The boy had a rough night last night - we night he might be coming down sick, he was all sniffly.

I rescued a turtle in the road this morning a few houses down from mine out in the middle of the street.   Funny how he started moving fast when I started walking up.   I took him a good distance off the road, and set him down in some tall grass.  Hopefully he stays out of the road!

The Sims 3 is really addicting.   I was late to work this morning because I stopped to play for a few minutes, that turned into an hour this morning.  

Seagate sucks, they charge $15 for non-advanced RMA of their hard drives (+20 for advance) -- so, 5 year warranty, but I have to pay to use it.   I had one 750 in my raid5 array die, so I really have no choice but to RMA it.

I put my old Eclipse on Craigslist - anyone want to buy a non-running 94 eclipse?   I've gotten a couple of scammy looking e-ails offering to send me a certified check for it.   After a while I decided it can't hurt to say "go for it, send me money" - and see if I get any.   I guess I'll sort out how to sell by mail IF i get a check, and IF it's not a counterfeit.

Ryan made me a neat picture holder and a really cute/sweet Father's Day card in a workshop at Gymboree and Katie's getting me new grill - I just haven't decided which one yet.  

Watched a couple of movies this week:
Gran Torino last night -- Clint Eastwood will be Dirty Harry until he dies.   I thought it was really good, I liked it a lot.
Australia -- Really long, but we liked it a lot.   A little sad, a little boring at times, but it was really good over all.

Tags: geek, movies, ryan

Few nights ago, we rented The Golden Compass -- really a interesting story, that sparks my interest in the books, especially as the movie is supposed to be pretty watered down.

Ryan and I watched Madagascar 2 this morning; which he loved.


Yesterday Katie and I had a date night, my mom and sis came over to babysit Ryan, so we got to go see Terminator Salvation.

I was really impressed with it overall. Without rewatching the first trilogy, I didn't see any gaping holes in the canon that upset me. I'm sure there are some, which the critics I'm sure will point out left and right - but without researching all the things that /are/ wrong with the movie, we both thought it was excellent overall. The action is pretty intense, and the story is pretty much what would have been expected as what lead up to Terminator. I'm very much looking forward to the next 2 movies.

Afterwards we went over to Longhorn's for dinner, and without too much trouble, found things that were ok for us to eat happily.

Tags: date night, movies, the list

Must see:
Star Trek - May 8
Angels and Demons - May 15
Terminator Salvation - May 21
Transformers 2 - June 24
Public Enemies - July 1 (tossed on theater/rental)
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - July 15

Night at the Museum 2, and Up I would like see also, but those are likely rentals. 

There are a few others, but these are the ones I think should be theater worthy. I could have forgotten someone though.

Tags: movies

Last Week started out rough - I didn't get my BP meds filled until about Tuesday, so I'd been out for a few days - and I THINK it was causing me to have chronic headaches until I got it filled. Or maybe it was psychosomatic or something.   Got those filled, and now I feed normal again.  Whatever.

We got the Camry back, it looks really good.  There are a couple of nit-picky things I want to take it back to Bradly about, hopefully I cna do that in the next few days.

LodgeNet stock has gone up nearly 300% in the last week (making that 367% since I bought last year), thanks to positive first quarter earnings, so - I'm trying to decide if I want to pull my money back out now, or roll the dice to see if it goes up more.   Wish I'd have had more money to spend buying in last year - but oh well.

Dad was in town on Thursday to visit with family and Amanda before her tonsil surgery on Friday morning; he was bearing good news for us.

He'll be Santa at Northlake Mall (Tucker) this year (pending contract finalization) which is pretty cool - it means he'll be in Atlanta for Christmas.  Last year he was at a mall in Memphis - he really enjoyed being Santa, but really wanted to get a position in Atlanta, but none were abailable for his rookie year.   So, he's pretty excited that this slot opened up this year.
Santa's hours are pretty rough, he works from Mid November until Christmas Eve, with /only/ Thanksgiving day off.   So, he's basically there from a bit after the mall opens, until right around closing - every single day that the mall is open.   Last year we celebrated Christmas with him the weekend after, since he was travellling from Memphis to ATL on Christmas day.
So, we'll actually be able to take Ryan to Santa, and he'll very likely not have the 2-year-old fit in Santa's lap (we hope).

