DIY winter food because Weather stops at the borders

Don, 

Congrates on your 40th! And I think your family has good taste to send to you New Orleans – I know you'll have a blast! Love the picture of your pantry! Looks like you and your better half will make it through the winter with no problems even if you can't get out and about!

My grandmother was a late pioneer from the Ozark Mountains in lower Missouri. After she came to live with us here in Colorado, there was always a lot of canning going on in the fall. That fact that we lived in the mountains when I was a child made it even more necessary to can and preserve food. There were several winters when I was small that the mountain passes were closed off and the towns I lived in were isolated from the rest of the world. We had food thanks to Grandma.

Locally, foods are also ripening quickly. It's like everything is suddenly realizing fall is coming and the plants just have to give their final effort to produce. Instead of canning, I freeze. I'm hoping that we don't lose electricity. I've been able to freeze lots of squash and beets, got beans put up last week. Want to do another couple of bags of beans next week along with more beets. We're not much into fruits – I've thought about jams and preserves but haven't taken the time to learn how to do it.

A gentleman that I work with is deep into canning and preserves. He even makes cucumber jelly ... don't think I'll go that far.

I'm amazed at my students when I tell them I've been freezing for the winter – their remarks remind me of the grasshopper and the ant. I don't like being compared to an ant, but I do like being able to eat what I want to eat any time. Is that the independent hippie in me?

In case you missed it, we are NOT on a collision course with an asteroid. Through the various renditions of the story, the asteroid kept getting bigger and the title print got bigger too. But, NASA has assured the world that this collision will not happen in September. Puerto Rico is saved along with everyone else.

What did strike my attention was an article by Tia Ghose about a wormhole created in a lab using magnets. By creating a 3 layer object, with the inner most layer a spiral-cylinder covered with yttrium barium copper oxide to bend the magnetic field, the wormhole is able to deliver information energy impulses from one place to another. Right now the thought is medical applications based around the MRI machines that already exist. What do you think will happen in less than 10 years?

So my better half and I are watching the weather last night; observing the path of the cold fronts that are sweeping down from the north and colliding with the usual warm air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico and we noticed that according to the weather maps, weather stops at the north and south borders of the United States. ... I'm not sure what you get instead, but according to the maps, it isn't "weather".

Only two weeks left to buy Transports! These are delightful 2 – 3 story e-zines available through Amazon filled with short stories that Wormhole writers have penned through the last 5 years. Some of the stories are serials that take place over several Transports; others are individual stand-alone stories. Both Tammy and Jeff put together short story transports this spring which are still available. Take advantage of the low price! These quick reads should not be missed!

Have a great week!

Carolyn 

 Images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 – Silverton Winter retrieved from Blizzard buries Silverton - The Denver Postwww.denverpost.com

Fig. 2 – Canning; retrieved from Canning Fruit Royalty Free Stock Images - Image: 34678789www.dreamstime.com

Fig 3 – Freezing food retrieved from How to Freeze and Store Food | Epicurious.comwww.epicurious.com

Fig 4 – Ant Grasshopper retrieved from MORAL OF THE STORY: THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER | PORTABLE LIFE ...eagleman6788.wordpress.com

Fig 5 – AsteroidEarth retrieved from What happens if you try to land a Hull E fully laden? - RSI Community Forumsforums.robertsspaceindustries.com

Fig 6 – Magnetic Wormhole retrieved from Scientists builds the first magnetic wormhole - Tech Enticewww.techentice.com

Pickled, stoned and all jazzed up.

Hi Carolyn,

These are busy and interesting times 'round here lately.

First, however, I gotta congratulate you on being adoptive grandparents. I had heard from my good friend who taught with Zack, and who is presently over in Hungary still doing the same teaching abroad  thing, that they were adopting.  It's one thing to have a child from the very beginning. But it is surely a different and exponentially more generous, courageous and selfless thing to take on a child from another - wow !






Your brothers  " resume of experiences " take on  the passage of time and our perception thereof as we age is smack  on, as I see it.

