This is a farewell to my blog and grade 7. I had a great year and enjoyed my blog. I would like to thank all of the people who visited my blog over the course of this year. I appreciate that you took time to visit it and a special thanks to anyone who commented. For the last time
Bye Bye
~Jacob
“Brrrrrr” its cold. My favourite season is winter. There are many reasons why I like winter. I love snow. I also love snowsports and hockey. In the winter it is ski season. Skiing is pretty much one of my favourite sports, next to hockey and basketball. I like skiing on steep runs with lots of moguls. But nothing beats skiing with your friends. Thats why I like skiing.
Another great part about winter is hockey. Hockey is my favourite sport. I play on the rep team called the Chiefs, we travel around and play other teams from all over the island. From Port Alberni to Victoria. Hockey is a great team sport and you always make new friends and enemies. And Later in the year we have playoffs and the best team gets a trophy. Thats why hockey is my favourite sport.
Besides the sports, as crazy as it seems I like the weather. I like it when it snows outside. I like being all warm with the fireplace on when its all cold outside. I love it when its cold so at night I can open my windows and let in the cold. Someone else who loves winter is my dog. Its really entertaining watching him roll around in the snow, or the frost in the morning.
Those are all the reasons that winter is my favourite season.
~Jacob
Geocashing is just like treasure hunting. But instead of a treasure map you use a GPS (Global Positioning System) It is hooked up to 3 different sattelites which give you the exact coordinates. It is like a digital treasure map. You can get the coordinates online. A geocach is a container or something hidden that holds a logbook and sometimes trinkets. If you rake something you are have to give something back of equal or greater value. You are not allowed to put money, drugs, food or anything dangerous in the cache. When you’re geocaching you must be stalthy because people who dont know about geoching (muggles) will muggle (wreck a cache) the cache. So if you see a muggle you act all laid back. So now that you know about geocaching you can try it yourself.
~Jacob
Proofread by Kaiden
You have probably noticed the yellow flowers groing outside in the sunlight. These flowers look harmless, but secretly its EVIL! Scotch broom is an invasive species of plant that originated is scotland. Captain Walter Grand decided that bringing over his favourite plant would be harmless. He was wrong. Scotch broom grows large and steals the sunglight of other native plants. It has a huge seed capacity and can spread up to 18 000 seeds in a lifetime, thats why the plant grows so fast . The abundance of scotch broom in forests help to set off wild fires. The worst part though is that it releases toxins into the dirt so that other plants cannot grow. People have been trying to get rid of it for a while but the roots are really large. Some roots can grow almost as big as tree roots! So if you see a baby scotch broom you can pull it up so it cant spread. The bigger scotch broom are harder to get rid of. You have to uproot them, wich is a pain in the butt. So now that you are aware of the dangers of scotch broom to the ecosystem you can help get rid of this invasive superweed.
~Jacob
Photo Credit: Marco Bernardini via Compfight
I have a new favourite animal. The Mantis Shrimp. If you saw one swimming around in the sea you’d think it was harmless, but think again. This little guy packs a powerful punch. The mantis shrimp has 2 clublike arms that it shoots out at tremendous speeds to kill prey. It has the velocity of a 22.caliber bullet and can easily break 1/4 inch thick glass. The arms are very resiliant, so much that researchers are studying there cell structure. There limbs move so quickly that the water around them boils! This is called supercavitation. And when the cavitation bubbles collapse it creates an undersea shockwave that can pottentially kill prey.
Another astonishing feature that a mantis shrimp has is its eyes. It has 2 trifocal eyes. But thats not it. As a human we have three colour receptive cones, blue, green and red. But the mantis shrimp has a whopping sixteen colour receptive cone so it sees 13 different colours than we do.
By Jacob
This is the Landyachtz Ripple ridge. It was designed by Phillip Lemeire as a city freeriding board. It got its name from the noticeable ripples in the board. The ripples help to create an awesome kind of bowl to lock your feet in when sliding. It has a kicktale for pulling off tricks, so it can only be ridden one way. There is also concave in the tail for added grip. Now here is an awesome video made by the Landyachtz crew.
By Jacob
Our class recently went to the Sand wick Trades school. To learn all about different trades. It was interesting and full of information. We learned about plumbing, drywall, cement, electricity, carpentry and how to be safe around a job site. I got to do plumbing, carpentry and safety. Inside we got all of our safety gear. We then watched a work-safe BC video, all about safety gear and proper training. We also got to strap in harness and try the fall arrest device. After that we went outside to a different building where one of the Sand wick students taught how to plumb. We set up PBC pipes in a mock bathroom. We also got to sauder copper pipe together with a tiger torch and special metal. Then we were on our way to the last station, Carpentry, where we built a small 4 ft tall house. We measured the boards and nailed them. It was fun to get to help build something. Overall I thought the experience was fun and I wished I could have done all the trades.
