No Fear

So. It has been a tumultuous couple weeks. I don't know why I've been so down about it, but hopefully I can recuperate this weekend and be ready to live the last two weeks of Halloween to the fullest.

Bored to Death

The last week or so has been strange. I've continued to have problems with my insurance/loan situation. Once again I called my loan company only to find out that they still haven't received any sort of payment from the insurance company.

I've decided also that I won't be attending the CAMWS (Classical Association of the Midwest and South) conference next month.

CAMWS invited me to read my paper "Ripped Up By The Roots: Sophocles' Antigone and The Fall of the House of Oedipus" at their 2008 convention, but because of this car situation and every other blow Colorado has dealt me I don't feel confident enough about my school work or my finances to take off a couple days and attend the convention in Asheville. Also, the fact that G-mail marked a month's worth of CAMWS communication as Spam didn't help either.

I've also decided that if I can get back into blogging I'm at least going to give myself one day off per week, beginning in November. As it stands I owe you all way too many posts about Halloween to cut myself any slack before the end of the month.

I got back to RCIA (basically adult confirmation classes for the Catholic Church) this week after missing two weeks in row. I'm still not overly pleased at how painfully elementary the class is and how much time we spend sharing our "feelings," but I guess I just have to bite the bullet, unless I can find a more ambitious class in town.

Today is devoted to catching up on grading and reading Dracula. I've finished the second and third books in the Eragon series only to find that there's a fourth, and I'm none too pleased about it. While the books are good, and if my 8th graders are all reading them I don't think it's a waste of time if I do to, I can't help but cringe when I see the Christopher Paolini is in league with Phillip Pullman (author of The Golden Compass) whose entire purpose in writing children's books is to undermine the theory of fantasy and fairy stories developed by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein.

Well, this has been scattered, but at least I'm blogging.

Let me know how you've been and remind me if I owe you a phone call.

Your Halloween video for the day:


P.S. If you've never seen the musical episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer you can't consider yourself cultured. The same holds true for the musical episode of Scrubs.

Pray to St. Dracula for a musical episode of Heroes.

Even If It Kills Me

I've got a lot of things to do tonight,
I'm so sick of making lists, of things I'll never finish...

And the sad truth of the matter is,
I'll never get over it, but I'm gonna try,
To get better and to overcome each moment
In my own way.

And I sure want to get back on track,
And I'll do whatever it takes.
Even if it kills me...

A Rush of Blood to The Head

"There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but aas I listened I hearad asa if from down below in the valley the howling of wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said: ---
'Listen to them - the children of the night. What music they make!'"

- Dracula, Bram Stroker

Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies, Oh My!

There has been a thick fog over Colorado Springs for the last 48 hours or so. It has been rainy and miserable and before this morning I hadn't seen the mountains in 3 days due to lack of visibility. But when the sun rose this morning I could see that Pike's Peak was blanketed with snow all the way down to the tree line.

I finished the second book in the Inheritance Trilogy (the first of which is the novel Eragon) in my ongoing endeavor to read the books my students are reading. In that same vein I got permission last week to start a book club for my 8th graders.

This book club would meet for two lunches at the end of the month. At the first we will discuss a book of the 8th grader's choosing and at the second I will provide lunch and we will discuss a book of my choosing. For the month of October the books are:

8th graders: Twilight, the first book in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers
Mr. Good: Dracula, by Bram Stoker

I'm about 100 pages into Dracula and it's really starting to get good. Evidently, this book is not only the original vampire novel, but also the original werewolf novel, and the original... oh, what do you call people who like comsuming other creatures merely because they are destroying a life? People who would eat flies and spiders, or would feed flies to spiders so that when they ate the spiders the would be comsuming a dozen lives rather than just one? Anybody know? ...well, it's got one of those too.

At this point all these creatures are sort of converging on London and preparing to begin feeding off the innocent populous. Good stuff.

Well, I'm off to church. Have a spooky Sabbath.

Also, since there's a Halloween dance coming up at my school and of course I'm chaperoning I need your suggestions on:

1. What I should make for our Dracula book club lunch.
2. What I should choose for our November book.
3. What I should dress up as when I chaperone the upcoming Halloween dance. Keep in mind Ms. Brogan's dress code prevents me from displaying "weapons or gang signs."

