Star Wars

Today we watched the three original Star Wars movies, not the CGI edited movies, but the movies that I watched in the theater when I was a child. Now of course this was not the first time my children had seen the movies. We have watched all of them quite a few times. I do think that it was the first time that we had watched them all in one day.

As I sat there and watched these very familiar movies with my family I thought of or felt several interesting things. One of the first things I noticed was how funny it was that the kids were playing like they didn't know what was going to be happening. Is Darth Vader really Luke's father? And many other comments and questions were spoken as we watched. It was fun to pretend with the kids that this was the first time we had seen these movies. Of course as they were pretending, I was remembering just what it was like to have watched them that first time. And then to have to wait for years to see the next part of the story unfold, to have my questions answered. I loved Star Wars! I still love Star Wars.

The music can actually affect how you are feeling while you are watching the movie. I am not sure if this is because I have seen them so many times and I actually do recognize the songs. Or if it is just the power that the music has over us as we watch.

Even though I can quote many parts by memory, there are still those scenes that bring tears to my eyes. There are scenes the make me shiver with anticipation, or fear, or knowledge of what is going to happen. As I watched the movies today, I actually typed into my word processor several phrases that I quoted in my head before they were said by the actors. These are words that are now, it seems, a permanent part of my memory.

I will end this post with one of my favorite quotes from each movie.

(This is really hard for me to choose. I might have to have more than one.)

Star Wars

Obi-wan: “Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can imagine.”

Empire Strikes Back

Leia: “I'd rather kiss a wookie.”

Han: “That can be arranged.”

Vader: “Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father."

Luke: “He told me enough. He told me you killed my father.”

Vader: “No. I am your father.”

Return of the Jedi

Yoda: “When 900 years old you reach, look as well you will not.”

Emperor: “You, like your father, now belong to me.”

Anakin Skywalker: “Just for once let me look on you with my own eyes.”

Operation Touchonaut ;)

Today was Astronomy Day at Morrill Hall. My kids and I love Astronomy Day. This was not our first time going to Astronomy Day. But it was a very special day for us. Today we got to see our very first LIVE astronaut. Clayton Anderson was going to be there speaking to us about his time on the shuttle and at the space station. We wanted to get there early as we did not know how many people would be there waiting to see him.

When we drove up to Morrill Hall we knew that we were a bit early the doors would not even be open for about 15 minutes. There were people already lining up outside. As we stood waiting for the museum to open I got a chance to look around at the others there with us. I quickly noticed that it was not just Melinda and I who were wearing our geek girl clothes. We were wearing our NASA shirts. The day before Melinda had talked about how she wished that she had solar system pants and a planet head band. Little things like these make me smile every day. There was one mom with her three kids, all of them were wearing different cool science related shirts. (Later in Clayton Anderson presentation I saw that family again.) While we were waiting outside, Ella and Axel spent some time drawing. Ella drew a picture of an Earthrise from the surface of the moon. When she showed me the picture she said that she wanted to get it signed by the astronaut. :)

Once we were inside, we started looking around at all of the stations. We started in the basement as we wanted to be close to the room when it was time for the presentation. The first station we went to was the Nanoscience department of UNL. They had there for us to see something I want. It was a shirt made with nanotechnology. She had poured a cup of water into the pocket of this shirt. The water was not soaking into the fabric (which felt like fabric). We thought it might be fun you use this as a cup and have a straw in your pocket. ;) She also gave up models to fold into buckyballs.

While we were standing there talking, Clayton Anderson walked passed us. :) YAY! Exciting. Of course there was still quite a bit of time before his presentation. So we continued down the hallway, stopping at each of the stations. We saw rockets, planes, playing in low gravity. When we had finished all of them in the basement, we went to find our seats.

WOW! I should have been an astronaut. I loved hearing and seeing all of the things that he had to show us. I had goosebumps as I watched from the space station as the sun rose on the Earth. So cool. When he had finished speaking we all got to stand in line to get his autograph. :D He not only signed pictures for us. But he also wrote on Ella's Earthrise picture. I will have to get that scanned and added here along with our autograph picture. I then want to get all of these framed. :)

After the presentation we continued our learning on the main floor. :) Robots, telescopes, laser, and a trip to Mars. I am sure that I have forgotten a few of the things we saw. But when it was all said and done, I am not sure what I want to be went I grow up. ;) I think my kids were wondering the same thing. It was fun to watch Ella talking to the college students about the low gravity flight. Hmm. Between the Nanoscience and the engineering department, maybe I can keep here here in Nebraska. ;) Mel was quiet but listened closely to all that everyone of them said. And Zeb was most interested in the Shuttle landing simulation and controlling the robots.

