I Ought to be Packing

Today my wife, fetus, and I are heading to Colorado. This is a vacation that we've been working on for quite a while. It started with my parents' idea of trying an Alaska cruise (suggested two years ago), but with economic insanity and other financial restrictions, we opted for a visit to the folks' place and gallavent about the mountains and nearby sights. It's going to be awesome. So I'll be out there for a week, so I don't know how often I'll get to update. So I should be packing things as our departure time is about three hours from now, but I wanted to rave a bit about Away We Go.

This film is great, though I don't know how everybody will react to it. Really, it's a fantastic flick for the sake of mirroring a lot of what my wife and I are experiencing. The story follows a couple with their first child on the way as they try to figure the best place to settle down and start a family. It is a legitimately good time, and rather humorous (if you like John Krasinski, you can't go wrong here). But the thing that really stuck in my brain were the similarities between either the story and characters and my life. For instance:

1. In the movie, Burt and Verona find out that the only family they have in town is moving to another continent a month before the baby is born. My brother and his wife are moving to Guam and will be missing the arrival of our kid.

2. Some friends of Burt and Verona miscarry. I found out that some good friends of mine who we expecting also recently miscarried.

3. Burt in general reminds me of the way things work in my brain. I don't act like Burt usually (though there were some blaring similarities), but the things he did in the film mirror much of what goes on in my head.

Anyhow, go check it out. I'll try to see it again if it's still around another week. It definitely has that indie film flair, but not in such a way that you can tell the crew were trying to strike and be different for different's sake. And with a summer of such a crap-load of lousy movies, this should rank pretty high on your list.

Let the Kids Blow it Up

I swear I had posted on Monday. Sorry, folks. 

Well, there's a lot to yammer on about this week--reflections on the best amateur fireworks show I've seen, the most horrid and vomit-inducing class I've taken in recent years, and my lunch with former American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. I've decided to talk about Ted tomorrow and build up my thoughts on my current class (they are many, though in the same vein of hatred and boredom), leaving tonight's post about fireworks.

I've liked 4th of July all my life, but I don't know that I've loved it. It's always been fun and had been a good reason for my mom to make homemade ice cream (peach--it's the bomb-diggity). But growing up in Colorado meant we never got a lot of leeway in the explosives department. With fear of forrest fires, the biggest things we could set off were fountains, and as cool as some of those can be, they stay entertaining for only so long. I'm told that Nebraska has restrictions, but compared to firework famine that Colorado endures every year, I was about to witness the clashing of heavenly bodies.

New theory, the best fireworks show you'll see will result in leaving high schoolers in charge of everything. On Saturday, we had a church youth group 4th of July party in Bennet. Tell, the host as it was, is a fireworks fanatic. This kid's parents give him his birthday and Christmas presents in the form of fireworks--and he knows how to put on a show. I was excited to see things blow up in the sky, but Tell and his friends coordinated several "light and run away" moments that left a platforms a-blazin' with several fountains sprayin' and artillery shells booming. On the second stage, other families brought their fireworks piles. In this arena, the result was a man tying Black Cats into a nine foot-long bull whip and waving them around his head while they sparked, sprayed, and smoked.

The finale of the night was a group of kids making a pipe bomb from several artillery shells and taping them into a launching tube. They set it off in the street, and the blast sprayed about 100 feet in every direction. I'm pretty sure I now have plans for every summer now. 

First day of Summer

It's here! Finally, three weeks after school is out, I truly get my Summer break. My class is done and I have no real obligations. I'm sitting in a coffee shop with nowhere that I need to be. Throughout the week, I'll be doing some yard work stuff (yippee-skippy), and I've got an eye appointment, with a few errands to run, but now I can hang out, write about the things going on inside my head and begin working more on writing a iRiffs script. I'll be updating the blog more consistently, but I have no idea how much stuff will be awesome for you to check out. Whatevs.

Summer Movie Sadness

I realized this week that movies suck this summer. Star Trek was groovy, Up thrilled my soul. But now, I don't know if there's anything else I'm excited to see until 9. I totally sucks. Maybe last year spoiled me. With Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Get Smart, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Tropic Thunder, and Hellboy II, I had something to look forward to. It's not even that they all delivered as I had hoped, but I at least looked forward to them. This summer is giving me nothing. I'm trying to be excited about Transformers, but I wasn't a fan of the first one, so I don't think I'll care all that much about this one.

