Minecraft Monday - The House of Doors

Minecraft Monday is Today!

 

Hello everyone,

 

Today I bring you a new Minecraft Monday. It is one of my newest builds done on a server through which I am taking a science/history class related to 5 scientists and their inventions. Every day they set a new Daily Challenge that is optional to complete. Then they randomly draw names to see who (typically 2-4 people) win. Those people get a free pass to their Science camp during the summer done through the server. So, once I figured out about the Daily Challenges, I started doing them. The newest one has been to add on to a giant maze. Giant is not even good enough... it is bigger than giant. So for this Minecraft Monday I am here to show you my part of the maze and some cool things about it.

 

 My maze starts off by breaking away from the main maze. The signs basically say you are entering my part of the maze and to not have /fly activated. I am going to explain the layout and outcomes of my maze in a story-view. The Narrator will be telling your adventure. Enjoy!

 

To start off, you walk (or run) through the water portal. In your mind, you are jumping around, screaming to the world how fun this will be. You are given three different paths to chose from.

 

One path is like the Nether with Glowstone walls and ceiling and Nethrack floor. You eye it carefully, and then move on to inspect the next tunnel.

 

The second path is like a Nether Fortress for it has Nether Brick for the walls and ceiling and Soul Sand for the floor. You instantly remember something a friend told you about this maze. Almost the whole tunnel has Packed Ice below the Soul Sand which makes you go super, super slow. You move on to the third tunnel, not wanting to walk through the stuff.

 

 The third tunnel is pitch black and is made up of Obsidian for the ceiling and walls and Mossy Cobblestone for the floor. The path smells of mildew and the air is bitterly cold.

 

You decide to take the Nether Path, just to find there is a pressure plate. When you step on it, even if sprinting, a wall appears in front of you not allowing access through the path. Yet, you can still see a tunnel beyond the wall that seems to go in multiple directions.

 

Taking the Obsidian Cave path, you find a parkour map and torch light. Right away, you slip and fall to the cold ground. But, after getting up again, you find there is a door that lets you restart. After multiple attempts, you finally finish the parkour map just to find... a dead end. You kick the wall - which hurts being that it is made of Obsidian - and exit through the door, backtracking.

 

You then decide to take the Nether Fortress path and instantly regret it - at first. You drag your feet along as you walk on the Soul Sand/Packed Ice

mix for flooring, having only a few Redstone Torches lighting the way. Then you come to three paths within the Nether Fortress. The one straight ahead is clearly a dead end with a black, closed window. The path to the left seems to be a staircase with a soul sand/packed ice floor again. And to the right, there is sunlight... Sunlight! 

 

You take the right path with the sunlight just to find that at the end, there are metal bars for a roof which lets in the natural light. And of course, it is just a dead end. So you backtrack then take the left path, going extremely slowly up the stairs. That is when you find that jumping and sprinting helps you up quicker. Once you get to the top, you discover a 2x1 hole. You go on your knees and try to look down just to be blinded by Glowstone walls which makes you lose your balance. You tumble into a new tunnel, landing in a small water pit. Looking around, you find that you are now on the other side of the Nether Tunnel - the one with the magically appearing wall! 

 

You run down the tunnel to find a path that splits in two directions and a sign. The sign says that you are now entering the House of Doors part of the maze. The House of Doors starts off with two wooden spruce doors - the kind you cannot see through. One on the right, one on the left. You decide to take the right one but only find a classic dead end. Turning around, you take the left door. To your surprise, you find two sets of double doors. After going through one, you find more and more doors until you finally hit a dead end. Carefully backtracking, you take the other double door set and go through an endless amount of doors. It appears that each door either leads to a dead end or even more doors. 

Then you arrive in a somewhat large room with more Spruce Doors and a set of Double Iron Doors with signs that say they are locked. You head through more wooden doors, knowing you must be lost. The shiny gold walls, grass floor, and stone-wall roof is messing with your head now. 

