Google's Doodle review: 155th Aniversary of the Pony Express

Before anything else, don't think that I forgot about the second part of the entry "About the girl of the entry "A Letter"". I am still working on it and hopefully I will post it tomorrow part two, so if you want to know what happens, continue visiting my blog, and please share it. That being said, I may continue.
Today, April 14th, 2015, Google has posted a new Doodle. For those who don't know what a doodle is, a Doodle is a drawing made by Google that replaces the original Google's logo in order to commemorate an special date, for example in the US, there is a doodle on the fourth of July, in France there is a Doodle on my birthday La Bastille day, and there was once where it was commemorated the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who (you know who is Doctor Who, don't you?). Today was commemorated the 155th anniversary of the Pony Express. Now let me tell you a little bit of History...
According to Wikipedia (the world oracle), The Pony Express was a mail service, packages and stuff back and forth the East Coast to the West coast that started on 1860 (like a FedEx but in the 1860's). Like the name of the Service suggests, the deliverers used not ponies, but horses selected by the U.S. Army. It closed the Civil War started and the company was sold to Wells Fargo for $1.50 Million.
Well, The Pony Express is brought from the dead to the 2015 by this Doodle.It shows the word "Google" in a western style, then it shows a rider on a horse riding at the sunset, but Google's things are not that simple, because it has a button to play which you click and then it show the Pony Express's historic route from California to Georgia, then the doodle transforms in an interactive game in which your objective is to pick up the letters that are in the road (why would someone put a letter in the middle on the road?) and ride, but in the first level your enemies are cacti, then rocks, then avalanches, and thieves (it's the wild west). It is pretty entertaining and creative. Usually Google's doodles are just 2-D drawings (really cool by the way), but a few times, an interactive doodle is a Doodle for something. This game really brings to life the Pony Express, after more than a 100 years of closing, and I suggest you to play it if you want to have a good time and beat my score: 53/100 (I picked up 53 letters out of a hundred).

Hi-yo, Silver, Away!

Favorite Teacher

When I arrived to the US on 9th grade, one of the many things that I saw different from the Mexican Middle School from where I came from, was that instead the teacher would walk from room to room,the students now walk from teacher to teacher (Which now reflecting, it is a better and more efficient system).  It was incredible how much you can tell from one teacher’s personality based on his or her room or lesson,  for example, Mrs. Hudler has a very colorful personality to my opinion because in her classrooms the three most dominant colors ( blue, green, and white) somehow illuminates the room in some sort of pastel color, and the magic is that no matter if we read a gory story as Macbeth, or the gloomy Beowulf, the colorfulness of her classroom doesn’t go away, and I always imagine that her classroom is some sort of metaphorical carrusel, or -if you understand my idea better with this comparison- the inside of a hippie combie (but instead of smoke, it smells to cinnamon). But dear reader, this page is not about Mrs. Hudler (ha! Got you!); Yes, Mrs. Hudler has been my favorite teacher in my senior year, but when she assigned me this page during the Ragnarok, she said “This page is about your favorite teacher of all your four years of High School”, and since Mrs. Hudler is only my favorite teacher of senior year, she doesn’t fall in this category (but I do feel admiration and appreciation for Mrs. Hudler, in fact I will right now look to the starred night and look for a group of stars that form a woman with a book, and call her the “ Mrs. Hudler’s Constellation”, like Zeus did with Chiron, Perseus and greek heroes’ mentor). I am going to talk about a teacher whose classroom is not as “hippe” as Mrs. Hudler’s, or is not as goofy as Mr. Kohlhase, or was not as popular as Mr. Laney (Radiology teacher who was popular because he was supercool), but rather to a teacher who retired when I started my senior year, but while he worked in Med High he used to put us often 2- hour videos from the eighties, and to be honest, I would sometimes fell asleep in his class, in fact, once I fell asleep for 15 minutes!

Dear Reader, I suppose you wonder “Well Alejandro, If you used to fell asleep in his class, then how could you have the face to write in this space that he was your favorite teacher?” Well, let me explain…

I had Mr. Wertz on both Freshmen and Junior Year. I had him for Biology 3B and Environmental Science 3A (I still remember the class periods). And he wasn’t a pretty much exciting class, like I said before, he used to put us most of the time Two-hour videos from the eighties with primitive visual effects, but somehow the learning sticked to my head, it was like those kinds of hypnotic sessions where you go in and came out without remembering nothing, but in my subconscious I felt that I did learned something, and by next class period and for the exams I remembered everything. So Mr. Wertz made me learn easily, without putting any effort, which is something cool because you can use your resources in another thing.

