Three Week Old Travel Stories

Because you didn't demand it! Because it's the story that didn't have to be told! Because I don't not have better things to do!

That's right! It's the travelogue!

So, what's to say about a trip I took three weeks ago? I can tell you one thing, United Airlines sucks ass. I bought a bargain basement flight from Dulles to Denver to Salt Lake City with United since I had a credit from the big SNAFU last Christmas. The first bargain basement flight they tried to sell me would have cost exactly $1000.00 after the Christmas credit. I said to the United rep on the phone, I said, "You've got to be kidding me." You know what he said? Nothing. So I says to him, I says, "Are you serious?" I think he sensed an attitude change on my end of the line, he responded apologetically that it was the lowest rate he could get on the days I had. I finagled the days and times a little bit and brought my bill down to $350.00 after the credit. Things had not started auspiciously.

When checking into my flight at the kiosk at the airport, I was offered the option to "upgrade" to economy plus for an additional $45. I figured that there was no way it was worth an extra $45 just to add the word "plus" onto the end of my assignment. As it was, I didn't get a seat, just a message telling me to check in at the gate. Turned out I got an economy plus seat for free since they had sold out of their economy seats. Meh, I figured it couldn't be that big of a deal.

On the flight I noticed that I did have considerably more leg room than was usual in economy. It was nice, but I didn't figure it was worth $45. I was sooooo wrong. My flight out of Denver was delayed by three hours, but I had plenty to do at the airport. I was reading Neil Gaiman's Stardust, both at Jon's recommendation and to prepare for the movie. They also have a huge Crocs booth at the airport, presumably since Crocs are based out of Colorado. When I finally boarded my flight, I made my way to the baaaaaack row. Very back, right in front of the lavatory. I didn't care, it was just for a couple of hours. I didn't care, that is, until I sat down. Turns out that the extra leg room in economy plus wasn't taken from first class (yeah, right) nope, it was taken from economy. I couldn't even lower my tray table after my seat was in the reclined position.

United has found another way to squeeze blood from a stone. It was so uncomfortable that on the trip back, I footed the bill for the economy plus seats and did not regret it. Well, that's not entirely true. I regretted flying United and having to pay extra for what I should have with the base price of a ticket. Stacy and I have resolved to avoid United in all but the most dire circumstances. If Jet Blue or Frontier flies to where we're going from Dulles or Reagan, we're going with them. United sucks ass.

As for the actual visit, that went swimmingly. The first night out, Stacy and I spent the night at a themed bed and breakfast called the Anniversary Inn. We've spent quite a few anniversaries there, but this was the first time we stayed in the Egyptian-themed Mysteries of Egypt room. It was pretty damn sweet.

Who doesn't like ram/sphinx guardians where they sleep?

The face staring at us as we watched The Aviator was kinda creepy

Yes, that's a friggin' spitting cobra as a shower head over the two-person whirlpool tub. Stacy had a little bit of a problem with the giant snake, so she faced out, I thought it was pretty wicked.

Probably the least-used room, the little study was still cool to look at.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with a night out on the town and an evening in the highly stylized interior of a pyramid. If you ever find yourself with a romantic partner in Utah, I highly recommend a visit to The Anniversary Inn.

The next day Stacy and her dad had a joint birthday party so I got to see all of her side of the family. That was fun, even though I'm still not very comfortable with 90% of them. I still feel very much an outsider with her dad's extended family. Good thing I get along great with Stacy's grandparents and siblings.

We hosted a barbecue/pool party/Wii session at my in-law's residential club house for my side of the family the next day. It was a blast seeing all of them there. I didn't get enough time to visit with everyone one-on-one, but my time there was short. Only my dad and his son could make it up from Southern Utah from his family, but it was nice meeting with them.

The rest of the time was spent either at Stacy's dad's place or my brother's house, the de facto hang out for my side of the family. We even got to help out with my youngest niece's sixth birthday party there. She was born shortly after Vicki.

It was a good time, well worth the traveling hassle. Most importantly, I got to see my wife and children for the first time in three weeks. I had to make the visit last for another three weeks as well. Thankfully, the long six weeks are ending tomorrow. I will be picking up my beautiful Stacy and wonderful girls at Reagan National Airport and filling my house back up. It's been entirely too quiet with just Blue and I around.

Still to come (maybe) My Exciting Experience With The Incredibly Expensive Coaster or, My Hard Drive, My Destiny. AND! Some thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows or, The Most Timely Post Since Three Week Old Travel Stories! AND! My Narrow Escape From Death Hurtling Twenty Stories After Being Set On Fire By An Angry Grizzly Bear or, This Never Actually Happened, Sorry To Get Your Hopes Up!

Killer Wasps Attack!

I was mowing the lawn today and noticed a large amount of dirt mounds scattered around the yard, many of them clustered around the doors to my shed. I like to keep the shed free of vegetation so the doors swing open easily, apparently that is what attracted the creators of the dirt mounds. This is actually the second year we've had them. I am not fond of insects at all. They make my skin crawl. Probably one too many bad sci-fi movie about mutant bugs back when I was a kid (ever see Bug from 1975? Cheesy as hell, but it still gives me occasional nachtmares, so does Arachnaphobia.) So I could just imagine what monstrous horrors lurked in the gaping holes of the many burrows I was tromping over during my chore. It wasn't long before I discovered what they looked like as one of these suckers came flying right at me.

Spla-DOW!

I had turned my weed eater over to fix the spline when the thing buzzed my head. Not cool. I panicked for a second, dropped the weed whacker, and retreated. The gigantor wasp, two inches if it was an 1/8th, backed off for a second too. I took the opportunity to rethread the weed eater and brandished it Texas Chainsaw Massacre style at the mammoth bug. I spun the spline at it a couple of times, hoping more to scare it away than do any real damage, though I wouldn't have been averse to seeing some dismemberment as well. No bug gets the best of me in my yard! The huge wasp zipped out of the yard after a couple of close calls with the weed eater. In retrospect, I was lucky that it was the particular breed it was, considering yellow jackets and hornets are aggressive and probably would have stung my ass a few times extra for good measure.

