More Nominations

So, it happened again! I've been nominated for more cool stuff.
First, I've been nominated to spend a week at a camp in Yosemite. We hike everyday and just chill down there. Should be pretty fun!
Second, I've been nominated for a scholarship to study abroad next year! WOW! How fun is that! Seriously, I think I'm in heaven.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know.
More later. (maybe)
Vanessa
Oh! and my Girls State interview is next Monday!

And the Winner is....

I'm not going to tell you! Nah, I will but first let me tell you which photos I entered. It was so hard to choose, I really appreciated all of your help. However, nobody voted for the same photos, or hardly any of the same photos. So, I went through and tallied up which ones did get voted for more than once. Here's what you guys said:

Number 4 had the most votes.

Then came number 26

Number 15

Number 1

And finally number 19

So that's all good and everything, but I have a confession to make. I'm sorry, but I didn't follow your advice. I shouldn't tell you that cause now you will hate me and think that you wasted your time voting. So I'm sorry, but I had to, just had to enter some other photos. I'd talked to my teacher and he suggested them, and I didn't want to go against one of the judges! So I appreciate everything you guys did, and really enjoyed your answers. And I did use some of your photos.

Anyway, here is what I ended up entering and their places.

There were about 50 photos total and all of mine made it into the finals, so that in itself was wonderful.

Okay, coming in number 8th was.....my bridge! (Which you all voted for, so congrats!)

In seventh place.....my beach grass! (You guys voted for this one too...you're so smart!)

Number 5 was....my flower!

Number 4......my dew drop. You guys haven't seen this because I just got it the other day.

I'm not sure if you guys can really see it, but if you look closely, you can see that the water drop is reflecting or magnifying the grass behind it. It's perfectly in focus.

And finally.....in first place AND GRAND CHAMPION OF BOTH CONTESTS is......my sunset! Only one person in this blogs contest voted for this picture. So Cory, you have a wonderful eye for pictures because IT WON!!! TWICE!!

I'm so excited! YAY! I won! Thank you Veronica and Michelle for being such good models. Mr. Rich pointed out that if you guys hadn't been in there, the photo wouldn't have won, so thanks for being there!

My prize for first place was a certificate from Crown Camera, a very nice photo shop, to have any picture I want blown up into a poster! And my prize for GRAND CHAMPION is a certificate from Crown Camera to have 12 of my favorite pictures made into a calendar!

So that was my morning. Thanks again for all of your input!

My Math Book Hates Me!

It's official, my math book hates me. It keeps giving me problems I can't solve. Just when I think I'm getting the grasp of something, it snickers to itself and *pop* throws something completely different at me. It enjoys seeing me suffer over it for hours.
I think it does this becuase it is only a math book and so in a large sense, can't hold much power in the world, so it get's back at people like me, who it knows will grow up to be great. Basically, it's just jealous. It's so hard being a genius....we're always underappreciated. *sigh*

So, you're probably wondering what is so hard about my math. Here's the deal, I'll post some problems, and if you can get them right, you get to send me a million dollars! I don't want anyone to ever say I never did anything for you guys, seriously.

Problem #1:
Find the first five terms of the given sequence: U1 = 4 and Un = 2Un-1 +3 for n >= 2

Problem #2:
Find the kth partial sum of the geometric sequence {Un} with common ration r: k=6, U1=5, r= 1/2

Problem #3:
An airplane flew with the wind for 2.5 hours and returned the same distance against the wind in 3.5 hours. If the cruising speed of the plane was a constant 360 mph in air, how fast was the wind blowing?

Problem #4:
A spotlight is to be placed on a building wall to illuminate a bench that is 32 feet from the base of the wall. The intensity of the light I at the bench is known to be I=x/d^3, where x is the spotlight's height above the ground and d is the distance from the bench to the spotlight.
Express I as a function of x, and find how high the spotlight should be in order to provide maximum illumination at the bench.

There, that ought to keep you guys busy for a while. At least until I can post tomorrow with the photo contest results!

Also, don't worry, I have completed all of these problems. I'm not trying to get an A from you guys.

This Picture Scares Me...