By Jacob
Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.
You cant longboard without wheels. Orangatang is my favourite brand and I currently ride them right now. I have the orangatang stimulus wheels. They are designed for free riding and come in three different versions: 80a, 83a and 86a. The 80a’s are buttery and cushy, the 83a’s are slidey and grippy and the 86a’s are the slideiest. The biggest wheels orangotang sells are the 75mm durians, which are developed for freeriding same with the Fat frees. The 70 mm 4President wheel is designed for slalom and speed boarding. The In Heat wheels are designed for speed boarding also. So overall Orangatang wheels are my favourite brand for excellent quality wheels
Here is a link to their website—-> Click me
By Jacob
Read by Kaiden
Hi I am writing about my top 10 favourite longboards and why.
My number 10 favourite longboard is the Time Machine. It is an average length so it is good for everything. It also has twin tips so you can do tricks.
My number 9 is the Switch. It has a drop down deck which makes it easier to get foot position for downhill and pushing.
My number 8 is the Dinghy. It is really unique because it is very small, only 26.25 inches. It is more of a long skateboard than a longboard. Because it is small its good for tricks.
My number 7 longboard is the Wolf shark it is a medium size deck with lots of concave to lock in your feet in massive slides. It has a kick tail for ollies and tricks, so you can only ride it one way. Also the graphics are awesome, just like the name.
My number 6 is the tomahawk. It is a freeride board. Good at moderate speeds. It is symetrical so you can ride it either direction. It is made of maple and has medium flex.
My number 5 board is the drop hammer. It is fairly small, 36.4 inches. It is very manuverable. It can be ridden both ways. It has medium flex and medium concave, so it is good all around.
My number 4 favourite board is the ripple ridge. It is a freeride board. It has a kick tail so you ride it one way. It is 32 inches, it has medium concave and low flex. The unique part about this board is that the deck is actually ripply (like bacon) hence the name.
Now we are getting into the top 3 favourite boards.
Here we are at number 3 The Landyachtz Nine Two Five. It is a great board. It has high concave and low flex. It has really unique W concave, to lock in your feet. The Nine Two Five also has gas pedals, a feature which makes it easier to stay on the board when doing stand-up slides.
The Nine Two Five my third favourite longboard.
Coming in at a close second, The Demonseed, a board by rayne.
The Demoseed is MASSIVE. It is 44 inches long. That’s really big for a longboard. Because it is so big it has lots of footspace. It is made for big downhill bombing. Bombing is where you go really fast down a hill. It has drop through mounting and can be ridden both ways.
The Demonseed, a rayne board.
And my number 1 longboard is… The Drop Speed.
The Drop Speed is my favourite longboard.
The Drop Speed is really Amazing. It has medium W concave and a high flex, it 38.5 inches long an average height. It is 9.4 inches wide. Its made of 7 plies of maple with a fiberglass bottom. Its a really good downhill cruising and slide board. So overall its a really smooth ride.
The Drop Speed, My favourite board
What language do you speak? I’m guessing;english, but there are lots of different written languages. Have you ever heard of Cuneiform? It is the oldest written language ever recorded.
Cuneiform is an early form of writing that originated from Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia was an early civilization, that was found in an area called the cradle of civilization. Cuneiform evolved from pictographs. The pictogrphs were pressed into the clay or stone tablets. Later on the >;>;>;mesopotamians made a break through and instead of using tokens they made a wedge shaped stylus out of reed. The stylus was pressed into the clay to create stroke
The Mesopotamians started the cuneiform writing system to record trade. The two most important resources were cattle and barley. The symbols change over time. They started as pictograms, then when they started using styluses they became simpler symbols. Eventually all of the symbols were written sideways.
We have 26 letters in our alphabet. That’s easy enough, but the Mesopotamians had about one thousand symbols in early texts! Whoa;thats a lot. And too make it more confusing each symbol has multiple meanings! Luckily in later texts there was only about four hundred symbols. I think it would still be confusing. No do you?
The clay tablets that cuneiform is written on weren’t just any regular tablets, there was a big variety of different tablets. Anything written on round tablets is usually for school purposes. Cuneiform written on prisms described successful military campaigns. Rectangular tablets were for administrative and personal letters. Some tablets were wrapped in an extra layer of clay, the clay was used like an envelope. Cuneiform was also written on walls, monuments, and statues. There were special people in the community trained to write in cuneiform, they are called scribes.
Now that you have read and learned all about Cuneiform and Mesopotamia you can tell me what you think. Would you want a four hundred letter alphabet? Would you want to write on clay tablets? I don’t think I would so you tell me if you would.
~Jacob
This is my cuneiform tablet.