full of misshapen words

Random Nintendo Game of the Month: Lightning Round!!

2012-02-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

My original intention was to hop onto EveryVideoGame.com and play the game I played for my very first RNGOTM back on MySpace, Disney's Pocahontas. However, several other titles in the 'P' category distracted me. And, as few of them really required more than 5-10 minutes of gameplay to get a good feel on what exactly they were, I decided to make do something a little different with this not-really-monthly feature. It's Random Nintendo Game of the Month: Lightning Round!

Game 1: Peepar Time
Okay, what is a Peepar? I'm not sure, and while I wasn't certain that I wanted to know, curiosity got the best of me and I started with Peepar Time.

This is more or less what my internal monologue would have sounded like:

Okay, so what's a Peepar? Obviously some cutesy Japanese thing...
Hm...no help from the title screen. None at all. Well, okay. One player, here we go.
Stage 1.
Okay, let's see, where am I? Am I that hopping thing? What is that thing? Is that a peepar? I guess those squid things are the bad guys. Hey, that peepar thing is moving. I'm not moving it. Go left, bouncy guy! Go left! Or right! Or just stop going forward! Okay, I can't control that guy, so I'm obviously not him. Maybe I'm not on the screen yet? Maybe if I push a button I'll shoot something. Well, it made a sound effect, but I can't see that anything actually happened. Maybe this rom is just busted...Where is that hoppy guy going?
(music changes, words "STAGE CLEAR" flash on the screen.
.....what?

The good news is, you cannot lose stage one of Peepar Time. The bad news is, you're no closer to figuring out what it is you're supposed to be doing by the end of stage one of Peepar Time.

Eventually, I figured out you're supposed to rearrange the tiles that Peepar (I'm assuming that's a peepar) is hopping on to get him to the goal and keep the bad guys away from him. If you've ever played Pipe Dream, it's kind of like that, only with a Peepar. (Still not sure what a Peepar is, but it looked kind of like a cartoony penguin in a hoodie?)

Game 2: Penguin Wars
Penguins have the lamest wars ever.

There's not really much of a war in this game, more an athletic tournament. You see the bracket at the beginning of the game, and you're supposed to win your way to the top. The game actually looks like it would be really fun to play in real life with a slight modification. You (the penguin) and an opponent (in my case, a yellow bear with no hind legs...wait, velveteen bear?) each start off with a number of balls on your side of a table. When the game begins, you start rolling your balls toward your opponent. The goal is to get all of the balls to end up on the other side of the table. Of course, in the video game, if you hit your opponent they become unable to move for a few seconds, so that gives you an edge.

Take away the table and replace "rolling" with "throwing" and I think this would be an awesome sport. Really, though, I got tired of the NES rendition pretty quickly because things just moved so slow.

Also, I lost to the freaking legless bear. And it laughs. While your poor little penguin is crying.

Jerkbear.

Anyway, check out the theme song! It makes this game sound way more exciting than it actually is.

Game 3: Pooyan
Once again, I just wanted to know what the heck a Pooyan was. Apparently it's a mama pig (this is the first game I played that had a story behind it). Some baby pigs were out playing in the field when they were kidnapped by wolves. Because wolves are into kidnapping now instead of eating. Mama pig is out to save her piglets, and this rescue takes the form of shooting arrows from a crudely-rigged elevator-type apparatus while scores of wolves jump from a high ledge, slowing their falls with large balloons. When you've sent all the wolves to a splatty doom, the piglets chase off the lone survivor.

Really, though, you need to play this game if for no other reason than the soundtrack is amazingly bizarre. Especially the title screen.

Game 4: Panic Restaurant
This game was actually really awesome. You're a chef. One day, while walking to your restaurant, you're assaulted by fruit and vegetables from above as the evil chef Ohdove. He says he's taken over your nice clean little restaurant. So the entire game is the chef fighting his way through the restaurant to take it back from Ohdove. Somehow, Ohdove has made all the food evil, so you are bashing your way through a restaurant using a skillet as a weapon while being attacked by gelatinous desserts, sliced apples, feminine carrots, and runaway stuffed turkeys. It's silly, it's surreal, and it's just fun. You can upgrade your weapon (once you get that giant spoon, you are ready to take down some evil produce!), candy gives you health (because that just makes sense, right?), and you collect coins for a chances at a slot machine-style bonus game at the end of each stage. This game also marks the only time I can ever remember being angry enough to want to shout, "Damn you, pizza!"

Seriously. I hated that pizza.

Simple game, silly premise, and ridiculous fun.

I love you! You're my favorite! GET AWAY FROM ME!!!

2012-02-11T23:25:00.000-08:00

My boys are awesome. They love each other so much. Whenever one sees the other enter a room, his face lights up. They love to play together. Robbie loves to make Isaac laugh, and Isaac is always ready to laugh at Robbie. They play peek-a-boo together. They play trucks together, which is impressive since Isaac can't talk or really "play with" anyone yet. And when Robbie runs back and forth through the living room, Isaac either watches and cackles or else tries to crawl after him. And they almost always want to hug one another.

At least, at any given point in time, at least one of them wants to hug the other. However, very rarely do they want to hug at the same time. It's actually really funny to watch. Either Robbie will come up and try to hug Isaac, and Isaac will start crawling away, halfway dragging Robbie with him. Isaac starts grunting, and Robbie starts whining "I want to hug Isaac!" And then Isaac starts whining, and by that point Robbie is laid out on his back trying to keep his arms around his baby brother's midsection. Or else, Robbie will be sitting watching a movie, and Isaac will get this huge grin on his face and he'll come over to Robbie. He'll get up on his knees and stick both hands out, then grab Robbie's shirt and push against his torso. Robbie doesn't move, because Robbie doesn't move when he's watching TV, so Isaac pushes harder. Robbie starts to whine, Isaac starts to laugh, and eventually he knocks Robbie completely onto his back because, again, Robbie doesn't want to function when he's watching the TV. So there's Robbie lying on his back, Isaac fallen over on top of him laughing, and then--and only then--Robbie whines, "I want Isaac to leave me aloooone!" "But he just wants to hug you and play with you!" Isaac cackles. "I don't want him toooo!"

My boys. They are absolutely love one another. Unless it's time to love one another.

In which I get a job

2012-02-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I went in for a quick interview with the Astros for a spot on their Guest Services team. I thought it went quite well. It was a position I interviewed for last season and didn't get, but I thought I was better prepared for it this time around. Plus, it just felt like the "vibe" was better, you know? Sometimes you just feel like the room is for or against you. Still, those sorts of things can be misleading, so I figured I'd just sweat it out for the weekend.

This afternoon, the sweating out came to an abrupt end, as I got "The Call." I'm goin' up to the big leagues, ma!

Seriously, tho, this is a major answer to prayer. And it's something I want to do. Bonus! Plus, the 'Stros are out of town during VBS and preteen camp, so it won't step on any of my major church commitments this summer. Tonight, we celebrated: we bought a pizza.

Super Bowl and other tidbits

2012-02-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

I just accidentally brushed against Isaac's toy train, which I had forgotten was behind me, and the dang thing cackled at me and then rang a dinner bell. I knocked it halfway across the room.

Toddler toys are creepy.

Yesterday was Super Bowl XLVI. (Once we get to Super Bowl L, I say we just stop with the Roman numerals, because Super Bowl L looks dumb) The Giants beat the Patriots after a gutsy come-from-behind game-winning drive with under two minutes to go in the fourth quarter on the strength of an amazing catch off a perfect throw in the face of certain doom! That doesn't sound like the sort of thing after which you could say, "Oh yeah, just like last time," but...yeah, it was pretty much like last time these two teams played in the Super Bowl. Crazy.

Up until about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I didn't have anywhere to watch the Big Game. Now, I've finally managed to move past that thing where I'm constantly hurt that I'm rarely invited to game nights, parties, movies, etc with most of my former coworkers. That was pretty hard for quite a few years, but I think I'm at peace with it now, and it doesn't change the fact that I dearly love and miss my friends from my Players days. The Super Bowl, however...well, that's a bit different. I will be honest, I was pretty bummed about having nowhere to go for the game. It's not so much like I feel I wasn't invited to a party, it's that I always enjoy the sharing the event with others. Because really, the Super Bowl is an event, not a football game. Right or wrong, it's like Super Bowl Sunday has become a holiday in the U.S. And I do love holidays. So, with no party invitations, no sports bars or grills that I frequent, and no TV at home to speak of, it looked like I was just going to miss it all this year, and I was kind of sad.

Then, Kim went to her Sunday afternoon ladies' Bible study, held at the home of one of the church's deacons. I secretly hoped someone from the study group would invite her to come by their place to watch the game, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't bother to mention that we didn't have plans. As it turned out, Bible study had been cancelled since everyone was getting ready for the game in their own houses, and nobody told her because they didn't have her phone number. Kim did mention that we didn't have any plans for the night, and they did invite us over...and then Kim said no thanks. Fortunately, after she came home she decided that did in fact sound like fun, so she shot off a quick email to see if we could bring the kids, and suddenly we had folks to watch the game with.

Or at least, I did. Kim had other ladies to coo over Isaac with, and Robbie had a girl his age to run around a pretty spacious house and eat pretzels and fudge with. (In fact, at one point they were playing a game that bore a striking resemblance to the plot of The Pass-It-On Christmas. Which, in turn, bears a striking resemblance to the story of the song Do You Hear What I Hear?) We all had a good time. The game was fun and exciting, and I think the deacon who was hosting the party appreciated having another man to watch the game with. The rest of the crowd, aside from his wife and daughter, consisted of a woman from our church and her several teenaged foster daughters. It was unlike any Super Bowl crowd I've ever watched the game with.

It was fun, though. Watching the Super Bowl is always fun. Even that year when Carolina lost to New England and it felt like both teams spent the entire first half punting. It's always fun, because there's always a festive atmosphere. Some folks cheering for one team, a couple for the other, there's a bit of a friendly rivalry going on, and the snacks are good, and the commercials are entertaining, and the people who are just there to watch the commercials are goofing off in the back the whole time. It's become a social event, so as long as you have someone to be social with, you'll almost always have a good time, whether you love football or not.

Unless your team loses. Cause that always sucks.

And the Avengers trailer came one. Holy-freaking-cow, it was fantastic. And the full-length version on the web is even better. I haven't been this stoked for a movie since The Dark Knight. (Before that, it was probably Return of the King. Before that? Um...probably The Lost World. And before that, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. So there you go. My "Most Hyped Movies of All Time" list, in reverse-chronological order)

There's really nothing about this trailer that I'm not completely thrilled with. Well, except for Black Widow being treated as a member of the team instead of another SHIELD agent, but I've never been crazy about that. I mean, you've got that awesome shot where they're circling up, back-to-back, with what is apparently an onslaught of alien invaders (or something) about to release hell upon them. And amidst the Super Soldier, the man whose entire body is a weapon, the freaking HULK, a thunder god, and a guy who somehow makes a boy and arrow look hardcore, you've got a five-foot-five redhead reloading....a hand gun? The world is being destroyed!!! It really does feel like they just threw her into this movie (and Iron Man 2) to have a token girl on the team, and I think that's a disservice to the character. (Plus, all her fighting in IM2 was just silly. Even for a superhero movie) But if you are gonna throw her in there with the heavyweights, give the woman a rocket launcher or something! *grumble grumble that tiny gun had better be the stinkin' Noisy Cricket or something...*

Um...rant over...anyway, the trailer is epic. Awesome way to start the summer/celebrate a birthday.

Let's see, what else was I going to talk about...

*Congrats to another Aero sticking with the big club. Bravo, Nate Prosser.

*Reading some great books lately. Check out my book blog soon for short reviews of Till We Have Faces, Just Do Something, The Help, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Yes, reading the Best Picture nominees again.

*Part of the reason I lapsed so severely in blogging was that my late night creativity had been going into my 365 project. It is a lot of fun. And I manage to get at least one pretty decent picture in there per week, so that's something for a guy who's never been very good with a camera. Hard to believe I'm already 92 days in. Also hard to believe that means there are 273 days to go. Acctually, 274, because it's a leap year.

*I love leap year. I'd say we should all have a Leap Year party of some sort on the 29th, but I'll be in San Diego that day. Not that I'm disappointed that I'll be in San Diego, but still. It would have been fun. Again, I like Events.

*A friend I worked with at Horsefeathers one summer lost her engagement ring in 2005. She figured it was gone forever. Today, it turned up on eBay. The seller is asking for $1,250.00. She doesn't have that, so she's asking for help. I'm trying to see if we can get this thing to go viral :-)

*Finally, I have a job interview for some part-time work with the Astros on Wednesday. I applied for this position last season and didn't get it then, so my hopes aren't too high, but we'll see. I gots to make me some coin, yo!

*Finally-finally, if you think Sherri and I should start making video reviews of musicals together, clap your hands.

All right, all right

2012-02-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

Enough with this "not blogging" crap. You people deserve better!

Actually, I was reading a friend's blog recently and I thought to myself, "This is nice. I like it when my friends blog, even when they don't have particularly deep mind-blowing truths to share. I wish they would keep this up more consistently." And then I realized, "Hey, there are people who like it when I blog, even when I don't have anything good to say! And I'll be they wish I'd keep it up more consistently!"

I know. Your mind is blown with my deductive powers. +5 enlightenment, +3 "Well, duh" points, but -1 against ogres. Stupid ogres...

So I'm back at it. And I'll try to be better about it, because you know what? I doesn't have to be all about me. I miss most of y'all, and I know some of you miss me, especially those of you reading from other states who happen to share some of the same genetic information as I have.

The initial incarnation of this blog had a purpose: to discipline myself to blog something every day for a year. To see a project through to its completion. Done.
The second incarnation also has/had a purpose as an exercise to try some new things, some different things, and ultimately just to get more practice at a form of writing other than play script format.
Well, I like to consider this a new incarnation of the blog. So I'll have to find a new skin or layout I like. (Bother) This new phase of WBW/FOMW is simply to connect. To stay connected with some of you, and to write for my friends and loved ones who really just want to keep up with what's going on in my world. No more counting days, because really there's no point to it any more. No more worrying too much about content, because let's face it, sometimes there's just not much newsworthy going on in my world. But I can still drop in and say hey. It'll be a lot more like "the old days," only hopefully I'm a more talented blogger now than I was when I started this thing up three years ago.

So, welcome to WannabeWordslinger Chapter 3. I'll make sure to drop in every couple of days or so to say hi.

But first, I feel the need to give FOMW a proper sendoff. So look for that in the next few days.

v2, d431: 2011-in-reivew #2: 2011 In Review

2012-01-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

I suppose I'd best get around to this before it's 2013.

Last year's year-in-review post was a lot easier to write than this year's for two reasons: 1) I was stuck at work until midnight with nothing else to do, and 2) I had a very strong feeling on the preceding year in that I had hated it and was so glad for it to be over I likened it to Roy Scheider blowing up the shark at the end of Jaws. This year, I've got a baby trying to crawl up my leg half the time and it's been harder for me to find much of an emotional through-line to 2011. Finally, I realized this was because the only constant in my year was MASSIVE CHANGE!! The year started with Kim at home on bed rest. From there, it was new baby, new plays published, quit job, lose friends, subsequent depression, more involved at church, new apartment, and, perhaps the biggest change of all, I got some new socks during our marathon Christmas adventure. You can see, then, how it's been difficult to get a handle on exactly what 2011 was, because I feel like I'm still sorting out what life is now.

All right, let's start with the biggest change, because it got the ball rolling on all the others: in February, Kim and I welcomed Isaac Joseph into the world, and he has been a joy. He is so good-natured that it is difficult to stay "down" when he's around (unless he's hungry or sleepy or in pain). And that's been an incredible blessing, because there have been some hard times since he's been born. New babies are always difficult. It's such an extreme shift between "I'm so happy, I love this new baby so much" to "I'M SO EXHAUSTED, I CAN'T DO THIS!" every week, sometimes every day. It's disorienting, being a parent. Obviously, though, it's been great overall, and I wouldn't go back on it ever.

It does, however, radically shift your priorities. I was surprised how even going from Parent of One to Parent of Two requires a priority shift. I'd thought I was stretched pretty thin, between being husband and father and holding down 1.5 jobs while maintaining something of a social life, but it turns out there was a whole new level of stretching we could reach. I couldn't leave Kim and home with both boys as easily as when it was just Robbie, so I started heading out at nights less. I didn't so much lose a ton of sleep, because I haven't slept well in years, BUT my late-night time shifted from being writing time to being rocking baby to sleep/doing dishes/being-exhausted-(but unable to sleep)-from-the-boys-and-the-dishes time. In addition, the summer was fast approaching, which I knew would be my busiest season in my job at the church. Finally came the straw that broke the camel's back: I was "cast" in the summer show at work. And by "cast" I mean assigned one of the scene shift jobs, the other two of which had gone to unpaid apprentices. I knew this basically meant I'd be leaving my family in the lurch and putting my church in a bad situation headed into our busiest season because I was supposed to change scenery for a place where I was constantly frustrated and ultimately unappreciated/abused while slowly losing money anyway. For the first time in my life, it wasn't worth it anymore.

My decision to quit the theater was hard. It's still hard, though I'm convinced I made the right choice. I wish I were still working in theatre every day. I had made the best friends of my life there, and I knew I would see them only very rarely after I left. I knew I was depriving myself of two of the most precious things in my life--my art and my friends--but it was time for me to go. Now obviously, without the consistent income from that job and with nothing else to jump right into, we didn't have the money to keep both boys in day care, so I became a stay-at-home dad, keeping Isaac at home with me. And those first few months were rough.

I trust you'll forgive me if I don't go into further detail on that point?

Eventually, I began to adjust to my new life. After a while, I started to enjoy it, and that's where I am now. I now keep Robbie and Isaac both on Tuesdays and Thursdays while keeping Isaac the rest of the week. I still don't see my friends unless I go to their workplaces and visit them during work hours, but I'm adjusting to that as well. That's just about the only way our schedules can line up. The only time I really have free any more starts at about 9:30 or 10:00 at night, and most folks just can't stay up late anymore. We're not in college, after all. Well, life comes in phases, and that's what this phase looks like for me. God is very good, and I am very blessed in my days at home, my time spent working for the church, and the few opportunities I do have to get out with friends, whether it be for a football game, a late movie, or Christmas Tree-zzas.

As time went on, it became clear that we needed to cut costs further, so we moved. To a bigger apartment, it turns out, in a comparable neighborhood, but a bit further out from, well, everything. (Except for the church and Robbie's day care, fortunately) This has also made seeing friends more difficult. It's been good, however. The move has been stressful. We're still completely unpacked, and that's been stressful. Because again, these two boys require a lot of energy and attention, and we've been distanced from our usual support system. In all of this, I've been forced to really do battle with some of my own personal shortcoming, attitudes, weaknesses, and fears. It's been uncomfortable. But it's been good, and I hope I'm becoming a better man because of all of it.

And now we've reached the "conclusion." What do you conclude from your world turning on its ear? Well, in my case, from turning my own world on its ear, and my family's. I guess what I've learned is that you really do have the power to do that. I spent a lot of my life believing I was sort of a prisoner to circumstances, that you just can't change your situation. And I learned this year that you totally can. You can always quit your job. You can always move out of town. Or you can do something less drastic: cancel your cable and Internet so you're forced to get out and meet strangers. Become vegan. Sell your car and walk/ride a bike wherever you go. Those things are options. They may not fix your problems, but they're there. I heard a quote at a children's ministry conference I went to last October: Change happens when either you know enough to want to or you hurt enough to have to. I think in this instance, the biggest change happened when I learned that maintaining my unhealthy status quo would no longer be unhealthy just to myself, but to everybody I cared about. So in my case, the violent change was worth it. In your case, it may not be worth the fallout to take the leap, whatever the leap may be. But at least when you reckon that yes, it is an option to you, you really take stock of what is important in your life. Yes, where I am is worth it. I'm living this way because of (priorities) or because I'm reaching (goal). And if there's nothing in those parentheses, well, what have I got to lose? I'm moving to Montana!

I've also learned that change is intentional. You have to stick with it. Over two years ago now, I wrote a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month. It was an incredible experience, it was something that I'd never done before, and I thought it would radically change me. It hasn't. I've been wanting to rewrite it for years now, and I haven't done it. I met a goal, I didn't change myself. I still want to become that guy who can write novels, but it's too easy to be exhausted after playing with the boys and instead watch TGWTG videos until I'm tired enough to go to bed. 2011 has taught me that I don't have to accept that from myself. If I want to make that change, I can make it. But I have to follow through with it. Change takes conscious action, not goal-setting.

So hopefully, 2012 sees me reclaim some of the things I want to be doing. Toward the end of the year, Robbie will be starting school, Isaac may be back in day school, and the whole Change thing will start all over again. Hopefully these experiences will prepare me for that time. Only time, my own discipline, and the grace of God will tell.

In the meantime, I think I hear the baby stirring in the next room. Naptime is over. Gotta go.

v2, d430: 2011-in-review #1: The Reading List

2012-01-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

Every year, I make a reading list. This is usually reserved for people who read a LOT, but I read about as much as my two young children allow me to, and it's always fun to look back at the end of the year. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to come up with a bunch of obscure statistics about page count, authors, genres, and whatever else I feel like dissecting. And I'm always up for some obscure stats.

First, I'll list the graphic novels and comic collections I read this year. I don't like to include these in my list, because in my opinion they skew the page count. Which, admittedly, is an imperfect statistic anyway, since page and type size varies from book to book, but I like to think it all evens out in the end. Now, a couple of the books I read as part of the Summer of YA Fiction, relied pretty heavily on illustrations, but as long as they still followed a more traditional narrative format, I included them with the traditional books anyway. Like I said, it's not like there's an exact science to this.

Also, you obviously won't see the dozens upon dozens of picture books I read with Robbie and Isaac over the course of the year, though there were two in particular that were actually tougher reading material than one or two of the SoYAF entries.

Oh, and if you don't remember SoYAF, I made a deal with the kids in my AWANA class that I'd read whatever books they recommended for me over the summer if they'd agree to read a certain portion of the Bible. Thus, I spent the summer with a lot of kids' books.

All right, first, graphic novels and treasuries:

#1. Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
#2. Batman: Hush by Jeph Loep and Jim Lee
#3. Superman Birthright by Mark Waid and Leilin Francis Yu
#4. Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury by Stephan Pastis
#5. Runaways: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughn
#6. Runaways: The Good Die Young by Brian K. Vaughn
#7. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life by Bryan O'Malley*
#8. New Avengers #6: Revolution by Brian Michael Bendis

***********

Next, the books that I started but did not finish. I almost always finish reading what I start, BUT sometimes I just can't make it. Here, then, are the unfinished, approximately how many pages I got into each, and why I dropped each book.

The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by Brent Curtis and John Eldridge (110 pages in) -- I really expected to like this book, but I felt like I was wading through pages and pages of pop culture examples just to get to a point. The biggest annoyance, however, was the way they kept referencing Paradise Lost as if it were a primary source for the events that happened after the war in Heaven. I just couldn't finish it.
The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich (85 pages in) -- This book was pretty good, but I had just seen the movie a week before, so it was kind of boring reading the same thing all over again.
Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets(120 or so pages in--hard to tell, I wasn't reading this one in order) -- I was re-reading this book, then a friend asked to borrow it, so I lent it to him instead of finishing it myself.
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub (350 pages in) -- I lost it. And for some reason, I wasn't really all that hooked on it, even 350 pages in, despite the fact that the last line I had read was, "And then all hell broke loose", so I didn't really search all that hard at first. I've found it since, though, so I'll probably finish it in 2012.

And now, my actual reading list of 2011! Books with a * were part of the SoYAF. Books with a ^ are re-reads. Sorry I don't have start/finish dates. I'm a statistics geek, not a record-keeping geek :-)

1. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien (304) ^
2. Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (468)
3. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (247) ^
4. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (352)
5. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller (254)
6. How to Run a Theater by Jim Volz (181)
7. The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield (165)
8. The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell (195)
9. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (698) ^
10. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell (224)
11. Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston (352)
12. The Dead Zone by Stephen King (426)
13. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (1007)
14. Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back On the Board by Bethany Hamilton with Sheryl Berk and Rick Bundschuh (213)
15. True Grit by Charles Portis (235)
16. The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan (681)
17. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo (165)
18. The Rise and Fall of the Bible by Timothy Beal (225)
19. The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan (220)*
20. Dying to Meet You by Kate and M. Sarah Klise (156)*
21. Persuasion by Jane Austen (249)
21. Zamboni Rodeo: Chasing Hockey Dreams from Austin to Albuquerque by Jason Cohen (240)
22. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (224) Third Edition (2007)*
23. The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey (128) *
24. One False Note by Gordon Korman (160) *
25. Addie McCormick and the Chicago Surprise by Leanne Lucas (136) *
26. Savvy by Ingrid Law (352) *
27. The Cave of the Dark Wind: A Never Land Book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (176) *
28. Isle of Swords by Thomas Wayne Batson (344) *
29. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (377) *
30. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney (217) *
31. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (137) *
32. Slob by Ellen Potter (199) *
33. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan (279) *
34. Isle of Fire by Wayne Thomas Batson (338) *
35. The One Left Behind by Willo Davis Roberts (139) *
36. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (203) *^
37. Way Down Deep by Ruth White (197) *
38. The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Batson (316) *
39. The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis (160)
40. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney (224)
41. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (505)
42. The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan (249)
43. Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (537)
44. Pirate Latitudes by Michael Chrichton (384)
45. Is Belief in God Good, Bad, or Irrelevant?: A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism, and Christianity by Preston Jones and Greg Claflin (165)
46. Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald (181)
47. Home by Marilynne Robinson (325)
48. Duma Key by Stephen King (611)
49. Remembering Christmas by Dan Walsh (264)
50. The Nine Lives of Christmas by Sheila Roberts (214)
51. A Lawman's Christmas by Linda Lael Miller (249)
52. The Shepherd, The Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry (128)
53. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits by Les Standiford (241)

Total # of books read (completed) in 2012: 53
Total # including graphic novels and treasuries: 61
Total # of pages read (in completed books): 15,615
Average # of pages/book: 294.642
Total # of SoYAF books: 19
Average # of pages/book MINUS SoYAF: 332.853
Average # of pages/month: 1,301.25
Average # of pages/week: 300.288
Average # of pages/day: 42.781

Compared to last year's totals:
Total # of books: +12 (53 to 41)
Total # of pages: +1,905 (15,615 to 13,710)
Average # of pages/book: -39.748 (294.642 to 334.390)
Average # of pages/book excl SoYAF: -1.538 (332.853 to 334.390)

I thought about breaking things down into # of books by men, # of books by women, pages per book by men/women, fiction vs. nonfiction, etc. But I want to get through this, so I won't. ;-)

I'm not going to go into a ton of details as to why I liked/hated/recommend/was disappointed with the books below. You can check out what I had to say when I finished each one on my other blog if you're really that curious. Hoping to push my totals up again next year, but if I don't then I hope it's because I'm making valuable use of my leisure time to get some more writing done in 2012.

Favorite reads of 2011:
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Still my favorite novel. Just as awesome second time through)
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller (And I don't usually like Don Miller!)
Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (Another re-read, still chilling and exciting and passionate. Um, forgot exactly how passionate...still, a great book. R-rated)
Between A Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Rolston (for those of us who don't particularly want to see a guy cut off his own arm but are intrigued by it nonetheless)
The Rise and Fall of the Bible by Timothy Beal (Very thought-provoking examination of the Good Book's history. Interestingly, I agreed with almost every point made, yet don't come to the same conclusions as the author)
Zamboni Rodeo by Jason Cohen (Hard to track down, but a MUST read for minor-league hockey fans everywhere. R-rated language)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (People don't believe me, but this book is hilarious. Can't remember that last time I've laughed out loud so often while reading)
Savvy by Ingrid Law (Surprised by this one)
Isle of Swords by Wayne Thomas Batson (Surprisingly solid Christian YA pirate novel. Sequel was pretty good, too)
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (Better than the movie, but also just a really cool adventure story)
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (How have I never read this book before this year???)
A Wrinkle In Time by Madelien L'Engle (Smart, creative, fun, intelligent, classic. Just a winner)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (SO GOOD!)
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (SO GOOD! FANTASY!)
Duma Key by Stephen King (Sure, it's a ghost story. But it's a cool ghost story!)

