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Summer Break

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 24, 2006 4:30:37 PM
This is the beginning of my summer break. I have a month off to enjoy not teaching. Of course, I also do not get paid, but it is still enriching. The problem is my granddaughter started school today for the fall semester. She is starting second grade.

There has to be something wrong. I finally get some time off and she is back to school. We did not get a chance to have any real summer vacation. She ended the regular school year on Wednesday of my first week of summer school. Schools used to be more synchronized in their schedules. The school my granddaughter attends is on an extended year calendar. They go to school for 9 weeks and have 2 weeks off. They go for 9 more weeks and have Christmas break off. After the new year, they start school and go 9 weeks and have two weeks off. One of those is the week my college has for spring break. They then finish up with 9 more weeks.The school year goes from the end of July until the beginning of June.

If her schedule matched mine better, we could take some trips away from Arizona. Right now, we are limited to spending time together around the house and in the Phoenix area. While that is fun, it would be nice to get away. We got away for spring break last year and had a blast going to Sea World in San Diego and then visiting my Mother and Brother in Los Angeles.

My wife is cleaning out her office today. She starts her sabbatical this year. They will pay her to attend school for a year updating her skills. That will be fun for her and stress reducing for her also. She can take classes that sound interesting. The reduced workload will be a stress reducer. She works too much. But, is probably one of the best microbiology teachers in the Phoenix metropolitan area and probably the State of Arizona as well.
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Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 24, 2006 4:46:16 AM
This has been an interesting weekend. First, my wife and I went to Brianna's swim meet. It was really hot. The heat got to us and for the rest of the day we couldn't do much. We both got over heated. My wife stopped sweating, which is a sign of heat stroke. We were lucky to make it home safely.

Second, the good news at the meet was that Brianna won first place in the butterfly again. That makes two weeks in a row. Unfortunately, the streak will stay at two weeks until next season. The last meet was held on Saturday. For her other races, she did ok, but came in near the end of the heat. She got a 6th, 7th and 8th for her other three races.

Third, we also got new houseguests for the weekend. my daughter and her roommate were kicked out of an apartment because of a third roommate. They are staying with us until their new apartment is ready on Tuesday. They got a new puppy on Thursday evening. It is not housebroken. They were letting it get on furniture. My wife and I have a rule, no dogs on furniture. They also brought a cat home with them. The cat is no problem, except they forgot to bring cat food with them. That has made things really a mess.

Fourth, my son needed to rent a car. He is overdrawn at his bank, so he called on mom and dad to help him rent a car to get to work. His car has a blown engine. He says it will take $8,000 to fix his car. That seems high even for the high cost of fixing vehicles. Well, my wife went to help him rent a car. The first place would not take the debit/visa card that we have, they only accept a credit card. The second place wanted twice as much as my son could afford to pay to rent a car. As a final option, my wife will let him use her car and get it on special occasions. My wife starts her sabbatical this week and our need of a second car will diminish for the year. We will only need the two cars on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

When you put in the regular activities of church attendance, you get a full weekend. For church, we have a three hour block to hold our meetings. We all attend sacrament meeting together. During the Sacrament meeting, we get to partake of the sacrament where we remember the blood and body of our Savior Jesus Christ. We also hear speakers selected from the congregation. After sacrament meeting, my 7 year old goes to primary, where she stays for the rest of the meeting time. My wife and I attend Sunday School meeting. I am the Sunday School President. I have to make sure that all the classes are staffed and that all the students are attending. At the end of the hour, I ring the bell to let everyone know that it is time to let out class. This week, the lesson was so good, I almost forgot that part. For the last hour, my wife attends Relief Society. She is pianist. I attend Priesthood meetiing. I am a member of the High Priest's Quorum.

I will be glad to get back to work it has to be less stressful than the weekend I just put in.
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Beginning of Life

Posted by Steve on Saturday, July 22, 2006 3:22:29 AM
There  has been a lot of discussion about when does life begin. Science has the answer, though most choose to ignore it. One of the laws of scienc is that life comes from life. That means that something alive must come from something alive. At no time does the life in question not be alive during any period of its life cycle.

That should make it clear to everyone when does life begin. Maybe they have a question about when does a human become a human. That is also a simple answer drawn from science. Everyone agrees that a baby is human. That means the baby must have been human just before it was born. By following this logic step by step, it is possible to determine that the sperm and egg are both human. They came from human beings and contain human DNA. So, it follows that a person is a human from the time their sperm and egg were created.