Amanda's tonsil surgery went well, short and smooth and she's recovering well now - we went to visit on Saturday morning.

We had Date Night last night, Ellen babysat Ryan while Katie and I went to Ted's Montana with a $25 off $50 order (thanks 70% off restraunts.com coupon that cost $3).  While it didn't make our bill less than it probably would have been without a coupon, we ordered things that we wouldn't normally have.  we got their super yummy Onion rings as an app, Katie got Beef Fillet steak, and I got Bison Ribs, plus a dessert, it hit $54, so we got our coupon to discount it.   Bison ribs are really good, but the portion is pretty small - you can get a full rack of pork ribs for that price anywhere eise, vs the 8oz portion of Bison at Ted's -- but they were REALLY good.   I don't know if I'd get them again just because they're so expensive for such a small portion, but we were both super stuffed after the app and dessert with our meals.
Then we went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- which we both loved.   

There are another 10 movies or so coming out this summer that we want to see in the theaters; hopefully we'll actually get to some of them.  I need to lay that schedule out for my calendar.

Ryan's getting to be more and more of a ham, doing summersaults and doing this wierd rolling twist flip deal on our bed that just makes him laugh like a madman.   He's also started climbing himself in and out of his booster at the dinner table -- jeez :)   He's getting so big so fast!

Finally caught up on BBC's Robin Hood; so now I'm waiting for the weekly episodes.   Watched the last laft of the new Knight Rider series -- which I didn't really think was a /terrible/ series, and was entertaining for the first dozen or so episodes, but they basically rebooted the series at about the 13th (of 17) episode, and completely lost me.   I watched it out, but I think I agree at this point that this series needs to die.

In Books:  The new Sookie book comes out this week - yay!  I'll have to go pick that up.   I'm read through Ruth in the Old Testament, and just starting 1 Samuel.

Tags: books, date night, family, movies, ryan

No posts for April sofar...   So - this is what I missed, I think.

On April 1st, our car got attacked again -- Katie was pulling out of the pediatrician's office parking lot, and was deceived by someone signaling that they were turning, but was not -- so she got hit in the front left fender.   technically our fault, no big deal, nobody was hurt, everyone was going pretty slow, and we have insurance and stuff.   So, I filed 2 claims with the insurance people on 4/2, and had it sent over to Bradley's to have the work done.  Hopefully I'll get that back soon.   We went and bought a new car seat (same Britax that we already had) and threw out the old one (kind of, it's in a trash box in the garage) since you're not supposed to use an car seat after any kind of accident.  Insurance said they'd buy us anything we wanted as long as it was comperable to the old one, so - we got the same one since we like it a lot.

Amazon finally sent me all my refunds.   I'm so lost in the process, that I'm almost sure they sent me $300 too much back, but - I might just be miscalculating.   Those people were so confused by their convoluted process that I'm surprised I actually GOT the refunds.    They sent me 3 checks (in pounds, naturally) - which my bank evidently doesn't have any CLEAR process how to handle.   They have to mail the check to the corp office, who "verifies the funds with the foreign bank" and then deposits the money.  Process takes 7-14 days.  No big deal.   The checks came weeks apart - check 1 took about 10 days to post, check 2 is outstanding 14 days today and still hasn't posted - I guess I need to call about that, check 3 posted 24 hours after I took it in.   Thinking that was wierd, I called the bank, and the lady just couldn't explain the process to me, so I gave up.  

We finally caught up on Chuck and Life from the DVR, but now NBC's talking about not renewing both of them, which makes us sad.  I think those are our favorite shows on TV right now.   We've started catching up on Heroes, and are still way behind on House...

Crossed Max Payne off my list of movies -- it was pretty much the steaming pile of poo that I expected.

