June 24, 2005

Ugh. Thank God this week is over. I guess it hasn't really been that bad...but it has been a busy one, with quite a bit of stress (some good stress, some bad stress, but stress nonetheless). Where to begin...

• Well, let's start with some good stress. Tuesday night, at 7:07 pm, Alexandra Rae Mills was born. That's my niece! She's a healthy baby girl, and her parents could not be happier...well, I'm only assuming that last part. Mainly I think April was happy just to have the labor over with...now, Nathan? I give him a month, tops, before that little girl has him wrapped around her tiny finger.
  
  Of course, the big question you all have is, "Josh, do you have pictures?" Yes, yes I do--about 25 of them, in fact, from the hospital room (no delivery pics, thank God)...but I don't have them up yet, for a couple of reasons. Part of it is laziness/the stress of the week...they have left me unable to find time to get the pictures formatted for web use. Given, though, that I have that process pretty much automated at this point, that's not much of an excuse. More of one is the fact that I'm out of space for pictures on Clydeumney.net. I only have about 25 Megabytes of space for the site without buying more. I haven't looked into it yet, but I don't believe it will cost too much; nonetheless, for now, you're just going to have to wait. I'll have it up as soon as I can, I promise. For now, though, you can check out Maria's site, where she has stolen some pictures from Scott's (her new stepdad) page.
  
  
• Other "good" stress of the week: I was offered a new job this week. (This is the update mentioned at the bottom of the last entry.) Monday afternoon, I got a call from Larry Kernagis, principal at Wilson County Central High School. It's a relatively new high school (about five years old) out in Mt. Juliet. I interviewed with them last week, and he was very happy with the interview (I think he was thrilled that I would be able to help out with more than English...when I mentioned my computer and film backgrounds, he was excited about the opportunities for both...). I wasn't counting on anything yet, but Monday, I got the call...and he asked if I was still interested.
  
  I said that of course I was...to which he responded:
  
  "Now, I meant to ask you this at the interview, but how would you feel about helping out with some athletic teams? That is, would you be able to help coach the soccer, or track and field teams?"
  
  This is a bizarre question to ask me.
  
  For those of you who don't know me all that well, I'm not the world's most athletic person. I don't exercise enough, and honestly, I'm hazy on the rules to even the most simple sports. So to ask me to coach something is a bit of a strange request. However, I was very interested in the job; still, I felt like I should be honest. So I told him that I would be glad to help with whatever I could, although, I explained, I knew little of the rules for either sport.
  
  "I'm not worried about knowing the rules; I just need someone who can keep morale up, and help get the team motivated."
  
  So, now I might be not only an English teacher, but a soccer coach. This, naturally, has led to much amusement mong my peers, most notably Adam's posting of a "picture" of me for all to see. (It's actually pretty funny...it's on the entry for the 21st, if you're curious.) Still, all in all, I'm quite happy with the offer.
  
  How has it sat with TLC? Not badly. I've only really mentioned it to my boss and one other co-worker...I've been kind of waiting for the paperwork to settle before I mention it to the rest of the staff. And I have definitely not mentioned it to the kids yet; that won't happen until the last possible moment, as some might be upset with me, and it will make discipline a lot harder to deal with in the future. So I'm holding off for now...and, no, I'm not sure what my last day will be; I start Wilson County on July 21st, so I have to be out before then...I'm hoping to make July 15th the end of it, but it depends on how speedily they can hire someone to replace me, so I can help train them. But we'll see what happens, I suppose...
  
  
• Moving on to some of the bad stress...the big issue here (to no one's great surprise) is money, of course. The big cause: Maria's car.
  
  If you've been reading her page, you know that Maria has been worried about her car for a while. Strange clicking noises, lurching, problems with the air conditioner, the lighting of the "Check Engine" light...all in all, some concerning signs. We took the car to our local mechanic, Selly (who does very good work for Maria's family), but he couldn't determine what was wrong with it. So we took it to the dealership, who charged us 90 dollars to see what was wrong with the car.
  
  According to them, we need a new timing belt, a condenser fan, and a power steering flush. They offered to do it for the low, low price of 1500 dollars.
  
  Although we were bowled over by the reasonableness of this number, we decided, just on a lark, to see if we could find someone to fix the car who did not seem intent on raping us and feasting on our souls. With the problem now known, we talked to Selly, who said he could do the work for about 650 dollars. Still a good chunk, but far better...but it doesn't set our mind at ease on the money, especially since...
  
  
• ...we've had to pay for Gabby's spaying this week! She had to spend all day yesterday, and last night, at the vet. She just got home with Maria, and she seems to be doing pretty well. She's definitely a bit sore, but she seems pretty excited to be home--I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to spend the night at the vet's either...although, you have to admit--if a person had major surgery, there's no way we would be running around the next day; I think I need to go to the vet's for my next surgery, whatever it is...
  

