Tag: YSI

Dino-might

They’re big, they’re old, and they’re awesome. Everything a kid is not. They can hold the attention of twenty high-energy first graders for twenty minutes or more. No person alive can accomplish this feat no matter how big, how old, or how awesome they are. But dinosaurs can do it. What is it about dinosaurs that makes them so appealing to kids?

Is it their size? Maybe. But not all dinosaurs were huge. Archaeopteryx resembled a lizard with wings and feathers and was about the size of a crow. Of course, Apatosaurus was fifteen feet high and sixty feet long and probably weighed in at forty tons. And the great horned monster, T. rex, was no small fry. When you’re only three feet tall and you consider a creature that’s as long as a sixty foot tape measure laid out on the lawn, there’s more than a little to think about.

Is it their age? Probably not. I am impressed by the fact that dinosaurs lived over 200 million years ago and continued to roam the earth for more than another 100 million years. But this concept of time is hard enough for me to imagine. When you are five years old, you couldn’t care less.

Is it their variety? Maybe. Dinosaurs come in many shapes and sizes. Who doesn’t find the giant fins on the backs of ferocious meat-eaters curious or downright bizarre? And how about the long snouts or giant heads with dagger-like teeth, or amazing wingspans sported by creatures that look like something from another planet?

Dinosaurs appeal to the imagination. Almost all children love drawing pictures of them. You can’t make a mistake. Any size, shape or color will do. Last summer some YSI campers made a video featuring dinosaurs against a backdrop of “real” erupting volcanoes (fashioned from vinegar and baking soda), engaged in bitter fights and fanciful flights. Why not?

It is a product which is completely safe and can be consumed for curing this. generic soft viagra is a little blue pill that helps to improve the sex drive, mood of a woman while she is undergoing intercourse with a male. Cardiac breakdown or coronary cialis online artery disease causing unbalanced angina. Bu you can Google anything these viagra buy on line days. Kamagra – the best levitra samples new.castillodeprincesas.com for treating erectile dysfunction. But my favorite theory of why dinosaurs appeal to kids is that kids—and I—like their big long names. Ichthyostega, Dimorphodon, Lufengosaurus—these are fun, and even possible, to say. They follow the rules for English pronunciation. Kids capture dinosaurs when they learn their names. Once captured, a dino can be controlled and it becomes a friend—a big, old, awesome friend. Parents don’t know this dinosaur!

Kids learn about their dinosaur and maybe invent a few things about it. Who’s to say they’re wrong? (Well, maybe another kid who knows the real “truth”.) They can tell their parents everything about their dinosaur. They know more than their mom or dad!

Never mind that by next year they may not know a Segisaurus from a Maslodonsaurus. They’ve had their moment of glory—their first taste of what it’s like to know something other people don’t. Dinosaurs live on to this day helping legions of children learn the thrill of knowing.

Technical information for this article came from the experts—the kids. For five- and six-year olds, dinosaurs are the power players.

YSI has a school and group program called Dinosaurs and Fossil Fun and a summer camp called Jurassic Giants.

A Natural Thanksgiving

You may think I have the best job in the world. I do. Thanksgiving happens every day.

For one thing there is the YSI Thrift and Gift Shop staffed by the YSI Guild, always eager to thank their customers and contributors.

Partly as a result of their efforts, we at YSI are surrounded daily by:

* Kids with eyes wide open seeing things for the first time, learning about creeks and animals, light and music, rocks and stars.
* Young teachers learning how to teach kids about creeks and animals, light and music, rocks and stars.
* Master teachers teaching young teachers how to teach.
* Animal curators carefully caring for animals used to teach children.
* Junior curators learning how to care for those animals.
* Classroom teachers seeking new opportunities for their students.
* Donors contributing so that others can learn.
* Parents lovingly nurturing their children and encouraging their freedom.
* Staff members devoting themselves to tirelessly serving others.
* Board members donating their time and talents.
* Volunteers helping with anything and everything.

