Aaron Ewer

One of the great things about autumn is the bounty of farm harvests and a lot of fall festivals. It must be incredibly satisfying to finally see the results of the tilling, the planting, the fertilizing and the weeding, and watering. and all the care and concern the farmers have spent on their crops.

A lot of farmers in this area grow corn and there has been a relatively new family attraction popping up all over the heartland with picking your own pumpkin, hayrides and now corn mazes.

A family in Virginia has been creating corn mazes since 1999 and each year they get a photo of it from the air so you can see the thought and effort that goes into designing and cutting these complicated mazes. Their farm is called Cows n Corn and if you live within driving distance you might want to mark your calendar for a visit to their working farm in virginia’s Fauquier County and take the kids through their maze - this year’s maze opens on Friday, August 29. If your kids are a little older, have them bring flashlights and go through the maze at night, then stick around for the campfire and hand dipped ice creams.

Funny how we were just talking about this the other night and then yesterday I come across a story in the daily newspaper about the very same thing: concocted words.

I hear words in everyday conversations that drive me nuts because there is not such word. For example: conversate. I’ve never heard a white person use this word in a sentence but I hear it more and more and it gets under my skin so bad I want to slap the person using it and put a “stupid sign” around their neck.

The press is guilty of a lot of this concoction. Words like “Brangelina” and “Baby Bump” are ridiculous and yet these smiling talking boobs toss them about in all the celebrity gossip shows and columns. I’m so sick of it!

Read these forum comments from the Chicago Tribune site for other concocted words. You will be surprised at the hundreds of responses to their question, “What made-up word drives you nuts?”

Back to school means shelling out the big bucks for school supplies, plus in this area the kids all have to wear clothes that meet the county’s strict uniform guidelines. There was a lot of controversy about implementing a school uniform policy, but it worked out OK last year.

Most of the schools have an approved list of school supplies for each grade, and they provide these lists to the local Wal-Marts and Targets about 3 weeks before the first day of school so parents can take advantage of the tax-free weekend shop around the different stores for special prices and sales.

The school supplies lists are very specific, often including the only acceptable brand usually offering no explanation for things like “two folders, one red and one black” or “backpacks with one pocket and no wheels.”

On the list I’m working with, the kids are required to bring three boxes of 24 count Crayola brand crayons. We are not allowed to put our child’s name on them, as evidently all crayons are put into a community sharing box for all the children to share amongst themselves. What?!?! If everyone is “sharing” then why am I sending three boxes at the start of the school year? For the bussed in kids to “share” my kids stuff? If that’s what they plan, why hide behind this list and not just come out and say they want me to provide free crayons for two other kids in the class?

Evidently, not all the supplies are to be “shared” and these items are to be labeled with our child’s first and last name before sending them to the school. There were no further instructions as to what type of labeling is required. In my house, labeling means using a DYMO Labelmaker and printing out the name on the different color tapes that come with the machine. I worry that I’ll use the wrong color tape and meet with the teacher’s immediate disapproval, resulting in a bias against my child for the entire school year.

Perhaps if I donate one of the labelmakers to the class we will be forgiven? They are so handy to have for so many things around the house and office, I bet the teacher’s would appreciate having one in the classroom to label the items for children who’s parents neglected to put labels on their supplies, plus they can label items within the classroom to help stay organized. Well, that’s the plan then.

I’ve always liked maps and I love Google Maps. I even learned how to use Google Earth and love the way you can tilt and rotate the satellite version to get a different perspective on the locations.

There have been a lot of interactive maps developed that are based on Google Earth, which must be very gratifying to the people at Google who have been developing and working on this really cool feature. Some of the west coast newspapers have created maps of the California fires and making clickable information balloons to give details of each fire, such as acreage affected, percent contained, and links to photos. There are also earthquake maps and user generated multi-location maps of a variety of topics, such as all the NASCAR tracks, the most popular theme parks, and other cools things.

For all the doomsayers I don’t think this hurricane season has been any where near as bad as they were predicting. Here it is almost August and they are only up to the letter “D” for Dolly, which is threatening the southern Texas and Mexicans shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Don’t take me wrong - I’m all for a low impact hurricane season. What I’m saying is I’m sick of these so called experts being sought out to grandiousely pronounce that we’re going to have major weather-related tragedies. Surely there are experts that were also saying that this season will not be very bad, but that’s just not sensational enough to make the news.

I’m sick of the news media channeling my thoughts and concerns with all the doom and gloom. They need to focus on what is actually happening and report the facts - not opinions and not advice.