A Grimm Return

     Season one of NBC's TV series Grimm, a show that takes the Grimm Brothers' tales and brings them to life as if they were never fantasy while following the life of a very unique Portland police officer who can see these creatures that others can't, concluded with a major cliff hanger and the promise of a seconds season. If you missed season one of Grimm here's a quick what you missed video that condenses the most important plot pieces of the first season into seven minutes: Grimm - All of Season One in Seven Minutes.

      Season Two returned with a dramatic opening episode which ended with the dreaded "To Be Continued"  right in the heat of the action. This first episode nicely reminded viewers right where we left out favorite Portland Detective and just how desperate his love Juliette's condition is, while still putting up a fresh viewpoint on the previous season's conclusion. Meanwhile something freaky is on the loose and in the secret underworld the rebellion and struggle for power and control continues.
     This season of Grimm promises bigger fights, bigger plot twists and more action than the last. Don't miss this season of Grimm on NBC. 

The Harry Potter Generation

     It has recently occurred to me the childhood being part of the Harry Potter generation gave so many, myself included something. Some could say that the release of the last movie was the end of over a decade of Potter magic. There are kids as few as five years younger than myself, (being 17 and loving every moment of my Harry Potter generation childhood) who have never read a Harry Potter book and see them as nothing more than a kid waving a stick and a few funny creatures and maybe some freak without a nose. Maybe this is just one of those "you had to be there situations" but  for those  who grew up on these books and even movies there's more to the world of Harry Harry Potter than meets the eye.
     The Harry Potter franchise is nothing small mind you and the products that accompany that are quality, but there's even more to it than that. Whole childhoods were spent during the Potter era and what came from a book series that took JK Rowling a while to get published is amazing.
     Personally I think part of the captivating magic of these books for those who grew up with them is that as our favorite characters grew up so did we, the fan base. When Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone first came out the story was a basic kids story about a boy with a miserable childhood finding out he's got this fantastic other life to live.  By the time you get to the third book things begin turn from fantastically magical and stand alone-ish novels a continuous twisting plot with darkness hinted at and colored in. Our heroes are 13 years old and moving from children to teenagers, again, just like a majority of the readers. WE grew together and lived these adventures together.
     With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 many called it the end. After more than a decade of Potter it was over. Except, it isn't. Not really. One look at brilliantly created and maintained sites like http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org will tell you this is not the end. The Leaky Cauldron site in addition to being a social site dedicated to everything Potter also publishes their own editions of The Quibbler, a magazine publication mentioned in the Harry Potter series. Muggle.net is another beautifully designed Potter tribute website. I even found a recipe for butterbeer for a friend's birthday and it worked quite well.
     Coming up on the horizon is the annual Leaky Con in August. You're probably rolling your eyes saying "but there's all kinds of wacky conventions for just about anything out there!" and that's true, there are, but there's more, Potter fans tend to be like family. We may not like every person we meet, or agree with every word uttered but we still have that one common link and could spend hours debating the finer detials and repercussions of those details to the plot. Not to mention JK Rowing herself's new Pottermore website.
     From the world of Potter also came numerous (and I mean numerous) Wizard Rock bands, a whole new genre of music. As a kid I remember seeing a couple of Wizard Rock bands playing in the local park and to this day still have the CDs. I find it pretty funny that Wizard Rock even has it's own song describing it: Wizard Rock (The Boyz Who Lived)

A few other examples of Wizard Rock Songs 
and some Bands and just an awesome original songs by a fans:  

Wizard Rock Twist - The Remus Lupins

Not Half Bad - The Parselmouths

Harry Potter and the Potters

The Moaning Myrtle

The Whomping Willows

Harry Potter in 99 Seconds
"Post-Potter Depression"

     We muggles have even gone so far as to create an imitation the wizarding sport of Quidditch, and I'm not talking a few kids running around pretending to fly, nope it's a full blown sport. Don't believe me? Check out Brooms Up, a documentary of the the Quidditch World Cup IV. That's right, a Quidditch World Cup with teams from all of the US, colleges like Harvard and even a few teams from Canada. 

   
For us they weren't just books or movies, it was more. We are the Harry Potter generation and I may have spend a post rambling about nothing and I may have failed to truly convey what the Harry Potter generation was and is but I think if nothing else this YouTube video End of an Era - Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls and the description and of course the comments that go with it just about says it all better than I could have. 

