Love Thursday - http://orlandomama.blogspot.com/
1. Got a month of Ramadhan goodie basket from the family of a Muslim student - dates, nuts, dried fruit. :)
2. I had a meeting yesterday and my students had a sub. They didn't like the sub. I had several notes from students today telling me they love Ms. Beatty and they were so glad I was here today. :)
3. I spoke at a friend's church last night about Islam. They were very friendly and welcoming and I got a big hug afterwards from my friend.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Animal "Speech" Project Aims to Decode Critter Communication
Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News
September 26, 2006
The fictional children's book character Dr. Dolittle easily understood animal chatter. But for the rest of us, the meaning behind creatures' clucks, rumbles, and whistles remains a mystery.
Now, researchers from several universities and institutions are working on an effort called the Dr. Dolittle Project, which aims to crack the code of animal communication.
Their work could help people gain a better understanding of animal behavior and hopefully allow researchers to improve care for wild and captive animal populations.
"For centuries humans have tried to teach animals to communicate like humans," said Michael Darre, an animal science professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn) in Storrs.
"And now we're getting to the point where we're saying, Wait a second. Why don't we learn their language instead of making them learn ours?"
(Related feature: "Calls in the Wild" in National Geographic magazine.)
Elephant Talk
In the past three years researchers with the project have captured sounds from a variety of animals, including African elephants, rhinos, horses, chickens, and bottlenose dolphins.
Scientists also videotape the animals' corresponding behavior and feed the data into a modified human speech-recognition program.
The program can alert scientists to a range of details, including physiological indicators, such as stress or whether the animal is in heat.
Mike Johnson, an assistant professor of computer and electrical engineering at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, leads the project.
"We wanted to find ways to apply the high-tech side of what you can do in speech processing, which has been used in human speech processing for a decade or more, and apply those ideas to the field of bioacoustics," he said.
African elephants at the theme park wear collars with digital microphones to capture sound. Each night the collars are removed and the recorded information is analyzed.
Anne Savage, the park's senior conservation biologist, says understanding how pachyderms use vocalizations to communicate will help people better manage them in the wild and in captivity.
"There is a lot of information—such as individual identification, emotion, and function—that is encoded in their rumbles that we are just beginning to understand," she said.
One study at the park focused on measuring emotion in elephant voices.
Since elephants have a clear hierarchy, Savage wanted to see if subordinates got nervous around higher-ranking members, much like some humans do.
"A lot of people, when they have to go deliver bad news to their boss, they'll get a little nervousness in their voice," she explained. "And you can actually measure the amount of shaking in their voice."
Savage found that the same thing happens in elephants: When lower-ranking animals approach dominant ones, their rumble contained a nervous jitter.
Another study involved herd communication.
Before Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, pairs of elephants were brought in from other institutions, where they had lived together for ten or more years.
After arriving at the park, a new dominance hierarchy was established.
Savage wondered if elephants that had previously lived together would still communicate, even if the new ranking system separated them.
She discovered that the strong social bonds the elephants had previously forged won out.
"One of the things that was very clear in all of this is that best friends talk to each other all the time and are more likely to answer a call of their close friend than others," she said.
Shouting Whales
For more than ten years, UConn animal bioacoustics researcher Peter Scheifele has collected sounds from a threatened group of beluga whales in Canada's St. Lawrence River estuary.
After joining the Dolittle project two years ago, he made a breakthrough discovery: Under noisy conditions, such as those created by passing motor boats, the whales vocalized louder so that pod members could hear them.
Scientists call this a Lombard response, and humans do it too.
"The Lombard response has typically been thought of as a reflex attributable to complex mammals having speech," he said.
"However, it is now thought of as being a reflexive response by animals that have a need for sounds with specific meaning to be heard."
Songbirds and some primates also "talk" louder when noise levels rise, he says.
(Related news: "Baby Birds' Efforts to Outshout City Noise May Take Toll" [April 2005].)
Another Doolittle study is underway at a small-scale commercial poultry farm owned by UConn.
Adult chickens are thought to make between 19 and 22 different vocalizations.
"We're trying to see how those vocalizations change under stressful conditions and if there's a way to detect that," Darre, the UConn animal scientist, said.
The long-term goal is to equip commercial poultry farms with microphones that transmit clucking to a voice recognition system.
If the system identifies stress, an alarm would sound in the manager's office.
Darre says that from a humane standpoint, such a system would ensure that animals are being reared under good husbandry conditions.
Because tense chickens can stop laying eggs or require more food to gain weight, the alarm could also prevent declines in egg and meat production, he says.
So far the Dr. Dolittle Project has focused on only a handful of wild and farm animals, but methods are now being developed for use across a wide variety of species.
"It's all part of understanding the world around us," Darre said. "We, as humans, really need to learn more about the rest of the ecosystem we're in."
"The more we do, the more we learn, the better off we'll be—and the better we can care for [wild animals] so they don't become extinct because we did something stupid."
for National Geographic News
September 26, 2006
The fictional children's book character Dr. Dolittle easily understood animal chatter. But for the rest of us, the meaning behind creatures' clucks, rumbles, and whistles remains a mystery.
Now, researchers from several universities and institutions are working on an effort called the Dr. Dolittle Project, which aims to crack the code of animal communication.
Their work could help people gain a better understanding of animal behavior and hopefully allow researchers to improve care for wild and captive animal populations.
"For centuries humans have tried to teach animals to communicate like humans," said Michael Darre, an animal science professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn) in Storrs.
"And now we're getting to the point where we're saying, Wait a second. Why don't we learn their language instead of making them learn ours?"
(Related feature: "Calls in the Wild" in National Geographic magazine.)
Elephant Talk
In the past three years researchers with the project have captured sounds from a variety of animals, including African elephants, rhinos, horses, chickens, and bottlenose dolphins.
Scientists also videotape the animals' corresponding behavior and feed the data into a modified human speech-recognition program.
The program can alert scientists to a range of details, including physiological indicators, such as stress or whether the animal is in heat.
Mike Johnson, an assistant professor of computer and electrical engineering at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, leads the project.
"We wanted to find ways to apply the high-tech side of what you can do in speech processing, which has been used in human speech processing for a decade or more, and apply those ideas to the field of bioacoustics," he said.
African elephants at the theme park wear collars with digital microphones to capture sound. Each night the collars are removed and the recorded information is analyzed.
Anne Savage, the park's senior conservation biologist, says understanding how pachyderms use vocalizations to communicate will help people better manage them in the wild and in captivity.
"There is a lot of information—such as individual identification, emotion, and function—that is encoded in their rumbles that we are just beginning to understand," she said.
One study at the park focused on measuring emotion in elephant voices.
Since elephants have a clear hierarchy, Savage wanted to see if subordinates got nervous around higher-ranking members, much like some humans do.
"A lot of people, when they have to go deliver bad news to their boss, they'll get a little nervousness in their voice," she explained. "And you can actually measure the amount of shaking in their voice."
Savage found that the same thing happens in elephants: When lower-ranking animals approach dominant ones, their rumble contained a nervous jitter.
Another study involved herd communication.
Before Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, pairs of elephants were brought in from other institutions, where they had lived together for ten or more years.
After arriving at the park, a new dominance hierarchy was established.
Savage wondered if elephants that had previously lived together would still communicate, even if the new ranking system separated them.
She discovered that the strong social bonds the elephants had previously forged won out.
"One of the things that was very clear in all of this is that best friends talk to each other all the time and are more likely to answer a call of their close friend than others," she said.
Shouting Whales
For more than ten years, UConn animal bioacoustics researcher Peter Scheifele has collected sounds from a threatened group of beluga whales in Canada's St. Lawrence River estuary.
After joining the Dolittle project two years ago, he made a breakthrough discovery: Under noisy conditions, such as those created by passing motor boats, the whales vocalized louder so that pod members could hear them.
Scientists call this a Lombard response, and humans do it too.
"The Lombard response has typically been thought of as a reflex attributable to complex mammals having speech," he said.
"However, it is now thought of as being a reflexive response by animals that have a need for sounds with specific meaning to be heard."
Songbirds and some primates also "talk" louder when noise levels rise, he says.
(Related news: "Baby Birds' Efforts to Outshout City Noise May Take Toll" [April 2005].)
Another Doolittle study is underway at a small-scale commercial poultry farm owned by UConn.
Adult chickens are thought to make between 19 and 22 different vocalizations.
"We're trying to see how those vocalizations change under stressful conditions and if there's a way to detect that," Darre, the UConn animal scientist, said.
The long-term goal is to equip commercial poultry farms with microphones that transmit clucking to a voice recognition system.
If the system identifies stress, an alarm would sound in the manager's office.
Darre says that from a humane standpoint, such a system would ensure that animals are being reared under good husbandry conditions.
Because tense chickens can stop laying eggs or require more food to gain weight, the alarm could also prevent declines in egg and meat production, he says.
So far the Dr. Dolittle Project has focused on only a handful of wild and farm animals, but methods are now being developed for use across a wide variety of species.
"It's all part of understanding the world around us," Darre said. "We, as humans, really need to learn more about the rest of the ecosystem we're in."
"The more we do, the more we learn, the better off we'll be—and the better we can care for [wild animals] so they don't become extinct because we did something stupid."
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Big Ten Logo "Illusion"
I follow this blog http://mightyillusions.blogspot.com for fun. Actually, they have a widget that I use that shows the illusions. You may remember the 3D chalk drawings I posted a while back - they came from there.
Anyway, for no reason in particular here is one that is by no means the coolest but I thought was interesting.
Below is the Big Ten logo. However, since 1990 the Big Ten has actually had 11 teams. They took care of that in the logo although they didn't change the name. There are two 11's in there (hint: one is not in Arabic numerals). Can you see them?
Anyway, for no reason in particular here is one that is by no means the coolest but I thought was interesting.
Below is the Big Ten logo. However, since 1990 the Big Ten has actually had 11 teams. They took care of that in the logo although they didn't change the name. There are two 11's in there (hint: one is not in Arabic numerals). Can you see them?
You gotta love Jon Stewart
Sep 26, 9:11 PM EDT
Pakistan Prez Appears on 'Daily Show'
By JAKE COYLE
AP Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Jon Stewart welcomed Pakistan's president to "The Daily Show" on Tuesday with tea and a Twinkie. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's tete-a-tete with Stewart on the Comedy Central program was even more unlikely than the much-anticipated meeting between Musharraf, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush, planned for Wednesday.
