Night # 2 with Ryan in the toddler bed was rougher than the first night -- he rolled out twice.   Once while we were watching, and we heard the 'thump', but he didn't cry or anything.   He rolled around on the pillows on the floor, and then onto the carpet, and just parked himself there.  I think he was tring to get comfortable there, so I went and put him back in the bed.

Katie said he did it again a couple of hours later, but cried when he couldn't get comfortable on the floor, so she put him back.  

So - we invested in a toddler bed 1/2 gate, so he can climb in and out, but there's still a little railing there to let him know there's an edge.


Movies:
Cloverfield -- I really liked this.  I'm a fan of JJ Abrams.  And just the dynamic of how it was put together and everything, with a fairly interesting story (while not really original) to go with it.   Didn't like the ending really, but after I did some reading about the movie, there's a TON of little hidden things throughout the story that hint at some forshadowing and possibly other solutions.   

The Day the Earth Stood Still (the new one) -- Eh.  Independance Day rehashed, but not as exciting or interesting.   The characters were boring, and the story generally moved too slowly.   In fact, I'm not 100% sure that I saw the last 10-15 minutes, because I was fuzzing out and starting to go to sleep.    Sorry, I had higher hopes for this.

Books:
Still reading my bible cover to cover, but have put it on a short break.   I've read up through 1 Colossians, and am somewhere in 2 Col.   Didn't do any reading in Sioux Falls or Myrtle Beach, and when I got back I have wanted to start the His Dark Materials books.   So, I started The Golden Compass on Tuesday.

Tags: books, ryan, the list

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

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

Finished The Green Mile the other day.   I guess I haven't seen the movie in about 9 years, but from my recollection, I think the book and the movie were pretty close.   It was a fairly fast read, and the serial style was interesting -- I think I definitely would have been frustrated with it if I'd been reading the books as they came out; each one being about a 1-2 hour read...   Now moving to a more concentrated effort to read the New Testament.   I've always wanted to, and never made the time.   Then do the Old Testament later.

Watched Twilight with Katie this week.   That Stewart girl seriously needs to learn to close her mouth.   Her face hanging open 98% of the time was too distracting for me to hear what the rainbow glowing vampires had to say.   Seriously - glowing vampires?   I won't go as far as saying it was a bad movie, but it's not one I have any interest in seeing again, nor does it spark my interest in its upcoming sequel.

Ryan's been a bear for the last couple of days, ever since this weekend.   I think we kept him out too much, and fed him too much sugar.   Saturday we went to Angie's 2nd b-day party; Ryan had a ball playing with the kids that were there.  The closest to his age (other than Angie's 3 month old brother) was a little girl about 4 or 5 years old, then there were a couple that were maybe 6 and 10 or something.   So, lots of variety of ages, Ryan was the only boy, so he had a great time.   He ate a lot of cake, ice cream and candy, and then laid in bed for about 2 hours before passing out at bedtime.   He didn't really sleep well at all though, so we didn't either, and missed church as a result.

Katie's mom took us to a Japanese steakhouse on Sunday for Katie's [early] birthday, so Ryan got more cake, and again bounced off the walls for a couple of hours before bed, and then twitched in the bed for another couple of hours after bedtime.  

Monday and Tuesday he was just generally grumpy and whiney ALL DAY, which really tested our nerves.   He finally slept ok on Tuesday after a bunch of orajel and Motrin, so maybe he's teething his i-teeth in...   Today was much better, he was his happy self as far as I could tell.

He's the absolute authority on Yo Gabba Gabba now; he can pick the commercial out from across the house, and then run into the playroom to watch the commercial until its gone.   he ran in earlier tonight saying "Gabba Gabba!", and I said - "No, That's not Gabba Gabba, that's another comm...  Oh, so it is, nevermind"   What do I know?

Looks like Jack Black is the next big thing on Gabba Gabba though, he's on the show season premier in April, and they're playing the commercial for it about every 10-15 minutes.   DJ Lance and Jack Black...  That should be interesting.  

