I am trying to take my history teachers advice and include more pictures on my blog. It helps that we are working on our ancestor project in Miss Ramseys class this semester that I need pictures for. I found another old photo of Grandpa Jem that he had in his "memorabilia" locker. I asked him if he every worries about forgetting the combination and he said that its a rare day that he remembers it but that he figures that on the days he remembers than its a sign that he should go through the locker before he forgets. He then wrote down the numbers and gave it to me to keep for him and that made me feel good that he trusts me. I asked him if I could go through it whenever I want and he said "yup, but you better wear a dust mask". He knows how dust bothers my allergies and just holding this old photo made me sneeze.
This photo is of Grandpa and his guitar that he named "old Yeller". I asked if it was named for the movie about the dog "old yeller" and he said that it was mostly because it was yellow and that most singing cowboys name their guitar after a woman, but since he wanted to be different it made sense to name it after a dog. He said that now maybe he is the "old yeller" and I couldn't help but lol (laugh out loud in case you forgot). I asked if he still would sing and he said that sometimes in the shower when his voice is loosened by the hot water, he'll sing a few bars. He then told me a story about one time when he was on a movie set and was warming up his vocal chords when up walked a woman who told him that his voice was really nice and he turned around and it was Marlena Dietrich, who I guess was a famous movie star from Germany. Grandpa Jem just couldn't believe his eyes and how beautiful she was and how even though she must've been almost 60 that she was absolutely "stunning". He asked her if she would sing a few bars with him and she said that she would and they sang "You're the only star in my blue heaven", which is a Gene Autry song. Grandpa just stared into space for a few moments and then said "my voice never sounded as good as when I sang that one song". He then suddenly remembered how "old yeller" was eventually stolen in Kansas City and that it is good to see it again. I asked if there was any pictures of him and Marlena Dietrich and he said "no, and I never saw her again either". He went back to the set and told everyone what happened and no one believed him. He almost couldn't believe it either except that the "gaffer" overheard them singing and vouched for him and for his "own sanity".
The word for today is "gaffer" and it is "the chief electrician in a motion-picture or television production unit".

My science class took a 2-day camping field trip to Joshua Tree national park this week. Tom and I were put in charge of cooking for our first night there and we made bean burritos with papas con queso (which means potatoes with cheese). We also learned about the Joshua Trees and other plants there. Some of the Joshua trees are hundreds of years old and they have a hard time growing because animals and birds eat them before they get to grow so the Joshua tree is now in danger. Also, a park ranger told us about the pollution from Los Angeles and how its effecting the plants there with too much nitrogen. They are really neat looking trees and some of them look like people. I also learned that the park is located in two different deserts - the Sonoran and the Mojave desert. We also got to see a Big horn sheep that climbing high on the rocks above us and we also saw a desert turtle. One of the students in our class thought it was a rock until our teacher said it was a turle in its shell. Eventually he peeked his head out to see if we had left yet and then quickly went back in his shell.

There was another science class there from San Diego and they were camping nearby. We talked with some of the students from their school and even shared some of our food. We also all volunteered together to help pickup garbage around the park and the campground. Tom found an old cowboy hat and Cindy from our class found an old Nintendo gameboy that didn't work. I didn't find anything interesting, but I did talk for a long time with a girl named Lisa from the school in San Diego who was very cute and a lot of fun to talk to. She liked to laugh and giggle a lot as we talked about books and movies and about her Dad who is a Genomic Scientist or something like that. I asked what that is and she tried to explain it too me, but I don't think she knew either. So, I decided to look it up in the old dictionary. "Genomics" is "the study of the complete set of genetic material of an organism" and an example of its use that I found during a search of the word is "The Cat Genome Project was announced along with plans to sequence the genomes of eight other mammals: the elephant, the orangutan, the shrew, the hedgehog, the guinea pig, the tenrec, the armadillo and the rabbit." I will have to ask my science teacher Miss Parker more about it on Monday.

