Welcome to Matt Smith's weekly Sunday School!

Very good friend Matt Smith (no not the Doctor Who actor!) and I go back a few years, all the way to our time together at that very strange television station in Reidsville, North Carolina.  I learned a lot about video and broadcasting from Matt, and I continue to learn much from him since his becoming active with the online realm, sharing his talents and...

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Elementary school kids in Arkansas produced an AMAZING Indiana Jones fan film and you can watch it now!

This is... THE greatest thing that I have seen in a very long time.  These kids are... wow.  They are amazing!  They were able to pull off what a lot of us thirty and forty years ago were only able to dream of doing.  I know my best friend Chad and I used to plan out our own Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.  How when we grew up we would be the next...

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Trailer for Doctor Who sixtieth anniversary specials

Doctor Who needs a hard and fresh return to the franchise that that we know and love, above and away from the mess of the Thirteenth Doctor era (which if we're going to be honest really can't be pinned on Jodie Whittaker, she was just working with some really bad material).I don't know if that's what is coming in the next few months with the specials commemorating the show's...

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So, I lost a teaching job last week

How it transpired is something that a LOT of people have thought I'm making up.  But it really happened.I was on my first day of substitute teaching.  And I went into that school all shiny and shaved, shirt tail tucked into my khakis, best boots... I was going to make an impression on the students and faculty alike (say, why don't most men seem to tuck their shirt...

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Well...

 ...at least they didn't fire me for the exploding schoolhouse.Here is a tip: do not talk anymore about sodium's violent combustibility.I hope Mr. Springs would be proud of me.  This is the very first time in more than thirty years that I've used the term "valence electrons" in a piece of writi...

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Started teaching today. Here's how it went!

For now, I'm being a very active substitute teacher.  Which, well... we'll see what happens from there.  People have been telling me for many years that I would make for a great teacher.  Today was a chance to give it a shot.So I taught three blocks of high school sophomore honors chemistry class.  The subject of today's lesson was Neils Bohr, who came...

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Another article from the college newspaper. And it's not controversial either!

 See?  I really do know how to write an op-ed piece that doesn't honk off many readers!This edition of Elon's student newspaper The Pendulum came out right before spring break 1999.  I didn't want to be on the cusp of that and deliver something that would be overly provocative.  There had been an article for Christmas a few months earlier and...

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Germany 1943 or America 2023?

Found something last night while doing historical research.  It absolutely floored me to read this passage.  It could be referring to the America of today: Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and their friend and collaborator Christoph Probst wrote six leaflets in defiance of their government.  The three members of the "White Rose" were caught in February...

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The church that's 450 feet from my house

Regrettably, there is one goal that has eluded me in the seven years since my dog Tammy and I left our old hometown to find our place somewhere in America.  It was something I was very serious about, and still am.  I speak of finding a place of worship.  Somewhere that I can be an active part of a community of believers.This area doesn't lack for churches.  I've...

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I have a LinkedIn page?!?

Actually I've had it for a very long time now (I think 2006).  I just haven't done anything with it until this week...Some friends suggested that I "increase marketability".  So I'm putting myself out there in a way I might have not done before.  In assembling this I've become a bit astounded at all the experiences that have been racked up over the past decade...

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I'm a teacher again!!

So for like the third or fourth time in my life I am entering the field of education.I promise that I won't read "The Call of Cthulhu" to second graders again.(No, seriously, that's what happened.)Looking forward to taking young minds full of mush and molding them into critically thinking members of society.  Or playing a small part in it anyway :-) &nb...

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Safehouse: Back a friend's invention on Kickstarter

Hey gang, got something really special for you.  How often is it that you have the chance to get in on the ground floor of a new piece of technology?  Okay, maybe because of the Internet that chance happens on a routine basis now.  But even so, here's a utility that so far as I know is pretty unique.I've known Matt LaCoe for quite awhile now.  He and I...

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Another op-ed piece from my time at Elon's newspaper

Last month I stumbled on an online archive that has tons of issues of various newspapers going back many, many years.  Including The Pendulum: the student newspaper of Elon University.  Or at least it used to be.  I've been scrounging around Elon's website and it seems that The Pendulum has gone defunct: a casualty of instant news, social media and streaming...

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Product Review: Zevo Flying Insect Trap

In keeping with this blogger's enjoyment of finding and sharing good stuff, I'm going to do a review of something that I came across lately.  And so far I'm mighty impressed with it.I don't know where they came from, maybe on some vegetation that I got from the grocery store, but this summer has been absolutely wretched from gnats and fruit flies.  They've been getting...

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And the Fifteenth Doctor will bear the face of... Ncuti Gatwa!

The announcement already came a year ago, that the Fifteenth Doctor on the British television series Doctor Who is going to be portrayed by Rwandan-Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa.  Now as things begin really ramping up for the show's sixtieth anniversary in November, the BBC is showing its cards a bit.Here is Gatwa giving us a glimpse of what's to come:Number Fifteen's attire...

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All that I will likely say about former President Donald Trump being indicted

 Kindly allow me to boil down certain recent events into something that can be readily grasped. And I say this as someone who has never voted for Trump and likely never will.The people applauding former President Donald Trump's indictments don't know what the (BLEEP) they are cheering for. The United States is entering a dark place. We have already been poised...

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AMERICAN GRAFFITI turns fifty years old this week

George Lucas's movie - the first for his own company Lucasfilm - American Graffiti was released fifty years ago tomorrow.  It premiered at a film festival and was followed with wide release soon after.  If you've never seen American Graffiti you really should do yourself a favor and watch it.  It's a film spanning the course of a single night, in the lives of...

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