www.BrettDaniel.com

Happy Easter!

I can't believe I forgot to mention it, but IT'S FINALLY SPRING BREAK!!! That means ONLY TWO MORE MONTHS UNTIL GRADUATION!!! Sorry to YELL, but these two events make me very, very happy.

At the school board meeting last Monday, I met a reporter who was doing a story about Michael and me becoming the National Merit Scholarship finalists. That meeting led another reporter to call me to schedule an interview for a story about me and specifically my experiences with cancer. I met her after school today, and we had a surprisingly enjoyable talk about everything I went through and everything I did during my two cancer diagnoses. Her story should be in the paper on Monday. I'm looking forward to seeing what she writes about me. As an interesting side note, she knew Jeremy, the rest of Big Sur, and Charlie's band Iris from what I assume was a story she wrote about high school bands. I'll have to ask Jeremy about it next time I see him.

I had an unusually fun weekday today. Brian was in town visiting colleges, so we hung out for the afternoon. For some reason, Brian was entirely too enamored with my digital camera, so after playing with it for a while, one thing led to another and this resulted. Your guess is as good as mine. After we finished that nonsense, we met a couple friends at a restaraunt and happily drove away other customers.

And on an entirely unrelated note, here's the best picture ever taken of Brian:

Horray for snow days!!! Too bad we have to make them up at the end of the year. Oh well... Carpe diem, I suppose.

Earlier tonight, the school board honored my friend Michael and me for being the only two National Merit Scholarship finalists in the school. It was definitely an honor to be recognized. The only detractions from the evening were that they misspelled my name on the certificate and I got to the meeting half an hour late due to a mistake on the invitation. D'oh!

If you're looking for a very funny movie, I suggest seeing Ice Age. Yes, the story gets a little sappy at times, but the humor more than makes up for it. In any case, it's a good movie to take someone like... I don't know... your prom date to. And if you happen to eat lunch with that person, it would make for quite a good afternoon. Yup, it sure would...

I would have to say that today's activities were just about as fun as last Saturday's contest. For those of you who don't know, last Saturday I got second place in the music category of a statewide high school art contest. The other winners and I began the day with a reception at a club on the top floor of the second highest skyscraper in the city. After an absolutely great lunch and a few speeches, we proceeded on to the actual awards. Interestingly enough, the organizers of the contest I was in also give out a statewide high school sportsmanship award, so we recognized those twenty or so recipients during their half of the ceremony. Our half consisted of announcements of the third place, second place (including me), and first place winners in all the categories. Each of us went up when our name was called, shook some hands, smiled for the camera, and picked up our prize checks. Great fun, especially the part with the check.

The second cool part of the evening began a few hours later at the state high school boys' basketball championships, which, like the sportsmanship award, is sponsored by the same people as my award. All the other winners and I got to go center court in front of a couple thousand spectators. That was very, very cool.

Here are some pictures:

• The reception
• The first, third, and second place (that's me!) winners in the music category
• The view from the skyscraper
• Another view from the skyscraper
• Me getting my award
• The basketball court
• The first, second, and third place winners in all the categories

Tomorrow I should be getting the prize money from the music contest, so I'll soon be in the market for some new music equipment. Time to do some research.

This evening I went shopping for a suit to wear to the prom in a few weeks. No wimpy tuxedo rental for this little black duck. I'll post a picture of the suit sooner or later. It looks great.

I finally re-downloaded AOL Instant Messenger after I lost it in a debilitating linux-induced computer failure over Christmas break. I shudder to think of it. Anyway, if you ever want to chat, just drop me a line. My screen name is typingwithmyface.

Today was a good day made better by the fact that I HAVE A DATE FOR PROM!!! The past few weeks I've had a terrible time thinking of someone I could ask; everyone I though of was already spoken for... or so I thought. I found out last night that a girl named Katie, who I thought would go with a guy named Tony, hence why I didn't ask her sooner, was in fact not going with Tony (or anyone else for that matter). Armed with this new information, I went into speech class today and asked Katie if she would go with me to prom. She said yes. Rockin'

As I was rummaging around on my desk yesterday, I came across my (as yet unsent) selective services registration card. Yes, months after my 18th birthday, I find a mailing that I was supposed to have already sent out. My point in posting about this particular example of absentmindedness is to ask the following question: If They knew 1) who I was, 2) that I was turning eighteen, and 3) where I lived, why did I have to fill out and send Them a card with my name, birthday, and address? It makes no sense. In any case, if I suddenly stop posting in six to ten business days, you'll know the government has gotten me for my tardiness.

Is there anything Photoshop can't do? I just used it to repaint a house. At my parents' request, I took a picture of the house with my digital camera, cut it up in Photoshop, layered the basic grayscale tones, then colored all the parts in different ways. I did all this because my parents are thinking about repainting the house this summer and they needed help deciding on colors. I envision them showing the picture painters and telling them, "Do this."

WhooHoo! Today I played at the finals for the contest I mentioned and walked away with second place!!! First place went to a jazz quintet (or sextet, I'm not entirely sure) who, all competition aside, played amazingly. Even though I didn't get first, I'm very, very happy that I placed this year. Oh, and that cash prize I mentioned... yours truly is $1,500 dollars richer today. Not only that, but I get to go to a very high class "winners banquet" at the best restaraunt in town... and not only that, the local NBC affiliate is going to play my entry, along with the other winners' entries, on April 16 at 8:00 p.m. and again on April 21 at noon. Those of you who live near me, mark your calendars.

Wow. What a great day.