All right. Maria's home from work, Gabby is home, and I've said just about all there is to say about the week. So I'm outta here--off to go relax with my family for a while. You kids have fun...

June 20, 2005

Since I've taken the day off from work (I had an eye appointment, as well as a few other things to take care of), I thought I'd take a minute to write a quick update. No, not about the air conditioner, although that has been taken care of, as you can see here...rather, about the drive in/walk in at the Belcourt theater last night.

It was a really fun time. Maria and I took Gabby with us, and ended up getting there about 7:30 or so. It turned out that if you wanted to park in the parking lot, it was going to be 10 dollars, but if you parked next door, walked over and sat in the chairs provided, it was free. So, a short walk later, we were nicely set up, with Gabby on her leash exploring the parking lot. There were a few moments of concern about the decision to bring Gabby, particularly when a couple of other dogs showed up and Gabby decided to protect the Belcourt parking lot from intrusion by demanding that they depart. She calmed down pretty quickly, though, and we all settled in for the movie.

Before they started it, they had a bunch of cool preliminary material: a bunch of old commercials for stuff like Milton Bradley's board game about the Titanic, Ronald Reagan selling Borax soap, and other generic commercials (a popular one with the crowd: C-3PO and R2D2 duing a PSA for childhood immunizations). They also showed a Porky Pig cartoon, an old educational short ("Why Birds Are Our Friends"--a great choice), and, best of all, the original trailer for The Birds, which was a riot--mainly consisted of Alfred Hitchcock talking about the beautiful relationship between men and birds, using entirely examples consisting of dead birds (my favorite: some old hat with a bird mounted on top, while Hitch talked about how proud the bird must be to be such a valued part of fashion). A neat set of stuff.

And the movie...you know, it was pretty great. Held up well, and although it was a little slow to get going, there are some splendidly eerie shots.

All in all, a really good time. Hope to do it again--the next one is a pair of silent movies (Buster Keaton in Seven Chances and Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!), and it's on my birthday! So we'll see...part of it depends on convincing my wife that she might actually silent movies (she worries that they'll be too slapstick for her taste), so we'll see what happens...

Last minute update: I just received a promising phone call with regard to all my mystery appointments. It's almost definite now, but I want to wait for one last thing before I share. I should be able to tell you in a week. (It'll all make sense then, I promise.)

June 19, 2005

Father's day...hope you've gotten off your butts and called your male figure in life, whoever it might be. Have I done it yet? Well...no. Not yet. But I will...just not this second. Still, it's getting done today, I promise you that. (Actually, I even have gifts for my fathers already, so take that. I won't even see them today, but I have their stuff...so nyah. I'm doing okay for myself.) Anyways, make the call, people.

How's your week been? Mine: usual fare. School during the summer at TLC is actually not too bad; a lot of the kids are absent a lot of the time, enjoying the warm weather, and the ones that we have at school are actually a pretty good batch. They're a little obnoxious sometimes, but not too horribly so--definitely a major improvement over what I entered the job dealing with. So things could be worse...now, if I could just improve their attention spans where I didn't feel like I was teaching a wall half the time, I would be doing great out there...

Otherwise, a mostly standard week. I did have a major appointment on Tuesday, as mentioned in my last post; again, I don't want to get into too many details about it yet. If anything major happens, I'll let you know.

The weekend has been pretty okay. Adam came up, rather than heading to Dollywood with his significant other (can't imagine why anyone would skip out on the excitement of Dollywood!); we took advantage of his presence to go out to the IMAX Friday night to check out Batman Begins. The first showing we went to (7:30) was a disaster. During the previews, the sound was about 10 seconds ahead of the footage; right as the movie started, the entire sound and projector shut off. We held on and waited, and finally the movie started...with no sound. For the first five minutes. And when it finally did start, it was still massively out of sync, creating the effect of a badly dubbed kung fu flick.

Needless to say, there was a sold out theater (a major number, if you've been to an IMAX) of very unhappy people. (The technical difficulties were bad, but running the footage with no sound was pretty irritating.) We were among the first to bail to go get refunds; as we left, we noticed an IMAX employee in the middle of attempting not to let his frustration explode at the irate customers who were yelling at him as if it were all his fault. To me, the theater handled it well; we got tickets to the 10:30 screening, as well as a free movie pass for each of us for a movie of our choice. So not a bad deal.

