I could kiss the ground .. copied for the public from class blog.

"Don't open that door." That's what was screaming in my head when the kid in the front row stood between my professor and the door saying he was leaving. The selfishness of someone thinking about them self before everyone else in class. There were 15 of us in there. Maybe 20? Not sure.

I kept looking at the ceiling tiles, can I fit through there? My god there is someone outside that wall, somewhere with a gun.

"The kids, do I text their mom and let them know I'm ok? What do I tell my wife? Great, now I'm nervous, can this be seen, hands between my legs, that will hide the hesitance. "

Thoughts in my head as the alarm went off on the wall today in class. A shooter was here, in Springfield Missouri. Of all the places in America, here, we have four colleges, were all still learning in life, why would anyone want to harm us? We are no body at this point.

Rat in a cage.

Trapped. If I get up and leave, someone could get hurt if I open the door, but there are a million places I'd rather be today.

Texting my wife, my friend next to me says they've shot one person at Drury. Over a judge? Over what? Where do students play into this? Someone please make sense of this. Finding out later, no one was hurt, injured, or shot.

A lot of us were made aware though.

Another alarm, telling us what the suspect looks like, no one in class fits that description. Nope, not you,not you, not you. Is the glass on the door bullet proof? Is the door bullet proof? How come she's even trying to teach this right now, what did she say?

Everyone says there is nothing you can do.

As someone who has walked away from it, who got to breathe air again, I looked to the sky in thanks to the lord. I wanted to kiss the ground. I was free. There is a lot more we could be doing.

Trapped like an animal, my mind turns to the boys at Guadalcanal, trapped on that island, at the mercy of Japanese warfare, the government all but leaving them for dead. "You're on you're own."

No heroes in this. My mind plays to those lost in Aurora Colorado, trapped, like animals, backed into a wall, no where to go.

This is it.

Life, love life. Live to your fullest and don't look back. The moment that comes where you're against the wall side by side with death, looking inside yourself for your deepest fears, life is never as bad as it seems. At least you are alive.

The one before the last. 7/18

Last night I wrote the final blog post for our class. Tonight I am writing last nights post. I wanted last nights to have meaning. So maybe this will be an extension of what was last, and make greatness start now. Yeah right.

So this summer I have talked about my kids, talked about baseball, the heat of passion, or summer. However you see it right?

I am still engrossed by what is left. I travel to Texas next Tuesday night to get the kids and bring them here to Missouri. The rest of my summer will be spent writing, getting ready for FOUR classes this fall, birthday parties, lunches and times with family before the fall blitz begins.

As for the class, I have enjoyed learning from everyone and hope you hang on to continue reading. I will most likely begin a blog on blog spot, but if not this will read on as long as the pentium hearts keep beating. Do you think some garage band is out there named the megabytes? No that would be pretty weird and everyone would be too busy trying to download... Ok really bad attempt at a play on words.

Lately I have allowed irony in life coincide with cynicism and it has caused some ups and downs. I have been funny, and a lot of times, obvious and off. At least I noticed.

This summer George Zimmerman was acquitted, the president wasn't too happy about it. There was a man fired for exercising his first amendment right for speaking out against pictures posted in Rolling Stone magazine. There is argument against neighbors again, we are almost a country divided because of our words and discussions in politics, religion, and many other things.

Remember when you're sitting listening to another person express their belief or disbelief, that its freedom that gives them this option.

I leave everyone with the lines from the naturalization oath taken by EVERY naturalized citizen in America, regardless of belief, race, religion or creed. My point? You'll see at the very end.

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

All over but the crying - Final blog post 7/19

Is it the music that really died? Or was it the writing? Where will I end up in this I will not know until its finished. Funny word final. The final out, the final inning, the final sentence cancer spoke, the final exam.

The time has come!- The Walrus (Alice in Wonderland)

This is my final blog post for composition one. In this class I have come back to a better understanding of what writing is to me, how it can benefit me and where it can take me in my education. I grasped fluency by the hand, flung my arms around the neck of punctuation, throwing caution to the wind and without a care, I have found my voice.  It is made up with a high pitch squeal of a young lady fresh out of high school, a 40 year old brushing up for a test at work reading my writing with a burly tone, the swagger of a soul man and in my own head I am narrating with a little hint of Craig Sheffer, and Morgan Freeman. 

" Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me, "Norman, you like to write stories." And I said "Yes, I do." Then he said, "Someday, when you're ready you might tell our family story. Only then will you understand what happened and why."- Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It)

Mozart had his concertos, Beethoven his symphonies, Mr. Holland (although fictional) had his opus, and I, I will have my writing. I am inspired, I will take this to new heights.

"Brown noser." - Glen Holland (Mr. Hollands Opus) 

As for the future, I read work from other writers and I am intimidated by the 8-10 letter vocabulary words being used to make sentences into 6 word sentences with 25 syllables to express a point better explained in a 8 line paragraph, makes me wonder if I am doing something wrong, writing the wrong thing or even expanding my mind in the right way.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

In this class I have learned how to relate my ideas from paragraph to paragraph, how to incorporate proper editing, and that while writing has its format rules that need to be followed at times, it is still my writing. No one else can make it theirs and the words although heard in many other voices, are still mine.