As a gesture mirroring Pakistani hospitality, Stewart welcomed Musharraf with a cup of jasmine green tea, and offered the more American delicacy of a Twinkie. Musharraf chuckled and thanked the host, though Stewart promptly changed the subject.
"Where's Osama bin Laden?" he asked suddenly.
"I don't know," replied Musharraf. "You know where he is? You lead on, we'll follow you."
Musharraf's appearance on "The Daily Show," which was taped late Tuesday and was to air Tuesday evening, was the first time a sitting head of state appeared on the program, a show spokesman said. The comedy show, though, has frequently drawn major political figures, including former President Clinton last week.
The Pakistan president, who is on tour of the U.S., appeared on the program to promote his new memoir, "In the Line of Fire." The book has drawn headlines for, among other things, the Pakistan president's claim that after the Sept. 11 attacks he had no choice but to support the U.S. led war on terror groups or face an American "onslaught."
On balancing the wishes of the U.S. and Pakistan, which is largely anti-American, Musharraf told Stewart: "I've had to learn the art of tightrope-walking many times, and I think I've become quite an expert of that."
Stewart, himself, has also proven deft at balancing both humor and seriousness on "The Daily Show." At one point, he asked Musharraf if he had omitted any mention of the war in Iraq in his memoir because it has "gone so well."
Musharraf again laughed, but said: "It has led certainly to more extremism and terrorism around the world."
To conclude the interview, Stewart put Musharraf on the "Seat of Heat," a new feature for the program in which red lights flash around the studio and the guest is asked a final question.
"George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden - be truthful - who would win a popular vote in Pakistan?" asked Stewart.
"I think they'll both lose miserably," replied Musharraf, an answer met with raucous laughter by the "Daily Show" audience.
---
Pakistan Prez Appears on 'Daily Show'
By JAKE COYLE
AP Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Jon Stewart welcomed Pakistan's president to "The Daily Show" on Tuesday with tea and a Twinkie. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's tete-a-tete with Stewart on the Comedy Central program was even more unlikely than the much-anticipated meeting between Musharraf, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush, planned for Wednesday.
As a gesture mirroring Pakistani hospitality, Stewart welcomed Musharraf with a cup of jasmine green tea, and offered the more American delicacy of a Twinkie. Musharraf chuckled and thanked the host, though Stewart promptly changed the subject.
"Where's Osama bin Laden?" he asked suddenly.
"I don't know," replied Musharraf. "You know where he is? You lead on, we'll follow you."
Musharraf's appearance on "The Daily Show," which was taped late Tuesday and was to air Tuesday evening, was the first time a sitting head of state appeared on the program, a show spokesman said. The comedy show, though, has frequently drawn major political figures, including former President Clinton last week.
The Pakistan president, who is on tour of the U.S., appeared on the program to promote his new memoir, "In the Line of Fire." The book has drawn headlines for, among other things, the Pakistan president's claim that after the Sept. 11 attacks he had no choice but to support the U.S. led war on terror groups or face an American "onslaught."
On balancing the wishes of the U.S. and Pakistan, which is largely anti-American, Musharraf told Stewart: "I've had to learn the art of tightrope-walking many times, and I think I've become quite an expert of that."
Stewart, himself, has also proven deft at balancing both humor and seriousness on "The Daily Show." At one point, he asked Musharraf if he had omitted any mention of the war in Iraq in his memoir because it has "gone so well."
Musharraf again laughed, but said: "It has led certainly to more extremism and terrorism around the world."
To conclude the interview, Stewart put Musharraf on the "Seat of Heat," a new feature for the program in which red lights flash around the studio and the guest is asked a final question.
"George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden - be truthful - who would win a popular vote in Pakistan?" asked Stewart.
"I think they'll both lose miserably," replied Musharraf, an answer met with raucous laughter by the "Daily Show" audience.
---
The bell may toll for classic literature
Internet, TV sap attention from books
By BRIAN NEWSOME THE GAZETTE
Defend yourself, Dante.
Be afraid, Bronte sisters.
Even you, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, perhaps should shudder.
President Bush has proclaimed today Literacy Day, a recognition of the importance of reading. But literature continues to be under attack from the Internet and other media in abattle for our leisure time.
The grim assessment comes from an English scholar who directed a national project on how much people read. Many teachers and students in the Pikes Peak region testify to the cultural change.
Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University in Atlanta and the former director of research and analysis for the National Endowment for the Arts, discussed technology’s toll on reading in a public lecture at Colorado College last week.
Reading for fun is losing a popularity contest against the likes of Myspace.com, iTunes. com and the XBox, he said.
“It’s an educational or intellectual war. The more minutes you spend downloading music, the less time you’ll spend doing something else.”
The result, Bauerlein and others fear, is a society with a low-level vocabulary and short attention span.
Rebecca O’Connell, a sophomore at Pikes Peak Community College and an avid reader, said “people use the word ‘thing’ to describe everything. . . . They just use these random, vague words just to fill in the blanks.” .
Others believe battle cries are unnecessary. Culture is changing, they concede, but some students wouldn’t read in any case. Parents who keep homes stocked with books and read to their children exert more influence than the iPod.
Bauerlein directed a 2004 report on reading habits titled “Reading at Risk.” The report was based on the literature segment of a 2002 National Endowment for the Arts survey on participation in the arts and how people spend their leisure time.
A steep decline in reading compared to other activities prompted the organization to do a special report on the subject, Bauerlein said.
The number of people who read literature, especially young people, declined significantly in the past 20 years, the report found.
People ages 18 to 24 who said they read literature declined by 28 percent from 1982 to 2002. About 57 percent of young adults said they had not read a book, short story, poem, or play of any kind in a year, up from about 40 percent in 1982.
Nearly 90 million adults did not read a book in 2002, according to the NEA.
The number of books sold in the United States in 2004 dropped by 44 million compared to a year earlier, according to the nonprofit Book Industry Study Group, from 2.339 billion to 2.295 billion.
Bauerlein, who met with the CEO of Barnes & Noble after the “Reading at Risk” report was published, said much of the chain bookstore’s revenue comes from sales of CDs, DVDs and other nonbook materials.
In the lecture at CC, Bauerlein pointed to statistics from other studies about how much time people spend with media, and their habits on the Web.
A Kaiser Family Foundation study, for example, found that about two-thirds of 8- to 18-year-olds have TVs in their bedrooms, and that about half have video game systems. Children are exposed to about 8½ hours of media a day, although that could include concurrent time, such as watching TV while surfing the Internet.
Although the Internet is full of educational and informational sites, Bauerlein said, most teens and young adults are viewing social sites, or checking out celebrities, sports and pornography. When people view Web sites, they scan key words and images and skim text, Web-use studies have shown.
Bauerlein said he and other colleagues have found many college students seem to struggle with long novels or dense poetry more than past classes have.
Tom Napierkowski, an English professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said many students have a difficult time with analytical reading.
“Sometimes students want to read materials in the way that they might want to read the sports page,” he said, noting that electronic and mass media have probably contributed to such habits. “I sometimes joke with my students that you can’t speed-read good literature.”
Linguists have found that a book for a 9-year-old exposes people to more new words than a prime time TV show, Bauerlein said.
“We have to regard this as a rival, a competitor,” he said about technology. He referred to an advertisement at an Apple computer store in which five notebook computers sat on a shelf between posters showing bookshelves lined with the classics. The slogan: “The only books you’ll need.”
Jane Abbott, dean of the PPCC library, said People magazine is one of the most popular items in the library. A former humanities teacher, she agrees that books and other literature are becoming casualties of war.
Many students, she said, struggle to find words for what they want to say. “It’s sad, and I think it’s also frightening.”
Karen Broughton, a reading teacher at North Middle School, says she thinks computers and technology shouldn’t shoulder the blame for a decline in reading rates.
Good reading habits are taught, she believes. She’s used the Internet to find interesting books for her students that she likely wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
Broughton uses new technology in the classroom to help students who struggle with reading to build their skills.
Thalia Hardy, an English teacher at Doherty High School, believes technology can be distracting, but she’s noticed that most students who love to read learned that from their parents.
So how do you keep “Paradise Lost” from being lost, or prevent students from saying farewell to “A Farewell to Arms”?
Fight back, Bauerlein says. Academics don’t want to be seen as curmudgeons or reactionaries, he said, but those who don’t take the threat seriously will find it increasingly hard to assign literature.
Don’t expect book lovers to launch multimillion dollar ad campaigns during next year’s Super Bowl, but readers can do more to tout the virtues of reading and market the joys of a page-turner.
After all, curling up with a good laptop just isn’t quite the same.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0198 or
bnewsome@gazette.com
By BRIAN NEWSOME THE GAZETTE
Defend yourself, Dante.
Be afraid, Bronte sisters.
Even you, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, perhaps should shudder.
President Bush has proclaimed today Literacy Day, a recognition of the importance of reading. But literature continues to be under attack from the Internet and other media in abattle for our leisure time.
The grim assessment comes from an English scholar who directed a national project on how much people read. Many teachers and students in the Pikes Peak region testify to the cultural change.
Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University in Atlanta and the former director of research and analysis for the National Endowment for the Arts, discussed technology’s toll on reading in a public lecture at Colorado College last week.
Reading for fun is losing a popularity contest against the likes of Myspace.com, iTunes. com and the XBox, he said.
“It’s an educational or intellectual war. The more minutes you spend downloading music, the less time you’ll spend doing something else.”
The result, Bauerlein and others fear, is a society with a low-level vocabulary and short attention span.
Rebecca O’Connell, a sophomore at Pikes Peak Community College and an avid reader, said “people use the word ‘thing’ to describe everything. . . . They just use these random, vague words just to fill in the blanks.” .
Others believe battle cries are unnecessary. Culture is changing, they concede, but some students wouldn’t read in any case. Parents who keep homes stocked with books and read to their children exert more influence than the iPod.
Bauerlein directed a 2004 report on reading habits titled “Reading at Risk.” The report was based on the literature segment of a 2002 National Endowment for the Arts survey on participation in the arts and how people spend their leisure time.
A steep decline in reading compared to other activities prompted the organization to do a special report on the subject, Bauerlein said.
The number of people who read literature, especially young people, declined significantly in the past 20 years, the report found.
People ages 18 to 24 who said they read literature declined by 28 percent from 1982 to 2002. About 57 percent of young adults said they had not read a book, short story, poem, or play of any kind in a year, up from about 40 percent in 1982.
Nearly 90 million adults did not read a book in 2002, according to the NEA.
