Every man wants his son to be somewhat of a clone, not in features but in footsteps. As he grows you also age, and your ambitions become more unachievable. You begin to realize that your boy, in your footsteps, could probably accomplish what you hoped for. But footsteps can be muddied and they can go off in different directions.

My son Jody has hated school since day one in kindergarten. Science projects waited until the last moment. Book reports weren't written until the final threat.

I've been a newspaperman all my adult life. My daughter is a university graduate working toward her master's degree in English. But Jody? When he entered the tenth grade he became a “vo-tech” student(技校学生). They're called “motorheads” by the rest of the student body.

When a secretary in my office first called him “motorhead”, I was shocked. “Hey, he's a good kid,” I wanted to say. “And smart, really.”

I learned later that motorheads are, indeed, different. They usually have dirty hands and wear dirty work clothes. And they don't often make school honor rolls(光荣榜).

But being the parent of a motorhead is itself an experience in education. We who labor in clean shirts in offices don't have the abilities that motorheads have. I began to learn this when I had my car crashed. The cost to repair it was estimated at $800. “Hey, I can fix it,” said Jody. I doubted it, but let him go ahead, for I had nothing to lose.

      My son, with other motorheads, fixed the car. They got parts(零件）from a junkyard, non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbours and co-workers trust their car repair to him.a

        Since that first repair job, a broken air-conditioner, a non-functioning washer and a non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbors and co-workers trust their car repairs to him.

        These kids are happiest when doing repairs. They joke and laugh and are living in their own relaxed world. And their minds are bright despite their dirty hands and clothes.

I have learned a lot from my motorhead: publishers need printers, engineers need mechanics, and architects need builders. Most important, I have learned that fathers don't need clones in footsteps or anywhere else.

        My son may never make the school honor roll. But he made mine.

    Have you ever wanted to travel back in time? What about traveling into the future? There's an easy way to do it.

    One way you can make a time travel journey is by writing a letter to your future self to be opened in the future. To your future self, the letter will be a visit from the past. What can be gained by writing a letter to yourself? It depends on how good your letter is. You have the chance to say something to your future self. What would you want to communicate? You'll be able to talk to yourself 5, 10, 15 years down the road. There may be instructions for your future self, or you may have goals that you will want to check up on.

    There are a lot of things you could include in your letter or letters to yourself. The more you include, the better the letter will be to you. Here are some ideas of things to include in your letter:

    Your thoughts and feelings about life, religion, politics, society, etc.

Your feelings for your family.

Your likes and dislikes.

Your dreams.

    The type of person you want yourself to become.…

    Be creative with what you put in your letter. Include a picture of yourself or family to show the period from which the letter came.

    You can store your letter in many different ways. You can give your letter to a friend or family member to keep and mail to you. If you can get others to take part, have them write letters to themselves as well and ask someone to be the letter holder until it's time to send the letters. You can also use a service online to store your letter and e-mail it to you.

    Make the most of your letter writing, and you will help your future self make the most of the present.

    For the brave in the army, being sent away from home is just part of the duty. However, it's never easy especially for those with children. So, when I found out I was going to stay in South Korea for a year, I was nervous about how my five children, particularly my eldest daughter Abigail, would take the news since it meant I wouldn't be home to see her graduate from high school.

    To my surprise, Abigail told me not to worry and even suggested we make the news known among family members. "We've been lucky you haven't had to be sent abroad yet. Anyway, we can get connected through the Internet. See me on your phone." Abigail said. She stepped into many of my roles when I was gone. I wanted to find a way to thank her and show her how proud I was of her. I started planning the special surprise when my request to return home a few weeks earlier to attend Abigail's graduation ceremony(典礼) was approved.

    When my time in South Korea finally came to an end, I flew home, and stayed in a hotel. On Abigail's graduation day, I hid in an office behind the stage waiting until I heard her name called. I just kept thinking "Don't cry. Don't trip in your heels. Don't fall over." At last! Abigail was up on stage. I slipped up behind her, whispered in her ear, and around she turned! "I was just thinking, like, 'You aren't supposed to be here. What? What? How?' It was the biggest shock... I'm pretty sure my dad made people he didn't even know cry. Emotional for everyone." Abigail cried.

