easter blog

I hope everyone is having a great easter weekend ! i have visited with so many family members and eaten soooooo muuuuch foood ! Quite surprisingly, i have not colored any easter eggs with my cousins though. I remember last year, we went to my uncle's new home and colored about three dozens of eggs at his brand new kitchen table. That was probably a really bad idea; my cousin and I got bored with the basic colors after awhile and mixed all of the dye together to make this bright neon green . it wasnt even that pretty. We ended up with green hands for the rest of the week. It was pretty much embarrassing to go to school the next day too. i have always wanted to have some kind of egg event with the entire family, like a easter family reunion. well, not an easter egg hunt, but those crazy egg tosses and whatnot. i was watching conan and reese witherspoon was explaining an egg race where people stuff sock, like tube socks, with as many eggs as they can and then they run to a finish line. i think that would be thee most amusing event ever. i wouldnt be able to stop laughing at the socks.

english. Caesar really isnt all that bad of a book. i mean, it has an original story line; maybe because shakespeare was the first one to make it up but its easy to follow. he uses all those "special" words but i think that it makes it more interesting to read. at least hes not monotonous. im not sure yet if watching the movie before we read the book was a good thing or not. it kinda helped with knowing who the characters are and gives me a picture of where they stand, but it doesnt really match with the book. Like any movie based off of a book, it left a few things out. im about to go do the vocab now, and get that out of the way.

nothing can be hidden forever .

Dear reader,

            Invisible Prey written by John Sandford involves many characters that are all linked together in multiple murders made by Jane and Leslie Widdler; a married couple looking to get rich off stolen antiques. They started with the killing of Jacob Toms; an old man with a house full of very expensive antiques, and a few years later went after another elderly lady by the name of Claire Donaldson. They continued their great, invisible robbery by murdering Constance Bucher. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension couldn’t put two and two together because of the unique way of how each victim didn’t relate in any way, other than being in a quilting club and donating rare and famous Armstrong quilts to museums to get a large amount of money from tax returns. Lucas Davenport; the investigator of this crime and who was also on the Burt Kline case of accusing this Republican man for raping a sixteen year old girl, Jesse Barth, started to figure things out. 

As the Widdlers worked harder and harder to keep their secrets hidden, they ended up killing Marilyn and Gabriella Coombs to prevent them from knowing too much. All of these murders in a short period of time pressured Lucas to find the killer; causing him to look deeper into it and investigate Amity Anderson, a girl who was somehow linked to all of the murders. She used to work for Bucher before her death and she lived only a few miles away from Marilyn Coomb’s house. She was also involved with the quilting club and the Armstrong quilts. Jane was starting to get worried that Amity would tell all and her and her husband would be sent to jail, so she made a plan to distract the BCA. She got the information from Amity that Lucas was also working on that second case, giving her the idea to mess with the people involved with Burt Kline. Leslie and her followed Jesse Barth home one day, Leslie jumped out of the van they were in and attempted murder, but the dog that Jesse was walking with attacked him. This caused them to be even more precautious and made more complications, though it did get Lucas to worry more on the Kline case in some ways. He continued to speak with Amity Anderson and go through files and paper work until he connected the evidence with the Widdlers. Jane knew when Lucas had found out and acknowledged that she had to take action.

            Jane met with Amity secretly, without Leslie knowing, and talked about the new plan that was set. She was going to give Amity the map to the place where all the expensive antiques were hidden and let her take whatever she may want; she could then continue with her dream and move to Italy with all that money. Amity was quite alright with this plan, except for the parts that she didn’t know about. Jane went home, manipulated Leslie into thinking it was necessary to kill Lucas to prevent him from telling the rest of the BCA and getting them put away. The two of them sat outside Davenport’s house one night with the idea that Leslie was going to shoot Lucas as soon as he stepped outside. Instead, Jane shot Leslie in the head and set up the scene to imply that Leslie committed suicide. Jane then led the BCA to believe that Amity was the murderer. Since a person cannot be arrested with reasonable doubt, shifts to watch Amity took place for the next few days until they followed her to the country house with all the antiques. Catching her in the act, Lucas and his friend were going to arrest her, but they still had reasonable doubt. Lucy Coombs, the mother of her now dead daughter, Gabriella, became a part of the investigation and made a “secret” appointment to meet with Jane for a business meeting about the Armstrong quilts. Surprisingly, Jane tried to shoot Lucy to get out of the trade they were going to make, and Lucy, in return, shoots her in the head out of pure revenge for her daughter.

