Band of Brothers

I just read a book called Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. It is an action packed World War II book that follows one company's journey from the jump in Normandy through their final major offensive at Hitler's Eagle Nest.
Easy Company is a group of civilians who volunteer themselves into the USA's newly formed Parachute Infantry Regiment. They made it into Europe and proved themselves to be one of the best army companies throughout World War II. They won battle after battle and they received multitudes of awards for their brave services. This group was formed in 1942 and disbanded by 1945, and yet this group of civilians were always one step ahead of Hitler's elite army.
It is easy to forget those that fought wars for our country in order to keep us safe. But it is because of them, America is still free. We must always remember those brave souls.

My Toothbrush Robot

Last week i was bored so i decided to make a toothbrush robot. It cost me less than 5 dollars and it was a fun project.
Materials:
1. head of a toothbrush
2. small vibrating motor
3. button cell battery
4. tape

Procedure:
1. Take the head of the toothbrush and put tape on the non-bristled side.
2. Attach the battery to one end and the motor to the other end.
3. Make sure one of the wires is touching the positive side of the battery and the other wire should touch the negative side of the battery.

Now watch your toothbrush robot roam the space.

San Francisco

Yesterday i went to San Francisco with my parents. It was a lot of fun. We went there by Bart and got of on Embarcadaro. We went to Pier 39 where we saw the sea lions and took a cruise around the bay. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and many large ships from China. We then walked our way to Ghiradelli (is that how you spell it?) Square where we bought some chocolate. we then went to the the bart station and came back home.

Discovery of India

These past few days I've been tying to read a book called Discovery of India written by Nehru. It seemed like an interesting book because it had lots of history and history is my favorite subject. I started reading and found out it had a lot of philosophy. That made kind of hard for me to understand, so I quit reading that and started Freedom at Midnight. Now that is a cool book.

Angels and Demons Haiku

When I was reading about the four Elemental Churches in Angels and Demons I came up with a haiku.

Elements they are
The Path of Science they show
Earth, Air, Fire, Water

In Angels and Demons the four Elemental Churches show the path to the secret Church of the Illumaneti. The Illumaneti were a secret cult that worshipped science and were persecuted by the Clergy. I called the path the Path of Science because it showed the way to the Church of the Illumaneti or the Church of Science.

Ambigrams

After reading the book Angels and Demons I was intrigued about the words branded on the four cardinals and the chamberlain. Those brands were fictional but were based on the real topic of ambigrams. Ambigrams are words that can be read right side up or upside down. Since it was so cool I searched on the internet and found one for myself. Here you can see how I redrew it.

The Crab Nebula

I was playing around with Google Earth this morning and I saw this awesome video of the Crab Supernova exploding. It Became the Crab Nebula. You will recognize it from the photo on the top.

Apollo 11

Hey people! Did you know yesterday was Apollo 11 40th year anniversary of landing on the moon? It was an amazing moment for mankind. Neil Armstrong was right when he said "A small step for man, a huge leap for mankind". There is still some talk about the whole landing being a hoax by NASA and the United States. There are key points of evidence such as, why was the American flag blowing in the picture if there is no wind on the moon. You can see two photos in the animation on the right. One shows Buzz Aldrin with his hand behind his head and a few seconds later they took another picture of Aldrin looking at the camera this time. But the flag looks the same! How is this possible? Other evidence such as no blast crater under the spacecraft makes people wonder if it was a hoax or a reality. Which one do you believe?

Youth Camp 2009

Last week I was at Chinmaya Youth Camp. It was a fun invigorating experience. Youth Camps usually takes place in northern California in a place called Piercy. This year's theme was about Lord Shiva and the philosophy behind Hinduism.
A typical day there went like this:
1. We woke up at 5:30 to take showers.
2. At 6:45 we had yoga with meditation right after.
3. After meditation we went on a chilly early morning walk.
4. Next was breakfast.
5. Soon after at 9 am we went to assembly and chanting.
6 Then we went to classes.
7. We had art class just before lunch.
8. After that we had sports and recreation which usually meant going to the Eel River for a swim.
9. Then snacks at 4 pm and Bhajans at around 4.30 pm.
10. After Bhajans, we had Arti for the lord and some really fun outdoor games.
11. At 7.30 pm we had dinner
12. And a final games session inside Shruti Mandir before we retired to our cabins.