My Dad, Gretchen and I had a great time at the movies on Saturday. We went to see "Charlie and the Chocalate Factory" at the movie theater and even though Dad had 3 cops of coffee, he fell asleep with 30 minutes left. Oh well, I couldn't concentrate on the movie anyways because Gretchens foot was touching mine through most of the movie. It had some funny parts and really good special effects so I guess I liked it, but every time Gretchen laughed I couldn't hear anything going on in the movie for a really long time. Afterwards, we went out for dinner and ice cream and then we drove Gretchen home. The only thing that was uncomfortable is when Dad asked Gretchen about her Dad and she had to tell him about how her Dad died. I guess it was my fault because i forgot to tell him about her Dad, but Gretchen said that its ok because shes used to it. Gretchen also gave me that picture of her when she was 7 (or maybe shes 8, I can't remember).

I talked to Cousin Mat yesterday and we talked briefly and he seemed somewhat excited by my ancestor project and he said he would send me some pictures soon with stories. He did say that many of the von Schamann family left Austria and Germany after the second world war and some cousins and uncles died fighting for the nazis. I was a little upset by this but he also said that some other members of the family including a Bucheister (different spelling) left before the war because they didn't agree with the nazis and Hitler. I told him that Grandpa Jems parents came here before Grandpa was born because of the first world war and eventually settled in Missouri. Then I said that I think it is strange to have to leave your home country because of a war and that I could understand how some would decide to stay and fight even though they don't completely agree with the war or are uncertain about what its for. He said that it is important to fight for your country because it is your only home, but it made me confused because in history class we talked about the civil war in America and how people fought against each other. "War doesn't always make sense" cousin mat said and I had to agree with that. I asked him why he is a bodybuilder and he said it was because he started lifting weights with his friends when he was a kid in austria and he liked it because it was challenging and made him feel good about himself. I wanted to ask him about steroids and whether he has taken them, but I was a little afraid by what he might say. In science class we have to pick a topic to research this quarter and I have picked steroids and its effect on people. Maybe I'll ask cousin mat to help me with the project and that might be better then asking him if he took them. He is afterall really big and kind of scary. Gretchen only laughs when she sees the pictures of mat because she thinks its funny that he doesn't seem to be changing very much during the 3 pictures of him. "I guess he seems to be getting more red" i said which only made her turn red (like her hair) when she tried not to choke on her french fries.
Amy (the only one who leaves good comments) has reminded me that I need a word of the week so I guess I'll choose the word "digital", which I heard someone say about the special effects in the movie. It means "relating to or using signals or information represented by discrete values (digits) of a physical quantity, such as voltage or magnetic polarization, to represent arithmetic numbers or approximations to numbers from a continuum or logical expressions and variables". Yikes. The only example of its use is "digital television". Maybe you can help me here Amy.

My Dads friend is a photographer and took this picture of me 4 years ago at the county rodeo. I hung on longer than my friend Tom, but I didn't win because Stewert Jacobs hung on longer and even managed to tackle the animal. I showed it to Gretchen and she liked it a lot and she promised to bring in a picture of her when she was young.
Our first edition of the Red Hill Reporter came out and it was a big success. All the students and even some of the teachers read it during free time and many people were laughing at the first ancestor stories. My movie review of the Fantastic 4 was great and I can't wait to write another one. My rating system is based on how long it takes my Dad to fall asleep during the movie, which everyone laughed at because the Fantastic 4 was 45 minutes which is actually pretty good because my Dad falls asleep sometimes during the first 30 minutes of the movies that I take him to. Dad said that he thinks I should ask Gretchen to join us next time we go the the movies and I was a little shy but I asked her today and she said "yes". So, we are going to the movies this Saturday in town. I told Dad to drink some coffee before we go so that he doesn't embarrass me by snoring in front of Gretchen. He asked if that would throw off my rating system and I said that I will maybe use a new system where its based on how many cups of coffee it takes to get him through the whole movie. "You are one clever boy" Dad said. I can't wait for Saturday.

