Kuab Ci lub Tswv Yim

Hale Freezes Over 2012

2012-01-30T20:19:00.001-07:00

(The Wife already blogged about this over here, but I thought I would post it for my own race records as well.)

Last Saturday was the first race of the year! And actually our first race since Thanksgiving, which I guess breaks our one-5K-a-month record, but that was kind of a resolution for a couple of years ago. (Also, we did a couple a month in the fall, so it balances out.) Now we just do races as they come up, which works out. We have done this race twice before, and we like it, so we decided to do it again, but opted out of the 10K option (which we did in the fall, even having barely recovered from food poisoning, yikes). Anyway, we called Dad and invited his lonely wife-less soul to join us (he's not actually wife-less, but his wife is out of state for a week or so). It was a nice morning, pretty cold, but not insanely freezing like it was the first year. The course is the same as ever, and it is a good course, even with that insane hill at the 2 mile mark. It has some good downhills and a solid uphill, so it's interesting. I confess I was relieved the turn the corner with the 5K runners and say goodbye to the 10Kers as they split off for the rest of their course.

Go, Dad!

Go, Wife!

Go, me!

This fellow was there. Some people had to hug him before they could get their prize. I didn't have to.

We all did really great, and Dad and I both won our age groups, and Julie was top 10 in hers! (To be accurate, I was actually second in my age group, but the one ahead of me was one of the overall winners, so I was awarded for the division, which is a lucky thing because they only gave medals to 1st place in each one.) I was 6th overall and 2nd in my age group at about 20:15.

Eep! Don't notice my tummy.

They have good prizes, but we never win anything in the raffle, but I DID snag a frisbee. Sort of. I didn't catch it and it dropped behind me but the lady gave it to me anyway. I felt kind of bad until I noticed her kids had one too. Right on.

Best prize ever? Probably.

When you run this race, you get vouchers for free tickets to an upcoming show, but the tickets for this one and the fall race were for the same play. Apparently they aren't willing to substitute the duplicates for another show. Hmph! I'm still looking to try to finagle something, but we'll see. It's still a good race.

The 2nd (So Far) Annual Epic Buzz Cut...

2012-01-26T09:53:00.001-07:00

... Complete with a full shave of The Beard.

Last year when we spent Christmas in Missouri I had the crazy idea to get a haircut. The idea to get a haircut itself isn't so crazy, of course, but what is fairly crazy is the amount of hair I decided to cut off. Anyone who knows me well knows that I like to grow my hair long, and of course my beard (much to the chagrin of the occasional local church leader...). The Wife likes it too, so it works out for everyone (except maybe the aforementioned occasional local church leader). But sometimes I just feel like it's time for a clean slate in the hair department, and of course, though I'm not one to go to extremes (HA), with hair, which so quickly grows back, it sometimes seems like an all or nothing kind of situation. And what better time for a fresh start than the beginning of a new year? So, last January I had my shortest haircut ever, a bona fide buzz cut, and, to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. Not to say I didn't miss my long hair, as I certainly did, but it was a nice change, it dried so quickly and required even less maintenance than usual (which is already not that much), and I wondered if it would become an annual tradition (after which I would see just how long through the year I could go without taking scissors to hair). As Christmas came and went this year I started to think that maybe I wouldn't do it again after all, but then a week or two into January, well, this happened:

I'm not exactly sure what prompted it in the end, except that I had a few days (and weeks) in a row when it was just feeling really long and shaggy and sometimes itchy and had these weird waves and was just kind of annoying me. So, off it went! I don't really feel sad about it though. I am sentimental about many things, and have been about my locks in the past, but lately I've been able to keep it all in perspective (and it DOES grow back pretty fast). People don't recognize me at first, and I myself do the occasional double take for the first few days whenever I happen to catch my reflection in the mirror, but it's fun for a change. Some have wondered why I would do such a thing in the winter instead of the more likely summertime, but that I blame on the Honor Code. It disrupted my schedule when it prompted me to grow out my hair and beard when I could, which is the summer, and keep it short when I needed to, which was the winter. Those Testing Center and Men's Chorus powers that be certainly wouldn't allow my current usual trend.

Taking a leaf out of Lili's book, though of course my hair was not nearly as long as Jeff's (oh my), though I guess the cut itself was probably as dramatic. I thought the captions were a nice touch.

And there you have it! As Julie said, it was sheep shearing day at the Graham house. Just call me shorn.

P.S. Oh, and sorry about the excess amount of skin in this post. I promise I wasn't naked.

Blogkeeping -- Winter 2012

2012-01-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

Time for just a little blogkeeping! I was really surprised to discover that I had already gone well over 100 (like 30+ over) before clearing out the list on the right. Yikes. It does fill in faster when I include all the rewatches and not just the new watches. So this list goes from late June to late November.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [r] ***** / The Muppet Christmas Carol [r] **** 1/2 / The Muppets Take Manhattan [r] *** 1/2 / The Great Muppet Caper [r] **** 1/2 / The Muppet Movie [r] **** / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 [r] ***** / DisneyNature: The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos ** 1/2 / West Side Story [r] ***** / The Turn of the Screw *** 1/2 / Watchmen ** 1/2 / District 9 **** 1/2 / Sleepy Hollow [r] *** 1/2 / Captain America [r] **** / The Three Musketeers (2011) *** / Fast Five ** / The Three Musketeers (1993) [r] *** 1/2 / Project Runway (Season 9) *** 1/2 / Fast and Furious ** 1/2 / The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift ** / Moby Dick (2011) *** 1/2 / Signs [r] ***** / LOST (Season 4) [r] **** 1/2 / 2 Fast 2 Furious ** 1/2 / The Fast and the Furious ** / Thoroughly Modern Millie [r] **** 1/2 / The Nightmare Before Christmas [r] ***** / Lars and the Real Girl [r] **** / LOST (Season 3) [r] ***** / Dream House ** 1/2 / Cellular [r] **** / Gladiator [r] **** / The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary **** 1/2 / Three O'Clock High *** 1/2 / Red Riding Hood ** / Thor [r] *** / Limitless *** / The Conspirator **** / The Lion King (3D) **** 1/2 / About a Boy **** / The Cove *** / Contagion **** / Ponyo *** / Winnie the Pooh ** 1/2 / The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh [r] **** / Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story *** / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ** 1/2 / Apollo 18 *** / 12 Rounds ** / LOST (Season 2) [r] ***** / Monarch of the Glen (Series 1) ***1/2 / Unknown *** 1/2 / Beastly * 1/2 / Cowboys & Aliens *** 1/2 / 300 ** 1/2 / A Town Called Panic *** / Gargoyles (Season 1) [r] **** 1/2 / To Kill a Mockingbird [r] **** / Planet of the Apes (1968) ** 1/2 / Rise of the Planet of the Apes [r] **** / Ondine *** / Disneynature: Oceans *** / Dirty Rotten Scoundrels [r] *** / War of the Worlds (2005) [r] *** / Rise of the Planet of the Apes **** 1/2 / She's the Man [r] **** / The Eagle ** 1/2 / Daria (Season 1) [r] ***** / Australia [r] *** / Moulin Rouge [r] ***** / Romeo + Juliet [r] *** 1/2 / Stricly Ballroom [r] ***** / LOST (Season 1) [r] ***** / December Boys ** / Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events [r] **** 1/2 / Captain America: The First Avenger **** / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 [r] ***** / Disneynature: Earth *** / So I Married an Axe Murderer [r] *** 1/2 / A Midsummer Night's Dream [r] *** / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 [r] ***** / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [1/2r] ***** / Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [r] **** / Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix [r] ***** / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [r] ***** / Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban [r] **** 1/2 / Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [r] **** 1/2 / Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone [r] **** 1/2 / The Bourne Ultimatum ** 1/2 / The Bourne Supremacy *** / The Bourne Identity *** 1/2 / Sherlock (Series 1) **** / A Tale of Two Cities *** 1/2 / Post Grad * 1/2 / Cars 2 ** 1/2 / The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [r] ***** / The Burbs [r] *** 1/2 / Catfish ***** / Burlesque * / Kung Fu Panda 2 *** 1/2 / Megamind *** 1/2

There we go. Sorry to put a hold on the news, but it's always nice to clear out the list. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogreading.

... A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2012-01-08T21:17:00.001-07:00

Happy Christmas to all! It's been a couple of weeks, but I have just barely finished taking down the tree and the lights and the wreath and the cards so it has lingered a little while, which is fine. We didn't even get our Christmas tree until like two weeks into December (since we were going to be gone to Disneyland and didn't want it to die of thirst or perhaps light our unattended house on fire somehow), so it was nice to let it carry on into the New Year a little. (Also, and this is just a little moment of venting, those little light clips are pretty handy, and some of them stayed put, but others were SO resistant to stick to their respective surfaces... And THEN a couple of them peeled the paint off when I tried to take them down?!? Whatev.) SO we had a very nice Christmas Day and also a great New Year, so here are some pictures and a little report.

Christmas Eve! I am a present.

We had a delightful Christmas Eve dinner with lots of varied items and watched Edward Scissorhands.

Christmas morning! Santa Claus came and brought many exciting things. I love that LOST book so so so much, and Santa always has such great taste in neckwear. Various other musical DVDs also appeared here and there throughout the day as well (one was in the fridge).

Santa Claus also much know that Julie really likes The Nightmare Before Christmas and Harry Potter and Wii Lego games and Dumbo. Also, again with the great taste in neckwear.

We finally bought some semi-decent stockings this year! One of these days we'll have some kind of mantel to hang them on.

My stocking included this killer do-rag. SO HARDCORE.

We saw these in Disneyland a few years ago and Julie very much wanted them but decided against it. She's never been able to forget about them, but we haven't found them in any parks since that trip. Turns out they're not really available anymore, but thanks to the internet, they finally appeared under our tree, much to her delight.

This is the t-shirt for the race Julie's sister Marci organized. I did the art for the design so she sent us a couple of the shirts. It's looks great!

After we awoke and opened our presents, we went to church, which was really nice on Christmas morning. Then we came home and spent a lot of time together and went over to Mom and Dad's house in the afternoon for very many delicious foods and an impromptu Christmas concert.

'Tis Christmas.

On Christmas night we had a slumber party in the living room and watched movies in the glow of the Christmas lights. Turns out the rug isn't quite enough padding to qualify as a mattress, but it was still fun.

It was a great Christmas! I daresay it was the best ever. The next week I basically worked only two days, and then had another nice long weekend (I had a few days off left to use up), so it was a really great break. Unfortunately right after Christmas I came down with a wee cold, which The Wife shortly after caught from me. It always takes her a little while longer than me to recover from those sorts of things, so we spent the vacation watching a lot of movies (some terrible, but it's okay when it's from the Redbox and only cost approximately $1) and relaxing and doing things like this:

It's a giant 1000-piece puzzle of a map of Disneyland from Santa Claus! It took us a couple of evenings, and it's a little harder than it looks, especially because the picture on the box is so tiny and the puzzle art itself is very very detailed (like, it includes every store and Guest Services kiosk, pretty much everything except the toilets, and maybe even a couple of those). But it was fun because if you're familiar with the layout of Disneyland you kind of know where to tentatively put the pieces until it's time to put them all together. We enjoyed it so much that Julie blogged about it too, which you can read here.

Julie is holding the remains of her Star Wars Marshmallow Lollipop.

Then we had New Year's weekend, which was also really nice. We had more family things at Cami's house, where we had pizza and played games and visited, and then we all played Kinect Dance Central and learned that we're pretty great dancers. Julie's cold really hit after that, so we took it easy for the rest of the weekend.

New Year's flowers! It had just been a while since The Wife had a nice bouquet.

The New Year's Baby came!

This weekend we decided to have a do-over of some of our New Year's weekend since Julie was under the weather for a lot of it. We stayed up until midnight last night (sure, we do that on occasion anyway, but still), and tonight we finally had our Full English Breakfast, with bubbly to follow.

It's so delicious!

Perhaps one of our favorite new traditions.

And that's about it! It's actually been a pretty long week since regular life started again, but it's nice to go back and review the festivities. It was fun to read about all the other activities our out-of-town family were up to, and we love our Christmases together. I'm a little bummed we haven't had much snow this year (so far), but it's still early! We finally took down our tree and lights and everything this week, but I figure since, like I said, we didn't put up our tree until mid-December anyway, it was okay to let it linger a few days into January. I even feel like I listened to an acceptable amount of Christmas music this year, which is very nice. At the moment I kind of can't believe we're already a week into January, but I think 2012 has a lot of promise.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all! XD

Annual Christmas Eve Journal Write

2011-12-25T00:39:00.000-07:00

'Tis Christmas Eve! I couldn't go to sleep without first continuing Melody's most memorable Christmas tradition, the Annual Christmas Eve Journal Write. It was always a good idea because then even when I hadn't written for months, or even all year, I have at least one entry to round out the year. Of course, I don't really keep a journal anymore, per se, but the old blog has served that purpose pretty well for the last few years, so I'll just write a short post on an evening such as this to continue the tradition. So this has been a very nice Christmas season, and it was quite busy, but things are winding down now. It's been a great Christmas weekend so far, and we're looking forward to more of the same for the next couple of days. After the play ended and our Disneyland trip passed by, there were a few other exciting festive activities of note:

The day after we returned from California I led my wonderful ward choir in the program for which we've been preparing for months. We had a few ambitious selections, but our numbers have been increasing very nicely lately, and I felt like we could handle Handel. And we did! Hallelujah, indeed! It was incredible, and such a wonderful program. Rutter, Wilberg, Bush, Handel, etc. etc. etc. Right on. They sounded like a much bigger and more professional choir than we are, and everyone worked so hard. Attended by multitudes of angels, I say!
We've watched a few Christmasy movies, sometimes obliquely Christmasy, such as While You Were Sleeping, Edward Scissorhands, You've Got Mail, Love Actually and The Nativity (as well as lots of LOST, which is appropriate for any season).
We had our annual cousins' Christmas party at the Frisbys' house, and it was fun as always, and I ate way too much of that amazing dip that Stacia brings.
We went to see the Utah Regional Ballet production of The Nutcracker and it was awesome. It's amazing how weightless they seem, and also how muscular their legs are, and also how tight their pants are, and also how incredible that score is. I never get tired of it. There was a small, but live orchestra in the pit, and the dancers were excellent (including lots of adorable wee ballerinas), so it was very fun and festive.
We went on a double date with some friends to have a fancyish dinner in Salt Lake and then have a walk around Temple Square. It was so crowded, and bitingly cold, but it was really pretty and of course it was a good time. Here are some pictures:

We ate at Buca di Beppo. They have family style Italian food that is DELICIOUS. There were a lot of leftovers.

Hello, temple.

Love.

Thanks for the fun time, Jeppsons!

