Grandpa Rode The Orphan Train

In the past few days, I've been helping my son work on a big assignment at school. He has to do a huge term paper on something that happened in American History, so we thought that it would be a good idea to do his paper on the Orphan Trains, that crossed the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The reason we decided that this was going to be his topic, was because my great-grandfather was one of the children that came out west from New York on the Orphan Trains. Unlike many of the kids, who were actual orphans, my great-great-grandfather signed his 11 yr. old son over to the Children's Aid Society in New York. That boy was my great-grandfather.

He was placed with a family in Kansas in 1884, and spent the rest of his life around this area. I have a copy of the actual ledger file they had on my great-grandfather, with updates on his welfare and whereabouts until May of 1896, when he was 23 yrs. old.

Had it not been for the Orphan Trains, I may have grown up on the East Coast, instead of the Midwest. It's always fun to learn where you came from, but when your family played a role in an historic event, it makes it that much better.

My name is Christine Senter, and I am the great-grandchild of an Orphan Train Rider.

Cool Blog About Clocks

I am the kind of person who always wants to know what time it is. If I don’t have my watch on, or a clock near me at all times, I panic. I’m always on the lookout for a new clock and have found a really cool blog that talks about nothing but clocks. I was really amazed at the amount of information I found on this site.

The site is called Clocks Blog, and I’ve never seen so much information on clocks before. This site has a huge list of categories, including posts on mantle clocks, grandfather clocks, and specialized brand name clocks. These people really know what they’re talking about, and they don’t just talk about the clocks. They offer posts about clock histories, ideas on which clocks work in which spaces, and they even offer some clock humor.

I really liked their idea of fitting an outdoor clock into the decor of your patio or around your barbeque area. I’ve never thought of putting a clock outside before. Cool idea. I recommend everyone check out Clocks Blog for just about anything you’d ever want to know about the world of clocks.

I won the NaNo challenge

I can't believe it, but I actually did it. I wrote a novel of more than 50,000 words in 30 days. Well, I was actually done on the 29th, with a total of 50,184 words. There were a few times that I didn't think I was going to make it, but I finally finished and I got to put this really cool icon on any and all of my blogs, sites, or whatever.

I joined the NaNo challenge last year, but didn't even come close to making my goal. This year, however, I worked my little fingers off and finished with time to spare. My story is called "The Mask of Other Lives", and is about a young woman who dies and finds out that the real journey of life begins on the other side.

I now need to go back and edit the whole thing, check for inconsistancies, and see what I can do to make the story more interesting and maybe a little longer. If you'd like to read an excerpt of the story, I've posted one on my other site. I hope you enjoy.

I've also started writing another blog called Ancient History Facts. It's just a simple little site where I write short posts about all things ancient. I've been a fan of ancient history most of my life, and I thought this would be a great place to let go of all the weird facts that have been collecting in my brain for the past 3o-something years.

Hopefully, now that November is over and I don't have a deadline to meet, I will start posting more often again. It seems that the harder I try to keep my blogs up, the less I actually get done. LOL

Ancient Egypt plagued by Zombies

LOL. I had to pass this along as I almost laughed myself silly over this. As you may know, I love ancient history, archaeology, and mythology. I read a lot of articles about those subject and came across this story that seems a little out there to me.

There is a somewhat famous carving found in Egypt known as the Narmer Palette, that depicts what many thought was a king decapitating those he'd conquered in war. Many archaeologists have found burials of headless bodies scattered across the Egyptian sands. Now, there is a new theory that these people weren't victims of war, but victims of a deadly virus called Solunum. Apparently this virus is what causes people to become zombies.

According to the article, there is proof that this stelae depicts the first evidence of an actual zombie attack, and that these people were decapitated in order to end said attack. I'm not sure I believe that zombies attacked the ancient people of Egypt, but then again, I keep seeing all those ole movies in the back of my head. Remember the movie Dawn of the Dead? Now I know what they were talking about. LOL

Read the article and make your own decisions. There is a lot more to it than I've posted here, but I still think it's kind of funny.

