March for our lives

I wasn't at the march myself today because I have a school dance tonight and also I was getting a little bit of anxiousness about running into people I know unexpectedly. I have a big fear of that and I need some support for that. If you don't know what happened today i'm gonna tell you. There was a big march called March for our Lives all around the country because on February 14th, there was a horrible shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people. What happened was really sad because a lot were teenagers who have innocent souls and should always be safe at school (and the teachers should be too). The teenager survivors from Parkland really don't want shootings like that to ever happen again ever so they helped organize the march. They also started something called the School Walkout day that I participated in in the parking lot with kids at my school. Millons of people came to the march today to show that we should have stricter laws about things like assault rifles. The teenager survivors are starting  a movement to show how they should finally have those laws. I hope that their inspiring march makes politicians make and enforce laws that will make schools safer.
#marchforourlives #kidslivesmatter

Dock goes to the Globetrotters

I went to the Harlem Globetrotters yesterday. First of all my dad was working for the Globetrotters doing PR event work so we rode downtown with him. Since we got there early me and my mom went by the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame nearby in the Music City Center and saw my grandfather's exhibit there which showed his Time Marches On handwritten lyrics with mom's frame she collaged for him and a touchscreen of his life and music interviews which was awesome to see. You should go check it out if you are ever downtown.
Then on the way to Bridgestone I saw ladies in what you call a pedal tavern where they pedal while having a good time- they were probably bachelorettes or on a girl's trip. I took a picture with them and they all smiled cause I'm a cute ladies man, haha, and I took my picture with them.
And now to the main event, the Harlem Globetrotters. We met my friend Foley and his mom there and it was funny and fantastic. I liked them because unlike regular basketball they do tricks and comedy. I like when they pretend to throw gatorade at somebody but it turns out that the liquid is actually confetti. They did other cool segments too like when one of the players sang "Hello" from Adele and turned down the lights and had us all turn on our cellphone flashlights which looked like a concert. I like their mascot Globey who was really funny. It was fun. I got my picture made with Ant, a very hilarious Globetrotter.  And the next time they are in town (or if they come to your town) I  really recommend you go see them.

Snow Day

On Friday I had a snow day so I stayed home and played in the neighborhood  I sledded down a hill that was a very good place to sled. Up on that hill is a supposed old  family cemetery which belonged to this guy who lived here and had a lot of land before it was a subdivision. I also made hot choclate and played three games Monopoly,chess and taboo. I'm off today too because it is MLK day! Down below is a pic of me with a new sled. Also there's a video of  me sledding

Chigago surprise

 In the previous blog I told about a destination that me and my parents were going to as a surprise. Well,we had to find our Dog a room at Camp Bow Wow, this cool dog care place near Hundred Oaks. Dad had to get a rental car so we won't have to use so many miles on our car. Since it was a surprise I had two main guesses New Orleans or Chicago. Well it wasn't New Orleans because we were going North .I knew it was Chicago kinda because I accidentally saw a website with Chicago weather on it on my dad's phone. Plus, I figured it out somewhat when dad said he had work there and he was lying. I was right because there were lots of signs pointing to Chicago and I had some guesses of boring places along the way. Guess what Dock we're going to the beer capital of the U.S.A , Milwaukee. Ha. When we arrived in Chicago I noticed something, the hotel we were staying at was right next to the theater where Hamilton was playing.Well it wasn't a not aware thing because Mom and Dad were surprising me with tickets to Hamilton. In fact that was the reason we were staying at the hotel. I always wanted to go because i'm a theater geek and it's the hottest thing. It was my Christmas gift from Grandbobby.  Our hotel room was okay but there was no view because their was ice over the window because it was so cold out. We went to this Italian restaurant down the street called The Village Italian that actually had three restaurants based on fanciness/Italian in one place. We found out this notable bad guy Al Capone ate there once and famous singer Frank Sinatra had his wedding reception there. We got a private booth and ate fantastic food. Then we went to this hotel/gameroom called the Athletic Association where we met a family and played bocce ball with them.