He didn’t talk too much, and most of the time he looked sad, and when I was in Environmental Science he used to play the paper of “the prophet of the Judgement Day”, but he had a pretty interesting life, for example, he was attended to a college that was near a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and the plant had a nuclear meltdown (wikipedia “Three Mile Island accident”), then he taught in a South African elementary school during the Apartheid, he almost met Nelson Mandela, and he left that life of excitement in South Africa to come to the valley to teach High School kids. This example tells me that you don’t need to be loud to have an exciting life, but just to be focused.

Finally, during my freshmen year, I think he was one of the few people who believed the most in me. You see dear reader, he would help me with his class, and encouraged me to study, when I was discouraged by the other classes (but this only happened in my freshmen year, all the other years were different).

P.S. Have you noticed that there are not scratched out words in this entry?

Mr.Wertz

Top 10 Movies

Another List! I so love doing lists because it keeps me entertained and organized, also I feel like an important businessman by doing lists (lists on my college choices, p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶d̶a̶t̶e̶s̶, ideas for movies, etc.).  This list is about the movies that I saw during High School, same thing as the last list, Position number one is my most favorite.

10.- Scott Pilgrim vs. The world

Sometimes people are held back by ghosts of their pasts and doesn’t allow them fully enjoy life, well, Scott Pilgrim Vs, The World touches this theme. It is about a guy named Scott Pilgrim that is broken hearted because his girlfriend dumped him because of other guy, so Scott Pilgrim tries to look for consolation by dating a High Schooler, but then he meets Ramona Flowers and falls in love with her, but if Scott Pilgrim wants to date her, then he needs to defeat Ramona’s 7 evil exes (6 ex boyfriends and 1 ex girlfriend). The movie is funny, and also epic, because Scott Pilgrim uses different weapons to defeat the exes, such a battery cymbal, skateboard, his own fists, a cup of half and half coffee, bare hands, sound waves, and a katana (Samurai sword). It has action, love, and comedy, which is something very rare in movies. Also Scott Pilgrim fights Captain America and Superman in the movie, and although he defeats Captain America, he also beats super bad Superman (I would only watch a superman movie if I had a gun in my head.)

9.- Guardians of the Galaxy

A Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. It is about Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, who happens to also be Emmet in The Lego Movie, and also appears in Parks and Recreations), a human from earth that got kidnapped by alien mercenaries, and is trained to be a thief. One day, he steals something that is not supposed to be stolen and an alien dictator wants the object as a weapon, so Peter Quill allies with Gamora, Drax, Groot (a giant talking tree who only says “I am groot” and starred by Vin Diesel, because you know, Vin Diesel acts like a piece of wood), and Rocket raccoon (Who is a racoon) to keep the thingy safe. Because it is in the Cinematic Universe, it is related to The Avengers.

8.- Boyhood

Nominated for best movie in the Oscars of 2015, but won Birdman (Birdman wasn't that good, honestly). The footage took around 12 years, which is admirable because a lot of things can happen in twelve years (such a Black president, Alien Invasion, Mayan apocalypse, Nuclear war, an actor dies, money runs out, etc), therefore the same actors are used for twelve years, it takes place in Texas, and around many Texan cities such Houston, San Marcos and H̶i̶p̶s̶t̶e̶r̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ Austin. It is about the story a teenage guy and its struggle within (And the outside world), it reflected the battle that we, teenagers have during our teenage years and all of those changes.

7.- Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes)

An Argentinian-Spanish dark comedy film nominated for best film in other language than English in the Oscar 2015. Produced by the famous Spanish director Pedro de Almodovar (who is one of the most recognized filmmakers in Spanish speaking cinema). It is a compilation of different episodes with a different story between them, but the theme in common is anger and what people can do when they lose their heads. There is a story of  someone who is angry at the world so he packed everybody who has hurted him in a plane and crashes the plane, there is other one about a cook who poisons a dude who hurted her co worker, there is an story about road rage that goes wrong, there another one about an engineer who blows buildings loses everything he has (his job, his family) because of a parking ticket, and the stupid bureaucracy of the government, so he puts a bomb in his car which blows up in the impound yard when is taken by the police for not parking correctly, etc. Despite of the fact that most of the characters die, it makes you laugh with the dark comedy.