Amanda and Brian announced their pregnancy right before easter, so we're really excited about that.   They're figuring that the baby'll be due in December.   We went out to dinner with them and their families on Saturday night after Easter service (we usually go to the off-peak services around Christmas and Easter since we get so many visitors on Easter Sunday AM service, it gets crowded) - they announced it to their families then, Brian's mom was bawling, it was sweet.   She's had a Willow Creek figurine in her trunk (Pregnany Mommy) for "a long time, waiting for this day" that she was finally able to proudly present to them.   We'd known already for a couple of days, so Katie was semi-prepared to get some candid pictures of their moms getting the news -- it was pretty cool to be a part of that with them.

Then Easter - we had our Moms and my sister over for lunch.   Katie cooked Ham and veggies and devilled eggs and lots of yummy stuff.   This year was pretty fun, Ryan's old enough to understand his easter basket - he got a new firetruck (woo, woo, woo) with lights and sirens - but Ryan really likes making his own noises - a snuggly lamb, Gymboree bubbles (the best bubbles in the world), some new cars and lots of candy.  After lunch, we took Ryan out in the back yard for his first easter egg hunt.   He had a ball!  He did get a little hung up with wanting to OPEN the eggs and eat the candy, rather than finding more, but with a little encouragement, he rounded them all up.  

James and I took a long lunch (just 2 hours) last week and went to see Fast and Furious.   It was about as good as expected, since our expectations weren't high.   I put in on the rung with Tokyo Drift, which I wasn't a big fan of - but I liked the first 2 a lot.  

Went to Jump 4 Joey's on Friday since I was off.   That place is a lot of fun!   It's basically a warehouse that they've converted to a play yard for kids with 7 or 8 big bouncy houses/slides and stuff.   Ryan has a ball in them, and parents are allowed to go with their kids in them (I'm sure crowdedness becomes a factor at some point) but since it was a Friday at 11am, we pretty much had the run of the place.  My abs still hurt.

Saturday we helped Brian paint his upsairs and downstairs hallways and the 2-story staircase hallway.   Manuvering a tall ladder in a staircase to paint way up high...  not fun.    But, over the course of the day we DID end up having fun, though we were exhausted by the end, but I think it turned out pretty nice.   We met up with a couple of other friend of theirs afterwards for dinner and mini-golf at Monster Mini Golf over off Barrett.   It's indoor mini-golf, completely black light lit.   The theme is monsters, of course.  Mostly silly looking ones, but there were a couple that really freaked Ryan out -- notably the one that looked like a normal guy, until it reached up and peeled its face off...   That creeped me out a little too, but Ryan got really clingy after that.   They had good music playing - and Ryan was rocking out with it.   He REALLY likes Aerosmith "Walk this way"...   Too funny.    Arielle and Evan went off to do their own thing after that, but we found out later that night that they got engaged - so that was exciting.

It needs to stop raining on my days off so I can actually cut the lawn, it's starting to get rediculous.   I also want to do some kind of weed treatment - but not really sure what to do yet, trying to get motivated to do research, but I'm just not THAT interested in my lawn - even though I should be.  The Ants invading my kitchen also reminded me that I need to get out the DemonWP and do my spring insect treatment.   That stuff works wonders for a long time, it makes me forget to do it in the spring...

We got a new thermostat that I installed last night - one of those semi fancy $30 5-1-1 programable jobbies, only because I couldn't really justify buying the $100 touchscreen one with the remote, even though it was hotness.   So, we replaced our old manual mercury filled one, and now we need to paint.

Books - I finished the New Testament, which was really exciting to go through.  I wasn't going though studying, just reading the words and the stories.   The Gospels are really interesting to read back-to back, comparing how the authors told many of the same stories, but from different perspectives.   Acts is fantastic, it starts slow, but the story is amazing.  After that it goes into Paul's letters to the Romans, Corinthians, Collosians, etc - and Paul kinda drones a bit.   Those books make for good study material.   Katie wants to read Revalation with me, so I skipped that for now.   Started the Old Testament now.   It's really amazing the stuff that I /thought/ I understood, but really just never heard.   Genesis is so much more than JUST the Creation - it accounts for thousands of man-years and lots of stories.   Exodus is more of the same.  At some point, not sure if it's Exodus or Leviticus, God describes in great detail building the Ark of the Covenant, its coverings, the tabernacle, and lots of other stuff.   That kinda drones unless you happen to be skething what they're describing - that could be an intersting place to go back and study a little, or at least look at more research.  Leviticus is pretty dry -- it's laws.   A lot of them.   Hundreds of them.   Not Covenant Law style like on the tablets - but they're laws about clean/unclean animals, sacrificial offerings, how offerings are made, what offerings to make in what cases, different kinds of offerings, how to make oneself "clean" after handling something "unclean", etc.   So, I'm currently in the first chapters of Numbers...   Numbers - is, well, numbers - sofar.   It's an account of a census that Moses took in the land, just how many people are in the tribes.   It's brutal to wade through this part... 