Why Welsh is Important to Me

A gentle breeze blows hot through the tall grass. In the midst of a vast prairie a little girl sits watching the clouds pass overhead on their slow journey. She turns her head as she hears the sound of a bird from the woods behind her. She closes her eyes and thinks of the bird sitting on the branch of a tree. Who does the bird there sing for? And then her mind drifts off to follow that thought. The girl oft would dream of far off lands, of castles, and people of old. There a knight, a wizard, a king would pass by upon the road as they travel to someplace unknown. Perhaps one night a bard would sing her a lullaby. The sound of his harp whispering in her ear as she lay down to sleep. At times it would seem as if she could see, or hear, or touch these places. Though they remained only in her mind and in her play.

As she grew and learned these things would come to her in different forms. Words from paper now came alive, books she read would bring her over and over again to these places she had dreampt so often of. They would pull her in and bring her to some new found wonder. The girl would only finish one story, then to feel the need to find another. For years, this, the stories of others upon paper and the moving images upon a screen seemed to satisfy the longing she had.

Until it seemed the stories themselves sought another path. The girl still growing there upon the rolling prairie, would sit and dream. And to her mind would come near visions of the tales yet unknown. She could see it all so clearly as if no longer a girl there upon the prairie surrounded by row after row of corn growing all around. She was Ola, with bare feet she ran across wooden bridges. She played in the village and ran through the trees. And she, as Ola, saw through dream and mist. She had to run. She had to save him. There in the cave near their home, though miles away, she saw the dragon that sought her brother. And so she ran to him. Ola ran to find her brother and the dragon. Did she find him? Or was she too late?

And later the girl, now Beria with sword and bow would go with Andrid across the lands. Wavering images in pools and messages left on walls now guide them. All the secrets there to find, as the right-wise king would soon be brought to his throne.

Then she was Bella, as she fought her way out of darkness back to Aiyah and Jack. Bella flies on dragon's wings to the castle there in the mountains high as all the memories return to her. So many people did she become as the tales would play themselves out in her mind. She could see it all so clearly. And then with ink and paper did she begin to tell these, her own tales. Her memories at times almost seemed mingled with the memories of the characters that she created. She shared their feelings, their hopes, their dreams.

The girl, now grown, yet still it seems the words flow as a spring of water from her mind. The tales have changed. How many names does she count now as her own? With ink and paper, or fingers and keys the streams of words come to life. The cold stone walls, bright colorful pennants blowing in the breeze, towers in the sky, she has dreampt of many castles through the years. Yet with her eyes never beheld one truly. What of all the kings she had known? Or magic thus controlled?

She sits here in this quiet place and watches yet the corn that grows. The world like her has changed o'er time. There now exists a vast and growing web that circles round the world itself. Through these little shimmering strands, through these spider webs that bind us close, the girl reaches out. She learns of things, and sees with images of places far away. Maybe not as far away are they as time has moved us on. These images, these words, these sources of knowledge, she uses to help her as she weaves her spells of words and ink.

Now she is Alys. She closes her eyes and sees not the corn, but waves that crash upon the beach. She sees Emrys and Evan. She is Alys and holds the babe and sees the sword and battles yet to fight and halls that must be built. Off in the quiet of the night, the sound of harp and voices mingle, to fill her with a calm and happiness.

As the words to paper come, the girl searches still to find the lands far across the prairie seas, through endless sky, and farther still over watery deeps to the distant shores. She finds the words she seeks. She sees their black designs, dark upon the whiteness of the screen and paper, but cannot understand. The words, their look, their feel, their sound, are music in and of themselves. She hardly needs the meaning, just the words, they are right and good. They are near enough for her. But then she pulls upon a different strand of web. She finds the ones who bring the meaning to the words she sought. Could she truly know and learn these words? She reaches out and grabs ahold with mind and heart and soul.

Dw i'n trio siarad Cymraeg. Dw i'n hoffi siarad Cymraeg. Dw i'n moyn siarad Cymraeg.