6.- Thor: The Dark World

Usually sequels are crappier than the first movie (like in Transformers, Narnia, etc.), of course there is an exception to the rule, and Thor: The Dark World is an example. Like Thor, it inside the Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, and the events in Thor 2 are related with The Avengers, even in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are mentioned such events. This movie is about a threat of the dark elf that threatens to destroy Asgard with a gem (it’s not only a gem, it is an infinity gem, like the Tesseract, and the weapon in Guardians of the Galaxy), So thor has to stop him with the help of Loki. In the movie, it is played a lot the concept of portals, which are used to travel thru the Nine Realms of the Yggdrasil (The Norse tree that holds Asgard, Jotunheim, Midgard (Aks. Earth), Helheim, Vanaheim, Muspelheim, etc.)Like most Norse-related stuff, it was epic.

5.- Beowulf

Filmed in 2007 (so is not that new). By the same director who brought you Back to the Future. It is about the poem Beowulf, but like most movies based on literature, some things are inaccurate. Anthony Hopkins who was the god Odin in Thor and in Thor: The Dark World, is the king of the Danes, Hrothgar. It is epic, I enjoyed it and despite it is inaccurate and I really wanted to see how Beowulf grabbed the sword forged by giants in Grendel’s den used to kill Grendel’s mother and cut off Grendel’s head (like in the poem), I liked how they related the dragon of the end of the poem and Grendel’s mom, which turned out to be Angelina Jolie.

4.- Accepted

One of the most hilarious teen comedies that I have seen. It takes place in Ohio, and it is about these high school seniors who were not accepted in any college, so they decide to found a hoax university to avoid the shaming of their parents and relatives of not being accepted to college, so they found the South Harmon Institute of Technology. It does not only makes you laugh and gives you a good time, but also touches themes about honesty, education, and about those so-called “honorable men” who bully those who consider inferior to them (Fraternity Hazing).

Like the University of Arizona, but in a fictional universe...

3.- The Perfect Score

One of the most hilarious teen comedies. It was filmed in 2004, so it’s not that new. It is starred by Captain America and Black Widow (watch the movie and look up the cast in Wikipedia) as high schoolers. It is about a bunch of High school teens that boomed their SAT’s and then realize that they are doomed to not going to their dream colleges or not going to college at all, so they all plan to break into the College Board’s headquarters to steal the next SAT’s answers. Captain America in this movie makes his debut as The Sentinel of Liberty by fighting for the American people against an evil organization seeking world domination (not HYDRA, but the College Board). The movie criticizes what I have always criticized: the College Board is a Monopoly who doesn't care about education, but cares about the private interests of companies and University Presidents (you don’t believe me?, look up why The College Board put a writing section, and why they are going to take it away).

“Don’t you find it ridiculous that from day one they tell us to be unique, they tell us to be individuals, then they give us a standardized test that makes us all one faceless herd?”- C̶a̶p̶t̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶ Chris Evans in The Perfect Score.

2.- Les Miserables

Nominated for Best movie in the Oscars 2013, but the Academy gave the award to Argo (Argo wasn’t that good to win this award, Les miserables was better).  Based on the play Les Miserables, which is based on the book Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. It is the story about Jean Valjean, a convict who is granted parole in France 1915, Jean Valjean breaks his parole and years later is now the Mayor of a town in France, but Inspector Javert learn that the mayor is Jean Valjean and goes after him. Jean Valjean adopts Cossette, and takes her with him. Then the revolution of 1936 strikes in Paris and the rebels make barracks in the streets of Paris. It is like an opera in Movie because all the dialogues are sung.

1.- Captain America: The First Avenger

Epic of epicness. I have made several references to Cap in this scrapbook, do I need to explain why is position number 1?