People who need this remedy are often very anxious about their health buy female viagra and loss of abilities, and may have problems with memory and concentration. You can use over the counter laxatives like Isabgul Nature care or Sofradex powder to aid exertion free bowel order tadalafil movement. 4. Similar to withania generico viagra on line somnifera, shilajit is a widely prescribed cure for treating health disorders like impotence and nightfall. order levitra online In those with renal insufficiency, the bladder should be drained and the operation can be done after the renal function is improved. All of us at YSI are grateful for the chance to be part of the community. We join with the Guild in wishing everyone the best of holiday seasons.

Here is a Thanksgiving message from the YSI Guild written by a Guild member.

The all volunteer staff at YSI’s Thrift and Gift Store at 3151 Alum Rock Avenue would like to thank our many customers and donors.

You have made possible another successful year. In the month of September the store’s sales grossed $11,363. Our three YSI locations at Sanborn Park, Vasona Park, and our own Alum Rock Park benefit from these sales. The Wildlife Festival held in October at Alum Rock Park welcomed over 2200 people. The many animals at YSI are fed well and cared for lovingly. The birds will be enjoying new aviaries. The school programs continue to introduce and enthrall students with their natural surroundings. The programs in our three YSI Nature Centers for children in K-6th have been a huge success.

Your donations of items, paper and plastic bags, and “goodies” lovingly made for us, keep us busy, happy, and focused on the needs of YSI.Our monthly sale days have proven profitable and we will continue them.

We will be closed December 21st through January 3rd for the holidays. We will re-open on Tuesday, January 4th with many “new” things on our shelves and hangars.

Again, our thanks and appreciation to our customers, many of whom we know by name. You continue to make great things happen with YSI.

May your holidays be full of friends and family. We’ll see you in 2000.

Sandy Floersch, Guild Member

Life in the Box

Where do you live?

Your street address, city, country, latitude, longitude, altitude help pinpoint your unique space, defining it in a neat three-dimensional way. You, and only you, are in the space you occupy at this moment. But you will and must move on and that space will belong to another. As your world shifts, new scenes appear; old scenes reveal new features.

Inextricably related to the three dimensional world of the moment is another dimension—one of time. Gradually we realize the relative nature of time as we travel through it. It is a spotlight that has passed through the ages and illuminated those who have preceded us. The spotlight relentlessly moves on and will soon play on others yet unborn. We, like those before us, will become part of the background, the shadows upon which the present is projected. Autumn thoughts.

As I walk along a creek reflecting on these thoughts, I see things with fresh eyes. A sycamore tree stands tall on the bank. Its length, depth, breadth is far greater than mine and its future promises a longer time in the spotlight. But more does not seem better. I prefer my mobile limitations.

A tangle of berry vines builds upon itself, shading last year’s growth. The low leaves, eclipsed by the new, drop to become the earth from which new vines erupt. Animals live, propagate, die; moisture evaporates, condenses, falls. Nothing is lost; everything is altered.
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The path dips down to the water. The chill fall air lingering in this dale makes me shiver. From a branch an insect chrysalis hangs, winter insulation. Leaves have turned red and gold and brown. Seedpods litter the ground waiting for the cold damp winter and warm spring to expand their tiny treasures.

I become conscious of yet another dimension—the dimension of temperature. When temperate weather reigns, there is little that calls attention to the limitations imposed by heat or cold. But with this temperature drop, I become aware of the narrow life zone within which I must reside. Few are the plants or animals with such a small temperature window. But once again, I will take my limitations.

These constraints of length, width, depth, time, and temperature define not just human life, not just life alone, but all existence—rocks as well as trees, comets as well as dinosaurs, air as well as oceans. Every minute, every second, everything resides within the changing boundaries imposed by these unfailing five. Never again will anything be exactly the same.

I live in a box that is my space, my time, my temperature, my address. If I try to step outside it, I will find the impossible is just that. Does this shifting, multidimensional box provide a haven, a safe harbor, a home for viewing the rest of the universe, or is it a barrier to struggle against until I am defeated? I am willing to accept its limitations. Life is where I live.

Does That Compute?

seminar on Y2KWhat’s the big deal about January 1, 2000? I plan to be able to switch on the lights and the coffee maker as usual and to have water pour from the spout when I turn the handle. The biggest challenge I anticipate is taking down the old calendar and putting up a new one.

