Ok hold it don’t freak out! He’s not “really” dead but he died in my dream! Isn’t it odd how we dream? What’s with all those crazy things that happen throughout our day that oddly enough come back in the weirdest ways in our dreams? Well last night was most certainly one of those nights where your dream is far-out and hilarious!

It was my third year working at the nuclear power station and I was slotted to give a tour of our facility and reactor. It was late afternoon when our guest arrive – whom else other than Morgan Freeman of course. (I’m guessing he’s in my dream due to the fact that Jess and I watched a MythBusters episode recently that busted the myth that you can blow up a forty foot mutant shark with a harpoon gun and some ground up road flairs. In Deep Blue Sea, Samuel L Jackson gets chomped by a shark rather unexpectedly but for some reason I often confuse Morgan and Samuel.)

Morgan arrived right on time to check through security where they confiscated his digital camera. This wasn’t the best start to the day because this made him pretty mad – I think he was just planning on selling the photos to grandma or something – mostly harmless.

After a long walk from the front gate across the prison like cement compound we arrived at the outer wall of reactor number one. The armed guards scanned my ID card, I place my eye up to the scanner, and ‘boop’ the door unlocked with a hiss. The wine of robotic servos opened the heavy metal door to the outer room of the reactor, which also looked much like a bank vault door. The receptionist handed us Duck Tape and HAZMAT suits. Don’t ask me why there was a receptionist…. We Duck Taped on our HAZMAT suits and rubber gloves but for some reason Morgan was embarrassed to put on a goofy white wrinkly onesy with little green booties and refused. We figured the reactor is pretty harmless as long as you don’t touch anything or breathe so we let him go in jeans and a t-shirt. (I think the part of the dream comes from watching World’s Toughest Fixes on the National Geographic Channel they got into a nuclear power plant to fix a turbine. Cool show by the way…)

Now passing through the huge thick inner reactor doors covered in radioactive stickers and red flashing lights surrounding the door frame. The first thing you see inside is a metal catwalk that spans across a vast cement pit filled with all sorts of fascinating robotic machinery. At the bottom of the pit is a deep pool of water submerged in the water are thousands of fuel rods clearly causing the water to bubble like soda does on the side of your glass as a reaction is taking place. During our tour Morgan began to narrate everything I was thinking even though I was giving the tour… For some reason I told Morgan (him speaking) that even if a penny dropped into the water and disturbed it everything would boil over and the reactor would erupt like a nuke. I continued explaining the process of fusion and how the reaction heats water that then creates steam to power a turbine that rotates a generator etc etc etc….. (I’m pretty sure none of this “nuclear eruption junk” is true but in a recent episode of MythBusters we watched [we watch a lot of MythBusters if you couldn’t already tell] Grant, Tory, and Kari toss 3 different kinds Alkali Metals into water to see if they could blow up a bathtub with the same amount of force as a grenade – quite an enjoyable episode I might add.)

In intervals on either side of the catwalk were huge metal spheres that functioned like a Tesla Coil. Every thirty seconds or so a massive bolt of lightning would snap across the catwalk between the metal spheres and an odor of Ozone would be in the air. Each time I gave this tour I had to make sure that we passed by those spheres while they were charging before the next lightning strike. But this time, as we passed through the spheres, a bolt of lightning struck across one of the coils in the distance at the end of the catwalk. It happened way ahead of schedule, some sort of rogue zap I guess. In an instant, the remaining generators started snapping towards us in a series getting closer and closer rapidly headed toward the one we were standing directly between. The warning alarms began to sound and I took off running down the catwalk. Everything went into slow motion and the sound of our boots against the metal catwalk is all I could hear. In an instant a “vvvvuuuzzzzwwwarrrppp!” of lighting struck and I turned to see Morgan get electrified with so much energy that it collapsed the catwalk beneath his feet, sending Morgan and a tangle of twisted metal into the reactor pool. The pool instantly boiled (like on MythBusters with the Alkali Metals) sending radiation throughout the facility in white cloud of gas. I was contaminated but managed to escape before the fire doors slammed the reactor closed.