I wrapped up my weed killing before the B2 of wasps made its way back so I headed inside to do some research. Turns out my adorable little friend is none other than the Sphecius speciosus, or the Eastern Cicada Killer. This little feller is solitary as opposed to social, which means that it will not attack a human unless handled roughly, even to defend its burrow. Further more, the only ones to actively investigate people are males, ensuring that we're not other males encroaching on territory or a female ready to mate, I assure you, I was neither. However, even then, males can't sting, they can just poke with their sharpened tails.

The females create the burrows, paralyze cicadas and other insects, plant them in a chamber in the burrow, and then deposit an egg with the victim. The egg hatches over the summer and the larva overwinters in a cocoon after feeding off the cicada. Matter of fact, that image up nort' there is of a female cicada killer bringing a victim back to her burrow. Interestingly enough, it's not alive, but posed that way by one Professor Chuck Holliday (with a name like that, what's he doing outside of a recording studio?) from whom I got most of my cicada killer knowledge. Sure, there's a Wikipedia article, but I found his information, not to mention extensive picture and movie collection of the monster wasps much more enlightening.

They're fascinating bugs, but I'd rather not have them buzzing me when I'm out in the yard. You never know what batch of radioactive nuclear waste it was floating in earlier.

Just an example of a burrow, nothing to scale, but that hole is big enough to toss a dwarf down.

Here's a smaller wasp hitching a ride on Professor Chuck's hand after an exhausting cicada killing.

Thanks to Professor Chuck HOLLIDAY (what a frickin' sweet name) for all the cicada killer lore. Check out his excellent site on the subject if you're curious at http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/cicadakillerhome.html

Debris from a Fiery Ball of Gas Otherwise Known as...

Stardust.

Was Stardust a good movie? Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. Hell yeah. I'll admit readily that I am a bit biased, loving both the author's entire body of work so far experienced and the actual book in question. However, my bias plays only a small portion of my instant fondness for the movie. As with all movie adaptations of books, whether they're full text, comic panels, or a mix of both, things change when moved from pages to screen. In most cases, if I've read a book before I see the movie, these changes serve as minor annoyances. Sometimes the changes make sense, sometimes they don't, they're almost always unwelcome.

I don't know if it was Neil Gaiman's extensive involvement in the production of the movie that helped or the creators' obvious love for the source material, but the changes between the two mediums did not bother me in the slightest here. Some of the differences were drastic, too, such as the entire climax. They felt as if they fit into the story, though. As if I had attended two different tellings of the same story by equally masterful storytellers, both of whom know how to weave the myriad pieces together to form a pleasing whole, no matter that the ingredients differ slightly.

The casting was well done. Everyone from the guardian of the wall (David Kelly) to the shady Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais,) both of which are new characters to readers of the book. Original characters fared equally well with the protagonists Claire Daines playing Yvaine and Charlie Cox as Tristan (one odd change, removing the "r" from his name.) I am not a big fan of Daines, there's usually something about her eyes that bugs me. However, she and Cox did very well. The casting of the seven brothers of Stormhold was fitting as well, but you really have to see the movie or have read the book to understand where they come from. I loved seeing Peter O'Toole as the King of Stormhold. I could have used with more realistic arm throwing action, but I suppose when you get as old as O'Toole, you can spend your scenes reclining luxuriously in a magnificently appointed bed as well. Michelle Pfeiffer, no stranger to the role of villain, plays a delightful witch who you can't help but sympathize with every once and a while. That is, when she isn't busy transforming hapless goats into inn keepers (Hilario Dawson!) Perhaps the most notable bit of casting comes in the form of a very talented supporting actor, one Robert DeNiro. His Capt. Shakespeare is a considerable departure from the book, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Those of you that have seen the movie know why. He definitely stole the scenes in which he was featured and showed us a new layer of the DeNiro talent. Oh, and snagging Ian McKellen as the narrator is just badass.

Now that I'm done name-dropping, I can tell you that this is definitely a movie to add to your list of must-sees. It has high-fantasy, excellent action, magic, intrigue, quests, and a fair bit of romance. Whether you like fantasy movies, action movies, romantic comedy movies, or any combination of the above, this is one that will satisfy. My regards to the original creators, Messrs. Gaiman and Vess as well as those behind the movie, Vaughn and Goldman. I hope this one does well enough so we can see more of Neil's work make it to the big screen.

I give this movie seven out of seven slaughtered princes on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Attack of the On Call Rotation

I'm pretty tired today. I was tired yesterday around 7:30 and decided to make it an extra-early night. On my way to bed, the page came through. Of course.

After dealing with one issue for two hours, the next one came up. That one took four hours before I tried to wash my hands of the issue and go to bed. half an hour later, just past that point of wakefulness when you slide dreamily into the abyss of sleep, the next page came. This time, I had to sit on a conference call for another hour, contributing nothing but a groggy presence since the problem was far removed from my team's processes.

By 2:30 am I had enough. I told the call that I was out, hung up, and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On Call is fun!

Moblo to Show...Yo?

I had intended to post a short entry showing what an awesome and sweet wife I have. However, Comcast is working in my area, installing fiber (YES!) and so I have no cable and thus no Internet access. I only plan on dialing in if I get paged tonight.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I'm on call for the first time this week. I've already had a couple of calls. I'm hoping the rest of my rotation is quiet.

Anyways, now I'm moblo-in' and I can't upload the pic of the cool Cookies by Design basket that Stacy sent me. It's full of cookies in the shape of pagers, computers, PDAs, and cell phones. "One for every day until we fly back," Stacy tells me. It was a nice way to start out the morning. She's awesome.

Update de la Excellente:

It appears that the pic I attached to my email was posted along with the entry. That's pretty dang cool.

