Category Archives: Randomness

I’m a Yellow Magic Drafter! (The Black Prism)

  By John Rea-Hedrick | October 7, 2010 - 8:52 am | Randomness
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YOU ARE A YELLOW DRAFTER

Yellow luxin is most often a liquid that releases its energy back into light quickly, allowing its use as a torch or a trigger to ignite flammable materials or explosives. Yellow nourishes other luxins, extending the durability of luxin structures or tools. Like water turning to ice, when yellow is drafted perfectly, it loses its liquidity and becomes the hardest luxin of all. Yellows tend to be clear thinkers, intellect and emotion in perfect balance.

The results from your color matching test have also shown that you are one of the elite, a superchromat. The magic you do will almost never fail. Satrapies will compete to recruit you, and you will have a wide latitude in what work you choose to do once you finish your studies. You can expect your patron to lavish praise and honors on you. As a monochrome, you will master your color, and only have to defer to bichromes and polychromes and, of course, the nobility and the satraps who support us all.

What color is your magic? Take the quiz for yourself at Brent Weeks.com

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What I know . . .

  By John Rea-Hedrick | June 5, 2010 - 9:55 pm | Poetry, Randomness
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When I first entered school, I didn’t know anything.
When I received my diploma, I thought I knew everything.

When I first entered college, I didn’t know anything.
When I received my degree, I thought I knew everything.

When I first entered the workforce, I didn’t know anything.
When I received my first promotion, I thought I knew everything.

When I first entered parenthood, I didn’t know anything.

. . . Some things never change.

~ John Rea-Hedrick

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Scribbling for the Sound of it

  By John Rea-Hedrick | June 4, 2010 - 4:08 pm | Poetry, Randomness
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I came across a link today (via K.M Weiland) to a post on AuthorCulture with a fun challenge to write a sentence illustrating redundancy.  I played around with the idea today while multi-tasking, in true IT fashion.  What I finally came up with ended up more like a tongue-twister than a redundant sentence, but once I began to hear it in my head I stopped thinking about redundancy and was struck simply by the way it sounded.

In my recent fiction writing efforts I had forgotten how much fun words can be, not just for their precision, but simply for their sound.

I’ve posted the sentence I wrote below along with a challenge of my own.

“He knew he didn’t know what he didn’t know, but knowing he didn’t know it didn’t mean he didn’t need it and he knew he needed it more than he needed to know it.”

Okay.  Now it’s your turn!

The challenge:

Using alliteration or assonance, or both, craft a sentence that’s simply fun to hear.  Write something, anything!  Don’t worry if it makes sense (think Dr. Seuss if that helps), as long as it sounds interesting then post it in the comments if you’d like to share.

As for me, I’ve started hearing all my neglected poetry calling out for me to come and play this weekend.

Maybe I will . . . it sounds like fun!

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VALEDICTORY TO CLASS OF 1910

  By John Rea-Hedrick | May 28, 2010 - 7:45 am | Randomness
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Bobbie Collier Williams (1910)

A few months ago my grandmother, Alice Lee Hedrick, sent my oldest daughter a special package containing a 100-year-old family mini-treasure trove.  In that package was this photograph of her own mother, Bobbie Collier Williams (my great-grandmother), in her cap and gown where she was valedictorian of her graduating class from Martha Washington College in 1910.  The package also contained her graduation cap (seen in the photo), the monogrammed lapel pin she wore (not in the photo), and the original typed script of her valedictory speech.

The world has changed immeasurably since 1910 as has the way in which our culture views women in society.  This post, however, isn’t really about any of that, although there’s plenty that could be said.  Instead, I’ll simply let the words of my great-grandmothers valedictory speech speak for themselves.  The speech itself is not earth-shattering.  It doesn’t contain any cryptic prophecies for the future, nor does it speak to any political issues of her day.  It’s simply a voice from the past; one that carries with it the same sorrow of partings and hopes for the future as from 100 years ago that students graduating still feel today.

I hope this voice from the past speaks to you today.  Please feel free to pass it on.

VALEDITORY TO CLASS OF ’10

Another year of our school-life is finished and many of us have come to-day for the last time. The occasion brings with it a comingled feeling of joy and sadness- joy because we have reached the goal for which we have so long been striving; sadness because of the severing of long and intimate companionships. Yet there is an end to all things “The shortest path and to the longest lane there comes and end”. The events of this day and of the past days are to be remembered and recalled with pleasure, perhaps with pride, when we have passed far down into the vale of years. As we hear the aged of to-day rehearse the scenes of their youth, so shall we revive the memories of our school when the battle of life had been fought, and we sit down to repose after the burden and the heat of the day are past. Then little incidents which seem no hardly worth telling will possess a deeper interest, and will linger longer and fondly in the imagination. To-day with its trials and it’s triumphs will be regarded as an epoch in the career of some of us; as a day worth remembering by all of us.

