L is For Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong, an amazing long distance cyclist and athlete. An average man with an average life, then it began. It all started with a little bit of differences in his body, then the pain came. Doctors and Specialists had only one diagnosis…… Cancer. On Wednesday October 2nd Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It was not long after that it also spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. Being a healthy 25 year old man, he had no idea what his chances of getting cancer were. He had won the Tour de France 7 times in a row and trained every day of his life since he was 12. He never knew what his life had in store for him.

Lance was born in Oakcliff near Dallas Texas to 17 year old Linda Armstrong. He had no real father his whole life, so Lance and Linda struggled as they grew up together. Lance started sports when he was seven, mainly biking, running and swimming. In his teens he was introduced to triathlons. Lance won many awards and was best in his age group throughout the years. He got better and better at doing what he did, so he got invited to France, Austin Texas and even Germany to train with the pros. Lance recalls Linda being the most supportive person in his life. She always drove Lance to all his triathlon events and swimming meets regarding all her other plans and things to do. As I was saying, Lance really didn’t know how his life would turn out

I’ve got what!? Lance asks the Doctors again in amazement. But he didn’t hear them wrong, he did have cancer. He could barely tell his family and friends about the shocking news. They had to prepare him for his rounds of chemo therapy and his 3 major surgeries, in his lungs, abdomen and brain. The cancerous virus was spreading rapidly all over his body, so they had to move quickly. Doctors told him he had about less than 40% chance of living but Lance wanted to think otherwise.

Two weeks later, he was ready for his first 2 intense operations on his abdomen and lungs. Once that was over he layed restlessly in the hospital bed wanting desperately to get back on his bike. Weeks went by, then it was time for his third surgery, this time on his brain. The surgery went well and all the cancer was gone, for now. Three weeks later he started his first round of chemo. For 10 hours the harsh chemical dripped into his fragile body. Then all they could do was wait. Friends and family came to visit him and help on his long journey back to life. Those few months for Lance with chemo, were torture. Lance finished all his chemo therapy on December 13 1996.

Lance went home to recover from his illness, trying to get through a whole year without signs of cancer. It was a long year. Lance tried really hard to get back on his bike, but he thought it was hopeless. He tried harder and harder and he slowly regained his physical strength. As the 1 year mark came around, he made it. Still to this day Lance Armstrong bikes competitively and will always be remembered as a hero.

Life Lession: Don't let one bad thing ruin what you love.

I commented on Erika's blog on The Beginning

S is For Soccer

At the moment I am sitting in a very nasty Holiday Inn located somewhere in Niagara. It is has one bed, a smelly pull out couch and a T.V that you need a microscope to see. It is not the best hotel I have ever stayed in, and the beautiful view from out our room window (recycling plant) does not make things better. But there is a reason for all this misery, I'm in a soccer tournament. It is a Tournament that happens every year and teams from all over Ontario come to play.

Today was probably the WORST DAY EVER!!! 3000 mile per hour wind, red checks, white hands, frozen feet, and random crying Italian people, you name it.... it was happening. We had to play 3 games today, 8 AM, 12 AM, and 4 PM and trust me none of them were pretty. We battled hard and it payed off. The first game we lost 2-1 the second game we won 3-1 and the third game we won 4-0. Since we won two of the three games we played we had to play the next morning at eight. My Dad and I had the night off so we decided to order some pizza and watch some hockey, you know like father son bonding time. But it was the exact opposite of that. After the pizza came at 7 o'clock my dad fell asleep and when he falls asleep it is next to impossible to wake up. I was nudging, punching and yelling at him and he still didn't wake up. After an hour of 2 he woke up and the night continued.

The morning came quick and I did not get a very good night sleep. I had to search the hotel for my soccer clothes and i could not find anything. Obviously the Craigs are running late so we had to get some Tim Horton's before the game. As we pulled up to the field I hopped out of the car and begun to warm up. The game felt like it was 20 hours because it was so darn cold. Thew game was almost over and the last 5 minutes the other team scored on a penalty kick. The score was 1-0 and that meant that our team was out of the tournament. We had to go home and I was a little sad but at the same time I was excited to see my mom on mothers day.