Mine I tell you!

With that being said I have learned that using others' quotes, while effective, is sometimes frowned upon when needing to get across a point in simplest forms. Sometimes it is better to slow down and see what is in front of you, write it a hundred times and find the best version. Free writing. I have gotten back in touch with this and it has helped a great deal.

I want the truth! - Dan Kaffee (A Few Good Men)

In closing, I am sad to be leaving this class, but am excited at the prospect of others. It is time to move on and see what else lies ahead for me. Will I become a professional writer? Will I be writing speeches for our next public administrators? Will I run for my own office and fire everyone of my writers because they don't get what I have to say? Whatever I do I will make it my success and no one elses!

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"- Robert Herrick

I had a choice to make this summer when dropping my third class. I had this, literature and math. I chose to drop math, although I need to take three classes before transferring. I thought I would enjoy this a lot better. Or was I procrastinating? Either way, I did not regret my choice in the issue and I am glad I learned not only something academic from this class, but a little more about myself.

 Carpe Diem!

It took a few days at times to find a muse, or something to write on. Tonight's was easy. I just listened to some music and put my mind to it. It's not hard to reflect on something that has consumed the last 7 weeks of your life and months before paying off student loans to get things back on track. I really feel that finding a subject was the hardest to write about. I wanted to be influential, actually seem like I was working and put some real effort into it.

Politically corrected.. 7/17

Writing tonight is simpler. I am studying through Ms. A's assignment and doing the research exploration. This is actually a lot of fun. How many resources are appropriate though?

I have been using the JSTOR and EBSCO resource databases.

I think the final will be simple? I have actually gotten three of my research questions completed. I am still not sure which one I will use at the end of my assignment, but I am looking forward to finding the answers to this question. Something tells me I will need to write the paper itself with my resources. I find I am excited.

Want a hard passion to find information about? Try being passionate about the Ozarks. I looked further through psychology in the Ozarks. It was harder than I thought. I thought I would be cool and do something tricky, more advanced and elaborate. I have actually found that there are more questions in politics and political science that I never thought to ask. Yes, there is a difference.

Nearing the close of semester. I am sad to leave my blog. I don't want to. However, I really enjoy writing and feel I have a good enough grasp on it as well. I want to share it. Thoughts? Ideas? Please don't say copy and paste into Facebook notes. Is this the type of writing outlet I am led to now?

I still have a yearning to write something meaningful, something worth mention, something that is remembered. Am I destined to be a writer?

This will be a rush of a week, trying to get classes all turned in, getting finals done and moving on to composition 2 this next semester, political science, history and math.. yuck.. the math part, the rest is irrelevant to where I want to be. Yes, math is practical when I want to cook, change the oil or work in my shop. Not here, not in my bread and butter. Maybe I will find some poetic stance about it, but I doubt it.

I am a literary junkie, bound to books, research and being the best I can be historically and politically, its my calling, needles? Not my scene, you medical majors, do well because we need more nurses and doctors. I cant stomach it and I do not know enough about it. Its too clean, or is it? Hospital politics always intrigued me funny enough. I know nothing of the medical field but a guy going into political science, they are always looking for paralegals and lawyers. You know, to quiz each other on legal terms in the operating rooms.. 

No title.. just because.. 7/16

How can one person title a blog before writing it? Isn't this supposed to be something that inspires us, our silent thoughts, and points of reasoning?

I know I have written so far enough blogs that if translated to ink would take up the entirety of a pen.

I am on blog number 25.

I am going to have to free write here soon on three topics for the class and then correlate some research based upon areas of study and then reveal a research question from each section. I am excited to see how my passions will actually play in my areas of study.

Is this to give students an idea of what they want to do in life with their educated careers?

Will I remember this summer? All of this writing? Will it take me somewhere? Will I end up writing an Ozarks column for the News-Leader? Will I be at every Central / Hillcrest match up the rest of my life because I once wrote a paper on how I am passionate about the Ozarks?

What is the use of tools helping me get through college, when will I learn something that will stay with me after college? Where do those lessons come in?

I have been in the workforce since I was 15. I have had a job and had co-workers since I could remember. I have learned the importance of responsibility and being accountable for your actions. I am a smart person or at least I feel that way. Why then, do I feel so dumb sometimes in my reading and lessons? Is it because I am on new level of thinking and process of thought? Or am I really dumb? I'll take the latter.

I am intrigued to see what I learn about myself in the following months. I look forward to walking the halls of MSU this time next summer filing registration papers in a four year university. I'll be part of all my cousins, but none of my parents or grandparents ever went or graduated. My mother never even graduated high school. Has it really been that long since life was that simple?

Crazy what this class has me thinking!

Here we go again 7/15

Writing. Almost tired of it. NOT! 

