Holiday Rememberance

I response to a thrown gauntlet, to reinitiate the blog for the season, here is my rebuttal:  Humbug.

No, that is not the rebuttal, but just something to open up the blog.  The theme is remembrances of days of yore and thoughts regarding Christmas and the holiday season.  It can be seen that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The world moves on all around us, regardless of how the flow pulls us along.  There are days of sitting on the side of the stream, watching things move by, while others seem to be pulled under by the current.  And everything in between.

Fondest holiday memories tend to involve the children and Grandpa's farm in West Virginia.  

The sheer joy of watching the kids tear through their presents,and start playing with the current toy, or reading the book, before realizing there were MORE presents under the tree.  The Fisher Price Little People house or the pink & purple tea set with service trolley just come to mind.  My daughter going around and around the house pushing that tea set, having a good old time.  Pulling my son's nose out of a book, to investigate something else.  Ru-ru's (Great-grandma Ruth) "Nuts and balls" for breakfast, warm and fresh from the oven (hungarian coffee cake, I think is what it is)

But then the memories of the farm float to the surface, with all the years of seeing cousins, aunts, and uncles and the grandparents farm.  Catching up on what is going on with our lives, and finding new activities to entertain ourselves when we were young.  The endless card games of WAR, sometimes with three people and two decks.  Every year, we'd reshare the story of how we were going to slide down the carpeted stairs...on a plastic snow sled.  The oldest cousin present acted as the "pusher" at the bottom, to help the rider to get around the wall, and into the next room.  Needless to say, it didn't work.  All the aunts come running in, wondering what the devil we were doing, and us going "what?  We shouldn't do this?"

Once the mealtime arrived, we had to eat in shifts.  Usually the grownups would eat first, and the uncles would then drift to the TV room to watch whatever sporting event was on (i.e. NapTime!), then the kids would get our shift at the tables, then go tromping around the hills, looking for cats in the barn, or cows up the holler.

As we grew up, and had children of our own, the "little kid table" was still the place to be, with the little bird mouths of toddlers, opening up for a new bite of food, and the story telling of the time a cousin was sent down the stairs in a sled.  The best year was having 4 generations snowed in to the farm.  There are two hills which can be treacherous in the weather, and two families had walked in from the hill, when their vehicles could not make it up the hills.  In the snow, two young cousins, playing in the snow, wearing some adults jacket like a top coat, snow balls tossed about.  As the evening progressed, grandpa went out to a hill in his truck.  Stopped and tried to go again in 4x4 drive.  But he decided it wasn't safe for anyone to leave, and nobody really was going to argue anyway.

Now picture: 25 people, 4 or 5 under 10 yrs old.  couches and beds and floor all being slept on.  Oh yes...one bathroom in the house at that time.  But we all remember this fondly of that holiday.

Now, the farm is being sold soon.  No new memories for this branch of the family.  Right now, some distant cousins are looking at buying it, for them to make new holiday memories.  And for us to remember, and to find new sources to create common memories, to keep quilting the common blanket, which wraps us in its warmth.

Okay.

That's it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone !

A year in the life of...

Okay, so it has been quite a while, blogosphere. I obviously won't do this often enough, and have no mythical belief that I'm the next Pulitzer prize winner.

What have I been doing the past year or so.

1. Walked at Johns Hopkins Univ. to accept my MS of Sys. Eng. degree. First time on campus.
2. changed programs at work...twice, or maybe three times. But still doing the same thing focusing on Systems engineering for software, or some combination of those two disciplines. Almost left the company, until another opportunity popped up, back on my old program. I was just that frustrated and tired of being the team player.
3. working on improving a house in Maine that is 250 miles and a ferry ride away. So far, just bring up supplies. Hope to start consuming them.
4. Still watching movies all the time, and TV that I don't get on cable...because I don't have cable.
5. Did a 35 mile bike ride recently, to help raise money for cancer research at Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital
6. Attended the funeral of my 92 year old Grandmother this spring
7. Attended a family reunion in WV over labor day, which also had a memorial service for my grandfather's 101 year old sister.
8. Oldest child is attending high school this fall, and is getting quite good at Karate
9. Youngest child is into double digits, and plays the piano with a skill that I can never get the hang of.
10. wife is starting to get back into school and get out of the home more.