So yes, today there were some activities for Christmas Eve, and tomorrow there are sure to be many more for Christmas Day, but if I don't go to bed soon Santa Claus will just pass us right on by! It's so nice to spend a quiet evening at home with my beautiful and charming wife, and Christmas Eve is always magical.

Also, since it's Christmas, here is our Christmas card for this year, in case some of you who cared for one didn't get one. Our supplies were kind of limited, so we couldn't send them as far and wide as we might otherwise have. (Yes, it's the same picture as last year, the short letter following explains all.)

A Really Long Blogpost With Lots of Pictures About Disneyland at Christmastime

2011-12-18T19:51:00.001-07:00

Is it possible for Disneyland to be even more magical than it usually is? The answer is yes, yes it is. How, you ask? The answer will be revealed herein.

Since The Wife and I aren't leaving town for the Christmastime holidays, we decided we should do something fun and go to Disneyland to finally see it decorated for the season. (There are those who have expressed incredulity that we were going to Disneyland "again" already, forgetting that we haven't been there in over a year! I mean, sure, we did go to Walt Disney WORLD about six months ago, but this is totally different...)

Yay for the shuttle! It was quick and easy and less expensive than renting a car.

And we finally had a chance to see this little number.

We'll be forever part of Disneyland now! :D

We had planned to go the week prior, since rumor has it that the week or two right after Thanksgiving is amazingly uncrowded (meaning, before the incredible Christmas crowds really arrive), but soon realized that the stake play kind of put a kink in those plans. We thought the next week should still be fine as far as crowds, and of course the weather should be nice, so we made the necessary arrangements and looked very much forward to finally seeing Main Street all decked out for Christmas. And we were not disappointed!!! See here:

It's bigger than you think.

Here we are closer up for scale. I mean, it's BIG.

It's so cool in the day, but just wait until you see it at night.

Julie is taking note of how much smaller this castle seems now that she's seen the one in Orlando. Le petit chalet is still le belle chalet though!

We never tire of getting pictures like this together, can you tell? This flower arrangement was cool because it had poinsettias all over.

I guess the tree in Toontown is new this year, and quite tiny (reportedly relocated from Florida where their Toontown was much smaller). It was still festive.

Here's how it looks at night:

They do this projection show on this at night where they show pictures guests had taken that day and we were TOTALLY ON IT. It was awesome.

It's just amazing! That tree is enormous! And the castle is just beautiful. Disneyland at Halloween is awesome, but Disneyland at Christmas is ~**AWESOME**~. They play Christmas music all throughout the park and there are decorations everywhere! (Except for Tomorrowland, which was lacking almost completely in the Christmas department... Maybe since Christmas isn't tomorrow, they don't put it in there? Until Christmas IS tomorrow? Like on Christmas Eve?)

Look how empty it was! (It did get busier on the days closer to the weekend, but that first day was fantastic.)

New Orleans Square! You've never looked more festive.

There's something really eerie about this walkaround Jack costume... kind of alienish (hence our skeptical expressions). But they were really fun and in character and asked us what we want for Christmas.

Oh, the scandal!

When we see a character with no line, we figure why not? Pluto was very enthusiastic.

Yeesh Julie, can't you put the phone away for ten seconds?!? (Uh, inside joke of sorts.)

We were able to do a lot of new things that recently opened, like The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel's Undersea Adventure (that tilde is very important), Goofy's Sky School, Star Tours 2.0, and see World of Color again (twice :D). Many of the rides were also decorated on the outside, and a couple of them were decorated on the INSIDE! We rode all our favorites, including Haunted Mansion Holiday and the Christmas overlay of it's a small world.

I've never ridden Dumbo more than since I met this girl, and now I really like it. She just loves that little elephant.

I still love the submarines, but only if there's like a 5-10 minute line (which, this day, there was).

It's cool! It's different every time you ride it. I think it's funny that the little girl in the foreground with the, erm, makeover kind of looks like a space creature.

I loved it! It was a great dark ride. Mr. Limpet was even hiding in it.

She loves Buzz too. She beats me every time! But it's okay because I always beat her at Toy Story Midway Mania.

Julie loves that Haunted Mansion Holiday so.

We haven't seen the original Disneyland Haunted Mansion for a few years now, but it's okay, we love this one!

This is the final scene of it's a small world holiday, and it's pretty spectacular too.

Julie is suitably impressed.

We checked out ElecTRONica (some cool, some meh), and it was fun to see Muppet*Vision 3D after recently seeing the new movie. AND we saw snow! Falling! From the sky! On Main Street!

We also tried very many new and delicious foods, some that are just seasonal and some from new places that we haven't eaten at before (when you're there for three days and none of those days include Club 33, you start to examine your options a little more).

Pumpkin fudge YES.

Someone in our ward said we HAD to try the mint julep in New Orleans Square. It was pretty good.

Gingerbread beignets with egg nog glaze YES YES YES.

We tried the newly opened Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta in DCA. It was delicious.

Julie took one look at this chocolate creation and was like, yes please.

This is the pasta in Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta.

Of course we have to get a turkey leg each time. (But we always eat it daintily.) This one was pretty good.

The new entrance to DCA looks rather familiar... especially to those who are familiar with Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World.

DCA has a nice big tree too. It's even a Gryffindor tree.

Julie loved the snapdragons.

She really wanted to get into the arcade. Just wait a few hours, my love, you'll get all the flashing lights and pounding music you desire!

"Libations for EVERYBODYYYY!"

Julie is being recognized. It said "GAMES."

Inner 15-year-old: Ha ha ha haaaaaa!

London!

So this is an Easter Egg I heard about and had to see for myself. The sign says that security is out but the key is under the mat...

... And lo, it sure enough is!

Oh I love those Muppets so.

And now we're back to see TRON. Julie said "Make your super-excited-to-see-ElecTRONica" face. It went through many variations in the time it took her to say 1-2-3-, and apparently this is it.

3-D.

She tried to get into the office but I guess the Grid eluded us this time.

We always like to be creative with our on-ride pictures:

Um, this might be the most wet I've ever been after Splash Mountain. It was like I sat in a puddle and bucket of water was dumped on me.

Grumpy!

Oh my word, my hair.

Patty-cake patty-cake.

Jeffy's first time! He was a little traumatized.

And we just generally enjoyed the atmosphere:

It was actually quite cold on our second day. I spent most of the time in this posture until I gathered my hoodie.

Two hats!

And then we met up with Amber and everyone. Ally was hesitant to ride Big Thunder, but she ended up loving it (of course).

Julie really liked this little squirrel in the Haunted Mansion cemetery.

Tradish.

By the end of our trip, we were starting to get pretty exhausted:

I'm riding the super fancy famous Mary Poppins horse.

I was too tired to give it my full effort this time.

It was a magical trip! There were a couple of times that the crowds were heavier than I had been anticipating and hoping for, and one day it was really quite chilly (which is saying something if I think it's cold), but overall it was wonderful and I felt so Christmasy. We met up with Amber and Jillian and Allyson and Cami and Jack and Jeffy and Ethan and Jane, where we were there to not only witness, but also share in the experience of Jeffy's first time on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain (the latter he quite enjoyed, the latter... not so much--he cried after, but hey, he earned his $20. Say, why wasn't I bribed to go on rides as a kid, Mom and Dad??).

I recommend visiting Disneyland at this time of year to anyone, it makes the whole place even more magical. But set realistic expectations when it comes to your agenda, you might not get to ride everything as much as you would like to. It was a little sad to remember all the things I love about Walt Disney World, but there's so much to love at Disneyland too, so that sadness doesn't last long. Especially when the voyage from hotel to park entrance took us all of five minutes and NO shuttles. That was very lovely.

Yay, Disneyland!

And now it's been like two years since we've been to Disneyland when it's just Disneyland and not decorated for a major holiday... Maybe we better make our annual pilgrimage earlier than usual and head out there something in the spring or something?... Or the fall when all the California Adventure construction is finished?...

Come, Lord Jesus

2011-12-06T15:31:00.001-07:00

Several months ago at church they announced that the stake would be putting on a production of Savior of the World, the play that runs annually at the Conference Center. I was pretty familiar with the music of the show, though I had never seen it, and something about the way they were saying they really needed a lot of men to participate made me think I should maybe just audition and show my support in this way. So I did, and I was cast as Joseph! (More accurately, I later learned they decided to double-cast Mary and Joseph, so I was a Joseph. It was actually kind of nice sometimes to be one of two, then I could watch half the time and see what looks good and what doesn't and get ideas and feedback.) The full show is two acts -- the first is the Christmas story and the second is the Easter -- but we just did the first half surrounding the Nativity.

We rehearsed for several months and a lot of people worked really hard and spent countless hours working toward our finished goal, which was presented last weekend. I performed as Joseph on Thursday and Saturday night, watched with Julie on Friday night, and participated in the Angel Chorus for the Saturday afternoon show, and it was just a really nice experience. I was the only one in the cast with a real beard, and it was interesting getting used to walking in long burlap robes. I relearned that I'm not really much of an actor, but I think I made some progress by the end (I hope!). It was great to do a little musical theater too, whenever I do I usually quite enjoy it. I know the show is produced by the Church, and it's very sweet and means a lot, but some of that dialogue was just, erm, really hard to communicate... (That's my nice way of saying I had some issues with the script.) I kept looking in the audience to see if Mr. Guffman had come to see the show... Anyway, thanks to everyone who could make it to see the show, but for those who were unable for whatever reason, I have some pictures and videos! Showing here:

Getting ready for our matinee (I had to make do with whatever Angel Chorus robe I could find).

Me and the other Joseph! Great beard, Chuck. (Yes, see how humongous my robe is? It did the trick.)

Here we have the other Mary and Joseph.

Mary and Joseph sing Look On Me This Day (Duet). Come on, Joe, exercise some faith!

Getting ready for the wedding

Greeting the shepherds who came looking for the child.

The finale at the manger! It rather glows (technical difficulty, but it's a fitting effect, right?).

The entire cast

Friends!

This is actually my wife, in case there was any confusion due to the events that took place on stage.

There was a display of Nativities and artwork, and I contributed a couple of pieces.

Here's another piece I offered for the display.

And now, some videos! These are both of the songs I sang in.

The "emotional high point of the show":

So there you have it. It was a wonderful run and a great experience. I saw a couple of people from the show the next day in the halls at church and I was a little surprised at how much I missed them already! I guess that's how it is when you do these shows. It was such a nice way to really bring in the spirit of Christmas. I'm certainly glad I don't have to bear the awesome responsibility of raising the Son of God like Joseph did, but it was an honor and a real pleasure playing him for an hour or so at a time.

Now... once this Sunday's ward choir Christmas program is over... then I can really relax for the rest of the season.

Many Thanks

2011-12-03T16:42:00.001-07:00

'Tis December. Christmas is coming! I'm excited. But last weekend was Thanksgiving! And it was exciting too. Here's what we did:

The day before Thanksgiving (I couldn't let this go unreported...) we went to see The Muppets.

!!!!! I have not stopped thinking about it since! Those who know me well know that I have long held a special place for the Muppets in my heart, and after their most recent cinematic offering turned out to be pretty disappointing, fans were super excited that they were coming back to the big screen (10+ years later) in what looked to be fine form. And in fine form they truly were! It was funny and sweet and nostalgic and (okay, maybe at times a little overly) sentimental, but fans of the original movies or The Muppet Show will find plenty of references and exciting throwbacks throughout. It was a musical, as it should be, and Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords) wrote some really awesome songs that fit perfectly into the canon of Muppet Music. I have no particular love for Jason Segel's body of work, but I do admire his diligence in bringing the Muppets back to the movies in the right way, and he owned his silly but touching role in this, and Amy Adams was perfect as his sweetly pining girlfriend, basically the kind of part she was born to play. Anyway, go see it! I think the new character of Walter actually fits really well in the world of the Muppets, and I'm kind of curious how he will factor into the franchise as time goes by. It had heart and it was a perfect Thanksgiving weekend release. I basically haven't stopped listening to the soundtrack since it came out. We had been having a Muppet 'thon the weeks leading up to this big event, and it was so exciting to end on such a high note. Thanks for the support, Wife! (It was even worth the swap for the Fast and the Furious marathon, ha ha.) I want to see it again!

Then on Thursday we were up nice and early to head over to The Fleet Feet Turkey Trot 5K in American Fork. It was a pretty unique race, going all around the shopping center, behind stores and through parking lots, and it made for a pretty flat and interesting course, and there was a nice big turnout! We just don't usually run in races with 800 people! I came in 4th (ouch, I came THIS close to winning a pie... I guess it's a good thing our Thanksgiving dinner's success didn't depend on me winning one, though among us we took home a few anyway), but I was satisfied with my time (about 20:42, 6:42/mile), and Julie, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Cami, Amber and Amber's friend Corie all did great too. And the race shirts were hoodies! Right on.

You really want to see the one that was taken right before this when Cami tried to jump up next to me and she's making this face kind of like ;Sp and it's all blurry, but... I think I would be put on Santa's (and Cami's) Naughty List if I put that on the interwebs for all to see.

We love to run and we love each other.

Amber and Corie wanted to take a jumping picture. We're all in this together!

So then Cami decided to pay tribute to an old favorite.

I tried to join in, since the original had two people (see a reunion reenactment here), but we just couldn't get it in sync. This turned out to be the best one we took, and it was actually the first.

But Cami decided to have a solo one with a little more evident enthusiasm.

Then we rushed home so we could get our contributions to dinner ready. Julie worked all afternoon on a most beautiful cake, which was amazing, and very well-received, and we also packed up some green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and headed up to the house. Dinner was delightful and delicious! We were a little late, so we were sad that people were kind of full by the time our wonderful sides arrived, but I guess that just meant that we had more leftovers to enjoy. :D

Aaaand for some reason I never ever have any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, so you'll just have to imagine scrumptious-looking foods and scrumptious-looking people eating said foods, or wait a few days and perhaps find those on everyone else's blogs. (But you can [and should] see the cake that Julie made right here. OMGoodness, sooo delicious.)

I am thankful for ever so many things that I can hardly enumerate or name them, but definitely at the top of the list are faith, family, Savior and of course Wife. Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.

(And now this means I am safe to listen to Christmas music without fear of abuse or ridicule, right? Suckaz, I've been filtering it in for weeks! In past years I have been bullied so into waiting until the "Christmas season" that by the time Christmas finally arrived, I realized my paranoia had caused me to hardly listen to any at all. NO MORE! There's too much great music and meaning to relegate its listening and celebration to just a few weeks.)

