The big move is over. Boxes are almost all unpacked. Garage is cleaned out. The work on the gameroom/man-cave section of the garage, plus the new Transformers collection shelves, is in full swing.

First, the gameroom. I managed to convince Deana to keep half the two-car garage as a gameroom of sorts. It's coming together nicely. The centerpiece, of course, is the arcade cabinet. Last night, I fired it up for the first time while "working" in the garage. Bad idea! I ended up playing Marvel Super Heroes for a half hour. Of course, once Connor saw it up and running, he played for an hour or so himself, while I worked. I'm not sure which one of us had more fun, him playing, or me watching him.

We have a table hockey game, too. It's like foosball but hockey instead of soccer. One of the players is broken, but it's still playable, and it's probably the best $30 I ever spent at Target. On the wall behind the table hockey, I framed and hung my Star Wars posters. If they aren't the best looking movie posters ever, I don't know what would be.

A dartboard is on the wall, near the entrance inside. It's at regulation height, even, and I taped down a line at the standard 8 feet away. So far, the hole in the wall count is at 4, 3 Connor's and 1 mine. (Don't tell Chad Tate.)

The air hockey table is no longer a place to throw stuff on. It's all cleared off and ready to go. Seems there's not much air pressure, the puck doesn't slide very well. Going to have to look into that. Now if I can get a pinball machine, and eventually, a cocktail arcade cabinet, I'm set for big stuff. The rest will be fun stuff: rope lights, a disco ball, and maybe even a jukebox or some sort. I can't wait!

Yeah, yeah, it's been over two months. Quite frankly, our lives have been so busy and filled up to overflowing that I've had less time for pretty much everything. But, I've got a few minutes here to rant and ramble a bit, so here goes.

First of all, school. March and April are by far the most stressful months of the year for teachers. Pressure is mounting for the upcoming state tests. The new addition to the school has been completed and six classes had to move to new locations. All of this means more meetings, more computer work, and less time to actually be teaching. It has been a real headache, plain and simple, and I am getting a serious case of burn out. I simply must cut back on my workload next year, that's all there is to it.

Deana and both boys were sick a week ago, each of them down with strep. Luckily, I made it through with only a sinus infection. We're on the mend now, but it couldn't have happened at a worse time.

We concluded a gospel meeting with Kevin Presley last week. Crowds were huge! I can't recall the last time I saw the building so full. The singing was really uplifting, for sure. It was nice seeing so many friends from different congregations.

I've been reading more comics lately. Partially, this is because of an excellent sale on hardcovers and trades a month or so ago. It's also due to the fact that after working on computers all day, playing PC or 360 games loses a bit of its appeal. Especially when my connection has been flaky and I am sicking of troubleshooting it. I can't bring myself to fix cables at home too...

Reread Watchmen in hardcover, with the new coloring. It looked amazing; Dave Gibbons has one of the cleanest lines you'll ever see. The movie was better than I expected. The adult elements were pushed a bit far for my tastes, but that it what the comic was known for, so it was hardly surprising. I look forward to watching it at home, since the theater I saw it at was slightly out of focus and the sound appeared to be coming from a 1950's record player.

Work at Co-Optimus and Let The Bible Speak is going well. Both of these projects are keeping me busy, maybe even a bit too busy.

I'd write more, but just got another tech phone call. Someone's SMART Board isn't playing sound anymore...

I think there is something wrong with me. I am actually looking forward to the end of the football season.

Blasphemy, you are thinking? Yeah, I'd have thought so too. Let me tell you, I am a fan. I dutifully record each Chiefs and Rams game. I also watch every Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and any Saturday NFL games too. Additionally, I watch the four best games of the week on NFL Network's NFL Replay each week.

