The President's Long Lost French Cousin...Trompe l'oeil

I must admit I'm very proud of this drawing as it is my first attempt at making a two-dimensional drawing appear as if it existed in 3D space.

Same drawing viewed at the wrong angle.

"The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me"

Recently,  Steve Whitmire, one of the original muppet performers, was fired for disagreeing with how the Muppets were being portrayed by Disney and its executives. And this whole botched decision by The Mouse to let Steve go has got me thinking again about something I love doing but never seem to have the ability to eek out the time to work on.

I have such a great respect for Steve and anyone who worked with Jim Henson in bringing cloth and foam to life. And for me, puppetry is a great way to create some amazing characters. I find that I have an aptitude and that, if trained up, I could be really good at it. 

Sadly, I see no such training in my immediate future. Not with having a son and having no financial means to travel to where I could learn from people in the industry. Oh, I glean as much as I can from watching performances and searching the web for any tidbit of information I can find, but it's just not the same as being able to sit down with the masters and absorb their knowledge and experience.

The cheese is old and moldy, El queso es viejo y petrido.

I'm reminded of this line from the movie "Encino Man," as I sit at my computer daily and attempt to learn Spanish. For years now, I've been saying that I should learn a second language simply because I thought it would be fun. However, this new found drive to expand my horizons stems from my wanting to effectively communicate with more people.

I currently work for a national pizza chain were, at least once a week, we have a non english speaking person ordering pizza from our establishment. If they're lucky, they'll come on a day when our only Spanish speaking employee will be working. However, most of the time, the customer has to resort to a lot of sign pointing.

Now as a general rule, I strongly believe that when a person has chosen to live in another country, they should learn the language of the land. It shows people that you truly want to be apart of your new adopted culture and home.

However, I also realize that not everyone has the ability to quickly learn a new language. And I also believe that we should meet people where they're at in life just as Jesus does with us.

So I will continue in my studies with the hope that I will be able to interact with more people and have a positive impact in their lives.

Education: Not Found at School

On recommendation by my sister, I recently read a series of essays by John Taylor Gatto. John is a former recipient of the "New York State Teacher of the Year" award. The essays were compiled together in a book called "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling."

These essays bring to focus issues about our school system that I've instinctively known since middle school having experienced the problems first hand. 

Essentially the problem is this; going to school is not the same as getting an education. I can attest to this fact as I didn't truly start learning anything useful until after I left the education system. Oh, there was the annual family vacation and the odd field trip here and there, but for the most part, school was a 12 year prison sentence. 

That being said, an interesting thought occurred to me after my family visited Max's doctor to discuss new medication options for his A.D.H.D. (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). During the course of conversation we started talking about finding a medication that would allow him to function well in the school environment. That's when the thought occurred; Why on earth would I want my son to excel in a school system that I don't believe in myself? I don't want my son to do well in a system that stifles education.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against my son taking medication that helps him to self-regulate. However, the thought of him trying to conform to a system that dumbs people down instead of raising them up is, to me, intolerable.

However, because Max needs extra support at this point in his development of which I can not personally provide, I'm forced to put him into the very system I despise.

My hope is that one day I will be able to find a place for him where he can get a true education and thrive.

L.E.D. Flashlights And Other Life Threatening Objects

When you give your son a low power, kids flashlight, the last thing to cross your mind is the possibility it may make him go blind. You try your best as a parent to stimulate his little gray cells as safely as possible. You want to encourage him not to play with the Christmas lights plugged into the outlet and yet allow him to explore the wonders of light.

Sure a regular powered L.E.D. can be a problem because of the small size of the diode which would allow the eye to focus a lot of energy to a very small area of the retina. Hence, the low lumen, low powered flashlight. However, I've come to realize that even sound logic is not enough to appease the grandparents.

And because no amount of science or logic will get in the way of firmly held beliefs, you end up spending a part of your precious afternoon taking apart something that was never made to come apart just to add a light diffusing disk to further reduce the already almost non-existent risk posed to your child in the hopes of making everyone happy.

One hour later, the world is now safe from the evil L.E.D., or so you would think. As it turns out, not even your ingenious plan to stave off cataclysmic disaster is enough. Regardless of the time spent, you still hear worries about the device's safety and further threats to take away said flashlight from your child if he continues to shine it in his face.

This leaves me asking myself why I bothered in the first place. I have now come to the conclusion that I was foolish for telling my son he couldn't play with the outlet, as it was far less dangerous to his health than the flashlight.