A Tale of Two 10Ks

2011-11-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

I had planned to blog last week all about Halloween weekend, and the glorious (and not so glorious) events that transpired surrounding that holiday, but then The Wife blogged about it, and in such a complete and stylish fashion, it seemed like it would be kind of redundant for those of you who read both of our blogs. So, instead I just decided to link to her post for some of the details. Look here for information on Julie's lovely sister visiting and our fast-food experience that brought a whole new meaning to the phrase "In-N-Out Burger," and in general, look here for more delightful posts featuring the Most Amazing Cake Ever and sundry amusing things. I will say briefly: on Halloween night, we went to a party thrown by a mission friend and his wife, and it was fun and we brought leftover Most Amazing Cake Ever and watched Sleepy Hollow and of course came dressed, surprise surprise, like this (we didn't have much time to follow through on The Wife's exciting new costume ideas... next year!):

So, now, for the real substance of this post.

While Marci was here visiting, we ran the Highway to Hale race, sponsored by the Hale Center Theater in Orem. We did the 5K at this race last year, and it was pretty fun, but this year we decided to do the 10K. We just thought it would be nice to see the other course they offer (and thereby avoid the horrid hill that is the last mile of the 5K course). So on Friday, after our day-long nightmarish bout with food poisoning, we went to bed, hoping that we would feel better by morning. And we did! So we had as much breakfast and water as seemed wise and made it through the race. It wasn't our best race ever, having eaten very little the day before, and as we were still more or less recovering. I even walked a handful of times, which is something I never do in a race (my pride wanted to shout "I had food poisoning yesterday!" as people ran past me). I probably pushed myself a little too hard when it came to running, which caused me to have more walking periods, but I go into this race mode where it's hard for me to run slower than I would like/can, especially when my little GPS watch is telling me my pace. So I felt a little breathless and low on energy at times, but we had a good time, and we prevailed! We reclaimed our stomachs and finished the race. I still placed third in my age group, 17th overall, and had a pretty decent time (44:38, 7:29/mile, though it was just under an actual 10K at about 6 miles even), so I wasn't too disappointed. (Julie, meanwhile, had a great run at a nice, steady pace.) We decided to forego the suggestion to run in costumes since it was a longer race, though I decided to wear all black and be a running ninja. We were SO happy to be feeling better, seriously, we were just glad to finish and be well and hungry again.

They just gave medals to the first place in each age group. I was actually third but the top 2 were overall winners, so I won first by default. I'll take it!

The next week, after we said a sad goodbye Marci and had Halloween, we had another race, this time the annual First Dam Run in Logan. We decided to do the 10K again, which we have done previously on this race. (I think I at least also wanted to redeem myself from the previous week's race... I mean, I know we were on the other side of a pretty bad illness, but still.) It's a nice, scenic course, and it's usually nice weather for a long, later-morning run. On Friday night, we picked up Mom, Amber and Cami and headed up to Grandma's house. There was a huge rain/snowstorm the whole way up, but we made it all right (though in a longer time than it would normally have taken). We had a little visit with Grandma and then had a good rest before the 10:00 am start time, which I love. It was a beautiful, snowy morning, cold but not frigid, and clear and crisp, which I thought was great running weather. All the ladies decided to do the 10K too, so after gathering everything up (including my iPod, which I forgot at the house, and HAD to rush back to get, only to make it back with moments to spare before the race started), off we went. It was a much nicer experience than the week before, though I'm a little perplexed that my times for both were pretty similar... (44:11, 14th overall, 1st in age group, 7:07/mile, though this one was closer to a full 6.2 miles, maybe even a little over, so that could account for the similarities in time) But Julie cut five minutes off her time from the week before! Nice work, lovah!

Go me!

Go Cami!

Go Mom!

Go Wife! You look so tiny in the distance! You're almost there!

(I ran back to find Julie but by the time I doubled around and cut some corners she was far ahead of me and I couldn't catch up with her by the finish.)

Go Amber! And random stranger!

Go Grandma!

Waiting for the awards. It was pretty cold after all.

Woot! I wasn't expecting that.

Go Team!

So there you go. Two weeks, two 10Ks. We are just hardcore that way. I'm so glad I have a wife who likes to run! It's a fun hobby that we can do together. We've been joking lately that if ever anyone were to write a musical about my life, there would be a big belty showstopping ballad entitled "Not Without My Morning Run." I can already hear it! Now THAT'S something I want on my running playlist. And now we can sleep in tomorrow and maybe just take a relaxing regular Saturday morning run. It's so nice to have cooler running weather. At least for now. *cold* We'll be saying hello again to the treadmills before long.

And just like that, three blogposts in one week. We shall see what other blog-worthy wonders November will bring!

Still Cool

2011-11-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

(I promise my 10Ks post is forthcoming, but here's another quick post to further make up for having written none last month.)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the masterpiece that is West Side Story. Anyone who knows me knows that this (winner of ten 1961 Academy Awards) is one of my very very favorite movies, definitely in my top 10 (it's hard to line them up exactly, but I have a pretty clear top 10 at least), and I listen to the soundtrack on a pretty regular basis, and try to get around to watching it at least once every year. Recently I learned that in honor of this landmark anniversary, NCM Fathom and Turner Classic Movies were bringing it to Cinemark theaters for one night only. Some of you may know that we have taken to attending several of these Fathom events in the last year or so, including the 25th anniversary concert productions of both Les Misérables (AWEsome) and The Phantom of the Opera (mostly awesome) broadcast from London, and of course the three-week event of The Lord of the Rings, so when I heard about this one, I thought I really just better go for it or I might regret it forevermore. Sure it's a little pricy for a movie, especially one that I've seen many times and the special edition DVD boxed-set of which I have sitting right there on the shelf, but I mean, the chance for me, having been born in this generation and all, to see West Side Story on the big screen? I couldn't pass that up!

So my lovely wife supported me in this and we went to see it and it was just resplendent. There was a short feature at the beginning where they interviewed a few of the cast and crew, which was pretty interesting, but the real excitement started with that whistled theme introducing the Overture. It looked so big and beautiful on the movie screen, and I loved every second. The story is of course wonderful, I mean, it IS basically Shakespeare, and my word, what a score. (I have many times called it one of the best scores ever written, and I stand by it. You disagree? I refuse to allow it! Ha ha. But seriously.) I won't go into a lot of detail, because most everyone has already seen this movie, though if you haven't, you really and truly must. MUST! Look, I know they're singing juvenile delinquents and their fighting is heavily (and brilliantly) choreographed, but that is the beauty of it. Own it, accept it, enjoy it, relish it. Oh yes, it is relish-worthy. It does make me very emotional, but in kind of surprising parts. I don't usually cry at the end (thanks to Cami's a-little-too-accurate impersonation of Maria's brilliant final monologue), though that part does make me sad, but for some reason I find parts like America and Cool really moving. It's just so good it makes me want to cry. I mean, just look!--

That's it then, just a brief report that we saw this great movie all big and loud last night and it was wonderful and I never ever ever get tired of it, and it really is one of the best movies ever made. I was thinking last night of just skipping it, but I'm really glad we went. No matter how many times I watch it, I still always hope that Tony will be able to stop the rumble or that Anita will somehow get that message through or that Doc won't tell Tony or that Chino won't be waiting there in the shadows and that things will turn out differently, but they never ever do. *sigh*

Of course two teenagers can fall truly and honestly in love in a matter of moments! Why not, right? Poor kids.

So basically you should all watch it again. :D

Rolla! We Went There!

2011-11-09T15:37:00.003-07:00

Oh my good heavens, I had a different blogpost almost all ready to go, and then when I was getting pictures off the camera to finish it off, I realized I didn't even blog about our trip to Missouri last month. This is inexcusable! For that reason I am going to blog about it now, and leave you all in suspense for just another day or two before I post the one I've already written. I'm a little embarrassed and a little sad that I didn't blog a single time throughout the entire month of October, but for some reason I just thought there wasn't that much to report (until I just remembered this... *facepalm*). But I'm sure with the holidays coming up, there will be plenty of occasion to share joyous news and photos with all my clamoring fans. (Ha.)

So, the last few times we've been to visit The Wife's family in the midwest it's been for Christmastime, and Julie had been thinking how much she missed seeing her home in the bloom of summer, or at least the leafy colors of fall, so we decided to take our visit a little earlier this year. We were so excited to get away from work for an entire week and spend time with Mom, Dad, Marci, William, Marissa and even Tyler for a day or two. It was an awesome vacation, fun and full of family activities, but also really relaxing. (I mean, we do love our Disney vacations, but seriously, you're going non-stop on a trip like that, and you need a vacation from the vacation. With this one, though we came home grudgingly, we at least came home feeling relaxed and refreshed.) It was so great spending time with the kids and playing games with the family (favorites were Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii and Settlers of Catan, of course), shopping at Osage Beach, going to the kids' piano lessons, watching good movies and eating great food, and getting to know the puppy, temporarily named Puppy. (Puppyyyyy!) We spent the days:

... Hanging out around the house. Sometimes there wasn't much to do, and there is nothing wrong with that!

Hee hee hee... I caught her clandestinely. I love it when my wife plays the piano.

William just refused to stop losing his teeth. This was the second one in a week!

Here is Julie patronizing Marissa's shredded carrot stand, which she started when Mom bought a new little kitchen tool.

... Watching the kids play soccer! William and Marissa both play for local teams, so we were able to see both of them play, either in a game or at practice.

The gals are hip in their shades.

This is me holding a Marissa burrito.

Puppyyyyy!

Julie looks great in Marissa's sweater. She held onto it as we watched her practice.

... Going to an cool international fair at the college. They had booths for many many international locations, live entertainment, exotic foods to purchase, and passports for the kids to run around to fill with stamps from various countries. They even had a little petting zoo.

L'amour!

Llama faaaace!

Then we did a little walking around, stopped at the used bookstore, and the kids took turns having piggy-back/shoulder rides.

And then we had our own little international feast of sticky rice and Hmong egg rolls. They turned out great, if I do say so myself.

Yes, we actually did pack our very own sticky rice pot and basket, just for this very purpose.

It was worth it. I even made kua txob!

... Attending a ceremony where Tyler was inducted into the local college's hall of fame for his performance as a swimmer during his glory days. They were even honored at the Homecoming football game, with fireworks and everything! William was really excited to go to a real football game, though we only stayed there for a few minutes.

You totally love football, don't you Wife?

I really liked the marching band, who did a medley of Michael Jackson songs. During Thriller they all put down their instruments and did the dance and everything.

... Visiting nearby Onandaga cave! Unlike Timpanogos Cave, there was no hike involved whatsoever, but like Timpanogos Cave, it was really cold inside. It was so cool, and Julie took dozens of photos of pretty neat things (some of which turned out), but I'll just include a very few here.

Those are some humongous stalagmites. (See Marissa and Dad in the foreground for scale)

Can you see the stairway on the left? That is one huge flowstone formation!

The lily pad room!

... Running not one, but TWO 5Ks with the family. Our first Saturday (24 September) we ran on for JDRF's Run to Cure Diabetes at the local Lions' Club Park. Everyone participated, and Tyler and I both placed in our age group! (He took 1st, I took 2nd, 21:25, about 6:30/mile, 3rd overall, 2nd in age group.) It was slightly less than a full 5K, but it was a really nice course on paved paths away from busy roads, and the weather was awesome.

I think this might have been the day William learned that orange peel smile trick.

Marci is hardcore. I don't think Tyler realized that was the idea for this picture.

Mom says she didn't mean to cover my face, but I just don't know! I was probably making a ridiculous expression anyway. Also, Puppyyyyy!

There we go.

I am a champion!

But srsly, I know how to take a normal picture.

Tyler DID get the hardcore memo for this one.

The next Saturday (1 October) Julie, Marci and I ran the Pink Ladies 5K sponsored by the local college and to raise awareness of and funds for breast cancer. At first I felt a little silly so I was just going to run bandit with the girls, but then I arrived and saw there were a lot of guys running (and the odd he-she... *smh*), so I decided it was okay. It turned out to be REALLY okay because I placed first in the entire thing! (20:02, 6:29/mile.) It was kind of hard and hilly, but it was still fun. It was a smallish race, but it always feels good when I happen to come in first, even if the circumstances are kind of in my favor. :D Julie and Marci also did really well, but then we had to rush home and pack up to drive to the airport.

Sisters do as sisters should! Matching-matching purple-squared.

Puppyyyyy! We were pushing for the name Jude, but the kids weren't entirely sold on it for whatever reason.

Julie loves the puppy too. (Did I already say "Puppyyyyy!"?)

Why yes, I'm secure enough in my masculinity to wear this shirt. I wore it all the way home.

... Snuggling with the kitty. This is Owen, Julie's Kitty Boyfriend.

*jealous husband*

... And then, finally, finally, seeing the Gateway Arch on the way to the airport on our last day. I've been wanting to see this every time we've been through St. Louis (just because, I mean, well, it's a major national landmark, right??), and we had just enough time. It was huge! And very shiny. And super tall. Like 600+ feet tall. Marci didn't do so well with that bit, but I really liked it, especially going up in those space-age elevator pods.

I know this one is blurry, but it's so cute I decided to include it anyway.

It was really windy, if I recall.

And then, alas, it was time to come home. We were in a huge rush though, so at least it wasn't such a painful and drawn-out goodbye. We can't wait to come back and visit again! Thanks for everything, Rolla Crew!

This is Julie's "Phew, we barely made it to our flight, hopefully we get to sit together." (We didn't.)

This is my "We made it to Vegas, this is a really expensive sandwich, hopefully we get to sit together for the last leg of the trip." (We did.)

Fin.