How to write an Screenplay

Dear Reader, If you are reading this from the future, then somehow you ended in this blog, I was probably a great movie director that filmed a sitcom named Social Studies, but If I didn’t and instead I turned out to be a great lawyer, or unemployed, drafted by the US Army, kidnapped by Aliens, lost in the sea, traveled in time to France in July 14th, 1789, or just a boring person with a white collar job in an office in some big city with a wife, children, and debts, then I obviously didn’t turned out to be a movie director, but whatever is the case I leave this knowledge to you so you can use it and write your own amazing blockbuster. Who knows? Maybe you turn out to be the next Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick or (in the worst of the cases) the next Michael Bay. Maybe you will film the next Pulp Fiction, 2001: Odyssey in the Space, The Avengers, The Wizard of OZ, Psycho, or (in the worst of the cases) the remake of Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, or Transformers. If you are someone who is grading this scrapbook as an English IV assignment, then the information will be useful. In this entry you will learn the structure of a Screenplay. As example I will use one of my favorite movies (not Beowulf): Captain America: The First Avenger (How many references to Captain America I have made in this blog?).

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST  AVENGER YET, THIS ENTRY MIGHT BE A SPOILER ABOUT THE PLOT, SUCH CAPTAIN AMERICA’S FRIEND (BUCKY BARNES) DIES BUT RETURNS IN THE WINTER SOLDIER WITH HIS BRAIN BRAINWASHED BY HYDRA WITH ORDERS TO KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA, RED SKULL  GETS THE TESSERACT, AN ITEM FROM ASGARD (THOR’S WORLD) IMPORTANT IN AVENGERS AND IN MARVEL’S CINEMATIC UNIVERSE MOVIES, ROGER’S LOVE (PEGGY CARTER) GETS HER HEART BROKEN WHEN STEVE ROGERS GETS LOST IN THE SEA AND IS NOT FOUND UNTIL THE END OF THE MOVIE (WHICH IS LIKE 60 YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR II), AND CAPTAIN AMERICA GETS INTO THE AVENGERS TEAM BY NICK FURY (SAMUEL L. JACKSON). THAT BEING SAID, YOU MAY CONTINUE.

First, a screenplay is divided in three acts: ACT I, ACT II,  and ACT III. ACT I lasts about ¼ of the duration of the film, for example, a 120- minute movie’s ACT I lasts 30 minutes. In the ACT I, it is introduced the Ordiary World, which is the hero and the characters’ normal place. In Captain America, it is shown Johann Schimidt (Aka. Red Skull) hunting the Tesseract in Norway, which he gets, being the war the Ordinary World of Johann Schmidt. Then it is shown Steve Roger’s Ordinary World trying to get into the army, and getting beaten up in the alleys and always saved by Bucky Barnes. Then there is a Call to Adventure, in which the hero is called to enter to the Special World to solve a problem; in Captain America, the call to Adventure is when Steve Rogers goes to the fair with Bucky Barnes and some girls , and Steve Rogers separates from the group to go to an Army’s draft booth in the fair. Then there is usually a Refusal to the Call by the hero, in movies such The Patriot, Mel Gibson does not want to get involved into the war initially, however Steve Rogers is a willing hero that seeks to go to the Special World, but there is still a Refusal to the Call not by Rogers, but by Bucky Barnes that finds him and tries to discourage him to go to war, telling him that he will only find death in the battlefield. When there is a Willing hero in a movie, there will always be someone who tries to discourage the hero ( check out Dance with Wolves, it is the same thing as in Captain America).

Then the hero has an Encounter with the Mentor, who sometimes is a Merlyn-like figure that encourages the hero to go into the Special World. In Captain America, Rogers meets Dr. Abraham Erskine, who finds him, talks to him, and encourages him (more) to join the Army, telling to Rogers “We already have many big guys, maybe we will need a little one”, so Dr. Erskine takes Roger’s file and approves him to join to the army, Crossing the First Threshold to the Special World. The Cross of the First Threshold is the final event of ACT I, solving the hero’s decision to enter to the Special World.

