Snoopin’ with the Snoop

It all started with wanting to look at my mom’s original genealogy database. But PAF 2.31 is only on 5.25 inch disks… and disk 2/2 has a corrupted sector… so it’s a no-go on copying to a 3.5 and then onto my laptop.

So I have the old Compaq set up, because that operating system works, and the PAF files are still there, but it has only a 5.25 drive. The Tandy has a memory configuration error and apparently no operating system, but allows me to copy from drive b (5.25) to drive a (3.5). However, the notes2.dat file on the Compaq is a whopping 456,000 byte file (0.4M), and I so far have been unable to find a 500K 5.25 that is not corrupted! Most of the disks can handle at most a little under 350K. (For those who may have a small 1GB flash drive, the file I’m trying to copy equals 0.000424683 gigabytes.)

Anyway, the following is a list of the books I read over the summer of 1994, from a list that I had saved onto a 5.25 disk. I assume it was for Book-It:
Witch…………………………………..Christopher Pike
The White Dragon…………………………Anne McCaffrey
Little Women…………………………..Louisa May Alcott
Island of the Blue Dolphins………………Scott O’Dell
Martin’s Mice…………………………..Dick King-Smith
The Secret Life of Dilly McBean……………Dorothy Haas
No One To Call Me Home…………………..Rev. James Close
Up the Chimney Down………………………Joan Aiken
2061: Odessy Three……………………….Arthur C. Clarke
The Woman Who Rides Like A Man………………Tamora Pierce
Alanna: The First Adventure…………………Tamora Pierce
In The Hand of the Goddess………………….Tamora Pierce
Her Majesty’s Wizard…………………Christopher Statsheff
Emily Of New Moon…………………………L.M. Montgomery
Emily Climbs……………………………..L.M. Montgomery
Emily’s Quest…………………………….L.M. Montgomery
A Whisper and A Wish…………………….Robin Jones Gunn
New Girl In Town……………………………Judy Baer
Trouble With A Capital “T”…………………..Judy Baer
Jennifer’s Secret…………………………..Judy Baer
Journey To Nowhere………………………….Judy Baer
Broken Promises…………………………….Judy Baer
The Intruder……………………………….Judy Baer
Silent Tears No More………………………..Judy Baer
Fill My Empty Heart…………………………Judy Baer
Mandie and the Dangerous Intruders……..Lois Gladys Leppard
Julie………………………………..Catherine Marshall
Too Many Secrets……………………Patricia H. Rushford
Silent Witness……………………..Patricia H. Rushford
The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints…………
The Sweet Running Filly…….Pat Johnson and Barbara VanTuyl
Calico Captive…………………….Elizabeth George Speare
The Sign of The Beaver……………..Elizabeth George Speare
Something Old, Something New…………………Judy Baer
Vanishing Star……………………………..Judy Baer
No Turning Back…………………………….Judy Baer
Second Chance………………………………Judy Baer
Lost and Found……………………………..Judy Baer
Unheard Voices……………………………..Judy Baer
Lonely Girl………………………………..Judy Baer
More Than Friends…………………………..Judy Baer
Never Too Late……………………………..Judy Baer
The Discovery………………………………Judy Baer
The Gathering Dawn…………..Sarah Laity & Dianna Crawford
Black Like Me………………………John Howard Griffin
The OnePrince………………………………..Bill Hand

I highlighted those books that I have read multiple times in this past year.

Among the other documents I found were: “Bottle-Nosed Dolphins” | Submitted by Jeannette | Prepared for Mrs. Schmidt, 5th Grade Science, October 25, 1990 and “Ancient Egyptian Science,” which was done for Mr. Lockett the next year in 6th grade. Ha! Also my old mtricks file, which is password protected… now what did I use…?

Up on the roof today, while cleaning the hundreds of maple seeds out the gutters after having noticed waterfalls coming over the eaves yesterday during our 1.5 inches of rain, I realized, one, just how high I had climbed on various hills when in the NCC, and two, how natural it felt to be at a higher elevation, looking down. My head felt much more at ease up there than it has down on the ground. For a flatlander, I used to think that the roof, one and a half stories high, was tall. Up there today, though I had my usual vertigo near the edge, I didn’t feel as if I were high at all. I felt I wanted to go up another one or one and a half times the height I was already at, and then i’d start to be at the difference in elevations when I used to climb in the desert.

While clearing out the house a few days ago, the continual process that it is, I found one of my journals from when I was in college. In perusing it, I could tell that during those years I continually wrote (as a writer for my college newspaper, The Argus). My writing voice was punchy, and I didn’t continually depend on a handful of words and constructions. This post and my previous posts on this blog lack the voice I had as a writer. They lack ME as a writer. And I lack the discipline with which I used to expand and expound on a subject in an entertaining way. The paragraph above can be a creative non-fiction piece, or any other form, and could flow better, and tell itself better. Such is the challenge to me. Where I used to take liberties with my writing, and succeeded as an established writer in my niche, now I stand-by for the short, monotonous exposition.