Four Things

Four Things About Me That You May Or May Not Have Known In No Particular Order.

Four Jobs I Have Had In My Life:
1) Landscaper
2) Receptionist/Administrative Assistant
3) Retail Manager/Visual Merchandiser
4) Technical Editor
**From a technical standpoint, I have also been a music video producer and director, since I got paid for it. Also handled some PR for a band, but they didn't pay me so I can't really count that.....

Four Movies I've Watched More Than Once:
1) The Godfather, Parts I & II (almost all the lines of which can be used in training boys to become men.....); Part III does not count as it sucks and should be disregarded entirely and anyone who says differently needs to have their tongue ripped out.....
2) Gladiator

3) Kill Bill, Volumes I & II
4) Casablanca (play it Sam.....)
**To be fair, I personally regard Godfather, Parts I & II as well as Kill Bill, Volumes I & II as singular films, not 4 separate movies. Hence their inclusion.

Places Where I Have Lived:
1.) Modesto, CA
2.) Turlock, CA

3.) Reno, NV
4.) San Jose, CA

T.V. Shows That I Watch:
1) 24
2) House
3) C.S.I. (the original, which takes place in Las Vegas; the other two suck)
4) Dexter

Four Places I Have Been:
1) Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
2) Maui, Hawaii
3) New York City/Manhattan, New York
4) South Beach, Miami, Florida

People Who Email Me (regularly):
1) Amy
2) Lindsay (but they aren't really emails, per se.....)
3) Facebook
4) My Mom (at least somewhat regularly.....)

Four Of My Favorite Foods:
1) Sushi
2) A very rare steak (Porterhouse, New York, T-Bone...not particular, as long as it is rare enough to leave a ring of blood on my plate.....)
3) BBQ chicken - boneless thighs - drenched in BBQ sauce, with fresh corn-on-the-cob, homemade potato salad, and marinated asparagus spears grilled over an open flame. With an tall, ice-cold lemonade to drink. The perfect summer meal.....
4) Spaghetti - angel hair pasta - with red meat sauce (made to my own personal specifications - ask Amy about my finickiness and the consequences of deviating from my instructions.....) that includes Italian sausage as well as seasoned ground beef with actual meatballs and mushrooms, garlic cheese bread or sticks, and a fresh Caesar or green salad that is highlighted with various additions such as cut cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms. And a bottle of Chianti or a Toscana.

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:
1) Back under the covers, sound asleep
2) See section titled "Four Places I Have Been" and take your pick; there is no wrong answer.....
3) On a plane flying to Hawaii
4) Under Carmen Electra.....and/or Megan Fox..... :)

Things I Am looking Forward to Over the Next Year:
1) Watching my son, Devlin, grow and discover, well, everything.....
2) Watching my daughter, Sloan, grow and come into herself more as a young woman graduating middle school and entering high school
3) Taking Amy to Las Vegas for the birthday she deserves
4) Summer

This is a pretty standard little thing that circulates via email, MySpace, Facebook, and the like. Feel free to cut/paste and put your replies in the comments of my blog if you like. I have probably pissed off Lindsay by not emailing this out, but hey, I am trying to get more traffic to my blog, so you can't blame me for being a marketing whore to some degree or another now can you?

"24" Thoughts

1 - Is it just me or does anyone else watching Season 7 of "24" also want to see Janeane Garofalo's character take a .40 caliber slug to the head? Even as just an accidental friendly fire sort of thing? We are only two official episodes (four hours) in and I am already creating my Dead Pool.....

2 - At what point do we get to see Jack really torture someone? Sure, he almost broke Tony's neck and choked out FBI Renee Walker....but that is closer to foreplay for Jack.....c'mon.....

3 - Are you kidding me? Tony was injected with some sort of hyperthermal solution that saved his life so some guy could recruit him into a pseudo terrorist organization? What....Craigslist wasn't working for this guy's recruitment efforts?

4 - Apparently, forming a type of "shadow" intelligence/counter intelligence unit means one cannot really afford to either shave or get a haircut as Bill Buchanan's stubble was almost disturbing in it's distraction value during his close-up on the phone with Jack.......

5 - And getting back to the FBI: This Sean Hillinger character. He is too much of a self-serving asshole to survive. You ever get that feeling? You are watching a show or movie and you can almost instantly pick-out the asshole who will get killed in some sort of horrible fashion? Hopefully, that will happen to this one....but chances are people will start to like him like they did Chloe (which I STILL don't get) and he will end up in the next couple of seasons (hey, Kiefer signed on for three more seasons back in 2006, so it ain't ever going away, kids....).

6 - Stop re-iterating the general storyline dialogue from one episode to the next. We are not ALL fucking retards. Some of us can actually pay attention. The rest of those out there can catch the reruns or watch it on-line. Is this about where the writers went on strike, or something, and then forgot they had already written that dialogue when they came back? Give me a break and pick it up, kids.

Did you really think I was gonna sit here at work and write out 24 individual comments about "24"? Feel cheated? Well join the club, bunky, because that how I felt after seeing the hype of trailers for weeks and TiVoing/watching four hours (plus the prequel of "24: Redemption" back in November). Yeah yeah yeah....I know. It just started. All I can is they better pick up the pace and start laying waste and mass carnage for Jack to wade through and kick ass in pretty goddamn soon because so far I don't give a hot shit about ANY of these characters, except those coming back this season, including *SPOILER ALERT*: Aaron Pierce, Morris O'Brian, Charles Logan, and - yes! - Kim Bauer.

