This month Science magazine came up with a list of 125 questions that scientists have yet to answer, and listed 25 of them on their website.

Tonight we went over to the Marin County Fair to hear Huey Lewis and the News. Of course, we were too cheap to pay, so we just sat outside and listened. Then we moved a bit so we could have a good view of the fireworks, and somehow wound up directly downwind from them so that chunks of charred fireworks were falling on us. Check out tomorrow's photoblog for a funny picture of the fireworks.

Because I took a long nap yesterday, I wasn't able to go to sleep until around 4:45, but it turned out to be a good day regardless of little sleep. I got new clothes that fit, new earrings, and new tevas since one teva does me no good. Then I came home and got out the beading things. I remembered I had left my pliers in my room, so I started cleaning and trying to find them. Eventually I gave up, but my room is much cleaner. Well, ok, I tidied and now it's messy again.

I accomplished very little today. I attempted to fix our home network so I could share files...and failed. I read for half an hour...then fell asleep for three hours. I mailed a package. And that's about it. Ah, summer.

This website has a cool gallery of science-related images from some Princeton competition, "the Art of Science".

Well, the roof is slowly but surely changing colors as we put on the new shingles. Today I got sunburned from standing around on the roof all day.

Last night I hung out with an eclectic mix of people I wouldn't have expected, but it was an alright time.

One thing I didn't mention about the Yosemite trip was that, our last day, we went river rafting. We woke up early, drove to the meeting place (a pile of gravel on the side of the road--an inauspicious beginning) where we arrived half an hour before everyone else because of a miscommunication, then went down to the river and put on full body wetsuits and crash helmets. I was in the rowdy boat that opted for the gnarlier route on the river, so lemme tell you, those wetsuits came in handy.

About an hour into the trip, we aimed for a big hole, but just as we rode up on to the surging foam, we lost all our momentum. Though we paddled as hard as we could, the water sucked us back, tipped the raft on its side, and threw us all out. When I surfaced, the boat had gotten trapped in an eddy far upstream, so I remembered what they said and swam for the other boat. Of course, we were in the middle of some rapids so I kept getting dunked and the other boat couldn't slow down to snag us. It felt like we were swimming for 5 minutes, but it was probably actually a minute or a minute and a half. Finally the other boat pulled me, my mom, and my dad aboard, but somewhere in the fray I lost one shoe.

Pictures from my Yosemite trip.

Returned from Yosemite last night, not too late, after a full day of rafting. I'll describe the trip in detail when I'm done editing the pictures. This morning my parents woke me to Sheryl Crow at 8 in the morning. Though exhausted, I managed to haul myself out of bed long enough to eat, then went back to sleep until I was drafted into the reroofing project. I'm not good at using the nail gun or at cutting the shingles, so it appears I'll be the errands-girl tomorrow.

Yesterday was mostly spent with relatives. Some time making cupcakes and playing pool at Andrew's house. Today, we head to Yosemite! (Apparently it snowed there in the past week...)

Yesterday was a chore day. Cleaned bathroom, tidied room, painted stuff. Then in the evening, I went to see "Howl's Moving Castle" in the city with Brian and Andrew. It was good except for the ending. Then hung out some more, woke up at 1ish today and watched Nausikaa because I didn't feel like doing anything else.

I got new glasses of two varieties today--sun and distance. After a meager lunch of a buttered tortilla, two strawberries, and a cookie, I went to see 'Batman Begins' with Bryan Grant and crowd at Fairfax Theater and parked in the lot, which wasn't very smart since the Farmer's Market was there. Then I called Elliot and we drove out to the Cataract Trail, by Alpine Dam. Man is that a lot of uphill. When I got home, Dad and I walked down to the shopping center to pick up some Express Delight deliciousness from the Hot Wok, where I also ran into Sam Mendez, an old buddy from Drake P.E. when I was a senior and everyone else was a sophomore.

What a lazy day--after mailing some stuff, I came home and read a comic book all day long.

Photos from June.

Yay, Kaeldra's Camera is up and running again!

Happy Brian Day!!!

Got home last night around 8 from a full day of sending Robin to her doom, I mean vacation, with old man Taylor, seeing the leaky plastinated bodies in the city, and saying hello to my uncle who's recovering from surgery. I leapt into Robin's bed for a brief nap and woke up at 7 am this morning. Guess I was tired from the night before--an action packed evening with Brian involving kehoe beach, sitting around, and a failed mission to In-N-Out.

After a bit of a lazy morning, my mom, the dog, and I cruised out to Kehoe Beach, which was covered with the rotting bodies of purple jellyfish. We listened to a lot of Grisham's new book, the Broker, on CD on our lovely drive home. Pictures from the past week soon--tomorrow?

I discovered today that chimes that sound like a grandfather clock toll the hour from huge speakers in Red Square.

Mi madre flew up today and we spent the afternoon packing packing packing in preparation for our departure tomorrow. Goodbye rainy Washington (did I mention it's raining today, nearly the second week of June?), hello sunny sunny California!

Tomorrow I'm going to be hurting scooter. I went for an 8 mile hike with a 1600' elevation gain today with Ryan, who played with me in jazz band last year, and who is very tall so hard to keep up with. We tried to find a trail marked "obscure" on the map, but to no avail. At the top of Blanchard Mountain, there were some spectacular views.




(Click picture for bigger version.)

On the way back, we took a different route, and some confusing signs had us freaked out that we had walked a mile in the wrong direction downhill, but then we realized we were standing ten feet away from our trail juncture.

Last night at 3:30 I had an irresistable urge to start packing, so I proceeded to unpack a box and a half, then repack them better. When I woke up this morning, I was pretty tired. Actually, I'm still tired.

I'm trying, for this last test, a new study technique: read my notes and the book out loud to myself. I think it's been bothering Megan.

Tonight, I decided to work since it was my last chance to earn money until next January, and I had a really awesome conference involving various colored post-its.

So, my camping trip with Megan fell through. She had to work, the forecast was for rain, and neither Megan nor Aimee procured sleeping bags. I guess I'll just have to eat the food I got for us myself.

Today started out sucky and has improved. I woke up, ate, didn't feel like doing anything so took a 3 hour nap (which means I'll be up late late late tonight!), did laundry, saw Pulp Fiction for the first time (entertaining but strange), received cookies in the mail(;D), and now am playing with the recommendations on Amazon. I seem to get wrapped up doing that. Shrug.

Yesterday I had to go to class at 9 even though all we were doing was turning in a paper and filling out teacher evaluations. Then my biology lecture sucked, and my biology lab test went HORRIBLY even though I studied a bunch. C'est la vie. Then Aimee and I watched the Goonies. It's still entertaining, but I never realized when I was little what wretched acting it had.

I was annoyed at myself today because I was running late for bio but still had to print off my history paper that was due right after bio. I got to class 15 minutes late, but all we were doing for the first 20 minutes was filling out teacher evals, so I didn't miss anything.

Megan and I have both attacked our room, trying to clean it, these past couple days and it varies between looking like the apocalypse struck and being sad and empty.