One of the large oaks beautifying my cold and windy cross-campus treks to and from the computer lab today.
Someone commented on the huge bird nests, but I knew (thanks to my Kevin) that they’re actually squirrels’ nests.
I used to live down the street from this vacant lot. For 12 years, I passed by, sometimes driving, sometimes on foot … usually wondering, What used to be there?
See the concrete steps? See the grass-invaded sidewalk area?
They don’t just pour that stuff for an empty field, right?
“I wish I was really short and had really long feet, so I could run real fast.”
-Lucas
“Is Heaven in the sky? Yeah, ’cause it’s not down here.”
-Atticus
The other day, I told my student, Alexis, that I really liked her dripping font. Then, yesterday, she handed me this. Yay!
I don’t think I’ve ever tasted hollow milk. You?
When Atticus sets up a bunch of toys and things in a particular order, he calls it a “world.” This picture of tonight’s Trio creation is a good example of it.
Earlier this evening at my parents’ house, he was bringing all kinds of kids’ things into the dining room: puzzles, crayons, a ball-slam toy, Winne-the-Pooh and friends figurines, a metal dump truck. When I told him it was time to go home, he was upset that he wouldn’t be able to finish his world.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to create your own world? What kinds of people, places, objects, colors, textures, and sounds would your world have?
I used a “film grain” Photoshop filter.
I love typography.
There, I said it. And now that it’s out there, I can tell you about the hours upon hours I spent as a kid and teenager writing.
Some of it was writing, as in writing something. A lot of it, though, was just writing anything. It didn’t really matter what the words said that much (although they mostly tended to be either song lyrics or some boy’s name over and over). It was more drawing than writing, I suppose … lettering, I guess you could say. I just wanted to draw the letters and words in all kinds of different ways. Still do.
I stumbled upon the ChicagoType website a number of years ago. It’s a bunch of pictures of signs in Chicago, a bunch of them old and/or hand-done, some in neon. Since then, I can’t get the idea of doing the same for Danville out of my mind.
Every time I pass an old building with fading paint on its old brick, I think, “One day, I should take a picture of that.” When I saw the pictures my dad and brother recently took when they explored a very old building and site, I thought, “Ooh! I need to go take a picture of that sign!”
So I finally did it. I stopped at a sign that I pass every day, one that I always see and think about photographing, and did more than think about it.
I haven’t bought the domain yet or anything, but it’s a start. 
Attie’s been playing a lot of the Star Wars Jedi Reading game on Lucas’ Leapster 2 lately. It’s helping him work on spelling and reading and learn new vocabulary, yes, but it’s also taught him a whole lot about Star Wars.
In the midst of his off-game playing and drawing, you can hear him reciting the instructions and comments from different games. Just now, for example, he came downstairs and sat at the table with me, saying, “We need your help to rescue ships for the Rebel Alliance. Press the ‘home’ button to play another game.”
Yeah, a little weird. And a lot amazing. What a memory!
I took this video of him reciting the introduction to the game this morning. He’d already gone through it a few times when it hit me to record. (Slow on the uptake…too much grading to do.)
When he watched the video, he said, “Fast.” Then he was all giggles. 
“It’s a dark time in the galaxy…”
Remember how excited you used to get when a train rolled by?
You’d squeal and count the cars, hoping to get to a hundred.
Now, you try your best to avoid it and just deal with it on the occasion you must.
Or you begin to fill with a thin layer of anxiety over anger, your fingers tapping the steering wheel, counting to ten with lung-pulsing breaths.
What would happen if you just stopped all of that foolishness?
Let it pass. And then move on.