Texture Drawing

This is the assignment I am turning in tomorrow.

I don’t think it’s all that great, but that’s probably because I’m not a huge abstract art fan. It’s ok as something to keep busy with, but I’m not one to celebrate it as some are.

This was supposed to be a whole bunch of random textures. I started out with an idea that didn't work as well as I’d hoped, and I didn’t continue with it past the first step. I was originally going to do a ton of coin rubbings, and have the centerpiece be the 50 state coins all lined up in order of their release dates. It turned out that the paper was too thick to get a real clear picture from just doing a rubbing, so I scrapped the idea and just made up my own textures.

Here’s how I did the center though. I started out by taping all the coins onto a piece of cardboard so they wouldn’t move while I rubbed them.

Then I put the paper down and rubbed it with the pencil.

Then I erased around the edge, drew circles around the edge of each coin to make them stand out, and created a border for them.

I liked this part of it a lot. I just don’t like the final piece that much. I may try this idea some time later with thinner paper so I can get the coin designs to stand out better.

Quotes

I have had the same “Favorite Quotes” on my facebook page ever since I started using it. Actually, I’ve had the same quotes from the days even before facebook when I still maintained a Myspace page. So tonight I decided it was time to begin anew. I didn’t want to just get rid of them all though, I thought I would save them on my blog for posterity’s sake. Some are funny, others are just quotes that I found to be very true.

“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
-Will Rogers-

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
-C.S. Lewis-

"Dear God, I'm sorry for my anger and frustration, but I wanted to thank you for this day. This horrible, awful, hot, sticky, terrible day, in which I have been totally, totally humiliated; because if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had any day at all. So I thank you. Love, Monica. Amen"
-Monica on Touched by an Angel-

"I claim this planet in the name of Mars! Isn't that lovely?"
-Marvin the Martian in "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century"-

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
-P.J. O'Rourke-

"Happy Birthday, you thing from another world, you!"
-Porky Pig in "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century"-

"My dad said I had the IQ of plankton and I was pleased"
-Miss. Evangelista on Doctor Who-

"Nana Possible! You think your lemon squares are 'All That!' But they're not!!!"
-Dr. Drakken on "Kim Possible-

And now, what will I replace them with? Well, I will add to them over time, but for starters, I just bought the DVD Megamind today, and it is PACKED full of hilarious one liners. I’ve picked out two that just crack me up every time I hear them.

“Oh! I’m shaking in my custom baby seal leather boots!”

-Megamind-

“UGH! Girls! Girls! You’re both pretty! Can I go home now?”

-Roxanne Richie in “Megamind”-

I just want to use one, so I’m going with the baby seal leather quote. It’ll go up tonight, and when I hear something else that I just can’t get out of my head, that’s where it will go.

Foofie-Fa

Today’s post is a very different kind of post than I have ever done before. I wrote a story. April French posted a gibberish word on facebook recently, and I commented that it sounded like an insane poodle. And thus, the story of Foofie-Fa, a pre-historic poodle raised by raptors was born.

WARNING The following story is very random. If you don’t like weird, random humor, than click the x and go read some politics or something.

Once there was a poodle. It's name was Foofie-Fa. Why do I call it an it? Because no one was ever able to get near enough to figure out if it was a boy or a girl. You see, Foofie-Fa was insane. Actually, the fact that no one knew if it was a boy or a girl is not entirely true. Foofie-Fa’s mother knew. Not Foofie-Fa’s birth mother, Foofie-Fa’s adopted mother. Foofie-Fa was raised by a family of Velociraptors.

Foofie-Fa was born deep in a pre-historic forest called the Forest of Fear. Foofie-Fa’s mother, Yap-Yap, had belonged to an elderly cave-woman who passed away one night after clubbing seven T-Rexes to death. She should have stopped at six, but she had been determined to beat her old record. The strain of all that work was just too much for the elderly cave-lady’s heart. Her cave-children were sad, but they consoled themselves with the fact that she died doing what she loved, and in the end, that was all that mattered. Yap-Yap was so distraught at the death of her cave-mistress, that she ran away from home, despite the fact that she was two months pregnant, and ended up giving birth deep in the Forest of Fear. She gave birth to a healthy litter of 4 puppies. Except one. One was not healthy, it was a runt.