 For me,  as a youngster, "wait til next year" was like saying " never" . Now "next year" might as well be next month. It's sure easy to see why so much art, literature and music has been inspired by and devoted to the simple but inexorable passage of time.






The last while has been, as noted above, quite a whirlwind. First off, there's been a good deal of self-preservation, shall we say, going on. Each year we've gotten more and more into pickling, preserving and " putting up" as the elder folk call it. This year it seems everything came to market ripe and ready at the same time. So we've been madly pickling and blanching and making jams and relishes and a whole wackload of stuff. I now have a small but highly empathetic understanding of how pioneer folk must have felt once the harvest was over and they could look into their fruit cellars and see a wall of preserved fruits and veggies that would help see them through the coming winter. That is what our fruit cellar looks like now and there have been lotsa days where the kitchen has been awash in the compelling smells of dills and bread and butter pickles and various relishes and all manner of fruit jams and pickled veggies.  









So, in the midst of all of this alchemy we find ourselves celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary and find that family members who we've not seen for awhile have decided to make this the summer that they come and spend time with us here. One of them hadn't been here to see us for close to two decades. As well as these visits we discovered that our offspring had masterminded a scheme whereby the whole extended family will be sending us to a most funky and magical city to help us celebrate this four decade event.

And where might that be, you may be asking?  Lemme give ya a hint or two - the birthplace of Louis " Satchmo" Armstrong, at one time the southern terminus of the good ship Robert E. Lee and it's ilk, and affectionately known as " The Big Easy"   Yup, we are off to New Orleans sometime in the near future. Can't think of too many better choices to see than " Nawlins". So many treats for the eyes, ears, nose and taste buds.









 

We've always had a soft spot for Quebec City and have been there about a dozen times over the decades and I'm thinking that the whole French/Acadian ambiance will make us feel  at home there, as well










Got a real kick out of an item that appeared in various places online in the last little bit having to do with a serious academic study/inquiry into whether or not Shakespeare had been using marijuana while penning his timeless works. A number of the articles had a definite " holier than thou" ambiance about them. That was the most off-putting aspect, I think. Frankly, I could care less whether Hamlet was written as a " joint effort" or not  ( pun certainly intended ) It certainly doesn't diminish it's impact one atom. Actually, considering that the Bard was, in his early years, a struggling writer with deadlines and such - who could blame him for enlisting some assistance.  

While I was nosing about in cyberspace about this topic I did come upon a huge trove of info about writers who were, as Monty Python put it, " a bugger for the bottle ". There were, of course, the names we all know Faulkner, Poe, Hemingway, Joyce, Behan, Fitzgerald, and Dylan Thomas. But there were also some names that I was surprised to see as writers who employed the bottle as their muse. Among them were James Thurber, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, Raymond Chandler and O. Henry. Hmmmmm 



Anyhow, it sure has been a busy bunch of days. I'm gonna leave you with a Twainism that, I think, helps, in a small way, to explain just why my lsbh and I have the good fortune to be celebrating a forty-year collaboration:

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away.

 He must have time to modify his shape.

 

 

Continue having fun.........


Don




All images sourced from Google Images:

Fig. 1 - en.wikipedia.org
Fig.2 - urbanadamah.org
Fig. 3 - movieweb.com
Fig. 4 - terribleminds.com
Fig. 5 - c-mw.net
Fig. 6 - eil.com
Fig. 7 - btmagazine.n
Fig. 8 - quebecityhotels.com




 

 

Time and Whimsy

Good afternoon, Don. Sorry I've been slacking here - taking a couple of days with my son and his family before they leave for home in China. It is hard to believe that they've been here 5 weeks... not the full time with us, but here in the States for 5 weeks. And now they go away for a year, again.

I think this time it is harder because they brought with them our new adopted grandson, Thomas. Adults don't change that much from year to year, but kids do. Thomas will be a whole different person when we visit with him next year. That will be exciting, to see how he's changed and grown.

