Category Archives: July

The Search For Our Past

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“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
Carl Sagan

The Search For Our Past

Artist’s drawing of close cousin of Earth.

NASA announced that they have discovered a close cousin to the Earth. The discovery of this planet and its star closely resemble the Earth and our Sun.

“This discovery brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0” said John Grunsfeld, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “The sun that orbits this tiny planet is the same temperature as our own sun. The planet’s orbit takes 385 days. Essentially, it’s as close to an Earth twin as astronomers have ever discovered.”

But what does the discovery of this tiny planet mean? Will the discovery help us to learn more about the Earths beginning?

For thousands of years humans possess an innate need to explore. Whether through exploring and discovering new continents, or finding cures for diseases, humans will continue to explore. This is how we’ve built our civilization.

Science, curiosity, the need to think and study and explore our surroundings – these are quests that drive us to be who we are. We believe in these endeavors and we feel enriched and fulfilled by answers to our questions. Like ancient civilizations that took off to search for other worlds, we too are looking over the next hill. That next hill is space exploration and other galaxies.

Humans have always been a thinking, wondering entity. To establish understanding of our origins is a part of our evolution. Part of human and scientific progress has been the ability to evolve our thinking to include not just simple trains of thought, but larger concepts. Scientists are modifying their roles as astronomers, physicists, planetary geologists, and space engineers to incorporate the visions of historians, anthropologists, paleontologists, biologists and genealogists to help analyze the details, clues and evidence of basic questions such as:

  • Where did we, as humans, come from?
  • What is the fate of life as we know it?
  • Are we alone in the Universe?

Scientists seek to observe the birth of the earliest galaxies in the universe, to detect all planetary systems in the solar neighborhood and to find those planets that are capable of supporting life, and to learn whether life began elsewhere in the solar system. They do this in order to understand and explain the origin of galaxies, stars and planetary systems, and life itself.

Wanting answers to these questions is just part of human nature. Part of the never-ending search for our past.

Shine On

Erma Bombeck, The Bomb

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“Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids.”
Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck, The Bomb

Erma Bombeck   2/21/1927 to 4/22/1996

Most of you won’t remember Erma Bombeck. She was famous in the 1960s to the 1990s with her writing about everyday life and down home humor.

She began her career writing for a local Ohio newspaper and quickly moved up to having her own column. She had a talent for writing good clean humor and knew what successful column writing entailed.

Hook ’em with the lead
Hold ’em with laughter
Exit with a quip
They won’t forget

She released her first book, At Wit’s End in 1967 to moderate reviews, but between her lecturing and successful column her book became a big hit.

Bombeck published 15 books, most of them best sellers, and wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns. Her silver-tongued humor chronicled her ordinary life of a midwestern suburban housewife.

I was introduced to her writing in the late 1960’s after reading her articles in Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, Redbook, McCall’s and other magazine’s my mom had lying around the house. Her articles were always short, sweet and packed with humor. She inspired me to read and write more.

If you’ve never heard or read Bombeck’s work, you might enjoy reading one of her books. You can find her books at the library, on Amazon and even through eBooks.

Erma’s writings always brings back fond memories of my youth and she will always be Erma Bombeck, the Bomb.

Shine On

People Are Awesome

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“Don’t be afraid to be awesome. Sometimes
being weird and different is good. When you
think you’re working hard, there is always
someone else working harder, so always
be yourself and know your stuff.”
Jacqueline MacInnes Wood

My husband watches YouTube all day long. He always finds the most awesome videos and this one I had to share with all my awesome fellow bloggers:

Shine On

Another Dr. Seuss Book

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“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
Any direction you choose.”
Dr. Seuss

Dr Seuss New Book

There was a new book released the other day. It was written over fifty years ago by a famous author. The author is one of my all time favorites. All his stories are always entertaining while teaching us a lesson.

I believe this book will long out sell Harper Lee’s new book, but obviously won’t get all the attention until it hits the best seller list.

The book was discovered by the authors wife in 2013. She found the book in a drawer in its original form. The title read The Pet Shop and had 16 black-and-white illustrations, with text that he typed on plain white paper then cut and taped the text to the drawings. The pages were stained and yellowed from over fifty years sitting in one of his desk drawers.

His widow knew what she had found. She recognized her husbands unmistakable lively rhymes. The Dr. Seuss book was turned over to a Ms. Goldsmith, vice president and associate publishing director for Random House/Golden Books Young Readers. Mrs. Seuss hired Goldsmith to take the rough manuscript and turn it into a new Dr. Seuss book.

The book took over two years to finish and was published and released this week. Like all of Dr. Seuss’ books this new book What Pet Should I Get? has a theme. The theme is about making choices. Why Dr. Seuss chose not to publish this book, we will never know.

It is believed that Dr. Seuss wrote the book around the same time as One Fish Two Fish, because the children in both books are identical. His wife stated that he was juggling multiple projects at that time and he may have set it aside for later publishing. Or it even might have been the jumping-off point for One Fish Two Fish.

For whatever reason he set the book aside, I’m grateful he liked the book enough not to trash it and keep it from his fans. I can’t believe our good fortune to have another Dr. Seuss book.

Shine On