One evening a few weeks later, a mother pterodactyl was going grocery shopping for dinner. She saw the Yap-Yap’s family and decided to make poodle parmesan, which was her husband’s favorite. She swooped down and grabbed Yap-Yap and three of her babies. She left the runt because it was just too small, and wouldn’t even feed Pterie Jr. her newly hatched chick. And so, the runt became an orphan. It vowed from that day forward that it would have its revenge upon Mrs. Pterodactyl, and nothing would stand in its way.

The runt spent the next two weeks alone surviving on wild mushrooms and snails, until a baby velociraptor happened to toddle by. He spotted the tiny puppy, grabbed it, and raced off as fast as his tiny little raptor legs would carry him.

Mrs. Raptor was was having brunch with Mrs. Oviraptor. Mrs. Oviraptor had made a fabulous Triceratops quiche, and had invited Mrs. Raptor and her kids to come over for the morning. Mr. Raptor was at work all day so Mrs. Raptor agreed. After all, who would say no to one of Mrs. Oviraptor’s amazing quiches? As she daintily wiped her lips with a palm frond, her son, Klawd, ran up to her and began squeaking wildly waving what looked like a mouse in her face. “What is it, dear? Did you bring me a snack?” Klawd squealed in horror and shielded his find from her. “Okay, okay, I won’t eat it, what is it?” He held it out again.

“I think it’s a poodle, mom.” Her daughter, Jaws, exclaimed, grabbing the tiny creature from her brother. “If it’s a girl, can we keep it? I’ve always wanted a sister. But if it’s a boy we should eat it. We have enough boys.” She glared at Klawd who began sobbing.

Mrs. Raptor took the poodle from Jaws and examined it. “It is a girl, and I suppose we can keep her.” Her children cheered. “Now sit back down and eat. Your food is getting cold.”

The runt survived and thrived. She became the strongest of Mrs. Raptor’s three children. She was an invaluable member of the family when it came to hunting. She could take down a full grown mammoth without breaking a sweat. Her family named her Foofie-Fa after what all the cave people called her when they saw her. In cave-speak Foofie-Fa means “Adorable puppy of death, destruction, and unspeakable horror.”

When Foofie-Fa turned 13, Jaws began dating a teenage spinosaurus. This particular spinosaurus was very sickly, and he sneezed on Jaws. Jaws came down with a very bad cold and passed it on to her family. It didn’t affect Foofie-Fa very much, but all four velociraptors got very sick and sneezed themselves to death. After the funeral Foofie-Fa became bitter. Finally, after stewing in her anger for weeks, slowly losing grip on her sanity, she flew into a rage and attacked a whole pack of ankylosaurus. She selected the biggest one and used its tail as a club to clobber the cough syrup out of the sickly spinosaurus. As she looked around at the destruction she had caused she suddenly remembered the vow she had made all those years ago. Now she would find the treacherous creature that had turned her first family into a lovely pre-Italian pasta dish and she would fulfill her vengeful vow.

Over the next few weeks Foofie-Fa searched everywhere, asking at every nest the whereabouts of Mrs. Pterodactyl. Finally she located her at Elm Nest Retirement Community for Aged Reptiles. Foofie-Fa wasted no time. She ran to the nearest Dino-Mart and bought a bundle of dynamite. She lit the fuse and threw it into the nursing nest. The explosive blaze was glorious. Fully consumed by insanity now, she retreated into the forest. No one ever saw her again. At least, no one ever saw her and lived to tell the tale.

Years passed and Foofie-Fa became a legend throughout the cave-cities. Cave-Parents would scare their small cave-children into obedience by telling them that they would leave them in the Forest of Fear as a snack for Foofie-Fa if they did not obey them. Tales of Foofie-Fa became more popular than ghost stories when telling tales of horror around the cave-fires.

One day a young cave-teen named Clog decided that he would hunt down and kill Foofie-Fa. He wanted to impress his new cave-girlfriend Clunk. She told him that she would be more impressed if he’d buy her a new sabre-tooth pelt, but he wouldn’t listen. “You no need fancy pelts!” He grunted. “You need strong protection! I strong protector! I kill Foofie-Fa for proof! You stay here and cut up cave-roots. We have Foofie-Fa stew for supper!” And with that he jumped on his trusty steed, Tork the Triceratops, and gallopped away.

“Oh, no he di’int!” Clunk exclaimed. She grabbed her club and jumped onto her stegosaurus, Thunk, and gave chase. Thunk was a hand-me down from her father, and had a lot more miles on her than Clog’s new hot-rod, Tork, so Clunk fell way behind. After searching for about three hours and forty-seven minutes, Clunk was about to give up. She decided that instead of clobbering Clog, she’d just let Foofie-Fa have him. Suddenly off in the distance she heard what sounded like a cave-baby screaming, followed by a whole lot of crashing bushes. It was Clog, running for his life from a small fluffy poodle.