We had a family/friend summer get-together picnic last weekend. 40 some odd folks came to see the new grandson, see how the new Papa and Momma were holding up. It has to be hard to be parents for only 4 months to a 2 year old. Most other parents get to break into the instant movement, screaming, demanding, loving life of a child from the beginning. I noticed that both my son and daughter-in-law seem to be rather preoccupied and tired. We gave them a night out last night - all by themselves - they went to a movie and came home early to sleep. I remember - I wouldn't do young kids again unless there was absolutely no other choice. I have grown use to the silence of the house.

My bother was a bit whimsical last weekend at the picnic. He addressed the concept of time - how when we're younger, a year seems to drag on and on. But as we mature, time picks up and speeds by. He thought it might have to do with the resume of experiences that you build as you grown older. When you're 10, you don't have much to "look forward to" - you are living day by day. When you're older, you plan and look forward and work toward a goal or objective of some kind so day to day living doesn't drag you down as much. We notice time in relation to what we have accomplished. Interesting thought -

Are you sure the grass would grow 60% slower on Kepler 452b? Maybe it would be 60% faster - and can you imagine the lawnmower you'd have to have? If humans would evolve into a stocker body mass, can you imagine what the grasses would be like? They'd have to be stronger to stand up. I thought I read that Kepler 452b was in an egg shaped orbit around that sun - which means it is only in the "goldy locks zone" for about half of it's orbit. What would you do for the half that was out of the "zone?"

Speaking for space, I ran across a NASA site that gives the times you can see the space station. It is called Spot the Station  - Sighing Location Lookup. We have several times this coming week that will enable us to see it for 3 - 5 minutes before 10 pm. We'll have to go to an open field as the trees in our yard will keep us from seeing it on the horizon.

We tried hard to get to Mr. Holmes with Ian McKellen as Mr. Holmes. As prolific as he is, it is hard to believe that McKellen has never played Holmes. I polled friends who went to see it - most said nice but wait for the DVD. The latest Fantastic 4 is a remake of the older version and most thought it was "okay"... maybe we'll take a chance and see Mission Impossible.

I'm not sure that Benedict Cumberbatch knows how to do "average, mediocre" - I don't think it is in his vocabulary.  His voice over for Smaug was chilling! and when coupled with the animation, it became the source of nightmares! I don't think Tolkien had any idea what could or would be done to his Trilogy when he wrote it. I've found Hugo Weaving to be versatile enough that no one particular role has influenced me. I find him entertaining and solid as an actor. I also admit that I didn't like Matrix so I didn't follow the series.

Nap time is over - time for music and snacks.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Carolyn

Stellar times in Interstellar places and binge-ing on Bilbo

Hi Carolyn,

Well, first of all, what a great time we've all had recently in terms of interstellar events. The Pluto flyby photos that you referred to last time were simply amazing all on their own.  But,  then along comes the news about the discovery of Kepler452b - a planet quickly christened as  "earth's older cousin" because of its similar makeup and atmospheric conditions. Here's a condensed  version of a summary by the folks at Scientific American, that popped up online very recently:




Kepler-452b may be Earth’s close cousin, but living on the newfound world would still be an alien experience.
A group of pioneers magically transported to the surface of Kepler-452b—which is the closest thing to an “Earth twin” yet discovered, researchers announced yesterday (July 23) — would instantly realize they weren’t on their home planet anymore. (And magic, or some sort of warp drive, must be invoked for such a journey, since Kepler-452b lies 1,400 light-years away.)
Kepler-452 is 60 percent wider than Earth and probably about five times more massive, so its surface gravity is considerably stronger than the pull people are used to here. Any hypothetical explorers would thus feel about twice as heavy on the alien world as they do on Earth, researchers said.
But visitors to the exoplanet would probably be able to meet that challenge, said former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. After all, he said, firefighters and backpackers routinely carry heavy loads, mimicking (albeit temporarily) the effect of increased surface gravity.
“If we were there, we’d get stronger,” Grunsfeld said. “Our bones would actually get stronger. It would be like a workout every day.”
The high-gravity environment would probably lead to significant changes in the bodies of Kepler-452b colonists over longer time spans, he and Jenkins said.
“I suspect that, over time, we would adapt to the conditions, and perhaps become stockier over a long period of many generations,” Jenkins said.
Other features of life on Kepler-452b would be more familiar. For example, the exoplanet orbits a solar-type star at about the same distance at which Earth circles the sun.
“It would feel a lot like home, from the standpoint of the sunshine that you would experience,” Jenkins said. Earth plants “would photosynthesize, just perfectly fine,” he added.




