Things to Live for

It was 50 degrees and dead wind, it was approaching sunset. I went out to have step-father/son time to fish on a slow day of fishing, but the weather was beautiful. The coyotes were yelping, the river was very slow-moving, and the sun started to turn everything orange as it settled. The trees turning black on the other side of the river, as for the trees on our side, in which we faced the sunset, was turning into a very memorable sepia color. The evening feeling just turned into a place where people who were in a bad mood could easily be cherished.

This image below is worth a thousand words. I was walking on a fallen tree to reach to a good fishing spot, where the river reached to 8 feet, in spite of its very slow moving current. Then it struck me that this should be a great place to take a picture of any trophy fish I caught here, but the camera couldn’t get every geometric angle of this beautiful landscape. It was only to the eye’s peripheral vision that could be touched; the scenic land can only be enjoyed by sight. Have you ever tried to take a picture of the giant full moon that amused you, and it only turned out to be a tiny white dot in the sky? That is what I’m talking about right there, but this image is close as I can get.

Someday I would go fishing, but stop focusing on the catching the fish part and just watch the sunset, every sunset is different, from the same star, same goes for hunting too. It just seems like it’s something you should be appreciating every day. Then out of nowhere, Perseids, Lenoids, Geminids, and Orinids shine in the night sky, shooting stars everywhere, the night is lively, and the nocturnal animals awaken. So mostly it’s the nature that I look into, not just the fishing and hunting. The landscapes are slowly dying, to a point where the river is filled with sand, because dams are being installed into it, where dedicous forests are demolished into flat cornfields, where clean rivers turn dirty by factories, all because of those factors, the fish aren’t as big as they normally get, and the whitetails aren’t as big as their fossilized ones.

So decades from now, this image would be worth thousands of dollars to visit, you may call b.s on that, but think about it, we’re already paying thousands of dollars to go on vacations, why? Because the atmosphere of that place may still be preserved, aesthetic values, pure biome, and healthy animals, all you wanted to see, just the way it was centuries ago. It’ll just become more common for vacations like that, and you’re slowly noticing this as the population goes up and industrial age keeps cutting this landscape away, and the city lights will shut out the stars in the sky, and we would be in a trap.

So what to do now? Noticeably, the holidays are not being as cherished too, or at least in our family, because we couldn’t enjoy the plentiful amount of snow, as the industrial weather keeps varying, and it’s brown grass in the winter, and hot spring weather, where finding your Easter eggs in cool dewy grass is impossible, you would find it cooking itself, and invasive species of pests chewing it up, and you’ll never find your Easter egg again, true as it sounds. It may sound funny, but it happened to me.

AP CALCULUS! Arrrgh!

Higher Order Derivatives through implicit functions, with HO: DHI methods, oh that’s the easy part. I meant finding rate of the water in a cone dripping into a big cylinder, where you need to figure out how much water is left in after certain amounts of time and what the radius of the water in the cone will be at this certain height in a given derived rate. Geeez! Thank goodness I’m taking it now, so I can get done with this thing.

I remembered when I first loved math, but now where did the numbers go? Now it’s all strategic method of arithmetic order. Some dropped the class to do AP stat, but my brinkmanship for getting a 4 or better on the AP calculus exam is there, I want to understand these concepts thoroughly, and it will be a big part of my college credits I’ll have later in life. The average person will take 16 college credits per term, and I want to skip a term in college, to get ahead of the game, so far I have a 4 in APES, which is much easier than AP calculus, and two exams coming up from Econ, and this class, which I hope to get a 4 or 5, after learning all of the structures in literature. If everything went smooth, then I would be able to get approximately 20 college credits or so.

That would be a great head start, but I need to get this math thing down, and of course a normal response would be what would this thing to for our life, and I know it would never be used for real life, I mean who is gonna use derivatives to find how fast the water is coming out of a cone. Something smart people would do in their leisure. But I finally found out that it is a way to test your capacity of knowledge, so when you are going to get hired, you want to show them how much you know, and these hard math classes will get you up there.