“THE BITING! THE BITING!” He screamed, his arms waving wildly in the air as he ran. “MAKE STOP! ME HAVE BAD ANKLES ALREADY!”

“Good grief.” Clunk said to herself as Clog ran by. “What a baby.” She held up her club as the poodle approached and thumped it on the head. “Ooh!” Clunk said bending down to pick up the dog. “This will make a gorgeous new pelt!'” A few yards away Clog realized that the beast was no longer chasing him and he turned around to see Clunk holding up the poodle by the tail.

“Yeah, well, me was just going to do that… as soon as me find… good enough club.” he said “Old club not… knobbly… enough.”

“Sure.” Clunk said. “You know what? From the looks of this fur, I don’t need you to buy me any pelts. Come find me when you’re ready to give me that “Strong protection” you promised. See ya!”

And so, Foofie-Fa’s reign of terror came to an end. Some say that on cool summer nights, you can still hear the ghost of Foofie-Fa howling in the Forest of Fear. Others say that it’s not her ghost, but that she had a husband and a litter of pups and they are howling for vengeance on whoever was responsible for her death. That’s just silly talk though. Who’d want to marry a crazy poodle?

Aphorisms

Last week in Comp 1 we learned about aphorisms. An aphorism is a brief statement of truth. We were given many examples so we would understand what they were. A few are little sayings that most everyone knows.

Spare the rod and spoil the child.

A new broom sweeps clean.

Marry in haste; repent in leisure.

Good fences make good neighbors.

One assignment was to write 5 of our own. I started writing one thing, but I couldn’t narrow the idea down to a brief saying, so it ended up as a (Very) short story. I didn’t turn it in, but I’ll share it here anyway.

100 years ago, little Billy pulled little Suzy’s hair, and the teacher sat him in the corner. When he got home his father gave him a spanking.

100 years later little Timmy pulled little Katie's hair, and the teacher sat him in the corner. When he got home his father filed a lawsuit against the school and the teacher was fired.

I did eventually come up with 5 aphorisms of my own.

1. If you want a job done, tell someone to do it. If you want a job done well, ASK someone to do it.

2. Give money to the needy and you have helped them for the day. Give skills to the needy and you have helped them for life.

3. Everyone knows "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Except for bosses.

4. Telling people to work harder produces the opposite effect.

5. Watch your language, or your kid will for you.

Quick and Easy Fresh Salsa

I haven’t posted a recipe in quite awhile, and other than a couple recipes, I’ve only posted soups. Well today, I’m posting my recipe for a VERY easy FRESH salsa recipe. It’s not GARDEN fresh, but it’s the middle of February. Beggars can’t be choosers.

To begin, peel and core a tomato.

Then chop it up and put in in a bowl.

Then dice up onions,

And Green Pepper,

And mix it all together.

Here I added black beans, but that isn’t a must. I’ve made it without before, and it’s just as good. If you do add them, be sure to drain and rinse them. Salsa with bean syrup would just be nasty.

The final ingredient: Picante sauce.

Since I used hot I opted not to use jalapenos, but you can add them if you want. I’ve made this before with jalapenos and hot picante sauce, and it was REALLY hot.

Mix all this together and it’s done.

Get some tortilla chips and enjoy.

The Music is Back!