Tags: books, fix it, lawn, movies, ryan, the list, work

Looks like the 2.5mg of Lisinopril has brought my BP down to about 130/80; so I faxed in my results this morning, doc will likely call me back about it tonight or tomorrow to let me know if I need to change doses - I'd expect not, but I'm no doctor.

Katie and I went out on a mini-date (with The Boy) on Friday out to Macaroni Grill (which we don't do often because it's expensive by the time we're done there) and then We watched Burn After Reading on Saturday night.  I'm just not sure what to say about that movie.   It was funny, and I enjoyed it, but at the same time, the movie had a pointless story, and a general "Well that was wierd" ending...

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet; we relaxed at home.   Katie went and volunteered for the All 4 Kids sale at the fairgrounds on Saturday for the afternoon while I hung out with Ryan; she sold a bunch of Ryan's old stuff too, so that'll be a nice little chunk of cash to have around to offset his current season's wardrobe.

Ryan's new favorite TV show is "Yo Gabba Gabba" -- I don't know what it is about the show, but his attention gets GLUED to it when it comes on.   It's sorta funny...   "GabbaGabba" is now part of his vocabulary of ever growing words.  

He's endlessly amused with the oddest things nowadays.   I flair my nostrils at him, and he doubles over laughing!  Then he comes up blinking his eyes like crazy (I guess he thinks he's copying me) and giggling like a mad mad.   I love the way he laughs.

He's got more "Looks" now too that are impossible to catch on camera.   He does "What'chu talkin' bout, Willis" eyes out the side of his head [while scowling], and his new favorite "If I close my eyes and mouth super tight and look way up in the sky you can't see me to make me eat" -- and then it's just priceless when he open one eye a slit to see if you're still there with the fork...

Mealtimes are a consistant battle now.   He will eat his vegetables (corn, peas, carrots, green beans, whatever), but when it comes to the meat - whatever kind, doesn't matter, he just doesn't want to eat it.   He hides it in his cheek while he eats other stuff, and waits til you're not looking to sit the meat back out.   He /eventually/ eats, under his terms -- but it's frustrating...

Victory with Amazon today.   They sent me an e-mail to let me know that they're processing the final chunk of my refunds (for my missing $400) and that I should expect a check from them in about 3-4 weeks.   Ugh.   Well, I guess I'll have to take that - as long as I get it back, right?   So, they're putting about $100 back on my credit card, and two checks for 200 and 400 within a month to square me back up.

Confirmed with Verizon that the ETF credit had been applied to my account (they didn't lie to get me off the phone) - so that's square too!   now I just need to get the old VZ Blackberry SOLD, and we'll be back where we started with T-mobile.

Finished reading The Stand last week -- that was fantastic.   Gripping until the end.   Started The Green Mile, and am already about 1/3 of the way through that.   That movie seems to be a pretty good adaptation, actually.

Tags: books, movies, ryan

Snakes on a Train!


No, I'm serious...  see?

Tags: movies

I've had "Alone in the Dark", from Blockbuster for about 3 weeks now, mostly because I havn't made time to watch it, and Katie didn't want to see it at all.

Finally tried to watch it this morning - but turned it off about an hour in and put it back in its envelope.
I don't know what about it made it seem horrible, but I simply couldn't watch more than an hour of it... The storyline was generally stupid, and didn't really make a lot of sense...

Tags: movies