Biggest Disappointments of 2011:
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (Nick Hornby and I just aren't going to get along, and that's okay)
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (Actually liked what it had to say, but took 100+ pages to say something he could have said in, oh, five pages)
The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell (The Pig did what? Why is it so boring??)
The Dead Zone by Stephen King ("How 'bout a crooked pol-i-ti-cian? Hey stupid, that ain't news no moooore!") (Newsies reference)
The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilky (I...I have no words)
One False Note by Gordon Korman (Surprisingly weak addition to YA 39 Clues series)
The Cave of the Dark Wind by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Lacks imagination. Odd, for a Neverland tale)
Slob by Ellen Potter (Just...clearly not my cup of tea)
The One Left Behind by Willo Davis Roberts (A depressing story about a girl who loses her twin sister and then...wait, no, no, it's an adventure story about helping an orphaned boy escape from kidnappers? Huh?)
The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Batson (Eh, the pirates were better)
Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald (So unhelpful...)
Home by Marilynne Robinson (Just couldn't live up to everything I loved about Gilead)
Remembering Christmas by Dan Walsh (Twitch)
The Nine Lives of Christmas by Sheila Roberts (Christmas romantic comedy for single cat ladies. Clearly, I'm not the target demographic...but still!)
The Lawman's Christmas by Linda Lael Miller (You're trying to make me hate Christmas, aren't you?)

There you have it, folks! (This took too long. Next year, I'll reduce the last two lists to Top 7's or something)

v2, d429: File Under: Christmas, General

2011-12-22T23:50:00.000-08:00

Man, I've almost written a ton of blog posts lately. See, back when I forced myself to blog daily (or later, near-daily), I would sit down at my computer and think, Gee, what should I blog about today? And then I'd just ramble on about whatever was on my mind, unless that thought was too complicated for me to articulate at one in the morning (which happened frequently). Were I not already determined that I would be blogging something, many of those thoughts would have stayed in my head. I know this because it is exactly what has been happening lately. Now, instead of starting with the decision "I am going to blog today" and fitting a thought to it, I start with a thought, "I wonder why so much Christmas pop culture is so terrible?" and eventually the train of thought turns to, "Hey, I ought to blog about this," but when one a.m. roles around, the train of thought has pretty much run its course in my head, so I feel no need to put it out on the screen any longer. Thus, without the predetermined outcome that I will share my thoughts, I usually don't.

What have I almost blogged about this month?

--the "culture" of Christmas
--my favorite Christmas songs
--my least favorite Christmas songs
--a poem I was working on
--a short story I was thinking about
--Robbie's school Christmas pageant (you can see the pic on my flickr site, tho)
--my own church's Christmas special (my script, and all the nerves that came with it)
--why I don't participate in religious, political, or philosophical discussions on FB or Twitter
--the Texans winning the division (and subsequently becoming the Texans of...every year before this one)
--Robbie's first hockey game, and the possibly-divinely-won free tickets that made it all possible
--keeping faith in the face of financial struggles
--our upcoming Christmas road trip
--taking the kids from my church to the Players' to see Christmas Pageant
--why Gremlins is such a wonderfully absurd and grotesque Christmas classic
--Feliz Navidadgehangen
--A new RNGOTM
And a few other, "deeper" subjects I don't remember any more.

That would have made for some interesting reading, huh???

However, I have been spending this month working on some other, smaller writing projects, and they've been eating my time and creative juices, even if they've been very slow in coming.

Anyway, heading home for Christmas tomorrow morning. I have to stay up late until the bread in the breadmaker is finished. We have an 11-day 3-state whirlwind of family and festivity ahead of us. I estimate at least 40 hours of driving time. That will probably not be fun. Plus, I've finally got the head cold that the rest of my family has been fighting through. Just like at Thanksgiving! I think it will be good, though. I'm stoked to see my sister and brother-in-law for the first time since their wedding. And to see the in-laws' new house for the first time. And to (hopefully) revive the New Year's Eve hockey tradition (albeit in OKC). And to just get a chance to relax and maybe focus on some reading or writing. (I think I read almost 600 pages over Thanksgiving break) I'll also need to update my reading blog. Operation: Christmas Reading has been pretty funny. And fairly disastrous. So I've wanted to wait until I've got enough time and focus to sit down and write a good review for each of the lumps of literary coal I've labored my way through so far this month. Oh, and it looks like I'm actually going to end up with an average of just over one book per week this year. Which is not a lot to some of you, but it's a great step forward for me.

In case I don't log back on before Sunday, Merry Christmas, everyone. And have a happy new year. I won't have Internet access on the 31st, so I won't get to write an absurdly long year-in-review post this year, but if I could I promise it'd be a lot happier review than last year's.

v2, d428: A Carol for Baboushka

2011-12-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

Are you familiar with Baboushka? I wasn't until I checked out a Caldecott-winning children's storybook from the library. Now, I can't claim this source is 100% accurate, but here's the cliff-notes version:

Baboushka was an old woman who lived alone in Russia. One blizzardy night, the three kings stop by her place on the way to find the newborn King. They say they've been following the star, but the snowstorm has made them lose track of it and they want a place to stop until the storm blows over. Baboushka opens up her home to them, and the three kings tell her the wonders of the Baby they're seeking. They even offer her the chance to go along, and Baboushka is thrilled. However, she asks if they're willing to wait until morning, and they insist they have to leave out that night. Thus, Baboushka gets left behind.

Later in the evening, she changes her mind and decides she wants to go with the wise men after all. She gathers up (or makes, I don't remember which) some simple toys for the baby and sets out after the wise men. Unfortunately, the snow has completely covered their tracks and she can't find any trace of them, so she wanders the countryside looking for them. She goes door to door, but nobody can tell her for certain where the kings are. And, to this day, every Christmas Eve she goes from house to house, seeking the Christ-child, and leaving toys for the children of the house in His honor.

Interesting that our symbol of gift-giving is a jolly fat man who lives in extravagance at the North Pole with magic and legions of workers who mass-produce toys for him, while Russian children have a kind-hearted beggar woman leaving gifts she made herself in honor of Christ.

Anyway, I worked up a little Christmas carol in honor of Baboushka and her neverending quest to find the wise men. I hope you like it.

(the song opens with a lovely strings section)
Where did they go?
I was searching (searching) for three men, quite wise
I was hoping (hoping) I might find those guys
I was looking for some camel footprints in the snow
(They're gone so long)
What can I do?
(Where did they go?)
Nyet, nyet, nyet
Don't know what I'm going to do
I've got to catch up with you.

You better slow down (slow down) sweet talkin' wise men (slow down)
That wind is blowing (blow, blow) My toes are freezing
Hold on (hold on) sweet talkin' wise men (hold on)
Feels like I'll search for you forever.

I was (making) little dolls and toys
To be giving (giving) to God's favorite Boy
I forgot to ask which star to chase
(They're gone so long)
What do I do?
(Where could they be?)
Nyet, nyet, nyet
Don't know what I'm going to do
I gotta catch up to you.

You better slow down (slow down) sweet talkin' wise men (slow down)
That wind is blowing (blow, blow) My toes are freezing
Hold on (hold on) sweet talkin' wise men (hold on)
Feels like I'll search for you forever.

I've been knocking (knocking) on my neighbor's door
I've been sleeping (sleeping) on a stranger's floor
People say you're prob'ly dead by now
(They're gone so long)
It's 2011.
(Folks have a point)
Nyet, nyet, nyet,
Don't know what I'm going to do.
I gotta catch up to you.

Oh,
You better slow down (slow down) sweet talkin' wise men (slow down)
That wind is blowing (blow, blow) My toes are freezing
Hold on (hold on) sweet talkin' wise men (hold on)
Feels like I'll search for you forever.

*************

(As always, a little help if you need a reference point)

v2, d427: This Blog Still Flies

2011-12-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

The Great Thanksgiving Road Trip went pretty well, overall. Unfortunately, I was pretty sick for just about the whole thing. And Kim was sick for part of it, too. As was Isaac, who had RSV and needed to breathe medication through a mask three times a day. So I won't say it was a perfect holiday, but it was good times with good food. And we got to see my folks in OKC for a day at Chuck E. Cheese. Robbie had never been to a CEC. I hadn't been since (I think) we moved from California, which was 1988. (August 8th, for the record. The day before Wayne Gretzky was traded to the L.A. Kings) I seem to remember loving Chuck E Cheese and especially the large animatronic characters who would sing for guests' entertainment. Apparently, however, this is not the case, as my mom, dad, and sister all went on and on about how I was terrified of these characters as a child. Funny the different ways we remember things twenty years later.

At any rate, I remember thinking that Showtime was a pretty big deal at CEC. At this CEC...not so much. While my childhood's memories had Chuck E. flanked by an entire animatronic backup band, this iteration of the franchise featured a robot Chuck E. and a TV screen where he interacted with puppet versions of his friends from my memory. It wasn't the same, and I couldn't really blame all the kids in the restaurant for completely ignoring the musical numbers. Also, they ought to allow Chuck E. to have a degree of manual control rather than being completely pre-programmed. During the few moments when a couple of kids gathered by his stage to watch the show, Chuck E. was usually looking in a completely different direction than the kids were standing. "Are you guys enjoying the show?" he'd ask an entire row of empty tables while four cute little ones stood off to the side, hoping Chuck E. would talk to them.

(Now that I think about it, the only concrete memory I have of CEC as a kid was the entire cast singing Neil Diamond's "America," which was my absolute favorite song as a four-year-old)

Robbie loved Chuck E. Cheese, and I don't think he even realized there was a show element. He was happy playing games even before he knew he could get prizes with the tickets he won. Whack-A-Mole has become pretty high tech. Instead of physically whacking tangible objects that pop out of holes in front of you, you now use a toy mallet to whap a TV screen that has mice scurrying across it. You hit them and actually get to see them smush before little mouse angels leave their lifeless mousey bodies. Now, I'm trying not to be one of those "Back in my day..." old guys, but...that's just not quite right. There was also a game where you had to use a water gun to shoot monsters, and the game was rigged with plexiglass all around it so you couldn't spray everyone with water. Except that Robbie found the one corner of the game that, when hit directly, would send water splashing back far enough to get himself wet. And so he just aimed for that one spot over and over and over. The kid was actually pretty wet by the time he was done playing games.

The car trips were actually not that bad. Isaac slept for half of the drive and he sat happily looking out the window/ playing with his duck/ sticking his tongue out at Robbie the rest of the time. I can't recall a single instance he started crying much the whole way to Oklahoma or back. Robbie didn't fare quite so well--sitting still is not so easy for him, even in short intervals of time. But we all made it. Gives me hope for Christmas, because we'll be traveling a lot for Christmas.

I'm enjoying our Christmas season so far. We got the tree up the day we returned from OK, we've been listening to the music, Robbie's in a play at his school (he's playing one of the wise men), and I recently checked five Christmas-themed books out of the library since I don't have our TV working and we're missing the annual Cheesy Christmas TV Special-palooza. Isaac is crawling now, so he's becoming a lot more fun (and challenging) to play with. I recently had another play accepted for publication, and that's exciting. My sleep difficulties are coming back, which is unfortunate, but so far I'm not staying up till 5 like I was before we moved. Five Iron Frenzy is officially coming back, and I almost wrote a long blog about that but I was too tired at the time. Still, seems like a good idea to wrap up this post with a video for their new song. Enjoy, and talk to you again soon!

v2, d426: I tried to work a sea lion video into this post, but it just didn't fit anywhere

2011-11-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

You know what this blog needs? MORE VIDEO CLIPS!!

No. No it does not.

Some have suggested that my Flickr project is stealing some of my blogger thunder. Well folks, a picture may or may not be worth 1,000 words. But it's a heck of a lot easier.

Plus, Isaac is having trouble sleeping these days because he has RSV. The medication procedure for this particular virus involves putting mask up to the baby's mouth and forcing him to breathe a smoke-like substance for about ten minutes. As you can guess, Isaac is quite uncooperative with this treatment. We're doing the best we can, though, and of course we appreciate prayers as this virus does occasionally turn into something very serious in babies.

Today's doctor visit was actually pretty pleasant. Isaac and I walked around Hermann park for about fifty minutes ahead of time because there was a bit of a gap between when we dropped Kim off at work and when Isaac's appointment was scheduled to start. I've decided that, on days when I have the car, I'm going to start looking for opportunities to get out and walk. Now that it's not horridly hot and hellaciously humid every day. While I miss running for exercise, walking while pushing the baby is a nice way to stretch the legs.

Headed up to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving Wednesday morning. I will be off-line until we get home late Sunday night. Maybe I'll show up on Monday to tell you how it went.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, by the way. Partially because it kicks off Christmas season (in my world, anyway), and partly because, well, it's just nice. You get all the family and feasting of Christmas, but without Christmas' unique hassles. Or, as Kim put it today, "It's all the family time of Christmas but without the stress of presents." Now, I love gift-giving like a banshee, but I know it can be stressful for a lot of folks, and that stress kind of gets passed on to others in various ways. Plus, anymore Christmas has become such a frenzy of sales and ads and community events that it can get a little overwhelming. Again, not necessarily to me; I can pretty much take all the Christmas you can throw at me. (Commentary: STOP HANDING THE BABY THE GLASS ORNAMENT!!!) Thanksgiving, however, does seem to have most of the positives of Christmas, just quieter. And sometimes, quiet is nice.

Hey! It's raining outside! Hard!!

Wait...no, no, it stopped. Dang, that was fast.

All right, happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

v2, d425: Skinnamarink a linky-dink

2011-11-19T13:37:00.000-08:00

Trying to take on as much housework as I can this weekend, so I'll keep this brief. I was up until 4 working last night, so I'm pretty tired anyway. And you know what happens when I write while overtired!

1. A good interview with Joss Whedon re: the upcoming Avengers movie. The trailer was nice, but I get more excited when I read things like this. I mean, I've seen enough awesome trailers turn into bad movies, and a project like this always has the potential to be a really bad movie.

2. Speaking of, they're making a movie based on the old Rampage arcade game. No joke.

3. Man, I feel bad for this kid.

Rookie mistake. It's an empty net. Just dump it in. An empty-net goal is embarrassing enough as is. No need to showboat it.

Thing is, everybody's already comparing this kid's play to Patrik Stefan's. Nuh-uh, folks. No contest.

No. Contest.

4. Ugh. Now, a pretty goal. To clean the palette.

That's...that's just nice, Dutchy. Thank you.

5. Went to the Players' opening of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever starring my talented friends Jason, Kat, and Abby. BUY TICKETS! SUPPORT THE ARTS!Everybody involved ought to be proud; their hard work was evident, and it's a really charming show.

6. Look, it's Brentalfloss's G-Rated album on BandCamp. Cool.

7. Have I mentioned the baby's sick? Well, he is, and now he's coughing, so I guess that means he's going to wake himself up. Better go.

v2, d424: Top 7 (times 2) Disney Songs

2011-11-17T20:04:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Twitter, I learned that it was 22 years ago today that The Little Mermaid first came out in theaters. Crazy, huh? I kind of wished I'd known about this date a year ago. Then we could have made all sorts of "Ariel's old enough to go drinking" jokes. (Hand me another of those...what's the word again? Oh, margaritas!) In honor of this momentous occasion, I've decided to dedicate today's Top 7 to my favorite Disney songs.

Only, the Disney canon is huge! (Incidentally, I'll bet the Disney Cannon is pretty big as well) So in order to better capture the scope of the Disney company's impact upon my formative years, I've decided to double the size of this top 7. Introducing my Top 14 Disney Songs! (And getting it down to 14 is actually pretty hard, too!)

Oh, a couple notes before we start. First, I'm only including pieces that are (as far as I know) original to their respective Disney property. That means nothing from either Fantasia. Though those are brilliant and perfect. Except for the celebrity cameos in the second one; those were just weird. Second, I am a man. That means, when I was exposed to most of this stuff originally, I was a boy. Therefore, my tastes tended to gravitate toward the boy-centric pieces. For example: I never liked "Part Of Your World." Even as a kid, I was annoyed when she'd stop to remember the correct word for "feet." The songs that always won Academy Awards were usually love songs, which means they were probably my least favorite parts of the movies. That doesn't mean no Disney love ballads are on this list, but it does at least imply that the majority of my choices won't be seen on a lot of well-respected "Best of Disney" lists. I loved the villain songs, I loved the big ensemble numbers, I loved the chase scenes, I loved stuff that was bizarre and creative, but I wasn't really into what I would have considered "the girly stuff" with very few exceptions. Sorry, A Whole New World. Also, I never even bothered with Pocahontas or Mulan. (And after playing both films in video game form, I don't imagine I ever will) You can have Cinderella, and I'll take The Lion King or Newsies. That's just the way I grew up, and this list will reflect that.

Disclaimers out of the way, enjoy my top 7 14 Disney songs.

#14.

It was between this and Chim Chim Cheree for the #14 slot, and I went with this one because it's just so dang happy. This is Disney whimsy at its finest. Uncle Reemus, I wish you were my uncle! I mean, you just want to sit down and have a picnic with that guy. He's having so much fun with those cartoon animals. He's very high on life, but not in an obnoxious way. It's always been hard for me to listen to this song and not whistle along. What else can I say? It always puts me in at least a slightly better mood.

#13.

Villains almost always get the best songs. It's true in Disney, it's true on Broadway (though really the two are the same these days), it's true in real life. It's just the way it is. This is a prototypical villain song in that the whole thing is the bad guy singing about what a jerk he is. And loving it. It's so fun, because he's such a jerk. Please note Gaston isn't really "evil," he's just ridiculously self-serving. Obsessed, even. And through that obsession, he's eventually transformed from the guy in this number to the mob-leader in Kill The Beast. This number, though, is just fun. You love to hate the character, and that's exactly what this perfect movie is going for. Because up to this point, the hero is still kind of dark and scary, so you need the bad guy to lighten things up.

The stage version of this song is incredible, by the way, with all the refrains and the dancing and the beer mug clinking. Look it up if you haven't seen it before.

#12.

Is this one of the best Disney songs ever? No, of course not. And it sounds really early-90s as I listen to it now. But it was a great theme song for a great show. It sets the mystery-and-adventure mood perfectly and it made you want to sing along every single afternoon. Admittedly, most of the Disney Afternoon shows had great songs. (In some cases, the song was even better than the show) Rescue Rangers hit that perfect balance between awesome song and awesome show (and awesome NES game, for the record), so that's why I chose it here as a representative of the entire DA crew. But like I said, these were all solid tunes.

#11

Oh, man. This song...this movie...

Okay, The Brave Little Toaster is a terrifying film. At some point in the movie, you are led to believe that every single main character is dead or dying. Blanket gets lost in a storm, vacuum runs over his own cord, radio is torn apart by the freaky guy, lampy overload and blows his bulb, it's awful. They go through so much just to get to the boy's new home, and then when they get there, all his new stuff throw them into the dumpster and they get sent to the junk yard. That's where we have this sad, awesome scene. It's got to be the most fatalist song Disney has ever done in a kids' movie as car after car sings about its past life just before its compacted into a small metal cube. It's crazy. It's sad. The doomed cars are basically telling the appliances that they're in the junk heap, they're worthless, and all that's left is to wait to be crushed. It is so intense, and when there was a window of seven or eight years where I couldn't really remember anything about this movie, I always remembered this scene. Can't say why I've always loved it so much other than it's just intense and exciting. Even if it borders on the depressing. (Good thing none of these cars were actual characters in the movie, or this film would have been responsible for an entire generation of counseling--as if the Bambi thing hadn't been bad enough!)

#10.

As with #12, this is kind of on this list as a representative of all the Silly Symphonies, but The Old Mill has always been my favorite. Walt Disney took short form animation so seriously. This clip is a work of art. It won an Academy Award. It's over seventy years old. And it still looks so much better than even some of the computer generated animation we're showing our kids these days. Old Mill was actually sort of a screen test for a new style of animation Walt wanted to use in Snow White. I think he was pretty happy with it in the end. Phenomenal piece.

Two words. King Louie. Two more words: Villain song. Sorta. This film has a fantastic cast of character, and this is easily the most memorable scene in the film. (I also love the vultures and almost put That's What Friends Are For on this list) It's cool and jazzy and full of great "little moments," like Bagheera hiding by posing as a statue or the white-haired monkey doing whatever it is he does. Everything about this scene is just fun. (Though I can't help but wonder how Mowgli bounces back so quickly after being dropped on his head on stone. Yeouch!)

Pirates of the Caribbean figured out that, if you're going to make me listen to the same song on loop for ten minutes while I ride a slow-moving boat through a cavern of robots, it had better be a pretty dang awesome song. (Unfortunately, not all Disneyland attractions got that memo) If you've heard this song once, chances are you've sung it or had it run through your head at multiple points in your life. Even if most people don't know any words beyond "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me. We mumble mumble mumble mumble Drink up, my hearties, yo ho!" It's like trying to write music for an old NES game. It has to be simple and catchy and people have to be willing to listen to it repeat itself many, many times. Well, twenty years later I'm still humming this tune, so they musta done something right.

Incidentally, I absolutely loved all the ways they tied the first PotC movie to this ride, and that includes the use of the song. Very well done. Now, when will that Enchanted Tiki Room movie become a reality?

#7.

Any guy my age who participated in musical theatre growing up kept hoping and praying that Disney would do the obviously awesome thing and make this film into a stage show. Well, they finally have. And now we're all too old and/or out of shape to be in it anymore. Go figure.

Every song in this movie rocks. The harmonies are always tight, and I'm a sucker for a good harmony. Mostly, though, they do a phenomenal job of capturing the mood of the scene, the period, and the characters. Which is obviously what is supposed to happen in a good musical. I would always get so pumped up watching this scene. It's basically an army of boys all out declaring war through song and dance. Hm...you know, it works a LOT better than it sounds like it should. And that's true of most of the songs in this film. I would say it could be one of the strongest shows of composer Alan Menken's career if not for...

Okay, here's girly romance's addition to the list ;-) I've actually never minded Disney's princesses or their love songs, but they're not usually my favorites. (To be fair, Kiss the Girl and Once Upon a Dream almost made the list) Then there's this one. Everything is just beautiful. Music, lyrics, and animation! The video I've embedded is poor quality. The scene is just magical. I think this romance "works" for me so much more than most others because the Disney formula often relies heavily on love at first sight, and that is most definitely not the case with this one. Instead you've got two people having to work through their own issues and prejudices to learn to love one another...hm, it's kind of like an actual relationship! The biggest obstacle to their happiness is not an evil witch, it's their own faults and opinions. (And then once they get those out of the way, there's the jerk who wants to kill the beast. Small detail) This song is lovely, it's placed perfectly in the film (from a dramatic structure standpoint, I mean), and the movie is probably the strongest overall fairy tale adaptation Disney ever attempted. While not my favorite Disney movie (again, I am a man), it's definitely up there, and this song is nothing short of purely charming.

I really didn't like this movie when I was a kid. Then I got back into it through the music (and through Kingdom Hearts), and now I love it. It's so bizarre, but there's a lot of heart there. And the songs are fantastic in a grim, quirky, yet charming sorta way. There's a ton of atmosphere to these songs, and this one probably captures it the best. Plus, remember I love big ensemble numbers, I love character songs, I love spectacle, and this song is all of those things. I mean, I can see how you wouldn't like this song, but I love it. The mayhem and suspense continue to build until Jack's grand entrance at the end, and it's just fun.

Incidentally, now that Disney has finally got Newsies Broadway-bound, is it too much to hope for that Nightmare might be coming one day? Imagine if they spent the money on this production that they spent on that one show with the Heelies!

#4.

This scene is perfect. I love the transformation Ursula goes through from the saintly philanthropic octo-woman of the beginning to the mad cackling witch at the end. This whole thing just goes berserk as Ariel gets swept away by the sea witch's crafty plan. And it's clear that nobody has more fun than Ursula when she's being evil. You can just feel her relishing every moment of this scene. This whole sequence is probably one of the greatest performances by an animated character of all time. (Not counting motion capture here) It's also a well-directed scene. The lights, the color, the angles, everything goes from glum to chaotically revelrous, and I can't help but get caught up in the giddy insanity.

#3.

This song is everything a showstopper should be. It starts simply enough and gradually adds more performers, more tricks, more effects, more harmonies, until it's finally this epic celebration of hospitality. I don't know how the Beast doesn't hear this. It's awesome in the movie. It's awesome on stage. It's just awesome. Nearly the entire supporting cast is featured in this number, and this film has an awesome supporting cast. A musical about an enchanted castle really should be magical, and this number definitely fits that description.

Ultimate villain song. I still get chills when I watch this scene. I love the pairing of Scar with the hyenas--who are excellent henchmen characters. This is my favorite Disney movie, and this is my favorite scene from the movie. This is where Scar turns the story on its head. This is where the earth itself vents steam as Scar struts among the jagged rocks. It's where the hyena army is revealed, and they're not as hapless as Whoopi Goldberg and her pals. Again, the sense of build and theatricality in this scene is spot on. I can watch this song several times in a row and not get tired of it. And the final shot is eerie and imposing. And it could just be that Nazi imagery that the animation brings to mind (wow, that's not pulling any punches), but everything about this number is sinister. You don't see Scar getting the same scandalous joy out of his evil that Ursula gets. He's just full of hate, and that's so scary the ground itself vaults him into the sky on a Mountain of Death. Forget it, this song is just awesome. It's everything I love about villains, musicals, theatricality, and rhythm rolled into one freaking amazing sequence.

So, what tops it (in my book)?

JUST KIDDING.

Though my actual #1 will probably surprise you almost as much.

I have not actually seen most of this movie. I don't think I've even heard any of the music from the rest of the movie (except for Hellfire). In fact, I hadn't even seen this actual sequence of film until I just now looked it up on YouTube. Before now, my whole experience with this song was my sophomore year of high school, when this was my solo for our high school spring choir concert, which was Disney themed. (Side note: this is a tough song for a sophomore to sing!) (Another side note: after nothing but the piano/vocal arrangement from my memory, the cinematic version is actually a tad disappointing ;-)

It's funny, because usually you have the Disney princess singing about how she wants more. This time, it's the male lead--progress! And while the facial animation for both Frolo and Quasimodo is a bit...eh...the song itself is still gorgeous. I love those intervals, and the melody is both haunting and hopeful. Now, I never hear anybody talk about this song. Actually, I never hear anybody talk about this movie. So it may not be very good. I don't know. But I'll always smile when I hear this song, and I'll always hope Quasi gets his one day out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives (probably my favorite moment in the piece, apart from the creepy-ish opening).

And I'll hope it turns out better for him than it did in the book.

***********

So there's my list. This is a tough one to do, and if I were to do it again next week there's a good chance it would look a little bit different. Over the years, Disney music has really run the gamut, from Silly Symphonies to theme park rides to Broadway musicals, and I've tried to capture some of that variety here. I'm already second-guessing some of my own choices, because there are just that many great songs to choose from. But this took SO FREAKING LONG TO WRITE that there's no way I'm going back to redo any of it. Besides, I'm sure I'd still want to switch things around no matter how many times I revamp the list. So consider this a top fourteen with an asterisk, if you will. :-)

And of course, I'd love to hear your faves in the comments section, if you're bold enough to share.

Honorable mentions go to Once Upon a Dream, I Just Can't Wait To Be King, Chim Chim Cheree, Making Christmas, The Winnie-the-Pooh Theme Song, Oogie Boogie's Song, Kiss The Girl, Pink Elephants on Parade, That's What Friends are For, Everybody Wants to Be A Cat, and the Darkwing Duck Theme Song.

v2, d423: Kokomo

2011-11-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

At some point in my life, I visited my sister in California when she was a band teacher and made a mix CD of songs she had on the computer in her office while she taught some private lessons. I busted that CD out today while dragging Robbie and Isaac along to Wal-Mart to get the car battery fiasco (don't ask) taken care of. Things I learned today:

1) Robbie loves the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. (He didn't know this before today, either) I'm pretty sure this is true of all children under the age of eight.

2) In ELO's song Sweet Talkin' Woman, the weird distortion sound at the end of every chorus is actually speaking the words "sweet talkin' woman." I seriously never realized this!

3) The Kinks' Come Dancing is actually a song about the singer remembering watching his sister go out on dates when he was younger. For some reason, that's kinda odd to me.

4) I have no desire to ever hear Cats in the Cradle again. Ever.

5) I know I've mentioned this before, but the underscoring to Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade is really a brilliant piece of music.