Blogkeeping -- Fall 2011

2011-09-27T21:43:00.004-06:00

Time to do a little house cleaning. About every 100 movies or so I like to clean out the ol' movie roll along the right side there. (Not much news on this post, sorry to say. It's mostly for my own records or whatever. Skip if it bores you!) As I said the last time I did this, I have started including movies I've seen before in this roll (indicated with [r]). This list, in reverse chronological order, actually ends more than three months ago (21 June 2011)--I'm a little behind. :/

Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter ** 1/2 / The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers [r] ***** / Country Strong *** / How to Train Your Dragon [r] **** 1/2 / Monsters vs. Aliens ** 1/2 / Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa *** 1/2 / Kung Fu Panda [r] **** / Bee Movie ** 1/2 / The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [r] ***** / 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure [r] *** / 101 Dalmatians [r] **** / I Am Number Four ** 1/2 / Super 8 *** 1/2 / Source Code *** 1/2 / A Mighty Wind [r] ***** / Shrek the Third ** 1/2 / The Office (Season 5) [r] **** 1/2 / Madagascar *** / Over the Hedge [r] *** / Skyline *** / Morning Glory *** / X-Men: First Class **** / Shark Tale * 1/2 / Shrek 2 [r] ** 1/2 / The King's Speech *** 1/2 / Upstairs Downstairs *** / The Roommate ** 1/2 / The Tourist *** 1/2 / Shrek [r] *** / Antz [r] ** 1/2 / Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ** / The Office (Season 7) *** 1/2 / America's Next Top Model (Cycle 16) *** / Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End [r] *** / Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest [r] *** / Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl [r] *** 1/2 / Gremlins ** 1/2 / Return to Neverland [r] *** / Peter Pan [r] **** / Survivor: Redemption Island **** / Thor **** / Sucker Punch *** 1/2 / Flushed Away [r] **** 1/2 / Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [r] **** / Chicken Run [r] **** / Jane Eyre (2011) *** / The Exorcism of Emily Rose **** / Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas *** 1/2 / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I [r] **** 1/2 / Henry V *** / Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron [r] *** 1/2 / The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader [r] **** 1/2 / As You Like It **** / The Road to El Dorado [r] *** 1/2 / Joseph: King of Dreams [r] *** / The Prince of Egypt [r] ***** / Howl's Moving Castle *** / Tangled [r] **** / The Black Cauldron **** / Cold Comfort Farm **** / Hairspray [r] **** / TRON: Legacy [r] (3D) *** / The Next Three Days *** / Tangled [r] (3D) **** 1/2 / Despicable Me ** 1/2 / V (Season 2) ** / The Swan Princess [r] *** 1/2 / The Last Unicorn [r] **** / The Brave Little Toaster [r] **** 1/2 / Knight and Day *** 1/2 / Monster House *** / Wanted *** / Some Kind of Wonderful *** 1/2 / The Adjustment Bureau **** / Better Off Ted (Season 2) ** 1/2 / The Secret of Kells **** / For Your Consideration *** / Twelfth Night [r] **** / Superstar [r] **** / Easy A * 1/2 / Salt *** 1/2 / Galaxy Quest [r] **** 1/2 / Spellbound [r] **** 1/2 / Ping Pong *** 1/2 / Othello **** / Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead *** / The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [r] ***** / The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers [r] ***** / The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [r] ***** / Eagle Eye *** / Daria: Is It College Yet? [r] ***** / Daria (Season 5) [r] ***** / Hamlet [r] **** / The Office (Season 3) [r] **** / Unstoppable *** 1/2 / Daria: Is It Fall Yet? [r] **** 1/2 / Daria (Season 4) [r] ***** / Downton Abbey (Season 1) ** 1/2 / Daria (Season 3) [r] ***** / Shaolin Soccer [r] **** /

Ugh, what a terrible movie to end (start) that list with. Anyway, it won't be long before I'm ready to post another 100, actually. And now, as I do with blogkeeping, here are the last 50 books I've read (these also date some time ago, about 1 July 2011):

Ginger Pye (Eleanor Estes) *** / A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) **** 1/2 / The Art of Pocahontas (Stephen Rebello) **** 1/2 / The Art of The Lion King (Christopher Finch) **** 1/2 / Disney's Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film (John Culhane) *** / Kingdom Keepers IV: Power Play (Ridley Pearson) * 1/2 / Kingdom Keepers III: Disney In Shadow (Ridley Pearson) * 1/2 / Kingdom Keepers II: Disney At Dawn (Ridley Pearson) ** / Kingdom Keepers I: Disney After Dark (Ridley Pearson) ** / Entwined (Heather Dixon) **** / Tale As Old As Time: The Art and Making of Beauty and the Beast (Charles Solomon) ***** / The Starlight Barking (Dodie Smith) ** / The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Dodie Smith) **** / Bambi: A Life In the Woods (Felix Salten) *** / Walt Disney's Bambi: The Sketchbook Series (Ollie Johnston) ***** / The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells) **** / The Disney That Never Was (Charles Solomon) *** / The Clockwork Three (Matthew J. Kirby) *** 1/2 / The Island of Dr. Moreau (H.G. Wells) **** / Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Hercules (Bob Thomas) **** / Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast (Bob Thomas) **** / The Chronicles of Prydain: The High King (Lloyd Alexander) ***** / The Chronicles of Prydain: Taran Wanderer (Lloyd Alexander) **** / The Chronicles of Prydain: The Castle of Llyr (Lloyd Alexander) ***** / The Chronicles of Prydain: The Black Cauldron (Lloyd Alexander) **** 1/2 / The Chronicles of Prydain: The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander) **** / Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Wyrm King (Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black) * / Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: A Giant Problem (Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black) * / Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie's Song (Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black) ** / The Last Unicorn (Peter S. Beagle) **** 1/2 / The Brave Little Toaster (Thomas M. Disch) *** 1/2 / Millions (Frank Cottrell Boyce) **** / The Art of The Princess and the Frog (Jeff Kurtti) **** / Peter Pan in Scarlet (Geraldine McCaughrean) *** / Peter Pan and Wendy (J. M. Barrie) **** / The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin) **** / The Art of Tangled (Jeff Kurtti) ***** / Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth (Jeff Kinney) ** 1/2 / Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (T.S. Eliot) **** / The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien) ***** / The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien) **** / The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien) **** / The Hobbit (J.R.R.Tolkien) **** / Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins) **** / Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins) *** / The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) *** / The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien) *** 1/2 / The Prestige (Christopher Priest) ***** / The Princess Bride (William Goldman) *** 1/2 / A Study in Scarlet (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) ** 1/2

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging. We're having a great time on vacation, I'll post a little report when after get home this weekend.

England, Or Something Like It

2011-09-22T12:45:00.000-06:00

Now that that nasty business is out of the way, how about we bump it down with the much more pleasant news I had been writing before being interrupted? All righty then:

Last weekend we finally had our official two-year anniversary weekend celebration. It was just splendid and so nice to get away from everything for a couple of days. I tried to keep as much of it as possible a surprise from Julie, and it was a real delight to see her reactions to all the unexpected elements as the weekend went by.

We started on Friday night by recreating as best we could our one-year anniversary excursion to the Lake District in England. The Great Salt Lake is hardly Lake Windermere, but we worked with what we had! (In fact, there were several lesser substitutions throughout the weekend, but it was fun to see how we could replicate our favorite London activities somehow at least.) This started with, after a quick stop at IKEA (which is rather European, right?), grabbing some Indian take-away and taking it to The Anniversary Inn. We've been wanting to visit this lovely location for a while now, and when I saw the rooms they had available, I knew exactly which one we needed:

Roses on the bed and rose petals scattered all over the room!

A delightful dining nook on the other side of the fireplace.

Imagine her surpreeze! We stayed up late watching About a Boy and eating the nice treats the hotel provided, as well as a couple of really big surprises for The Wife (acquired by me):

Pumpkin Juice! Straight from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! She was just amazed to see it appear in the ice bucket! Thank you, online Universal Store!

The next morning we slept in and had our delightful breakfast in bed, provided by the hotel as well (I don't know why I didn't expect a fairly fancy Bed & Breakfast to actually include breakfast in the deal, but anyway, that was a great surprise).

Ham and cheese croissant and bagel with cream cheese! 'Twere delish.

Um, good morning, bed head. It was such a wonderful arrangement that we felt it just had to be documented.

After we checked out we took a nice long while touring the other rooms in the place during their open house hours, and it's just amazing. I had to dub it the Disneyland of hotels (not to be confused with The Disneyland Hotel, though The Anniversary Inn actually had some cooler theming in some of its rooms than I've seen in certain Disney resorts). We even took advantage of their great bounce-back deal, good for any room, any night, and it never expires. Maybe we'll use it for our 20th anniversary. Or maybe we'll use it like in January or something.

I think it's so interesting that this great old building used to be a jail.

For the rest of the day we did our best to do as close to London-ish things we could find in Utah. We went to the British shop and bought some English chocolates and souvenirs, we shared a pasty and strawberry tart for lunch, we spent a few minutes in the Cathedral of the Madeleine (it's not St. Paul's or Westminster, but hey), and we went to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (neither is this the National Gallery, but again, hey). We had a really nice, relaxing day, and even found our beloved Chow Truck outside the museum for a snack--if you haven't found the Chow Truck yet, FIND IT.

They're moving soon! It's a shame, this is just the perfect little shop, and such a great location.

Almost as good as the ones you buy in the Tube stations.

... Almost.

There was a Quinceañera going on there. It was a very fancy affair.

Their foods are little, but they are delicious.

We mostly go for the root chips, though their main features really good too.

And they did have nice big bottles of clear, cool water, shown here by Beautiful Wife.

We made short work of those foods.

We sat in the shade reading and writing a little until it was time for our delicious tapas dinner at Meditrina (a place we visited when we went to see The Lion King last year, again thanks to LivingSocial), and ended up the evening by seeing Mary Poppins at Capitol Theatre. Review in brief: It was a really fun show, a little closer to the book, somewhat different from the movie (but with a lot of the same songs). The cast was really good, and the spectacle was fantastic, and all in all I'm glad we caught it as it was touring here. One more checked off on my list of Disney stage musicals! Will I ever see Tarzan or The Little Mermaid?... Erm, probably not.

Practically perfect in every way. The lady in the back is probably pretty neat too.

We were really sad to have to come home that very night, but ward choir obligations loomed (though the traffic home loomed even higher--grrrr). Hopefully, SUREly, we'll be able to visit our beloved London again, but in the meantime, it's nice to know we can relive some of the memories wherever we are, especially since the best part of being in London was being in London together. Toodle pip!

TERRIBLE TERRIBLE NEWS

2011-09-20T13:40:00.000-06:00

I was in the middle of another blogpost just now, but I had to change gears and post about this fiasco RIGHT now. And I know it's not the worst thing that could ever happen in the world, but as far as theme parks go, and especially Disney theme parks, I don't think I can possibly imagine anything worse:

Disney announces James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ themed land and rides for Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World.

Read all about it here.

When I read that headline I felt seriously ill and went O.O and then wished ever so dearly that it was just a really, really late April Fools' prank or bad joke from The Onion, but alas, it looks like it's true. Anyone who knows me knows well my dislike for this film, and to this day some parts of it are favorite family jokes (nice crying, Zoe Saldana). But the worst part of this whole imminent disaster is that some people think this is Disney's response to Harry Potter at Universal. HARDLY. To put this in perspective, I finally was persuaded to make my first ever trek to Universal on our last trip to Florida JUST to see Harry. On the other hand, though Disney is my primary destination in Orlando, I will strive to avoid all traces of Avatar when it appears in Animal Kingdom. (It should also be noted that, ironically, Harry was originally discussed as part of Walt Disney World in the first place until JK demanded a little too much creative control for the Imagineers' liking.) It seems kind of like the most offensive thing they could do to Disney fans. Besides the fact that this film is thoroughly overhyped and overrated and extremely environmentally heavy-handed and completely unoriginal, it's absolutely NOT (NOT NOT NOT) Disney. Sure, there are a select few welcome non-Disney elements sprinkled here and there throughout the parks (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, American Idol, etc.), but not a whole land's worth of them. Harry at Disney would make a little sense at least, since it has the ABC/Disney tie-in and of course the similar theme of magic and family entertainment and such... Yes, this movie is Pocahontas meets Dances With Wolves meets Fern Gully (which is at least animated) meets Smurfs in space, and while ONE of those is Disney-related, it makes no sense. Pocahontas makes sense. A gimmicky, non-Disney rip-off does NOT. And, I submit that the only reason this movie broke any kind of records was because it was one of the first big 3D movies, so of course it will make a lot of money due to increased ticket prices. What if these planned two (TWO!!!) sequels are total bombs? What then, Animal Kingdom?!? What's the big hurry?? And anyway, since when is Animal Kingdom about freakish barely-clad blue humanoids who worship trees and brood among neon-colored glowing landscaping? What about the whole animal theme? Yeah, there are a few inbred dinosaurs running around Pandora, but they're so ancillary it's just too much of a stretch to give them credit for it. I get the ultra-environmentalism angle, though seriously, that's already really heavy-handed and king of overwhelming at that park as it is. Now it's just going to be unbearable! I'm sure there is a response to Harry Potter's popularity (which still could never dethrone Disney as the top tourist attraction in Orlando anyway), and I'm sure that there are even a few ways to increase long-term Animal Kingdom attendance, but this certainly is NOT it on either counts. Fantasyland expansion? Yes. Animal Kingdom expansion? NO. At least not in this woeful direction. I really didn't think it was possible for someone to come up with some reason for me to dislike Avatar even more. Maybe this ill-conceived plan will go the way of Port Disney and WestCOT*?... Or maybe even River Country... I can only hope.

Seriously, I am getting more and more livid about this as time goes by... I need to calm down. Writing this helped a little (I guess I haven't had a good blogrant in quite a while now, after all). What kind of cruel theme park world ends up with Harry Potter at Universal and Avatar at Disney?!? *cries bitter, bitter tears*

* Though at least WestCOT could have been cool.

"I didn't realize this was a sad occasion." *

2011-09-16T16:27:00.000-06:00

* If you don't know the significance of this phrase, that's okay, just read on, and then go read the entire collected works of Mr. Lemony Snicket. And if you know the proper response, feel free to leave it in the comments, or send it to me via crow or telegram or coded couplet.

Recently The Wife and I finally were able to re-read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events in its entirety together. It took a little longer than we expected (those last few books take a while to plow through), but it was great fun! And a Vigorously Fulfilling Duty. I have read them many times, but never all the way through, I don't think, and it was great to both be reading them at the same time so we could have Very Fun Dialogue about them together throughout. I left lengthy reviews of all of them that can be found on my Goodreads page, so I won't go into that here. (I also did a drawing that has some Visually Fun Details, which can be found here, with a fair few more on the way.) But, in celebration of (finally) finishing them, as we sometimes like to do, we decided to have a Baudelaire-themed Very Fancy Dinner, which took place last night. Some people might wonder what this could possibly include, but there are a lot of Veritable and Fancy and Delicious foods described in the books, which I will now illustrate with photographic evidence providing Veraciously Factual Documentation.

Pasta Puttanesca, Chilled Cucumber Soup, and of course aqueous martinis.

You can tell it's a Very Fancy Dinner because 1) we're eating it at the dining table, and 2) we're using champagne glasses and 3) my pinky is up.

The chef! (Though I helped peel and grate the cucumbers.) She's so cute.

It was so nice and fresh and tasty! The soup was creamy and cool (though it did require use of the blender--Aunt Josephine must have found a way around using this electrical device), and the pasta sauce was savory and a little spicy and pretty strong. The "aqueous martinis" tasted just as you might expect they would ("Violet took a sip of her aqueous martini. She was not surprised to find that it tasted like plain water, with a slight hint of olive." -- The Ersatz Elevator), and one glass was just enough, no matter how in they are. We opted out of trying to find or make parsley sodas. Afer it all we even had some makeshift peppermints for dessert, though we didn't experience any allergic side-effects. It was a Victorious Family Denouement to our reading journey.

And this is my best Lemony Snicket impression.

I think Julie's is even better.

