Jeff Gordon Retirement!!

I've watched NASCAR for as long as I can remember. I picked Jeff Gordon as my favorite driver because I liked the car colors. 

One Valentines day my mom was buying a Dale Earnhardt jacket for my dad so I wanted her to get a Jeff Gordon one as well. She did! 

The next month we met several of our racing friends at Martinsville Speedway to see my brother and my first live NASCAR Sprint Cup Race (March 2009). Mom wore the Jeff Gordon jacket because it was too big on me!



I watched my first Daytona 500 when I was six months old. By the time I was 18 months old I was eating nachos with my dad. I can only remember rooting for Jeff Gordon throughout my life. He is a part of my earliest memories.

I was upset to find out about Jeff Gordon's decision to stop racing full time in the Sprint Cup series  at the end of 2015. He was and still is my favorite driver and I'm upset that I'll have to root for someone else starting in 2016. 

Gordon has several sponsors such as Panasonic, Drive to end Hunger, DuPont, Niccorette, 3M, Imron Elite, Zyntac, Farm Ville, Pepsi, AARP, National Guard, and Looney Tunes. At one time he was sponsored by a Star Wars movie through Pepsi which I had a shirt of that I wore out! Star Wars and Jeff Gordon - two of my favorite things!


Gordon drives the No. 24 Chevy Impala. Before he came to NASCAR Gordon had a long history of racing everything from quarter midgets to sprint cars. He wanted to find a ride in IndyCar but that never worked out.

Gordon races for Rick Hendrick along with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, and Jimmie Johnson. Gordon started in the Busch series, which is now the Xfinity series, and worked his way up to Sprint Cup series.

Gordon earned his last of four Sprint Cup championships in 2001, the year before I was born. But even though he has never won a championship in my lifetime, he is still a winner and continues to add to his race winning totals nearly every year I have watched him. He is currently third on the all-time wins list of NASCAR drivers behind Richard Petty and David Pearson. He has 92 wins and could add to that total this year!

Gordon was in the Chevy Camaro Commercial were he is disguised and fooled a car dealer. This is hilarious and one of my favorite commercials ever. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mHPo2yDG8

Gordon was also featured in one of my favorite Disney movies, Cars 2 where he plays Jeff Gorvette, a Chevy Corvette GT car. 

I always try to watch the last 10 laps in all Sprint Cup races and especially if Gordon leads! 

This year I will try to watch every race. I hope Gordon earns his fifth championship in his last year of full time driving in the Sprint Cup Series. 

After 2015 I will root for Chase Elliot who will be taking over in the No. 24 and Tony Stewart in the No. 14 because he was always my second favorite after Gordon. 

I hope Jeff Gordon races his heart out this year and we have many victories to celebrate. Either way, I'll remain his fan.

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow!!!!

Snow Snow Snow, what a wonderfully crystally, lustrous thing. It gets you out of annoying school and makes you happy. I can do lots of fun things on this long fun weekend. I have a strange theory that when our snow plow/blower are blocked as well as when a snow warning is issued for our area, we will get a lot of snow. The forecast here says 10-18" on top of the 1' from this past Saturday, the day my Boy Scout Troop participated in the district Klondike Derby. I'm not expecting school in the next two days so I'm going to build forts and have snow ball fights with my siblings. We had the plow and blower blocked last night so at 6:30 am I helped attach the plow to my dad's truck. 


Right now in all we have about  one and a half feet of combined snow from over the weekend and today and more on the way. By the looks of it we are going to have more than two feet. I can't wait to go sledding in the awesomely cold snow. It's so wonderful being in snow. I love it so much until it freezes into ice. Ice stinks because it makes everything too slippery.

On Saturday January 24th 2015 my troop did the Klondike Derby at Allamuchy state park. The Klondike Derby was originally a hunt for gold in Canada. Sled riders used dogs to pull sleds to win the most gold. The winners won a fortune in gold and others were left in the snowy dust. Today we Boy Scouts take part in a series of activities like setting up tents, signaling via hand signals and orienting maps or finding north on a map. Also we had sled inspections which made sure we had everything, made fires to cook our lunches, tied many knots and identified animal tracks and map signals. We had a fun time and got 5th place out of 12 teams in the junior sleds.

Snow days can really be a ton of fun. I wish we had them every day and school did not exist. Of course, then I'd miss band so I'll take the snow days we get and enjoy every minute.

Person of Inspiration: Mr. Zimmermann

There are approximately seven billion people in the world. A very small portion of those people inspire me. My parents are two and then the one person who inspires me a lot I’m not related to is Mr. Kurt Zimmermann. He is an amazing trumpet player, is a member of the Hanover Wind Symphony, and my band teacher.

Mr. Zimmermann is a great band teacher, and he works at my school. He is teacher of Pep, Marching, Pit, Holiday Ensemble, and many other bands. He uses great puns and jokes in class. In addition to being a terrific teacher, Mr. Zimmermann is also a husband and father. He has one young son.


Mr. Zimmermann helped me improve my playing. He taught me my scales. He helped me learn my notes and rhythms. He also taught me a lot of songs on my trombone. Mr. Z, as his students call him, helped me with my tone quality, and he taught me intervals. Mr. Z makes me want to play in pep (which I’m in) and marching band, which I plan to do next summer.

To get people to play well he threatens to lower grades by five points! But this does not change how much his students and I respect him. In return he treats me and my band mates with respect and like equals. He is always a fun and cool teacher. Mr. Z makes himself available and does a lot of band events, above and beyond other teachers.

Mr. Zimmermann is the person who inspires me.

Christmas!!!!!!!

Finally! Christmas is here. Making awesome food, having many wonderful guests, getting amazing presents, giving many gifts are all a part of my Christmas celebrations. It is all part of the spirit of the holiday cool season. In the house we are busy with two uncles, two sets of grandparents, our one present cousin, and my grand-aunt and grand-uncle who came to dinner the Sunday before Christmas.

Over the Christmas break, so far I have made several dinners including a great pasta dish (spaghetti and meat sauce) and I helped with the 20lb turkey. They were all delicious, and everybody liked them. I thought they were out of this world. I worked very hard on the wonderful meals.

We have had our, almost, entire huge family over. Uncles, our Cousin, Grand-Parents, Grand-Aunt's, and Grand-Uncles. And of course my brother, sister, Mom, and Dad. We are having a great time. Every day my family takes a hike in the woods behind our house. It is great exercise.

I had fun watching my family open their many presents. I gave my brother an invisible ink pen, my mom a #1 mom bracelet that my brother picked but I paid for, my sister a Barbie activity book, and my dad a cutting board. I also had fun opening my many presents. I got texting gloves, a ski cap, a basketball hoop for a door, a stress "man", a trombone liar (clip-on music stand) and trombone stand to hold the trombone at rest. I also got a Bermudian Flag and a chalk board string, Two Lego Star Wars books, a sunken treasure book, fake mustaches, Lego Star Wars General Grievous' Wheel Bike, lots of socks (sports socks, multi-colored socks and normal socks), card tricks, a magic set, a small wooden box with a magnetic lid, calculator watch, sports watch, three ties (Which were really cool), shirts (for ties, a polo and two T-shirts), a bowtie/pocket handkerchief, and bow tie pins/notepad.

Christmas has been fun this year. I hope you had a great one too.