I don't know why exactly, this image invokes fear in me, but it does. I look at those post-things and they look just like grave markers, and with the red sky.....well, lets just say, I can't look at it for long.
What do you guys think: scary or am I being weird?

Help Wanted

I need some help. I'm entering a photo contest at school this Friday, I'm allowed five photos.....I currently have 26 or something like that. Please, please, please help me decide which to put in!
There are no categories, so we can submit any kind of photo. They can also be from any time, so most of mine are from the past couple of weeks, but I did throw in some from this summer and one or two from Maui.

Please, please help me, I'm a Tuepker and unable to make decisions.

Okay, here they are:

I don't have official names (you can add one if you like!), so I'll just call this one #1. I know, I know, super creative here.

Numero Dos:

#3

#4

Numero cinco

#6

SEVEN!

Ocho

Nueve

#10

Once

#12

#13

Catorce (I love saying that!)

Quince

#16

Don't worry, we only have 9-10 more to go! Hold in there!

#17

#18

#19

#20

#21

#22

#23

#24

#25

#26

I know this is a huge amount of photos to look through and I really do appreciate your feedback.

Just let me know which ones you liked! Thanks so much!

Fall Colors: Vanessa Style

So, like, its fall and whatever, and I'm like really digging the colors and all. But, like, I can't decide how to portray them in a unique way, cause that's like, my dream and all: to display fall colors in a unique way. So I've been getting a little crazy and unique with my camera....I prefer to like, call it artistic. But yeah, so this is what everyone can take a picture of:

Like, can you say, "Blah"?

But only me and my like, artistic ability, can like, create this picture:

It's awesome, man.

And on my really creative days, when like, I'm like, connected to, like the Earth and whatever, I can get pictures like this:

Like, this picture is like, looking into a different universe or something, cause, it's like, time-travel and whatever, and like whoa! all in one....y'know what I mean? It's like, all there. Like, we're like, moving. It's awesome, this whole, like fall thing.

I Like Close-Ups

I was walking around the park the other day (I seem to be doing that a lot lately) when I decided to try my hand at some close-ups. However, there were no willing people around, and I couldn't really take close-ups of myself effectively, so I came up with this brilliant plan: I could try taking pictures of nature close-ups! I know, I know, you may kiss my hand later.

This announcement of mine, that I willingly went out in nature and -gasp- got close to the earth to take some of these may come as a shock to some. *cough* Veronica *cough* Especially since my common reaction to the not-so-great-outdoors is: "Nature! It's all over me, get it off!" But I ask that you hold back your amazement until later and understand that I actually, not only came away with some coolio pictures, but also.......I don't know if I can say this.......okay....here goes....I also.....ummmm......enjoyed myself. There. Are you happy now? I hope so.

First off, you have already seen some of the pictures that I got. Yesterday's post about raindrops had all of my good close-up raindrop pictures. So I won't be submitting them again, but as for the rest, well, they are a clean slate.

I really like this one....I think it's because barbed wire is kinda rugged, and I'm kinda rugged, so I think we connect really nicely in this picture. Oh yes.

And this one hurts just to look at. Yikes! I won't tell you how I found this.....it's still too painful. Actually, this one reminds me of the monster-thingy in A Little Princess, how he locks her in a tower, much like this. Maybe I'm crazy....I don't know.

And here is another poky-thing that was actually a huge clump of cacti. I snapped a few pictures and saw a hole and said to myself, "Hey, look self, there is a hole in this cactus. I think I will take a picture of it. Good idea, self." and I got this picture. I think it is blah, mom loves it, and so here it is.

And because I just realized that I have shown you nothing besides poky, hurtful things, I decided to soothe your souls and give it something soft, and green to look at.

Okay, that's enough, back to poky. Just look at this little, tiny flower growing in the big, poky, cactus. I guess it is a rather safe place to be though.....

This is kinda ugly, but I thought I would throw it in, just because it's a close-up and I wouldn't want to hurt it's feelings by leaving it out.

This, I guess, is the best of both worlds: it's poky, but also green. How marvelous.

I liked the unique angle here, and the brightness of the colors.

And finally, my pièce de résistance.....

I have no words.....