Month: September 2012

A Fantastic Start

displacedlocal2 Comments

Saturday’s football game against Lee Vining was a great game for us at OVS. The new players and the veterans had great games. Juniors Cody Triggs, Keaton Shiffman and John Olivo were just a few of the players that endured nearly ever play.

John Olivo also ran for one of the 8 touchdowns, shedding 5 tacklers on the way there. He had a second carry later on in the game resulting in 15 yards and a number of Lee Vining defenders with failed tackles.

Sophomore Masaki Takamatsu, in his first ever football game, ran for three touchdowns eluding the defense and shedding tackles on his way to the end zone.
He also caught a pass for his fourth touchdown of the day. Read More »

The Truth About Pinatas

Daphne Psaledakis2 Comments

As a child I was always afraid of pinatas. For one, they look absolutely terrifying. The majority of them are shaped in the form of a donkey, with obnoxiously bright colors plastered all over them. It’s like a tiny not-human version of a clown.

Pinata.

Secondly, as a very self-conscious person, being blindfolded and handed a bat did not exactly appeal to me. Especially when I was told to start beating the thing. What person wouldn’t be nervous when surrounded by a group of kids their age, and told to beat something until it broke without help from their sight?

It’s just not right.Read More »

Why Romney, Why?

frog31 Comment

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Why is it that people vote for politicians who really don’t care about them? I am of course speaking of the “charismatic” Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.

Romney has distanced himself from the average American several times. The most recent remarks, in my opinion, have been catastrophic. He said, “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what… [M]y job is not to worry about those people.”

He is proclaiming that he does not care about 47% of America, that is almost half of the nation.

If that is what he said and most certainly what he believes then why are people, the average American still voting for him. I mean most of Romney’s voter base may call most of the attacks on him Liberal propaganda. In this case however the attacks are exactly what he said and yet Conservatives have attempted to defend him in the wake of this public relations nightmare.

I understand party loyalty but to follow a man who does not care about you, the average, is ridiculous.
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Featured Movie: Red Eye

kirbyfullyloadedLeave a comment

Before you read this post, just watch this trailer.

Please?

Gotta say… I’m not a horror movie person.

I’m one of those people.  I freak out when I have to walk 15 feet by myself in the house at night after I watch a scary movie.

However, I do love psychological thrillers.  Those are just OUTSTANDING.

If you’ve visited infiniteblue before, you may know of my passionate love for Cillian Murphy.Read More »

Behind the Scenes of the Lee Vining Live Blog

callmemaybe322 Comments

Hello all, we are finally back from our football road trip where we came out victorious against the Lee Vining Tigers, putting us 4th in our free lance league, and currently putting us in an undefeated position with our 52-28 win.

Now, if you are reading this post I hope you have read our Lee Vining updates where the whole trip is laid out day by day, highlighting major moments and fun times.

What you as a reader get is different than what I as a writer experience on a day to day basis. Some of our readers may envision students and teachers alike sitting in an office or classroom that is well groomed and maintained, writing on computers in newsrooms like those portrayed on TV and in movies.

It is actually quite the contrary if you are reading our blogs from the Lee Vining trip. Our three  journalists on the Lee Vining trip were me (Keaton Shiffman), second year journalist (John Olivo), and first year journalist and photographer (Nicholas Giannetti).

It may seem obvious that trees and bushes do not output a strong WiFi signal, rather, none at all. So every night of our trip after all of our camp business was done, and food was taken care of, the journalists along with Mr. John Wickenhaeuser travelled down the road into the small town of Lee Vining.

Lee Vining is not the most normal of towns, because as it currently states on its welcome sign, it has a population of 398, which could have varied from the first time this sign was put up.

The first night of blogging was done from a Mobil Gas station, which also supplemented as a restaurant, gift shop, and convenience store. John, Mr. Wick, and Mr. Craig Floyd, all sat outside on the picnic style benches this gas station had to offer, and used a phone’s internet to post our Lee Vining: Day 1 post. John and I sat outside in the cold writing on the computers to inform our readers of how the first day and night had gone so far. This blog can be found on John’s profile, backinphilly, where we co-wrote the first story.

After about an hour of blogging John, our faculty supervisors, and I headed back to camp to find all of our teammates and remaining coaches asleep.