Crossed off the list:
Song of the South - Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Uncle Remus, Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, and all that...   I guess I don't understand why Disney banned this movie's release to home video in the USA.  The movie was cute, pretty stereotypical Disney family movie for the time, had some lessons to learn from it, and was generally a good movie.   I know it's because of the potential racial undertones (it's a post civil-war plantation setting), but I kinda thought Gone With the Wind would have caused more uproar - yet it's not banned.
I bought it imported from the UK on VHS (mainly for my Disney collection), knowing it was PAL and I wouldn't be able to watch it.   I downloaded a version I /could/ watch.   I'd like to find a PAL/Multisystem VCR so I can convert it to a NTSC DVD, but I may never get around to that.

Tags: books, ryan, the list

Not a lot going on this week.   Ryan's on antibiotics for his strep and ear infection for a few more days.   Katie went to the doc on Thursday, and got a negative strep screening, despite a sore throat.   Now I'm getting the sore throat, but only at night and early in the morning.   Lots of juice and Emergen'C for me to try and knock out whatever's in there.

Work was kinda crazy this week, our facilities director was down cleaning up the call center building and preparing it to be closed down and start showing to sublease tenants.   The amount of crap that was in there was amazing.   Looks like we're going to give away a lot of old computers to employees, and (thank goodness) she's going to have professional movers come pack up and move the 60 some odd other computers that are going up to the corporate office.   Now begins the process of documenting all of the stuff that I'm going to have trashed/destroyed, and the stuff to be donated so we can write it all off the books.   There should be some cool stuff that I might be able to get from there.

I'm feeling tense at work - I hate not knowing what the future is of my office.   People have made comments that they don't expect my office to stay open past the end of the year, but at the same time, they've filled up every cube, corner, and office with bodies.   There's even a closet that's now an office...    Either way, I've got my resume out there a small handful of places, but I'm just not comfortable with the resume itself.   I need to get Katie or someone to make it pretty and stuff; I've never been good at making a resume.   Of course, the other possibility is that I DO find another job, and then they lay people off...   I guess you can't really live for what 'might' happen, eh?   Live for today?  ...

I've finally decided to build my RAID 5 server, since I realize that I pretty much have everything I need already, just missing a couple of things. So, I'll be rounding that stuff up soon, and I'll have to reformat my hodgepodge server from XP to 2003, and then move the data off the various drives in it over to the new array.

Also decided to take another shot at using Linux.   I've setup Ubuntu 8.10 on my personal laptop, and everything including wireless works out of the box.   I've been using that for a couple of days now, and am liking it a lot - it's giving me a chance to brush up on my Linux skill (which was limited to CLI only, and very limited at that before anyway).   Thought about using that as my RAID server platform, but I'm not thinking I'll be comfortable enough for that by the time I'm ready to build.

Movie off The List:

Underworld - I guess I never get tired of Vampire movies; looking forward to watching the sequel, but - the third one?   We'll see.

Tags: family, geek, the list, work

Happy Birthday!  To my mom.  Katie and Ryan are sick right now though, so we didn't venture out to see her today, but hopefully we can next weekend.
The weekend's been kinda long -- with the family sick, we didn't really do anything.  I have been around trying to hold up the fort while trying to let Katie rest.   I think I've dodged the bug sofar, whatever it is...   Katie's hoarse and has a sore throat and a slight fever, lots of coughing.  The Boy is coughing a bit (not as much today as yesterday) and has a snot fountain going most of the time.  We have not observed a fever in him yet, but we're keeping an eye out.  

