M-O-O-N. That spells moon.

Another Sci Fi story up on 365tomrrows.com. Of course, I only noticed typos after I submitted. A Thin Slice of the Moon.

I had trouble staying awake for Tin Man, but what I saw was complex and dark. Many of the actors gave wooden performances, which was disappointing. Those darn monkeys got both faster and creepier. Zooey D. did give an ineresting performance -- she's got great screen presence. I'm sure we'll see more of her.

OZ

We're not in Kansas any more, Toto... SciFi's new version of The Wizard of Oz

Those creepy monkeys from the original Wizard of Oz still give me the willies. This updated version looks interesting. Movies often reflect the time in which they are created. The original Oz film highligted the still-new Technicolor process, basking in all its cutting-edge cinematic technology. Teenager Dorothy Gale exerts her rebellion by running away from home, then is caught up in a storm that transports her into a land which helps her reset her moral compass. Dorothy is still squeaky clean throughout the film, and reflects the harsh economic times of the day -- one small human being standing up in front of monsterous, monumental forces while trying to retain her integrity.

SciFi's version of Oz has entirely adjusted the characters, including Dorothy Gale's transformation into DG. Should be interesting how it mirrors our own time. The film is supposedly darker, with deeper characters.

Waiting for the Train...

Had the opportunity to write for U. of Arkansas, for the Foliate Oak --

Train Station

Another piece of flash fiction...

Monkey Business

Sometimes life is just fun...

Thousands of Bananas Wash up on Shore

Mexico City Reflections

I've been fortunate to work with Jason Wenell at Prodigal Son Magazine. He's really built up the site from scratch. I've been working with him since it's inception, and it's been fun to watch it grow over the years.

Here's an article detailing some of our Mexico Mission's trip to Mexico City:

Mexico City article in PSM

Our small group spoke to a couple from our trip on the phone last night. Their enthusiasum is contagious. We've found that the Mexican people have an innocence of life and faith that is not found in the US often.

Dios le Bendiga!

Mom's Overture

A little laugh for moms and dads alike... Mom's Overture

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Got my first fiction piece accepted and posted on-line at 365 Tomorrows. Not really one of my best, but I sure do loving writing, especially flash fiction. I've always tended towards minimalism, and flash fiction is right up my alley.

More on flash fiction

Brain Matters

Here's an interesting link to an image that shows if you're right or left brained.

Right/Left Brain

I can see both... does that mean I'm logically creative?

The Man in Black

Sometimes I need a reminder to keep my focus on things that are really important... and they're not things.

Johnny Cash's "Hurt"

Webkinz World

I am no stranger to childhood fads.

When I was a kid, we had Barbies, Rubiks Cube, and trading cards. Through the years, our society has churned out Cabbage Patch Kids, more Barbies, Polly Pockets, POGs, and Bop-Its.

Visiting a Hallmark store recently, I was shocked at how much Webkinz merchandise was stacked on the counter. Charms, bracelets, bookmarks, lip gloss. And, of course, the little stuffed animals called Webkinz. For the uninitiated, Webkinz are a stuffed animal with a code attached on inside of the tag. You enter the code on the Webkinz website, and viola, you are a full-fledge member of the Webkinz world.

The site itself is quite safe for kids. They can play games, interact with other kids/animals (with only pre-set language and responses), and earn webkinz cash to buy webkinz virtual stuff.

It's the explosion of marketing items that shocked me. It happened quickly, and it was prolific. And I'm surprised that it surprised me. They're out to make a few dollars, and they're capitalizing on a huge wave of buying potentional in the kid's market. Like the Internet, our world is becoming faster-paced. Instant access is the norm. What our kids want, they expect quickly.

It's a challenge for us parents, to teach patience and the trap of materialism. Add into the mix the limiting of web time vs. one-on-one human interaction time. "Balance" is my thought of the day. I don't have to be an old fuddy-duddy and reject all new forms of technology and "stuff". I do think, however, that teaching balance is a key of good parenting.

Return the Sturgeon

This past Saturday I went to an event sponsored by the Riveredge Nature Center and the Wisconsin DNR. Hundreds of people gathered at the edge of the Milwaukee River to release young sturgeon into the river.