So when it comes to talk of Y2K, I shrug and say I think we will all be fine. Ignorance is bliss. Anyway what can I do?

At YSI, like at many other small companies, when a message on a computer screen says to call the system administrator, a quick look around reveals there is a missing person. No sysop, no one to worry about the millennium. But, lest I become too complacent about this current year’s end, I have tried to pay some heed to what the hype is all about. Not being able to write computerized checks and paychecks or to use the valuable information stored in our database or spreadsheet files would be most inconvenient, even if not disastrous.

Fortunately there is a resource out there that is paying attention to organizations like YSI. CompuMentor is a nonprofit computerization assistance organization. Since 1987, it has used its consulting staff and volunteer mentors to provide training and support for more the 6,000 nonprofits and schools across the United States.

It’s about appreciating lowest viagra price the little things and developing an inner knowing that you are being unfair to yourself and your loved ones. This problem is commonly found in men age 50 to buying that tadalafil 20mg cipla 70. Zinc – Finally, viagra sans prescription new.castillodeprincesas.com zinc plays an important role on how well our bodies function. Over the years the institute has emerged as the best platform to buy a medicine for the erectile dysfunction treatment. viagra levitra Generic Oral Jelly medicine comes in various forms so you need to be confirmed about the exact type of illness affecting an individual. Hooking up with CompuMentor has put me in touch with a number of people who are much savvier than I about what could go wrong on Day 1 (or Day 3 when most of us go back to work) of the twenty-first century. I now know some precautions to take to prevent things from going awry. CompuMentor sent two volunteers, Scott from Microsoft and Ramesh from Hewlett Packard, to YSI to check out our system and show me how to upgrade the software if necessary.

And I learned a thing or two. Software upgrades appear far more often than spring rains these days. In many cases these upgrades are just that—new bells and whistles hung on the basic frame of an application designed a decade or more ago. The computer code of the original software may not have been altered in the upgrade. And therein dwells the problem. If the original code did not include four digit dates in order to save on once precious memory, that code may remain even in very recent versions. Most of the major software companies have fixes, or patches, for their programs that are non-compliant. These can usually be found on and downloaded from their web sites.

But more important than preparing for the end of the year is the lesson demonstrated by Microsoft, by HP, by CompuMentor. Companies-both big and small-are just people, people like Scott, Ramesh, Joan, Charles, Camilla willing to spend a Saturday sharing their expertise, hoping January 1 will dawn on life as usual for all of us, knowing we all can learn from each other.

Anyone want to know more about banana slugs?

A Helping Heaping

Compost happens. At least it does at my house. I know its benefits. It has transformed my rocky clay soil into an Eden for vegetables and flowers. For years I have been stacking up my garden debris and letting the rains rot it to a brown mound in a neglected corner of the garden. Occasionally I have approached this heap in a systematic way, mixing it with droppings provided by a friend’s rabbit, watering it, turning it, watching it heat up and steam, and miraculously transform within just a few weeks. But this is a lot of work. The forces of nature will do the same thing for me in just a year. So I don’t sweat it. I just pile garden trimmings, dead leaves and kitchen scraps and let them rest in peace for a while.

This laissez-faire attitude has resulted in quite a sizable heap this year. Not yet reduced by winter rains, the pile has reached a height of about four feet and a diameter of six or eight. In an excess of optimism and zeal, I started watering the heap a few weeks ago with a thought to speeding up the process and intervening in a labor-intensive way. It’s been long enough since I’ve done it that way for the memory of how much work it is to fade.

Last week the little time I had to spend in the garden was used to plant garlic, a prized heirloom German variety, certainly something I needed to do more than turn compost. Suddenly as I was burying the garlic cloves, I became aware of a rustling or chomping noise in the brush. Puzzled, I looked around and could see nothing. Slowly and quietly I walked in the direction of the sound. It appeared to be emanating from the compost pile. As I approached, activity ceased. I stationed myself next to the heap and stood without moving a muscle.

