Sorry this picture is sideways, but I haven't figured out how to rotate pictures on this computer yet. Anyways, this is a picture of the Embassy Suites, the hotel that we stayed at last weekend in Oregon. When I saw this picture, I couldn't help but think of circuits. All the lights in the picture are pretty much the same brightness. I'm guessing that the lights in this hotel are connected in parallel and not a series circuit since it would be a lot easier to fix if one of the bulbs went out. Being in a parallel circuit means that although the voltage difference is pretty much the same, the current is different at different locations on the circuit. Thanks to the lab that we finished on Friday, I know that the current is not the same because it's split between the different branches of the circuit.

These are pictures from our Alaska trip (yet again) when we went white water rafting. I was pretty scared at first because being the clumsy person that I am, I was sure I was going to fly out of the raft once we hit some kind of turbulence in the water (hey, that involves collisions and projectiles!). I made it though (thank God), and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Since it wasn't hard-core white water rafting (we didn't even have to wear helmets), going through the rapids was actually really fun! It was kind of like being on one of those rides in Disneyland (except without seat belts). Anyways, on to the physics of it all...The force of the river gave our raft enough momentum so that we didn't have to do any paddling, even as we floated through the calmer parts of the river. I guess torque was also involved because our raft was pretty stable and no one fell in the water. The steersman of our raft also had to use torque and leverage through his paddles to maneuver the raft around these huge rocks sticking out of the water (when I first saw one of those things, I was sure I was going to die). Our suits also made me think of the last few chapters we studied because they insulated us from the freeeeeezing water, like how a piece of rubber or wood can protect someone from getting shocked. Looking back at the pictures, our suits also kind of made us look like weird spacemen or aquatic divers or something....

This is from our family's annual Christmas play. The foil helmets that the boys are wearing are good conductors of electricity. That means that if a potential lightning bolt were to suddenly strike, my brother would be the one who would get hit (haha) because he's the tallest. If an electric charge were to be applied to the foil on the tip of the spear, my cousin would probably not get severely shocked since the spear has a wooden handle and wood is an insulator.