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12/11 Pete S.
12/15 Steven F.
12/15 Nate C.
12/15 Rutger H.
12/15 Aleman A.
12/15 Marcus J.
12/15 Sam Z.
12/15 Joey K.
12/15 Alex N.
12/15 Tom H.

Extreme Measures 2

I'm only around 40 pages in to the book becuase I have been doing so much guys and lit homework, but so far its been amazing. The United States special forces have found two highly ranked members of al-Quada and are holding them in the Bagram air force base in Afghanistan. These members of the al-quada terrorist group are though to know many things about new terrorist cells and what not. The problem is the United States government will not allow Mike Nash to interogate the men with any threats or violence. Nash has not been able to get anything out of these guys, they will not say anything if they do not have to. So Mike Nash devises a plan to bring Mitch Rapp in and tell everyone that he is Colonel Carville the head of special investigations for the air force. The young boy behind the counter at the base believes this story and allows them to go in. Once they're in there the stop all the cameras and microphones and things start to get violent. I havent really read much after Rapp got in but he has punched both men a number of times. I have a feeling that he will get someting out of these guys at some point.

Extreme Measures

I have decided not to read The Longest Day because I went to Barnes and Noble and found a much better book. This book sounds very interesting and is by a very good author. The book I choose to read this quarter is called Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn. Flynn writes his books about CIA specialists who protect the United States from terrorists. Vince Flynn is a very famous author. He has wrote many books that made the New York times best sellers list, and he did not stop that trend with this book. Extreme Measures is a book about a Counter Terrorist agent named Mitch Rapp who is chosen to head the assignment to destroy a recentlyfound terrorist cell. Along with his partner Mike Nash they battle a master-mind who is striving to become the leader of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. In the book it also brings up the life of the warriors who go un-noticed in the War. The men and women who have to constantly lie to everyone about what and where they are. All to protect the country we care about. I have a feeling this book will be very hard to put down.
Thank you and that is all.

The Road

So far in the book, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy it is very depressing. The mood throughout the enitre first reading was sadness. Everything was gray, even the lakes and the snow. The first reading was so boring I almost fell asleep. They walked on a road the whole time, only stopping occasionally to sleep and search through abandoned buildings. Although the first part was boring, I think the book will get much better. I am very interested to see what happened to the world and why the man and his son are some of the very few survivors. My guess is that there was some big asteroid that wiped out the population, kind of like what happened to the dinosaurs. That would explain all of the ash everywhere. I'm not sure if were supposed to do this today or on the next blog but the outside reading book Choose was The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan. It is a book about D-day. I am Excited to read this book because I really want to know more about what happened on D-day. Also, I am a big fan of war books, I like hearing about the Heroes that fight for us.

Snow

I woke up this morning to a fresh sheet of snow outside my bedroom window. All this snow reminds me of all the great things that winter brings. My all time favorite winter activity is outdoor skating. I usually go over to Arden park. I could spend all day at Arden, and I have. My friends and I go down there at around eleven in the morning and stay until long after night fall. The entire time we will be playing long games of pick-up hockey against whoever shows up. The only break would be to get the numbness out of our limbs or eat pizza delivered directly to the warming house frome Papa Johns. Hopefully with the recent cold weather they will start flooding the rinks soon. Another fun winter activity is sledding. There is a huge sledding hill right by my house called Browndale. Browndale is one of the biggest hills in all of Edina. My friends and I go down there on a nice day with sleds and shovels. With the shovels we build huge jumps to go off of. Then we take our sleds to the top of the hill and hit those jumps at full speed. Most of the time we pack it and end up at the bottom of the hill with out our sleds. But sometimes we hit the jump just right and land on the hill and keep going, all the way across the rink at the bottom of the hill.

The Odyssey #2

When reading Book 22 and watching the Odyssey video, my view of the Odyssey has changed over the week. I really enjoyed the reading today about the slaughter of the suitors. That might sound kind of weird but that is just the kind of book that I like reading, lots of killing and blood. It seemed like every sentance was jam packed with a death or an explanation of how a sword entered a suitors body. I'll be honest, I haven't really paid very much attention in the last couple of books. It took me awhile but I finally realized if you try really hard to listen and figure out what's going on, the book is actually some what interesting. Also, the Odyssey video has really helped a lot. I know all the facts/information is not correct, but it helps you visualize what each book is about and gives you a nice summary. And also the characters are pretty funny, like Telemachus. His hair is hilarious. And the face of Poseidon coming out from the wave was pretty good too.
Overall, the book was alright for me. The beginning was kind of boring but the ending really helped its case to be a good book.

