Photoshoppin

For this photo this first photo I started adjusting exposure, contrast, saturation, definition, highlights, shadows, sharpness, de-noise, temperature, and tint. This made it so the image looked like there was almost a purple/night looking sky, with a green glow around the girl. I  thought it would then be cool if she was in an alien invasion so I added spaceships in the background.

For this photo I again started with adjusting the exposure, contrast, saturation, definition, highlights, shadows, sharpness, and de-noise. After I did this I then thought it would be somewhat funny if this mans accomplishment of making to the top of that cliff was looked down upon by the birds. He also looks like he is king of those birds now.

In this final photo I mainly adjusted the exposure, contrast, saturation, temperature, and tint. The changing in temperature and tint helped it change the color green. The image kind of looked spooky so I added a creepy looking ghost to the photo.

Sports Injuries

            I have always had a love for sports. Throughout my life I played all kinds of sports like, football, basketball, lacrosse, baseball, softball, soccer, racquetball, volleyball, golf, and tennis. The sports that I played for my school was football, basketball, and lacrosse. Those are my favorite sports. When it came to practice I would always try to be the hardest working person on the team. I pushed so hard. Some say that I went too hard.

            It all started back when I was in seventh grade. I went to block the defender on the opposing team in football. When the one defender turned to two, I tried my hardest to block them both. My hand ended up getting stuck in between the two of them, and my hand got bent back. Suddenly I got this strong feeling of pain. I stepped back because the play had ended. I looked at my hand and it was just dangling at the wrist. I started to scream and I yelled to my coaches, holding my arm in the air, I think it’s broken! My coaches told me to lie down so the referees could call a timeout. I stood on the sidelines icing my wrist until the game was finished. And I told my parents I think we should go to the hospital. I had broken my first bone. They casted me up and sent me back into the world. Little did I know this would just be the first of multiple injuries in the future.

            My eighth grade year I sprained my ankle while I was trying to tackle the running back, and my freshman year I did the same thing to my other ankle. My sophomore year I was in as a tackle when my quarterback threw an interception. Their team turned into a blocking formation, but I saw the ball carrier and I was focused on tackling him. I ran as fast as I could and suddenly I saw an opponent coming towards me. When he went to block me my left foot was planted in the ground, and it got hyperextended. I hoped stepped and soon realized that I couldn’t put weight on my leg and I rolled off the field and directly on the trainer’s table. I soon was told that there wasn’t that big of a problem, but I had to sit out of football for a week and go to physical therapy.

            After working through physical therapy I got back to sports, and lasted all the way until lacrosse season. During lacrosse season I started to have some pain in my shoulders. It continued so I decided that I would see a doctor. The doctor told me that I had some instability in my shoulders with tendentious in my rotator cuffs. I had to yet again go back to physical therapy to strengthen my shoulders.

            I worked as hard as I could in the off-season to get back to playing for football season. I made it in to two-a-days and I started to feel a strong pain in my right foot. I went to the trainer and she told me that she didn’t think it was too serious. I continued for two of these two-a-days and I finally said this is way too much pain to be having. I went to the doctor and they told me that I had a stress fracture in my foot. This injury put me on crutches, and had me out until the last four games of the season.

            After football season I played basketball and developed some back pain. I found out that I had strained a muscle in my back. I had to go to see a chiropractor and the chiropractor told me that I had two vertebrae in my back and my neck that didn’t move like they were supposed to, and this could also add to some of the pain that I was having. After basketball season was over I decided that I was going to skip out on my lacrosse season to try and give my body a break.

            While I was working out in the off-season getting ready for football, I didn’t have the luck in staying healthy. During a agility workout I landed wrong on my leg and it hyperextended again. It hurt really bad and this time I actually got an MRI on my knee. They told me that I had a chronic tear in my ACL and that I had tore both of my menisci. They looked at my medical history, and told me that they probably made a mistake when looking at my knee the first time. Because this was a chronic tear means that it was probably a problem for a long time. They told me that I probably had a partial tear in my ACL and I was continually tearing that until I finished it off. I had to undergo surgery, and I was on crutches and back to physical therapy yet again.