Outside now nighttime and in the care of emergency personnel, I was quickly washed down to remove any contamination on my body. The only thing I really remember is a gurney and the flash of fire engine lights. For some reason they put me into a big inflatable bubble while we waited for the proper decontamination team to arrive, which was taking stinkin’ forever. It was weird though, I was strangely not sick or feeling any side effects from the radiation yet, but I knew it would happen if I wasn’t helped soon. (It’s likely this part comes from a recent episode of 24 where one of the Terrorist’s sons is exposed to high amounts of radiation.)

The worst part of the dream came next…. my alarm went off and I woke up! Dag nabbit! I’ll never know if I survived! At least I’ve never actually died in a dream – is that even possible?

Oh well, sorry for the anticlimactic ending, I was kinda bummed too, but stay tuned for my next exciting and usually abstract dream.

Last weekend we celebrated my Grandfather’s life of 94 years! A beloved father, brother, grandfather and fisherman. Now he’s fishin w/ Jesus!

Al was born May 19th, 1915 in Amisk, Alberta Canada. He was the fourteenth of fifteen children for Christian and Karen Setter who immigrated from Norway at the turn of the century to homestead land in northern Alberta. Al received an eight grade education before going to work at a neighbor’s farm. He met and married Evelyn Holte in 1941, worked on the grain elevators of Alberta Wheat Pool, and had two children Sharon and Lyle. After moving to Bowness outside of Calgary they added Laurie and Ron (my dad) to the family. Al worked construction and he and his brothers competed in the Canadian sport of Curling. When the family moved to Balzac to purchase another farm he added raising wheat and pigs to his already busy life.

With the promise of better work, Al moved his family to Phoenix, AZ in 1960 and was employed by Del Web building homes in the blazing heat of the Arizona desert. Many times his lunch pale came home with the sandwich untouched but the five gallon jug of water, and of course the cookies or sweets gone.

When Alfred and Evelyn divorced Al moved to Hood River, Oregon and took up farming once again on his daughter Sharon’s land. He worked construction as well and was involved in building the fish ladders and visitors center at Bonneville Dam and Locks on the Columbia river. Al retired from pounding nails at age 65 and became a custodian a Parkdale elementary where he worked another seven years before settling down as a full-time handy man and fisherman. When not playing Cribbage or checking out a local garage sale, he and long time friend Dorothy Glover spent many days pulling Salmon and Steelhead out of the waters of the Cascade Locks and the Hood River. His smoked Salmon was always a coveted treat!

Al moved into Berry Park (retirement home) in 2004 and spent his last years playing cards and pool, going to church, and enjoying the company of the wonderful residents there. He left this earth on September 29, 2009 in his daughter’s home, well loved and in peace.

My grandpa was truly a magnificent man who lead by example. We will certainly miss his quiet ways and quick wit but long remember his dancing feet, his unending work ethic, his love for fishing, Norwegian food, and oh yes – Polka music!

-Written by Laurie Kuykendall (my Aunt)

Today is day 1 of the new launch of the Media Sprout blog and the new Media Sprout name. Thanks for being here and I can’t wait to start posting more and more things that you will find useful…. or at least nerdy.

“Making your media flourish” – at Media Sprout I hope to plant a seed with every project. A seed is the beginning – Once a seed sprouts it grows, and once it grows it begins to spread into something beyond itself. I hope to enable you to plant the seed of your ministry, non-profit, or small business through the use of the web and video, so that it can flourish.

Beyond just giving you a web or video presence I aspire to use my experience in media, through this blog, to share useful tips and tricks related to video, web design, photography, and any other tech stuff I find interesting. I hope that my blog can be a resource, not only for the web or video guy, but for anyone who loves technology and wants to learn more.

Feel free to browse around, add my RSS feed to your feed reader, and follow me on twitter so you can keep up on anything new that posts to the site.

I hope to post tutorial videos about all kinds of web, video, and computer tips. You’ll see my upcoming projects here too!

Ok, it’s now 2am and I need to go to bed… whew…