Maybe the real question is when is the essence of being a human, the human spirit put into the body. Again we look to science for answers. This answer is not as clear cut. The human heart is beating within one month after the sperm and egg join to make a zygote. Is the human spirit present in the body at that time? That is a question that cannot be answered with precision. My feeling is that it would obviously be present when the body starts moving. My reasoning would be that the body could not move without the spirit being present. But exactly when the spirit joins the body is unclear.

Using science as my guide, I would conclude that the killing a human baby at any stage of development would be killing a human life. To call it just a mass of cells is to deny the reality of what that "mass of cells" will ultimately be. Would that mass of cells grow up to become President of the United States? Would that mass of cells discover the cure for a dread disease? The answers to these questions will forever be unknown unless the mass of cells is allowed to grow into the adult it should become. It would also make it important to teach that person everything they should know to become the best that they can be.

See, science does have the answer to when does life begin. Lawyers can argue all they want, but they cannot deny the reality of the situation. Life begins before conception when the sperm and egg are created. They should be treated with respect from that stage of life onward. I will grant you that the vast majority of sperm are created to die. Only one out of 100 million plus actually gets the honor of uniting with the egg, but all deserve respect. The newly created life should be treated as a human life from the moment of conception onward. It is human during all stages of development. It should be granted the same rights as any other human being.
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Stem Cells

Posted by Steve on Thursday, July 20, 2006 8:18:49 PM
This week President Bush vetoed his first bill. That bill would have allowed for federal funding for fetal stem cell research. I agree with that decision by President  Bush.

Proponents of fetal stem cell research give all sorts of beautiful pictures of what fetal stem cell research will mean for you and for me. It can cure everything except for a hangnail and I am not so sure about the hangnail.

In all the research into stem cells, fetal stem cell research has obtained 75% or more of the total funding. In all the results from that research 100% of the cures resulting from stem cells are adult stem cells. If 25% or less of the funding is achieving 100% of the results, why are we even talking about continuing to fund fetal stem cell research. Adult stem cells have proven more versatile than anyone had dreamed possible. They have given rise to many cures. I will grant that the cures are not for any of the major illnesses that stem cells hold promise, but they are cures.

Whenever you hear someone talk about stem cell research, they almost always are talking about fetal stem cell research. You can usually tell for sure, if the expected result is a pie-in-the-sky result, it is almost always fetal stem cells they are talking about. If it is a practical approach to solve a real problem that has a possibility of being solved in the next 10 years or so, it is adult stem cells.

One reason people talk about fetal stem cells in such glowing terms is that they have not yet decided what they will be. They could be anything. If they could be anything, then they could be whatever the person would like them to be. This results in the pie-in-the-sky talk of solving everything using stem cells.

Adult stem cells have gone through the process and have already decided what they will be. This has not proven to be completely accurate. We are finding that adult stem cells are much more versatile than originally thought.

Which would you put your money on, something that has proven successful or something that holds a promise but is unsuccessful? I know where I would like to put my money. That is where the President is on this issue. He also does not believe that we should destroy life in order to possibly cure a life.
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Students

Posted by Steve on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 4:27:10 PM
As summer semester 2006 is almost over, I am waxing nostalgic for the students that have completed my class and will now go on to the higher division classes.

Each semester I get a new group of students ranging in age from 17 to 50. Most of them want to go into some form of health care field, usually nursing. At first, I do not know names or much about them. After a few classes, I have learned their names. By the middle of the semester, I usually know quite a bit about them and their lives outside of school. By the end of the semester, they are family.

Some semesters I get students that are terrific. Some semesters I get an "average" group. But, the one thing that sets my students in the classes I teach from other classes I taught is the feeling of family by the end of a semester. I think the students become a family because they all are going into a health care field and have a mutual interest. They will be taking the upper division classes together. So, it makes sense for them to build a relationship in my class that will follow through the three other Biology classes they have to take at South Mountain Community College.

When I see my former students in the upper level classes, they remember me and I notice that the groups they worked with in my class have continued in the upper level classes. There is some mixing, but for the most part, students that share a group in my class will continue that same group all the way through the biology classes.

