...And Say Hi To Your Mom For Me
I feel so out of the LJ loop. My paid account expired and while I won't be shutting down the journal I am wondering if I am getting my full $25 a year's worth out of it. Still, it might be worth it just to keep all my Get Fuzzy related user pics. :)
(Note: I've used the one above many times and for those who don't know it's Matt Damon from his appearance on the PBS kids show Arthur.)
Last week was an adventure. Bailey has been out of town on his annual visit with his grandparents so we were minus one all week, which is great in terms of the overall volume of the house. We also try to make it a special week for whoever is home (Bay or Gavin) while the other is getting full-on spoiled by the grandparents. We took Gavin out to eat and tried Famous Dave's BBQ for the first time (my wife and I thought it was great; Gavin liked it but wasn't super hungry so only ate half his dinner) abd he and I did some video game bonding on Super Mario Bros (Wii). I spent 3 of my 5 work days subbing on the early shift (up at 3AM for a 4AM to Noon), so on of those afternoons I took him to the Family Fun Center and we got All Day passes for go-karts, mini-golf, laser tag, and the roller coaster simulator. The latter nearly made me hurl as it is not so much a simulator as it is a way to flip people upside down for 3 minutes. Roller coasters I love because they have to apply to the laws of physics. The simulator? Not as much. I love loops and corkscrews and the wind blowing your hair on a roller coaster. The simulator just does non stop looping and twisting, which could never happen on a coaster. So we only did that once. Go-karts were considerably more fun but Gavin is still about 2 inches shy of being able to drive his own car so he only got to be a passenger. :(
Gavin spent the weekend down at an old friend's house in our former city (we're picking him up en route to retrieving Bailey) so my wife and I had all of Saturday to ourselves, which was lovely. Even the routine "have to do" stuff is nice when the kids are absent. We went to the grocery store and to Whole Foods (and I separate the two because as much as I love Whole Foods I could not picture getting all my groceries there, both in terms of what I eat and what I can actually afford) and later, after dinner and a movie, wound up back at Whole Food to buy a mini-pie and a slice of cake. Their goodies are so kick ass. Honest to God, I think I'd rather get the 'normal', non-organic vegetables to stay in our budget and make all the treats and goodies in our lives of the Whole Foods/organic variety. Best cherry pie since I five-starred "Cherry Pie" on Guitar Hero! :)
As I noted above, I did the early shift for 3 days this week, as I am on the sub list for that very busy, multi-tasker of a shift. The down side to it is that it has a 3AM alarm clock. But the positives are that it's a busy shift and that makes it go by so much faster, it is void of any metro traffic to speak of, and you're out of the building by 1PM. I'll be filling-in on it for a full two weeks in September and I'm actually looking forward to it. It's good in terms of being better rounded and more versatile (I am capable of working any of our shifts, 24/7), working closely with different people, and just breaking from my normal day-to-day routine. I'm impressed with how long the person who regularly works that shift has held the position. Early mornings, overnights, and other odd-hours shifts can lead to burn out pretty fast but he's really a trooper. I'm glad he's taking some well-deserved time off.
I have 4 work days left until I have a full week (plus one day!) off and I really need it. I can finally get some distance between my accrued vacation hours and the company cap on vacation hours (250) and just let myself have some fun. Most it is 'staycation' but I'm looking forward to revisiting Seattle. And there is lot of Portland metro stuff I've been meaning to do but have put on hold because I knew it was stuff we'd want to do with our from-out-of-town visitor. I've lived up here 9 months and have still never been to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), so I'm definitely looking forward to that. Plus Multnomah Falls, some beach time, and total A-Z explorations of record stores and book stores, and all the other things that have inspired the popular "Keep Portland Weird" bumper sticker.
Two movie suggestions, one in theaters and the other for Netflix/rental: Now playing at a theater near you is the excellent The Kids Are Alright, a dramedy (emphasis on drama) about a lesbian couple with teenage children who track down their sperm donor/biological father and the ramifications that come from everyone meeting. It was at times laugh out loud funny but also full of superb performances from the entire cast. Seriously, I hope the Academy Awards don't forget a summer release because both Annette Benning and Juliane Moore are incredible, and Mark Ruffalo (as the bio dad, Paul) should get a Supporting Actor nod. Just a very good film and worth checking out. On the watch-it-at-home side is Pirate Radio, an 'inspired by actual events' tale of the offshore radio stations of late 60's Britain, as the BBC had yet to adopt rock and roll to it's format. Great cast, truly awesome soundtrack, and good humor throughout. Quite frankly, at this point I will see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in anything, even if he is just part of an ensemble, as he is in Pirate Radio. Warning: The movie could very well inspire you to invest in it's 2 CD soundtrack, which is who's who (including The Who!) of 60's rock and pop, with tracks by The Kinks, The Turtles, Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield, The Hollies, and many, many more. It's a great compilation, even if if you have some it's songs on other albums. For me, the two tracks by The Turtles (neither of which is their classic staple "Happy Together) got me curious about their work and I found a nice used copy of their 20 Greatest Hits album. Like a lot of acts from that era, there were one or two big hits and most people never dig much deeper. The Turtles, as it turns out, had some great songs in their short career, in much the same way I recently discovered there is more to The Box Tops than just "The Letter" and "Cry Like a Baby". Anyway... great movies, great soundtrack for one of them, and... yeah...
