Corn

Corn is one of the leading agriculture products in the world. Maize, as our ancestors once called it, is probably a lot more complex then one may think. Initially I thought of corn as just a simple yellow vegetable that grew on farm lands each year from spring to fall. As it turns out, corn isn't just a vegetable but also considered a grain and a fruit as well. When first planted, corn is a seed, and technically it is considered to be a fruit, because the seed comes off of a plant. If harvested earlier enough (while the corn is still moist and yellow inside the schuck), it is considered to be a vegetable if we eat it. If it is harvested late (the corn inside has dried out), it is considered a grain. This is just a small fact on corn, it turns out it is an interesting and very usable crop.

Corn has many uses. Corn can be used to heat your house(corn pellet stoves), its more than likely a part of you daily breakfast (grains in cereal), and in recent years its demand has rapidly grown due to a country striving for a better fuel efficient economy. A fuel was developed from distilling corn into an ethanol fuel. This ethanol fuel has many advantages as opposed to traditional gasoline. It burns cleaner than gas and releases fewer toxins into the atmosphere. Ethanol is also a renewable resource, meaning because it is grown, it can be used over and over again. Not only does ethanol from corn help the environment but it also helps out our economy as well. Ethanol based fuel is cheaper to produce than gasoline and it also reduces our dependence on other countries for their oil because we can now produce our own fuel on our own soil. Corn production has also grown rapidly due to the high demand for the crop. Farmers across the country have switched from planting other crops, to planting corn. Corn's many uses makes what seem like just an ordinary food, into a very valuable crop for our country.

http://www.biodieselinvesting.com/ethanol-fuel-benefits/

http://www.examiner.com/x-6753-Philadelphia-Nutrition-Examiner~y2009m8d21-Nutrition-101--Is-corn-a-vegetable-or-a-grain

Bullet in the Brain

The short story Bullet in the Brain seemed bizarre to me at first, but as the story went along it was a bit more intriguing than I first expected. The the main character didn't seemed frightened at all by the bank robbers. Instead he found them humorous he was even entertained by the murals in the bank itself. If I or more than likely anyone else had been put into that particular situation we probably would be defecating in our pants, not to mention we wouldn't be laughing and making fun of the bank robbers, but he seemed to be amused by them. This whole sequence was quite strange to me. I did manage be drawn into the story more when the robber shot the main character, not because of the bullet, but by the description that soon followed. The author went into great detail of the thoughts that were passing through his head as well as the bullet. The thoughts were surprisingly not the main events in this man's life but a very relateable story from his childhood that involved a pick-up backyard baseball game. In the story the main character was just puzzled by another boy's different dialect in his speech. I thought this to be a bit of a coincidence that he had started critiquing the way other people spoke even at a young age, and about 40 years later the main reason he was shot by a bank robber was mainly because he was once again critiquing the way the bank robber spoke.

I thought the strength of the story was its descriptive details that the author used to tell the story. I was able to envision the environment of the bank as well as the thoughts that were flowing through the main character's head. I thought the story's main point was for people to not be so critical and negative about life. All in all, I found the story to be pretty well written and put together, and i'd have to say I enjoyed it for the most part.

The Glory Days

First day of school, the mighty fifth grade here I come. As I sprinted out of my house without a second to spare to catch the school bus, my aspirations of what the next nine months had in store for me filled me with excitement. Fifth grade, finally the biggest kids in school, and finally the privilege to have recess after lunch which only meant if you ate fast enough you could manage to get five extra minutes to play. Yep, this was going to be a good year.

As we arrived to the school on the bus, the rush hit me once again. It seemed I always forgot that the first day of school also meant the grass on the playground was able to grow properly over the course of the summer, which meant there was a good two to three weeks of quality tackle football to be done before the field was ruined again. My bus was usually one of the last buses to get to the school, so after I got off a group of my friends were already sharing some of their stories from the summer, and arguing over what quarterback was better, Steve Young or John Elway. Which everyone knows is John Elway. When the bell finally did ring, we were assembled into single file lines and we all entered the school like cattle. Mrs. Merrill, my new teacher, had had my hellion of a brother only three years before. Thanks to him, I knew my limits on just how far I could push her to get a good laugh out of my fellow classmates without actually getting into trouble. I now already had an edge on my mischievous good friends Dane and Tate, who were also in the class. We weren't necessarily bad kids, we were just the typical immature fifth grade boys -old enough to know what was going on, yet young enough to still be naive to the outside world. Now, fifth grade was also the point in our lives when the girls in our class actually started looking good, and we didn't view them as cootie carriers anymore, but thats a whole different story in itself. As the school day went by, it seemed it was the usual stuff-social studies, math, English, the casual Mrs. Merrill yelling at Dane, phonics, music class, and RECESS! The best part of the day. Touch football usually was how most of our time was spent, every now and then an occasional game of kick ball or white lightning would slip in, but for the most part football overrode our time outside. It was always the best when the teachers weren't looking and we'd even manage to play a tackle game for a few minutes. When the school day finally came to an end, i'd usually be found walking with one of my best friends Jacob, who lived just on the outskirts of town. The walks to his house was always an adventure inside of itself. Whether we were throwing rocks at deer or just talking about episodes of The Simpsons it was always a good time. We'd hang out at his house for awhile before my mom would finally come pick me up when she got off work. Once back at home I'd do homework for a good fifteen minutes or so before playing video games or watching tv for the remainder of the night. I'd be in bed by 10:30, and be set to do the same routine the next day. Yep, that was a good year.