I know I'm not the only one feeling this, but is it being too whiny? Must I suck it up and move on with my life--try a new medium for entertainment? Even then, it won't be the same. Movies have a special even t feeling to them that other media lack (unless you're a fan of particular young adult novel series, but even the big ones there are now concluded).

On the plus side, maybe it will save me some money.

Tech-Savy

So, for being Summer, I'm amazed at how busy I am. It's probably because last Summer was centered entirely on World of Warcraft, but I honestly feel quite busy so far. I've been taking a class through the university that focuses on ways to utilize technology in a writing class. It is awesome. When I think of any of the classes I've had that are supposed to enhance my teaching and classroom activities, I kind of want to throw up--they've just all been so horrid. This, however, is just plain fun. We've been dinking around with podcasting, iMovie, Comic Life, Wordle, wikis, nings, blogs, Twitter. The list goes on. It's made me realized what a nerd I truly am. Not just a Star Wars, video game kind of nerd, but a Dexter's Lab kind of nerd. I'm seriously just loving everything we've gone over.

This is the last week of the class, so I'm hoping that things calm down a bit more for me. I did my final presentation yesterday, so already, I feel like I have more time (hence my return to the blogging). Unfortunately, I have to take another class in about two weeks. And after this tech class, I fear that the next will be disappointing.

Summer Times not Lazy Time

So I've been looking forward to Summer (as every teacher does), but I never figured I'd be as busy as I am. I'm in the middle of a summer class which takes up my morning (more on that later) and I've been working on a bunch of stuff with my house in the afternoons. It's been a good schedule, but it's driving me a bit crazy that I'm not actually getting the time for what I was planning to do, namely writing and reading. Luckily, I was able to drag my carcass out of bed and get to Bagels and Joe to do some writing for about an hour and a half before my class. It felt good. Hopefully I can keep that up and maybe even get up earlier and find a place that opens earlier to go and spend my time at.

Otherwise, I went down to the University last night for Jazz in June. I recommend. It was just nice to go, grab an awesome cheeseburger, and chill with people with a band doing their thing up front. I think I'll be going to the other concerts throughout the month.

Anyhow, it's class time, so I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Three More Days

As of this morning, I have three more days of this school year. Just thinking about it has made my head explode twice (very messy).

Finals are my favorite time of year because it makes a lot of students care for the first time all year. And this year, as an added bonus, I'm making all but one class diagram sentences, which thrills me more than anyone could imagine.

With these last days, I'm starting to get all excited for the summer and my summer happenings. Starting next week, I'll be taking a class that gets me some graduate hours. It's gonna be sweet, yet bizarre to be back in a classroom as a student. Otherwise, I swear by my right earlobe that I will read. Every summer I aim to read like a fiend, and every summer starts well before it crashed in a flurry of unread pages.

And writing. With the class happening throughout June, it throws off my writing hopes a bit. I like to write in the morning, right when the coffee shops open up and stay for at least two hours. Unfortunately, most coffee shops around here don't open until 7:oo. So I'd only get an hour in before I've get to get to class. Lame. Hopefully I'll still get something good done by getting together with my friend for a writing group.

Movies and How I Miss Them

Over the last three years, my theater attendance has skyrocketed. At least twice a month (and often more frequently) I would be sitting back in a comfy seat, as close to the middle of the theater as possible, soaking up the movie magic (often to gripe about it later).

I haven't seen anything since Watchmen (unless you count the second viewing of Coraline) which makes it about 7 weeks since I've seen something in theaters. It's weird that I care. I love movies (eventually want to get a master's in something related to lit through film), but I can't think of a time that I cared so much about not seeing them.

It probably boils down to reputation. When I started teaching, I started seeing more films. Soon thereafter, I became known as the movie guy among my students and fellow teachers. Even though there are not a lot of things worth seeing right now, I feel like I'm slipping on my duty to preview so much of what is going on in the film world.

With X-Men Origins coming out this weekend and the summer season soon thereafter, I expect (if not demand) that I plug back in to the culture stream of Hollywood craziness.

Stupid Settlers. Ripping me away from my movies...