I have found this to be one of the best summers in a long time. I have not written so much in a long time. I feel like the kinks are all worked out, joints all oiled up and now I am ready for anything. 

Or am I? 

I went through the first part of lesson 7 tonight. The beginning of research. I loved Ms. A's quote tonight " I know that many of you have never known a life without the Internet, but knowing how

to use the Internet in college may be quite different than the social networking and

gaming activities you may be accustom to."

I laughed and thought about that tonight. A lot of people don't know how to use the internet or a library for research? Where do people go to research? When I was a kid, it was a big deal to get a bookmark from the librarian, to get a cloth bag to carry your books home in. It was an even BIGGER deal when your parents had to pay late fees. In high school it was worse when you had late fees and a research paper due. 

My Freshman year I chose to write about the Vietnam war, encyclopedias would reference another article in another volume. I can tell you the way to use EVERY book in an encyclopedia to write a 4 page paper. 

I am proud of my upbringing where we wrote everything, no. 2 pencil, our tests were short answer and fill in the blank and our finals always had an essay. 

That's another story another time. I just thought this was interesting. I did want to share something with someone that I loved in Ms. Anthony's writing tonight, 

"The best strategy in writing a research essay in college  is to write what you know, write what you want to know, creating questions for research, then go find what you need to know. " - Ms. Anthony

In honor of Craft Brew week 2013 7/14

Today is my last day off until next Wednesday. I will be traveling to Houston to spend time with my kids and then bring them home for a couple weeks.

I always like days like today when its quiet, the kitchen is clean and I have a brew batch waiting to be soaked into its destiny on my stove, mixed with the correct amount of hops I am sure I will have my best brew yet.

For those of you who haven't guessed, I'm a home brewer. Legalized in 1978 here in the states, it has become a backwoods sort of pastime, with enough convenience even the biggest "city boy or girl" could do it themselves.

The kits come in a few ways. The guys at the home brew store in Ozark can set you up with a kit, meaning that a portion of the grains needed for sugar breakdown in the beer are supplied so that you can steep them in a meslun bag, sparge the sugars with water and then bring your beer to a boil.

After the boil begins you add what is call a DME or dry malt extract. Depending upon your style, you want to add hops in intervals on your recipe card. Beer recipes can be found everywhere, from down home good old style brew, to something you prefer the most. In the world of brewing we like to call them clones for lack of better terms.

After the boil completes, its necessary to drop the temperature of the beer, which at this time tastes like nothing but pure sugar. The starches in the grain turn to sugar at higher temperatures, which is what you want. The sugars in the beer interact with the yeast (comes later) that cause fermentation. You do want alcohol in your beer right?

Once the beer is chilled you siphon it off into the fermenter, this is a highly technical process involving a garden hose.. haha! Just kidding, you use an auto siphon, you put one end in the pot, and the other in the fermenter and pull the tube out, and pressing lightly into a larger tube it all comes out flowing naturally all of its sugary goodness, down into the fermenter. When the temperature of the beer reaches close to 75 degrees I pitch the yeast into the beer and then put an airlock on the lid.

 The airlock is a tube that is two sided, one with air and the other with a liquor of some sort. I use bourbon, but a lot of people use vodka. The liquor is heavier than water and can resist the gases that will come up out of the beer. Yes, the beer is very very gassy. It doesn't smell, it just sounds like it should.

After a week or so the fermentation slows and drops to the bottom of the beer, using irish moss from my boil the irish moss gains a thickness to it, dragging all the hop residue, and any other malt extract residue to the bottom of the beer. I then re-siphon into a second fermenter for another half a week for clarity.

Before bottling I take a measurement of cane sugar or dextrose and mix it into the beer with a little water. The sugar will interact with the alcohol and small amounts of yeast in the bottles and create CO2 which is what makes beer bubbly..

Making beer has me saving bottles a lot. So old Sam Adams bottles, Blue Moon bottles etc are washed, boiled, and then washed, boiled again. Then they are  set to dry before bottling. I have capper that squeezes the caps onto the bottles for me.

I let these bottles sit in a cool dark place for about a week to two. You want these to stay out of the fridge because coolness makes yeast live and you want the yest alive to create the co2.

Popping the top of a beer of my choosing I can hear that small hissss coming from the top tells me its ready, I pour into a mug and taste, I am looking for some things here, if the hops have blended with the grain, if the head of the beer lasts, and if it tastes good. If not, they stay out of the fridge for another week or so; a good beer will not be refrigerated for nearly a month before you cool it to drink.

I think I will grill tonight, some grilled peaches, ground raised potatoes in my wife's grandfathers garden, and some grass fed beef purchased this weekend at the farmers market.

So remember the next time you go to a bar, or a restaurant and ask for a cold one, the travels that beer made came from someone standing over a brew pot, mixing, straining, cleaning, hopping and checking it for ph, co2 and the best taste so that you can enjoy this moment with friends, family and other loved ones. Its a great hobby, completely inexpensive and its a lot of fun.

Cheers!