The Two Sentence Reader and ...

Time once more for Mama Kat's Writer's Challenge. This week's prompts are:

1.) Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page and share two “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
(inspired by Heather)

2.) What do you aspire to be?
(Inspired by The White House)

3.) Share a piece of unsolicited parenting advice...only I'm soliciting it.

4.) Tell us about your blogline...how long have you been blogging, when did you start, what were/are your goals for your blog, etc.
(inspired by Corn)

5.) If you had 5000 dollars to give away or donate to a charity...explain what you would do with it and why.
(inspired by Hallie's letter)

So without further ado, lets start writing!

#1) My current read teasers. I am reading three books this week. The first is a reread of Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger's Scherzo. The second is Vicki Pettersson's The Scent of Shadows. The third is Lisa Randall's Warped Passages.

Spellsinger's Scherzo: He wasn't feeling very optimistic as they led him back down into the bowels of the Quorumate, down below the water line and into the dungeons again. Somehow he had to regain possession of his duar.

The Scent of Shadows: And I forgot, or told myself I forgot, about the child. It also became important for me to escape Xavier's gilded cage, ...

Warped Passages: Although the German astronomer Karl Schwarzchild discovered that black holes were a consequence of Einstein's equations almost immediately after general relativity's development, it was not until the 1960s that physicists took seriously the idea that they could be real things in our universe. Today, black holes are well accepted in the astrophysical community.


#2) What I aspire to be. That is a good question. The short answer is the best me I can be. That begs the question since it leaves unanswered "What am I? What do I hope to be?". Those are questions that I could write page after page in an attempt  to answer completely. But, fortunately for me, I have a wise and good friend from the days of high school who has always proclaimed that all he wants to be is a wise and good human being. It seems to me that this is a good aspiration for me as well. Reaching for wise and good works no matter what phase your life is in, works with most religions (satanism might be hard to work into good human being), and results in a caring and forthright person. I don't think there is any higher goal that one can aspire to than to be wise and good, so that is what I'll go with.


#3) Parenting Advice. Be ready for the fiery changeability of the teenage years (not to mention the mental lapses and the conviction you are an idiot, especially on their part). And store up all the hugs and hand holds you can while they are young, because, when they get older, those physical expressions of love become rare.


#4) My blogline. I started blogging 244 posts ago, on Septemember 25, 2008. I have explained my reasons for starting a blog before in this post. To briefly recap, I started a blog because I needed to get back into the habit of writing something other than technical documents. So this blog is a place for me to practice writing and to attempt to express my thoughts in a coherent form. My goal was to once again reach that place where my writing could flow with my thought processes and not be a laborious effort. To that end, I try to blitz this beast out and not take proof reading too seriously. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but writing has become easier for me to do.


#5) My charity donation(s). This is the hardest question for me to answer. There are so many good possibilities that it boggles the mind to decide. I'm going to restrict the possible donees to groups that are active locally and who benefit the local community. With that in mind, I come up with two groups that top my list.

The first group is Cooperating Ministries. They made an appearance on this blog here. This is the organization created by the local churches here to coordinate supplying people in need with essentials. They run a food bank, clothing bank, supply emergency housing for those caught without housing, and other services. They also coordinate a large volunteer force that makes charity in this neck of the woods function. They also do thanksgiving baskets for the needy along with many other efforts. We (municipal government) support them as well.

The second group made a brief appearance on this blog here. They are the Blue Skies Theraputic Riding Club. They supply free riding experiences to those who are handicapped or differently abled. Someone who has very little control over their own body, either due to birth defect or injury or disease, can gain tremendous self confidence and sense of purpose by being in control of hundreds of pounds of horse. For many, it is the first taste of non-mechanical motion in their lives. Blue Skies maintains specially trained horses and a controlled riding area, once again with a crew of volunteers. If you haven't seen this type of theraphy in action, look for a local group in your area. It is amazing to see.

If I had to choose a national organization, it would be the Salvation Army. It just seems to me that while other organizations are still twiddling their thumbs, the Salvation Army is already there and helping. I've never had a bad experience with the Salvation Army - something that I cannot say about a number of other national charities.


Bonus: Thursday marks the graduation of L's and my niece from high school in far away Connecticut. Congratulations Sarah! (We'll see if she spots this all the way down here. She is another of those infamous silent readers.)