Look at these math equations, tell me if they make any sense, it’s not super long, but it is pretty darn complex, I tried to make it as simple as possible, but each step is an arithmetic method that you are supposed to memorize and to be able to understand THROUGHLY.

Notice how the varible to number ratio is almost 1:1, and you can't just plug in the variable, just keep on shifting it around, and deriving it until it gets settled and you're now ready to plug in the variables, but you still have to know which ones to put in.

Junk food habit

Why do they call it junk food?! It’s so delicious; I can eat them until I get sick. I guess that’s why junk food is junk, to make people sick, but that still doesn’t stop the little kids eating all of the trick or treat candy in one night. It’s scary, cause if you get sick from eating it, and you have lots of them left in your house, you’re just gonna get sick more, it’s a hard habit to break. It’s not like vomiting sick, it’s just hunching over and feeling like crap sort of sickness.

I mean look at this image below! How could you resist yourself from eating all of that good stuff in between the Oreos? You know the consequences, but hey, it’s always good in the end and you wouldn’t regret a thing right?

I actually had a second thought, and started to stop eating this delicious type of food. It is the reason why these annoying zits are growing around, and no it’s not a myth Dr. Oz, I see it happening, and I don’t feel as great in the inside, changing my mood a little. I am also in health and fitness, and I want to gain more than 15 pounds before the track season begins, and if I want to do that, I have to eat the right food in order to gain the right weight.

My only desserts that I will make for myself are apples in a dessert form, like sugar covered, caramel apple. Apples have natural sugars too. If I wanted pop, I would stick to flavored sparkling water; it’s just carbonation, no sugar, caffeine, and a lot cheaper. You could still feel good after drinking 4 liters of that, and if you drank 4 liters of mountain dew, obviously you’re gonna get sick.

Besides, the junk food will make you sick, and will prevent you from your ability to try to work harder in weightlifting, and it will get you into a positive feedback loop, in which you are going to eat more food, and not decide to work out because it’ll ruin your “fresh” feeling, and that extra calorie will be stored and you will continue eating more of these deliciousness.

Thanksgiving is coming around the corner, keep in mind, if there is pie, don’t just go all YOLO and eat as much as you can, it’s not only just one time, there are 365 days a year, and you might come across this hundreds of times and never thought about it. Hundred times the number of calories of junk food adds up a lot, and that extra weight wouldn’t needed to be shredded off in the first place while you’re weightlifting and trying to get your muscle building hormones to get easier acce

Pitch Perfect, So Funny!

I would marry anyone that is just like fat Amy, her personality and everything she says is just too funny! The movie almost states a perfect college life, where there are lots of drama, interesting people, and of course the competitions. As obsessed as I am into music, this movie was the right one. I don’t want to give away the funny scenes, but you’ve gotta watch it!

It’s great to see the dynamic characters in almost everyone in the singing club, except for Fat Amy, because she is perfect the way she was. I just figured that they have a twitter account, fan-page of her, although I don’t have twitter, I would follow her if I had one at the instant.

This is a great lesson though, to be open-minded, and to join clubs to make new friends that can make a big difference to you. You’ll meet people that have a lot in common, because they joined the club for the same reason like yours. I like how the club is unique and weird at the same time, “I (sing your name) promise not to do “business” with guys and disallow wolves from ripping my vocal cords out”. The oath I just had to die laughing at, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t laugh for a minute during the movie. The trailer was funny as usual, but this movie had the whole stretch of comedy unlike every other movie. Some movies have great trailers, but not as funny as you thought it would be.

I’m not really an obsessed movie guy, unlike my brother, where he watches trailers and looks up EW. (Entertainment weekly) over every actor and actresses in it and looks up “rotten tomatoes and good tomatoes” A critic site of movie reviews. He said, In spite of all 35 movie trips he went to at Wherenberg this year, this was one of his tops, so I had to go, and it was great. I wish I had the comedy like they do, I’m just awkward sometimes. They are like a bunch of really good singers and very good at facial expressions and acting. I want to see more of these people in other movies; it is kind of like benchwarmers, why can’t they have all of the funny actors in different movies, so I can enjoy watching them as well?

