Your childhood could have been forever changed if this is what ET would have looked like.
And he almost did.
I am sure by now in life you’ve heard of that old tale that ET was originally going to be a horror flick. It’s true.. The movie was going to be called NIGHT SKIES and was going to feature aliens that could kill each other with the tips of their fingers.. And now images of how ET was going to look proves that NIGHT SKIES would have been a pretty freaky story..
Kids reacting to old computers..
This is the current generation gap.. the ‘old folks’ who used the mainframes.. the new kids who use the cloud..
It’s actually quite fun to have lived through the evolution of computers from the floppy disks of THE OREGON TRAIL to the new age of apps on demand..
Everything has changed.
And as for homework before the internet? I suffered that age for most of my schooling… And it was rough.
The NSA has nothing on the ed tech startup known as Knewton. The data analytics firm has peered into the brains of more than 4 million students across the country
A little creepy for my taste. But common sense would tell us this is where we would have been by now..
The brave new world has been here for some time, it’s not just beginning.
Beer ads target kids really early.. sexualized products have robbed them of their childhood.. Sex ed, for all of its benefits, also teach things way too early. Sure, all the kids are doing it (And always did, evidenced by the syphilis cases a century ago) .. but something seems to be taking everything that is innocent from children.
Everything is tracked, traced, and delivered to a behemoth computerized spying apparatus. Some of it is government. It’s also corporation. Which scares you more?
You may have seen this article before, or the concept of it: Toys that are made so much more valuable after many years because they were never opened from their original packages.
In this case, 18 MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE toys worth hundreds of dollars each if they maintain themselves in their cardboard casings from the 1980s.
But I think back.. there’d certainly be no way as a child I would have chosen to NOT open these toys.. and even more, what’st he point? Sure, there’s monetary value now on them, but.. the endless hours and rivalries on my bedroom floor that I imagined would have been nonexistent.
And that’s completely worthless…
I am having some youthful flashbacks to my childhood in Centralia. The best images of the town as it was as I was growing up actually come from a mediocre movie called MADE IN USA.
This is the town I was born and raised in.. and the ruins I grew up in..
Every now and then a story actually makes me tear up. This is one of them.. I could not imagine the prospects of losing a child, especially to leukemia.. The AP dispatch reports it this way:
Two-year-old Logan is the son of Sean Stevenson and Christine Swidorsky, of Jeannette. The couple had planned to wed next year, but decided to move the ceremony up to Saturday so the boy, who has leukemia and other complications, could participate.
The boy has already lost one kidney and has a mass on his remaining kidney. He has Fanconi anemia, a rare disease that often results in cancer. Doctors last week gave the boy two to three weeks to live.
Swidorsky says, “We want Logan in our family pictures, and we want him to see his mother and dad get married.”
Again, as a parent, I have so much empathy for these two adults watching their innocent young toddler succumb to such a disease..
I cam so sad to read it.. but at the same time so heart-warmed to think of how much joy this will bring this young little brave man.
I have said this before and will again, I don’t know for sure if there is a God above or a devil below, but I will be doing my best version of praying or at least sending positive thoughts towards these three as they share the bond of matrimony with a child who will soon be gone from this natural earthly dwelling..
If anyone is interested in getting me an early birthday present, here is a thought: Ice Cream Chews.
I loved these candies as a kid, until one tragic event occurred when I was about 12 or 13: I ate so many of them in one night that I vomited everything inside of my body out onto myself in bed when I was trying to sleep. I guess that’s one of those horrible things that all kids have to get through.
But now, over 15 years later, and I think I’d ready to get them again.. maybe
Looking at the calender, time appears to be fleeting.
The seconds hands on the clocks fly around in a circular motion.. after all, summer time is about halfway through.
Yes, it’s only July. And sure summer extends well into September, but by then kids are back in school and colleges campuses are less than sober. Every July, around this time, I get that gut feeling. Then the whole “Christmas in July” shopping experience malls used to try back when people went to them only added to the childhood misery of knowing that the clock was ticking.
There is something interesting about the summertime and how it trickles slowly into autumn.
Even with this year’s heat, we can be aware that cooler breezes will blow in two months.