Update de la Poopoo:

No such luck on the paging front. I was paged just as I pulled out of my neighborhood on the way to see a movie with a bunch of the guys I know from church. It figures. Luckily, it was for something my group doesn't support, so I got out of the call quick. It made me only a few minutes late for The Simpsons Movie. I think I'll get over it, somehow.

The Identity of the Supreme Bourne Ultimatum

Casey and I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum opening weekend. We decided to check it out the latest and last installment in the Bourne series during a matinee to avoid evening crowds. We went to the new Fox Theatres about midway between our two towns. The new theater is huge and very nicely appointed. The seats are comfy and have a fair amount of recline. The stadium seating gives you plenty of viewing space above the head of the person in front. The aisles could be a bit wider, but with the reclining seats, something had to give. Owing to the opening weekend, school break, and weekend timeframe, the theater drew a big crowd, but it wasn't as bad as primetime.

I came into this movie with the knowledge that there would be little to no relation to its inspiration, the book of the same title by Robert Ludlum. The departure of the first movie from the printed work made that possibility moot anyway. There was no way they could tie them together. However, for those of you that enjoy the movies, I highly recommend the books. Same action, better plots and cohesion. Plus, Marie doesn't get ganked in the second book like she did in the second movie.

The movie had plenty of action with Matt Damon performing most of his stunts. I heard him mention in a recent interview that he's getting too old for this @#$%. Wait, that was Murtaugh, sorry. He did say that at 36, he was finding it harder to recover after a day of filming fight scenes and rooftop chases. Personally, I'd be glad to be able to do half the stuff he does in this movie and still be able to wake up in the morning.

Opposite Damon is a cast of decent actors that make a good backdrop to the intrigue and action that is this movie's staple. Julia Stiles reprises her role from the first two movies. There was a romance between Jason and Stile's character Nikki threatening like a thunderhead looming on the horizon for a moment. Thankfully, the weather cleared and that bit of unnecessary fluff didn't make it on the screen. Bourne is pitted against Pamela Landy, played by Joan Allen from the previous movie as well as a whole stable of spooks led by David Straithairn, who is just dreamy according to Michelle at www.bestweekever.tv. Albert Finney, who has been around forever but only really managed to claw his way into my memory after his role on 2003's Big Fish, makes an appearance as well. I see from his imdb entry that Finney portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1970 film Scrooge, which may or may not be the version that makes its way to the airwaves every year. I can't be bothered to remember. Either way, those named did an excellent job providing a murky conspiratorial atmosphere. I was less than impressed by Scott Glenn's scenes, but they were graciously few.

The Bourne Ultimatum gets high marks for some intense, personal action scenes (no cars versus helicopters or Bourne versus jets in this one) and good old fashioned spook conspiracies. I did not like the shaky camera style, however. I found I had a headache after about a half hour of the jittery camera work. The kid kicking the back of my chair throughout the entire damn film didn't help that much. I still found myself enjoying the movie though, so it gets points for that as well.

I give The Bourne Ultimatum four out of five amnesiacs kicking government agency ass on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

The Simpsons Hit the Big Screen

Not a timely headline, obviously, but since this post isn't timely either, it is fitting.

I caught a showing of The Simpson's silver screen debut solo last week on a slow day. I thought of calling Jon and inviting him, but he'd already seen it a few times while in Michigan and I didn't think he'd want to schlep all the way to Manassas to see it again in the rundown theater down the street.

The movie is funny. It's got a lot of the elements that make the television series amusing, including celebrity cameos, appearances from Springfield's non-Simpson residents, quirky gags, physical humor, etc. In fact, the list of things that The Simpsons Movie had that the weekly television show does not is surprisingly short. Jon and I discussed our surprise that the creators did not take advantage of the format more than they did. For example, one (not so shocking) difference was the inclusion of nudity. I'm not going to give away the variety of nudity for those of you that haven't seen it, but I will say that it's not salacious or shocking in the least. This may reveal me as a horrible parent, but I wouldn't care if my daughters saw it, it's that harmless. Other additions were the widescreen format and the extended time. That's about it.

So yes, to see The Simpsons Movie is to pay money for something you can get free, which is pointed out by Homer himself within the first few minutes of the movie. It's still fun to see America's favorite yellow family up on the big screen, popcorn and soda in hand. If you're a fan of the Simpsons, check it out. Otherwise, you could easily wait for the DVD and subsequent television release.

Perhaps my only real complaints about the movie was the lack of more scenes with the non-Simpsons. The television show is entertaining not just for the Simpsons' antics, but for the townspeople's reactions (or lack thereof). While we got to see quite a few of the other players, I felt there could have been more.

I give The Simpsons Movie three out of five naked unnamed Simpsons characters performing unspecified antics on the silver screen on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, I'm Still Here, So What? You Wanna Fight About It?

It's been weeks since my last post. If asked, I don't think I could come up with a satisfactory answer to the question why. Perhaps it's because my trip to see my wife and girls in Utah was harder on me than I thought it would be. It did signal the half-way point in my quasi-bachelorhood, but coming home also meant it would still be another 3 weeks before I saw my family again. Since then, I've had plenty of time to blog, but no inclination. I expect I will get a couple of entries in some time this week. I've been to see The Simpsons and Bourne Supremacy so I'll have a couple of entries about those. I've had some major computer problems, so I've got a bit to write about that. Then there's the trip to Utah itself. I'll see what I can get up here on all of that within the next few days.

Quasi-Bachelorhood Strikes Again!

I just realized that I did not mention in the past few days that Stacy and the girls are on vacation. I put them on the plane back on July 3rd, just before my first viewing of Transformers and a day before my visit to Jamie and Casey's for a barbeque and Wii playing to celebrate the 4th. The girls are visiting our families out in Utah for the next six weeks. I'll be playing quasi-bachelor again here at home until mid-July when I fly out for a few days to visit and come back to work.

I miss my family, but it is important to Stacy and I to reconnect with extended family at least yearly. This way our kids know who their uncles, aunts, cousins, and most importantly, grandparents, are.