6) Robbie recognizes Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World from the first half second of the intro. Apparently it's a song they play occasionally at his school. That's kind of amazing.

7) While listening to the song Kokomo, I came to the realization that, yes, I that is where I want to go. The song makes it sound so amazing! Everything sounds so peaceful and laid back! You just want to lay out on a beach and close your eyes and breathe in sea air and listen to sea gulls and children playing. I mean, "We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow." That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds amazing! I want to take my family, get on a cruise ship, and spend three weeks on Kokomo drinking snow cones (since I don't do cocktails). Screw bills, car payments, near-unemployment, dead batteries, insomnia, and loneliness. I want sand castles and drinks from half-coconuts. When I'm listening to that song, I really start to think that heading to Kokomo would actually solve all of my problems. Except for the one where I don't have much money. In fact, Kokomo would probably make that one worse. So Dave suggested I go Occupy something until somebody gives me money. And that made a lot of sense to me.

Folks, I hereby propose a FOMW Occupy Kokomo operation. Who's with me??

*****EDIT: And no I don't CARE if Kokomo isn't real!!****

v2, d422: Bringin' Flickr Back

2011-11-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I had like four friends doing the 365 photo thing. You know, you take one picture of yourself (or your kids, or you and your spouse, or your shoes, whatever) every day for a year and post it. It was great. They were great. They were so creative. I would check Flickr three times a day to see if anybody had updated. It even inspired this blog, if you'll remember correctly.

Then, everybody's 365 days were up. And now these talented, creative amateur photographers only pick up their cameras once every few months to put up picture of their latest family gathering. Which is great, don't get me wrong. Using a free photo-sharing web service to share photos with your family is kind of a no-brainer. Still, there's been a 365-picture-sized hole in my heart ever since. And I've patiently waited for these talented and artistic friends of mine to finally succumb to the fire that has no doubt been raging in their creative consciousnesses ever since they finished their first project. Surely the need to post picture every single day must be torturing them, keeping them awake at nights, leaving them unfufilled not only as photographers, but as human beings. Surely they yearn for that particular outlet to share that corner of their souls with the entire world, to rack their brains day after day for something other than another "Here we are outdoors. It's a pretty day" photo. Surely the dam of their photographic inactivity is trembling against the pressure of the building waves of 365-feuled passion, about to burst forth into new and exciting ways the rest of us can live vicariously through their day-to-day existences!

No?

*sigh* All right, fine, I'll do it.

v2, d421: Death Does Wear Blue

2011-11-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

I finished something!

You have no idea how good it feels to be able to say that. One of my favorite experiences in theatre was always closing a show. Even if it was a show I was going to miss, it always felt as good to close it as it did to open it. It meant we'd done the job and (usually) had done it well, and it was time to move on to the next project. I like that feeling. (Probably why I was always addicted to boss battles in video games. Enough mindless level patrolling, the music ramps up, you fight something huge and scary, and then you have the sense that you've accomplished something afterward) I think that's part of why it's been such a tough transition for me from working at the theater year-round to, well, not. Every day is kind of the same, though with some occasional exciting variation. Get up, feed the baby, put the baby to bed, eat, feed the baby again, put the baby to bed again,do a chore, feed the baby again, take care of the kids while Kim makes dinner, put the kids to bed, shower, read, go to bed. Oh, and there are meals in there, too. It's good to have regularity, but the only Big Project I've had to deal with at home has been this move. And I'm still not all the way unpacked, either, so that's been kind of a drain.

Now, however, I've finally reached two finish lines in the last week. You have no idea how much that simple fact has rejuvenated me.

First, there's the fall carnival at church. It's a lot of planning and a TON of work the week before, and it's one of my favorite events at the church. The day of carnival, I was at the church working for twelve hours straight, much of it with Isaac in tow. For dinner, I popped into my office to take a couple bites of food between refilling candy stations around the sanctuary. I was SO TIRED by the end of it. But it went very smoothly, and it was satisfying to pack away the last bounce house in the closet Wednesday night.

Now, I've got bags full of leftover candy in my office. I spent the entire month of October not eating a single piece of carnival candy while it sat on my desk in its brightly colored wrappings. I like to think of the leftovers as a reward for my steadfastness over the past four weeks.

Second, I finally finished a new script. Did you know it had been over a year since I finished writing anything? Play, novel, short story, anything aside from a blog post. I think it's even been more than a year since I attempted a poem. This particular script I agreed to write for a friend back in August. At the time, I figured I'd get it done pretty quickly, mostly because I read, conceptualized, and wrote Pinocchio within 8 days, and before that I wrote both Teammates and The Girl Who Wore Golden Clothes in the same week. I wasn't taking into account the move, my trip to Chicago, the fall carnival, or the fact that October isn't as far from August as it seems. I set deadlines for myself on three separate occasions to have this script done, and in reality it really should not have taken me as long as it did. The friend in question was far more gracious to me than I deserved. Finally, it was her graciousness (and the impending deadline of auditions for the show next freaking week) that motivated me to get r dun. I stayed up late just about every night the past week and a half (except the weekend of carnival) working on the script. It felt good to be writing. It felt better to be done.

This week, I actually let myself be a little bit proud of me. Honestly, it's been awhile since that's been the case. Oh, and not the sinful, unhealthy sort of pride, because that actually comes very easily to me. (I was reflecting earlier today on how I can tend to be both proud and lazy, and how that's just dumb)

I also finished in time to get cracking on my NaNoWriMo project. Unfortunately, now that I've finished that script, I'm really hungry to get cooking on another playwriting project, not prose. Since I'm still a little on the rusty side, I may just have to go wherever the motivation takes me for the time being. On the other hand, it's time to get cracking on the "self-discipline" stuff, too. So we'll see.

************

Other tidbits:

*Today's blog title is a lyric from this album. This is Isaac's latest sleepytime CD. I'm very glad you can stream the whole thing online, and when I've got some cash I'd like to actually buy it to support the band. It's probably the best rock and roll/metal album based entirely on Mega Man 2 that I've ever heard. Not that I've heard any other. Still, it's a cool concept and well-executed. And it's got a surprising amount of emotional pull for a video game album.

*It looks like Tarvis and I will be having a Most Excellent Road Trip Adventure up to Plano next weekend to see a middle school perform my play. Robbie will be going with us, too. This is the stuff bad family road trip movies are made of, folks!

*Hey, remember last year when I was talking about former Aeros and official FOMW-favorite Josh Harding and his year-and-a-half of terrible luck with injuries? How about a comeback story where he returns from torn ACL/MCL surgery after missing an entire season and beats the Red Wings twice in a row before holding the defending Conference Champ Canucks to one goal in another big win? A fourth straight start for Hards? Yes, I think so. This just makes me smile. So happy for the guy.

*Speaking of Aeros, went to Dollar Hot Dog night with Dave and Tarvis. That shoulda been its own blog post. Dollar hot dogs = both excellent and evil at the same time. Kids playing hockey at intermission = always awesome, especially the one really tiny girl with the pink stick who barely moved her legs and seemed to skate by merely shifting her weight and willing herself to go in a certain direction. Five kids choirs in one night = a lot of off-key singing. Also, during the second intermission, we saw a group of about fourteen kids in tae kwon do uniforms taking the ice with hockey helmets on. I commented to the guys, "I can't imagine any way this will not be awesome." Then, they proceeded to do a choreographed routine to a pop song. Suddenly, I could imagine a way that kids in tae kwon do uniforms wearing hockey helmets would not be awesome. Then they almost got run over by the Zamboni. Finally, Dave and I discovered that you can put the lyrics to any rap/ hip hop song with this track and it works. Tag Team, Carman, whatever. (I imagine the same can be said of just about any dance mix track)

All right, that's enough outta me. Adios, kiddos. Enjoy the weekend.

v2, d420: How To Salutate

2011-10-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

I kinda wish we still started letters like Paul did it in the New Testament.

************

Will, a fellow disciple of Christ, dabbling writer, and family man,

To Dave, the saint who lives in the apartment with the funky water, foundation issues, and quirky admittance gate up on the north side of town:

Hi.

************

Then I'd go on about how I wish I could have written him sooner, and how I always hear good things about him from a mutual friend, and eventually I finally get around to asking if he's got the tickets for Dollar Hot Dog Night at the Aeros game or not. Then I wrap it up with a bunch of terse moral instructions before saying hi from everybody at my house, one at a time, and finally comment on what font I'm using and that I'm typing this on my own laptop.

v2, d419: Blueprint

2011-10-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

Geez, folks. It's been a long time. And I don't mean a long time in the sense that it's been something like three weeks since I blogged. I mean a long time in the sense that a lot of stuff has happened, I'm occasionally feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, and life is continuing to change substantially.

I had a metaphor I was going to put here, but I couldn't get it just the way I wanted it, so I'll spare you. This time ;-)

Basically, I kind of feel like I'm letting people down, and that if I don't make some choices soon I'm going to let everybody else down as well.

But!

You're not here because you care about me. You're here because you want to read a blog! (Kidding. That's actually kind of a funny idea; I may use it for a short-story or something someday) So here's what we gon' do:

First, I will not be finishing up the Week of Features. An evil ninja threatened to do bad things to all of you if I finished it*, and I'd hate to have the on my conscience. Besides, it sorta lost momentum over the two months of silence anyway, didn't it? Besides, I've got some other topics I probably ought to talk about if I get the time and/or energy: The hellish move, the slow-going "settling in" process, the weekend in Chicago, the lengthy Internet drought. (I'm sorry, for instance, you got no hockey preview this year. I'm sure you'll all recover) And maybe I'll post some pictures from when I went to Knott's Berry Farm back during the Californy vacation. Because that was actually a really fun day, and we got a couple of cute shots of Robbie.

And who knows. I may even disappear for awhile. Because I have things I have to take care of. But if I do disappear, I'll come back. I always come back. But I won't really even keep up the pretense of making this a "daily blog." It'll just be a regular blog.

I know, I know, that's always the beginning of the end. Just check out the last-updated numbers on the blogroll to my left. Eight of them updated in the last week, and of those eight only five of them had posted anything within the previous month. We bloggers always start out really enthusiastic, blogging every day, and then we cool off for a little bit, and then we start spouting off a paragraph here and there a couple times a month, and then we make a grand attempt at a comeback, but sooner or later most blogs eventually peter out.

And you know what? That's actually okay, too.

So we'll see what happens as FOMW becomes just another update-when-the-guy-feels-like-it blog. Shoot, I started my first 365 blog (the successful one) as an exercise. It's always been about being a creative outlet, connecting with others, and helping me become a better writer. When those functions are served, then it's probably time to shut it down anyway.

Besides, I've got some other blog-related ideas I'd like to get started on. Again, exercises. Some of which you may like anyway.

So, for the first time in a while, I feel like I can't really tell you what to expect from this space. Or any space. More changes, I guess. A different format. More thoughts that I actually take time to sit down and work out before posting, perhaps? Who knows?

Good days are ahead.

*This may or may not be a true statement

v2, d418: FOMW is back

2011-10-15T21:23:00.001-07:00

v2, d417: Not a feature

2011-09-23T22:26:00.001-07:00

This is not a feature, but I thought I'd pop in to say that, one week before our move-out date, Kim and I have finally secured a place to move in to. Also, I'll probably have to refrain from blogging until after the move.

Much, much to do.

See you all on the flip side!

v2, d416: WOF2, #5: Explaining Why I Havne't Blogged Lately

2011-09-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

That's become a regular feature, right?

Dave recently called me out for not blogging since Tuesday. And, of course, he had a point: I promise a Week of Features, and after four days I disappear FOR A WHOLE WEEK!!! It's a good thing most of my readers keep in touch with me via other methods, because otherwise the Internet would think I was dead. On that: let's face it, time has moved on in the WBW universe (literary reference only two of you will ever get!). Yes, this week has a seven-day break in the middle of it. And it may be an eight-or-nine day week. Are you surprised? I mean, how often does Random Nintendo Game of the Month happen? Yeah. We'll just say units of time are relative. Don't worry, you'll get your full week in soon.

Next up: I don't think y'all realize how tired you can get when 5 hours of sleep is a good night. The other night, I fell asleep at 4:45 a.m. Heck, in the past couple of years there've been times when I've had to wake up at that point in order to get to work on time. My efforts to fall asleep at a more manageable hour have thus far been thwarted, but I am not defeated! Still, I am pretty tired, and after awhile "try to sleep" starts to win out of "Week of Features."

Third: I have done some potentially-for-profit writing lately. I've had friends abandon blogging for a time because they are writing a book and say they just can't write a book and keep up a blog. Well, I think that in the past I've proven that I can do that. However, I cannot always write a book, keep up a blog, and take care of kids at home. As much as I want to still be that hoss blogger who comes up with something for every single day, it's probably not important enough for me to neglect other responsibilities. (That doesn't mean that you lovely people aren't important. It means that Shuffleblog probably oughtn't take precedence over putting food on the table)

Fourth: Have I mentioned that I'm moving in twelve days? And it's still not confirmed where exactly I'm moving to? (We've applied to a place, it should go through okay, but still. Prayers are appreciated) That takes some time/energy.

So that's why I haven't blogged for the past week. Even now, I'm writing this while eating my lunch at 10:45 (because I'm not sure when Isaac will give me another chance to eat) when I'd rather be working on a new play script. I imagine that in the near future, I'll do less "regular blogging" and more of the standard "I'll blog when I have time/something to say" blogging. Which is sad, because invariably that's when every blog I've ever followed eventually gets neglected, and readers become disinterested, so the blogger becomes disinterested, and then the blog dies. Now, I have no plans on that happening, but history teaches that it probably will sooner or later anyway.

But not anytime soon. Trust me, I'm still committed to blogging. It's still fun, and I know I've still got the loyal few who enjoy that I do it. So when I disappear for a day or two (or seven), know that I'm still here. I promise I'll tell y'all when I'm losing interest. Because by that point, most of you probably will have already lost it, too.

More regular features, starting "tomorrow" ;-)

(Edit: Another unofficial feature: hockey-related links you won't read!

"Our Dates Chose Hockey Over Prom"

Former Aero and Official FOMW Favorite Josh Harding's return from a year and a half of suck is tonight. Her e's the story.

Finally, greatest trailer of the year: Dark Knight Rises? Harry Potter 7.2? The Avengers spot at the end of Captain America? Or this trailer made for some German hockey team?

(Though personally, I like last year's better)

v2, d415: WOF2, #4: Top 7

2011-09-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

Well, the time is finally at hand when all Borders stores everywhere are closing their doors forever. (I can't tell you exactly when, but I know it's some time in the next few days) As a hopeful writer and a fairly new reader, I'm really saddened by this. Unfortunately, I have to admit that there is a portion of my life where books and reading were really quite low on the priority scale. A few years ago, however, I started reading again, and I regret those years that I put it down for the sake of...whatever it was I did with my spare time in college. (See, I had so much required reading that I never wanted to do any recreational reading...but that's another blog for another day) That to say, I'm probably not the best person to express exactly why the end of Borders is such a sad thing, so I'll pass that responsibility off into the very capable hands of the Librarian's Daughter.

Regardless of my recent history, literature is now a very big part of who I am and what I'm passionate about, so it's after great reflection and many revisions that I'm finally confident enough in my selections to present my Top 7 Favorite Books (not including the Bible). Most of these books I've already read more than once. The ones that I haven't, I've severely wanted to and likely will in within the year. These are all books I either own or plan to own. They are books I can see myself reading several times over the course of my life. They are books I am always ready to discuss. Usually, the act of thinking about one of these books is enough to make me want to reread it. Because there's no concrete, scientific evaluation process for this sort of thing, I can't guarantee that these seven are may seven favorites every single day or that they don't shuffle around in order from time to time. I'm pretty sure, however, that this is at least a pretty dang close approximation of my Top 7 Favorite Books.

#7:

Blood Feud: Detroit Red Wings v. Colorado Avalanche. The Inside Story of Pro Sports' Nastiest and Best Rivalry of its Era by Adrian Dater

I know, I know. I'm starting this list off with some high literature, aren't I? But this is one of the most fun books that I've ever read. Yes, I have the bias that I am an Avalanche fan and that I still remember many of the more memorable clashes between the Avs and Wings in the late 1990s/early 2000s, but the fact is this book is written well enough that you can't help get into the story. While the Avs and Wings never got the publicity of the Yankees/Red Sox or the Lakers/Celtics, the aggressive, emotional nature of hockey escalated this rivalry into something so consistently nasty that I've never seen anything like it in any sport in the twenty years that I've been a sports fan. Most sports rivalries are perpetuated primarily by the fans. Somehow, the epic clash of the Wings and Avs was a personal affair for everybody involved. Players, coaches, reporters, beat writers, trainers. It was flat-out insane. What made it even better, however, is that these were two of the best teams in the league from 1996 through 2002, so in addition to the passionate insanity of rivalry, fans were also treated to some of the best hockey games any of us will ever see.

The reason this book works so well is not that the rivalry itself was so great, it's that Dater does a fantastic job of taking eight years of incidents and people and weaving them into a cohesive story that starts with Claude Lemieux ramming Kris Draper from behind in a playoff game in 1996 and ends with the Wings clobbering the hobbling Avs in game seven of the conference final in 2002. He brings out the stories of the men who made this madhouse so dang entertaining. He evenly portrays every perspective into each anarchic playoff series, every behind-the-scenes shouting match, every ejected coach and goalie fight, and the reader really gets a sense of what a roller coaster ride this rivalry was. It was as if the players knew at the time that what they were involved in was something that doesn't come along every day, and Dater's thrilling account makes a fairly exclusive rivalry in a niche sport into a story about people, pride, and passion. If you can manage the hockey player's vernacular, I'd recommend this to anybody with a mild interest in sports or real-life character studies. It's sort of the literary equivalent to a summer blockbuster. But there ain't nothing wrong with that.

#6.

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
There's a reason that there are dozens of film, stage, television, picture book, comic book, ballet, and just about anything else adaptations of this story. Not to mention all the spinoffs, unofficial sequels, unofficial prequels, and the one official sequel. Peter Pan rocks. It is absolutely off the wall. It is the essence of a boyhood adventure tale. The story is wildly imaginative, the prose is delightful, the tone alternates between dark, innocent, whimsical, mischievous, sentimental, and playful, the characters are unforgettable...this is just an amazing book all around. It's child's play at its most serious, consistent within its own realm but unhindered by adult rationality. There are several moments that are laugh-out-loud funny (such as the Darlings' sitting on the bed with their pocketbook to determine whether or not they can afford to keep their own baby, or Mr. Smee's attempts at fierce piracy which only end up making him look lovable) and some parts of the story that are actually pretty scary as well. While every adaptation I've seen tends to make Neverland a physical place (albeit a magical one that doesn't show up on the map), Barrie's Neverland is more the place where fantasy becomes reality, another realm where every child's imagination becomes real.

This book is pure joy from beginning to end, and it has been entirely too long since I read it last.

5.

Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
The seven-book Harry Potter saga is amazing. It's just an incredibly story that is almost perfectly crafted. Its themes are positive and universally true. J. K. Rowling has created some of the most memorable characters in modern fiction and there's a reason so many people all over the English-speaking world just can't let go of this story.

As for myself, I didn't really start getting into the series until this book. I liked bits and pieces of the first two novels, but they really didn't hook me. Now, by the time I'd started reading, I'd already seen this movie and Goblet of Fire, so I knew things were going to pick up and get a lot better. Otherwise I may have dropped the series after the second installment. But Prisoner of Azkaban was the story that got me hooked, and even now that the rest of the series is over it remains my favorite. Because I find the whole of the series to be far greater than the sum of its parts, I turn to this book as the volume in which THE story really starts to pick up. The first two books are pretty similar. Harry goes to school, Harry and his friends have adventures, something really creepy involving Harry's ultimate enemy happens, Harry goes home for the summer. Azkaban is the story where you start getting some answers about Harry's mysterious past and Voldemort starts to show his hand. From this point on, every story thrusts these two closer toward their penultimate confrontation and the battle between the armies of good and evil.

I don't just love this book because it's the one that really gets the story moving, however. The novel, even as a stand-alone, is fantastic! Almost everything that happens in this book is cool. The dementors are cool. The patronuses are cool. The werewolf element is cool. The Marauder's Map is cool. The plot twists are amazing! The Whomping Willow! Azkaban! Sirius! Lupin! Even the hippogriff is cool! I'm not kidding, virtually everything that is in this book is fun, engaging, intriguing, exciting, or otherwise dynamic. I enjoyed all of the books after this one quite a bit, but I will always love Prisoner of Azkaban above all the others.

#4.

The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
I promise, I do read grown-up books, too. I first read Winnie-the-Pooh last year when I played the silly old bear in our children's theatre production of, well, Winnie-the-Pooh. I'd never really gotten into the Pooh cartoons as a kid, though I could recall some of them pretty well and I wasn't altogether unfamiliar with the characters. (Does anybody else remember the live-action Winnie-the-Pooh show on Disney Channel?) When I read the book, which includes both Pooh collections, I was blown away.

The first thing that surprised me was how funny the book was. I expected a fairly gentle and bland little series of friendship tales, because that was what I remembered of Pooh. Instead, I remember several times I had to chase down my wife to read aloud to her the passage I'd just read. Fortunately, it was even funnier when read aloud. The second characteristic I came to associate with Pooh was "feel-good." This book really just leaves you feeling good. Like Peter Pan, it harkens back to a more innocent time in all our lives, but whereas Pan is a love song to high adventure, Pooh is a surprisingly profound examination of the simple and good things in our lives. Home, friendship, music and poetry, exercise, pleasant weather, adventures, accomplishment. Just about the only times Pooh is ever discontent is when he notices one of his friends is upset. And, good-natured guy that he is, Pooh always refuses to rest until he has made things right for whoever happens to be feeling down. Even if it's Eeyore, who seems to rather prefer being gloomy.

Man, how much better would life be if we were all a little more like Winnie-the-Pooh?

In addition to Pooh, the supporting cast is memorable and lovable, but it's the story's central character that really holds this world together and gives it such a lasting place in my heart.

#3.

The Stand: Complete And Uncut by Stephen King
Here's yet another book I didn't expect to enjoy nearly as much as I did. This extended version of one of Stephen King's best-known works clocks in at around 1200 pages. I remembered seeing commercials for the TV miniseries when it came out back when I was a kid, and all I took from those commercials was that a Superflu wiped out most of the people on earth, so I assumed that this was a book about an unstoppable disease killing everybody.

Au contraire!

What I got instead was a massive tale of good versus evil, a story using ordinary men and women as champions fighting literally on the sides of God and Satan. Turns out, the Superflu was just the setup for the story. The Stand is really about the survivors of Captain Tripps disease as they are almost mystically drawn to two settlements--one in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the other in Sin City itself, Las Vegas. The settlement in Colorado is headed up by an old black woman named Abigail, a devout Christian who speaks often of prayer and visions. The Las Vegas community is headed up by a character who goes by the name of Flagg. He usually appears to be pretty human, but throughout the book there are instances that show that there's something supernatural, even demonic, about this character.

What makes this book scary, however, is not its demonic antagonist. The real terror comes from the realistic portrayal of evil in the hearts of the human characters. There's actually quite a bit of sound theology in the pages of this book. (In fact, I think King has a better understanding of some of these biblical principles than some Christian writers I've read) Each of Flagg's people are tempted by their own desires into sin, and that's how they eventually find their way into his camp. This story has some realistic depictions of hideously evil acts--and in most cases you can understand why the person committing the evil made the choices they did. King's villains are never excused for their choices, but it is made very clear that they are regular men and women, and that the possibility for that sort of evil exists in each of us. Of course, there are equally heroic acts, and that's why I think this book is so great. It's a story that's biblical in proportion of both God and Satan using flawed people to impact the world around them. It's scary. It's heartwarming. It's surprising. And it's amazing.

Granted, I did feel like there was some unnecessary moralizing about the evils of civilization at times, and there were two particular sections that I thought dragged on a bit longer than necessary, and there was one small side-story that I wish hadn't existed at all. Nevertheless, there are few books that impacted me as powerfully at Stephen King's The Stand: Complete and Uncut Edition.

#2.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
No, this book isn't on the list solely because I love the musical. It's here because this is one of the most beautiful stories of redemption I have ever read. Admittedly, it has been a long time since I've read this book, and a thorough re-read is my tentative November reading project (though it may get pushed back to January, depending on NaNoWriMo), but I remember the story and the characters fairly vividly. I can't imagine creating a work of this much depth and breadth with so many powerful moments. This story touches every corner of your soul. There are almost no pitiless characters. I feel for each in his or her struggle. For a story called The Miserable, I'm amazed at how much hope shines through the pages. Of course, I'm usually looking for light in dark places, and that's probably why I found this book so appealing. Yes, Victor Hugo is wordy. Yes, he gets majorly sidetracked at times. Yes, he likes to talk about Napolean in stories that have nothing to do with Napolean. But I can let it slide, because this book is just beautiful. I can't choose a favorite character, I can't pick a favorite storyline, I can't point to a handful of favorite scenes. It was the first book I ever read that I felt completely satisfied upon finishing it. And whether it comes in November or January, I have been anticipating this re-read for several years now. Welcome back, old friend.

#1:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
I can't say enough good things about this book. I first read it five years ago while Kim was pregnant with Robbie. I read it again this past January, a father of three and a half years. Each reading gave me a different story. The book is a journal written by an aging preacher in the 1950s to his five-year-old son. Because the preacher married his second wife so late in life, he will likely be dead before his boy's sixth birthday, so he's writing these memoirs as a way of giving his son something to know him by. Most of the book is written in short, loosely-related passages. This book is heartbreaking. This book is hysterical. It's melancholy and wistful, it's hopeful and jubilant. I was surprised it so recently won a Pulitzer, because it's ultimately an uplifting tale that uses a lot of Christian scripture. There are so many great passages in this book, you could flip it open to just about anywhere and read for a few pages and you'd probably find something you want to circle, copy down, or memorize. I recently let my friend Sherri borrow this book, and since she brought it back a couple of weeks ago I've come close to picking it up for another read at least three times. I will probably never get enough of Gilead, and it's one of very, very few books that I would recommend to absolutely anybody.

So there you have it. My top seven books. A heartwarming father-son memoir; a wordy, epic work of historical fiction; a dark fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic reality; a lovable bear with very little brain, a riveting adventure for young adults; the original riveting adventure for children; and a nonfiction account of my favorite hockey team. If you're wondering what some of the titles that just missed out are, I thought long and hard about including The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, The Silver Chair, The Magician's Nephew, The Silver Chair, and That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller, 1984 by George Orwell, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and The Game by Ken Dryden.

v2, d414: WOF2, #3: Guest Blogger

2011-09-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

All right, it's been an awful long time since I've tried a guest blog, so I'm going to give a quick run-down on the concept once again:My first time through this blog, I would occasionally let other people blog for a day in my place. Those were my guest bloggers. However, very few of my guests felt comfortable blogging for some reason, so this time through I made GB more of a writing exercise/gimmick. Instead of having other real people blog for me, I am inviting a character from one of my plays, books, or story ideas to share their thoughts with the world. In other words, it's a chance for me to explore these characters by writing in their voice about things that are important to them. Or, as is often the case with blogging, things that aren't terribly important but happen to be passing through their minds anyway. (I have yet to decide if this is a cool idea or a lame idea)

As such, please keep in mind that any opinions expressed by a Guest Blogger do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the FOMW writing or editorial staff. Also, if you're planning to point out the fallacy of how some of these people have access to a computer or the Internet in their time or place in history, well, calm down and quit thinking so hard.

Today's guest blogger is a young lady named Brindolynn Englehart. Brindolynn lives in a small village on the edge of the Tirrabar Valley. She lives with her father, the town's bladesmith, and her twelve-year-old cousin Gab. And I can't think of anything more to say by way of introduction, so I'll just turn it over to Brin now.

********************
Here's a phrase I've never really understood: "her knight in shining armor."

I understand the phrase in the sense that I know what a knight in shining armor is, despite the fact that no such man has passed through our village in my lifetime. It's an image that has survived adventure stories and similar tales that have existed long before there were any villages in Tirrabar. I also understand that the phrase is often used in a romantic context, when a young lady (around my age, perhaps a bit older) finds her own personal hero, the man who will ride into her life and save her from...something or other (it's never quite clear in most instances) before taking her off into a lifetime of wedded bliss.