Folks, that is a lot of football. In fact, it's too much. Even with the ability to fast forward and skip commercials, that's about 9 hours a week of gridiron action. As the season wore on, I started dropping games. The first cut was the Rams, then, NFL Replays of teams I don't particularly care for. By the end of the season, I had even stopped taping Chiefs games. I heard them on the radio, watched them at my Grandpa's a bit, but didn't rewatch at home later. Two years ago, I never would have let a Chiefs game go by.

I really enjoy the postseason, as there are few games, and each team is good. This usually makes for interesting TV (sometimes not, thank you Carolina Panthers). But all in all, I'm glad the season will be over soon, and there's only one more game to watch.

Hopefully, the Chiefs won't be a laughingstock next year and I'll enjoy the season more. In the meantime, I'll just have to pull for the Cards and former Ram Kurt Warner!

So, I'm over a month late with an update. Unsurprisingly, December was extremely busy. Here are some of the highlights.

My love of snow days is well known, and I haven't been disappointed yet. The week before Winter Break, we were out of school for four days! It was mostly ice and sleet, not snow, and new layers kept coming each night. We used this time wisely, of course: mainly we watched movies, played video games, and snacked. It was cool watching one of my favorite films, Gremlins, with the kids. Connor wants a Gizmo now, but I think Moon would probably eat him. When we did go back, it was for a half day, and it was about as fast paced as you can imagine. Each period lasted about 25 minutes... I kind of wish it was that way all the time!

We've been spending quite a bit of time at my Grandparent's place lately, and we all were there for his birthday. He is pretty good with his new power chair, for sure. Still, he's not getting around well and I know that's hard on him and grandma, especially.

We spent a week in Michigan during the break. It was extremely cold, and when we arrived, there were 13 inches of snow on the ground! Awesome. The kids got to play in the snow every day, and loved it. Each day it kept snowing a bit, just enough to keep it looking nice. Thankfully, the weather warmed up for our drive back home. We had a very nice time up there, it was one of the best visits I can remember. Lots of food, games, and movies. (See a pattern?)

New Year's Eve was spent with friends from Church. I learned to play Spoons, and I am quite terrible at it. Still, it was a nice way to spend the evening. Dana and Kelli are quite vicious when it comes to this game. I was afraid Brent was going to lose a finger at one point.

The January blahs are in effect now that we're back at work. Good thing January Jamboree is just around the corner!

Well, I said last year that I wouldn't go back out early on Black Friday ever again. Then, I said I'd go out, but not go to Wal-Mart, after the Great Transformers Incident of 2007. Looks like I was wrong on both counts. We did go out, and began the day at, you guessed it, Wal-Mart.

Most of the time, Wal-Mart is fairly organized as far as employees go; it's the other shoppers you have to worry about. Not so this year. Apparently, for the biggest shopping day of the year, the Wal-Mart manager forgot to have a meeting to go over everything to prepare. Here's a short list of the incompetency on display by Wal-Mart employees.

As soon as we walked in, we asked a checkout clerk where the store maps were (all the Black Friday deals are in weird places, like DVDs in the frozen goods). She told me she hadn't seen them but knew they were out there somewhere. It turned out a lady standing about 10 feet from said cashier was handing out said maps. /facepalm #1.

When 5 AM finally hit, I was waiting in the line for electronics, as I wanted to pick up some cheap Blu-rays. Turns out I could have picked up the Blu-rays earlier, because the line I was waiting in was for "behind the counter" items. So I walk around, get the Blu-rays, and a guy next to me says that the regular ones off the shelf aren't the sale ones, and you have to locate the proper display shelf with the BF deals. It seemed odd, but an employee verified it, so I put my catch back on the shelves and headed out. On the way, I ask an employee where the discounted Blu-rays are. "Blu-rays?" she says. /facepalm #2. Yes, high def movies, I say, and she directs me to the grocery aisles, where, naturally, all the movies are. All the DVDs, that is. No Blu-rays to be found. I'm pretty upset at this point, as I've been there for 30 minutes and all I have is Spaceballs on DVD for $2 to show for it.

