Rain Delay

Precipitation. Noah Webster and his pal George Merriam define it as " a deposit on the earth of hail, mist, rain, sleet, or snow." In the Great Dictionary of Ted Kuligowski, however, it is defined as "stuff that falls from the sky that makes people lazy and not wanna do anything." The dictionary has yet to be published, but it gets the job done. Regardless of what it means, it's a dull rainy day today. Based on my information from other states, it seems that this storm is pretty darn big. From Cedar Point to Scranton, it's been raining for a while. I'm looking forward to some eat-a-lot-and-watch-too-many-movies days.

Every year, my pool has a campout around this time of year. It's always a lot of fun; people bring tents, set them up around the grounds, and sleep over. They keep the pool open until 11, a lot of people are there, and it's a big social event. And I'm so glad I didn't sign up for it this year. Why? Because this year, it's a perfect storm for sucky campouts. Because of the insane heat over the last two weeks, all the grass died, leaving only dry dirt around the pool. Now, because of this oncoming rain, it's all going to be mud. Not ideal conditions to camp in. Oh, well.

Reflection

Whoops... yeah... I haven't checked this in a LONG time. Sorry about that. Not that anyone cares. It's an online method of boredom-reduction. It's mainly for me to write, because I like to and I don't that often.

Tonight's one of those late summer nights where everyone gets nostalgic. It's not so much "Boo-hoo, life sucks now that [insert name of previous friend here] is gone" as it's reflecting on the good memories from years past. When we played football and capture the flag in the neighborhood, before everyone had jobs and everyone was home over the summer, and before everyone took the whole "being a teenager" thing too far. I'm never really one to judge anyone, but I just wish people would think before they did something completely idiotic. There are a lot of people who got really screwed up (some more than others) in only about three years. It's sort of disappointing, really. Everything would be a lot easier if we were back in 5th grade, where grades didn't matter, girls were gross, and the biggest disappointment was when someone took apart the big Lego tower during indoor recess. I don't mind the fact that I'm in high school now, I just wish some things were less complicated, and I'm sure most people would agree with me.

DIVING!!!

Yes, it's that time of year again. The last few weeks before school lets out; the weather is warm, spring activities are ending, and DIVE SEASON STARTS. Tomorrow at 4:15 PM, I'll be at the pool with some of the coolest people you'll ever meet to start a 2-month period of practicing every morning and then competing Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Diving is one of the most unique sports out there for a ton of reasons. It's falling with style and grace, it takes more conditioning than most other sports, and the people who do it are really awesome. Plus, how many friends can you name who dive? Exactly. That's why, even though I have to wake up early almost every day during the summer, I don't complain; I look forward to it.

Hey, if you're looking for a great summer book, check out Improbable by Adam Fawer. I read it two years ago, and it is still the best book I've ever read.

Improbable is a 2005 science fiction thriller novel by Adam Fawer. It is the story of a gifted young man named David Caine, who has been troubled by debilitating epileptic seizures to the extent that his medical condition has thrown his life completely off track. He frequently gambles, and goes in debt to the local mafia.
During the course of the book, Caine undergoes an experimental medical treatment in an attempt to set his life straight. After the procedure, however, he discovers that he is able to make predictions using his enhanced calculative skills, and change the future based on his discoveries.

Plus, the cover art is pretty neat. It has a 3-D lenticular image on it which shifts based on your viewing angle. Funny thing is, that's what drew me to the book. I had never heard of it before; I just was in the library and I saw a shiny cover on the shelf so I took it, looked at the summary on the back, and I read it. 

Countdown to summer : 17 days

FlashForward and Lacrosse

Like many other TV shows, the final episode of FlashForward aired Thursday; however, while shows like Lost, 24, and Law and Order, FlashForward was only on for one season. I followed the show closely since the first episode back in September and got really into it, so it goes without saying that when ABC announced that it would not be bringing the show back for a second season, I was pretty upset. I feel like the overall plot was very well-written, the casting was great, and it could have been incredibly successful if it had more of a following. Based on the finale, it's pretty clear that the producers will probably try to get it picked up by another station for another season, maybe TNT or another cable channel. I hope it does. It was one of the few shows I've seen which actually made me think in order to understand everything.

This weekend is the NCAA men's lacrosse Final Four at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Notre Dame is playing Cornell now, and Virginia plays Duke after that. Last night there were a lot of night-before festivities at the Inner Harbor as the teams arrived. I love how Maryland and Virginia are often considered to be the heart of lacrosse in America, because all the big events for the sport are local. If Virginia wins today, my dad and I are going to try and get tickets to the final on Memorial Day.

"My School's a Palindrome. What's Yours?"