Beware of realtors. Memento Mori. He who hesitates is lost. (Or she.) Have a heart-shaped balloon.

Brigham and Beethoven

2011-09-13T23:17:00.000-06:00

For the last couple of weekends we have had some fun family outdoor activities, which I will now describe for all my vast and ultra-interested readership.

On Labor Day we finally were able to get a group together for our hike to the Y. Neither The Wife nor I have ever done this well-known and well-loved student activity, not during our many years as Cougars, and we've been meaning to do the hike for a couple of summers now. We tried to find a time when the most family could join us, but the summer weekends just filled up so quickly and we were all so busy! There was never a Saturday that was good for everyone (and we had to go on a Saturday even though it was summertime, since, you know, we work and stuff), so we decided to just say we were going on Labor Day regardless, and if anyone could make it, they were welcome to join us! Sure, it might be crowded on a holiday, especially with all the students suddenly back in town, but we just went for it. As it happens, the turnout was great, and we had a really fun time. Sure, it was crowded after all, but not too bad, and it was a nice overcast morning, the outdoors still clinging to summer's wretched heat, but with a delightful cloud cover. They were even filming a commercial from the valley while we were there, and a group of us headed up to join the crowd around the Y Sports banner. Afterward we had J Dawgs, and then headed to our place for rest and generic-brand otter pops (which I have been having very sparingly to preserve them for use during just such an occasion as this, and of which we had just enough). Success! And now, twelve full years after I started my freshman year, and six full years after I graduated, I have finally done this moste honoured rite of passage.

And we will call it... This Land.

I didn't know she was taking the picture.

Now I did.

Now I REALLY did.

They're going to be on TVeeee!!!

Also Y.

Cami doesn't look too pleased about something back there. I look pretty content though.

They are so delicious.

And just this last weekend we had our annual Beat Beethoven 5K in Pleasant Grove. Julie didn't feel quite up to this one, so I met the group there at the starting place, and listened to Beethoven himself give the announcements, and off we went! I kept my eye on the runner just ahead of me, and thought surely that couldn't be Jonny I was keeping up with... But lo, it was. I definitely couldn't pass him up, but I did keep the interval between us throughout. This is a good course, mostly downhill, but with that pesky final stretch of slight incline just to keep you from getting to too careless there at the end. I'm quite sure that my efforts in this race resulted in a new PR (20:00 even, 2nd place in my division--I would really like to know WHO from 30-39 ran it in under 20...), a minute and a half faster than last year at this race. I saw the clock switch over from 19 to 20 as I crossed the finish line, so that was a tad frustrating, but how can I complain?? I kept up with Jonny and I beat Beethoven! This is a fun race. You were missed, Wife! And I was also dressed as a ninja. I think that's what made me a little faster than last year.

Ninja runner! You can't see me!

And then I rushed (like, rushed) home for the rest of my Saturday morning commitments, and they were not few in number. What nice Saturday morning exercise opportunities.

Man vs. Nature

2011-08-29T14:03:00.000-06:00

Story time! And today's is a doozie. My head is still kind of spinning from it, actually.

So earlier today, there I was, innocently doing my running run through town, having a pretty good time of it and enjoying the cool pre-sunrise weather, noticing the return of the students to town. I approached another fellow taking a stroll down the sidewalk, so I stepped off onto the street and ducked around the trees to go around him when suddenly it felt like I was hit in the head with a baseball bat.

OUCH.

I'm telling you, that branch appeared out of NOWHERE. I'm quite sure I have adequate depth perception to understand and avoid running into things most times (though I feel like I have been clumsier than usual recently, breaking dishes and tripping over cords on a very regular basis), The guy I had just run past looked appropriately horrified at what he had just witnessed, and asked me if I was okay, and all I could do was stumble around for a second and say "Ow..." I went back and examined the offending branch, and I just don't know how running into what I think I ran into could have possibly felt like that. It truly felt like running head-first into a wall. I was about a mile away from home, so I gently massage my throbbing bump and continued on my little run, and that's when I looked over at my reflection in the restaurant window and noticed blood running down my forehead. Yikes! It wasn't gushing or anything, so I wasn't too worried, but still I figured I better get home soon. When I made it there, the wound was still a little bloody, but not really bleeding that much, if you know what I mean. I didn't feel too dizzy or light-headed or anything (a little exhilarated from a good run maybe), but I did feel kind of like when you reach the top of the stairs and think there's one more step, and then experience that strange sensation like you don't really know what just happened (thanks to Lemony Snicket for the adjusted allusion). The Wife made a sweet and sympathetic fuss about my little injury and helped me clean it up and examine it. I wondered casually if such a thing would need stitches, since I don't have much experience with injuries requiring that kind of attention, but once we had a good look at it we thought it was mostly just a pretty good couple of scratches on my cheek and just past my hairline, and they would probably heal up on their own with time and a little ointment. One of the scratches is pretty sizable, I should say, but it's not too serious. So, no permanent head injuries or serious cranial trauma, at least not that I've noticed yet.

Cool, tree. REAL cool.

Running is good for your health, they say, but apparently it can also be quite hazardous! Just last week I almost faceplanted on the sidewalk when a dog ran right under my feet and in between my legs (after which it proceeded to follow me halfway home, catching up after it paused to sniff around, and then I finally lost him when it became distracted by some spot on the sidewalk). Maybe in the future I'll be just a LITTLE more observant when dodging foliage. So um, I'm not quite sure exactly who won in this morning's battle of Man vs. Nature, but I guess this one has to go to Nature. My head still hurts a little, but that tree didn't seem to suffer much (if at all) as a result of our epic collision, except maybe when I snapped a twig off in some pitiful kind of retribution as I rubbed my forehead in vexation. I hope we don't meet again, Tree, but if we do, you will not be so victorious!

Anniversary Weekend!

2011-08-26T21:28:00.000-06:00

So yes, we celebrated our anniversary last week, and it was part of a weekend-long celebration! Here are some of the happenings:

• On Saturday morning we were up bright and early to run the fun and casual Alpine Days 5K with the fam. It's ever so early, but we still have a good time. I placed second in my division, coming in at about 20:52 (6:37/mile, though I think it was actually about 3.15 miles, so go ahead and take a few seconds off, hmm?), and they even gave me a medal for my efforts. I checked here on my blog, and learned that I cut a couple minutes off my time from when I ran this race two years ago, and SEVERAL minutes off from the first time I ran it the year before that (last year we were in London so we missed this one). Since we all ran a race, we were totally justified in indulging in some delicious french toast from Kneaders.

That little armband is pretty much a thing of the past. I guess that's what you get when you pay $1 for it from some knock-off overseas website (and it takes over a month to arrive).

Why do I look so weird in this picture? I admit I didn't plan out my expression or posture very carefully.

• Then, since we decided running a 5K wasn't enough exercise for one day, we decided to finally hike to Timpanogos Cave. We've been talking about it for months (even years!), and we finally decided while we're in the neighborhood we should just go. We invited everyone to come, but in the end only Mom and Dad joined in. It's a pretty good hike, especially in mid-day in the dead of summer (never again, I should think...), but we made it all right. The cave itself is pretty cool, it had been years since I had been there, and it was Julie's first visit, so we appreciated Ranger Andy's guidance, even though we were really late for our scheduled tour time. We were extremely sweaty, but the cave immediately drops like fifty degrees, so I was pretty glad about that.

Mountains! They'll be even prettier in a couple of months.

We headed up while Dad parked the car, but then we decided to wait for him. Here are the lovely ladies waiting in the shade.

And then, amazingly, I spotted Dad, and if you look closely, you can too. He's wearing a white hat. Where's Waldo?

Getting ready to have an adventure!

Oh calm down, it's not as far out as it looks.

We took a lot of pictures inside the cave, but this, ye legendary Heart of Mt. Timpanogos, is one of the ones that came out best. (When I asked The Wife if she remembered its proper name, her reponse: "I dunno, it's da heart of da world!" Well said, Wife.)

It's us! It was dark in there, and SO nice and cool.

This is Caramel Falls or whatever, but it kind of looked more slimy and less delicious than caramel.

That's the original entrance. Can you even imagine?

That was SCARY.

We were really curious where these mystery doors led...

Hello, Utah Valley.

I call this one Wife in Archway.

She was all worn out by the time we were down.

• To finish things off, we celebrated our anniversary proper on Monday by giving surprise gifts throughout the day and going out on the town. We had a very fancy dinner at Chef's Table, and to balance out the expense, went to a very cheap movie at the dollar theater. Dinner was really quite delicious and deluxe, and Chef's Table lived up to its reputation pretty well. I had some really good pork tenderloin medallions with the most amazing mashed potato truffles, and Julie had the salmon, which was really excellent too. Their bread is awesome, and each entree comes with soup or salad (which, I believe, should be the case at every restaurant). It seemed just a little overpriced, especially when you consider the view is a trailer park and power lines, but we were glad to go there finally. The movie was Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (in 3D!!!). We decided to give it another chance and tried really, really hard to give it a little slack, but really, it's just kind of a mess.

What better to go with pork than bacon? I am trying to look sophisticated, because this is a FANCY place.

What an elegant and dainty wife! And such delicious fish. And you can see the trailer park out the window.

Yay for leftovers!

One rose for each month. It should be noted that flowers don't do well if your apartment is 85+ degrees at all times. Also, flower food helps.

At dinner we also exchanged a couple of gifts (though there were a few for-both-of-us hidden surprises left for The Wife to find throughout the day... like the necessary volumes to complete our collection of this little number). My surprise to Julie was a long-desired piece of jewelry, and hers to me was a DVD set that's not even available. I never ever expected by favorite teen fandom series would belong to me in its entirety on DVD.

It holds up, even after all these years.

It was a splendid weekend. Again, it's been two glorious years, and there's no end in sight. :D

Two Years Ago... (Or, The Best Two Years)

2011-08-15T12:55:00.000-06:00

... I was married to the best girl in da world! I love her so! She is sweet, charming, talented, funny, gorgeous, and perfect for me in every way. I just spent a few minutes looking through all of our wedding pictures and I felt such a rush of affection and memories that the workday suddenly seemed really long.

We have some fun plans in store for tonight, so I'll do a post about those after they happen, but I did have to post something right away to express my utter happiness and excitement (especially since The Wife wrote such a delightful blogpost herself today about how awesome I am and we are).

I can't believe it's been a year since we celebrated our first anniversary in Windermere (alas that we can't be somewhere quite as exotic for our second). It hardly even seems that long since we were actually wedded (which you can read about all over again here, if you feel so inclined). Are we still newlyweds? Sure, why not? We still feel like it. :D

Now those were the Best Two Years. (So far!) I love you more than ever, Wife! Let's be married forever, okay??

Computer Woes, Or the Near Loss and Triumphant Return of Sheng

2011-08-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

(For those who don't know, Sheng is the name I affectionately gave my laptop when I first bought it, in honor of every teenybopper Hmong girl I knew who had that name.)

For the last many months my poor laptop has been running really low on hard drive memory. I managed to delete things (music, mostly) in order to keep open at least 3-5 GB of her once available 170ish. Eventually, at the recommendation of my technical support representative (more on him to follow), I decided I just had to break down and buy a new drive, and I found a really great deal for one that was 500 GB, which I thought I could surely never fill. At first I thought I could just add a drive to use in addition to my current one, but I guess my computer doesn't have space to allow for that. But I was informed that my drive could be cloned to the new and bigger one, so I bought it, but it kind of sat there for a few weeks... I'm kind of hesitant to make big changes like that sometimes because I'm afraid of losing everything on my computer and then where would I be?? Well, I would still probably be right here, but Sheng-less, so I just kind of toughed it out for a little while longer. My hard drive kept reminding me that it was low on memory, and then one day, for no apparent reason, the whole thing just shut right off.

O.O

Of course that's the expected reaction when your computer inexplicably shuts off. I waited a few minutes for it to cool down and then booted it back up. It ran fine, but over the next few days shut off on its own once or twice more, and I noticed it was really hot where it sat on my knees (which is especially no fun when your apartment is already so roasty from the summer heat), so I decided the time had come for me to make arrangements to put it in the hands of the professionals. "The professionals" is a phrase which here means my brother Matt, who is a master computerman and very, very awesome to always answer my questions about technology. He's kind of like Kip in that he loves it. So I let him know the latest developments about the shutting down (which he guessed was due to overheating and fan issues), and put Sheng and the new drive in his capable hands and left him to work his magic.

A day or two later I received an email from Matt with the prognosis, as well as the following pictures, assuring me in the email that "No laptops were harmed in the taking of these photos."

And still a work of art.

I think I started to panic a little when I glanced at this one, before I had read the actual email.

The pictures looked intense to me, and made me realize that while I might have been able to do this sort of thing myself (eventually, after hours of frustration and terror that I was going to do irreparable damange), I'm really glad that there are people with specific expertise for this very thing so I don't have to. He told me that he could replace the hard drive, no problem, and cloning it would means it would be exactly like it was, but with much more available space. As for the shutting down, his guess about overheating was right on--the fan was old and grungy and not working properly, so luckily Sheng was smart enough to just shut off when she overheated to avoid doing more serious damage to her innards. Matt suggested I could either have him clean up the old fan and reinstall it to see if it works any better (unlikely), or I could just buy a new one (pretty inexpensive) and that one could be installed. Naturally I just bought one and had it shipped to his place, and a couple weeks after I left it with him (oh my word, they do take their sweet time shipping those parts, don't they?) it was back at home and working better than ever! And now she looks like this:

Just like the day I bought her, which is when this picture was actually taken. Except my wallpaper now is much more attractive, because it's a picture of me and my stunning wife.

It took a couple of adjustments for her to get her bearings and remember who and where she was, and how to connect to our wireless signal, but now here I am not worrying about space every week when my podcasts download or wondering if she's going to shut down at any moment while she burns up my lap. She's as good as new, and all of her parts are even better because all of her bolts have been tightened and all of her nooks and crannies have been swept clean. Nothing like a happy laptop for laptopping. The only payment Matt would accept for these particular services were fresh-baked cookies (pretty good if I say so myself) and girly giggles (see about 9:30 of the video).

As a side note, I'm kind of baffled by how hard drive space works sometimes, like how defragmenting the disk can actually leave you with less space, or how it might go down just because you open a file or move files around, and I have no idea how I could possibly have filled up 30 GB already... But I'm not against housecleaning, doing an occasional iTunes sweep to delete songs I never listen to (or ones I didn't even know I had). Sometimes less really is more. Remember the days when we used to have towers and stacks of CDs? Now I have it all right here on Sheng. Packing my music for vacations is so much easier with an iPod than it was with a Discman and big old case of CDs, oh my word.