Kids & Homework

I really have to agree with this article I read today. Check it out and then come back here:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28624181/

I am on-board, man. I recall when Sloan was in elementary school how much homework they piled on her and what they also expected parents to do. And yet I see teachers walking out on strike to get more pay and benefits? Um, shouldn't you be more concerned about doing your job and actually teaching my kid? It is a near constant struggle to make sure Sloan completes her assignments. And we have actually found that she does better grade-wise, when she is allowed to attend a "homework center" after school three days a week to complete her homework and interact with teachers and students there. Its easier on all of us and she gets her shit done and doesn't bug us with any "I hate school" comments (we actually get "I had a GREAT day" comments....).

Even when I was in school, I knew there was no correlation between homework and doing better in any given class. Sure, one has to study for the tests, but if a teacher is actually doing the job they were hired to do, a kid - whether in elementary, middle, high school or even college - is going to learn better in an environment where they are encouraged to ask questions of each teacher and play off of their classroom peers, thus presenting their own thoughts and ideas and absorbing new ones they may not have previously considered. And how much sense does it make to expect kids to sit in a classroom for 6 to 7 hours a day and then expect them to do anywhere from 2 to 4 hours (or sometimes more) of homework each night?

I can recall in high school a teacher, an English teacher, who had a standard method to get her students to write more. Basically, we were told to write five paragraphs, one paragraph a day, and it could be anything. Basically, it was the precursor of today's blogs. While some of my friends were writing bullshit little one or two sentence paragraphs each day, I would wait until lunchtime Friday (my class with this teacher was after lunch and all weekly paragraph assignments were due on each Friday), write a five paragraph short story, and turn it in. My friends hated me. But hey, nothing was stopping them from doing the same and I think, in fact, a couple turned around and did so as well. But I regarded it as learning in class. I didn't have to stress on it at home. I was always did fairly well on test and specific projects and I think kids do in general. I may catch some grief for this and it almost pains me to say it because I do respect people who choose to be teachers....but I think many of them are just getting lazy. I work too many hours each day to be able to come home and do homework that the teacher should have been able to explain and provide time during the day for my kid to complete. That's not my job; that's their job. And they get paid for it, via my taxes.

I am going to look more into this because I totally agree. Teach kids in the classroom and then allow them to have lives. Maybe more kids would stay in school and continue on to higher education that way.....

Weekend Update and Stuff

Oh man, where to start.

Well, I guess it would make sense to touch on my birthday first, which was awesome by the way. Amy had been able to pull together about six of our "couples friends" to join us at one of our fave local places, Sato Sushi. We had the entire back area to ourselves, which was great because we could pretty much be as loud as we wanted and that comes in handy when you are also including three babies in tow! Everyone was so very generous with their gifts and I am pretty well-stocked on sake for quite some time to come! I was especially pleased to notice (actually Amy noticed it) that the bottle received from Heather and Pete came from True Sake in The City. The owner of this place has written a book that I am currently reading about educating one's self about the joys of all things sake related, so that was a very cool little thing to see. I have to admit that Amy did indeed surprise me on some levels, arranging for a cake and everything, and it was very very cool to see everybody. I plan on sending out "thank you" cards, but in the meantime please accept this entry as my heart-felt thanks for a truly lovely birthday dinner!

After dinner, most of us headed back over to our place to relax and have some more drinks, play some pool, which in turn evolved into a serious Rock Band/Rock Band II session, with everyone - even Amy! - getting involved at various points, singing, playing drums, bass, and guitars. It was great! There is nothing better than drunk - or at least somewhat buzzed adults - making fools out of themselves with a kid's interactive video game! But I think all would agree that my version of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" was awe-inspiring, to say the least. There is even video of it somewhere....more of that to come later, perhaps.....

All in all, it was a very cool 42nd birthday. The day was full of well wishers calling, sending notes, and of course, dinner that night. The only bad thing? Literally about a half hour after our last guests took their leave of us, I started to feel sick. Amy had been sick with some sort of 24-hour flu bug or something on Friday, but was perfectly fine all day Saturday; me, not so lucky. It slammed into me, wracking me with uncontrollable chills and all of the fun aches and pains (and various bodily functions) associated with the flu. I spent all day Sunday on the couch, more or less, trying to recover as a fever stuck with me until around 6 or 7 at night. Today, Monday, I am better for the most part but still incredibly weak and wiped out, wanting nothing more than to curl up on the couch or in bed and sleep the day away (which I still may do tomorrow......).

This upcoming weekend will find us in Mo-Town, finally celebrating our belated Christmas and my birthday with my Mom and her husband Tom. That we will do up on Saturday, relaxing and just enjoying the day since we will be spending the night (a rare thing for us). Sunday will be a very interesting lunch as we plan on seeing the Fagan side of the family (or at least Keith, his wife, along with Randy and his significant other). This will be a first-time meeting for Amy to meet my real father - whom I only met a short time ago for the first time in almost 40 years. This will also be the first time he will be meeting his grandchildren, Sloan and Devlin. So....."interesting" is perhaps the best word I can come up with at the moment. But don't take that as being a bad thing.....its just going to be.....interesting.

So, again, thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes on my birthday and to those who joined us that evening! You all made it a very cool birthday celebration!