Hope all is well in your world!
J
(Note: I've used the one above many times and for those who don't know it's Matt Damon from his appearance on the PBS kids show Arthur.)
Last week was an adventure. Bailey has been out of town on his annual visit with his grandparents so we were minus one all week, which is great in terms of the overall volume of the house. We also try to make it a special week for whoever is home (Bay or Gavin) while the other is getting full-on spoiled by the grandparents. We took Gavin out to eat and tried Famous Dave's BBQ for the first time (my wife and I thought it was great; Gavin liked it but wasn't super hungry so only ate half his dinner) abd he and I did some video game bonding on Super Mario Bros (Wii). I spent 3 of my 5 work days subbing on the early shift (up at 3AM for a 4AM to Noon), so on of those afternoons I took him to the Family Fun Center and we got All Day passes for go-karts, mini-golf, laser tag, and the roller coaster simulator. The latter nearly made me hurl as it is not so much a simulator as it is a way to flip people upside down for 3 minutes. Roller coasters I love because they have to apply to the laws of physics. The simulator? Not as much. I love loops and corkscrews and the wind blowing your hair on a roller coaster. The simulator just does non stop looping and twisting, which could never happen on a coaster. So we only did that once. Go-karts were considerably more fun but Gavin is still about 2 inches shy of being able to drive his own car so he only got to be a passenger. :(
Gavin spent the weekend down at an old friend's house in our former city (we're picking him up en route to retrieving Bailey) so my wife and I had all of Saturday to ourselves, which was lovely. Even the routine "have to do" stuff is nice when the kids are absent. We went to the grocery store and to Whole Foods (and I separate the two because as much as I love Whole Foods I could not picture getting all my groceries there, both in terms of what I eat and what I can actually afford) and later, after dinner and a movie, wound up back at Whole Food to buy a mini-pie and a slice of cake. Their goodies are so kick ass. Honest to God, I think I'd rather get the 'normal', non-organic vegetables to stay in our budget and make all the treats and goodies in our lives of the Whole Foods/organic variety. Best cherry pie since I five-starred "Cherry Pie" on Guitar Hero! :)
As I noted above, I did the early shift for 3 days this week, as I am on the sub list for that very busy, multi-tasker of a shift. The down side to it is that it has a 3AM alarm clock. But the positives are that it's a busy shift and that makes it go by so much faster, it is void of any metro traffic to speak of, and you're out of the building by 1PM. I'll be filling-in on it for a full two weeks in September and I'm actually looking forward to it. It's good in terms of being better rounded and more versatile (I am capable of working any of our shifts, 24/7), working closely with different people, and just breaking from my normal day-to-day routine. I'm impressed with how long the person who regularly works that shift has held the position. Early mornings, overnights, and other odd-hours shifts can lead to burn out pretty fast but he's really a trooper. I'm glad he's taking some well-deserved time off.
I have 4 work days left until I have a full week (plus one day!) off and I really need it. I can finally get some distance between my accrued vacation hours and the company cap on vacation hours (250) and just let myself have some fun. Most it is 'staycation' but I'm looking forward to revisiting Seattle. And there is lot of Portland metro stuff I've been meaning to do but have put on hold because I knew it was stuff we'd want to do with our from-out-of-town visitor. I've lived up here 9 months and have still never been to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), so I'm definitely looking forward to that. Plus Multnomah Falls, some beach time, and total A-Z explorations of record stores and book stores, and all the other things that have inspired the popular "Keep Portland Weird" bumper sticker.
Two movie suggestions, one in theaters and the other for Netflix/rental: Now playing at a theater near you is the excellent The Kids Are Alright, a dramedy (emphasis on drama) about a lesbian couple with teenage children who track down their sperm donor/biological father and the ramifications that come from everyone meeting. It was at times laugh out loud funny but also full of superb performances from the entire cast. Seriously, I hope the Academy Awards don't forget a summer release because both Annette Benning and Juliane Moore are incredible, and Mark Ruffalo (as the bio dad, Paul) should get a Supporting Actor nod. Just a very good film and worth checking out. On the watch-it-at-home side is Pirate Radio, an 'inspired by actual events' tale of the offshore radio stations of late 60's Britain, as the BBC had yet to adopt rock and roll to it's format. Great cast, truly awesome soundtrack, and good humor throughout. Quite frankly, at this point I will see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in anything, even if he is just part of an ensemble, as he is in Pirate Radio. Warning: The movie could very well inspire you to invest in it's 2 CD soundtrack, which is who's who (including The Who!) of 60's rock and pop, with tracks by The Kinks, The Turtles, Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield, The Hollies, and many, many more. It's a great compilation, even if if you have some it's songs on other albums. For me, the two tracks by The Turtles (neither of which is their classic staple "Happy Together) got me curious about their work and I found a nice used copy of their 20 Greatest Hits album. Like a lot of acts from that era, there were one or two big hits and most people never dig much deeper. The Turtles, as it turns out, had some great songs in their short career, in much the same way I recently discovered there is more to The Box Tops than just "The Letter" and "Cry Like a Baby". Anyway... great movies, great soundtrack for one of them, and... yeah...
Hope all is well in your world!
J