    You know what followed: embraces, kisses, tears, laughs, flowers, wishes...; aren't they what a family have in store?

    Our mother earth is going through a very tough situation and we, the entire human race, are destroying our environment consciously or unconsciously without even realizing its results. Now we have to act very smartly and plan something to sustain(保持) what we still have, getting all necessary support from nature to lead healthy lives.

    Gardening is always an excellent and environmentally friendly idea. If you can go for sustainable(可持续的) gardening, then it will be even more useful for all. Gardening is a favorite hobby for many. It is time to channelize your hobby towards a more meaningful motivation.

    When we do gardening we need to use different ingredients to grow plants. Some of the mare natural resources like water, soil, sunshine, and many things like this. Using these resources smartly is a part of sustainable gardening. Some simple techniques include: use less water and organic things to grow plants; try to store rainwater so that you can use them for gardening; try using less energy to drive devices; avoid using plastics in any form while gardening; reuse the leaves from your garden to fertilize them. These are the basic sustainable measures. To do so we need to have proper knowledge about gardening and its requirements so that we can use proper resources without wasting any of them.

    In today's busy life we don't get much time to spend on our environment. Gardening gives us a chance to do so. We can also have some pesticide-free and fresh food if we grow them in our garden. This is the right time to do some good to protect our own environment and gardening is one of the easiest ways. Do you want to start gardening, but you're not sure how? Click here: http://www.garden how to.com.

    One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting. I was looking forward to a quiet view of the wonderful works.

    A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves. I watched them a moment and decided she was doing all the talking. I admired his patience for tolerating her constant words. Disturbed by their noise, I moved on.

    I encountered them several times as I moved through the various rooms of art. Each time I heard her constant talking, I moved away quickly.

    I was standing at the counter of the museum gift store doing some shopping when the couple approached the exit. Before they left, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object. He turned it into a long cane (手杖) and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.

    "He's a brave man," the clerk at the counter said, "Most of us would give up if we were blinded at such a young age. During his recovery, he made a promise that his life wouldn't change. So, as before, he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."

    "But what does he get out of the art?" I asked, "He can't see."

    "Can't see! You're wrong. He sees a lot. More than you or I do," the clerk said, "His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head."

    I learned something about patience, courage and love that day. I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life.

    And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away arm in arm.

    Studying the DNA of 300 mice has flagged up genes which have been linked to hereditary (遗传的) sight loss for the first time. Researchers say because mice's genes are so similar to humans', their findings could lead to the treatment of more genetic diseases.

    Scientists at the University of California, Davis studied information from a data bank of mice's genetic material. They found 347 genes linked to eye problems, with just 86 of them having been studied in the past.

    Only around 50 to 75 percent of hereditary eye diseases in human can be explained with present science. The researchers believe these hundreds of new genes found in mice could be a key to explaining-and therefore being able to treat the other 25-50 percent.

    "This is extremely valuable for people with hereditary eye disease," said researcher Professor Ala Moshiri. "All researchers are going to start using these data. In the past, we knew the problem was there but we didn't know where to look. Now eye centers can call back patients and screen them for these new genes. We expected that more and more of these genetic diseases will be treatable." Also, the fact is that more than 60 percent of eye problems at birth are ones resulting from the baby's parents!

    Thanks to data from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC), which is trying to work out what every single gene in a mouse is responsible for, with the aim of translating it to humans, scientists are moving closer to figuring out all genetic causes of blindness. To do this, scientists separate a single gene from other ones at a time and then observe what effect it has on the mouse for a long time. This has so far been done more than 7,000 times and has achieved great success. Researchers are now working alongside eye care centers in Texas and Iowa in order to compare the mice's genes to those of patients.