The theme ties into the story with Jane and Leslie’s crimes being hidden in the beginning for a couple years with the first murder of Jacob Toms. They thought that the BCA wouldn’t catch on if they murdered and robbed another widowed elder, Amity Anderson and Marilyn Coombs started to suspect that something was going on, causing them to kill even more to keep their secret from being exposed. Thinking that they had this whole scheme under control and kept, it eventually unraveled and everybody found out the crimes they committed, no matter how tricky and complicated they made their crimes seem. They portrayed that nothing can be hidden forever.

"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

(Dial tone)

Amity Anderson: Hello?

Jane Widdler: Hey, Amity. It’s Jane. We need to talk about things.

Amity: Okay. Is this about that Lucas Davenport guy?

Jane: In a way. Just listen; you already know everything. I’ve got a plan though.

Amity: A plan for what? Oh, please Jane, don’t get me involved into this any more than I already am. I just want to move to Italy and get away from all of this.

Jane: Amity, we just need you to do one more, simple thing. All you have to do is take some of the antiques. We need them moved from my house to the country home. You’ll have to pick me up at that coffee shop that we met at before; I don’t want Leslie knowing anything. You know how he gets when he’s all worked up.

Amity: Uhmm… I don’t know Jane. Don’t you think that the BCA will get suspicious if they see us driving somewhere together? They already have the watch team keeping track of me. They follow me everywhere. I see them in their cars even though they are unmarked.

Jane: Well, you didn’t let me finish. We will be in the car together, and since they are watching you, they will think we are up to something and get all of their guys to follow us, leaving Leslie alone at home. He already knows we have to move the stuff so he’s taking the van and only moving the big paintings, since those are the stolen antiques that the BCA are concentrated on the most.

Amity: Okay; just as long as I get my share.

Jane: You’ll get it right after we get Lucas off our case.

Amity: I don’t understand how any of this is going to get them to stop pursuing.

Jane: They will see the white van that they have been trying to track and pull it over after they see the pictures inside the van. Then they will arrest Leslie for all of the crimes, seeing that he is the one with the antiques.

Amity: You’re going to frame your own husband?!

Jane: Some things are necessary.

Amity: What time?

Jane: About nine thirty, just when it’s getting dark.

Amity: I’ll be there.

Lucas Davenport: And so will I. Thank you ladies.

“If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

Dear Burt,

                   I am sorry for lying to everyone. I never thought it would lead to what it did. I now know it was very wrong to tell everyone you raped me. My mom and I just thought it was a good way to blackmail you into giving us money to not tell the police these lies. I never would have imagined that it would go as far as being a court issue or even cost you your republican place in the government. I wish I had used my brain and realized that I couldn’t keep this a lie forever. If it makes you feel any better, it was completely humiliating to stand up to the jury and tell them that I lied, and that it was my entire fault that you were in this mess. I am ridiculously sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, just know I apologize.

                                                                   Jesse .

“Secrets are made to be found out with time.” ~ Charles Sandford

(Gabriella Coombs)

                        Being so much more of a giver than a taker, my grandmother wouldn’t except these flowers and sentimental belongings we shower her in today. She was so caring and generous to everyone, even the random strangers she accompanied on the streets. One of her largest acts of sharing was when she donated an Armstrong quilt to the Walker museum for the whole community to see; but not just the population of Minnesota, but the entire world. The quilt was a rare, historical piece of evidence that was worth a bunch of money at the time. The fact that she donated it made the motion of pure kindness even greater.

            This amazing woman did everything for anybody she could. I often think back to a few months ago when I was going through a really rough time in my life, and I just needed someone to help me get back on track. I was a complete wreck; I lost my job, my home, all my friends, I was struggling with money and I didn’t have anybody to turn to. I carried on like that for quite some time; it felt like I was finally able to get my head above the harsh waters when she rescued me. She probably saved my life. It is such a tragedy that I was not able to return the favor and save hers.

