Fun at Mill Creek Sports Park

Most days of the week this winter a group of 10 to 12 students and two staff drive four miles north on Highway 527 to Mill Creek Sports Park. Most of those who go to the park play one or two games of soccer, and a few play in the skate bowl. One day I joined the park group and got to see some soccer action and skate park play, minus skates or boards.

The day I was at the park was cloudy and dark and I didn't get the best soccer pictures. Here are a couple of photos. I'll do another post soon with more soccer pictures from a different day.



Some of the 7-9 year old girls like playing in the skate park bowl. They use the bowl for climbing and sliding. On school days there are rarely skaters there, so they have the skate park to themselves.





They get a running start in the base of the bowl and clamber up the sides to the top. It's especially thrilling to watch these small girls fearlessly run up a nearly vertical wall twice their height, again and again. Then they slide down.

End of post.

Outdoor Scenes

Here are some photos of places on Clearwater school grounds taken at the beginning of the big freeze in mid-December 2009. I'll publish another post soon showing the impressive ice that built up during the depth of the deep freeze.

The rain garden/detention pond with frost around the edges.

The following series of photos were taken at two different times. All are of a striking snag (standing dead tree great for plant and animal habitat) in what I think of as the "Back 40", which is really the wooded and pasture area west of North Creek.

The snag with an impressive fungus garden in early November

Another view of the fungus garden

There's more than one fungus growing here

The same fungus during the freeze

An unappetizing sight

Frost outlining the leaves of a blackberry vine

End of post.

Holiday Greeting

Sam, a Clearwater student who is almost 12, made these delightful images as Christmas cards that he distributed by email over the break. With his permission I am reprinting them here.







End of post.

The Clearwater Mafia Forum

Mafia is a party game that many people at school play. There are many different variations, including some played online.

I have created a mafia forum for people to play mafia on, and as I am on vacation, I am having trouble recruiting. If you want to play a online mafia game, you can go here and sign up.
I am running a short introductory mafia to make sure people are acclimated to forum mafia. The requirements are not too much. Basically, you would need to post once or twice a day (or more) and state your opinion and vote and such.This post ends here.


End of post.

Catching Up

Before too much more time goes by, here are some snapshots of activities in the warm, early days of this school year, which will perhaps help ease the frigid temperatures during this cold snap.

One of the most popular warm weather activities was whiffleball, played many hours daily by a variety of students and staff, rotating between all ages and sizes, playing on teams, practicing together and one six-year-old who only wanted Matt to pitch him a few balls almost every day.

Ready to hit the whiffleball

And here's the pitch

For lots more pictures and more of this post, click on the link.

Another pitcher takes the "mound"

This pitcher is also an expert juggler

Another student having just finished playing on a summer league, worked with Matt to keep her softball batting and catching skills sharp.

Steely-eyed softball batter

A few students posed when they spotted my camera, while two girls, blithely unaware of me, focused on their farm.

Don't mess with these girls

Ready for the stage

Good friends

Friends overseeing a farming operation

End of post.

Minecraft

Gabriel here!

What am I writing about today? Minecraft!

If you don’t already know, Minecraft is a Sandbox game created by Markus Persson.

In Single-player Creative Mode, you roam around the randomly generated map, and build structures, or dig down and find some caves, or go on a mad destruction rampage and destroy all of the blocks that make up the world. You can do pretty much anything. Right now, you cannot save any maps, unless you have purchased the game for about fifteen dollars.

In Single-player Survival Mode, you have a limited number of blocks and a limited number of hit points. You also have a limited amount of breath underwater. You have to mine all of your materials by destroying blocks. It also takes a short time to mine. (As opposed to Creative Mode where you can destroy blocks instantly.) There are also angry creatures called “mobs” running around. Currently the types of mob are:

Zombies: Basic enemies that run up and try to kill you.

Skeletons: Slightly more advanced enemies that shoot arrows at you and explode into arrows when you kill them.

Pigs: Run around, do nothing and drop health-restoring mushrooms when you kill them.

Sheep: Stay in one area and graze, drop cloth when you kill them.

Creepers: Enemies that have an attack like zombies but explode when you kill them.

In Multi-player Creative Mode, you start or join a server, and play with up to 31 other people from all over the world. You can make collaborative works of art, or just show off your art.

On Tuesday, the 3^rd of November Joey started up our very own minecraft server, TCWS Flat Grass Server. We used that for a while, dealing with griefers, and watching awesome pixel artists do their stuff (pictures below).

Then we saved that map, renamed the server to TCWS City Server, and used a map editing tool to create roads all across the map. We are currently running that map, and we are having fewer problems with griefers. We have created a few anti-grief precautions there, such as not being able to dig without an admin’s consent, creating more admins, and learning to type “/ban playername” more quickly.

Currently there are six admins from the school, and one from the internet. It is a huge phenomenon at school. The server runs 24/7, but unless an admin is on, nobody can get on.

I have collected a series of screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Also, feel free to stop by and explore our city. Just create a new account, go to the server list, and click TCWS Natural Server (or create an account and follow the link above). Introduce yourselves and ask to be let out of the prison cell you will appear in.

The Admin Tower on the old server, which housed the spawn prison and the griefer watchtower. Made by Joey with a map editor called OMEN.


A waterfall on the old server, made by Joey.



A companion cube from Portal, made by an interwebber named Flox on the old server, which, if you look at pictures of it in Portal, is remarkably similar.

The subway on the new server, made by Joey and an interwebber named Coolpilot.


The admin-only pool on the new server, made by me!



A dog statue, made by Leo

Gabriel Intro

Hello to all the folks in the blogosphere!

My name is Gabriel, and for the purposes of this portion of the blogosphere I will be called CapitalG.

In case you haven’t noticed, I will be posting here now.

I’m also a member of the Computer Committee, an admin on the school’s Minecraft server (details in the next post.), and a participant in the writing of the Warrior Cats play. I’m also making Warcraft III maps in my spare time (which I don’t have a lot of.).

Things I like: computers, drama, the word “blogosphere” (blogosphere! Isn’t it fun?), long hair, books, nature, loooong walks (I am planning to walk/run a marathon next year), and Clearwater.

Next post coming soon!

--Gabriel

End of post!