Sorry, posting is going to be a little sparse (read nonexistent) for the rest of this week. In addition to trying build a toybox, procur party supplies, clean for out of town relatives, and be a full time parent, part time student and full time worker, we also have to deal with the added bonuses of my father's retirement dinner and extra grocery shopping.
So, I apologize if this is going to break anyone's heart, but c'est la vie, que sera sera, etc.

So two years ago I had the "dreaded" high school reunion which I really enjoyed. I was on the planning committee and even the extremely drunken meeting was fun (though I wasn't much use at work the next day). Anyway, it all culminated in a really fun evening for everyone.
Today we found out that Terri's class is planning their reunion. The date...August 27th. We'll be here on August 27th. So as the people in Terri's class are sitting down to a dinner of warmed over chicken (they've done no fundraising) we'll be seated in the Waltrip section on Turn 4 watching 43 very determined drivers trying to tame the beast that is Bristol Motor Speedway. Those tickets aren't looking so bad now, huh hon?
So, I know everyone is expecting a big review of Star Wars. Well, you can go here. Or here. If you're interested in some in-depth analysis of the movie head to any of the numerous message boards or click here.
I have no spoilers to give other than the one that's been known since Episode II came out. And, that's my one big gripe in the movie. There's no mention of Han Solo. Not a glimpse, not a glimmer, nothing.
And, other than the fact that I had a very good lunch with friends and family on Saturday before seeing the movie and a relaxing evening afterwards, I have nothing else to say on the subject of Star Wars. It will not surpass any of the other 5 as my favorite of the six. A good movie experience.
Sunday among other things we went to get ice cream and this time we got Gage a baby cone. Let's just say that taste sensation will not be a problem for that little boy.

I just don't understand why nothing is easy anymore. Approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes ago I set out on a 20 mile roundtrip to the all night House of Satan. Including the actual errand I was running it should have taken me about 25-30 minutes. Instead I sat in traffic for a detour that shouldn't be occurring, got re-routed right back to my original spot, and I'll have to get up somewhat early this morning to finish watching Episode II in preparation for the 3:00 showing of Episode III.
If anyone's interested I can actually recount the events, but I'm still a little too steamed at the moment.

Well, based on the comments received for yesterday's post and through conversations held today...I'm right again. Man, you'd think I'd get tired of being right all the time.
Well, I'm through 4 and 5. Tomorrow night hopefully all of 6 and then Saturday morning for 1 and 2. I've also set aside the soundtracks to accompany me in the car for the next week or so.
This is another one of those times that I wouldn't mind having the 24 hour camera rolling on myself and my surroundings. I started Episode 4 before we put Gage to bed. When the Star Wars logo came on the screen and the music started to play, Gage stared at the screen and started applauding. He is my son. Then when the text scroll started he went over to the screen and pointed to the words as they crawled by. Serendipity. I was so wonderfully proud.
Hopefully he'll love them as much as Mark and Robyn's little boy Jacob. He has seen all 5 of them and he's not even 5.
My project manager was back in the office after a two day absence, but she was still in pain and kind of looped on painkillers so I felt like this guy. "Pay no attention to the man at the other desk, I am the great and powerful Project Manager" I'm hoping the weekend will give her some more time to sleep and hopefully recover to a larger capacity. I barely enjoy doing one job let alone two. It cuts into my slacker reputation.

Well let's see. In about 10 minutes the theater will dim and the trailers (5 or less by contractual obligation) will start flickering across the screen. As soon as those are finished the familiar John Williams score will start through the speakers causing an involuntary hush to fall over the crowd as the entire audience draws breath all at once only to exhale in unison and spontaneous applause as the score crescendoes into the the familiar Star Wars logo.
Can you tell I'm going to be missing the midnight showing in more ways than one? Hell, when I purchased my tickets online today, I left the web browser confirmation up til 6:30 when I logged off my computer. Even though I printed it twice and got an e-mail confirming my confirmation.
So, I need reader's input on two issues. The first is dealing with my wife and Star Wars. The second is dealing with my son and Star Wars...noting the recurring theme of this post?
First issue...As noted above, we have tickets that are confirmed and reconfirmed. Between now and the time listed on the tickets, I feel that the proper way to reconnect with the Star Wars universe and "suck up" for the show is to watch the DVD's. Starting with 4, progressing to 5, onto 6, then to 1, and finally 2. That will carry me to the theater showing of 3. At which point, the showings will begin again upon returning home in the same order 4-5-6-1-2. And, if time, babysitters, and cash permit a potential second showing of 3 to soak up the subtle points that may have been missed in the first viewing. Terri feels that if any viewings are to take place, it should be 1 and 2 then the showing of 3 home to 4, 5, and 6. So, feel free to chime in on which situation is right or wrong and what you might do.
Second issue...As many of you know my son is turning 1 at the end of the month. This means that there will have to be a decision made as to which order to view the Star Wars movies. Granted, there are only two choices. Release order or Episode order. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. So, I'd like to hear those arguments as well.
In fact the only Star Wars thing that I don't want to hear or see is any reviews, commentary, plot points, etc until 6:00 on Saturday after I've walked out of the theater...then...let me have it.

