Future Gloom and Doom? by Conner Quigley

Conner Quigley

            The future isn’t all gloom and doom we will progress. What is something you do every 2-3 weeks and sometimes once a week depending on the events that conspired in that week? Did you get something? If you thought to hard about this question then you most likely came to the conclusion that it’s filling up your vehicles fuel tank. Millions of American citizens do just this on a regular basis and millions more do it in the world. It’s estimated that there has been over 600 million cars produced in the world (Worldometers). Petroleum has the world by a 1 inch chain collar locked onto an immovable pole. Developing in society that most don’t seem to recognize is that humans can’t predict resources. Fueling up every 2 weeks is described to be a fading activity as so many environmentalists describe the world running out of oil. My main point that I will prove to you in so many words is that the future holds a spot for alternative energy sources. It’s a matter of knowledge that the human race believes it can reach a stopping point of productivity or discovery. I know I find myself and fellow friends debating on whether we have reached the end of inventing. By invention I’m assuming something to the magnitude of the gas powered car or the technology of cellular devices that have been introduced and imbedded in today’s society.. I can’t imagine any other way humans will be able to communicate with each other than with a cell phone in say 100 years. This is just the beauty of discovery and inventions. It’s almost impossible to imagine the future suddenly taking off again towards a new adaptation of some idea because as a human race we tend to lean towards knowing it all like teenagers. Maybe you are someone that believes we’ve reached full capacity and that humans won’t have another life changing idea. Let me throw some real life situations from the past where people thought just like this. Did we ever run out of oil in 1992. If you don’t recall this event you can blame it on account we didn’t. The world as a whole hasn’t even broke ground in reaching this point although in 1972 the international panel of climate change or what was then the Club Of Rome decided to estimate when we would run out of certain resources (Hutter info. Box 15). A respected group filled with some of the smartest scientist and analyst in the world at the time. Intelligent people managed to predict something that never happened. What about President James E. Carter saying to the American people in a televised address that all the world’s oil reserves would be used up by the end of decade in 1977. The president of the United States of America; a well respected, well educated, well supported, well informed, and well trusted man was painfully incorrect. He thought that he could predict the future but didn’t look at history. My economics teacher once said that he could spend a whole semester showing us time and time again of examples in which people thought they could predict the future of resources, technology, and the world in a sense of doom. Each time they didn’t see that humans find a way to do things differently. If you think I’m being one sided then go to google and search “predictions gone wrong” you will find a nice one million 40 thousand result of examples you can research yourself. Find for yourself all the famous and smart people who’ve attempted to predict the worlds “doom and gloom” (Sandmeyer). I apologize for pushing in sort of a mixed direction but in order to get you the reader in the right mind set I designed a way of freeing your mind to the possibility of change. Now that the mood is set let’s begin with a roadmap of this paper. In this research will include alternative energies of the future, a point of how gloom and doom is so incorporated in the world we know of now and later of time, how the fictional world relates to gloom and doom in the now and later of time, and In conclusion a finalized review of this paper.

When I say alternative energies you might think of electric cars, air powered cars, and maybe even solar powered. These are prime examples of now technologies. In the progression of life humans strive to find directions to be more efficient, more productive, and benefit themselves in some way. When you think of the future what do you picture. For me I produced an image of flying cars, magnetic cars, and maybe even teleportation. Thinking of new ideas are what keep us progressing to new heights. It’s ironic that every year smart people in the world make the mistake of predicting what we can call gloom and doom events(Sandmeyer) What I don’t think gets punched into our minds enough is that change can happen. We aren’t at a stopping stage in human development. I remember my great grandma telling me a story of when she heard about cell phones first coming out. She said everyone thought it would be gross for someone to be able to talk to another person from anywhere in the world. She also thought it was weird someone could track you no matter the location your at. Thanks to a wonderful constitution generations before us created government that is outlawed from tracking our personal locations in the United States. It’s easy to understand what a crazy thought that must have been. Technologies that easily relate to this in our time are under skin injection chips. These chips have personal information in them that are embedded a few inches under the skin from a shot. A weary thought for some but one that is easily becoming a reality used by government officials in military already. What may surprise you is this technology has been in design for a couple years now and is even approved by the food and drug administration (Halley line 3). These great ideas are stepping stones to new lifestyles we will discover in our next generation of friends and family. Now what can alternatives energies do in the aspect of say a home?