            I think it would bring her great justice and peace to reveal what happened on that heartbreaking day of her death. A man by the name Leslie Widdler and his wife, Jane, were invited into her house to have cookies and talk over a number of subjects. No one really knows for sure of the reason why, but Jane and Leslie murdered my grandmother in her own house, and then set up the scene to make it look as if she just fell down the stairs in an unfortunate way. They kept this lie going on for weeks, lying straight to the police the whole time, but I had my suspicions. I can now say with pleasure that their secret it out for everyone to know, and they both got what they deserved in the end. My grandmother can now rest in peace, as so can I. She will be dearly missed. 

“When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it” ~ French Proverb

reflection

The phone conversation:

            The phone conversation was between Jane Widdler and Amity Anderson, with Lucas Davenport listening in. Jane called to tell Amity about another secret plan she came up with to get the attention from the police off of her. Lucas had the phone tapped so he could keep track of who she was contacting; he got lucky and heard her whole plan, along with all with some of the secrets she had been keeping. I chose this genre because it was a great way to resemble that things cannot always be hidden, because there are always ways for others to find out. I found this to be the easiest genre out of the other three; it wasn’t very challenging to make dialogue.

The eulogy:

            Gabriella Coombs spoke about the death of her grandmother, Marilyn Coombs. She had been killed by Jane and Leslie and Gabriella knew about it. She told how her death happened in the end of the eulogy, describing every step that Jane and Leslie took to kill her. It was important because not everyone knew what really happened; some people only had suspicions. This genre was fairly easy to create because I have heard eulogies before and know the gist of what is said in them. It reveals my theme through Gabriella telling the secret of Jane and Leslie after their death, showing another way that secrets can escape. I had some difficulty with figuring out who was going to be speaking the eulogy because most people by the end of the book are dead, so this genre would have taken place sometime in the past.

The apology letter:

            Written by Jesse Barth to Burt Kline, she apologized about putting him through a rough time with a lie she had told to blackmail him. She almost cost him his job and got him into a lot of political trouble, but Burt had never actually done anything. This genre does an excellent job at representing my theme because the girl lied and kept the truth hidden, but in the end, all of the secrets came out and she had to apologize for it all. It was another very easy genre to do. I didn’t have any difficulties with it.

The quilt collage:

            The quilt goes along with a huge part of the book; the Armstrong quilts. They were mentioned often throughout the story and played a great part in the mystery of finding out the murderers. The quilt pattern doesn’t have any real meaning, but the hidden word in it resembles the theme. It was hidden pretty well, and is hard to find but it is still in there, visible and will not always be hidden, because someone could easily find it if they looked hard enough. I had a lot of trouble with putting the pictures together but it all worked out in the end.

 Works Cited

Google. 3/26/11. <http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1040&bih=892&q=quilt+sqaures&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=>.

ThinkExist. 2010. 3/26/11. <http://thinkexist.com/quotations/secrets/>.

what i did

this weekend has felt very eventful. I stayed after school on friday and went to lionette practice and stayed there until 6pm. Then i went home with my friend and spent the night, because we had to get up really early the next day. We didnt stay up that late, we culdnt be superduper tired. We got up and drove down to centerville, which was very far away, let me tell you. It took forever to get there but it diddnt seem that long on the way back. I watched alot of the other teams dance from other schools and they were pretty good. The lionnetes did a great job too. Right after all of the competitions, we drove back home and went out to dinner with these people that are going to myrtle beach with us. We had to meet them and get to know them before we go on some long vacation with them, that would be awkward. They were really nice and i cant wait to spend more time w ith them. we also went to breakfast with themm the next day too. well, it wasnt really breakfast because we left at one, but we ate breakfast food. After that i killed some zombies until my father came and picked me up sunday night. see, quite eventful .