Life Lession- DO NOT STAY AT THE HOLIDAY INN!!!!

I commented on Andys blog.

C is for Commercials

So your sitting on your leather lazy boy in the corner of the basement watching the Stanly Cup playoffs with the t.v turned up as loud as it goes. Your sitting on the edge of the couch just waiting for your team to score but......then.......a.....comercial comes on!!!! Commercials can be good or bad, sometimes I love commercials, in my opinion the Bud light commercials are the best but once and a while you get the longest worst and most boring commercials ever. I have to say that the worst commercials are the enterprise rent a car.....like come on can that old lady get any more annoying!!! "Enterprise rent a car for me, sounds expensive" Its not expensive mom" " If it wasn't expensive why didn't you get me a bigger car" AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! That commercial comes on like every second!!! Well, ya that's my negative look on commercials but for every 5 bad commercials you get one great one!



Commercials have changed alot over the years. Commercials used to be very simple, black and white and did not have a real meaning to them. Now adays a simple 30 second super bowl add can cost the company 2 million dollars, and that's only the 30 second spots. The first American television advertisement was broadcast July 1, 1941 and only costed 4 dollars. The add aired at half time at a Philadelphia Phillie's game, the add was only ten seconds long and was advertising Gibbs Toothpaste. T.V commercials are filled with catchy theme songs or quotes and almost always catch your eye. They are used to suck in kids like me and want me to buy there product like Doritos....every time I see a Doritos commercial my mouth starts to water and i crave them soooo much.



I don't know if you have ever herd of this but its a little something called PVR. PVR lets you fast forward all the commercials and let you go back to your show. I respect that and I think that's a great idea but its killing the marketing world. How are all these company's going to survive without advertising there products. Hopefully PVR will not take over the marketing business or even the world. Well this has been a very cool blog and I just want to list my 5 favorite commercials. Another thing that annoys me are infomercials. Snuggies, Magic Bullet, Slap chop, and many more, these are all the cheesy and very funny infomercials. Infomercials are normally longer than regular commercials but are very repetitive. Like come on do you really need to show the phone number 10 times and ya we get it if we call now you will double the offer and get the second one free! Well that is my blog for the week and I hope that every time you watch a commercial you think of this blog.



1: Doritos commercial with the baby and the momma http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0EVSP_6XZA

2: Telus commercial with the hippo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dhq-gkyCQs

3: All Budd light commercials

4: Side kicks 25% less salt and the cute little salt guy crying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OekR7Ocu86M

5: Snuggie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxMJlmmnd5g&feature=fvsr

I commented on Tommys Blog

F is For The Future.

Every time I see that telus commercial It tells me that the future is friendly, but i think to my self that that is wrong. In my mind the future is going to be a dark grubby place with gray smog covering the sky. No air to breath and defiantly no wild life. By that time the trees will be gone, the grass will be brown and the animals will be extinct. Well what now telus, what now! One of the reasons I don't think the future is friendly is that my sisters are going to be gone to university and I'm going to be a lonely goose. It sound extremal cheesy but I'm going to really miss them. And when there gone I'm going to be all alone with my lame parents.

Personally I don't believe in the whole 2012 theory, but i do believe that the world will not be the same. Can you imagine the type of cars we will be driving in about 10 or 20 years. Or even the television. We think having the new mac book pro is cool and very high-tech but by the time my kids get laptops there going to be as small and thin as a credit card, faster that you could even imagine and be 3-D. Well all of that stuff is going to be great but before all that new technology comes out we are going to have to go through some tough times. A little some thing called global worming.

The Arctic warming up, glaciers melting, and intense heat waves covering the globe. That is global warming. Im sure that you have heard of global warming because it all over the news but if we don't react fast enough the world could be a hole other place. In my mind we can use the new technology to our advantage. Like maby we can have a machine that sucks up all the air and cleans it, or maby we can make cars that run off water. there is thousands of possible ways to help our earth but we just are not taking action. It all comes back to Gandhi famous quote- "Be the change you want to see in the world.'' I think that is the best quote because it is telling you that if you do a certain action to change the world maybe your action will grow and actually change the world forever. Well i guess telus is wrong, the future is defiantly not friendly. Thank you.