I know with comedy, come with offensive terms, but come on, its comedy, nothing is taken seriously. Pitch perfect might as well be a perfect movie in comedy!

Bieber Fever

I don’t get why people hate on Justin Bieber, he hasn’t even done anything but sing. It’s not like he’s cocky or anything, he just has a really great moral of leadership and makes all of the normal guys mad at him, because they can’t be as successful. The fact is that he is young too.

The girls only like him because he could “just be that guy”. Unique voice, and has talent. Obviously you want to get noticed by someone who has accomplished so much, but would try to make their best accomplishment to be you. Some girls may dream on and try to get him to notice.

To me personally, I think he is just like one of the famous singers, like Usher, Lil Wayne, Pitbull, Eminem, and other people who just sing for the passion. To get more fans to follow their passion.

Just to prove that is like everyone else, he wanted to get noticed like we would when we’re freshmen, except he is on the large scale, and throughout the years he transited into wanting girls, well don’t blame him, you do too guys! Then he sang songs about having good times and still sings about girls, but hey, have you felt that way too? Sure you have, and he has new style added into the trends that guys even follow, maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was so the guys could get girls attention the way J.B did.

I don’t know why you hate so much while other guys like Lil Wayne, and wiz gets all of their fans singing about girls too. Did they get any hates, a few, only because they didn’t like swear words or their race, or style of life. I am into variety of songs, even if they clash, I just like every artist in a certain way, only because they all have one thing in common, passion.

I still see youtube comments of stupid people who have no lives and constantly post hate letters on their wall. It’s almost as if they had something better to do, seriously, and they couldn’t be as successful if they’re not open minded in the first place. To follow those who succeeded in the past.

So all I’m just saying is respect everyone for their efforts, I just don’t get why not a lot of people don’t respect Justin Bieber, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s just like saying respect your President, no matter who runs it, they’re doing it for your country.

Weightlifting at 7 p.m, why not high school?!

The school program sucks in a way. They have weightlifting until 6th hour is over, then they close the room, with no one allowed in it. I’m ok with that during the first trimester because I have better things to do during that time, like running ten miles everyday, but now in the winter, what am I going to do? It is that awkward time frame when the daylight hours are short and it gets dark early. I like the early darkness feeling, because it makes you feel like you stayed up late. But why not weightlifting during that time?

I remember freshman year, the year I gained 20 pounds, when I was a scrawny little guy, into a moderate lean guy. I loved the weightlifting program everyday after school, and wrestling had their program involved with weightlifting too. I would weight lift after school until they showed up, the room really warms up. It just feels great to get a lot of work done and get outside in the cold dark blue night while I’ve warmed up a lot. I wouldn’t feel the chill at all. The iron is going in my system and as I get back home to get a long hot shower, I almost feel as if I was never going to get cold again.

So why not weightlifting after school? All I need is a partner that’ll be there to spot me for certain workouts such as bench, squats, and other weightlifting techniques that can go wrong badly. I can see it’s a safety thing, because there are too many freshmen that are like gym-monkeys, who would try to show off and max out every time they weight lift instead of doing the reps for the retails. They want to impress the upperclassmen that have done so much weightlifting that they are literally doing the freshman’s max-outs with an exception that they’re doing it in ten reps.

I thought weightlifting would help so much, but my running has gotten worse, and I’ve decided now that bulking up would be better than running long-long-long distances. I was the biggest guy in the team, and was only the top six of the team while I ran everyday in the winter (another way of staying warm in such cold weather). It’s just the schedule I want to work with, schoolwork all day, weightlifting at night and social life on the weekends. But work is tightening that schedule too. I prefer the work to be on weekdays, which is perfect because I can work 2-6 p.m every day and if only I could weight lift every day after 6 p.m my life would be perfect. I would definitely get early bird class and finish all five classes soon and have a comfortable evening.