On second thought, perhaps it's not accurate to say I've never understood the phrase. Perhaps I ought rather to say I'm not sure why the knight with his lovely, polished, unscathed armor has ever been an attractive image to young women through the ages. Please don't misunderstand me. I've a friend at school who often tries to convince me that I ought to remain unmarried my entire adult life, that I need no man to make my life complete, that I would be happier without one at any rate. I know there are girls who share this opinion. Believe me, I am not one of these girls. In fact, my friend's father is not the greatest of men, and I suspect that's where her bias against all things romantic stems from. My father is a wonderful man, and I know I shall be lucky to marry anyone who is half the man that he is. (Sorry, gentlemen, but my father has set the standard fairly high)

I also have no resistance to the "knight" idea. Who doesn't want to be married to a hero? Besides, in a town that is in a constant state of conflict with our nearest neighbors and is located next to a forest filled with Dark Creatures, it's a bit impractical to ally yourself with a coward for life. Poets use such lovely language, but I'd find their company to be woefully inadequate should a goblin wander its way into the village. (Not that that happens often, but still) I like to think that I can take care of myself--one of the perks of being the bladesmith's daughter is that most of the time I have spent with my father through the years has involved weaponry to some degree--but I admit it's also nice to imagine a match in which I don't have to. When I love, I want to feel safe with the man, as I'm fairly certain all women do.

My chief complaint with the phrase in question is the condition of the man's armor. Why is it shining? I understand that the picture may be more pleasing to the eye if the hero returns gleaming in the sunlight. Ever since I've been a little girl, however, I've always been bothered by the idea of a knight in pristine condition. Hasn't the man found anything better to do with his time than polish his armor?

There is very little metal armor in Desderan. We have no true knights and we have no visitors. Even the merchants have stopped coming through for some reason. Most likely alarmed by the reputation of the Dark Forest, I suppose. And admittedly, "Dark Forest" doesn't sound all that inviting, does it? Our village is protected by the Defense Corps, and the men in the corps wear heavy leather clothing for protection. While actual violent conflict, either with Ivallian troublemakers or creatures of the forest, is rare, these men are constantly training to become more able defenders and protectors for when they are needed. I've seen them return from training sessions, I've watched them spar in swordplay tournaments put on for the amusement of the village. The mere practice of battle often leaves these men--many of them boys my age--scuffed and bruised, and their leather armor takes quite the beating. They do their best to mend and clean it, of course, but one look at a Corpsman and you can tell immediately that he has had at least a taste of battle.

What, then, is to be said of our gallant knight in neat, clean, new outerwear. Why isn't he at least a little bit dirty? Has he found no reason to use the sword at his side? Has he found no monsters to fight? No homeland to defend? I know enough of the world to know that fighting men are always in need virtually everywhere. Has he simply found no cause that he has deemed worthy of his attention? How then do I know that he will fight for my cause should the situation arise? Does the knight wish me to be impressed with the state of his protective wear? How do I know he will be able to handle anything that threatens me if he has never found an opportunity to tangle with a dragon capable of denting his ornamented breastplate?

When my "knight" arrives, I expect to find him a bit battered and bruised. I expect his armor to be tarnished and his weapon well-used. I will hear of the victories he has won, and he will not be afraid to tell of the times he has been the vanquished, for they will have all served to make him a stronger warrior. I will know that he will fight for me--no, rather he will fight with me--not because he says he will but because his actions have shown that he will. I will not fall for any man because he looks impressive but because he is impressive.

After all, if I must be cast as the princess in this metaphor, I see no reason why I should expect anything less. And if ever I find do myself locked in a castle and guarded by a beast like the heroines in the stories of our youth, and if a knight should come riding to my rescue in his gleaming, flawless armor, I would probably tell him to turn around and send someone else. I'll wait around a bit longer for my own knight. The one who comes with dents, chips, and bruises that I can be proud of.

v2, d413: WO2, #2: Random Nintendo Game of the Month!

2011-09-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

Remember the Domino's Noid? That mean claymation guy in the red spandex with some sort of bunny-type ears in Domino's Pizza commercials in the 1980's? He basically spent every commercial just trying to wreck pizzas. He didn't steal them, didn't eat them, he just wanted to destroy them. Jerk. Did you ever watch those commercials and think, "Man, I really want to play through a side-scrolling adventure Nintendo game with that guy as my protagonist!"

Yeah, probably not. But since several different companies were going through these phases where they made Nintendo games based on their mascots in order to sell more products (I'm looking at you, 7-Up Spot), the Noid somehow became an action hero anyway in 1990's Yo! Noid.

The story of this game is as follows (this taken from the game manual):
"WHAT NOIVE!

Somebody's wrecking New York City! Or maybe it's a whole gang!
Wherever you go, hooligans jump out and knock you down. Can you imagine
the noive!
For instance, try strolling on the wharf, and get flapped by a fish.
Or go skateboarding Central Park -- you'll get shredded by dive bombers.
And with loonies everywhere, what a time for a brownout in the Bronx!
This is what the NOID is up against, and more! In fact, it looks
like his duplicate Mr. Green is causing all the antics. That's double
trouble!
But the NOID's got plenty of ammo -- supernatural powers, incredible
inventions, and a whiz-bang yo-yo. He just needs a pizza every now and
then to keep him going!"

So, what exactly is going on in this game? Basically, the Evil Noid is trying to make your life difficult by sending bizarre henchmen after you. WHAT NOIVE! Also, according to the story screen, the mayor knows that the only one who can save the city from the carnage is none other than the Noid. Okay. So you take up your trusty (stringless) yo-yo and fight your way through New York to finish this once and for all. (I never realized the Noid had a green arch-nemesis from the commercials. In fact, since the Noid was always a villain in the commercials, wouldn't that make Mr. Green a hero?)

Level one of this game in on the wharf, and the tide is coming in and going out the whole time. The water animation makes the whole screen look really busy and it's hard to focus on...whatever it is you're doing. Unfortunately, this is one of those "one hit and you DIE!" games as well as one of those "you die and you have to START ALL OVER" games. Which is fine, because the levels aren't really that long, but it's still obnoxious. You walk along, avoiding the rising tide and knocking seagulls and guys with harpoons to their deaths with your whiz-bang yo-yo. It's not really a hard level, but it's rare for a rising-water-level to kick off your game. Usually you get a pretty standard 2-D left-to-right no-tricks level to let your players get used to the physics without any gimmicks. The only time I got really frustrated with a death was when I stepped onto a platform that was 1/4 covered in receding water and immediately died. That's right, I drowned by standing on a plank that was only very slightly submerged.

Come to think of it, the whole water-rising level idea rarely makes sense. See, in SMB3, if you got caught in rising water it just meant you had to swim for it. And there were enemies in the water. And sometimes they could swallow you whole. But in a lot of games, your ankles get wet and you're a goner.

I finished the level and got to what appeared to be one of those in-between-stage games where you flip cards or play roulette or whatever to get powerups. In this game, I was facing off against a purple Noid in a pizza-eating contest that ran pretty much like a card-based magic RPG. We each had a deck of cards, each card had a number value that represented a number of pizzas. He would play a card, then I would play a card, and whoever had the higher card got however many points made up the difference. The goal was to fill up your gauge or make your opponent run out of cards. This introduced an element of strategy into the game. Unfortunately, it was NOT FUN. AT ALL. This mini-game was SO not fun, I decided to get up and get a snack and just let the time run out. After about thirty seconds, my opponent said, "You snooze, you lose!" And the game was over.

And there I was, back at the beginning of Stage 1.

That's right, the pizza-eating contest was my boss battle. Would have been nice to know in advance.

Play through stage I again, play through the ABNORMALLY LONG, ABNORMALLY BORING BOSS BATTLE, and finally move on to stage 2.

Dear Yo! Noid,

While it is perfectly acceptable, yea, even expected for a side-scrolling NES game to have IceWorld level where it's impossible for the player to come to a complete stop on surfaces because they're frozen, YOU MAY NOT MAKE LEVEL 2 THE ICEWORLD LEVEL! I mean, that's not fair! Your players are still figuring out how this obnoxious little guy jumps, how he runs, and you COMPLETELY jack with the physics at the first opportunity! No, don't think you can make it up to me by putting hockey-playing polar bears in the level. And furthermore...you may NOT include moving platforms in your Level 2 IceWorld stage! And no, you may NOT make the moving platforms ice-coated as well! Nor may you make the players stand on collapsable blocks while waiting for the moving ice-coated platforms to get close enough to jump on!!!

That's just NOT RIGHT!

So that's Yo! Noid. I don't know what stage three is like. I don't really care. I died a lot in this game. The combination of being a true one-hit wonder, never having a straight level to get the physics worked out, and jumping from frozen moving platform to frozen moving platform pretty much sapped my fighting spirit. Let Mr. Green have New York City. If the Noid was your only hope of salvation in the first place, you're probably not a city worth saving.

I have, of course, gone on to do a bit more reading about this game. Apparently it's just hard throughout. You have pizza-eating boss battles throughout the game. It's just kind of sad all the way around.

Here's a video of the epic conclusion to the game. And the final boss battle is paced MUCH faster than the one I played after level one. (I guess that's the game's way of upping the difficulty?)

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Post&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>Post script:according to Wikipedia, there was a guy whose last name was Noid who apparently thought the entire Noid advertising thing was a personal attack, so he held two Domino's employees hostage and demanded they make him a pizza while he waited for the police to bring $100,000.00 and a getaway car. He was eventually declared insane and thus not sentenced criminally for the incident. Now, this is Wikipedia, so I don't know if it's true or not, but wow.

v2, d412: WOF2, #1: Shuffleblog

2011-09-10T00:49:00.000-07:00

It's funny, but as I was going over which features I still have in stock (now that Birthday Mad-Libs are over, I'm down to six and thus will have to come up with a new one before the Week of Features is out), Shuffleblog is actually the one that takes the least amount of time to write (about half an hour or so). Which is good, because Outgehangen has got me started on this a bit later than I'd originally intended.

And so, off we go.

#1.Nickels for Green-Eyed Girls by Polarboy
Nickels for green-eyed girls,
Empires built for the world.
All these things will fade away,
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
This song always reminds me of the Christian rock station that we used to have in Wichita, mainly because I don't think I've ever heard this band anywhere else in the world (save for the occasional showing of the In My Shoes music video on Christian video stations). I know Christian rock has a bad rap, and some of that is deserved, but there were some really great bands, especially in the late 1990's. Most of them were never heard by anybody outside of a very small pocket while a lot of groups that were really watered-down, both lyrically and artistically, became mega-huge. I think this is because the majority of the Christian buyers' market tends to like safe, formulaic entertainment, and that generally fights against most true artistic expression or spiritual exploration. Songs that really confronted some of the tougher questions of faith and doubt and suffering often took a backseat to songs about love and peace and. And, of course, the Bible speaks very loudly of these things. They're pretty much the book's central tenants. However, it never tried to hide the ugliness away to make the peace and love of God look more appealing. If anything, it was always the exact opposite: the ugliness and depravity of the world is what makes the light of the gospel shine.

Anyway, a lot of Christian artists became burned out by the "Christian music industry" and so some bands that really rocked and also challenged me unto growth in my faith went largely unnoticed by both the Christan and secular markets. And eventually, even the decent rock station in Wichita went that route as well.

There's another whole blog's worth of thoughts that could go into this topic. But the next song has already started.

2. Underwater by Switchfoot
She's underwater, she won't drown. She cannot believe it.
And everyone she meets feels just the same.
And just like clockwork, she'll climb down in her bottle,
Yeah no one down there cares to know her name.
Nothing to be; she's already been
Plenty of times, plenty of time, plenty of time...
What's that, you say? You've never heard of a song called "Underwater" by Switchfoot? Yeah, if you heard it you probably wouldn't recognize it as them, either. This is the third song of their debut album from 1997, and Jon still had his quasi-Kermit-the-Frog vocals going on in this album. (That's not a knock, either. I just always thought it sounded only vaguely Kermit-ish) I was fifteen when this song came out, so it took me a long time to realize exactly how sad it was because it was just so dang bouncy. This was actually the album I listened to when I was feeling alone, unloved, and generally emo. Or the album that would get me to that state in the first place. Not that it's really all that emo of an album, actually. However, I was fifteen, and I pretty much saw everything through the lens of that whole Why Do Nice Guys Always Finish Last phase.

I can admit it. I grew out of it. And I think I ended up doing okay coming out of it, too. Now I can listen to some of these songs and realize how comically I missed what was really there. Oh, fifteen-year-old Will, you were so self-centered and dumb.

3. I Am from !Hero: The Rock Opera
Sometimes it's hard
To do what you're meant to do,
These fires we must walk through,
Sometimes it's hard...
I have one of those machines that plays your iPod through speakers so you can listen to it from across the room and share the music with others. That's what I'm using for my shuffle, because I still don't have very much of my music in the new Lappy. (We'd have all Five Iron, Supertones, Les Mis, and Toddler Tunes on our Shuffle if I used the Lappy)That's all well and good. I like the machine (whatever it's called) and it even has a remote control. But here's the thing: THE REMOTE CONTROL IS CRAP! I mean, it really doesn't matter what button you press. The machine is pretty much going to do whatever it wants to anyway. You want to skip forward a song? Press the button. Maybe it'll skip ahead. Maybe it'll skip back. Or maybe it'll crank up the volume. Who cares that its' 2:30 and the rest of the house is sleeping? What's that? You don't want the volume to go up? Well, if skip forward turned it up, surely skip backwards will turn it back down. Wait, no. Skip backwards also turns the volume up. So pretty much every button turns the volume up. Awesome.

What does this have to do with the song? Nothing. But Shuffleblog is pretty much a stream-of-consciousness thing anyway, and that's what happened when I clicked forward to this song. Grr.

4. Rent by Animal Couch
And this time, skip forward skipped to the next song. What'd I tell ya?

Here's another product of that awesome Wichita station. Animal Couch was an indie band from somewhere in Texas. They only ever released two EP's, and somehow we got a hold of them in Wichita, so they had a pretty big following up in ICT. I remember when they finally came for a concert (the other awesome thing about this station: it booked tons of concerts of the small underappreciated bands it played). All of "the regulars" came to the show, and man were we ever stoked. Not only did the band rock, but it had two girl singers! (Any band that had a girl in it was instantly awesome to us high school/college age boys back then. I wonder if that's still true today?)

Anyway, the band was actually pretty good. I still like to listen to their songs, though I don't think they're nearly as profound as they used to be. This song, for instance, is pretty much about how humans have trashed the earth, and going to heaven will be so much better. But it still sounds kind of pretty, in a rock-ish way.

This concert ended after they played all of their songs, but we called for a third encore anyway, so they started to replay songs, and a guy suddenly fell to the ground clutching his leg and screaming in the mosh pit. It was a small, intimate venue, so that pretty much stopped everything mid-song. It was a real mood-killer.

I hope that guy didn't do any permanent damage, because it was otherwise an awesome concert.

5. Don't Feed the Plans from Little Shop of Horrors
And the plants proceeded to grow and grow
And begin what they came here to do
Which was essentially to
Eat Cleveland, and Des Moines, and Peoria, and New York,
And this theater!
Feels like I've talked about this one before. Not on Shuffleblog, but on the blog nonetheless.

This is the "everybody dies" closing number to the musical version of Little Shop of Horrors. The script describes vines exploding from the stage and from over the heads of the audience in the lyrics quoted above. In my high school, we didn't have that capability. We actually had a glorified lecture hall for a theater: a raised thrust stage. Nobody had a good seat! We also had two concrete barriers that separated the three main sections of seats. So instead of plant vines exploding from the ceiling, we had the chorus cross onto those balance beams and toss trash bags full of green streamers on the people sitting immediately around them.

To be fair, when I saw the national tour of this show (with Anthony Rapp), this number was still pretty hokey. It may not have been streamers thrown in our face from two feet away, but they did have the principals in what I can only describe as big green sleeping bags trying to do some sort of choreography that just looked like someone had dropped itching powder into their tent during a campout.

6. Got to Get You Into My Life by the Beatles, covered by BUCK
I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there.
Another road where maybe I could find another kind of life there
Ooh, then I suddenly see you.
Ooh, did I tell you I need you,
Every single day of my life?
Is it just me, or is a classic Beatles song a great way to wrap up...well, just about anything?

v2, d411: Closing The Book

2011-09-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry. It feels like this blog has become a bit of a downer lately. I'm lonely, tragic hockey player deaths, bad poetry. Just not a lot of cheer. And I know that, without my cheer, none of you would like me. (That was a joke) Thus, after today's doozy, I hereby declare the period from September 9th to September 15th to be the second ever Week of Features. Hopefully that'll inject some life into this place again.

*****

In two days, the Traverse City Prospects Tournament will kick off. Finally. The hockey world can start worrying about hockey again. This summer has been quite hellish for a lot of people, following the Boogaard accidental OD (here's Russo's latest excellent and harrowing piece on the matter, this one detailing the dangerous world of painkillers among pro hockey players), Rick Rypien's suicide, and Wade Belak's accidental (no longer considered a suicide) death last week. A lot of folks around the hockey community couldn't imagine things getting a whole lot lower.

Oh man, were we wrong.

By now, you've probably heard (at least in passing) of hockey's latest and greatest tragedy, because it made front-page news on CNN and BBC (though, interestingly, not on ESPN). A plane carrying the Russian pro hockey team Yaroslavl Lokomotiv crashed into a lake and exploded into flames immediately after taking off yesterday morning bound to the first game of the season. Forty-three of the forty-five people on board died instantly. The other two are still in critical condition and aren't exactly expected to survive. (The only surviving player was said to have burns covering 90% of his body and respiratory system) Eight of the players/coaches on board were former NHL players. You had the former Red Wings assistant coach embarking on his first head coaching job. Several older guys who decided they wanted to play one last year before retirement. A couple of guys wanted to play a couple seasons in their homeland before hanging 'em up. Worse, when you're talking a plane full of guys in their 20s-40s, you're looking at a lot of young wives, young kids, even young parents in some cases.

Believe it or not, when I first heard this, I didn't feel particularly affected. I don't know if it was because it was so far away or because it was so tragic it almost didn't seem real at first. However, my Twitter feed is filled with hockey analysts, beat writers, and players. And it was chaotic. I was trying to get information, because at first all we had heard was that the plane had crashed and just about everyone was dead. The quote from a team official was, "There is no hope. The team is gone." But then there were reports that this guy might not have been on the plane, that that guy may have been at home instead. One player hopped on Twitter immediately upon news of the crash to say that he wasn't on the flight. Maybe there were others? But my Twitter feed wasn't curious fans looking for info; it was guys trying to find out if their friends were dead or alive. And eventually learning, in every instance, that they were dead.

"Am hearing reports Rusty may have been at home! Anybody know if it is true?"
"They are saying Pavol is dead. Still hoping it's not real!"
"Is that official? Ruslan is dead??"

On and on and on. All day long, as hopeful tweets eventually gave way to mournful ones. It was terrible.

I think, looking back, the reason that Boogaard's and Belak's deaths had more of an emotional impact on me than Rypien's was that each had a connection to one of my two favorite NHL beat writers (Russo and Dater, respectively), so I got a more personal side of each story. Well, multiply that by just about everybody in the NHL. And then came fan reactions as word spread. It seemed like no matter who you cheer for, you lost one of your own yesterday. Fans of the Preds, Avs, Panthers, Stars, Ducks, Wings, Sens, Blues, Kings, Wild, Canucks, Hurricanes, Isles, Rangers, Leafs, Blackhawks, Jets, Coyotes, Bruins, Flyers, Flames, Whalers, and Devils all lost familiar faces. Impromptu memorials were erected by hockey fans across the continent outside of home arenas. International hockey fans wept, as some of these guys, while popular in the NHL, were absolute heroes back in Europe. Tributes from gifted writers to fan favorites and all-around-good-guy types that were suddenly gone too soon. And of course, the really sad stuff came in later, like the story about the player whose mother had a heart attack and died when she found out about the crash. Or possibly the saddest thing written in the hockey world, well, just about ever, a widely-circulated (and since-removed) blog post about the man who drove Karlis Skrastins' widow and two daughters (5 and 2) to the airport for the funeral. The girls still didn't know about the crash when he dropped them off at the airport; they were just excited to be going on a trip to see Daddy.

It's just too much, folks.

And I don't really have a "closing thought" to wrap this one up. I'm sure most of you don't care about the details about what happens now to the team, what happens in the Russian league. I can say that it's been reported that over 30 players have volunteered to play for the Yaroslavl team, and every KHL team has volunteered to offer one of their players to keep the hockey tradition in the town alive. And that's phenomenal for the town, because as unimportant as the game is in the face of something like this, it's also a huge step in the healing of that city. I can say that the two survivors have got a fighting chance if they can make it through the next two days. Apparently, men with this type of injury typically die in the third or fourth day since the accident. I can say that a lot people are now coming to grips with the reality of this situation and trying to figure out how they'll go on from here. I can say that the KHL is already taking steps to ensure safer travel accommodations for all teams (apparently teams were arranging their own travel, and this one found a cheaper option: a 1993-built passenger plane). I can say this is a summer that no hockey fan alive today is going to forget.

Other than that...I don't really know what to say. We're all ready to learn what we can discover from all of these tragedies and then close the book on these past few months.

v2, d410: Paint

2011-09-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm feeling a little blue tonight, and that often leads to irresponsible blogging. Discretion being the better part of blogging, I've decided not to write from the heart and instead share something that always serves as an effective pick-me-up when I'm in a funk:

A Mario Paint Composer playlist.

You're welcome.

And of course, my all-time favorite:

That actually helps. A lot. G'nite, folks.

v2, d409: Goals

2011-09-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, here are the goals:

First draft of next script done: End of Sept.

First round of book revisions done: End of Oct.

New NaNoWriMo project done: End of Nov. (obviously)

These are ambitious goals, and there's a really good chance I'll fall short on at least one of them. Especially if/when I find a part-time job in the evenings. After all, it is Labor Day. Stores will probably be hiring holiday help sometime next week.

Feel free to ask how I'm coming with these as the months roll by. Not in an obnoxious, Hey-Are-You-Working-On-That sort of way. But in a "Hey, how are you coming on your writing projects? I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with!" And maybe a high five.

I may never "make it," but dangit, it won't be for lack of trying.

v2, d408: RAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!!!

2011-09-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, this post has nothing to do with rain, but still, WE GOT RAIN! THANK YOU, LORD!!!! It wasn't a ton, but it was far more than we've had, and too much rain would really ruin the place after the drought we've had. I ain't complainin'.

Also, I don't think I've mentioned on here that my parents are in town for Labor Day Weekend. Have I mentioned that? Well, they are, and it's awesome. You might be thinking, But wait, Will, didn't you just have a guest LAST weekend? Yes, yes we did. And Kim's parents are coming in next weekend as well. Why is this? Because of a strange little phenomenon known as "The Strange Phenomenon About Will And Kim's Visitation Schedule That Has No Actual Name," or The SPAWAK VS THNAN for short. (My money is totally on Th'Nan in that battle) According to SPAWAK VS THNAN, we usually go months at a time with no visitors, and then everybody comes at once. Please note, I'm certainly not complaining at all, because we love out-of-town visitors whenever we can get them. It's just odd that it always seems to work out this way consistently enough that I can officially (by FOMW standards) brand it a phenomenon.

In case you hadn't guessed, this post is about college football. This was the first weekend of the new college football season. As you know (unless you've forgotten), I had previously decided that this was the year I was finally going to care about college football. I kept going back and forth over which team I should claim allegiance to from this point forward. (My college actually didn't have football, in case you weren't aware) At first I was leaning toward Alabama because a good friend of mine down here is a huge Crimson Tide fan, and he's probably more passionate about college football than anyone else I know. However, I have a friend on Twitter who's a big Arkansas fan, and I'm afraid she might block me if I started posting "Roll Tide!" and the like. And of course, I can't take Arkansas because I'll never say "Woo Pig Souiee" while cheering my team on. My heart really wants me to take one of the Big XII teams, but not only is that conference now in mortal danger, but I found myself so over-exposed to both obnoxious Texas and Oklahoma fans in college that I just can't line myself up with either program. I can't go with Oklahoma State, either, though my friend Sarah is a fan, because that would put me in bad with Kim's grandfather. And the two Kansas teams...well, I'll always be happy to see them doing well, but I grew up around them and they were never really "my" teams then, so it'd be tough to claim them now.

Basically, I wanted a team that I could make a legitimate claim for that wouldn't ostracize me from any of my friends and family. Finally, I decided I'd just go local and root, root, root for the home University of Houston Cougars. I caught most of their game against UCLA on TV this afternoon, and it was really a fun game to watch. Kim says she can get discounted tickets to one of their games, and since they're not a mega-franchise like UT, I may actually be able to afford a discounted ticket before the season is up.

I think just about every team that I'm aware of one of my friends following got a win in week one, so that's kind of cool. Nobody (that I know) has to be mad, which is great because it's such a bummer to spend an entire year looking forward to a new season only to be let down by your guys.

So welcome to college football season, everyone. Boomer Sooner, Roll Tide, Hook 'Em Horns, Sic 'Em Bears, Rock Chalk Jayhawk, Woo Pig Sooie, and It's Either A Kind Of Prickly Nut-like Thing Or Else A Delicious Candy.

I think that covers everyone's rally cry that I know.

Hey, do the Cougars have a rally cry? *goes to look* Okay, here's what I found at uhcougars.com:
"Traditionally, the stand cheer has gone: Eat 'Em Up! Eat 'Em Up! Rah! Rah! Rah! Not surprisingly, some fans erroneously chanted Raw! Raw! Raw! at the end of the cheer. However, in 2000, the cheer was changed to Eat 'Em Up! Eat 'Em Up! Go Coogs Go! At a minimum, this should be less confusing for everyone."

Heh...yeah, those idiots, changing "Rah" to "Raw." Wait...how could they tell???

v2, d407: You've Changed

2011-09-03T00:16:00.000-07:00

I'm talking to you, blogger. You changed on me. You moved everything around, you put all the buttons in different places, you took all the fun and color out of my log-in screen and replaced it with...with...CHANGE!!

Obviously, I don't like it, because people on the Internet always have to hate it when you change anything. I always love it when Facebook changes something. Everyone goes absolutely ballistic. It's fantastic. And then people create pages on Facebook about how they hate the changes to Facebook. And then everybody pretty much gets over it and goes back to making pages claiming they need a "Dislike" button. I also remember when Twitter changed, and for what seemed like months it said you had a choice between using "New Twitter" or sticking with "Old Twitter" for a little while longer. I can't actually remember what the difference was.

Now, I do remember being a bit hacked off when Youtube would only let you log on with a Google account. In fact, Youtube and Blogger are both jerks for that. Especially since Blogger attached itself to my work email account rather than my personal one without asking. About a week ago, that became a problem, because suddenly I can't be logged on to either Youtube or my email while logged into Blogger, because Blogger wants my work email log-in info.

Anyway, our Internet sites change on us all the time. And the changes really aren't that big of a deal most of the time. I'll figure out where you hid all your buttons and features, Blogger, and we'll get along just fine.

But if you ever start playing commercials with sound that randomly start up while I'm trying to blog, so help me I will end you.

v2, d406: Following up

2011-09-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

Here. This is the best thing I've read after the Wade Belak tragedy from yesterday. (Police confirmed today the he was found hanged in a hotel room. No suicide note, no suicidal tendencies whatsoever) And I've read a lot about Belak's death and what this past summer means for hockey, for fighting, for fighters, etc. Adrian Dater knocks it out of the park here, relating how most NHL tough guys really never wanted to be NHL tough guys, but that's the price they pay to do what they love for a living. Combine that with Greg Wyshyski's round-up of post-Belak sentiments from around the Mainstream Media and you get a pretty tragic picture that shows not only the way many of these athletes live their lives, but also potential emotional and psychological plane crash that comes when life suddenly kicks you to the curb. Whether you're an athlete whose career is suddenly over, an actor whose fifteen minutes of fame are up, or even just the guy who loses his job of ten years and finds himself staring at his living room walls for hours on end, it can be a rough adjustment to try to make. There are a lot of folks in this world who wake up one day to realize their dreams aren't all they thought they would be. "I only wanted a family, so why don't my spouse and kids satisfy me?" "I knew I'd be in movies, but I never thought I'd be stuck with the boom mic." "I wanted to be a writer. I did not want to spend the rest of my life writing copy for crappy Internet travel sites." "I wanted to be successful, and I am. I didn't realize I'd have to pay the price in meaningful relationships." And so it goes.

