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Levi's Adventures

My Life In Canada

Levi Harapnuik

June 24 2012

 

The Development of a Young Man in The Cay

God sometimes wants to teach us things that we wouldn’t know if he didn’t give us that little push. We need to be pushed to do some things that we don’t necessarily want to do at the time. It might turn out well and you end up enjoying it and being glad that you tried something new. Sometimes he pushes us to take risks and guides us in directions that we don’t know where they lead, but there is always a reason. Just like Philip in The Cay,  written by Theodore Taylor, God sometimes drags us kicking and screaming toward change in our lives to learn about other people, to learn new things and to learn about ourselves.

Philip thought that the black people in his town were weird and he didn’t want to be around them that much. It was sad that Philip had to be stranded on an island fighting to survive and lose a close friend, Timothy, who was a black, for him to realize that the blacks weren’t weird or strange at all. After what happened on the island, when he came back home he started to befriend the black people and hang around them more. He considered them friends. They were really good people. He learned about other people and the sacrifices of which they were capable.

Philip was taken out of his normal environment onto an island with a person he knew nothing about and was forced to learn to adapt to his surroundings. He learned how to fish, survive on his own in the wilderness, how to tell when bad storms were coming, and tell what the weather was like. Timothy left behind some useful tools so that Philip could go on living without him like the rope he put up for Philip to move around the camp and to fish. He also learned a lot about himself and what he could physically and mentally endure on the island.

Philip changed over the time he spent on the island. At first he was just a curious kid that got into trouble quite a bit and didn’t listen to his parents that much. He went from his comfortable life in the city to being blind on a raft with somebody he didn’t even know. He was really scared and disorientated. He also was angry about losing his eyesight and not being able to see a single thing he was doing, but eventually he got over the anger. It was hard enough being on that island, without many supplies, but with his injuries and disabilities, it took a lot of strength and courage from both Philip and Timothy. After Timothy died, Philip had a lot of determination, the skills, and the courage to live on his own until he was rescued.

God sometimes brings tragedies to our lives to learn about other people, to learn new things and to learn about ourselves. Philip experienced these tough times and it changed him into a better, more mature young man. When we’re going through tough times is usually when we can learn the most about ourselves and other people. So when tough times are ahead, we should think of what we could learn.

Back in 2006, my two friends and I could play instruments, and one of them could sing. We made up a song called “The Woodchuck Song”. It was basically just our singer yelling “How much would could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”. It sounded pretty good to us and to our families, but unfortunately we moved away from them that summer and couldn’t do it anymore. When we came back to visit in 2010, my friend, the singer, and I sat down and wrote an actual song with lyrics that didn’t just include things about rodents and had actual structure and guitar chords. That’s when we realized we were really good. The next summer, I moved back to Edmonton and we wrote our second song which was even better and started playing them in his basement.

I started taking piano lessons when I was 3 and I played for quite a few years until I was 9 or 10. We got a drum set when I was 5 and I took lessons until I was 10 but I still continued to play and I’ve never stopped. I got an electric guitar when I was around 11 and took lessons for a month at a music store then I took online lessons called Jamplay for the rest of the school year and taught myself from there. I haven’t taken lessons for a while but still use the online every once in awhile if I can’t figure something out.

What I wanted to do with this project was to write and record a whole song with instruments and vocals. I wanted to have at least two guitars, drums, and some keyboard. I didn’t really plan it out. We just were playing the chords and writing the music and the basic idea seemed to come together in an afternoon. I did most of the writing in my friend’s basement in a tiny room with all the instruments. I did the recording at my home by myself. The vocals came after all the tracks were laid down. Even without a plan, the results were astounding.

I had fun with creating the music and also recording it and playing with the different sounds I would get from placing the mic in different places. Writing the lyrics was also interesting. I also learned that it is ALWAYS a good idea to use a metronome when recording music. It makes it much easier when recording multiple instruments and vocals. I didn’t use one on the first version of the song that I recorded and it was off beat in some places. I remembered to use one on the second version of the song so it is almost all on beat.

I started using a program called Garageband that can record music at a camp in Texas so I was already familiar with it. I didn’t really get into any of the effects because they were a little complicated. I recorded the main guitar first. After that came the rhythm guitar, the drums, and finally the keyboard and vocals when my friend came over. I had to do the drums on the keyboard since the real drums wouldn’t record well with just one mic. Once we got a good mic, I had to try and figure out how to use it and what the different settings did. After I figured it all out, it was pretty easy to record and it sounded really good compared to the mic on my laptop which is what I used for the first recording.

