UnrealisticExpectations 3.0

We took Sydney to see her first movie in a real movie theater this weekend.  Ice Age 2 came out, and it just made sense; she “gets” a lot of humor, she’s got a great sense of humor herself, so it was definitely good timing.

Sydney sat in her chair–holding on to Mommy or Daddy a couple of different times, but was completely into it–laughing, giggling, cheering, squealing, and the best part of it all…

Sitting there, legs crossed, absently grabbing popcorn from the big tub and eating it, you know, just like a big, grown-up adult person does who’s all wrapped-up in the Suspension of Disbelief bit.

I love watching her grow. Can’t stand thinking about her being all grown up.

One of Sydney’s favorite movies just happens to be Madagaskar.  She’s been able to say that mouthful of a word ever since I picked up the movie and brought it home.

Okay, sure… sometimes it sounds a bit like “Ma-uh-ga-kar”, but she’s saying it, dammit.

Tonight being Tuesday, it’s American Idol night in our house.  Addiction to shows like this is maddening; I find myself determined to be around and paying attention, yet I have no idea as to why, and outside of this sickness, no actual idea as to why, either.

Sydney, on the other hand, would much rather watch Chicken Wittle, but she tolerates The Idol and even chuckles along. Read the rest of this entry »

…Under Heaven.

Turn, turn, turn.

Yeah, well…  There’s been this long whirlwind of stuff in life these past few years.  These things all range from dramatic depression and dramatic anxiety to dramatic discontent and dramatic dissatisfaction to dramatic, intense thanks for all that is mine / ours.

I’m pretty sure most of you don’t really know what I “do”, and I am pretty pumped about what I’m about to be “doing”, so I want to share. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been in a pretty constant uphill-climb mode for the past week.

But, let’s start from the top, shall we?

When we moved into our house just about a half a year ago, we had lovely new sod dropped in on the ground.  We were pretty much the only house in the neighborhood with lush, green grass.  And constantly running sprinklers.  And too much to mow.

Except under our deck.  Everything there started to die off pretty quickly from lack of sunlight.

Frankly, why we would want to keep the area as it was didn’t make much sense, so we started to think about what we could do, and as life and luck would have it, we managed to get ourselves into a position fiscally to be able to take care of that space.

We decided to go with a paver brick patio (ie Unilock Hollandstone, Autumn Red) and a firepit sandbox for Sydney. Heh. Like diligent consumers, we did research. We got quotes. We even had “a guy” but he came back with a price quote that was only a couple of hundred bucks lower than the guy in the middle–and “the guy” doesn’t even do this type of work as his full time job.  So, unfortunately for “the guy” we couldn’t choose him. Read the rest of this entry »

For as slow as certain things are in my life, other parts seem to just rock and roll!

Annabelle Gurwitch has been out promoting her book and the documentary she made to promote Fired!  It’s pretty cool, but at the same time it’s sort of given me a little extra to do with my “spare” time.  It’s pretty damned exciting to watch something you’ve worked on (the website) as everything around it blooms.  I should also mention that all of the reviews are absolutely glowing and mark it as about as hilarious as you could imagine stories of famous folk who have been fired.

It’s nice to see that they came from where we are, and I’m not being smarmy about it–almost makes it seem as if they’ve earned their station and takes a lot of the “out of touch with reality” bullshit that we often associate with Hollywood.

Just saying. Read the rest of this entry »

For the record, I have yet to feel like I’m 36, but my body is constantly reminding me.

That is, I still love my PSP, but other things keep me from fully letting go of the passage of time.

So, hold on; I’ll try and keep it clean. Read the rest of this entry »

In hindsight, I decided to protect myself–even though I didn’t mention anyone, any place or anything else by a very specific detail.

Hey, blogs can get people fired, no matter how much of an asshole some other people can be to them…no matter how Noble their intentions are.  It’s clear as Clay why a person would want to be cautious, right?  Bar-none.

So, if you know me, you can get the password.  If you don’t…you probably cannot. Sorry.

Cliche title, I know, but, still…

Seen this article?

Okay, so people are getting pissed off because a song titled “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” was nominated for and won the Oscar for Best Original Song?  And that it was voted for by The Academy (bum-dum-DUMMMMM!)? Read the rest of this entry »

I think I’ve technically been remodeling since… September?

You know… Right after we moved in to our new home and out of our… 7 week stay in the Casa de Comfort Suites or some other bullshit monicker about what a great stay a 2-room “Suite” is for 2.5 people and 2 cats and 40 computers.

I’ve been really, truly hustling it all lately–I’m teaching my second class this semester that starts on Wednesday.  It’s in Web Design, which I find misleading, but that’s another post altogether.  I’d never taught the Flash ActionScript course before, so it led to a lot of scrambling from Thursday to Wednesday to get my knowledge together for the upcoming class.

Inbetween those harried times, I’ve tried to keep a rigorous schedule of shooting at the Gun Club, “hanging out” with my neighbors, being a father and a husband.

Oh, yeah. And remodeling the house. Read the rest of this entry »