More Random Thoughts And Whatnot

Front yard photo

2009-12-08T12:57:00.000-05:00

Justin And The Hole To China

2009-11-11T13:50:00.007-05:00

Justin wasn't paying much attention in school. His mind was his science project, attempting to dig a hole to China. He heard from his father, Mr. Anderson, that if a person dug a hole deep enough, the hole would go through the center of the earth and end up in China. A ridiculous claim, thought Justin, except on the third day of school, he secretly accepted his father's challenge (though a challenge it was not because his father was a very strict man who would not have appreciated his son attempting to dig a hole in the back yard that reached through the center of the earth, since all boys who dig in the backyard will ultimately bring into the house, on the soles of their tennis shoes, the most unimaginable mess of dirt and clay), went into the garage when his mother and father were fighting in the pantry, grabbed a shovel and started to dig a hole in the back corner of the yard, right next to the garden tomatoes.

Justin worked for most of an hour before he decided he needed some lemonade, or any other cool drink from the kitchen. He put his shovel down, stepped to the porch and carefully removed his shoes. He crossed the kitchen, leaving no trail of dirt on the hardwood floor, and dug through the refrigerator looking for his lemonade. When he closed the fridge door, he poked the straw through the pouch and began to sip. He started across the kitchen and looked towards the stairwell, where he spotted his mother on the steps, shaking like she would when she cried, with her hands blotting out her eyes. Justin exited the back door.

"What are you doin?" asked Billy, the next door neighbor kid who only started to talk to Justin a few weeks ago when his family got the black lab, Roger.

"Digging a hole to China."

"Why you doin that?"

"My dad said if you dig a hole deep enough, you would poke through to China. Except when he said 'you' he was talking to me. I just started the hole today. Wanna see?"

"Sure!" Billie went the long way around the fence. When he stepped next to the hole, he said, "That's nothing. You ain't goin' to China in that hole."

Justin looked at the hole, barely deeper than his shoes, and started to shovel again. Shovel, press, throw. He liked the sound the motions made and began to create a sort of song lyric in his head. Shovel, press, throw.

When his hands were tired, he invited Billie to try it some. Billie snapped off the grass, took the shovel from Justin and started to whack the blade of the shovel against the ground. "NO!" cried Justin. "It's like this..." and Justin took the shovel and showed the younger neighbor how to dig the blade into the dirt, press it down a bit with the heel of the foot, then throw off the dirt in a pile, just to the left of the tomato plants. After a few minutes, Billie started to shovel with more skill. He even added to the pile of dirt, approximately in the center of the growing mound.

They switched shoveling for another hour, until it was time for Billie to go home for supper.

"See you tomorrow?" asked Billie.

"Sure," said Justin. "I'll be out tomorrow after school."

When Justin went inside, he stripped off his shoes and made his way to the sink. While he was washing his hands, his father said, "Thank you for cleaning up before supper. What made you so responsible today?"

"I don't know, dad. I just like to take care of myself."

Justin removed the food from the microwave, grabbed some forks, then asked, "Where's mom?"

"I'm not sure," replied Mr. Anderson.

Justin thought he heard the shower running upstairs. If she was in the shower again, and if it was like last week, she would not be out for another hour.

"Let's plan on eating alone, Justin. You're mother is not feeling well."

The next day at school Justin thought about the hole constantly. He wanted to finish the hole tomorrow or at least over the weekend. He knew that his father's claim was specious, but he treated the challenge as quite real. He thought about the hole in first hour, and again at P.E., and later during social studies and then at math. Why does the square root of 64 matter if I can dig a hole to China, he thought. I'll be an explorer. I'll be Ponce de Leon. I'll be the first person to make this hole. I'll be in the next history book, he hoped.

When he got off the school bus, he launched into the house, ready to search for gloves. Everyone who has ever dug a hole to China knows that you need a good pair of outdoor gloves. He saw his mom sitting at the dining room table, alone, with a cup of ... coffee? He slowed down to giver her a big hug. "I love you mom."

Solo

2009-11-08T09:30:00.002-05:00

It was his third time around the planet. Each time he looked down he saw a lifeless expanse, from the sand he could nearly touch to the horizon. He thought about the place he left, a land of water and rivers and willow trees and ants. A place of computers, robots, and technots, and where every fantasy can, in the neurons and synapses of the brain, register memory and make a man sweat. He thought about leaving Martha. He could not return.

The landscape below sped approximately at the rate of his ship, 630 kilometers per hour. He began to fire the forward thrusters and stabilizers, which would begin to slow the ship until he could touch down on the soft sand. The land would support the ship. He knew this because he watched the descent of his welcome probe 18 hours earlier, seeing it touch down and stretch its legs firmly into the ground.