I had quite a few problems. When I did the first version of the song, I was using the mic built in on my computer. It wasn’t that bad, but there was a lot of background noise from the furnace in our basements and it wasn’t as good quality as the song recorded on a higher quality mic. The new mic, called the Yeti, also didn’t record as much background noise as the one on my laptop. It was also tricky working with GarageBand and getting used to all the different effects that there are. It is hard to start recording in the middle of the song if you took a break or something like that. There is a delay on the time that you press the record button and when it actually starts recording and the music kicks in.

Also, I went to school for the second semester so that limited how much time I could spend on the recording. I didn’t really do much work on it after the day when we did the vocals. I think it sounded alright and it didn’t need much adjustment.

We had an opportunity to play for Capilooza http://www.capilano.org/capilooza-2012/ which is a fundraiser for a Haitian orphanage put on by our church. We jumped at the opportunity to play in front a crowd of more than 4 people. There were only two of us and we needed at least four to have all the instruments that would make it sound good. I got my brother to play drums and a leader at our church to play bass and it ended up working out pretty good.

Practicing for the fundraiser was a little difficult and I couldn’t make all the practices. I missed the first one so my friend and my brother had to teach our bass player the chords and notes that I wrote. They did pretty well, though, and they played all the songs except one which they couldn’t figure out. We practiced three or four times at our house with everyone except the bass player and three times on the stage at our church with everybody.

Even though it was hard at some points, I learned some things. I learned how to use the new Yeti microphone and use GarageBand more effectively. I got better at making up my own beats and riffs on the guitar and drums instead of playing music that somebody already wrote. It’s sometimes hard to come up with new music when there is already so much out there. You have to be careful not to copy someone else’s music. You can also use the same chords and progressions just as long as you don’t copy the words or beat of the song. I also learned a bit about poetry and songwriting and how some words fit to make a good rhyme and how some don’t. My friend and I would write the lyrics together when we had the time, and emailed each other when we had a good idea.

My band and I played at Capilooza and played three of the songs that we had written and two cover songs. We used all of our own amps, guitars, and drums. We brought all the stuff to the church early for sound check and to see how everything was going to work out. There were quite a few other bands there too so we got a little feeling of what it would be like before we even got on stage. We set up and played three songs to let the sound guy see how loud everything should be. We finished, got all our stuff off the stage and went home until when we were supposed to be playing.

Our equipment was already at the church so we drove there and listened to the other bands before us. The bands were slower and not that exciting at the beginning but they were nice to listen to. When it was our turn, we set up quickly and started playing. I was quite impressed on how we did and how everything worked out. My mom and dad each had a video recorder and we got some good footage. We also had a Gopro camera set up on stage so it would get us from the same position all through the time we were playing. It was the first time we played in front of a big audience. There were about 200 people there and I was surprised that I wasn’t scared. After we were done, I just wanted to play more, and so I did.

A few days later we got to play again at a Battle of The Bands at a local high school atrium in front of about 25 people. It was set up by a music store, Axe music, but we didn’t get to use our own amps and guitars. There were a few problems with the guitars and sound and I don’t think it was nearly as good as when we played at the church but it was still not bad. My mom was recording with a mic on an iphone and my dad had the video camera. I had fun doing both and we got some good videos to show from it. We helped pack up the equipment and it was pretty neat stuff, but I wish we could have used our own amps. The ones they had were restricting and didn’t have much adjustment.

Here are the three original songs that we played at Battle of The Bands and Capalooza.

The song we wrote summer 2010 is called “Here We Go Again”. (Click on link to go to song and lyrics)

The song I recorded is called “Save Me

Our newest song which we played at Capalooza is called, “Worlds Apart

The fun just doesn’t stop here. Hopefully there will be more opportunities to play at different places and get our music out there. Who knows, maybe we’ll get to tour around someday and get paid to play music. To get there is a long road and we probably need to start by getting some more official band members.

