Josh's B-Day

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

Josh is 13 this year and I decided to do a blog post about what we did on his b-day from my perspective. Around 7:30. I wake up and go downstairs, and start making a card for him.
Around 8:00. I finish my card and we take Josh his breakfast. I go downstairs again, get some breakfast, and come up again to eat with Josh.

Around 8:30. We finish breakfast and find out The Snohomish Aquatic Center's first free swim doesn't start until 2:00!

Around 8:45. We had some extra Reese's rolls so we took some to the Church.
Around 9:00. After we did that we headed to the local antique store for a bit. Mom got a really pretty pearl necklace and another lavender pouch.
Around 10:00. We head home.
Around 10:15. We get home.
Around 11:15.(I'm guessing) We have Paninis for lunch
Around 1:15.(I'm guessing) We head to The Snohomish Aquatic Center.
Around 1:30.(I'm guessing) We go to the nearby Co-op to pick up some bedding.
Around 1:35.(I'm guessing) We get to The Snohomish Aquatic Center.
Around 4:00. We head home.
Around 6:25.(I'm guessing) We eat dinner.
Around 7:15.(I'm guessing) We go to Blu Berry
Around 8:00. We Sleep. 

Worst Chess Openings

By Josh

I have already talked about the best openings for chess, now it's time to talk about the openings that will really mess you up. The side worse off will be white in these pictures.

First I will talk about the WORST OPENING OF ALL TIME.

This opening needs no explanation. This is the fastest way to mate. Use this opening if you want to lose fast.

I put this as the second worst because of it's uselessness

The reason why I think this is useless is that in the beginning you're trying to control the most squares, and the amount of squares controlled by you is increased by 2 and letting your opponent take all of the other squares. I played a game by myself using the analysis off to the right control my moves, the end result after that opening was this:

(Note: I didn't even try to finish because white was so hopeless)
Use this opening if you want your opponent to control the entire board.

I put this as the third worst because this opening literally depends on the opponent making a bad move

As this is a great opening for when you are playing games with a short timer, but playing casually this is a very bad idea. I played another game like in the previous one and this was the end result:

(Note: Yet again, I didn't try even try to finish because white was so hopeless)
This just goes to show how bad you can lose with this opening.

I hope you enjoyed my blog post on the worst chess openings!

My Birthday is Coming!

By Josh

My birthday is in a month, and I'm already excited! This year I'm going to be 13! We've already decided what my party is going to be like (more of an open house and no big theme), what flavor of cake it will be (Peanut Butter-Chocolate, again) and how many people will be invited. Some may think that I am getting excited too early, but in perspective to the stores that start preparing for Christmas 6 months early, me being excited a month early is no big deal. We have no idea what we're going to do for the day of my birthday.

Magic

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

I'm going to tell you this right off the bat, Magic is a really fun game (if you have good cards at least). I should talk about this before I jump into all the different cards. There are 5 different colors:
 White,
Blue,
Green, 
Red,
and Black,.
 They all have different strategies. White is "Get your health up super high, and then attack." Blue is  "Get your health up, attack a little, and then heal some more.'' Green is "Get some animals out there and heal during battle." Red And Black are " Get your Mana up, (I'll talk about Mana later) then: ATTACK!!! My deck is a mix of Red, White, and Black, Josh is all Green, and Dad is all Black.
All right, Mana: In this game Mana is what you use to cast spells and whatnot. You are going to need a lot of Mana no matter what color you are.
Next the different kinds of cards. First Creatures. They are your are your army (once you have enough on the battlefield).
Next, Enchantment - Aura. with these you can Enchant Creatures with awesome properties!
Next up: land. There are 2 kinds of land. Basic land (Mana), and Land that give you Mana. I have 4 cards that give me Mana. One that gives me Red And Black, one that gives me Red And White, one that gives me White And Black, and one that gives me all three!
Next up: Artifacts. Artifacts usually only cost three Mana each however, they give really cool benefits. last up: Instants
Instants can be casted at any time. My favorite Instant is called "Flesh to dust" It uses 2 black Mana and 3 Mana of any color. That may seem like a lot of Mana but you can "Destroy target creature. It can't be regenerated" The only problem is I only have two.