Another fall break.
I started this blog last year at this time. I've only posted a few times. Could say it's because it's just one more thing to do. Or not.

This week we're headed to Sitka, AK.
It's the title of a Louis L'Amour book, so I was quite excited when Ben suggested it.
Sitka sits on the footprint of the Tlingt village where the people have resided for hundreds of years I guess. Last week, the weather in Sitka was reported to be 55 degrees and rainy. The information also read that it seldom gets below freezing. I was trying to figure out what clothes I would be packing. I like wearing the fall clothes that I get to wear twice in January or February in Mesa.
This will be the third time that I will visit Alaska. I've seen such a small piece and could never hope to see the variety there. When I see pictures and documentaries of far away places, I see the camera's view, and I always wonder, what's behind the photographer. Why did he/she chose that scene? And can you move it to the right/left just a little, so I can see the view in context of the rest of the horizon?

Teaching the section of English 1-2 has made me much more conscientious of the details of grammar that I have been ignoring for a number of years. The subtleties that refine a sentence to more exact meaning.

It's not a bad thing, grammar. I learned to diagram a sentence in college. I loved the procedure, the order and rhythm of a sentence. Each word or phrase has a function and is in a place for a reason. I like reason and order. I like chemistry for that reason.

In science, it doesn't much matter what you discover or conclude, if you don't write it down, if you don't communicate, it pretty much didn't happen. And if you can't communicate your ideas, whether in science, in a blog, a letter, a phone call, a book, who will hear you, who will consider your ideas and respond?

Jack Clark in "Patriot Games" by Tom Clancy solves a dilemma based on that thought. His wife, a surgeon if I remember, was forever writing notes and ideas down to remember and would say something like "If it isn't written down, it didn't happen". OK-I got the notion from Tom Clancy. I remember reading it in the book and now I use it with/on my students. (Miss, I turned it in!" "Show me" "See, here it is!" pulling out of backpack "Where is the date stamp?" "oh. hm. I guess I forgot to turn it in")
But have you ever had to call a company and complain or resolve a problem, and didn't write down who, when, and what, and then expected something to change and it didn't and you had to do it all again? Document, document, document.

So expect some documentation as evidence that I was in Sitka Alaska.

And that's why this is meandering.