Yup, that’s me. I’m the oldest kid in my family … I’m 11. I have a sister who is nine and a brother who is seven. I guess the first thing you should know about me is that most of the kids in my school think I’m weird. That is because of two things. First, I like reading and I’m not much of a jock. I’d much rather read a really good SF comic book, or a regular book than play soccer {which I hate} or basketball which is, IMHO, worse than soccer. Second, I’m { brag, brag } very smart. They will not tell me what my IQ is, but I was able to score 163 on one of those buy one/take one tests at the bookstore.
I do not have a telescope, but I do have a really good pair of binoculars my dad got me when I was eight. They are 8×63 … that means eight power with a 63mm objective lens, about 2.5 inches across. I especially like to hunt down the objects listed in the Messier Catalog – compiled in the 18th century by a French astronomer who was a comet hunter. He got tired of seeing these puffs of light and mistaking them for comets so he very carefully measured their positions and wrote them down so he could instantly check to see if what he was looking at was a peske “nebulae” or maybe a comet. There are 110 objects listed — I’ve found about half so far.
My mom and dad are divorced. [There seems to be a lot of that going around] They have been for nearly four years. My little brother Michael is a Pokemon nut. I like to watch the cartoons too [but I like Starship Troopers better] but my brother is completely carried away. Dad is away with the army to fight for some people to keep their land and their homes.
Have you seen Randy, Jon McCollough’s brother (or cousin, I’m not sure)? Why isn’t he with us at Glenwood? That would be cool.