I'll be filling my time with a mixture of work, school, video games, and probably more than a few movies. Also, my blog will more than likely be a bit more active as I have much more free time on my hands without the girls at home. Enjoy my prolificity (it is so a word, spell checker!) while you can, suckers!

Happy New Year and All That Jazz

I'm normally not that excited for the end of the year/beginning of the next. I will stay up until midnight to give my wife a smooch and that's about it. One year we actually went to the Melting Pot to celebrate with a good friend and her brother. That was the last time I really "rung in the New Year".

I recently watched Comedy Central's 2006 Last Laugh with Jack Black, Patton Oswald, and one other comedian whose name I can never remember and I really don't care about. Our jovial Mr. Black pointed out something about New Years that pretty much cemented my take on the "holiday". It's made up. We made it up to celebrate the transition between two arbitrary periods of time. We made up time. It's just to keep track of when stuff happens. Big whoop! So really, New Years Day is just another day. I personally commemorated it with a batch of laundry and a short call to Stacy.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that I don't know how to get down and party.

Similarly, I don't get into New Year's resolutions. I found that the best way not to break a resolution is to not make one. This year I am making an exception. This year I resolve to get out of my dead-end job and do something different. I've been working on the same desk for 6 years. There have been plenty of changes in those 6 years, but I just don't see myself going anywhere positive from here. I already have a lead I'm following up on to that end, so I'm hoping this will be my first and only successful resolution.

I'd ask you to wish me luck, but I'm pretty sure that's something we made up, too.

My Brain Hates Me

While going to bed with the wife away sucks, it does usually mean that I get more sleep. Whether it's the getting the baby for midnight nursings, comforting one of the older girls after a nightmare, or being awoken by a flailing arm, my nights (and Stacy's) are regularly interrupted. Add to that the fact that I can never seem to get to bed before 11:00 PM on work nights and you get an idea of how tired I am when I come in to work. Since none of those distractions exist when the family is away, I usually get a full night's rest any given night.

Just to make sure, I took some Excedrin PM last night. I got to sleep around 9:30, which wouldn't give me a full 8 hours, but it'd be more than usual.

That's why I was surprised when I woke up at 11:30. Muddled with sleep, I stared at the clock for a few moments trying to puzzle out how I could sleep all the way to 11:30 without waking up and why it was still dark outside. Ohhhh, 11:30 PM, well that's okay, I still had 5 hours to sleep.

Then I woke up at 1:30. WTF? Whatever, I still had more sleep time.

Then again at 3:00. Ok, now I'm kinda pissed off at myself.

By the time my alarm started going off at 4:25, I was only lightly sleeping. Angry at the entire situation, I hit my snooze out of defiance. I was going to get some more damn sleep even if it was only 9 minute increments!

I finally gave up a little before 5:00 and got out of bed. There's something about not even reaching REM sleep that really bugs me. It may be a wholly psychological thing or an actual physiological effect, but I always feel off when I don't get at least 4 hours of continuous sleep. I have come to the conclusion that my brain is angry at me for some reason. Maybe it was all the paint fumes I inhaled after finally painting that empty spot on the basement wall?

Excuse Me as I Wax Melancholy

There are few card rides that are more depressing than the one immediately following dropping your family off for a week-long trip. I know I'm being maudlin about it, but I'm in a funk right now and I'm hoping this will be somewhat cathartic.

I love my family. There are times when they drive me crazy, individually and collectively, but all the other times make the occasional annoyances well worth it. Nothing compares to the sound of three little girls shouting, "Daddy!" when I walk in the door after work. Snuggling a sleeping child is a close second. I have such a hard time sleeping in an empty bed that I will usually stay up into the wee hours of the morning to avoid it when my wife is gone.

I'm sure that by tomorrow I will feel my usual self. I'll most likely fill my time alone by watching a ton of movies in the theater, playing video games, and watching TV. Im working two days of OT this week, so my usual three day work week will be five. Hopefully the fact that I have to get up for work will help me get to bed at a decent hour. Then again, working OT on the swing shift kinda defeats that idea. However, the OT is uding the holiday, so double time and a half is coming my way. What better way to pay for two Christmases than some holiday OT?

Hurricane Stacy Makes Landfall!

This week went by rather fast. I decided to check out Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby on Monday. Being a Will Ferrell fan, I thought I was in for a treat. It turned out a bit dull. There were funny moments, to be sure, but it was certainly no Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Will does his signature screaming act, which is funny at times. Throughout most of the movie, he comes off more like his George W. Bush character as a racecar driver. Sacha Baron Cohen (of Ali G and Borat fame) turned in a marvelous performance as Ricky Bobby’s arch-nemesis, the Frenchman Jean Gerard, who was married to Andy Richter’s Gregory. Yeah, try to flush an image of those two locking lips out of your head. Leslie Bibb played Ricky’s extremely hot, superficial, extremely hot wife, Carley Bobby. This being a rise-fall-rerise story, she doesn’t last long as his wife, but she’s still great screen candy. Gary Cole gives a standout performance as Ricky’s recalcitrant father, Reese. Mediocre performances by The Green Mile’s Michael Clark Duncan and John C. Reilly (who I saw most recently in A Prairie Home Companion but you may recognize from his supporting roles in movies like The Aviator, Chicago, Gangs of New York, or The Perfect Storm) rounded out the cast. There were a few other characters, but none worth noting further. The movie had possibilities, and maybe if I were a NASCAR fan I would have seen more, but it ultimately fell flat for me. If you still want to see this one, I would definitely wait for the DVD.

What's that you see on the horizon, Ricky? High DVD sales?

