Our first match was against North Cedar on January 16, 2013. It was actually on Hotline which was on Channel 15 which is our local Cedar Falls channel. We won the first round 70-56. Then we had to wait until April to go against Valley Lutheran, a Christian school in Cedar Falls which also participates. After more intense training with Mrs. Gaines we finally got to the match. It was a close one but Lincoln still won 84 to 74. Lincoln was in the championship against Cedar Heights.
Every year the elementary schools hold a trivia contest consisting of teams from all of the elementary schools. The students in 6th grade got a sheet of all the students in the grade and got to vote on them. I got the majority of the votes and my friend William Sims got 2nd in the voting. We also had an alternate just in case. The alpha teacher Mrs. Gaines was in charge of training us. So some days she took us out of the classroom and started asking us questions. She advised us to watch the news, read newspapers and also learn some new things. Our first match was against North Cedar on January 16, 2013. It was actually on Hotline which was on Channel 15 which is our local Cedar Falls channel. We won the first round 70-56. Then we had to wait until April to go against Valley Lutheran, a Christian school in Cedar Falls which also participates. After more intense training with Mrs. Gaines we finally got to the match. It was a close one but Lincoln still won 84 to 74. Lincoln was in the championship against Cedar Heights. Cedar Heights has not won the trivia championship since 2006. Lincoln has not won since 1990 something. The battle was extremely close and Lincoln won 68 to 62. Lincoln had won the 2012-2013 trivia contest! As a reward we got to bring this trophy to school and we also got an ice cream party for our grade. In my opinion the party was depressing. It was basically frozen Popsicles with ice cream inside them. I thought that the people who planned the treats would be a little more thoughtful. And we also got our school's name engraved on the trophy. I would like to thank my mom who helped spread the word to watch Lincoln on TV via the power of social media. This is an experience that I will never forget.
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I'm sorry that the gaps in between blog posts are getting longer. I'm kind of busy these days. I am going to tell you a lot about my family starting with my mom.
My mom is a great writer and works at Orchard Hill School here in Cedar Falls. She has her own blog post. Here is her link right here. http://tyannsheldonrouw.weebly.com/ She is an excellent mother, a great baker, and a fantastic person in general. Dad is co-founder of Far Reach Technologies in downtown Cedar Falls. He is a great man, is a HUGE Iowa Football fan, and is a really smart person. He also golfs once in a while in the summer. He is a brilliant father too. I think Isaac enjoy's Dad the most. Isaac is autistic like me, but he is non verbal but is the best brother in the world besides Henry. He is funny and beware: He likes to control EVERYTHING in the house which drives us crazy some times. Besides that, he is nice, fun, a great bowler on Wii Sports, loves laundry, and loves to take our plates before we are even finished! He also LOVES the YMCA too. Henry is smart, loves checkers, and is very artistic. Mom even did a blog post about his art. Here is the link. http://tyannsheldonrouw.weebly.com/1/category/crayons/1.html Everyone at school and basically everyone I know says Henry looks exactly identical to me which drives me bananas. Speaking of bananas, he ate 6 bananas in one day once! He is a great speller too and is in the O lists in 2nd grade. The highest spelling list is U which I have been in since the beginning of 5th grade. And finally to learn about me, Noah!!!! I have high grades in school, love useless facts (I just got a book by Amazon that was called More Useless Facts and Other Unnecessary Information), and am a 12 year old blogger. As you might have figured out by now, I am a great singer, a good trombonist, and know a lot about iPods and other Apple stuff. I am Isaac's twin and also autistic. I care for both of my brothers. I love the Hawkeyes and Henry is an Iowa State Fan which just makes no sense. I'm also in the quiz bowl, and thought up CF day which was on Cedar Falls zip code 50613. All and all, that wraps it up Oh boy birthdays are here. Fun and exciting, but can also burn all your energy out of you too. So birthday madness at Northern Iowa Headquarters started on April 20 when we went swimming at a hotel pool. The reason why we did this is because our cousins could only stay at the party for 1 hour because their bluegrass band was performing in Fairfield Iowa that evening, 3 hours south of here. So as a result they stayed at a hotel here