A Moment of Weekness

Well as I have stated before the summer ended i would not be posting very often. But, in a moment of weekness and bordom alas i am. Things have been going very well for me. School in Virginia is good. Life is good.

One of the most fun things ihave done recently is competing in Mesabi Idol 2 last monday and tuesday. This is neither Iron Range Idol(which i won last year), or twin ports idol(which was in duluth), but none other than Mesabi Idol 2. No one can say there isnt enough marginal singing competitions in this area(lucky me)! I only found out about it a couple days before i actually competed in it through a flyer posted in our choir room. It said it took place monday and tuesday october the 10&11 from 5-8. I thought that sounded like fun. It said no entry fee. Sounds like more fun. $500 first prize. Sign me up i thought! So i did.

It was nice that it was all done on a karioke machine so i didnt have to worry about getting my own songs. I showed up at 4:45 at the Mesabi Community College(obviously the pinnacle of higher learning for the virginia/eveleth area if that's saying anything at all). I had to sit though 12 other people singing(most of them honestly quite bad). There were three girls there from twin ports idol and those were really the only ones i was worried about.(and no my favorite one wasn't there...wink* wink* nudge* nudge*) Anyway it came time for me to sing "I can only imagine" by mercy me. I wasnt really that nervous, but my voice wasn't in wonderfull shape so i did good but not great.(it could have been better) Still it was suprisingly well received.One of the contestents came up and told me after that it made HIM cry!(I certainly hope it wasn't painfull to listen to!) That was the first night(qualifier) pretty much.

I came back same time same place the next night. Out of all the people who tried out the 5 judges narrowed the field down to seven. Myself, 2 kids from the college, one other girl, two girls from twin ports idol and bum bum bum Brittany Aultman. I won last year's Iron Range Idol and She won twin ports idol. I beat her at this year at iron range idol. So here we are Brandon 2, Brittany 1. She's itching for a fight.... Here's what happened. She sang some weird country song on the 2nd night. It wasn't nearly as good as the song on the first night so i was feeling pretty good. I sang you raise me up by josh groban and the judges said it just blew them away. Everyone else sang their song and then all seven of us were asked to come up on stage. First they cut 4 of the seven. Two of the people from college, the other girl, and one girl from twin ports idol. It was down to me, Brittany, and one girl from Twin ports idol who honestly wasn't nearly as good as either of us. I watched the judges as they announced.... "The winner of mesabi idol two is.........yet to be determined by a sing-off!"

What! Ok i said. We had five minutes to pick a song to sing of out of the karioke book. I picked God bless the usa by lee greenwood. Brittany pick "I will always love you"(by whitney on crack houston) also the same song she sang last night! and the other girl picked "I will always love you"(by whitney on crack houston) also. The stage was set for a battle that would go down in history..... For $500 and being crowned mesabi idol 2005...... I sang my heart out. Really i did. I gave it every ounce i had. Even dedicated it to our "men and women serving our country in the armed forces"(judges love stuff like that) Next Brittany and other girl sang their song. (the same one) Brittany looked really nervous when she went up to sing. I obvoisly didn't worry her before. But i did now. She sang it basically the same as she did the first night. Then the other girl sang it ok. The judges called us up to the stage again. First they announced third place and the prize of a cheap dvd player and a movie (msrp $40) 3rd place went to other girl! Whew! There was an odd silence for half a minute. but it felt like a half an hour.

Brittany smiled and looked at me. I could see her coldness beneath the smile she put on. We both were smiling to the crowd but cold and anxious. The head judge spoke: "Brandon Monson and Brittany Aultman are tied so we will put it to another private vote" (apparently 1 judge voted for the other girl 2 for me two for Brittany for a total of five judges) The judges went behind the stage to talk for a minute. I was left standing there with her. It was one of the longest minutes of my life. She looked at me again with the same cold smile. It was at that moment that i remembered. I wasn't in this for the money. I was in this becuase i love to sing. I genuinly smiled at her. With a looked that apparently read that i didn't care whether i got first or second. Her cold look melted away and revealed the thoughts that i had. The judges came back moments later. The head judge spoke up. "I must first say that this was one of the hardest decisions we have made. It was really very close decision between the two of you. We'd like to thank blah blah sponsors blah blah student senate blah blah.... The winner of Mesabi Idol 2005 is......




Brittany Aultman.