Is every school in this country stupid? It's not like this girl went in to have her boobs enlarged and missed school. What kills me is that everyone knew where she was and why she was there. She's been in the district her entire life. I remember the people running our high school making some questionable decisions when I was there, but nothing quite that stupid. At least the kid they are appointing valedictorian has asked them to reconsider. That is a spot of class in the school.
Speaking of stupid. I can't even decide where to throw down blame on this one. I guess I'll just blame the parents. Well, the magazine can't be held responsible, their fact checkers are overworked. And the fact checkers can't be held responsible, the reporters are idiots. And the reporters can't be held responsible, they have to sensationalize the news because average folks need that Springer angle. And Springer can't be blamed since he has real folks on his show to help them with their problems. And the folks on Springer can't be blamed because it's all their parents fault for allowing them to watch Springer in the first place. See, I told you it was the parents.
Not much else is going on today. My project manager skipped out on work today because of her problem. She says she should be in tomorrow. We'll see when I get there. They are usually hovering around my desk to give me the bad news as quickly as possible.
Here's something I wished I would have had the foresight to get a picture of. The girl that works in the marketing department for our company ran out of gas about 20 feet from the garage door entrance to our company. So, a bunch of guys had to go out onto the road and push her into the lot. It did get me a free lunch, but perhaps I'll just blame the parents for her too.

Please, can someone point me to the place where "what happens there, doesn't stay there?" It was slightly funny for the Vegas set of commercials. I'm not buying it for Cabo, Mexico, Canada, the kitchen, the backyard, or wherever else an action takes place that might be compromising, embarrassing, or deceitful.
Thankfully tomorrow is the election in Pittsburgh and then it will take at least a week for the winning candidates to re-group and start campaigning again.
Tomorrow also marks the start of the semi-finals in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. The six champions get a two day playoff to determine the two winners that will face Ken Jennings in the final round. I'm personally rooting for Chris and Brad to make it to the finals. Jerome looks like an even more cartoonish version of Jon Lovitz than Lovitz himself. Frank has the knowledge, but not the speed, so unless the board is lopsided to his particular knowledge I don't think he's going to make it. John and Pam will end up being the two middle podium people who stand there and try not to look like idiots as they answer 4 or 5 questions the whole game.
Anyway, I also realized that today was 6 months at my new job. No more probation. Of course, I got that information coupled with the fact that my project manager has to have a minor surgical procedure and no one is sure of the recovery process yet. Which means I may get thrown into a busier position by default.
The weekend wasn't too bad. It rained just enough time for just enough duration that we got absolutely no yard work done.
Saturday we just kind of hung out in the morning then went to see the Paterson lecture. She told several stories, read from some of her books, and did the requisite Q&A period. However, since this is primarily a children's lecture series the questions weren't quite the caliber that you would expect. It was still fun. One of the questions was about her path to becoming a writer. She talked about a graduate professor that told her that she should become a writer. She didn't feel that she had the talent and didn't want to add another "mediocre writer" to the field. The professor persisted in her claim and Paterson realized that if you don't dare to be mediocre, how are you ever going to be great?
After the lecture, they moved everyone that was interested into the children's area of the Carnegie Library, Paterson set up shop in the corner and proceeded to autograph anything that people had available, very patiently I might add. She posed for pictures and was thrilled that Gage might be a fan one day soon. I met a gentlemen who is in the MFA program at Chatham for children's writing. So, in case you notice it before I do, his nom de plume is "Syracuse Todd".
Sunday after church we headed down to the hospital where my Grandmother passed away. It turns out that every six months they hold a memorial service for everyone that died in the hospital. It sounds morbid and silly at the same time and since it was held in the main lobby, my first thought was that it was a little insensitive to those visiting the sick, but it was a touching service anyway. We then stopped by my parent's house so Gage could spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa.
I guess that's about all for today. I'll hit the treadmill for a couple of miles and then hit the bed.

