One year later...

A year ago today we made it through a tremendous storm. Luckily we had no damage to our house. In fact, I think our ultimate loss was a couple pepper plants. I was sure my hostas and peoney were toast, but both came roaring back to life this spring. Our neighbors just half a block away weren't so lucky - they ended up with a trailer on the back deck. One of the more seriously damaged houses just a couple blocks away is still being rebuilt. Here's a slideshow of some of the pictures I took that day:

Friday Fun: Magical Trevor

An oldie but a goodie, from the people who brought you Badgers!

I located my mystery castle!

I am bouncing up and down right now - and kicking myself at the same time. This is no easy feat, but somehow I'm managing it.

In July 1991, I spent three weeks in Germany. One of the days we were out sightseeing, we stopped at a castle ruin where only a single tower remained. We climbed to the top where there was a spectacular view, and where I discovered to my horror that I had one shot left on my last roll of film! I took a deep breath and tried to make it count:

Unfortunately, I didn't make note of the name of the castle or the town in my diary (why? I don't know). Later on (but still in pre-Google days) when I wanted to figure it out, I didn't have an easy way to find out what route we'd taken or any information about this particular ruin, though from time to time I would give it another shot, to no avail.

Years passed, the diary was put away (scanned first, of course, and eventually I saved a copy in my GMail and elsewhere, where it was essentially buried and forgotten). Today the light bulb clicked and it finally dawned on me that these days I have everything at hand to at least narrow the search for my mystery castle.

I pulled up the diary in Gmail and skimmed through the pages until I found the entry I wanted:

July 11, 1991: Today we went to Ravensburg, Weingarten and Wangen. We went to several churches in each place. On the way home, we visited an old tower near a small town. The tower is all that is left of a large castle that used to be there. We climbed all the way to the top of it on some rickety old stairs that seemed ready to fall at any moment. The view from the top was breathtaking, but the climb down the stairs isn't something I'd like to go through again.

Then I went to Google Maps and put in the last place I knew we stopped before the castle: Wangen. I made Lindau (where I was staying) the destination and told Google Maps I wanted directions.

The route shot me right past Neuravensburg, a small town on the edge of a small lake. I zoomed in and found what looked like a footpath going up a hill to a squarish gray blob. The footpath took the same general route I remembered, and on the same side of the road. I googled the name of the town and found the blob was indeed a tower! After a search for the town's name in Flickr, I came up with this shot (as well as pics of the tower from the outside).

At last, mystery solved! With under five minutes of research. Why I didn't think of this when Google Maps first surfaced I'll never know. *sigh*

How I'm doing on BIAW* so far

*Book In A Week

Friday Afternoon Fun

The power of a handwritten letter

I'm not a football fan, but I love this piece about Peyton Manning. I think it says a lot about him that he takes the time to send handwritten letters to former opponents when they retire. Writing letters is a habit I basically dropped altogether in the last few years. I don't even send cards anymore. On one hand, I think that's sad. On the other hand, it seems so counterproductive to go buy a card (spending money, killing a tree), write something in it, buy postage (I don't keep it around anymore) and take it somewhere to mail it. Gah! It sounds like so much work compared to e-mail.

But then I see these men and their appreciation for having received such a precious and unusual item. It almost seems to not matter what the letter says, even though the sentiments within *are* important. But if Manning had e-mailed those same words to these other players, no one would really take notice. The other men would have thought "Well, that's nice," and moved on with their day. Because Manning took the time to handwrite the letters and mail them, they have sticking power and carry a weight that no e-mail could.

This video originally aired on January 3 (according to my notes) and I wanted to post it a long time ago, but ESPN didn't put the video up on their site until February 6. *ahem* Are you listening, ESPN? Good thing I made a note to look for it again later. Unfortunately, "later" was now.

Look out, they're 21!!

They won't have to wear disguises at the bar anymore! 

Happy birthday, Josh & Jon!

Before Edward there was David

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As I explained to a friend recently, this is why I have nothing left for Twilight. I spent it all on Lost Boys years ago, but that was before the intervention...

Aim high!

Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

Today is my parents' 40th anniversary.

Gee, weren't they cute back then? (and I guess they still are)

Perhaps this is why I haven't been blogging?

...more likely it's a combination of yet another laptop cord going to pieces, rearranging the house, cleaning the house, having guests, cleaning the house, appliances deciding to go on vacation without notice, and the fact that it's all either too exhausting or depressing to even tweet, much less blog about. I'll be back with a vengeance this month, water heater or no water heater!

My favorite SciFi movie

Love it! Joseph Campbell would be nodding all through this. 

Watch My Favorite Movie (Star Trek vs. Star Wars) on CollegeHumor

Happy Mother's Day from Jeff Dunham

Worst Birthday Cake. Ever.

This is wrong on so many levels. 

Luckily it wasn't the cake, and she had a good sense of humor.

Rambling Review: The Totally Geeky Guide to the Princess Bride

You know how you're supposed to set your writing aside & let it ferment a bit before you go back & edit it? Well, this only works if you don't FORGET about it, like I did with this post I wrote a looong time ago.

WARNING! Contains spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie (Inconceivable!), go watch it before you read this. The rest of you, read on...