It's like trying to buy a car, but when you get home you realize what you drove back from the dealer is not the same vehicle the salesman sold you. Sometimes, even your dreams aren't all they were cracked up to be. And it sucks when that happens. And I'm not saying that so that we'll look at Belak and Rypien and say, "Yeah, it happens to everyone. Deal with it." I'm only saying that, when put into this kind of context, I understand a lot more of where these guys are coming from. Which, obviously, doesn't mean I'd condone the act of suicide. Not at all. But it's probably time to realize that, whether we like hockey or not, whether we even care about sports at all, whether we have the potential to earn 1-2 million bucks per year for nine months of work, we're really not all that different from these guys. In their hearts, they were really just chasing their dream, and in a way, it turned on them. Turns out, there's something in these guys' stories that I can relate to after all.

v2, d405: Another one

2011-08-31T22:38:00.000-07:00

Today, an NHL player was found dead in Toronto. Wait, does it seem like I already wrote one of these posts this summer? Oh that's right, it's because I did.

Wade Belak is actually the third current NHLer to pass away this summer. The second, Winnipeg forward Rick Rypien, took his own life on August 15th following a 10-year bout with depression. Boogaard (linked above) was eventually declared to have died from a fatal combination of alcohol and painkillers.

I'll tell you what, this summer can't end soon enough for the hockey world.

Here's Wyshynski's fantastic recap of the event and the immediate fallout. This write up from Adrian Dater of the Denver Post is good, too, for a more personal angle. Belak has always been what you might call a fringe NHL player, so much so that I had actually forgotten that he used to be an Av.

Nothing said about a cause of death yet. An early rumor said suicide, a later report said no, definitely not suicide, and a still later report on CBC said yes, suicide. I don't know what to make of it. After Boogaard's death, it was revealed that he'd had a history with substance abuse. Even before Rypien died, it was pretty well-known that he was dealing with a lot of personal demons. But Belak...from everything I've picked up over the course of the evening, he was happily married, a great friend, fun to hang around, well-adjusted, a proud papa, and fresh out of retirement/ready to take on a broadcast job with the Predators (his last team). He was Tweeting about how excited he was to be on the upcoming season of Battle of the Blades (sort of Dancing with the Stars, but on ice) Then today, dead.

There are so many things about this that are just terrible. He has two daughters, ages seven and five. His wife reportedly found out about the death via the news. 'Cause when you've got a scoop, you can't sit on it for thirty damn minutes while the police find a way to contact the widow...

All three of these guys were enforcers. Thugs/tough guys/policemen/fighters. They all mean pretty much the same thing. Which means there are folks who are already blaming fighting in hockey for all three deaths. Look, I don't know weather playing the tough-guy role for fifteen years had something to do with this death or not. It may have been one of those random fatal heart attacks that sometimes happen to healthy 35-year-old men. But come on, folks. Now is not the time for the argument.

For now, the hockey world just wants to mourn for a little bit. When the time's right, let the people in charge look at all the facts (which we still don't have yet) and figure out what, if anything, needs to be done to keep these things from happening. (For the record, both the Rypien and Boogaard families went on record to talk about all the help, support, and resources the NHL provided to help Rick and Derek get through their respective issues)

In the meantime, this whole thing is just sad.

v2, d404: Haiku

2011-08-31T00:09:00.000-07:00

Due to Internet
Error, Haiku Blog now on
Day Four-Oh-Four. Ha.

Sorry, library.
Not going to finish this
One on time. Renew.

Five good running backs.
Only three good receivers.
Unfortunate, that.

Dinosaurs fit well
Into haiku poetry.
Apatasaurus.

Went to a middle
School once where kids were kissing
In the halls. That's gross.

Ocean waves recede.
Sun sets o'er a peaceful shore.
Humboldt squid attack.

Playing cards with clowns.
Water skiing with angels.
Hot dogs before bed.

I need to go to
Toronto. No, I mean it.
Hockey Hall of Fame.

Earthquakes are rumbling.
The earth's surface is shifting.
I'm watching TV.

Seven skinny cows
Ate the seven fat cows. I
Bet their tummies hurt.

See that last haiku?
It was straight up Biblical.
Jesus is real, y'all.

Andrew Lloyd Weber.
He wrote lots of musicals.
Andrew Lloyd Weber.

I'm ready to go
To bed. I miss sleeping. I
Miss writing more, though.

Man I hope Isaac
Takes a few naps tomorrow.
Good nite, ev'ryone!

v2, d403: Hold

2011-08-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

I just finished a Haiku post, and guess what? Yup, either blogger or firefox got confused and half of it disappeared. So rather than hastily try to throw the last few back together, I'm going to save it and finish it up tomorrow. Because it's 2 a.m. and I'm tired enough to go to sleep.

So, look forward to tomorrow's haiku post, I guess. G'nite!

v2, d402: Sick. Blarg.

2011-08-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

I think I'm finally on the upswing from whatever random illness I've been experiencing the past few days. That's good.

Sherri came down for a visit, so I invited some fellow OBU alumni over and we had a mini reunion at my apartment Wednesday night. The next day, I was sick. By Friday, I wanted nothing but sleep. No food, no drink, no love. Just sleep. (I'm kidding. I still wanted love.) So, Sherri's visit was probably pretty lame, because she was pretty much babysitting one of the boys just about the whole time she was here since I was crashing in bed reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn most of the time she was here.

It seems that, every time I get incapacitatingly ill, I have company over for the weekend. My theory is that my body says, "Okay, it's okay now, there's someone else to help Kim with the boys, NOW YOU WILL PAY FOR SLEEPING FOUR HOURS EVERY NIGHT!!!!" Regardless, my parents are coming down for an extended weekend over Labor Day, so at least now I know I won't have to be worried about being sick while they're here now that it's out of my system.

Of course, Isaac seems to have caught it now. Here's hoping the rest of the family isn't sick when my folks are down.

v2, d401: And what's worse, you're too young to even enjoy the "free sticker" perk

2011-08-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Isaac's 6-month checkup. Only we'd missed his 4-month checkup due to the wedding in San Diego, so the pediatrician took his 6-month information and then gave his 4-month shots. (Fortunately, there are no scheduled shots for the 9-month checkup, so we'll get all caught up in November. This is, apparently, Not Really A Big Deal)

The visit went pretty well. Isaac was his usual content self in the waiting room, and while he didn't particularly like being turned this way and that (Let's see if he can sit up. Look at that! Now what happens when we put him on his tummy? Oh, he doesn't like that...) he was overall cool with everything that was going on. He's like that.

Then came the shots. Man, was it ever sad. The nurse laid Isaac down on the little table, and he was all giggly and smiling up at me, and then she pinched his chubby little thigh, (10th percentile for length but 50th percentile for weight + 90th percentile for head circumference = rolly poly boy!) and suddenly his face just distorted into a mask of sheer agony. The wailing happened a moment later. And it didn't really increase in fervor as she stuck him twice more (two in one leg, one in the other) because he really couldn't be any more upset than he was during that first injection. And the look on his face wasn't only one of pain. There was a lot of sadness there, too. He had no clue why this was happening to him, and it had come out of nowhere. It was one of the saddest things I think I've ever seen in person.

Fortunately, the nurse worked quickly and then (just as quickly) left the room, leaving me to try to comfort my terror-stricken child. I picked him up, patted his back, and said reassuring things to him as he continued to scream as loud as he could. Eventually, he did calm down, but he still clung to me shirt with a death grip. We waited another fifteen minutes before the doctor came back (I guess they have the nurses do the shots so the kids won't develop an unhealthy fear of their pediatrician) and asked if we were waiting on anything. I told her no one had told me we were free to go yet. Surprised, she said, "Oh, you can go! Sorry about that!" The nurse had skulked so quickly away that she hadn't remembered to dismiss us. She even gave a somewhat guilty-looking smile as she left, which was a bit surprising because I figured once you've done this professionally for a while, you've developed a thick skin against babies looking at you as if you were the Betrayer himself.

Anyway, Isaac was pretty worn out by the time we got out of the building, so he slept the whole way home. All this had happened during his usual lunch time, so when he woke up he was starving and still mad, so he was so upset he didn't actually finish his lunch. I got him to go to sleep again for a little while, but he woke soon after with a fever. I gave him some baby Tylenol and a bottle and he finally started to calm down. He even went down for another nap. It seemed he'd slept pretty much all day.

Up until bed time, that is. Not surprisingly, he slept fitfully, and at about 3 a.m. (when I was finishing cooking up some burgers for tonight's dinner--hey, if you're gonna be up at 3 a.m. you may as well make yourself useful!) Kim brought him in the kitchen because he was wide awake and would not sleep. (This was just after Robbie had unexpectedly awaken, groaning for a drink of water) I spent quite a bit of time getting Isaac to sleep, and as soon as I was done with him I heard Robbie crying again (now it's 4 a.m.). Robbie had taken the cup I'd brought to him earlier, taken it into his bed with him, and spilled it everywhere.

I fell asleep at about 4:30 this morning. (I should mention that I was already so exhausted from the day's drama that I had accidentally dozed for an hour or so while putting Robbie to bed earlier) So really, nobody slept regularly last night, and everybody was tired today. Isaac was still fussy and kind of feverish most of the day, and Kim came home from work early so I could get a bit of an afternoon nap after sleeping fewer than three hours last night. Needless to say, it was a weird 24 hours.

And then Will and Jada Smith split up and there was an earthquake on the East Coast. The world has gone mad since these shots. Mad, I tell you!

All right, my head kinda hurts, and I got my chores for tonight done, so I'm going to go ahead and turn in at a nice early 1:30 tonight. After all, I've got a fairly busy day planned for tomorrow.

v2, d400: Distraction, Thy Name Is....That Guy

2011-08-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Confession time.

While it's true that some of my irregular blogging of late has been caused by sleeping issues (last night I couldn't fall asleep until close to 4), an equally unhealthy portion of it has come from my discovery of the Internet sensation known as the Nostalgia Critic over on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com. This guy makes me laugh. A lot. And even when I say, "Okay, only one (twenty-minute) video tonight," I usually end up on this site for close to an hour.

This isn't saying I can necessarily recommend NC. He's really funny, his videos are well-edited, and he's giving fairly in-depth reviews of all manner of pop culture film/television sensations from our childhood. (There are also a ton of other similar reviewers hosted on TGWTG's site, but I haven't really found one that's worth its salt yet. They pretty seem much follow the same bewildered mockery/outrage motif, but none of them can do it nearly as well as NC) However, the language is definitely R-rated. That's not me being pious; according to MPAA standards it would be considered R-rated. Also, the subject matter sometimes drifts into what my old college roommate would likely term "yerg territory." My exposure to contemporary world theater has pretty much dulled me to language at coarse subject matter, but I can still recognize it and definitely wouldn't condone it. So if you, like me, have very little chance of being offended by language and are in the need of some nostalgic criticism (and you have hours to spare), you may want to check his site out. While some of the reviews can be hit and miss, most of the Top 11 lists are fantastic. (What? Me? Addicted to a guy who does list/countdowns? Shocker!)

Again, this blog isn't necessarily intended to be an advertisement for NC, though I do know some of my readers would totally get a kick out of him. Really, it's more my coming clean with why I haven't been writing much on here lately.

If you happen to see me online, keep me accountable: No NC videos until I've done some writing, a blog, and any housework that needs done. (I guess if you happen to see me late-night offline for any reason, you can hold me accountable, too)

Because admitting you have a problem is the first step.

(Seriously though, I'll be getting back to this. Sorry for the lapses. Maybe tomorrow we can talk about taking Isaac to the doctor for shots)

v2, d399: Chris Drury Retires

2011-08-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

Chris Drury retired from the NHL today. He's been one of my favorite NHL players since he came on to the scene with the Avs. I still remember the day we traded him--as Dater points out in today's post, it was really the only boneheaded trade Pierre LaCroix ever made for the Avs. Even after this past season--where Chris was banged up, injured most of the year, slow and ineffective after two years of injuries and surgeries--I and a lot of other Avs fans were hoping he might re-sign for a third- or fourth-line/penalty killer role. (I think some of the Sabers fans wanted to see him back, too) However, he decided his body just couldn't do it any more, and he hung 'em up.

Robbie's middle name--Christopher--is taken from Chris Drury. I loved the way he played, but I always respected the man he was off the ice as well as on it. He played hard, but never dirty. He never responded to crap in kind. I remember an incident in Buffalo where he was hit into the board from behind with his head down and he missed some time with a serious head or neck injury (sorry, don't remember exactly which). When asked by a reporter what he thought of the guy who did it to him, he only responded that it was in the past, there was no point dwelling on it, and he was going to put in the work he needed to get back on the ice and do his job. He never sank below his own level of integrity.

I won't go on and on about the guy, because there have been much better (and more concise) tributes posted today, and I'll just give you those. First, Avs beat writer Adrian Dater's blog. Second (and more highly recommended for the uninitiated), Puck Daddy editor Greg Wyshynski.

Drury was known for scoring "clutch goals." He always seemed to come up big in the playoffs. His four playoff overtime goals puts him in the company of Hall of Famers. When Joe freaking Sakic says you're the most clutch player he's ever seen, that's saying something. Sure, people got tired of hearing that he pitched the winning game of the Little League World Series when he was 10, but that's just because every channel mentioned it every time his name came up. The man did win the LLWS. He also won a Hobey Baker Award, a Calder Trophy, two Olympic silver medals, and a Stanley Cup. He also spent his day with the Stanley Cup visiting his college teammate Travis Roy, a guy whose career ended when he was paralyzed on his first shift of college hockey. While his career was on the decline, he was named to the US Olympic Hockey Team roster in 2010. Said GM Brian Burke, "We picked Chris Drury because he's Chris Drury." And of course, he scores two clutch goals in that tournament as well.

Look, there were always better players than Drury, I know that. But if you look at how many NHL personalities today put out congratulations or "best captain I ever played with"/"one of the classiest guys I've ever known" comments on their Twitter throughout the day, how many tribute blogs and stories were posted by sports networks across North America, and how many fans who wish he could have had one last year to end his career on a higher note than his 2010-11 season, you get the feeling that the guy is special.

Incidentally, I do have a Top 7 Drury moments. I won't make it as big a deal as my usual Top 7's, but here you go:

7. Drury's response to the hit from behind in Buffalo
6. Skating around all 5 Vancouver players for a last-minute goal against the Canucks
5. Drury and his boyhood idol, Ray Bourque, throughout the 2000-01 season. Lots of great hijinks/stories there
4. Jeremy Roenick publicly apologizing for questioning the selection of Drury to the 2010 Olympic squad
3. Game 5 vs Detroit in 2002, overtime winner. (We lost the series anyway, but that was a glorious moment)
2. Telling Travis Roy's story on national TV
1. Of course, the Cup in 2001. Drury's retirement leaves only 3 guys from that team (Hejduk, Tanguay, Reinprecht) still playing in the NHL.

So, thank you, Chris, for being a role model and a leader. Thanks for the Cup in '01 and the consistent presence at USA Hockey. Thanks for being the kind of guy I'd want to name a kid after.

*sound of alone stick tapping against the ice*

v2, d398: Deacons Meeting

2011-08-16T23:40:00.000-07:00

I went to my first deacon's meeting tonight at church. Which is good, because the staff is supposed to get to these monthly meetings whenever possible, and due to my work at ADP I missed every single one of them over the past year.

Not really much to report, but I thought it noteworthy that I finally made it to one.

Meanwhile, congratulations to all the Spotlighter Award winners! (Will somebody please tell me who the Spoltlighter Award winners are?)

v2, d397: Just a Roll With a Hole

2011-08-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Too many words last night. Compensating with a couple of video clips from my late childhood/teenage years.

v2, d396: Sixth

2011-08-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Why didn't I post last night? Because I was angry that nobody commented on the musical script.

No, that's not true. Actually, I didn't post because yesterday was Kim and I's sixth anniversary, and I was busy. A couple friends of ours came by to watch the boys so we could have our first night out since we went to the ballet about a month after Isaac was born. (If you're wondering exactly how long ago that was, the answer is way too freaking long) All things considered, we had a pretty low-key date, but then sometimes you don't feel like having a huge fancy expensive event. Sometimes you just want a good burger and a movie. We went to Pappas Burger (suggested slogan: We're Pretty Much Better Than Most Of Those Other Burger Places) and then to see Harry Potter 7.2, which somehow managed to be both pretty good and mildly disappointing at the same time.

Afterwards, I thought about sitting down to write some touching ruminations over the past six years of marriage. The longer I worked to put any such sentiment into words, however, the more convinced I became that it was more or less a lost cause. Marriage isn't really something that can be understood through mere words. Really, none of the most important things in life are. You can't understand the sense of triumph of a person who recovers from near-total paralysis feels the first time they walk across a room unless you've been somewhere similar. You can't truly empathize with the homeless unless you've spent an extended period not knowing where you'd next lay down your head. You're never prepared for the first time you hold your own child. No one else can understand the bond you share with the friend that scripture says "sticks closer than a brother." And so on and so forth.

Thus, six years of marriage. Why bother to try to tell how hard it's been, how great it's been, how fun, how frustrating? Those of you who have been there already know. Those of you haven't don't know yet. I look forward to the day you do, however. That doesn't mean you can't share in our joy. Far from it! Celebration and sorrow are meant to be contagious. Just because I haven't walked the path of your pain, that doesn't mean I won't hurt for you. Likewise, the fact that I have no adequate frame of reference for your joy, I fully intend to party like it's...well, okay, I won't go there for once. But you get the idea.

On the other hand, I could be really wrong here. It may just be that I'm not gifted enough with words to express my thoughts and emotions on such an event. (In other words: COP-OUT!) However, I've read enough passages--in scripture, in books, in plays, in CD lyric sleeves--that only really made sense to me after I had a particular life experience to think there's likely a principle at play here.

I recently attended my big sister's wedding. Toward the end of the day, I told her I didn't think I'd ever been happier than I was that day. She said, "Um, except maybe for your own wedding day?" I shook my head and said, "I was too young." That was the best I could explain it that night. Given some more time for reflection, I think I know what I was getting at. My wedding day was easily the happiest day of my life. Up to that point. But really, as prepared as we were, and as much prayer and thought and counseling as we had put into our three-plus-year relationship, I didn't really know what I was getting. I said the vows whole-heartedly, not realizing they'd become more profound and meaningful every time I'd hear them the rest of my life. I think I've come to prefer the "traditional" vows because they're often a more realistic depiction of what your life is going to be than the original vows couples usually write for one another. (Don't get me wrong, I love it when the bride and groom write vows for each other. It's always a great moment and a real tears-of-happiness moment in any wedding, but I hope they at least look over the "old school" vows at some point in the process) You know, the old "for rich or poor, in good times or bad, in sickness and health." Because bad times and sickness are coming sooner than you expect, and they're probably not going to be your faults, and they sure as heck won't be fair, and they're going to come out of nowhere, but there they'll be. So that's why the older vows are so general. It's hard to vow to be a good spouse through months of bed rest, through the cashing in of the vacation spare change jar to pay a bill, through two a.m. runs to the ER with one of the boys, through emotionally abusive bosses, through hurricanes, and any number of other difficulties which will blind-side you at some point or other over just the next few years! So you just say "in good times and bad" and "in sickness and in health" and "for richer or poor," and that pretty much covers everything. :-)

But yes, back to my sister's wedding. I know I've mentioned here my theory that your capacity for...well, anything really...increases as your life unfolds, provided you are living a healthy emotional life. As you learn to love unselfishly, your capacity to love increases, and as that happens, so does your ability to share joy, and as that increases so too does your capacity for pain, etc. I think I worded this better last time. If not, I'll keep working on it until it makes sense. Anyway, my wedding day was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. But my marriage, my friendships, my children, my capacity at the church, these things have enhance my ability to feel the whole range of emotions. And on my sister's wedding day, seeing her so happy, standing at the event I'd been praying for for years, and feeling so convinced that the union is indeed blessed by the Almighty, plus having an inkling of the many unexpected ways God is going to turn their lives upside down and the unexpected joys they will share...I was really overwhelmed with happiness. I was probably happier than I was even at my own wedding, possibly even happier than the day my boys were born, because my marriage and my boys have helped make me a man who can be happier.

Geez, does that make any sense now that it's out of my head? I think this post has ended up being far longer and more convoluted than my initial attempts to adequately describe the joys of six years of marital bliss.

Okay, I'll just close with this. Really, this is the only important part of this blog anyway:

First, thanks and praise to God, who gives all good gifts, for not only giving me the gift of my wife but for giving us the strength and endurance to hang on to it through life's violent attempts to wrench it away from us.
Second, thanks to all of our friends and family members who have encouraged us, supported us, and prayed for us over the nearly ten years we've known one another (as well as the nearly twenty years we didn't know each other). You've cooked for us, taken care of kids for us, helped us out when we didn't have the money to make it, and provided much-needed light in times of darkness. I wish I could express exactly how much I love and appreciate each of you. (Great, now I have to write a post about how I can't write a post to tell you how much I love and appreciate each of you)
Third...actually, I think that covers just about anybody who will read this. Except, of course, for the lovely lady who changed my life by laughing at a lame joke on a bus on the road to Arkansas in the fall of 2001. I love you. Though hopefully you don't have to read a lame blog to know that.

v2, d395: The Musical!

2011-08-12T22:03:00.003-07:00

AT RISE: JOSH, HAYDEN, HOWARD, and OTHER CHILDREN are assembled on stage, waiting for rehearsal to begin. SCOOTER enters, carrying a clipboard and dialing on a cell phone.

JOSH: Hey, Scooter, shouldn’t we be getting started with rehearsal?

SCOOTER: Sorry guys. We’ve got to wait until everybody’s here. We’ll get started as soon as we can. (She exits, talking into the phone as she goes) Hello? Is she almost here? Well we’re fifteen minutes late!

HAYDEN: Who are we waiting for? I thought everybody was already here.

(KAREN runs onstage, excited)

KAREN: GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUYS!!!

BILL: What’s wrong, Karen?

ASHLEY: Yeah, what is it?

KAREN: You guys will never guess what I just heard! You know who Destiny Starlight is, right?

HOWARD: That girl who has, like, six of her own shows on the Disney Channel?

MELLIE: I have all of her CD’s!

CINDY: I love her movie!

KAREN: Well, it turns out her great aunt’s second cousin’s nephew’s brother-in-law’s foster father’s sister’s favorite cousin goes to our church!

HAYDEN: Okay. But what does that have to do with Music Camp rehearsal?

KAREN: I just heard that she’s going to show up to be in our play!

(KIDS react with general excitement. SCOOTER re-enters)

HAYDEN: Scooter! Is it true that Destiny Starlight is really going to be in our Music Camp play???

SCOOTER: It was supposed to be a surprise….

(KIDS give up a cheer and high-five one another)

SCOOTER: Of course, if she doesn’t show up soon we’ll just have to start without her…

(DESTINY arrives in style, adorned in any way you’d expect to find a Hollywood teen pop sensation)

DESTINY: Hello, beautiful people!

(KIDS—especially the girls—crowd around her. A couple of the kids may scream)

A KID: I can’t believe it! It’s really her!

ANOTHER KID: Destiny Starlight! It’s Destiny Starlight!

ANOTHER KID: Can I have your autograph?

ANOTHER KID: Will you be my friend?

ANOTHER KID: Is Destiny your real name?

DESTINY: It’s called a stage name.

HOWARD: What’s a stage name?

DESTINY: You see, when you’re someone like me, the name your parents give you isn’t enough to capture all the magic that makes you a star. So you have to pick out a new name that fits your personality.

SCOOTER: Hi, Destiny, my name is Scooter, and I’m in charge of our rehearsals…

DESTINY: Right, right. Sorry I was late, but I just finished recording my voice for my newest movie. It’s a cartoon, I play a unicorn princess. Oh trust me, you’ll hear about it.

SCOOTER: We really need to get started if we can…

DESTINY: I know, I know. What’s the show about again?

KAREN: Every year, we do a concert of the music we learned in Bible school for our church!

DESTINY: Isn’t that cute? All right, start the first song.

SCOOTER: But we should probably teach you the dance first…

DESTINY: Listen, Skipper…is it Skipper?

SCOOTER: It’s Scooter…

DESTINY: Right, Skipper, Scooter, whatever. Let me tell you how it works in showbusiness. In showbusiness, the star does what the star does, and everybody else just makes it look good. Okay? So you go start the little song, okay? Thanks. Get in your places, everybody!

SCOOTER: But…but…(she sighs) okay…(She exits to start the song as everyone get into their places. Music starts. Song: SONROCK KIDS CAMP. About halfway through the song, DESTINY beings to invent some of her own choreography, which occasionally gets in the way of other students. At the very end of the song, she bumps into KAREN, sending her toppling)

JOSH: Hey, you just knocked her over!

DESTINY: She shouldn’t have been standing there.

HAYDEN: You need to apologize to her!

DESTINY: (bewildered) Why?

HAYDEN: Why I oughtta… (she prepares to punch DESTINY, but JOSH and HOWARD hold her back)

KAREN: It’s okay. I’m okay.

SCOOTER: All right, everybody get in place for the next song. Peter Was a Fisherman. (Kids go to get into places. HAYDEN and JOSH help KAREN to her feet)

DESTINY: I assume I’m playing the Peter guy in this song?

SCOOTER: Um…no, actually. You’ll have to be in the chorus.

DESTINY: The chorus? I don’t do chorus. I don’t think you read my contract.

SCOOTER: This is Music Camp. We don’t have contracts.

DESTINY: I only do leads. If this song is about this Peter guy, then I have to be him.

HAYDEN: Peter is Josh’s part. He’s practiced it, so he’s going to do it.

DESTINY: Has Josh ever played a unicorn princess in a major animated movie? Yeah. Didn’t think so.

HAYDEN: But at least he’s a boy. You know, like Peter.

KAREN: What if we let Destiny be, like, Peter’s wife? And she can be in the boat with him for the song.

HOWARD: Actually, in the story in the Bible, Peter’s wife was not in the boat with him.

DESTINY: Yeah, okay. As long as I get to be in the boat, that should work.

SCOOTER: But..but…(sighs) okay…Here we go, everyone. (Song: Peter Was a Fisherman. JOSH plays PETER and HOWARD or another boy plays Jesus. Once she realizes Peter’s wife is not a major player in the story, DESTINY again begins to make up her own “part,” taking over the scene by the very end. By the end of the song, she has pushed JOSH over, much like what happened with KAREN at the end of the first song)

KAREN: Josh, are you okay?

JOSH: Sure…

HAYDEN: Unicorn princess or no, you don’t have any right to come in here and push our people around…

DESTINY: I just gave the song what I thought it was missing.

HOWARD: What’s that? Ice hockey?

DESTINY: Strong female characters. Role models for girls, you know?

SCOOTER: This isn’t going so well. We’d better just rehearse the next song. Everybody, get in your places for Walking On the Water.

ASHLEY: Sweet! I like this song!

DESTINY: Am I Gloria again?

JOSH: Gloria? Who’s Gloria?

DESTINY: Peter’s wife. I decided she needed a name.

KAREN: Actually, why don’t you take the solo in this song?

DESTINY: Solo? Yeah…you’re right, we need to show off my singing skills some more. (She begins warming up her singing voice with scales while the other kids huddle downstage)

HOWARD: But Karen, that was supposed to be Scooter’s solo.

KAREN: I know, but if we let Destiny be in the song again, she might really hurt someone.

SCOOTER: She’s right, Howard.

JOSH: We have got to do something about that girl.

BILL: She might sing like an angel, but she sure don’t act like an angel!

HAYDEN: Oh, I’ll do something about her all right!

KAREN: Hayden! Don’t hit her!

HAYDEN: Why not?

HOWARD: You remember what the New Testament says? About turning the other cheek?

HAYDEN: I don’t want to turn another cheek. I want to punch her in the face!

DESTINY: All right, I’m ready! Let’s get this show on the road!

SCOOTER: Just stick together, guys. We’ll get through this one.

OTHERS: Right. (They break the huddle and perform the song WHO’S THAT WALKING ON THE WATER, with JOSH again playing PETER and the other boy from the last song playing JESUS again. Since DESTINY is mostly by herself, the song goes off without incident)

SCOOTER: Great job, everybody. Everyone sounded really good in that song! Let’s run through…

DESTINY: I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, everybody sounded okay, but you guys are pretty lucky I’m here.

SCOOTER: Um, Destiny? Do you think you could start talking a little nicer to everybody else?