When I get done with weightlifting at night during my freshman years, I felt productive and full of energy, and felt like I should do more things, it’s just me. Oh and I want a spa too, every day after the long wintery nights, I might as well hop in and enjoy.

P.S, my goal is to gain twenty five pounds by the end of winter! (530)

Weather and fishing

I was fishing today, in spite of the rain; I thought we’d catch tons of them. But instead, we were struggling to catch fish, because of the weather itself. We didn’t know for sure if the fish were actually biting. I was fishing under a bridge, trying to stay dry and enjoying the delicious food I just bought. But NO, it was raining sideways! So the rain water caught my food and pooled up a muddy puddle where my tackle box and fishing equipments are catching all of the gritty sand, oh and yeah the rain caught me too, while being wet and catching all the wind wasn’t a pretty sight.

So we packed up and went back home. Enjoying the heat coming out of our car vent was a good thing. Overall it was fun, a story to tell later in life. But come on! Rain in October? It should rather be snowing, but I can see why it was rain, because the south wind was up into Iowa. I don’t know how many crazy fishermen are out there, but I sure hope there is enough for me to not stand out as the very few and odd ones. I just wanted to catch fish. Is that too much to ask for?

Some will give up fishing if they don’t catch anything for ten minutes, but the real reason why I love fishing is because the next second you could have a ginormous fish on the end of your line, just as your about to leave. So any moment could be your moment, which is why I fished in this weather, while no one else is, while the fish have to eat at some point, and not knowing what could come next.

That is why fishing could be funny sometimes, while we’re going out hoping for luck, we’d say it sucks if we didn’t get any, and once as it happened, one of the lines will go out and “BUZZZZZZ, CRACK!” a big fish just snapped the line and took off without a second notice. It’ll just make me wonder, when will the next bite happen, and how big was that thing, what kind was it, could’ve been a state record? That is why I’m always up on my gears waiting for hours that something may happen at a moment.

That could also be the reason why people have lies to tell, it could be true, but we’re not sure and we’ll never know because we weren’t out in certain weather conditions. Some people could easily say that giant fish only bite when it’s storming, raining, with a high barometer, when no one is out there risking their life to find out about the fish story, just a fish. Crazy things people would do just for the sake of fish.

Wanna bully?

Why do idiots bully people? Don’t they have anything better to do? Or do they just wanna get their “cool points”? It just makes me mad! The best people in high school are the ones that are friends with everyone, no matter who they are. But you want to be the “cool” one? I’ll show you cool, they’re the reason why my neighbor doesn’t get out much.

He has autism, AD/HD, and many other problems when he was adopted, which doesn’t mean he deserves crap from you people. If I find out who you are, I’ll find out where you usually hang out outside of school, I’ll slam you down the way my uncle did in his fifth year as a varsity wrestler, I’ll drop kick you the way my older brother did in the regional league of UFC, I’ll run after you like an angry cross country runner that will never give up until he gets ya, I’ll burn your “cool points” until you drop it cause it’s hot.

Don’t care where it’s at, as long as it’s outside of the school, where your mamma can’t save you. When you call for mercy, I’ll say no, your next visit will be mercy hospital. Bet you wish you never read this huh? I’ll find out whom that bully is, because it is just stupid, that bully should be easy to find, because they’re awkward people who think they’re cool. Think this is funny? Think again!

The bullies are the reason to many suicides, and those people may have the knowledge to cure cancer, but you made fun of him because he’s geeky, others may find a solution to be the next president that’ll help the economy greatly, but you make fun of him, because all he does is talk about politics, there could be a way to make really efficient cars, but you put him down, and b.s him that it’ll never happen.

So what do you get back? No respect, die of cancer, keep paying your debt and watch as the U.S debt plunge into a freefall, pay for expensive gas to a point where that is all you buy, or bike to work. If you could only get your mind straightened out, and be nice to everyone, then maybe the world will be a better place, OBVIOUSLY it’ll be a better place. Why do you think harassing is illegal in high school? Well it is there for a reason!

Please don’t make me use violence to straighten up your mind, I might accidentally bust it anyways, just get the message and take it for granted. Not too much to ask for isn't it? (445)

Anyone agree?

