Possibilities

Life is full of possibilities.

Inspiration: A TED talks video about possibilities.

Exploration: Sarah Susanka - TEDxSanDiego 2013 - (consume)

• "I put pen to paper and never knew what was going to come out"
• She made time to focus on something she loved and follow something her heart wanted to do
• Help people of average means make better houses and use their money more effectively
• Connect to the "Architecture of our Lives" - What's in the way of living your passion?
• Didn't listen to the negative - know what I want to say
• Everything that happens is a reflection of you.  What is this in my life to teach me?

Focus for the week: Reflect on the posts from summer/start of school.  Look for trends in what you're posing about and focus.

• After all the reading and reflecting and looking back at the posts I wrote I'm going to pursue the one that stands out most (aside from all the education rambling I do): The CCC.  It's time I explore this during the week.

However, that doesn't mean other cool things aren't happening and that I have to stop writing about all those cool things.  Since this is the Exploration stage, I'm going to explore, no more than 20 minutes at a time surfing and consuming, finding out what the deal is and trying to work things out.

Let's start with something visual:  I'm going to use Google Drawings to create a map of my thoughts and directions.  Go 21st Century Skills!

And throw this pic in:

It's local and easy to get to and probably means there are other places around here that were done this way as well.

• Should find out where the places are
• Need to visit the ER museum if we have one
• Should find out about a live resource if there are any left (primary source)
• Need some historical research (consume).  Probably a good History channel or Discovery Channel video
• Discovery Education Network is a resource we have at school that I can use - bet there's some good stuff in there
• I think I'm also going to connect this to the Hobo Culture and lifestyle.

Here's the Hobo Art I found earlier!

On Friday I did a quick search on the Internet to see what I could see regarding the CCC in Wisconsin.  Since I had originally planned to go to Appleton, I thought I would for sure be able to find some place to stop near the city.  As it turns out, there was some very interesting information on the site. (http://www.ccclegacy.org/)  This site actually was a great way for me to CONSUME a little information before I started on my Exploration of it further.

I like hands-on stuff so I looked at the places in Wisconsin that I could visit about this and found two very interesting things:

• Nine-Mile had a camp.  This is just outside town and gives me a place to go and visit.  I didn't go this weekend, but I certainly will (one in Three Lakes as well)
• The museum for CCC in Wisconsin is in Rhinelander.  This I went to see.
• There are still reunions (one was in ER) for people who were in and relatives of people from the CCC

While in Rhinelander (museum closes next weekend for the season) I was able to click a few pics.

These are only a few of the pics I took while I was there.  I put the rest of them in a folder in my Drive so I could review more of them later.  Since I was EXPLORING and I knew I would like to investigate the museum more after it was closed, I took pics of much of the information knowing I would be able to go back and look at it later on my phone or my computer.  Instead of wasting my time there reading all the plaques and information I talked with curator of the museum and got a much better idea of the scope of the service.  I also picked up an order form for a book about the CCC in the north.  I think it was specifically for Tomahawk.

What I decided:

• The CCC is definitely going to be my topic.  There's a strong connection to US History, plenty of reading I can do, ties to the local community, human stories and probably something connected to me and my past
• To CREATE something for this project I would like to investigate what happened after it ended in the 40s and what we have currently that is like it.
• I want to travel around the area and walk amongst the locations where they planted trees
• Maybe something I can do is to CREATE a letter or some kind of recognition to the people who served to thank them for what they left for me to enjoy

What I still think and wonder:

• What about the people who didn't participate?  Is this where I keep going to with the Hobo history and culture?
• Did other countries have similar programs?
• Would we ever start this again?

Way cool directions I can go.

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AND along the way, some other cool thing to think about.

Yertle here hissed at me when I went by.  Didn't really think of turtles as being aggressive or defensive but something about the way it reacted when I went by suggests otherwise.  I wonder how I could identify different turtles or if there's a quick turtle (no pun intended) reference guide out there that would help me out.  Not sure I ever saw him eat before either.

This is just in the field across from the school.  I was walking home and I saw a field full of milkweed pods ready to open up.  This made me think about the Monarch Butterfly which reminded me of the butterfly dance and it made me smile.  Lots to think about with migration - this would be the perfect time to do a project on migration since it's migration season.

The more I look around, the more I notice the signs are negative.  Maybe this is why we have such a negative outlook sometimes.  We need more sheep by the road to make us smile.

Sad as it is, this stuff just hit the shelves and it's instantaneously 50% off.  I go back to the original thought that if the stuff comes out of the box and is 50% off then it never really should have cost whatever the original price says and the store is lying to consumers about the value of the product.

