New fish.

   We had two students graduate from TLS on Friday. Geoff and Chris started in January last year and attended school throughout the summer. They were both in wooden boat building, so they built a single boat between the two of them. The school got out early on Friday to watch the graduation. It was neat. The student's professor gave a short speech, announced the name of the boat (which I didn't hear, oops), read a poem, and talked about the student's quirks. Chris's mom got to smash the champagne bottle over the boat to christen it while a cannon was fired. I took a few pictures, but there was a photographer there that will post the pictures to social media. I'll try to remember to post them to my blog so you can have a better idea of what the ceremony was like. It was pretty special and makes me excited for my graduation.

   I have been wanting to find a nice trail/path to walk on. It is getting colder every day and I still haven't found a trail. It was nice on Wednesday so I decided it was a perfect day to finally find a walking path.

It didn't work.

   I did research online and narrowed it down to The Eastern Trail as being the best option. It is a 65 mile long trail. I couldn't find anywhere online about where to drive to and park to get on the trail. Sooo I had to guess. I found a road on Google Maps that had a dead end right at the Eastern Trail.

   I assumed that that meant the end of that road had a parking lot and a nice entrance to the trail.

Nope.

   I found Emmons Rd, also known as Abandoned Railroad, and kept driving until I got to the end. I should have turned around when the pavement turned to gravel. That wasn't a good sign. But I kept going. The nice wide road turned to gravel and continued to get more and more narrow until only a single car could fit on the road. I even had to cross one of those sketchy bridges that have basically two planks of wood for each tire. I kept going until the road got too narrow to drive on and turned to dirt. The road literally just turned into a walking trail. But it wasn't the Eastern Trail. It was an access trail. But there also wasn't anywhere to park/leave my car. So I couldn't find where that trail leaded... I didn't want to find out where it lead because I was too creeped out, anyway.

   So I gave up. It was going to get dark soon anyway because sunset is SO EARLY now. I think it is going to snow one of these days. Maybe I'll find a trail in the spring?

   The following is a picture of a homework assignment I recently finished. It wasn't a difficult assignment, but I am just showing the image because it helps me draw a picture of how much stuff we learn in a short amount of time. I hadn't learned about propellers, propeller shafts, couplings, or struts ever before this one class period. In the time of a two-hour class, we crammed in enough new information for us to be able to do this assignment. We learned things from what shaft horsepower means, to reduction ratios, to the material properties of Aquamet 17 and 22, to the difference between flexible and rigid engine mountings and how that affects strut and barrel length, to taper ratios of a strut, and the list goes on. It isn't difficult stuff, but just a LOT to learn in two hours. I'm still surprised I am able to keep up with all of it. It is stuff that I won't be allowed to forget, though, because now we will be expected to include these calculations on all of our yacht designs from now on.

   Alright, time for the bad news. Fish are dead. 

   Before I get into that, I want to tell you about this COOL app that I got on my phone. It's called Flixel. You film a 10 second video. The video also captures a single image. So you end up with a photograph. You use your finger on the touchscreen to highlight what parts of the photograph you want to move. Kind of hard to explain, but here is one that I did. I don't know how to upload the video to make it HD like I see it on my phone. Also, I don't think clicking on the video works well. Idk. 

   See how it is a photograph of my (deceased) fish, Yellow? But then I highlighted the flowing water to make that part move. It's pretty cool.

Check this one out. Maybe I'll try to do that with my new fish. 

http://flixel.com/flixel/zyud67ezod1jxdbq2avx/

   Okay... So... After creating that Flixel with Yellow, I started eating lunch. As I was eating, I noticed the filter wasn't running water as quickly as it usually does. Know why? Because it was clogged with three fish, thats why. I didn't realize that while I was filming Yellow, all three other fish were dead! Ugh. 

   Yellow ended up dying that night. But Mrs. Black is still kickin'!

   I went to buy new fish today. I chose to get goldfish because they are much tougher than GloFish. There were, like, 20 different types of goldfish to choose from. And the guy helping me was the same guy who sold me the GloFish two weeks ago. We were laughing together at their short life. He was telling me about the different goldfish and then said that these little guys are actually just used for food for the bigger fish, but they do sell them for 15 cents if people want them. He then proceeded to go Discovery Channel on me and demonstrate the feeding. He scooped up a little goldfish and put it in a different tank and I watched it get eaten alive. The goldfish is circled in red. It doesn't have any fins left in this picture:

   So I decided that I need to save a few of these fish from getting eaten. I rescued three. They're about the same length as my last fish but skinnier. They were swimming/exploring their new home really fast so it was basically impossible to take a picture of them without it being blurry. This is the pathetic result. I gave up trying to take a picture after about 15 minutes. They wouldn't hold still. But here it is. They are circled in black. 

   This picture worked, but only one of the fish are in it. This globe tank magnifies everything so they do look much bigger in the tank than they actually are. This guy is also the largest of the three. 

   It is too soon to know if these are cool fish or not. I don't know if they'll be more visible or if they will hide all the time like the other fish. They are still exploring their tank and haven't settled in yet. Mrs. Black seems to like them okay. She came out to welcome them and was swimming laps around the tank with them.
   I don't have names for them. They don't have different colors so I'm pretty lost. I am going to wait a week or two to see if they live and maybe a name will grow on me. I am open to suggestions. Here's to the fish making it through the night!

And now I need to go to sleep. I didn't have school today because of Veteran's Day, so it will be nice to have a short week of class.

Goodnight.