If you’ve heard of solar energy then you’re on track to a new and upcoming technology. If you don’t believe it will take off then why don’t I throw another example where people thought something wouldn’t happen? Know the computer you have at home, ten years ago people couldn’t in any way comprehend how much computers would have taken off today. Computers have been doubling consumer memory every year since computers first started. If you think that’s fast imagine this. Batteries and solar panels are doing about the same thing. Yeah really weird to picture but our roofs could very well be made out of solar composite that powers maybe %50 of the utilities in your home. What an estimate, at the rate solar is taking off its only a couple years down the road that we will see solar incorporated in our daily life’s assuming we don’t get more efficient then we are now. Efficiency is a key topic in everything and can’t be ignored. Only a matter of time when generations will be looking at us laughing that we weren’t able to come up with free energy when they might be taking it for granted. It’s just how everything is perceived.

In this paper predictions are no stranger. A sense of the word prediction can be associated with maybe fiction. A book that closely relates to predictions is Richard Matheson’s “I am legend” In this brilliantly written book is a mind full of gloom and doom ideas (Sandmeyer). A few examples of this gloom and doom is when the main character Robert Neville accidently makes a super disease and becomes the last man alive on earth. Through his trials and tribulations he tries to turn his diseased subjects back into his friends and family he once knew (Craddock). How this is relevant to this paper is that humans never cease to doubt the extinction of future existence.

In conclusion alternative energies will be in the future. The gloom and doom predictions in the world aren’t always right. Research yourself if this paper doesn’t persuade you enough but oil is not becoming extinct. A close examination of efficiency and we find the sole heart that the human race never ceases to find new ways of doing something. Whether it’s from solar power or micro chips under the skin it’s hard and sometimes weird to imagine the future. In the book “I am legend” we see another uncountable example of human kind’s prediction of future. Although this book is fictional it shows the humans mind idea of extinction.

Works Cited

"Cars Produced in the World - Worldometers." Worldometers - Real Time World Statistics. Web. 16 Mar. 2010. <http://www.worldometers.info/cars/>.

Craddock, David. ""I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson." Fantasy Book Critic. 12 Dec. 2007. Web. 16 Mar. 2010. <http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-am-legend-by-richard-matheson.html>.

Halley, Drew. "Will Your ID Soon Be a Microchip Under Your Skin? | Singularity Hub." Singularity Blog Covering Robots, Genetics, Stem Cells, Transhumanism, The Brain, The Future. 2 July 2009. Web. 16 Mar. 2010. <http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/02/will-your-id-soon-be-a-microchip-under-your-skin/>.

Hutter, Freddy. "Peak Oil Depletion - Charts for Prediction & Projection of Peak Date, Rate & Decline." TrendLines ... Welcome to the Web's 1st Chart Blog! Graphs of Global Peak Oil Depletion Projections, Climate Change, World Election Predictions, the USA Recession Meter, the USA Housing Price Correction and More. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. <http://www.trendlines.ca/energy.htm>.

"Jimmy Carter - - ProCon.org." Alternative Energy. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. <http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=008537>.

Sandmeyer, Greg. "Gloom and Doom Predictions from the past." Timberline High School, Boise. 22 Jan. 2010. Reading.

Stereotypical College Student by Conner Q

Conner Quigley

                                                                    A Stereotypical College Student

I wake up everyday past 7 a.m., I'm always on the computer, my phone is my life, I cant remember the last real conversation I had with someone on a telephone, and I spend a quarter of my paycheck on food, who am I? I call myself a college student and its a similar story for many other higher learning students. Being rebellious, striving to reach a career I want in life, impressing the opposite sex, and finding ways to keep afloat financially are just a few of the ways that make up my G.P.A. In light of everything I accomplish as a college student, I have an average “C” G.P.A. Although my G.P.A is average the different fields I am graded in range from C to A letter grades. How I earned these grades is complicated but explainable. Like all grades we don’t necessarily agree with what we always get.

