I got Wii'ed on

I just wanted to say that I have a new electronic device sitting beside my television. Due to the exploits of some fabulous friends I am the recipient of a Wii. I currently have Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and Mario Kart. I'm not going to manage to get anything done. We spent a decent portion of this weekend playing with it and the Wii that others brought. I'm looking forward to co-op play over the intarweb.

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Clear the Chamber

Well, I have finished the second in the illustrious Harry Potter series. Some have expressed surprise that I am managing to keep to my earlier goal of reading one per cycle, two fiction and 1 non-fiction. I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets relatively quickly, but I didn’t read it nonstop like some people have done. I don’t think I’ve ever done that with a book. Anyway my review of the first book is here, and I’ll ramble on about this one below.

This is a nice baby step up from the last book. It’s more complex. The characters are more ambiguous. I kind of want to watch the movie again now. I don’t usually have as big a problem with changes from a book to a movie as some people do. You go from a written medium to a visual one and you have to change some things. Plus there is the time limitation.

I digress. I don’t even have to say the book is good and a fitting second addition to the series. Everyone else already has. I will say I am pleased with where this is going and look forward to the next in the series.

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The Face of Hundreds

Well I finally finished reading The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H. W. Brands. I tell you what that took me a long time. The thing is over 700 pages long and I swear it’s like 8pt font. I read it in 3 goes. I broke those up with fiction books in between. It helped to take a bit of a break from the flood of information.

Well I’m not exactly sure what to say here. This was a darned good book. It’s well written. It covers an extremely important person in American history. And I really liked it. The reason I don’t know what to say is that the book just covers so much. Franklin lived a long time and did more in his life than most people could imagine. This is one of the people that helped make the US the country it is today. And some of the things the thought of and helped institute are very modern ideas even by today’s standards. So if you like history and good writing then you should pick this one up and give it a read.

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Truck shoes

I got some new tires for my truck this week. I'd been needing some for a while. Well technically I didn't need them quite yet, but I prefer to be safe with tires and brakes. So I decided on some Yokohama AVID H4S. They are unidirectional and considered high performance. That might be overkill, but I drive on a windy road to work. I loved my last Yokos, and these are performing much better with less road noise. I'm just going to have to watch out for snow.

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Solid as Iron

Well Saturday I went to see a DLP presentation of the new “Iron Man” movie starring Robert Downey Jr. I’m not even going to wait till the end to tell you. Go. Now. Watch it at full price if you have to, but go. Oh and stay through the credits. Just go. That is probably one of if not the best superhero/ comic book movies I’ve seen in a long time. The only thing that probably beats it is “V for Vendeta.” That’s right I think it’s better than “Spiderman” and “Batman Begins.” It’s already on my buy the special edition when it comes out. It looks like Marvel has some good stuff cooking up too. Go. Downey owns the role of Tony Stark. Everyone in the film really hits their performances with all cylinders. The visuals are stunning, and the CGI great. This movie should be enjoyable to anyone that likes good movies. So Go. I’ll quit talking now so I won’t delay you anymore.

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Ass Kicking for the Whole Family

So last week I went to see “The Forbidden Kingdom” at the theater. That’s the new movie starring Jackie Chan and Jet Lee. I had high hopes for the movie. I mean It’s Chan and Lee for crying out loud, but it turned out to be about what I expected. It is a pretty good movie with nice action scenes and pretty scenery. The writing and the directing is made for the whole family, including children. This isn’t like the epics of Lee or the fast relentless action of Chan. It’s so everyone can follow it. That makes it good but safe. There’s not really anything edgy about it. I say take the whole family, but try to make it to a matinee.

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Traveling to Tampa

Well two weekends ago in the middle of April I had the great pleasure of travelling with friends, to meet with more friends, to help two friends get married. It doesn’t get much better than that. And the damnedest thing of all, I didn’t take any pictures. Oh well. There were plenty of others taking pictures. Though we did miss recording the limo trip, the drunken go-cart racing, the game playing, and the drunken mini-golf. Ah that was a hoot right there. But the capstone was getting to stand up there and witness two people who are made for each other take the next big step in their life together. And now they are moving even closer to me. You know 2008 is turning out to be a stellar year. Smittys I hope you had a great honeymoon, and I hope you like the wedding present. I know Dex, Anita, James and Tiffany hope you do as well.

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Busy and Lazy

Man April was a busy month for me. I was at the house for all of one weekend that month. And once I was gone for 6 days straight. So what was I doing. I'll cover part of it in other posts. But for now I'll ramble about these.


The first weekend I went to Atlanta on Friday evening with some people from work. I was a late replacement for someone else. I work on Campus and they work off Campus, so we don't normally mix much. I think I fit in pretty well and might have just extended my friend pool. We went to see Jeff Dunham the comedian. Many of you have watched him. Let em tell you right now I haven't laughed that much since my Dad and I went to see Jeff Foxworthy. I suggest you watch Jeff Dunham on YouTube if you haven't seen his act. My back was sore the next day from laughing. It was his second show of the evening. He came out a little drunk, asked for some Jack D., and then had us rolling for almost 2 hours. I think he came up with some new material on stage, and If he was truthful he said it was one of the weirdest shows he'd done in a long time. I judge that to be a success.

I got home at 3:30 AM and got up at 7:45 so I could drive to see my family. Yeah I took a nap later that afternoon, but it was so worth it.

The next weekend I had accepted the invitation of a friend to come to a mountain cabin the father of a friend of his owned. Man that was a confusing sentence, and I knew what I was trying to say. Anyway here's a picture of it.


Actually my friend described it as a lodge rather than a cabin. I tell you what that is a nice place right there. Central heat and air, a wrap around porch, 5 or so bedrooms with real honest to God beds. It was wonderful. We got up there and we made pulled pork BBQ and fried chicken and hot dogs and hamburgers throughout the weekend. Mmmm Fried Chicken. I sat out on the porch, when it wasn't chilly, and read the Benjamin Franklin book I've been trying to finish. When it was chilly I sat inside and basked in the sun coming through the windows or glanced out at the mountains while I relaxed reading. I haven't had a chance to do that in such a lovely place in a long time. I included some pictures below of the view from the porch.

But that wasn't the best part. I also got to do something else. We went skeet shooting. That's the first time I've ever gone. I probably put a total of about 110 rounds through the old double barrel. I still don't have a name for it yet. I'll have to ask her again. Anyway, You know what. I 60+ year old 12 ga double barrel hurts when you shoot 100+ rounds. I imagine it tripled if not quadrupled the number of rounds I've put through it. Though I didn't think I did very well, 31% maybe, For a first time at skeet I had a hell of a lot of fun. Plus I think I was getting better near the end. But the things it did to my shoulder. My entire Pectoral was sore the next day. And later in the week the whole area was bruised. I took a picture for posterity, but I'm not posting hairy man-nipple here. Damn that was fun though. Maybe I can do it again sometime.

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