It was a strange week at my school as George tried to fight me twice because of what happened with the chair. On Tuesday, he followed my outside after school with his friend John Ducinsky, but my Dad showed up just in time to pick me up. On Thursday, George cornered me during free time, but luckily a teacher saw what was happening and George got taken to the directors office. I had to go in also afterwards and explain again what happened at free time and about the chair incident. I guess I wasn't as convincing as I was with Mrs. Ramsey and the dean called my parents last night. I told my parents exactly what happened and they weren't sure exactly what to say, but since I tried to hurt someone, I am not to watch television for one week. I guess that is ok because I don't watch that much tv, except for my favorite show which is the Drew carey show.

I guess this was a good week to bring my pictures of cousin Mat to school because maybe George will leave me alone now that he knows I have a bodybuilder cousin. I also found a funny picture of me at the county rodeo when I was 7 and I'll put that on the blog next time. I also have some pictures of Grandpa Jem that I am going to scan tomorrow and use those in my ancestor report. We have to make a family tree with the pictures and start with ourselves at the bottom of the page and work our way up as far as we can go. It is really cool because I have talked with Uncle Don and with my Aunt Gloria and they said they would mail me some pictures and hopefully with some information about those relatives.
Cousin Mat definitely looks like he is a relative except that he is much bigger than all of the men in our family. Cousin Bruce gave me Mat's phone number and I am going to call him tomorrow to find out about some of our Austrian relatives that either live here or are still in Austria. I don't know much about Austria except that they speak German there and it was where Adolf Hitler was born. So, I decided to see what the dictionary says. Austria is "a republic in central Europe; pop. 8,100,000; capital, Vienna; official language, German". I am also going to include a map so that I know exactly where it is. I guess I still want to know from cousin Mat why people would leave there and come to America instead.

I met a new girl at school today. Her name is Gretchen Rodgers (I think thats how you spell it) and she just started at our school earlier this week. She joined our history class and I heard her speak for the first time yesterday. She is kind of shy, but is very beautiful and has red hair. I don't know why they call it red because its really orange. That is the only thing I could think to say to her and she just looked at me and smiled politely. I then asked her where she is from and she said "New Mexico". I told her that I rode through there once on a family trip and she smiled again politely. I thought maybe I was boring her and said that it was nice to meet her, but when our teacher made us pick a partner to tell one story from our family history project she looked at me and smiled politely again, so I got up to sit down next to her and asked if she would be my partner and she nodded her head yes. Then I smiled and before I could sit down George Davison bumped me out of the way and asked Gretchen if she wanted to be his partner. I was so mad, but couldn't do anything but look at Gretchen and hope that she would tell him no. She looked at him and then at me and seemed afraid to say anything when the strangest thing happened. George was about to sit down on the chair that I was about to sit down on and just before his butt hit the chair I pulled it away and he went crashing to the ground. The whole class became very quiet and all of a sudden as we were all looking at George laying on his backside I heard the sound of someone trying to hold in laughter. I looked over and it was Gretchen. Once she realized that now everyone was looking at her she stopped and looked at her feet. I backed up thinking that George was going to stand up and hit me and instead he looked really embarrassed and even seemed like he wanted to cry. The whole class was really surprised because George is usually a bully, but Mrs. Ramsey the history teacher helped George up and sent him to the school nurse before he started crying. Mrs. Ramsey asked what happened and I figured I was going to get in trouble, but somehow I said that I had asked Gretchen to be my partner and she said yes and was about to sit down when George tried to steal my seat and he missed. Mrs. Ramsey asked Gretchen if this was true and she looked up and nodded her head yes. That was it. No one else said anything and some people even looked at me and smiled as if I was some hero. But I felt kind of bad and was surprised that I would do something like that to hurt someone. In one way it made me feel good to stand up for myself, but at the same time I was feeling guilty. I was a little confused when I sat down and started to ask Gretchen the questions that Mrs. Ramsey had given us, but once I heard Gretchen speak about her family and how sad it was that her father had died when she was five, I forgot all about george davison and the chair.
Next week we have to start bringing in pictures of our family and discuss two stories with the class. I just hope that Mrs. Ramsey makes us keep the same partner.