And despite the fact that many of us are long gone from hallowed hallways of high schools, we all get that same pit of the stomach feeling as August winds to a close, and as the summer sun bakes the landscape in one last vibrant attempt to keep things hot.
Summer comes and goes..
The same in 2012 as it was in 2001 and 1991. Enjoy these moments while you can. Be alive … take in some rays.
Wear sunscreen. (I never liked that song.)
First off, it’s my hope that I will have plenty more Fathers Days ahead of my in life.. But it’s still surreal to think that here I am, in the year 2011, ten years after turning the immature and tender age of 21, and I have a child. A wife. A job.. Bills. Insurance payments. And all of the other things which match up to adulthood in some way..
I have a few things in life to look forward to, a few things to dread. When the moment arrives of parent teacher conferences, or nightly sporting events, or piano recitals, or speeches (whichever my son so chooses to be interested in), I may find those nights overly busy and stomach-ached due to late night fast food dinners. But it will go by so fast that I won’t have any way to even absorb the importance at times of what is truly happening around me..
It is my first Father’s Day. And my son is four months young, as I age tremendously fast.
The amazing thing in life I never would have thought of as important is this: Parents make the life of their children number one and abandon selfishness. At least my wife and I did..
Father’s Day indeed..
2011.
My time is flying by.
Someone who read this already said it was overly negative. But I present it as a hopeful series of thoughts.. It’s not a fun world, but as a parent, I’m trying .. and making my child’s life the best ever is now the central point of why I am here.
Oh the perils of parenthood.. the faulty ground of fatherhood.. So much running through my mind these days as my son grows older.
Back in February when a new life entered this world, my wife and I celebrated.. As time goes on, I become more fearful.
It seems that civilization itself is a heap of wreckage. It appears that society is breaking down and becoming a swampland of corruption.. The entire land of the free and home of the brave seemingly is circling in a toilet of depravity. Maybe I’m just overdoing the amount of bad news out there, but a few notes of interest lately showcase why I am a fearful father.
The TSA is groping children—or at least they were going to—at a prom. Checking for weapons.. the breeding ground for a pscyhological test appears to have begun at airports. And now, in our modern day life, we are faced with a future in which some could be touching, groping, and grabbing, all in the name of security, at proms, schools, churches, old-lady lunches, trains, and whever else one can envision people freely moving.
Tornadoes and other natural disasters seem to be occurring on an extreme level. Sure, we’ve been here before. Our atmosphere has a history, and tsunamis, earthquakes, and devastation all took place on this pale blue dot before. But this time, it seems different… it seems quite frightening. It is almost as though we are on a hair trigger, and at any moment the bottom could fall out from under us..
The economy is getting no better. Jobs are painfully few… McDOnalds just hired 50,000 folks, all whom won’t get health care since the Obama Administration gave the company a waiver. How quaint. Burger King tells you that you can have it your way.. McDonalds, however, has it their way.
Corruption is everywhere. Child prostition rings, disgusting abuse of our elderly, horrible treatment of innocent civilians in warfare… all of which adds up to a world in utter chaos.. It can lead even the most religious person to wonder aloud of there is a God that is watching. After all, if a higher power is watching how could such disgraceful abuse of human life itself be tolerated.. At least hopefully there is a God keeping good notes.
GMO crops frighten me… Buffoons declaring that the end of the world is coming alarm me because so many others follow them, often into oblivion or even mass Kool Aid induced suicide. Just pick your flavor and drink away..
Sure the news is bad. Yes it seems bleak. And bringing a child up in a world of war is troubling.
However…when I sleep at night, and hear the quiet breath of my baby boy, I myself sleep better. When I look at my wife, see me child, know that he has grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, family and friends, all who love him, it gives me a bit more hope for my sometimes hopeless mind.
Being a parent isn’t easy. As a matter of fact, everyone I spoke to who was already a parent told me it wasn’t going to be a simple affair at all.
But what I find easy is the hard stuff… late night feedings, boxes of diapers, belly aches, gas, and fevers.. All of that is a part of the natural progression of life.
I expected all of that.