A Strike, A Bargain, and The Aftermath

     I can't say how the aftermath of the Reynolds School Districts teachers' strike will affect the rest of the school year but I should hope that the backlash of having had a full week off school is less disastrous than coming back from a spring break or winter vacation. For planned weeks off such as spring break most students have an ample amount of homework to try and keep as much knowledge from slipping as way as can be hoped for. However, in the case of this strike many teachers had different views and approaches to the looming strike.
     Some teachers gave homework assuming students would be back within a day, others gave no homework assuming all would be well and settled soon enough, while still others treated it like the end of the school year, (which it very well could have been in hindsight seeing how long things lasted). The result? The scattered approaches, mixed with 20 minute class periods on the last Friday to make time for a "Raider Rumble" carnival type event left a feeling of the last day of school and the possibility of no school for a while looming. Many students instead of cheering for what looked to be an early summer sat and watched updates daily to know if they would be returning to school any time soon, fretting over grades yet to be resolved  because of grades never entered. In an effort to keep families informed the school district set up a strike information hotline where parents (and students) could call for the latest update on school closures.
     After negotiating for for 21 straight hours on Sunday, the day before the strike was set to begin, a settlement still could not be reached and the teachers of the Reynolds School District took to the pickets lines at 6am Monday May 21. Both sides continued to work through issues to return to school and work as quickly as possible, however, a full week passed before any sort of agreement could be reached. Throughout the week both sides pushed the facts to show their side in the best light. Whether this helped, hindered or did nothing for either side is not obvious, but that's politics for you, eh?
     With a tentative settlement finaly reached students of Reynolds High School are set to to resume classes on Tuesday May 29. The question is: when students return, what will they be coming back to? Unless changes are made the school year is set to end June 13, just 2 weeks after students return. With a week lost and the end of the school year nearing how will lesson plans be adjusted to make up for the the missing class time? Will finals still happen as scheduled? What is the best way to make up for lost time without leaving students confused on curriculum with no time to actually learn the information being thrown at them? Questions, questions and more questions remain.
     The strike has be a hardship on all parties involved. From teachers, to parents, to the school board to even students, this strike has caused quite a stir. Unlike Barlow and Parkrose, the strike lasted a good while. Now that the initial issues are solved it's time to face the aftermath and see what these last two weeks of school really will be. 

Summer Time (well, kind of), Food Time

Between my English table group's Baked Goods Friday tradition and all this nice weather, (good weather just puts me in a generally good mood,) I've found myself doing a good deal of cooking and baking. I figured I might as well share one of my favorites. So here it is, simple, easy, and delicious:

Lemon Bars

I recommend laying out all of your ingredients first. This way you can easily make sure you have enough of everything you need as well as having everything easy to get to when you need it. 
 
  Ingredients you'll need:

• 1 cup of all purpose flour (so basically just normal flour)
• 1/2 cup of butter or margarine (doesn't really matter which)
• 1/4 cup of powdered sugar 
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of granulated sugar (which is the regular stuff not, the powdered sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon  of baking powder (not baking soda!)
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

First off you want to start your oven pre-heating to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
You'll also need a mixing bowl (or two if you don't want to wash it out since you'll need to use it for two different things) and an ungreased  8x8 inch baking pan.

     In your bowl, mix thoroughly the flour, butter and powdered sugar. You want to mix it until it become slightly doughy but still soft and slightly (but not very sticky. This will be what you could call the crust of your lemon bars.Now take your crust and press it into the 8x8 pan so that it is spread evenly and is about a quarter to half an inch thick. 

BAKE FOR 20 MINUTES

     Once the crust is baking if you're only using one mixing bowl now would be the time to wash it out so you can make the filling. If you're using a second bowl go ahead and grab that to use. You can make the filling right away and let it sit until the crust is ready, in which case you'll have to mix it slightly again before you pour it, or you can wait until there is about 7 minutes or so left until the crust is done to make your filling. 

     Beat the remaining ingredients, (meaning the eggs, sugar, baking powder, salt and of course lemon juice) together with an electric mixer on low to medium power for about 3 minutes. Pour the filling over the hot crust and return it to the oven.

BAKE FOR ANOTHER 20 MINUTES

Once your bars are done baking set them out to cool for about 15-20 minutes. Longer is always better if time allows. 

     After everything is cooled off cut into squares, serve and enjoy! 

     And there you have it, simple, easy and delicious, lemon bars. 

An Air of Superiority?

     We've harnessed the use of tool, built shelters, then villages and towns, and now cities. Humans have lived, if not comfortably, apart from nature for some time now. Some how we've gotten it worked into our minds that we're smarter and/or better than anything else out there. But think about this, could you survive in a rain forest on your own for a week? What if you weren't the biggest thing out there, are we really that well adapted or have we learned to create environments that suit us instead of adapting to the environment we live in? We don't stop to think about it much but  Michael Crichton and Richard Preston's new book, Micro, has got just the right mix of science fiction and colorful detail to stir up a a thought provoking tale.
      Micro takes seven graduate students and thrusts them into the harsh unforgiving natural world. These grad students are ethnobotanists, arachnologists, entaomologists, botanists, biochemists studying pheromones and an expert in venoms. Stranded in the Hawaiian rain forest with only their brains and any survival gear they can make these students face a world like no other, and to top it all off they've all been shrunk down to the grand size of about half an inch tall. Now, not only is this group of graduate students stranded with no one to call to their aid but they're no longer the biggest thing in the jungle, far from it at that.
      Even if we're not the biggest thing out there we're still the smartest though, right? We're smarter so we can think our way out of a tight spot and are smarter than any old bug that come our way. Except how to avoid a dangerous situation? We're soft creatures, no exoskeleton, we don't produce any kind of poison, and we don't exactly look terribly scary either, we're could be a meal waiting to happen.
     While in the the jungle our group of students faces venomous wasps, sticky spider webs, aggressive ants and an unforgiving world. To survive it'll take more than just wits and thinking you're the best. Crichton and Preston's book Micro is both a thrilling story with a touch of science fiction for flair and has just a few intriguing details not so far from reality that make for a good bit of food for thought.

Are are we really as brilliant and well evolved as we seem to think so are?

The Return of Holmes

     Holmes and Watson are back for BBC's next installment of three episodes. The first episode, A Scandal in Belgravia, aired in the US on Sunday night. This episode is based off of the tale A Scandal in Bohemia and introduces us to the seductively cunning Irene Adler. Ms. Alder flashes into the world of Holmes quickly and intensely only to disappear once again, leaving Sherlock to deal with a tide of emotions he has no way of knowing how to handle. But is she really gone for good?
     This first episode gives promise to season two being just as grand and enticing as season one. Watson's blog is up and running as he writes up each case the crime solving duo takes on their publicity continues to grow. Living in the media age Sherlock has become something of a celebrity to the public, whether he likes it or not. As promised the classic Holmes look was completed with a newspaper shot of Holmes and Watson exiting a crime wearing the long jacket and hat that could be considered classic Holmes trade mark items.

     Next up on the adventure list is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hounds of Baskerville. This episode's description promises thrills, chills and laughs as our Cleaver detective and his blogger head into the moors to investigate Baskerville's legendary Hell Hound. 
     A Scandal in Belgravia kicked off the season with a twisting plot, Sherlock's down fall and redemption and set the tone for what looks to be a promising second season for the mystery solving team. Stay tuned for The Hounds of Baskerville Sunday night at 9pm on OPB.

Sherlock Holmes Steps into the 21st-Century

      The classic stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been done, redone and done again numerous times. One remake of these classic tales of mystery are the Sherlock Holmes action movies that hit theaters in December of 2010 and followed by a sequel in December of 2011. These movies made decent action films but lacked an authentic classic Sherlock Holmes feel. In comparison, another recent Sherlock Holmes come to us from BBC in the form of a three episode TV series.
     What BBC has done is not only have they taken plots that have been done many times over with remarkable results but also beautify brought these classics into the 21st-century. Creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have taken Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson and landed them in the middle of modern day London solving crimes in the media age, while still keeping true to classic Holmes.
     Gatiss and Moffat's 21st-century Sherlock Holmes incorporates elements of classic Holmes and brings them into this century. Some things from classic Holmes that have been brought up to date include:

• Smoking habit/the classic pipe –––> Nicotine patch
• Holmes trench coat  –––> trade mark jacket w/ scarf 
• Magnifying glass  –––> tiny pocket magnifying glass
• Watson's journal  –––> a blog
• Holme's arms (if you can call it that) of lost children  –––> London's homeless population 
• Both versions have a veiled allusion to drug use
• The classic Holmes hat (to be introduced in season two)

Smoking is more generally frowned upon these days, so if Sherlock does smoke what does he do? He's got a nicotine patch of course. As for Watson's journal that recounted all the stories (which is the point of view the original stories are written from), what is the modern equivalency of a journal? How about a blog? Living in a media age Holmes is not only cleaver and cunning but is also fully technologically adept. This retelling and modernizing of Sherlock Holmes is both classic and witty, as well as modern and well done. With the dynamic Holmes/Watson duo back in action and up to date this is one series worth watching. 

To give you guys some sort of idea about what I've been going on about here's two short clips:

Clip from Season One

Clip preview of Season Two

     Season One of this show was been such a hit both in the UK, where it was created, as well as over seas here in America that it was granted a second season. BBC America will be airing the next installment of three episodes Sunday May 6th, 13th and 20th on PBS channel 10 at 9pm. Rarely are second seasons as good as the first. Only time will tell if season two will sink or float, so to speak. 

     Stay Tuned for my review of season two next week. 

Welcome to 1984

     1984 is creeping into our lives, and I don't mean the 80s are coming back, and I'm not talking about the make-up, the hair style or the clothes. I'm talking about the George Orwell book, 1984, that depicts a future where "Big Brother" is always watching and privacy is a thing of the past.
     When 1984 came and went the nation breathed a sigh of relief, this predicted Orwellian future never came and our live could continue, free and protected. Unfortunately danger is still alive today. SOPA and PIPA may not have gotten through legislation but the danger isn't past. Now running it's way through legislation is the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Protection Act (CISPA).
     For those who missed SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act), these acts never passed but they didn't die either. These acts were intended to protect copyrights but the bills were so vaguely written that their effectiveness in regards to their intent was pretty dubious. Under SOPA and PIPA websites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Google would be responsible for the content posted by their millions of users and if any of these websites had content violating copyright law they could be shut down. Of course expecting sites that get millions of hits a second to monitor ever post and every last bit of content the minute it pops up is crazy.
     Now it's CISPA's turn in legislation. CISPA basically hits the final nail in the coffin for the right to privacy. Under CISPA the government would not need a warrant/subpoena to access private information. This means the government would have the right to read emails, track search records, and basically bypass any privacy settings if you could even be remotely suspected of anything "suspicious". In the case of SOPA and PIPA companies like Google and Facebook were against the bill, however, under this bill these companies get full protection while disclosing personal information.
     We already have anti-terrorism precautions. Everything changed after 9/11. The Patriot Act and National Security Letters give the government power to request companies like Google, Facebook, ect. turn over your personal information while prohibiting these third party companies from informing you that your information has been distributed. In cases of personal information being distributed citizens can appeal the action, however, if you aren't told you're being monitored or having you information distributed how can you do much about it? If you wanted to keep to the theme of Orwell's book, 1984 you could sum this up with "Big Brother is watching."
     Of course we may not have TV screens that can see ever inch of our house or hear every word we speak but what we say and do on the internet, regardless of privacy settings, isn't so private these days it seems. Orwell's 1984 is a perfect distopia. Citizens live in fear and can vanish in the middle of the night never to be seen again, as if they never existed. We haven't sunk so far as to fear deviating from our daily routines and fearing every consequences of every utterance but are we still have reason enough to worry about what we say and do on the internet. Today you don't have to be formally charged with anything for there to be trouble in this post 9/11 era.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
~John Dalberg-Acton

Sources/Additional info:
SOPA/PIPA
SOPA/PIPA
CISPA
CISPA - Democracy Now

Childhood

     A while ago I was reading the article Nature-Deficit Disorder. This article by Timothy Egan talks about how kids these days don't get out as much as they used to. Kids these days in general don't go play outside, shoot hoops in the drive way, go to the park, ect. Fresh air, camping trips and time outdoors is an important part of being a kid. Egan talks about how over protective parents who want to protect their kids from "out there" are actually doing more harm than good. I found this article pretty interesting and it made me kind of take a step back and think about my childhood a little bit.  

Childhood

Do you remember those days? The long days of summer that seemed like nothing would ever change. When you counted the minutes ‘til sunset when it was dark enough to watch your parents light colorful fireworks for the fourth of July.  The days went on and on.

Remember the days a crisp breeze played across your face and dead leave crunched under foot. Days that in the last late afternoon glow, the world was bathed in gold.

Do you remember begging to stay up five more minutes instead of wishing for more minutes of sleep? When Saturdays were for morning cartoons. The days when you ran barefoot outside to look up at the first snow and catch tiny flakes on your nose. Spending hours in the snow rolling snowmen and building an igloo just to come running back in for hot chocolate and Christmas movies by a warm fire. Ever go to bed early just so you could wake up and have it be the next day?

