LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Found

Very Little Remains

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When we last went back to Missouri to see my folks, my brother Aaron and I made a little bit of an archaeological side trip. There’s an odd outcropping of rocks in the middle of one of the fields on the farm. Actually, it’s more of an outcropping of rock. I would guess it’s about 30 feet by 30 feet, but it’s more roundish than square.

Surrounding the rock are a dozen or so trees. So it looks like a little oasis in the middle of the field. I always called it, “The Secret Zone” when I was growing up. Well, I still call it that today, but I’m a little more self conscious about it now. I don’t know if that’s the name I gave it, or if it’s the name that someone else told me. In my mind, I always associate it with The Phantom, but I’m not at all sure about that.

When I was a kid and I would play at the Secret Zone, there were a series of white tracks that ran over the rock. Straight sections, curves, ramps were all –at least to little Lloyd– readily visible. And, more importantly, just the right size to run Matchbox™ cars over. It wasn’t a complete roadway. There were many sections that were missing or washed out or under construction.

Once I was talking to my dad about them and he said, “I know about them. I made them.” Back when he was little Lloyd, he had (found, come across, absconded with –it was never quite clear) a quantity of plaster and built a network of roads to drive his cars on. 25ish years later they were still around. A little worse for wear, but still around. I imagine the biggest factor in their deterioration was cows walking on them. They were clearly engineered for less weight.

Fast forward 35ish more years… Anyway, Aaron and I set out for the Secret Zone with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction. We found a lot of leaves and dead trees, but we set about cleaning the area where I vaguely remembered the track to be. Then we set about cleaning a wider area (it was a long time ago).

zone1

There wasn’t much left. We found traces here and there, but there were no long sections left. We might have removed some of the evidence with our somewhat vigorous raking. But it brought back fond memories just the same, and it was nice to visit with Aaron while we were tidying up the place.

zone15zone2 zone3

Workers Quarterly * Hymns for Now

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I vaguely remember that Lauren told me where she found this. My memory of her story is that it was behind something that they moved at church. Unfortunately, she can’t remember anything at all about where she found it. She remembers even less about her story than I do. I recall that it was a sort of cute story, but at this time, all we can say for certain is that she stole it from St. John.

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The Big Tree

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In college we used to go out to this big tree –which we called, “The Big Tree.” It was this tree in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually it is about 2 miles West of Seward and only a half-mile from nowhere as it is in the middle of a section.

On Thursday, after successfully executing Burger Night at R.O.’s with Sam and Rachel,we decided to go out and introduce Rachel, Anna and Gracen to The Big Tree. I regret that I didn’t take any pictures from further away…

big tree in seward county

I’ll admit that it doesn’t look that big in the above picture. Lets get closer…

big tree in seward county

Still a little bit hard to tell. Lets put some people in there for scale…

big tree in seward county

I don’t remember it being hollowed out like that the last time we were out here. So that must have happened within… I don’t know. The last decade? Here’s a shot from the other side…

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Baby Name Data Visualization

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The good people (I’m really just guessing here) at Zatonovo have a cool little tool where you can specify a name and it will show you how popular that name was from 1912 to 2012 on a state by state basis. I played with it for a while and there were a lot of interesting things that I noticed. But rather than just point them all out, I’ll pick two and ask you to see what you find. Here are my two:

  1. Lloyd has gone from about 70 per state down to about 1.
  2. Brad isn’t nearly as popular a name as I thought it was.

 

With apologies to J.K.Rowling

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Lauren said that I had to write a post, so to get back at her, I’m going to write about something that no one else will be interested in. The Harry Potter books came out when I was teaching middle school and all of the middle schoolers were reading them. Being the dutiful middle school teacher that I was, I read them too.

Well, I read most of them. I read six of them and by the time that the seventh one came out I wasn’t teaching very many middle school classes, so I didn’t read it. I did read a really funny satire of the last book that came out about 48 hours after the book did, so I felt like I sort of knew what happened.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about. Fast forward a few years and someone, probably a website somewhere, pointed me toward some fan fiction. I’d never read any fan fiction before and never intended to, because of their standing in the Geek Hierarchy.

As you’ve probably guessed by the general way this post is trending, I’m about to say that I read it and really liked it and think that you should read it too. But you’d be wrong. Sure, I read it and really liked it, but I’d say that there’s only like at 12% chance that you’d like it too, and if you’re not going to like it then why would I suggest you waste your time reading it?

Did I mention that it’s 101 chapters (1391 pages) long and counting? It’s not exactly a short read, but most people say that if you don’t like it by chapter 10 you should cut your loses and get out.

The basic premise is two fold (1) Harry Potter is smart (maybe not Hermione smart, but close) and (2) the world of Harry Potter has some sort of internal consistency. Here’s an excerpt from close to the start of the book:

“Now, just to be clear,” Harry said, “if the professor does levitate you, Dad, when you know you haven’t been attached to any wires, that’s going to be sufficient evidence. You’re not going to turn around and say that it’s a magician’s trick. That wouldn’t be fair play. If you feel that way, you should say so now, and we can figure out a different experiment instead.”

Harry’s father, Professor Michael Verres-Evans, rolled his eyes. “Yes, Harry.”

“And you, Mum, your theory says that the professor should be able to do this, and if that doesn’t happen, you’ll admit you’re mistaken. Nothing about how magic doesn’t work when people are sceptical of it, or anything like that.”

Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall was watching Harry with a bemused expression. She looked quite witchy in her black robes and pointed hat, but when she spoke she sounded formal and Scottish, which didn’t go together with the look at all. At first glance she looked like someone who ought to cackle and put babies into cauldrons, but the whole effect was ruined as soon as she opened her mouth. “Is that sufficient, Mr. Potter?” she said. “Shall I go ahead and demonstrate?”

“Sufficient? Probably not,” Harry said. “But at least it will help. Go ahead, Deputy Headmistress.”

“Just Professor will do,” said she, and then, “Wingardium Leviosa.”

Harry looked at his father.

“Huh,” Harry said.

His father looked back at him. “Huh,” his father echoed.

Oh, there’s a lot of math and physics and other fun stuff in it too. You can read it in a bunch of places online (it free). This link is as good as any to start. But this link is a beautifully rendered .pdf file that you should look at at least to admire the Harry Potter font. It might take a while to open that second link. It is 1391 pages.