DESTINY: I’m not being mean. I’m just stating a fact. None of you guys would ever cut it in Hollywood.

SCOOTER: Okay, but we’re not in Hollywood. And…this play isn’t all about you.

JOSH: And we don’t care about having a big hit or being big stars.

DESTINY: Wow. What kind of actors are you guys supposed to be?

KAREN: That’s just it. We’re not actors. Not really.

ASHLEY: We’re just kids who want to have some fun together and praise God with these songs.

DESTINY: God?

HAYDEN: Yeah, you know, God? The one who gave you all of your talent and fame? Seems like a guy you ought to be thankful to. (BILL puts a hand on HAYDEN’S shoulder to calm her down a little bit)

HOWARD: I think you might be so busy making sure that you’re in the middle of the story, Destiny, that you’re missing the whole point of the story.

DESTINY: Wait…what? I’m always in the middle of the story.

BILL: Maybe that’s the problem.

SCOOTER: Here, why don’t you sit over here and just watch these next couple of songs.

DESTINY: Well…all right. I could use a bit of a break after that last solo, anyway. (She sits off to the side during Keepin My Eyes on Jesus and How Great Is the Love)

DESTINY: You know what? You guys really aren’t that bad after all. And I can tell you all actually like each other. That’s not something you see a lot of in Hollywood.

JOSH: Well, like you said, we’re not exactly Major Movie material. Shoot, I’ve never even been asked to play a Unicorn Princess…

DESTINY: That was kind of a dumb thing for me to say, wasn’t it? You guys are right, I’m just really used to being the most important person in the room. I really haven’t been keeping my eyes on Jesus much at all lately.

HAYDEN: I guess…I guess you’re not the only one. I guess it hasn’t been very Christ-like of me to keep wanting to punch you in the face. Even if you have been really rude to all of my friends today. So…I’m sorry about that.

DESTINY: You’re sorry to me? Aren’t I supposed to say that I’m sorry to all of you?

HAYDEN: Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been much better than you have.

KAREN: Why don’t you do the next one with us, Destiny?

DESTINY: You want me to?

KAREN: Sure!

HOWARD: As long as you can do it with us.

BILL: And not knock anybody over in the process.

DESTINY: All right. Thanks. (Song: You Will Be Saved. After the song, everybody congratulates one another)

JOSH: All right! We sounded awesome!

DESTINY: You’re right! We did!

SCOOTER: That’s just about all the time we have for this rehearsal, everybody. Since we started late and everything.

DESTINY: That was my fault, too, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, everybody. And I’m sorry for bossing you around like that, Scooter. And getting your name wrong. Wow, I feel like I’ve been a really bad person today.

SCOOTER: Thanks for apologizing, Destiny. But we all have our bad days.

KAREN: We’ve got another rehearsal tomorrow night. Think you’ll be able to make it?

DESTINY: Yeah. And maybe we’ll tone Gloria’s part down. Just a little bit. (Others laugh with her) I’m glad you all gave me another chance.

HAYDEN: Well…I’m glad you’re here.

DESTINY: Thanks.

SCOOTER: All right, we’re all getting entirely too mushy. What do you say we run through our last song and call it a night?

ALL: SOUNDS GOOD! (Last song: The Trail of Life)

End.

v2, d394: Miller Time!

2011-08-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

Because it's awesome to go for the obvious joke, especially if it's an out-dated beer commercial pun.

Today was the Players' day at Miller Outdoor Theater. We put up our production of The Hobbit. It's always tough taking a show that was directed to play in a small in-the-round space that seats about one hundred fifty people and transferring it to a proscenium amphitheater that could potentially draw crowds of 3,000 or more. You lose your proximity, you lose your blocking, you lose your lighting effects, and you can lose your mind trying to figure out how to make it all work for the second time without drastically rebuilding everything. That said, I think most everything ended up working pretty well on Miller's stage. The loss of lights impacted the show in a big way, because the dark, creepy atmosphere of the piece was largely impacted by the lighting design, but hey. When the city wants to give you thousands of dollars to play for a larger audience than you're going to see all year in your own theater, you work with what you get.

It was nice to be working on something theatrical again, even if just for the week, and even if I was just pressing buttons and helping unload. I've never cared too much about my particular assignment once a production gets rolling (barring external circumstances, of course). Tomorrow we'll have another show, and then tomorrow night I'll head back to the church to see how the kids did with the musical about kids rehearsing a musical.

This is so fun, I might just go ahead and write another play sometime.

And now, in celebration of going for the obvious joke at EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY:

v2, d393: I'm a hit!

2011-08-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

(393 factored = 3, 131)

It's been a while since I've been this nervous about a script. However, when the kids' music camp director at church mentioned that we'd have to order a script from the VBS company for a musical for our kids to perform (this was months ago), naturally I said, "Hey, no worries. I'll just write something. That will be free!"

Music camp began yesterday. Actual scriptwriting started eight days ago at about 12:30 a.m. Script completion occurred at about 4:00 a.m. that same day. And tonight, I went in to help with "the drama part" of the musical. One of my kids had begged me at camp, "Mr. Will, please don't make it cheesy! Most of our music camp scripts are so cheesy!" To be honest, I didn't remember much from the three-point-five hour midnight writing session, so I had no idea if what I had written was cheesy or funny or even coherent. I went in tonight to get the kids' reaction to this short piece that their super-cool children's director had written for them to perform for their parents. Totally honest here: I was scared to hear what these kids would think.

Now, this isn't necessarily because I doubt my ability to write something that kids will enjoy. However, I was trying to tie the songs from VBS together into a story, and, um...well, some of the songs are Bible stories, some are about camping, and some are none of the above. Doesn't necessarily lend itself to much of a through-line. Instead, I wrote a play about children rehearsing for a musical featuring the songs they had learned in VBS.

See what I did there?

You cannot imagine my relief when virtually all of the kids came up to tell me how great the script was. Not only do they love it, but they each like their parts. (Admittedly, there are a lot of one-line roles for the younger kids, but they're pretty much there to sing the songs, be cute, and eat sugary snacks every night) The one girl who begged me to stray from unnecessary cheese even told me that it was perfect and gave me a high-five. Whew!

Here's the bestest part: as we were "blocking" each of the scenes, I watched the kids saying the lines on the page and....it actually is funny. Parts of it are really funny. I mean, it's a bit hokey and over-the-top, because hey, it's kids' music camp at a church using VBS songs. You can't have camp without camp. But for what it is, I think it actually turned out pretty decent. What I like most about it, I think, is that you can see traces of the kids in the group within the story. Most of the characters I wrote with specific kids in mind, and I must have done pretty well because the music director cast pretty much all of them in the roles they inspired. There are also several moments that are distinctly "Me," I think a little moreso than my more professional pieces. Finally, I worked in some inside jokes between me and a few of the kids. For example, one girl has been bugging me since winter to write a play for her in which she gets to be a unicorn princess. Believe it or not, I managed to work it in here. Sort of. And she loved it. In short: my favorite aspect of this script is that it is in every way a play for us. And while it won't ever be one of my greatest works, I think that's pretty cool.

I may post the script on here after the show Friday night. We'll see how it goes over with the grown-ups first ;-)

v2, d392: Betrayal

2011-08-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not talking about the Pinter play.

I'm talking about words. For some reason, words and I are at odds right now. Any time I sit down to write, the words I can grasp are not the ones I want to use. I know the ideas I mean to communicate aren't that complicated, but I'll be darned if I can find a syntax adequate to present those ideas to others. That's a big part of why you're getting such sporadic blogging on here. It's just not working for me right now. It's not quite the same thing as Writer's Block, because I've got a ton of stuff I could be writing, both on this blog and in other places, and I'm even pretty sure how to go about it, but for some reason the actual Doing undoes itself.

I'd say it's more bewildering than frustrating, honestly. Just know that I am trying. My beloved vocabulary is just in the midst of a prolonged betrayal of sorts.

v2, d391:Dad gum it

2011-08-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

It's nearly football season. Everyone is reacting as though football's been gone forever, and at LAST it's finally here. But in reality, we didn't actually miss any football with the lockout. We just missed a month of free agent signings. Training camp started pretty close to on time. And teams scrambled like mad to get two months' of personnel work taken care of in two weeks. It was kind of fun to try to keep up with it all. In fact, maybe they ought to make the off-season two weeks long every year!

And, in spite of myself...I'm excited for football season. Again. Even after the crapfest that was last year. And it was, folks. It was terrible. When we were 4-0 last season and I said, "Yeah, but we're lucky we're winning. If we don't make some major improvements, we'll be a 6-10 team," a lot of folks said I was just being negative.

A few months later, we were a 6-10 team. And the losses were so outrageously idiotic that it became almost a joke. As a fan, I couldn't even enjoy those thrilling rally-from-twenty-points-down-in-the-fourth-quarter games (and yeah, there were more than one) because I already knew we were going to lose. And not just lose, but lose on a bone-headed, SportsCenter blooper type of play. Every time.

Then the owner would come out and say, "Look at all these losses, they sure are close! I think we ought to stay the course." Despite the fact that we've been losing bone-headed fourth-quarter losses for the past three seasons. Despite the fact that we have practically invented ways to lose games we ought to have won for the past three years. We're probably headed in the right direction. We should just stay the course.

By the end of the year, I just couldn't even care any more. I know a lot of legitimate die-hard Texans fans felt the same way. We were tired of the promises, tired of the potential, tired of the lost-it-on-the-last-possession games that kept showing up in the L column. We were tired of teams losing just because they didn't "show up" on a regular basis.

We were tired of the Texans.

And like a guy getting out of a bad relationship, I was pretty convinced I wasn't going to let myself get excited again. Not until some major changes happened. I'd heard all the lingo before, read all the promises and the optimism from players and coaches for the past couple of years about how we were finally turning the corner, and I knew I wasn't going to set myself up for another major disappointment like last season.

Then training camp started. And dang me, I can't help but be excited. First Texans preseason game is a week from Monday, and I'm excited to see it. I want to see the rookies. I want to see how the defense responds to the new system. I want to see the guys we're going to cut. I just want the guys with the cow on the side of their heads to get out there and play football again. And yeah, we'll probably be mediocre again. I look at our schedule and I see maybe 8 wins from a team that's talented enough to win 10-12 games. We're probably the same inconsistent Texans that we've been the last four seasons of Coach K's reign. Maybe we'll be better. But history says we probably won't. But blast it all, I'm willing to give 'em another chance.

I need help.

(Incidentally, for the third year in a row I've said that this is the year I'm finally going to get really into college football. We'll see how that goes)

v2, d390: Camp

2011-08-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

See, I should have titled the last blog "Red, and Back." That pic, by the way, was from the day I got to be my team's flag bearer for no other reason than I was on the red team and happened to be sitting on the aisle when the Rec Director was looking for a flag bearer that day. Hey, I'll take it.

I think I actually held up pretty well at camp. I made it to every 7:00 a.m. sponsors' meeting, spent each day walking everywhere and Star Trekkin' when necessary, and managed to fall asleep by midnight every night. I tried to set an example for my kids, getting them to dive in and do crazy things or try new things, which means I did venture into the mud pit for tug of war, and I engaged whole-heartedly in the silly dances, and I made sure I was actually doing a quiet time during "cabin quiet time" (as opposed to, say, catching a quick nap or going over the schedule). It was a long and full five days/four nights, but I really enjoyed myself.

The worship music was really good. However, they always projected the words on the screen with animated screensavers behind them. You all remember that 3-D brick maze screensaver that you couldn't take your eyes off of no matter where in the room you were and what else was happening? This was a lot like that. Also, because this was preteen camp, the camp director's M.O. from the get go was to get the kids really psyched up. Like, the entire first day was pretty much geared to get the kids screaming for everything. Good morning. RAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!! How are you guys doing today? RAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!! Are you ready to have a good day AT CAMP? RAAAAAAAAAAARRR!!!! How many of you ate BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! WHO LOVES JESUS??? RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! I'M HOLDING A TOILET BRUSH! WHO WANTS A RUBBER DUCKY? RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Et cetera.

And I get that. Believe me, I do. You want to get the kids invested early, and sheer enthusiasm for enthusiasm's sake is a good way to do that. However, if you get to the end of the week and the kids won't pipe down long enough for you to finish your important announcement, well, don't stand on the stage and look down disapprovingly at them. 'Cause you brought that on yourself.

Also also also, if you're a magician, and you use a magic trick that you can't solve as your visual aide, explaining that it's simply impossible, much like it's not possible for us to justify ourselves to God outside of the blood of Christ, that's actually pretty cool. If, however, at the very end of your message, you snap your fingers and then complete the impossible trick, you've pretty much ruined your object lesson.

All in all, though, it was a good camp. Not great, but good. I liked everyone on the staff, I enjoyed the speaker and the worship band, and the guy with the monkey puppets was phenomenal. (Years from now, all that the kids will remember about this trip was the guy with the monkey puppets and 'Nana puddin') It was also a great learning week for me, too. The camp staff hosted workshops for the sponsors during some of the activities, and I was able to slip away and catch a couple. Not only did I come back with some ideas for things I'd like to try at our church, but I've also developed a better understanding for what children's ministry is/can be. I see a lot of areas where I (and/or our church) is lacking, and I see areas I want to continue to grow in. (For the record, Star Trekkin' is not one of these areas, as I'm apparently already awesome at that)

Oh yeah, and two of our kids got saved. I had the privilege of praying with one of our boys to receive Christ. Both of the kids who were saved (all eight kids we brought, for that matter) were born and raised in the church. I can't wait to see the reactions of all the folks back home who have loved, taught, and prayed for these kids their whole lives. Now, I pray that I'll learn how to better equip our kids to take the next step in their faith.

v2, d389: Back

2011-08-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

If you give a man a flag, that flag's gonna wave.

Sadly, I couldn't get anyone to build a barricade with me to fight off the pawns of the aristocracy. They were all more interested in going down that sweet water slide in the background.

Revolutions die so easily these days. Ah well.

Let others rise to take our place until the earth is FREE!!!

*ahem*

Anyway, camp was good.

More later.

v2, d388: Hasta Lasagna

2011-07-28T07:25:00.001-07:00

About to head out to church camp with the preteens. Would appreciate your prayers for endurance, wisdom, and good temperament. Also that we will stay safe in the 100+ temperatures that are forecasted all weekend. And for spiritual growth for each of our campers.

May the grace and peace of Christ be with you all. I'll see you on Monday.

v2, d387: Unfinished

2011-07-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of blog posts started in my head, but none of them have come to a conclusion yet. Which, if the past is any indicator, means many of them will never come to be, especially after a weekend at preteen camp.

I will finish vacation write-ups after I get back.

Mostly, I'd like to reflect on how basically everything about my life is so radically different now that I haven't had a full-time job in the past three weeks. I know I've touched on it, but the whole situation has got my mind turning over the idea of Change. I'm talking Big-C Change, major Change. Paradigm-shift Change. Moving away from home, having kids, amputating a leg, buying a goldfish. You know. That sorta stuff. Because really, since I left the players, everything has changed. My schedule, my priorities, my friendships, my energy level, my financial health. Everything. Some of it has hurt. Some of it has caused others to hurt. Some has healed. Some has helped others. Some has neither hurt nor healed yet, but believe me it's going to before too long. And a lot of it is just different.

It's a wacky thing, Big-C Change, and I don't think you can really wrap your mind around it sufficiently until after the Change has become the new norm. Which, I guess, is why I can't come to a tidy conclusion the more I think about it.

So for now, we'll leave this blog post unfinished. Maybe I'll have something more definitive around time for my Year-In-Review.

v2, d386: A) and B)

2011-07-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. I didn't blog all weekend. That is because A) Saturday, Tarvis the Awesome set up a night out to see Captain America, which was pretty good and featured an Avengers teaser after the credits, and B) I accidentally went to sleep at about 9:30 on Sunday. Woke at five this morning and had a pretty good day.

I also won't be blogging the back half of this week, because I'm leaving on Thursday morning with eight preteens and two other adults to go to church camp. Thursday through Monday. Starting at 7:00 a.m. every day and going till lights out at 11:00 p.m. Pray for me.

So you'd think I'd have lots of good blogging for you today to make up for it, but I don't because A) I've spent a good amount of time working on my book blog already today (still haven't finished the entry) and I'm getting 'over' blogging for today, and B) what I have to share is far better than anything I could say anyway.

This is on my heart tonight. It's Colossians 3: 12-17.

"¹² So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; ¹³ bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. ¹⁴ Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. ¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷ Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."

So much good stuff packed in there.

v2, d385: 1996

2011-07-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Welcome to 1996. Home of Joe Sakic and the Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche. (Tricky to find some music videos from 1996, by the way)

Thank you good night.

v2, d384: FeverGate

2011-07-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

Putting "Gate" after anything makes it sound more exciting.

Can't type long tonight, because I'm working on putting together a "professional" web site, but I thought I ought to check in and let everybody know that Robbie's fever went down this morning and stayed down, so we didn't have to go back to the doctor. So, praise the Lord for that.

v2, d383: Disappointment!

2011-07-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well, the news from here is still pretty bad, as Robbie's temperature finally dipped below 100 right around dinner only to shoot back up to 102 in time for bed. Back to the doctor we go.

So to lighten up the mood around here, I made y'all another crossword puzzle!!! But, I'm having trouble getting it posted onto here in a way that you can actually read the numbers...I'll keep trying. It's been a long while since we've had some good clean crossword fun around here.

v2, d382: Not a high point

2011-07-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Today was a rough day. Robbie still has a pretty intense fever (it was 102.8 as of about 4:30 this afternoon) and Isaac is still just as demanding as when he's the only kid around. Also, they tag-teamed it so that one would wake up moments after I'd get the other to settle down for a rest. As a result, the dishes and laundry I hoped to get at today didn't necessarily get done. Also also, as I finally settled down to bed at about three this morning (because that is, it appears, just the way I roll these days), Robbie suddenly woke, screaming that there were bugs in his room and asking me to squish them, so I didn't get to sleep until about four.

Kim was, of course, awesome today, going into work late so I wouldn't have to wake up at seven-thirty like I usually do, and giving me a brief rest period after she got home from work, but the day, on the whole, was just pretty rough.

That said, it wasn't bad. Just hard. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit easier.

Signs your 4-year-old may be watching a little too much Wall-E:

--You're playing airplane with him, and you get to be the pilot. You're awfully tired, though, so you tell him you're just going to turn on the auto-pilot and close your eyes for a bit. "Don't do that!" he says. "Why not?" you ask. "Because I don't WANT you to do that," he replies. "Why don't you WANT me to do that?" you ask, reasonably enough. "Well," he says as though it should be obvious, "I did watch that one movie."

--You ask him to pick up some papers from the floor in his bedroom and throw them away. He scrambles down the hallway. A minute later, he returns with a bulge under his shirt. He goes to the trash can, opens his shirt, and dumps the trash in before going to get some more.

--You are sitting in the doctor's office, waiting (of course). You've been waiting for quite a while. "I don't want to wait any more," he whines. "We have to," you say. "The doctor will be here as soon as she can." "But I don't want to just sit here," he complains. "I wanna live!"

v2, d381: Shortie

2011-07-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

Just gonna ask for prayers tonight. Robbie had a 101 degree temp tonight and has complained off and on about stomach aches the past couple days. Also says it hurts when he goes to the restroom sometimes. So I'm taking him to the doctor tomorrow.

Also, Isaac is overdue for his four month immunization shots, so we'll go ahead and get that out of the way while we're there.

It's gonna be a hap-hap-happy day at my place tomorrow, let me tell you.

Here: why not watch Joe Sakic win $500,000 for charity by hitting a hole-in-one at a celebrity golf tournament?

v2, d380: This 'N That

2011-07-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry about no posting yesterday. I accidentally fell asleep. I slept for about 10 hours. Trust me, it was needed. I think I caught a few winks in my office at church during the last day of VBS.

****************

As we've discussed on this blog a couple of times, I have the privilege of telling my older son a bedtime story every single night. Well, every night that I'm home at bedtime, that is. For about a year, these stories featured some characters I had made up, Harry Bear and Scary Bear. Within the last few months, however, Robbie has almost exclusively asked for stories about Thomas the Train and his friends. Folks, Thomas the Train is a train. There's only so much you can do with that. So I usually end up saying, more or less, the first thing that comes to mind, and I speak very slowly until I come up with something I haven't used before. And of course, once I've said something, I really can't take it back, so we occasionally end up with some very un-Thomas like stories.

Where is all of this going? Last night, Thomas met a cyclops.

**********

VBS seemed to go very well once it got started. Everybody really seemed to be having a great time just about all week. It was a long week, especially since we wouldn't get home until after 9 p.m. (Robbie's bed time is usually 9 at the latest) And for some reason, I still can't sleep until about 3 a.m., but I have to get up to run Kim and Robbie to work and school, respectively. A good week, but man were we exhausted. I definitely learned a LOT of things I'll do better/differently next year. (I also learned exactly how much money you could spend on VBS if you wanted to. Sure, I'll pay $15 for a chart to write the kids' names on! What a great deal!)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who prayed I'd make it through the week. Really, after Monday, there wasn't much left for me to do. I walked around all Tuesday trying to figure out if I needed to be stressing about anything.

******************

Apparently, MSN messenger is just DONE with me. Sorry, Sherri.

***************

Lunchtime conversation today:

Keep in mind, we've been sitting and quietly eating our frozen pizzas. Suddenly, between bites, Robbie asks, "Why does a cyclops only have one eye?"
Me: Excuse me?
Robbie: How come cyclops only have one eye?
Me: Well...I don't really know, actually.
Robbie: Because that's the way God made them?
Me: Well, no...actually, a cyclops is from another, really old story. They're not real.
Robbie: Why?
Me: A loooong time ago, somebody made up stories, and they had cyclopes in them, and in those stories they only had one eye. So it's not real.
Robbie: Why?

I'm not sure what I said next, but I believe it was roughly akin to, "Eat your pizza."

v2, d379: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!

2011-07-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

Isaac and I watched the USA's Women's World Cup match this afternoon. It was pretty fun. Imagine the mental toughness it takes to play on that stage! I saw one American player blow a scoring opportunity, and you could tell how frustrated she was. And really, it's no wonder, because the game plays out like team chess. It takes so much hustle and strategy just to get a single scoring opportunity. In 90 minutes of play, there really aren't that many legitimate chances to get a goal. You shoot it wide once, you might not get another decent look all day. Crazy. I can't...I can't feel my...OH THE HUMANITY! Tell my family I love them! I...I...nah, I'm fine, I'll keep playing."

(That's an exaggeration. A little)

Really, though, I don't think soccer players flop because they're "sissies" who can't take a little contact (Hello, NBA!). Rather, when you consider how much freaking running they're doing in a sport that doesn't take commercial time-outs, I think I'd take every opportunity to stretch out on the grass for ten seconds or so, too.

One of my facebook friends pointed out how nobody actually cares about women's soccer, and most of the people cheering for the US right now are just bandwagon fans. Well, maybe. I probably won't get to know much about these players or follow their careers all that closely after this event (though "Hope Solo" is up there among Kevin Youkilis and Cal Clutterbuck and a few others for my favorite current sports names). But I'm an American, and I like to see American teams do well. And I can tell from watching this one game and doing the quick recap on the rest of the tournament that this is a great team, and I like to see great teams do well (as long as I don't hate them). So yes, I'm stoked for the Gold Medal Match, and no, I don't claim to be what many would consider a "legitimate" women's soccer fan, but I don't think that gives me any less right than to cheer on the ladies of USA Soccer and be excited when they beat Japan for the championship. Just like I didn't begrudge the thousands of Lightning fans who weren't around when we thought Jason Wiemer would be the cornerstone around which we were going to build our franchise or Art Williams said Vinny L was "the Michael Jordan of Hockey". Sports should be fun. And winning is fun. Sometimes, it's okay to let others share the celebration :-)

v2, d378: VBS

2011-07-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

A sad reality: every post I write puts the Walrus Dance-Break one post closer to being off the front page forever. Suddenly my usual blog fodder seems so inadequate...

Incidentally, I lost one of my followers overnight. Sorry, whoever was severely turned off by Walrus Dance-Break.

When I did the search that ended up yielding that particular .gif, all i was really looking for was this guy:

Anywho, I'm pretty beat. My first ever VBS is now up and running. On the whole, I'd say it's going well enough. I see things that I want to do better next year, and a lot of it comes with earlier planning. That's sort of been the theme of this year. It's fun to be a part of, though. Makes me remember why I always loved VBS when I was a kid. Was one heck of a stress-fest getting everything set up in time for the first night, and then we had some road bumps along the way to getting all of our stations situated once we'd started, but now things all seem to be functioning just fine. I spent all yesterday morning, early afternoon, and evening getting things where they needed to be. Once we sent the kids on their way to their crafts, Bible studies, and games tonight, there wasn't really much left for me to do. It was such an abrupt shift from the night before that I wondered if I was missing something really important. Anyway, it's up, and kids and adults seem to be having fun, so I'm at least happy on that front :-)

I'm actually pretty excited about this next year. Now that I've spent the past year learning the ropes on all of our big events, I feel like I finally know what I'm doing. Looking forward to adding and enhancing some of our kids ministries as the year unfolds.

VBS, by the way, is why you've heard so little of me these past few days. That, and I've been getting to sleep between 2 and 3 a.m. pretty consistently now for several weeks. The past few days, my head ached and my muscles were sore despite the fact I hadn't really done much physical activity in a week (too exhausted), so that's probably not healthy. Maybe that'll get better now that VBS is up.

Here's hoping.

v2, d377: ahem

2011-07-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

That is all.

v2, d376: Vacation Part 3: The Stanley Cup

2011-07-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Robbie slept in the car from Legoland to the airport. After a fairly miserable experience with San Diego traffic the day before (the company wasn't miserable, the traffic was), I overshot for my estimated return time and we got to the airport a little early. (I tend to overshoot travel times anyway because, let's face it, who knows what could happen between Point A and Point B?) I'd planned on looking for a spot to eat dinner on the way home, but because California doesn't believe in telling you what's coming up at the next exit and because Robbie was sleeping anyway, we ended up going straight to the airport.

Now, I obviously knew that Game Seven between the Bruins and the Canucks was going on that night (hard to believe both of those teams were a Game Seven OT goal away from being ousted in the first round, eh?), so I may have subconsciously hoped we wouldn't find anywhere to eat before the airport in the hopes that I'd find a sit-down restaurant at the terminal with a TV tuned to the game. I may also have consciously hoped for that. At any rate, SAN delivered. There was a Chili's just a hundred yards or so from the baggage claim. Perfect. Robbie likes Chili's, I like Chili's, Chili's always has sports on, my chances were pretty good. The hostess asked how many. I said that we were two, and if possible we'd like to sit someplace where we could see the hockey game. I need not have made the extra request, though. Every TV in Chili's was showing the B's and the 'Nucks. (For a complete list of places I can remember ringing in the Stanley Cup Champions, see the end of this post) What made the evening even more fun was the fact that there were about four Boston fans sitting at the bar.

While I had been driving from Legoland, I got a phone call. In California, it's illegal to talk on the phone while driving, so I didn't check my message until we sat down at Chili's. It was from Kim, and her flight had been delayed. I looked up at the TV. Just about two full periods to go. Unless the game went overtime, we had a shot to catch the whole thing. What was left of it, of course. It was a pretty good game. Boston was up 1-0 when we arrived. When they scored again to go up two-nil, Chili's actually rang with applause. I'd never been to a restaurant where there were more than two other people watching the hockey game with me. It was kind of cool. (I do plan to make it out to the Maple Leaf Pub at some point next year, because that place just sounds awesome) The only damper on the evening was that the service was atrociously slow. I, of course, can grant some grace for that sort of thing, but a drowsy, hungry three-year-old has a little more trouble comprehending why he can't just get a glass of water when we've been sitting at the table for twenty minutes (or, in three-year-old time, "so so long"). When Patrice Bergeron scored to make it 3-0, you could tell the game was over. The final period would be played as formality only.

With about four minutes to go in the game, I get a call from Kim. Her flight has just landed, she says. I tell her we're just around the corner from the baggage claim, so could she call me once they'd gotten off the plane and to the baggage carousel? She said sure, and I hoped this would buy me enough time to get to the celebration. I love the moment when the Cup is won and sticks and gloves fly into the air and goalies get mobbed. It's a beautiful moment. Even with an empty-net goal and the subsequent celebration, I still got to catch the final buzzer. As teammates swarmed around Official FOMW Favorite Tim Thomas, the phone rang again. Kim and Isaac were at the baggage claim. Perfect.