I like my students to succeed. If I had my way, all of them would receive an "A". All of them do not earn an A. The students that do what I ask and turn in all their assignments usually get grades in the high B or above range. Students that do not turn everything in get "C's" or maybe "B's". Some even get lower grades. One semester I had a student that missed an A by one point. I did not give it to her, because, she had turned in only three current event reports instead of the 10 required. She knew she did not deserve the A and was not mad. But it illustrates the situation of not completing all the assignments. I had one student this semester that had an A, except that she did not complete one assignment at all. This caused her grade to drop one whole letter grade.

I tell students these stories at the beginning of each semester. But, most students do not believe that I could possibly be talking to them. It is amazing to me that students will try to get by with doing less than the minimum that the teacher requires.

Another semester starts in about a month. Then the process will start all over again. I enjoy the new classes, but right now, I miss the old one that has become so familiar.
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Scientists are People, Too

Posted by Steve on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:36:28 PM
Contrary to popular belief, scientists are people, too. For the past 100+ years science has delivered many wonderful things for us to enjoy. We have cars, planes, longer life, better nutrition, etc. This has caused us to put scientists on a pedestal and cause people to believe that scientists know everything.

There is a little known fact about education. The higher you go, the more you know about a smaller piece of the pie. A person that has a doctorate in science has spent a lot of time learning about one small fact or set of facts. The knowledge of those facts are extensive and impressive. The drawback to that learning restriction is that outside of their field, they know probably less than the average person.

That is good, because we need people to  know lots about things. It is bad, because we think that a chemist knows more about biology than the average person. The chemist may not have had a biology class since high school. Most people take biology in high school  That puts the Phd in Chemistry at the same level as the mechanic at the corner garage, when talking about biology. But the average person thinks the person is a scientist and therefore knows everything about science.

There was a time when scientists knew a lot about many kinds of science. Benjaman Franklin knew a lot about many kinds of sciences. It was expected back then. Of course, the science was much more primitive. Scientists that do scientific experiments today have to have extensive knowledge in their field. Back then scientists were still learning about science.

We need to all realize that a scientist outside of their field is no better than the average person in their knowledge of the subject. In fact, his/her knowledge may be less because of the extensive amount of time they spend in studying their field.
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Global Warming

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 17, 2006 6:41:50 PM
There are news reports that June was the warmest on record. What that does not say is that the record only goes back 100-150 years with any accuracy. Records from that short a period of time are meant to be broken, and often.

Global warming believers will say that proves there is Global Warming. That does not prove global warming. It just proves that we had a June that was hotter than any recorded in the last 100 or so years. Do we have data on June 1006? No, we only have data on tree rings and the like. They can give us an indicator on the amount of moisture, they do not tell us much about the temperature of the area.

We do have relative temperature data. That suggests that maybe it was warmer 1000 years ago than it is today. The biggest evidence is the Vikings settlements in Greenland. When they settled in Greenland, they had very primitive agricultural techniques. Even with those primitive techniques, they were able to support a community of over 20,000 people. They were also able to support people to go exploring. That talks of surpluses in agricultural production. Maybe not every year, but often enough to allow them to do things other than just survive. A community like that could not survive in Greenland today using those same primitive agricultural techniques. The community would have starvation diets at best today. The community could not support even 5,000 people. The environment had to be warmer than it is today. Logic says that has to be the case.

Scare mongers of today are just trying to get money out of your pocket and into theirs. It may go through a government agency first, but that is the goal. We should demand real science from those that get the grants. We just allow junk science experiments conducted in a scientific manner by scientists to blind us to the truth. We are being played for fools. Many scientists are protesting the lack of scientific accountability in global warming science today. They are being shouted down by those that believe in global warming.

Global warming and other environmentalist junk is really a religion. There is faith and other activities. You cannot question any article of faith or be branded a heretic. That is what is going on today. It just makes me sick to see people believe these lies. 
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Posted by Steve on Sunday, July 16, 2006 11:57:06 PM
Had a hard time getting to the computer today. My 7 year old granddaughter, got on it while I made breakfast and I never got to it all day.

