Opportunity knocks

As the new year looms over us, so do the opportunities for new adventures, new ideas or new ways to impact the world.
For a really different adventure in entertainment try bowling. Not just any bowling, but Xtreme bowling – a trend that began in 1997. It emphasizes excitement, individual challenges and a rock-n-roll attitude. Using thumping music, flashing laser lights, smoke machines and balls and pins that glow in the dark, the bowling center looks and feels like a nightclub. A flexible bumper system keeps balls out of the gutter and flashes on and off to create an airport runway effect.
According to Jeff Stein, director of marketing, U.S. Bowling Centers at AMF, the new twist on bowling has become popular for Xtreme birthday parties and corporate events, even for some family and seniors parties.
Good-bye brown trimmed bowling shirts and shoes, the world of color, light, music, dance and party clothes have entered the bowling alley.
Those with a bit more serious nature may not enjoy sports, not even the sport of bowling. In their seriousness, they prefer to find a new way to make a real impact on their world.
Well back in September a collection of insignificant people made a measurable impact on the world. And, I am not talking about terrorists – but of the school children in Great Britain.
According to a report in the U.S. News and World Report, On Sept. 7, over a million British school children made their presence felt on that day doing what every kid in the world is always and forever doing: They jumped up and down. But this time they all jumped at the exact, same time. At that exact moment seismographs across Great Britain registered low-level tremors.
The British school children were set to hopping by a group of researchers who asked themselves, “What happens if a million school kids jump up and down all at once?” Researchers and the nation’s teachers coordinated the jump of a million kids to answer that
question the first Friday afternoon in September.
Insignificant, non-voting children, having a lot of fun together made their presence on the earth felt … literally – plus they added a bit more to our knowledge and insight about the earth. One question got a whole nation of children jumping. Sometimes all it takes to get an idea going is to think out loud and see what happens.
However, if wild parties at the bowling alley or a school building full of jumping children lack appeal, perhaps a quiet task such as training a new kind of pet might. I recently read a news release that turtles are one of the few reptiles that can be trained to do tricks. Not only that, but they also can recognize faces. (How someone decided that was true is a mystery to me, but they did.)
Consider the import in the world of pets. Children who are allergic to animal fur could have a trained pet … a turtle. Cuddling up and petting now, that is another issue. I half believe training a turtle is possible. After all, my son did train gold fish to recognize a specific color and swim to it.
Tomorrow a new year begins. Take some time to jump up and down and make a difference in your world.