So we left, killed time at Barnes and Noble, went home, went back, got some dessert from Jillians, and made it back to the significantly less crowded 10:30 screening. (Turns out, since they were worried that they wouldn't be able to get it working, they quit selling tickets, and only allowed people from the 7:30 or those who had bought far in advance, just in case.) It worked great this time, and the movie was fantastic. The IMAX sound system was a major plus here, but it helped that the movie was so damn good. (Naturally, there's a longer writeup in the movielog.)

Saturday started off strong, with a trip to Parco (if you don't remember what I've written about Parco in the past, click here for a reminder), in which I proved to Adam that Parco has some of the best damn food in the city, and easily the best desserts. Afterwards, we went home and attempted to install a window unit air conditioner in our stifling garage/laundry room/cat room.

Let me say a word here about installing window unit air conditioners. Nominally speaking, the instructions are in English, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security; clearly, the instructions are only close enough to English to throw you into making as many mistakes as possible. So far, we have spent about 3 hours installing this thing, and it's not yet done. It will be, probably today, but in the meantime, I hate that pile of junk sitting in my garage right now.

After abandoning the project for lack of supplies (and alcohol needed to cope with the rage), we headed over to Natalie's (Maria's sister) dance recital. While Natalie did very well, the sight of disorganized, panicked, and (in two cases) screaming/crying children moving like bouncing neutrons on a stage is not that entertaining for as long as we were there. (I did hear some great country song which said that "if Heaven were a pie, I hope that it's cherry," inspiring me to create verses like "if Heaven is a sandwich, I hope it's a BLT," "if Heaven is a number, I hope it's pi," and "if Heaven is a TV show, I hope it's Joanie loves Chachi" to keep myself amused.) Still, Natalie did well for herself.

From there, to another family performance, this time Maria's mom/stepdad in their adult drum core. (Adult meaning age, not content level. It's not that kind of show, people.) Good performance, good music.

Today looks to be a quiet one. I'm going to finish the air conditioner, call my folks, and hopefully go check out The Birds at the Belcourt tonight; they're doing a free drive-in movie projected against the side of their building in the parking lot. Sounds like a lot of fun, and I've (film geek shameful admission) never seen The Birds before...

...and beyond that, it should be an exciting week. Maria's last full-time day at Nashville Tomato was Friday; tomorrow she starts back at her mom's office. (For more updates on that score, don't forget that Maria has her own blog now, and she tries to update almost every day. Puts me to shame, eh?) Also, April (Maria's brother's wife) is due any moment now; if she has not had the baby by Tuesday, they're going to incude labor. So, by Tuesday at the latest, there will be five generations of Maria's family currently alive on the planet...pretty scary stuff.

One final thought: in my last update, I grumbled about my extreme apathy for the Michael Jackson case. I stand by that argument, and if you don't understand why, I would like you to take just a few minutes to read this excellent article by Stephen King. King's been writing opinion pieces for Entertainment Weekly for the last year or so, thus single-handedly elevating the magazine from the crapfest it otherwise is. (If you're curious, EW has started making the last five or six available free of charge here.) This week, he wrote a scathing critique of the media, blasting them for ignoring truly important news for pandering garbage. It's an excellent article, well-written, and well argued. Do yourself a favor and check it out, even if (especially if) you're sick of the Michael Jackson case. (If you miss the case, and are sad it's over...um...maybe you shouldn't mail me and tell me that.)

June 13, 2005

(To all my loyal readers who wondered where my weekend update was...man. Get a life, people. It's the blog of some guy. I mean, perhaps you all need hobbies or something. Anyways, I had this partially written last night, but got sidetracked before I could finish it...)

So, I would be remiss if I didn't start off this update with the BIGGEST FUCKING MUSIC NEWS OF MY LIFE. How big is it? I've never--and I do mean never--been more simultaenously ecstatic and depressed in my entire life. Why? Because at the Live 8 show in London, on June 2...

PINK FLOYD IS REUNITING WITH ROGER WATERS.

Dead serious. Roger Waters and David Gilmour have buried the hatchet, and are playing together on stage. Don't believe me? Well, here's the article on CNN for you doubters...don't feel bad. I didn't believe it either when Adam passed along this rumor two weeks ago.

To keep it getting more awesome, not only are they reuniting, but according to some rumors from Live 8 workers, they're even playing some of Waters' stuff from The Final Cut. Incredible.

So why, you ask, am I so depressed? BECAUSE I CAN'T GO. Not I can't afford it, because guess how much the tickets are? FREE. But, according to the Live 8 web site, they're being given away by lottery...to British citizens only.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Anyways...attempting to move on:

So, my big link of the weekend is a real horrorshow for you. In all seriousness, this is some deeply freaky and disturbing stuff...it's part of an art exhibition, and...well, let me just say that every click of the mouse leads to fresh new horrors. But if you're up for it, check out this very cool interactive art video, depicting the life of an innocent little doll...