As Robbie and I left the Chili's, I realized that we were the last ones there. In fact, they'd even closed the pull-down grate halfway. They were ready to shut down, but rather than ask me to leave they'd let me finish out the end of the game. Slow service or not, that's classy. We'd had a fun day at Legoland and a good dinner, I'd got to watch the Stanley Cup, and now my family was together again for the rest of vacation. Not bad at all.

**************************

Incidentally, every year, the CBC puts together a montage of the entire playoffs that airs as they sign off from their coverage of the last Cup Final game. It's always awesome. Last year's is still my favorite (by far), but here's this year's montage anyway:

2011: Game 7, Boston over Vancouver: Chili's restaurant, San Diego International Airport w/ Robbie
2010: Game 6, Chicago over Phildelphia: At home with Tarvis and Deb (Kim was around but not watching)
2009: Game 7, Pittsburgh over Detroit: At home, watching the closing moments w/ Dave on the phone and planning our Victory Party at Denny's
2008: Game 6, Detroit over Pittsburgh: At Dav's Holly Hall apt with Dave as Hossa put the puck just wide of the far post as time expired
2007: Game 5, Anaheim over Ottawa: Texas Woman's Hospital, Kim's room, with Kim and Christa.
2006: Game 7, Carolina over Edmonton: The Braesmont apartment with Jason B
2005: No Stanley Cup due to stupidity
2004: Game 7, Tampa Bay over Calgary: I actually missed this game because I was in rehearsal for Oklahoma! at Horsefeathers and Applesauce Professional Dinner Theater. Our TD's girlfriend was a big TB fan, tho, so she was texting him updates to send along to me. Got the final score right before the final time running through The Farmer and the Cowman for the last time that night
2003: Game 7, New Jersey over Anaheim: At The Quality In in Bowling Green, Ohio, the day before loading into The Huron Playhouse. Roommate A.J. was sleeping at the time
2002: Game 5, Detroit over Carolina: In my apartment at Horsefeathers and Applesauce, throwing my empty water bottle at Dominik Hasek. Friend Tony was in the room at the time
2001: Game 7, Colorado over New Jersey: Listening to the scrambled, fuzzy picture on the black-and-white TV I lugged up the hill at H&A to the scene shop so I could listen to the game while weaving those #*@& giant potholders we used for the South Pacific set.
2000: Game 6: New Jersey over Dallas: Was driving home for the weekend during my first H&A summer; walked in the door just as New Jersey scored the OT winner
1999: Game 6, Dallas over Buffalo: Had a dress rehearsal for My Fair Lady with Wellington Community Theater. My dad was recording the game and I hoped to watch it when I got home. Instead, the game went three overtimes, so I watched those live instead (with my Dad)
1998: Game 4, Detroit over Washington: Was vacationing in California and missed this one. Really didn't feel like watching Detroit win another Stanley Cup, not after...
1997: Game 4, Detroit over Philadelphia: At home in Wellington, watching with my dad.
1996: Game 4, Colorado over Florida: At home, watching with Mom, Dad, and Christa. Triple-overtime was a huge deal back then, because at this point I rarely stayed up till midnight, let alone till one a.m.
1995: Game 4, New Jersey over Detroit: The first of four straight sweeps; an afternoon game while I was in California, watching with Dad, Uncle Jim, and Gramps.
1994: Game 7, New York (R) over Vancouver: At home, watching with whole family. Vancouver rioted after losing that one, too. (First time I ever watched the Stanley Cup awarded)

v2, d375: Opening

2011-07-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to say that I enjoyed tonight's performance. I think everyone has put together a pretty solid production of Emma, overcoming what were (in my opinion) obstacles within the script itself to put up an enjoyable 2.5 hours of theatre and some charming summer entertainment fare.

Also: Jane Austen adaptations always, without fail, make me think, Wow, parties really sucked back then.

Also also: Man, they have really cut back on the post-show receptions in the past few years, haven't they? (That said, man that fruit was good)

And that's enough for public consumption :-)

v2, d374: Legoland

2011-07-07T22:44:00.000-07:00

The second day (first full day) of our vacation was pretty much Robbie and Daddy's Day Out. We rented a car and drove about an hour to Legoland, the theme park where pretty much everything is Legos. I was actually not a huge Lego kid growing up for some reason, but Robbie has some Duplo blocks that he absolutely loves sometimes, so he was pretty excited to be going to a place called "Legoland," even if he didn't really know what it was.

It was overcast and chilly pretty much the entire day, which is actually pretty close to perfect theme park weather unless you planned on getting terribly wet. Robbie was really excited to go on his first roller coaster. He's loved watching Youtube videos of roller coasters because they're like trains. I thought he was adequately prepared for the fact that they go pretty fast...well, Robbie's first coaster was an outright disaster. He didn't like waiting in line for thirty minutes, and then as soon as the mighty Coastersaurus (the tamest coaster in the park) took that first hill, he bawled the entire rest of the ride. He was actually ready to go home at that point, and I was afraid our day was going to go down in family history as one of the biggest bummers in summer vacationdom. Just next to Coastersaurus was a small sand pit that kids could dig in, so I let Robbie play in the sand for about fifteen minutes. That took some of the edge off the coaster fiasco, but he was pretty apprehensive about going on any more rides. In fact, any time I'd ask if he wanted to go on one, he'd ask, "Is it a slow ride?" Our next ride was the Safari Trek, where an electric miniature jeep carries you down a winding path with a bunch of safari animals (and one panda?), all made entirely out of Lego. (By the way, if you grow tired of the "It's made of Lego!" shtick, the park is going to get really old really fast) After our safari, we went to find some pizza and instead Robbie found some water cannons he could play with for about twenty minutes. The pizza place was also next to a playground. The playground had a small train ride.

We were pretty good for the rest of the day from that point. ;-)

One high point of our Legoland trip was the 3-to-5-year-old go kart track. (For 3-to-5-year-olds, that is. I don't believe the track was between three and five years old) The cars were electric, but they weren't on a fixed track, so the kids were actually driving them. They had to push down on a gas pedal and steer at the same time. There were two guys working this ride, and their job was to get kids un-stuck when they'd crash into the corner or the guard rail or each other. Meanwhile, the parents stood around the track and got pictures. Robbie had so much fun driving these little electric race cars. And he was, bar none, the worst driver on the track. Once he finally got the pedal down, it generally took all of his concentration to keep his foot pressed on top of it, so he wouldn't steer. Then they'd free his car, and he wouldn't be able to go. I'd shout for him to push the pedal, and he would, but only for a second, and just long enough to get in the middle of the road and cause a traffic jam. I mentioned they had two guys keeping the thing running? Yeah, one of them was almost permanently assigned to keeping Robbie from causing major traffic jams and every turn.

At the end of each "race," the two ride operators hand each kid a Legoland Drivers License--basically a small card with the Legoland logo and a space for a picture and their name. Robbie got his and ran all the way to the exit to meet me. "Daddy!" he said, "I got a ticket because I was the winner!"

You sure were, kid. You sure were.

Toward the end of our day (cut a bit short because we had to get back to the airport to get Kim and because Robbie was now on his second day with no nap), Robbie was starting to get frustrated. All through the park there were these awesome displays of Lego. Motorized vehicles, entire cities created in miniature, animatronic farms, train systems--and Robbie saw all of these Legos that he couldn't play with! After awhile, I asked if he wanted to do another ride, and he said, "I want to find Legos that I can play with!" So we finally found the part of the park set aside for Lego fanatics to build to their hearts content. After a few trips down the race track with the car he and I had built, it was just about time to go. As we were about to grab one last snack, however, I heard a very familiar tune playing somewhere nearby.

"...Can we build it? Yeah! Can we fix it? Yeah!!"

Yes, I'd know that Bob the Builder song anywhere. I'd known there was a Bob the Builder "4-D" show somewhere in the park, and I'd tried all day to find it on the map and hadn't been able to. Yet here we were, suddenly in the presence of Bob himself. Robbie got a picture taken with the big guy as I checked the show schedule. It was ten minute until the last Bob show of the day. So we closed out our day at Legoland with a 4-D Bob the Builder movie, and then Robbie slept in the car all the way to the airport.

v2, d373: Amazingly Awesome

2011-07-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

So today, on Twitter, Kristi Yamaguchi (What? You guys don't follow Kristi Yamaguchi on Twitter?) posted a link to this list of 101 fun--sorry, "Amazingly Awesome Things" to do with your preschooler. I thought, I have a preschooler. I will check that out. And it was a fine list. However, I noticed that a few of them started like good tips for a creative date. Going to a park without a playground, for example. That could make for a nice, romantic evening out. Then I started reading all of them as Amazingly Awesome things to do with your spouse instead of your preschooler. Then, I somehow got a movie in my mind of my friends Jason and Kat, and in the movie Jason is trying out all of the things on this list to surprise Kat, a la "Here's something fun we could do for a change" and then he lets her help him cook spaghetti, making sure to let her pour in the sauce and break the noodles and complementing her for what a great job she does of following directions.

It was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. In my head, of course.

Anyway, you need to check out that list and plug your own married friends. Feel free to use Kim and I if you like.

Incidentally, Kristi Yamaguchi pretty much always posts toddler-related things. During hockey season, she also tweets about the San Jose Sharks quite a bit. (She's married to former NHLer Bret Hedican, but you already knew that) When I was a kid, I used to think she'd be the one who could break the gender barrier and become the first woman to star in the NHL. From what I understand, that never actually happened.

Hey, did anybody catch how Five Iron was officially playing a reunion tour for about twelve hours the other day? Also how there was unofficially going to be a pre-season NHL game played in Houston...outdoors...in September?

Yeah, you can't blink when the Internet's involved or you'll miss all the good stuff.

v2, d372: Home With Isaac: Day 1

2011-07-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

We'll take a vote. Who would rather read a post about Robbie and I's trip to Legoland? Okay, now who is more interested in knowing how my first day as a stay-at-home dad went?

Sorry, everyone, but my mom's vote trumps all. ;-)

Actually, there's not a ton to report. Dropped off Robbie and Kim then took Isaac to the mechanic with me. He took his first bottle without incident and then they brought us home while they worked on our car. He napped, I did dishes and folded laundry, and then they called back and said the car was ready. I accidentally left Isaac's bag in the car, but it was okay because we had a fallback plan to make sure he still got his second bottle. I got him to eat and sleep with pretty much no problem. Overall fairly successful on the Daddy front.

Bad news: car repair was about $700.00. So basically, what we would have saved from keeping Isaac home from day care, we pretty nearly spent today. Not cool.

I have an interview for some part-time work with the Astros tomorrow afternoon. I'd appreciate prayers on my behalf, as obviously this little bit of supplemental income would be huge right now.

Also: I'm tired, and I believe I may go to bed. It's 9 p.m. That, too, is bizarre.

v2, d371: "Nice weather for eels."

2011-07-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

Robbie has this book called Diving for Shapes in Hawaii. It's pretty good. Each page has a rhyming couplet that describes a creature with a specific shape on it. Exampe: "I went diving and what did I see? A triangle fish tail flapping at me!" "I saw coral with all kinds of rectangle holes where bubbles rose out in bubbly poles." (I don't remember if these are actual pages from the book, but they're close) At the back of the book, there's a picture guide to help you identify which Hawaiian sea creatures were in the book. As I said, it's a decent little piece of pre-K literature.

Except for this page: "Scratching my nose and blinking an eye, an eel with square spots wriggled on by."

I hate this page every time I read it.

Dear kids: never get close enough to an eel that it can scratch your nose, no matter what your Diving in Hawaii book says.

v2, d370: Vacation!

2011-07-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, now I can finally write about my vacation! Exciting, no?

Two weeks ago this Tuesday, Robbie and I boarded a Southwestern flight out of Houston to beautiful San Diego, California, for my sister's wedding, my grandmother's birthday, and some general family Good Times. (Kim and Isaac came, too, but they didn't fly out until the next day) It wasn't Robbie's first flight, but the other ones have already faded into that realm of the Lost Memories of Early Childhood. He did really well. The flight itself wasn't so hard on him; it was the sitting still that got to him. Even with that, though, he didn't complain for most of the flight, and he complained quietly when he did. The flight was smooth and we arrived in San Diego right around lunch time. My sister picked us up from the airport, which is only a stone's throw away from the harbor.

San Diego is perfect. Next summer, all my Houston people and I are going to open a summer theater in SD and spend the whole summer there. The temperature got into the eighties maybe once while we were there and there was a constant refreshing breeze coming in off the ocean. Just perfect. By contrast, when I got off the plane back in Houston at 10 p.m., it was warmer and more miserable than it had been at any point during my stay in San Diego.

I'm going to come right out and confess it: I coveted San Diego summers as soon as I stepped out into the outdoor air.

We spent a few hours on the harbor, eating pizza, watching the boats come in and go out. Robbie loved the harbor. In fact, "harbor" became the new vocab word for the vacation. Not long after Kim stepped off the plane Tuesday, Robbie said, "Mommy, do you know what a harbor is? A harbor is a place where the boats go when they are not working to rest." We also caught sight of a military aircraft carrier (are there commercial aircraft carriers?) sailing in. That can only mean that our navy is mobilizing. So we're probably about to go to a war at sea in southern California. Regardless, it was cool to watch the ship, you know, move (as opposed to the "on display" aircraft carrier that you had to pay eleven bucks to go on).

After the harbor, I got ready for Brad's bachelor party while Christa got Robbie ready to go to a friend of hers' church block party. It had an inflatable water slide, so it was almost as cool as Kansas to Robbie. Unfortunately, due to traffic they didn't make it until it was late evening and thus not warm at all. (Apparently, in non-Houston places, it actually cools off at night, even in the summer. I think this is called El Nino, but I'm not sure) However, a three-year-old's body apparently doesn't register things like "hypothermia," and so he asked to play in the water again and again, even when his teeth were chattering and his limbs were shivering. (Don't worry, "hypothermia" was an exaggeration in this instance)

As for the bachelor party--well, you know. What happens at the bachelor party stays at the bachelor party.

Also: what happens at the bachelor party full of fairly stable thirty-somethings is really not all that incriminating anyway.

v2, d369: 25 memories (finale)

2011-07-03T01:08:00.000-07:00

For those who thought/assumed that I didn't post yesterday because I was too entrenched emotionally in the finality of my last day, you were wrong. I was actually just hanging out at Dave's house until late and didn't get back in time to blog. Plus, I got a surprise visit from Kim and Isaac at the office and then I watched the musical theatre camp's showcase during the afternoon (my usual blogging time). Then we had s'mores, and people prayed for me, and that was about it. All in all, a pretty good day.

21. December, 2007. Man, this one was just a bad idea to begin with.

The Downtown Aquarium restaurant has an annual Christmas festival-type thing in the small amusement park-ish area outside the restaurant. They set up a stage out a little way from the rides and carnival games and have different acts (generally musical acts) perform. I was encouraged by our development department and our company manager to get a piece of this action for our touring company, so I did. They gave us a twenty or so minute slot, and we trimmed our Halos and Holly program to fit the allotted time. This was a freebie performance, but we were going to make up for the lack of income in spades from the exposure.

We arrived and searched for a good twenty minutes trying to find our contact. After an epic search on the part of the restaurant hostess, it was eventually determined that the person who'd said they'd be our contact wasn't actually going to be there that day. Fortunately, nobody else seemed to know what we should do, so we just moved all our stuff to the general vicinity of the stage. A show choir of eight-to-twelve-year-old-girls was on stage at the time wearing what I can only describe as festive velour leotards with white fuzzy trim. The music was ear-splittingly loud. And at one point, there was a fourth-grade girl singing "Santa Baby." Nothing about this was right. There were about fifteen people gathered to watch the girls, and as soon as the girls were done the crowd dispersed. Like, completely. About six people sat at a table nearly a hundred feet away, eating, and that was it. Well, we set up anyway, since we were there, and since we said we'd do it, and since, who knew, maybe folks would show up once we started performing.

I should probably mention that "we" is not a terribly accurate term at this point. I wasn't actually performing. I just went along to help things go smoothly.

The sound guy had our performers change and store their belongings in an empty temporary structure painted to look like Santa's workshop. By the time our group started performing, nobody had come to see what was coming up next. The six people in the back corner looked up through about half of the "Christmas Bells" song, then went back to eating and talking. A couple of times I saw one of them look over their shoulder and grimace as if we were interrupting their nice quiet meal with all of our holiday cheer. Meanwhile, the wind was blowing pretty hard, wreaking havoc on our props and hair. Traffic sped by about thirty feet behind the stage. And the train that takes visitors through the shark tunnel circled almost completely around the stage every four minutes, bell ringing and whistle shrieking. You couldn't even hear the actors, mics and all, when that train was nearby.

But again, there was nobody to hear anyway.

Despite the fact that this hadn't been my idea, I still apologized to everyone once we got back in the van. While nobody seemed too cross about the entire absurd adventure, I still felt bad for wasting their afternoon. Then again, how often do you get to say you performed after a ten-year-old singing Santa baby in front of downtown traffic while competing with a train for absolutely nobody?

Wait, that's not true. The sound tech who helped us with the mics and had us change in Santa's workshop said that we were pretty good. I think it'd be awesome if he somehow ends up becoming saved after a chain of events that can trace their origin back to that December afternoon in downtown Houston.

22. September 2005. My entire first year with the company was spent in our scene shop. I hurt my back about once every four or five months, though, so we decided it would be best if I went elsewhere. Still, I enjoyed the work. I'm pretty out of practice now, but before 2006 I spent far more time in shops than I ever did on stage. After about a week and a half at the Players, we took our production of Driving Miss Daisy to Miller Outdoor Theater, the big free amphitheater in Herman Park. It was the only time I've been here that we did a full-scale load-in at Miller, and it was really fun. (Kind of bummed that I'll be missing the next one, when we take our latest production of Daisy to the same venue) Also a good chance to get to know a lot of the other interns and tech staff better.

After we loaded out, the technical director and managing director were driving in the company's big ole' box truck, which we used for loading and unloading all our sets. (Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned that our scene shop was a half hour's drive from the theater) As they drove away from the loading dock, they heard a really loud crack, followed by the sound of ripping metal and a huge BANG just behind the truck's cab. Obviously, they stopped and got outside to check it out. A tree that hadn't been trimmed quite to regulation had caught the front top corner of the truck's box and snapped off the tree. More remarkable was that, in the act of falling, this massive branch had peeled back the roof of the truck's cargo area like the top of a sardine can. Just like that, the truck was irreparably destroyed!

A few years later, our scene shop burned down. Our production department and disaster are inexorably linked.

23. March, 2007? This is actually my favorite memory of my boss. One day, two of our lovely box office ladies were on their phones at the same time. Neither was talking to a customer; one was on the line with a fellow employee and the other was on her cell. I stood at the counter, watching with interest as my boss was passing by. She stopped and stood next to me, not saying a word. "I'm just watching to see which one will hang up first," I told her. "Ah," she replied, and we stood silently, staring, for another few seconds.

"Well?" she said. "Who do you think it's going to be?"

I listened to the to girls on the phones for a moment, then said it sounded to me like the redhead was wrapping up. "I think so, too," the boss said.

Now, because I'm trying to avoid using actual names since most people I'm talking about don't know about this blog, I'm having to find interesting ways to identify folks other than "the girl" and "the other girl." In this case, I guess it's the redhead and the Italian. But to make it really sound like the set-up to a bad joke, our resident Jew was also in the room at the time. She'd heard the boss and I talking, and when the boss had agreed with my conclusion, she grinned and said, "Okay, I'm going to go with her," meaning the Italian, "just to be different!"

Suddenly, it was no longer an observational experiment. Now it was a race.

At this point, the two young ladies on the phone had noticed that they were being studied, and the Italian girl suddenly looked troubled. "I'm sorry," she said into the phone, "I think I probably have to go..."

"No! No!" the boss and I whispered earnestly. "Keep talking, keep talking!" Suddenly, the Jew joined the fray, "Yeah!" she said, not whispering. "Hang up! Hang up!" This caught the attention of the redhead, who was so puzzled she pulled the phone from her ear. "No!" I said to her, and my boss was gesticulating wildly at her. "Wrap it up!" I ordered, and then to the other girl, "you keep talking!"

Soon, both girls were wavering between continuing their conversations and cutting them short, while the three of us were cheering them on, though they couldn't make out what in the world for. Finally, after a very frenzied minute and a half, the two hung up their phones with the redhead just a stitch ahead of the Italian. My fist shot in the air in victory. "Yes!" the boss and I cried, high-fiving one another. "You were so close!" the Jewish girl lamented. We three were all laughing.

To this day, I'm not sure either of the other women have any idea what exactly happened that afternoon, if they remember it at all.

24. March, 2009. There was no particular moment in this rehearsal that was all that fantastic, but I'll probably always remember it anyway. You have to understand that I came to this place pretty convinced I couldn't actually do anything well. I'd never written, I'd never directed, I'd never been particularly confident that, in a professional environment, I'd be able to handle either assignment. It took a great deal of encouragement before I was willing to say the words "I'm a writer" or "I'm a director." Quite honestly, I didn't think of myself as anything, aside from a "theatre person," when I got here. I'd seen enough kids come out of college the exact opposite, so sure of themselves as actors or directors when, really, they were green at best, that I placed myself in the exact opposite position: I just wouldn't believe I was actually good or competent enough to do anything. One of many things I've learned in my time here: having a false opinion of yourself in one direction is no more healthy than having a false estimation of yourself to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Now, the event in question was a Phoenix Too Frequent rehearsal. I was the assistant director. The boss was the director. That meant I didn't really do a whole lot within most rehearsals, though I did still interject thoughts and questions occasionally when we were around the table. One day, the boss wasn't there, and she told me to run the rehearsal. I really didn't want to, though. Or rather, I didn't feel I really had liberty to. I was afraid of working scenes (we were at a part of the play we hadn't done yet) and she'd come back and say, "This is terrible. Why did you do this? We wasted an entire rehearsal. We have to do this all over." (Some of this was lack of confidence; however, with the way things often went at the Players, it also wasn't a terribly unrealistic expectation) For the first half of the rehearsal, therefore, I sat back and let the actors do their thing. If they had blocking questions, I'd make some suggestions, but for the most part I wasn't an entity.

We were at what was probably the most important scene in the play. The two lovers do everything in their power to keep from giving in to their passion, but ultimately they can't help it, and they kiss. It's really an amazing scene. And a delicate one. As I watched it, I saw what it was missing. I knew what needed to happen. I saw, in the script, subtleties that the actors were missing, and I knew they were the key to unlocking the depth that was missing in the scene.

In short, I knew I could help. And I distinctly remember a point where I was leaning back in my chair, my foot resting on the back of the chair in front of me, when I said to myself, "You know what? Screw this! I know how to help this scene, and I'm not going to waste this time." And I stood up. You can always tell, when I'm directing, when I'm really into what's going on when a scene is on its feet, because I never sit down. So we worked the scene, the two talented, hard-working actors and I. I asked questions. They asked questions. I made suggestions. We tried them. And by the end of the rehearsal, it worked. I mean, it really worked. And there was never the sense of awkward that you might anticipate when you're telling two of your best friends how they should kiss. Especially when one of them has a spouse on stage "asleep" right behind them the whole time. That was the day I was bold enough to say, at least to myself, "I'm a director. And I'm not going to doubt it any more."

Ultimately, the boss came back to the next rehearsal, and with the exception of one minor blocking change at the beginning of the scene, she pretty much left what we'd done alone.

25. September 2008. And then there was that one time we had a hurricane. Everybody remember that?

Hurricane Ike pretty much wiped out our tech week for Miss Nelson is Missing! at the children's theater. (Also wreaked havoc on our mainstage show's schedule, of course) Fortunately, power returned to the church that houses our children's theater pretty quickly, and we were still able to open pretty close to on schedule. First of all, that was probably my favorite show to perform in my six years with the company. I could have played it another two months, easily. Opening performances are always exciting, especially when it's a performance you love anyway. The music was fun, the choreography was fun, the tech was all fun, I flicked a girl with a lizard every day, there were paper airplanes involved, it was just awesome.

Our first performance was probably my favorite day of working at the Players. I don't even have a very vivid memory of the audience--whether it was big or small, or who was in it. However, I do remember the heartfelt thanks we received from virtually everybody who came. In the kids it was subtle, but it was in the smiles and the millions of questions they asked just so they could keep talking to you. In the adults, it was much plainer. We were the first bit of fun some of those families had had in a week. A few parents asked if we had another show for them to stay for rather than going home to houses that still had no electricity. Some people had come simply for the A.C. Whatever the reason, we transported child and parent alike away from a world that had been turned upside down and into our zany world of oversized desks, bright yellow tights, spitwad shooters, and random 1950's musical references. Sure, Miss Nelson was fluff, probably more than anything else we've done since I've been here. But sometimes, fluff is exactly what's needed. There's nothing more profound than a joyful silly romp when everything else is gloom and doom. That day, I profoundly felt what it is that entertainment can do.

And I thanked God that I could be a part of it.

*****************

Done. This hasn't been a "Top 25" or anything. These aren't necessarily my favorite stories or most cherished memories. A lot of them were pretty insignificant, actually. And there's so much that I left out. I wish I had time to reminisce about the incredible stacking sheep. Or the shop fire. Or the time the memory voice-overs came from the baptistry because there were no speakers. Or the time I ran out to the van to turn off the lights in the middle of a show. The time I comforted the little girl whose bus left without her because I'd hurt my back too much to help with load-out. The little boy who was going to tell his friend about Jesus after seeing Do You Hear What I Hear? Staying on-site in the nation's biggest prison for violent offenders. Choreographing an entire chase scene by myself in my living room while waiting for Kim to get ready for a date. Being offered an opportunity to play Jesus (in lieu of Santa) for a church Christmas party (I said no). The guy who quit in the middle of a show to go be a lab rat for NASA. Tackling the stage manager in front of the new interns. The weddings. The babies. The "workshop readings" for new scripts. The kids who cheered for us every time we brought another piece of equipment out to the van. The time we forgot half of our props and had to improvise with what we had ("I'm trapped in this...sticky...Coat of Doom!") That one time I actually thought I led a really good Bible study. "Austin's still throwing up! John, get out there and say his line for him!" The scientific debate with the ten-year-old about whether or not Ta-Daa was a real bug or a person in a costume.

Clearly, there just isn't time to fit it all in. I'm amazed we fit it all in in the little time we've had these past years.

I chose these twenty-five in an attempt to cast as wide a net as possible to try to share the breadth of my experience over these past six years. Times were good. Times were terrible. We triumphed. We bombed. I loved shows. I hated shows. I had fun on stage. I had fun backstage. I was the consummate professional. I was an immature twenty-something. I learned. I taught. I loved. And when the time came, I left. You just can't do it all justice.

I'd like to have the perfect words to wrap this one up. I'm pretty sure I don't. It's hard to say "goodbye" to a season of your life. It's hard to grasp that I won't be seeing these beloved people every day any more. It's actually kind of tough knowing they'll go on making memories together without me. I feel left out, but that's because I am out. I'm really glad I took this trip over the past week of blogging. It's really helped soften the blow. Plus, everyone else was so busy with tech week and season renewals there wasn't much time for a prolonged farewell. I've always hated those anyway. In college, I would always sneak out during the end-of-the-year lunches. This time, however, I didn't want to sneak away. I want to make sure I don't close this door without everyone on the other side know how much I'll miss them.

So much to say, foolish to try, it's time for saying goodbye...

Man, you got that right, Scooter...

v2, d367: 25 Memories (part 5)

2011-06-30T12:53:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, I'll be wrapping up this little series tomorrow. And I'll stop increasing the number of memories tomorrow, too :-)

17. February, 2008. Our touring group had just come back from our first prison booking (Angola Prison in Louisiana). It was an incredible, eye-opening and heart-melting weekend. We'd had such a great spiritual high that weekend. Then, the following Tuesday, one of our team members got into an argument with the company manager (and a couple others) during company meeting and, thirty minutes later, they quit.

Crazy couple of days.

The phone call I received from our company manager was kind of funny. "Hey there. We need to know what our options might be to replace (other team member)." "Okay, why? Anything wrong?" "Well, I'm not sure. But apparently, he's just quit." "Oh. Wow. Okay."