A week or so ago, Katie gave Ryan a Hot Wheels car of mine that she found on my desk or something -- he's fallen in love with the little metal cars now, and now somewhat snobs his chunkier baby-safe Tonka cars...   He's since convinced us to buy him another Hot Wheels car (He picked out a pretty Red '84 Ferrari) earlier this week.   While they're Age 3+ toys, he really plays well with them, doesn't try to eat them, etc - so we just keep a closer eye on him when he's playing with them...   He likes to take a toy to bed with him nowadays, and it's usually a fight not to let him take the metal chunks to bed, we have to trade them out for something a little more baby-friendly.   Today, I needed to go pick up a few groceries, so Ryan and I went down to Walmart.  After picking up our needed supplies and a new headlight bulb for the Camry - It's been one-eyed for a week now - we went over to hang out in the Toy Section.   I love the toy section...   Ryan's a car fiend, and there's an aisle basically dedicated to cars - how convenient.   He went nutso!   He was reaching for everything, chanting "Car!  Car!  Car!" and shreiking a little in I think just sheer overload.   I love watching him get excited, it's so much fun.   He immediatly adopted 3 new Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars.   I let him pick out a few, and I have to say I liked his choices, given that evidently at some point in time hotwheels decided making normal cars was boring, and they needed to make them "pimped out" or just cartooney with giant wheels, or painted with bizarre prints.   He pickout a blue Aston Marton, a Blue Evo X, and a Black Porsche GT3.   He also wanted a big noisey police car that he managed to snag off the shelves, but fortunately it was broken enough that it wasn't too hard to get away from him without a scene.
I really want some breed of big remote control car now...

One of the VP's in my office sold me a Logitech G25 Racing steering wheel for $100, brand new in the sealed box.   He bought one for him and one for his brother for Christmas., Bro sold his PS3 before opening it on Christmas, so he couldn't use it.   He got his brother something else, and was stuck with an extra G25 that he "just wanted to get rid of".  I'll take that.   I wanted one of these for a while, but wasn't about to pay $300-400 for it.   They're down to about $250 now, but I think Logitech's about to disco it.    It's really freaking nice, leather wheel, 6-speed H-pattern stickshift, gas/brake/clutch pedals.   Tried playing GTR Evolution (anyone know any good driving simulators out there currently) since it seemed to be a pretty realistic sim.   Even with the wheel, it's dang hard.   Played some NFS Undercover with it too, but I'm getting bored with that game at this point.   I also hope I can use the pedals with my flight yoke.   Who says I can't have a cockpit with a wheel, yoke, and a 6-speed?

Got the first DLC pack for Fallout 3, need to find time to play that.

Darn it all!

Yesterday I went to open it just like I always do, and it snapped right off...  Now there's miniscule piece that I can use to open the door.  Evidently, after reading around on the interweb, this seems to be not too uncommon a problem for the 97-01 Camrys, so replacement door handles are not hard to find, even pre-painted, for about $30 shipped.  I got mine ordered, hope it ships tomorrow.   Looks like a reasonabe effort to replace, but should only take a couple of hours I think.

Katie and I watched Slumdog Millionaire this weekend - me for the second time.  I still like it a lot, but it's just not Earth shattering to me.   I do really hope it takes some Oscars, but is it Best picture worthy?  We'll see.

Moveis off the list:
Beverly Hills Cop 1, 2 and 3 - I like Eddie Murphy.  I think they could have skipped making the 3rd one, but the first two were fun 80's movies.
Bolt - Meh.  It was cute, and well done, and pretty, but the story just didn't really have enough 'adult' stuff to it.   Other Pixar movies have a little something for the whole family which make them enjoyable to watch with everyone.   Ryan loved watching "Puppy, Kitty!", but there just wasn't enough to hold my attention.

Tags: fix it, geek, ryan, the list

Got some good news today at work; my group won't get getting changed in the immediate future.

We bought a couple of wireless night-vision surveillance cameras to use as a video baby monitor -- $65 for 2 that connect to the TV seems like a better deal to me than 1 that I can tote around in my pocket for $120. So, we mounted one tonight in Ryan's room so we can see him sleep (or not sleep) -- we will mount the other one in his room to see the play floor area later on.
As an aside -- if you want to get wireless cameras, I'd steer away from the 2.4 GHz models if you have WiFi or a 2.4GHz cordless phone in your house. Since I only have 2 cameras, I still had an open channel on my access point to use without interference, but I just don't see how you could ever buy and of these 4 camera 2.4GHz setups -- as soon as I turned on the first camera yesterday it drowned out our WiFi. There are 900MHz models out there; hindsight...