There was a special on Global Warming on tonight. I had to turn it off after a short time. My wife got mad at me for yelling at the television. I do that when I get upset with things on TV. This was an especially bad program The science was mostly junk. The conclusions were designed to make people afraid. That is no way to be a responsible scientist. A scientist should be concerned with the facts and the facts only. The scare tactics should be left to the left wing loonies that inhabit the environmentalist movements in the US.

I long for the day when scientists were supposed to be in search of the truth. That day seems long gone. Scientists are more concerned with the scariest headline. I am so disappointed in my fellow scientists.

Political correctness is also destroying the level of scientific expertise at our colleges and universities. I have seen that during the recent hiring process at my college. The head of one of the committes said she wanted the best candidate for the job and that candidate will be a minority. That is a stupid thing to say. First you say you want the best candidate for the job. That everyone can agree with. Then you say you want to exclude most of the candidates on the basis of race and/or sex. That means you want the best minority candidate for the job. They got the best minority candidate for the job.

In the othe job advertised, they did not make a stupid statement like the other committee. They just picked their candidate and tailored the advertisement, and all job related criteria for that one person. Even when it was shown that that individual did not know anything about the topic, the committee still selected him. They had to change the rules of the selecting committee, as one other person got rated higher. So, they just made sure that person was not on the final list.

It is almost like scientists are trying to eliminate science education from our colleges and universities. When people are hired on the basis of race or selected when shown they cannot teach the subject they are expected to teach, the only conclusion can be that the selectors are trying to eliminate the science department from the school. It could be that they are really racists and do not care about science, but I do not like to think in those terms. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
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Scientific Sheep

Posted by Steve on Saturday, July 15, 2006 1:48:51 PM
First, I must get a little personal. My granddaughter, Brianna, won one race today in the 7-8 year old group. She won a blue ribbon in the Butterfly. That is a stroke I cannot do and am envious of anyone who can.

My rant today is about "Scientists" making predictions of dire events to occur in the future. One of the latest is people predicting that 1 billion people will die from second hand smoke in the next 10 years. That is a little ridiculous. First, the study that reports that second hand smoke is so dangerous was undoubtedly flawed. The results were too unmistakable to be believed. Previous studies had stated that second hand smoke, while not danger free, was not very dangerous. There will need to be studies to confirm this latest prediction. My guess is that these further studies will come in less clear cut on the danger of second hand smoke.

Another prediction in the 1970's was that we only had enough oil to last until the year 2000. It is now 2006 and we have not run out of oil by any stretch of the imagination. People conveniently forget that prediction because it was so wrong. But, if someone predicts that we only have enough oil to last until the year 2040, people will trumpet it from the housetops. Even though, it is probably as wrong as the first prediction.

People that believe in Global Warming forget that in the 1970's people were prediction Global Cooling. We were supposed to be starting a new ice age shortly after the turn of the century in 2001. That has not happened either. Are we supposed to believe the predictions of dire things happening because of Global Warming? I think not. These predictions are based on computer models that are based on flawed ideas. Any predictions they make from these computer models is wrong. We can probably place bets on the prediction being wrong and have a greater chance of winning than if we bet on the prediction being right.

It just galls me that people can be so gullible. Just because person A is a scientist, that does not make him smarter than you or I. It just means he went to school and studied science. He/she probably took classes from the sheep that believe in global warming and so doesn't know any more about the truth than my dog does. Scientists should question these established ideas and try to prove them right or wrong. They should not blindly follow where the ignorant lead us.
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Students

Posted by Steve on Friday, July 14, 2006 2:26:33 PM
Summer school is now about over and I am amazed at the ingenuity of students about getting out of work. If you give them a 5 page assignment, they will try to get by on 4.5 pages or maybe even 4.25. If you give them an assignment that requires some effort, they will do the minimum or less. I use chapter quizzes to help students learn. They can take the quizzes any time they want and as many times as they want to get the maximum of 5 points for that quiz. In over six years of teaching 2 or more classes per semester, only two times did everyone get the full 5 points for the chapters on that test. That to me is amazing. If I was given that opportunity, I would have made sure that my quiz scores were 5's. Now I must admit that 75% or more of the students do ge the full score. But some wait until the test to take the quiz, defeating the purpose of having them take the quizzes many times.