No pundits today. Life is moving on, fewer peaks, fewer valleys. wondering what is around the river bend, of should I keep paddling to stay in one place.

err, Hi, remember me, the one who has been ignoring you

Okay, I'm not the writer that other bloggers are. A friend's blog can go for pages and pages, and all I come up with is that "I did stuff." I'm a guy, that goes with the territory.

Watching a ton of movies. I'll have to find time to get them in here.

quickly: Favs: Clockwork Orange, Snatch, Momento, Hot Fuzz, Idiocracy.

Not so favs: don't have many right now. The joy of Netflix and their referencing tool has done right by me. Some movies are those you say "that was a renter" and can promptly forget about it forever. No real stinkers, so that's a good thing.

right. I'm done. will report in later after vacation.

More movies, more movies, more movies

Okay, this is the fun part. I'm watching a movie while publishing my puny reviews. How ironic?

Okay, here we go.

1) The Kingdom - FBI squad in Iraq, investigating a bombing of Americans. Great movie with some good action scenes. Jamie Foxx with Jennifer Garner. Great action sequence on the DVD, where over a 5 minute sequence, you can watch it from 3 or 4 different angles (not simultaneously) . Nice extra

2) The Astronaut Farmer - Another interesting movie. Kinda like a space man "Field of Dreams". Not a movie which I remember a lot about. I remember enjoying it. But, not a long lasting memory. More of chewing gum for the mind, kind of entertainment.

3) The Italian Job - Ocean's Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen but different. Great car scene, racing around in Cooper Mini's

4) Capote - Definitely a Oscar award winning performance. Captured the odd behavior of Capote with great detail, and freakyness.

5) The Prestige - Another great movie about two magicians and what they brought about, both real and fiction. Great drama, with some interesting ramifications of what they did for their art.

6) Collateral - While I really had issues for Tom Cruise, but he and Jamie Foxx did a fine job of acting in this movie, and keeping it interesting. Not one I'd watch again, most likely, but worth watching at least once.

7) Good Night, and Good Luck - Another oscar winning movie. George Clooney and the group were wonderful, in this dissection of the Red Scare and McCarthy-ism. Not action packed, and you are left wondering what happened at the end, but you know you saw something worth watching.

8) Grosse Pointe Blank - Great Movie !! The story of the 10 year High school reunion and what happend with John Cusack going back to the town he left from his high school romanatic interest, all while making a living as an assassin.

9) Hairspray- John Travolta in Drag. Need I say more. The original movie was worth watching, and this one seems to improve upon the original.

10) Dr. Strangelove - another of those movies you watch because you really should, but at the end, you are left wondering where the movie really ended. Something to watch again in 5 or 10 years, but not any more often than than. Peter Sellers is wonderful in all his characters.

Okay, not many left on the DVD list, but the instant viewing queue is full of other movies, including some deadbeats.

okay...more movies

I'll just keep up with my previous theme and quickly review some more movies we've watched either online or from disk.

1) Intolerable Cruelty - Funny, Odd film. Thought Clooney was great, and could totally run off with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Fun movie with the double crossing and the odd give and goes between them.

2) Next - Nicholas Cage. The movie was okay. It had a Sliding Doors quality, in that he'd see into the future, and then come back to the "now" and choose a path. So, you'd see a couple of reality possibilities, as well as what "did" happen. But it twists and turns, keeping things interesting

3) The Bucket List - Hilarious with the play from each other in the movie. Grumpy Old Men but different. Nothing too deep, but interesting enough.

4) Lord of War - Nicholas Cage again. But the movie had its shortcmings. Slow in a lot of places. It was good to see the movie, but wouldn't see it again.

5) No Reservations - Catherine Zeta-Jones again, as the chef. Ratatouille with live action. Again, she projected her role well again, and the chemistry with the other chef and the kid were good. She's always seems to be able to do well on her roles. I believed her in Chicago in her role, where Renee was just flat.

6) No Country for Old Men - Glad to watch it, but wasn't anything that I was expecting. Won't watch it again, but definetly something to see. Odd, a bit towards the horror side of things, without the gratuitous jumping from behind corners at you.