Movie off the list:
Magnum Force -- Corny acting and wonky effects seemd to be just what was done at the time, but it adds a classic flair to it. I liked Dirty Harry better, the story was just more interesting.

Tags: ryan, the list, work

On Saturday a few of our neighbors were outside with all their kids playing in the cul-de-sac. When I went out to get the mail, they invited us to bring Ryan out to play -- us being the unsocial neighbors that we are, we've lived here 3 years and don't really know our neighbors or their kids at all...   We brought Ryan out, and he was immediately fascinated with the big kids on their new bikes, and the tricicle of a little girl that's about 6 months older than he.   We don't have a trike or anything for him yet -- he has ride-on toys and a fisher Price car that he likes to play in outside, but no bigwheel.   Our neighbor actually gave Ryan a bigwheel that her son had outgrown.   Pretty cool, Ryan was super excited, even though he's not really big enough to pedal.   We hung out out there for a while, they have some pretty cool kids.

Sunday we went to my sister's church out in Buford, as she and her boyfriend Nick were getting baptized!  It was really awesome, and I'm glad we could be there with them.  Lots of our family was there - my mom, Lala, Uncle Steve and Aunt Jane, Laura and Stephanie, and of course Katie, Ryan and myself.   We joined Amanda and Nick and his family for lunch, and then headed home.   Driving to Buford is FAR, jeez.   The church is over near the Mall of GA -- it was a really nice service and the music and the pastor were great; but it's so BIG, it had literally a stadium setup.   The crowd was chaotic, and the parking lot sucked.   it took us 20 minutes just to get out of the parking lot, and then it's an hour and a half back to our house.   Regardless, I wouldn't have missed it.

Was off on Monday, so we did some shopping.   Target and Walmart in the same day is too exhausting for me.

I finally bought my Harry Potter bookset that I've wanted for a while.   Gonna take a week or so to get here from the UK - but they just don't sell this edition here.

Today was my deadline for input on a sucky task at work.

Work was actually semi busy today - was diving back into some VMWare stuff that I've let fall by the wayside due to no budget at work.   I still have no budget, but I have a few weeks to play with some extra licenses that I have before I have to surrender my hardware to the mothership.   Their tech support is awesome - but I had to wait an hour on hold for nearly an hour to get there.   Course, they had my issue fixed in about 20 minutes, where the tier 1 outsource to India just wanted to point me to the online documentation and get me off the phone before his 10 minute quota was up.   so - an hour and a half later, I had everything working, which was cool.

Started Reading The Shining this morning.

Crossed off the movie list:
Lethal Weapon 4 -- They should have skipped the pansification of Riggs angle a long time ago.   This was just corny.
 

Tags: books, ryan, the list, work

Ryan was a snot-fountain over most of the weekend. Seems just like a normal little-kid winter cold... No fever, no couching really, a little sneezing.  We went over to his friend Brock's first birthday party on Saturday - those kids were all sniffly too...  Then out to eat with Kenny and Brian and Amanda. Jim and Nick's=yummy. Jim and Nick's for (mostly) free=yummy and awesome. Course, we got our ribs this time -- we got there at 5:30, but by 7 when we were about to leave - they were out of ribs again. Sounded like they planned on having more ready by about 8, but still. Jeez. They were busy giving away more free food -- seems like this practice of running out costs them a lot...

Since Ryan's cold was getting more obvious, we decided not to put him in the nursery on Sunday, but just stayed home and had a lazy day. watched a bunch of movies, some with Katie, some while she was reading or The Boy was napping. Pizza Hut for dinner. Woohoo! We don't usually get to order Pizza Hut because Katie doesn't like their pizza, but Katie wanted wings - so I benefited from that twice.