Being rebellious is part of human nature. What affects the level of rebellion is easily associated with how someone is raised, where someone grew up, and what race they are. We like to think we are always right, having an opinion on everything, and hate to be proven wrong. I look back at my high school years and laugh at how my rebellious skills have carried over. Now that I have become more intelligent *cough cough* I put my two cents into every subject that is discussed. Every topic has an explanation from Conner Quigley. I know I can look back years ago when I had no care in the world what the difference between a democrat and a republican was. Fast Forward to the present and a whole different story emerge. I use my education and street skills to help construct answers for everything now. I feel as though any question can produce an educated guess from me. This could be compared to my rebellion that so overwhelms a fresh out of high school student. What happens most for rebellious kids is that moment when they are finally living on their own. For me lots of habits got put into a lock box, for example, I never do my dishes now, I never wash my clothes, I always forget to turn lights out, and I never have any chores to do. It is awesome being my own enemy, but it does not benefit my long term goals in reaching my career path.

A career in my eyes is a focused field of work that your willing to participate in for the rest of your life. Luckily I found mine when I was in elementary school with out knowing it but for others they have no idea what they want to do for the rest of their lives. My future career will hopefully be owning firms and businesses. In the stereotypical world of a college student an A+ in this area would mean changing majors multiple times throughout high school and in college. So I earn a C in this area because I haven't changed my career choice yet although in perspective I still have 4 to 5 years of school left. A lot can change in 4 to 5 years, you never know anymore. Lots of students drop out after their first year, if they have not dropped out, chances are they don’t have the best grades. I am right in between the struggle and the drop out. I have a full time job, lots of projects, friends to hang out with, and then constantly have to find time for homework. Its rough but I get it done. A stereotypical college student cant make up their mind on whether to do homework, cook food, or hang out with friends. What bites the most is when the weather starts to warm up. Imagine a perfect 80 degree Sunday, big fluffy clouds in the sky, sun relaxing your body, the chances skyrocket for students to skip homework and say “ I will do it later, its to nice out to focus.” All areas weighed, working towards the goal society puts on students shoulders. What is worse is that its not just one goal, its purely assumed you will be slaving at a job the rest of your life and hopefully spending it with someone you can stand 24 hours of the the day. Marriage, the one topic every college student should be least worried about, but most definitively is not.

Impressing the opposite sex is again embedded in the human DNA. We constantly want companionship and in college when you have tons of down time you can find someone pretty easy to connect with. As a stereotypical college student I feel as though I have an average C in this field. Even though I'm not completely pursuing a woman I am very happy with my decision to stay away from relationships. I don’t wake up everyday to spruce up my face so every woman is attracted to me or better yet pick out my clothes for the day. I just go, doing whatever gets thrown on that day, calling it good. I feel as though a relationship would get me closer to the stereotype of a college student which includes bad grades and skipping class. Relationships are time consuming and Im going to worry about that later down the road. Also relationships are expensive and stereotypical college students are struggling already with out a relationship. Finances are just the beginning to the college world.

Finances are a fun topic among college students. I know for me I have almost spent my entire financial aid for this semester and I have a full time job which means I bring in over a thousand dollars a month. I live paycheck to paycheck paying off my credit card and making sure I stay well fed for the week. Food is a big expenditure as well as fun to keep me sane. Im always scared to overdraw my bank account and it’s a growing trend among college students. College gets more expensive every year and it does not help the stereotype of a poor college student. Its funny, your purpose as a college student is to get good grades, while in school you live like your poor, the end result is hopefully you are filthy rich the rest of your life to make up for the years you lived poor. As a stereotypical college student I think I have an A in this area. I feel very poor at the moment, the poorest I have ever felt in my small life. It seems like nothing is going to change penetrate my “poor wall.” It’s a final countdown to hopefully being rich someday. 