Well... the stuff about being shorter, heavier and stronger is, I guess, okay. I find I'm getting shorter here on earth anyhow and I seem to be slowly getting weaker and lighter to boot, so, if I could magically go there,  it's a positive trade-off from where I stand.

 60% larger  seems to be the key point found in most of  the earth-Kepler452b comparisons that I read.  On a  more subjective level, would that 60% differential mean that people who I find hard to tolerate here on earth would be 60% more obnoxious there?  Would jokes be 60% more funny, or less funny ? Would decadent foods be 60% more deleterious to my health? Would dull old veggies taste 60% better ? So many questions ??



These and many other temporal possibilities are what I will have to take with me the next time I cut the lawn and have time to consider them in detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 
In fact, would the lawn grow 60% more slowly and I'd have to cut it 60% less of the time ???   Again, so many questions?



The slowly becoming " stockier " people, if we were on this older cousin planet, makes for a nice segue into my most recent singularly focused activity. MLSBH was away from dawn until long after dusk with our only 4 wheeled vehicle and I was kept  inside because it was actually too hot to ride the bike ( We are, as I write, having a big time heat wave up here in the near north. Believe me, it takes fairly extreme conditions to keep me off the motorcycle.)

 

 The upshot  was that I found myself with a number of hours to utilize indoors.  My previous DVD player went rogue awhile ago  and I finally replaced it recently with a DVD/VHS combo item that allows me to resurrect all of the stuff I have " on tape " . It also allowed me to finally get back to the Hobbit Trilogy.  I had gotten a little into it when I first obtained it but the equipment malfunction stopped that. So, I set out to view it all in one day.




Well,  it's an almost eight-hour day to watch the whole story.  Longer, perhaps, than reading the book - although as I recall, (and we've discussed herein) it took me half a century to actually do that. Anyhow, a few observations from my recent  "Baggins Bender"

 

Gollum was every bit as scary onscreen as he was in the book. Wow, I was truly, as they say, glued to the screen while he was there. I figure his screen time petrified me just as thoroughly as certain parts of Alien.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Playing a part so convincingly can be a bit of a double edged sword. For example I cannot, without a concerted and constant effort, see anyone but Ferris Bueller whenever I encounter Matthew Broderick. In fact I've seen him interviewed more than once where he's implied that that role pretty well typecast him for many of his fans.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as Hugo Weaving appeared playing Elrond I'm afraid I was instantly transported back to his Agent Smith persona in The Matrix. I guess it diminished his performance for me, as a result

Smaug was far from what I imagined him to be from reading the novel. I can't quite put my finger on just how he was so different. It may be one of those instances where the motion picture iteration actually surpasses the literary one for me. He was well beyond scary and evil. I think a good part of that may come from the vocal performance of Benedict Cumberbatch  - Is there anything that guy can do in a merely mediocre way ?? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I've made no secret in these pages of my pathological dislike of spiders. The spider sequence was so chilling that I was actually contemplating fast forwarding through much of it - they were that convincingly repulsive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time I reached the last few minutes of the third part I can honestly say I was sated and spent.  My spouse arrived back home shortly after the show was over and chided me for doing nothing all day. She couldn't understand why I was tired.

 

 Next time I contemplate watching this three movie saga,  I  do believe I will approach it like Mark Twain approached his cigars :

 

 

 

I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.  

