Happy Halloween!

Hey, it's a big deal for me to be able to say that. I used to hate halloween. Hate.

I used to blame my childhood memory of having my candies jacked (oops--hanging with adolescents clearly has vocabulary implications) by some older kid when I was 9 and then having that kid pull a knife on me when I chased him.

Really, though, that wasn't it. It was more the craziness that we moved into in our current neighborhood 15 years ago. For the first few years it was always "150+ kids at our door, pipe bomb blew up the kiosk where we all pick up our mail, stupid kids next door keeping mine awake for a couple weeks with screechers and firecrackers every night..."

Now it's way more relaxed. My better half actually was arguing that we should just take each kid to their planned celebratory location, turn off the outside lights, and bugger off somewhere ourselves. That used to always be me.

Now I'm the one who wants to be sure someone's here handing out candy--at least until the 17 year olds in garbage bags with holes for their arms start showing up at 9:00 p.m.

In sort of related things, I had a visit around lunchtime from a grad of '06--there were supposed to be two of them and we were going to reprise/update my favorite halloween photo from about five years ago when they made me up as a zombie.

The one who did come still wanted to do it, and after she finished making me rather undead, we did a few photos.


















While looking for a video of a play she was in, I ran across the montage video of embarassing clips from the past I made for her grad class. We debated the wisdom of my posting it on facebook; there's one friend whose gender feelings and changes might make that old video particularly unwelcome, but maybe an edited version?

Watching it brought back some memories. Made me think of a quote someone passed along--I think it was from Camus? "Nothing thwarts happiness like the memory of happiness". If you knew the back story that would make sense.

Then I had to go see my daughter and the rest of the junior band kids play for the olympic torch gathering. You see, the torch was lit in Greece, then flown here to be relayed throughout this area, across the province and then around the country. Doesn't really make sense--shouldn't they have started on the east coast and worked their way across to Vancouver? I guess the hype begins and ends out here.

The weather was nicer than expected, and I walked to the park a few blocks from the school. Thing is, I was still decked out as a zombie--just added my glasses. I got a few funny looks, but there were others in olympics-related costumes, plus they'd been expecting protesters anyway, so maybe it wasn't all that strange, considering it was the day before halloween.

I caught one parent photographing me from a distance; she's someone I know though. It was funny as various band kids spotted me and then figured out who I was. A couple of grads from last year came by as well--after one's mom took our photo I asked her to take one on my camera as well:


















On our way back, my daughter and I encountered the torch relay. Man--what a lot of cops from various police forces were on duty riding by on motorbikes and in various vehicles--I'm sure I saw over a hundred. All for a silly publicity gimmick.














Anyway, this rambling is good practice for Nanowrimo. I'm still scrambling for a decent novel idea, but I'm thinking of taking another shot this year. The person who got me started on this a few years ago told me she's trying again this year, and if she can do it while fulfilling her college work obligations, surely I might pull it off. (I'm one for three on this, but the last time I really didn't give it an honest try.)

If you've got any last minute suggestions for my novel direction, let me know. If you're going to take a crack at it yourself, let me know that as well.

Timing seems appropriate

What with it being halloween and all. Remember the feet?

http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-foot.html

http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/06/this-is-getting-ridiculous.html

http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/06/another-day-another-one-found.html

Well, apparently it's not a sick halloween prank--they've found another one.

First another ship of illegal migrants shows is taken into custody a couple of weeks ago, and now this--it's like we're reliving the news stories from a couple of years back.

New Link

Go read "Some Pig"--I don't know much about Caroline, the author, but it's a great read. I saw my counter suddenly was registering a lot more hits on "the kid who sits behind you" for a few days, and her blog was the reason.

She's got a lot of readers and it's easy to see why.

The power of touch

Something weird happened this evening; I wish I'd videotaped it.

We went to my in-laws to have supper with our niece who's in town just for the day. My father in law is in the end stages of lung fibrosis and isn't expected to be around that much longer. At the end of the evening, when the others had left, my wife and I were setting up an old intercom system of ours so that her dad could summon her mom if he got into trouble. (He sleeps sitting upright, with oxygen, in a room at the other end of their suite.)

There's a "call" button which sets off an alert on the other unit; we had it working and then we had him try it. Nothing. There aren't any "buttons" actually, the call button is really a metal touch pad, which works like those touch lamps.

