Bracken's Amazing Shot

Hello Troops,
Bracken Funk is one of the Space Center's amazing Flight Directors currently going to school and playing basketball for Fresno State in California. He sent me the video below on Friday. Yes, he is amazing. Just what you would expect from a Space Center employee.

Bracken will lead this summer's Leadership Camp for our 14-17 year olds. Be sure to register. Summer camp registrations are underway for anyone 10 to 17 years old.

Mr. Williamson

The End of a Friday......

The Younglings from Rocky Mountain Elementary are down for the night. The staff and volunteers have either gone home or are in their sleeping bags winding down from several hours in the simulators. I'm at my desk writing this blog post while I consider hitting the sack myself. The kids have been really good - which is a blessing for us. We have exactly 23 boys and 23 girls on this camp. It's not often we get a perfect balance.

I just looked outside. The ground is dusted with newly fallen snow. More is falling, but only visible in the street lamp's light. I'll have to brush the snow off the Battlestar before leaving at 6:05 A.M. to pick up the morning's donuts at WalMart. We're out of M and M's (our patented Magic Medicine for everything from Denebian Slime Devil bites to excessive solar radiation to third degree phaser burns and disfiguring transporter malfunctions). I've got to remember to pick up a bag or two during my morning donut run.

This room I'm in doesn't have heat so the temperature hovers in the mid 60's for most of the day and lower 60's at night. I brought an extra blanket, having learned my lesson by shivering all night long on last week's camp. Speaking of the cold, before going to bed I need to push the override button for the gym heating system. Mrs. Houston tells me that the heating shuts off at midnight unless I do.

In 12 hours or so our Super Saturday will start. It ends at 5:00 P.M. For myself, and many of the staff, our one day weekend begins when we hear the final latch engage on the school's front doors when the last person leaves the building at 5:30 P.M. I feel a rush of accomplishment, having put in another long week as I drive home listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the Battlestar's radio. Those darn folks from Lake Woebegon are a hoot, don't ya know.

Now let's be honest....... Don't you wish you were here with us right now and not in your warm bed at home?

Time to collapse on my pad with two blankets, and dream of epic battles in the Orion Cluster.......

Mr. W.

Friday's Considerations at the Imaginarium

A full day's cycle from night to day

Hello Troops,
It's Friday and we're off to the races. "A Cry from the Dark" is on the agenda for Windor's fifth graders. Rocky Mountain Elementary's students will make up our crew for the Overnight Camp, then a Super Saturday on Saturday. It is a busy weekend - just the way we like it at the Space Center.

Just a few items for your consideration as we get the weekend off to a good start.

Am I the only one who's noticed the dark clouds of gloom and doom hovering over so many people's heads in Utah? My desk is located at the crossroads of three of our five simulators at the Space Center, so I get to listen to people from every part of the State, along with my own staff and the staff of Central School. Many tell me of their premonitions of impending doom. They feel the Apocalypse is nigh. They see the writing on the wall.

"There has never been so much unrest in the world," I've heard some say (funny, but they've forgotten both world wars).
"Have you noticed the strange weather, just as foretold," others say (funny, but have they forgotten the dust bowl of the 30's? Just to name one example).

I return their worried look to mirror what they're saying, but deep inside of me their fear isn't taking root. Why, you may ask. Am I not a believer in the Mayan Calendar? Do I believe revelation? Well, no and yes - to a degree.

I've lived long enough to see bad times come and go. Just from what I know about history, I guarentee there have been worse times. I challenge anyone to bring me evidence that what we see and hear today is worse than anything that has happened in the past. You'll find it difficult if not impossible to do so. Isn't it a pity students today aren't spending more time studying history? Without that historical foundation, our students lack the mental tools needed to sift through the propaganda to see what's true and relevant.

My advice, spend some time reading history. Watch the History Channel. Watch a bit more channel 7 and 11. Become informed, and suddenly you'll see we've had it much worse and still managed to pulled ourselves out. Have a little faith in what humanity can do when our backs are to the wall.


And finally, a comment or two on parenting.
I had it worse growing up in South Dakota during the 60's and 70's than anything many of you experience today. Back then, parents, teachers and principals could get away with things they wouldn't think of today. Why I remember the time I told my mother I hated her. I was just a youngling wanting to go outside and challenge my friends to a dirt clod fight in the vacant lot at the end of the street. My mother wanted me to spend my precious after school time cleaning my room or something. She gave me a couple good swats on the rear end for saying I hated her and sent me to my room. A few minutes later she crept to my doorway and listened to me laughing. Her spankings didn't hurt but I surly had a way of making them sound like they did. She burst in trailing smoke from both ears. To make a long story short, I ended up standing beside the road on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with a sign around my neck reading "He's yours. By the way, he is the great great grandson of Gen. Custer" ;)

Back then everyone had permission to discipline a child. It wasn't uncommon for my friends and I to come home from school with bruises on our backsides and hands from our teachers, principal, custodian, lunch ladies and the bully from the class next door who everyone was terrified of (We weren't always the best behaved children).
And when spanking didn't drive the devil out, mother always had our dog Frosty. I've always wondered why mother kept a puppy around the house.

Yes, growing up back then was much different.

See you in the trenches,
Mr. W.