I don’t know about you, but in the winter, I can smell the outdoors differently than the summer air. Not only in Cedar Rapids could you smell that burning landfill but the different stench of smell. Winter, not only everyone has the sniffles, but winter has a different stench of smell. Anyone agree with me? Cause everyone seems to disagree.

The summer smells like grass with an exception that it has more smell to it in the atmosphere, and the winter, it’s like a stench of stale wood. You could almost taste the cold water with the smell. I’m not weird or anything! I just smell these things.

In the spring, my dog would always put his head up and take a big noticeable whiff as the wind blows in his direction. In the winter, he doesn’t do that anymore, he just sniffs the ground more often, so little patters that I take big notice of. That tells me the grass smell has gone from the atmosphere to the ground as the winter weather has a certain temperature to take that smell away.

Overall, I think the smell of winter is better than the smell of summer, only because the fragrant of stale wood make the place seem different in a good way.

As I learned from APES the nitrogen fixation bacteria will be strongly activated when it has oxygen and decompose the leaves in the fall. That is why fall has a different fragrance than summer and spring, spring is like the smell of an after storm, whereas you could smell the N02 in the air, and has that barometer; that everyone likes to breathe in.( If you know what I’m saying.)

But winter, has none, they are all enclosed under ice, and in the ground as the oxygen slightly drops in the cold weather; I just like the smell of winter, because it is fresh, and yet stale. I hope it’s not just me; you all should be able to smell the difference of the seasons. I think….

I mean, my dog has a different sniffing pattern throughout the season, watch your pets some days, and try to distinguish their sniffing patterns throughout the season. It may be too long to notice the changes, but I’ve noticed it.

My very own vacation!

During this winter break, I’ll be driving out to Lake Okoboji to ice-fish for two full days, while we’re going to rent a five star hotel (obviously has to have a spa in it), and two straight nights of eating out at some nice restaurants. I want to be able to complete one of my master angler requirements; which involves catching a perch more than 12 inches. At Okoboji they have perch shaped like a football and could be 16 inches at the most. Josh and I are going to try to find a humongous weed bedded area to catch them all. Even the pumpkinseeds, bluegills, green sunfish, and maybe rock bass too.

The perch can really pack on the pounds during the spawning season, which is in the spring, and then they’ll stretch longer as they lose the caviar. Just like the walleyes, and we have to catch them while they’re “fresh” and in no knowledge of what has hooks and what does not. Perch will look like the ones below, while we were out in the Mississippi river to catch tons of.

But just imagine what a perch would look like if it were 16 inches, and had that amount of fatty deposits and caviar, but muscular as well, because it’s genes are preserved in Okoboji. It would be a nice defined two pounder, like a mini but stocky walleye that would be a nice wall hanger. So in the winter we’re after this, but only because the muscles of the fish will be defined, not the fats, it’s only about length anyways, but it would be a nice trophy to catch in the spring.

If we catch only tiny ones, then we’ll keep some, and walk out farther to a flat ground, and put them into the danger of being bit by a tiger musky, musky, and northern, as well as some giant walleyes, in spite of the fact that they are in the same “family”. It’s hard to tell if they would bite by its tide and moon phase, so I don’t want to waste the vacation catching nothing, so I am going to fish on full moon in December, also known as the Long Night Moon; when the fish bite more towards the early sunset. Josh and I never had a day when we never caught fish; so far we are on this four month streak since we’ve starting fishing together.

One fish down, nine more to go

This is one of the easiest fish for me to accomplish, because I fish for these all the time. Since I moved to my new house, by Xavier, there is that one pond with several monster largemouth bass. I also caught my master angler bullhead there, but I wasn’t part of the program at the time while the minimum length was 15 while I caught a stunning 17.5 inches, neighboring the state record. My friend also caught a channel catfish that was 31 inches while the length limit was 30. But once again, we weren’t in the program at the time. There is a huge bass that Josh and I would call Mrs. Texas, she was big and was only ounces off the state record, but we never bothered to tell anyone. This pond is really small, so it was confusing why we had such a big bass, and I figured the oxygen levels are always in the norm because the water table of the creek next to the pond helped it stay stable during the wintery seasons.