Well what's left of Friday the 13th will be gone by the time you read this. Hopefully you're not a paraskevidekatriaphobe. I figured since I own a black cat, really...how much worse can it get?
This article struck me for three reasons. One, this guy brutally murdered 8 little girls and later realized the consequences of his actions. To this end, he refused all appeals and tried to speed up his execution. Sure, he should have probably been made to suffer a little more, but I can't believe how many people tried to override his wishes and keep him alive. I can almost guarantee that if somehow they had succeeded he would have attempted to hang himself in his own cell. It's like some bizarre twist on the Schiavo case. Two the state of execution. And, three the man's alma mater.
Not much else going on today. Terri and I made it through one whole week of yard work. I went out Mon, Wed, and today. She went out Tues and Thurs. So far, we've weedwhacked the hillside, moved off all the loose rocks off the sidewalk, cut about 1/4 of the lawn and pulled a small section of weeds by the patio. We'll get there eventually.
Tomorrow afternoon we're off to see Katherine Paterson give a lecture at the Carnegie Library. The series is for children, but if you listen to anyone's opinion of me, I'm still a big kid.

Well in keeping with learning something new every day, today I did something that I've never done before. I ripped a CD. It took about 4 1/2 minutes. I almost fell off my chair. Two clicks. Now I'm in the market for a new computer and the hard drive space to hold all my music. Here's where I could use some help. I'm looking for computer suggestions, storage suggestions, any kind of help.
I have approximately 2,000 CD's 1,000 or so tapes, 400 Vinyl albums, and about 200 8-
Tracks. Obviously I'm not going to be able to contain all that on one computer. So, is an external drive the way to go? So the computer have any special features or should I just get a barebones from here? Is this a PC or a Mac venture? Laptop, desktop? HP, Dell, Gateway, Apple? As you can tell...I'm clueless here.
Not much else going on here. A couple of people from work stopped over this evening and they're going to take some plant life out of my yard. I can't tell you how wonderful that is. Anything removed from the yard is one less thing that I may have to potentially take care of.
This is certainly a switch. (Although I'll preface this with the fact that the list has changed since I read it this morning and may change again). However, right now English, a major near and dear to my heart, is 2nd on the list. Computer Science...nowhere to be found. Sweet justice.

Not much is going on today. I'm posting a little earlier than normal because I decided to skip the daily walk on the treadmill. I figured that finishing the weedwhacking on the hillside qualifies as quite enough exercise for today. So, a quick post and then it's off to bed.
So, I finished all of my old Entertainment Weekly magazines and I'm even caught up, having finished the most recent issue last night. Now, not including all the hype within the articles themselves (too numerous to count) there were 4 full page ads with various vendors hawking their products with some sort of Star Wars tie-in. The number of Star Wars themed commercials are beginning to rival the first week of November 2004. Now, granted I'm going to see the movie at least once in the theater and the DVD will be out in time for Christmas. I also have Darth Tater sitting on my desk at work next to my Yoda and Darth Vader Slurpee cups from 7-11, but there's even a limit to what I can take hype-wise. They are building the movie so high, it's bound to crash in some way or another. I've seen at least 3 articles postulating on what the movie is or isn't going to resolve. And, since I already have it on pretty good authority that Han Solo makes no appearance whatsoever, I'm curious as to what other disappointments lie ahead. I've not read much of the press. If the article looks like it might contain spoilers, I've avoided it. I haven't bought the soundtrack, the book, or the video game (not that I have the right system to play it on anyway). I haven't looked at Kevin Smith's review (although that might be the only one to trust). Anyway, only a week to go til opening day so it will probably be at least a week more than that before I can find space in the theater to see the movie. And now it's time to go to bed to see if I can divine as to how Leia has memories of her mother, but Anakin has no memories of Leia.

Well, I once heard that you are supposed to learn one new thing every day. Today, I simply relearned something that I already knew. I'm always right.
Take this entry for example (taken straight from The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual p.146)
Over It generally refers to spatial relationships: The plane flew over the city. Over can, at times, be used with numerals: She is over 30. I paid over $200 for this suit. But, more than may be better: Their salaries went up more than $20 a week. Let your ear be your guide.
Style isn't always grammatically correct. Or, as I also learned today "grammatically schrammatically."

Whether it was intended to be a counterpart to my late night/early morning Saturday post, Adam's post was exactly what I needed. I guess it's not the destination, it's the journey that takes us there. And, to badly paraphrase, What a short strange trip it's been. Hopefully with good friends and family by my side, the rest of my journey will have the same sweet moments the journey has held so far. Maybe a little less of the scary ones, though.
For those that knew me in college, I tried a lot of things to extend deadlines and generally shirk classroom responsibility, but I can honestly say it never crossed my mind to set my house on fire.
And, since my son hasn't learned the value of sleeping in yet, I'm headed to bed for my eventual 6 am wake-up call...are we really sure he's my son? Surely my sleep gene should have kicked in by now.