I was really disapointed. Long story shorter we both stood up there for like 5-10 minutes as the other finalists came up and got their prizes. I recieved a $200 mp3 player(not too shabby) What I though was really weird though is that Brittany's demenor didn't change one ounce after she won. The clash of the iron range singing titans had taken place. She had won.....this time.... I told her she did a marvelous job. She said the same to me. I walked off and mingled for a bit and then i went home and got a well deserved night's rest. I really had alot of fun.

Pros

$200 mp3 player
two nights of fun fun fun
lots of complements
a couple phone numbers
and last but not least the feeling of knowing i tried my best

Cons

losing(really not even that big of one)

Until next time 4-5 devoted readers. Oh and that answer to the question most of you are probably thinking. Yes I do.

Stories of the Dells: Part Two of Two

Well we got into the water park at about noon. It was amazing! It was huge! Ok there was all these random slides. Some had tubes you had to lub up but eh those were still fun. The best ride was the master blaster. It was like a water roller coaster. Big gusts of water shot you up like 15 feet and then dropped you down. This happened about three times then you went through this pitch black tunnel and you got like pelted with tons of water from all sides until it shoots you out into this big pool. The lines were actually not long and it only took about 5 min. Especially when I saw my good friend "Denver" a couple times. Then there was a lazy river that went all around the whole indoor park. It was like walking for real lazy people. Sometimes we walked to whatever slide we wanted to go on. But most of the time we just went on the lazy river till we got there. At one end of the lazy river there was thign thing called the wave pool. It was basically like being in the ocean. There was just all these big waves that came up and I think thats whats basically powered the whole lazy river.

Then there was this big complex of bridges and slides and stuff. The one of the best parts of it was these really sweet water cannons that were posted at random places throughout the complex. It was real fun just shooting people as they came bye. Lol it sounds kinda childish. But there were alot of older guys and girls shooting one another with oversized super soakers lol. There were also this large troughs of water that were on the second floor of the complex that filled up by these faucets that you could tip over and like 20 gallons of water would fall on people's head. Me and my brothers and did that for a good amount of time and then we found our dad and went on water slides for a couple hours. Then I went back to that complex while my dad did that surfing thing. My brothers stayed on the lazy river or something.

Anyway I was coming up the complex and there were these guys above me at the big trough and there was a cranky old life guard coming up to start here new shift at the top of the complex by the kid slides. These guys dumped the whole thing on her and she was totally dry and in a second she was soaked! She was saying some umm not nice things and this one kid who was down by me giggled and almost got kicked out. Fortunatly she didnt see the kids that did it so they got away. I felt kinda bad for her and i held my toungue but it was sooooo funny!

I also met this really nice girl there who was shooting small children with a water gun with her friend. Us both sharing the same love of dumb water on small children and shooting people as they passed by got to talking. She was really nice i think here name was Alex. Anyway I spent a good amount of the day going on rides with her and her friend while my brothers and my dad were on that dumb surfing thing. She only lives about an hr away she said so she goes there all the time and showed me some of the rides I havnt been on before. Like there is this slides that shoots you down into this big bowl with a hole in it so you flush down like you are in a big toilet then you shoot down into this small, but really deep pool. Anyway I had alot of fun with the slides and with her but it was getting to be supper time so I found my family one by one who had split up to go on different rides.

We ate supper at about 8 in our room in front of the interpreter which was a good movie. Then we went downstairs for some ice cream before it closed at ten. Then we wached kicking and screaming with will ferrel until about midnight. Then we finally went to bed. We got up at around 8:30 and went right to the water park again. This time we went to the outdoor water park which had basically the same thing. They had this huge three person raft ride that was really cool and they had another complex just like they had inside which i didn't stay on for too long. The funniest part which none of you will probably get but matt and andy would think it is funny.

There was this dj booth where you could request songs and make like birthday announcements and I had the dj guy announce for roy d. mercer to come to the dj booth. My dad was laying down on one of their like 1000 lawn chair things. He almost fell out of his chair when he heard it. My two lil brothers played on the complex and my dad took a nap while i went around on random rides. I saw Alex again this morning so we went on some more rides but she had to go soon after so we said our goodbyes and she gave me her email and then left. IT was about 1 when I found my dad and my two bros and we went on rides until we had to go. We checked out of our room from a fun filled dells experience. We were probably at the water park for a good twelves hours. Then we drove to pick up that dumb truck thing. Stopped to sleep for the night and got home afternoon the next morning. It was a really good time. This was probably my longest post and I had fun writing it and i hope you all had fun reading it. Until next time.....

