The Death of Family

I heard a horn honk, and disappointment filled me as I realized that my dad was here to pick me up. My best friend Josh who was like a brother to me sat beside me and said with sorrow in his voice,
“Sounds like your parents are here to pick you up.” His two dogs ran out to greet the stranger that had arrived outside their gate. He had arrived earlier than I had expected so I still needed to roll up my purple sleeping bag and gather the video games that I had brought over for Josh and I to play. I took as long as I could dragging out what little time I had left with my friend before I had to leave. Finally I was ready to go and had no more excuses for why I had to stay a little longer. I walked alongside Babu and Neo (my friend’s two dogs) to my dad’s silver Lexus.

Though it was dark, the air had a still sadness to it, and my father’s gloomy outline was clear as day. I walked toward him practically tasting the misery coming off of him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him as trouble was written all over it.

“Beau is dead,” He replied. His words punched me in the gut, and the night seemed to get cooler

“You’re kidding right,” I asked out of utter disbelief. He just shook his head and said,

“I would never joke about something like that”. I could feel the tears building up and trying to push out of my eyes, and I could barely hold them back. I reluctantly got into the car and could smell the salty sadness running down my checks, blurring my vision.

“How did he die?” I was able to choke out through my streaming face.

“He got hit by a car. We can’t find a wound so we think it broke his neck. He didn’t suffer.” My dad said to me. I could see that he was crying as well; Beau was his canine play buddy. My father made a few more desperate attempts to comfort me as well as himself, we both were a mess. Beau was my little puppy for six years and it only took a day for him to disappear.

The Beach of Beautiful Noise

It starts with a small trickle, growing louder, then whoosh. A wave crashes down onto the shore,creating shock waves through out the beach. The pulsating noise of the water over comes me. Crashing or simply sliding over the sand, I feel it though it never touches my body. It washes my mind of troubles, as if it were cleansing water.It continues to flow, drawing back only to strike again. There is a small pause, I hear something else for a change, a flag flying in the wind? It doesn't last and soon the roar of the waves are back upon me. They make sure that I realize who is the dominant sound there, them, the water. I feel it pushing and pulling through the sand, trying to reach out and consume the world as if it were an evil mastermind. My heart is following the waves, aching when they leave, and growing as they return. I never realized how beautiful the melodies of the tides were, but i never took the time to realize that they could be beautiful. The waves continue to return, a faithful servant to my hearts want for it's music. Spending eternity on this beach would be easy, but alas the music dies down, and the rest of the world takes over.

The source of the sound

The Locker Problem Solution

The Locker Problem

There are 1000 lockers, and if the first student opens all of the lockers, the second closes every other, the third changes the state of every third, and so on, there are going to be 31 lockers left open and969 closed. The lockers left open will be 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, etc. until we reach 961. All of the numbers that we listed are perfect squares meaning that a number is multiplied by itself to get that number, for example 1², 2², 3², 4², etc. The reason why only the perfect squares are left open is because they have an odd number of factors. So the locker is going to get open, close, opened, or open, close, open, close, opened, or however long it takes. I’ll use 16 and 18 as examples and will illustrate them in the diagram below. 18 has the factors, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 18. Every one of these factors has a pair, 1x18, 2x9, 3x6, so it goes, open, close, open, close, open, closed. 16 has the factors 1,2,4,8, and 16. The pairs are 1x16, 2x8, but 4 is left by itself, it is the square root of 16. This is why the square numbers are left open; they have that square root, giving them an odd number of factors. There was another pattern that was found, but the flaw was that it would have taken too long to measure on a large scale. The pattern, staring with locker one, was 1 open, 2 closed, 1 open, 4 closed, 1 open, 6 closed, 1 open, 8 closed, etc.

If the diagram seems confusing, here is how to read it. The first row shows the locker #, below that shows the first student opening every locker, below that shows the next person who touched that locker and if they open or closed it. If there is a c next to/below the number, that student closed it, same for o except open instead of close. If there is nothing in the box, then it won’t be touched anymore and you know whether it is open or closed

Locker #

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

1o

2c

3c

2c

5c

2c

7c

2c

3c

2c

11c

2c

13c

2c

3c

2c

17c

2c

19c

2c

4o

3o

4o

9o

5o

3o

7o

5o

4o

3o

4o

6c

8c

10c

4c

14c

15c

8c

6c

5c

6o

16o

9o

10o

12c

18c

20c