English Assignments

By leapin.levi
Filed Under Learning  | | 1 Comment»

Levi Harapnuik

April 9

 

 

Cause and Effect Paragraph

 

The Cannibals accepted John Paton after he dug a well and provided them with water. They had previously been drinking dirty water and they were getting sick. He dug the well and gave the people all the water they wanted. When the villagers asked how he did it, he said that God gave them water and that they should thank God. The village leader said that none of the other gods they worshiped did such a thing for them and asked if John would preach a sermon to them on the well the next Sabbath day. When the day came, the chief gave a short speech to encourage the people to listen to John. That day, many idols were rounded up and burned as the people changed their minds about thinking that what John said was lies.

 

In the biggest stadium, the ground shakes as the crowds roar. A young man prepares for his first joust. A joust against a much older and experienced opponent. Will he bring pride to his country, or will his dreams of being a highly esteemed and well-respected knight be shattered to pieces? Here I have for you, an overview of a knight, Myles Farworth, and how smart, stubborn and brave this knight was in the book, Men Of Iron.

 

Myles was smart in that he always wanted to make the right choice and to do the right thing no matter what he had to do or what happened. He went to his friends or elders to seek wisdom or to ask them what they thought he should do. He didn’t always do the right thing and it got him in trouble and even got him hurt sometimes. I think he was smarter or wiser than the average fellow.

 

He also was very persistent or stubborn in that he sometimes didn’t do what his elders told him to do. When he wanted people to do something for him, he wouldn’t stop asking or yelling at them until they did what he wanted. In the book, he was dueling against another guy who he worked and lived with. Myles hurt his opponent quite badly but the opponent didn’t want to give up. Myles didn’t let him walk away until he surrendered to Myles. This was a good and bad characteristic of him.

 

Myles was really brave and wasn’t afraid to accept a challenge, even if he knew he couldn’t defeat that challenge. There were times where his friends would have to try to stop him from doing something that would get him seriously injured, or even killed. He accepted to joust against an older knight that was a lot more experienced than him and would probably beat him. It seemed as though he wasn’t afraid of anything, even though he was sometimes.

 

And this is why I think Myles Farworth was smart, persistent, brave and a hero in the book, Men Of Iron. In the story, he went through a lot of good times, and hard times. He worked and trained hard to become a knight. All the work paid off and he defeated the older and more experienced knight.

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

Cue For Treason Book Report

 

He was running from a man that would never give up; running to escape prison or even death. The 267 page book, Cue For Treason, was written by Geoffrey Trease in 1940 and was published by Blackwell. I read the online version of this historical fiction from the University of Toronto archives. Reviewing the plot, characterization of Peter, and the things that I learned, we can conclude if this is a good book to read.

 

This is the story of very determined young man who would save the Queen’s life. Peter Brownwigg, a 14 year old boy, who lived in Cumberland, England at the end of the 16th century, was involved in a protest against a ruthless leader, Sir Philip Morton, who wanted to kill the Queen. During the protest, he threw a rock at Sir Morton and left behind a clue that could identify him. Peter ran from his village to escape the consequences of throwing a rock at a ruthless leader. He joined an acting group that preformed Shakespeare and used it as a way to hide from Sir Morton. Another “boy”, Kit, also joined the group to run from Sir Morton for different reasons. Amazingly enough, Peter, Kit, and the acting group tricked Sir Morton into thinking they were soldiers and brought Sir Morton and his men to justice.

 

Peter Brownwigg was normal looking 14 year old boy, but he wasn’t afraid to stand for what he believed. He was of average build, and could swim, climb and run like any other boy. When he set his mind to something, nobody could talk him out of it. For example, he and his family were trapped inside their house and his father told him to wait inside. He wanted to escape through a window and go get help and his father couldn’t talk him out of it. He didn’t respect authority of Sir Morton and his men. He once got free from a man who was taking him prisoner and knocked him out with a rock to escape from him. He didn’t show respect to anyone who was against the Queen.

 

This book made me realize three things that I never knew before. I learned that actors were only suppose to be male in this time period, and that surprised me. I also learned that it didn’t matter how old you were, the punishment was the same. There was no “easy out” if you were young. The last thing I learned from reading this book was that villages stood up for each other and it was like the whole village was a big family. I wish it was still like that in our world today.