 

Finally, after nearly 5 minutes of struggling, you find the floor changes to Polished Andesite as you head uphill then downhill. Finally, you are in a room with fewer doors and a sign that basically says you have completed the maze. You exit through a set of doors and instantly fall into a giant hole with water at the bottom. Looking around, you spot the random ladders and know you must complete a somewhat-basic parkour to get out to the new door you can see. 

 

You parkour out and open the door. Now you are in a new room with a sign that apologizes for the quick parkour challenge and asks if you really want to leave. If you leave, you can't enter again. Not wanting to do anything with the annoying maze again, you walk through the Iron Door and watch it close behind you. Free. Finally... Finally free. 

 

I hope you enjoyed this story-based Minecraft Monday that goes over the layout of my section of the giant maze. I made all that was explained (and shown) by myself and multiple people have tested it and loved it, but found the House of Doors very difficult. I tried out the whole thing myself, and even got lost in the House of Doors. Below I show a picture of the entire giant maze made by many people on the server (above, left) and a picture of my entire maze (below, right). It is all the colored spots such as the gold, stone, Nether Brick, Stained Glass, and everything besides the Quartz (the white blocks).  Also, the Obsidian Cave is there, but it is hard to see because the floor outside the maze is of Obsidian as well.

 

I hope you all enjoyed this week's Minecraft Monday - The House of Doors. Next week, I should have a new Minecraft Monday, but I am unsure what it will be about. Until then, keep an eye out for any new posts such as the upcoming Portal Into the Past. Thanks for reading this! 

Portal Into the Past - Harrington, Washington History

Portal Into The Past

Hello everyone, 

 Today I bring you the third Portal Into the Past - Harrington, Washington History. Let me start off by saying that over the weekend we did not go Geocaching, so I decided to do this Portal Into the Past on Harrington, Washington, a small farm town in which I currently live. If you read on, I will give you something like the Ritzville History I gave last week - a post full of facts and interesting stories. I hope you enjoy this week's Portal Into the Past - Harrington, Washington History:

The green star is where Harrington is located

Since this weekend we did not go Geocaching, I decided to do a Portal Into the Past on Harrington, Washington, a small town I currently live in. Harrington is a great community of about 400 people. It is located in Lincoln County, Washington. Harrington's start was in 1882 when the firm of Harrington, Furth, and Robinson bought the land because they knew it was fertile and good for farming. Currently, Harrington is known for its wheat farming. The town was named after W.P Harrington who was a banker from Colusa, California and an investor in the Harrington land.

The town of Harrington soon had many buildings. Edward Willis and Charles Billings opened up the first store in Harrington. A year later, the post office was opened and Edward Willis became the first post master. Then in 1884, the blacksmith opened up followed by the Pickell Hotel. Then two years later in 1886, the saloon was opened.

In 1892, Harrington received its first grain bins that were from the Northern Railway Company which ran through the middle of town. Within two more years, Harrington's population grew as the railroad

The old City Hall

expanded and improved. After that, Hotel Harrington opened and the main street was created. At this time, the town of Harrington had a two-room school house, drug store, stables, meat market, barber shop, two hotels, four general stores, the bank, and furniture stores. 

For five years, Harrington was in a depression. Prices for grain were extremely low. But finally in 1892, the depression ended and the Harrington Milling Company was created in the early 1900's. In 1901, A.C Billings was chosen as Harrington's first mayor. The city hall was built and Harrington reached their highest population of about 850 people. Soon, in 1901, the Portland Milling Company bought the mill. With that, C.D Ellis became manager and the mill increased its production rate to 325 barrels a day.

The Bank Block Building was created in 1904 which was home to the Bank of Harrington, Opera House, a barber shop, saloon, and lodging. Currently, this area is where the City offices and library are located and the Opera House is being restored to its former glory. In 1914, a new school was created to replace the two-room school house. Two years later, the telephone and telegraph came and Harrington created a camp for tourists.

