Bob Hall's Lost Letter

Something interesting happened to me today. Yesterday was the last day of finals and today at school we teachers were busy doing cleaning and checkout. I was cleaning out my desk in my classroom and pulled out the bottom drawer as far as it would go and noticed some papers had fallen underneath it into a metal tray under the drawer. I stuck my hand in there and pulled out a stack of dusty papers.

There were English papers and Science papers from the mid 1990's. And there was something else. A letter, maybe something like a birthday card, sealed in its envelope addressed and stamped (with a 29 cent stamp, dating it to 1991-1994), but never mailed. The letter was from Bob Hall to another Hall relative in California. Bob Hall was at my school before I got there so I never knew him, but there is an image of him in the memorial garden next to our school. One graduation day in the mid-90's, I think around '94, he was diagnosed with cancer and died before school started the next fall. At that time I think he was an assistant principal. So here I was looking at a card from a man who died within a few years or months of writing it, but apparently lost it and never mailed it.

My friend gave me a stamp to make-up for the change in postage price since it was written, I put a little note on the back of the card explaining what had happened to it, and put it in the mail. I have no idea if the addresses are still valid or if the relatives are still alive, but I hope someone in Mr. Hall's family gets that letter. I know I would really like to get something like that if it were my relative.

Memorial Day

Mom and I visited relatives buried at Evergreen Cemetery today. Please see the photos here.

Kites!

We had a great day flying kites we made in geometry class. Check out the pictures!

Twitter

About a year ago, I joined Twitter, quickly saw no point to it, and left. Now I've gone back to give it another try. In Facebook, I often post articles or pictures I find interesting and that seems to be the main thing that Twitter does - but Facebook does it better. I guess if you use a cell phone a lot, then Twitter is useful for posting little things from your phone. But it seems a little weird to me that someone might Twitter all day about what they're doing. And yet, now and then, I might have a thought to Twitter. But I think mainly it just goes into the ether(net). One kind of interesting thing about Twitter is that some famous people are on it and you can follow some interesting things - like this weekend I was reading Twitters from Weird Al Yankovic as we went through a museum - amusing stuff. And I'm reading Twitters from the astronauts working on the Hubble. I was following the NASA Twitters with constant updates on their work, too, but there were just too many so I unsubscribed. I didn't follow it, but earlier this week there was a Twitter session following a father-son organ transplant live - a faster way to update family on the progress, but the rest of the world followed along as well and received educational tidbits about organ donation. But who has time to sit and watch all those Twitters? Well, you can get texts to your phone with all these Twitter updates - not me, (I'm not interested), but you can if you want to. I know some students do this. Not so much Twitter, but another service called ChaCha is popular with some of my students. With ChaCha, you text a question (or you can do it online), and they do a little Internet research and text you back an answer usually within an hour (or you could get it on e-mail). My students mainly seem to use it for entertainment - asking who so-and-so is (one of their friends, to see what comes up in a Google search), or asking which of their friends would win a fight, etc. The answers that come back try to use school sports stats or whatever they can find online to make a best guess at an answer. I had them ask who I was to see what came back, and the response quoted some interests I tagged at MeetUp.com.
I'm not totally sold on Twitter, but for me it is kind of worth checking out for educational purposes if nothing else - we'll see if it is something that lasts. I do think Twitter is for the attentionally challenged - it is all very short blurbs and distractions (especially if you get updates on your cell phone), but there are a few cool things like being able to follow neat live events.

Sunbonnet

So today I decided I wanted a sunbonnet like in the artist pictures for Little House on the Prairie. It would come in handy for mowing the lawn, yard work, or Western dress up day at school, etc.

I found some instructions at Mother Earth and sort of followed them. I was too lazy to make a pattern and just cut the fabric directly. I kept sewing the seams on the wrong side but I like the end result, it is good enough for me - what do you think? Instead of three layers of muslin in the brim, I used one layer of batting that I had on hand. And it took me more like 3 or 4 hours than the 2 suggested by the directions - it always takes me longer than instructions say it will because I mess up and or it takes longer to cut, etc.

Little House on the Prairie

I don't remember how it came up, but one day last month I realized that although my 3rd grade teacher had read a few of the Little House books to us, I had never actually read all of them myself. So I found a box set that was pretty cheap and I read the first and am still reading the second. They are fast, simple reads but they don't really 'sound' like children's books, and their content isn't childish, just told from a child's view.

I am amazed how much information is actually in the books that is fairly useful or of substance. The majority of the books contents describe the way things were done - how a well was dug, how a smokehouse was built, how a log cabin was put together, how straw sunhats were made, how maple sugar was made, how a door latch was made, how bullets were made, how a gun was cleaned and loaded, what they ate, how they stocked up food for winter, how they kept warm in winter (hot potatoes in socks, for example) and so on. So, I'm finding that aspect really interesting.

Has anyone else read these? What did you think?

Happy Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. A friend of mine sent me this Mr. T video about treating your mother right (and the rap was written by Ice T - not kidding!) - you have to see it!



I spent mine watching the new Star Trek movie (great!) and visiting mom. I have always loved Star Trek and I loved the movie - the characters were great and the story was hot! I want to see it again. :)

This weekend also marks one of the dates mentioned for the martyrdom of Lady Fatima (as), Mother of Believers.

Picketwire Canyon Bike Trip

This weekend, mom and I and several teachers - including a disproportionate amount of math teachers and former math teachers - went mountain biking down in Picketwire Canyon to see the dinosaur tracks and petroglyphs. It was a great experience! The La Junta locals were very friendly and the weather ended up being perfect for the trip despite forecast of possible rain which might've made the trails miserably muddy.

Some photos from the trip are here - enjoy and comment!