Stuff

First of all, Happy New Year! As I am writing this, it is a rainy January 2nd, 2009.

In my reading, Sherlock Holmes has conquered many cases, including the strange case of the surreal Hound of the Baskervilles. He has died and returned, and solved one of my favorite cases of his - The Case of the Dancing Men.

The huge army of Agamemnon has landed before Troy, Menelaus has fought Paris, who has been rescued by Aphrodite. Now, the Achaeans are preparing to attack the Trojans.

Don Quixada has been driven mad by books of chivalry and has become Don Quixote, the sadly unlucky knight errant, who, together with his squire, Sancho Panza, has encountered "giants" (or windmills), "armies" (or herds of sheep), and much more (or much, much more).

That's about it, currently. I'll write more as it hits me.

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The Father - Son Campout and Other Miscellaneous Things

Hello, all! It is now two, no, three months since I have written, and I wish it were shorter. I have been meaning to write, but, obviously, I have not.

We have a new President-Elect, who is not the one I wanted. Still, we must do the best with what the Lord gives us.

Another, very exciting thing is - I have finished Les Miserables! I don't know how long it took me to read it, but I am sure I have set my personal "longest time taken to read a book" record, if I am correct in believing that its time trumps that of Crime and Punishment. As you can see by the sidebar, I am now reading Sherlock Holmes, Much Ado About Nothing, and Don Quixote. The Picture of Dorian Gray is one that I have just finished. It gave me the heebs, but at least it had some redemptive elements at the end. Much Ado About Nothing is the book I am doing a book study on, while Sherlock Holmes is my literature reading. Don Quixote I am reading for fun.

And the Grand Finale is... a first-hand account of the Father-Son Campout, featuring Dad and me!

We set off the Tuesday that is two days before Thanksgiving. Mercifully, the first twenty or so miles were in Dad's car. We were listening to The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest official soundtrack. We parked at the beach overlook off of the road, got out, put on our hiking boots, and opened up the car's trunk. We then put on our twenty-ton (my exaggeration, but it felt like that much later on) back-packs, loaned to us by a youth leader who was in the air-force. Then we began the six-mile (not exaggerating) hike along the beach toward the state park campground. Our path took us through a wildlife refuge, one of the loneliest places I've ever been. Besides the vehicle tracks in the sand and the tracks Dad and I had made, there was no sign of human life. However, there was a high seagull population. We hiked the six miles (I am not proud of it, but I groaned the last three or four.) up to the sign that read "now entering State Park." I whooped, and then Dad and I looked for the trail that would lead to the campground. It was nowhere in sight. We hiked up the dunes to look for the campground. Behind the dunes was a sandy wasteland, even lonelier than the shore we had just left. We turned around at the sound of a truck. There was a Park Ranger. I was worried we would get in trouble for being on the dunes, but no. Dad cleverly steered the conversation toward the lack of a campground. The Ranger told us that it was another half-mile to the campground. Inside I was screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Literally, my scream had that many o's. Anyway, we hiked to the campground and set up camp. By the time we were done, it was completely dark. We hiked to the shoreline again and looked at the stars. We didn't get to see a shooting star, but we did see Venus and Jupiter very clearly, a lot clearer than on the Monday night that was said to be the best time to view them. We saw our city in the distance, glowing with lights. It was quite beautiful. We hiked back to the campsite, got into our sleeping bags, did our nightly reading of Thoughts for Young Men by J. C. Ryle, and fell asleep. The next day we broke camp, hiked back to the car, and drove home. Personally, I think that the second hike was more difficult than the first hike, because we were already tired and sore. But it was still great. I just loved having some guy time with Dad.

And so, that is the tale of the Father-Son Campout.

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Basilisks

I'm back after a long wait, with many exciting things happening, not the least of which is that I am now reading The Book of the Dun Cow. That is pretty much the cause of this post, so pay attention.

In The Book of the Dun Cow, the character Cockatrice is quite interesting. Wangerin writes: "Senex commanded one Toad to stay in the Coop. ... The Toad was forced to sit upon the little egg. [I]t ripped apart. ... Then... the Rooster chick began to grow... a serpent's tail. ... The Rooster chick continued to grow, ... it developed grey scales underneath its body, from the throat to the tail; and the tail itself was covered all over with scales."

Also, I will now draw from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets before I introduce my point. Rowling writes: "'Of the.. beasts... there is none more curious... than the Basilisk... [which] is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad.'"

The emphasis is mine. I believe that you realize what I am getting at, namely that Cockatrice is a Basilisk. Rowling goes on to describe the Basilisk in a manner somewhat contrary to Wangerin's description, but many are the disagreements of authors. Also, it seems that this last part will be important to the story of The Book of the Dun Cow (for I am only in chapter six): "'...the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.'"

I believe, but I am not certain, that Wangerin agrees with this statement. The whole thing fits, and I will read The Book of the Dun Cow with the assumption that Cockatrice is a Basilisk, and that Chauntecleer, the rooster, will be able to defeat Cockatrice by crowing, especially since Wangerin writes: "A third category of crows would... burst from Chauntecleer's throat with a terrible power. ... Within the year Chauntecleer would find his land under... attack; and then, in that war, this third kind of crowing would become his necessary weapon."

Good-bye for now, and I recommend The Book of the Dun Cow to all book-lovers, even though I have only read less than six chapters.

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Of Birds at Busch Gardens

Hello, all! My family and I are currently awaiting the arrival of Hanna, and so I am trying to snatch some time before the risk of power loss becomes too great.

Yesterday Dad took the day off and he and Mom whisked us off to Busch Gardens Europe. I will try to keep this post short, so only two highlights of the day. Dad and I "defied the five," as Busch Gardens advertises it, or, more commonly, we rode all five of the roller coasters, and here they are in the order we rode them: Apollo's Chariot, The Big Bad Wolf, Alpengeist, Griffon, and, finally, The Loch Ness Monster.

The other highlight of the day took place in the Aviary at Busch Gardens. We went in (I, for the first time) quite wet and tired, as it was near the end of our trip. 'ding3, encouraged by the fact that one of the men there had two or three canaries perched on him, tried, two times, to get a canary, and the canary, two times, bit her finger.
I was more successful. I got three different birds to climb on my finger, but two of them flew away when Mom tried to get a picture. The third, however, had a more ingenious way of discouraging photos, which was to climb up my arm and fasten his little beak on my ear. It hurt like crazy, and I just stood there, shouting, "What do I do? He won't get off!" A worker came to the rescue, shaking a rod at the bird. It flew off (and though the rest of my family would argue this fact, I maintain my position), taking a chunk of my ear with it. Needless to say, I cried a little.

I'm better now, with only a scar and a very good memory left from the incident.

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