People would just shoot: We were watching Star Trek last night. It was the episode where Lore (Data’s evil twin) comes alive and is trying to give the Enterprise to the Crystaline Entity. Towards the end of the episode Lore is pinned in a transporter bay by Dr. Crusher who has him a “gun point” (set to stun of course). Lore goes into an emotional monolouge that distracts the doctor long enough for him to knock the phaser out of her hand giving him the advantage. Data and Lore then battle until Lore is beamed into space. This reminded Steve and I of an earlier conversation in which we discussed for the world would be a better place if people just acted when they were supposed to. You know the scene, its in almost every movie and show. Our hero is about to conquer the villian through a variety of means and they hesitate. They decide to talk to them, try one more time to reason, or worst of all they listen to the villian’s tacky but well rehearsed speech. The oppurtune moment is lost, the hero looses their footing and the carefully arranged plan of defeat is undone. All too often this faltering would never have happened if the hero had just acted sooner.
Blog
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The World would be better if…
People would just talk to each other: We recently watched Evan Almighty, in which Evan delays telling his wife about God’s instruction to him to build an ark. I found his resistance interesting and it makes my second point. I can’t help but think that if Evan had told his wife sooner about what he was doing and why he was doing it, she may have been more understanding. I think too often we, both men and women, fight too hard to not communicate basic things. These things are probably awkward or silly, which can be most of the reason for not communicating about them, but in the end if someone had said something sooner outcomes could have been much better. My roommate Steve, who is heading home for the weekend, wanted to surprise his friends by just showing up. In the end he decided to tell them thus ruining the surprise but allowing them to make plans without him instead of having to change all their plans once he showed up. In general things work out better with even a little communications. -
Geotagging
I have finally finished geotagging all my digital pictures from 2000 to the present. My mission pictures were a little hard, but I am relieved to not have to remember where anything is anymore. Now I just need to figure out what I do want to remember.
Geotagging is a process that Uses Google Picasa and Google Earth to mark where a picture was taken on a map. Once it is marked Picasa stores the longitude and latitude in the picture so that everyone you send the picture to can see where the picture was taken. -
Like James Bond…
It’s like James Bond because it is not bad enough to have to find a pernicious enemy but you have to do so while navigating a deadly array of spikes, magma bursts and a sundry of platforms. Plus you have to remember to look at the camera every so often. For life to be so complicated.
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Waiting in the Woods (final)
“This must be it,” Sarah said.
“Why didn’t we see it before?” Nathan wondered aloud.
“We don’t usually come to this side,” Sarah observed. “Besides, it is hid so well I think we wouldn’t be able to see it from the trail.”
Nathan looked at the ominous gate. It was a lot bigger than he expected. But then, it was a flood gate and it had to withstand a lot of pressure.
“Now, how do we get in?” Nathan said as he looked at Sarah. She was smiling her really happy smile.
“It won’t work,” Nathan said
Sarah relied still smiling, “of course it will.”
Nathan sighed. He knew it would. It was a bizarre and crazy enough that he knew it would work. He looked back from Sarah and into the woods. They were both smiling now. They didn’t go far into the woods before stopping and turning.
“Is this far enough?” Nathan questioned.
“Yeah,” Sarah answered. “Tell me again what Constance said about the Watergate.” Sarah remembered what he had told her but wanted to make sure he hadn’t left out any details.
Nathan repeated back the same story as before. When he was done they moved into a small cluster of trees that they could hide in better.
And there they waited. They waited for a long time.
Night fell and a cool breeze crept through the woods from Nathan and Sarah laid waiting. The moon was just a sliver in the sky, but it was a wide sliver. It hung over the woods like a grimacing smile, as if it knew what would come that night. Nathan started to get worried. He knew that they couldn’t stay out much later, but they needed to get behind the gate. Nathan lay in the grass listening to the gentle sound of the crickets and the wind.
The two talked for a little while longer but eventually fell asleep leaning against the trees in the cluster they were hiding in. Nathan’s imagination ran through the many different possibilities that could present themselves on the other side of the gate. He got so worried he almost didn’t want to go through with it. He almost didn’t want to be there, almost, but not quite.
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Waiting in the Woods
(Editor’s note: This chapter preceeds “The Watergate”.)
Nathan and Sarah made it to the edge of the woods. This is where Constance had said the Watergate was. The bikes wouldn’t be very good through the forest so they hid them just off the road and started the trek to the pond near the other side of the forest. Time seemed to be still while the two hiked through the woods. They talked back and forth about their school work, their friends, their lives. The topic of the Watergate finally came up and the conversation stayed there for quite some time.
They crested Sar hill and paused for a break. They could see the pond from there. The slough that fed the pond seemed unusually still, like it knew what they were planning. It was the forest on the other side of the pond that made them worried.
“That’s where Constance said they would come from,” Sarah said.
“Did she say when they would arrive?” Nathan asked.
“No.”
“We should go down the hill then follow the edge of the forest until we find the Watergate.” Nathan said. He was hoping to not sound too scared.
They rested a little longer then headed down the hill. They were mostly silent going down the hill, both were thinking about what Constance had said. They wondered how Constance knew about the Watergate and what was in it that made it so secret.
The journey down the hill was finally over and the two slowly started making their way around
the pond through the edge of the forest. They had gone nearly all the way around the pond before they found what they guessed to be the Watergate. It was a large, round, rusty grate that looked very old. It almost looked like a man hole cover place in a large drain pipe in the side of the pond.