            This put me out for most of my senior year in high school, but then when it came to summer I still wanted to exercise. The only thing that was the problem with this was that I was again having pain in my shoulders. It seemed to be getting worse even though I was still doing the exercises that my physical therapist told me to do for the rotator cuff tendonitis. I went to the doctor yet again and they told me that I should get this thing called an MRA. An MRA is where I would get one MRI go to an x-ray machine so I could get a shot of this dye directly put into the shoulder joint then I got another MRI. I got this done on both shoulders. The news was that I tore both of the labrums in my shoulders, and I had to get surgery on both of them.

            I have had a lot of problems with injuries in my life. I always have gotten through them. I had 4 surgeries in 2 years with 4 years of physical therapy. I’m glad to say that I’m nearing the end of my time at physical therapy and I’m hoping to have a good bill of health for a long time.     

People Are Crazy

I have decided that I will never understand the actions of people. I don’t even understand the actions of myself at times. People are crazy. Sometimes I hear stories that people have told me about the stupid things they have done, and it just makes me wonder why in the world did they do it in the first place. I know I may sound like a hypocrite because there is a lot of things that I would do that a vast majority of the world’s population would question, but I believe that somewhere there is a line that you just shouldn’t cross. I will never understand why people cheat in relationships. I don’t understand why people kill innocent people. I don’t even understand why teachers feel the need to hand out massive amounts of homework. I know what you’re thinking, that last example is nowhere near as serious as the first two, but it’s still a big problem in today’s society.

            In my life I know I’ve done some stupid and questionable things, but I’ve mostly done them with the best of intentions. I’d like to think that everything that I have ever done in life had some kind of purpose to it, but that’s not true. I’ve done things, and then sat back and just wonder why I did that. Maybe it’s just one of those spur of the moment types of things. I sometimes just sit and wonder, but the truth of the matter is that nobody really knows.

            In my life I try to be truthful all of the time. I do this because I want others to be honest with me. I hate it when people lie to me, especially when there is no need for it. Some people just lie because it makes them feel better. They normally can’t even come up with a good reason for why they do it they just do. Life would be easier if people didn’t lie and we could all be honest and trusting with each other. That is why when somebody puts his or her trust in me I take it really seriously. I will do what ever I can to not let them down, because I hate letting someone down. It makes me feel terrible.

            I sit and think back and reflect on the life that I’ve been living. I remember a time when I was a sophomore in high school, I knew a friend that had this major stash of fireworks. If you didn’t know fireworks are legal to buy in Ohio, but illegal to shoot off in Ohio. See we decided that about six friends were going to split the fireworks into two different cars and drive around and shoot them off. We started by going to the houses of people we knew, and firing off fireworks in their yards, and driving away. At one house as we were firing off the fireworks a car came driving up the road. Us being worried they would call the cops on us we take off running. The driver of the car I was supposed to be in just took off, and I was able to dive into the car just in time before he got too far, but two of my friends weren’t so lucky. I turn around to look and they are still running, and I yelled at the driver to slow down to pick them up. Next thing I see from my one friend running behind the car is him lighting a roman candle and shooting it at the car that is coming towards them as they are trying to get back in the car.

            After we got out of that mess we took a drive to the opposite side of town to start having more fun. We got to the point where we would even shoot bottle rockets out the window of the car at each other’s cars. This caused a lot of excitement because bottle rockets are a little bit unpredictable. A few of the shots that were fired would shoot near houses, and even hit mailboxes and trees.

            As we neared the end of our stash of fireworks we decided that we wanted a grand finale of sorts. We had about five of this firework called a Saturn bomb, and we had a box of smaller fireworks that you light one fuse and they go off one by one. There were three of us that got out of the car at one edge of the large field near the center of my town. We ran to the center of the field, lit all of the fuses, and ran for the row of trees on the other side of the field where there was a small road, where our ride was going to be waiting to pick us up. We made it into the car without problem, and the driver started speeding away. Next thing you know we see some headlights, and one of the passengers in the backseat yelled slow down it’s the cops. The driver didn’t believe him, but slowed down to please him. Suddenly, the car shines a spotlight along the line of trees, and as we go by it we see the lights on the top of the car. We ended up missing the cops by a short amount of time. This interested us because then we started to drive around town, and in just about every single place that we had shot off a firework there was at least one cop, but the cops never knew it was even us.