The untitled story

The car reached ninety five miles per hour; this was only time that anyone could drive this fast on neighborhood roads. The moon lit the street perfectly; spotlighting it, allowing him to speed up even more. He pushed for 105, but knew a sharp turn was approaching. He slowed a little, getting ready to show off one of his most practiced tricks but, something distracted his attention. There was a man, or maybe it was an older boy; he couldn't tell in the darkness. He was standing, in the dead center of the road, with the moonlight shining down at just the right angle to shadow his face. No matter how determined Jackson may have been, it would never have been enough to avoid hitting the man.
Instead of wasting time trying to prevent the inevitable, he blared the car horn for as long as the closing distance gave him. Only an hour ago had he been an average, innocent teenager, just taking a night's cruise. In two seconds, all of that will change. He will be known as a murderer.
A man was faintly talking, a strong voiced, stern man. It wasn't clear of what he was saying, Jackson only knew that he wasn't very happy. His eyes started to adjust but it didn't help much; there was no light. It smelt of dirt and wetness. Using his sense, he finally figured out that he was lying on his stomach on the ground; somewhere outside. Trying to get up, he moved his arms to push himself off the ground but found it quite difficult; something was resisting his movements.

"This will work out greatly," said that same voice, only extremely loud this time. There was a single metal clicking sound as he spoke. Suddenly, the ground started moving from beneath him and he was put into a confined space; his arms still in resistance. It wasn't until the headlights flashed on that he realized he was lying in a cop car.
The police station wasn't but a few miles away from the turn in the street but the drive, to Jackson, felt like an eternity. He went through his mind all the things that he could have done; not remembering a single unlawful thing. They pulled into one of the only parking spaces left and the man got out. Jackson had the plan to knock the police man upside the head as soon as he opened the door but, him being about six foot, two inches was intimidating.
They made their way down a long hallway with doors of all the bureaus. Three doors from the very last was "Officer Timplan's" office. The boy was seated in a sturdy, leather chair across from a desk piled with papers. Among the stacks sat three coffee cups, along with Officer Timplan's. As the cop was being seated behind the desk, a few other men entered the room. They were also officers.

"Is this the boy who shot him," asked one of the men.

"Yeah. He looks awfully guilty, doesn't he," snickered Timplan.

"Am I being arrested?" Jackson had no recollection of anything.

"Yes you are! Anybody who would even think to kill another man deserves to be locked up," shouted another.

"But I didn't kill any-." He was cut off as a big muscled, administrative agent scooped him up and carried him away.
He was put into an empty cell, for fear of being beaten to death by any other cell mate. The door guard took his handcuffs off but made it clear that if Jackson were to go on a rampage and try to destroy anything or hurt himself, they would go right back on. He had to keel himself in good shape for court tomorrow.
"Why am I in here," Jackson screamed to the door guard. The man had to walk over to his desk to check the files.
"You are 'accused of shooting a thirty one year old man in the back with a .45 pistol.'"

"What?! I didn't do anything like that! I was just going for a night drive and..." He faded out because he couldn't remember what happened next. "Wait, how did I end up in here?"

"Officer Timplan brought you in."

"But how did I get in the cop car? I was driving in my own car."

"Timplan said he spotted you standing near the road right after he heard the gun shot and you tried to make a run for it," explained the guard. Jackson just stood and thought, his mind couldn't comprehend.
. . .
The door guard walked through the door to the right with a set of keys jingling in the air. He strolled up to jackson's cell and started to unlock it. The door swung open, letting freedom seep into the dark crevice.

"What?" Jackson was so astonished, he couldn't say anything more than a single syllable word.

"You are free to go, any charges will be dropped. Your plate is clear."

"I don't understand."

"We know you didn't kill that man."

"I told you! Who was it, then?" He determined to figure everything out. The guard sighed.

"Officer Timplan did it. He tried to set you up though. He needed somebody to blame.

"I still don't get how I ended up in the car with him though; the last thing i remember is lying on the ground with handcuffs."

"Well, I guess you were speeding and Timplan stood in the middle of the road, planning to stop the next car to drive by. You tried not to hit him and swerve but you fell into a ditch and flipped your car. He said you hit your head pretty hard and knocked yourself out, giving him the easiest opportunity to take you back here," explained the man.

"Wow. And he told you all of this, just confessed?"

"Not really. Some guys from the department heard him having an argument with himself in his office. He was yelling about the murder."

"Oh. The guilt got him."

"No, he was just diagnosed as being schizophrenic and mentally insane."

No snow, bad Ohio !