Thanks, Matt! You're the best IT department/technical support ever! To illustrate my feelings, here are a couple of relevant clips from The IT Crowd. (And if there's a person in the reach of my blogvoice who hasn't watched The IT Crowd yet, do so forthwith. Come on over, we have Series 1 on DVD.) Enjoy:

Sheng returns! And I'm one happy camper. If your computer keeps giving you grief, Wife, we'll give her a similar facelift treatment, hmm?

Hurrah for Utah-Only Holidays!

2011-08-06T23:14:00.000-06:00

(To be fair and accurate, I remember the wards in Wisconsin having festive activities for this holiday too, though I guess no one had work off or anything...)

We had Pioneer Day a couple weeks ago! It was great fun to have a long weekend. My work doesn't recognize Pioneer Day as a paid holiday of course (or even as a holiday at all), but I do get one "Personal Holiday" each year, and it seemed like the very day to use it, especially since The Wife had work off. We had a lot of festivities with family and friends, so I will now outline them in bulleted fashion!

• On Friday night we were lucky enough to have great seats in the Conference Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square perform their Pioneer Day commemoration concert, with special guests Brian Stokes Mitchell (who I never get enough of) and Linda Eder (who I have been waiting to appear with the Choir for years). It was stirring and thrilling and inspiring and all of those things! I look forward to Linda joining them as their Christmas concert guest in the next year or two. Then we stopped at the new Culver's in Midvale on the way home for some frozen custard and deep-fried cheese curds. Ooohhhh, I have missed Culver's.

• Then on Saturday morning we had a great 5K right here in Provo. We have run the Provo Pioneer Day Classic once before, two years ago, but this time we were actually *ahem* registered (though it was a bummer because we barely missed the deadline for cheaper registration fees), and we planned to meet up with a bunch of kin there. Julie and I arrived at the very last moment and had a good run. The course is pretty tough with a few good uphill slopes, but we did all right. I was this close to placing (less than 20 seconds behind third place in my age group, as well as top 10 overall), but I still feel good about finishing at 21:04 (about 6:48/mile). Who could complain? Besides, I don't think I could have pushed myself any harder in that last half mile. Oy. Melody followed right behind me and tried really hard to pass me up. I never thought I would be considered a fast runner. Several of our group placed in their age group, and were fortunate enough to end up with bonus t-shirts and fabulous prizes.

I mean, seriously, don't I look like a champion? Oh, and I hope the powers that be don't mind that I borrowed this image without actually buying it. I figure I left the URL in the graphic, so I'm advertising for them, and the picture quality is sufficient for blog needs.

Not pictured is Amber. She might have taken off early, along with baby-sitter Katy, but maybe she opted out of the photo since she ran bandit.

Jonny was away when they called his name to collect his medal, so I picked it up for him. Don't tell, I'm not really Jonny Rej-ho-lec!

• We hurried home so we could conduct a business transaction at our place. Some of you may know we've been looking into getting new furniture for quite some time. We have liked having Mom's old couches, but we always thought it would be nice to be furniture that's just ours and that we pick out and buy together as soon as the time and situation was right. We've also been looking into moving into a bigger place, perhaps slightly more outside of Student Town, but then we realized that we don't really have a very good reason to move yet, so we should just stick it out for now and save the extra cash. Then we thought a good way to feel like we moved without really moving is to rearrange our apartment's setup and finally get that new living room set (which would be better to buy now than when we're taking a hike in rent anyway). So I advertised on Facebook and almost immediately had a taker in one of my friends from the MTC. We met him at our apartment after the race, vacuumed the couches out, said our goodbyes and then sent them off in the U-Haul truck to live with their new family.

They are comfy, and I have many fond memories of Sunday afternoon naps on them! Also notable memories were when Cami used to wake me up by running and jumping through the air to land upon me.

Bye, couch!

Bye, love seat! You served us well for just about two years.

Later in the day we stopped at RC Willey to make our purchase, and bought a set on sale that we had seen a couple weeks earlier and liked (they evidently met all of Julie's couch requirements), though we knew that they would take a day or two to come down from Salt Lake City, and thus began our weekend of sitting on the floor to watch TV.

• For the rest of that day we relaxed, watching TV and having a picnic on the floor, shopping at IKEA and buying a few other new additions to our living situation, and seeing Captain America with some friends later in the evening, which seemed a fittingly patriotic movie for the time of year. We also had delicious frozen treats after the movie at Sub-Zero, which we liked very much. We'll probably go back so Julie can get that peach cobbler concoction again... As for me, I wouldn't turn down the chocolate peanut butter option.

• On Sunday I led the choir in a very festive performance of "They, the Builders of the Nation." Those who have spoken with me on the subject of this ward choir (or who has any kind of experience leading probably any ward choir) will know that it's been quite a struggle to get devoted choir members at rehearsal, especially in a student area in the summertime. So, imagine my surpreeze when record numbers walked up to the stand and joined in the musical number! It was quite remarkable, and it really sounded like even more singers than we had. It was interesting to hear the ward choir sing the same piece that opened Friday night's concert in Salt Lake City... We didn't have 200 singers of a world-famous choir or a full orchestra or a 21,000-seat venue, but I tell you, I had the same feeling listening to my stalwart little group of singers as I had on Friday night. That Mack knows how to arrange a hymn.

• On Monday our couches came into town, and we made ready for them by cleaning the carpets (with our weeks-old vacuum and even a rented Rug Doctor) and basically deep-cleaning the entire place. We even rearranged our bedroom furniture, so the light from the window is finally out of our eyes when we sleep.

Can you believe this all came out of our carpet? And that's after vacuuming twice! Nasty!!!

But then it looked like this. It made me feel like I shouldn't walk on it. Ever again.

Then, despite all my most valiant efforts at securing use of a truck owned by any nearby friend, we ended up hauling both pieces the three-and-a-half blocks from RC Willey to our apartment. (This is very reminiscent of a time when Cami and I carried a love seat from the same RC Willey to her and Jake's apartment). On the one hand, it's a good thing that we live so close, but on the other hand, they were still really heavy, and seriously, NO ONE around Provo had a truck we can use?? It almost put our poor helpful next-door neighbor in the ER for overexertion and underhydration. But the couches are here and they are new and they are ours! We love them and wanted to just sit and snuggle on them for a long, long time.

New couches!

Some assembly required. I like when the need arises to break out the ol' tool set. It makes me feel manly. Which manliness you can clearly see in my expression.

We rearranged things a little too. Don't they change the whole look and feel of the place? Too bad the pillows they came with are sort of hideous and scratchy. They may or may not be replaced soon. The rug was a recent IKEA acquisition.

Interestingly, we stopped by our old apartment recently and found that at least the outside has had a major facelift, including completely new paint from top to bottom. It almost looks liveable! There are even window AC units, which was a thing unheard of back when we lived there. It's still tiny, and I'm sure the nasty bugs will be there forever, but they probably raised the price when they painted the outside anyway.

• The rest of the holiday was spent running many errands (getting fitted for new suits I bought on MAJOR sale a couple of months ago which finally arrived, and checking out the going-out-of-business sales at a favorite Borders) and then having a delicious dinner with Mom and Dad.

We didn't want to go back to work the next day, but at least it would mean there was a short work week. It seemed like there should have been something more to our activities, maybe something I was forgetting, but now that I type it all out, it seems like we had quite a busy weekend after all. Hurrah for Utah-only holidays! Thanks, pioneers! I feel like there's a little bit of hero worship in the Church, but they did some pretty impressive things. I should know, because I went on a youth trek when I was like 14. My cousin had a tick, and it seemed so gross to me. (My pioneer ancestors would probably smack me for being so flippant about all of this, but oh well.)

Say, I guess I never blogged about my poor sick computer and her triumphant return... That will have to wait. *reminds self*

One Week Later

2011-07-24T00:09:00.000-06:00

It's been a week since the last Great Harry-thon came to a close (and by close, I mean close). Throughout this week we have seen the grand finale three times--once in the double feature/midnight showing with our dear friends Lacie and Leland, once on Saturday night with Mike, and once on Wednesday night for Julie's work party (that means it was free!) with our London friends Caity and Melissa. We always joke with people who were unable to join our opening day festivities that it probably wouldn't be very hard to persuade us to see it again if they want to go at a later date, so we might just see it a couple more times in the theater (and when it comes to the dollar theater?? Forget about it!).

So what did I think? I'll tell you what I think! Well, you can probably guess what I think, and you would probably be right.

I loved it.

I don't know if I'm ready to give it my stamp of "favorite," but it comes pretty close. Although it's the shortest of the films, which makes sense as it covers about 250 pages of text, I was amazed at how it filled the time, since it basically consisted of two major events (though they were pretty major). The action was intense and the characters and relationships were at their very best. Dan, Rupert and Emma have sure come a long way in the acting department, though I always thought they played their characters well, and by now I can't possibly imagine anyone else as Harry, Ron and Hermione. I almost cared about Snape, and Alan Rickman finally had his chance to actually do a little acting (he's a fine Snape, I guess, though he doesn't really nail the nastiness that Snape has in the books, and his portrayal has always been restrained and a little bit theatrical). The score was fantastic, it had the right blend of end-of-the-wizarding-world intensity and real emotion, and expertly incorporated some perfectly-placed key themes from the very first John Williams scores to great effect--there were a couple of moments when I gasped and gripped Julie's arm when an incredibly familiar theme started to play.

The midnight experience was fun, and I'm glad we did it, not to mention the excitement of the double feature and starting the second half almost immediately after the first (which I so desperately wanted to do last November when Part 1 was released), and though there were some people who were obviously dragged there and didn't quite "get" the excitement of a midnight showing, it was really awesome. As a side note, I'm really glad we bought tickets early enough to get them right here in Provo so we wouldn't have to drive home through construction and freeway closures at three in the morning... We were dressed in full Gryffindor attire (which I admit is more conducive to a fall/winter movie release), and the hundreds of fans waiting in the lobby and the theater were duly impressed, and some even asked to take pictures with or of us. We were like celebrities! One day we will have a wee tot and draw a scar on his forehead and go as James, Lily and Harry. I mean, I have heard more than once already that I kind of resemble James in the movies, which I'll totally accept.

She's so excited!

The Wife stopped to say a quick hello to Captain America. See you next week!

This is a very small indication of the crowds. This is the line for snacks and cheeses.

Rushing to finish re-reading the Epilogue between Part 1 and Part 2.

Us! Note the Cherry Coke in the cupholder. We were taking precautions in order to be alert all through the night.

The Lius!

Now that's what I like to see. A theater showing Harry Potter all day.

Overall I was so pleased to see just how much they included in this movie, and the embellishments to the ending didn't bother me at all. That Fiendfyre scene is really intense (just sayin') and I thought it was a fitting final battle between Harry and Voldemort, with some very interesting themes being brought full-circle. Yes, I did laugh, gasp and smile almost the whole time, and yes, I did get kind of misty at certain parts (and some of them were really unexpected parts!). The only gripe I have, and it is minor, is that this doesn't seem to have a fully fleshed-out story as a film on its own. As the second half of one really long film based on the last Harry Potter book, it is fanTAStic, and I like to think of the two movies as one long movie anyway. I think it's better that way, and the story and characters round out better. My annoyance with the splitting of the book into two parts is well-documented, and the trend it seems to have started (NO Twilight book can or should be split into two parts, period. Especially not the last one. I just have no idea how they're going to make that into two movies that don't induce the viewer into a coma.), and I still think it would have been awesome to have one super-long finale event, but if it means that I get both of these awesome movies, I'll take it. I wonder if I'll ever be able to just watch one of the movies once Part 2 is on DVD... So far I'm already finding it difficult to just listen to the second part of the soundtracks.

Anyway, it was wonderful, and it's been a really awesome trip from start to finish. It's been ten years since the first movie was released, and the memories of driving with Elise up to Jordan Landing are as fresh in my mind as the day they happened. The traditions have changed, and I have luckily found a spouse that is as enamored of The Boy Who Lived as I am (at LEAST as much as I am), so she understands and indulges (and encourages and fuels!) the hype and excitement I feel as each Harry Potter Day, of which there are now very very few remaining, draws closer. I do have mixed feelings about it all being over at least, but I don't feel all tragic and woeful and "the end of an era means the end of my life and childhood and happiness!" like some of the fans are feeling, I feel like it's been an amazing journey, and though I've had my quibbles with some of the movies, I'm a very grateful fan. I didn't "grow up" with the books or movies, like my younger sister and fellow super-fan did, but I still followed them and came to feel like the characters were really good friends. It does feel like the end of something big, but I like to think of it as Alan Rickman is quoted to have said in some premiere interviews: "I think things like this are meant to end, and you should not miss it--you should just be happy that it ends well." Will there ever be anything like Harry Potter again? I seriously doubt it. It's an incredible phenomenon that has meant so much to so many people on such real and personal levels, and I can't see anything else ever coming close to that, but that just makes me glad that I found it when I did and was able to take part in and enjoy all the amazing hype and waiting (and waiting and waiting...) for the newest book or movie. I don't even know what I'll have to look forward to so eagerly in the theaters now... OhwaityesIdoit'sTheHobbitofcourse.

Also, about the Epilogue? I like it. The make-up wasn't entirely convincing (Ron and Hermione hardly looked older at all), but when you see the images floating around the internet of how they looked the first time they filmed that scene (19 years later? More like 39 years later! This first attempt was scrapped, leading almost to cutting the Epilogue scene entirely), you realize that it's really pretty good. It was so great to hear that familiar music and see Harry sending his own kids off to Hogwarts, coming full-circle and bringing back memories of his own first journey on the Hogwarts Express, almost as if it happened to each of us. It's so weird that there's a real feeling of personal nostalgia involved, but there it is. It was also kind of symbolic of the feeling I (and we as fans) will have one day when I put the first book in the hands of my own kids and introduce them to the experience of discovering the world of Harry and Co. Hopefully they'll be interested in the books before the movies, I would love for them to have the same experience I had of discovering the world in the words before seeing them brought to life so expertly on the screen.

HP7.2 Take 2!

This time I'm reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

So yeah, this is a little gooey, not unlike when I blogged about finally reading the last book, but it's been a huge part of my life for more than a decade, influencing my art, my musical and cinematic taste, and it was even a huge factor in the development of my relationship with my dear sister and of course, the series of very fortunate events that led me to meeting and marrying my moste splendid wife. Thanks for everything, Harry. Your story has been told, but you're not really out of the picture.

A message to people who still haven't seen this movie, or to those who (SOMEhow) haven't seen the other ones, or, even more amazingly, haven't read the books: SEE IT. READ THEM. Then come back and thank me. :)

One Day

2011-07-14T16:53:00.000-06:00

One day! It's coming out tomorrow! Well, technically it's coming out tonight, and we are going to see it at midnight, as part of a double feature, as I have said. We have a few additions to our usual costumes, thanks to a few well-spent dollars during our trip to Orlando a couple months ago, and we will be totally stylin'. I guess I have nothing much else to say except that I'm way excited! I'm sure that I'll be sad when it's all over, but for now I'm just so stoked.

