Riddle for Free Story Time

Riddle for this week!

A better alternative to

Teeth, table edges or pliers

Gives you the leverage to

Open up a world of possibilities

So what do you think is the answer? 

Drop your answer into the comments and I'll get back to you. 

The prize this week is a free story from O'Ryan! The perfect horror story written with grace and style! 

Psalm 74

"Evil takes whatever shape it need to reach people. If enough of it settles in one place, it becomes sentient." Have you ever wondered what does the haunting in dingy, dark places? What would you do if you met the haunter? Don't read this before you go to bed in an old hotel...and remember, demons feed off the scraps of evil that men do...

Answer in the comments! And I promise, we don't use your address for anything more than delivering your prize for the right answer!

Carolyn 

Free ebook for an answer! Excellentism vs Perfection

Found deep in forests, back yards and decks

Laden with delight for the pallet

Sturdy enough for multiple elbows

Birth place of splinters

This is the riddle for this week. Any guesses? The prize is a free story from Wormhole Electric's vast library of original stories. Put your answer in the comments and I'll get back to you! No strings attached, no sharing of your email address, no asking you to join this or that or the other. Just straight clean fun. So go ahead! Take a chance. I beat your language skills are better than you think!

Good Morning, Don.

I hope that all is finally getting settled in your part of the world. So how is the new kitchen? Sipping coffee in it yet? I just heard yesterday that your friend and former editor for Wormhole, Nick Kitto, accepted a posting as a school director in Hungary. Don't the two of you co-own a boat and spend your summers sailing together?

In between grading and committee meetings this week I was able to squeeze in a few more pages on the Wired Generation. But most of what I found is applicable to any age.

It is becoming apparent that there is an increase in mental stress and fatigue. In part, this is due to the immediacy of communication thanks to technology: new unresolved tasks keep popping up for us to do via email, cell phone, twitter and/or all the other social medias we all subscribe to. This is leading to a new culture of "mashup" according to Ruskoff in his book, Present Shock. Accessibility due to Face Book puts us in contact with our past, opens us to our current friends, asks us to evaluate future friends all in the space of a couple of minutes. Everything is colliding at once leaving us no time to process; we are no longer able to leave the past behind us so it interferes with our present while companies now have enough information about us that they are able to predict our future spending habits.

So how does this affect us? With the past competing with the present, we are not able to re-invent ourselves from day to day. The lessons learned are lost in the demands and immediacy of now. Our "story" is gone. On top of that, Ruskoff feels that our drive for the latest and greatest had led us to not owning anything. We don't own music, we access it in the cloud; we don't own books, we download or cloud books and stories. We are becoming a society that only has "the right to access".

Ruskoff presents a gloomy picture! I'm not sure what the answer is, except to take time off and journal about the week and the lessons learned. I don't know that this is a process that the Wired Generation has any concept of. I know that I have students write how they are going to change their responses to an assignment after they've had time to work on it and review their peers' assignments. Usually I get a much better essay in the end.

I also read that the Wired Generation wants to work toward perfection as much as possible so they don't have to go back and redo the assignment. I can appreciate that. Redoing is a bit humbling – maybe they didn't understand the assignment, or they wrote it off and did the minimum and hoped for a good grade, or maybe they didn't have good enough vocabulary and grammar which means they're not as smart as they want others to think they are. These are the most common reasons I hear and remember from my days in school. Is there an answer? Some say: redo the assignment until you get it right; others say:  learn the lesson and apply it to the next assignment.

To avoid the pressure and sense of "have to" and "should have" that comes with being a perfectionist, I've decided to be an "Excellentist" instead. I've noticed that the pressure is off my shoulders and there is a sense of relief. Isn't it amazing how we can use language to create pressure or release it.

Look for the newest Wormhole Electric Ezine on Amazon. Transport 31 is now available! Colby, Ariel and the Riddles! Great offerings this month! Colby has the "Electric Chicken", Ariel steps up the battle for the airland, and Don and I present the Riddles! Glorious Fun!

Have a great week, Folks.

Carolyn

 Images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 – Stress retrieved from www.themarketingmaven.com

Fig 2 – Jonathan Mendez's blog: Mashups retrieved from www.optimizeandprophesize.com

Fig 3 – Perfection: Good enough is never good enough Retrieved from todaymade.com

Fig 4 -- Transport 31 created by L. Varvel 

Free Story for the Correct Answer

Riddles are popular word plays that help children learn language. They are also a historical archive of cultures around the world and appear in Greek plays as well as the Bible. J.R.R. Tolkien revived riddles as literature in his book, The Hobbit, which is how we got started.

