Saturday, February 19, 2011
I know, I know
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
My first regular season game: Bruins 3-1 Caps
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
I should be sleeping but as soon as I crawled into bed...
Justin fell asleep. So we took pictures. Seriously, do you expect anything less then us. Of course not. Oh and don't worry. This picture is on facebook for everyone to see in all it's glory. We also saw this nugget while driving down the road.
Monday, October 18, 2010
ugh.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
A weekly update.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
20 life lessons I learned in my 20's
- If you’re smiling right now, you’re doing something right.
- It’s not so much what you say that counts, it’ how you make people feel.
- The biggest mistake you can make is doing nothing because you’re scared to make a mistake.
- No matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should be. Either you succeed or you learn something. Win-Win.
- Freedom is the greatest gift. Self-sufficiency is the greatest freedom.
- If you catch yourself working hard and loving every minute of it, don’t stop. You’re on to something big. Because hard work ain’t hard when you concentrate on your passions.
- It’s not about getting a chance, it’s about taking a chance. You’ll rarely be 100% sure it will work. But you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work. Sometimes you just have to go for it!
- Complaining is like slapping yourself for slapping yourself. It doesn’t solve the problem, it just hurts you more.
- The one with nothing to hide is always the one left standing tall.
- You can press forward long after you can’t. It’s just a matter of wanting it bad enough.
- There’s a big difference between knowing and doing. Knowledge is basically useless without action.
- In work and business, when they need you more than you need them, you have succeeded.
- Everything that happens in life is neither good nor bad. It just depends on your perspective.
- We are all weird. And life is weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we call it love.
- True friendship and true love do sustain the tests of distance and time.
- You can’t change who you are. You can only change what you know and how you apply this knowledge.
- It is okay to be angry. It is never okay to be cruel.
- Even when you feel like you have nothing, someone else likely has far less. Find them and help them. You’ll see why.
- Having a thousand credentials on the wall will not make you a decent human being. But genuinely helping one person everyday will.
- Remember, change happens for a reason. Roll with it. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
'ello blogland.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Drinking
Did you know that if you go to bed wasted, your brain can't dream? It's like a medical thing. I have my own theory and that's that your brain is like, "Dude, I'm not going to entertain you after what you just did to me for the last six hours. Oh, you want to feel what it's like to fly? Go f**k yourself. I'll be up all ...night with your liver, figuring out how we're going to make it to 50."
Friday, August 13, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Childhood is Calling
If I had to make an initial list of things to do this summer for the future lost tribe of childhood members it would go something like this:
Climb in a tree and hang out
Jump across a stream to a grassy bank on the other side
Capture (and release) frogs and salamanders
Jump into thick piles of fresh hay
Play hide and seek in the dark with a tribe of friends
Pick flowers and make bouquets
Build a fort
Pound some nails
Make a homemade toy
Make a paper airplane
Make a toy parachute
Ride a bike across the lawn with no hand
Skip rocks really well
Learn to tie a good knot
Make a lean-to tent from blankets
Camp outside under the stars
Walk with a flashlight in the night woods to spot deer and other nocturnal creatures
Gaze night sky and just try to make sense of those stars ( or learn the constellations!)
Run outside for hour and hours until exhausted
Fall into bed for a good night sleep after running for hours and hours
Learn to swim really well, without fear
Learn to canoe or kayak and paddle down a river or across a lake
Tube down a stream and get bumped around and holler with joy and fear
Have a pet (or many similtaneously)
Plant a small garden and tend it
Grow tomatoes and eat them fresh from the vine
Pick wild blackberries
Pick quarts and quarts of strawberries and eat your fill as you go
Have unlimited strawberry shortcake as a special summer lunch
Plan a neighborhood carnival with friends and family and build all the props from cardboard boxes. Donate the proceeds to a favorite charity.
Ride a bike down a soft grassy hill that end gently at the base (with one or two friends on the seat and handle bar)
Roller skate
Play with jacks
Master the game of marbles
Jump rope (double dutch)
Learn how to build a campfire
Fish (catch and release)
Hook a worm
Gut that fish (not me!)
Make a pie
Make a birthday cake
Make lemonade from scratch
Play barefoot in the grass
Dip toes into soft mucky mud or silt along a brook or stream
Slit grass and make a whistle
Pound rocks and sticks with no other purpose than to pound
Read a favorite book on the lawn, in a hammock
Make a good friend for life
Sleep for hour and hours late into the morning and awake to find a loving parent there to make you breakfast
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The Advantages of being old
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run into a burning building.