-Brandon

And now the end is near... stories of the Dells Part One of Two

Well I havn't posted for a long time and i'm sorry about that but I have been up to a lot as of late. Summer is almost over and I don't think i'll be posting much if at all during the school year. But i figured i'd make one last awesome post about our awesome trip to the dells.

Wednesday:

We left for the Dells right after church. We took my our dads semi truck becuase it is a long trip and we had to pick up some weird looking 6 wheeled truck that my dad bought online. Apparently him and one of his friends that works in the pit crew for the moster truck gravedigger are going to build a monster truck together(go figure!) Anyway we got two 13 inch tv's from walmart before we left and they fit very nicely in the semi truck. There are two front seats and then a bed in the back. There are two counsels to the left and right of the bed that housed our tv's,xbox, and gamecube. Our some 20 hour round trip wasnt nearly as bad as you'd think. (seeing as though my brothers and i play our fair share of video game once in a while lol)
anyway we left at around 8:15 and drove till about midnight. We stopped a ways in Wisconsin(it was hard to find a hotel that wasnt booked)


Thursday

Anyway, we woke up in the morning(yep everyone made it through the night no one died in their sleep) My dad drove from six till about noon when we arrived at the Kalahari. He took a nap in the truck after we checked in and we went straight to the water park. Here's the rundown on the park.

Kalahari's Indoor Waterpark offers something for everyone! Stand up surf or boogie board 365 days a year on the FlowRider® where 50,000 gallons of water each minute flow under you to create a five-foot ocean-like wave! Experience the thrill of the Master Blaster uphill water rollercoaster waterslide, the only one of its kind indoors in the entire USA! Enjoy the Victoria Falls family raft ride, huge indoor wave pool, lazy river, spas, Animal Kingdom & KidSplash play areas and so much more! No matter what the weather is like outside, you can splish splash all day long indoors at Kalahari.

Yesh I got it off their website(with pics!)-made sure i said that so my blind friends that are having this read to them know that i took the time to post pics with the information i am too lazy to right myself :)

i will post of my exploits in coming days but for now i must rest

exept tales of water, fun, food, girls, slides with water, music, pranks, and shooting people in the eyes with a water cannon

A whole week in one post!??!!?!? It can't be done!

Ok so its not a whole week. But it be close. I have actually been doing things that are interesting. Except Tuesday and Thursdayoh Friday too. So I will just skip that lil bit of time. If you are wondering what I did I will give you a list of what I do with 75% of my time. (no particular order)

Eating
Sleeping
Playing Video games
Paying BB with myself or my brothers
Drugs jk lololololol
Going on the inet
Going for walks w members of our family
Going to our land
4 Wheeling around our land
Going for wilderness excursions with various pieces of offroad machenery


all of those are pretty uninteresting to read about. so unless i did something interesting i probably won't write about it. ok! Now follows the two days where I did something of interest lol!


Wednesday:

Well I was at my grandmas so I ate a big breakfast, took a hot tub, and relaxed till 6.(basically) Well I know some people were at camp and wernt there so i'm sure you all want to know what happened. Well right away we did our game which consisted of 3 people from each team with 5 shots each trying to shoot marshmellows out of a blowgun in the parking lot onto small targets drawn on the pavement. Out of 15 blue team got 1, green got 2 and red got none. The next event was 3 people from each team 4-5 shots each. One team went at a time on both events. ON this event people shot marshmellows out of the blowgun but the difference is we had to catch them in our mouths. Blue got two out of like 15, green got 1, and red got none. Basically the game took 10 min and it was dumb. But oh well. After that we had worship. Abby got to lead today which I like becuase the harmony is easier to do when we play in her key. Josh played guitar. I think nat played piano and chels played bass. It was fun. After that Hagston! preached about his dog and how we are disobedient to God like his dog or something. He did really well! Props to him! After that i did some stuff with people other than myself. And then I went to bed.



Saturday:

Well I slept in till about 11 and the just got ready for a halo party I was having with some of my virginia friends(yep they exist) at 2. Well only one of my friends came then(Keaton) three more (Weasle, E money, and Z) came around 3. We played halo for a good oh only about 6 hrs. Then we played ball tag for a while and they all left at about 10. It was a really fun day but theres not that much else to write about it. Unless you are a halo enthusiast like i am lol you wouldnt understand what I would be talking about anyway. Hope all you jr teen peeps had an awesome time with camp. With each other, with friends, and with God.