As you recall I took the music off my blog awhile ago. But now it is back! I’ve got it set so that it won’t play unless someone wants it to. I don’t have the same playlist as before, but it’s a lot of the same songs, a bunch of Owl City of course, some Celtic Woman, plus I added a song I just discovered by Taylor Swift.
I took out all of the silly songs, except for one. I left the Fast Food song. That one just cracks me up too much. It’s both a great workout song, and a terrible one. It’s great for the fact that it has a good beat that just makes you want to move, but it’s terrible for the fact that it glorifies, “A Pizza Hut, a Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut, McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut.” Great. Now I’ve just gotten it stuck in my head.
I will probably add to and change the playlist in the future, and I’ll post any time I make a significant change.
I had never heard anything by Taylor Swift before. I’d heard her name, but that’s it. Since I don’t listen to much of today’s “Popular” music, aside from Owl City of course, I just kind of figured she was one of those sexed up rockers like Lady Gaga, or some other undesirable degenerate. Then on Valentine’s Day, Adam Young posted a link on Owl City’s facebook page. It contained a song to Taylor Swift. It basically sounded like he was professing his love to her. I decided to look into her a little more, because Adam Young is a professing Christian, and from what I know about him, he would not be writing a love song to someone in the Lady Gaga crowd. I found out she is not anything like Lady Gaga, she's mainly a country singer, who is branching into pop music, and unlike most pop or rock stars of today, she is very down to earth, she writes all her own songs, and does not use sex to sell her albums. It turns out the song Adam posted was not a song he wrote, but a song she wrote. It was on her album, with a hidden message in the booklet, that led him to believe that the song was written about the time they met. So he sang the song again as a reply to her, adding her name to it, and changing the line, “I was enchanted to meet you” to “I was enchanted to meet you, too.” I now love the song, both versions are great, but of course I like Owl City’s much better. The original version is the song in my playlist, and I will link to Owl City’s version of the song if anyone wants to hear it.
http://owlcitymusic.com/vday/
If you want to read the story from Adam himself you can go to Owl City’s blog.
http://owlcityblog.com/2011/02/14/dear-taylor/

A Winter Walk

I went for a walk yesterday and of course I brought my camera with me. I ended up getting a few pretty cool shots. I actually used a bunch of them in place of ones I had already taken for my photography assignment.

I was really surprised I got this good of a picture of the moon. Usually they turn out terrible. I think it was probably because this one was taken during the day, so there was enough light that it could take it in a snap, instead of waiting a few milliseconds, and ending up with a bit of vibration, ruining the shot.

The fields looked like a frozen wasteland yesterday, but today it’s been so warm that all the snow is melting off. I’m glad I went for a walk when I did!

I saw these numbers nailed on a bunch of power line poles.

They would probably keep counting up if I walked far enough. I got too cold though, and turned back when I got to four. I was going to check on the pole before the #2 to see if there was a 1 nailed to it but I forgot. I’ll have to go back and check soon.

I needed a new picture for facebook.

I’m a sucker for sunsets.

Walking back I noticed two trees that kind of looked like an arch, so I walked across the road until I was in a position where the evergreen was perfectly in the center of the arch. And since it was at sunset, the light was awesome for the shot.

I really liked how the sunset was reflecting in the broken windows of my cousin’s old barn.

I love my zoom lens! I can’t believe I got this good of a shot of the plane!

Print-Making

Today we turned our carvings into paintings. It sounds a little strange, a carving that becomes a painting. I took a few pictures so you could see the process. The first few that I did, did not turn out so well. The colors looked interesting, but the design didn’t show up as well as I’d hoped. On my last print, I decided to take some pictures for my blog, and I’m glad I did, because this one turned out the best of all of them.

To begin, you paint the entire back side of the mat with a color, and run it through the press with a sheet of paper. For this one I did hot pink.

After you wash the mat you paint the carved side with another color, I did black.

Then you put your paper, painted side down on top of the carving, and run it through the press again.

The cloth mats that are over the press are laid on top of the print as it goes through the press.

When it comes out, you peel off the paper and you have your final print!

I will eventually post pictures of all of them. I probably won’t get them back till the end of the semester though.

This will not be the only time we use print making, we are beginning work on another project which will use the same technique, but it is completely different.

Working on a New Logo: Update #3

I think I came up with a good design. I like it a lot better than the old one. I used both pictures and then played around with them in Photoshop until I came up with this.

Now to see how it looks on my blog.

Working on a New Logo: Update #2

I did a quick sketch for another logo idea.

And I inverted this one as well.

Now we’ll see what I can do with these…

Working on a New Logo: Update

I had another idea for a logo, not sure yet though. I inverted the colors of my sketch from last night and came up with this.

It looks like a chalk board. I might keep playing with this idea.

Working on a New Logo

I’m trying to design a new logo for my blog. This is what I’ve come up with so far…

This is only the first draft. Let me know what you think.

A Finished Carving

I finished carving the sheet for the print making project tonight, and I thought I’d share it before I head for bed.

I made a few changes as you can see, but it’s mostly how I’d originally planned. Except it’s really not that great. I’m not that upset about it though, after all it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this before. I can’t expect to churn out a masterpiece on the first try.
I did particularly like the center rose though, so I took a detail shot of it. It’s the best part of the whole carving.

Monday we do the actual print making. Hopefully it will turn out well.

