Late Randomonday + movie review

- I've had to stay away from FB due to all the mention of family going to my Gpa's funeral. It's only a 9 hour drive for me but due to financial restrictions, I cannot go. Kinda depressing. My mom is going to talk to my Gramma and pass on my intentions of taking the girls to visit her soon.

- About finances, my dental work yesterday cost me $322. Way more than I'd hoped. Insurance only covered 60% of the cheapest option possible. At least the deductible is taken care of now.

- The dentist had to shoot me 3 frickin' times to finally find the right nerve. Left me numb for most of the day. Didn't eat lunch and dinner was painful. It's better now.

- Tonight is the first night of our revised parenting schedule. I'm sure glad I get to see the girlies more, but dinner is going to become more of a focal point for me. Which is good. I'll have to sharpen my pre-planning skills.

- I've decided to got the route of the local fitness gym, rather than just Kinect. It will be an opportunity to get out of the house and actually meet people. I'll probably still get Kinect, but it will be as a Christmas present for the girlies. There are some good reviews on the games for it and it's geared more towards kids games.

- Got a call from Child Support Services. Apparently a judge needs to decide the amount of child support in order for her to start getting state aid. I really hope they follow the online calculator. Or at least close. Even worst case (i.e. - she didn't make any money) I wouldn't be paying much more than we already agreed to and would be less than what I've actually been giving her.

- What's the deal with cursing so much in a blog post? I'll admit that I'm one to let 4 letters fly every now and then, but do people not understand how they come across when it's every other word?

On to the movie review!

I watched Life as a House last night. If you remember, way back when, I posted a list of movies that Nikki is also working on. Well, I haven't been watching them. In fact, at the time I'd set up my Netflix Instant Q with all the online movies available. I've since taken most of them off. I just don't care to watch them so I'm not even trying to get through that list any more. I'll still use it as a suggestion list, but I have no goal to watch them all. Sorry for bailing on you Nikki.


Despite the moral depravity that seemed to influence most of the characters, it was a good movie. Funny, sad, and had it's WTF moments.

I will say though that Hayden Christensen is not my favorite actor. He played a good Anakin Skywalker, but I just feel like the parts of the story that required him to be highly emotional fell flat. But he's young and I'm sure his acting will develop.

If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend it.

I love you Grampa

I know I've posted a lot this weekend, but this one is going to set for a while.

My grandfather passed away last night. He was 91 years old.

I love him very much.

I can't say enough good about him. Possibly the fondest memory I have of him is the way he read the Bible. By far the most reverent voice I've ever heard. Just recently I heard my father sliding into the same voice. Brought back a wave of wonderful memories.

He leaves my grandma behind. She's well into her 80's and has lost most of her vision. I always thought my grandpa would outlive her. Proves they come from good stock. Glad I have their genes. My grampa even had a double bypass 20 years ago. I remember him showing me the massive scar the surgery gave him.

He was very funny. Always had some quip to share. Got along great with my kids and all his great-grandchildren. I'm so thankful they got to know him. Spacie's already planning the card she's going to send him.



Gramma and Grampa loved each other more than I can imagine. Now that I think about it, I hope I can find that someday. My cousin took some short videos of him answering some questions. My cousin asked him about his wife and I'll bet he was afraid he'd start crying if he answered. Then you could hear my Gramma piping in from the background and started to answer for him. It was awesome.

There's no doubt in my mind he's enjoying Jesus' company right now.

I love you Grampa.

Looking at a new digital PnS

I took the girlies to Walmart to pick up some groceries and took a stroll by their camera display. I picked up what I believe was the Samsung TL240.



I say 'believe' because I didn't actually write the name down.

Didn't buy it, but came home and did a little research. It's not terribly cheap, at $230 at Walmart and $170 at Amazon, but compared to the $200+ I spent on a 5mp HP 6 years ago, it's not bad at all. (I'll have to double check, but I don't remember the one I handled at the store costing $230. I think it was closer to $170. May be a different model?)

So this thing is a 14mp, 7x optical zoom, with a 3.5" touchscreen, and can shoot 1280x720 movies.

The touchscreen caught my attention at the store. It wasn't focusing correctly so I started fiddling with the touchscreen options and it took me about 15 seconds to find and correct the problem, even not having any experience with that camera at all. A lot of that ease had to do with the screen and it's quick response.

No Samsung didn't ask me to sell their camera. Cnet hasn't done a review, but it's getting pretty good user reviews on Amazon. I am curious to hear your opinion if you have any experience with Samsung cameras.

Friday 5 - Packing

Haven't done a Friday 5 for a while. So here goes!

1. How far ahead of time do you begin packing for a weekend trip? If I don't start packing the night before, I'm guaranteed to forget something. I use the time between to check off the mental checklist.
   
2. What was your most recent purchase of a six-pack? Bitch Creek Extra Special Brown by the Grand Teton Brewing Company. Pretty good stuff.
   
3. What do you look for in a good everyday backpack? One without a boatload of 'extra' pockets. I have one now that has one large section, a mid-size and a small pocket. Plenty for me. This one also happens to be a 'rolling' bag, primarily for air traveling people. If I had to carry it much more on my recent trip, I probably would have used the rolling feature.
   
4. Among people you know, who’s the worst packrat? I have some very good friends in CA who have 4 kids. They keep everything. They have a 3 car garage they can't even fit one car in. They're lucky if there's a path to the door. (I love you G&D.)
   
5. How do you know when it’s time to pack it in each evening? When I don't want to be awake.
   

Where did they go?

Am I due for a blog revamp?