Life lesson: Be the change you want to see in the world, stop global warming.

H Is For Hippopotamus.

You might ask why I would write a blogg post on hippopotamuses because it is a very random animal. They are not a very common favorite animal to little boys and girls because they are not very appealing to look at. But this blogg does have a purpose, I LOVE HIPPOS!!! They are my favorite animal in the world, my second favorite animal is the four toed sloth, followed by belugas but I'm not going to get to that yet. Here are some facts about the one and only.......Hippopotamus. Hippos are located almost in every country in Africa.

Hippopotamuses love water, which is why the Greeks named them the "river horse." Hippos spend up to 16 hours a day submerged in rivers and lakes to keep their massive bodies cool under the hot African sun. Hippos are great swimmers and can hold their breath underwater for up to five minutes. However, they are often large enough to simply walk or stand on the lake floor, or lie in the shallows. Their eyes and nostrils are located high on their heads, which allows them to see and breathe while mostly submerged. That's why every time you see a picture of a hippo they are all ways under the water with there little eyes above the water. When hippos bask (sun bathing) a red oily substance comes out of there skin and works like sunscreen because there skin is very sensitive. Did you know that at birth a baby hippo is about 100 lbs.

At sunset, hippopotamuses leave the water and travel overland to graze. They may travel 6 miles (10 kilometers) in a night, along single-file pathways, to consume some 80 pounds of grass. Considering their gigantic size, a hippo's food intake is relatively low. If threatened on land hippos may run for the water, they can run as fast as humans but only for sort distances.

Hippopotamuses are very territorial . A male hippo often marks his territory along a riverbank , while defending it against other male hippos. Male hippos challenge one another with threatening gapes. Their canine teeth are 50 centimeters (20 inches) long and they use their heads as battering rams, especially against rival males while fighting over territory. It is so cool to see hippos fight because it is very aggressive. Besides the fact that they could kill a human Hippos are, in my mind the best animal in the world. They are so cool!!!!!!!

Life lesson: Hippos might not look like the cutest animals but they are very awsome. Just give them a chance!

Blogs I Commented on: Jordans, Tommys, and Michael Os blog!

S is for Superstitions.

Don’t walk under the ladder, don’t step on the crack, and whatever you do, don’t spill the salt. Ms. Weldon, are you one of those people that thinks that a simple action could result in terrible luck? Maybe that’s because you’re a bit superstitious. But when we ask ourselves why we are so scared about little things like stepping on a crack, we don’t really know the answer but to be honest I think it is kinda stupid. What we really need to know is Are superstitions real, or are they just in our heads? My blog for the week is about superstitions.

For years, many superstitions have left people puzzled, such as, why are people so afraid of walking under a ladder? Well….we don’t really ask questions about this…. we just don’t walk under ladders. But why? I guess its common sense that the ladder could fall on us, but Noooo, that’s not it. From Christian beliefs, by leaning a ladder up against a wall, the ground the wall and the ladder make up what looks like a triangle. This triangle is believed to represent the Holy Trinity and by walking through it, means you are in league with the Devil??? a little crazy don't you think!

Why does breaking a mirror result in such a horrible 7 years of bad luck? I guess that it would make sense that it’s unlucky because obviously, you could easily cut yourself on the pieces of glass, but there is another reason…..Some time ago, people believed that your reflection in a mirror reflected your actual soul. And by breaking a mirror, you broke your soul and got lots of bad luck. As for the 7 years of bad luck, Romans believed that it would take 7 years for them to recover and to piece their soul back together. Also have you ever noticed that there is no 13th floor on most hotels, hospitals or buildings, no 13th aisle on airplanes, or no 13th street or avenue in many cities? All these are connected to the one fear of Friday the 13th. Thanks for reading my blog!

Life lesson: Superstitions are very hokey and no one should believe them!

