Public Verses Private

Public Verses Private

In the early, 1900’s Samuel Langley with 70,000 dollars of public fund attempted to make the first aircraft fly in the air. You probably never have heard of the director of Smithsonian and his attempt at inventing the first flying machine. Why? The reason was that he failed.

At the same time, in Kitty Hawk North Carolina two brothers with less than 1,000 dollars, (All earned from their bicycle shop.) succeeded in flying craft. They did it with a lot of failures, setbacks, and disappointments. They never gave up, and the rest is history.

Inside Out

Inside Out, a visual of a girl's feelings: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. The creators had to figure out how the emotions should look inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley.

Pete Docter, writer, director says, "For those of us that lived it, this has been literally years and years of trying different things before we arrived where we did."

After thousands of drawings, "if we did our jobs right, we could really represent these emotions for people. They could imagine these characters when they feel a certain emotion."

The main emotion is female, but the rest are split between the sexes. He wanted as much diversity. He wanted Riley's joy to be explosive, like a sparkler. She just wants to run out and play. Riley's sadness is literally blue, shaped like a teardrop and is always in pajamas.

"Disgust is the one looking out for Riley's social status at school."

Fear is like Don Knotts. "Knotts was the kind of guy who could bring sophistication and then flip on a dime," says Docter.

Refugees

Refugees

“Living in Somalia is like being in hell. My neighbors in Somalia were all killed by militants before I moved with my family,” said Alisha, 27.

Those involved in terror activities have been trained at the refugee camps. The Kenya government insists the camp should be shut down. But the 350,000 refugees, mostly Somalis who have fled say they won’t willingly leave Dadaab.

“I will either live or die at this camp,” says Abdi Mahammed Adan, 37. “I can’t go back to Somalia. It’s not safe. And there is hunger there.”

Pluto

I grew up fascinated with the solar system and NASA. My childhood took me through the 70's and the moon landings. "We will have a man on the moon by the end of this decade," a speech by John F. Kennedy, sounded in my world.

I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon from my grandfather's small TV set. My family squeezed into his small room and became part of history.

So when I heard that New Horizons reached Pluto I was immediately interested. The planet takes over 200 years to make one rotation. So the United States of America was not a nation when Pluto was in its current location. It took the spacecraft nine hours to get past the moon and nine years to get to Pluto. Now we're seeing  the video of a planet that I thought was so far out of our reach. Way to go NASA, you're igniting another generation of stargazers.

911

I'm reading a book, Remember by Karen Kingsbury. I'm in the section that the towers were struck by two aircraft. I have a very vivid memory of that day, as you probably have also. I was taking my kids to school when a reporter broke in on the radio station and reported a plane crashing into the north tower. I arrived at school and found all the TV's were on and it was reporting a second plane hit the south tower and then we all know what happened next.

As I read the account in the book I found myself as emotional as on the day it happened. I worked at a church at the time and people filtered in the entire day. They were in shock wanting answers but precious little could be said.

Where were you on that day?

South Dakota Haze

The Environment Protection Agency announced yesterday that the air over South Dakota was the worst in the nation, even surpassing that of Hong Kong and Los Angeles. The sky is continually hazy and has been for the past several days. One good thing about it, the temperature has decreased considerably. That's good for humans, but the corn needs the high temperatures. This morning the unheard of 53 degrees registered on my outdoor thermometer. I opened the window and reduced the temp in the house.

The reason for the haze? The Canadian Wildfires

Go USA Women's Soccer

I went to the USA Today sports section to read up on the women's soccer team. I found, "Wambach Driven to Win Elusive Dup Title." Abby Wambach does not want to feel the pain of July 17, 2011, again. The team came close to having the title of the World Cup, but it didn't happen. They lost in penalty kicks.

The team thinks about that now as they take on Japan this afternoon. "I've said this my whole career, it takes a whole team. It's not about one person. It will never be about one person in a team sport," Wambach said.

I for one will be watching the USA, and I'm confident that they will win.

Are you watching the game?

Virtual Doctor's Visit

Mandy Bell had a medical problem, picked up her i-Phone and call her Doctor. Her Doctor appeared via cellular video conference that resulted in a diagnosis and a prescription being called into a nearby pharmacy. This all happened while she sat in her car and under fifteen minutes.

Dr. Allison Sutte, chief medical officer for Sanford Health says this is a true patient story.

I see it as a valuable tool when one has the flu or something that you just don't want to leave the home.

Right now the insurance companies will not cover the charge but in the future they may see the savings and add it to their plans. The cost is 49 dollars for the app. I'm sure there are individual costs to contact the Doctor.

Smoky Haze in the Sky

My son and I were exiting the gym when Noah looked to the sky and asked, "What is that?" My answer: forest fires.

The paper said the smoke went as far south as Tennessee.
"I think it is really harmful for people with conditions like asthma and lung conditions," Amos Glem, a Minot ND resident said.

Although the smoky haze in my home right now can't be attributed to Canada, the hazy skies can. (I cooked bacon.) It's raining right now so I hope all is cleared from the skies. I am reminded of the skies over San Diego when we lived there.