...Sorry no, my blog has absolutely nothing to do with that incident. I just saw the headline okay?

I'm sure you're all wonderin' what ol' meleeman's been up to as of late. Let's see:

Encampment: A weeklong bootcamp of sorts that I attended with CAP. In a word: Insane. I loved it though. It was really challenging and it had me questioning myself a lot, but by the end of the week I wanted to stay there! The days were so long but the week as a whole felt really short by the end. In a nutshell, Encampment is a mock basic training where you learn how to be a top notch cadet in Civil Air Patrol. You drill, march, sit in classes, learn customs and courtesies, stand in formations, have activity days, prepare rooms and uniforms for inspection, sit on fire watch, polish shoes and boots...and of course, get yelled at Some of the highlights were riding in (and I actually got to take off in the cockpit of) a C-130, riding in a Chinook helicopter, going to a virtual (and sickly realistic) weapons simulator, and going off a rappel tower, which included a Huey that had been mounted to the tower for jumping out of.

Next year I hope to go back as staff, but scheduling may interfere with another CAP program I want to attend next summer. More on that another time, but I can't decide if I wanna be a Flight Sergeant who does all the yelling, teaching, and commanding, or someone on the public affairs staff who takes pictures and writes articles all day. Both seem like they would be fun...I can't decide.

I have my own bedroom now I'm ecstatic I've shared a room with my brother Josh since I was born and I'm ready for a little space, you know? He moved into the basement for the remainder of summer and then he's moving off to college, so I'm set Not only do I have a lot of space now, but I get little perks like ability to read late at night if I want, ability to let my alarm (music) play as long as I want in the morning, and also...you know...a TV, Wii, 360, and PS2 in my room! I'm loving it, except that I have no Xbox Live capability up there, so I think I'm gonna have to move it back into the basement when Josh moves out. Until then, though, I've been using the opportunity to get some single player gaming done that I was otherwise too distracted to do.

First thing? SUPER METROID. I, after having had Wii Points for 19 months, redeemed them and bought Super Metroid off the Wii VC. It's SO good. I love seeing where Fusion and Zero Mission get their cues from, and it's interesting to see what stuff changed and what stuff has remained the same since the later two games. I just got the Ice Beam, for those of you who are familiar with it. For those of you who are not, you should remedy that for $8. It's so worth it. I feel right at home playing it with the controls and the layout of the game. The gameplay is as crisp as ever and still puzzling at times. The graphics, I must say, are quite good. They're colorful and surprisingly detailed, with cool nuances like Samus's visor and chest...stripe...thing flashing in dark areas. I also enjoy looking at things like lava bubbling and Samus breathing. There's also some more...amusing things like firework style explosions that emanate from fallen enemies and the sounds that go with it One of the biggest disappointments in the audio visual realm is Samus's basic beam shot. Very underwhelming. All in all, awesome. Totally dig it.

I've seen a few movies lately. I saw Top Gun for the first time ever, and that was pretty good. Be Kind Rewind was really great, too. I'm still reading Generation Kill but I haven't had time to finish it because of Great Gatsby for English and an APUSH book. Speaking of AP History, I got my AP Scores 5 on AP Modern European History, and 3 on AP World History, which I did not actually take as a class!! I saw those scores and about died of ecstasy. I even SKIPPED an essay on the AP World exam. A 3 is like..the highest score I could have gotten with that in mind. I couldn't be happier

That's basically it for me. How are things on your guys' end? Post a comment, tell me what's up

Until next time, I've been a Metroid Larva saving irmeleeman5995, and that's a mouthful to say!