What I never expected was the wide range of emotions when I read the news…the idea of sitting at a table with my son on some future day, where I need to explain why some grown persons don’t treat other persons with dignity.. why murder happens.. why masachistic child torture takes place.. and why sometimes people in a distant land want to destroy innocent purity. That, my friends, may be the most difficult thing I’ve even come across.
What prompts this verbose text? This morning, I saw a snippet in my morning paper about a mom in New York City, right after giving birth, tossing her newborn child down a dumpster. The baby lived. It was saved by a maintenance man who heard the muffled cries of the suffering life form. The mom was arrested. And that was that.. another story of another sad beginning of another life on earth.
I want to save children from this.. I yearn to break out of my conditioned negativity, despite all the negative, and work against established norms, because those norms are so oftern perverted by men who declare the ‘norms’ to be normal.
I want purity. Honesty. Love. I believe the whole of society is better than the worst of society. For sure, though, we see the worst on the front pages and top stories of our newcasts.
I want to teach my son to be himself, treat others with respect. And I want to tell him to ignore all the others who don’t.. because in the end, they go against human nature and have given in to a cult of decadence that has never given any good people a good outcome.
No it won’t be easy. But neither are those late night feedings. And my wife and I are happily doing that.
Wish us luck.
And good luck to you too… Hope these words light a fire of goodness and love within your heart.
I’m such a a proud dad tonight.. my 3-month-old son did something I did when I was a kid.. Watched the horrendously bad movie SUPERFUZZ. I watched it with him.. we shared a moment.
My wife wasn’t impressed.. but I get the sense he will be watching it again.
Like father like son?
My God, if so, God bless him.
After reading news, listening to it too, and fearing the future, just a quick glance at my napping son somehow does make it right.
A happy birthday goes out to a nephew, little Roan, who is growing rapidly before his family’s eyes…
By God time is going fast.
The condition is While the is known as deformational plagiocephal, it has no treatment, and it seems to have become quite a problem since 1992 SIDS campaign began..
Do kids see more than adults? …and of course, in my somewhat superstitious way, I mean ghostly presences of someone or something else? Do they have the ability, even at the age of 1 months like my son Ayden, to sense feelings in other people? I find it absolutely amazing that when Ayden hears mom and dad raise voices a bit or get a little edgy, so does he.. And likewise during happy times he is at ease. If a child, who only is able to find his tongue at this point, can interpret moods of his parental figures, how would it be unlikely that he too would sense the feelings, spirits, or …things…that adults choose not to see?
That question only holds weight though if you’d enter the matter with the pre-ordained thought that there are ‘things’ like ghosts out there to see to begin with. Kids see them. Adults really don’t. And adults tell kids they are all wrong.. No monsters under the bed. No spirit in the closet.. nothing watching you through the window.
So adults say…perhaps saying only what they want to believe.
At 3:30 am, you can only read and hope.. As the child snots and crackles from deep within. Some things with parenting are just unexpected..
Being a soon-to-be parent is strange.. but even stranger is watching the hands and feet of your soon-to-be son poke through your wife’s stomach..
For Tara, every day has been take your child to work day. Your active, apparently happy, or angry, baby boy in the womb.. I feel forher. The sleepless nights are getting more sleepless, as the lungs are being pushed along with any other vital organs in Ayden’s way.
The miracle of life.. it’s unstoppable. And every night around 9pm Ayden becomes unstoppable, as well.
And he’s coming. Soon. Eight months in, and Tara can’t wait. Neither can I. Of course, if we think sleepless night are sleepless now..? Wait until true sleeplessness sets in.
Fax machines maybe.. Video rental stores sure.. But forgetting friends is a part of life, as is a watch. And sometimes a hand written sentiment is much more meaningful than a blog post or a tweet.
I think some of these tech-related futurists are a little off, but for the most part correct.
I’d miss the paper maps if I was a kid in the future. They don’t know what they’re missing. I remember in the 7th grade, it was a big deal to get a map that (name escapes me) was able to be touched with mountain ranges and land masses having a feeling on the fingers. That was technology as a geography student in the early 1990s. My child Ayden will laugh at me one day, as he plugs in his pinky finger to do his homework on his whoknowwhatPad.
Of course the progression of humanity into a world that knows of no 20th century items depends on a progressively improving economy.. And so far in ‘11 I am not seeing that.
