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While perhaps not as grand as they want this to be, I do believe that education is the answer to solving our problems in the world and if a blog can educate one person about this subject then it's a success.

This is one of the reasons why I am so happy to have the job that I do, even if I'm not getting paid at the level that my degrees would otherwise entail. I have the potential to reach out to young minds and make a difference and educate them about the importance of the environment and preserving it. And while what I teach isn't necessarily going to change the climate, it will preserve species which do contribute to a huge fisheries and sport fisheries in Florida which is a staple of the economy.

And I do know that my journal entries over at blogger about my trip to Australia were shared with a LOT of people and I used them in a lot of my presentations over a three year period to the 5th and 6th grade classes at my mother's school. So I've hopefully reached a LOT of people and gotten them excited about the animals that exist in the world because if they're excited about them and want to learn more, then they'll be more likely to want to protect them as well.

But yes. Eric and I have discussed this quite in depth (and this is semi-related to the topic at hand) and we feel that what there needs to be again is a quality children's science program. This would likely combat the increasing ignorance that we see in adults today. Growing up we had Bill Nye the Science Guy as well as Beakman's Lab. Both shows were designed to teach children about science through very cool experiments that, while flashy, did tend to make an impression.

Instead, we have people (like a friend of mine) who argues that evolution is wrong because it explains how life began. Which it does not, yet no amount of convincing or referencing of published and accepted materials will change his mind. There's also the frustrating fact that the movie "Creation" is not being picked up by US movie distributors because of the potential uproar it will cause in the religious community. This, to me, is an outrage. There is NO REASON why evolution and faith in creationism are mutually exclusive. I wholeheartedly do not believe them to be mutually exclusive and the fact that religious extremists in the states apparently DO believe this, and the fear of their actions if this movie would show is preventing me from seeing what is apparently, a very good movie, is incredibly frustrating. And it's the example of ignorance that would be combated by better education and exposure of the general public to science and its principles.
(( See this article for more about the movie.))

Author: taram42
Story: Wonder is the Desire for Knowledge
Challenge(s): Black Raspberry 25 (The best things in life are free), Chocolate 25 (Inspiration), Cookies and Cream 8 (laugh)
Extra(s)/Topping(s): none
Rating: PG
Word Count: 492
Summary: Mia can't sleep, so she sneaks out of bed to take a walk.

Note: Also part of a prompt from nanoljers, using a writer's choice, bus stop and 14 year old girl. Writer's choice on my part is this song/music video.

( Fireflies )

Was feeling down in the dumps. This picked me up.

So the news agencies are claiming a hydrogen leak has delayed the launch of Endeavour this morning but apparently someone is keeping things hushed up. Eric and I biked down to the riverfront along US 1 to watch the launch and... something... was wrong. The usual crowd of tourists that mob up the eastern side of the highway, parking in the grass was just not there and normally these people start to congregate hours before the shuttle takes off.

Well, we hung around for a little while, just resting on our bikes when I noticed that what few people -were- around were just... shambling and looking lost. It finally hit me when I noticed one of them was missing an arm but wasn't bleeding. Swine flu -evolved- right here in the heart of Old People Central. Good ol' Florida. Thank god we had our bikes. We hightailed it out of there and made for our house immediately. As soon as we started making any kind of commotion we definitely attracted their notice, so be careful!

We're holed up in here for now with the blinds drawn across what I now view as far too many windows and we're trying to stay quiet. I worry most about our sliding glass doors in the back of the house, but maybe if we keep a low profile they won't come investigate.



Cross posted to bliteotw
Blog Like It's the End of the World

This post will serve as an organizational tool to link all blurbs and drabbles of various stories to for reference. I'll be constantly updating and linking from this post and to this post for various writing communities.

( Writing Cataloging Ahoy )

Note: Unless specified by a designation to a writing prompt community, all of these entries are friends-locked and you must be friended to this LJ to read them.

TWI: todays_word_is
RT: runaway_tales

We didn't get to see it on base this time, but that's okay. Still the rumble of the sound got our attention that there was something going and we got out in time to catch booster separation.

It was a really pretty launch tonight, the sun had just sunk under the horizon so the upper clouds of the Shuttle trail glowed gold. Spectacular.