 

 

 

See ya later,

Don




All images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - krwgnews22.com
Fig. 2 - penny4nasa.org
Fig. 3 - www.clipart.com
Fig. 4 - airconoff.com.au
Fig. 5 - www.denverpost.com
Fig. 6 - imdb.com
Fig. 7 - theonering.net
Fig. 8 - giantfreakinrobot.com
Fig. 9 - justkillingti.me
Fig. 10 - nytimes.com

Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, Elementary, Pluto

Good morning, Don!

Hope this finds you steeped back into technology.  I'm assuming that the bright people who keep cutting your lines are also the ones who are footing the bill to repair the lines. I'm not sure what to say about someone who makes the same mistake twice ... you'd think they'd learn, but I know from experience some are just unaware of what is around them and that they can't do what they want to do the way they want to do it. Hopefully the clearing and leveling is now done so you don't have to risk a 3^rd bout with tehno disconnect.

I find your comments about Sherlock fascinating and right on! We just finished, again, the whole series through Year 3. I realize that the both Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Freeman (Watson) are very busy actors who probably do Sherlock for the sheer fun of it, but I do wish they'd do more! Even though the series takes a rather dark turn in the 3^rd year (spoiler alert?), it remains one of the few series we often wonder "what if" about.

Of course, I'd expect only great things from developer Steven Moffat of Dr. Who fame. And Mark Gatiss, another developer who also has a finger in the Dr. Who pie, as brother Mycroft is excellent. I have seen Andrew Scott play minor parts here and there, but his Moriarty is just freaking scary!

I'd be interested in your comparison – I should look into the Mary's of Sherlock – Doyle's, Moffat's, and Downey's. There is a distinct difference between them – especially Moffat's. Another interesting compare/contrast would be the Dr. Watsons – I'd add Dr. Watson (Lucy Liu) from the TV series, Elementary. If you get a chance, check into that also.

I think this just goes to show that well written characters and a good open plot can be transferred into any culture, any time.

Have you been looking at the pictures of Pluto as they come back from the New Horizon space craft? I am just blown away by the possibility that Pluto has volcanic activity and there is a plume of atmosphere that is being stripped away by solar winds. But my thought is, shouldn't that atmosphere by gone by now? Or is Pluto continually renewing its atmosphere? How does it does it do that? Just a thought.

This brings me to the great news that NexGen has completed a study that it is financially possible for NASA to land and create a permanent settlement on the moon within the next 10 years. Okay, so I might not be able to go to the moon, but maybe I'll live to see lights on the moon. So excited!

Just a reminder – the Wormhole Transports are on sale through Amazon for $.099 each – 2 – 3 great short stories in each one! An excellent way to spend an afternoon "resting".

Have a great week!

Carolyn 

Images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 – retrieved from Sherlock: Series One « Hartswood Films

www.hartswoodfilms.co.uk

Fig 2 -- retrieved from Steven Moffat - Tardis Data Core, the Doctor Who Wiki

tardis.wikia.com

Fig 3 -- retrieved from Andrew Scott on Pinterest | Andrew Scott, Jim Moriarty and Sherlock

www.pinterest.com

Fig 4 -- retrieved from New Horizons

pluto.jhuapl.edu

Fig 5 – retrieved from A new NASA-funded study lays out a plan to return humans to the ...

www.theverge.com

What we've got here is a failure to communicate.

Hi Carolyn,

Don't know if you are familiar with the movie Cool Hand Luke or not so this cultural reference may miss the mark. My lsbh and I - especially my lsbh , as she wants to keep up with the happenings at the Pan-Am Games - felt a bit like Paul Newman's character in that movie over the last few days.  We were once again thrown back into  cyber solitary confinement, or as it was referred to in that flick " the box". ( BTW - I had forgotten, until I went back to Imdb to refresh my memory, that George Kennedy got an Oscar for his supporting role as "Dragline" in that flick. )

 But I'm starting to digress, here....