Millions of these fish roamed the lakes and rivers in the Midwest during the early 1800s. By 1900, there were no sturgeon left in the Milwaukee River. Most of the decline was due to human action. Researchers believe that there are 2,000 - 5,000 adult fishing in Lake Michigan.

I'm not a huge supporter (in terms of time and money) of eco programs. My contributions gravitate towards spiritual and social change. I do think, however, that our physical world is in crisis. I think that people should stop debating the existence of global warming, and find solutions to heal a planet that is obviously in need of some help.

My daughter named the fish we released "angel". As fish go, it's appearance is prehistoric -- bony-like plates on its back, looking shark-like. We released Angel into a river recently cleaned of pollution. It wasn't a huge gesture, releasing this little slip of a fish into the river where she joined her brothers and sisters at the bottom of riverbed in temporary shock. The release is just one step in an attempt to restore balance to a badly damaged eco system.

Angel has a tracking device implanted in her somewhere. We'll be able to track her on-line, and with any luck, watch her return to the same spot to spawn in 15-20 years. I'll be close to retirement age, and the next generation will be running the show. Life goes on.

I think God gave us a precious gift in the earth, with all its intricacies. Hopefully the next generation will find it healthier, and live with more respect to the earth we walk on.

Vacuum

If someone posts a blog and no-one reads it, does it make a sound?

Choices

There was a time in my life that being busy was fun.

When I was in my 20s, I thrived on hectic work schedules, full evenings, and crammed weekends. Somewhere during the past 10 years being busy turned into non-fun.

Some people I know love being busy ALL the time. They are in constant motion from the crack of dawn until late into the evening. Their kid's schedules are booked so full that they have to do homework and eat supper in the car.

I've made a choice in my life not to be too busy. My body will usually tell me when my life is overscheduled: my heart races when I'm sitting still, I get an annoying pain in my stomach, and the back of my neck aches. Worst of all my family reminds me that I'm a cranky pants.

I love getting home from work, nothing scheduled. It's a quiet time for homework, dinner prep, and sitting outside on the back porch of it's warm. Maybe I'm slowing as I age, but I don't feel the need to go-go-go all the time. I love to snuggle with my family on the couch. I like taking walks in the woods and listening to the crickets call and the leaves fall.

My to-do list will always be huge. I don't know anyone (except the very young and ill) without a huge to-do list, even retired people.

When we were in Mexico, we saw first-hand how the people there put relationships first. They cherished their families and friends, and always put them ahead of tasks. As I walk through this sea of busy-ness we live in, I challenge myself over and over. Is it worth it, to be so busy? Will the task I'm so worked up about matter in the long run. Or will I stop, and cherish the people around me?

Sleepless in Brookfield

We are a family of periodic insomniacs. My spouse has the most persistent insomnia -- he has trouble sleeping the majority of nights. My daughter can't sleep every so often, and will stay up watching tv or reading. Even as a toddler she would wake up and play with her toys on the floor in the middle of the night.

I'm a recent convert to insomnia. A few years ago, I started having "power surges", commonly known as hot flashes, in the middle of the night. I also started having heart palpatations that kept me up. Last night was warm for September -- a beautiful night in the high 70s. After tossing and turning for a while while my body temperature and heart rate soared, I moved to the living room and clicked on the tv. Yikes, what a shallow pool to dive into! One hundred channels avaialble, and all I got was late night talk shows and the x-files.

Today, I walk zombie-like through my day, reminescent of living through the Infant Years of parenting. Taking moment by moment, praying that God gives me strength. And He does. He reminds me of the classic prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."



Sleepless Fact: Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

Spooky

We put up our Fall/Halloween decorations this weekend. Although our family is not in love with the background and occult meanings surround Halloween, we like the autumn celebration of things. Halloween trick or treating is sometimes the only time we speak to our lesser-known neighbors. The kids have chocolate. The adults get to chat and connect.