Your Halloween clip: Jonathan Harker first encounter's Count Dracula

Abracadabra

I just finished my seventh week of school and the 8th graders just took their unit test over George Orwell's Animal Farm. Despite how much I enjoy my kids, how much I enjoyed having Mallory here, and how well everything has worked out with my move thus far, I feel discontent. Maybe it's just because I haven't blogged in awhile. We'll see.

Lifetime Incompetence Award

If you've been keeping up on the blog here, you'll remember that I was in a car accident in late August. Click here to read the post. That was the last day of classroom preparation I had before school started the next Monday.

Those of you who know me know that I have lots of luck. Good and bad. Things never go "alright" for me. They are always terrible or great. I will now recount for you the tale of how fate gave me the most incompetent insurance agent who has ever lived.

While still at the scene of my accident, as my arm was bleeding and the firetruck (because when you tell 911 dispatch the cancel the ambulance they send a firetruck) was just rolling up, I was already on the phone with Progressive reporting my claim.

At the time I was really excited about the fact that Colorado doesn't do No-Fault Insurance. That meant that the woman who blindly pulled out into moving traffic and hit me would have to pay for the damages and my insurance rates wouldn't go up, unlike in Michigan where when an old man hits my parked car, sets of the alarm, pulls forward, and then backs into it again, I end up paying a couple hundred bucks more per year for insurance.

Unfortantly, because Colorado doesn't do No-Fault Insuranace I've had to spend the last 9 weeks dealing with some jacktard that has no interest in keeping me happy at all. And here's what happened:

Week 1: I call Mr. W and try to arrange a time for him to look at my car and do an estimate.

Week 2: He misses the appointment we made, shows up the next day when I'm not at home, drops his business card on my driver's seat (through the non-existent window) and leaves.

Week 3: I receive, not a phone call or an e-mail telling me what's going on, but a check for $4,500. I wonder if I should contest the amount and call my Progressive agent who tells me a of a reliable body shop to take the car to.

Week 4: I finally get ahold of Mr. W again and let him know that if I'm going to take my car in to get repaired that I need a rental. The guy at the body shop ends up negotiating the rental with Enterprise because Mr. W can't seem to figure out how. After looking at my car for about 10 minutes Sam, the guy at the body shop, says "there is a lot more damage here than he put on this estimate... ...he also put about 12 items on here that don't even exist on a Chevy Aveo..."

Week 5: Mr. W, after telling me he would be back down to give my car another look, goes on vacation for a week. Both Sam and I call his office a couple times a day until we find out, on Wednesday, that he won't be back in the office until the next Tuesday.

Week 6: I drive a rental around.

Week 7: I play phone tag with Mr. W's secretary. The XM free trial ends on my rental. Mr. W takes another 3 days worth of vacation.

Week 8: Voicemail message from Mr. W "uh... Mr. Good it looks like we're going to have to declare a total loss on your vehicle, get in touch with me as soon as you can." I loot Gretchen's corpse and wait to hearfrom Mr. W about a settlement. Mr. W tells me that they'll give me 10 G's for Gretchen and I agree. He claims he'll take care of it from there.

Week 9: Voicemail message from Mr. W: "uh.... Mr. Good I'm going to need you to return your rental in the next 48 hours..." I panic and start looking for cars.
Voicemail from my loan company: "Mr. Good, this is your final notice, we need to reposess your vehicle." I call Mr. W and find that he has yet to contact my loan company, which means I'm two payments late and they still don't know my car has been totalled.
Letter from 5/3 bank, received on October 10th: "Mr. Good your account has been overdrawn. Please pay $170 in fees before Oct. 8 or your account will accrue further charges." I call Progressive and tell them that my car was totalled and that the insurance payment shouldn't have hit my account, much less my Hillsdale account. They are nice and give me back two months worth of insurance payments that I wouldn't have incurred had Mr. W called them to tell them the car was totalled. I buy a new car, return the rental (one month later), and leave a voicemail for Mr. W telling him to just void the check he originally wrote me and pay off my damn loan like he said he would.

