Multimedia

HHS ROCKS THE REGIONAL ART SHOW!

EMMERT

HHS Art students have done us proud at the ESD 112 Regional Art Show this year.

Regional winner Leila Stutesman’s ceramic piece will go to the State Art Show in Olympia in April.

Other winners include

  • Kara Brown’s “This Verus That”
  • Riley Luke’s “Alien Invasion”
  • Hugo Gonzalez’s “Magic Goggles”

[nggallery id=24]

Please congratulate these artists when you see them. It’s an honor to make it into the ESD 112 Regional Art Show, and an even bigger honor to be awarded!

JOIN US at the GALLERY OPENING at 6pm on March 19th!

MOUNTAIN AIRE by Mr. E

EMMERT
The writers’s grandfather, Donald Cline, in backyard on California Ave. in Oak Ridge, TN.

 

I pull through Stubb Stewart State Park’s Dairy Creek West campground and I see no one. I see what looks to be a parking lot for recreational vehicles.

Cyclone. Avalanche. Raptor. Hornet. Voltage. Hurricane. Outlaw. Outback. Razorback. Komfort. Mountain Aire. Chateau. Bullet. Cougar. Arctic Fox. Road Warrior. Thor. Aerolite. Denali. Fun Finder.

Thor has a three-legged stand out front, holding a large DirectTv® satellite. The tripod is pinned to the ground with yellow hi-vis twine tied to orange plastic stakes. Why is Mountain Aire’s “aire” spelled with an “e,” I wonder? And why is Aerolite missing the “g” and the “h” that are normally present in “light”? Does “lite” feel “lighter” without them? Yes, I realize—it actually does.

 

But then, is a liteweight trailer better than a heavy one? I consider cyclones and hurricanes and avalanches and raptors and outlaws. I’d be inclined towards something heavy, I think. Read more →

MAKE IT RAIN

EMMERT

Don’t take it too personal that Mother Nature lets it rain a ton on us Northwesterners—there are scientific reasons why we get dumped on all the time.

We have a constant windy blast above us called the jet stream. Think of it as a gigantic train in the upper atmosphere that chugs a bunch of weather systems right through where we are. During December, the jet stream brings through a weather system phenomenon called “The Pineapple Express”—nicknamed as such because our weather comes from the waters by our pineapple-y friend, Hawai’i.

The Pineapple Express chugs its way through, bringing storm after storm from the waters surrounding Hawai’i, up to the Gulf of Alaska. This time of year, we get the least amount of light and the most amount of rain—6.4 inches of rainfall in the month of December alone and only 8 hours of daylight as opposed to the 15 hours of sunny-shine we get when school lets out.

Our positioning next to the beautiful Cascade Mountain Range does us in, too. The storm-train has a tough time chugging up those mountains and kind of stalls over us—traffic gets backed up so it just dumps out its cargo during the delay. The cool air condenses, making the clouds smaller and tighter with water, and easier for them to dump their water supply.

Scientifically, we were destined to get drenched. Mama Nature’s jet-stream train and the Cascade Mountain train-stop make sure of this—but it’s because of them we get the thirst-quenching weather that makes the Northwest lush and green. Most of the grass seed used in the FIFA Soccer World Cup came from Corvallis, Oregon. We have a plethora of salmon running through our waterways, and we’re pretty famous for our apples.
With every cloud there’s a silver lining.

Written by Jeremy Hess
Video by Daniel Ostapenko

FIRED UP

EMMERT

Most teenagers like to hang out with friends, go to after school jobs or anything to take up the time you have to think about homework. Gabe Morales, a senior at Heritage, brings after school activities to a whole new level –using kerosene. He has a passion for Fire Poi— a type of fire dancing.

It was the summer of junior year when he first heard of this new hobby. A friend from his wrestling club mentioned it to him and advised him to try it. Gabe was intrigued to start so he bought a starter kit and went to YouTube to learn how to Poi. Once he was more comfortable with playing with fire, Gabe started using a staff, and then upgraded to a sword. The final upgrade: spitting fire.

Burns come hand in hand when it comes to playing with fire and Gabe is no exception. When it comes to accidents, Gabe has had a few; nothing hospital-serious, usually just some mild burns. He finds the fire calming and warm, and is really only scared of burning off his eyebrows or hair.

Right now Gabe is involved in our Concert Choir and Varsity Wrestling team, keeping busy and enjoying his after school activity. He doesn’t plan to give up Fire Poi anytime soon and wants it to become a part job so that he can share his talent for everyone’s enjoyment and make some side cash. After high school, he plans to go to Portland State to study in music education so that he can be a high school music teacher.

[nggallery id=23]

Images by Cody Calhoon
Written by Julia Garcia

WINTER’S BONE

EMMERT

Up here in the Northwest, particularly in the winter months, sun is hard to come by. It rains for days, it gets cold and the dark hours of the day get longer and longer and it’s preferable to stay cooped up in the house. Some might enjoy the rain, but others flourish in the sun. Local resident Deanna Bixby hates the winter because of the fact that she can’t go out and enjoy things and is depressed because the lack of sunlight, and she’s not the only one. These dark days mean less sunlight, and less sunlight means the potential for getting necessary and vital amounts of vitamin D plummets—just like a lot of people’s moods and energy levels around this time.

Images and Editing by Daniel Ostapenko
Writing by Jeremy Hess

This general mood-plummet can in part be explained by Seasonal Affective Disorder, also appropriately known as SAD, festers around this chilly time of year. Energy levels go through the floor, and gloomy symptoms of depression come about. Teachers see it all the time, and it sure doesn’t help around finals time when you’re trying to finish a test and just want to curl up and sleep under a fog of sunshine-less gloom. The only cure: lots and lots of vitamin D-filled sunshine.

As well as being a good cure for the Winter Blues, vitamin D has a host of other health benefits. It can help with healthy weight loss, assists in the natural absorption of calcium in bones, reduces the risk of colon cancer, and helps maintain a healthy immune system. Here in Vancouver we get deprived of this beautiful vitamin for months and months out of the year, so any chance you get, make sure that when the sun is out, go out there and soak up some good old vitamin D.