science fiction......

View of the mountains from one street over on Wyoming Ave where Thistle and I walk frequently

I was one of those nerdy bookworm kids growing up. Books are still my life, actually. Movies often disappoint, my imagination is way better than any production set, although some of the special effects they are doing these days are pretty awesome.  When I was young, the teachers used to give you a reading list for the summer, said list being maybe 6 books, if I’m remembering correctly. Well, that was in elementary school, as I got older the list got a little longer.  I would arrive back at school in September (although, usually not the same school I left in May) having read a minimum of 30-40 books.  I dutifully wrote down each book I read and a short synopsis.  A lot of teachers called me a liar back then until they quizzed me on contents. Growing up, my favorites were whatever my mother was reading at the time. I got hooked on science fiction pretty early because of that. Asminov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke, H.G. Wells, these were the friends of my youth.  My favorite was Frank Herbert, though, and his book series “Dune”.

The reason I brought this up is that yesterday I actually felt like I was living in one of those science fiction novels I read as a kid. I remember when I was reading all those books that everything they talked about seemed so far fetched, so surreal.  I’ve just decided I need to go revisit my childhood author friends because everything they wrote about as science fiction is now science fact! Of course, right now I have a stack of books about 10 high next to my lounger that I've been trying to get through.....

Yesterday, I had my first “skype” conversation. Talk about science fiction, wow!  Here I am, sitting in little Buffalo, Wyoming, in my living room, talking to a friend, face to face, who is sitting in his living room in Rio, Brazil!  I know, some of you have probably been skyping for a while but this was my first time and the experience just blew me away.  Sure, I’ve done “go to meeting” but I didn’t have my laptop with its built in camera then. Something very different about listening as opposed to actually “seeing” someone in front of you.

My friend, Steven, who I was skyping with, had visited Rob and me here a few years ago.  He was on a world wide trip, having lived in Australia his whole life.  He decided when he went on this trip that he’d like to stay with friends he’d met on the internet.  I met Steven on Stumbleupon years ago and we had developed a friendship due to our shared interests there. So, I jumped at the chance to show him Wyoming.  We had a blast while he was here!  He had never seen snow falling and we had a very large unusual fall snowstorm while he was here, so he got his money’s worth. He spent an entire week with us and we took him as many places as we could fit in to give him a full Western experience.

Skyping with Steven

Anyway, Steven met a wonderful lady in Brazil while on his world trip and has since moved there. He’s the one who suggested we do the skype call. It was just so amazing.  I got to “meet” his girlfriend and his cat.  He got to meet Thistle.  We carried our laptops around the houses to show off our scenery….just magical!  I even saw that huge Jesus statue that he can see out his window in Rio! I’m still reeling from the thought of the technology that went into that little meeting. I’m sure kids these days are laughing at me, as this has been a part of their lives already.

I feel blessed to have grown up in the times I have.  I’ve seen so much progress in the human race. Of course, we’ve had our backwardness, too. We are gaining technical knowledge at a mind blowing pace these days, though. I subscribe to a lot of nerdy science stuff because even if I’m disabled physically, I don’t want my mind to rot. I look forward every month to my copy of Scientific American and run off and read it cover to cover.  Last month, they had an advertisement for a cruise to Alaska with S.A. that I’d kill to go on. Not only do you get to do all the cruise stuff up the inner passage, on board is going to be an astronaut, several molecular biologists and an astrophysicist to give evening lectures!  You are probably really laughing now, Rob did.  I’m not, though, that would be a dream vacation for me.  Can you imagine being out on the deck in the Inner Passage of Alaska, next to a guy who has used the Hubble telescope and he’s showing you the stars?  Or listening to the glaciers crack while you talk to someone who has had his feet on the moon? It’s just a dream, though, I’ll never get to experience it that way.  Rob keeps promising he’ll take me to Alaska and I think we may actually get there in the next few years if I stay alive long enough.  Things keep coming up that are more important and that’s a very expensive trip the way I want to do it.  I want to take a cruise and go first class and do all the little side trips of panning for gold & fishing for salmon & cruising the inlets to get close to the glaciers. If I’m only going to see it once, I’m going to do it right!

Okay, I’m calming down….Yesterday just sparked some imagination juices that haven’t flowed so freely in a while.

It’s Friday!!  Time to shake off your work week and get your happy on!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend and you get to experience something amazing. Don’t just sit around the house and watch tv.  Get out there and do something that will stretch you...physically or mentally!

“Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works, Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things”~ Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt)

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it” ~Douglas Adams (from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)