The Odyssey

After reading the Odyssey for quite some time now, I have come to a conclusion that I really don't like it very much. It is way to confusing. The way it is written takes some getting used to, to be able to understand it. And I haven't gotten used to it yet. It is hard to grasp what the story is about when I don't understand what the author is writing. Also, there is probably a million different characters in this book. It is basically impossible to try and remember who each person is and who their related to and what not. There is so many different Kings, Queens, Princes, Gods, Goddesses, etc. Everyone seems to be somehow realted to another person. Also, in my opinion, theres the simple fact that the stories aren't very interesting. I'm not really in to greek mythology. The stories are about Odysseus and others and all there travels, and they just do not interest me very much. It just does not hold my attention like the book Lone Survivor did. But, I do have to say i liked it more than Siddhartha. So, to give it some sort of compliment, it is the best book we have read this year in class.

Lone Survivor

The Vikings did not have a game this weekend so I will not blog about them. I, mainly spent my entire Sunday reading Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. It is now probably one of, if not my favortie books. It's about this guy, Marcus, who wants to become a Navy SEAL. SEALs are a special force unit that go behind enemy lines to do the dirty work. They do things like get information on a Taliban village or even go kill a terrorist leader. Anyway, Marcus passes the SEAL training and goes to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan he is sent on a mission called operation Redwing with his fellow SEALs and good friends, Mike, Axe, and Danny. None of them had a good feeling about the mission. After hiding in the mountains for a while, spying on a known taliban hot spot, they got found by about 120 taliban soilders. The SEALs fought as hard as they could but they were just out numbered. After killing many taliban, Danny, Axe and Mikey die. Marcus is the only one left, but he is badly injured. He crawls around for awhile and finally gets found by friendly, native villagers. They take him, feed him, and fix his wounds. Eventually, the U.S. finds his location and comes in to save him. I like this book a lot because it tells you the first hand story of what went on behind enemy lines. It showed how brave those soilders were.

Speacial Teams Should Quit Football

I am sorry for blogging so much about the Vikings but i can't get over how much they anger me. This week it was the Minnesota Special teams that lost the game for us. First, it was our awful punter Chris Kluwe who missed a snap that hit him in the hands, which were directly in front of his chest. In other words it was a perfect snap. But anyway, he dropped it and to make things worse he didn't immediately fall on it. He tried to pick it up and kick it again, and they blocked it. The funniest part was when it got blocked and the ball was on the ground he tried to kick it again which is a penalty. And if you think all of that is bad, when Kluwe kicked it off the ground a Chicago player picked it up and jogged in for an easy touchdown. The easiest touchdown he will ever have. The next special teams blunder came a couple plays later when the Viking punt returner was trying to get away from the ball. He went to go block someone on the Bears and the ball took a bad hop and hit him right in the arm and bounced back into the end zone where a Bear fell on it. Probably the easiest touchdown he will ever have, just like the other guy.

Vikings are looking good

Not really. The Minnesota Vikings just had an awful showing last Sunday. They only beat the Detroit Lions, one of the worst teams in the entire league, by two points. The Vikings were down basically the entire game until Ryan Longwell booted in a field goal from about thirty yards out. The only reason they were even that close to kick a field goal was because the ref made an awful pass interference call on the Lions which gave the Vikngs 60 yards. If the Vikings want to compete for the Super Bowl or even a playoff spot they need to play a whole lot better. They have all the right players to be good, except for at the quarterback position. But Gus Ferotte hasn't really done that bad, he's played a lot better than Tavaris Jackson ever did.
The Vikings have a tough game coming up next week against the Chicago Bears. If they can some how find a way to win that game they could find themselves at the top of their division with a record of 4-3. To look at the bright side, even though the Vikings are playing bad football, they are still right there in the thick of things.

NHL and Fantasy Seasons Begin

The NHL season began last week in an overseas game between the Ottawa Senators and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I am so excited it has finally started. I have two fantasy teams with friends and I am looking to take home the Championship in both of them. Both of my teams are looking pretty good, espiacially the team that has two of the top goaltenders in the league, Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks and Jean Sebastion Giguere of the Anaheim Ducks. My top player on that team is Joe Thornton. I hope he will have the type of season he is projected to have. The crazy guys who sit and try to predict with calculations what each players scoring totals will be have said that Thornton will have 83 assist and 30 some goals. If he scores that much I am a shoe in for the championship. A team that is looking pretty good this year is, once again, the Detroit Red Wings. I will be suprised if they don't win it all again this year. They have all their players from their Stanley Cup team last year, and to make things worse for the rest of the league, they picked up one of the biggest danglers ever, Marion Hossa (who is also on my fantasy team).

