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| Sound the BugleXanga is either dead or dying, at least among my circle of friends, acquaintances and relatives. There are many probable causes, not the least of which is me. However, not wanting to be the stoic captain who sinks with his weblog into Davy Jones' world-wide-web, I decided to write a sort of 'farewell' post in order to jump this vessel before it capsizes. It's not like I wouldn't have had to quit at some point anyway; just to keep things in perspective, remember that I'll be leaving on July 22nd. Between my imminent departure and Xanga's imminent demise, I figured now was a prime time to say my virtual goodbyes. So, with no further ado, I salute you, my fellow Xangans and ex-Xangans, and anyone else who commented on or enjoyed what I wrote. May your online networking experiences henceforth be sweet. Don't allow Facebook to conquer the world.
Remember me in your prayers and dreams.
Love ya.
-Justin
P.S. I'll leave this up until sometime before I depart in July. Then *piff*, just like that it will be deleted. Feel free to make a heroic Last Justincoming Comment. :)
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| I think I still have sand in my hairWe three boys of Powell just completed our journey back from Florida. The week of fellowship with family at the beach was joyous, to say the least. If I was forced to register one complaint, I would probably mention the prickles that introduced themselves to my fingers whilst I consumed a dark purple prickly pear fruit, but that is so trivial that I'll only spend one sentence on it. Everything else was fantastic--I mean, come on; how could sunny days at the beach not be amazing? How could quality time with people I love not be sweet?
One day the waves were so big and boisterous that simply being among them was an exciting and challenging experience. Every so often an especially furious one would lift us off the bottom, churn us around like an enormous briny blender, and whisk us away toward the sand. Exciting may be too tame a word; exhilarating would be a better fit.
I peered out of our airplane's small porthole of a window during our return flight and noticed how minuscule all the waves in the ocean below appeared from above. Thinking back to our wild day in the surf, and pondering over how powerful each wave had been, was humbling. Those tiny crests and troughs in the water below us could have carried as much, or more, force than the waves that had pummeled us at the beach. If insignificant blips on an expansive ocean can posses such influence, how much more power does the Creator of them, who I assume looks down upon the earth in a manner similar to my vantage from the plane, wield? Staggering.
All that confounded slathering of greasy lotion onto my body paid off--that's right, I'm blindingly white. Nah, just kidding. I'm actually quite a bit tawnier than I was, and I eluded a sunburn. Yeehaw.
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| An Ode to Kiwi I'm too lazy to seek out the proper meaning of the word "ode," thus I apologize for all offense relating to literary integrity taken to my loose handling of the term, which I have used to describe this:
Hairy brown skin that few do eat
Bleeding green blood, cloudy and sweet
Little black seeds in the middle
Around a core that's not little
Flavor reveals a tinge of sour
Aftertaste sticks around for hours
Unrelenting, to remind me
To eat yet another kiwi
I bet you think I ate a kiwi today. "Why else would he write that," you ask. Well, you're right. And if you hadn't assumed such a thing, then take heart, because you weren't exactly wrong; you were just ignorant of the facts. I say this only as an inspirational lead-up to my announcement that every last one of you deserves confetti and an A+. Congratulations, you're....um...special!
************ You know what? Having fun isn't as great as we're lead to believe. Fun characterizes temporary happiness; it could be called 'mere happiness'. Many times 'good' and 'fun' are antonyms. I'd rather have joy. Fun isn't of necessity bad, but when it isn't accompanied by or giving birth to joy, then it can become hollow. And hollow is bad. We're supposed to have joy that is full.
Random thought stream.
-Justin
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| I've Gone All HexagonalYesterday I noticed a large, rubber-banded bouquet of pencils lying on the table. What interested me was the way they tended to form a hexagon when forced together into a clump; you've seen the phenomenon, whether with pencils, coins, or other objects. The point is this: when circles of identical radii are arranged to fill the smallest possible area, they produce a hexagon. So my mind set out, with or without my permission, to discover a formula which, given the number of circles per side, expresses the number of circles in the whole.
 | After a bit of trial, error, diagramming and pondering, I came up with this equation:
Ntotal = 3Nside2 - 3Nside + 1
Let's try it with the example diagram. In this case, Nside = 4. If we simplify each term in the equation, it becomes Ntotal = 3(16) - 3(4) + 1. Simplified further still, the equation reads Ntotal = 48 - 12 + 1. Thus, the total number of circles contained in the hexagon is 37, which can be verified by counting them by hand.
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Why I do this sort of thing, I do not know. My mind just starts turning over an idea, or a problem, and the rest is history. I hope you benefit from it, in some manner.
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