To end this post with something a little more than a few sentences, I shall post this video that I came across yesterday. I kept wondering aloud to The Wife just exactly why Voldemort kept yelling in that one way that he always yells so many times in the trailers. Apparently I wasn't the only one who wondered this:

There's even a Facebook group devoted to this phenomenon! I don't know why they include that audio so much, but I hope it's not distracting to the overall movie! I'm sure I'll just chuckle, and then keep alternately gasping and crying and laughing.

See you on the other side!

One Week

2011-07-08T17:03:00.000-06:00

Well, a week from now we will have seen the end of the cinematic saga of the Boy Who Lived and the people who love him, and we'll also probably be extremely tired too after our double feature and midnight showing, but it will be worth it (and we'll probably already be thinking about going again the next day). We were a little annoyed when we discovered the double feature option (showing Part 1 at 9 pm and then Part 2 immediately after at midnight), because we didn't know about that until we had already bought tickets for a different showing, and the double feature were just a package deal. Then we thought we might just ask at the ticket office, and the very nice girl was more than happy to exchange our four tickets for seats at the double feature (which is NOT in 3D--score). She even gave us some coupons good for drinks for just a dollar all evening long, which will probably go unused--if I really had that much to drink, I would spend the whole movie in the loo. No thanks.

So I am quite sure it's going to just be amazing, and we're going to be blown away, and we will laugh and cry and cheer and gasp, etc. etc., but otherwise I don't have a lot to say right now except I'm super excited of course, and not really feeling that kind of bittersweetness that I'm sure will eventually come as I realize it's all more or less over, as happened when I first finished the last book a couple of years ago. To commemorate the final week we will begin our last Great Harry-thon tonight. So, I will leave this post with some of the awesome brand new posters that were released:

TWO WANDS.

Bellatrix's wand!

... Loaner wand.

So grim, right? They're perfect. I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about this time next week, so until then, I really hope people who are interested have their tickets already, because they're pretty much gone for that first night. We made that mistake last time and ended up going to a theater out of town which led to insane return traffic at 3 in the morning. Yikes. Now we're going to be practically home when it ends. Ends... *sniff*

XD

Ride the Lightning

2011-06-30T16:39:00.000-06:00

Last week we heard that Harry and the Potters would be stopping in Salt Lake City during their almost-60-city "Ride the Lightning" summer tour. The Wife has seen them in concert three times already, but I never have, and we thought it would be fun (not to mention that there's always the possibility that they might not be touring anywhere nearby again).

For those who aren't familiar with them, they're a punk rock band created by two brothers (who both dress as and go by the stage name of Harry Potter, one of them Harry Potter Year 4 and the other Harry Potter Year 7) and a drummer who play and sing songs based on the Harry Potter stories. The band has been together for 9 years (though they've been through about as many drummers) and played over 500 shows, have released several albums, and they apparently have quite a cult following. You can find out more about them at the website linked above.

Rocking in a library because, well, where else?

Anyway, we almost decided not to go all the way up there, but last night at the last minute we changed our mind and headed up to catch most of their hour-long outdoor show. Their kind of music isn't normally my thing exactly, but it was really fun! The crowd wasn't huge, but it was very appreciative, and the weather and venue were perfect for this kind of event.

Harry Potter Year 4

Now that is one killer Gryffindor sax.

Harry Potter Year 7

Drummer du jour, Sirius Black!

Some of their songs are pretty simple or based on a single phrase of text or a random character, but they're amusing and catchy, and a lot of people were dancing and singing along. They're a novelty band, but they are pretty talented. Here are a few choice samples:

They were really funny and totally involved with the audience, I just kind of grinned the whole time. There were people of all ages, including people with their small kids and people in costume, and some people who just happened to be walking or biking by and stopped to listen. And it was free! But we enjoyed it so much we bought a couple of t-shirts. (I am just amazed that iPhones can take credit cards these days. Wow.)

Most of their shows are at libraries because, again, well, where else?

This line took forever to get through. Someone there had my same awesome shirt too.

It was just what I needed after a long day at work, and the perfect way to get even more in the spirit of things for the movie in two weeks. (TWO WEEKS!!!) And, if we learned anything from the concert, it is, as The Wife said, that Harry Potter love is alive and well.

Middle-earth: Let's Go Back There, Shall We?

2011-06-29T12:59:00.000-06:00

As promised, I have some exciting news to share concerning our very favorite upcoming Tolkien movies. But first, an appropriate and relevant introduction.

A couple of months ago The Wife and I were quite excited to learn that certain theaters would be showing the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings on the big screen, one each week for three weeks, ostensibly to promote their release on Blu-ray, but also perhaps to generate even more interest in Jackon's upcoming Middle-earth work (it couldn't hurt anyway, right?)... At first we thought they wouldn't be showing them here, which was such a bummer, but THEN we realized they would be showing them right here in our favorite Provo Towne Centre Cinemark!

So, for the last three weeks, and ending last night, The Wife and I have been quite glad to experience all three of them again, "the way they were meant to be seen," as Peter Jackson said in each of his brief introductions. They are all still (and always) so amazing, and it was fun to see them all big and big-like again. Can you believe the first one came out ten years ago this fall??

So then, this leads me to my exciting follow-through. A lot of people have already seen these, but recently a few photos have been released giving us out first look at The Hobbit! :D And here they are (courtesy of this article):

Could this not possibly look any more like Bilbo ought to look??

It's Gandalf! Just as he always looked!

Just a couple of Hobbits out on the town.

Um, do this not look absolutely perfect?? I admit that I had my doubts as to whether or not this movie would ever even be made, I mean the rumors were circulating for years, and Peter Jackson had a lot of issues with the script and the studio and even getting the directing gig again, but now here it is! I'm finally just about ready to give up my final shreds of doubt and start believing that this epic movie(s) event is actually happening! I don't even mind that they're splitting it into two movies (the titles and release dates of which have also recently been announced) and adding characters that weren't in the book, but who appeared in the subsequent trilogy. It will be epic and historical, and it will be interesting because this book sort of has a different tone than The Lord of the Rings, but it looks like it's all going to be very consistent, which is so great.

Christmas 2012 can't come soon enough.

American Fork Canyon 5K 2011

2011-06-28T12:58:00.000-06:00

Time for a race report! Several weeks ago Melody let us know about this first annual race in American Fork and although I procrastinated past the date of getting two discounts, I signed up anyway. So, last Saturday a bunch of us were up bright and early to run a fun race for a great cause. Julie wasn't feeling quite up to it this time, so she didn't join in, and others of our usual family running mates were out of town or otherwise occupied, but those who were present really enjoyed it.

The course was varied and interesting, starting at the high school, then with a great uphill toward the Mt. Timpanogos temple at about the first mile mark, followed by a nice downhill slope, and then down a nice shaded path that ran along a little river, leading out into the final stretch back to the high school. Besides me, Jonny ran with the kids, and Cami and Jake ran (Jake's first, and with a great time for his first 5K), and Melody, the hardcorest of us all, was up at around 4 am to board the bus that took her and the other half-marathon runners up the canyon for their earlier start and much longer race (which you can read about here). It sounds like such a nice course that, although the longest race I've ever done so far is a 10K, it makes me wish I had taken her up on her offer to join her for it. I might have died though, so it's probably for the best that I held off for now.

So we had a great time, and I came in at about 21:19 (though by my count it was closer to 21 even), about 6:52/mile, which seems to be about my usual pace for the last year or so of races. I kept a pretty good pace and didn't quite feel like I would die to keep it up, and I even managed to pass up Jonny toward the first half (because he was pushing two kids in the stroller, let it be clearly known--the only times I can outrun him, ha ha), and it seemed to me that I was pretty close to the front of the pack, though I lost track of the head of the team as soon as the half marathon runners merged with us for the last mile or so. There were a lot of runners, so I wasn't looking to place or anything, so imagine my surprise when I checked the results sheet and learned that I was 6th place overall, and 1st in my division! That was a pleasant discovery. (For the record, Jonny was less than a minute behind me, kids in tow and all). There were some discrepancies with timing on the website's posted times (19:52?? I'll take it! New PR!), but it seems to be all sorted out now.

We all placed first in our division! It's so nice that for now Jonny and I are a year apart so we can both win for a while.

Melody liked Cami's face better in this one so we kept it. I think I look a little more, um, something in it too. Jonny looks classic.

They had markers and posterboard to make motivational signage for your favorite runners, so we made one for Melody as we watched her triumphant finish to a race more than four times as long as the one we had just finished, and then for fun made one for Jonny and the little ones as they had gone back and ran alongside Melody for her final stretch. Julia was thrilled about the posters.

It's an inside joke! And a long-running one too.

Even though it was a new race, it was very well-attended, and it was really nicely organized. The breakfast/treats supplied were really great, the cause was good, the atmosphere was fun, the shirts were great quality and the weather was perfect. Maybe we'll make a tradition of this race. It seems a little better than what Strawberry Days has become (though rumor is that race has taken a slight turn for the better since last year's disappointment). Though, if we do run it next year, we'll surely sign up a little earlier and take advantage of all the early-registration discounts and perks, and hopefully those who were absent and missed will join in the fun next time. Thanks for the heads-up, Melody! Also, much thanks to Melody for the pictures. We forgot our camera this time.

Afterward, I took some breakfast to The Wife (just a little jealous that she was able to have a little bit of a lie-in), and we celebrated the morning's victory by going to the early bird matinee of Kung Fu Panda 2 and sharing a delicious lunch at Zupas, after which we met my new goshdaughter, Keira. That's a good morning.

Pottermore? Or Potterless?...

2011-06-23T12:50:00.001-06:00

A week or so ago we came across the teaser website for some upcoming something or other called Pottermore. It looked like this:

Yeah, not much there, pretty nondescript. There were a lot of rumors online about a new Harry Potter website (eh), an interactive fan community or game of some kind (blah) or more books (wishful thinking), and I was curious, but not holding my breath or anything. I was prepared for something not terribly exciting, but still thought it could end up being pretty cool, whatever it was. I mean, the hype was there. There was a link to a YouTube channel just to continue the tease, which looked like this:

It was kind of cool because as time went by more and more owls would appear, but who wants to watch a YouTube countdown for a week? So then we kind of forgot about it most of the time, and yesterday we happened to remember, and then we realized there was only one day left, and then we kind of more or less completely forgot about it again (remember the days of yore when I would have checked this kind of thing every day just to see what new owls had arrived and what breed they were and what it could all possibly mean? And checked dozens of websites and forums and discussed every single possibility? Yeah, those days are pretty much gone, [sort of] sad to say) until this morning when we were like, oh right, that was announced. So, here's the lady herself with the "big news":

Yeah. I can't help but utter a somewhat underwhelmed "meh" at this, though I'm marginally interested in the "18,000 words of additional content including background details and settings" (though of course it could just mean another fiasco of Dumbledoric proportions).

So that's that. It could be cool, but I'm glad I wasn't expecting something incredibly amazing. We'll see how it turns out when it debuts this fall, but until then at least we have a pretty exciting movie event to look forward to, for which we now have tickets! Midnight show, here we come, for better or worse (is it weird that I already feel like I'm getting "too old" for those kind of late-night shenanigans?).

And anyway, nothing can overshadow the excitement of this morning's release of brand new pictures from The Hobbit. (That's right, I said The Hobbit!!! Stay tuned, I'll post those soon too!)

Happy Birthday, Wife!

2011-06-20T16:46:00.000-06:00

A month ago we celebrated The Wife's, erm, 21st-ish* birthday. I did my very best to spoil her , especially after she made my own birthday so very exciting this year (if I may, I did quite deliver in the presents and surprises-throughout-the-day departments this year!). She has blogged about it all herself on her blog, but I wanted to show some love on here too.

The festivities started with a delightful dinner, and Bombay House won the birthday girl's vote this year. We have been more or less loving Indian food lately (probably ever since we so enjoyed having it for our anniversary in Windermere last summer), and although we always think it might be a little overpriced here, it was so delicious.

This is the before picture. To the right are a couple of the birthday surprises -- A beloved Brontë book set!

This is the after. NBD.

And then we headed over to the theater to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Anyone who knows The Wife knows that she's a huge and avid fan of the movies (yes, even the second and third one, ha ha), and although she was hesitant about the direction the fourth seemed to be going, she was pretty excited it came out on her birthday. Likewise, anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a very big fan of the movies, but we watched them all in preparation for the new one, and I liked them a little better. I think it has to do with the company with which you watch them. Anyway, it was time for the big movie event, and we even sat in line for a few minutes:

Sorry, sweetie, no Will in this one. At least your socks can represent.

Unfortunately it wasn't a huge hit with her, but we're thinking that she might warm to it a little more after another viewing. I don't want to write a lengthy review, but in brief I will say: Too much Jack acting self-aware that he was Jack, if you know what I mean, no chemistry between Jack and Angelica, Blackbeard wasn't nearly threatening enough, some of the music cues were ripped directly from the previous scores, the mythology was glossed over and the side stories seemed really irrelevant. And then of course the multiple shameless loose ends and openings for sequel opportunities seemed kind of contrived and opportunistic. So yes, maybe we'll like it a little better the second time around, ha ha.

A few days later we met with a bunch of kith and kin to have our biannual trip to Tucanos to make use of their two-for-one birthday coupon. We sometimes wish there were a few more months in between our birthdays so we could spread out our Tucanos visits, but we always love it there.

So cute.

I know Leland looks kind of, um, vacant here, but Lacie makes up for it, yes?

We had three birthday girls in our group...

...So of course the wait staff had to come sing to them!

They didn't have a problem getting into the spirit of things.

They totally didn't bring a treat when we went for my birthday in March, but they made up for it this time.

It was a great time, and it was sad that Elise was Single Rider this time around, but Jeff was there in spirit, as he will probably always be when we eat at Tucanos.

Later that day we met up to eventually create the epic video recently posted (you can see it here). Julie had wanted to make her own birthday cake. I promise I offered to make it for her, but she really wanted to try her hand at Red Velvet Cake. In her post she outlines how it didn't quite work out as planned, and though I had no problem eating it anyway, it did make a quite scrumptious trifle:

So after we made our amazing music video, since we hadn't brought a birthday cake as planned, our friends insisted that we had to have some kind of celebration anyway. After all, Julie deserved a birthday cake at this sort-of-birthday party, right? So off to Walmart we went, and after looking at a few options, the chocolate mousse cake was the one that had to be the obvious choice.

For the record, she tried the Red Velvet Cake again last week and it was picture perfect:

I also had (am still having) no problem eating this one. :D

Happy birthday, Wife! I hope I made it magical and splendid!

