Ever wonder what I do on a Saturday night? We were supposed to go to a couples evening and plans fell through. It was a lazy Saturday and somehow I played 3 hours of Super Mario Galaxy collecting 9 stars. I don't think I have played a video game that long straight since college and it was likely Super Mario Brothers 3 or Tetris (what is so addictive about Mario and Tetris). I played Princesses with Sirah for 2 hours. We played with Ariel, Cinderella, Jasmine and their princes and the horse and carriage. They met the princes, went to balls, made clothes, painted and eventually got married. Somehow I managed to sit on the floor with her for 2 hours playing dolls. I can't remember the last time that happened either. Today was a day filled with unusual things. Tonight I worked on a big project I am working on for about 5 hours - yes if you are adding that is 10 hours of my day dedicated to certain activities. I am blogging now at 1:30am and I still can't fall asleep because of the pain, so I am trying to be productive, making lemonade out of my lemons. After working on that project I decided to check some news to relax (odd I know but it is relaxing to me) and ended up reading about the above photo. Anyone? Anyone? I'll tell you the name and it probably won't help 98% of you without the assistance of Google or the link I will give you. The image you see is a simulation of Higgs boson. Again I ask Anyone? Anyone? I would not have been able to answer that question myself a few minutes ago. Now my brain is full of swarming thoughts about particle physics and how that relates to "the grid" at CERN. CERN may ring a bell for some thanks to Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web.
That last link is an archive of the first web page created for WWW by Berners-Lee back in April 1992. Berners-Lee announced the creation of www in an altnews group (anyone else remember those) in 1991 but it was in April of 1992 that it was released as free for the public. I remember sitting in the computer lab at my college talking with friends about how exciting it was, so many others having no idea what we were excited about though at the time we were usinggopher and MUD's. How many of you are geek enough to have seen that page then? How many of you recall the first time you went on the World Wide Web? Thanks Dad for making me a computer geek who likes video games from the time I was what 8 or so?
Disney Princesses, Particle Physics, MUD's, Super Mario Galaxy, Pink Floyd, Writing, Tim Berners-Lee, Mae, CERN, sock knitting, blogging, dishes, baseball tryouts, Higgs Boson, Drudge Report, vomit, The Absent Minded Professor, spy gear, Black Liberation Theology, Irish cheddar, melting snow and cold pizza. What do they have in common? They were all a part of my day in thought or action today. Anyone else want to do a random collection of words from their Saturday?
I titled the post "My brain still works but it hurts" because I am happy to say that I can still follow along with the articles and concepts I was reading about even though it definitely takes me more effort. Sometimes I need to reread sentences more and let my brain really think on them to get it. I usually still see the connections between other concepts but deeper science and philosophy take my brain longer to get around now than in grad school. Of course listening to Dark Side of the Moon probably doesn't help that much. Also my mind swirls with Dr Suess books memorized, what's for dinner, how can I teach long division better, when will the pain stop, is the snow ever going to melt, how many times will they vomit tonight and will the dog hair ever come out of my carpet during shedding season for our Aussies. Maybe that is why it takes me longer to understand concepts and my brain feels sore afterwards. Maybe I need to go play some more rounds of Lumosity. I suppose now I just need to admit I need to be in bed despite how I feel as it is now nearing 3am!
I see you are still a night owl. I will take part of the blame since when you were a baby we sometimes went food shopping with you at 2 AM. I know my parenting skills will get called into question but I was going to school full time days and working nights so we did what we had to. I like to think it made you very adaptable to whatever came your way. You did create your first database application before you were a teen and always wanted to be challenged. Reading and computers just gave you a new way to experiance things and understand how they worked. I do remember that the word WHY was almost banned in our house because every answer was always followed by another WHY. I know you have three outstanding and inquizical minds that you now have to feed so I am very comforted to know my answers to WHY are being passed on and the pleasure of seeing them understand the answers is one you now get to enjoy. So when the tenth WHY in succession comes your way try not to say "BECAUSE I SAID SO" but you eventually will.
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We all have been a family of night owls, or how I always use to look at it...as there were never enough hours in the days to do all I wanted to do or accomplish and I see that it still continues from generation to generation...maybe in other venues such as the computer thanks to your father...where I use to read, write, knit, crochet, finish doing school projects or baking cookies it is all still the same thing. We like to challenge our brains and use them and never seem to have the time to stop...I will tell you know I wish I still had those days and the energy to do them...so if anything you have to look forward to is that you will find rest and there will be less for you to do...so enjoy these crazy hectic days and all the questions and answers...your father was right when he said that why was almost banished from our house from the use of it for too many years (my mistake for having children four children who spanned 12 years apart) since someone was always asking me something. I remember saying to one of your brothers and you will be able to figure out which one...that I would pay him a dollar not to ask me a question until we reached the food store...no why is the traffic light made up of the three colors or red, yellow and green and not some other colors...or why sun shine brighter in one side of the car than the other...treasure these moments for soon you will be like me puttering around an empty house with no one to ask me why or for me to challenge...Love Mom
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