So I'm here at Glenelg High School, Maryland's favorite- and probably only- palindrome. Why am I at such a uniquely-spelled place? For a Cappies-esque event for Howard County schools. It's an all-day thing. Sort of. We have to be here at 2, but it starts at 7. Yippee.

I had a baseball game this morning at 8 in Sykesville. We won 8-1. Not too bad.

TWO SUNS, TOO EASY: A credible consideration raised by David Jefferson and Ted Kuligowski

I have nothing to write about, seeing as it is 9:30 at night, I'm tired, and I just spent the past few hours writing. Sort of. Our assignment was to write a satirical argument about a problem in the world (reflecting A Modest Proposal). If you're interested, you can read it here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWjFUO4vdop4ZGZ3ZjZmd3dfOGhta3dzNGQ4&hl=en

One Love

As you may know from reading my earlier post, I got a new phone a few weeks ago. Nice phone. I love it. Yesterday, the Android 2.1 update became available, and, of course, I downloaded it. It's a great update- nearly everything was changed for the better- but there was one problem: all my contacts got deleted. Luckily for me, user-friendliness is high up on the priority list of the makers of the Droid phones. All my contacts were backed up on my Gmail account, and were easily sent back into my phone in a matter of 5 minutes.

Guess who has a math test tomorrow? That's right. Me. And I'm ready. Hell yeah, here we go.

Both the Virginia men's and women's lacrosse teams won their first-round playoff games this weekend, their emotional first games since Yeardley Love, a senior on the women's team, was found murdered by her ex-boyfriend, also a lacrosse player, George Huguely two weeks ago. It's sad how, much like the Duke lacrosse case in 2006, the team, the players, and especially the sport are wrongly yet easily targeted by the media. Especially following UVA player Will Barrow's suicide last November, this kind of publicity isn't incredible for the healing and rebuilding process necessary for the team, the school, and the community as a whole. In Love's honor, the entire team wore a patch on their jerseys which had her initials and her number, 1.  And on the back of the men's blue warm-up jerseys prior to their game on Saturday, in bright orange text, the words "One Love." Love's roommate scored three goals in an incredible performance on Sunday afternoon.

Boredom? Spontaneity? You Decide.

REEL BIG FISH

It's a band. Good band. Listen to them if you haven't before.

I'm sitting here with two notebooks on either side of the computer, a textbook to my right, and an empty Capri Sun thing to my left. Behind me is a window to the sunny, 70-degree spring weather that I'm missing out on. I try to ignore that part.

Today was an easy day, but it's seemed pretty long for some reason. I got up at around 10, drove to the mall to get some shorts, went to Chicken Out for lunch, then went to baseball practice. Still, it seems like it's really late. At least later than 4:52. I'm hoping to go outside at least once before it gets too dark and then get to bed relatively early tonight.

Hmm... Usually I attach a picture that relates to the posts to the end of these things; however, this was a completely random post, with absolutely no central theme. Therefore, I'll include this:

Cops and Robbers!

Just got in from playing cops and robbers with the neighborhood kids. If you've played it, you know how great it can be. If you haven't, you have been robbed (no pun intended) of a childhood, my friend. We've played it here in Terra Maria since I moved here in 2001 (the "originals" are in college now), and it's been more or less of a tradition every year. The bases have moved from porch to porch as people grow up and leave, but the game has yet to change: Robbers start at the porch of a house on the west side of the cul-de-sac, go out across the street, cops give them 30 seconds and then go out and chase them. Robbers try to get back to the porch without getting tagged; if they get half of their team in safely, they go back out. If not, the teams are reversed and the new robbers head out into the woods. The routes have been used and reused hundreds of times each, but the excitement of the game never goes away, and I think that's what makes it so great.

Ew. Tomorrow's Sunday. That means that the next day is Monday. You know what's no fun about Mondays? School. Oh well. We get out the 27th of June, I believe. It's not too much longer.

Welcome to (Virtual) Paradise

Today's May 14th. In twenty-five days, Green Day Rock Band comes out. It would be an understatement to say that I can't freaking wait. Problem is, it's only going to be released game-only; that is to say, it won't come with all the instruments as past games have. I'll either try to find a cheap set on eBay, or find a friend who'll be willing to sell me theirs cheap.

So my baseball game got rained out today. It was against the undefeated first-place team in the league, and we were all excited. Beautiful spring day at the start, but then it just started to pour. We were tied, 2-2, at the start of the third inning. I hope we make it up soon. It's sure to be a great game.

I went to Soft Stuff today with some of my best friends from middle school. Since they go to a different school now, we try to get together as much as possible just to stay up-to-date. Half the time, we don't get around to it, but our failures at least let us stay in touch. And when we do get together, it's great.