I LOVED this book. Let me 'splain. No, is too much. Let me sum up.

The Princess Bride has been one of my favorite movies since I was in junior high. I can still remember the first time we watched it, trying to puzzle out who the Man in Black was (I still can't believe I didn't know it was Westley. “I'd know it if I watched it for the first time today” my adult self tells my childhood self – yes, my adult self is a bit petulant and pouty, and mostly jealous that she can't watch it for the first time again) I then bought the book and the soundtrack as soon as I could. I still have both, although they are in dire need of replacing. I've already replaced the VHS version of the movie with a DVD after I discovered one day that the sound on the tape was like listening to the dialogue underwater – it had simply been watched too many times. For years, my brothers and I have often left each other at the end of visits, phone calls and e-mails with “Have fun storming the castle!”

So, when I was online one day and tripped across The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride by MaryAnn Johanson, my thoughts immediately flew to the bookstore giftcard my brother and sister-in-law had given me for Christmas. How perfect to spend it on THIS book, I thought! (It didn't take the whole gift card – I used the rest to start my Neil Gaiman glom. I think he might be my next new obsession.)

Reading the first chapter was like finding a new friend who also loves The Princess Bride and really wants to talk about it. This has happened before, in real life, although those conversations never really turn into the philosophical breakdown of the movie that comes with this book. They're usually more of a goodhearted volley of quotes, almost as if we want to see who can bat quotes back and forth the longest, where no one really wants to win. The game is so fun, you'd hate for the other person to lose and cause the game to end.

This is what Johanson refers to as “The Princess Bride Test,” saying “drawing upon the movie for commentary on life, the universe, and everything is reflexive, almost unconscious on the part of any fan of the film. The movie's philosophy is as attuned to our own that quoting from it is totally natural; in fa

ct, we only ever realize we're testing a new acquaintance when he or she fails the Test...” (Did anybody notice the Douglas Adams reference? It tickled me. She's truly a kindred spirit, I think.)

FAILS THE TEST??? I don't think I've ever met one of those people. I don't think I want to. I mean, this is The. Princess. Bride. It's not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which is one of my other favorite movies, and in somewhat the same vein as The Princess Bride. I would say that Rosencrantz is to Shakespeare what Princess is to fairy tales. And yet, not a single person I've recommended Rosencrantz to has come back happy. “I didn't get it” is the most common, and most polite, response I've gotten. Maybe if we were all taught Shakespeare the way we're taught fairy tales, Rosencrantz would get a better reception. How I'd love to say to someone “I've often not been on boats,” and have them reply “Ah, but what you've been is not on boats!”

Johanson has a lot of fun with quotes from the film in two of my favorite parts of this book. The first is “Casablanca, or the Princess Refugee,” the story of Casablanca told entirely through quotes from The Princess Bride. The other is a scene where Westley, Johnny Cash, Agent Jay and Agent Kay have a conversation because they're all (say it with me) Men in Black! If you just snorted coffee all over the keyboard, get thee a copy of this book!

Have fun storming the castle!

Happy Jedi Day!

May the Fourth be with you! ;)

Photo by Hector Pierna Sanchez

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day!, originally uploaded by mdesive.

My first iris of the season bloomed today!

How well she doth look in bondage

In all my whining and moaning lately about how so many really horrible things happen in April (Titanic sinking, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Columbine shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, tax day, yada yada...) I nearly forgot one of the great things that happened: Sometime in April 1564, William Shakespeare was born! His birthday is traditionally observed today, April 23, so I thought I'd share a couple bits from two of my favorite homages to the Bard.

The Taming of the Shrew episode of "Moonlighting" was my first (remembered) exposure to Shakespeare. I think I was extremely lucky in that. This show allowed my first impression of Shakespeare to be something fun, so that by the time I got to the "boring bits" in high school I was already immune to them. The first play I actually read was Julius Caesar in freshman English class, and I still think it is one of his more dull plays (granted, I haven't revisited it since then). I loathe Romeo and Juliet, after reading it in class after class through high school and college. My favorites are A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night, but Taming of the Shrew always has a special place in my heart. (I also can never, ever hear "Good Lovin'" without thinking of this scene)



In 2005, the BBC aired a mini-series called Shakespeare Re-Told, where they updated several of Shakespeare's plays. My favorite of those is The Taming of the Shrew, starring Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell (I have to say I never thought a man could be hot in drag, but Rufus pulls it off...*fans self*...oh, wait back to the blog). Here's a clip from that episode. I'm pretty sure the earlier Moonlighting episode was what influenced my cracked humor enough that I could appreciate this:



(Hint: If you've got Netflix, you can watch the entire mini-series online! Mmmmm, Rufus in heels...oh, sorry)

Happy National Library Week!

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Maybe we don't have it so bad...

Spring 09 Blizzards 005, originally uploaded by KSUE.

I've been grumbling because we're supposed to get some snow tonight and tomorrow, but I don't think it'll be anything to compare with what my parents have gotten in South Dakota over the last couple weeks. This picture was taken March 30. They got more today. 

I'll try to remember this when I'm digging out tomorrow.