Stacy and the girls flew in on Tuesday. Unfortunately, Stacy came home to a house that changed little from when she left. The lawn was still only half done and I never got around to buying ¼ round to finish the floors. It seemed I only had enough energy to keep up with standard chores like laundry, dishes, and taking out the garbage for the past two weeks. Rather than going to a ton of movies the past two weeks, I should have been fixing things up and doing more housework. I was in the doghouse for that until the tidal wave of frustration hit the shores on Wednesday. With a good fight out of the way, Stacy came up with a plan for ensuring that we do an equal share of housework from now on. I have never been able to keep a real schedule. Any time I try to organize my life in such a way, I am able to adhere to it for a couple of days before I leave it behind. Stacy has drawn up a schedule that should account for housework, homework, and work, leaving room for family time. I am not optimistic, but I’m game. I can’t really complain, I was pretty lazy for the past two weeks.

Projected path of Hurricane Stacy

On the plus side, I did finally finish Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil on the PC. I had a long spiel written here about the game both in its tabletop and computer forms, then I realized that anyone reading this doesn’t really care. The short of it is that I had a good time seeing a well-crafted graphical representation of a place I had only seen on graph paper and heard described. I know that this doesn’t sound too impressive to non-RPGers (read: it sounds über-nerdy.) The only reason it is a noteworthy accomplishment to me is that I have started and restarted the game multiple times in the past. A very clunky interface made was almost a deal-breaker for me. Why take all the time to create a game so true to its roots and then screw it up on the interface level? I hope that 1) they keep making games along these lines and 2) they learn from their mistakes on this one.

Then I cast magic missile on the ogre!

Back to housework: Tuesday was the first day in the past two weeks that temperatures have not been in the 90’s by 11:00 AM. I finally got outside to finish the lawn. By this time much of the grass was above my waist. I waded to the shed for the mower. I felt like I should have been using a machete instead. Insect life of all kinds fled the light as I hauled open the door. There were spiders along the walls, crickets the size of my thumb hopping to the back of the shed, beetles running for the grass, and a mass of ants that would make your skin crawl. They did mine. The ants were centered on two rolls of trash bags. They happened to be the bags I had to use for grass clippings. I picked one up with the intention of shaking off the ants, but immediately dropped it. Underneath the bags was an entire ant colony. I know it was a colony because of the larvae all over the place. If I saw the queen, I would have called Brian down to stock his ant farm. She never showed up, though. I grabbed a couple of shots with my camera phone, then went inside for my camcorder. By the time I came back out, half the larvae were gone. The ants were scurrying about crazily, picking them up and ferrying them off to I-don’t-know-where. I’m assuming they’re living under the shed now. By the time I had some footage and went for the bug spray, the ants were all gone and only a few larvae remained. It was almost as if they were never there. Kinda creepy. I sprayed the crap out of the shed anyway. Damn ants.

All the black spots are ants, you can guess at the white spots

We have a tiny little electric mower that chokes at three-inch grass, so I had my work cut out for me. After a couple of swipes, it stopped working. I’m used to it jamming up, so I checked underneath; no jam. The circuit breaker on the mower wasn’t tripped either. Great, I thought, I’ve fried our mower. I trudged to the front where Stacy was using the carpet cleaner on the van. That had died too. Apparently, running the computer, fan, and clock radio upstairs at the same time as the carpet cleaner and lawn mower outside was too much for the 15 amp circuit. Go figure. I hit the breaker and got back to work. About an hour later, I had finished terrorizing all of the bugs in our yard and the grass was cut. I gave up on grass catching early on. I just let the grass fall where I cut it. I figure it will cover up the dirt between clumps of crabgrass in case of rain. That and I’m lazy. I’m also a fair-skinned, red haired bald man. Do you know what happens to fair-skinned, red haired bald men in two hours of direct sunlight? I’ll give you a hint, it’s lobsterific! To make matters worse, I was wearing a sweatband. Now I have a retarded halo of unburned skin around my head. I think I’ll leave you with that pleasant mental image. Good day.

Bachelors, Ex-Girlfriends, and Pirates. Oh my!

Week two of my forced bachelorhood is nearing its end. Stacy’s flight back starts Monday night, but ends Tuesday morning. So what have I accomplished with all of my free time? Nothing. Nothing productive, at least. I did get in some quality video game time, catch up on a bunch of recorded TV, hang out with my brother-in-law, and watch a bunch of movies. Doing the laundry and mowing half a lawn in the last week and a half is as productive as I have been. I’ll be getting to the rest of the lawn on Monday. Record temperatures kept me from doing lawn work this last week, that and my inherent laziness. It was all I could do most days hauling my butt out of bed before noon. Meh.

Jon and I went to My Super Ex-Girlfriend this week with my brother-in-law, Ryan. I have to admit that it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I was expecting a few laughs here and there, but I was not prepared to laugh as much and as hard as I did. Jon and Ryan seemed to enjoy it too. There was even a good dig at Utah in there. Being pretty self-deprecating anyway, I can take a good joke at the expense of the physical capital of the LDS religion. Utah does suck by many standards. Uma Thurman plays the psychotic ex-girlfriend a little too well, which added to the fun of the movie. Just imagine anything a crazy ex-girlfriend might do and then multiply that by a hundred. Hilarity ensued. Luke Wilson, the tolerable Wilson brother, played a decent straight man. I was a bit disappointed in his lack of adventurous spirit, though. Even with my fear of heights, I think even I would have enjoyed the triple F (free fall [expletive deleted].) Ah well, his attitude was more of a plot device than anything, so I can’t fault him too much. I was pleasantly surprised when Eddie Izzard made his entrance. I hadn’t done any research on the movie and didn’t know he was in it. I enjoy seeing Eddie in anything. If you haven’t seen it already, find a copy of Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill. You will thank me or I will mock your sense of humor mercilessly. (I see at Amazon that Eddie has some more work that I need to check out.) Anna Faris was just kinda there. She didn’t add much to the experience. I can’t take her seriously after seeing her in Scary Movie and its many sequels. The show stealer was definitely Rainn Wilson of The Office fame. Far from his love-to-hate character of Dwight, he played Luke’s lecherous friend. His sage nuggets of man-wisdom were interrupted only by his chauvinistic pick-up attempts. Should you go see this? Definitely. It is one of those rare films that is fun to go see it with the guys or on a date with your better half. Just hope the latter doesn’t get any ideas for what to do to you if you dump her (or him, whatever.)