What else went on this weekend? Not horribly much. Saw some movies (yay!), played with Gabby, and basically just relaxed a lot, especially on Sunday, when Maria went to a baby shower and I was left to relax for the day by myself. A long overdue day off, and quite helpful, even if I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked to.

One cool note: my lovely wife cut her hair quite short this weekend, knowing how much I like that kind of thing. I guess I need to get a picture of her up or something...anyways, I like it. It's not shaved or anything crazy like that (only COMPLETE lunatics shave their heads, Adam), but it's definitely shorter than she's had it in our acquaintance. And I like it. So there, potsie.

Speaking of my wife: Maria has set up her own web log through Xanga! So if you've been wondering about her side of everything I post, well, feel free to check it out here.

This week? Nothing too exciting. The school week was off to a regular old bunch of chaos today; tomorrow, I have what could be a promising appointment, but I'll hold off on details there for now...nope, just another average week. Now, if April (Maria's brother's wife) goes into labor, given that she's due Monday...well, that would make things a bit more exciting.

Oh: obligatory Michael Jackson comment: blah blah blah not guilty blah blah blah pop star blah blah blah media circus. Whoop de crap. I don't care.

P.S. If you ever wanted to have all your faith in humanity shattered, enjoy this little interview with the mother of a 9 year old who was mauled to death by her pit bulls. Enjoy her "I guess it was his time to go", or her decision to lock her son, not the dogs in the basement. Maybe you'll prefer her comment that it was "typical Nicky" not to listen to her warning to stay in the basement. Or, check out this longer interview, where she says she has no regrets about that day. I guess her son dying isn't anything to regret. God DAMN, some people infuriate me beyond belief...

June 4, 2005

Another month come and gone. (Updating the thoughts pages has made me far more acutely aware of the passage of time, I think.) Not a bad start off to this one. The new term got going Wednesday, and so far, it seems like the summer will be a lot better than I feared it would. To this point, it's been--and I hate to say this, for fear of jinxing things--quiet. The kids have been pretty behaved, and no real drama so far...is that the loss of some of our kids last term, and the gaining of some apparently hard-working and positive kids? Maybe, maybe not. I hate to dig too far into it, for fear I'll break it somehow...in the end, I'm just content with the quiet. Hopefully it continues this way for a few months...

Not much else going on this week. There was a little something on Thursday, but I'm hesitant to say much about it for now, for a variety of reasons. (After all, Tom Ridge might be looking, now that he has free time...) If more develops on the front, I'll let you all know, of course.

Today's going to be a bacheloring afternoon, as Maria will be going to April's (Maria's brother's wife) baby shower. She's due in a couple of weeks, meaning that the family life is about to get all kinds of exciting. Of course, given my lack of obligation to go to the shower, I'm staying here and finally planning on watching the French thriller Haute Tension. By all accounts, it's pretty intense and terrifying (not to mention violent as all hell; the American release will be edited to keep it from being NC-17, apparently), so I thought that Maria might not be too interested in seeing it...

Oh, there is some other important family news: due to a long story that I don't really want to get into here, the third worker at Maria's mom's office (basically, Maria's mom and her grandmother both work at the office down the street, and they share the building for their different business areas) has been let go this weekend. It's a rough situation, for a few reasons, most notably because the guy is a long-standing friend of the family.

"But," you ask me (not unreasonably), "why do we, your loyal five readers, give a crap about this?" Well, the reason I post this is that it affects us directly. Maria's mom has asked her to come take Mike's place at the office. Although this means a slight pay cut from her current job (she's still making more than me, although that's not saying much, and she will be making more than she currently does working for her mom), it also means that Maria gets to leave Nashville Tomato, which she is extremely bored and unhappy with. She's a little antsy about leaving, and is worried about giving her first real resignation (and is worried about being perceived as "job-hopping", since she's been there less than two months), but she's very happy about the idea of working for her family once again, and how content she was there. Plus (at least, in my opinion), this will give her a chance to start carving out her own niche out there, and maybe work on what she's really interested in (that is, the non-profit accounting).

Yes, okay, that's a ways off, but I think this is generally a positive move for us. Ria's been very unhappy out there at Nashville Tomato, and I would rather be making less money and have her be more content. I also know that, deep down, as much of a family person as she is, that she would always like working there more than any other business. So, yeah, I think it's a good thing for us, overall. Now we just have to see how Nashville Tomato takes it...

Other family news: with my wife currently really getting into her cross-stitching, her desire to have a rocking chair in the living room, and her incessant watching of programs she's taped all season (what I've taken to calling her "stories"), I'm convinced that I'm married to a 75 year old woman all of the sudden. All she needs is to start wearing her knitted shawl...

And with that, I'm gone; have a good week...