Made it out to the football game on Friday and saw many SOAR kiddos there.  It was cold but it was nice to support the team and be around the fans.  Even though it was a school thing it didn't feel like I was there to work so it made it fun.  There's something about the environment that makes me happy.  Even though I've never played football.

Saturday morning I went to St. Germain and helped out one of my best friends with the 5k race.  He was asked to lead the runners in a UTV.  It was cold, but it's a way to volunteer a little time and catch up with him.  Besides, it was for a good cause and I got to meet the police dog and give him a nice pet.

While in Rhinelander I couldn't help but have a chuckle at the display of superheroes.  Makes me think that maybe it was a rough night at the Batman convention and this is what was left the next day.  Why are we so obsessed with superheroes?  After all, Batman is just a vigilante.

Rounded out the weekend by going out to WinMan bike trails (haven't been on my bike in a month) with some friends and enjoyed myself.  I crashed once, broke my chain three times and generally had a great time.  I need to find balance in my life and this was one baby step in that direction.  Sitting at school for four hours Sat and another four Sun is not balanced, but this helped.  Note the jumps in one picture - much fun!!!!  Since my brain doesn't stop, I also had some thinks:

• I want to develop something closer to town that has this kind of fun ride
• I remember blogging about a cooperative effort with the forest service, I should look into that for the summer
• I was emailed a volunteer form from the State of Wisconsin DNR for this winter's trail grooming.  I need to sign it and get that going.

Had to stop and check this out.  Very old and very Jeep mountain bike.  The guy selling it tried to get $500 for it.  I offered him the $20 I had in my pocket and he seemed offended.  I bet it was 45lbs.  Could make a good project down the road about the bicycle.

Ready, set , go!

Second week is here and we're surviving!  Keep consuming, keep looking for inspiration and start connecting things together.

Had to start Monday morning with a little inspiration:

School shrouded in the fog.

The dorky weather side of me aside (😀) seeing the fog surround the school, the field across the road and pretty much everywhere this morning inspires me to be creative.  I totally have great short story and novel ideas to connect to this.

• Woke up this morning and realized the town had broken free of the earth and was now floating in the clouds.
• There's a dimensional rift that finally wore thin enough through to cause use to slip into it.
• The fog is sentient and moving around possessing people.
• Mr. Mann's car has a really bad smog problem and he should probably shut it off

Got an email notification from Twitter.

Holy cow!  That's pretty amazing.  What's more amazing are all the posts connected to it that appeared underneath.  Not sure if you can access the page, but Click Here if you want to check it out.

Some thinks about it:

• Crowd sourcing an experience.  This news story broke and tons of people who went there took pictures and shared them.
• I wonder if, for a project, I could use social media to ask a question or think a think and see what kind of responses I get; it doesn't just have to be all selfies and where I went.

So, for the week:

Something at school:

Students in AP Computer Science

Awesome new method I'm trying out for this class.  Running into a lot of great opportunities to learn and learning a great deal about what I don't know or didn't prepare for.

Something at home:

SO happy I finally fixed my bike.  I've been waiting a long time to be able to ride it.  My stress (and my waist) have been out of control and now I have a way to keep after both of them.  Funny enough, when I look at the picture, I see the ladder and trellis I put in this spring/early summer.  Hope and aspirations that I had then of a wonderful array of multi-colored flowers adorning the yard art were quickly quelled by Mr. Bunny Foo Foo and his buddies Munchie and Chompie the deer.

*sigh*

There's always next year.  Why couldn't they just eat the grass?

Good think, though: Who's invasive?  Them or us?

Consumable Media:

This makes me sad.  I did hear about an invention that is supposed to collect the plastic from the ocean and then ships will pick it up.  We still have to do something about it. 

• How does plastic get recycled?
• What really is the process of sending it from my house to some sort of recycling place and then turned into something else?
• It's a product of oil.  How much oil are we using if everything looks like it's plastic?
• Plastic is porous, glass is not. Why are we using porous material to store food and carry water?
• We should do some kind of work with cleaning up our waterways.

Literature

A not-so-hidden passion of mine is cars.  I've owned many and love something about most of them.  Reading Car and Driver is a guilty pleasure since I'm not allowed to set foot on the lots any more.  This edition specifically gives me some thinks:

• Why do we need new cars every year?
• Aren't the cars that come out just another iteration of the design from before?
• We have a lot of options for financing things and cars (Escalade = 92K). Are we just insane about marketing and "stuff."
• Watched a video about minimalist lifestyle.  Worth watching. (click here)

Work or Activity:

Endless possibilities and infinite curiosity plague the class today.

It's amazing what an attraction inspiration has.

