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For the next week, I have absolutely no work and nothing but graduation parties. Tonight I kicked off my open house-hopping with Heather's, Trevor's, and Renee's graduation parties. Each was very enjoyable with friends to talk to and food to eat. Here's to a week full of parties and relaxation.

What a great toga party last night. Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I think I'll let the following do the talking for this party (thanks to Allon for some of the pics):

• The lake behind the party
• Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga!
• The bonfire
• Ben M. and Charlie Jamming
• Charlie singing
• Ben K. playing his dobro
• Mark and I
• Papa Smurf and the Puddins

That's right, I am no longer a high school student. Last night's graduation was awesome; Charlie's subsequent gettogether even more so. Sleep came quickly once I got home. I woke to say goodbye to my visiting family and stayed awake to go to the pizza party and diploma pickup at school. Now, after a welcome nap, I have been getting ready to play a concert for Charlie's graduation toga party. This should be interesting...

Ah, the graduation fun continues. We began the day with the senior nominations (best eyes, most likely to succeed, etc.) and the senior video, which recaped the entire year. From there we listened to a few speeches, honored the top 10 percent of the class, and then bussed out to the amphitheater for the absolutely delicious senior breakfast and the excruciatingly long graduation rehearsal. The actual ceremony this evening will make all the waiting and hard work worthwhile.

What a wonderful day. I got to sleep in for about an hour this morning before heading out to the senior picnic. I didn't quite know what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised with how the day turned out. In an uncharaceristic change, the school administrators pretty much let us do what we wanted at the park. Some people played basketball or football, others walked the trails, while Mark, Jeremy, a handful of other musicians, and I played guitar for a good portion of the day. After about four hours of this and a quick cold cut sandwich lunch, we headed back to the school where we were free to head home an hour early.

Now the highlight of the day occured this evening. With the graduation ceremony tomorrow, my parents had me open their graduation present.

I got a beautiful new 1Ghz, 256Mb RAM, Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with a wireless network card and a 17 inch screen!!!

Yes, it is absolutely amazing. I have a new toy to play with over the summer.

With graduation coming up this Wednesday, my mother's family decided to come visit for the week. As is the case with many Memorial Day gettogethers, we had a big cookout coupled with a small family graduation party.

I am the king of MIDI. Two nights ago, Charlie decided to throw an impromptu party in celebration of the seniors' last day of school. While I was there, I started talking to Charlie's dad about his MIDI equipment, which he has never gotten to work properly. My curiosity got the best of me, and I started playing around with the equipment seeing if I could maybe get it working. Not only did I succeed with the MIDI, but I also got his audio playback and recording to work. Excuse me while I take a bow.

My friend Fred was kind enough to email me some pictures of the rocket launches, specifically, the five foot monster I talked about. Its first and second launches were the most beautiful I had ever seen; it shot straight up, the chute opened, and it floated down not 20 feet from the launch pad. However the third launch of the day pictured here didn't go so well. As you can see from the first picture, the launch broke the launch pad, causing the rocket to fishtail and eventually take off at about a 45° angle over the neigboring farm field. On top of that, the chute didn't open and the landing completely destroyed the rocket (as illustrated in the second picture).

Some things to notice in the pictures: the broken (breaking) launchpad, the crooked trajectory, and the dirt-encrusted nosecone from the landing in the field. Click on the pictures for a larger view.

Deep breath... I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!!! YAHOO!!! All I have left to do now is go to the senior picnic on Tuesday and the graduation ceremony next Wednesday.

As part of their Summer O' Home Improvement, my parents are now having the house reroofed. This means I have had bangs, thuds, and crashes over my head all afternoon. Fun.

Anyone remember the Charity CD? (Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) Today Brandon C., Brandon E., and myself went to the wish fund's office to get our picture taken for the fund's newsletter and to decide how we want them to spend the money we raised. Incidentally, I also got to meet the lady who got me my Paul Reed Smith guitar back when I had cancer. After explaining the process we went through to record the CD, the three of us decided to help sponsor a kid's wish for a high-tech video camera. We felt he was the best choice because he is about our age and a fellow creator.

I feared for my life in engineering today. The class went out for the annual launching of the insanely large rockets. The largest rocket (more like surface to air missile) was two and half inches in diameter, seven feet long, and used a "G" engine. To give an impression of how insanely powerful that is, according to this page, a "G" engine could lift a small dog. These engines don't hiss like smaller model rocket engines; they roar. Of course when you give high school seniors this kind of firepower, something is bound to go wrong. The seven foot rocket didn't deploy its parachute and traced a perfect parabola into a neigboring cornfield. The foot-long nose cone buried itself in the mud, and the entire rocket body collapsed on impact. It was beautiful. Tomorrow, another classmate is going to launch his four and a half inch diameter, five foot tall rocket. Let's hope it does better than the seven footer.

And so yet another fun weekend comes to a close. Yesterday I was far too industrious for a Saturday; I mailed all my graduation announcements, changed a burnt out headlight on my car, played a whole lot of music, and bought some really cool metal flake paint for the rocket I'm building in my engineering class.

Today was less productive, but not at all boring. The highlight (more like the onlylight) would have to be Michael's concert/graduation party. The concert half of the celebration took place at Michael's church, a very cool rustic-looking building hidden back in the woods. Unlike some of the other concerts I've mentioned, this was a true chamber orchestra playing classical music. The talent exhibited in that church sanctuary left me amazed. I always find it enjoyable to listen to talented musicians in their element.

As an interesting side note, it didn't occur to me as I was leaving for the concert this afternoon that 1) it was at church and 2) that almost everyone would be dressed up. Of course I walked in wearing my black hooded sweatshirt and baseball cap. Oh well. I'm sure no one really cared, as they could probably guess I was a friend of one of the musicians.

After the concert, I headed over to Michael's house for the actual graduation party, the first of probably another dozen in the next couple weeks. I don't know that I'll ever get over seeing Allan and Michal playing Dance Dance Revolution. Notice Michael's tuxedo.

Well that was a bust. I went out this evening expecting to see an always entertaining Big Sur concert, but when I got to the club, I found they hadn't shown up yet. Thinking they were still at a band memeber's house loading up equipment for the show, I drove around a bit trying to find them. Unfortunately I couldn't call anyone to ask where the band was, as my cell phone seems to have run away taking all my stored numbers with it. Anyway, I decided to return to the club to wait for the band. I found out then that the club charged $10 admission. Not wanting to pay an exorbitant fee just to play pool and listen to bad canned music— especially when Big Sur might not even show up due to Jeremy's persistent cold— I decided to head home. The remainder of the evening wasn't a total loss; I decided to finish up my setlist for an upcoming concert. More on that later.

Ahhh... School is finally winding down. Today I gave my very last speech of the year and tomorrow I have my Physics final and the last real lab in Photojournalism. Among these joyous occasions, I have also found the first downside to graduation: adressing my graduation announcements.