Walking Adventures with the Montoya's

Well, this morning I wanted to take advantage the the beautiful day and get outside before it got into the 90's.  So the kids and I got ready for our walk around the section.  Last time we had made this journey we noticed the cans, bottles and trash along the way.  So we decided to take a couple of trash bags with us, one for aluminum and one for trash.  On our way down the driveway the girls were each in charge of one of the bags.  As we walked around the curve,  Ella started yelling, “TRASH BAGS. I NEED TRASH BAGS!”  This is sort of a joke for us.  Now, I do not know how many people will remember this but it is from an episode of the A-Team. The kids and I have been watching that show the last few weeks.   In this episode, Murdock was calling for trash bags in his insane way. They would give him a bag through the bars of the cell.  Then he would jump inside of it as if it was a sleeping bag and lay down.  This quieted him down and kept the guards happy.  During the show he did this repeatedly, and gathered quite a few trash bags.  Of course there was a reason for the trash bags.  The A-team later filled the bags with hot air. Then they were attached to lawn chairs which they used to 'fly' over the walls of the prison.  (After watching Mythbusters, we all know just how this would not have worked.  We saw how much was needed to lift them into the air.)  But even so, Ella claimed that she was going to fill the bags with hot air and see if she could fly.

Back to our walk... Ella is yelling for trash bags, as both of the girls are running down the driveway with the bag billowing behind them completely filled with air.  We finally reach the end of the driveway and head out to the road.  Melinda comes up to me and says, “Wow, that was amazing.  I was flying up into the air.   It had to be at least a millisecond.  Or it might have been a little more.”

My kids make me smile so many times a day.  The whole thing was funny.  But the fact that Melinda was so sure that she had flown for at least a millisecond.  That was great.

We did not actually make it all the way around the section.  Before we had gone even 1 mile, the 'trash' bag was completely full, and the aluminum can bag almost full.  The sad thing is that we only picked things up on the south side of the road.  Then we turned around and headed back home.  So we didn't get our full walk in today.  Tomorrow it we will have to work on the north ditch.  So our walk will have to be long 2 miles until we get things all worked and clean.  But that is okay.  Maybe we will do a trash walk and a real walk once school is over, at least until it is too hot.

Sharing the Bed

This weekend the kids and I went to visit Deseray, Jeremy and Axel.  We had tons of fun and can't wait to spend some more time with them.  Well, at bedtime of course we all headed down to the basement to the spare bedroom.  The girls and I were going to share the queen sized bed and Zeb was going to sleep on the futon at the end of our bed.  I expected this to be no big deal.  Last time I had come to visit, it was Deseray, Axel and I who shared the bed.  We all seemed to have plenty of room and slept well.  It did not take me long to realize that I might have gotten more sleep if I had been on the floor.  Sleeping with one's children is not quite the same thing as sleeping with other adults.  They seem to have no concept of personal space. Or maybe it is that the younger the child the more they see their mother as their own personal space.    ;)  As they get older more space is given.

A few weeks back the four of us spent the night in a hotel.  There were two queen sized beds for the four of us.  I expected two per bed, not caring who slept in each of the beds.  As it turned out Zeb decided not to sleep with any of us.  He put his sleeping bag on the floor and slept there.  The girls shared one of the beds, leaving me with a bed to myself.  Yay!  Good night's sleep for me.

I thought of something else as I laid there in Deseray's basement with the girls curled up with me.  Whenever a group of teachers spent the night in a hotel for our teacher conventions, it was four women per room, two per bed.  But the men were two per room, one per bed.  Here I thought of Zeb.  He chose the floor rather than sharing the bed with any of us.  I wondered if this had something to do with this.

Wow, the things I think of at 3:00 in the morning as I look at the empty space on the other side of my daughters and wonder if I would have more room if I moved over there.  :)

Computer History and Me

Due to me once again being cut off from the Internet last night, I had several thoughts about computers and me. Not having access to the normal things that I would have done or used the Internet for last night (and every time that it happens here in the Internet provider dessert of middle Nebraska), I had to do other things. Haha, Like click the 'connect' button a 1,000 or more times just to see if it would actually connect this time. Or the other thought – where can I go to borrow someone else's connection?

Of course this made me start to think about my computer and in turn where it all started for me...

Way back in time, when I was in 3^rd or 4^th grade, my Dad made a most amazing purchase. He bought us a TRS-80 computer. Wow! This was such an exciting object. Never before had there been such a thing in our house. :D It was beautiful. It was magical. It had a monitor. It had a keyboard. And of course it had a cassette player. The TRS-80 only had 2 K of memory. Simple, ordinary e-mails we send out now are bigger than 2 K.

With the computer my Dad had also gotten a game. It was saved on a cassette tape. This game was a text adventure where we had to use clues to work our way through a haunted house. :D The name of the game was Haunted House. It was the most awesome thing I had known. My family and I spent hours in front of that computer trying to come up with the one or two word commands to type that would move us to the next part of the game.

get rope

take rope

use rope

throw rope

tie rope

drop rope

It was love. :D I was hooked. Computers were cool. Now, I am not sure exactly why or for whom my Dad purchased the computer. But we all seemed to enjoy it.