in CF so we can have some extra time with them. We went swimming with them until 11:00 and then left to go back to Rouw Northern Iowa HQ. Around 5 minutes after we got home our grandparents from the Rouw side came at 11:20 2 hours and 40 minutes EARLY!!!! We saw them the week before and I told them to come early, but not that early!!! We ordered pizza for lunch and then after lunch family started to trickle in. Around 2:00 our uncle, aunt and cousin from Chicago. So everyone was excited. Then...... Gift Opening!!!!! Here is what I got: some cash, a glider that has a 4 ft wingspan and can glide up to 150 feet!!!! A remote control truck, goggles, an iTunes card, golf balls, a robe, a Burger King card, jeans, and a Barnes and Noble gift card. Then we had cake. After cake some family left. But since the weather was nice we went outside and was out there for about an hour. Dad was grilling burgers that night so that is what we had for dinner. Then everybody cleared out at around 7:00. The next day consisted of swimming,which included all 3 of us jumping off the 3 meter diving board at UNI. There are Youtube videos below for that, and a Weird Al Yankovic concert at the Paramount Theater in Cedar Rapids. That was awesome!!!! Monday was normal school, so was Tuesday. But Wednesday was my birthday. I turned 12 officially. There were a lot of compliments from friends that day. That evening, we went to Pizza Ranch for dinner!!! I actually had a good variety in my dinner, chicken, pizza and ice cream. Even as I am typing this blog post I still am recovering from Birthday Madness. Now that was a good birthday. P.S. The Weird Al shown in the video released those two songs but never became drunk and didn't smoke. The video is kind of a parody. Opus is a state children's choir for 5th grade through 9th grade. There is a 5th and 6th grade children's choir, and 7th, 8th, and 9th grade men and women's choir. Auditions started in September officially for Opus. Mrs. Droe, my music teacher gave a couple of 6th graders music for the tryouts before school started. We have to sing part of 2 of the songs Opus was doing this year. And both songs were in foreign languages. German and French which basically made it harder. We kept practicing and practicing and then it was time to record our tryouts. All the music teachers with kids trying out send recordings of their students and decide who will make it and those who did not make the cut. So amazingly the judges narrowed the kids from around 2500 to 200. Our voices had to get recorded in the best place with perfect acoustics. So after the tryouts, we had to wait until October to find out. Nine Lincoln kids made it in, and I was one of them. After we practiced the other songs, in English finally, we were ready for the big day. On Nov.18, me and Mom got up at 5:00 AM for getting ready. We got over to Holmes Jr High where the bus was. The bus left at 6:15 and now we were basically prisoners for an hour and a half until we got to Iowa State University, where the concert and practices were. One other thing I forgot to say, was the judges nominated me and 20 other people for trying out for a solo. I did not make the cut sadly but I did get to sing in the small group which was very cool. My mom was also volunteering so she got to go too. So, at around 7:45 we arrived. We got our official Opus 2012 T shirts which only cost around $10-15. We practiced for a couple hours with a fantastic director, and then it was lunch time. We got to eat where the college students eat and it was totally AWESOME!!! The food was great, and it was worth the hour we were there. It was an all you can eat place too. After lunch we practiced more and then practiced where we were going to perform: C.Y. Stephens. It is kind of like the Gallagher Bluedorn here in town. Dad and Henry got to drive an hour and a half down to Ames. The concert started at 4:00. I think during the concert, I looked pretty sharp! That is just my opinion. Afterwards all of us went to a room until the concert was over at 6:00. Then we drove all the way back to CF. What a long day! Here is a video of the solo below. Remember, I am in the small group, and I did not do the opening solo at Opus. This is also at my school at our 5th and 6th grade school concert a couple of weeks later. There is an album for Opus and I think a DVD too. Enjoy the video! San Antonio, Texas. Home of the Alamo and River Walk. That is also where my aunt, uncle and cousin live. During spring break a couple weeks ago, we drove down there to Texas. 