Yesterday: Voicemail message from Mr. W: "uh... Mr. Good now that our business is settled I need you to go ahead and return your rental car." I called him back, told him I returned the car 48 hours ago and that he needed to pay off my loan. He said he had made a payment to the company, but that I would have to take care of the rest out of the original check he wrote me.

Last night: I answer the phone, "Hello, is this Mr. Good?"
"Yes it is..."
"This is Detective M I wanted to confirm that you are the owner of a '06 Chevy Aveo and I need to know where that vehicle is."
"I was the owner, the car is totalled and if the insurance company hasn't claimed it yet, it's at Expert's Only Collision in Colorado Springs, Colorado."
"Could you giv me the number of the body shop? It seems that Farm Bureau Insurance out of Denver thinks it's a little suspicious that your car is in the name of a deceased person. I've already talked to your step-mother."

Ich habe du nicht gesheisst.

I kid you not. That's actually what's been happening. I've had to buy a car on the assumption that I would some day get reimbursed for my accident, I've had to talk to people who wanted to reposess a totalled car, people who were insuring a totalled car, people who thought that I had stolen said car and totalled it, and Mr. W who probably still doesn't remember my name.

But here's the new ride:

And here's your Halloween clip of the day:

I'm going to head to a coffee house later today to watch the episode of Heroes I missed this past Monday. Hopefully that will put me in a better mood.

Help?!?

I've gotten the 24 hour (unfair and I'm going to contest it) notice on my rental, despite not having received my settlement check yet.

That means I have to get a new car pronto, which may be near impossible as I guess I don't even have the credit necessary to obtain a Sears card...

Last night I looked at several vehicles, but because Colorado is the only place in the U.S. that still has enough money to kayak, ski, and buy $500 running shoes despite the economic state of our union the prices here aren't great.

I don't want more debt. I just want to put up a $1500 down-payment, get a vehicle, drive it for 50,000 and be done with it.

I've found a 96 Suburu Outback with only 77,000 miles that I can get out the door for $7,500, but that still doesn't seem great to me.

Help.

Bad Moon Rising

I was thinking as I drove home from work on Friday, that even if cars end up eating the ozone layer and baking us all to a crisp, in some way, God has sanctioned their existence in the pleasure that a dog experiences when he sticks his head out the window.

Mallory responded to this thought by asking why it is that dogs love sticking their heads out the window of a moving vehicle, but they hate it if you blow in their faces....

What Has Jesus to do With Halloween

Every Sunday the bulletin at Divine Redeemer makes me smile. This week, among other things, it advertised a church sponsored haunted house. That's right, not a Fall Festival, not Trunk-or-Treat, but an honest to goodness, scare the pants off you, vampires and werewolves, haunted house.

One of the many thing I love about the church is that they take humanity as it is and go from there. They don't start with the assumption that if we know Jesus we're perfect already and just need to be kept that way.

Championing Halloween shouldn't just be the job of the Catholic Church though, Christianity in general should realize what a perfect opportunity for evangelism it is when, for a month out of the year, everyone in America acknowledges the existence of a spiritual reality.

I don't know about you, but I would much rather talk to a pantheist or the pagan about Christianity than an agnostic or an atheist. At least the devil-worshipper is working with all the same dimensions of reality as the Christian. They acknowledge that a spiritual world exists and that it interacts with the physical world in a meaningful way.

Every child, unless otherwise guided, by the age of 12 will have a fully developed set of pantheistic beliefs. They'll see God in nature, in music, in their friends and family. They'll see evil in the destroying power of divorce and family strife, in ignorance and hatred, in alcohol and even in the fact that the more they know, the less sun-shiny their world seems. Everyone feels the transcendent in music, in physical exertion, in the fuzzy feelings of a first love, the rush of the wind and a warm summer rain. It is only our teenage years or an earlier and more unnatural introduction to materialism that will either make us cling to our false gods or throw them, along with our stuffed animals and LEGOs into an attic, only to be held from that point forward with nostalgia rather than a truly spiritual fascination.

There is something so hard-hearted about not believing in any spiritual reality of any sort, and something ignorant about a Christianity that doesn't realize the real spiritual good that Harry Potter, Eragon, and Halloween are doing.

Christians should be able to embrace Halloween as the only time the most people will acknowledge that a spiritual reality exists at all.