The number of books sold in the United States in 2004 dropped by 44 million compared to a year earlier, according to the nonprofit Book Industry Study Group, from 2.339 billion to 2.295 billion.
Bauerlein, who met with the CEO of Barnes & Noble after the “Reading at Risk” report was published, said much of the chain bookstore’s revenue comes from sales of CDs, DVDs and other nonbook materials.
In the lecture at CC, Bauerlein pointed to statistics from other studies about how much time people spend with media, and their habits on the Web.
A Kaiser Family Foundation study, for example, found that about two-thirds of 8- to 18-year-olds have TVs in their bedrooms, and that about half have video game systems. Children are exposed to about 8½ hours of media a day, although that could include concurrent time, such as watching TV while surfing the Internet.
Although the Internet is full of educational and informational sites, Bauerlein said, most teens and young adults are viewing social sites, or checking out celebrities, sports and pornography. When people view Web sites, they scan key words and images and skim text, Web-use studies have shown.
Bauerlein said he and other colleagues have found many college students seem to struggle with long novels or dense poetry more than past classes have.
Tom Napierkowski, an English professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said many students have a difficult time with analytical reading.
“Sometimes students want to read materials in the way that they might want to read the sports page,” he said, noting that electronic and mass media have probably contributed to such habits. “I sometimes joke with my students that you can’t speed-read good literature.”
Linguists have found that a book for a 9-year-old exposes people to more new words than a prime time TV show, Bauerlein said.
“We have to regard this as a rival, a competitor,” he said about technology. He referred to an advertisement at an Apple computer store in which five notebook computers sat on a shelf between posters showing bookshelves lined with the classics. The slogan: “The only books you’ll need.”
Jane Abbott, dean of the PPCC library, said People magazine is one of the most popular items in the library. A former humanities teacher, she agrees that books and other literature are becoming casualties of war.
Many students, she said, struggle to find words for what they want to say. “It’s sad, and I think it’s also frightening.”
Karen Broughton, a reading teacher at North Middle School, says she thinks computers and technology shouldn’t shoulder the blame for a decline in reading rates.
Good reading habits are taught, she believes. She’s used the Internet to find interesting books for her students that she likely wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
Broughton uses new technology in the classroom to help students who struggle with reading to build their skills.
Thalia Hardy, an English teacher at Doherty High School, believes technology can be distracting, but she’s noticed that most students who love to read learned that from their parents.
So how do you keep “Paradise Lost” from being lost, or prevent students from saying farewell to “A Farewell to Arms”?
Fight back, Bauerlein says. Academics don’t want to be seen as curmudgeons or reactionaries, he said, but those who don’t take the threat seriously will find it increasingly hard to assign literature.
Don’t expect book lovers to launch multimillion dollar ad campaigns during next year’s Super Bowl, but readers can do more to tout the virtues of reading and market the joys of a page-turner.
After all, curling up with a good laptop just isn’t quite the same.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0198 or
bnewsome@gazette.com
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Shahr Ramadhan Mubarak
Well school is really busy. But sometimes kids say things that make it fun. One boy told me all teachers should have to wear mood rings. :) Another one tells me pun jokes every day. But I am so bad at jokes, I can't remember them to tell them again. But his are pretty clever.
Today mom and I disconnected the swamp cooler on the roof and cleaned out the gutters for the season - just in time, as there is a frost advisory for tonight. I need to go disconnect the hoses. We had nice cold rain the past few days - a few thousand feet higher and it was snow. The Peak is covered with fluffy deep white snow and it came all the way down to Woodland Park.
Then we went to watch Logan's football game. His team won by two points. He got a few fouls for moving too soon, but he also caused and retrieved a fumble and got some quarterback sacks and several great yardage-loss tackles. He had a very good game.
Tomorrow evening we're doing a dinner thing for Haily's birthday, probably baked potatoes. My mom is so nice to adjust the times for me sometimes so I can eat with the family. Sometimes I just had to wait - like Thanksgiving and Christmas - because the tradition was more of a lunch than a dinner, but I didn't mind. Last night we rented Hoot with Haily while her family finished some birthday stuff for her.
Wednesday night I am supposed to go to a friend's church religion class to talk to them about Islam. She's a wonderful lady and I am sure it will be a good experience.
Well here's wishing that everyone has a wonderful month of fasting with positive benefits all around.
Today mom and I disconnected the swamp cooler on the roof and cleaned out the gutters for the season - just in time, as there is a frost advisory for tonight. I need to go disconnect the hoses. We had nice cold rain the past few days - a few thousand feet higher and it was snow. The Peak is covered with fluffy deep white snow and it came all the way down to Woodland Park.
Then we went to watch Logan's football game. His team won by two points. He got a few fouls for moving too soon, but he also caused and retrieved a fumble and got some quarterback sacks and several great yardage-loss tackles. He had a very good game.
Tomorrow evening we're doing a dinner thing for Haily's birthday, probably baked potatoes. My mom is so nice to adjust the times for me sometimes so I can eat with the family. Sometimes I just had to wait - like Thanksgiving and Christmas - because the tradition was more of a lunch than a dinner, but I didn't mind. Last night we rented Hoot with Haily while her family finished some birthday stuff for her.
Wednesday night I am supposed to go to a friend's church religion class to talk to them about Islam. She's a wonderful lady and I am sure it will be a good experience.
Well here's wishing that everyone has a wonderful month of fasting with positive benefits all around.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Some Colorado Fall Pics for Wayfarer
I went for a little walk at Fountain Creek Regional Park where we hid the Buttered Popcorn cache together and took these.....
Milkweed - the only food of Monarchs - going to seed
Cottonwood
I wouldn't eat those berries - not sure what they are.....
Do you see the deer tracks in the red mud of Fountain Creek?
There are some wild snapdragons in the front - I also saw some wild pumpkin or squash, but it was just flowering so I don't think it will have time to go to fruit.
You can see the mountains in the background.
Milkweed - the only food of Monarchs - going to seed
Cottonwood
I wouldn't eat those berries - not sure what they are.....
Do you see the deer tracks in the red mud of Fountain Creek?
There are some wild snapdragons in the front - I also saw some wild pumpkin or squash, but it was just flowering so I don't think it will have time to go to fruit.
You can see the mountains in the background.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
fall
The fall colors are starting to show and the air is crisp - fall is in the air and it is beautiful. Today mom and I went birthday shopping for Haily. We stopped at Venetucci farm to see what they had fresh and got some musk melon to try - don't think I've ever eaten that before, but it smelled like cantaloupe. I really struggle with the idea of ever leaving this place, but it seems like I belong to it and it to me. I need natural beauty to survive. Last week I was watching Globe Trekker at my parents' house and they were doing New Zealand. It was very beautiful and I would love to go there. They have alpine parrots called Keas and I would like to see them, too. So maybe someday if I ever win Publisher's Clearing House, because that is very expensive travel and I never have more than $50 extra in my bank account.
There was a different instructor than usual at the water aerobics class on Thursday. I guess it was the lady who normally does day time classes. Her work out was much better for cardio, but we are pretty stuck as to what times we can go so we can't change to be in her class. If the class isn't full, mom and I are planning to do a Tai Chi class on Monday nights for 6 weeks starting in October - a community ed class.
I need to find ways to make exercise more of my life. Right now, I only do moderate exercise a few times a week. I enjoy it, but work consumes my days and my energy, and if you exercise too late in the evening it prevents you from sleeping properly. Work is very demanding this year - due to a change in our grading system we have a lot more grading to do this year and it is hard to manage the time. And pressures due to stupid legislation just keeps increasing on us to achieve the impossible.
Anyway, no real news as you can see, just loving fall.
There was a different instructor than usual at the water aerobics class on Thursday. I guess it was the lady who normally does day time classes. Her work out was much better for cardio, but we are pretty stuck as to what times we can go so we can't change to be in her class. If the class isn't full, mom and I are planning to do a Tai Chi class on Monday nights for 6 weeks starting in October - a community ed class.
I need to find ways to make exercise more of my life. Right now, I only do moderate exercise a few times a week. I enjoy it, but work consumes my days and my energy, and if you exercise too late in the evening it prevents you from sleeping properly. Work is very demanding this year - due to a change in our grading system we have a lot more grading to do this year and it is hard to manage the time. And pressures due to stupid legislation just keeps increasing on us to achieve the impossible.
Anyway, no real news as you can see, just loving fall.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Pictures from San Diego in July, and a Puzzle
This is me, Buddy Hardwicke and Kristy Emerson sitting at a table to work on one of our projects assigned at the AVID conference in San Diego. Buddy is the social studies chair and Kristy is a counselor at Coronado.
This is the group from my high school on our sea kayaking trip our first day in San Diego. Actually this was in La Jolla. At left is Susan Humphrey the principal, Tom Sandoval, assistant principal, Marcia Landwehr, assistant principal, Jenny Chapman, English chair and Kristy Emerson. Two other members of our group did not go sea kayaking - Buddy Hardwicke who arrived the next day and Lynne Williams who had just arrived from the east coast and was jet-lagged and decided to sleep instead.
Sea kayaking was neat because it was beautiful and fun, but we got to some choppy water and when I stopped rowing I got sea sick - bad enough that I actually threw up.
And here's a puzzle for you:
There's a mistake in this obviously since 2 does not equal 1, but can you find it?
Friday, September 08, 2006
Amazing!
15th Sha'aaban Mubarak! - if anyone has an article or book on history and origins of areeza, I'd love to know about it.
Check out these sidewalk drawings by artist Julian Beever - they are amazing - they look three dimensional, but they are just drawn on the sidewalks - that fountain is drawn on the sidewalk!!!.....
More pictures of his work are here: http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm
Check out these sidewalk drawings by artist Julian Beever - they are amazing - they look three dimensional, but they are just drawn on the sidewalks - that fountain is drawn on the sidewalk!!!.....
More pictures of his work are here: http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Back to School Meme
Okay, I'm asking the questions this time..... Please play! But I guess I'll answer, too.
1. Where have you attended school? --- Widefield Colorado - King Elementary, Janitell Junior High, Widefield High School
2. What was your favorite grade? --- 6th - we got to go to Bear Trap Camp, and perform a melodrama and learn Japanese.
3. Favorite subject? --- Science
4. Were you in any clubs? --- Yeah - mainly science, environmental, outdoor, but several others on a lesser basis like Interact (Rotary), Fellowship of Christian Athletes, math, radio, forensics, etc.