 

Having looked at the plot, Peter’s character, and the things I learned, I have determined that it is a good book to read. It is full of adventure, doesn’t have dry, boring sections, and there are surprising turns in the story. Peter’s character of integrity makes this book appealing. It’s fun to learn about history in this way. If one likes historical fiction, this is an exceptional book to read.

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

Classifications Paragraph

 

From royalty, to popes, to common people, saints in the middle ages were often persecuted. Some saints were disrespected or even killed for what they believed. Duchess Elizabeth of Hungary and Sir Francis of Assisi were rich and ignored the people who harassed them and helped the poor and listened to what Got told them to do. Others, like Bernard of Clairvaux, were disrespected by their families, but also were able to reach out and changed many lives. Unfortunately, others like John Huss were burned at the stake because they wouldn’t stop preaching the truth and the Good News to the people. These Saints all had the same goal in mind, but achieved it in different ways because of the different times in history, countries and leaders. Although the middle ages was a very hard time for Christians, there were times where their ministries thrived and changed a lot of lives.’

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

 

 

Challenges of The Early Church

 

 

The early church faced challenges from without and within. Outside the church, some people and rulers like Caesar wanted to kill Christians and put them in prison just because of what they believed. This is what happened to people like Polycarp and Blandina. Rulers like Caesar even had arenas where they would throw Christians in a pit with wild beasts to be torn to pieces. Also, people from other religions kidnapped Christians, like in the story of Patrick, where they took him to their homeland to be a slave. The early church also faced challenges from within.  Some Christians tried to lead other Christian people away from the Bible and do things that the Bible didn’t say like in the story of Athanasius. A church leader named Arius said that God created Jesus and, therefore, Jesus was not equal than God. Athanasius said that from what the Bible says, they are equal. Those are some examples in how the early church faced challenges from within, and without.

 

Analogy Paragraph

Levi Harapnuik

March 28

 

 

The work of the wind moves a ship forward, while the work of the Holy Spirit moves a man forward. The wind can only blow one way at a time but by moving the sails, you can control the direction of the ship. The Holy Spirit worked in the same way with John Newton; it didn’t matter what kind of person he was or which way he was moving, towards or against God, the Holy Spirit will be able to turn him in the right direction. The Holy Spirit is like the wind in that you can’t physically see it, but you can see what it does. You can’t see the wind blowing, but you can see the effects of the wind filling up the sails and creating the waves in the ocean. Just like the wind can bring a ship to its breaking point, the Holy Spirit can do the same to a man such as John Newton. The Holy Spirit changed John Newton’s life from a slave trader to a minister.

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

A book report of Albrecht Durer

 

 

 

There once was a man of many talents. The book, The Story of Albrecht Durer, written by Joyce McPherson, tells the story of a man’s life in 110 pages. He was a man who lived as an artist from May 21, 1471 to April 6th, 1528. This version was written in 2001 and was published by Greenleaf Books, LLC. This essay shows a bit about his life, his art, and what we can learn from him.

Albrecht Durer was an artist who lived in Germany. His father was a goldsmith and at a young age, Durer became skilled at working with gold. Later on in life, he was an apprentice for other artists. He was married to Agnes Frey. She had a keen business since which helped him sell his art. Her father was also a successful goldsmith. Durer and Agnes didn’t have any children, but Agnes treated the young boys that Durer apprenticed like sons. Durer did paintings as well as engravings, woodcuts, drawings, and he also wrote several books.  He was a talented man.

The main point in this book was to tell the story of Albrecht Durer, not only about his life, but also his paintings. Durer was good at drawing and painting what he saw, but he was also good at transferring the visions in his mind into drawings. He was a Christian and that was shown in a lot of his work. A teacher of his, Herr Wolgemut, once said to him, “A true artist must know the scriptures if he would paint truly.” One of his drawings showed how he thought the Apocalypse was described in the Bible. He called the drawing, Knight, Death, and the Devil. In this drawing he couldn’t see it happening in real life; it had to come from what he imagined in his head.

 

Durer was an extraordinary man and was sometimes called “the Appelles of his day”. He was well known, but surprisingly quite humble and wasn’t arrogant like some other artists. At first he didn’t sign his paintings with his own name because he wanted the glory to go to God. Later, he signed only his initials. That shows no matter how talented one is, one can still be humble. Another thing we can learn from this book was something his father once told him, “The greatest artist is the Creator”.  He taught all his apprentices this lesson to help guide them through their artistic lives.