Living the college life is not easy but being like everyone else isn’t fun either. The stereotypical college student always trying to make the cut in life, not fail at school, striving to reach a career in life, finding enough money to eat, and impressing the opposite sex is just a constant test we keep. I completely agree with my C average typical high education young adult student. I hope someday “society” will change the pressure that is put on students so finances are not stressed upon everyday and the real matters that should be dealt with in college can be focused on.

Stereotypes of a Freestyle Skier by Conner Q

Conner Quigley

The stereotypes of a Freestyle skier in F minus

Freestyle skiers are quite often stereotyped to be something they are not. A study of freestyle skiers proves frequently they are respectful, honest, intelligent, trustworthy all around great people who don’t f minus life. For anyone wondering, a freestyle skier is someone who focuses his/her time on the mountain hitting jumps and doing tricks. Freestyle skiers can be great people both on and off the mountain. What I want to prove to everyone is that not all skiers are pot heads, freestyle skiers are not dumber than rocks, why freestyle skiers are not stuck up, and lastly the idea that freestyle skiers are not party animals.

A sad world that follows with freestyle skiers is that they are all pot heads. Basically a pot head is someone who smokes marijuana any chance they can. Although I am seeing more and more skiers smoke the drug, the truth of the matter is more people as a whole are smoking. The end result is more freestyle skiers smoking, yet also following is that more people are switching to freestyle skiing. With that said, a lot of freestyle skiers do not have time to be getting high when they could be working on a new trick or reviewing videos of themselves to better a trick or better their form. My best friend is a freestyle skier and although he is not the best, he qualifies, and he doesn’t smoke anything because he believes it slows down the human body. To back my great friend up, many studies conducted, by numerous organizations, it has been proven that marijuana slows brain activity. Livescience, Sciencedaily, and Global Change have all found research connecting marijuana to delayed or stopped brain development. This does not help the dumber than rocks analogy that gets associated with skiers.

 Dumber than rocks, slower than molasses, drop-out, these are just some of the common names that get attached to freestyle skiers. In truth, freestyle skiers are incredible math students. The reason for math being the subject of choice is because they are constantly assessing their environment to determine the angle, speed, and direction they should hit a jump. On top of all that, they are adjusting for snow conditions, wind conditions, how the board is responding to the takeoff and landing of the jump, then what trick to do all in seconds. What is even greater is the fact that professional skiers can become millionaires doing what they love. For example Tom Wallacsh and Simon Dumont make money for every appearance, every time they win a comp, and for every movie they make. With rich, you sometimes get stuck up, and no one like a stuck up, cocky, celebrity.

Being stuck up, or thinking you are all that and a bag marbles, is commonly associated with freestyle skiers. Though if they were truthfully stuck up ,why are they so great to their friends, families, and fans? What most likely started this common stereotype for freestyle skiers is jealousy. Lots of skiers want to become professional someday. In the end, they realistically get old and furious over the ones who made it to becoming professional. As a freestyle snowboarder, I run into a lot of freestyle skiers. They are some of the most chill, respectful, honest human beings to be around. If you look at the recent snowsport community, a professional snowboarder sadly passed away in a terrible freestyle accident. To honor her, the entire snowboard/skiing community dedicated X Games this year just to her. That takes a lot of respect to honor another sport and person from that sport like everyone did.

Freestyle skiing comes with a lot of stress, as does most sports and its noted that most skiers find themselves at the biggest parties. With any group their are those who tend to ruin it for everyone. Every group has those few who like to party. It’s no different with freestyle skiers. The truth of the matter is that freestyle skiers simply know they can’t be getting drunk the night before an event. They know it will affect their health for the next day. A major competition can be the make or break of a skiers career and they know not to crush that chance by living it up getting wasted the night before. Therefore, skiers should be getting be the respect they deserve for being responsible partiers.

Freestyle skiers have lots of stereotypes that haunt them, for example, they are assumed party animals and associated with being unintelligent. In this break down of freestyle skiers it  is clear that, they are in fact very intelligent, wealthy, smart, and know what to do with their time instead of getting drunk the night before. My best friend is someone who loves to freestyle ski but does not smoke marijuana or any drugs for that matter because he knows it will negatively affect his skill level. Not every freestyle skier is a model citizen but majorities stand to be great examples. Freestyle skiers are not all what they get stereotyped to be.