5. Whatever happened to that old home ec or shop project? Or maybe it was science fair? -- I didn't take home ec or shop because I was in choir. My plant collection and insect collection may still be in my parents' attic somewhere, the tanned hide of the raccoon finally died a few years ago.
6. Did you play any sports? -- Yes, track was the main one, and cross country. Tried volleyball one year and hated it.
7. Did you ever win a ribbon on field day? -- Yes, I often placed in the 50 yard dash.
8. What was your favorite project or activity in art? -- I liked when we got to play with clay.
9. Did you play an instrument? What? -- Recorder in 4th, Viola in 5th, guitar in 6th, piano most of my childhood, and choir most of my childhood
10. What did you do in a school play? -- 1st grade I was a crow in Wizard of Oz, 2nd grade we were ghosts, 5th grade I was Tom Sawyer, 6th grade I played the ragtime piano for the melodrama
11. What is your favorite school supply? -- fresh clean notebooks
12. Did you look forward to going back to school each fall? -- yes
13. Were you one of the first or last out at dodgeball or wall ball? -- usually in the middle somewhere
14. What were the cliques in your school and where did you fit in? -- the gangstas, the rockers or stoners, the smart kids, the "in" kids, the drama kids, etc. I fit in with the rockers and smart kids mostly
15. Finish this phrase: Down down baby just like a --------- ( I'll this one for you!)
Or this one: Miss Susie had a ----------.
And now share your own that you remember: -----------
16. Do you remember the name of the lunch lady or the custodian or the secretary? -- Mr. Bobo in elementary, Felix in junior high (custodians)
17. Did you buy new school clothes? Did you pick them or did your parents? -- yes, and mostly I got to pick them within a limited budget
18. What did you do at recess? -- swings, jump rope, monkey bars, tag
19. Hot lunch or cold lunch? Pail or sack? --- usually cold in a sack
20. If you had a lunch box, who/what was on it? If you didn't, who/what would you have wanted on it? --- my very first was a mickey mouse one, I also had a Rats of Nimh one.
21. Dress code? --- I know there was one, but it didn't seem to be a big issue except for gang stuff a bit in upper grades
22. How many times did you get sent to the principal's office? --- I don't think I ever did.
23. Pencil fight or dimes or _____? --- I guess pencil fights. But not with pretty pencils.
24. One potato two potato, bubble gum in a dish, or eenie meenie? ---- I'll go with bubble gum.
25. What was a poem you memorized, and do you still remember it? --- The Jabberwocky, and I remember most of it.
26. What are the best children's books you remember reading? --- Where the Wild Things Are, any Dr. Seuss, any Judy Blume, Amelia Bedelia, The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Cay by Theodore Taylor, The Hobbit, Treasure Island, The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key. If you read anything, read The Forgotten Door, The Cay and the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, and especially The Forgotten Door!
27. Were you a scout or something similar? -- I was a girl scout through 6th grade.
28. What was your favorite classroom chore? Stacking chairs, erasing the board, or....? -- I think I liked erasing the board.
29. What gimmick did elementary teachers use to get kids to behave? -- we could earn fake money in little banks for buying what chores we wanted, or we earned tickets for an end of year raffle
30. What drills did you have? Fire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, bomb, lock down,.....? - fire and tornado
31. What were the hot hairdos and fashion statements? --- I remember the reaaaaaaally tall stiff bangs in junior high but I didn't participate.
32. Shared a locker? Had your own? Cubby hole? -- We had cubbies in elementary and shared lockers in high school. I think maybe we had our own lockers in junior high.
33. Best memory of kindergarten or even preschool? -- In preschool I remember the 'glue corner' where we went to peel glue off our fingers after doing craft projects. In kindergarten, I remember sitting in "the pit" at the end of the day and if you were good you got to pick a toy from the 'feely meely' box - a pink fur covered box that you couldn't see in but you just stuck your hand in and drew out your prize. My favorite prize was a butterfly magnet.
34. What color was your graduation gown? -- pale blue
35. Did you letter in anything? -- music, cross country, track, and academics (I think, I can't remember if they did academic lettering for sure).
36. What's the best game of tag? -- freeze tag
37. Red Rover or Crack the Whip? -- Red Rover!
1. Where have you attended school? --- Widefield Colorado - King Elementary, Janitell Junior High, Widefield High School
2. What was your favorite grade? --- 6th - we got to go to Bear Trap Camp, and perform a melodrama and learn Japanese.
3. Favorite subject? --- Science
4. Were you in any clubs? --- Yeah - mainly science, environmental, outdoor, but several others on a lesser basis like Interact (Rotary), Fellowship of Christian Athletes, math, radio, forensics, etc.
5. Whatever happened to that old home ec or shop project? Or maybe it was science fair? -- I didn't take home ec or shop because I was in choir. My plant collection and insect collection may still be in my parents' attic somewhere, the tanned hide of the raccoon finally died a few years ago.
6. Did you play any sports? -- Yes, track was the main one, and cross country. Tried volleyball one year and hated it.
7. Did you ever win a ribbon on field day? -- Yes, I often placed in the 50 yard dash.
8. What was your favorite project or activity in art? -- I liked when we got to play with clay.
9. Did you play an instrument? What? -- Recorder in 4th, Viola in 5th, guitar in 6th, piano most of my childhood, and choir most of my childhood
10. What did you do in a school play? -- 1st grade I was a crow in Wizard of Oz, 2nd grade we were ghosts, 5th grade I was Tom Sawyer, 6th grade I played the ragtime piano for the melodrama
11. What is your favorite school supply? -- fresh clean notebooks
12. Did you look forward to going back to school each fall? -- yes
13. Were you one of the first or last out at dodgeball or wall ball? -- usually in the middle somewhere
14. What were the cliques in your school and where did you fit in? -- the gangstas, the rockers or stoners, the smart kids, the "in" kids, the drama kids, etc. I fit in with the rockers and smart kids mostly
15. Finish this phrase: Down down baby just like a --------- ( I'll this one for you!)
Or this one: Miss Susie had a ----------.
And now share your own that you remember: -----------
16. Do you remember the name of the lunch lady or the custodian or the secretary? -- Mr. Bobo in elementary, Felix in junior high (custodians)
17. Did you buy new school clothes? Did you pick them or did your parents? -- yes, and mostly I got to pick them within a limited budget
18. What did you do at recess? -- swings, jump rope, monkey bars, tag
19. Hot lunch or cold lunch? Pail or sack? --- usually cold in a sack
20. If you had a lunch box, who/what was on it? If you didn't, who/what would you have wanted on it? --- my very first was a mickey mouse one, I also had a Rats of Nimh one.
21. Dress code? --- I know there was one, but it didn't seem to be a big issue except for gang stuff a bit in upper grades
22. How many times did you get sent to the principal's office? --- I don't think I ever did.
23. Pencil fight or dimes or _____? --- I guess pencil fights. But not with pretty pencils.
24. One potato two potato, bubble gum in a dish, or eenie meenie? ---- I'll go with bubble gum.
25. What was a poem you memorized, and do you still remember it? --- The Jabberwocky, and I remember most of it.
26. What are the best children's books you remember reading? --- Where the Wild Things Are, any Dr. Seuss, any Judy Blume, Amelia Bedelia, The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Cay by Theodore Taylor, The Hobbit, Treasure Island, The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key. If you read anything, read The Forgotten Door, The Cay and the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, and especially The Forgotten Door!
27. Were you a scout or something similar? -- I was a girl scout through 6th grade.
28. What was your favorite classroom chore? Stacking chairs, erasing the board, or....? -- I think I liked erasing the board.
29. What gimmick did elementary teachers use to get kids to behave? -- we could earn fake money in little banks for buying what chores we wanted, or we earned tickets for an end of year raffle
30. What drills did you have? Fire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, bomb, lock down,.....? - fire and tornado
31. What were the hot hairdos and fashion statements? --- I remember the reaaaaaaally tall stiff bangs in junior high but I didn't participate.
32. Shared a locker? Had your own? Cubby hole? -- We had cubbies in elementary and shared lockers in high school. I think maybe we had our own lockers in junior high.
33. Best memory of kindergarten or even preschool? -- In preschool I remember the 'glue corner' where we went to peel glue off our fingers after doing craft projects. In kindergarten, I remember sitting in "the pit" at the end of the day and if you were good you got to pick a toy from the 'feely meely' box - a pink fur covered box that you couldn't see in but you just stuck your hand in and drew out your prize. My favorite prize was a butterfly magnet.
34. What color was your graduation gown? -- pale blue
35. Did you letter in anything? -- music, cross country, track, and academics (I think, I can't remember if they did academic lettering for sure).
36. What's the best game of tag? -- freeze tag
37. Red Rover or Crack the Whip? -- Red Rover!
Q & A meme - done so many, why not another?
Favourite vegetable?
avocado and tomato, although really they are both fruits, so for 'real' vegetable, how about yellow squash?
Gold or silver?
silver for jewelry, gold for clothing, silver for house stuff
What is/are your favorite TV show(s)?
Star Trek, MythBusters, 30 Days, History Detectives, Real Life in the E.R., Get Color.....
What did you have for breakfast?
Chocolate Milk
Favorite ice cream?
Something with chocolate, but not all chocolate - and the good stuff, not the cheapo stuff.
Favorite color?
Depends for what, and when. Blue, Orange, Red
Favorite sandwich?
Schlotzsky's vegetarian.
Where would you retire to?
I think here would be just fine.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Rather in between. Ideal schedule would be like getting up sometime between 8 and 9:30 and going to bed sometime between 10 and midnight.
Favorite type of weather?
Colorado weather - little bit of everything.
But I do not like humidity, and I do not like hot.
If you had $500 to spend in a bookstore, which section would you head to first?
The kids' section. Good Christmas presents for my nieces and nephew.
If you could be instantly fluent in three languages, what would they be?
Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and I have to add Spanish too, I need four!
Which talent or skill did you always wish you had?
Fantasy: Reading minds, Remote viewing, Transmogrifying, Instant Teleportation, Knowing Everything
Reality: I always felt rather undomestic, little lower in skill there but not that interested either
Favourite beverage?
ice jasmine green tea
What books are you reading?