I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest with Ryan and a coworker of his last night. It was just as good the second time around. We went to the Manassas Cinemas to see it, which besides being only a couple of blocks away from home, is the only movie café nearby. I dig ordering dinner while watching a movie on the big screen. I recently spoke with Jamie about this movie and she, as she is wont to do, waxed crazy. “We didn’t like it. There weren’t enough fight scenes.” Awuh? Lessee, I counted four fight scenes, one of which was the most fantastic feat of fight choreography I have ever seen. For those sad few of you that haven’t see the movie, let me just ask you to imagine a three-way sword fight taking place on top of and inside a runaway mill water wheel. Sound cool? It is. That is not including the two (or three, depending how you count them) fantastic scenes battling the [spoiler deleted]! The surprise ending was a stroke of genius. Not only did it end the movie with a marvelous flourish, it made me really excited for the trilogy finale. Then there is the fact that it’s about pirates, and there’s nothing better than pirates.

And, since you can’t top pirates, I think I’ll draw this entry to a close.

Stacy A-Go-Go

I promised to share Stacy’s traveling woes with you a few days ago, so here you are. First, let me make her situation clear. She was flying Delta out of Dulles with three little girls, ages 5 years, 2 years, and 7 months. She had three car seats, one large bag for clothes, one smaller bag for leftover items, one carry-on backpack, and a stroller to gate-check. To say she had her hands full would be a woeful understatement.

The porter I hired to carry bags didn’t show up

Thankfully, she was able to use the sky cap to check in the luggage and car seats, but that left her with a backpack, a baby strapped to her front, and a double stroller with two willful little girls. Her flight would take her to Salt Lake for a three-hour layover before continuing on to Boise, ID.

Boise, world capital of, um, well, nothing at all

Nicole was to pick up Stacy from Boise and they would make the drive to Portland together. Odd travel plan, but the money they saved on the flights made the difference between driving and flying straight to Oregon.

Stacy and the girls made it on to the airplane with no problems. The first leg of the journey went off without a hitch. It wasn’t until she got to Salt Lake and found out that her flight to Boise had been cancelled that the fun really began. She had already planned to have lunch with her dad during her layover, since he works in Salt Lake. Now, it appeared she would be spending the night at his place with the girls, because the airline did not have another flight out until the next day. To make matters worse, the airline could not locate her large bag with all of the clothes in it (plus our nice digital camera and the power cable to my laptop!)

Poor luggage, lost out there, all alone

All Stacy had was the car seats and a bag with no clothes. In such situations, Delta has a policy to furnish stranded passengers with necessities, such as diapers for babies and the like. They did not do this.

Bare baby bum, not safe for the Internet

Stacy swung a deal to have Delta fly her and the girls out to Portland the following evening rather than force Nicole to make the trip to Boise twice. Nicole was having her own adventure. She was half way to Boise when Stacy called. While she was thankful she didn’t have to drive the whole way and that Stacy would be coming into Portland, she was also stranded. She forgot to fill up the gas tank on her trip and found herself unable to get home. After calling her husband to pick her up, she sat in the van with her kids and watched movies on the DVD player. Little did she realize that by the time Ryan arrived, the battery in the van would be completely dead from the drain of the DVD player. One gas tank and a long battery-charging jump later, she drove home with very few words passing between her and Ryan.

Ryan’s cold shoulder may have been a little excessive

Meanwhile in Utah, Stacy and the girls were having a grand time with grandparents. The next morning, Stacy called Delta to find her bags. Delta still had nothing to offer. Stacy found out that Delta would replace up to $1000.00 worth of items from the bag, so she should keep receipts for any replacement purchases. However, they specifically stated that they do not replace cameras. Great.

Do you know how long I had to save up for that? That’s top of the line!

Stacy’s flight to Oregon was exhausting, but without mishap. Ryan was waiting at the airport for her when he heard a call over the intercom for Vicki to come to the baggage claim. Wondering why our 5 year old would be getting paged, he responded and found that not only had they located Stacy’s bag, but had delivered it to Portland. Odd, considering Stacy’s flight plan never hit Portland until after they lost the bag. Stacy and the girls arrived safely, found all of the luggage, and made the trip to Ryan and Nicole’s without any more problems.

Now Nicole is a couple of sizes bigger and drugged while Stacy is corralling all of the children until Nicole recovers. After that, watch out Portland!

Quasi-bachelorhood, Sweaty Work, Screaming Slugs, Overweight Houses, and More Sweaty Work

Monday found me spending the morning with Stacy and the girls at Dr. Jim’s Emporium of Back Ache, Neck Injurie, Spine Crackyng, and All Natyral Remedys. Stacy wanted to get in a good session of spine crackyng before she and the girls made the arduous journey to Portland, OR. Stacy will be there for her friend’s life (and breast)-altering surgery. I say good on her. If you don’t have much to begin with and adding somewhat will make you feel good about yourself, then get implants by all means. With her husband going to school full time, she won’t have much help around the house with her three little boys. This is where my wife comes in, with her three little girls. So what you actually have now instead of an invalid with three boys is an invalid, three boys, three girls, and my wife. Lucky her. More on her traveling travails later.

Don't worry, she's used to traveling!

In the meantime, I have been plunged back into quasi-bachelorhood. As I’ve said before, I am a boring bachelor. Not only do I not do any of the “fun” things other bachelors do, I don’t do any of the “fun” things other people in general do. My idea of a wild time is catching a double feature at the movies. Wooooo! That being said, my next two weeks will most likely involve puttering around the house while I try to finish up projects that have been waiting forever.

I've really got to finish that living room!

