This is the part of the year where it is a little tough to stay focused on school because the weather has been so nice and the days so long. We still have a month or so left until our summer break which is our "long" break. This year I am going away for a couple of weeks to writing camp in Oregon. Over the weekend, Dad and I went to Anaheim for an orientation meeting for the camp so that we could find out more about it and meet some of the counselors in person. It was a little goofy and it seemed the counselors tried too hard to make the camp seem "really fun" so that hopefully Dad would "pay up front", as he put it, which he did. So, for two weeks in early August, I'll be taking writing workshops and playing kickball with people named Wendy and Mark. Tom's parents heard about my plans and decided to send him to "Tech camp" in San Diego. Tom really likes video games and computers and wants to learn how to make animated games for the computer. That sounds ok, but a little too much indoor time for me. I prefer taking my journal to an empty field or by a river and write about life. Mom says that "differences are what make us all unique" and that she is happy that I am not like practically every other teen who is obsessed with tv and video games.

Mom said that Aunt Gloria has finally gotten some pictures of Mom's side of the family, the Michaels, and is sending them in the mail this week. Mom said that Aunt Gloria is a "picture-hog" and has kept most of the family pictures for herself to put on her picture wall in her den and is worried that I would lose them so she didn't give me any when I was there last time. Mom said that Aunt Gloria has finally made copies of some of them so that we could just keep them and I can now finally finish my ancestor project by next month. I hope there are some good ones of Grandpa Jessie and Grandma Sylvia when they were young so that I can see who I take after more, my Mom or my Dad.
A note about Cousin Thomas, the former basketball player: Uncle Don told Dad that Cousin Thomas once ran for congress in New York State and lost "by one point" which seems sad and that he lost because the newspaper found out that he represented a famous "terrorist" once in the 1970's in court. I guess that a lot of people disliked him after that and that is why he lost his election. Uncle Don also said that Cousin Thomas has heard about my project and he wants me to call him this weekend. I am excited about that because I am curious about the "terrorist" and why he decided to run for congress in the 1980's. I also want to know about his basketball games and what it was like to be a popular sports star in college. So, if he reads this he'll know what kind of questions I'll ask him before I call him (Uncle Don gave him the website address). Mr. Grady says that a good reporter lets the person he or she is interviewing know about the questions before the interview so that they can have answers ready and it won't take as much time or be too surprising for the person being interviewed. It is called "preping" the interviewee. I guess "preping" is short for preparing although it isn't much of an abbreviation. I often wondered about abbreviations some time and about how many there are now, especially the "acronyms" which are "a word formed from the initial letters of other words", like "DVD" or "SUV". When I asked Grandpa about it in a letter, he wrote back that "Time is money and the world is in too much of a hurry to make more of it." I assume he meant more money and not more time since no one is quite sure how to create more time. We have found a way to capture time with photographs and moving pictures, but so far we have been unable to make more time. "There are only 24 hours in a day" I heard somone say in a commercial on television, um I mean T.V. I guess those people who feel that way try to make more time by using less of it when they speak or write and find it easier to say letters instead. I guess that "lol" and "btw" are ones I have mentioned before that have been added by the internet as well as "blog" and it is a little easier to write "Thanx" or "xmas" instead of "Christmas" and I guess that is why Puff Daddy changed his name to P Diddy or I guess it is even shorter now (Gretchen told me that or else I wouldn't know - honest). So, maybe I should change my name to J-Sky or something like that. Does anyone have suggestions? Gretchen has suggested "JB3". I am not sure but it definitely made me lol.