Do you remember pointing at a rainbow through the rain? Did you ever crawl under the tarp roof of a fort in the rain? Days when you could sit for hours listening to the rain drops on the tarp. That smell of fresh rain after a long dry period. Did you ever notice the world around you came back to life and bloomed anew?

Do you remember blowing out the candles of a homemade cake? Staying up late waiting for mom to come home from work, throwing aside the colorful wrapping paper and reading cards from aunts and cousins.

And the thrill of competition, do you remember? The days of waking up early just for a game. Running harder than you thought you ever could. Sliding through the mud, playing so long it hurts to walk when you got home. The losses and the victories, the old friends and the new ones.

The good old days of childhood, do you remember?

Save Outdoor School

Yes, a few people out there have probable heard the cry "Save Outdoor School!" a few time more than they'd like to and possibly a little more forcefully than they'd like as well. That's not, however, what this is. This is simply my view of Outdoor School with a title that implies that it's a program I feel is worth having around. Now, with my disclaimer out of the way let's begin.


     Outdoor School is one of those things where there is more than meets the eye. Most people think it's just like sending your kids to camp for a week, and in a way it is easy to get that impression. When sixth graders come home all excited from Outdoor School odds are you don't hear "mommy listen to all the things I learned," or "mommy guess how much I've grown as a person because of Outdoor School." A lot of kids themselves don't even realize the impact Outdoor School has on them, so how can they be expected to convey that when they get home? Outdoor School is a different kind of classroom, but it is still educational. More than that, it's educational in a way that kids are excited to learn.
     When sixth graders show up one the first day they mostly move in tight knit groups of friends from the same school hardly talking to those they do not know. A lot of them don't really know what to expect of the week. Some of the first time student leaders are in the same boat, not knowing exactly what to expect of the week either. Of course there are also the student leaders who have been around 3-6 times who are a bit more in the know and jump right back into the fray.
     It's these student leaders and the hard working senior staff who make a world of difference in the Outdoor School program and impact lives. Now I don't mean to sound dramatic, not even a little. Outdoor School is not something to be overly glorified and preached about, that's not what it's about. There isn't a proper way to articulate exactly what it is that take place in the course of a week, I've tried and long given up trying to explain something that has to be understood before it can be explained.
     To quote something a student leader once said, "when we go to Outdoor School we find our true self. We don't fit a mold we make the mold. And every time we go back to the 'real' world we take a piece of our real self with us." This is one of those part of the week that has to be experienced rather than described. 
      A week of Outdoor School is like watching a time lapse video in a way. From the confused, tight knit and easily homesick sixth graders to laughing, knowledge seeking kids who have made friends and are generally more outgoing. Even that kid who shows up at the start of the week thinking Outdoor School is dumb and asking why they are there is crying at the end of the week not wanting to go home. Outdoor school creates the family and close community feel that seems to be slowly fading away these days. It takes something special to take a group of strangers, who in any other case would have no reason to associate with each other, and in less than a week turn them into a community of people that weeps when the time to part ways draws near. 
     I find it sad that most, if not almost all, the Outdoor School programs have been reduced to only three day weeks due to lack of funding. The number of operating camps reduced has been reduced as well. The value is still there, but it's not quite as rich and deep or as full. Being part of one of the rare full weeks I was reminded just what Outdoor School is and why high schoolers willingly under go the stress of missing a week of school, taking time off of work and head off to the woods. There's something about Outdoor School that goes beyond words. For those who have never been or haven't been since they were sixth graders and have forgotten, you can tell them story after story, describe Outdoor School with every detail and emotion you can think of and still not be enough to get them to fully understand. 
     Outdoor School is something everyone should have the chance to be a part of. Unfortunately at this rate Outdoor School may be gone someday soon, closing the door on generations to come. 

Hello Readers

    Hey guys, so this is my brand new blog, courtesy of an English class assignment. As the name suggests I don't really have a specific theme for this place, just kind of whatever seems of interest to me or others. It's a pretty open-minded place where comments and discussion is both welcomed and encouraged. Some things I write about may be experiences I feel are worth writing about, maybe some of what’s going on around school (with name changes for privacy of course) and a good amount of taking a closer look at articles and bits of news floating about the internet. Basically just about anything, within reason, goes for a topic around here.