The next morning was the game which can also be found on the “backinphilly” blog. This day turned out better than expected with a great victory, but we played against a team with such great work ethic, and even better sportsmanship. Read all about Day 2 in Lee Vining @ Lee Vining: Day 2. This blog was written in an even more unique spot than a gas station diner, a McDonalds PlayPlace.

After our first varsity victory, the team enjoyed a fantastic meal at Giovanni’s Pizza in Mammoth Lakes, CA.

After dinner, we once again ventured out to a new blog spot, and it turned out that McDonalds had accessible WiFi, so we hopped on that opportunity.

When we first arrived, briefcase in hand, covered in dirt, sweat, and tears, I would have expected an unusual look from the staff, but maybe that was normal for them.

What really should have provoked a look was the fact that when we could not find any power outlets, we set up shop in the middle of the napkins and straws. And even at that no McDonalds employee minded the fact that we had set up our computer at a random condiment counter in the middle of their restaurant.

While writing we had a few visitors trying to find a straw or a napkin to wipe off their hands. Even at that nobody really wanted to question the two large teenage boys sitting and writing on a laptop in the middle of a McDonalds in Mammoth.

About 30 minutes into our writing one employee finally decided to tell us there was a power outlet under a seating area in the front lobby of the establishment. We picked up and moved there, and in this area there was a PlayPlace located conveniently on our left.

While we wrote on the couch like seat, we had to seize a great photo op in which John and I sat in the PlayPlace finishing our Day 2 blog.

I now see why these play places are made for children and not grown adolescent boys who have heights that exceed 6 feet.

This blog spot provoked a few laugh after an amazing and exhausting day.

We once again packed up, got in the car and headed back to camp, where once again we found a campground in a slumber after a day of hard work.

This really shows the dedication of our Journalists, and the want to let our readers  know how we do what we do.

I hope this shed some light on what really goes on behind the scenes in the life of an OVS Journalists, and what it is like blogging on the road while playing one of the most memorable football games any of us will ever take part in.

From Keaton “That Guy” Shiffman, back in Ojai, I bid you good evening.

Also, contrary to popular belief apparently, I was not stuck in the slide at the PlayPlace, I was merely lost in the ever so confusing maze of tunnels that I may or may not have been to large to have been crawling around in.

Stuck

The Right to Truth

smackyjackjack3 Comments

Its no secret that the United States government has concealed many things from the American public. One of the first activists to properly expose the United States to the world was Australian hacktivist Julian Assange.

Julian Assange is the founder of the secret sharing website Wikileaks. Not only is Julian Assange one of the most important people in the world right now, but Wikileaks is one of the most important websites.

Wikileaks first made its appearance on the world’s radar by publishing a video named “Collateral Murder”, which showed the murder of a group of unarmed Iraqi citizens in Baghdad by a US Army helicopter. The video was allegedly sent to Wikileaks by Private Bradley Manning. Manning decided that he would be the one to speak out against the murders.

Private Bradley Manning has been in prison without charge for well over 700 days.

The next things to get Wikileaks in trouble were the cables they received documenting the atrocities committed by the American army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wikileaks has also created a database documenting the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. This prison has been notoriously known as one of the worst tourture prsons in recent history, other than Abu Ghraib. Or at least, that’s what everyone thought.

Wikileaks also uncovered the hundreds of other torture prisons that America has secretly kept in other countries such as Yemen.

Wikileaks and Yemen have also had their past. Recently, Wikileaks published a report on the “Secret War” that America has been waging in Yemen against “terror”. The US has been using drones to try and weed out terrorists in the region.

Casualities of the strikes in Yemen remain unclear, however several strikes have been reported to kill almost no one but civilians in the area. One victim of the attacks is Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, a teenage boy who was killed along with his family in a drone strike gone wrong in Yemen. He remains a symbol of the US’s poor judgment in the region.

Julian Assange is reportedly barricaded in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, England. IF he were to leave he would be arrested by the UK police and most likely be extradited to the US where he would face treason charges.

What this all comes down to is how far you are willing to defend free speech. Does free speech stop when it exposes wrongdoing in your OWN government? Or should the people of the world be allowed to speak the truth?

Do you have a right to know the truth?

Lee Vining Day 2-Game Day

backinphilly3 Comments

Today, we woke up to our pregame breakfast. First off, this consisted of a 4 pound slab of bacon (purchased from the Mahogany Smoked Meats Co.).