This was better. A land of solace and death. He deserved this, he thought.

In six years he would transform the planet from sand and buried organic material to a planet which could support a small community of people. Ten years after that, he could greet thousands to his planet, which would then have atmosphere, rain, and a sky that would be between the color of cobalt and turquoise. That is, if he landed with care. And if he set up a sublunary communicator. And if he perched his ballast beacon toward Earth. If he cared to pack the ballast beacon. If he cared.

Holding hands

2009-11-05T21:01:00.001-05:00

Not a Portrait - Fork in the Road

2009-11-05T17:00:00.003-05:00

Disappointed by the fork in the road, the traveler picked up the utensil and stuck it in his pocket. He imagined on his walk the next time he would spot a fork in the road. That time, he thought, he would place it in his other pocket.

Congratulating himself on his attentive planning, he began a careful plan to spot forks in the road.

Potraits

2009-11-05T16:13:00.006-05:00

She was a dusty girl from Tulsa. He was a scotch drinker from Sioux Falls. They leaned over the table at each other and spoke over a score of Jackson Browne, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, and Sade. She wondered if they could sip drinks slower and make the conversation last until dawn. She wondered if they would sip coffee in the morning. This morning. Tomorrow morning. For the rest of her life. He thought about his ex wife. His mistake. Juggling emotions, plates falling, broken pieces all over the floor.

They held hands. Spun to the beat of drums, trumpets, Lionel Ritche. All night long.

Exchanged cell phone numbers.

Doors closed. No mistake.

She walked left, towards the table next to the pay phone, and sat down next to Diane and Julie. He walked out and turned towards the sports bar. Crossed the street. Crossed his heart. Crossed his fingers. And returned to the the girl from Tulsa.

Who am I today?

2009-11-05T10:33:00.003-05:00

It's like this - After surprising my teachers, my wife, and myself, I finished with a M.A. in Education and thought I would get a teaching job in a public school with no problem. Then I thought I would accept a job at a private school or even tutoring at Sylvan. I don't want to post a lot about my trials and that is one reason I'm not writing a lot. Right now, I am substitute teaching and learning a lot of lessons. I am learning how to treat students well. I am learning to teach to students with short attention spans. I am learning that strategies that work with children with ADD or ADHD OR Asperger's syndrome will work with any child in the class. I have worked with disruptive students and "lost my cool". I have worked with distruptive children and smiled, laughed, sang a clean up song and thought "I could do this forever." I find that substitute teaching is not fair, since the substitute does not have the respect nor the credibility of the classroom teacher. But it is a necessary temporary vocation, especially when I realize how teachers have lives too. Teachers have homes and children and obligations. Teachers need to take days off and trust their students are going to be taught ... professionally.

I do not remember a single substitute teacher when I was growing up. I do not want to be substitute teaching. The work is difficult. The pay is appropriate, considering the supply and the demand. But I also care about students. I am not going to let students run the class. No. In fact, I have tried to establish some norms when I have worked in jobs more than one day.

I have not posted a lot in the past few months because I do not want my trials in this transition year to be open for examination. There are trails, yet I am strong enough to know that some principal, some school is going to be fortunate to land a surprising talent like myself. Conceited? Well, maybe confident. Confident enough with a sprinkle of humility. I am not am a perfect polished diamond, but I am a teacher. I am a good teacher. I am creative, prepared, spontaneous, willing to learn, energetic, intelligent and wise. And I am getting better every day.

Another post

2009-09-22T13:05:00.002-04:00

And yet another post about writing. Is there a magic formula for being a writer? Observe, Think, Write.

My daughter and I drove to a public library today. When I was about to turn the car into the library parking lot, I noticed the lot was empty and there were police cars and barriers blocking the way. Except for the police presence and the media, the outside of the building was eerily quiet. I turned right into an adjacent parking lot and I asked a by-stander, for he was literally standing by the closed parking lot, "What's going on?" It turns out there was a fatal shooting in the parking lot this morning.

Is this something to write a story about? Probably not. We came home, my wife was on the couch watching Oprah, but at a break we recorded the noon news and later saw the reporter describing the scene from the library parking lot.

I wonder if I can write a book

2009-09-21T23:20:00.002-04:00

Now this question has been on my mind for some time now. Not a week or a year but maybe for 20 or 30 years. I sit in front of my computer and I wonder what good writers are doing right now. Alfred Flan is writing at his word processor a third version of chapter three, in a novel called Chapter Three. Margaret O'Sullivan works with pen in hand. She invites the words like the biscotto, sometimes called biscotti, in her tea. You get the idea. Fred Winters, Carleton Chambers, Carmen Arnette. David Tumbarello. You get the idea. The only difference is that I have never thought of myself as a book writer. I can write prose pieces. I can string some pretty genius words together and occasionally impress my professors or some other person of importance. In seven months I will have an article published. I made an impression on an editor.