The following pictures, behind a cut to protect your friend's page, are in order.
( Yay! Shuttle! )

Long and full of pictures, under a cut to be kind to friend pages ^_^

( And Cheri spoke thus to the Amy, Want to ride a lot of horses? )

Despite the fact that I took my trip to Australia long before I started this journal, I still think it'd be nifty to share my trip with you lot. I did keep a blog over at Blogger which my mother used for her classroom and portions of it were used in advertisements through the Admissions Office about their summer abroad program. For now, I'm going to share a selection of my favorite photos I took while I was in Aussie land.
I did put these photos on Facebook, but not all of you are there. For now, I'm just gonna photo spam you. Then I'll go back and add descriptions (which I have in Facebook >.>)

For those of you who don't know, I spent about 7 weeks in Australia in 2005 during May, June and July with a little side trip at the end over to New Zealand (for about $1.32 added onto my plane ticket... no joke, I love Qantas) I traveled with a group from Florida Tech and while I was there I was technically taking 2 courses. One was a course in Marine Ecology and the other was a course in Terrestrial Ecology, all focusing on Australian ecosystems. I aced both courses XD

Anyway, to give you an idea of what we did, we flew to Sydney and spent a few days acclimating to the time change, then flew across the country to Perth, hopped into two vans and DROVE north to Broome. At this point we ditched the vans in favor of a few off road vehicles and Australian bush guides and camped our way through the Kimberly to Darwin. When we reached Darwin, the trip was over =( and people were free to go home or explore more of Australia. That's when I chose New Zealand.

So anyway! Pictures!
( Hidden behind a Cut for your Friend's Page Pleasure )

Taken by me at the launch basin sight. I was invited by the family members of one of Eric's coworker's, Eric and his coworker, Brett, just used their badges to get on base to watch it.

The night was spectacular. Thin clouds way up high and we were able to see the engine burn until almost cut off, which was over 600 miles away. When the shuttle hit the ceiling of clouds the clouds literally parted and you can kind of catch that in the video around 1:15


Enjoy the video, everyone.


Note: at the time of posting the video isn't completely processed, give it a little bit.

Fo' realz?





Sorry... I have to keep adding to this because I am just tickled.

I enjoy my sea kittens grilled with a splash of lemon. They are especially delicious when freshly caught.

To start off this post, I'd like to quote something Eric JUST said.


"Washboard abs! Very gentle kind of washboard abs! Like the kind you'd wash your delicates on."
Now. Imagine this in a Strongbad voice. Referencing his own abdomen. This is why I married him.

Now for the point of this post.
( Eric says: I don't like this new haircut! )

Still no news on the job front. Yay more hurricanes are on their way. And this weekend I'll be heading up to Georgia for an SCA event. Pictures will be taken I promise.


Spent this past weekend in Michigan meeting Eric's family. We were subtly hinted at that the family needs a birth or a wedding now, since there've been so many funerals. ::sigh:: Not quite ready to fulfill that desire of theirs.

Anyway, Michigan was pretty and the barbq that Eric's Mom hosted was fun.

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, and there has been a sudden surge in activity over at nanoljers There was a prompt posted just now that I decided to do. I picked picture #1 from this challenge.

( Mattie Snippet )

So in the game of World of Warcraft there are several different servers you can play on. Most of my time has been spent on a server where it's "Player vs Environment" In other words, you do not have to fighter other players unless you allow it. You also can act however you like.

But there is also a server type where you can Role Play. If you've ever played any kind of RPG game it's essentially that. You interact with others to the extreme.

Well, one of my friends (a guildmate on my regular server) convinced me to make a character on her RP server. Eric and I have always wanted to have troll pirates and grind for the Bloodsail Buccaneers pirate hat and talk like pirates in game so I took the opportunity to make a character that will eventually fill that role. But I really wanted another warlock (I'm a sucker for the demons and it's an excuse to just be generally nasty and evil) So I created a Blood Elf Warlock on the RP server. And Rachel (said friend) "welcomed" me in proper RP fashion. I was a little weirded out at first (with the troll) but with the warlock I started to really get into it. I mean, it's like having Adrian or Mattie and BEING them and totally immersing yourself in the character which I've done to an extent when the characters come out to play whether at Elfwood or within the comments.

So then I started thinking, well, what's this character's back story? Why is she a warlock? What are her goals? I really respect Rachel as a player in WoW and this will definitely translate to how my WoW character interacts with her WoW character so why is this one character so respectful of the other? And of course, Maupin was suddenly on full force and I now have a bit of a burble.

Since I really want to immerse myself in this whole RP shiz, I've created an InsaneJournal where I'll be posting the writing. It's open to anyone to read so you don't need to have an IJ account. If LJ still had basic, that account would be here. Whenever I post there, I'll post here with the link so you can go check it out if you'd like. Even though this will qualify as fan fiction, I still want the writing to be of the best standards so please critique.


So please, go meet Xanedae, a fledgling warlock.

Oh it was glorious. I saw Bec there, we chatted and caught up. It was nice!

I took a break from studying and accompanied Stephanie when she drove up to the VAB to watch the landing. I'm so glad I did.

( Second Best Reason to work at Kennedy Space Center )

Welcome home, Discovery.