ACT II deals with the hero’s actions in the Special World, and it starts with the meeting of Tests, Allies, and Enemies. Here, the hero is tested to prove his (or her) worth, also he meets Allies, and Enemies, which would be the boot camp, where Steve Rogers faces several tests such taking down the flag to earn a rest from the training, and the bravery tests made by Col. Phillips, that throws a fake grenade to prove that Rogers is a coward wimp, but Rogers proofs his bravery by jumping to the grenade to protect his peers and the Agent Carter (his crush), also Dr. Erskine talks to Rogers about his Enemy, Johann Schmidt, who was administered the same serum as Rogers, but it had side effects in Schmidt. Dr. Erskine tells Rogers this to tell to Rogers why he was chosen, because despite his is asthmatic and wimpy, he has a good heart and is not rotten as Schmidt, then Peggy Carter, takes roger into the secret lab where the serum is going to take place, the serum is administered, and Rogers now has abs. But a HYDRA spy kills Dr. Erskine, and steals a bottle of the formula, Rogers hunts him down and asks him “Who are you?!”, and the spy responds “The first of many. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA!”, and the spy commits suicide by eating a pill of cyanide. Then Steve Rogers learns that HYDRA was responsible, and he wants to fight it, but he is dressed with bars and stars and give shows in order to sell War Bonds. Moreover, the hero Approaches to the Inmost Cave, which is the most dangerous place in the Special World. Rogers goes to the frontline to entertain the soldiers, but then he learn that Bucky was captured by HYDRA, and he goes into HYDRA’s factory to rescue Bucky, he figures out the locations of the other factories, takes Schmidt's mask off, becoming now Red Skull. Then there is an Ordeal, a battle in which it is unknown what is going to happen

with the hero. Captain America rides HYDRA’s train, but he finds someone who is actually trying to kill him,

then an accident happens, and somehow Captain America finds Bucky hanging from the train and is facing death by falling from the mountain in which the train is traveling.  Unfortunately, Bucky falls (but doesn’t die, he returns as the Winter Soldier in the sequel). Captain America continues with the battle and gets the Reward, which is Dr. Arnim Zola, one of HYDRA’s top officers. The Reward is the consequence of the ordeal, sometimes is an object (such in the poem Beowulf, which is Grendel’s head), a person (Such in Captain America), the enemy’s plans (such in Star Wars IV), however, the Reward is the consequence, therefore sometimes it can be a negative consequence, such a delusion, for example (I know it’s a horrible example, but it’s the only one I came out) in Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan loses both her friendship with the “plastic girls” and her friendship with her real friends, showing that popularity went to Lindsay Lohan’s head (I don’t remember the name of the characters). With the reward, ends the ACT II, and starts the ACT III. ACT II lasts 2/4 of the duration of the film, which is more or less around 60 minutes in a 120-minute film.

ACT III last the remaining ¼ of the movie, or the last 30 minutes, and deals about the consequences of the deeds done by the hero in ACT II and here is where the climax of the whole film is. The first thing that happens in ACT III is The Road back, which are the consequences of obtaining the reward and the forces disrupted by such action. Sometimes is a chase scene (Such in Star Wars IV), other is the exile of hero from the Special World after making a mistake (such in The Lone Ranger,  or Django), but in Captain America’s case, it is a setback from the hero’s good fortune; Captain America feels guilty about losing Bucky in the Train attack, but Peggy Carter comforts him, and encourages him to go after HYDRA for Bucky by telling him “You will not be alone” (I so love the quotes of this movie!). Then the Climax comes, or in other words the Resurrection. The Resurrection is the final attempt to make a change in the Special World, when the hero is exiled, he (or she) returns reloaded, such in Scott Pilgrim vs  The World, that Scott pilgrim comes back with to face a last ordeal with Ramona’s 7th ex-boyfriend (Ms. Hudler, you MUST watch this movie, it is so epic), in A Million Ways to die in the West, the coward cowboy returns with a bullet dipped in poison to kill the antagonist; In Captain America, Steve Rogers decides to bring down HYDRA for once, and enters in Red Skull’s headquarters to capture him, but Red Skull captures Captain America, and when Red Skull is about to kill Cap, the army breaks into Red Skull’s Headquarters to bring down HYDRA. Red Skull runs away, but Cap goes after him ,and sneaks into the plane that Red Skull gets into (after receiving a kiss from Peggy Carter. Well done, Cap!). Red Skull fights Cap in the plane, Red Skull touches the Tesseract but gets burned (or tele transported by a portal to space. Some people speculate that we will see again Red Skull in one of the movies following Captain America). The Tesseract falls into the ocean, and Captain America has to sacrifice himself by putting the plane into the ocean to save America from a catastrophe (the plane carried weapons to