Random Fact: It's illegal for a monster to enter the corporate limits of Urbana, Illinois.

Woah, It's the 13th Already?

Wow. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been like crazy busy lately. But not to worry. I am still alive and well, even if your blog-post-reliant souls are not.

Well, what's going on in the wondrous life of Ted at the moment? I have an A in math (I know, right?), the Orioles are starting to at least win a few games, I have my permit, and I'm sixteen years old. Seems like a century since I posted last now, doesn't it? Or, at least, ten days. I have a lot of songs by Fun. stuck in my head at the moment, so I'm in more or less of an upbeat mood. And that's always good.

Music I currently like:
Fun.
Allison Weiss
Green Day
Driver F (Thanks Richard)
The Fratellis
Taylor Swift (Don't you dare judge)
State Radio

Music I don't currently like:
Stuff that's overplayed on the radio

DICKE LEUTE AUF ROLLERS

For those of you who don't know German, that means "fat people on scooters." When did I learn this? Spanish class.

In other news, I'm wearing socks.

Droid Does.

Hello people with eyes, and happy May third. It is currently pouring rain outside as I am getting ready for school, but that's okay. Why? Because my birthday is tomorrow AND I got a new phone yesterday. A Droid Eris. It's super nice. I'ce been playing around with it since I got it; in fact, I'm posting this from my phone. Let's hope it works :)

Kiss My Math

It's a perfectly nice day outside today; sunny, clear, and warm. I, however, am inside studying for math. Why? Because I have a big math test tomorrow. Chapter Six. Vectors and junk. They're pretty much rays with an identity crisis. My teacher even said, "They're like rays, only not." Real clear. Or einfach, as they say in Deutschland. One of the few German words I know. Anyways, I'm working on section 3 of 6 right now. I'm waiting for some friends to come over to work on this stuff, because as of now, saying that we have a vague understanding of it would be very generous.

Oh look, the sun just got brighter. Thanks, Mother Nature. I'm free yesterday, but you make it pour.

Spring Broken

Today is Sunday. April eleventh. Two-thousand ten. Which can only mean one thing: the last day of spring break. A day of mourning from kids all over the county. A day where "Crap! I have math homework?!?!?" can be heard from Centennial to Oakland Mills. A day when procrastination is more popular than Nickleback. Wait... bad analogy. It's more popular than the Killers. Much better. Bottom line is, today is a bad day for students all over.

On a brighter note, it's 66° out, sunny, and just beautiful. Great motivation to get that homework done early, right?

...not really. Hopefully I'll be able to get outside at least once today before it gets dark, though. After spending a week in southern Florida where it was 80° almost every day, I started to miss this Maryland spring weather.

While I was in Florida, though, I went to Tampa for two days. We saw that the Orioles were playing the Rays for their opening series, so we went to Tropicana Field to see Thursday night's game (the only game Baltimore has won this year). Tampa and St. Petersburg are some of the strangest places I've been to in a while. In my hotel, they were playing "Here Comes Santa Clause." In April. In Florida. On the way to St. Pete for the baseball game, we stopped at a gas station. Inside, they sold tasers. Okay, so they weren't the huge Taser-brand military-use machines, but they were personal electrocution defense weapons, and that's close enough for me. When we got to the stadium, I was excited because I had never been to an indoor baseball stadium before. We got our tickets, walked in, and all of a sudden, I was thrown back to when I was 6 years old. The entire place looked like a glorified Chuck E. Cheese. I understand they might be trying to be kid-friendly, but when you have flashing lights, game booths, and comic-book drawings of the players as superheroes every ten feet, it gets to be a little much. To add to the matter, Chick-fil-A was giving out cowbells as a promotion that night. There were 16,000 people in a dome raising Hell with Columbia blue cowbells. "More Cowbell!!!" the scoreboard constantly read, taking the quote from the famous SNL skit with Christopher Walken. Please, no more cowbell.

WARNING: BIEBER

I got home from Florida this evening. I'm sore from the car ride. I was looking forward to SNL tonight, until I remembered... tonight's Bieber night. Ugh. Justin Bieber. Why is he so successful? He's like 5. In one of his songs, he sings, "When I was thirteen, I had my first love." Hey, Justin, how about you save that song until you're actually thirteen? Luckily, Tina Fey is hosting. She's probably the only person on the planet Earth who can single-handedly  counter Justin Bieber.


I don't know why this in italics. My computer is making it do it, and there's no way I can fix it. So just deal with it. Thanks. 


Everyone has friend problems on occasion, and it's never fun. Losing a friend, especially those extremely close to you, is one of the worst feelings in the world. Still, no matter how hard it is, we all eventually move on, and it all works itself out in the end. "When a heart breaks, no it don't break even."