16 hours in the car on the drive down. After school that Friday we drove 5 hours on the way to Olathe Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. The hotel was great down there. The next day, Isaac was vomiting in the morning. So, me, Henry, and Dad went over to a Target and got a puke bowl for Isaac. It had a ninja saying HI YA on it. After the sickness, we drove down 8 hours to Fort Worth Texas. On the way down, we stopped at a gas station that had a pay-phone and a Weird Al album from the 1980s. When we got to the Welcome to Texas station we saw some people that were from Ottumwa Iowa. They were visiting San Antonio and then heading out to El Paso to see their son before he was deported to Afghanistan. The next day, we drove another 5 hours to San Antonio. Some of the cities we went through were Fort Worth, Waco, Austin and finally San Antonio. On Monday all 5 of us, Chad, Amy, and Daisy went downtown. We saw the Alamo. It is much bigger than it looks. We saw the River Walk, a hospital with a bar in the basement, and a Ripley's Believe it or Not Odditorium across the street from the Alamo. The temperature was in the 90s so it was above normal temps down there believe it or not. At home we trapped and killed a scorpion with a shoe, had fun with Daisy, and got to go on a nice evening walk. We also saw a cactus. On Tuesday we went to the Witte Museum that was on the Museum Pass we have. There we saw a mummy. There was a exhibit that had life size dinosaurs that could move. There was a couple of things when you look in a iPad camera and saw the 3D dinosaur itself while pointing the camera at a certain object. I believe that is called Augmented Reality or AR. On Wednesday we drove to Oklahoma City. When we left the hotel we forgot one of Isaac's Nerf Hoops there. On Friday we drove 9 and a half hours back home to cold Cedar Falls. There are some pictures of our trip down below. When I was in 5th grade the band teacher at my school, Bard Mackey showed us 5th graders the band instruments and we all took a hearing pitch test. I got signed up to do band and I had to choose a couple of instruments that I was interested in. The instruments I was interested were trumpet, French horn, and trombone. As you know, trumpet and French horn players the mouthpiece is tiny. The trombone was perfect. My family is musical, my mom played flute and piccolo, my dad played piano and guitar, my uncle Joe played trumpet,my Uncle Chad played trumpet, my cousins and aunt and uncle even have their own bluegrass band, and Uncle Dan played trombone too. So, I am now in 6th grade and I am now a pretty good trombone player. Everyone in 6th grade got a solo to play in the Solo Festival. My solo was called Sentimental Sam. The first part of the solo was in 3/4 time and then the second part was in 4/4 time. That second part had first and second endings. There is a video of the solo down below. iPods. You know, the music player released by Apple which has been entertaining people for years. There are 4 types of iPods and all which are very different. But all have one thing in common: they all use ITunes for playlists and for syncing music from your computer to your device. The 4 types of iPods are classic, touch, nano, and shuffle. Let's start off with classic.
iPod Classic is basically, well , a traditional iPod that you would see 10 years ago. Storage capacity is 160 gigabytes, which means you can hold up tooooo.... 40,000 songs, 25,000 photos, and 200 hours of video. Battery life is 36 hours but video playback is only 6 hours. It's only $249 in stores. iPod Touch is pretty much an iPad but a different name, and smaller. It has IOS 6 and a 5 megapixel camera that can shoot 1080 p video. And only $199. Sorry, I don't have too much about this topic. iPod Nano is about the size of a credit card, and is 5.4 millimeters thin. It has Music, which you can store music, buy music from the iTunes store, and can sync music from iTunes on your PC or Mac, and it appears on your Music. On Videos, you can watch movies, free podcasts and home videos. It has Bluetooth, so if you have Bluetooth enabled headphones, it would work wirelessly. On Radio you can wirelessly connect to a local radio station and listen to music. You can take photos and view them on Photos. On Nike Fitness Plus, it is a pedometer, tracks your calories and length of time. iPod nano is only $149. iPod shuffle contains 2 gigabytes of storage data, good for around 200 songs. I know this since I own a iPod shuffle myself. You can hook it to your shirt or coat or whatever with you. It has around 15 hours of battery life, and also, the picture up there is a iPod shuffle. Please leave a comment and also this blog is going to be about just about anything, so chances are you are going to learn about something on this blog. See ya! |
AuthorI am Noah Rouw, second of three boys. I am in 10th grade and I like science, playing the trombone, singing and liking the Hawkeyes. I am also 15 years old, for anyone who was curious. I like anything sweets or history related. Archives
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