destroy the major American cities). Cap and Peggy Carter have this talk in which both agree to meet again for a date (by using the radio of the plane), although both know how it is going to end, and show us implicitly that Captain America and Peggy Carter love each other, and Captain America gets lost in the frozen sea. After the resurrection, it is followed the Return with the Elixir, in mythology was the item that the heroes were looking for, for example in Norse Mythology (which is going to be my freebie in the next issue) Thor retrieves his hammer, after having fighting with the Giants of the Jotunheimr that stole his hammer Mjolnir. But the elixir is not always an object, sometimes is a lesson learned by the characters after the experience of the Special World, for example,  in the poem Beowulf, Wiglaf learns that Beowulf was a great hero that fought for the good of his people, and he (Wiglaf) gives to Beowulf a honorable monument after he has died and he decides to follow Beowulf steps. But in Captain America, the world realizes what Captain America had to do to save the free world, Peggy Carter misses Cap, and Captain America is found 60 years after World War II by SHIELD, and he finds out that most of his friends are dead (Almost. Peggy Carter returns in The Winter Soldier as an old lady with Alzheimer). But Captain America’s elixir is the honor of the people that give to Captain America, and the knowing that his deeds to save the free world were not in vain because the Nazi party falls, and HYDRA also(Apparently. In The Winter Soldier, HYDRA somehow filtrates in SHIELD, but still, Captain America defeated HYDRA in World War II). And finally ends with the credits, which are the images of World War II propaganda posters (I loved the credits).

This structure is not only found in movies, but also in mythology, epic poems, books, The bible, etc. Although this structure is a clear way to build an story, you can always defy the archetypes by being iconoclast and doing something different. That’s why Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, is a classic of Cinema, it changed a little this structure by building a frame story which events do not happen in chronological order, but the events somehow fitted in the structure and still made sense.

FADE OUT. (FADE OUT is something that is typed in a screenplay to indicate that the movie is over, and so this entry).

Fandom theatrical poster of Captain America: The First Avenger. Vintage edition of 1940’s for Hipsters (Although Marvel is probably too mainstream).

Nick Fury as Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp fiction. After being a gangster, he decided to do the right thing and decided to put the Avengers together.

The Writer’s Journey. A Bible for every writer. It doesn’t only teaches about how to write, but also teaches about life.

Third cultural event

I was assigned to write once again about a cultural event, and initially I was going to write it about a math competition, but I had to drop the team in which I was going to the competition because I had things to do on the day of the competition, so I decided to write about my experience in a museum. Now I know that I already wrote about a museum in the first entry about the cultural event, but this entry is different because in order to get to this museum I had to get off of the school bus in Hidalgo on Friday February 27th, then I had to walk 1.4 miles (around 30 minutes walking ) to the southwest, and cross a river in order to get to foreign lands. Yes, the museum is in the far away lands of Mexico. I was sure that the city of Reynosa is more than drug dealers, soldiers in the streets carrying their loaded guns on the top of trucks, and cheap healthcare.

So after crossing the border, I went to the house of my parents to spend the weekend in order to go to the museum on Saturday. Saturday came, and my dad and me went  to the museum which is almost outside the city. Like always happens when I go to a cultural event, it was cloudy, rainy and during a cold front.

The name of the museum that I went was Casa de la tierra (which means Earth’s house). It was completed last January, and is funded by the state government. The mission of Casa de la Tierra is to educate the people about global warming, climate change, and pollution. I entered to the building and a girl (not a lady, she was like 20) greeted us and informed us that the next tour was going to start at midday, but we could interact with two computers that were in there. The museum was smaller than the one in mcallen, and although I already knew most of the information on it, it still amazed me the information that I didn’t knew. The computers that we went sent to interact with were two spheric screens in which the earth was projected, and by a touch screen panel, you could project the image that you wanted to see. For example, you could see the Earth at night, forest fires around the globe, changes of Ice around the world, frequency of lightings, etc. There was also an option in which you could project Mars, the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons), the sun, solar radiation as seen by the satellite SOHO, and the planets compared with the solar surface. At twelve, the guide tooks us for a tour around the museum, which consisted in an spiral stars what went up. As we walked throughout the stars, at the wall in my right there was a time line about the creation of the universe which started with a thought that said in Spanish: “In the stelar ovens were created most of the atoms of the chemical elements that gave origin to all the matter we know, including the living beings. The calcium of our bones, the iron of our blood, the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen of our cells of our body, they are product of the nuclear reactions of the stars. Like the famous astronomer Carl Sagan said ‘We are all Stardust’”.