Lord of the Rings, and a Qur'an tafsir (Light of Holy Qur'an)
Favourite Smells:
lilac, freshly mowed grass, fresh dirt, my favorite expensive perfumes, freshly shampooed hair
Favourite Flowers:
bulbs and perennials
cosmos, moss rose, hyacinth, indian paintbrush, all of them really
Pet Peeves:
whining; littering; biased media; not following through on what someone says they will do, even if seemingly insignificant; people being late; people who do not talk to the point but ramble on and on at meetings; having to go to trainings that are useless or being made to do paperwork that is just a waste of time, etc.;
What sound or noise do you love?
windchimes and music boxes, birds chirping and singing - this is the most favorite for sure, children playing happily on a playground
What sound or noise do you hate?
screaming
Do you think your blogging friends have an accurate image of you?
yes
Is there a certain type of blog that you usually read?
I read blogs of friends, some other converts, etc.
If there was a blog convention and you had the opportunity to meet everyone in blog-land in real life would you go?
I'd prefer smaller scale - like everyone in my bloglines list.
If you went and you were seated at a table for four, which other bloggers would you want at your table?
Sister Scorpion, Wayfarer and Hajar
Do you share your blog with significant others, family and friends in your real life or is it your little secret?
Most of them know about it, but most of them don't follow it.
avocado and tomato, although really they are both fruits, so for 'real' vegetable, how about yellow squash?
Gold or silver?
silver for jewelry, gold for clothing, silver for house stuff
What is/are your favorite TV show(s)?
Star Trek, MythBusters, 30 Days, History Detectives, Real Life in the E.R., Get Color.....
What did you have for breakfast?
Chocolate Milk
Favorite ice cream?
Something with chocolate, but not all chocolate - and the good stuff, not the cheapo stuff.
Favorite color?
Depends for what, and when. Blue, Orange, Red
Favorite sandwich?
Schlotzsky's vegetarian.
Where would you retire to?
I think here would be just fine.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Rather in between. Ideal schedule would be like getting up sometime between 8 and 9:30 and going to bed sometime between 10 and midnight.
Favorite type of weather?
Colorado weather - little bit of everything.
But I do not like humidity, and I do not like hot.
If you had $500 to spend in a bookstore, which section would you head to first?
The kids' section. Good Christmas presents for my nieces and nephew.
If you could be instantly fluent in three languages, what would they be?
Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and I have to add Spanish too, I need four!
Which talent or skill did you always wish you had?
Fantasy: Reading minds, Remote viewing, Transmogrifying, Instant Teleportation, Knowing Everything
Reality: I always felt rather undomestic, little lower in skill there but not that interested either
Favourite beverage?
ice jasmine green tea
What books are you reading?
Lord of the Rings, and a Qur'an tafsir (Light of Holy Qur'an)
Favourite Smells:
lilac, freshly mowed grass, fresh dirt, my favorite expensive perfumes, freshly shampooed hair
Favourite Flowers:
bulbs and perennials
cosmos, moss rose, hyacinth, indian paintbrush, all of them really
Pet Peeves:
whining; littering; biased media; not following through on what someone says they will do, even if seemingly insignificant; people being late; people who do not talk to the point but ramble on and on at meetings; having to go to trainings that are useless or being made to do paperwork that is just a waste of time, etc.;
What sound or noise do you love?
windchimes and music boxes, birds chirping and singing - this is the most favorite for sure, children playing happily on a playground
What sound or noise do you hate?
screaming
Do you think your blogging friends have an accurate image of you?
yes
Is there a certain type of blog that you usually read?
I read blogs of friends, some other converts, etc.
If there was a blog convention and you had the opportunity to meet everyone in blog-land in real life would you go?
I'd prefer smaller scale - like everyone in my bloglines list.
If you went and you were seated at a table for four, which other bloggers would you want at your table?
Sister Scorpion, Wayfarer and Hajar
Do you share your blog with significant others, family and friends in your real life or is it your little secret?
Most of them know about it, but most of them don't follow it.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
From Dear Yahoo! - I know you wanted to know who invented sliced bread (yes, someone really did! I wonder if he got rich off it...)
Dear Yahoo!,
Who invented sliced bread?
Jerid
Cookeville, Tennessee
Dear Jerid:
History is full of great inventions. But, with all due respect to the wheel, none are as celebrated as sliced bread. Because so many enthusiastic consumers enjoy comparing products to the breakfast staple, we thought it high time to give its creator, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, his due.
Mr. Rohwedder was born in the great state of Iowa and is generally credited with inventing the first automatic bread slicer in 1928. Before this, people had to slice their own bread, or, in a pinch, rip off a hunk. According to Food Reference, Rohwedder's invention was initially poo-pooed by bakers who felt sliced bread would go stale too quickly. Eventually, Rohwedder constructed a slicer that also wrapped the bread, effectively solving the problem.
In 1930, Wonder Bread began selling pre-sliced bread. Other large bakeries quickly hopped on the bandwagon. The trend also helped to boost the popularity of another invention still in use today -- the toaster. We wouldn't call it the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it's certainly up there.
Who invented sliced bread?
Jerid
Cookeville, Tennessee
Dear Jerid:
History is full of great inventions. But, with all due respect to the wheel, none are as celebrated as sliced bread. Because so many enthusiastic consumers enjoy comparing products to the breakfast staple, we thought it high time to give its creator, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, his due.
Mr. Rohwedder was born in the great state of Iowa and is generally credited with inventing the first automatic bread slicer in 1928. Before this, people had to slice their own bread, or, in a pinch, rip off a hunk. According to Food Reference, Rohwedder's invention was initially poo-pooed by bakers who felt sliced bread would go stale too quickly. Eventually, Rohwedder constructed a slicer that also wrapped the bread, effectively solving the problem.
In 1930, Wonder Bread began selling pre-sliced bread. Other large bakeries quickly hopped on the bandwagon. The trend also helped to boost the popularity of another invention still in use today -- the toaster. We wouldn't call it the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it's certainly up there.
Another meme for no good reason other than that Sr. Hajar did it on her Zam Zam blog
Actually I don't really like purple that much. It's okay, I guess. :)
| You Are Lilac |
 You are a very innocent and pure person. Ethics matter to you. Your friends consider you a great listener, and you often play therapist to your friends. You are good at drawing out truths in conversation, however painful they may be. Non judgmental and patient - people feel like they can tell you anything! |
Sunday, September 03, 2006
memes
Your results:
You are Qui-Gon Jinn
(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)
Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test
Your results:
You are Superman
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...
Your results:
You are Geordi LaForge
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz
Your results:
You are Samantha Carter
Click here to take the "Which Stargate SG-1 character am I?" quiz...
You are Qui-Gon Jinn
| Overall, you're a pretty well balanced person. But maybe you focus a little too much on the here and now. Think about the future before its too late.  |
(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)
Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test
Your results:
You are Superman
| You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.  |
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...
Your results:
You are Geordi LaForge
| You work well with others and often fix problems quickly. Your romantic relationships are often bungled.  |
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz
Your results:
You are Samantha Carter
| You are highly intelligent and enjoy scientific challenges, but you also obey the rules.  |
Click here to take the "Which Stargate SG-1 character am I?" quiz...
The Big Picture
Houla, Lebanon.
August 29, 2006
The US Peace Movement and Hezbollah
The Big Picture (Don't Look, Now)
By JAMES BROOKS
Many peace activists may have felt somewhat bewildered
by Hezbollah's smashing success in outfoxing and
outfighting the Israeli army in southern Lebanon. Was
it right to feel such a visceral satisfaction from
these battles fought by a group that was also lobbing
rockets at Israeli civilians? Where did we stand on
Hezbollah, really?
We "peace activists" struggle to take rage, anguish,
and disgust and channel them into language and tactics
we believe will appeal to the general public. In order
to persevere in our relatively fruitless efforts, we
guard our optimism.
Whether our focus is Colombia, Haiti, Mexico,
Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other
US-supported war-and-poisoning zone, our news is a
steady diet of inhumane horrors and injustices. For
many of us, that's enough. We may (wittingly or not)
avoid or reject analysis and information that suggests
the situation is much worse than we already know it to
be, fearing burnout and despair.
We may also worry that an analysis that is too
dissonant with the dominant paradigm will alienate the
public. Leading figures in the movement remember to
utter the pieties that are supposed to legitimize our
message, such as the "importance of maintaining a
strong defense." Connecting the wrong dots threatens
the tenuous bridge we have built between reality and
the world according to the machine.
But maintaining an unsatisfactory compromise built on
increasingly unreal assumptions will inevitably
produce denial. Thus we find ourselves where we are
today, tripping over an array of mostly unconscious
barriers to a realistic understanding of our present
predicament.
The Israeli-US war on Lebanon crystallized the picture
that we are afraid to see.
It put the Bush cabal's determination to attack Iran
on "the front burner" and the "fast track", despite
the consternation of old guard "realists" of US
imperial diplomacy, who worry Bush is about to start
World War III.
And it resoundingly affirmed the ability of today's
resistance fighters to undermine Israeli and US-UK
attempts to enforce foreign occupations, striking fear
in the hearts of highly-placed warmongers on both
sides of the Atlantic. They will probably respond by
calling for even more "air power" next time.
Lebanon was the fourth all-out war on an Arab/Muslim
country in the last four years, all waged by the US-UK
"coalition" and/or the Israeli-US "alliance". Let's
consider the pretexts offered to justify this serial
criminal warfare.
Afghanistan was invaded and destroyed (again),
ostensibly to avenge 9/11 by destroying Osama bin
Laden and Al-Qaeda, even though the FBI has admitted
that it has "no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to
9/11." [And, uh, they never got him and Al-Qaeda is still there, too.]
Iraq was invaded and destroyed (again) to find
mythical weapons of mass destruction.
The Gaza Strip was invaded and destroyed (again)
because resistance fighters allied to Hamas captured
an Israeli soldier in a retaliatory cross-border raid.
Lebanon was invaded and destroyed (again) because
Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a
retaliatory cross-border raid.
The grand total of pretexts? One unlikely suspect, one
myth, and three captured soldiers, who were all doing
fine at last report. For this?
Of course the US and Israel have a long list of
genuine reasons to wage each of these wars and carry
out the whole bloody scheme. But the official excuses
they offer to the rest of the nations of the world
have meaning, too.
In this case they appear to mean, "See, I can lie
through my teeth and you can't do a damn thing about
it except say, 'Yes, sir.' The world is what we say it
is, or you don't have a place in it. I have many ways
of making your life miserable. And don't forget, I'm
unpredictable. I can do crazy things and get away with
them."
The steady application of this kind of diplomacy has
smashed our naïve hopes by sucking the EU and the UK
ever more deeply into the orbit of US-Israeli foreign
policy, to the point where the Arabs can't trust
either of them any more than they can trust us.