To you people of this historic old town, (more…)

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The “Creative Writer” Award

  By John Rea-Hedrick | May 12, 2010 - 8:05 am | Randomness
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creativewriter_award Real life has taken the forefront for me in recent weeks, as it should, and so my writing and this blog have fallen off the radar of my attention.  However, this week I received the “Creative Writer” award from YA Highway novelist, Michele Schusterman, and I’ve found myself considering how I might, in moderation, begin to revisit this space.

Consider this a first step.

The award: It’s a fun and simple challenge to tell six outrageous lies and one truth about yourself then see who can guess the truth.

Sounds harmless enough, so, here goes . . .

1) I have nine children.

2) Over the years I’ve worked as as babysitter, a library page, a bookstore clerk, a restaurant busboy, a glass installer, a landscaper, a programmer, an administrative assistant, a youth minister, a data processor and a clown.

3) I once stood on a table in my college campus food court at the University Place Hotel in the midst of the lunch crowd to serenade my future wife in apology for not getting her anything one year for Valentine’s Day.

4) I worry about everything, but somehow I’ve never had performance (audience) anxiety.

5) Because I’ve never looked my age I’m often mistaken for Justin Bieber.

6) I am wanted by the police in three states.

Any takers?  What do you think?  Leave your guesses in the comments below.

In the spirit of playing along, I’ve also decided to pass this along to a few other writers to see what they might do with it.

Jennifer Walkup, Megan Powell, Anna Staniszewski, Dawn Metcalf,  Tracy Clark & Heather Petty.

Have fun!  I look forward to reading your lists if you decide to play along.

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Health Care Reform Passes – My Medical Insurance Saga

  By John Rea-Hedrick | March 22, 2010 - 3:05 pm | Randomness
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(I had another post planned for today, but yesterday’s passage of health care reform legislation by the House has trumped that one for another day.)

My wife and I met and married during college in the 1990s.  Our goal was to get her through graduate school at which time she would take a full-time position in her degree field and I would transition to being the stay-home parent once children came along.  We hadn’t been married long and she had already begun graduate school when an newly diagnosed health condition required her to have surgery with a hospital stay.  We were uninsured.  The surgeon worked with us on a sliding-scale to reduce the cost, but it was still many thousands of dollars, much more than either of us could afford so we got on a payment plan.  Now, not only did we have college and graduate school tuition debt, but we had medical debt too.  A lot of it. (more…)

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The Princess Bride’s Count Rugen: Why Daylight Savings Time “Sucks”

  By John Rea-Hedrick | March 13, 2010 - 8:00 am | Randomness
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And now, a public service message from The Princess Bride’s Count Rugen on behalf of Daylight Savings Time. . .

The Princess Bride's Count Rugen: Daylight Savings Time 'Sucks'

 

“As you know, the concept of the suction pump is centuries old. Really that’s all this is except that instead of sucking water, we’re sucking time. We’ve just sucked one hour of your life away. We might one day go as high as five, but we really don’t know what that would do to you. So, let’s just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?”

. . .

UPDATED on March 14, 2012:

I am literally STUNNED at how interest in The Princess Bride Daylight Savings Time meme has taken off!  (And yes, I know it’s “Saving” time, but that just never sounded right to me.)  I revised this original blog post from 2010 with my newly updated and newly captioned image of Count Rugen on March 10th, 2012.  I decided to reshare it a few hours before the DST switch because I was afraid no one would notice it on a Sunday.  So, I posted it to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.  Then on Sunday, I posted it to Google+ too for good measure.

I watched with mild interest as my Tumbler post was reblogged or liked a modest 30 or so times.  Then, slowly, my blog traffic started to pick up.  It went from what was typically 3-4 hits a week to nearly 1,000 hits in three days!  WHAT?!?  I dug into my tracking stats and noticed traffic was referred from places I hadn’t posted, like Pinterest and still others I’d never heard of before.  Apparently, many of you really liked this and have shared it exponentially “in the wild”.  I spent a little time searching other sites where I thought it might turn up.  I’ve found other, higher traffic, sites where it had already received HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VIEWS!

All I can say is…WOW!

I have no way to track this image now, but I’d love to hear where else it’s turned up!  Since you found your way here, please consider leaving me a note in the comments with where you are in the world and where you saw it.  A thoughtful comment from a real person is so much more meaningful than a collection of cold analytics statistics.

Don’t you think?

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