So just what is a riddle: A phrase, a statement, or even a question that is a puzzle begging to be solved. Most riddles are word puns and their effectiveness relies solely on how the Riddler is able to control and manipulate language. Don is a master at word manipulation. Watch out!

So here is the challenge:

Solve the riddle, put your answer in the comments section, and if you are correct, I'll gift you a free story from the archives of Wormhole Electric.

No tricks, no strings attached, no invites to be part of a great something-or-other. 

Just a riddle, just a solution, just a prize.

We'll be doing this Riddling Contest for a free story off and on for the next couple of months. Participate as often as you want.

Both Don and I hope you enjoy the riddles as much as we have loved stumping each other.

Have a great week!

Carolyn 

The Riddle for this week: 

Found deep in forests, back yards and decks

Laden with delight for the pallet

Sturdy enough for multiple elbows

Birth place of splinters

Remember, put your answer in the comments section and I'll get back to you!  

Altercation Alteration

Don is experiencing Life to its fullest! And so he'll be taking the Easter Sunday posting. I'll be back next Sunday - hopefully with the first of the riddle contests for a free story from Wormhole.


Have a great Easter Everyone!


Carolyn

MicroAdventures and More Wired

Good Morning, Everyone! We have gone from three days of 70 degrees to 32 degrees and some snow today. It is a beautiful spring rain/snow that we have needed badly. Hopefully this storm will stay here and not bother the rest of you.

This week I've been working on identifying stories that we'll be giving away once we get the Riddle contest up and going. There are still some minor glitches to work out, but I'm excited about the contest. I've also been working on cleaning up the files for the e-books for sale page on the website. I haven't gotten everything done yet, and it will require time for the web boys to get everything in place, but I think it will all work a lot smoother. It all works well now; it just needs to be cleaned up and sorted out better.

I started the Spring Quarter last week. Great bunch of kids! I'm really getting into this Wired Generation and the possibilities they bring with them. Honestly, they are a bit louder and more social than I expected. Most of them have a sense of curiosity about them that has been missing for a while. One author I read this week wrote doom and desperation and clamor about this generation – lacking intelligence and thought, no common sense... another author wrote about their curiosity, their intelligence and that even though they don't have the neural-net development of the previous generations, they at least recognize the problem and for the most part, are willing to do what they can to be better. They are a more positive generation than the last. I tend to agree with the second author – yes, there are those who are all doom and gloom, but they are not the majority. Every generation has doom and gloom.

My Wired Generation research this week takes me back to Rushkoff's Present Shock and articles about reading. I also read an older article by Begley called "I Can't Think" in News Week in 2011. What I was particularly struck with was the idea that having more choices often leads to poorer decisions or no decisions at all. Even though we have technology, we can still only hold 7 to 9 units of information in our heads at a time. Technology now remembers for us ... I wonder if the memory process has been compromised.

And according to the articles on reading, yes, memory has been compromised. Interestingly enough, what has come to the fore front is the importance of the tactile experience in the reading process. Roshkoff talked about two different types of time – flowed time and stored time. Online reading is flowed – what is happening right now; in some cases like Twitter, blink and you miss it. There is a sense of urgency about it which promotes skimming, scanning, selecting key words to look for. 

Hard copy reading is stored time which allows for the brain to navigate, store, process, think, review, something flow time doesn't allow. Hard copy also allows the brain to create points of orientation (weight, size, shape, place, beginning, middle, end) which is missing from online reading. According to the research and studies, hard copy allows for better understanding, remembering and faster integration for application in the world. 

I laughed when Ruskoff suggested the beginning to all of this sense of urgency to solve boredom started with the creation of the TV remote. The remote allows people to skip, skim, scan – to taste and  sample but because of the "need to see what else is available", to never take seriously or watch in total. Interesting concept. I imagine we can go back in history and find that there were those who felt the record player would destroy concerts, that concerts would destroy the sounds of nature... I know that when the telephone was the newest new fang-dangled contraption that many people felt it would cause people to become less social able.

I read a short article on "microadventures".  Alastair Humphreys, National Geographic Adventurer of the year, has written a book to "dispel the myth that an adventure needs to be an epic odyssey" (Moye, 2014). It is that idea that an experience can be meaningful without costing a lot, having to travel to the ends of the earth. Humhphreys's book will be available in June.