While most people have been distracted by the shock
and awe of America's military presence in the Middle
East, Israel's studiously ignored long war on the
Palestinians has descended to new depths of daily
living hell.
The accelerating ethnic cleansing of the northern and
eastern West Bank threatens to squeeze even the
possibility of Palestinian life out of the land. The
Jordan Valley is being prepared for illegal
"annexation" to Israel.
In Israel's 'total war' on the "liberated" Gaza Strip,
the IAF has destroyed the main power station, all
major roads and bridges, the sole (unused) airport,
several government and civic buildings, and dozens of
homes.
Now at least a third of the poverty-stricken
inhabitants do not have power or running water. Israel
also imposed a total blockade on Gaza, which remains
in force today with EU cooperation. This little "war",
still raging on, has already killed nearly 200
Palestinians, more than half of them civilians. One
Israeli soldier has died in the "fighting".
And more civilians are dying because Israel and the US
and the EU and Canada and Britain, all those great
democracies, conspired to cut off funds and embargo
the finances of the PA when it became too democratic
in a free and fair election last January.
The sick, especially children and the elderly, are
dying because hospitals have little or no electricity,
are running out of fuel, have only the most
rudimentary medical supplies (if that) and no money to
pay their staff. This is how the US plays politics in
the Middle East.
And more war is on the way. Palestine now finds that
its struggle for self-determination and survival has
been hijacked to serve as a crucible for the next
phase of the empire's plan, in which Iran and Syria
are hot-branded as "terrorist states" that must also
be forcibly "liberated".
The propaganda campaign is going on full-tilt as we
speak. Its rules are wonderfully simple; whenever you
mention the Palestinian or Lebanese resistance, follow
it with this phrase, or its equivalent: "a terrorist
group funded and armed by Syria and Iran".
As a result, the Palestinian-Lebanese resistance may
become the hinge of a crystallizing global divide. It
seems unlikely that Palestine will enjoy any benefit
from this honor, but those pages have yet to be
written.
In hindsight, wasn't it obvious that World War III had
begun when the world's "sole superpower" declared an
open-ended "global war" on an indefinite,
multinational enemy?
And what is the big picture for us here at home? The
debacle of last summer's hurricanes was searing
evidence that the domestic underbelly of the
government is rapidly withering into an outsourced
husk of uselessness. The parasites continue to
multiply, infecting the whole body with corruption,
cronyism, profiteering, and lawlessness.
The vast wealth of the nation is controlled by one
percent of its citizens. Draconian funding cuts drive
people to food shelves and soup kitchens in
unprecedented numbers, neglected by a fearful herd
trying to work enough hours to sustain an
unsustainable debt.
During the past fifty years, the relationship between
the federal government and corporate-finance power has
transformed from a formally bipolar arrangement into
today's unipolar alignment. Government now functions
primarily to serve shifting forces of
corporate-finance power (and the odd foreign
government) as a facilitator, benefactor, warrior, and
spendthrift customer.
In the modern age, this fusion of money power and
national government is called fascism. It has been
observed that fascist governments typically resort to
outlandish, racially-charged propaganda and embark on
increasingly reckless wars of aggression. They usually
conduct intensive domestic surveillance and
counterintelligence, rig elections, imprison large
percentages of their populations, sadistically torture
prisoners and detainees, and police and "debate" by
racial- and political-profiling. They always
aggressively expand the executive power of the central
government.
You don't have to wait until they arrest you, too, to
decide that America has become a fascist state. The
evidence is all around you. Those who still have
difficulty seeing the picture might be advised to stop
listening to National Public Radio.
What do "peace activists" do in a fascist state? What
is the true potential of our efforts to "change public
opinion" in the world's most advanced propaganda
regime? What actions by a citizen are morally
justified to resist this tyranny, injustice, and
bloodshed? Which would be most effective? What have
other people done in this situation? How do we feel
about that?
Is it sane to continue to pretend that we live in a
"democracy" when we manifestly do not? Does our
squeamishness about armed resistance by Arabs and
Muslims reflect an unconsciously imperial notion, that
we might have peace if only they didn't fight back?
Are we willing to do everything we can to stop this
global menace, starting with ourselves? These are but
a few of the questions dying to be asked now by all
people of conscience.
So, how do we feel about Hezbollah, which dealt the
quickest and most embarrassing blow yet to the war
plans of "our" empire? How can we not feel admiration,
even gratitude, for their determination to prevent
another bloody occupation? Didn't they accomplish more
in 34 days than we have accomplished in nearly four
decades of a preposterous "peace process" chronically
violated and manipulated to prolong the occupation?
At the end of his recent New Yorker article, Watching
Lebanon: Washington's interests in Israel's war, Sy
Hersh quoted John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the
Naval Postgraduate School, about the Bush neocons'
view of warfare: "The definition of insanity is
continuing to do the same thing and expecting a
different result."
We who seek peace must ask ourselves if we have not
also gone 'insane', expecting different results from
actions that obviously haven't worked. To guard our
optimism in the New World Order, we Americans will
have to learn to see peace the way most Palestinians
see it: as the inevitable fruit of resolute resistance
to aggression and injustice.
James Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a
Just Peace in Palestine/Israel. He can be contacted at
jamiedb@wildblue.net.
August 29, 2006
The US Peace Movement and Hezbollah
The Big Picture (Don't Look, Now)
By JAMES BROOKS
Many peace activists may have felt somewhat bewildered
by Hezbollah's smashing success in outfoxing and
outfighting the Israeli army in southern Lebanon. Was
it right to feel such a visceral satisfaction from
these battles fought by a group that was also lobbing
rockets at Israeli civilians? Where did we stand on
Hezbollah, really?
We "peace activists" struggle to take rage, anguish,
and disgust and channel them into language and tactics
we believe will appeal to the general public. In order
to persevere in our relatively fruitless efforts, we
guard our optimism.
Whether our focus is Colombia, Haiti, Mexico,
Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other
US-supported war-and-poisoning zone, our news is a
steady diet of inhumane horrors and injustices. For
many of us, that's enough. We may (wittingly or not)
avoid or reject analysis and information that suggests
the situation is much worse than we already know it to
be, fearing burnout and despair.
We may also worry that an analysis that is too
dissonant with the dominant paradigm will alienate the
public. Leading figures in the movement remember to
utter the pieties that are supposed to legitimize our
message, such as the "importance of maintaining a
strong defense." Connecting the wrong dots threatens
the tenuous bridge we have built between reality and
the world according to the machine.
But maintaining an unsatisfactory compromise built on
increasingly unreal assumptions will inevitably
produce denial. Thus we find ourselves where we are
today, tripping over an array of mostly unconscious
barriers to a realistic understanding of our present
predicament.
The Israeli-US war on Lebanon crystallized the picture
that we are afraid to see.
It put the Bush cabal's determination to attack Iran
on "the front burner" and the "fast track", despite
the consternation of old guard "realists" of US
imperial diplomacy, who worry Bush is about to start
World War III.
And it resoundingly affirmed the ability of today's
resistance fighters to undermine Israeli and US-UK
attempts to enforce foreign occupations, striking fear
in the hearts of highly-placed warmongers on both
sides of the Atlantic. They will probably respond by
calling for even more "air power" next time.
Lebanon was the fourth all-out war on an Arab/Muslim
country in the last four years, all waged by the US-UK
"coalition" and/or the Israeli-US "alliance". Let's
consider the pretexts offered to justify this serial
criminal warfare.
Afghanistan was invaded and destroyed (again),
ostensibly to avenge 9/11 by destroying Osama bin
Laden and Al-Qaeda, even though the FBI has admitted
that it has "no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to
9/11." [And, uh, they never got him and Al-Qaeda is still there, too.]
Iraq was invaded and destroyed (again) to find
mythical weapons of mass destruction.
The Gaza Strip was invaded and destroyed (again)
because resistance fighters allied to Hamas captured
an Israeli soldier in a retaliatory cross-border raid.
Lebanon was invaded and destroyed (again) because
Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a
retaliatory cross-border raid.
The grand total of pretexts? One unlikely suspect, one
myth, and three captured soldiers, who were all doing
fine at last report. For this?
Of course the US and Israel have a long list of
genuine reasons to wage each of these wars and carry
out the whole bloody scheme. But the official excuses
they offer to the rest of the nations of the world
have meaning, too.
In this case they appear to mean, "See, I can lie
through my teeth and you can't do a damn thing about
it except say, 'Yes, sir.' The world is what we say it
is, or you don't have a place in it. I have many ways
of making your life miserable. And don't forget, I'm
unpredictable. I can do crazy things and get away with
them."
The steady application of this kind of diplomacy has
smashed our naïve hopes by sucking the EU and the UK
ever more deeply into the orbit of US-Israeli foreign
policy, to the point where the Arabs can't trust
either of them any more than they can trust us.
While most people have been distracted by the shock
and awe of America's military presence in the Middle
East, Israel's studiously ignored long war on the
Palestinians has descended to new depths of daily
living hell.
The accelerating ethnic cleansing of the northern and
eastern West Bank threatens to squeeze even the
possibility of Palestinian life out of the land. The
Jordan Valley is being prepared for illegal
"annexation" to Israel.
In Israel's 'total war' on the "liberated" Gaza Strip,
the IAF has destroyed the main power station, all
major roads and bridges, the sole (unused) airport,
several government and civic buildings, and dozens of
homes.
Now at least a third of the poverty-stricken
inhabitants do not have power or running water. Israel
also imposed a total blockade on Gaza, which remains
in force today with EU cooperation. This little "war",
still raging on, has already killed nearly 200
Palestinians, more than half of them civilians. One
Israeli soldier has died in the "fighting".
And more civilians are dying because Israel and the US
and the EU and Canada and Britain, all those great
democracies, conspired to cut off funds and embargo
the finances of the PA when it became too democratic
in a free and fair election last January.
The sick, especially children and the elderly, are
dying because hospitals have little or no electricity,
are running out of fuel, have only the most
rudimentary medical supplies (if that) and no money to
pay their staff. This is how the US plays politics in
the Middle East.
And more war is on the way. Palestine now finds that
its struggle for self-determination and survival has
been hijacked to serve as a crucible for the next
phase of the empire's plan, in which Iran and Syria
are hot-branded as "terrorist states" that must also
be forcibly "liberated".
The propaganda campaign is going on full-tilt as we
speak. Its rules are wonderfully simple; whenever you
mention the Palestinian or Lebanese resistance, follow
it with this phrase, or its equivalent: "a terrorist
group funded and armed by Syria and Iran".