7) Batman Begins - Loved it. Great reinvention of a franchise that got too silly for its own good. Definitly not your 1960's Batman. It pulled the movies back from the goofy edge of things, back to the Michael Keaton version, then cranked up the darkness. Great way to restart the role.

8) The January Man - Another obscure movie from the 80's. Entertaining, loved Alec Rikman in his supporting role, with Kevin Kline as the lead man. Funny, and very 80's.

9) Golden Compass - interesting movie. If didn't have a firm ending, mostly because it should be continued in the next book. Never read those books, but the movie was good, if not very English (but it wasn't slow). Might have to read the books before I watch them again. Of course, I haven't read the Narnia books, although my 11 yr old has 2 or 3 times.

10) Becoming Jane - Okay, a chick flick. but it was a good movie. I love Anne Hathaway in general, even when goofy. This movie, she projected well, and was believeable in the role. I guess I'm in touch with my feminine side.

Okay, enough for now. hopefully, this enlightens someone in the bits and bytes out there.

Hmmmm....Movies

Okay, I figure since I started this Blog thing, I should blog about something. So, how about movies. Or more precisely, all the movies that I'm trying to catch up on. Netflix is quite a treat. While I'm only doing one movie at a time, the online movie viewer for the older or more obscure stuff makes for interesting distractions. You can't beat the cost, in my opinion. I don't subscribe to fancy cable packages, just what gets me the local stations. I don't want to watch that much TV. Or more precisely, I would watch that much TV.

I set up computer A for my surfing, homework, and other stuff. On Computer B, I setup Netflix and watch a movie. It is a built in distraction !! Instead of going down web-links on tangents from tangents to orthogonal tangents, I only have one thing to watch. So, as new movies come in and are watched, I might as well review them. (BTW: the computers are side-by-side and I recommend a SW package called Synergy (see http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) which will allow you to move a mouse from monitor to monitor (computer to computer) without doing anything more than setting up a client-server application from the website).

Now, I have gotten complaits that the DVD's we receive aren't appreciated by the wife, but she knows I get the movies and hasn't put in suggestions, so, if you don't vote, you can't complain.

Okay, 5 movies I've watched online. Granted, these are tangents upon themselves, in the Netflix rating system. "You liked this, so you should like this..." Sometimes, it is true. At other times...Meh.

1) Cashback - Loved it. Obscure movie, young actors, but still interesting. Can be slow but was fun to watch.

2) JFK - Left. And Back. Left And Back. or somethine like that. Interesting to watch again and satisfies the conspirory theorist in all of us.

3) Team America: World Police: A sign I'm getting too old. Didn't even finish the movie. Sure, it is intersting from an artsy point of view, but come-on, it just got too goofy. A conspirory movie satire, that's out to hurt itself.

4) Blade Runner (Theatrical Cut): Still love the movie. Methodically slow in parts, but the dry, Harrison Ford in the cyberpunk movie is great.

5) The Postman: I actually liked this movie. A lot of movies I watch out of curiosity and this was one. But, I found it entertaining in the post-end-of-the-country genre. It flirted with being overboard, but not too bad. If Shatner showed up, then forget it, it would be over that boundary.

That's all. I'll probably watch something Hitchcock this evening, while writing a 3 page paper for homework. We'll see how it goes (the paper meaning). First, the housecleaning, NFL, eBay listings, and pocket lint harvesting.

Stand back. I know what I'm doing.

Well, maybe not.

Seeing a lot of movies lately, between hulu.net and netflix online viewing, you can view all those obscure movies that are good, but not really....good.

Old stuff out there...Hitchcock, which is fun. Clockwork Orange and Logan's Run are on my list.

Been to the movies as well: Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E, Iron Man, Prince Caspian, and Journey to the center of the Earth.

I know Brandon Fraser seems to be type-cast as a particular character, but he does it so well, and can pull off the likable, goofy, hero. Mummy 3 is on the list for the summer as well.

(Oh, and the female character is a pleasant piece of tough, plausible, eye-candy, but that's my...brain talking. I'm not sure that Jules Verne was thinking of her for the book, but sometimes, modern is better)

Okay, warm days, and ready for the second wave of vacation to Maine, and be ready for the onslaught of family that will be visiting and volunteering to "help".

Have a safe summer