G is for Pants On The Ground

"Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground, Lookin’ like a foo with your pants on the ground.
With the gold in your mouth, Hat turned sideways. Pants hit the ground, Call yourself a cool cat .Lookin’ like a foo Walkin’ downtown with your pants on the ground." Those are the lyrics of a very awesome song called pants on the ground, obviously. This song was composed my a man with the name Larry Platt one night on American idol. As he sang and danced on stage he did not consider the fact that he might make it to Hollywood. Shortly after his song premiered live on American Idol it went straight to itunes hitting the top ten list.

Though Larry Platt cannot move on to Hollywood for much longer his 10-m inutes of fame was worth the risk. The song may be included someday in the American Idol album. One of the reasons why he could not continue on with the rest of the people that made it past the auditions was because he went a little over the age limit. The age limit for the aditions was 28. Larry Platt was 62 years old. I think we went a little over the limit.

As random and silly as this song really is, for some weird reason i really like it. For a 62 year old man that sings about a song with no meaning I think he put a lot of effort and heart into it, and he has made a lasting impression on America FOREVER!

Larry Platt was not an army general, he was a civil rights activist in Atlanta. The nickname "General" was given to him by Hosea Williams because of his amazing efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement. Pants on the Ground was played on WWE's Royal Rumble in a backstage segment between Teddy Long, Ranjin Singh, and the Great Khali.Also pants on the ground was sung by David Letterman on the Late Night Show. Pants On The Ground will soon be a greatest hit and I hope when I'm 62 I will have as much swagga as Larry Platt.

Life lesson: Keep your pants pulled up, and dont be a foo!!!!!!

F is for Facebook

In my mind the definition of facebook should be time sucker. Every day when I come home from school I usually grab a bite to eat and then sit down and do some homework. As I sit down at my desk I can hear my computer calling me. '' AAAAAlex goooo ooon Faaaacebook" I can not control my self; I need Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that allows you to have contacts and exchange pictures with one another. First, you make a profile - you know put some info of your self and pictures of you doing stupid things. I just hate when people (not to mention any names.. Andy) hahah joking, have 350 pictures of them just doing nothing - its annoying. I have a facebook profile obviously, and so do other people in our grade but the worst thing is random people from like from grade 2 add me as a friend. Like the next day they try to talk to me and there all like hhhhey Alex Craig hows it goin buddy. I respond, not to be mean or anything but dude I don't know you!!!!

In my opinion Facebook is going to take over the world! The website currently has more than 350 million active users worldwide and in 10 years it is estimated that facebook will have 500 million users. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his college roommates and fellow computer science students and at that time he was attending Harvard University. It later expanded further to include any university students, then high school students, and finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. He was the one that started it all. As great and amazing as you might think it is, Facebook has met with some controversy. It has been blocked in several countries including Syria, China, Viatnam, and Iran. I don't really know why it was blocked but our school sure got some ideas from them, and now they blocked facebook too.

There isn't a lot to talk about with facebook so I thought I might just say random things for this last paragraph. Random thing#1= More than 35 million users update there status every day. That basically means if some one wants to write on there wall they might say OmG I am soooo board right now, OmG sooo much home work OmG hah funnn times today haha love ya sandy!!! hah ttyl. well ya thats pretty much what it is. Facebook is very fun for the first week or so and then it gets really boring, at least that's what a normal person might think. Me on the other hand I am addicted. Its like a drug. Well this has been a very random blog post but i hope you liked it.

Life lesson: Use Facebook wisely and don't do drugs.

P Is For Poverty in Africa.

When I think of Africa I think of large trees swaying in the wind, sand, grass and lots of exotic animals. But what I didn't know are some of the awfull things that happen to such a sweet Innocent country like Africa. Africa includes some of the poorest countries in the world. They have to live with harsh climate and to make things worse they have to fight for them self's to stay alive. It is common for kids in Africa to take care of there family because usually there parents die at a very young age. About 120,000 African children are participating in armed conflicts. Some are as young as 7 years old. Refuges from the army come into small African villages every day and take young boys from there home and expect them to kill other people. The refugees trick the kids in thinking that they care about them and that this is were they should be.