One such project is the yard. It’s amazing what weeds will do when left to their own devices as we vacation, recuperate from minor surgery, sit on our lazy asses, etc. I made some good headway today, but was cut short when my lawnmower got so hungry that it decided to perform some self-cannibalism. Either that, or the rubber piece that smooves down the grass before cutting suddenly became suicidal. It went right under the blade, metal mounting rod and all. I decided that since I had already sweated out my first two bottles of water and I still had a service project to attend later, I would stop for the day.

Foreground: Mowed, Background: Overtaken by the Verge

I’ve seen a few trailers for Monster House over the last couple of months and thought I’d preview it to see if Stacy could take Vicki. Unbeknownst to me, the theater I chose was showing the 3D version. Bonerus! I sat through the usual batch of kid movie previews and was surprised at how entertained I was at the trailer for Dreamwork’s Flushed Away. The screaming slugs just put it over the top for me. Although Nick Park (the feller what does the Wallace and Gromit) has nothing to do with it, it is an Aardman Animation production. The animation looks like computerized versions of Park’s work. There’s a short clip of one slug below, but the big one is at the end of the full trailer. Check it out here.

The movie itself wasn’t bad. I certainly wouldn’t take Vicki to see it, though. Just the first 15 minutes would give her nightmares for months. The animation was done Polar Express-style with motion capture suits on the original actors. The cast list is impressive, including Steve Buscemi, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard, Maggie Gyllenhal, Jason Lee, Kevin James, Nick Cannon, Jon Heder, and Kathleen Turner. Everyone did a fantastic job. The big payoff is when you find out that a former circus sideshow “giantess” (which is a nice way of saying, “she’s as big as a house”) is responsible for the haunting.

Oddly enough, she didn't sing

I polished off the day with a couple of hours helping a lady from the church. Apparently, the church has been helping her remodel her home after a bunch of unfortunate flooding accidents. I worked mainly on some drywall with a sprinkling of electrical work. I also could have filled another couple of buckets with sweat. I don’t know if it is the humidity or just me, but I have been perspiring like a perforated swine.

Because I've mentally scarred you with this talk about sweat, here's a picture of sexy Halle Berry in sweats. Feel better?

Pain in my Ass pt 2, Recent Movies, and Thunder Storms

Originally posted June 23, 2006

I had a few things I wanted to share about last week that I just didnt get to. One of the first things I did as a bachelor after my work week was go to the surgeons office and get my pre-op checkup. Turns out that the surgeon doesnt think I have a problem. He examined the area around my tailbone and said he wasnt even sure I had a cyst. Naturally, I had already finished my antibiotic regimen at this point. I wasnt supposed to have any outward signs of the cyst. When I explained everything to him, he treated me like some hypochondriac that looked up the information on a pilonidal cyst and decided I had one. I patiently explained that this was my fourth such flare-up and that I had to have two of the three before lanced by a physician. He maintained that I did not need the surgery and that it would be wholly elective. I elected. So Ill be going under the knife (more aptly put, the knife will be going under me) on June 28^th. Poor Jon will be without my sparkling personality for the following two weekends as I recover.

Exciting bachelor life, right? Yeah, not really. I did find my inner chef while Stacy and the girls were gone, though. I grabbed a few interesting recipes from the Interweb thingy and headed to the grocery store for the goods. I ended up cooking a few gourmet dishes that turned out pretty good. Two favorites were Grilled Portobello with Sun-Ripened Tomatoes & Mozzarella and Mahi Mahi in Macadamia Nut Crust. I was able to share my culinary delights with my family since Stacy and the girls came home last Wednesday on schedule.

I wanted Stacy to stay out there as long as it took to help her family member, but she decided she was doing more harm than good. I was not sorry that she came home early at all. I concluded long ago that I am not cut out for the bachelors life. Although I did enjoy the additional free time that it entailed, I did not enjoy going to bed alone at night. I developed a severe case of insomnia during the short time Stacy was in Utah. It was nothing that Stacys return and some Excedrin PM couldnt resolve.

As I was en route to the airport to pick up my girls, Jon called to see if I wanted to go to A Prairie Home Companion. With the OK from the wiff, whom I did not want to abandon the day after she got home, I told Jon Id be there. Stacy and I decided to take the girls to see Cars on the same day. Thats right, I got to hit the double feature. Its been years since Ive gone to a double feature, mostly because actual double features do not exist anymore. Going to two movies in a row are about as close as you get.

A Prairie Home Companion was good. The ensemble cast did a great job of working together with no real grandstanding. By far, my favorite character was Kevin Klines Guy Noir, the bumbling, down-on-his-luck private eye that was moonlighting as the VP of security/head of security/sole security guard of the radio studio. For those of you who are not familiar with A Prairie Home Companion, something I was only in passing, it is a radio show headed by Garrison Keillor (GK in the movie.) It is a variety show complete with musical acts, stories from Garrison, sound effects, and fictional advertisements for things like Buttermilk Biscuits, look for the big blue box with the biscuit on the front. What I didnt realize as I was watching the movie, but that Jon educated me about later, is that most of the characters behind the scenes of the radio show were the fictional characters that Garrison would tell stories about on the actual radio show. Many of them were originally voiced by some of the movie cast members that were playing themselves. Its all very confusing in writing, but it made for an entertaining movie. I would give A Prairie Home Companion 4 out of 5 stars.

Afterwards, as Jon and I were discussing Kevin Klines brilliantly subdued buffoonery, Jon wondered why Kline wasnt tapped to play Inspector Clouseau in the latest remake of the famed Pink Panther movie instead of Steve Martin. I later found that Kline is in the movie, but only as Chief-Inspector Dreyfuss, the poor man that is the butt of most of Clouseaus mishaps. I think that one reason Kline may not have been chosen for the lead role is that his French accent is not nearly outrageous enough. Throughout his performance the dramatic resonance of his almost sing-song delivery of lines paved over any attempt at a foreign accent. Martin, on the other hand, did no better as Clouseau. His accent was outrageous, but his performance was barely amusing at the best of times. The only redeeming factor was Beyonce Knowles as Random Sexy Lady That Is Not The Leads Romantic Interest. Specifically during the final sequence wherein Beyonce does what Beyonce does best, singing and shakin it. Said shakin occurred in a slinky evening dress sans bra. Verry nice. Unfortunately, not nice enough to save this movie. I would give Pink Panther 1 out of 5 stars.