Wedding Pictures

This was an essay I wrote for an assignment in Comp 1. One of the suggestions of something to write about about was a memorable event, another was to find a picture and tell about it, what was happening in it, how it came to be etc. My first choice was to write about a picture that my sister-in-law Eva recently gave me, but I decided it was too generic. It was taken at her wedding to Jared and it was of all my brothers with her. Then I thought I should do the essay on a picture that my cousin Mandi staged at the same time of all of us trying to hold Jared back from marrying Eva. So I started writing about it and realized that I was not going to get anywhere near the 800 words I needed for the essay. Then I got the idea to just expand on that, incorporating the memorable event suggestion into the essay and write about the wedding, but I did it mainly through Mandi’s camera’s point of view.

 

My brother was getting married that evening. As is customary, they hired a photographer. In this case it was our cousin. Throughout the afternoon we’d gone around town looking for good places to take pictures for their future wedding album. After a short drive they decided to go down to the river where there were some huge rocks at the water’s edge, with a large bridge in the distance serving as a backdrop.

The weather was perfect for photography. The sky was just overcast enough that the light was perfectly diffused. No harsh sunlight to complicate the shots. At the bank of the river, the wedding party and my cousin descended a small flight of stairs to the water’s edge. After surveying the area around the shore, my cousin had my brother’s soon-to-be-wife climb up onto a massive boulder. She sat down, posing in ways reminiscent of the Little Mermaid statue in Denmark. Fortunately, the outcome of her story is much better than the mermaid of the classic fairytale. After a few poses alone she was joined by my brother for some more shots. They sat on the rock and he kissed her cheek. They gazed into each other’s eyes and kissed some more, all the while my cousin looked down at them through her camera from atop another rock, snapping pictures like a paparazza. The only difference was, this paparazza was actually wanted.

After my cousin was satisfied that she had taken enough shots of the happy couple on the boulder, they climbed down and posed for some pictures with the Best Man and Maid of Honor. They took a few group shots, then some of just the men, and some of just the women. My cousin had them all climb up onto another rock then, this time being a bit more candid. My cousin poised herself below the group, her camera pointed up as they goofed around. After she had gotten enough pictures, my brother climbed off the rock and his wife jumped into his arms. He swung her around while my cousin quickly snapped some more pictures.

As they had now probably exhausted all photographic opportunities at the river, they climbed up the stairs at the bank and crossed the lawn to the sidewalk. They strolled through town, posing romantically on park benches, and cheekily kissing behind a large red umbrella.

As the time for the ceremony drew nearer, we went back to the church. Before we lost the good light of the afternoon, we had to take the family pictures. My cousin took pictures of the bride’s family and pictures of the groom’s family. Pictures with both sets of parents and pictures with every extended family member present for the occasion. Then she decided to get creative. She had my brother pose with me, our three younger brothers and his Best Man. We were to hold onto him, as his wife took him by the hand pulling him away from us, straining against the combined forces of the five of us trying to keep him back. The picture turned out well, and the result was rather comical.

As the light began to dim, it was time for the wedding. My cousin stealthily moved around the auditorium as the party descended the aisle. She strolled along the benches, sitting down every once in a while, taking pictures from all angles, as my dad read from the bible, and my brother’s soon-to-be father-in-law sang. She snapped pictures from the front row, and from the middle of the isle; the whole ceremony captured through the lens of her camera.

After the wedding had come to a close she went around the church, photographing everything that might be of importance, the rings, the presents, the cake; nothing escaped the eye of her camera. She took photographs during the reception as everyone ate, and as the bride and groom cut the cake. Most photographers would probably be done after the cake cutting ceremony, but unbeknownst to the bride and groom, there was still one more opportunity for my cousin to take some more pictures.

The Best Man and my brothers had planned to vandalize my brother’s car. It wasn’t a particularly destructive vandalism, just some plastic wrap, balloons, streamers, and washable markers. They filled the car with balloons, some of them helium, and wrapped the entire car thickly with plastic wrap, decorated it with streamers and more balloons, and then wrote all over it with markers. It was a mess, and my cousin got it all on film. When it came time for my brother and his wife to leave, he took out a big knife and began stabbing all of the balloons, just so they could enter the vehicle. It was such a mess that my now sister-in-law told me that to this day she is still picking bits out of the car.

As the day drew to a close, we all raised our cameras for some parting shots as they drove off together into the darkness, to begin their new life together.

What am I Becoming?

