Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Into the second decade of the millennium we go. I've been imagining the future since I was little. I usually conceive of things far in the future, but, naturally, I wonder what my life will be like in the coming years. At the beginning of this decade I was working on my very first science fiction story. It was about dinosaurs on Mars (sounds like a B-movie, I know). That New Years Eve my family went to a friend's house to watch the ball drop. The kids (which included me at the time) all decorated paper bags to pop at midnight. On mine, I drew an astronaut surrounded by stars and planets. After the countdown the kids all went out to their back porch and banged pots and pans.

At ten years old, I didn't give a whole lot of though to where I would be today. I assumed I would be in college. The idea of writing was just entering my head and I wasn't involved in theatre yet. At that point I probably still planned on being a paleontologist or an astronaut, or both (especially if they found those dinosaurs on Mars.)

So in a shameless attempt to generate some feedback- What did you do at the turn of the millenium, ten years ago? Where did you think you'd be today?

Brains!

This semester, I am enrolled in the theatrical makeup class, and so far it has been a fun experience. On Friday our assignment was to use nose and scar wax to alter something. I decided to create a bite, because it just happened that I would be attending the Morgantown Zombie Walk that night. After spending time with friends I quickly put on the makeup and left for Morgantown. Unfortunately I was running late and didn’t really know where I was going. I reached North High Street just as the walk was scheduled to begin, but had no idea where it was. I found a parking lot I recognized and walked back to North High Street, after wondering for a bit in that ridiculous makeup I found the zombie horde and joined in. I eventually met up with some friends there, and even ran into an old friend from high school who I didn’t know was attending. Unfortunately, in the chaos of trying to find my way there and participate I did not get any pictures at the walk itself. I do have pictures of my own makeup.

Final Product- latex, tissue, thick blood, stage blood

My friend Sam, who works at the Illusive Skull, after she pealed off all her latex

Zombie driver- waiting for Sam after the walk.

Peeling off the latex

Writing Class Dialogue

This semester I enrolled in a fiction writing class. I am enjoying the experience despite the fact that it starts at eight in the morning. Last week the professor gave us a quick exercise. We picked a line from a list and wrote a dialogue in under five minutes. I chose the line “That picture in hanging crooked”, and this was the result:

-That picture is hanging crooked.
-Yeah that happens in this area.
-Crooked pictures?
-Earthquakes.
-Then why did you move out here?
-They say its cause of a tectonic plate, but eventually it’ll be gone.
-But why did you move here if it gets earthquakes?
-Like I said the plate will be gone eventually.
-Shouldn’t that take thousands of years… and lots of earthquakes?
-Well I don’t mind crooked pictures in the mean time.

July 4th at Antietam

OK things have been hectic recently so I’m going to take today to catch up a bit. I have some photos and info that I’ve been meaning to post for several weeks now so I apologize if the next few posts seem outdated (pictures from July 4th).
Last month for the 4th of July my sister convinced my parents to take us all to Antietam Battlefield for a concert and fireworks. The Maryland Symphony Orchestra performed patriotic songs under a large flag, then they launched fireworks.

They did a salute to those who have served in the armed forces. They played the songs for each branch of the military and asked those who have served to stand while their song played. Dad stood up for “Anchors Aweigh”. I tried to snap a picture from where I was sitting.

He looks a bit confused.

Health Care "Terms of Use" Circa 2011

"This application provides access to the Health Care system. When using the Med system, your organs are considered a Federal Biological system and are the property of the US Government. Any or all uses of this system and organs in this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized medical, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign."

House from space

I was looking up information on geocaching.com a few days ago. We went geocaching at state 4-H camp and I wanted to know more. On the site there was a link to a satallite map page where you could see local geocaches. I found this interesting when I zoomed into our address. I’d looked on google maps before, but the image wasn’t this close last time.

Book Review- World War Z

Book Reviews

I’m no critic, but I do have an opinion. I enjoy reading and thought I might share my opinions on what I read on my blog. By now you have guessed that I enjoy science fiction and read a good deal of that, but I have been expanding my horizons. I am, however a very slow reader and ADD when it comes to books. I’m usually reading four or five at a time, but I will post what I think as I finish them. It just so happens that I just finished one…

World War Z

In The Zombie Survival Guide Max Brooks provides us with the cold hard details of what to expect when the zombies start rising and how to fend them off. He states facts and creates lists of the necessities. In World War Z, however he gives us the opposite of the cold information. He provides us with the stories of people who have fought for their survival. While the Guide made zombie fighting sound exciting, WWZ gives the reader a harsh taste of reality (sort of) in reminding them that this hypothetical situation would be terrifying. Where the Guide made it feel like the reader could go out and kick zombie butt then walk back inside, put on a cup of coffee, and watch Cheers reruns, WWZ vividly describes a world in chaos. It places the reader in a world where government incompetence allows a seemingly impossible virus to infect a majority of the world’s population, a world where people are forced to flee the comfort of their homes and routines and wall themselves up in whatever refuge they can find.

It is Brook’s creation of this world that sets his books apart from other zombie fiction. He established rules to govern the books and does not break from them, unlike Romero’s Dead series. One thing that always disappointed me about the Romero zombie films was the confined feeling, which I’m sure was in part intentional. Unfortunately, Romero only gives us the story of three or four people, when the disaster is supposedly worldwide. That’s what I loved about World War Z, Brooks provides all angles of the zombie uprising. You get to see how it is handled by different countries and people with different ideals.