These were normal activities but I did have other fun activities which I am not posting here ;)

This was my 3rd year at Youth Camp (Krishna and Ganesha were the themes for the earlier ones). On the final day, we had a presentation which included bhajans, and some plays. Ours was a "dancical" on Basmasura and Lord Shiva/Parvati wedding which was so hilarious. I had a solo in it too!!


I had good fun and will go back again next year :)

Nintendo DSi

Hey to the very few people that follow my blog (again).I just got a new nintendo dsi. It is so cool. It has two cameras and so many new features, it sends the DSlite to rock bottom. In fact im writing this blog from my DSi. HaHa!

Washington D.C. P2P trip June 2009

Hi to the very few people that follow my blog. Last week I went to the nations capital. It was amazing to be there and see all of the historic sites. I went there with a group called People to People. It was a very fun learning experience.

On June 22, I left on a United Airlines airplane to Washington Dulles Airport. The plane ride was uneventful, but fun because I was travelling with my three friends. We reached the airport at about 4:30 p.m. Two P2P people picked us up and took us to the hotel on a bus. We reached the hotel at about 6:00 and put our bags in the room. It was an awesome room because the hotel was Hyatt. We then had dinner and listened to the guest speaker Kenneth Walsh. He has been the Chief White House correspondent since 1986. The day had been stressful, so me and my two roommates (Nikhil and Cameron) retired early, about 11:00 pm.

On June 23, we went to a whole bunch of places. We first went to the Library of Congress. We saw the many artifacts they had there. Next we saw the Capitol Building. Unfortunately we didn't have time to tour it. Finally we went to the Supreme Court. There we had a tour. After that we were so hungry we could eat a horse. So we ate sandwiches at Union Station. We then went to the Holocaust Museum where that sad shooting took place. After that we spent some time in the Newseum or the Museum of Journalism and Interactive Arts. There we watched an amazing 4-d movie and we explored the exhibits. We finally went to the FDR memorial. It was an amazing display of water, rocks and other landscaping elements. At the end of the day we went to Ethiopia! or the Ethiopian embassy. We had an awesome dinner and we listened to the Ethiopian ambassador. We returned to the hotel and crashed into the bed after a hard day of walking.

On June 24 we woke up early and went to the U.S. Capitol building for a tour. It was breathtaking to see the statues and the murals. After that we had lunch at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. This was probably the best stop in the whole trip. There were so many exhibits and wondrous recreations of space rockets and airplanes. We then went to the sad Arlington Cemetery. At the end of the day we went to a steakhouse for dinner. When we reached the hotel we just went straight to bed.

On June 25 we went to Gettysburg National Park. It was a long two hour ride on the bus. We learned about the civil war and saw the many memorials that were around the park.We had lunch at the Dobin's House in Gettysburg. It is the oldest house in Gettysburg. We also did some shopping here where I got a replica of the canon. We then went to the Eisenhower Farm to learn about President Eisenhower and his family. Dinner was at General Pickett's, a fancy restaurant, and went on the long journey back to the hotel.

On June 26, we woke up early to go to the Spy Museum. It was an interesting place where we learned about spies and the history of espionage. We then saw the WWII memorial,Korean war memorial, and the Vietnam memorial. We went to lunch at the Ronald Reagan building. After that we went to the National Museum of Natural History. We ended our day at the Jefferson Memorial and dinner.

Early on June 27 we left for the airport. We boarded the plane anxious ( cough, cough) to see our parents. The plane was uneventful and we finally reached at 11:00. Home Sweet Home.

Boy and Going Solo

Boy is a really good book by Roald Dahl. It is an autobiography. It is so well written it doesn't seem like one. It is more like a fiction story. It is about Roald Dahl's childhood in Norway, Wales, and England. The sequel to this book is call Going Solo. This is also an autobiography. It is about His life in East Africa and his time flying in the RAF.

Space

Space is really cool. My dream in life is to visit space at least once. It is just amazing to see the stars and moon at night. I also like the amazing pictures that NASA has on their website. Here is the link if you want to see them.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

A Greener World

I think the world is being poluted too much. People should plant more trees. People should also start walking or biking short distances. They should also take public transportation to work. If that is to hard, you can try to carpool to work.