So, Don, it seems to me that you and your LSBH have been on a series of microadventures while you are creating your new kitchen. The driving of the truck to get the new appliances, the neighbors helping unload them, sailing... I'll have to think about mine. I spent yesterday afternoon watching the Nuggets Basketball Skills Challenge. Special congrats go out to my oldest granddaughter who won 3^rd in her age group for the state of Colorado. That would be a meaningful experience – a microadventure.

I was thinking that the microadventures could be like the bucket list I have, but realized that what is on my bucket list will cost some money, take a bit of time, and definitely requires travel. So these adventures are more local and are something that matter to me. I'll have to think about this.

I was unprepared for riddles! Even though I know I challenged you last week. Ah well. I've been reading and re-reading your latest riddle, Don, and the only thing I could think of was a head cold.

So my contribution for this week:

Soft, round or square

Colorful, bright or plain

Protector of the innocent

From too hot

Have a Great Week!

Carolyn 

All images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 – sun Snow Clip Art retrieved from 4vector.com

Fig 2 – Riddles Game Android App retrieved from play.google.com

Fig 3 – Generation Wired retrieved from parade.condesnast.com

Fig 4 – Strengthen Your Memory retrieved from harveymackay.com

Fig 5 – How to Connect a Samsung HDTV retrieved from www.sears.com

Fig 6 – Which Bivvy Bag Should I buy? Retrieved from www.alastairhumphreys.com

Fig 7 – Shop for Kitchen Appliances retrieved from www.tidyhouse.info

The sun king cometh and the ice man goeth.

Hi Carolyn,



Hopefully winter is finally leaving where you are. It's doing so here in a manner that is both  cool and impressive. Yesterday I woke up and looked out over the bay at about 9 am.  Almost mid-April and the white sheet of ice was still there right across. 

 However, the wind was up, blowing out into Georgian Bay and the temperature was finally heading for the fifties and sixties. All the weather dominoes were lining up for a big change.



 I happened to look out across the bay again at about noon and the ice was simply gone! Pretty impressive since the bay is a couple of miles wide where I was looking.  We've seen this before but not too frequently in the last decade so we were caught somewhat unawares. Hopefully none of those hard-core ice fishing fans got caught.



Same thing is happening around the property. Things have been melting and seeping away quickly and exposing stuff around here that I'd forgotten about or simply never thought I had. It reminded me about one part of the Serpent Bearer series that appeared on this very same website sometime back - the ice gets melted and amazing things appear.



Kitchen-wise, its not in yet but there has been, as Hamlet once said, " ...a very palpable hit." As well as the sweet flooring that I was on about last time, we now have cupboards and counters. The appliances are next. They are in the building but not installed. It would all have gone in at once but we like to be masters of our own renovation fate to a certain extent.






My LSBH and I rented a big derriere trailer last week and drove a couple of hours across Ontario just above the GTA ( Greater Toronto Area ) to this monster appliance store where she had purchased a monstrous number of appliances. Then we  hauled them back and implored our friends to drop over and socialize whilst unloading appliances. I do believe we are getting too old for this kind of gung-ho, set up a household stuff .



So I can't yet relate the satisfaction of sitting back with a tea or coffee and musing quietly on the multitude of efforts that were made to bring things to fruition . When I do get to do so you will be among the first to know, however.

Also, it seems that I can't send any pics that I had taken about this part of the odyssey.  In fact, the pictorial part of things seems to be frozen here right now.



What I do have to offer though is a riddle.


Impetuous when I'm hot
Ruthless when I'm cold
I don't succeed
Unless I get around

TTFA

Don

The Millennials and Rebuilding - Seriosity!

Good morning, Don,

I don't understand why the characterless oak floor is so expensive. It has no character, no depth, no personality. Ah well, maybe  that's good too – this way you and I can afford the pretty stuff. So, has the dust settled yet? Your kitchen should be in by now. How does it feel to cook on a real stove in a real kitchen? 



I am picturing you sitting at your new counter, coffee in hand, admiring the most beautiful oak floor in the world, satisfaction seeping from every pore as you listen to your latest favorite musician. As it should be.