Well it was pointed out to me that it's been over a week since I last posted. That it has. And, it made me focus on why I haven't posted. It's not like I haven't had the opportunity. I've been on the computer numerous times at home. I've certainly kept up with the blog reading. I think it has something to do with my last big lapse in posting around mid-march.
Anyway, a couple of quick notes before I completely delve into wallowing self-pity or whatever the hell it is. This holds great promise for me. It has the potential to bring about balance in the force.
Ok, here's where the casual reader can stop, in fact everyone can stop here if they'd like. The rest of this is sure to be long, rambling, full of self-loathing and inconclusive bs.
After dinner on Thursday the 28th with Susie and the Warners I went about my normal nightly routine. Terri and I (mostly Terri) put Gage to bed, Terri soon followed and I caught up on some paperwork and magazine reading. Being afflicted with insomnia, or an overactive thought process, sometimes keeps me up even when I don't want to be. Sure, it was wonderful during those all nighters in college, but nowadays with Gage getting up at 6:30 occasionally, it's not so pleasant. Anyway, I always have some noise coming from the television whether I'm actually watching or not. That night it happened to be
this. I'm pretty sure everyone I know has seen this movie. And, if you haven't, I'm sure you can buy it from Target the moment they open. There's nothing earth shattering about watching that particular movie. Hell, I've done it numerous times before. However, the last several times I've seen the movie I've been left with a little nagging feeling in me. That movie combined with the news the next day of Mr. Bell's death kind of brought that nagging to the surface. Til now I haven't really figured out what it means. Hell, I'm still not sure I have it figured out. Anyway, the movie left me with that vague feeling. Which I realized also had occurred earlier in March after watching this movie. And that feeling was intensified by seeing Terri's colleague play at the coffee house and singing the song "Lucky One" by Alison Krauss. There's a line in the song that says "Jack of all trades, master of none." That really sunk it home for me. When you think about that in conjunction with "Carpe Diem" and "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'" I wonder exactly what the hell I've been doing with my life. I have two writing degrees. Do I write? No. Do I want to? I think so. I used to be a fairly proficient actor. Do I act? No. Do I want to? I think so. The list is endless. Things that I'm fairly good at. Nothing that I excel at. Nothing that drives me to neglect reading the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly in favor of sitting at the typewriter. Perhaps I'm afraid of rejection. Perhaps I'm afraid that after devoting a little over half my life to my chosen profession, I'll find out that I don't belong there. That my six figure school loan debt was just a chance to build two and a half kick-ass buggies and earn me perhaps the oddest wedding gift ever seen. Speaking of EW, the last couple issues have had book reviews with Jonathan Safran Foer and his wife Nicole Krauss. Both have just recently published their second novels. Not that remarkable all things considered. Except that both of them are younger than I am. (Now we hit the crux of the matter) Not only do I feel old, but I'm too old to be the whiz kid that I always thought I was. Hell, I was once even hired to be the company whiz kid. I'm also wondering if perhaps I'm too old to try and break as a novelist (especially considering my novel resembles the "naked page" project that Jonathan once ran in another magazine that I read regularly. I rarely put together pieces as coherent as Susie. I'm not as ironic as Dwight. I certainly haven't been on Jeopardy like Craig. Or, even on any game show like Joe. I'm not making disposable income or breaking out on my own like The Mutchlers or Tom. I'm not really doing much of anything. I'm on the phone and people ask what's new. I have no answer, and I haven't for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy with my family, just my situation. I love Terri and Gage and I don't know how I'd get along without them. It's just this overwhelming frustration that keeps creeping back. This frustration all built into this post due to all the overwhelming signs that hammered at me this evening. I had problems getting a simple CSS sheet to work for my Web Development test. I was flipping through the channels and Dead Poet's Society was on (in fact when I started this post, Neil had just committed suicide). Once I saw my favorite scene (with half the class standing on their desks proclaiming O Captain, My Captain and having Robin Williams simply look up in an understated and, for him, completely uncharacteristic manner, to say, "Thank you boys. Thank you.), I flipped around the channels and sure enough there was Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. And yes, I flipped on the country station just to check and it wasn't Alison Krauss, but it was close. They were playing Lee Ann Womack's I Hope You Dance. So anyway, I have no closing...it was long, rambling, and mostly incoherent bs, but there it is anyway. Who knows, maybe someday I'll end up like Ron McLarty with the best book you can't read and then you can. Until then, I guess you'll just have to deal with my frustrations and ramblings here.