Week three

 Saturday: Saturday I went rock climbing with some friends. I hadn’t done any kind of rock climbing since a short unit in middle school. I learned from my friend the importance of using your feet more when you have a long reach between two holds. He also showed me how to use your feet to support you when there is a crease in the wall and you don’t have a foothold. I also learned that you can’t climb for too long when beginning because you get a blister very quickly.

Sunday: There was a change of plans from last week. Initially, I planned to hike the wildwood trail today. However, I also planned to learn how to bike on Monday, so I decided to do something less strenuous today and learned how to bake banana bread. I rarely bake and baking reminded me of the importance of mixing the liquids separately from the solids Unfortunately, we were out of vanilla extract which the recipe called for so we did it without the vanilla extract. I thought that the bread turned out very good and it was delicious.

Monday: On Monday, William and Miles helped me learn how to ride a bike. I have been putting this off for a while since I thought it would take a while to learn how to ride a bike. When starting I had difficulty keeping the pedal in place so that I could start the bike. Miles and William showed me how to put pressure on the back part of the pedal so it would be easier. After practicing for about 30 minutes I got the hang of it. We then did about a 3-mile bike ride around the Eastmoreland area to get some more practice. I was surprised that I was able to pick up biking so fast and I think that I will try biking some more this summer.

Tuesday: On Tuesday I decided to learn how to count cards and also learn more about poker strategy. I know some of the basics of poker like what a flush and straight is and the rest of the scoring system but I still don’t know much about the strategy and was interested in learning more. So I first looked at how to count cards and learned about counting outs. Outs are the number of cards that you can get to put together a potentially winning hand. You can then do mental math to figure out your odds of getting the card that you need. For instance, if you have a pair of jacks then you have two outs which are the other two jacks in the deck. Then you take 2 and divide it by the rest of the cards in the deck to figure out your odds. You can also use the cards on the table to figure out the odds of one of your opponents having a hand that could beat you once you have all of your cards. I also found a chart on when to fold and when to continue playing. I also watched some other videos on poker strategy that discussed the importance of never going all in and only bluff in small amounts. My biggest takeaway from this was that there are so many terms in poker that I was unaware of. If I wanted to learn more about poker I think I would tackle learning those terms next.

Wednesday: On Wednesday, I learned from my dad how to blow grass off the lawn and properly fold up an electric fence. Since the cut grass was in large chunks from when I mowed it Tuesday, I needed to blow it so that it did not kill the grass. It surprised me that there was a process that you had to go through to do this. I had to round up the grass into a smaller section of the lawn and then blow it to disperse it throughout the lawn. I thought that after a while I got the hang of this. I also learned how to put away an electric fence. Since the fence is designed to be an equal distance from post to post you can use that as an easy way to wrap it up. One person picks up the posts out of the ground and the other person folds the fence from post to post in half so that it does not get wrapped. 

Thursday: Today I continued to learn how to do more yard work and learned from my dad how to edge a lawn. This was also more difficult than I expected it to be because it is very difficult to tell where the edger is coming down. As a result, I would say that I messed up a fair amount and cut too far into the grass. But my dad says it is fine since the grass will end up growing back. I thought putting the plastic wires (what cuts the grass) into the edger would be more difficult but I found this to be easier than I expected. I found that edging well was difficult but that it isn’t necessary to do a perfect job if you are just looking to maintain your lawn. 

Reflection: I thought that I did a good job of planning out my week and making changes when necessary. Initially, I planned to hike the wildwood Sunday but I moved it so I wouldn’t be tired on Monday when I learned how to bike and also so that I could do it on a cooler day. I also was going to learn how to change a tire but I chose to learn how to blow grass off of the lawn because it needed to be done right away. I thought I did a good job of reflecting again this week. I think next week I need to improve on my documentation of each day.

That is all for now,

Bram