This bass broke my line many times, so that is why I hate mono lines. The braided line I have works really well, but she is too smart to bite at it, because she could see the line. The only way to fool the bass, (was the method Josh and I both used to catch our record bass), was to either snag a leopard frog, or catch creek chubs from the neighboring creek and fish with it. As for I, I stood on the stand that allowed me to see tons of bluegills in the water, until I see a huge dark olive colored oval shaped figure in the pond, I would cast my leopard frog right next to it. As the frog skids in fear, the bass takes a big inhale at it, and then I would give it a second or two and set the hook “Jeremy Wade” style, for those who saw river monsters on animal planet. Boom! I just caught my one master angler qualifying fish, Josh joined in and with a rock bass minnow he caught from the creek, he also casted where I had recently, and boom! Another largemouth bass was landed, both identical, both qualifying, and both easy to catch.

That bass above is my friend Josh's first qualifier, which he used a small rock bass to capture it within the first five minuites he was after it.

That fish above is mine, my first qualifying catch while starting in this program. However, I didn't use a minnow or a frog, it was unique fish, because I caught it with a five inch bluegill! That's a big bite for a good sized largemouth bass. I caught this in matter of seconds I used this bluegill, it's not luck, this pound is small and I know every part of it.

The pond monster though was caught two years ago by one of my neighbors/friend. On a full moon, I guided him on a harvest full moon night, while the pond was unusually quiet. I told him to toss his tons of nightcrawlers to this very certain territorial spot that I scared this one big fish away. With a big bang! He landed it and it measured 23 inches. WAAAY over the requirements, and still growing in that pond! A potentional state record we call Mrs. Texas.

My neighbor above, with the tiny Mrs. Texas, she's still out there inhaling big bullfrogs. (585)

Master Angler Stats

There is a thing that my friend Josh and I have in between us. We are now going to try to get the gold medallion in master angler awards. So far only one guy has done this; out of the three million Iowa residents. This may make it sound like a very hard mission for us to accomplish. Josh and I have fished three times a week in the summer, but now school is around. Whenever we have free time, we would fish at the instant. This gold medallion requires ten different species of fish on their “monster” sized length limits. So for example muskies, you must catch a 45 inch Muskie, and that is very hard to accomplish for a place in Iowa. So that is an example of a challenge that we have to beat. Silver medallion is when you must get five different types of fish. A master angler award is simply to catch one type of fish beating the length limit.

As for Josh and I, we both have the master angler award now, with a twenty inch largemouth bass that be both caught at a pond that we fish out often. We are going to now work on catching a green sunfish/hybrid. With a length limit being ten inches, we have to find a good place for our potential to be reached. So we’re going to camp at Walnut acres late October; when they start to bite.

Then we’ll try to catch a 35+ inch northern pike at the Wapsipinicon River late November. The 26+ inch walleyes are really hard to get, you must be really lucky to catch a fish like that, so we’re going to Palo Lake during ice-fishing season, so that way we can fish wherever the other guys can go with their boats in the summer. The muskies will be our best bet there as well; we’ll have to use “slammers” though. The yellow bass will also be our way to success if we fish at Palo during the winter, because in the summer we caught hundreds of them, and we’ve already caught more than ten of them beating the limit for master angler awards, we just didn’t get into the master angler program at the time. Then we’ll go to Belva Deer Lake to ice-fish for a 14+ inch crappie and a 10+ inch bluegill as well. That will be seven of the ten we have to catch, and not only is it for me, but Josh will have to be just as lucky as me, or the other way around.

So this challenge will be a journey that I’ll enjoy, because later on it’ll pay off a lot, and we could both be the second person ever to get into the master angler’s gold medallion awards, while it’s a 24K gold and a big trophy worth preserving. Later in the blog posts, we’ll show you each thing we have done in each location of each trophy fish species we’ve caught.

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