Moving Time

August 31st, 2010

There won’t be a podcast episode this week. David is moving and has been without internet. It didn’t seem right to make him worry about recording amidst the general frustration of moving! We’ll be back next Tuesday with a new episode. Hope everyone has a great week!

Tuesday Night Stories 7, Part 3

August 24th, 2010

This poor blog has been neglected for a bit. This week’s episode really threw me for a loop. I haven’t had so much trouble writing for some time now. I scrapped three ideas (and lots of plotting) and modified the one that I didn’t scrap more than once. I think it came out pretty well in the end. Sorry it wasn’t up last Tuesday.

We had a nice Texas rain today, the first one in awhile. It felt fantastic, especially considering the 109 degree heat yesterday. It was kind of a defining moment of the end of Summer. Everything seems to relax a bit and fall into routine when such a large part of the population heads back to school.

Remember, if you’d rather read the story you can do so here. As always, thanks for joining us tonight!

   

Tuesday Night Stories 7, Part 2

August 10th, 2010

In part two of Pushed To The Edge the walls begin to close in around Alsalam as he returns to his home village. Instead of a warm welcome he finds the town quiet and the streets empty. Things quickly turn from bad to worse and he discovers exactly why the people are in hiding.

Check out the podcast page if you missed part one. As always, thanks for listening!

   

Tuesday Night Stories 7, Part 1

August 3rd, 2010

Tonight we start a brand new story! Pushed To The Edge is another way of trying something new. Trying new accents, and hopefully a bit larger scale than any podcast story I’ve written so far. We shall see how this goes! I’ll re-post the synopsis for anyone who missed it last week.

For fifteen years invaders from the distant land of Kalleth have held Alsalam in servitude to their army, but they’ve brought peace and prosperity as well. When a murderous and enslaving change in command comes down from the eastern King, Alsalam must use the military knowledge he’s learned from them not only to defend himself, but all the tribes of his homeland.

As always, thanks for joining us!

   

Losing Sight Of The Stars

August 1st, 2010

How often do you gaze up at the stars?

Everyone knows that we’re losing interest in science as a country. Where visiting the moon should have been the first step in our visit to space, we haven’t gotten much farther. Have you ever wondered what happened to the public’s interest in space exploration? Have you lost your interest in knowing what amazing sights are to be found out there?

I was thinking about it the other night in front of my house. Fort Worth is not a huge city compared to some, but even here the stars are dim most nights. What about major cities who can’t even see the stars? How many children out there have never seen a starry sky that wasn’t on the television? We’ve all heard of the SciFi/Fantasy stories about civilizations that have never seen a tree before and are in awe of them. What about the fact that in this world, as it is now, there are probably children who have never seen a sky filled with the beauty of the universe?

There is so much more to existence than what we can comprehend as human beings. Sure there are still people interested on exploring the universe, but it’s the kids that we really need to get interested. They’re the ones that might see what we cannot. Kids need to see a truly starry night. I think we all do.

And FYI, the images are from NASA’s astronomy pictures of the day, which are fantastic.

Pushed To The Edge

July 27th, 2010

This 7th story is going to be delayed a week. We talked more about tonight’s episode and decided that we wanted to try another take or two before posting it. This story is going to have more accents than anything we’ve tried before. Getting those voices consistently right is something we want to do a good job of. Below is the synopsis for the story, Pushed To The Edge. Check back next Tuesday for part one! I think this one is going to be fun.

For fifteen years invaders from the distant land of Kalleth have held Alsalam in servitude to their army, but they’ve brought peace and prosperity as well. When a murderous and enslaving change in command comes down from the eastern King, Alsalam must use the military knowledge he’s learned from them not only to defend himself, but all the tribes of his homeland.

Tuesday Night Stories 6

July 21st, 2010

I should have gotten this up yesterday, but I had to work until after midnight, then be up again at 7 this morning, and I didn’t have the audio at the time. My apologies! Here is Adventures Through The Window in its entirety. I hope everyone liked this story, I enjoyed many parts of it, but I’m still uncertain of it as a whole. Not that I think it’s bad, but there are parts I think could have been better by going back in with some more editing, but alas, that’s not an option with these podcasts!

Next week we’ll start a whole new story, so be sure to check back. It’s going to be another adult story, in the high fantasy genre I love so much. I’ll tell you guys more about it later in the week.

If you liked this one, feel free to tell your friends about it! We always love more readers/listeners.

   

Creativity and Being Unique

July 17th, 2010

Most readers here have figured out that education is something that means a lot to me. There are few things I find more important than developing a person’s natural curiosity, no matter what age. Having the ability to teach yourself, or to find those around you who can help you learn, is such an important skill to have in life. If kids learn only one thing in school, it should be that they have the potential to teach themselves. Sadly, this rarely happens in our education system.

One way I like to teach myself is to spend some time every week watching TED talks. These inspirational speeches are a great way to figure out new things you can learn. It’s not often a full lesson, but it’s enough to get you going in the right direction.

I wanted to share these two videos, both from the same person. Sir Ken Robinson is one of my favorite speakers on the subject of education. I think everyone can learn something by taking a little time to listen to his views about teaching children.