The Opera House where city offices and library are located

But things started changing for the town of Harrington. In 1920, the prices of wheat dropped dramatically, the crops were failing, and a new depression was starting for the local farmers. Luckily, crops improved three years later in 1923, but the prices of wheat were still low. Because of this, Harrington's population size began shrinking. The Odessa Union Warehouse bought the Harrington Milling Company, later changing it into a bulk grain elevator. After the depression, the only bank that remained was the Harrington State Bank.

Then in 1923, Harrington had a horrible event - a fire that destroyed many things. The fire burnt down the harvester plant and then the hospital burned down just 10 years later. Sadly, neither of these buildings were rebuilt. Along with this, many other buildings were burnt to dust in the fire.

A water tower was built in 1938, costing $10,450. After World War II ended, the water tower was redone, but some original parts still remain. Then in 1949, a grade school was built to replace the old school. And in 1955, the high school was built on to the grade school, making it K-12th. The school is still in use today, but with some things redone. About ten years la
ter, Harrington built tennis courts and a golf course.

This is painted on one of the buildings in Harrington

After this, another disaster happened to the town of Harrington. Mount St. Helens had erupted on May 18, 1980. Harrington, like many other Eastern Washington states, were blocked off from the world for days. Yet, good came out of the eruption for the farmers found the ash to be very good for the farmland.

After World War II, along with the fires that burnt down the harvester plant and hospital, a highway system was built. Since the highway did not go through Harrington, and people were not using trains as much anymore, the town's population grew even smaller. Then in the early 1950's, the passenger rail services were discontinued for almost everyone was using the highway. Because of the lack of people coming to Harrington, the Opera House, Lincoln Hotel, and many other buildings shut down. Then in the 1980's, the railroad depot was shut down.

This is painted on a building as well

Currently, Harrington is working to restore the Electric Hotel, Opera House, and many other of the old buildings. Of 2013, Harrington received ultra high-speed internet service, and there is even a chance the passenger rail service might return. Even now, the small town of Harrington is strong in its agriculture work. About 424 people currently live in Harrington, Washington and about 144 students attend the K-12 school.

I hope you enjoyed today's Portal Into the Past - Harrington, Washington History. I am unsure what the next Portal Into the Past will be about, but I think it might be of a Spokane-related area since that is where we are going this weekend. Maybe a building or area in Spokane? Or the town in general? If you have any ideas, feel free to leave a comment. But I plan for the Portal Into the Past to be on the 13th or 14th of this month, so keep an eye out. Thanks for reading today's Portal Into the Past, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Announcement - FFA Novice Parliamentary Procedure State Contest

Announcement!

Hello everyone,

 Today I bring you a new announcement. As you might know, I am still in Agriculture at the Harrington high school. Well, that also means I am still part of the FFA. And a while back, me and

three other students in 8th grade did a contest for the FFA called Novice Parliamentary Procedure for Districts. Well, we got third place which meant we would be going to state as long as we have a complete team of 6 members. Now we have six members that will be competing in the FFA Parliamentary Procedure State Contest in Pullman, Washington at WSU. I think this will be a very fun, challenging competition. And another good part is that we are leaving 3:30 on Thursday, the 14th of this month and won't be back until around noon on Sunday, the 17th. Why are we there so long? Well, along with the Novice Parliamentary Procedure Contest, other Harrington kids have contests they are doing as well for the FFA. Plus we are staying to go to all the workshops and events planned. I just thought I would mention this now, considering we will be leaving in exactly 7 days. Okay, if you want to be technical, it will be 7 days exactly at 3:30 pm today. Just if you want to be technical.

Another reason I shared this is because I will not be posting those days because I won't have internet. So I will try to get the next Portal Into the Past done Wednesday as well as a Minecraft Monday. And when I come back, I will make a post here related to our trip. Wish us good luck!