Enough about Beyonces jubblies, on to Pixars latest contribution to the CG glut of kids movies, Cars. It was entertaining in a completely different manner than A Prairie Home Companion. Where the latter gave us humor in the Americana of a dying radio show, the former gives us car-related puns and a few humorous gems for the parents. While I did find the movie endearing overall, I do have a complaint about the talent. I dont remember where I read it, but someone recently commented on the trend of celebrities voicing CG characters and how it tends to detract from viewer enjoyment. How often have you heard a voice over and wracked your brain to figure out who it is while the action continues on screen? Perhaps even more annoying is when a voice over is performed by an actor you despise. Case in point: Lightning McQueen, Cars lead role as voiced by Owen Dicknose Wilson. His smarmy delivery of lines is made only slightly more tolerable by not having to see his insincere, Im very sincere facial expression that accounts for half of his emotive repertoire (the other half being his all-too-sincere smug expression.) What was the purpose of having Paul Newman voice the older car? What did that bring to the movie? How about Cheech Marin as the stereotypical hydrolic-lifted, custom-paint-job, low-rider Impala? A few of the voice-over artists actually brought something to their roles, such as Tony Shalhoub as the Italian Fiat 500 or George Carlin as the stoner hippy VW Minibus. I still maintain that actors doing voiceovers has gotten out of hand. When the movie is a vehicle (no pun intended) for the voice over artists rather than the story, the superb animation, or a myriad other things that should take precedence, then the experience is cheapened. Id give Cars a middling to fair review, I guess 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Other stuff happened, but I think Im just going to bring this blog up to date with a pitiful story about my daughter, Zoe. I had taken my sleeping pills early on last night so I could get my sleep schedule ready for the weekend. Stacy had gone to a Tupperware party and left me to put the girls to bed. No big deal, it was done within an hour. I was drifting off to sleep despite the screaming infant in the cradle next to my bed by the next hour. Suddenly, I was awakened at 11:30 PM. It only took a few seconds to realize why. Rain was hammering down on the roof and sides of the house while lightning flashed and thunder pealed in machine-gun bursts. It was loud and close. Judging from the lack of a full second between lightning and thunder, it was hitting within a mile of our house. Stacy had not returned by then. I was slightly worried with the storm outside and Stacy missing, but I figured I would have gotten a call from her if anything was wrong. I lay there awake, drowsing, as I waited for the inevitable cry from the girls room as one or both of them was awakened by the storm. In-between a lazy blink of my eye, a shadowy figure loomed out of the dark, illuminated from behind by the flashes of lightning. I freaked. Hazy memories of The Exorcism of Emily Rose flashed through my mind. It took me a second to realize it was Stacy. She had come home a couple of hours ago and was just waiting in the office for one of the girls to wake up. Minutes later, Zoe did just that. The poor girl was so terrified of the noise from the thunder that she had her hands clutched to her ears no matter what we did. Stacy passed her over to me while she was getting into bed and those hands did not even budge. I found out from Stacy this morning that Zoe kept her ears covered tightly even after she fell asleep. Poor kid.

I'm going to end on a note about this blog's location. With Myspace patchy blog performance, I am thinking about moving to blogspot or a similar blog host. Watch this space for a link.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig or, I'm the Asshole

Originally posted June 9, 2006

I flew into Washington/Dulles International Airport yesterday. While it is good to be back in NoVA, I miss my family. Stacy and the girls will be staying in UT for a few weeks while she helps out a family member.

I generally pride myself on my airplane manners. I don't make a lot of noise, I keep to myself, and I do not encroach on my fellow passenger's space. That is probably the reason it irks me so much when other people don't use any manners. Case in point: a family of six sat in the row behind me. I was in the window seat, and one of the sons was in the middle seat behind while his dad was next to him in the aisle seat. I put the boy somewhere between 9 and 10 years of age. As soon as they sat down, the son began screaming everything he says at the top of his lungs. I was annoyed, but I thought to myself, "Just live with it. As soon as the plane is cruising I can break out my laptop and noise-cancelling headphones." So that's what I did. For the next three hours I listened to music while I did some school reading and watched a few episodes of Justice League Unlimited kindly provided by Jon. Everything was fine until the pilot told the passengers to stow all electrical devices to prep for landing. As soon as my headphones were off the aural assault began. I gritted my teeth and picked up my book. Ever try to concentrate on reading when the voice of a kid that is the equivalent to an air raid siren is washing over you? It's difficult. "That's it," I thought, "At the very least, I can spare us all 15 minutes of quiet as we land." I turned in my seat and politely asked the father, "Is that your boy?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Would you mind asking him to quiet down a bit?" I asked nicely.

"No. I can't, he's autistic!" he replied, eyes widened in defensive shock and anger.

Yes, I'm the asshole that told the autistic kid to shut the hell up.

Okay, I'm the bad guy. I can handle that. What I didn't get was the father's angry response. I didn't know the kid was autistic. Was I supposed to assume? Should I have asked him? "Hey, is your kid autistic or are you just a bad father?" You think he'd appreciate me assuming that his boy didn't have a condition. Aren't we all supposed to view people with handicaps as being handicapable?

So, as the plane taxied to the terminal and gently nuzzled up to the jetway, I performed the Walk of Shame out of the gate. I could feel the father's angry stare as I slung on my backpack and made my way up the cramped corridor between the seats. On the way out I tipped over an old lady in a wheelchair because she was going to slow, kicked the crutches out from a girl with a broken leg because she was in my way, and spit on a little boy with cerebral palsy because he couldn't fight back. Go me!