Charecters in Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor is a book about Marcus Lutrell (the author) and his fellow soilders going in to enemy territory to fight terrorism. This group of soilders are SEALs, who are some of the best soilders in the United States of America. Since I haven't read much more of the book i can't really tell you anything else, but i can tell you about the charecters.
Marcus Lutrell is the sniper and medic for the team. His best friend and my favorite charecter is Michael Patrick Murphy. They call him Mikey. He is a hockey player who loves the New York Rangers. Marcus and Mikey always joke around with each other. Then theres Axe, also known as Gene Axelson. Axe is a big guy standing 6 foot, four inches tall. He is a great athlete and one of the smartest guys Marcus has ever met. The oldest one on the team is Senior Cheif Daniel Richard Healy, he is 37. He refers to all the others as his kids because he dosn't have enough of his own. He would stand up for any SEAL no matter what. Finally, theres best friends James and Shane. James was originally studying to be a veteranarian but chose to be a SEAL instead. His friend Shane was a surfer and a great golfer, and also one of the smartest people on the team.

Minnesota Wild

I am very excited for the upcoming wild season to begin. I love to watch the Wild play on TV and when I get to go to the games it is ten times better. The Xcel Energy Center is one of the nicest arenas in the entire National Hockey league, I love watching games there. The Minnesota Wild look like they are going to be pretty good this year. They still have Marion Gaborik who is one of the best in the pros at putting the puck in the net. But best of all the have Brent Burns, he is my favorite player on the Wild. He had an extremely good season last year, but i think this year will be even better. Burns is an offensive- defensmen who has a knack for scoring big goals. Last year he must of had at least four or five overtime game-winners. I think that Brent Burns is good enough to be on the all star team in the 2008-2009 season. The Wild also have players like Pierre Marc Bouchard, Kim Johnnson and Andrew Brunette who will all make the team better. Overall, I think the Wild are going to be a playoff calibre team and I am very excited to watch them this season.

Minnesota Vikings

The Minnesota Vikings choked so bad against the Indinanapolis Colts on Sunday it blew my mind. It was one of the biggest chokes i had ever seen in my long career of watching football. The vikings were totally dominating them the entire game but could not score a touchdown to save their lives. Every Minnesota drive consisted of one, maybe two, nice runs by Adrian Peterson then an awful third down pass by our quarterback Tavaris Jackson. It was basically Adrian getting all the yards. And when we would finally get it down in to the red zone they coudn't finish. Every time, they would just have to settle for a field goal.
Meanwhile the Colts weren't playing very good either. Peyton Manning wasn't looking like his usual self. The very first drive he threw an interception to Antoine Winfield and he didn't get much better after that. Peyton and the rest of the Indinapolis offense didn't do anything until later in the game when their experience came through. Peyton connected with Reggie Wayne for the tying touchdown. And a little later Adam Vinaterri kicked the game winning field goal through the up-rights. The vikings had lost a game that seemed like it was impossible for them to lose.

A journey i would like to take

A journey i would like to take would be a survival trip deep in to the alps with Bear Grylls. I think that would be so much fun because Bear Grylls would teach me everything he knows about how to survive in the wild. We will trek over the mountains and try to find civilization. I would also like to do fun activities like skiing and sledding. Me and Bear will build massive jumps in the middle of the slope. We will then sled or ski (which ever one Bear Grylls prefers) down the side of the mountain and hit the jumps. I will probably just hit the jump and land it, but Bear will hit the jump and do a double backflip 1080 because he is so sick.
Once we have found civilization in the alps, we will take a trip to the rainforests in Brazil. In Brazil, Bear will teach me how to make great hunting tools to kill our meals. He will also teach me how to make a tree fort in the canopy of the rain forest. The the tree fort me and Bear will play many board games such as Monoply, Scrabble, Sorrry, Life, Solitare and Hearts.

Blog Expectations

My name is Ben. This is my super cool blog, which i will personalize and make my own (but not post pics of myself on or use my last name). I will always use appropriate language on my school blog and follow the conventions of the English language.
The expectation for this assignment is that i post on my blog once a week for the remainder of the school year. I am expected to comment on texts that i am viewing in the world around me. These might include, but are not limited to: books, magazines, movies, internet articles, television shows, trips to museums, etc.
Each post should be at least 200 words. Each weekly post is due by 8am on that Wednesday. Therefore, Q1 due dates are: 9/17, 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, 10/15, 10/22, and 10/29. That makes for a total of 7 posts this first quarter. I understand that blogs are worth 100 points per quarter and are graded holistically ( I will receive this rubric from Mrs. B. soon). I also understand that blogging is a significant component of my quarter grade. By the way, what I have just typed is only 196 words! Now it is 200!