To my lovely regular readers, I love you and appreciate you hanging around, even through the crummy posts.

But were did everyone else go? If people read a post or two, why don’t they come back? If they’re still here, why don’t they comment?

When I started this, I told myself that I didn’t really care how many readers I had. I was kidding myself. It’s nice to be read.

What else do I have to offer? You’ve probably already gathered that I’m as boring as my posts are. Maybe not the most boring person you’ve ever met, but pretty close. I know that. I accept it. Not going to say I’m ok with it, but…

What about hobbies?

Would you read about gaming? I like to play. Not talk about it.

Maybe cooking? I’ve discovered that I hate cooking for myself. Cooking for other people is so much more enjoyable. That’s the only reason I would cook anything special. I’ve had PB&J and popcorn for dinner. It’s the fellowship I’m looking for. So until that fellowship is there, cooking probably isn’t going to happen.

Spiritual stuff? It would probably be a good idea to write about that, if only to get my thoughts in order, attempt to come to some conclusions for myself, and share them in hopes that others might glean something from it. I’ve never felt called to be an outspoken type, as far as ministry goes. I would hope my life choices would speak loud enough for someone to hear. Although at this point, that is probably unlikely.

Work? No.

My girlies? Now that’s something I could write about, but to be honest, I don’t really like reading a lot about other peoples kids. I enjoy it if it’s mixed in with other stuff, but I’ve come across a few blogs that were all about the kids. That’s not for me and I don’t think I could make a blog like that and expect other people to read it.

So what does that leave me? At this point, nothing. I don’t date. I don’t specialize in anything, work related or not.

NoRegrets talked about books she’s read. I should probably do more of that. Otherwise, I’ll keep thinking about it. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Small victories...

are sometimes the best.

The stbx and I sat down this evening and discussed our time with the girls and how we're going to work holidays. She conceded to letting me have the girlies every Tuesday and every other Thursday.

I feel great.

I feel even better than I might have because I sat down with Bellie and she counted up to 20 all by herself. I don't want to miss these days with them. There is too much at stake and now I'm not going to miss as much.

Thank you Lord.

If I were a crying man, I'd be bawling right now.

I'm back.

In response to the last posts' comments;

laura - The trip was very uneventful, which in my book is good.

dmarks - I didn't! I swear! ....and I didn't even want to.

NoRegrets - I suppose that depends on your definition of crappy. So yeah, I did visit a crappy part. Tulare County is the poorest county in all of CA. I like Visalia, but the rest of it is meh.

This whole thinking for myself is proving to be more involved than I thought. I kicked myself at least twice on the trip back for not planning a little and actually doing things. The first was driving through St. George, Utah during sunset and thinking that I should have planning to be there about 2 hours earlier so that I could have been hiking in Zion National Park during sunset. If you haven't done that, I highly recommend it. Splendid doesn't begin to describe it.



The next was when driving through Provo Canyon, Utah. I think I've been to Bridal Veil Falls before, but it must have been as a very young kid. I had no idea where it actually was and when I drove past sometime in the middle of the night, I wish I'd planned to hike that too.



I got home around noon today and promptly went to bed. Slept until 4. Since the only thing I ate the whole trip was at a Mandalay Bay buffet yesterday (why the heck do I go to those things?), a bag of sour worms, and a couple of McD's breakfast sandwiches this morning, I'm hungry and am trying to decide where I want to eat.

About the buffets, I don't eat nearly enough to justify paying for a 'good' buffet in Vegas. $25! I ate my fill and it was decent food, but not that decent. I'm sure dinner would have been a little closer to a good value, but brunch wasn't. The people that may have got their moneys worth were going through the crab legs like candy. Sat near a guy who finished off at least 3 plates worth while I was there. And considering the bored expression of his wife, I think they had been there for a while. He was still going when I left. While I like crab legs too, they are very much a dinner food for me. Not 10am food.

Then I lost some money at the blackjack table. Shoulda looked for a $5 table instead of the $10, which seems to be the cheapest at Mandalay Bay. Forgot to hit the slots before I left Vegas though. They've paid for my gas before and I was going to try again. Guess that shows how much I really think about gambling.

There is a new resort/casino further south along the strip. It might be the Summer Bay resort but I'm not sure. Then there building another one about midway. I suppose they can justify it because it was pretty busy being Halloween and all. A little disappointed at the lack of costumes though. There were a few waitresses that may have been in costume but they may have been in their regular uniform too.

The flight to Vegas was full and I sat next to a couple of very non-chatty young guys from Portugal. That's the only word I heard from them, "Portugal." The leg to Fresno was about half full and I buried my head in a book and finished it as the plane was descending.

I love people watching. Airports are a fantastic place to people watch. And of the handful of conversations I overheard, not one of them was in English.

I miss CA girls though. That is one true stereotype, CA has a disproportionate share of the attractive ladies. There are cute girls here too, but odds are a whole lot better than Vegas that they smoke. Not that I mind if someone smokes occasionally, but they reek of it. No thanks.

So the blackjack games were interesting. The dealer was nice and helpful, but even then I made a couple of dumb calls. But he played so. stinking. fast. That hour+ I spent last time I was in Vegas was probably around the same # of hands as this one...in about half the time. He did this little pause before he picked up our chips when he won, like he was giving us time to check, but sheesh, gimme a break. By "little pause" I mean he slowed his hand down to 1/2 speed between when he dropped the last card and when he picked up the first losers chips. Which was still too fast.

And I even tipped him when I won!

That's it in a nutshell. I'm going to eat and hopefully I'll get around to reading blogs later this evening. or tomorrow.