Permit me to elucidate. It all began with the landscapers next door who were redesigning the yard after the neighbours put up that big honkin', fence I was on about a short while back. They had little Bobcat in here levelling the ground, etc. They managed to somehow sever the underground cable for the second time in a few weeks. Hence, we were without phones, tv cable and internet once again. The last time this took place we were visiting family "down country"  so it didn't really impact us much.


This time around, however, we were here for the whole time. It was actually six days that we were disconnected and it sure drove home the realization that our connectivity need is deeper than one might think.





This being severed from the connectivity teat ( apologies to Harlan Ellison for hijacking his metaphor ) did lead to some fairly interesting imagination trips. First of all, the whole Bobcat thing sent me back to that wonderfully cheesy B-movie Carnosaur and the final face-off between our hero and the villain T-Rex.

 Spoiler alert - the dude in the Bobcat won.

















Secondly, it gave us some time to check out some DVD stuff that we had not gotten around to viewing. They included one recommended by our daughter which turned out to be a bit of serendipity, for sure. 


  She gave us season one of Sherlock  as a stocking stuffer last year.



I was, without a doubt, blown away by this one.  For now, just five s-words:

slick, smooth, subtle, sophisticated, and scintillating..



If I had access to the next season or two, I might have engaged in some binge-watching on this one....



Methinks , perhaps,  a future entry to compare this and the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes flicks. I am constantly amazed at the sheer longevity of Arthur Conan Doyle's literary creation. We humans are suckers for a whodunit and always will be, it seems.



Anyhow, I had a bunch of other stuff I wanted to flog about here but I'll save it 'til next go round. I am intrigued by your mention last time, Carolyn, of having Wormhole Electric Publishing " evolve ".



Also, I have a Twain that I forgot to include last time when I was talking about laughter as one of our two best weapons:

 

Against the assault of laughter

nothing can stand.

Catch ya later,

Don




All images sourced from Google Images


Fig. 1 - thepioneerwoman.com

Fig. 2 - testingthewaterhouse.com

Fig. 3 - bobcathire.com.au

Fig. 4 - imdb.com

Fig. 5 - patjacksonpodium.BlogSpot.com

Fig. 6 - btchflicks.com

Fig. 7 - blog.lego.cuusoo.com

Vacation Experiences, Kayaking and a Fire Sale

Don,

As you can tell, I'm on vacation! I've managed to avoid any long term technology to the point that I only have what I've experienced in the last 2 weeks to talk about.

Glad to hear that you enjoyed your Independence Day Celebration! We spent ours with our immediate family - our daughter and her family, our son and his family - all overseen by two very proud grandparents that couldn't stop grinning. The annul fire works were loud and brilliant and over in a timely manner. It took longer to get home than it did for the fire works display. But we enjoyed every minute of it.

 One of the things I got to do was go lake kayaking at 6 am in the morning. What a magical time! Even though the wind kicked up and the waves were a bit threatening - it was worth it to get up at 5. Even the rain was good. For a while, before the weather went south, we were paddling toward a rainbow that ended in the lake. What traffic there was was muffled and didn't interfere with the bird
sounds. We followed a flock of ducks for a bit - then they got bored with leading us and they took off.

The thunder and lightning drove us off the lake, but we were able to return around noon to try it again. This time all the families went and we were where the river empties into the lake. After we got there, there were a number of people who brought their chairs down and tried to fish in the same spot we were kayaking in. Needless to say, they didn't catch anything even though we tried to be quiet and not splash around a lot. But newbies to kayaking are going to splash...

I was amazed at how weak my upper body strength is! Paddling requires a lot of arm strength - I'm going to have to climb more to get into better shape. The climbing is going well. I was able to climb 85 feet last week, managed to climb over an 18 inch roof... didn't wake the dead too much with loud feet on the wall. As much as I enjoy kayaking - it requires a lake and a kayak and a way to get the kayak to the lake. Looks like climbing is my sport for the time being.