Grand Theft Auto Lessons for Life by Conner Q

Conner Quigley                                                                                                                                  

Grand Theft Auto Lessons for life

            Every road has some carnage, every character has a story behind them, and you are stuck deciding what path you want to take. If any toy has taught me valuable life lessons it is the computer. More specifically a game called grand theft auto 3 on that computer did all the teaching. Kids grow up loving a favorite toy and cherishing it for the rest of their lives like for example a little toy car. Although for me, a long day on the computer, after school, kept me cherishing. Without Grand Theft Auto 3 I would have never learned some important life lessons. My whole life was changed because of this game. I developed critical life lessons like street Intelligence, life Skills, individual passions, and ideas as a result.

            I look back at my young age and question why my parents ever even showed me Grand Theft Auto. It is rather enraging to think they ended up banning me from playing it shortly after. It’s common for kids to relate to when dad or mom took their favorite toy away because they were being naughty. In this generation it’s becoming more and more common for the parents to take away games, cars, or Barbie Dolls because of something they did not like about the toy. Once I got hooked on GTA I had no chance turning back even when my parents took it away. I look back and can blame a majority of my computer knowledge to GTA because of all the temptations. GTA was what many would call a cheaters game. To really fall in love with the game you had to cheat. This is where my intelligence grew. In GTA you can hack the cars to go light speed, give guns unlimited ammo, and make tanks shoot missiles that knock it back a couple thousand feet. In life you always want to find something your good at and master that better than anyone else. Hacking is no easy task and learning how to do that when I was in elementary school was amazing.  The computer is most definitely what I have been born to do and it was an important life lesson to learn young because it dominates our society so much today. The computer is a dangerous toy and life almost seems unimaginable without it.

            Life Lessons emerge in many forms, one important life lesson everyone should learn  is that in life you need money making skills. Money drives everything in this country. If a toy can teach that to a kid when they are young then everyone parent should be buying that toy. In GTA you learn budgeting, business etiquette, how to set goals, and what not to do in the real world through various missions. Like goal setting for example, we all learn at a young age how to go for something you want. In GTA if you wanted a certain car, you had to save up for it from working hard missions. You then take that saved money, search for the car, and drive it home from the dealership. Time demanding but almost all real goals seem to follow the same suit. Another important life lesson to learn young is how to stay away from trouble in the real world. In GTA you can go out stealing any vehicle you see and killing anyone you want with a great chance of getting away from the cops. When you are young you learn very quickly that just jumping in someones car and trying to steal it is impossible. Cars don’t start themselves, cars can’t be driven with 4 different keyboard strokes, People can’t be thrown out of a car, and cops are more efficient in real life than in a computer game.

            It’s important to develop skills young and it’s also important to use the skills towards passions you love. If any life lesson every young kid should learn, it’s to find something that will always make you happy. Luckily I found a toy that gets re-developed every year, and due to the nature of that toy I will always get to enjoy it. My passion is gaming, not very many toys can be played with and lead to a passion. The computer is no normal toy though, its special, it is always evolving, and adapting each year. Like any gamer you develop a connection to the game you play the most and it consumes your entire day sometimes.

            Addiction comes in mysterious ways and frequently you become addicted to your favorite toy for at least a little while. Getting over bad addictions is an important skill to learn for the rest of your life. What keeps a kid so addicted to a toy at such a young age is usually his brain racing with ideas. Ideas are like diseases, one is created, developed, and then living off a host until it is destroyed. For many young boys, they get caught always wanting to destroy things, causing mayhem to simply put it. Luckily for the world this is grown out of quickly, a simple addiction quickly overcome. If it were not overcome, we might have adults playing target practice against random bystanders and animals. This is a result of when a kid is playing with a G.I. Joe and he is going around shooting every commando in his path, destroying every blockade that tries to stop him. For me my important life lesson idea was to be respectful to others at all times. Respect holds a certain bar of understanding, in GTA the whole game is about earning respect of all the mobsters to get any farther in the ranks of life. This holds true for real life and is a lesson to be learned by all. Growing up you earn the respect of teachers, friends, and hopefully even your managers. If someone respects you they are more likely to do something for you.