Negative and self-depreciating thoughts will only weaken your ability to last longer. #4 Take action After you have taken http://fundacionvision.org.pa/flashxml/bannerrotatorfx-cumbre/ levitra side effects this medicine, do not think second thoughts to ask professional help so that more serious health problems. The lights were turned off and I cheapest cialis prices was relaxing. But something else to consider is that, with the help of soft cialis pills it’s possible to at least have some type of happy sex life. In case, one cannot get a penile erection for more than 30 minutes and should be removed immediately if you Experience any sort of price of viagra tablet side effects such as extreme dizziness, chest pain, breathlessness, skin rashes, abnormal vision and prolonged erection. A minute passed and another. Then tentatively the rustling commenced again. There was definitely something happening in there no more than a couple of feet from me at about knee level. I could see no movement, but I held my breath and waited, hoping to see a head emerge. Little by little the sound moved toward me until only a few clumps of dead grass separated me from the persistent activity. Was it a wood rat building a nest? Was it a mole, the one that ceaselessly aerates my garden leaving roots dangling in an underground abyss or causing flagstones on the patio to tilt? Was it looking for insects reactivated in the recently moistened pile? I was determined to be patient and learn its identity

But my patience was no match for a critter whose ceaseless activity insures its survival. It moved away from me in the dank interior tunnel it had carved. The brush moved almost imperceptibly as it started off on a new vector. I returned to my garlic.

Will I disturb the chambers it has staked claim to in my brush pile? Of course I will, that is if I work up the energy to indulge in active composting. But if I don’t, I can rest secure in the knowledge that my pile will be churned—and without my stirring a muscle—by other creatures more energetic than I who have as much claim to the heap as I do. And compost will happen.

The Haunted Woods Project

Even though we know much—or think we do—throughout human history there have been mysteries, things beyond the ken of human experience that fascinate, frighten, and intrigue us. Evolved from the Day of the Dead, Halloween has changed from a religious to a secular celebration of things beyond our knowledge.

For many years YSI sponsored a Halloween event called Haunted Woods. This tour of creative scenes ranging from the grisly to the fantastic attracted thousands, some of whom would wait in line for hours for a twenty minute walk on the wild side in the forest at night. A group of talented and creative volunteers worked for more than a month to put up an incredible set of vignettes in the woods designed to amaze, astonish, terrify and entertain.

What was the attraction? This question probably has many answers. Like with all theater, this tour provided a chance to travel beyond the everyday. The pilgrimage through the woods provided a glimpse of a world that didn’t follow the rules, a world that encouraged the deep, dark, fantastic thoughts we don’t normally permit to run free. It gave substance to vague fears and allowed people to look at those fears in the company of their friends and to laugh at them. It delighted with its cleverly crafted scenes, like Terminal Jeopardy, the outcome of which can be easily guessed. Pterodactyls flew over swamps, trolls popped out from under bridges, plane crashes glowed in glens, huge spiders, coffins, tombstones, blood, all were part of the passing panorama. And we as spectators always managed to survive the experience.

YSI’s Haunted Woods was not without its controversy. Why should an organization that teaches kids about bats and tarantulas and their role in the world during the day, have dark tunnels with low flying bats and menacing-looking spiders in sticky webs dangling in eerie light at night? There were those who felt it shouldn’t. For me, though, the answer was different. Just as fairy tales depict witches being shoved in ovens, wolves posing as grandmothers to trick unsuspecting children, and giants bellowing “Fee fi fo fum”, the spider tunnel let kids know that the world does indeed have perils, that it is necessary to be cautious, but that you can get beyond scary things. You don’t have to be paralyzed by your fears, and knowledge brings you power—lessons as important for adults as for children.
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Maybe this was the appeal of the Haunted Woods.

YSI’s Haunted Woods have disappeared. A victim of its own success, the event became too big, too popular, too widely known to continue in its Sanborn Park location. Its success testifies to the need it fulfilled for facing the unknown.

Although YSI’s woods are no longer haunted at Halloween, the same lessons can be learned elsewhere. Many of the crew that created YSI’s woods have turned their considerable talents to the Haunted Forest at Vasona Park in Los Gatos, sponsored by the Crime Prevention Department of the Los Gatos Police Department. For information call (408) 354-6842. Other haunted abodes abound, some more, some less terrifying. It may not be everyone’s way of facing the unknown, but we humans are a mysterious lot. How frightening if we weren’t.