Thomas Spring
Quarter Outside Reading Book Review
The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. Ballantine Publishing Group, 1966 Genre: Fiction
The Hobbit is a thrilling adventurous story, that starts off when a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins is sitting outside his doorstep smoking a pipe. Then a wizard named Gandalf showed up and asked Bilbo if he wanted to go on an adventure. He asked Bilbo because one of his ancestors was a famous conqueror. Bilbo was not anything like his ancestor though, so after he is basically forced into going he wonders if he can rise to the challenge.
“ The enchanting prelude To the Lord of the Rings.” the review reads. This made me want to read the book because I new that the Lord of the Rings was such a good movie that I thought the book must be too.
Tolkien made sure that in the beginning of the book the reader knew that he was a simple hobbit that enjoyed reading a good book by the fire and sipping some tea, but that was before Bilbo set out on the dangerous adventure to try to reclaim the treasure that was taken from Thorin’s grandfather by Smaug the dragon. In the early state of the book Bilbo is very bad at his job the burglar ( which is supposed to be sneaky and steal from others to help his group) and almost gets the group killed. The book the Hobbit remind me of the Eragon, because they are both adventure stories.
"I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself." - Gandalf pg. 19
The story The Hobbit was an extremely good book. I can relate to the book because just like Bilbo I had a particular lifestyle but it got changed and I enjoyed the change. This is the same as Bilbo because he originally started off being the kind of person that would just like to read a book or drink tea, but as the book went on he became more adventurous and heroic and he enjoyed that. Tolkien has affected me because now that I have read this book, I really liked it so I am going to try to read more books by this author. What I liked about this story is that it was very adventurous, and action packed.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
My gocart and baseball.
My Gocart and Baseball
In life there are many things that can be determined as valuable or valueless. Can you understand what the difference is between things that you can put a price on and the things that are just plain priceless.
I walk out onto the freshly mowed grass, and smoothed dirt, and just stare at it. The beautiful infield just waiting to be run on, and get the dirt flung everywhere; the sign of a great game, and the best thing to start off a perfect summer.
I start off by preparing the field for the game. I need to put the bases in, rake the infield and the pitchers mound, and get all the equipment out and neatly set it aside. I position the end of the bat in the chained fence so the hang there. The baseballs are then emptied into a 5 gallon bucket and set next to the dugout. While we wait for the other team to come, we grab are gloves and spread out along the right field sideline and start throwing back and forth.
When the game finally starts I take the field first. Catching grounders and pop flies I am gracefully running and diving all over the right side of the field. Then the hitting comes. Fastballs change-ups, and curveballs quickly dancing around the strike zone. I get a good pitch and swing as hard as I can. I hear the ping of the ball meeting the bat and look up to see where the ball is. I don’t see it in my first glance, so I start my stride. I look down at first base, my place of savior, and see the fielder running toward it. I look up again to see where the ball is and I see it fall just over the shortstop's head. I take a wide turn and take a couple extra steps after I reach the bag toward second base. Once I see the ball thrown back in by the left fielder, I side-step back to first base. This game, this game right here, is about having fun and about the love for the game.
I grab the plastic lever and jerk it back from forward to reverse. I put my foot on the gas and slowly and carefully back out of the garage. I grab the lever again, this time throwing it in the opposite direction, forward. Forward is the direction I am going and hope I will never have to stop.
My go-cart is dark blue, with 2 seats accustomed with seatbelts. There is a role cage in case you accidentally flip or role over on the side of the go-cart , as it has happened in the past. There is a small brake light on the tail end of the machine, and two headlights on the front. It has four 12 inch tires that can turn up to 40 miles per hour. Normally because gas is so expensive you think it would be a problem to be driving all the time, but at 40 miles to the gallon it is also very affordable to ride.
To drive a go-cart you need a lot of land, and that’s exactly what I’ve got. My huge yard opens up into an enormous field that is awesome to drive on and contains a driving range for golfers and its funny to drive on. Sometimes the people aim for you and it's a lot of fun.
I love both my go-cart and baseball for the same and different reasons. The same because they both allow me to have fun. I enjoy them for mainly different reasons though. My go-cart allows me to get away from it all and I can do whatever I want, be free. But playing baseball allows me to spend time with friends, be aggressive and competitive, and learn some new things.My go-cart and playing baseball both allow me to have a good time, baseball more competitively and my go-cart by relaxation.
In life there are many things that can be determined as valuable or valueless. Can you understand what the difference is between things that you can put a price on and the things that are just plain priceless.
I walk out onto the freshly mowed grass, and smoothed dirt, and just stare at it. The beautiful infield just waiting to be run on, and get the dirt flung everywhere; the sign of a great game, and the best thing to start off a perfect summer.
I start off by preparing the field for the game. I need to put the bases in, rake the infield and the pitchers mound, and get all the equipment out and neatly set it aside. I position the end of the bat in the chained fence so the hang there. The baseballs are then emptied into a 5 gallon bucket and set next to the dugout. While we wait for the other team to come, we grab are gloves and spread out along the right field sideline and start throwing back and forth.
When the game finally starts I take the field first. Catching grounders and pop flies I am gracefully running and diving all over the right side of the field. Then the hitting comes. Fastballs change-ups, and curveballs quickly dancing around the strike zone. I get a good pitch and swing as hard as I can. I hear the ping of the ball meeting the bat and look up to see where the ball is. I don’t see it in my first glance, so I start my stride. I look down at first base, my place of savior, and see the fielder running toward it. I look up again to see where the ball is and I see it fall just over the shortstop's head. I take a wide turn and take a couple extra steps after I reach the bag toward second base. Once I see the ball thrown back in by the left fielder, I side-step back to first base. This game, this game right here, is about having fun and about the love for the game.
I grab the plastic lever and jerk it back from forward to reverse. I put my foot on the gas and slowly and carefully back out of the garage. I grab the lever again, this time throwing it in the opposite direction, forward. Forward is the direction I am going and hope I will never have to stop.
My go-cart is dark blue, with 2 seats accustomed with seatbelts. There is a role cage in case you accidentally flip or role over on the side of the go-cart , as it has happened in the past. There is a small brake light on the tail end of the machine, and two headlights on the front. It has four 12 inch tires that can turn up to 40 miles per hour. Normally because gas is so expensive you think it would be a problem to be driving all the time, but at 40 miles to the gallon it is also very affordable to ride.
To drive a go-cart you need a lot of land, and that’s exactly what I’ve got. My huge yard opens up into an enormous field that is awesome to drive on and contains a driving range for golfers and its funny to drive on. Sometimes the people aim for you and it's a lot of fun.
I love both my go-cart and baseball for the same and different reasons. The same because they both allow me to have fun. I enjoy them for mainly different reasons though. My go-cart allows me to get away from it all and I can do whatever I want, be free. But playing baseball allows me to spend time with friends, be aggressive and competitive, and learn some new things.My go-cart and playing baseball both allow me to have a good time, baseball more competitively and my go-cart by relaxation.
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