The next day we woke up and had the hotel's continental breakfast. Then we walked in the freezing cold luckily nearby to (name based on Hans Solo's ship, ha not really) the Millennium Park where we took pictures under a giant bean called "The Bean" monument, saw ice skaters and had hot cocoa. Then we took a cab to this cool place called Navy Pier where mom and I got to see a great lake, Lake Michigan, for the first time together. It was a great lake. So big you couldn't see across to the other side and the water was icey.

The pier was mostly inside luckily because it was only 8 or 10 degrees out. There was a ferris wheel outside but it was closed because of the cold. Inside we got some deep dish pizza which was delicious  at a place called Giordonos. Then we checked out this event there called the Winter Wonderfest. I only did one ride because there was other stuff I wanted to do and the lines were long but the "snow tube" slide was fun. Thanks to everyone who gave me birthday cash to get to do events like this! Then mom and I took a cab to the Hancock building which was 95 floors long. While there we learned from a lady that worked there that the Friends star David Swimmer goes there a lot for a drink because he owns a theater near by. There was a long line to get upstairs but a nice lady let ys go ahead because she knew we had to go to the theater afterwards.
We went up to the 95th floor (our ears popped in the elevator like they do when you are flying) to a restaurant called 360. I had a shirley temple and guacamole and we got to see the incredible view from up high. Then came the grand finale of our trip...Hamilton! It was really convenient that our hotel was in the same building since it was so cold. Going down in the elevator there was a man who had brought his son for his 18th birthday present that day at the matinee from Miami and he said it was totally worth the travel and cold weather and everything. He was right because it was awesome. When they first said "Alexander Hamilton" in the opening number everyone cheered because they knew how great of a play it was. We had great seats in the orchestra to the right a little and there were translators for the deaf which was a hard job because they have to translate really fast raps. All the actors were really good. I thought that King George was funny. Alexander Hamilton did a really great job because he had a great amount of the Lin Manuel Miranda vibe. The Chicago trip was really awesome and I recommend it, you should really go there sometime in your life before Hamilton stops playing there.

Dock's Awesome December Featuring a Surprise Trip

Decembers are always great to me because I have my birthday and Christmas. On my bday my grandparents came from West Palm Beach, FL to visit me. I had gotten a cool emoji cake and we had a cul de sac pre party where I rode my bikes with my friends. (The Cook family brought lots of ride on toys and decorated the street with bday messages in sidewalk chalk) Reba had sent me a  bday video message because my Uncle Shane is friends with her and got it for me.  We played a game where you try to eat a donut on a string without your hands. Our regular DJ friend Bama came to it because he's a great freind to Mom and Dad. I got money for a new bike from Nannie in New Jersey which was awesome.
I got tons of great gifts but my absolute favorite was the Nintendo switch which is the hottest game system. I also tried out the Virtual Reality thing at the Microsoft store at the green hills mall since I was finally legally allowed to at 13 years old. We went to Tokyo Japanese Hibachi for my actual birthday with Grandbobby and Grandee and Pepe Bob. Grandee got me a game for the Nintendo Switch called 1-2-3 switch which has lots of fun games like Tennis, Air Guitar and Telephone. I  went to movies to like Star Wars:The Last Jedi and Jumanji:Welcome to the Jungle(named after the beloved Robin Williams film) and we may see another movie either today or tomorrow. I played with my friend Scarlet a little bit and we did stuff like did the Nintendo switch and decorate ugly sweater cookies from Trader Joes. One night on Winter Break Bama(our Dj) called to say he had tickets to something at the symphony. You see other than being a DJ he works there by doing marketing.That thing was Home Alone in concert based on the very popular Christmas movie starring Macaulay Culkin,Joe Pesci and Catherine O Hara. There was actually a chorus in it because there was a scene where Kevin(Macaluary) talks to a man who his brother Buzz calls a murderer in a church with Christmas singers doing it.
Christmas Eve we went to a movie called " It's A Wonderful Life" which was awesome because it's mom's favorite Christmas movie (Elf 2nd) at the Belcourt. Then we went to a little service at a church in Green Hills that was a napkin nativity, I chose to be a sheppard. Then we went to a candle lighting service at Unity. Then G-Bob came over, we made dinner and played Nintendo Switch a little even though he had a cold. The next morning we opened gifts. I got a scooter, tickets to Harry Potter at the symphony, A Wimpy Kid Calendar, Money from grandmothers for my travel/fun fund and a surprise trip from my parents with a surprise adventure from Grandbobby. Then we played Obama Llama, a rhyming game I got my grandfather. I was told to pack my bags for somewhere cold and that we were leaving the next day! I couldn't believe it! More on that in the next post! Here's a few pics....