Nebraska Athletic Director Gets Sacked

Oh boys and girls, I've got some funny, yet useless, information to pass along. For anyone who's read my blog over the past few months, will know that I'm a die-hard Nebraska Cornhusker fan. However, over the last few weeks, that's not something to brag about.

It seems that due to the losses the team has taken over the past few weeks, and the fact that many of the school's biggest financial backers are walking away, the school's athletic director, Steve Pederson, has been fired. Not asked to step down, not given the chance to resign, just plain out fired.

Steve Pederson isn't a well liked man in this state. First of all, when in Nebraska, don't mess with our kids, don't mess with our tractors, and don't mess with our football team. We'll cheer for all different teams in the pros, but there is only one college team to root for in this state. Steve Pederson messed with our team.

First of all, he fired the former coach, Frank Solich. This coach had 9-3 season going, but was fired because Pederson didn't like where the coach was going with the team. He brought in Bill Callahan, who was fired from Oakland Raiders. Since then, we fans have watched our team fall further and further behind in the rankings and the scores.

This year, however, we started the season out with a bang, winning the first game 52-10. Cool! From there, it was just an embarrassment. We were barely beating teams that nobody had ever heard of before, and bigger schools were just stomping the team into the dirt. 2 weeks ago, they played against Missouri and got beat like a kitchen rug.

This last week was a home game against Oklahoma State. The team's former head coach, Tom Osborne was at the game. He led the Cornhuskers in back-to-back National Championships in 94 and 95, then again in 97. Also at the game was the entire 1997 team. We lost 45-14, the worst loss at home since 1958. It was also the first time in the school's 118 year history that they allowed 4 opposing teams to earn 40 or more points in a single season.

As of right now, Bill Callahan's job is still intact. There are a lot of fans who are calling for his firing as well, but the school has decided to let the new athletic director make that decision. Ironically, he also just signed a new 5-year contract with the team, but that may not matter in the coming weeks.

I'm very interested to see how the season is going to end up now. I'm sure there is more than one nervous person wandering the halls of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

A birthday meme

Several days ago, my cyber-buddy Danielle tagged me for a birthday meme and I'm such a big dork that I just realized it today. LOL

Ok, here's the scoop. I have to explain things that happened on September 17, throughout history. I know a few, but let's just see how cool that day really is, other than the fact that I graced the world with my presence on that day. LOL

Here's how this meme works:
Go to the Wikipedia site and type in your birthdate
List 3 events that happened on your birthday
List 2 other birthdays that you share
And finally, list 1 holiday that falls on your birthday
I'll continue with the rules after I add all this information.

3 Events that happened on September 17th:
1.) In 1630, the city of Boston was formed
2.) In 1908, Lt. Thomas Selfridge becomes the first airplane fatality
3.) In 1984, Reggie Jackson becomes the 13th member of the 500 home run club

2 Birthdays I share:
1.) Hank Williams Sr. (born 1923)
2.) John Ritter (born 1948)

1 Holiday that happens on September 17th:
1.) Citizenship Day

Ok, now for the rest of the rules.

There are 5 slots listed below of those who have been tagged. You need to remove the first one and bump the others up one space, listing your name at the end of the list.

This is a miracle / Mariuca / Mike / Danielle / Christine

And finally, I must tag 5 friends to send this little ditty onto.

My choices are
BlogSire / Silken / Santa / Raven / ManoDogs /

Ok, there you go. All the wonderful details you'd ever want to know about the day of my birth.

Ancients more modern than previously thought

I have so many interests that it's hard to keep them all straight. Besides being a writer, I also enjoy quilting, doing needlepoint, and anything and everything that has to do with ancient history.

I spend a lot of time checking out all the historical websites and latest news on archaeological discoveries. This one was totally cool though. I ran across an article at LiveScience.com that tells of a mummy that was found wearing a prosthetic toe. Yes, a toe.

The article goes on to state that the prosthetic shows signs of wear, meaning that it was probably an actual working unit, and not just something put on after death by embalmers. If this turns out to be true, it will push back the date of known prosthetics by 600 to 700 years. How cool is that.

It's amazing that a lot of the things we take for granted as being a "modern" innovation, was thought of thousands of years before by a people we now deem as being "primative".