Holidays and Whatnot

Hello everyone; I know it has been quite some time since I last posted, but I have been fairly busy studying for finals, taking finals, and doing Christmas-related activities.  I had a great holiday and I hope all of my lovely readers of this blog have too.  I'm very excited to say that I finally got a new mandolin for Christmas, because my old one was a fifteen-dollar thrift store item and sounded terrible, with awful tone and a buzz on every note.  However, I now have a very nice Kentucky A-style mandolin which sounds amazing, and I have been playing it almost non-stop since Christmas.

Here's a picture of my new mandolin:

 I am also pleased to announce that I now have my own laptop as well, which I was able to buy with my Christmas  money.  It's a very sleek Dell Inspiron 14z ultrabook, which I am going to blog on from now on.

This is what it looks like:

  Looking back, I see that I went through a stretch where I posted a lot of Minecraft pictures that I'm sure nobody really cared about, and I'd like to apologize for that now, and I'll endeavor not to make posts of that kind in the future.
 Anyhow, I hope you all had a very nice Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Monkey
Day, and that today you're having a happy new year.

Cool NPC Creations

In Minecraft, you occasionally encounter some really neat NPC (or non-player character) buildings, which are built by the villagers.  I've found NPC villages (the most common), temples, and one time, a house in the middle of the ocean.  Here are some screenshots.

These are all a sandstone temple in the middle of the desert.  I have found two of these so far.

There are also temples in the jungle, which are very cool because they have redstone tripwires and chests in them, and are very high-tech.

 Finally, I have some shots of this nifty little hut in the sea that I discovered in one of my worlds a while ago.  (In the background of a couple of the pictures, you can see my replica of a modern mansion in Florida.  It will have its own post in the next couple of days.)

House in the Sky

Today is day three of my Minecraft Week, and today I have a few photos of my house in the sky (in my random exploring world.)  Here are some shots of it from various angles.

                                         The first picture is just what it looks like on the inside.

From the air, you can see inside through the glass roof.  This also gives a sense of how high up it is.   (In the bottom left, you can also see the top of my giant Enderman from yesterday.)

                                    This is what you can see from the ground looking up.

Out the window, the view is very impressive, and here's what the sunset looks like from up there.