The Story of Albrecht Durer, tells the story of his life, his art, and what we can learn from him. He was skilled at a young age, and kept on getting better at what he did as he got older. He had a good imagination and was very good at putting those images from his mind onto paper. He was very talented, but also humble in his work. Although I don’t like reading about artists or about this time period, if one likes to read biographies about artists, this is a good one to read.

 

Dry Ice Fun

By leapin.levi
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This is what happens when you mix dry ice, hot water, and a brave young youth leader.

School

By leapin.levi
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Today, Mom and I went to a highschool to see what the courses were like and take a tour and stuff. I ended up staying the whole day. I guess you could call that my first day of school. Ever. It was pretty good. The students and teachers were nice and since I didn’t have to worry about tests, it was fun.

http://www.edmchristian.net/OurCampuses/seniorHighCampus.aspx

Here’s a video of a trail I found in the river valley near our house.

In a magazine, The Futurist, there is an insert called “Outlook 2012″, in which there are listed 60 different ways the world could change in the future. Most of the predictions are way out and I don’t think they could or will happen for many years. Here are some that I think are more realistic:

Lessmeatarians
Social game based learning
The internet will automatically search itself
How to ward off mosquitoes
Future full of bikes

“Lessmeatariansm”- is the prediction that the world will be changing to a mostly vegetarian diet and using less meat. I found this one interesting because a lot of people eat a lot of meat. The predictions is that it will reduce agricultural greenhouse gasses. This makes sense, but I don’t think we should just stop eating meat. I think we should find away to harness that gas and use it for something or just find some clean, efficient way to get rid of it.

Social game based learning – The prediction is that games will be used as more of a learning and social tool and replace text books in classrooms. Video games and learning don’t usually go in the same sentence but It would be nice to be able to play games instead of reading text books.

The Internet will automatically search itself so we don’t have to – This prediction is quite interesting. People predict that we won’t have to type in something in google to search it, your smart phone will pick up information from your environments and anticipate what you want to know. This would be amazing and it could also have some problems. Say you saw someone throwing dog poop in a trash can. Your smart phone would search dog poop in trash can. Hmmm….

How to ward off mosquitoes – The prediction here is that we will synthesize the important compounds released by mosquitoes predator’s. People could release these natural chemicals into breeding areas to ward off the mosquitoes. This would be nice, because nobody really likes mosquitoes buzzing around all the time.

Future full of bikes – The prediction is that more and more people will be using bikes as transportation. Being the bike addict that I am, I found it interesting that people actually use bikes for transportation and not for just doing crazy stuff in the mountains. It does make sense to use them as transportation to work or wherever you want to go. They’re cheap, (well… Kinda) they don’t pollute, and you’ll get some exercise. Now if they could build dirt jumps on the way to work or school, I wouldn’t want to use a car anymore!

The magazine is interesting, but some of the things in it are kind of crazy. Some people are still living in clay huts and I think we should spend more time on helping them then pursuing some of these ideas.

But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming…

Science and War Museum

By leapin.levi
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Today we went to a couple of different places. First we went to the Space and Science Museum. It was kinda like the one in Edmonton. There was a simulator thing that felt like you were in a space ship going to the sun and saving the Earth from meteors. It was pretty neat. They also had demonstrations of electricity, physics, and one other one that we can’t remember what it was called. But it had to do with freezing things with liquid nitrogen. That was really neat. He put full balloons in liquid nitrogen and when he pulled them out, they were all wrinkled and looked deflated. But then after a few minutes the were full again. We also went to a war museum where they had a lot of different exhibits on all the different wars Canadians fought in. There was a lot of cool stuff like tanks, and all sorts of different weapons. We could have spent a whole day there reading everything. So Caleb and I just ran around looking at the tanks. Hehe…

Pouring boiling water into liquid nitrogen

I think I

Worlds population.... Growing....

Ottawa Day One

By leapin.levi
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Today we went to Parliament for a tour. We had to go through security and all that fun stuff. After, we went up to the top of the tallest tower and looked at Ottawa from 300 feet up in the sky. We came down and went into a room with all the names of the soldiers that died in the wars that Canada took part in. In the tour, we saw the house of commons, the library, and a few rooms that were used for multiple things like meetings and stuff. Earlier in the day, we went to a church to hear someone play the organ. It was pretty cool. We found a pretty good pizza too. It’ll be hard to find something better.