You have never seen a group of guys go this wild for meat.

With the bacon, we made sausages, eggs cooked with the bacon grease, potatoes and onions cooked with bacon grease, and threw it all into breakfast burritos. Clearly, there was salsa and cheese involved. But it was meat-tastic.

After breakfast, we relaxed and either slept or went into the freezing cold river for a nice wake up dip. We then gathered to elect team captains while getting game gear ready to go.

Each player had to vote for three players that they think displayed the greatest form of leadership. Although we only planned on having three captains, the vote was so close that the coaches added a fourth. The result was John Olivo, Cody Triggs, Grant Spencer and Min Ung Choi.

We checked our gear one last time before loading up into the vans and blasting pump up music. We all got into our own zones, and prepared ourselves for battle.

We arrived to the field with one goal in mind: Win. We showed up an hour prior to kickoff, and began our warmups. The captains led the team in their stretches and agility workouts, and then broke up into individual position drills.

The whistles blew, and the starters took the field to compete in what very well may be the greatest 48 minutes in OVS history.Read More »

Growing Up

Daphne Psaledakis2 Comments

When I was little, we lived in Marin, a small town outside of San Francisco, California. Specifically, we lived in Kentfield, which is a town that even some of the people who live in Marin have never even heard of. Number 338, Kent Ave. was not a new house when we moved in. The stairs leading up to my brothers’ bedrooms were covered with the ugliest green carpet you could imagine. It was absolutely horrendous.

But then my mom decided to put her decorating talents to use, and we moved into our friends cabin while our house was remodeled. The cabin was so small that I had to share a room with my two brothers, and the youngest of the two eventually had to get his tonsils removed because he snored so loud.

The remodel seemed to take years, although in reality it didn’t take very long at all. I remember sitting on the front porch and talking to one of the workers. I ended up begging him to have the house down before my birthday.

And although the house wasn’t done in time for me to have my birthday party in it, it was eventually done. My favorite room quickly became the living room. It was in the very back of the house, with a door leading to the backyard. All the walls were painted white, except for one. It was hidden by a gigantic blue book-case, filled with novels, dictionaries, and my personal favorites: The picture books.

Picture Books.Read More »

Endeavor

smackyjackjack1 Comment

Last night, the Space Shuttle Endeavor sat perched atop a Boeing 747 at Los Angeles International Airport.  It spent the whole night atop its winged friend waiting for a crane to pluck it off the back of the 747 so it could being its final mobile journey to the Science Center in downtown L.A.

For the Shuttle, the coming years (and even decades) will be ones of quiet solitude as a tourist attraction and symbol of the once mighty manned American space vehicles.

Americans now have to buy seats off of other countries if they want to get into space. The lagging budget for NASA has fallen in part due to the recession, and also because of greed and misunderstanding.

Of the hundreds of members of congress, none are scientists. Therefore, it is extremely hard for federal branches of the government such as NASA and the EPA to get funding.

Space exploration, and even space tourism in some cases, has been left in the cash filled hands of private businessmen and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Richard Branson.

This exciting new turn of events could actually mean stronger and more determined space programs.

New designs for space shuttles are already in design by these companies, most notably the Hawthorne based SpaceX..

Until these designs become a safe reality, however, the world will have to be satisfied with the decommissioned Endeavor: a small black and white speck on the tiny blue dot.
Wooo, photo, yahhh

Three Roommates. Four Years.

moustachulous2 Comments

Tristen. Iris. Nicole. What do all of these three people have in common? They were all once or currently my roommates. I started OVS in 7th grade and have had three roommates. I know some people who have had five different roommates over three years.   I also know people who have kept the same roommate for four years. I’m glad to have had my past roommates. They all have been wonderful people and I never had any problems with them.

When I first started OVS four years ago, my roommate was a girl named Tristen. Tristen was my roommate for the two years I was at Lower Campus. She was a great roommate, but she was always losing things. Most of the time she would ask me where her stuff was and 99.9% of the time I had an answer for her. “I can’t find my laptop.” Literally my answer was one single word: closet. No joke, everything she lost was in her closet and if it wasn’t there it was down the side of her bed. I really don’t understand how it always ended up in her closet. I am going to be confused for life on that one.Read More »