I remember that this time last year I was in a cast, totally left handed. The two surgeries on my thumbs over the last year may have left me weak for the time being - but I am pain free. This is the first time I've been able to say that for several years. My hands ache - especially with the weather changes, but they don't hurt. Big difference!

One of the other things we did was go to the goat ranch and help the grandgirls get their goats ready for judging. When the goat is cooperative, there is something rather calming about brushing a goat out. As these are cashmere goats, feeling their downy undercoat is a very sensual experience.

I was excited that our oldest grandson won first place in the 4-H dog obedience competition. I think it is the first time he's ever won anything! Our oldest granddaughter and her dog won the agility competition. As Marty is a Chihuahua, I'm not surprised as he is a fast little bugger! But he whines! He is constantly telling everyone how he just is not happy with whatever he is doing!

Coming home from the mountains we could have used the Samsung invention. Traffic was 3 hours longer than usual; motorized roulette is a most excellent description!


We saw the Glen Campbell special. Bittersweet. My better half and I saw Campbell perform in our college gym way back when he was the opening act for some group now long gone. He struck both of us as joyful and incredibly talented.  These are two qualities that he seems to be able to carry with him through this time. I admire him and his family as they opened up and were willing to share the progress and the effects of this disease with the world.  

A rather callus friend wondered out loud how much the Campbell family made between the tour and the movie. I think it took me all of 10 seconds to decide it didn't matter - they shared the truth of a disease that is progressively effecting more and more people. I'm thankful they had the guts to bring the effects into the light so we can't close our eyes to it any more. Mrs. Campbell pointed out that in the past, this would just have been "grandpa getting old..."

We saw Jurassic World the other day. It is an intense movie! We went at 10:30 in the morning and were surprised at the number of young children the audience! Chris Pratt did a most excellent job as lead. CGI effects were out of this world! I'm sure many of my animations students will have a lot to say about it. The other movie I'm hoping to see soon is Inside Out. The movies coming out in the fall look good - especially Tom Hank's new movie Bridge of Spies directed by Spielberg. It looks like a Hitchcock thriller! About time - Hitchcock was a master at scaring viewers without all the collateral damage that many current action movies have.













We're having a Fire Sale at Wormhole Electric! I've decided to focus on books and authors instead of a monthly e-zine. So, all Transport e-zines are on sale for $0.99 each now through August. After that, they're gone. I have enjoyed the ezine a lot, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Most of our writers have become involved in longer term projects so writing monthly is becoming more difficult. I think it is time to let Wormhole evolve.

We'll keep the books up, and as the writers come across with more stories, we'll publish them. The Wormhole books are also on sale for $1.99 each. This will end the first of September. I'm constantly amazed at the number of books our writers have written in the last 4 years! I've said it many times -I am fortunate to be able to edit and publish their writing.


My vacation is over - I have meetings and updates to syllabi and classes to do. It has been a refreshing, relaxing time -  I want another week to rest up from trying to get caught up on vacation time ...

Carolyn

 

All images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 - The Great Bonac Fireworks Show

lamshellfoundation.org
Fig 2 -- LIFE AS A HUMAN – Kayak Conspiracy
lifeasahuman.com
Fig 3 -- Skier's thumb (UCL ligament rupture)
www.sportsorthopaedics.com.au
Fig 4 -- 4-H Clubs | Cooperative Extension - McCracken County
mccracken.ca.uky.edu
Fig 5 - Glen Campbell Documentary Today News, Videos & Photos
ggregator.us
Fig 6 -- [PDF] New 'Jurassic World' Trailer Puts Chris Pratt In Charge Of The Raptor Pack : T-Lounge : Tech Times
www.techtimes.com
Fig 7 -- BRIDGE OF SPIES Trailer lays on the Cold War Drama - This Is Infamous
thisisinfamous.com  
Fig 8 - Alfred Hitchcock Directors Hall of Fame, Alfred Hitchcock profile ...
www.bullz-eye.com