Minecraft Monday - Harder than Hard

Minecraft Monday is Today!

Hello everyone,

I am sorry this is Minecraft Monday was later in the day, but I had forgotten to get screenshots for what I was doing until later. Well, do you want to know what this Minecraft Monday is all about? Harder than Hard, that is for sure. What I mean is, I am going to show you the coolest mod pack for Minecraft - in my opinion, anyways. I bring you Mad Pack 2.0, a mod pack of survival and tech. If you read on, I will show you screenshots of my base, some cool monsters, and some of the items I have gathered since about a week of playing. I hope you all enjoy today's Minecraft Monday - Harder than Hard:

As I already said, Mad Pack is a mod pack of survival and tech. There are a crazy amount of mods, and everything wants to kill you. When I say everything, I really mean it. I went to go kill a sheep to get wool and the whole herd comes after me. "QueenAshlee was slain by Sheep". Not what I was expecting. And when I first started out, the controls were messed up and I had no idea how to do anything. I still don't know what half the things are for, actually. But luckily I had been watching Lachlan and Preston do their mad pack series (which is what got me interested in the mod pack in the first place) so I already knew the basics to survival. I started off finding a good location and I built a house in a hillside which I often call the Hobbit Hole. The picture on the right shows what part of my home looks like now, where I store all my items. Just so you know, each and every one of those boxes are full or nearly full.

Along with a room full of a lot of chests as you already saw, I now have a pretty big farm, crafting area, and mine. The farm includes berries, vegetables, fruits, wheat, and "magic plants". For the magic plants, I have a coal plant that grows coal, and three that produces minicio essence which is used in creating other magic plants. Eventually, I want to have diamond plants, ender pearl plants, stuff like that, but it takes time. Yet, I think I can get iron or maybe osmium. Either way, I have a crazy amount of ores and plants. My farm is shown on the left. The magic plants are the ones that are just dark green leaves.

One thing I refuse to change right now is the "/gamerule keepInventory true" because if that was set to false... well, let's just say I die a lot. In fact, I currently have giant bee things outside of my Hobbit Hole house making hives. And so whenever I go outside, I get poisoned and end back up at my house. Even if I use The Ender sword. Not to mention every night I hear something blow up just
outside my house and when I look out there, all my trees are gone. And trust me, it is not a creeper doing it. The picture to the right shows some of the more common mobs in Mad Pack from the Lycanite's Mobs mod.I have encountered a lot of those. Also, that reindeer head? It is not a reindeer at all.

Along with my farm, I have a pretty cool mine, but I have a habit of vein mining so I get a lot of monsters because of it. Plus, down towards the bottom of my mine, I hear these ghost-pig sounding things but I can't find them anywhere. Along with my mine, I have really cool items and armor. Okay, nothing extreme yet, I suppose, but still really cool. In fact, I have a chest plate made of Dark Steel that supposedly has "Glider" on it. But, considering I am inside most of the time, I never really tried it out. And, as I already mentioned, I have The Ender sword which is also made of Dark Steel. Along with having great durability, I managed to enchant it with level 8 which gave me "Unbreaking I" which is pretty good. Also, I forgot to mention, my Dark Steel Chestplate got an enchantment of Absorption II which gives me three extra hearts. The ores I own are showed above, left. I am still trying to decide what to do with it all. To make a sword, armor, or more of the "technology" items available in the game...

I have had some really cool finds, like Pandora's Box. The first box I opened I did in my house. I was thinking it might play music or something, so I opened it in my home. Well... let's just say it turned everything into Mooshroom Land around and inside my home. That is why, in the picture to the right,
all the land near my statue-people (from mobs I found/killed) is all made of Mycelium instead of grass. When I opened the box, I panicked and instantly thought (just for a moment) Corrupt from Terraria was spreading. Just for a moment, of course. Also, I actually found a Mooshroom cow that spawned off a little from my house. I wonder how many more I will get?