4. People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There's nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won't wear out.
8. You can eat dinner at 4 p.m.
9. You can live without sex (but not without glasses).
10. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
11. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.
12. You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.
13. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
14. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
15. You sing along with the elevator music.
16. Your eyes won't get much worse.
17. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
18. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the National Weather Service.
19. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
20. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Baby Blanket
Here are pictures of the final work. Well, pictures of it while it is blocked.
Monday, March 23, 2009
This is what I plan to do..
western Mediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly lady sitting alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room. I also noticed that all the staff, ships officers, waiters, busboys, etc., all seemed very familiar with this lady.
I asked our waiter who the lady was, expecting to be told that she owned the line, but he said he only knew that she had been on board for the last four cruises, back to back.
As we left the dining room one evening I caught her eye and stopped to say hello. We chatted and I said, "I understand you've been on this ship for the last four cruises". She replied, "Yes, that's true." I stated, "I don't understand" and she replied, without a pause, "It's cheaper than a nursing home".
So, there will be no nursing home in my future. When I get old and feeble, I am going to get on a Princess Cruise Ship. The average cost for a nursing home is $200 per day. I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get a long term discount and senior discount price of $135 per day. That leaves $65 a day for:
1. Gratuities which will only be $10 per day.
2. I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service (which means I can have breakfast in bed every day of the week).
3. Princess has as many as three swimming pools, a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.
4. They have free toothpaste and razors, and free soap and shampoo.
5. They will even treat you like a customer, not a patient. An extra $5 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to help you.
6. I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14 days.
7. T.V. broken? Light bulb need changing? Need to have the mattress replaced? No Problem! They will fix everything and apologize
for your inconvenience.
8. Clean sheets and towels every day, and you don't even have to ask for them.
9. If you fall in the nursing home and break a hip you are on Medicare; if you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.
Now hold on for the best! Do you want to see South America, the Panama Canal, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, or name where you want to go? Princess will have a ship ready to go. So don't look for me in a nursing home, just call shore to ship.
PS. And don't forget, when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
More food goodness
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Movie Review: Zathura
Two boys, Walter and Danny, discover a space themed board game from the basement, where everything inside it becomes real. The boys are eventually drawn into an adventure when their house is magically hurtled through space. The story is similar to Jumanji, another illustrated book by Van Allsburg (in the book, the Zathura game is contained inside the Jumanji one, although paradoxically the astronaut is revealed to be the creator of Jumanji. Likewise in the movie versions Zathura takes place in the 2000's and Jumanji takes place in the 1960's).
During the course of the story, the boys must overcome their personal ill-feeling held toward one another in order to survive. They are aided in this by an astronaut who appears as a result of the game. This astronaut is eventually revealed to be an older version of Walter, who had been trapped as a character in the game's world as a result of causing the disappearance of Danny, without whom he was no longer a player. Thus, the game could not advance without Danny taking his turn. This backstory becomes the basis, although the viewer only sees its role as such in retrospect, of parallels drawn between the two versions of Walter, including a revelation of the backstory without mention of his name or that of his brother. He is finally released when Walter summons his brother back to him. Both he and his brother seem to merge with Danny and Walter (after the astronaut turns back into another version of Walter) now that the future caused by Walter wishing Danny away has been erased.
Accompanying Danny, Walter, and the astronaut is their cantankerous elder sister, Lisa, who while not a player is as vulnerable to the dangers present in the game. She is placed in cryogenic freeze for five turns. She develops a crush on the astronaut, and is thus horrified when she finds out that she fell for an older version of her brother Walter.
The main villains in the movie are the Zorgons;reptilian, biped tool-users who are fond of heat and are attracted to a heat source much like bees are attracted to nectar, because they are cold-blooded. The Zorgons, having burned their own planet to obtain more heat, are nomads who travel through space seeking more to burn and who keep a flock of four-eyed goats on their ship.
Another character, a robot, first appears as a wind-up tin toy that quickly becomes life-size. It is supposed to defend the players, but as it is malfunctioning it mis-identifies Walter as an alien life form and begins rampaging through the house. Walter uses a "Reprogram" card on the robot, and it instead sets its sights on the Zorgons. A single Zorgon survives the robot's kamikaze attack and sneaks up behind Walter and Danny as they are wondering where Lisa is. Just as it's about to kill them, it is crushed and killed by Lisa with Danny's piano. Unfortunately, a massive Zorgon fleet arrives and attacks after Walter frees the astronaut and his brother.
