Sunday, December 23, 2007

Heather bedtime story

I noticed that there was not a bedtime story about Heather, so here is my contribution. Crystal

The Good Fairy Heather

Once upon a time there was a good fairy with a magical fairy coat. She loved her beautiful coat and wore it as she did good deeds all across the land. She wore it while she directed other fairies in doing good deeds and she believed that the coat was the key to her success.

Throughout her fairy home she wore her coat as she spread peace and kindness, rising to the high position of designated hugger of fairyland.

At school she used the magical powers of the coat to protect the helpless and downtrodden by taking calculated risks in a great battle with the wicked Magician Peterson. She sustained wounds in this fierce exchange and was unsuccessful at confining the Magician to the dungeon, yet her magical coat protected her from serious injury and she continued onward spreading goodness throughout the land.

Then one day while she was visiting the house of worship and contemplating additional good deeds to do a terrible thing happened. A wicked troll seeking greater magical powers absconded with the good fairy’s precious fairy coat.

The good fairy was thunderstruck. How could her coat be gone, and with it all of her magical powers including the powers to legally operate fairy vehicles and to purchase things in fairyland (though it should be noted that this power was minuscule even before the theft).

The good fairy realizing that wicked trolls lurked nearby moved to Loganland where it was much colder. Luckily the fairy’s mother provided her a new coat, albeit an unmagical one. With her unmagical coat the good fairy was unsure of her abilities to navigate this new land; luckily one of her sister fairies lived in this new land and was able to show her the realm. Soon the good fairy was traveling across Loganland doing good deeds and meeting the many different creatures that lived there. She met princesses, trolls, gnomes and trollusks, but she did not find any of the creatures as interesting as the geeky gremlin Math-thew. Math-thew was trapped in the computer kingdom and was only able to occasionally visit the rest of Loganland.

Without her magical powers the good fairy was unable to completely rescue the gremlin from his geeky fate, however she has helped him to emerge from it at least one full day a week and some evenings.

The good fairy and the gremlin Math-thew continue to reside in Loganland and the good fairy continues to do good deeds including teaching little fairies to say fairy words and helping them to share their toys with other little fairies.
The End

Friday, December 21, 2007

Christmas Form Letter

I decided to do a Christmas form letter in the form of a photo blog this year. You can check it out here.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Eric's Story

Uncle Eric doesn’t say much. Perhaps it is the result of being the youngest of five children, there were always plenty of people to speak for him. Whatever the reason, he has never said much. However, there was one day when he sang, loudly.

At Christmas time when Eric was in elementary school, his class prepared a special choir program. On this particular day, Eric was showering while the rest of the family at dinner. As the bathroom was next to the dinning room, it was not unusual to hear the fan or the water running in the bathroom from the dinning room. But no one expected to hear—loud and clear—Eric’s voice belting out, “Santa needs help in Mexico, Mexico, Mexico.” The song went on and so did Eric. The family was so surprised to hear unobtrusive Eric singing so enthusiastically that we all stopped eating and listened to his performance.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Fruitful Blog Reading

I thought I'd share with you two good finds from Ryan's blog reading this week:
  1. Pixelwhimsy—This is a great program for kids. They can bang away on the computer without hurting anything. (Courtesy of Marginal Revolution)
  2. And a great tip on sleeping from Scott Adams creator of Dilbert. With a bit of editing, here's what he says:

Sleeping Skill

I can take a nap almost anywhere. When I travel, I’m often asleep before the flight takes off. I can even fall asleep in the dentist’s chair waiting for the Novacaine to kick in. At night, I’m asleep in about five minutes.

I wasn’t always that way. Falling asleep is a skill. I’ll tell you my method.

I always start by creating a simple story in my head where something good, and highly unlikely, happens to me. The trick is to focus on something that is more fascinating than your real life. Maybe you are winning a prestigious award, inventing something that changes the world... The images should be more attractive than whatever bothersome thoughts would float into your head if you weren’t so busy fantasizing.

After a minute or two of that, I release all controlled thoughts and simply watch what floats by. When my eyes are closed, the part of my brain that interprets vision is apparently still active, because I can see all sorts of random objects drifting by, as if a mall exploded in space. I try to identify and name them as I see them.

Toaster…car…pencil…couch…snow blower, mitten, etc.

The next thing I know, I wake up.

That’s my method. What do you think about when you are trying to sleep?