The computer came also with a manual to learn BASIC, which is really what the computer was for. We only had the one game you see. Over the next few months or maybe a year, my Dad worked his way through that BASIC manual. He taught himself how to program that computer to do things. During this time he made a couple more games for us, saving them on a different cassette. One of the games was Tic Tac Toe. We would play against the computer. It was not possible to beat the computer in this game. You could only hope to tie the computer. Dad also wrote a sub search text game. It was similar to our Haunted House game, with fewer details to be worked out. I seem to vaguely remember a few more things that Dad programmed but can't tell you anymore what they were.

In the back of the BASIC manual there were several programs that one could type into the computer, sample programs I would call them. I remember one of our favorites. It was our favorite for a couple of reasons; first, it was one of the shortest programs to type in – typing was not one of mine or my brothers skills at the time, and second, it was awesome. The typing was careful work. It took a long time. Often when I was finished and ran the program I found that it did not work. Somewhere I had typed something wrong or forgot something. But once you had typed all those many characters into the computer you could sit and watch as the screen was lit up, randomly, pixel by pixel. My brothers and I loved to watch this. The funny thing is that it took hours for this to happen. So we would sit and watch at it started. Then we would go outside or somewhere to play, coming back every so often to check the monitor. We did not want to miss the end when the last few pixels where lit up.

Over the next couple of years of my life I sat at the computer with that manual and taught myself how to program. I was learning another language, and this language let me communicate with the computer. I could cause things to happen. :D

10 print “Hello Lisa”

20 end

This is where my new found computer skills merged with my love of writing. My brother, Jason, and I liked to read 'Choose your own adventure' books. I could see how these books were exactly like the 'Haunted House' game. There was an amount of text followed by a question, a choice that had to be made. So I started to write my own choose your own adventure stories. This was followed by the code to put them on the computer. By now I was in the Big Room (6^th - 8^th grade) at school in Worms. Someone had donated a TRS-80 computer to us. OH YEAH! So in my free time I was also able to type my stories in for my friends at school. Those were great days. :D

Then came high school. In high school computers we were learning how to use a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database, and of course BASIC. I was happy in the computer lab. I remember the day I first used a mouse. Boy was that exciting! We had purchased a new computer at school. We, the students, sold Christmas wreaths each year to help fund our computer lab. And that year with the money we made we got to add a new computer to our lab. It was an Apple 2GS, and it had a mouse... none of us had seen or used a mouse before. This was an exciting day. There was a game, or application on that computer to help teach you to use the mouse. Flying around on the screen were several flies. You had to move the mouse around to click on these flies. This of course would kill that fly and you could move on to the next. :D Mousing skills...

There was another exciting addition to my computer world while I was in high school. This was MODEM. Now we could actually talk to someone else on the computer anywhere in the world. YAY! I was a senior. We had probably used our wreath money to buy this modem, though I am not sure about that. My math teacher had been for years offering classes through the community college to us. This way as juniors or seniors we could take some Gen Ed's during the summer and have a head start on college. I took a couple of those classes during the summer, an American History class and a English class. But then during my senior year, Mrs. C. told me that she was going to have programming class and was offering it to us. Todd and I signed up for that one. We both loved programming. So the two of us went back to our high school one evening a week that spring to work on this class. It was one of these nights that Mrs. C. put the modem into the computer in our classroom. She was so excited about it and of course wanted to show us, her computer nerd students how it worked.

Well, of course there were not many places that you could go with this wondrous piece of technology. One place we could have went was the ESU. But that was a long distance phone call, something that couldn't be wasted on playing around with students. And I am sure that there wasn't a whole lot of stuff to do or see there anyhow. So lucky for us, that one of our IBM computer was sitting in the Shop classroom and the other was in the computer lab. And even more lucky for us was the fact that there was a telephone line in each of these classrooms. So Todd went down to the Shop and I sat in the computer lab. And we used to those modems to sit at opposite ends of our school and talk to each other. :D

In college I was majoring in computer science. So of course I had a lot of time on the computer. I was in one of the two labs in our computer building, or over at the lab in the library often. Though, I never used a modem during this time. College came and went. The one notable thing to mention here is that I used my student loan money to buy myself a computer my last year of college. Haha. That was a good thing, my own computer.