After this thought, our journey thru the history of the universe started with the Big Bang, an explosion that lasted around three minutes and created all the elements, and the different forces, such the gravity force, and the nuclear force. Moreover, We learned about the years light unit (the unit to measure distances in the universe that mean the time that light would take to go over a distance. 1 year light means that light takes a year to go over a distance). We also learned about the Relativity theory, and the theories of what is going to happen with the universe. The first one is The Big Crush, which says that the universe will get to its greatest expansion, and then it is going to shrink to a small point; then there is The Big Rip, that says that the universe will continue to expand and all the particles will eventually disintegrate as a result of the expansion,and finally, the theory that says that nothing will happen, but the universe will continue to expand forever. After this timeline, it was followed a timeline of the earth, that started with the earth as a big red ball at its very beginnings, then the species were created in a flood starting by the cyanobacteria, those bacterias were becoming more complex, until they became dinosaurs, who then were killed by an asteroid, and then mammals survived, then some monkey appeared in earth and evolved until they became humans, who then founded cities that started to pollute the world. After we finished the timeline, the college girl guide took us to a dome in the very top of the building which was some sort of cinema, but this cinema had the screen shaped in a sphere, actually it was the same thing as the one that I saw in the museum in Mcallen. She went away and another guide came in to put us projection in the globe, and to talk as the images appeared. I remember that he asked “How many penguins can a polar bear eat?” my father said two, but I knew to what the guide was going to. So I said “Well, if you give them to the bear it sure is two, but a polar bear cannot eat any penguins since they both live in the opposite poles of the earth” and then my dad said “Well, but it might happen in a congressman’s zoo” making reference to a note on the news on friday that said that a private zoo was confiscated from a Mexican congressman in the Federal government, so we all laugh from this satire. Then the guide put us a video about what would the earth say to us if she had a voice, how we (humans) are destroying her. After this video finished, the tour did. I went home with several mementos to put in here.

Now, reflecting about what happened in the museum, I wonder what if that museum was built in the US. I can imagine conservatives going not to learn, but t̶o̶ ̶b̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶ to protest. I really like that museum, because among all the science museums that I have visited, I have never been in one that explained so well the global warming issue. Projects like this make the people to become educated about their surroundings, and create conscience. Also it touches the evolution and the continental drift theory, which are the best proved explanations on how the world works, and although in Mexico there are not as much people that believe in Creationism (the only mexican creationists that I can think of are SOME priests, church officers, catholic schools, and politicians from the PAN (Mexican f̶a̶s̶c̶i̶s̶t̶ conservative political party (the Mexican GOP, although the Mexican GOP are the PRI and PAN together))). It still opens the minds of those who are not educated in the sciences. And like one of the best Popes that the Church has had, Pope Francis, I also support the Evolution because it doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but it proves that God exists because God is not a wizard who made everything like if it was witchcraft, but took its time making everything better (the Pope said something that looked like this).

 The Earth. Version 2.0.

Old Hidalgo Pumphouse

As a cultural event I decided to go to the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse, in Hidalgo, Texas. The Old Hidalgo Pumphouse once served as a Pump House that transformed the valley from a dry, harsh land, to a agricultural area because it pumped water from the Rio Grande during the early years of the 20th century. Usually, the Pumphouse is all beautiful, sunny and colorful, unfortunately, I went after a rainy day, a cold front, cloudy, and at twilight, so my mementos might be as beautiful as Google’s pictures.

The Pump House is located inside the historical center of the city of Hidalgo, which is delimited by a few streets. In the historical center there is the old court of the Hidalgo, which was there since Texas gained independence from Mexico until the county decided to move the county seating from Hidalgo to Edinburg. Around the court, there was also behind it a two-floor building with bars in every window, which turned out to be the county jail. Across the street, there is the Old Hidalgo Post Office, which was also some sort of supermarket. All of these buildings obviously have a lot of history inside, however, the city of Hidalgo locked the buildings, and it makes me rant.

Inside the park, there were many tracks and trees, and the city of Hidalgo put lights around because of the annual “Festival of lights”, it looked good, but it had a trade off, because all the lights resulted disturbing to the wildlife and never came out throughout all the time that I was in there, but yeah, I enjoyed the walk.

The thing that I liked the most of this place was the pumphouse and the walking track that runs throughout the 600 acres of park.

The only wild life that I found...