I've kind of had the week off – Spring Break. At least I didn't have papers to grade, though I found new essay ideas to try out on my students, and I got the computer requirements up and running. At least I could do this in my slippers sipping coffee without distractions of students melting down. The last week of a quarter just is not pretty! Those students I thought were calm and able became unhinged and had a rather wild look in their eyes; those students who were living on the edge of the grade to begin with began to look like deer in the headlights as they frantically pulled at their hair. It starts again on Monday.

When I wasn't working on new assignments, I was working with Larry and Scott to start the re-build of the website. We've started what looks like will be a long process, but I'm tickled with the changes we've made so far. Just changing the background color from black to white made a big difference! The logo at the top of the pages changed too. Overall, I think the site looks more welcoming and is definitely easier to read.

The next big push will be to change the e-books for sale page. I think I also will be changing the language on the home page so that people can drill down a little easier. 

We're discussing getting rid of the bookcase on the e-books for sale page – it served a great purpose, but maybe that purpose has expired. We have a lot of products for sale and it is hard to read them on the bookcase. If anyone has any ideas as to how to display our wares in a new and eye-catching way, let me know! At this moment in time, I'm open to innovative ideas that work with the limitations of our carrier.

We are also going to be offering free stories every month. How to do that has become the next adventure to solve. Look for it on the website in May and a link from here.

I've joined a writer's group! Sowrite.us on FaceBook and I'm enjoying it! The most recent discussion has been how to establish background conversation within a story. As there doesn't seem to be any preferred method, there are a lot of solutions.

This morning I happened to check a link to MentalFloss on abstract English nouns made from adjectives. Fierceness becomes Fiercety. That really pin points the emotion – fierce is good but get out of the way when faced with fiercety! I've recently started using the word "seriously?" a lot. It is easier to say than "Are you kidding?" So my newest word is going to be "seriosity?" If nothing else, it will get people to stop and think. Rudity is pretty good too. Rudity is not a word that I would associate with many Canadians.

If anyone out there wants to be part of an unpretentious writing group, check into Jim Bessey's writers group.

I've been working on the Wired Generation project a couple of hours each day. I'm slowly getting a handle on the information and research that is now available. Howard Gardner puts forth the concept that technology now engages people actively (visually, tactilely,  and auditorily – is there such a word as this?). It is the process of being able to transmit messages immediately globally in a variety of different ways. 

Ruskoff, in his book Present Shock, suggests that this instantaneous process of communication has caused the destruction of the narrative – the story we create that helps us make sense of the world both past and present. The Millennial Generation has never been seeped in this narrative process. They've always experienced looking at facts out of sequence or as an observer, not necessarily as an emotional player. The values and information of the past is not getting transferred to the new generations. 

The history is lost, the experiences and the lessons are lost which means that there might come a time when this generation has to re-invent the wheel instead of building on the past. It also makes for a more impatient society, less tolerant society. This is not good – democracy is based on tolerance, even though that seems to be something that our current governing body has forgotten.

I read an interesting article by Rick Newman, "If you'rewondering what's wrong with men, here it is". The average 27 –year-old male is not meeting expectations: 24% have bachelor's degrees (32% of women at 27 have degrees). Unemployment for male college graduates is 3.6%; 11% for those without a degree. There are some suggestions from experts that college be mandatory in order to meet the rising needs for an educated work force.

So I've been wondering: are the young men in our society bored? They can connect with Xbox and fulfill their needs toward being aggressive so they don't need to go anywhere or learn how to compete with others in a real-life situation – no challenges because they are always "safe"; everything is instantaneous so they don't have to wait or plan, or expect. They've lost the "fun" in life. 

I'm seriosity here - Don, are the young men just so bored they can't get off the couch?

Well, have a great week, everyone!

And Don, I turned our riddles over to an editor! She's going to become the final voice as to which ones are usable and which ones need more help. But, I'm thinking  that we'd best get back to riddling! The second installment of the Hobbit goes on sale Tuesday... For those of you wondering what the connection is – Don had never read The Hobbit until a little over a year ago. He was thrilled with the process of putting language into a short puzzle – hence the riddles!

Great week everyone!

Carolyn

All Images imported from Google Images

Fig 1 – Houston we have pushed the movie retrieved from dontshootthteconstumer.wordpress.com

Fig 2 – Keep calm study on retrieved from blogs.uub.ca

Fig 3 – Present Shock Retrieved from mo.austin360.com

Fig 4 – D. Rushkoff: Present Shock from April retrieved from play.fm

Fig 5 – Twitch retrieved from www.gamechannel.hu