LOOK BEHING YOU!!!!!!!

*Insert Marginally Creative Title Here*

Well I havn't posted in a while mostly becuase I havn't been doing much of interest to anyone.


Thursday:

Hung out. Probably went swimming(we go like everyother day so there is a good chance) I really can't remember much else. Thats the great thing about summer. You never really remember what day it is or which day you did what. Yey!

Friday:

See Thursday


Saturday: (I did something of interest!)

Well my day started at 8:30. Oh well! We had to be to Vic Power for the first game in the mines and pines softball tourny. (It was a mix of our two softball teams) We were short two players twenty minutes before the game. Halfly becuase someone didn't call and tell us in the morning that he would be working at Mcdonalds! Well we basically called everyone we knew or could think of (me and matt) last night. anyway we ended up calling our cousin Chris(played baseball all through highschool and plays golf like at least once a day) Lol! We woke him up and he said yes! (We were really in a pickle but he came through!) He was there in 20 min right before the game started. He was batting third so he basically went from in bed to hitting in 25 min. He never played softball in his life. He did alright batting and he made some awesome fielding catches also. Thanks for coming Chris! We didn't play that well throughout the tournament(lost by 1 run in the bottom of the last inning in all three games!) But I had fun cheering my dad on and everyone had fun playing. After that a bunch of us went swimming at our new place Mesaba park out by where our land is. It was good fun. All in all it was a great day. Good weather too which is more than I can say for today.


Sunday: Went to church. Then went to day two of softball. Played our third game(only two were on Saturday) After that we went looking to go swimming. I drove with Matt and Chris. Grimes(having the wonderfull navigational skills that he does) drove us around Buel and Kinney for an hour trying to find this pit we were talking about. (boy was that fun! lol) It doesn't get any better than a nice drive around Kinney! aahahahahahah! After a good hour we decided to go to mesaba again. This time Chris came. We played some games including our famous king of the raft dock type thing. Kranny won. After swimming Kranny and Andy came over and played poker with us. This was another awesome day! Even though we lost again in softball.


Monday: Did really nothing till softball. Chris is basically playing for our team now since Al did something to his knee and Scott did something to his ankle. We played a team that was 6th/12(we were tied for 2nd/12 with 10-3 record.) It was really cold and rainy and windy. That coupled with the fact that we played like crap equalled out to a 17 run loss. OUCH! For our second game we played the first seed HCC.(Hibbing Catholic Church even though it looks like the college t shirt.) We played really well the next game. The weather cleared up and we fielded a whole lot better. The pitching was good and we consistently scored a couple runs every inning. Unfortunatly this team beat us by 7. It really made me angry not even so much that we lost as they were really scarcastic and pridefull. I really wished we could have made them eat there words. Unfortunatly they "ate" us 18-11. We had fun though and thats all the matters. (even though thats what losers say) Then after softball we had a bonfire out at our land. Amber and Brittany stayed for a while and everyone else stayed to play FLT(flashlight tag to the uninitiated) It was a really fun night and we just ended a lil while ago. Hope everyone else had a good night too!

-Stop, Drop and Pray!

What Summer Should Be Like +Iron Range Idol 2005

It has come time again for me to post of my life to both people that read this.

Monday: A real example of what summer should be. I relaxed all moring went to Mesabi park-lake-place-thing for a couple hours and swam. Saw the Baron family minus one Craig there. Went to softball. Watched us royally whoop Crimson Martyrs. Watched my dad almost pitch our 2nd softball time to victory. Talked with some people after the game for an hour or so. Went home, watched a movie and went to bed. Good times.


Tuesday: Another great example of summer. Relaxed all morning. Went to Mesabi and swam again. Caught Baron's as they were just leaving?! They must go there alot. (We are making up for the lack of swimming this summer, we have an excuse! lol) Then I basically chilled the whole day. Andy came over later and we four-wheeled at our land. Another great day.

But nothing can prepare you for
Bum Bum Bum!
IRON RANGE IDOL 2005!


Wednesday: The first half of the day basically consisted of me getting ready, chilling, and stressing out before the recital/awards ceremony. Unfortunatly I could not come to church b/c it started at 6:30. But I almost never miss church so....