* She really turned 28. Own it, Wife! 28 was a great year for me!

HARRY HARRY HARRY (7.2) Again

2011-06-17T12:52:00.000-06:00

Less than a month before we finally get to see the movie, and almost two months after the last trailer was released, we have another one! Although this shows a lot of exciting new clips, I think the first one might be a little more exciting still. (You wouldn't believe how excited we were to see it on the big screen last week when we went to see Super 8. The Breaking Dawn, Part 1 trailer on the other hand? *retch*) Can you believe this might be the last new Harry Potter trailer we ever see?

So, here it is! Enjoy!

I just love the trailers that refer to the previous movies. Such a nice feeling of continuity. And, just for fun, here are a couple of the more recent posters revealed.

Just a few weeks left now!!! I can't believe it's all almost over, but I'm too excited right now to be sad. :D

WHAT apout QUESTS

2011-06-10T16:38:00.000-06:00

Also while Elise was here I was introduced to a new favorite YouTube video... It's funnier if you understand the context, so without giving too much away, here is the story:

So there's a newish sort of online video game called Super Press Space to Win Adventure (you can play it here, it seriously takes approximately two minutes). It's sort of a joke, and everything its name implies, designed to be really easy and a sort of parody of the old-school pixelated graphics video games of yesterdecade. Well, evidently someone didn't get the joke. In his online review, the now-infamous "axman13" furiously vented his frustration at such a simple game. This has now been recorded as a dramatic reading and paired with and epic soundtrack and genius Flash text animation.

And now, I give you...

Dot Dot Dot.

I cry every time. It's just perfect, the rhythm, the passion, the fury. I mean LOOK AT IT! Many, many thanks to Elise for introducing me to this gem of the interwebs. And, you're welcome, everyone else, for passing it along to you.

He even responded to the video! He actually (says he) likes it! But he's still illiterate. There was also a brief interview included in this artic. It's hilarious. Oh, that kid. He was indeed 13 at the time.

P.S. The same time this video was introduced to me, Elise also showed me this notorious little piece, which I had somehow never seen until that moment. All I can say is wow. And also we we we so excited.

80Y 5K

2011-06-09T11:20:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago several dozen family met up at Logan for an epic surprise party for my Grandma Julie's 80th birthday. She's an avid runner, has run almost 150 marathons in her adult life, and continues to run 5Ks and 10Ks regularly. We will often go up to stay with her for the weekend and run a race, or she'll sometimes come down and join us for a local race. My sisters had a brilliant idea to organize a fun, casual family 5K in her honor and for all of us to just show up and spring it on her. Elise designed a great t-shirt, and Amber had them printed for everyone who participated. Mom and Dad went up the night before and actually ran a morning race that had already been planned, and then on their way home they came across all of us in matching shirts and race number bibs, all ready to celebrate. Grandma was beside herself with delight, and I was really amazed that the surprise was never spoiled. (Mom had a hard time "lying" to her mother for so long.)

Waiting for the birthday girl.

While we were there we decided we had to have a good jumping photo shoot. The first one is a classic Britney/Elise shot. It's some kind of amazing or something.

We're all in this together!

I know this one is almost the same, but just LOOK at Penny!!!

Nice Ben, way to ruin the effect.

As a race, it was pretty casual, everyone went their own pace, some walked and pushed strollers, some of the kids rode scooters or bikes, and the 5K distance was approximate. The course started at an elementary school near Grandma's house, then went to a local park and back. It ended a little before 3.1 miles, so I went a little farther to Grandma's house (which ended up being a little longer than 3.1) and then back to the school. My total approximate distance was 4 miles (~36:12). Incidentally, I started to notice this sort of swelling in one of my knees after running for a couple days before and then right after this race, which kind of concerned me... Turns out some thorough stretching and giving it a weekend off seemed to have done the trick. When everyone made it back to the park, there was an abundance of great post-race treats for all to enjoy and everyone was a winner, though Grandma was the real champion of the day. What an inspiration!

Here's Elise's great t-shirt design. The main graphic was on front, and the bottom tagline was printed along the bottom left of the shirt.

This is just the Graham side, there were several more of Grandma's other kids and grandkids represented. A great turnout!

Thanks for organizing a great race, everyone! There was an awesome turnout and we all had a great time. And thanks for having a birthday so we could throw you a surprise party, Grandma! We love you so! See you at the next race, if not hopefully sooner.

A Most Unexpected Surprise

2011-06-05T19:45:00.000-06:00

Ha ha, as if there's any such thing as an "expected surprise"?...

A few weeks ago as The Wife and I were sitting at home waiting for friends Lacie and Leland to come over to watch one of our shows, Lacie called saying maybe The Wife and I should head up to my home neighborhood to watch it at her parents' house instead. Our initial thought was that it was getting a little late, and we should just watch it separately and get together to catch up next week. Then she said she really thought we should just make the 25-minute trip up to watch it with them, and it took me just a few seconds to even realize that the phone had been handed to someone else...

It was my own little sister and longtime BFF Elise!!!

It was such a huge surprise, I really have no idea how anyone was able to keep it a secret from the most of us, especially the aforementioned friends who we see quite regularly! She had been planning a trip back home with her little poopsie (though not quite so little as when I last saw her!) to visit and just so happen to be in town for a beloved cousin's wedding day. She had a great time revealing herself to everyone in the family, sometimes by leaving her baby on the doorstep of someone's house and calling from the nearby bushes, saying she had sent a package that had arrived and should be picked up, and sometimes by Mom just walking into a relative's house holding the visiting little one. Everyone was completely surprised. We had such a nice long visit with her, and we spent a lot of time up at Mom and Dad's house hanging out with her and Penny, watching movies, going out to favorite restaurants, getting in a small but intense game of laser tag, and even visiting Grandma in Logan (more details on that event to follow).

My, how you've grown! We took these pictures while we were waiting for our newlywed cousin to emerge from the temple.

We take a picture like this at every wedding lately (our own or someone else's, apparently).

Sisters do as sisters should.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a glamorous photo with my exquisite wife.

But perhaps the most remarkable byproduct of Elise's visit back home was this incredible music video. The whole thing started out as an attempted reunion of the talents behind the now famous One Day More music video made some five years ago (I was involved in a directorial and cinematic capacity, not as one of the actors), and a recreation of it. It was decided that rather than just remaking the old music video, especially since not all original parties were present, we should do something completely new. After a quick vote, we decided on Mika's poptastic Grace Kelly, and the rest, as they say, is history. You can see the result below. My nephew was really excited to report that he watched it twice and that it already had close to 100 views (this milestone has now been reached!).

I love how the still preview photo is of me and Leland flexing. We are so manly! Much thanks to Elise, the true mastermind behind this project, for her direction and inspiration. This is definitely her brainchild, and we were so glad to see it uploaded ever so quickly. (By the way, her latest cinematic masterpiece can be seen here. Oh those babies!!!) Oh yes, and we certainly missed Jeff. The music video (and visit) could only have been improved by your involvement.

We had a great time, Elise! Hopefully we'll be able to make a trip back east to visit our various family there sometime soon, but we family here at home are always ever so glad to welcome visitors (especially if they bring their wee ones...).

Florida: I Want To Go Back Already (Part IV)

2011-05-26T13:29:00.000-06:00

And now (almost two weeks after I started writing what was once an immensely long blogpost, and what has become what I like to call the Great Orlando Blogging Project), the time has at last come for Part IV: The Wrap-Up.

After our Universal excursion we had two final days at Walt Disney World, where we went back to each park one more time to fill in the gaps of what we didn't get around to the first few days (and to re-ride some of our favorites, of course). We took pictures at all the entrance signs and even had a photo tour around the World Showcase, where we kept an eye out for passers-by who looked like they would be willing and able to take our picture at each country (we dubbed them "poor unsuspecting souls," which Julie very cleverly adapted to Ursula's song from The Little Mermaid).

Epcot didn't seem to have a sign outside, so we had a picture with Spaceship Earth from the back instead.

We wore ourselves out pretty well those last couple of days, but we were determined to make the most of every last minute of our trip. I had been yearning to go back for so long, and I wanted to try to remember everything in case it's many more years since we visit there again. I think we did pretty well at soaking it all in before we had our final goodbyes to the parks and even the shuttles.

We had a pretty uneventful last day, sleeping in, checking out of our hotel, eating at the new T-Rex restaurant at Downtown Disney (think Rainforest Cafe but with dinosaurs, and also amazingly even more overpriced--we made it work for not too much by sharing a hearty appetizer sampler and a big salad), and catching a pretty late flight home. It was a pretty relaxing day, but it still would have been nice to have a day to recoup before heading straight back to work, or at least getting in before midnight (there was a brief glorious few moments when we thought we had been bumped up to an earlier non-stop flight, but alas, 'twasn't meant to be). But, um, I guess I can't complain about anything after such an amazing vacation.

This bed is kind of tiny. Our big bed is one thing we had to look forward to back at home.

So we had a wonderful time, and Julie's first visit was a great experience. My itch has been scratched! It's nice to go back after all these years, see how things have changed, and how so many things are just the same as I remember.

When can we go back, Wife?!?*

* But seriously, I can wait if I must. It's nice to know there's a Land so relatively nearby that we can visit when we get the itch again. Which is going to happen in like six months.

Florida: I Want To Go Back Already (Part III)

2011-05-25T16:12:00.000-06:00

And now, for Part III: The American Idol Experience.

Like I said, I heard about this opening last year, and was pretty impressed that they managed to get every single American Idol winner (and many of the other contestants) to attend the grand opening. I heard reports and understood it was a pretty neat show, so when we made our vacation plans, I decided to go for it. Now, my history with auditioning for American Idol is pretty disappointing, but since there were no extended episodes of auditions, and as such, no trainwreck singers let through merely for the sake of ratings, I thought it might be fun to give it a try. Of course, I tried to have zero expectations at getting through, butIhopedIwouldanyway. I did some research online and found out a little information. They do four-five regular shows each day featuring guests who auditioned throughout that very same day, and the winners for each show appear at the finale that evening, and the winner of that round would get a Golden Ticket, entitling them to skip to the front of the line at any city's actual audition for the show. I hoped to get cast in the first place, and then I thought it would be great to sing again in the evening show, but seriously, that would have been totally satisfactory for me. Outside the attraction they have Cast Members holding a sheet with a couple hundred songs to choose from and a good amount of basic information for those hoping to audition. I was told later that on some days the park is less crowded but they get hundreds of auditions, and on other days, the park is full to capacity, and they don't get too many hopefuls in the audition rooms. When I went to audition that morning, things were pretty quiet, but I could hear people singing and auditioning and practicing behind closed doors.

Crossing my fingers! I've had bad luck with AI auditions in the past, so I'm a little stitious.

The two audition rounds were fun, a lot less crowded and even more seemingly legitimate, as they are actually looking for talent to put in their shows, rather than sideshow acts and sob stories. The first producer I auditioned for really liked me, and made suggestions for what to sing for my next audition (she loved my "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" and also recommended "Go the Distance" from Hercules--sometimes they suggest doing a couple different style of song, but she thought the belty ballad was right up my alley), since she would definitely put me through. I had a few minutes in their recreation of the infamous Coca-Cola "Red Room" to practice with one of the provided iPods, after which I auditioned for another producer, and then they cast me for one of the afternoon shows!

I'm through to the next round! I have a golden ticket!

Practicing in the Red Room.

I suddenly have the strangest desire for a Coke.

These were the girls I competed with in round 1. They were like 17.

After a little bit of filming with a director and cameralady, they told me to come back about an hour before the show, where I and the other two singers rotated between reviewing our piece, having a little hair/makeup touch-up, and working briefly with a vocal coach.

Apparently this lady has worked with a lot of former American Idol contestants.

It was so cool to be backstage and part of the show at a Disney theme park! The theater was awesome, it totally looked like the one on TV, and the whole experience seemed really authentic and exciting. We had a dress rehearsal, where we each sang through our pieces and had some final feedback from the vocal coach and stage manager, and then it was time for them to let in the audience and start the show! The host had their schtick and introduced the three type-cast judges as well as the contestants, and then we each had our turn. The other two contestants sang "This Is Me" and "Bubbly." After we sang, the judges went around and gave us feedback and everything (they warned us that they paid one of the judges to occasionally say something a little sassy, they don't want to "cheat us out of the true American Idol experience," and not to take it too personally--he was still pretty nice to me, though he called my performance "a little square," and suggested I modernize it a little, which I thought was such a perfect criticism for some reason), so that was really fun too.

I was a little nervous that the girls who were in my round were there with a high school group (which counts for a lot of votes), but in the end I evidently garnered the majority of them and was invited to return that evening for the finale!

The camera operator would probably like it to be made mention that she was recording clandestinely from her lap, and the camera shifts downward at one point because they were pointing out to her in the audience and she didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she was recording. The shakes are also explained by her clapping at certain points. When I asked, they said they technically have to say they disallow video recording or photography, but they don't really enforce it. I'm glad I because I desperately wanted this recorded, so, much thanks to Julie for being a great photographer and catching the key moments on bandit video. :D

I'm going to the finals!!!

It's hard to tell, but I'm doing the same pose as the square on the park map cover.

So we went around the park for a few hours and came back that evening for the finale show. Presumably to generate interest and fill the audience seats, they had given us some swag that loudly proclaimed we had auditioned and were performing on the show. A few people came up to me and said they really liked me and had voted for me and I said "Much thanks, and come back tonight and vote again!" There were five singers this time, and the styles of music represented were very different. The other songs were "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," "Achy, Breaky Heart," "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Holding Out for a Hero." There was a different host and different judges, but the rest of it was pretty much the same, but a little more exciting.

When it came time to reveal the results, they even drew it out as long as possible, very Seacrest indeed. They called two people forward and eventually told them their "journey" ends here, then they called down two more (self included) and said we were moving on. So it was down to me and the girl who sang after I did, and after a good deal more stalling, she was named the winner!

She was cute and fun and enthusiastic and SO excited. She was really good, and so into it, and she will actually use the Golden Ticket, so I'm really glad she won.

The winner is announced! She looks like she just finished an Olympics gymnastics routine.

So that was it. I felt like a celebrity, and on our way out at park closing, I noticed a lot of people (especially little kids) looking over and pointing and whispering to their parents or siblings about me. A lot of people came up to be and randomly started applauding and cheering, encouraging me to keep singing (in case I was bummed that I didn't win), and how they were torn between me and the girl they eventually voted for. Some said they would have picked me but they felt loyalty to the winner because they had seen her previous show. It was awesome.

It was amazing all in all, and I'm so glad Julie was patient and let me spend so much time of our day doing this! I think my until now insatiable yen to be on American Idol is actually more or less fulfilled.

My biggest fan! And hers.

*dramatic*