Today I read three stories. Incredible stories. Quite often I read a story and I stop myself about the time I finish the sentence "I can do that." I think the words and I remember I have never had success writing fiction. What is it about character, setting, events, and voice? I got the voice part. At least I've had it when I respond to prompts in graduate school. "Compare the emphasis on differentiated instruction in Fountas & Pinnell versus Martha Combs works on teaching elementary school language arts skills." Oh, I got that covered. Ask me write my thoughts or response to any scholarly topic. Got that too.

Now fiction. Fiction. Elusive.

Here is my thought of the night. Writing begins with an idea. Hum-wow. but it is true -- writing begins with an idea. Well, actually, it can also begin with writing, I suppose, but in the creative mind of Mr. Tumbarello, this thought is going to carry me to write my first book. (The author actually attempted to begin a book last year while taking a class on children's literature, but he bailed out after about three chapters, when the list of characters began to get greater than four.) And my brilliant idea of the night, besides the one mentioned in the second sentence of this paragraph, is the following: write about a boy who says "I can do that." Of course the irony is charming. If one can personify irony, which is an appropriate aside, since Ovid's Metamorphosis sits to my left on the desk by my PC.

So draft one would begin like this:
"On Friday, Charlie Templeton finished reading his favorite book, Biker Sam, for the fifth time that week."
and it would end like this:
"He closed the book and wondered about the boy this story would inspire."

I'm sure there are some appropriate pages & lines that will go in between those brilliant book ends, but I am not ready to .......

Laura Veirs - Ocean Night

2009-06-25T23:21:00.001-04:00

A handful of dreamdust for my pirate
He can hear the Pacific singing
The sea meets delight in his saltwater eyes
Icy pictures of the water are captured in his ring

The petals of night are unfolding
A mermaids map floats by on the rolling green
A Japanese fishing float
Carries my soul out to the whales
And out to the deep

I wonder 'bout the herds of the sea
If they will hurt or if they will help me?

Swimming with my fallen blossoms
I drink from the source above...

A handful of dreamdust for my pirate
He can hear the Pacific singing.

Try this link or this link.

Long time no post

2009-06-19T16:45:00.006-04:00

Picture Day!! Some pictures from my "graduation" evening:

Some pictures from Silver Lake:

The Avett Brothers: Glory Days

2009-02-25T20:43:00.000-05:00

Singing in the Rain

2008-12-31T13:26:00.001-05:00

A tribute to Pokemon & President Bush

2008-12-19T09:16:00.005-05:00

Now I'm not in favor of throwing shoes at the President of the United States, but there are some humorous gifs of the incident here.

What song is this?

2008-12-18T23:21:00.002-05:00

give it a listen. if you can make it half way through, you'll get the surprise.

btw, how does one tap into the creative force to create something like this? sign me up, now!

Youtube video of "The Most Important Image Ever Taken by Humanity"

2008-12-14T20:57:00.002-05:00

I can't argue with this as the most important image ever taken by humanity. I am reminded of a Bloom County cartoon I had on the wall of my office when I worked in the steel factory. The cartoon doesn't mock at all what the hubble telescope accomplished by aiming at one point in the sky for its deep picture. Click this link to see the comic and see below for a video which paints the awe of what we have accomplishment and what we still cannot comprehend.

Tribute to John Williams via Star Wars

2008-11-09T21:57:00.001-05:00

NSES

2008-09-13T09:11:00.001-04:00


...

Read this FREE online!

Youtube: What Matters to Me

2008-05-26T10:57:00.003-04:00

I find myself browsing (is the word "trolling"?) Youtube like a youth and I come upon a video for a contest sponsored by the Vancouver Film School. The contest requires entrants to post a video with the theme "What matters to you?" and the winners may win tuition to the Vancouver Film School for a year, or something along those lines. Well, the first video I came across was smart, quick, and I couldn't deny the quality of the production.

I give you Jr0canest with What matters to you // me? - VFS

What?

2008-05-19T15:21:00.001-04:00

If you watch Lost, you'll get a kick out of this montage:

Best Hey Jude Cover Ever!

2008-02-23T14:08:00.001-05:00

Hello Saferide

2008-01-08T13:43:00.001-05:00

Annika Norlin writes this about her experience getting started in the music industry and her lyrics:

Darth Vadar - in love and feeling like an idiot video

2007-12-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

"...and I've got the receipt, so if you don't like it you can exchange it" LOL~!

Fionn Regan - Be Good or Be Gone

2007-12-23T12:52:00.000-05:00

OMG - The Wrong Trousers

2007-12-23T12:43:00.000-05:00

Video Killed the Radio Star: