I asked my younger sons what I should write about and Connor gave me several options.  Two of them (the deaths of Annie and Domino) I've already written about.  A third idea "Why Dad Is Awesome" is a little to difficult for me to write about.  And so, I'm going with his fourth choice: "Why I Love Rowen."  Here are some of the reasons that he (and Rowen) suggested.

He is cute.
- I know most people think that their children are adorable, but mine truly are.  Rowen, as the youngest, certainly has some extra doses of cute on hand.

He likes to sleep and eat.
- I don't know why Rowen wanted me to include this, but it's true.

Everybody loves him.
- Well, as long as everybody's doing it ...

He is awesome.
- He is.

He's fun to play with.
- Generally, they do seem to play well together.

He's nice to everyone.
- I don't know how true this is all of the time, but he can be quite the sweetheart.

He's a nice friend.
- Connor said that this should be the last one.  He likes having a little brother to play with.

Now they want to know if I can play Skyrim.  Who am I to deny my children?

Today's sermon was delivered by a visiting priest who had a number of interesting points.  I wish that I could remember all of them, but I have been able to piece a few of them together.

He spoke a bit about the background of the feast day.  Saint Peter was the Rock on which Christ chose to build His Church.  Saint Paul was the missionary who brought the Christ to the Gentiles.  Sometimes they fought with each other, but in the end they reconciled, agreeing that Christ's message of Love was a message for all, not just a chosen few.  In the end, they both became martyrs for the faith who fought with one another but reconciled.  

He discussed the importance of not being overly judgmental.  Jesus confronted the Pharisees, who tried to make the Laws of God the laws of man.  Some try to make the laws of man the Laws of God.

And he talked about the importance of love, especially love (not narcissism) of one's self.  If you are not happy with yourself, you need to identify why.  Once identified, you need to apply God's Law of Love to the problem.

I wish I had something to write with as I was listening to him because I have already forgotten several of his main ideas; I certainly haven't given enough credit for the points I did remember.

Normally, I have been reserving Saturday posts for short descriptions of various story ideas that I have been chewing on.  While I have not yet come close to exhausting the current store of ideas that I have, I am a little concerned about eventually running out or putting up just whatever came off the top of my head (although that might actually be pretty entertaining).  The idea came to me that, as long as I was going to start writing a larger creative story, that I could use Saturday's as a weekly update for how I've been progressing.  Then, my mind decided to up the ante even a little more.

What if I gave people access to my document as I was writing it?  Now, I am a little concerned that this might not work out, and I've nearly ran screaming from the idea, but I thought that it might be worth a try.  The background for the story, and the link to the Google Doc where I will be writing the main story can be found here.

While you can read the details there, I wanted to just let you know a little bit about my schedule.  I will try to avoid writing this story on Sundays.  I will have very little time to write the story on Saturdays and will have almost no time on Fridays.  I plan on writing during the morning hours on Monday and Wednesday, but other plans might get in the way.  I currently plan to write more in the afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I set Wednesdays as the main deadline for the summer because they are currently the most open of my days, and I might end up writing up until midnight to complete my self-imposed deadline.

I am setting this up as a motivation to keep writing a larger project.  However, I have several other irons in the fire that I also want to accomplish, so we will see how this goes.  I pray that it will be a positive experience for both me and anyone who wants to follow it.

I'm trying something new with the game that I'm running today (Savage Tides campaign).  In an effort to make the game a little more immersive and less about stats and math, I am going to keep track of the characters' current hit point levels.  At the beginning of the game, I'm going to collect the following information: hit points, armor class (regular, touch, and flatfooted), spot, listen, and search checks (I'm really tempted to go the Pathfinder route and combine these into one "perception" skill).   

When in combat, rather than telling the players that their characters took X amount of damage, I will communicate the severity and placement of the hit (e.g. "The goblin's blade slashes your arm; the cut is deep, but not life-threatening").  As 3.6 uses "bloodied" status (at half hit points, characters take a -2 penalty to everything), I will let them know when their wounds have brought them to that state and, if necessary, when they have been rendered unconscious.

I will also roll for perception skills rather than tell the players to "roll a spot check," watch them roll low, and then say "nevermind."  This is especially helpful when characters are searching for traps or treasure.  So often they see the low roll and decide to try again, even though their characters should be convinced that there is nothing there.

We will see how it goes.

I have already admitted to a video game addiction, but in some ways it goes deeper than that.  One of my largest problems is that I don't just want to beat a game, I want to conquer it.  I want to beat every aspect of the game.

This partially stems from my overall personality, and partially from the fact that we only had two games for our first six months with our first video game system (a Nintendo Entertainment System): Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.  I learned every aspect of both games.  While my father set and made a goal of "rolling" the score with Mario, I set both speed and completion goals.  My final goal: complete the game without warping and without losing a life.  I managed to complete that goal before I received our third game (it would be another six months before we would get our fourth).

That third game was the NES version of Ninja Gaiden.  I played the game so often that I had memorized (with different voices) almost all of the dialogue from its (at the time) innovative cut scenes.  Beating the game on a single life proved to be a goal that was beyond my skill, but I did manage to beat it without having to hit "continue," an achievement about which I still hold a bit of pride.

Video game creators know about people like me, and so they often load their games with extra content and challenges beyond what most people would attempt.  In truth, I kind of hate them for that.  Some of the challenges have become so obscure and sadistic that trying to accomplish them is a form of punishment.  Worse, my compulsive desire to beat everything goes unfulfilled, leaving me with a vague sense of being a "quitter" and more than a little residual anger.

The worst offenders are games that give achievements for aspects of the game that are outside of the normal game's purview.  Examples of this are games like Starcraft II that only gives 100% campaign completion if a player puts hours into its Lost Viking mini-game (not just beating the mini-game, but beating it multiple times) or the Arkham Batman games that require completion of combat "challenges" in a mode separate from the main game.

Following closely are games that incorporate multiplayer elements that count towards completion of a game that is primarily single player, or vice-versa.  After this are "cheap" awards for beating a level in a certain time limit or without taking any damage.  I call these cheap because well-designed levels have additional challenges that require more than just rote memorization of the level.

I like many of the more ingenious challenges that make me think about the game in ways that standard gameplay does not.  However, I would prefer to not deal with a lot of the crap that games incorporate to supposedly create "replayability" but are, in truth, just annoyances.  That said, I have recently been playing through the Assassin Creed II games in an effort to finally get "100% synchronization."  My wife says that such goals are "stupid," and she's probably right; I recently threw one of my controllers in frustration (the "tank" level of Brotherhood) with enough force to damage it, something I haven't done since my Super Nintendo days.

Still, I finally conquered the level.

Dealing with my grandmother's writings yesterday reminded me of why I despise the tobacco industry (and, by extension, the growing marijuana movement).  I blame them for the deaths of both of my grandparents.

My grandfather passed away when my father was a teenager.  According to my father, my grandfather smoked a couple of packs a day.  At the time, it was not only the norm, it was encouraged.  Doctors recommended that their patients smoke as a way to relieve stress.  While other factors no doubt played a role, I place the blame for my grandfather's sudden and deadly heart attack directly on his smoking, which we now know is not only linked to heart disease, but that tobacco companies knew of the link even while promoting cigarettes as a healthy choice.

My grandmother started smoking when she was twelve.  While I remember seeing her smoke when I was younger, as we got older she smoked in front of us less and less frequently.  Her smoking affected her lungs.  Although she outlived my grandfather by about four decades, her greatly diminished health was directly tied to her smoking habit.  She said that she would have quit sooner (or have never started) had she known how miserable her health would become.

While I have held to a vow of not using any mentally affecting drug  as I do not want to become reliant on an outside source for my internal feelings, I do not think that I would have ever taken up smoking.  My grandparents' deaths illustrate two of the most common dooms that await people who choose to smoke: an early death that deprives your loved ones of having you around, and a longer life where you spend decades struggling for breath.

Don't smoke.

My mother gave me a letter that she was sending and wanted me to proofread.  The contents of the letter were about my Grandma Marks and some of the events that happened to her through her life.  She was a remarkable woman.  I have been finding it difficult to believe that it has been nearly twelve years since she passed away.  

When I was still taking courses for my bachelor's degree, I expressed the desire to write about my grandmother's life.  My professor recommended that I start interviewing her soon, but it was (like too many of my ideas) something that kept getting pushed back until later.  I do not have many true regrets in my life, but that is certainly one of them.

I wanted to share just a few facts from her life (some which I did not know until today):
1. The first time she arrived in America (1922 when she was four), she and her family was turned back because they only had one visa for the family and her mother was too pregnant to make the trip.  She remembered scolding her baby brother in his crib for making her leave America.

2. She survived one of the ten most deadly tornadoes in history.  She didn't understand why the other girls "were screaming because is couldn't do any good".

3. She often suffered from pneumonia (even before starting to smoke at the age of 12).  Her mother used "upside-down shot glasses and just-blown-out matches" on her chest to create vacuums to suck out the infection, a practice she referred to as "voodoo."

4. She worked at Al Capone's Coliseum, but left after rejecting "propositions".

5. She lived, for a time, with prostitutes.

6. She left her first husband when she was pregnant with my uncle Norman and had difficulties with childcare and housing that her mother (who tried to get her to have an abortion) would not help with.

7. She was hired for (and often quickly fired from) several jobs in which she had no experience, but claimed that she did.

8. She met my grandfather in a crowded bar that neither of them wanted to go to.  It was love at first sight, and they married despite his family's disapproval.

9. Her lung problems continued throughout her life.  In the 1950's a doctor suggested that one of them be removed, a procedure that she decided against.  Thus she was surprised (and quite angry at God) when Paul, my grandfather, suddenly passed away in 1961, from which point she raised her four boys on her own.

10. On her last day, my uncle asked what he could do for her.  She wanted to dance, so he lifted her so her feet were on his and they "danced" in her room while she hummed a tune.

She was an amazing, courageous, and strong-willed woman.  I wish I had written her story.

I have been extraordinarily pleased with Pope Francis.  He is the down-to-earth yet connected-to-God sort of person whom I believe makes for an excellent religious leader.  He makes a point of not getting caught in the trappings of his position and points out hypocrisy both within the Church and throughout the world without being overly judgmental.  Most importantly, he has done an excellent job in returning Catholicism to its true message of love.

That said, I think many people are misinterpreting some of his deeds and actions.  They are looking for someone to shake up the Church (which he has) in ways that allow them to continue their own immoral practices without guilt (which he hasn't).  While he is redirecting the message of the Church, he is not changing its teachings that have held since at least the Council of Trent in the 16th century (which reaffirmed much older practices and traditions).

Those who expect him to overturn the Church's stance of homosexuality or abortion are going to be sadly disappointed.  However, he has brought a stronger focus on politicians who have claimed Christian values yet have embraced very un-Christian-like practices and policies, especially in regards to the treatment of the poor.  He has warned his fellow Catholics about the trap of voting for a candidate due to a single issue while ignoring the other evils that candidate might support.

Most importantly, he has warned his fellow Christians against being too judgmental, even against those people who espouse beliefs different from the Church's.  He has admitted that people do not have the ultimate power of judgment: that is left to God.  He has also clarified that this does not mean that everything is permitted or that truth is relative.  Rather he has reminded us that the greatest truth comes from the love of God.

I've already seen prejudiced hate-rhetoric spring up about Pope Francis.  Those people could probably learn something about mercy from this extraordinary man.  I, for one, am excited about his papacy.  

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  It is on this day that the Catholic Church celebrates Christ's gift of everlasting salvation through the Eucharist.

Of all of the issues where the Catholic Church differs from most other Christian denominations, this one is by far the most crucial.  Jesus tells the multitudes, after having performed the miracle of the loaves and fish, that His body and blood are the way to everlasting life.  When members of the crowd doubt what he says, he repeats it with even more force (John 6:51-58).  Each time Catholics go to communion, they follow the command of Jesus and become one with Him.

I have not been able to understand how some Christians can claim that the opening of Genesis must be taken literally, but this passage (and many other similar passages in the Gospels and the Epistles) is only a metaphor.  How can they get these readings so backwards?  Christ is extremely clear: We are to chew His flesh and drink (not sprinkle as was the tradition in Jewish sacrifices at the time) His blood.

Why did He do this?  In my mind, the answer is simple.  Jesus intentionally did not marry or have children.  Doing so would have caused the divisions that we can see in the religion of Islam.  Doing so would have also limited who could truly become divine.  Jesus's message has always been one of inclusion.  By taking in His true body and His true blood, we become His children in more than just name.  Anyone who partakes in the body and blood of Christ become His descendants, heirs to His power and kingdom.

As for the whole cannibalism issue, that's why Christ showed us at the Last Supper how priest can use transubstantiation to make bread and wine become His body and blood.  As a visiting priest once remarked, "The true miracle of transubstantiation is not that bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, but that they still taste like bread and wine."  

There are scientists who would like to set up radio telescopes on the far side of the moon, often mistakenly referred to as the "dark side" of the moon.  Because the far side of the moon always faces away from the Earth, it effectively uses the rest of the moon's mass to block the numerous radio signals that otherwise bombard space from our surface communications.  These signals confound and distort information to an enormous degree.  Being free of that chaos would, like taking a visual telescope beyond the distortions of our atmosphere, allow these radio telescopes a much clearer view of our universe.

In my story, humanity has done exactly that.  In fact, Dark-Side Station is one of a couple of human colonies that have been established on the moon.  While most people prefer to be on the Earth side of the moon with its magnificent sights of our home planet, there are some who prefer the purity of space.  One character (whom I have not yet fleshed-out) has specifically started using the radio-telescopes to search for broadcasts from alien civilizations.  

Despite high hopes for the project, he (or she) is still quiet surprised to pick something up.  The signals are garbled and confused, but she (or he) is eventually able to figure out a way to clean up and translate the information, discovering that they are (basically) radio and television signals.  The aliens are similar to us in many ways, but clearly alien.  Linguistic experts pore over the data and eventually figure out the languages used.  People on Earth start listening to and watching the translated broadcasts not just on a scholarly level, but for pure entertainment.

Here is where I can branch in several directions:
1. We manage to establish communication with the aliens and start a long distance dialogue despite the massive time-lag (we're talking decades) between communications.
2. Wars erupt on Earth over the alien contact with many people claiming that the signals are governmental forgeries designed to disrupt world religions (I've already seen sites that claim this idea, by the way).
3. We watch, helplessly, as the alien civilization destroys itself.
4. We realize that the transmission is from centuries, if not eons ago.
5. We watch as the alien civilization comes into contact with our media and decides that we are a hostile species.  They then create a space fleet in order to gain a first-strike advantage.

The first one was my original thought, but there's no reason that aspects of all five might not be mixed together.

Whatever direction I decide to go, I certainly hope that our government (or someone) decides to build Dark-Side Station in reality.  Someone else out there is bound to have started shooting messages into the stars.

I started the day with a free raspberry mocha; the car ahead of me paid for my drink, a phenomenon that, according to my wife, occurs kind of often at the Jackson Coffee Company.  I also found yet a fourth route into Ann Arbor to reach my destination.  Today's path proved to be the fastest of the four days.

Our conference started with a discussion by Bob Bain about how we could incorporate what we had learned so far into our actual teaching practices.  Two ideas presented, both similar in nature, struck me as particularly relevant to my own classes.  One was to create a large poster that show various levels in scale for world history (i.e. human, family, neighborhood, city, nation, region, continent, and globe) to which I can refer during the entire course.  This tool is made to help students better understand how large movements in history affect and are affected by smaller movements.  For example, how one man like Napoleon affected his nation, the neighboring nations, and even places around the world which he never personally visited.  Conversely, we can look at how an event like the plague of the 14th century affected Europe differently than the Middle East or even Paris differently than Medina.  The second tool is to do the same thing with time.  In my mind, I would put the dates of the various time divisions (for AP and for the Michigan curriculum) as well as at least one major date in each era as reference points for where the event we were discussing fits in connection to other events around the world.

The second presentation, by Alice Isabelle Sullivan, focused on how church design and construction in Hungary, Moldovia, and Russia were influenced by the fall of Constantinople in 1453.  She did an amazing job with historical scale, starting each section by putting it in its geographical context, narrowing to the overall plans of the churches, focusing on the particular rooms in the church, and even narrowing down to specific details in the art on the church walls.  It was a fascinating presentation on areas that I really did know much about before.  Her last couple of minutes gave us two tools that blew me away: virtual tours on 360cities.net and an animated map of 1000 years of European change.

The last half of today's conference was spent divided in two groups to discuss who we might personally implement want we had learned.  Bob joined our group which immediately changed the dynamic.  Our group followed a guided discussion led by him (which I think I preferred) rather than a discussion among equals.  Much of our discussion then focused on why and how we choose the parts of history that we decide to cover in our classes.  We ended the session with one of our members showing one of his series of videos that he uses to sum up chapters and sections (in the same book we use in our world history classes!) that I plan on making available to my students next year.

It was a great three days with many excellent ideas that I know I will largely forget over the next couple of months.  I will at least use the posters of scale, the big idea problem spaces, the virtual tours, and the videos on my book.

On the way home, I picked up Chinese food from Chelsea.  The perfect end to the week.

In an effort to stay awake through the entire session despite another night without too much sleep (stupid intestinal discomfort), I purchased a large mocha from the Jackson Coffee Company on my way to Ann Arbor.  I have now used a different route to get to my conference and to leave from my conference each of the past three days.  Ann Arbor is confusing enough without all of the construction.

The mocha worked!  That and, while I liked yesterday's presentations, today's presentations were much more what I expected from this conference and had more information that I believe I can directly use in my classes.  I only had to stop myself from daydreaming once.  I also brought and used my iPad to look up more information and images of the information being discussed.  Doing so made me appreciate just how powerful our access to information has become.  I need to find some way to better incorporate this kind of technology into my classroom.

The opening presentation was again from Bob Bain.  He provided us some extremely good gossip about how the state standards for World History were created--he was the chair of the committed that created them.  He also provided a scaffolding framework for helping students to write about history (or writing an argument on any topic for that matter).  One of the attendees correctly commented that the framework alone was worth the price of admission to this conference.  I had one other personal take-away from this presentation: use "Previously on ..." (like a television show) at the beginning of each lesson to remind students of information from previous lessons that will help in their understanding of the next lesson.  These short "Previously on ..." presentations need to focus on meaningful information and provide some sort of conflict to increase student interest.

While all of the presentations were great, the second one, by Jonathan Zwicker, called "From Edo to Tokyo and Back Again" was squarely within my historical interests.  He highlighted the ways that Edo became Tokyo at the end of the Tokugawa period, how it rebuilt itself after the 1923 earthquake and again after the Allied firebombing in 1945, and how it has tried to reclaim its Edo past (while ignoring its militaristic empire) in an effort to establish a national identity.  The presentation showed the value of photo arguments, made me want to read The Great Divergence, and suggested that we watch Rashomon.

The third presentation, by Juan Hernandez, focused on a the role of cities in Latin America under the Spanish Empire, in their revolutions against Spanish rule, in the establishment of their national identities, and in their movements into and out of military dictatorships.  Finally, the fourth presentation, by Ian Trivers, showed the role of cities throughout history, starting with the important question: What makes something a city (and not just a village or human settlement)?  He made several interesting observations about how cities affect human societies and are affected by them.

No rain greeted me on the way back to my car today, and we had sandwiches rather than pizza so my digestive tract should be better tonight.  Tomorrow's conference only has two presentations and then time for us to develop lessons for next year.  I'm still looking forward to it.

Even when considering yesterday's screw up (which I found out today that I was not the only one to make), getting drenched on my three block jog at the end of the conference to get to my Caravan, and whatever's going on with my intestinal system tonight (most likely a reaction to the pizza from lunch, which was good, but greasy), I am glad that I attended today's conference.

The session itself was book-ended by presentations from Bob Bain about the problems with teaching world history to any level of student, but especially to the disinterested high school student.  The middle two sessions were more specific.  The first one, by Eric Schewe, discussed the waqf system in Cairo from about 1200 to when it ended in the 1950s revolution.  Now, if you're thinking, "I don't know what the waqf system is," you are not alone.  Basically, the waqf was a way for a wealthy person or family in an Islamic country to create a charity that would be funded ... well, hopefully forever.  The second presentation, by Kenneth Hall, showed the interdependence and competition between Southeast Asian regions and cities.

There was a LOT of information, the lights were low for a good portion of the session (and all of the middle presentations), and I was fighting sleep ... while sitting in the front row.  I even tried drinking non-mocha coffee to keep my mind from wandering into dreamland.  The two men weren't bad presenters, but one of my take-aways from the conference was that this is what some (or many ... or most) of my students have to deal with.  I need to find better ways to break up my presentations.

Aside from my personal revelation, I found several other interesting concepts that I would like to incorporate in my future teaching:

1. Start each unit, lesson, and day with a (I refuse to use "an") historical problem. Example of historical problems are "Why was Europe able to develop a hegemony in the 19th and 20th centuries?"  or "What makes a great leader?"  While I start my classes with focus questions or readings, they tend to have "correct" answers which my students just wait for me to tell them.  These problems require evidence and critical thinking.

2. End lessons by asking students (perhaps as a journal writing) how what they learned that day supported, extended, or challenged their current beliefs.  This is a good practice for anyone after receiving any piece of information.

3. I need to spend more time helping students learn how to read like historians: Look at who's doing the writing, make connections between readings, don't just read from top to bottom, realize that authority does not equal truth, and learn how to group the documents (don't just read them in the order presented).

There's more, but it's late I need to sleep now so I don't sleep during tomorrow's session.

Hi, I'm Paul.  I've been an idiot for most of my life.

Unfortunately, I had a relapse just today.  In truth, it turns out that I've been slipping for the past month, but today I found myself face-to-face with the consequences.

About a month ago, I was asked if I was interested in attending a three day conference that discusses teaching world history by looking at how cities have both changed and stayed the same over time.  Now, due to a recent Michigan law, I no longer have to attend these sorts of conferences to keep my teaching certificate, but the concept sounded interesting and the conference only cost $45 for the three days (including lunch and a continental breakfast).

I have been planning my first full week of summer break around this conference.  Yesterday, I was to spend getting my writing space ready (the subject of yesterday's post), today through Thursday (the 17th through the 19th) I was to spend at the conference, and Friday I was to run the Savage Tides campaign.  

Now, the conference is at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a place with which I am not well acquainted.  Thankfully, I had the address, my trusty phone, and enough cash to pay for the parking for all three days ($1.20 and hour?  People live their lives this way?).  I programmed my phone but didn't turn it on until Baker Road to save energy and data.  

This is where things got complicated.  My phone informed me that there was an accident ahead and asked if I wanted to switch to alternate route that would save me an estimated twenty minutes.  It gave me just enough warning to get into the left lane before traffic did, as my phone predicted, come to a halt.  While on my detour, however, my phone went a little crazy and did not inform me of the exit that I needed to take until after I had passed it.  Thus, I had to swing all the way around the north side of Ann Arbor and approach my destination from the east.  More construction and confusion ate up more than the twenty minutes that I would have saved.  I also didn't take into account how long parking and finding walking directions to my intended destination would take.  Thus, I was hustling to the classroom where the conference is to take place barely before it was supposed to begin.  

I found the correct classroom only to see no continental breakfast, a far smaller turnout than I expected, and no sign of the colleague who was going to join me.  Something was wrong.  There was a group of no more than ten women in the room sitting in a rough circle.  I decided to open the door anyway.  Doing so, I heard a women, whom I assume was the seminar's leader, say, "As you have read in your packets, this is a closed session."  All eyes fell on me.  I gave an embarrassed look and said, "I'm looking for the conference on cities?"  Yes, I turned my statement into a question in the face of the blank stares in my direction.  One women offered, "Maybe it's downstairs?"

I thanked them and walked into the hall, reaffirming that I had the correct room number.  I then double checked one of the three emails I have received about this conference since Friday.  Yep, I am an idiot.  The conference is June 18-20.  Seriously.  I drove for over an hour (and had a separate but similar "fun" experience on my way back) to barely get to a conference on the wrong day.

The thing is that I've been saying that this conference is the 17th through the 19th since I signed up for it.  I wouldn't have registered if I knew it was going to be on a Friday.  Somehow, my mind has managed to blind me of the correct date through all of the paperwork, discussions, and messages that I have had regarding this conference.  It has really thrown both my day and my week off.

Oh well.  As my brother-in-law said:  Welcome to your forties.