Truing Wheels

By leapin.levi
Filed Under Contributing, Discovering, Learning  | | No Comments»

Wheel Truing

What is it?

Truing wheels is what you have to do when your wheel is wobbling or not rolling straight. This happens if you land hard or just hit something really hard with your wheel. It could just happen over time if you’ve been riding your bike on bumpy trails for a long time.

Why do we need to true a wheel?

I know by experience, when your wheel is out of true, it puts tension on all the other spokes which could lead to them breaking. It also makes you ride slower because the wheel is wobbling to one side.

How do we true wheels?

If you have a truing stand, take your wheel off your bike and take the tire and tube off. It all depends on how big your tires are if you need to take your tire off or not. You should deflate your tube to relieve some pressure on the rim if you keep your tire on. Spin the wheel to see where it’s out of true. When you find where the wheel is out of true, determine which spokes to loosen or tighten by looking at what side of the hub the spokes are on. You want to loosen the spokes on the side that the rim is bent towards and tighten the spokes on the opposite side. Only turn the spokes a 1/4 turn to make sure they don’t break. It is quite simple, but can be tricky because you have to make sure that you don’t loosen or tighten the spokes too much and you get the right tightness all the way around the wheel.

What do we need?

All you really need for truing wheels is a spoke wrench. There are three main sizes and you have to make sure you have the correct one, or else you’ll strip the screw that holds the spoke in place. A truing stand could come in handy if you plan on doing this a lot or want to get it perfect each time.

Here is a spoke wrench.

Where can we get stands?

Your local bike shop should be able to order truing stands if they don’t have them in stock. Each bike shop is different in what they can get and even if the can get them. You can also order them online. They can cost between $50-$400 depending on the quality of the stand and the adjustments that can be made. You could also build your own truing stand if you’re that cheap or just want a fun project.

Here are two different kinds of truing stands.
http://www.parktool.com/product/professional-wheel-truing-stand-ts-2-2

Here is the expensive one:

http://www.parktool.com/product/home-mechanic-wheel-truing-stand-ts-8

Here is the less expensive one:

The first truing stand is more expensive than the second one. The price really depends whether you find them online, or in bike shops. In Canada they are expensive in bike shops and cheaper online. The first one can cost as low as $180 online to $350 in a bike shop. Plus you have to buy a stand which is around $50. The other one is cheaper at around $180 and you don’t need a stand. It doesn’t have as many adjustments as the first one, but it is much cheaper and we don’t need to buy a stand for it. I don’t think we’ll need to do much truing when the wheel is off the bike, so that’s why I’m leaning more towards the cheaper one.

Are there other ways of truing a wheel?

Without a truing stand you could keep the wheel on the bike and use the fork or rear frame as a reference to see if the wheel is straight or not.

What’s the first thing you do?

The first thing you do depends on if you have a truing stand or not. In most cases if you have one, you have to take the tire and tube off the wheel and put it on the stand to see if it’s true or not. If you are just using the “cheap man’s way”, then just turn your bike upside down.
This website shows you how to true a wheel without a stand.

Here is a video to show you how to true a wheel with a truing stand.
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/168975/

Is getting a truing stand worth it?

Getting your wheel trued at a bike shop could cost you from $15-$40 depending on where you go and how bad your wheel is out of true. If you plan on riding a lot on bumpy surfaces and being rough on your wheels, it might be a good idea to do it yourself, and it might even be worth it to get your own truing stand.

Why are we breaking spokes?

Anything can break a spoke; from a rock or stick getting in there or if you wipe out and hit your wheel on something hard. Once you break a spoke, that makes the other spokes more prone to breaking because the tension is not even. If you want to prevent breaking spokes, when you replace a broken one or are just truing your wheel, go through all the spokes with a spoke wrench and make sure they all have the same tension. You should go through and check all your spokes every time you do maintenance on your bike.

Work Cited:
http://bicycletutor.com/wheel-truing/

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/tech-tuesday-wheel-truing-101-2010.html

http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/maintenance/quick-tips-true-a-bicycle-wheel

http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/fix/tiretrue.htm

http://www.socaltrailriders.org/forum/workshop/35821-why-do-my-spokes-break.html

http://www.easyracers.com/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=1275