More off the list:
Babylon A.D - I think there was something missing from this movie.   It was interesting, but was lacking a LOT of plotline resolution or something.
The Bank Job - This one was fun, I enjoyed it.

Tags: ryan, the list

Crossed off The List:
Alien 3 - Meh. 
Alien Resurrection - Complete crap.   Nearly turned it off.
Wanted - I don't completely understand what everyone's issue was with this movie.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Unrealistic, sure - but who says movies have to be realistic.  It wasn't trying to be - so it was just fun.
Dirty Harry - As Katie says " 'Nuff said"

Tags: the list

The new 2009 Mini Cooper Convertibles were 'officially' unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show yesterday or today.  Nothing really new there, but MiniUSA did update their site to replace the outgoing model on the "Build Your Own" page.
They've raised the price - bastards.   Looks like the S model I'd want rings in around 33-35k after I was done with trimmings.   Stupid expensive, jeez.   Not that I could have afforded the old model that I'd Spec'd at around  25k, but the bump definitely puts it way out there on the horizon.   Good thing I'm supposed to be using my money to retire debt, this reinforces that.

Crossed off The List:
Alien
Lethal Weapon 3

Tags: the list

Friday:
Since our call center is closing - and we are subleasing the facility where that lives, I no longer have that server room to use after about March. So, we're consolidating everything into the smaller, original server room from before we were bought out last February. So, this has forced me to have to move 2 400lb data cabinets (empty) from one facility, across the road, to the other. Even on wheels, that wasn't fun.

After work we went over to Brian's house to help him mount his TV on the wall.   That wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it still took us a little while.  After we put Ryan to bed, we played "Dirty Minds" - which is fun, but unfortunately the manufacturers of the game (like a lot of newer "Board" games) just did not build in a lot of replayability into the game.   Once you've heard the dirty clue, the answer tends to stick in your mind, so if you play again you'll know the answer.  So, once you have used up all the clues, you can't really play anymore.  You can play Monopoly forever.  It's timeless.  Dirty minds has probably - I'm guessing 200 words (divided among 4 player books).

Saturday:
Wow!   Our whole household slept until 11:30am.   I never sleep in - my internal clock wakes me up at 6 every day - which is stupid, since i have to wake up at 5 for work.  I guess it feels it's a fail safe. What's wierder is that Ryan slept in too.  Guess it was because we were out at Brian and Amanda's until after midnight - so we got home pretty late.  So, that was cool.

Went to visit Super-Lala for dinner.  Just about any dinner with my family(my mom's side) becomes a fiasco, since they cannot have a small dinner affair.  They complain about not getting to visit Ryan very often, but then create such a busy environment when we come over - that it just never works.  What was a dinner with just Katie, Ryan and I, my Mom and my sister - became also my aunts, uncles, and all of their kids.  Fortunately, one set already had plans, and didn't show up.  The other said they didn't have any plans, so they DID show up, only to tell us that they DID in fact have plans, and that they woudn't be staying.  Fine - no big deal, but if you don't want to come because you have plans - you don't need to come, nobody gets offended.  It was my cousin's 13th b-day, so they were taking her and one of her friends out to dinner, and then to a movie.   With a stop by Grandma's.  With the friend.  Wierd?

Super-Lala's house isn't really baby-friendly, Ryan managed to get two pretty good licks to his noggin while we were there.   Good thing he's hard headed like his dad :)

Knocked off The List:
Street Kings and Lethal Weapon 2

Tags: family, the list, work

They're running a new water main down our street at work, so consequently we're worried about them cutting our private point-to-point fiber we have between my office and our call center across the road.  We had it marked, and talked to the foreman on the trenching job - he assured us he'd look out for it, but we're still worried.

They got to our spot in the road yesterday afternoon or early this morning...   We got worried when he wanted to see us this afternoon...   He thought he'd cut our line - we weren't down, so we knew he didn't - but he still seemed to just want to talk to us around a hole in the sidewalk, in the cold wind, staring at /someone's/ cut line.   He didn't seem too concerned about it -- he said he'd called Comcast, since he believed it was theirs, but was still uver-worried that it was the dark fiber of ours that he'd cut.