As a result, the Palestinian-Lebanese resistance may
become the hinge of a crystallizing global divide. It
seems unlikely that Palestine will enjoy any benefit
from this honor, but those pages have yet to be
written.
In hindsight, wasn't it obvious that World War III had
begun when the world's "sole superpower" declared an
open-ended "global war" on an indefinite,
multinational enemy?
And what is the big picture for us here at home? The
debacle of last summer's hurricanes was searing
evidence that the domestic underbelly of the
government is rapidly withering into an outsourced
husk of uselessness. The parasites continue to
multiply, infecting the whole body with corruption,
cronyism, profiteering, and lawlessness.
The vast wealth of the nation is controlled by one
percent of its citizens. Draconian funding cuts drive
people to food shelves and soup kitchens in
unprecedented numbers, neglected by a fearful herd
trying to work enough hours to sustain an
unsustainable debt.
During the past fifty years, the relationship between
the federal government and corporate-finance power has
transformed from a formally bipolar arrangement into
today's unipolar alignment. Government now functions
primarily to serve shifting forces of
corporate-finance power (and the odd foreign
government) as a facilitator, benefactor, warrior, and
spendthrift customer.
In the modern age, this fusion of money power and
national government is called fascism. It has been
observed that fascist governments typically resort to
outlandish, racially-charged propaganda and embark on
increasingly reckless wars of aggression. They usually
conduct intensive domestic surveillance and
counterintelligence, rig elections, imprison large
percentages of their populations, sadistically torture
prisoners and detainees, and police and "debate" by
racial- and political-profiling. They always
aggressively expand the executive power of the central
government.
You don't have to wait until they arrest you, too, to
decide that America has become a fascist state. The
evidence is all around you. Those who still have
difficulty seeing the picture might be advised to stop
listening to National Public Radio.
What do "peace activists" do in a fascist state? What
is the true potential of our efforts to "change public
opinion" in the world's most advanced propaganda
regime? What actions by a citizen are morally
justified to resist this tyranny, injustice, and
bloodshed? Which would be most effective? What have
other people done in this situation? How do we feel
about that?
Is it sane to continue to pretend that we live in a
"democracy" when we manifestly do not? Does our
squeamishness about armed resistance by Arabs and
Muslims reflect an unconsciously imperial notion, that
we might have peace if only they didn't fight back?
Are we willing to do everything we can to stop this
global menace, starting with ourselves? These are but
a few of the questions dying to be asked now by all
people of conscience.
So, how do we feel about Hezbollah, which dealt the
quickest and most embarrassing blow yet to the war
plans of "our" empire? How can we not feel admiration,
even gratitude, for their determination to prevent
another bloody occupation? Didn't they accomplish more
in 34 days than we have accomplished in nearly four
decades of a preposterous "peace process" chronically
violated and manipulated to prolong the occupation?
At the end of his recent New Yorker article, Watching
Lebanon: Washington's interests in Israel's war, Sy
Hersh quoted John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the
Naval Postgraduate School, about the Bush neocons'
view of warfare: "The definition of insanity is
continuing to do the same thing and expecting a
different result."
We who seek peace must ask ourselves if we have not
also gone 'insane', expecting different results from
actions that obviously haven't worked. To guard our
optimism in the New World Order, we Americans will
have to learn to see peace the way most Palestinians
see it: as the inevitable fruit of resolute resistance
to aggression and injustice.
James Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a
Just Peace in Palestine/Israel. He can be contacted at
jamiedb@wildblue.net.
Bats invade Arkansas elementary school
Now this may sound slightly amusing, but it is just a symptom of a real problem going on in our school system across the country. Many public school buildings are falling apart because taxpayers aren't willing to fund capital improvements and building maintenance. Public school funding is unequal because it is tied to real estate value - which means schools in rich neighborhoods get more money and schools in poor neighborhoods get less. So many years after Brown v. Board we still face inequality in our schools - primarily on Socio-economic Status lines which are still sadly in many places drawn in the sand by skin color, but there are a whole lot of white poor as well. We need to fund schools whether your kids are in them or not - that is the future of this country......
The Associated Press
MANSFIELD, Ark. - It's just a few day into the new school year and teachers are already being driven batty. By bats.
Bats are roosting inside Mansfield Elementary School, and it appears the problem has gotten worse since classes resumed in August. In some cases, teachers have had to move students out of their classrooms.
School officials said a teacher found a dead bat in a utility closet a few days before school started. District officials told authorities they thought it was an isolated incident, but when they started finding more and more guano, they knew there was a problem.
"I had no idea it was going to be this big,
had no idea," said Mansfield Elementary Principal Kathy Goff. "We found guano on the roof. That's when we knew there was a major problem."
Superintendent Jim Hattabaugh believed students were the source of one problem.
"We started looking around and noticed the odor was something else, and we kind of blamed that on the little boys missing the toilet," he said.
The bats are in the classrooms, on ceilings and, according to animal-control officers, behind the walls.
"They are really small. They can hide in a crevice. They are just a pest," Hattabaugh said.
After consulting with animal control workers, school officials set up a bat funnel. They hope the bats will fly out at night and not find their way back in.
"Our main concern is the safety of our students and the staff, and we want to get this taken care of as quickly as we can," Hattabaugh said.
Because the bats are in the walls, officials said they don't know how many there are in the school. Once the bats are gone and the school is inspected, the students will be able to return to their classrooms.
The Mansfield superintendent said the school is supposed to get a new roof next year, which should prevent bats from getting inside.
The Associated Press
MANSFIELD, Ark. - It's just a few day into the new school year and teachers are already being driven batty. By bats.
Bats are roosting inside Mansfield Elementary School, and it appears the problem has gotten worse since classes resumed in August. In some cases, teachers have had to move students out of their classrooms.
School officials said a teacher found a dead bat in a utility closet a few days before school started. District officials told authorities they thought it was an isolated incident, but when they started finding more and more guano, they knew there was a problem.
"I had no idea it was going to be this big,
had no idea," said Mansfield Elementary Principal Kathy Goff. "We found guano on the roof. That's when we knew there was a major problem."
Superintendent Jim Hattabaugh believed students were the source of one problem.
"We started looking around and noticed the odor was something else, and we kind of blamed that on the little boys missing the toilet," he said.
The bats are in the classrooms, on ceilings and, according to animal-control officers, behind the walls.
"They are really small. They can hide in a crevice. They are just a pest," Hattabaugh said.
After consulting with animal control workers, school officials set up a bat funnel. They hope the bats will fly out at night and not find their way back in.
"Our main concern is the safety of our students and the staff, and we want to get this taken care of as quickly as we can," Hattabaugh said.
Because the bats are in the walls, officials said they don't know how many there are in the school. Once the bats are gone and the school is inspected, the students will be able to return to their classrooms.
The Mansfield superintendent said the school is supposed to get a new roof next year, which should prevent bats from getting inside.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Now that's a tall basketball player
Saw Akeelah and the Bee with mom and Logan on DVD last night - what a great movie - great for all ages, lovely story. Highly recommended.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Recurring Places and Themes in Dreams
Well this morning I woke up with those tell-tale signs of impending cold-type illness contracted from the hazards of being a public school teacher. Along with that, I awoke from a dream that was one of several "recurring" ones I've had over the course of my life. They're never exactly the same, but I have had a lot of dreams where places that exist only in my dreams reoccur or in which certain themes reoccur. Many of them were restricted to childhood dreams, but some into adulthood as well. When they reoccur, it is rare and often years apart.
The one this morning, I can't remember all the details anymore, but the recurring part is that somehow I ended up in this small mall that doesn't really exist. In my dreams, however, there is a small mall (like The Citadel or something, or rather, maybe one wing of it) but it exists either on Security Blvd. in Security or near Main in Fountain. Why on earth every now and again would this non-existent mall end up in my dreams, I don't know, but it does. Not often, but it has come back on more than one occasion, which makes it interesting. I could give you detail of all the stores, which do not really exist in the real world either, and the layout of the place. And when I first woke up, it was so real that for a moment I doubted if it were not really real but I had just 'forgotten'. Because I had been there many times before and knew a great deal about it - the escalators, the secret passageway into a back elevator, the old chandelier in a fancy department store, the great bookstore that had discarded library books that were special and dad and I loved. Sometimes it was actually a library, and there was a spiraling stair case down a tower to the kids' section, and at the top of the tower was an observatory. Sometimes this library was not in the mall but somewhere else like a campus and I had to sneak to get the books I wanted and into the secret parts of the library as it was highly guarded and had heavy electronic security. Sometimes the mall would be bigger and had long curving hallways. In this mall, it was not located near here, but it was dark and had a game room with one of those gumball machines that gave really special prizes (although I can't remember what they were). And in that big mall, it was always a struggle to find the exit without getting locked in and trapped, and if you got out, then you couldn't find your car because the parking lots had literally moved, and so I would end up trying to walk/run home for about 20 miles, again feeling in a hurry, and trying to make shortcuts through neighborhoods. None of these streets really exist, but I could describe every storefront, draw a map of the streets, the houses, where certain people lived along the way, etc. But it was one of those dreams that you never get home, it just ends before then, probably by waking you up due to frustration and repetition - getting stuck in a repeating cycle that never progresses.
Another dream that seemed very real was a recurring one I had as a kid. This dream was probably the most recurring and most realistic of all my dreams. It was so real that for years I thought it was indeed real until one day I actually thought about it for some reason and realized it was impossible - but I had to actually reason it out to conclude it never could have happened. You see, this dream involves the floor duct in my childhood bedroom (for the heating system.) I vividly remember as a child getting out of bed at night, taking the vent cover off ( which is maybe 12 by 4 inches), and crawling into the duct (which in reality is only 3-4 inches across in many places). The duct curled back tightly under my room to underneath my closet where it opened into a room about the same size as the closet and there were many other paths and turns, too. I cannot remember any longer the details of what I did there, but there were creatures or people that I met and talked to. I believe I did shrink to get there, and the people/creatures were also small. There were notes pinned on the duct walls on yellowed paper. At the time, I could draw a map for you of the ductworks I traveled through in my dreams in precise detail. I was sure I had been there, until realizing it must have been only dreamt.
Another place of dreams related to the closet - my closet was above a staircase, so it had a steep ramp on its right side. In my dreams, I could climb up the ramp, push through a secret door, and enter a fantastic secret library that contained anything I wanted to know. When I got older, it became a library with secret undetectable computers that contained all knowledge and did anything I wanted them to.