Then I came back home and got my first teaching job. During those years, Deseray was still in college down at UNL. I went down there to visit her as often as I could. Those were great days, filled with all sorts of exciting things. We would often sit (in the middle of the night) in the computer lab in her dorm. She had discovered something, something it took no time at all for me to come to love. That was lambda moo. That was programmer geek's heaven. That was my Haunted House game in REAL LIFE. I met people from all over the country. I made all sorts of things. I ordered virtual pizzas and blew virtual bubbles. I wandered around room after room of amazing places created out of so many people's imagination. I needed to buy myself a modem.

It did not take me long to get that done. I put that card in my computer. And then I could 'talk' to Deseray anytime I wanted, even though we were 100 miles away from each other. And best of all, it wasn't even a long distance phone call. It took me a month to realize that the minutes that my provider allowed for me to use on my 'plan' was not enough time. I checked my money, and learned just how much more I was willing to spend on extra minutes. Then I was careful about how and when I used those treasured minutes. There are many things that I could say about those lambda moo days of my life.

Computers and the ability to connect to people with them had shaped my life. Here we jump ahead. Then I was one of the few using this technology. Now nearly everyone does. The web – www.anything.com, e-mail, Facebook, blogging. Wow the list is endless. I use my computer and the Internet for so many things during the day. And at least for me it all started with my Dad and a TRS-80 computer when I was in the third grade.

To be or not to be Brave...

I suppose that I am writing this post for a couple of reasons...

I have not written here for a while now. I have been having lots of thoughts. But have not been writing them here in this blog. So I guess I need to get back to actually writing here again. Now some of this is because I have actually been busy in other writing or computer areas. I have been talking to other people.. So my thoughts have been going there instead of here (on paper or screen). :) I have been editing. I find this very tiring. But I am happy to report that I have one of my books ready or as ready as I want to think about for now. I am still trying to decide who I should send it off to. Last night I printed out the first 50 pages of another of my books. I have yet to make a mark on those papers. But I do have them sitting here next to me with the highlight and the pen. So it is only a matter of time. The funny thing is that I think I know who I want to send this one off to. But I know I need to go over it at least one more time. The third one (book) is still on my computer. I want to save the editing of this one for the last. This is because I want to have read this as close to June as possible. My June Camp NaNoWriMo will be the second book in that 'series.' Can I actually say that word? That sounds like I am actually a writer or author. Wow, lots of BIG scary words here. And then with the computer projects; webpage, record transcription, and setting up a computer curriculum for next fall, I do not think of coming here when I am on my computer. I tell myself that I need to get some of these projects done before I can really sit down to work. I don't really think that is true. I know that it won't really work. I seem to need to at least think about writing if not actually do it. But I guess I need to actually be doing a bit of writing. Even journal-like writing here about my random thoughts.

I have actually been a bit more brave about a lot of things the last few months. Because of this, I have learned a few things about some people I know. This is pretty exciting to me. It seems to have made me feel more brave. This is actually another reason I am considering sharing this, 'my secret blog' with the rest of the world. I have to laugh at myself. Because that is actually what this is. I write here knowing that no one but myself and maybe one or two of the people I feel the safest with will read it. But now I am asking myself do I really need to do that? Blogging, isn't this something that people do, when they want someone else to read what they are saying? Hmm, not me, I have 10 blogs (I need to get a few of these updated), and a couple of private groups on FB. I do it (blog/write) just for me. lol Part of me wants to go back and read over everything. I want to make sure there is nothing here that I don't want others to see. (Including typos) lol But I am going to force myself NOT to go back and look. I have to admit, I did scan over the titles before I started typing this. And there are things there that I wouldn't normally just shout out for all of the world to hear. But then I suppose if I am truthful, I don't think I would do that with anything. I would prefer to remain mostly invisible.

I like to sit back and watch. I like the quietness. I like there not to be more then four people in the room, especially if I am going to have to talk. Even as I write this I know that it is not completely true. There are certain people that I am far from quiet with. I am far from invisible with them. I might even be able to say that I do wild and crazy things with them. But it is not the same. This sometimes makes me wonder which one is really me. And as I like to answer many questions... BOTH. :D Those worlds don't often interact with each other. This is not because they can't, but I choose the safe way.

So I will be brave. I will not go back and change, edit or erase this. I will post it. And tomorrow or the next day or at least one day in the near future, I will write here again, and I will pretend that it is still 'my secret blog.' I will actually write some of what I have been thinking about. I might even learn that I want to hear what other people will say or comment. It has been good to share and learn things about the people I know, already. And this will be a good thing as well.