Friday, October 23, 2015

Where do I want to be.

      Hello.

     I have a special place that I really want to be. This place is a wonderful place for me. The air is warm. The sky is usually bright blue. The sun shines very brightly. There are hills around.  There are all kinds of trees and bushes. The air smells of lots of different things. The smells go from a light dry dust scent to the smell of pine trees and grasses. There is usually a light breeze. The trees are pine, pinion pine and scrub brush. The hills are tall and rocky. The sides of the hills are covered with grass, trees and bushes. I am on a trail that is dusty and full of rocks. The trail can go from smooth and easy to navigate to very rocky, bumpy and slow going. The trail starts in the desert and ends in the mountains. The trail has about a 4600 ft rise in elevation and is about 30 miles long. At the beginning of the trail you have a beautiful view of lake Pleasant. As you go up the trail the view is a varying wonderful site. You get to experience rock out crops and gentle rolling hills. You see goat a cattle pens. The hills change from low desert rocky bluffs to high mountains covered with trees. This trail is an off road only trail. The original use of this trail was for miners to travel to and from the many mines in the area. There is still, to this day remains of theses mine camps. Some of the mine camps might have ben as large 10,000 to 15,000 people and as small as just a handful of workers. The remains of equipment and machinery can be seen in the distance. When you come to an old mine camp you still see the mine shafts, the tailing hills and sometimes an old building or two. Other times you come to the spot where a very large camp once stood and you see no evidence of any activity. The only way you know of the camps existence is because of a plaque dedicated to what used to be.
This place is the Crown King trail from lake pleasant just north of Phoenix Az. I love to visit and explore this place. For me, this is a great way to get out into the great outdoors and use my off road skill to traverse this trail, see nature and explore places that don't exist any more. I love this place and I always find something new every time I visit.

Thank you. Scott Hasemeier

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Fluency blog 11 Music can bring out emotion

     Milo is asleep like normal. He knows his place at homework time. He does try to play sometimes and I wish I could, but homework calls me, oh well.

     I love music. I most often listen in the car and while working out. I think it is so cool how music can stir up old feelings and emotions. Depending on the song, my mood can change from happy to intense pain. That's what I love about music. Different songs can make you feel different.

Fluency blog 14 Why do prople have to prove themselves?

     Milo likes to prove to the cats that he is the top dog, he jumps off my chair and runs at the cats, they don't care, he is smaller than they are, they just rub against him as to say " Good dog ".

     I sometimes wonder why it is that we have to prove ourselves in certain situations. One example is my son is trying to get onto the basketball team at school. He is a sophomore and this is his first try at basketball. He has been on the track team for a couple of years, since seventh grade, and know he would like to add basketball to his list of sports he has tried.

     At open gym the basketball players all work on the fundamentals of the game and the newbies work on not getting in the way. Well it's not always that way, the new players do get instruction from the coach and the varsity players do help from time to time. The thing that bothers me is the macho attitude the coach has toward the new players. I hear it from my son. He will come home from practice and complain that the coach just ignores him, or the varsity players keep him out of practice rotation. I explain that because you are new and they have been on the team for a while that you are going to have to prove yourself. Ahh!!! I said it, the magic words, prove yourself. What does this mean?

     I think this concept goes back as far as man has lived on the planet. The younger of a group will always have to show that they are ready to step up and show what they have learned growing up. The time when the younger ones from a society get to try to be one of the leaders. Try to be a provider or in the case of my son show that they are good enough to play with the rest of the team.

  But what about what I said about proving themselves. Well I know for my son it is a case of having to make every practice on time, be ready to learn from the older players. Understand that the coach is watching him even though he thinks the coach is just giving him a hard time. That's it!!! Hard Time.

     I said prove yourself many times now and that is the idea that I amn getting at. Having to deal with getting pushed around, yelled at by the coach, not having g the varsity players pass you the ball until you have proven yourself. That's what its all about. Showing the guys that come before you that you can stick it out, you are strong enough, though enough, have learned the game and the most important thing, that they can rely on and trust you. That's proving yourself. Yes you have to take crap, but that's the way it works, not fun, but stick it out and you will make it.

Thank you,
Scott Hasemeier

Final reflection

     Milo and I have had fun doing blogs together. I am not sure if he has learned any thing But I sure have.

     When I first started doing daily blogs I really was not sure what I was doing, but I decided to give it a try. The ideas came easy, I was able to find so many things to blog about. The blog site was very helpful in setting up my blog. I titled my blog, Milo's house after my little cha-weenie dog. He always sits on may lap when I am doing my homework. Since he has been ever present for all my workings on my computer I decided to name my blog after him.

     The thought of doing a daily blog seemed a bit overwhelming until I started doing them. The cool thing about a blog is that you can write about any thing you wish to write about. The subject matter is endless. I got inspiration from everywhere. I drive about 70 miles one way to get to OTC. so some of my blogs were about driving and drivers. I would get to see things like the changing of the leaves as we went from the end of summer into fall, that was blog material. I would write about things I see on T.V.  I would write about objects like cars or even my bathroom toilet, my wife didn't like the toilet one. So like I said , there are so many different things to get ideas from for blog material.

     I like the fact that the act of writing a blog is similar to free writing. I would get an idea and just start writing. I would put down my ideas and then come back and re write blurbs into proper sentences and then spell check. My way of   " Blog free writing " is not free writing in its real sense, but for me it worked. I do feel that I was able to use things and ideas that I have learned up to this point from English class [ ENG-101 ]. This makes me feel good in the sense that I can use what I have learned in just a short 7 weeks

     I have enjoyed writing a blog. It is nice to be able to write about anything I choose to write about and use what ever language I chose to use. With that said I work to make my blogs sound clean and that they are not full of bad words or improper language. I feel that the lessons that I been taught up to this point give me a feeling of writers pride for what I write and how I write. I want my blog posts to reflect me and show that I am a respectful person. I have pride in my writing and I think anybody who reads my blogs can see that.

     This blog post exercise has been a great learning experience. I have been able to put what I have learned up to this point to good use. The other nice thing is that the daily writing of a blog has improved some of my writing skills. I am able to recognize my spelling and grammar errors, my sentence and paragraph skills have improved and I feel better overall as a writer.

Thank you,
Scott Hasemeier