Geeky Catholic Dad

After telling you all about my explosive accident last month , I'd like to update everyone on the status of my recovery. I'm pleased to report that after three and a half weeks of being cooped up at home, with twice-daily bandage changes, I was cleared to return to work earlier this week.

This is the story of how I was hit by an explosion, and came out of it alive, with nothing more than some second degree burns.

No real relationship or marriage looks like Buttercup's and Westley's, right? Do fairy tale love stories give us unrealistic expectations? Or can we take a different sort of lesson from these depictions of love? I wrote a post last week - Have Fun Storming the Castle - about how the storytelling in The Princess Bride as a whole can shed some light on life and the afterlife. This week, I'd like to focus more specifically on Buttercup and Westley. Marriage "Mawwiage is what bwings us togevah today." Throughout the Bible, the relationship between a husband and wife is often used as a symbol - or "type" - of God's relationship with His people, and Christ's relationship with His Church. (Engraved on the inside of my wedding ring is the abbreviation "EPH 5:25," to remind me of the Bible verse from Paul's letter to the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.") Ever s...

Stories with happy endings aren't realistic. The real world doesn't work that way. So what value can a fairy tale like The Princess Bride possibly offer? A lot, actually. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

There comes a time in a man's life where he starts seriously thinking about the future. He ceases to think only about his own wants and needs, and begins to consider more important things. Instead of worrying about trivial matters, like which Star Wars movie he's going to watch that night, he shifts his focus to other people. I remember this happening to me when I was in college. I asked myself a very important question: "How am I going to introduce Star Wars to my kids?" You laugh, but there are a myriad of issues to consider there. At what age is your youngling old enough to watch the films? Which film do you start with? Do you go in order of release, starting with the original? Or in chronological order, starting with The Phantom Menace ? (When I was in college, there were only two trilogies to think about, but now there is a new - and incomplete - trilogy being made, and stand-alone films coming out in between the saga films.) What if you're too forceful (n...

Let me just start out by answering some questions you might be asking yourself. No, you're not the only one who read the title of this post and tried to fit it into the meter of the song "Mr. Blue Sky." And no, it doesn't quite fit; there are a few too many syllables. Okay, with that out of the way, this review carries a huge spoiler warning, so you won't want to read past this paragraph. In fact, I'm not sure if "review" is the most accurate term. The purpose of this post isn't to inform the reader so they can decide whether or not to go see the movie, but rather to discuss what we already saw. If you're looking for my recommendation, it's this: you should go see this movie. You don't need to have seen any of the other Marvel movies to watch this one, but it helps if you've seen the first Guardians of the Galaxy (obviously). The humor is a bit crude for the younglings, so you might want to leave them at home. (Although I don...

Like many Star Wars fans, I tuned into the live stream of the Star Wars: The Last Jedi panel at Star Wars Celebration. I mostly just listened while I worked, so I'm sure I missed a lot of details about what they were talking about. But when the Rian Johnson, the film's director, said he had something to show everyone, my ears perked up. "We have a teaser-" ( There it is! I though. They're going to show the trailer! ) "-poster," he said, and then revealed the image above. But after a few minutes of pretending they weren't going to show a trailer, they relented to the audience's demands. "Of course we have a trailer!" Johnson exclaimed, as the whole place went wild.