At what age does one become a curmudgeon? I ask this, because I am only 24, yet I feel I am already exhibiting all the classic symptoms of curmudgeon-itis. Annoyance with small children, the burning desire to tell them to slow down and stop running, if I had my own house, I’d probably be hollering at them to get off my lawn.

“When did all this start?” you might ask. “Today.” I would answer. There were busloads of street urchins running wild in the Wellness Center this morning. Thousands of the little blighters swarming everywhere like enormous insects. I’m glad I don’t use the pool, because if it was this bad in the gym, it must have been much worse in there. According to one of the housekeepers, that’s where most of them went upon arrival.

Half of the kids apparently could not even read. I know this due to the signs posted around the walking track pointing out what direction you are to walk. From the direction that they were headed in, It was quite obvious that they didn’t know how to read them. This is especially sad knowing that they were all at least twelve years old. Has the public school system degraded that much?

Normally I walk around the track for around a half an hour before going to the weights, but today I elected to use the treadmill. I was not about to risk my sanity on a racetrack of chaos. I don’t know where these children’s supervisors were, but they certainly were not anywhere around. Or perhaps the meaning of the word supervisor has devolved to mean someone who just looks at the children, not bothering to keep them in line. I hope it’s not a paying position, because if so, they’d better start paying me, the other patrons, and the Wellness Center employees, as we did just as much as whoever brought the kids. (Nothing)

One child apparently was quite ill. He looked as though he may have swallowed a piglet or two, and was slowly plodding around the track holding onto the railing with his head down and his unkempt, curly hair dangling shoulder length around his face. Another child must have forgotten how to walk properly, because he spent at least twenty minutes walking the track backwards. A whole group of girls decided that they were going to run as fast as they could and raced around the track, weaving in and out of the other walkers, like bicyclists in a New York City traffic jam. Another child must have been having a gender identity crisis, and he was not happy about it. He spent the morning stalking angrily around the track with a large diamond stud sparkling in his earlobe. As I was getting ready to leave I noticed another child who had apparently climbed out of the pool and gotten lost. He was wandering around the track, sopping wet, with a towel wrapped around his waist.

As we left the building, another patron mentioned that the bus was taking the children to Pizza Ranch next. I feel sorry for the unfortunate employees of Pizza Ranch. I can only imagine what will happen to the buffet once the swarm of voracious delinquents descend upon it like a heard of locusts.

So you see my concern. I have not been an adult all that long, but I think I may have already forgotten what it was like to be a kid. Instead of seeing a group of happy youngsters having an exciting outing, exercising and going for pizza, I saw a gang of unruly brats who all needed to be lined up at the woodshed, each being forced to cut their own hickory switch. If I’ve already begun the transformation into Curmudgeon-hood, at what age will Geezer-hood set in?

Portrait of a Killer

In my Comp 1 class last week, we were given the assignment of choosing a name from a list of famous historical figures and then using the photograph provided write a vivid description of them. I chose John Wiles Booth. I didn’t really find him to be a very menacing looking man, considering it was he who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln, so I did what I usually do. I got creative. And in Comp 1 creativity gets A’s. Too bad this doesn’t work for math classes…

One cannot tell by looking at this photo, that this man is a deadly assassin. His thick, curly hair and lavish style of dress make him look more like a charming lady’s man than a savage president killer.
Once one knows that this is the man who murdered our 16th president, one begins to notice a few more things about him that might give away his criminal personality. Notice first, the mustache. It is a well-known fact that all the best villains (Or the worst, depending on your point of view) have long mustaches so that they may twirl them in their fingers as they cackle malevolently after completing their latest evil scheme. Also notice his eyes. At first glance they do not look that evil, but if you stare into them long enough, you begin to wonder what sort of wicked thoughts might be churning through his mind. The last and most telling thing about him is the placement of his hand. It is quite obvious that this man has something to hide. Could it be that this picture was taken on the very day that he murdered Lincoln, and he has his gun hidden in his jacket right now? We may never know…

Some of our assignments take place in a discussion forum, so we can read and comment on other students' work. One of the other students chose Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s cabin. I’m not sure how it will do according to the standards of our teacher, but it sure made me laugh. I’ll copy and paste it here, so that you all can share in the humor.

She looks like a very elderly lady that has lived her full life and is ready to croak. She looks like a very friendly lady.
It looks like she didn't dress very well but maybe that is nice clothes for that era. Being the author of a book she was probably 
a wealthy aged women. I bet she smelled like an elderly women. She probably had a raspy old voice.

Yeah. I really cracked up at that one.