Good things

Since I spent most of last week complaining, I figured today I'd blog about some positive stuff.

First, my classes seem okay. True we haven't had any exams yet, but I'm getting a good vibe from most of them.

Second, I saw a really good movie over the weekend: Little Miss Sunshine. Seriously, this is a good movie. It even lived up to its Sundance hype. It's a little dark and a little funny. There were a couple of "but wait, that couldn't happen" moments, but they weren't bad. I recommend it without reservation. Wait, I do have one disclaimer -- the language is a tad raw. Not a movie to see with kids or those particularly sensitive to cursing.

Third, thanks to The Vol Abroad I now know that my alma mater has a website. This is kind of a mixed bag of good news vs. bad news for me. On the plus side, I see that "frog giggin'" is still around. On the down side, though, I see that several of my former teachers are still there. That, in itself, is not a bad thing, but many of the ones still there shouldn't have been teaching even back in my day. I couldn't find any teacher assigned to economics, so I guess it's still being dumped on whichever coach is in the "off season" during the right semester. That's too bad. Oh, another unpleasant surprise -- evidently LCHS no longer offers Hunter Safety as part of the sophomore triumvirate (health/driver ed/hunter safety). Yeah, I know it was a silly use of educational time, but I still like that I can "out country boy" most others by pointing out that 10th graders at my school took Hunter Safety -- FOR A GRADE!

Fourth, I now have a panoply of reading material. I appreciate your suggestions and I've added some of them to my list. In the meantime, though, a friend gave me a copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It looks a little "Harry Potter" to me and a couple of people have told me they just couldn't read it, but I've been curious about it. Also, I got that review book from the newspaper last week. It turned out to be not so good, but I had to stay up and finish it last night because yesterday's paper offered the opportunity to review Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman -- the new book by Haruki Murakami. I know Haruki isn't for everyone, but I really like his work. Plus, this is a book of short stories and I think his stories are better than his novels. Now I have to write up my review of the first book, but that won't be too bad.

Finally, my beloved St. Louis Cardinals just completed a 3-game sweep of the dastardly Chicago Cubs. I have nothing personal against the Cubs, other than just that they're the Cubs. For those of you who aren't baseball people, this would be akin to The Vol Abroad saying, "I have nothing personal against Bama ..." (something she'd never actually say, but you get the picture). Last night's ending was spectacular -- a "walk off" grand slam by the backup catcher. Of course the backup catcher was the team's best hitter during the series. Money quote from the Cub pitcher who gave up the home run to the hot hitting backup:

"I threw a pitch down the middle of the plate to their hottest hitter," Howry said. "And he hit it out."

See, baseball really is a thinking man's game.

Okay, that's it. Just wanted to balance last week's moaning and groaning with a little good stuff.