HA. Gotcha. That song is ridiculously overplayed. I wouldn't really put a line from it in this post. Rest easy, friends.

March Madness... In April

So yeah, I know I haven't written for a while. But you know what? I'm in Florida, it's sunny and about 70, and I don't care.

I always complain about not seeing movies. It's an exaggeration, of course, but when you look at classic movies that literally everyone has seen, I'm left out. "Hey Ted, don't you just love [big name movie title]?" "Well, [question-asker] I haven't exactly seen it." "WHAAAATTT??? YOU HAVE TO SEE IT!!!!" "Put it on the list, buddy."

Well anyways, it's Final Four weekend, and yet again, I'm at my grandparents' house in Naples sitting by the pool. Could it get any better? Doubt it. Butler just beat Michigan State in a low-scoring and extremely frustrating game. The Bulldogs pulled it out in the end, though, and that's all that matters. Now it's halftime of the Duke-West Virginia game. Even though I live in Maryland and have been brought up learning to hate Duke, West Virginia is even worse. And hey, they're they only ACC team left. Go Devils.

Hey guess what? I drove for the first time today. My grandpa asked when I got my permit. I replied, "In a couple weeks."

Wanna hear a joke? It's Friday!!! Okay, it's not a joke, but if I asked you "Wanna hear what day of the week it is?," I doubt you would have been as excited.

Ahh... field training. As I stated before, I work as an umpire for the local little league. Last night was field training, when we all go out to the field so the newbies can get some hands-on experience making calls and standing around. As a level 5 this year, I just have to be there to kind of "teach" the level 1's what to do. In the HCYP umpire system, the level 1's are the lowest of the low: pick up trash and equipment in the shed, sweep up dirt on the floor, and pretty much do all the dirty work. Good news this year! We're getting paid in cash! Better news: We get free snowballs! Not so good news: We still don't get free hamburgers. Even though they're the same freaking price, we still only get our hot dog and soda per game.

Hot Hot Heat. Favorite band at the moment.

You may notice that this post has no title. This is because last night I was up until midnight writing an English paper. I finished the paper in about 45 minutes, but then was up for about another half hour attempting to come up with a title (That, and the fact that I was distracted by the Xavier/Kansas St. basketball game). I finally got one, but I've used up all of my title creativity.

Spring!

If, while reading this post, you notice any similarities to John Quinn's latest post, which I just read, you can be assured that this has nothing to do with it.

It's 63° out, it's sunny, I'm sitting here watching spring training baseball, and everything about life right now yells "spring." I can't help but yell back. Spring is probably my favorite season of the year. Sun, warmth, colors, my birthday, and, best of all, baseball. The Major League season kicks off in eleven days, and you can bet I'm going to be in front of my TV watching. Now, you may argue, "Oh, but Ted, baseball is so slow and it's boring and it takes no skill at all and you have to wear tight pants to play." Well, try playing it. It's fast, intense, and takes more skill most people think. Hitting a baseball is one of the hardest jobs in all of sports. When you think about it, reacting to a small white ball with a circumference of 9 inches and then bringing a bat around to hit it back all in less than a second seems a lot more complicated. Also, one of my coaches in the past told me something that I'll probably never forget. Baseball is the best sport out there for one reason: It's the only sport where every player needs to be at the top of their game at all times, because you never know who it'll come down to in the clutch. In football, with a minute left and the score tied, what do you do? You hand the ball off or pass it to the best player on the team. In basketball, down 1 with 2 seconds left, you give the ball to Kobe or LeBron. You can't control who will come up to bat with a man on third and two outs in the ninth. And that, my friends, is what makes baseball great. That, and the fact that I make great money doing what I love by umpiring for HCYP.

Return of the Tedi

I'M BACK!!!!!!!

This is my first post-Oklahoma! blog post, and I was up late last night working on an English research paper, so please forgive any lack of literary expertise shown in this post.

The show was great! If you saw it, you either loved it or fell asleep because it was almost three hours long. If you didn't see it, I hate you forever and the only thing you can do to lessen that hatred is to tell all your friends to follow this blog.

You know what I realized today? In The Wizard of Oz, you know, when they're singing "We're Off to See the Wizard," most of the stuff they sing about is based off of generalizations and assumptions. They hadn't met the guy yet, and they're singing about how brilliant of a guy he is and how he's got more wizarding skills than Harry Potter on 'roids. When they finally get to the Emerald City and meet him, he's a huge disappointment. You don't see them singing about that on the way back, though.

Got the new Pokemon game the other day. SoulSilver. I beat the fourth gym in math today. Don't judge.

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