Anyway I sang at the end(God bless the broken road) because I am the "reigning king of iron range idol"( as the announcer said) Unfortunatly I could not win the technical "Iron Range Idol" or "Crowd Favorite" title THIS year b/c I won it last year. BUT thats not to say I cant win it next year or that I didn't win other shiny things. Anyway I think i did quite well and my teacher (Craig LiaBraaten) said I improved vastly over last year. I tied with the winner of Twin Ports Idol for the Advanced Vocal honors. Which is quite good I say because she is older than I am. It was very fun I gotta say. And afterwards we had cake and drinks. I also sad through an hour of smaller awards that took about an hour(not so much fun) such as "honorable mention youth begginer piano" and so on. oh well Afterwords I was pretty beat so I slept at my grandmas. I took a hut-tub there and watched some tv before retiring from a fun day.




Oh and I was just curious to see if there is anyone who reads this and just can't think of anything to comment on like I find myself doing sometimes. So at the end of each post from now on I will pose a question to you. That will give you something to comment on. I'm really interested to see if more than two people read this.

Query:

If you could life in one city in Lord of the Rings which one would it be. (for the rest of your life and you would NOT get to see any memorable LOTR characters, Namely Legolas lolz)

Perfect Day for a Parade

I must say when its 95 outside I can't think of anything better to do than walk for long periods of time hooking up all my friends with candy. lol Well I did.

Saturday

I got to the parade about quarter to two and walked along my voice lesson teachers float. I saw alot of people from the church there(almost everyone) and gave them much more candy than regular people. Who says favoritism is bad? (Well most do) Shhhhhhhh! The our float got done about quarter after four. We went to Howard Street Where the Living Water Music singing trailer was parked. We were so thirsty we ran to holiday and bought a 24 pack of water for all the people singing there after the parade.(from 5-8) When we got back we realised that two other people had the same idea so we had a large cooler filled with about 90 waters and 12 pops. Lol! But I assure you they were gone by the end of the night. Anyway I sang off and on from 5-8. I sang the same things I sang last wed(see last post), but I also sang superman by five for fighting. I saw alot of people there that I knew from Virginia and Hibbing. And also people specifically from our fine church. (namely brooke, jackie, amber and molly and travis) I also met some very nice people there. I met some people that were just walking by and a couple LWM(living water music) people that were singing that I had never met before.(some from twin ports idol) Alot of them came a ways to come and sing. One girl even came from wisconsin to sing(even though it was right outside superior). She did very well I thought. She was very nice. (*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*) Especially to me. (*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*) Anyway, I was supposed to DJ at 8 but Craig(my voice teacher and the guy running the music and the street dance and my dj boss) wanted me to stay and sing for the "not nearly as drunk" part of the street dance. I did and I must say I was awesome! Alot of people walked up to me after(some of them staggered and told me how well I did. It was shhhhweet! When I was singing later I saw a couple other people I knew also namely at about 10 I saw my DENTIST! Yep thats right she way right at the front dancing. My dentist! LOL! Anyway I sang off and on got a significant and much needed confidence boost(lol). At about 10:30 I bid Craig and my new friend farewell and left. Even though it was not that late Iwas soooooo tired cause I had been doing something with my time for almost the whole day(not usuall for me lol) Then I went to bed. Finally!

Sunday: I have decided to write this day in poem form. Out of not so much bordom but um I want to so...Ease off my back bout it!

Went to church
Felt as old as a birch(not that they are that old compared to maybe an oak or tings of dat nature)
Listened to Randy
Sermon was quite dandy.


Then I went to the beach
A survivor event
We shot out balloons
Ate fruit under tents

Which first we did pick
Right out of the lake
We won that event
Cause matt found three grapes(sounds interesting huh!)

Then we raced in canoes
We didn't wear shoes
We lost quite bad
But I wasn't that mad

Then for the thing
We were pulled from a string
By a boat in water
I didn't see an otter(dang it!)

It broke while pulling Matt
Did I mention there was bat gnats(well horseflies but really who's counting)
But Chelsea won for the girls
Even though she almost hurled(well she got a lil bruised...,close enough!)

The End

The poem was much worse than the day lol. I think the teams are pretty much even. We didn't do well at all in the 2nd and third events. But we owned in the fruit contest and we won the last one. I think the scores are pretty much even come wed nes day. Even though I won't be there. I'll be at the finale of iron range idol(starts at 6:30.) It would be nice if some people came but eh you'd be skipping church.(certainly don't come if you are on the blue team.) I will tell you about it later. I'm sure it will be fun and i'll see some more nice people there.