While raiding a medium-sized Wizard Castle - after dying multiple times to a phantom and about six ghosts - I found a really cool artifact that, when held, let's me breath underwater. Along with that, when used, it shoots explosive fire arrows. And the best part is? After using the arrows, the artifact fixes itself overtime. So that was a really cool find of mine. The picture shows the artifact in it's case. The statue person on the left is my Minecraft Skin and the one on the right is one I found.

I also created Luggage - (nickname being Luggy). It is basically this chest that, when places, follows you around, picking up any dropped items. You can easily open Luggage like any normal chest, and it cannot be killed by anything. You can also pick up Luggage and it will go into your inventory. I just thought that would be a pretty cool thing to make. Yet, I had no idea it was a pet at first. I had originally made it with plans to use it as a backpack since I did not have enough stuff to make one yet.

I hope you enjoyed this Minecraft Monday - Harder than Hard. Sorry for the lack of good screenshots, I had forgot to get ones of the mobs. But next week I hopefully will have something from the Hunger Games on the NexusMC server, maybe? Either way, I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit on how I set up my Madpack beginning adventure. Also, let me quickly add, my difficulty level is very high. That is why I still keep "/gamerule keepInventory true" on. Keep an eye out for future posts!

Announcement - At last I have...

Announcement:

Hello everyone,

Today I bring you a sort of quick but very important announcement. Not just any announcement but one that I treat as a surprise for anyone reading this and an accomplishment on my end. As you might have noticed by the title, "At last I have..." done something. Here is what the "something" is:

So, you all know about The Hero's Prophecy Series I am writing, right? Well, as you might also know, I have been working on a website for the series. Well... let's just say I am done. Finally. Done. Okay, take that back, I am not 100% done, yet. I still have to finish a minor quiz, and draw a picture for the ten year old THP hero, Justin. After that, I will have to add that picture then my website will be done. But hey, let's say it is 98% done. Here is the link to the The Hero's Prophecy Series Website which I strongly recommend checking out: http://ashleeg01.wix.com/thpworld

The THP (The Hero's Prophecy) website has quizzes on what character you are, what role in the Prophecy you would have, and other fun quizzes plus information and background stories on each Hero and Creature of Darkness. I also have on there a smaller blog separate to this one where I post things related only to the THP series. On the website, there is a Hero Interview like what I have done here on the blog, FAQ about the website, and I also plan to open up a shop through the website once the series is fully published.

Again, I think you should check out the website and maybe share it with some other people. I put a lot of work into writing everything. I am working on converting all the pictures to ones I draw, but until then, not all of the pictures I made. It would be nice if you left a comment either on this post or on the website (by using "Contact me") to let me know what you think of the website and what I could improve. Thanks for reading this, and keep an eye out for any new posts coming up!

Note: This was, what I would consider the "Surprise Post" for now, but I might come up with something even cooler within the next few days. Well, probably not Saturday-Sunday because I am pretty busy then with Geocaching and we often go to Spokane to shop then which is about 1 and a half hours away. But still keep an eye out for posts those days, just in case.

Portal Into the Past - Ritzville, Washington History

Portal Into The Past

Hello everyone, 

Today I bring you the second Portal Into the Past. If you read my first one, called "Portal Into the Past - Egypt, Washington Missile Silo (Site 8)" you should have an understanding of what these Portal Into the Past posts are all about. Because of this, I will continue on to the part I am hoping many of you want to read: Ritzville, Washington History. No, I don't plan to give you a full-on history lesson because yes, learning about a thousand dates and times are not all that fun (in my opinion). Instead, I will give you some of that mixed with facts about the people who live there, the buildings, and plenty of pictures I took, plus more. So take a seat (if you have not already) and enjoy reading the second Portal Into the Past - Ritzville, Washington History:

The red star is where Ritzville is located

Over the weekend - before I had the flu, luckily - my family and I went Geocaching as usual, but this time to the historic town of Ritzville, located in Adams County, Washington. In fact, it is the county seat of Adams County since 1883 because it was the only place that could be called a town. Ritzville first started up in 1881 when it was established as a station stop for the railroad. Because of this, its population was much higher than the other Adams County towns. In present times, Ritzville is known as a very important wheat-shipping point and historic area. But even in the past, Ritzville held its role for wheat-shipping. 