On research reports, my students are required to have at least 5 pages on the report. This is the body of the report, the title page and reference list is separate. In a class of 24 students, I will get 5-8 that are over 5 pages. I get about 10-15 that are between 4.25 and 5 pages and the rest are below 5 pages. With the topics the students have, like diabetes, they should not have a problem getting over 5 pages. With the paper being a research report, they should tell me what source they used to make claims in each paragraph. Over 50% fail to tell me their sources until I remind them. It is not as they haven't been told. It is in the instruction sheet and I tell them at least once a week until the report is completed. They still fail to follow instructions.

Students also like to play one instructor off against another one. My wife is teaching a couple of lecture classes. Another instructor is teaching the lab. Students will ask my wife for a special priviledge and get one message. If they don't like that answer, they go to the other instructor and try again. They will go back and forth until they get an answer they want. Sometimes they will say that the other instructor said one thing, and they really gave them essentially the same answer as the first instructor. This causes friction between the instructors until they get to talk. That is something the kids usually learn at home getting one answer from one parent and another from the other parent.

Most students are great. There are just a few that cause almost all of the problems. In my classes, there is one or two that cause 95% of the problems. Those I am glad to see finish my courses. The rest I am sorry to see them go.
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Scientists, Blind?

Posted by Steve on Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:28:38 PM
Today, I had a conversation with a person that believes in evolution. When I explained my theory that somebody or something placed life here and then evolution was used, was rejected outright. He did not want to even hear my theory. He had to expound on his theory that life was created from non-life. According to the natural laws, that should be impossible. This person even teaches this to his students. He is incapable of seeing that he is teaching and believing in something that he also teaches is impossible.

Most people have a picture of scientists searching for truth. This is true for the most part. Scientists, probably more than most other groups, have their ideas they hold onto in the face of evidence. One of the problems with science is scientists rejecting evidence that disproves their theories and only looking for the data that will support their opinion.

Growing up, I had believed that that thinking had died. I had been taught in school that scientists look for truth and when they find it, they publish it for the world. In practice this almost never seems to happen. My brother has discovered a way to grow Hepatitis C virus outside of living human tissue. When he tried to tell the world that they were looking in the wrong place to grow Hepatitis C, the prople in the forefront of the research tried to bury his information. If my brother's information had gotten out to funding sources, they would have sent some funds to my brother. That would have taken funding away from the other researchers. Money is more important in this issue than finding a cure for Hepatitis C. How many people will die before a cure is found?

My general opinion of scientists is that they are sheep. They are afraid to stick their neck out and look at anything controversial. They do this out of fear of being branded a "kook". A kook does not get money for research. Money for research has paid for expensive houses and expensive cars for the researchers. That is a shame. I only know of this one instance for sure. But, how many other instances are there of scientists ignoring things that could cure diseases because they wanted funding for their pet ideas? I bet the funding sources would love to know the answer to that question.  
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Response to Terrorism

Posted by Steve on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 1:26:34 PM
I was going to write again about science, but the bombings in India and the kidnapping in Israel need comments.

India had some bombings on some commuter trains. Over 190 people were killed and hundreds injured. I heard a report that they have captured those responsible for the bombings. If that is so, they should throw the book at them. Mass murderers deserve to die. These people, if you can call them people, killed lots of people. Therefore, if found guilty, they should die as a result. How they die is not as important as that they die. If terrorists want to kill people, they should be ready for death.

I really like Israel's approach to those that commit terrorism against them. They track down the family of the terrorist and destroy their home. This has not stopped terrorists and has given Israel a bad name in the world, but I believe it is the way to treat terrorists. You have to kill the terrorist and then go after their family. The family obviously supported the terrorist to do the terrible act of killing innocent people. The family should be made to pay in some manner. Monetarily is not the way to pay. They need to make a physical payment. I do not mean death or anything like death. Destroying their home and leveling it to the ground is one way to discourage people from committing acts of terrorism. If terrorists know that their families will be thrown out of shelter by their act of terrorism, then maybe they will think again about how important this stupid act really is. If their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents are without a place to live, then they may think their family means more. I know civil rights groups will scream bloody murder about destroying the homes of terrorist families, but the benefit would far outweigh the problem

Israel is now entering Lebanon to find their soldiers that were captured by terrorists. There should be no negotiation with terrorists. I say that thousands of miles away and unrelated to the events. I would say it if it was me that was captured or one of my family. We cannot give in to terrorists. Giving in once will encourage many more to try the same technique. They only understand one language. The language of power. A strong show of force when a terrorist makes their play is the only way to treat with terrorists.