The fun part of this: we had four performances of four different shows in the next nine days. So we needed to put up four shows with a cast member missing with no more than two rehearsals before any of the performances. That was pretty awesome.

While my office-mate sat stunned, I mentally tore through our company roster. Who has done this show before? What about this one? Who's in the current mainstage? Are there teaching conflicts? Who's available? Who wouldn't need to rehearse much? What do we do about the show that is tomorrow? I flipped through the rest of the year's schedule to see where conflicts might arise. I asked if we could swap out two bookings for another show to give us one less thing to work up. I met with the director of the upcoming children's theater show to see which actors he could spare. I contacted our booking agent to see if we could black out a couple of dates or times that would conflict with said children's show.

It was a pretty busy forty-five minutes.

Once I had a plan in place, my supervisor blustered into my office. He looked frazzled already. "You know what happened?" he asked. I quickly and calmly assured him that yes, I'd heard, and here was what we could do: we could put this guy in this show, because he'd done it before and it was going up in two days. This guy can go in this show because he directed it and would probably be better for the part anyway. And so on, I explained what conflicts we'd avoid and how much rehearsal time we'd need/have for each of the five shows we had going on for the rest of the year. When I finished, my boss looked a little stunned and possibly a tiny bit confused, as though he'd been ready for us to have a grand hand-wringing freak-out moment rather than a solution to a fairly complex set of issues. "Okay," he said. "Let's do that, then." And then he left.

It was one of those few days I actually felt really effective in my office job :-)

18. May, 2008. Waiting backstage before a performance of Paragraph. Two actors already onstage during the typical lengthy start-of-show monologue this particular playwright is so fond of. Two actors backstage, about to go on. And because I was apparently feeling really professional, I tied my co-stars shoelaces together. (I'm not proud of this, by the way) Unfortunately, when she noticed me doing it she did the one thing you should never ever do when somebody is tying your shoes together: she quickly tried to kick her feet apart. If the knot is already mostly in place, this gesture will just finish the job. And the harder you jerk, the harder the knot will cinch. See, what I was doing was a harmless prank that she was going to have to reach down to untie and give me an "Oh, you" kind of look. What she did was practically super-glue her shoes together about sixty seconds before her entrance (preceded by an actor who is supposed to interrupt his already-too-long monologue upon her entrance). Clearly, this was not my fault. The knot has now been squeezed together so tightly I can't even get a grip on it with my fingernails.

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap!!!

We pick at the knot furiously as we hear the scene coming closer to her cue. This is sooooooo not good. I'm praying feverishly that we're able to get this undone. The cue comes and goes.

Crap!!

Fortunately the actor onstage is good at covering, and fortunately he only has to cover for about seven more seconds as I finally get the knot untied and quickly lace her shoes up in time for her to be an angsty teenage girl again.

While I'm generally told I've got wisdom and maturity beyond my years, sometimes I do stupid things. Lesson learned: don't tie your co-star's shoes together right before they go onstage. Just...don't.

Incidentally, this was one of those DVD extras-type bloopers that I really hope God got a laugh at when it happened.

19. December, 2006. The busiest weekend in my entire tenure at the Players. Our mainstage Christmas show had shows Thursday through Saturday night and Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Our kids' stage Christmas show played back-to-back shows Thursday through Saturday. Our Christmas touring unit had two shows in different locales on Saturday and Sunday. We had people manning a booth at the Winter Festival at George R. Brown. And we were touring our first mainstage show of the year, The Trip to Bountiful, to Waco's historic Hippodrome Theater. Literally every single person in the company was doing something somewhere.

I was part of our Waco contingent. The Hippodrome (which was recently closed, which is sort of tragic) was a beautiful theater. It's listed on the National Registry of Historical Places and the rosters of the Texas Historical Commission and the League of Historic American Theaters. It opened in 1914 and had been restored and reopened in 1987.

Exterior.

Interior.

Amazing space. And the acoustics were unbelievable. You could sit in the upper balcony and hear a conversation happening onstage at normal voice. Such a fun place to play, even if the downstairs dressing rooms were kind of dungeon-esque.

I played a small roll in Trip to Bountiful (Houston Ticket Man) and also ran sound for Lion, Witch, Wardrobe that weekend. A group of us went out to the Dr. Pepper Museum. (If I were to describe the museum in one word, it would be "Unnecessary.") The weather was beautiful, we had hotel rooms, pretty much everything about this trip was awesome. Also met up with a friend of mine who had apprenticed with us the summer before and was a student at Baylor. (She since graduated college, worked full-time at the Players for a year, and is now married. They grow up so fast!) She and I went out for dinner at Cheddar's, and it was during that conversation that an off-hand comment she made triggered a story idea in my head. I'd been wanting to write a story for my wife for a Christmas present that year, but I couldn't come up with a story I thought she'd love. After eating at Cheddar's, the whole thing fell into my mind overnight. By lunchtime the next day, I had the entire story that would become The Girl Who Wore Golden Clothes pretty firmly set in my mind.

All in all, it was really just a wonderful weekend of friends, theatre, and good food.

20. June, 2011. This happened just this morning, actually, but it's a memory, and one that reflects the power of what it is we do on a different level. As my last assignment before I'm out the door for good, I've been teaching our summer theatre arts academy class for high school students. I've actually never taught high school kids before, and due to the format of our summer classes (three hours a day for a full week) I really didn't think I could teach them much about acting in such a short time. Instead, I decided to go with something I know a bit more about: Playwriting. I've split the class into two groups and let them write their own plays. As they've gone on, I've stepped in to encourage and guide them to make a stronger product, and I'm really impressed with/proud of all the work they've done. Every single one of them has been totally engaged in this project, and I think they've probably learned more about theatre than they would have if I'd tried teaching a class where performance was the primary objective.

As the week has progressed, however, I've been particularly impressed with the work of one student in particular. She not only writes well, but she already possesses a pretty solid grasp of many of the nuances it takes to be a successful playwright. There are certain elements of the craft that can be taught and others which...well, let's just say they're more difficult to teach. She's instinctively got a handle on some of these second elements, which puts her ahead of other writers her age. I met with the director of our academy to ask if she thought it would be appropriate to provide individual encouragement to this student, and she said it was a great idea, so this morning I pulled her aside toward the end of class. I could tell she thought she was going to get yelled at (she has sort of a take-charge personality, and I had to call her out a little bit for her in class today), so I assured her she wasn't in trouble. Then I just told her she was very good and I hoped she'd consider pursuing playwriting. I told her she had an instinctive understanding of the craft and enough talent with writing that, if she were willing to put the work in that it requires, she could be very good at it in the future.

As I was talking, this girl's face absolutely lit up. "Wow," she said at one point. "This is, like, the best compliment anyone's ever given me." She instantly had questions, like what she should do if she were interested in learning about playwriting, what kind of opportunities were out there, what did I think was the difference between being a "writer" and a "playwright." Good questions. I handed off my email address and told her she could ask me any questions, I'd be willing to read anything she wrote, be available for advice or encouragement if she so desired, and she seemed really excited about the whole thing. And I wondered if possibly my experimental playwriting summer workshop class may end up having long-lasting effects on the theatre world.

I don't think many people who teach, whether full-time or only on occasion (like myself), realize what an opportunity they have to impact a young person's life. I wonder if it would change the way we teach our kids if we fully realized the opportunities that stand before us every time we teach.

(Incidentally, this story bumped the Gibbledegorb TAA story from my list of 25 memories. Long story short, don't try to brainstorm five-minute play ideas while you and your partner are both starving, because you'll end up with a story that centers entirely around peanut butter)

v2, d366: 24 memories (part IV)

2011-06-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

13. April, 2008. One of my favorite shows to tour was our literacy awareness show. It featured Dr. Seuss and a young boy named Bart who hated reading. Really, though, the play wasn't about reading as much as it was about storytelling, because one of Bart's challenges from the good doctor is to make up a story and make it good. The play does a good job in discussing the basic elements of a story and soliciting the audience's help in a few areas. My favorite was always the point at which Bart needs suggestions from the audience to help him describe what the evil witch's tower might look like (because he watches TV and therefore has no imagination) You really never knew what you were going to get in this session. No matter how clear you make it that you are looking for good words to describe the tower, inevitably you always get some kid who wasn't really paying attention and gives you a noun or tells you they have to use the restroom. ("So you're saying it's a kitten-y tower? With plenty of available bathrooms? Okay!") You'd also have the kid who just shot their hand in the air because they liked to get called on, but the really hadn't but any thought into what might describe a tower at all, so they just say the first thing that comes to mind. Which is usually the opposite of whatever the last kid said was. ("So it's a hot tower, but it's kind of cold, too. Like, it's emotionally distant. Got it!") Even better, the princess from the story was in the background, reacting to whatever the kids said. If they said the tower was tall, she'd crane her neck to see the top. If they said it was dusty, she'd sneeze.

One day, we were performing at a school that had brought all of their first through fourth grade students. It came to this point and I called on a kid. "What word can you think of that would describe the tower?" I asked her. She was a pretty young kid. "Uh," she said, "umm....maybe, like, it has, ahhh, it has, like, maybe there's, like...a kitten." Okay. Not the first time I've heard that one before. "So it's kitteny-y?" I ask. "Yeah!" Dr. Seuss wrote that on the board, Princess pantomimes petting a kitten.

"Okay," I said, "who else has a word? Maybe what the tower looks like, or what it feels like? Yeah, you!"

"A cow!"

"...Okay, so maybe it has a cow..."

One hand holding the kitten, one hand scratching behind the cow's ears. At this point, I see all of the teachers pointing at the other side of the auditorium. Apparently they had sat all of the younger kids on the side I was taking volunteers from. Teachers just wanted to help us out, and I was grateful for that, so I found the biggest, oldest-and-most-mature-looking child near the back, where the upperclassmen always sit, sure that I had struck gold. "Can you think of a word to describe the tower?"

"It has a bathtub!"

Beat. Teachers laughing. Princess suddenly tilting backward slightly, elevating her feet as if they're floating on water, trying to keep the invisible kitty from getting wet.

If only I'd had a camera.

14. February, 2009. Confession: I was not actually present for this one. But I saw the people involved immediately afterward, and they told me all about it. And obviously, I thought it was awesome.

You know how actors always say, "Oh, let's just go out and get lunch in character sometime! Ha ha, that will be funny!" Well, one of my casts actually went ahead and did it. Naturally, it was the cast of Hero Squad. (Three of them, anyway) See, the HS (save the Iron Lung, who was off building a set that day) had gone to visit one of our off-campus classes because...um...come to think of it, I don't really know why we did that. I'm sure there was a good reason at the time, though. Afterward, Lindy, 3-D, and Princess Mystic Starfish were driving home, still in costume because it was easier than trying to find a place to change at the school, and they were hungry. And the thought came: why bother going all the way back to the theater to change before we can eat? We're just going dressed like this. They pull into a Chik-fil-a.

Now you gotta understand, these were amazing costumes. These folks didn't look like characters from a play; they looked like they had actually stepped out of a freakin' comic book into the real world. So if you don't know who they are or where they came from, it pretty much looks like three bona fide super heroes just walked into the door. As it just so happened, there was a children's event at that Chik-fil-a at that time, so there were a ton of kids at the restaurant, along with a region manager. When they walked in the front door, the manager, not missing a beat, said, "Look, kids! Superheroes!"

I can't imagine how awesome that moment was.

I'm kinda jealous that the off-campus class didn't want a bottlenose dolphin bank robber to visit their class, too...

15. October, 2010. Okay, this one is gross. Like, seriously gross. In fact, you may just want to skip down to number sixteen. I almost didn't want to include it, but hey, sometimes art is ugly.

I've signed a lot of autographs at our children's theater over the years. I've shaken lots of hands. I've given lots o high fives. I've even give out a fair share of hugs. Yet I've never been overly germ-conscious about it. You'd think there's actually a pretty high chance you could catch something from one of these kids, given the number of hands you come into contact with and the rate at which sickness spreads in school groups, but it never bothered me.

Not until I shook that one girl's hand during Winnie-the-Pooh.

It was fall, so there were lots of kids with some sniffles going through the line. But this girl (wow, I'm getting grossed out just picturing it)--she was a really sweet girl. She wore such a nice huge smile. Really adorable. But her nose. Both nostrils were positively coated in snot. And not normal snot, either. We're talking toxic bright green snot. GAHHH!!! It was so gross! If you've ever seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, I will just say that this girl was sporting the most intense ooze-snot I've ever seen. This wasn't just me, either. About a week later in the dressing room, we were talking about sniffling kids, and I said, "Did you see that one girl last week..." and Piglet's eyes got huge as she said, "OH MY GOSH, WITH THE SNOT? IT WAS SO GROSS!" I'm not overreacting here, folks.

I hit the hand sanitizer in a big way that day, and every single handshake line since.

16. October, 2006, 07, 08, 09, and 10. This one was actually kind of creepy for awhile: the first four years I was here, the person (or people) standing directly next to me in the annual company Christmas card left the company within the following year. There was one exception to this rule, but she was gone by the following January. It didn't matter who it was: intern, company member, 26-year veteran: if they stood next to me, as in directly off my shoulder (one year I was positioned diagonally and the only person I was directly lined up with was gone by the turn of the New Year), they were history. It was so weird. I started trying to position myself by people who annoyed me, but you never really get to place yourself in these pictures because the photographer always knows what looks best. If I was standing next to someone I really liked, I'd be sad, because I knew they would be gone soon.

Then, finally, someone broke the cycle. I stood next to a girl for the company photo, and she stayed for more than a full year afterward. Of course, she had been trying to leave that entire time, constantly applying for other jobs that just weren't working out. So I realized that my Annual Christmas Photo Curse was not necessarily to chase people away, it was just to force whatever the opposite of their intention was. If they had no intention of leaving, they were history. If they wanted out, they wouldn't be able to escape. So no matter what, you didn't want to stand next to me for the Christmas card photo.

This year, I was placed next to our director of children's theater. I congratulated him. "Uh, thanks," he said, clearly not understanding but also not wanting to bother to continue the conversation. I explained it to him anyway: "In every year except one, the person standing next to me in the Christmas card photo has been gone the next year." Suddenly, he put his hand on my shoulder. "Really??" he asked. Then he began faux-sobbing. "Oh, Will," he exclaimed.

"I'm so happy! I'm so happy!!"

That said, he's still here. And I'm pretty sure the Christmas tree that was on the other side of me is not. The Christmas Photo Curse lives on...

v2, d365: 20 memories (part III)

2011-06-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

9. November, 2006. When Kim and I first learned that she was pregnant with Robbie, we agreed to keep it to ourselves for a little while. But, see, when something awesome happens, I just have to tell somebody, so I devised an intentional slip-up on a touring booking to let the rest of my unit in on the secret. We had just gone to McDonald's for dinner on the way to a show. I had already had a lot to eat that day, but I still got a pretty large meal. As we drove away, I made the comment, "I don't know why I'm eating so much today. You'd think I was the one eating for two, and not Kim." Then, suddenly, eyes wide, "Oh crap! I did not just say that! You did not just hear that! You can't tell anybody!" It must have been pretty convincing, because I actually used that as an example in a directing exercise once of the way some people just can't keep a secret when they're really excited about it. This was months later. The other guy from my unit was in the cast I was directing at the time, and when I finished talking I realized he was staring straight at me, his jaw dropped a bit.

"You did that on purpose?" he asked. "Oh...yeah," I said a bit sheepishly. "Wow. That's awesome," he said.

Now, I've been called a "stinker" because I never like to out and say this sort of thing. I always leave the obvious hint and let whoever I'm telling put the pieces together for themselves.

Well, okay. Guilty. After we kept our little boy a secret for a few more weeks, I got the green light to let the folks at work know. Before every performance of Rock Nativity, the cast would meet back by the mail room for announcements and prayer. As they were all headed back for one particular evening's meeting, I caught the stage manager and asked if she could give a prayer request. I asked her to have everyone pray for my wife, because she was really struggling to deal with the morning sickness. Then I waited outside the doorway. A few minutes later, a single high-pitched "WHAT?!?!" told me everything I needed to know. A few moments later, my friends came back through the door to offer fairly shocked congratulations. And me standing there, accepting them with that goofy I'm-going-to-be-a-daddy grin.

10. February, 2006. I'm what Midwesterners call "ornery." If you know me, you know this. I can also be a bit of a bully, though only in good fun. In the winter of 2006 I had my first acting role at the Players in The Boxcar Children. This set a precedent that lasted from 2006-2008: I was only ever cast in shows I didn't audition for. I joked with the director of this show that he cast me based solely on my portrayal of three sharks and a giant octopus in James and the Giant Peach. Boxcar was also the only time I've ever had a love interest in any show. Really, in any show since high school. I guess you look at me and you just don't see romance.

Anyway, I don't remember where the conversation started, but as my co-star and I were about to go onstage for the final scene of the show, she made some comment like, "I don't know, I think I might be stronger than you." Again, I have no idea where this came from, as it came out of one of the sweetest, nicest, most delicate ladies I've ever worked with. But somehow or other, it came up. And so, what the audience saw in that final scene was the young couple, finally "together," holding hands and admiring the four Alden children's meeting with their grandfather.

In reality? We were playing "mercy" the entire scene.

She hasn't talked smack in the five years since ;-)

11. September, 2008. I was co-teaching a class of four kindergarten-age girls (and one second grade boy who was unfortunately put into this class since the 2nd and 3rd grade class didn't make) where the focus was expressing emotion on stage. When I say "co-teaching," I really mean "assisting the actual teacher," because I don't have a whole lot of theatrical exercises for kindergartners in my back pocket. It was actually a pretty good team-up, though, since the other teacher and I were also teaching a 7th and 8th grade class that semester where I sort of took the lead. It evened out.

We were doing an exercise where we asked the kids what emotions certain colors reminded them of. We started with blue. The first little girl said blue made her think of sad, and she was sad because her little dog that she loved had run away, and she looked and looked for it but couldn't find it, and she cried and cried because she's afraid the dog is lonely and that she maybe won't ever see it again.

It was pretty sad. But it got worse. Later in the day, we were doing a similar exercise with pieces of music instead of colors. We played a happy song, and the kids all said it made them happy. We asked Lost Puppy Girl, and she said it made her happy to think that maybe her puppy had found a new home and that maybe he was happy with somebody else. Literally every single exercise ended up coming back to this girl's lost dog. The other teacher and I started to wonder if we needed to ask her parents if she was going to be okay. It was actually starting to get a little bit uncomfortable.

Class ended, and parents came to pick up children. Lost Puppy Girl's dad was the last to come. He had scrubs on and sported hair with enough product in it that it wouldn't even think about moving for a week. I was at the top of the stairs by that point, about to disappear into my office, and the other teacher was downstairs by the front door seeing them out.

"What did you do in class today, sweetheart?" he asked.

"I talked about how my puppy ran away, and how it made me very sad and I cried because I was afraid she was lonely." The door slowly swung shut behind them, but not before I heard the rest of the conversation. First, there was a pause, then the father said, "You mean, for pretend?"

"Yeah." Click. Door shut.

My co-teacher whirled around with a stunned look that I'm sure mirrored mine almost perfectly, and we both fell to the ground laughing.

12. May, 2008. "Whiiiite dresses, for the ladies down at Lane..." Lane was the name of the women's prison we were at that day. In the spring and summer of 2008, we partnered with a local prison ministry to take one of our touring performances (it was Paragraph) into both men's and women's prisons across this part of the state. The man in charge of the ministry was named Zeke. Zeke is a former convict, and his testimony is powerful. He's also one of the craziest people I've ever met. His heart for prison ministries is amazing. And while his zeal often made him a bit unbearable, I'm proud and glad to have worked with him.

On this particular day, we were performing in the second of two prisons within driving distance of this particular city. (Sorry, I don't remember exactly where it was) The day before we had played the men's prison; today it was the ladies' turn. Zeke was strumming a tune on his electric autoharp about all the ladies being daughters of the King and returning home from prison with change lives, never going back to the messed-up situations that had landed them in Lane. Then it would never be plain white prison garb for these ladies. They'd where white dresses ("And pink dresses, and red ones, blue ones, purple ones...") again. And you could see tears trickling from these women's eyes into the corners of their smiles. (Just thinking about it, I'm getting a little choked up)

I believe this was the time we started our show and were interrupted about fifteen minutes in. Another actor and I then had to sit on the stage in our positions while guards came in and called roll for all hundred-and-something ladies in the room. It was sort of a sobering reminder that we weren't in the cozy confines of our happy little actor lives.

These ladies laughed like no one else through the show. They outright cheered at points. They had the kind of reactions you can never expect from the folks who pay forty-one bucks for a ticket. It was probably my favorite performance of the year. After we were done, Zeke did a bit of preaching. He preached about being hidden in Christ. He told them that when Christ held them, nobody could take them back from Him. He said, "As soon as you leave here, next time that hammerhead comes up to you to mess you up again, you tell him, 'Nuh-uh, not anymore!" He used an illustration where he took a tennis ball and said, "This here is you." He then placed it in a plastic bucket labeled "Christ" and snapped the lid tight. He pounded on the lid a few times, shook it a bit, then just looked up at the ladies and said, "'Nuff said, all right?"

Zeke led the room in a prayer, and by the end of it more than thirty women had given their lives to Christ. I realized then how my state was really no different from theirs. All any of us had to offer our Maker and Lover were filthy rags. That day, God allowed me to play a part in an event that saw those thirty-some women trade in their filthy rags for white dresses.

v2, d364: 20 Memories (part 2)

2011-06-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

5. February, 2009. There are certain things in life you can try to mentally prepare yourself for, but once they come around you realize how feeble your understanding of the situation really was all along. Marriage is one of those things. Parenting, too. Living on your own as an adult. Job-hunting. Playing a bank robber dressed as a bottlenose dolphin.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be utterly ridiculous. I knew it would look and feel goofy from the start. But until the first time my BNG and I flopped onto the stage in our scuba fins and full-body dolphin suits, I had no idea exactly how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Yup.

The first time we did this scene, I did not think we were going to make it through. We were laughing so freaking hard. In fact, I'm pretty sure it took a full week before we could do the scene with straight faces. Goodness, it was silly. It was the silliest thing I've ever done on a stage.

I still can't think about it without a grin finding its way to my face. Wow.

6. September 2005, August 2007. My first show assignment was to cover for the A.S.M. in The Mousetrap once the A.S.M. went into rehearsals for our Christmas show the last two weeks of the run. I sat in on the booth for about a week before taking over. The crew gifts for that show were white little rubber rats. The S.M. and A.S.M. enjoyed playing with the rat in the booth. Well, I got a hold of the rat and started to see how many different shapes I could make with it. The tail was amazing. You could stretch it far enough to tie all the way around the rat's neck twice. My favorite thing to do with the rat was to press its head in and set the rat upright with the newly-flattened shoulders against the table. The effect was similar to a cartoon character who has fallen off a ledge and landed face-first. It looked pretty convincing. All of this, of course, was only encouraged by the lame duck A.S.M., who always either laughed or gagged depending on the shape I'd leave the rat in for her to find.

Fast forward two years. I'd kept the rat (in my car, for some reason) after Mousetrap was over. The former A.S.M. and I are in touring rehearsals together. I found the long-forgotten rat on the floorboard of my car and decided to reintroduce it into our friendship. There was some playful hiding of the rat on set pieces or in props during rehearsals, many of which drew Glares of Death. It was all in good fun, of course. As the game went on, the stakes went higher, and pretty soon I was finding it hard to top my previous hiding place. Finally, I knew I hit the jackpot in our morbid little rat-hiding game.

The next afternoon, she went to her box in the mailroom and saw a pink rubber tail sticking out of her box. She grumbled and pulled the rat out by its tail.

It had no head.

What I love about this story is that the Headless Rubber Rat became a prop in our literacy show that year. The evil witch's monstrous henchman would have it dangling from his soup bowl when he came onstage to prepare to cook the hero.

Golden.

7. October, 2009. Ah, Teammates. My own stab at a drug awareness play. Written solely because I so disliked the one we had been using since 1995 or whenever (referenced yesterday). It was actually a really fun show to be in. It's kind of fun to be in your own work. It's also a good experience because it helps you recognize what some of your writer-habits are that tend to make life more difficult for an actor. Plus, Bruce Dumpling is a fun character to play, and I loved the rest of my cast. And we got to play a lot of basketball, which was fun.

We had rehearsed and put together a pretty decent little show targeting second through fifth grade (but still pretty enjoyable for the younger ones as well). Our second booking for this show was for a combination elementary/middle school (come to think of it, same school from memory #1!). I'd spoken with the contact the day before and she had told me that the audiences would be split up into 2nd-3rd grade and 4th-5th grade.

SHE LIED!!!

The first show was something like first through third grade. Which was fine. The second audience was fifth through eighth.

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS!!!!

It's always funny to see the reaction of a cast backstage at our children's theater when they are told that the house is full of middle school students. They just deflate. Nobody wants to perform for these guys because they're often "Too Cool For School." It's even worse when you give them something that is obviously for younger kids. Some of these kids will openly mock you as if you can't see them sitting four feet away from you. And for some reason, being mocked by middle school kids is one of the worst things in the world if you're an actor. Still, the best advice I've ever heard in dealing with a MS audience has been, "Trust the show." So that's what we decided to do. Mostly. With a few minor edits to "age" the characters just a bit. Because they were in fourth and sixth grade in the original, we changed them to sixth and eighth grade and made them a tad less little kid-y.

The only noticeable eye-rolling moment came in the opening monologue when I said the line "I'm in the sixth grade." I heard a few groans. One kid said "Oh, come on." Yup. You guys got me. I'm not actually in sixth grade. I'm a grown-up. No fooling you guys. Good job.

After that, though, they were pretty much with us. I always loved performing Teammtes because we never played a show where the audience didn't go nuts at the end. I can honestly admit I did not expect a similar reaction from these kids. Nevertheless, as Bruce sank the final shot over a diving Staci to win the game, the entire auditorium cheered. Not just the fifth grade kids, either. All of 'em.

Teammates cast 1, middle school snobbery 0.

8. December, 2006. In six years, there has really only been one mainstage show that I was excited enough about that I really wanted to be in it. I wasn't cast, obviously, but I did get to understudy the three different guys in the ensemble. I went to every music rehearsal and worked to learn tenor, baritone, and bass for every song. 'Cause hey, that's what an understudy is supposed to do, right? I had a couple guys who were in the cast telling me I was working way too hard. "Just learn one part and sing it whoever you go in for," I was told. I attended enough run-throughs to get all three men's blocking. I went to the show once a week to keep it all fresh in my mind. I even sang through the entire thing on longer drives, first in tenor, than in baritone, and lastly in bass. About halfway through the show it had become clear that I was never going on, but I stuck with it anyway because, by that point, I just really enjoyed singing the music.

Then came New Year's Eve, the day of the last performance. I'm actually taking my Sunday nap when Kim comes into the bedroom with my phone and a troubled/confused look. She says it's someone from work and that it sounds important. I take the phone, half-asleep, and it's one of the guys I'm understudying. "Hey," he says. "Are you my understudy?"

"Yeah," I reply groggily.

"Okay. Well, I can't walk. It hurts to try to stand up. So I think you might have to do the show tonight."

Crap. It's almost 4:00 already. My voice is nowhere near warmed up. There's no time for a costume fitting. I tell Kim I'm going to go for a drive, because it's the best place I can think of to get away from the house to do some singing warmups. While I'm driving, I get call from the costume designer, asking for my sizes. I get a call from the stage manager, the final confirmation that yes, I'll be doing the show that night, can I get to the theater soon to go through blocking and choreography. I call a friend and ask her to bring some foodstuffs to the theater for me because I haven't got any time to eat at home. In case you can't guess, everything's pretty much a whirlwind at this point. I come home, grab my clothes for the evening, and get to the theater.

Look, I'm not going to say I was perfect. I will say I was good. I was never hopelessly lost. A cast member occasionally had to move me into the right spot (I only remember this happening twice, and once it was totally in character anyway). I nailed the hard choreography, but tripped up a bit in one of the easier songs. (I was later told I did just as well with the dance as the actor I replaced usually did) And once I left my jacket on the wrong side of the stage. I was pretty mad at myself for that one. The worst blunder of the night came at the very end of the curtain call. I realized I'd always been so focused on the show and the dance that I'd never worried much about what to do at the curtain call. Somehow, some way, I totally missed doing The Pose. Oh well. I'd done pretty darn well given the circumstances.

That was probably the most fun I ever had in a single six-hour stretch at the Players.