Just checked out the schedule and realized it's time for the Frisbee Golf Tournament.  We have 5 games and scores to get in before the end of the month.  I've contacted PE about borrowing some sets to get us going.  Mine came in the mail:

It's actually a little more involved than I thought.  Each of these discs is different and can be used for different scenarios.  I'm probably just going to chuck them and see what happens.  I think the little one is to mark where the disc landed if you need to.  Be cool to start a sport of my own.

Mystery box likes to hang around.  Must be its magnetic personality.

Saw something interesting at the store this week.

Not sure if I should have taken the picture, but this bike is tricked out.  I think the hard shell case is for a motorcycle or a scooter.  Anyway, it has a backrest which is odd for a bicycle but I'm sure the person who owns it is very proud of it.

Without getting into details about how it's a little over-the-top that I'm here until 8:00 every night, I'm here until 8:00 every night.  And on the weekend.  The bonus, however is the opportunity to see such wonderful things as the moon and planet in the picture here.  I'm struck by how beautiful it is; even better if I didn't have the street lights.  I'm going to try to use a better camera and more remote setting next time to capture it.  I love that the contrast from the setting sun and dark sky makes a transition on the horizon.

8PM Sept. 12, 2018

Thinks to think:

• I'm salaried.  No matter how much "extra" time I work, I'm not going to get paid any more.  Interesting how popular this type of pay is any more.
• The US is one of the hardest working countries in the world.  We put in more time at work during the week and get less vacation than other "civilized" countries.  Why?  Should someone try and change this?
• Minimum wage.  Ongoing battle for $15 or a "living wage."  Is it the wages that need to change or are we just such an expensive place that less can't cut it?

Very excited for the first day of expeditionary learning.  The pic below is from Eagle Lake Landing as we were walking to the truck to leave.  Very cool adventure.  Disappointed that we didn't find more stuff but overall neat to have the suspense each time we throw the line.

Tried again to get a picture of the moon.  A camera doesn't do it justice.

Pluto has been reclassified as a planet.  Very cool!  Makes me wonder how you could accidentally call it something else?

Week One - School is IN!

September 4

It's the start of the year and time to look at how we're going to learn.  Let's start with the blog.  As you were shown during the first couple of days, project logs have evolved into . . .

The "X" is a variable.  Just like in math, a placeholder to mean whatever you need it to be.  Sometimes you'll be blogging about your inspiration, other times you'll be exploring around and discovering new things.

So I took the personality test:

DEBATER PERSONALITY (ENTP, -A/-T)

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ’crack-pot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.

Thomas J. Watson

Pretty spot-on actually.

September 5

Last night was another round of storms.  According to the weather, we were supposed to get over 3 inches.  If I'm right, that would translate to over 30" of snow.  Pretty terrible storm at one time of the year and just a significant amount at another.  Although, it could have caused flooding.

Started consuming a little on YouTube looking for flooding and that led to dam failure and flash flooding.  Let me connect this back, my in-laws were evacuated from their house last week because of flooding in Southern Wisconsin.  The dam broke down there in Hillsboro and caused all kinds of headaches.  Weather has always been a fascinating (and frustrating thing).  It does make me think:

• How do we predict the weather?  I know it's some kind of math and such but there has to be more to it than that.
• One of the videos suggested that many of the dams are already over their life-span estimate of 50 years.
• I wonder how we could build a better dam?  Be interesting to do a model to show the structural components of a dam and how it can be set up.  More interesting to just try and build one through trial and error rather than just looking it up.
• I remember building a dam when I was a kid on the playground in elementary school.  It was so motivating that we all showed up after school to keep building it.  Think we flooded the playground.

So, there were storms and we did get almost 3 inches of rain.  I stopped by a local gas station to pick up something to drink and saw an incredible sight.

After three inches of rain and saturated ground they were watering the grass.  I get it, there's a timer and it turns on.  At some point wouldn't you think enough is enough?

• The water is running down the sidewalk.  Saturated means full.  Seems like a waste of resource
• On the news someone said the loggers couldn't work because the ground was too wet.  Trees and grass at this time of the year are no longer absorbing water.  Some interesting science stuff to think about.

Never too old to be a kid again.

Jumping through the bungee obstacle on Tuesday.  We all went through.  I won.

The obstacle course was brought in by the National Guard.  Makes me think:

• How is this connected to the military?
• I remember a news special about the military buying spots in malls and opening large arcades and using it as a recruitment tool for young men and women.  A lot of first-person shooter games and recruit officers wandering about talking to them
• Do we need to go to this extreme to get people to sign up?  Does anyone think being a soldier is going to involve bouncy houses and video games?
• Would be interesting to talk to a recruiter about it.

September 6

Really nice to have everyone back again.  This is our introduction to the X-blog and using Google Sites to record your thoughts.  I love working at SOAR HS!  I saw a mixture of intrigue, concern and excitement.  Let's keep it going throughout the year!