We try to figure out what's wrong. My father in law is exerting plenty of pressure, but nothing happens. We surmise it might be because of callouses from working with his hands for years, but then something weird happens. His finger is still on the touch pad, and I touch his other hand to see if maybe he's too cold or something. The call alert activites, and a little light turns on.

We try it again--same thing. My wife gets the same result by touching the back of his other hand.

Somehow even though his body isn't producing enough charge, or capacitance (according to some sites I looked up that explain how these sort of switches work), he can still conduct the charge from one of us when we hold his other hand, and we're not particularly close to the switch.

I don't know why he was the only one it wouldn't work for. He's had serious heart problems as well as his lung trouble, and the heart is the electrical engine of the body. Perhaps that's it.

What is interesting is that there is enough of a "charge" available in our touch that it passes through another's body and can then trigger something that person is holding. Could all those clichéd love stories not just be metaphorically talking about the jolt that happens when two lovers touch? Could there something more than the psychological feel of touch that gives it its therapeutic value? Could we be wired to give each other an almost imperceptible jolt on contact?

It was a lighter moment as we face the inevitable, and it made me curious.

Sufferings of my kids over dinner, AKA

...my Macbeth/Disney connection once more.

As some know, my daughter switched schools and now is not only at my school, but in my drama class as well. It's gotten past the initial weird first few days, and is working out quite well so far. I think we'll have to eventually work not to talk shop at home too much, since I doubt my wife or my son would enjoy that too much.

Meanwhile, he's in English 11 this semester at his school, which was probably my favorite grade to teach English back before my gig evolved into full time theatre, and he's studying Macbeth, which was probably my favourite unit in that course.

Thing is, his teacher's taking forever to get through the play. They've been at it for at least three weeks and they're just finishing Act II. (It's semestered, not linear.) He's started asking me about the play, and today my wife warned me off filling his head with "not the stuff his teacher will want them to know" about it.

Too late. First it was the whole "it makes more sense for Bellona's bridegroom to be Macduff" theory which I won't get into here, and then there was the "everything with Hecate was written by Middleton" issue. Still, I have to share the "Disney ripped off Shakespeare" Macbeth/Lion King thing once more. I've been flogging this with my classes since the late 90s (when my kids made us watch the damn movie over and over)

A good king (Duncan, Mufasa) is envied by a relative (Macbeth, Scar) who eventually murders him and places the blame on his son (Malcolm, Simba). The son flees his home (Scotland, Pride Lands) and goes into exile, while the new king begins a reign of terror aided by his evil supporters (mercenaries, hyenas).

Eventually things grow so bad that out of desperation one person (Macduff, Rafiki) travels to find the young king and convince him to return, but he argues that he is not worthy to come back and rule the land. Eventually Macduff/Rafiki succeed, and Duncan/Simba is joined by his newfound allies from the new land (Timon & Pumba/Old Siward & Young Siward) and they battle the evil king and his allies and restore the rightful heir to the throne.

But I guess they stole the "I am your father's ghost" from Hamlet.

A Perfect Day

It goes something like this:

A beautiful drive to work just before sunrise with my daughter, then a little later my friends now up from Honduras arrive--first time in over a year I've seen them, and we have a nice bus ride to catch up. Then, a play that all my students enjoyed, a short bus ride back to Duncan, and a break for food--pizza with my friends then back on the bus and home.

We all drive out to my place, beer on the patio enjoying the sunshine, and even my wife joins us for a while when she gets home. Then eventually we end up downtown, wandering like tourists and settle on a cheap but delicious restaurant in Chinatown.

Later, a stroll back through downtown to a pub, and a chance to laugh over drinks.

It was the bestest day ever. Here are a few pics:










Phone pic at Boston Pizza in Duncan












Dani contemplates her beer on the patio













Mmm, smell the horses.
















We stand on guard for thee.













The chinese food becomes part of a classic movie re-enactment: "You talkin' to ME?"

(well, it could have happened)

October garden

Some yard & garden pics from Sunday:

Don't even know what to call this

This commercial has come on a few times when we're watching tv and I just enjoy how it makes my wife giggle uncontrollably--mostly because it's so darned creepy. Don't quite know how it relates to chocolate bars, or anything else for that matter.

edit: I notice for some reason this posts as wider than fits in the blog. I really must try to fix up this blog layout one of these days. If you want to see it properly, you can also go to where I posted it originally, on photobucket. I think this will work without a password:

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a152/jpurple/?action=view¤t=eyebrowscommercial.flv