I wish those suffering now will have their pain can reduced. I do not wish anyone ill. It is my goal to be friendly with everyone and I expect everyone to be friendly with me. So far, it has worked throughout my life. There have been a couple of people, when I was a Deputy Sheriff, that I met those that were truly evil, but it usually works. This holds true even for those that have committed terrible crimes.
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Immigration under the rug

Posted by Steve on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 4:30:56 PM
One group left out of most discussions about immigration is the group that came here as infants and have lived their entire life in the U.S. My wife and I know a family that have a member that came here when she was 4 months old. She grew up in Arizona and has lived her entire life here. She went to public school and speaks excellent English.

She is technically an illegal alien. She doesn't think of herself as an illegal alien. She thinks of herself as an American. She knows she is not a legal citizen, but considers herself one in everything except for the paperwork.

There was a news story about a group of students that won some award and had trouble because part of all of the group were technically illegal aliens. The problem they had was that they had never lived anywhere except for Phoenix, AZ. The government wanted them to go back "home" and come here legally. To them, Phoenix, AZ was home. The federal government did not consider Phoenix their home. I do not remember how the situation turned out, but it had to be traumatic for those kids.

In all of the discussions I have heard about immigration, these people are left out. When I wrote Senator Kyl about this, he just wrote back about illegal immigration. He did not address this special group of illegal immigrants.
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Global Warming

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 10, 2006 4:37:01 PM
The entire "environmental" movement has me confused. They say they want a better environment, yet when presented with a scenario that would improve the environment, they turn it down. When I worked for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, I worked with ranchers to develop comprehensive grazing plans. These plans would be designed to improve the quality of habitat for all within the grazing area. When the plan was presented to an "environmentalist", they would reject it. Their goal was to remove livestock from the grazing area. Their argument was that it improved the vegetation to remove grazing from an area. That was true, for the first few years. After three or four years, the vegetation in the area would start to decline. The decline in vegetation would continue until the area was almost unfit for any wildlife or livestock. The only way to prevent this was to keep livestock grazing in the area. If the area was kept for livestock use, the improvements put in would be maintained. There would be water for livestock and wildlife. There would be cover for wildlife to hide it and food for wildlife to eat. All of this and livestock grazing on top of it all. Everybody should have been happy. But, no, "environmentalists" would want livestock removed.

My only conclusion can be that the "environmentalist" is not interested in the environment. They have another agenda that is driving their thinking. They are just using the positive sounding environmental message to promote their real agenda. They enlist the aid of the most gullible of people to promote their agenda, like movie stars. Most movie stars have little or no education and are unable to see the real agenda behind the message. In my humble opinion, the real agenda is to destroy western civilization and bring communism or some other socialist based culture in. Because their answer to everything is for the United States to stop doing something good and take a step back in the way we do things.

I must admit that because of the environmental movement, the environment is much cleaner than it was before the environmental movement. But when  you look at the movement, you see people that are more interested in something else than the environment. In fact, some of them are doing things that are actually causing more harm to the environment than the thing they are protesting against. It would be nice if they would actually get a brain. But that would probablly be too much to ask.
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Posted by Steve on Sunday, July 09, 2006 11:48:53 AM
Yesterday, I met with my 20 year-old son. When I told him that I had started to write a blog, he laughed. I am probably the last person that would have started a blog. I have resisted writing anything for years. My church teaches that we should keep a journal. In fact, my Priesthood lesson today is on keeping a journal. How irionic is that, I finally start a blog the week of my lesson. This after more years than I am willing to admit resisting. It still is not a journal in the strictest sense, but for me, it is a big step forward.

My wife has kept a journal all of our married life. That journal has come in handy. In a couple of cases, we needed documentation of something. Having her journal was documentation enough, because she faithfully kept it up every night. It was able to refute people's memories of the situation. It has also helped us document when things have happened and how often they have happened over a specific time period. And this is on top of the intrinsic value of having that daily history written down for future generations to look at and wonder at life in the late 20th century and early 21st century.

There are people that I wish had kept a journal throughout history. The fact that so few people did keep a journal is indicative of how difficult a job it really is. I hope that my efforts in this blog keep up and I am successful in putting my thoughts out to the world.
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