            In every toy there is a life lesson to be learned. Sometimes it takes years down to road to completely understand the lesson was. Childhood toys hold a lot of value in regards to what can be learned from each. Intelligence, skills, passions, and ideas are important to making it anywhere in this world. Like the computer, some toys are very complicated, they never get old. Then in comparison Barbie dolls die off with age of the person. It’s crazy how toys can define us like how grand theft auto helped define me. It’s all part of growing up and developing life’s lessons.

Tony Hillerman Voice of the Navajos by Conner Q

Conner Quigley

Tony Hillerman a voice of the Navajos

                          Remember back in grade school when you had to walk a half hour to go to class that was made up of 90% girls. I have to say not many have that memory but that’s just the beginning of Tony Hillerman’s story.  The main question that caused me to write this essay is how does a person of a different people become able to write about them. If you know any background on Tony Hillerman you’ll understand why he was such a legendary writer on fictional characters based on the Navajo people. If not It will be explained later in this paper. Also mentioned will be the history of the Navajos, Why Tony Hillerman became such a great writer on the Navajo people, and then end with a summary.

                   What gave Tony Hillerman the jump start to writing about the Navajo? To start it had to be he grew up surrounded by Navajo’s. At a young age he got stuck in going to an all Native American girl’s school provided by the Pottawatomie and Seminole Tribes who accepted a couple boys to attend. As a young boy he hung out and was a part of what he referred to as “country boys” (Washington post interview 1987). In his interview he stressed on how country boyish the Navajo boys were and how they were always separate from town boys. You can imagine from the great book he wrote like “Talking God” that they had quite an imagination. After finishing high school he enlisted in the Army and went to fight in a battle commonly known as d-day in Normandy. Just an example of what a great writer he was transforming to be the “Daily Oklahoman” printed some of his wartime letters. Once back in the U.S. he went on to college at the University of Oklahoma receiving an undergraduate’s degree. After college he went on to become a newspaper reporter and editor in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. In ’63 Hillerman went on to finish his schooling at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Tony Hillerman became the writer he was by the history of his past. Loving the people you grew up with, which were of a different people makes writing about them so easy. “There were town and country boys, and the potts and me were country boys, see? We wore bib overalls and carried our lunch in a sack. The town boys wore low-cut shoes and belt pants. To this day I still feel much more comfortable around redneck country boys than I do with yalies.”(Washington Post) In this interview you can see what bond Hillerman had with his Navajo friends. The Navajo were great at teaching. As you already know he was educated from Navajo people from the beginning.  A few facts worth mentioning about the Navajo are for example they are the largest North American Tribe to date, there is an independent government body that runs who gets what Indian reservation and property, and the Navajo are also known as dine from their traditional language.

                   Not important but a subject need to be touched upon is why did he chose to write about Navajo’s? What you can’t go around saying is that he only wrote about them because he didn’t he had tons of adventures involving detective and military personal. He also published a few books describing the scenery of the southwest but His main drive in words related to Navajo’s. If you don’t believe what you’re reading then go and look at his 18 book Navajo series. He became famous writing about a people he was never born into. Which leads me to my final argument of how a person becomes as a good of a writer as Hillerman who writes about a different culture other that his.

                   Riddle me this have you ever tried riding a bike or driving a car. Chances are it wasn’t pretty but after much practice you perfected it to your liking. Hillerman lived the same way he learned about The Navajo until he knew so much that he could describe them accurately in intelligently. In the first body paragraph there was a brief description on Hillerman’s education. Think about how much time he really spent studying those great people. It was a connection from the start and all that puzzle needed was a little piece to be put together.

                   In review Tony Hillerman was such a great writer of The Navajo’s because of his drive to learn about them and his childhood of trust with them. From the days of going to an all girls school to the finishing of college that led up to his writing ability of The Navajo. This puzzle of a person was an example to what knowledge and past can combine. The real stress of this essay is to prove a point that anyone can write about anything if they have the tools to complete the job.