            Sometimes the crazy things that people do are not always harmless. Sure there were risks that we took, but we didn’t hurt anybody. We didn’t really think of the consequences of our actions. I honestly don’t think that what we did that night was wrong, because I know while I was doing it I was having a lot of fun. I know that there are some things that I will do, without thinking, but there are some things where people need to learn to take a step back and think about how this could affect other people in a negative way. 

I Like Feeling Happy

I’d like to think that my mind is a very unique thing. I’d like to believe that no one else thinks like I do. I’ve met people in my lifetime that think similar to me, but never anyone that has gone through the same experiences and can relate to the same things as me. I’d like to believe that there is no one like me. My mind wanders often leading me to magical places, or just thoughts about life in general. I often think about many things at once. I have even lost sleep to my thoughts. I’ve had times where I climb into my bed and then I just start thinking about the events of tomorrow. My mind will go through every single possible outcome of things that I have to do. The mind is a beautiful thing.

            Lately in life one of my favorite things I like to do is tell stories. I mostly tell stories of events in life that happen to me. I try to live a life where I may do some crazy things because I think, imagine how awesome this story would be to tell people. I also like to tell fictional stories. When you tell fictional stories anything that your mind thinks of can happen. I remember how in a creative writing class I once took; I would always want to read my story to my classmates, because I wanted to see their reaction to it. I’ve always tried to be funny and make people laugh through my stories, but there are times when I like to be serious too.

            In this blog I’m going to tell a lot about my life experiences and about different fictional stories that my mind thinks about. You can ask my friends, and they will tell you that I like to tell stories. Also when I tell stories sometimes I feel the need to tell you a different story so that you can get more background information on my stories that I originally want you to know. My stories can sometimes be ramblings, they can be complex, but I always try to make them enjoyable.

            Right now I’m a happy guy. I’ve been keeping positive about most things. This didn’t always used to be. I used to be kind of depressed, especially once I got into college. When I came to college I was initially sad because I didn’t want to leave all of my friends that I had grown up with. I didn’t really go out and do anything while I was at college because I’m not really all that outgoing. Sure you may look at me and be like, “James, come on! You are too outgoing!” but I am here to tell you that, that has not always been the case. I remember all the way back to my freshman year of high school. I was insanely shy. I wouldn’t talk to anyone, but my close friends. I would just sit in class silent and just do what I was told. As my high school career continued I loosened up and got to where I felt more comfortable talking to people, and better at talking in front of people, but going to college was so different. I was with people that I have never met before and being away from my parents. Before college I never was away from my parents for more than a week! For the entire first quarter I didn’t really party much, and I didn’t really get to know that many people because it is not the easiest for me to talk to people. I’m known to make people feel awkward and that makes me feel somewhat comfortable.

            One thing about being away from home made me realize was who from back home really mattered. I tried so hard at the beginning to keep in contact with the people I believed were my friends, but I grew tired of that. A lot of the time I felt like a bother because I didn’t fit in their time schedule or there were doing something different. I ended up finding who really mattered when people actually made time to talk to me. Whether it was through giving me a phone call or Skyping me, they would make some sort of effort to show that we were still friends. I just tried to not care about the people that don’t care about me. Those kinds of people aren’t worth the time.

            Another thing that improved my mood was when I stopped caring about some of the little things. I stopped worrying somewhat about what people thought about me, and it made me more comfortable at college. I started to go out of my room and make new friends with the people in my dorm. The truth is the friends that I have met in college are better than any of the friends I have ever met in my life.  I don’t know what I would do without these people because they have made my stay in college so much better. I learned that when you live in the moment that life is more enjoyable. I started to do things with my friends.

 I got to the point where I actually fully enjoy being at college. Sure it is stressful at times with the massive workloads, but outside of that it is a blast! Over spring break when I went home actually got to the point when I actually just wanted to be back at school, because then I would be with my best friends living life. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when summer rolls around, but I know I’m going to make the best of it. I know I’m going to miss the friends that I have made since I’ve been at school, and I will have to visit and make plans with them all summer because they are the people that are important in my life. I always used to be someone that would look out for other people, but I’ve learned that I have to look out for myself first. I’m just trying to do things that make me happy regardless of what people think.