I seriously though we were done with this winter weather . The birds were even outside in my front yard the other day . They all came back to Ohio (which was a giant mistake, I can't even fathom why they would even think about leaving Florida, or wherever they went to) to find it snowing a day later . We all know that even they are hating Ohio by now . Anyways, I completely forgot about this blog, until two seconds ago . Crazzzzzy . It's so hard to remember now that I'm not in infotech everyday with a computer staring me in the face, making it almost impossible to forget to blog . Ohhh welllll . I hope I did okay on the essays we took, I feel like the second one is really super duper bad because I kinda rushed . On Saturday, I went to a container party . It was so weird, I thought I was going to walk in there and the walls would be completely covered in plastic tuperware but I was sooooo wrong; it was a purse party . This lady was selling purses and bags and whatnot . Some of them had insanely crazy patterns on them and others were the size of a cow, but I ended up buying a decent looking one . The lady kept trying to get people to "book a party" and have you hold a little party at your house and she would come there and try to sell them AGAIN ! no, no, that's just not going to work .

sunday, sunday, sunnnnnndaaaay .

i spent my entire saturday night highlighting courses and important things i need to read over in the Westerville North course booklet thing that has all the classes i can take. Im going to have sooooo much reading. Each type of class has like 5 pages of all the different courses i have the option of taking. I dont even know what im going to take next year. What is just absolutely crazy, is that to graduate from that school, i wouldnt have to take speech or infotech ! i took both of those classses this year ! Ahhhhhhhhh  ! that is just ridiculous, completely insane. ANNNND i only need half a credit of gym; I have a complete full credit ! how crazy, just how horrible. i wish i knew all of this before i took those classes. Someday soon i have to take a trip to North and visit the school and get enrolled, get a guidence counselor and talk to him about my classes and what im going to take, just like i would if i went to schedualing at Lincoln. So much work . tomorrow is school though, english class, yaaaay ! i still havent taken that comma test . maybe ill take it this week .

What an interesting weekend.

Everything that could possibly happen this weekend, definitely happened . On Friday, I went to my cousins to go snowboarding and usually there are a lot of people on the hill but that time there wwas like one other family . They were really strange too; they had a sled that had wheels and one time when they flew down the hill, two of the wheels flew off . After a few more people came, we stopped snowboarding and began sledding but Our goal was to run into random people . It didn't work very well; we kept missing them and flying over the ramp . See mr. Potter, I'm using semicolons and commas . I hope I'm using them right . Then on Saturday , I was going to go sledding on a pond, but it didn't work out too well . The ice was 6 inches, and google does say that if it's 6 inches, it's thick enough to drive a vehicle on . We drove a tractor to get all the snow off, but after going once around the pond, the ice broke and it started to sink . We tried to use a truck to pull it out but it slipped and started falling into the pond too . 5 of the tow truck companies we called would not help us, but luckily, all these random guys who drove by in trucks stopped and helped us get both of them out . It took a loooooong time, and got two other trucks stuck in the process, but we did get everything back to kinda normal . How eventful .

Toooo muchhh !

I have so much work to do this weekend.
And im cramming in the studying. I have been working on the half year classes first because that is like a whole years worth of learned information and it's all going to be on one giant test. Ohhhhhhmmmy. I just can't wait for all of this to be over. After I finish each test I will feel so relieved, and less unstressed.
But tomorrow I am going to take a break from all of this studying and go sledding and snowboarding with my cousin. There is a hill right behind her house.
My sister has one of her friends over tonight and they are being really crazy. They spent about four hours trying on and picking out clothing, then styling their hair in seven different ways until they found just the right one, annnnd then, caking on tons of makeup just to take pictures. That's a little much. Now they are taking showers, thank god.
I hope they fall asleep soon, I don't know if they're energy is ever going to run out though.

okay, i dont even know when this blog was due, i just know im misssing one, at least one . i have been so behind on these, but im not going to forget this weeekend ! so the story we are reading is suuuuuuper long. It like a book all on its own but in a packet form . And its not even one of those stories that take forever to say a single thing or make a point, it got right to it. I like how it moves along pretty fast too, we have only read about 5 pages and already three couples have died, and it just keeps going and going. i hope it doesnt have a dumb ending either, that would make an okay story drop down to horrible. Mr. pottter. you better not make the midterm really hard . you need to make it similar to the mockingbird test we took months ago. It reaaaaally needs to snow tonight too, like 10 inches . schoool tomorrow would be quite unneccessary . thursday too . and friday, would be nice also. oh, 15 minnnnutes !