I just finished reading William Gibson's Spook Country. I was introduced to this author in college, when I was required to read Neuromancer. Some dozen books later, I remain a committed fan. His latest is set in the present, like Gibson's last novel Pattern Recognition. Gibson created his own language for his earlier sci-fi-cyberpunk works, actually introducing the definitions cyber space and cyber punk into the English language. I've been trying to describe the style of Spook Country, and the first word to come to mind is dense. Gibson has an amazing handle on the English language. His intellectual abilities tower over my own. After a few chapters, I was afraid that I'd get lost in the maze of plot/characters/intricate descriptions. I stuck with it, though, and was satisfied when I finished the book. Not the best he's written, but still entertaining. A different kind of spooky, during these cooling autumn days...

Friday Fun

Oi, what a busy week. Too busy is not good for anyone. Time for some r&r aka fun:

Little known fact: A starfish does not have a brain.

They have a primitive nervous system that controls their actions. Sort of like me after 9:00 at night.

Friday Fun

Little known fact: Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

I love exercise at the office...

Corn

I had a dream about Mexico City last night. Or at least a dream/mirror image of Mexico City. The dream city had the same maze of streets and houses as the real city. Everything coated with a fine film of dust from pollution. A group of feral kids surrounded our group, sitting in plastic chairs, touching our hands and faces. Their eyes huge and searching.

I woke up remembering the girl at the market in downtown Mexico City, weaving through our small group clutching an ear of roasted corn smothered in mayonnaise. Deftly she moved around us, placing stickers on our shirts. "A peso," she'd say, then move on, taking another bite of her corn. Coming back a few moments later, empty handed, to collect her sticker and place it carefully back on the plastic sheet. According to our guides, some mothers sent their children out begging, into the night.

Irish Fest, 2007, I bought an ear of corn dripping in butter and salt, and remembered that girl in Mexico City. Wondering what her life would be like, stretching out in front of her.

My grandmother, a product of the Great Depression, used to cut the kernels off of boiled corn with a sharp knife into a bowl. As a child, I wondered why she'd go to that extra work, when she could just get a bag from the freezer.

One of my favorite fall activities is to visit a corn maze with my family. Wandering throught the tall stalks, we hunt for clues and laugh as we run into other searching families. The corn towers above us, acres and acres of farm land stretching out under the warm autumn sun.

She speaks to me in the early morning hours, that small girl begging in the night, wandering through the maze which is Mexico City.

Trying to find her way.

The Girl Scouts in Mexico are actually called Boy Scouts, according to our guide and friend Mari. We watched this group of girls during our visit to Teotihuacan, just north of Mexico City. Their dress was much more like the Boy Scouts in the US -- matching uniforms, inlcuding socks, ties, and emblems. They were quietly listening to their troop leader as he placed a compass on the ground and they all looked to the north.

I thought of the girl's troop I helped lead back home. The children in Mexico, as a rule, were much better behaved and had better manners than kids in the US. We thought it might be because the kids get so much attention in Mexico, the culture being so family-oriented.

Kids crave attention, any attention. How often I've seen kids in the US get into trouble, and receive the attention they need. "I'm here!" their actions yell. "Look at me -- I'm here, and I'm important enough for some kind of attention."

I'm sure there's some kind of tight-rope balancing act for the "right" kind of attention. Helicopter parent vs absent parent. There's no magic compass pointing parents in the right direction. Or even Scout leaders.

"What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give." ~P.D. James, Time to Be in Earnest

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Six years ago today I was at the office when a colleague called and told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I immediately tried logging into news websites, which were, of course, slow due to increased traffic.

Life was the same, at that moment. Bad things happened -- planes occassionaly crashed into buildings. People died tragically in all sorts of circumstances.

It was when I saw the smoke rising from the second tower that I knew our world had changed. This was no accident. A tragedy, yes, but not one born from a careless mistake or faulty part. Other human beings were attacking us on our own land. Human beings filled with enough pain and hatred to kill us.

There was silence on the radio after the first tower fell. I wondered where the federal building was downtown, and if I should pick up my child from school.

I must not forget that day, ever. The shock, the silence of the empty skies for days afterwards, the furtive glances as we boarded a plane to Florida several weeks later. I must never allow my pain to become so great that I would strike out at another person in anger.


“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Mother Teresa