Another recurring place dream - I used to dream long ago that I would be driving through my neighborhood and when I got to about where I happen to live now (about 1-2 miles from my childhood home), all the streets would change name and direction completely and become a foreign place. Also, I used to have a recurring dream about a secret place found by following the railroad tracks south from this place (where the old Safeway is). You could access the secret place only by following a man in a black top hat driving a push cart - you'd have to run after him, and you'd end up in a beautiful secluded forest glade type area. Sometimes the push cart man would chase you away or chase after you so you couldn't get in or he'd get too far ahead and the forest glade would never appear. Sometimes it was the full moon you followed to get there.
The last recurring place dream I can remember right now is one about an elementary school playground. My real elementary playground was a big gravel yard enclosed by chain link fence. In my recurring dream, the playground was also a big gravel yard enclosed by chain link, but was not intended as the same place and did not look quite the same as the real one. In my dreams, the playground was filled to the top of the chain link fence with gravel and had dunes even higher. The only exception was a trench that was a few feet wide that followed the fence just inside its perimeter all the way around. We kids would hide in the trench unless we were running stealthily from dune to dune to try to get to the only feature on the playground - a downed plane - a big one, decaying and partly buried in the sand. But we were always either trying to get there or hide from people who were there.
As for recurring themes in dreams,
I do remember having dreams of flying, but never flying fast, always more like swimming or floating in the air.
I also would have dreams of running as hard as I could but moving in slow motion and never gaining ground. This happened more in the days when I was a runner in real life.
I also had dreams of finding out right before final exams that I had registered for a class and forgotten about it and so had not attended it all semester. So now, I was desperately trying to pass the class by acing the final. But, in the dream, I was racing to where the final was supposed to be and when I would get there, there would be a sign on the door saying it had moved all the way across campus and I would run again and again trying to get there but never actually getting there. This one would occasionally happen even for years after I graduated from college, in fact, I don't think I had that dream while I was actually in college, but only after.
I also (only as an adult) would have dreams of my teeth crumbling. It didn't hurt and I wasn't bothered in my dreams, but rather I was fascinated by the feel of the teeth crumbling in my mouth and would playing with them with my tongue, which only made them crumble further. That one was also very realistic so that I at times had doubts that at least some of my teeth had not really crumbled.
Now, some of these dreams have had meaning - such as the teeth dream, which I felt had meaning, possibly it meant change or evolution in my life, neither good or bad, and dreams about running in place or final exams or streets changing related to stress, being too busy, wanting more control, etc.
Some seemed to be living out fantasies - such as the secret library behind the ramp in my closet. (In a later version, it was a secret computer room on my college campus).
But some apparently existed for their own-selves - such as the forest glade or the duct dream - and I tend to wonder if maybe, in some out-of-body kind of way, there really wasn't some reality to that duct one - in an unreal kind of way, of course.
The most 'real' reaction I ever had to dream comes from one I don't even remember. But once, when I was in junior high, I awoke from a dream, knowing and positive that it was time to get up and get ready for school and mom would come to wake me in a few minutes. But I was wide awake, so I got up in the dark (it was winter) and got dressed, went to the bathroom, etc., to get ready for school, and when I came out of the bathroom I saw on a clock it was only about 12:30 p.m. I was shocked because I had been certain it was time to get up and go to school. I had another 'real' one in junior high I don't remember anymore - in it, my homeroom and math teacher had said something I can no longer recall. I didn't remember the dream at all, until one day I was sitting in class and I suddenly remembered what she had said and began to think it really strange and puzzling, finally realizing she could not have said it and I had dreamt it - but somehow subconsciously I had been operating for some time in my daily class life as if she had said it - very strange, that one, and wish I could remember what she had said in my dream, some nonsense thing.
Well maybe I'll think of more later. But maybe others will blog about their dreams, too!
The one this morning, I can't remember all the details anymore, but the recurring part is that somehow I ended up in this small mall that doesn't really exist. In my dreams, however, there is a small mall (like The Citadel or something, or rather, maybe one wing of it) but it exists either on Security Blvd. in Security or near Main in Fountain. Why on earth every now and again would this non-existent mall end up in my dreams, I don't know, but it does. Not often, but it has come back on more than one occasion, which makes it interesting. I could give you detail of all the stores, which do not really exist in the real world either, and the layout of the place. And when I first woke up, it was so real that for a moment I doubted if it were not really real but I had just 'forgotten'. Because I had been there many times before and knew a great deal about it - the escalators, the secret passageway into a back elevator, the old chandelier in a fancy department store, the great bookstore that had discarded library books that were special and dad and I loved. Sometimes it was actually a library, and there was a spiraling stair case down a tower to the kids' section, and at the top of the tower was an observatory. Sometimes this library was not in the mall but somewhere else like a campus and I had to sneak to get the books I wanted and into the secret parts of the library as it was highly guarded and had heavy electronic security. Sometimes the mall would be bigger and had long curving hallways. In this mall, it was not located near here, but it was dark and had a game room with one of those gumball machines that gave really special prizes (although I can't remember what they were). And in that big mall, it was always a struggle to find the exit without getting locked in and trapped, and if you got out, then you couldn't find your car because the parking lots had literally moved, and so I would end up trying to walk/run home for about 20 miles, again feeling in a hurry, and trying to make shortcuts through neighborhoods. None of these streets really exist, but I could describe every storefront, draw a map of the streets, the houses, where certain people lived along the way, etc. But it was one of those dreams that you never get home, it just ends before then, probably by waking you up due to frustration and repetition - getting stuck in a repeating cycle that never progresses.
Another dream that seemed very real was a recurring one I had as a kid. This dream was probably the most recurring and most realistic of all my dreams. It was so real that for years I thought it was indeed real until one day I actually thought about it for some reason and realized it was impossible - but I had to actually reason it out to conclude it never could have happened. You see, this dream involves the floor duct in my childhood bedroom (for the heating system.) I vividly remember as a child getting out of bed at night, taking the vent cover off ( which is maybe 12 by 4 inches), and crawling into the duct (which in reality is only 3-4 inches across in many places). The duct curled back tightly under my room to underneath my closet where it opened into a room about the same size as the closet and there were many other paths and turns, too. I cannot remember any longer the details of what I did there, but there were creatures or people that I met and talked to. I believe I did shrink to get there, and the people/creatures were also small. There were notes pinned on the duct walls on yellowed paper. At the time, I could draw a map for you of the ductworks I traveled through in my dreams in precise detail. I was sure I had been there, until realizing it must have been only dreamt.
Another place of dreams related to the closet - my closet was above a staircase, so it had a steep ramp on its right side. In my dreams, I could climb up the ramp, push through a secret door, and enter a fantastic secret library that contained anything I wanted to know. When I got older, it became a library with secret undetectable computers that contained all knowledge and did anything I wanted them to.
Another recurring place dream - I used to dream long ago that I would be driving through my neighborhood and when I got to about where I happen to live now (about 1-2 miles from my childhood home), all the streets would change name and direction completely and become a foreign place. Also, I used to have a recurring dream about a secret place found by following the railroad tracks south from this place (where the old Safeway is). You could access the secret place only by following a man in a black top hat driving a push cart - you'd have to run after him, and you'd end up in a beautiful secluded forest glade type area. Sometimes the push cart man would chase you away or chase after you so you couldn't get in or he'd get too far ahead and the forest glade would never appear. Sometimes it was the full moon you followed to get there.
The last recurring place dream I can remember right now is one about an elementary school playground. My real elementary playground was a big gravel yard enclosed by chain link fence. In my recurring dream, the playground was also a big gravel yard enclosed by chain link, but was not intended as the same place and did not look quite the same as the real one. In my dreams, the playground was filled to the top of the chain link fence with gravel and had dunes even higher. The only exception was a trench that was a few feet wide that followed the fence just inside its perimeter all the way around. We kids would hide in the trench unless we were running stealthily from dune to dune to try to get to the only feature on the playground - a downed plane - a big one, decaying and partly buried in the sand. But we were always either trying to get there or hide from people who were there.
As for recurring themes in dreams,
I do remember having dreams of flying, but never flying fast, always more like swimming or floating in the air.
I also would have dreams of running as hard as I could but moving in slow motion and never gaining ground. This happened more in the days when I was a runner in real life.
I also had dreams of finding out right before final exams that I had registered for a class and forgotten about it and so had not attended it all semester. So now, I was desperately trying to pass the class by acing the final. But, in the dream, I was racing to where the final was supposed to be and when I would get there, there would be a sign on the door saying it had moved all the way across campus and I would run again and again trying to get there but never actually getting there. This one would occasionally happen even for years after I graduated from college, in fact, I don't think I had that dream while I was actually in college, but only after.
I also (only as an adult) would have dreams of my teeth crumbling. It didn't hurt and I wasn't bothered in my dreams, but rather I was fascinated by the feel of the teeth crumbling in my mouth and would playing with them with my tongue, which only made them crumble further. That one was also very realistic so that I at times had doubts that at least some of my teeth had not really crumbled.
Now, some of these dreams have had meaning - such as the teeth dream, which I felt had meaning, possibly it meant change or evolution in my life, neither good or bad, and dreams about running in place or final exams or streets changing related to stress, being too busy, wanting more control, etc.
Some seemed to be living out fantasies - such as the secret library behind the ramp in my closet. (In a later version, it was a secret computer room on my college campus).
But some apparently existed for their own-selves - such as the forest glade or the duct dream - and I tend to wonder if maybe, in some out-of-body kind of way, there really wasn't some reality to that duct one - in an unreal kind of way, of course.
The most 'real' reaction I ever had to dream comes from one I don't even remember. But once, when I was in junior high, I awoke from a dream, knowing and positive that it was time to get up and get ready for school and mom would come to wake me in a few minutes. But I was wide awake, so I got up in the dark (it was winter) and got dressed, went to the bathroom, etc., to get ready for school, and when I came out of the bathroom I saw on a clock it was only about 12:30 p.m. I was shocked because I had been certain it was time to get up and go to school. I had another 'real' one in junior high I don't remember anymore - in it, my homeroom and math teacher had said something I can no longer recall. I didn't remember the dream at all, until one day I was sitting in class and I suddenly remembered what she had said and began to think it really strange and puzzling, finally realizing she could not have said it and I had dreamt it - but somehow subconsciously I had been operating for some time in my daily class life as if she had said it - very strange, that one, and wish I could remember what she had said in my dream, some nonsense thing.
Well maybe I'll think of more later. But maybe others will blog about their dreams, too!
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