Metal Statue of Philip Ritz

But what is so amazing or interesting about a historic town? Especially one with the name Ritzville? Well, let's start off with the name, shall we? Ritzville was named after one of the first settlers, Philip Ritz. Philip Ritz was a very important person in Ritzville's history. One of the things he did was land the contract for grading ten miles of the railroad bed which was important because Ritzville was a main station stop for the railroad station. Even though Ritz was not the first settler - William McKay was - the town had still been named after him because of what he did.

As I mentioned, the first settler was William McKay, a Canton immigrant. On arriving to Ritzville, he settled by building a 8-room house which he used to rent out rooms to the railroad workers. He then built a second building which was a general store for the railroad workers and travelers. McKay also used his house as a hotel, restaurant, dance hall, and a theater. By 1881, the small town of Ritzville had three buildings total because the railroad had built a depot as well. By 1882, there were only about 50 people living in Ritzville.

In 1883, a large population of Ritzville was the Volga Germans who had settled in. They liked the

Statue of one of the builders

dry-land wheat farming and had decided to settle there. The Volga Germans had resided in Russia for generations until around 1878 when Russia began taxing them, recruiting them into their army, and forcing them to assimilate. Finally, after these problems, they left Russia. Overall, about 17 Volga German families settled in Ritzville to do wheat farming.

More people arrived later on, including the Hoefel family which had left Odessa, Russia with plans to meet other Volga German immigrate families in Odessa, Washington. Once they arrived at New York, they could not find Odessa Washington on the train map so instead they went to Ritzville which they knew that Volga Germans resided there as well. The Hoefel family arrived to Ritzville on December 2, 1901.

The eruption of Mt. St. Helens - on May 18, 1980 - effected Ritzville greatly. They were buried in the ash deeper than almost every other town in Eastern Washington. In fact, Ritzville got four to six inches whereas other Eastern Washington towns got only an inch or less of the ash. Because of this, about 2,500 travelers were stranded in town which nearly doubled the population for a few days. They were all inside every building like the Ritzville hospital, school gym, and all the restaurants, churches, and hotels. It was like this for five whole days where Ritzville was blocked out from every other town around them. Three months later, in August, the residents of Ritzville were still shoveling ash out of their town and discovered that the ash was an amazing thing for their farms.

The population of Ritzville started declining overtime. But the all-time highest population record was 2,173 in 1960. Yet, even then, it was no longer the biggest town in Adams County. Othello, Washington - another town in Adams County - took the record as the biggest town. As of 2013, Ritzville had about 1,679 people in population.

Currently, Ritzville is greatly centered on its historic value and recreation. The town has two museums, a Public Library which is the original Carnegie Library (shown on the left), their old city swimming pool is now a water park with two pools, and they have a golf course. Ritzville is known as the center of both Adams and Lincoln County.

I hope you enjoyed and learned from today's Portal Into the Past - Ritzville, Washington History. Also, I am sorry for the random assortment of the pictures I took. Since I did not have ones of the actual people, these will have to do for now. The map is not mine, but it gives the location of Ritzville. Hopefully, the next Portal into the Past should be on the 6th of this month. Until then, keep an eye out for any new things such as Minecraft Monday - or... or even a surprise post coming up? Hmm... I wonder...

So, passing past that something of a hint, let me say: thanks for reading this, and I hoped you enjoyed the second Portal Into the Past - Ritville, Washington History.