balloons!

When i was younger, like 5 years old, whenever it was one of my brothers' birthdays, i would help my mom decorate for them. She taught me how to rub balloons on my hair or the carpet and stick them to the wall. I thought it was so cool. My mom explained to me that it was because of friction, but of course I didn't fully understand it then. After doing the lab with balloons in class, I know excatly what's happening. When I rub the ballon against my hair, or the carpet, they become charged--the electrons transfer to the rubbed spot giving it a negative charge. When i bring the charged balloon towards the neutrally charged wall, the balloon attempts to neutralize itslef by transferring it's electrons to wall. This is what creates the attraction and causes the balloon to stick to the wall. (picture to come)

Maui #2

Alright so my family and I took the Super Ferry to Maui and to be honest it really was not worth it. My family slept the whole time (except for my dad who took pictures of us sleeping) and my mom and little brother got motion sickness. (me in the back, my mom, then thomas and steven in the front)

It would have been much faster to take a plane (because of a higher velocity and a more direct path--less displacement) but by taking the Super Ferry we had the advantage of taking our car with us. Anyway this trip mainly consisted of creating a lot of unneccessary/unwanted displacement. First, the Super Ferry and second, the whole adventure I talked about in my last entry about my dad making us believe he knew his way around Maui. We were staying in a town called Kihei (I think) and we wanted to drive to Lahaina. After my mom got a map and found a direct route my dad insisted that we did not need a map which resulted in driving up and around a mountain. Fortunately despite the wasted gas and the wasted time, we had quite an adventure and i was able to get some pretty good scenic shots. Finally after we took the Super Ferry home after three days the family fun was over.

maui

mmm so unfortunately it's the last night of winter break and i have not yet written my journal or a previous journal from some weekend a long time ago so i'll be writing 2 tonight. over the break my family went to maui for three days which was really not fun at all. one day my dad insisted that he knew where he was taking us but we ended up driving up and around some random mountain for about an hour and a half. it was really windy VERY narrow road with cars going both directions. every time time we made a turn the dead lei hanging on my mom's rearview mirrow would swing the opposite way we were turning due to centrifugal force. centrifugal force gives a feeling that there is an outward force, so in this case the end of the lei was "fleeing" from the center of the turn our car was making. fortunately we finally made it off the mountain and my dad admitted that he didn't know where we were going. oh and this picture isn't a good action shot of the lei, but it did happen! haha and my mom didn't trust my dad driving up the random mountain so they traded seats.