September 7

Not sure if I'll keep day-by-daying it with the blog.  I kind of like just making a post when it seems relevant rather than making it a chronicle of each day.  Have to think about that a little.

It was a beautiful morning and I was treated once again to a spectacular sight on the way to school.  The field across the road is littered with spider webs (I estimate over 200).  Not sure if its easy to see in the picture but it was definitely worth walking out and snapping a pic.

Getting outside and enjoying the weather is a nice way to spend an afternoon.  I get frustrated when I see people "learning" by sitting in a desk all the time.  It makes me want to find more hands-on activities for you to do.  Maybe with magnets.

Thinks to think about this:

• Experiential learning.  This isn't a new thought for education but one we need to explore more.
• Expeditionary learning.  Get up and move.  There is a lot of value in going and doing and learning along the way.  For a very long time we've called it living.
• We totally need to rock the boat a little and get your brains thinking about learning and then not thinking about learning and then learning because you didn't think about it.
• Need to think about this a little more . . . 

Sold food at the concessions stand at the football game on Friday night.  I had enough time to sneak out and get a picture of much of what being at the game represents: the field, the cheerleaders and the stands.  This is an exciting time of the year when we can get out and show a little school spirit.

tHiNkS:

• HS sports.  Some say they are crucial to education.  Why?  What do sports in general do for us?  Should we push this more within SOAR?
• Leadership.  The girls (and guy - Hi D'Angelo!) are putting themselves out there (way to go Emily!) and showing spirit and leadership by leading the crowd.  How does this affect people in the long run?  What does an employer or scholarship committee member think about it?
• Fans are awesome.  How can we get more to come out?  What will fans say about the sport or the school?

Went to the dump on Sat morning before heading to camp.  Lots of thinks about it, but maybe a few pics to start.

Mounds of covered trash.

What are we going to do with all the tires?  How many are thrown out each year?

Much of this stuff could be fixed.  I think it gets sold, shredded and turned into other stuff.

I don't consider myself too much of an environmentalist.  At least, I never did until I started looking around and thinking about a lot of thinks.  So, going to the dump is something that causes a lot of reflection and thought.

• We really chuck a lot of stuff in the trash.  There has to be a better way.
• Why do we bury it?  I get it: land-fill but don't we have a responsibility to the community, the planet and humanity itself to try and reduce this?  If our little community produces THAT MUCH trash, how does that equate to a larger area?
• There's a lot of recyclable materials in the trash.  Just saying.

And then I went to camp.  Since I started writing the blog and thinking all these thinks I'm finding it takes me a lot longer to get someplace.  And I'm becoming that guy that talks to random people about it.  Maybe I always was.

So, taking my time to get to camp has a benefit.

This road is literally the border between Wisconsin and Michigan.  On the right is a golf course (seems like in the middle of nowhere), on the right is a bunch of woods and probably a lake.

• Borders. State, country, county, property lines.  How did we come up with this and why?  I think back to the "No" signs I wrote about earlier.  We spend a lot of time making sure we have land boundaries.
• Laws.  If I'm on one side there are different laws than on the other.  I could shoot a bird in Wisconsin but if it went to the Michigan side I could not.  Seems crazier the more I think about it.
• How could they enforce any laws on this road.  Just move over a few feet and you're in a different state without jurisdiction.
• If a seed from Wisconsin lands on the Michigan side is it an illegal immigrant?  Would we ever enforce this kind of thing on our wildlife?  Should we on our neighbors?

Here I am at a crossroads again.  The road to the left is paved and ends up on the same road that the one to the right does.  The one on the right is not paved.  Might as well take my own advice and go down the one where the pavement ends.  Might mean something cool.

Weird.  I'm on the unpaved road and a very small section becomes paved.  Or at lease it was at one time.  It's pretty bad now.  It's right by this gravel pit.  Makes me think about gravel pits.

• What happened on the glacial level to cause this underground?
• How frequently are there mining operations possible to uncover it?
• How are roads constructed.  I mean, I'm on a gravel road (or was).
• How does altering the landscape affect the wildlife, plants, environment in general?

Really?  Already?

Pretty sure the first sign on this shelf will be a % sale.

Crystal Falls, MI

This above pic didn't turn out as interesting as it was when I was driving.  The gist of it, however, is cool.  As I came down the hill (behind me now) I was struck by how cool this looked.  I'm going up a hill and the street lights look like a runway leading to the end.  At the top of the hill where the lights end and the road turns is a massive church.  Just struck me as a beautiful sight.  It was twilight and driving west was a cool way to chase the last remaining sunlight.

Hard to see but there are a dozen grouse standing at the corner of this dirt path.

One grouse on the side of the road.  Don't they know it's seven days until opening hunting season?

Still no moose.