worked for a while in the diamond mine, but at the end we had no diamonds={. Over and out Henry and Arthur

the oklahoma bombing

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:14:12 -0700

Ok so you know 9/11? So you might think that was the only bad thing that happened like that. But stuff like 9/11 (terrorist attacks) happened before. If you are an adult you might remember the Oklahoma bombing. It was the worst terrorist attack that happened before 9/11.

The other day we went to the memorial for the bombing. So the monument is two big black arches with the numbers 9:01 and on the other end 9:03. In the middle was a one inch deep pool of water. The numbers mean the time the bombing happened. On the other side of the pool was a ton of chairs . That’s where the building was. The chairs represent the people that passed away in the bombing . (died=< ).

Then we went to the museum. It was rather sad =,. ( . Then we went to the front of the building and there were chalk boards on the ground. People were writing stuff. Then we went to the the car garage, got in our car, and left.

Longhorns... the better Burger

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:39:28 -0700

Uuuuuuummmmmmmm! That’s the sound of someone digging into a 100% full angus beef hamburger (with lettuce, tomato, all the toppings on it). Angus is good, but what about the overlooked longhorns? Those cows are big and fun, the only problem is their long horns. And they can be very cute when they are born.

The way I know this all is because I’ve been to see some of these amazing animals. My mom’s friend knows someone who owns a business that raises and sells longhorns. We got to go see them and feed them. They were so much fun to be with and pet, but most of them are scared of you. They moo like any other cow and are about the same size, the only difference is the horns.

The horns can grow in any way possible. They can be curly, grow down then up, up then down or straight!

Longhorns can be black, white, brown and spotted—or any combination.

So don’t you agree, these longhorns are the same as angus, they just have bigger horns (angus don’t have horns.) So stop killing the poor little angus cows and eat more longhorn burgers.

From
Arthur
P.S. Did you know p.s. stands for post script?
P.S.S Longhorn burgers don’t have horns. Really.
P.S.S.S Angus beef has a lot more cholesterol than longhorn beef. So maybe you really should make the switch.

Great Sand Dunes

Thu, 9 Apr 2009 12:49:19 -0700

It is truly great, the Great Sand Dune of Colorado. North America’s largest sand dune and it’s nowhere near a beach. Unless you consider a creek a beach.

The sand got there as rocks ran through the creek over and over again, millions of years ago. As the rocks got smaller, the sand piles got bigger. The wind soon whipped it up into large dunes. The creek is still running, and the wind is still blowing. So the dunes are just getting bigger and bigger.

So when we went there, I (Henry) thought the visitors’ center was really good. It had fun stuff like a box full of sand with a glass cover and a fan inside. You could turn on the fan and make your own sand dune.

Then we tried to walk to the tallest peak of the sand dune. And we prevailed! We made it to the top, although it was very windy and sand was blowing around everywhere. The wind almost blew us over!

It was hard to hike up the dune. Every step we took was going uphill, but we were sinking down, because it wasn’t solid ground. It was hard to breathe because there isn’t quite as much oxygen the higher you go. We started about 2 miles above sea level, then went up from there!

I (Henry) felt really tired and sort of disappointed when I got to what I thought was the top, but then I looked and saw another peak.

I (Arthur) thought it was fun walking up because it gave me a challenge. It felt good getting all the way to the top.

So, for those of you who have climbed Mount Everest and haven’t climbed this dune, just think of it as Mount Everest, but smaller and not quite as steep and instead of snow…there’s sand.

The end.

P.S. For those of you who haven’t climbed Mount Everest, maybe sometime you should.

P.P.S. We wanted to bring our sleds and slide down the dune like we did at White Sands and Pink Coral Sand Dunes, but at the end we were too tired.