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More on that to come!

I Shaved my mentors head today

Note: it's not as weird as it sounds. At my school we have a thing called Mentors (like homeroom teachers).They're kinda like our role models because we need help in School life. We had been earning trust so we get rewards. For example we had a field trip in May to Birmingham. We had lots of compass work completed so we got to shave the mentors head. I got to go first because I gotten the most compass points on my "paycheck" that they give us. Compass is our way of life at our school and we get points for good stuff we do like raising our hand in class. It's an honor for me because being on compass is a big thing at my school and I got to be the first to shave my mentor's head as a reward. It was great because he trusted us to do it and it was a fun activity. I think he looks good bald. Here's picture of Mr. S with me and my "pride" group.

Diary of a Docky Kid with actual Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney

A couple weeks ago when I went home from my school, Valor Collegiate, Mom told me she wanted
to tell me something. She had bought me tickets to a book event with the Author of Diary of a Wimpy kid  Jeff  Kinney for his new book "The Getaway." I am a huge fan and if you want to prove it go to every Lit Sim(Valor's version of book club) with me and see me read it every day. It was an event from the bookstore Parnassus a cool book place with lots of events. They always are great at stuff like that because they thew an event a year and 2 months ago (about) where they had book author  Rick Riordan (tween greek mythology author who I also love). This event was at Oak Hill School which was on the estate of First Presbeterian Church. Holy Fact:I went to the doctor who delivered me (Jim Growdon)'s funeral at the FPC. It was hard to find where the book event was because the Church was gigantic. So we had went to a place where they hold Boy Scout meetings. When we went to the school tons of kids wanted to see him because he has a gigantic influence in Childrens Literature with drawings on every page.When we got in, there was a booth with copys of DOAWK:The Getaway but I already had gotten it.  I love Wimpy KID so much and I would buy Diary of a Wimpy Kid in 40 years from now titled "At the pool"(what he might run out of ideas).
I saw a bunch of kids in the Hallway reading the books like they were reading a book on John Cena (he's always every kid in U.S.A's hero)
Before I could meet the author, Jeff Kinney, I had to go through the whole Wimpy Kid "Getaway" Experience;  Parnassus has the same mind as the Producers of the Nickelodeon Kid Choice Awards. We had to go in a metal detector because the book has to do with Air Travel.I f they want to make it like air Travel they should have had someone say "Folks we have some bumpy weather". It also had to do with having a tropical vacation so they had stuff you'd do on a tropical vacation like Mini Golf.
I then finally met Jeff Kinney and he was what I thought he will be like. He seemed like an Author version of Peyton Manning who always makes Nationwide like a BBQ. He was so nice to me and wanted to interact with me like I was his #1 fan. He liked me so much he gave me a drawing of Greg Heffely(The Wimpy Kid) on my copy and even wrote my name in it. He gave me an awesome Idea of inspiring kids by making a character that almost every kid in the world likes. After that I wanted to also buy the 11th book because I lost it at my former house and soMom got it for me. I felt so happy that I got to finally got to live like Greg Heffely, the Wimpy Kid, because I was hanging out with his creator.