After about 30 minutes of assuring him that we were fine, he seemed to become more interested in talking to the property owner who had showed up with AT&T - so we slipped away.

We had noticed that he DID find our line, and successfully cut around it, so we should be safe.


Knocked off The List today:
Lethal Weapon

queueing up the other 3, and the Alien quad.

Tags: the list, work

Not really a traditional resolution - but one nonetheless...

I decided back around mid-december that I'm tired of having not seen a lot of popular/classic/whatever you want to call it movies.    When I was in High School and College, we went to the theater just about every weekend.   So I've seen a lot of the blockbusters from about 1996 through maybe 2003?   After that my rabid movie theater addiction taperd off, I got married, and now have a baby - and going to the movies happens in a rare blue moon now.   Anyway - prior to high-school, there are a ton of older movies that I just never saw, and went on the "I need to rent that sometime" list.   The list I never touched, and should have actually written down, because every time I went to Blockbuster, I'd get whatever I just missed in the theater.   I never went to get Rocky or The Godfather. I'm tired of people going "you haven't seen 'Alien'?!?!?, Jeez!".

So, my resolution is to try to watch at least a couple of movies a week, to knock them off The List.   The List has become a hodgepodge of stuff that's newer, and stuff that's really old.   Just stuff that I feel that I should watch.   Good or Bad, hokey or not, something I need to see, or wanted to see.

Since starting this practice around mid-december and around the holidays - he's what I've accomplished, in no specific order...   I don't intend to write reviews, but want to record a couple of comments...

12 Angry Men - Enjoyed a lot, brilliant dialog.
The Sting - Lots of fun, really good.
Blade Runner - I wish I had a synthesizer and a keyboard in the 80's...   My ass would be a millionaire.   Hokey movie, diden't really get into it.   Probably just saw it 20 years too late to appreciate it.
Predator - Enjoyed this one.
Chronicle of Narnia: Prince Caspian - I diden't love this as much as the first CoN movie, but still loved it, and look forward to Dawn Treader.   I loved this book series.
Wall-E - Who knew a movie with less than a dozen lines of dialog could be such a funny and sweet movie.   Loved it.
Death Race - Cars Racing, Prison, Blood, Gore, Swearing - non-stop action.   Tons of fun, but the story was pretty weak.   Liked it, probably wouldn't watch it again though.
The Happening - Don't know what to think about this.   It was just a damned odd movie.   Liked it - I think?
Lakeview Terrace - I love Samuel L Jackson - he's such a fun character in pretty much whatever he's in.   I just overall felt the acting and story was lacking everywhere else.
Righteous Kill - Loved this one.   Story isn't that original, but the story was good, and the acting, with a good plot twist.  
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - Dumbest shit ever.   Had its moments - mostly surrounding Neal Patrick Harris, but I'd probably never watch it again.
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay - I don't know why I felt compelled to try it again, but I did them back to back.   My brain must have rotted.   Same thoughts on this one.
Eagle Eye - About what I expected from Speilberg and his new poster child.   Pretty much non-stop action, surrounding Dummy.   Dumb ending.  
Hancock - Disappointed by this one.   I like Will Smith, but this story just was pretty weak and undeveloped.   Maybe could have been better with other circumstances or something.

Slumdog Millionaire - Excellent movie - it's a Film Festival movie, lots of awards and nominations in 2008/09.   Graphic and real in the right ways, good music, authentic acting. Amazing Story. I'm not jumping around about this one like a lot of people, but I highly reccomend it.
Seven Pounds - Another really good story.  Will Smith redeemed for me. Katie figured out the mystery about half-way through, but it was still really good.

Then in my queue I have Mad Max, Godfather, Predator 2 and the 1951 Day the Earth Stood Still, Amongst others.

Tags: the list