It's amazing how much the shadow tells us about the light and how ineffectual a battle we would be fighting if we set out to conquer rap music, immodest clothing and fast food without allowing Christians and non-Christians alike to see that our battle "is not against enemies of flesh and blood...but against the spiritual forces of darkness of this present age."

Also, the bulletin announced that the Colorado Springs Catholic Young Adult Group would have their monthly "Theology on Tap" meeting at Jack Quinn's at 7pm on Wednesday. Nothing like a Bible study at an Irish pub. Seriously. These people really know what's up.

Your Halloween video:

My Own Worst Enemy

Yesterday was:

• A trip to the Garden of the Gods, where we found out that cute little bunnies, like the one below, have the plague. (click to enlarge)
• A visit to Manitou Springs for Mallory's first taste of Manitou water and a look in at the local cult scene
• Bacon cheeseburgers and some much needed encouragement from Bob and Virginia at the Corner Cafe
• Searching the newspaper for cars and kittens
• Finding out there there are actually no pets at Petsmart
  
• Nearly taking advantage of the Border's 25% teacher discount
• Nearly adopting a kitten from the Humane Society
• Great food and great wine (homemade chicken alfredo and a German Riesling)
• A walk downtown to find a local brewery
• One beer turning into two beers and a couple games of pool (after finding out there was a $10 minimum on credit cards
• Two beers and pool turning into several beers and singing along to a cover band that played exclusively 90's alternative rock (a-mazing)
• Fighting a rabid weresquirrel on our walk back to my house
  
• Sleeping long and well before church

And your Halloween video of the day:

In The Shadows

Real quick - there was no internet to be found at my house yesterday so I'm going to do my best to double-post today.

5 Good Reasons to be Scared Today

1. When I got in my car today, eating a piece of cold pizza slathered in roasted garlic, I thought the Vue was greeting me with a Halloween message, but really I had just mistaken "Odometer" for "October".

2. A kid, with the most sincere expression and tone, excused his absence on Wednesday by saying that his family had spent Rosh Hashanah at home preparing for the End Times. Seriously, the kid spent the day reading Revelation and trying to tie Nostradamus prophesies to current events. So.... if this kid's dad "feels a rapture coming on" is he going to miss more class? On the bright side I really didn't see Sarah Palin as the Whore of Babylon, but it does kind of make sense and now I can be prepared. Why else would a woman only own red suits?

3. Cardinal John Henry Newman has been disinterred and is to be kept in a church on Halloween and All Saint's Day in preparation of a mass honoring him and promoting his cause for sainthood. Read about it here.

4. Perhaps they are digging up ol' Newmie in hopes of finding that he is incorruptible. What's incorruptible? Why I thought you'd never ask: 10 Incorruptible Saints. Check out especially St. Bernadette who died in 1879 and as of a really 80's looking photograph still looks like she's just sleeping.

5. This is my favorite Sesame Street segment of all time:

October

"This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams becoming more fervent and vivid." - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

It is officially the Halloween season. I slept with a bag of candy corn under my pillow and when I woke up at 1:17 I nibbled on a handful of the waxy kernels before continuing to dream of Heroes.

Words, Words, Words

Last night I played the closest game of Scrabble that I have ever witnessed. I compliment Eva, my opponent, and admit that I underestimated her abilities.

Our scores were within 20 points the entire game, we both easily broke 300 points, and the final four words played were "one" (on a triple word score), "furl," "jeer," and "oven." I ended up winning (after the adding and subtracting of Eva's final letters) by 1 point. Wow. A good omen for the coming month.

Mallory arrives tomorrow, which means a week of insanity for all parties involved. Expect pictures. Expect it to be good.

Also, expect October to rock your socks with:
1. Daily quotations from Frankenstein, Dracula, or the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
2. A YouTube video every day, increasing in spookiness and nearness to my heart as the month goes on.
3. Either a new decoration in my house or a new element on the blog in preparation for my 100th posts on November 1st (All Saint's Day).
4. Good reasons why you should never dress your kid as a princess or a cowboy.
5. A simple, progressive explanation of why Jesus loves Halloween just as much as Christmas or Easter. And finally...
6. The absolute denegration of every secular Christmas song and tradition.

Today I just want to ease you into the season with a short video from National Geographic on the history of Halloween. Enjoy.