Danny eventually completes the object of the game, whereupon the house is drawn into a roaring black hole, which Danny realizes is Zathura. The Zorgon fleet is pulled into the black hole, as are Lisa and Walter. Moments later, they have returned to Earth. All the "pieces" of the game (the house, its furnishing, and the players) have been replaced as they were before the game began. The brothers are thereafter much more cooperative with one another. The boys, and Lisa, retain their memories of the game's events in which they all agree never to speak of Zathura again.
As the kids get in the car with their mother and drive away, one of their bicycles which drifted off into space falls back to the lawn.
MY REVIEW:
I loved this movie. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time while watching it. This may have been what I was like when I watched Jumanji the first time. It has a great morale to the movie as well. I highly recommend this movie for others. The only problem I really had with the movie was that the younger brother was really whiny and it got on my nerves.
4 1/2 out of 5 stars.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
If My Life Were a Role-Playing Game...
If my life were an RPG, this is how my typical day would go.
I would wake up in the morning exactly eight hours after going to sleep while standing next to my bed fully dressed. If I’d had any injuries, such as a cut on my thumb or a sore calf, they would be fully healed. I would have a lot of energy.
I would leave my house at a full run, neglecting to eat or brush my teeth or change my clothes. I’d head roughly in a straight line toward work, running through traffic, leaping over hedges, trash cans, or other obstructions. If I came to a river, and there was not a bridge in the immediate vicinity, I’d just swim across it fully clothed.
The door to the office, although locked, would open for me because I have the key in my pocket.
My boss would not ask me to do any work, even if he was right next to me, looking at me, until I chose to speak with him. He would also have no reaction to me jumping on his desk and kicking his stuff all over the place.
Though chairs are everywhere, I would not sit the entire day, even while working at my desk.
I would wear my coat and sweatshirt the entire day, regardless of the fact that it is much warmer in the office than it is outdoors. If I did decide to take off my coat, it would fall, neatly folded, next to me. Coworkers walking by would think nothing of walking over it or kicking it aside.
The visitor in the lobby looking for one of my coworkers would not just let me point the way down the hall to my coworker’s cubicle. He would insist I deliver a message to my coworker personally. He would wait in the lobby, perhaps for months, until I had delivered the message and returned to tell him I had done so.
After completing this task, and others, I would then be able to choose if I’d like to become slightly stronger, smarter, more durable, or more charismatic. (Sadly, I would not be able to choose to be a few inches taller.)
I would keep track of all my current, and completed tasks, no matter how trivial, in a journal I carried with me. When someone asked me to do something, I would write their instructions down, word for word, or perhaps make a recording of them speaking the instructions for future reference. Even incredibly important tasks would be unlikely to have a deadline.
If I decided to kill a coworker, it wouldn’t be a problem unless another coworker saw or heard me doing it. If they didn’t, I could then drag the corpse of my coworker around, or leave it in plain sight, and no one would say a thing about it.
I’d probably skip lunch, but if I decided to eat, I could choose from a large selection of food, like potato chips, fruit and vegetables, an entire ham, bagels, sandwiches, oatmeal, etc, all of which I am carrying in my pockets. I’d have no compunctions about eating something I’d found on the ground, or meat I’d been carrying with me for weeks. If I decided to have some wine with lunch, I couldn’t just have a glass: I’d drain the entire bottle in one gulp.
I’d talk to a few people at the office, though some, the ones I don’t know well and don’t really work with, wouldn’t have much to say besides a single sentence, like “I hear the supply cabinet on the second floor is a great place to find office supplies” or “Anytime I want to make a change to my health benefits, I visit Mary Tompkins in Human Resources.” Or, “Hello there!”
On the way home (running again), I might stop at the store for cigarettes. If I didn’t have enough cash on me, I’d simply sell some of my belongings to the guy behind the counter, such as spare ammunition, clothing, food, or a spare wristwatch, until I had enough money to cover the balance.
If I’d dropped something on the way to work, even if it was very expensive and left right out in the open, it would still be lying right where I’d dropped it.
I might talk to a few people on the way home. They might ask for my help with a sensitive matter, such as escorting their child somewhere, or delivering a message or item to a family member in another city. They’d absolutely trust me with this task, despite me being a complete stranger.
At home again, I’d run in the door, dump the items I didn’t want to carry on the floor, and head right for bed. (Actually, this isn’t that far from the truth sometimes.)