Lesotho is a very small country in Africa and chances are not everyone knows about it. It is located in the south but just because its small doesn't mean its not in poverty. Lesotho is defiantly one of the poorest countries in Africa. One in six African children die before the age of 4 and about 30 000 die every day. That is a very sad amount but what is even worse is that there are only 5 Canadians who die every day. You can defiantly see the difference between one of the richest country's to the poorest Continent. HIV/AIDS is one of the most common disease in Africa and almost always leads to death. They don't have any of the resources, money or median that we do so that's why it means so much to donate money. There are about 15 million HIV Aids orphans living in Africa because there parents would die and there would probably be no one to care for them. Most kids in Africa die due to malnutrition, no clean water, or mostly disease .more than 15 million children have already been orphaned as a result of the epidemic. Another 1 million children are currently infected with Aids.

How we can help. Canadians do a lot for Africa already. Out of all the countries in the world Canada donates the most money to Africa, but is it enough. Studies show that if we keep sending money to Africa more and more every year they will receive more medicine and clean drinking water. Sponsor children are great because you send a dollar a day and that money can go along way for them. When we think of a dollar here its just you know a dollar but in Africa that's what they might make for a hole day of hard labour.There is poverty in Africa and there is hunger everywhere. HIV/AIDS continues to kill Africans in record numbers. Africa is poor and there is no doubt but if we all do our part to help this developing country we will save millions of lives and maby some day they will help us if we need it. I hope you learned alot from my blog and I hope you understand that this topic means alot to me. Thank you.

C is for chicken nuggets

You might think it tastes great, you love it, you want to marry it but i bet you don't know what is really in it. My blog for the week is about the one and only chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets are one of the top ordered foods at Mcdonalds and in my opinion i would rather have a chicken nugget more then any other food in the world. Besides the fact that there are 35 grams of fat and 1050 grams of sodium for 10 chicken nuggets at Mcdonalds I still love them. Some people might ask why do you love nuggets so much well, I love the taste of deep fried happiness. I took a survey out of 10 people and the results were positive 8 people like nuggets and 2 don't


This is how you eat a chicken nugget, first you open the box, second you take the golden nugget out of the box and place it into your mouth. Third you repeat the process. Wile you eat those nuggets you probably not thinking about what is in chicken nuggets. The McNugget is a small piece of finely minced chicken held together with phosphate salts. The pieces are coated with batter, fried , individually quick frozen, packaged, and sent to stores. At the McDonalds stores, the McNuggets are deep-fried and sold. Did you know that some chicken nuggts sold at stores can be frozen for a month or even more.

You have probably seen the movie super sized me, a documentary of the health affects of fast food. A man with the name of Morgan Spurlock ate Mcdonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 30 days straight. I'm not saying you should try what he did but just have a chicken nugget and enjoy it.This has been a very random topic but i hope you have learned a lot from this and I hope every time you have a chicken nugget you think of me.

B is for basketball.

I have always hated basketball. For all my life basketball was the stupidest sport ever. I couldn't play it I couldn't hear about it I couldn't even look at it. My prospective finaly changed. Not too long ago I decided to try out a new sport, even if I couldn't stand it I wanted to play because all my friends were. I put my name on the list and next thing you know I was dribbling on the court for my very first practice. I would run down the Court thinking to my self how good I am and BAM! I missed, but I tried.

It was about 2 weeks into the season and sadly we had to face our first fear, a game. Everyone was nervous because really we didn't know what we were doing. The buzzer went as our team was running frantically around like chickens. After a while we started to get better and better but it never showed on the score board. As the game died down with only a minute left, we all knew, the other team had won. The score was 55-14 for the bad guys. It may be hard to believe but our team played very well against one of the top teams in our division.

Now that we have had a few more practices and experience we are not bad. Later on in the month we had our second game. When we saw the other team come off the bus we thought they were playing the Senior team, but no it was us. These guys were so big, and our team is so small it was a little unfair. Also our team is made up of grade sixes and sevens with the exception of Keegan Irland but at that time Keegan had a broken wrist so he couldn't play. Again our team had a good game and lost by less. Basketball is a very fun sport, I hated it and now look at me I'm Kobe Bryant well....not really. Basketball is a great sport to play and even if you hate it now maybe if you just give it a try you might end up loving it like me.