Turns out there are no Blu-rays by the groceries. My fellow BF shopper Chris tells me that the DVDs are scanning as the sale price no matter where you get them, so back I go to the electronics for the stuff I already had once and put back. ARGH. On the way, I ask an employee passing out memory cards about the cheap 8 gig flash drive. He smiles and laughs, and points at the Photo line. Which is horrendously long. He recommends I skip it, and I take his advice.

I head to the electronics desk, and ask about the AC/DC Rock Band bundle. The first employee gives me a blank stare and asks if I mean "that guitar game". When I told her I didn't, she asked the lady next to her. And she asked the lady next to her. And she asked the manager-type next to her. All like some huge game of pass it on. Manager-type knew what I meant, and handed me one. I walked off and noticed it was the PS3 version. ARGH again. I fight back to the fellow and get the correct version. /facepalm #3.

Now, here's the best part. Remember the map? It said that all the toys in the ad were in front of the toys section. Seems natural, right? Except the toys section is about 100' across, and there are wall to wall people there, and if you just want one thing, who knows where it is? Why even have a map if it doesn't tell you where specific items are? I make my way back, and ask an employee opening up boxes where the Power Rangers Helmets are. "I don't even know what that is!" she informs me. I kid you not, a lady next to me shoves the BF ad in this employees face, points to the helmet, and says "THIS ONE RIGHT HERE". Of course, that didn't help. I am quickly growing tired of this, and make my way to the front of the store. /facepalm #4. We did manage to find the Transformers hoodies. None in my size, more's the pity. We finally got out of Wal-Mart at 5:40. That's way later than normal and put us far behind schedule.

We did find a Power Rangers helmet at Toys R Us, surprisingly for $10 less. TRU was totally different; stuff was easy to find, but the line to check out was hideously long. It moved fairly quickly though; I'd say we were waiting about 30 minutes before we got behind a checkout counter. Unfortunately, we picked the wrong one. One lady's credit card didn't go through repeatedly, so she filled out a credit app. On Black Friday. At 6:30 in the morning. The next lady behind her had a cart full of items that she wanted rung up individually. I can't believe that they let her do that. We ended up switching lines, and got out relatively unscathed.

Gamecrazy was next, and had 2 of the 3 things I needed. The line went out the door into the cold, due to how small the store is. But it was fairly quick. From there, we drove past Target and laughed at how full it was on our way to breakfast. That was easily the highlight of the day; meeting up with our friends to eat and sharing stories is a hoot, every year. My country fried steak was terrible but the chococlate chips pancakes were good. No facepalm here.

Worn out, we decided to check K-Mart (picked clean), Big Lots (no cool stuff), and Radio Shack (never even had PS3 controllers in stock). All in all, a busy day, but we got some deals and I can't wait to give the stuff out soon. I'd say I won't go back to Wal-Mart next year, but I know I will. The cheap stuff compels me, and I always get to tell the crazy stories, which makes the trip totally worth it.

I just start updating again, and I go and miss a Saturday post. Can you believe it's because we've been incredibly busy? Yup, like everyone else, we've had something to do almost every night.

Midquarter has already come and gone. This means, lots of grading at home. Let me tell you, I hate grading. It's one of the reasons I wanted to be a special reading teacher, and not a regular classroom teacher. This year, I'm back in the regular classroom two hours a day. So, a bit of grading. Luckily, NFL Replay gets me through it. Also, I have some"help" from Moon, the cat, as you can see above.

NERD ALERT: I dusted my Transformers, and moved them around a bit. Check out the view over my monitor. I have the best man-cave of all time. Well, the best man-cave you can afford on a teacher's salary of all time, at least.


Deana has been the PTA All-Star. She was the master planner for the first PTA Movie Night at Halfway. Kung Fu Panda, on the projector, in the gym, with popcorn, soda, candy, the whole nine yards. It was a huge success and over 100 people showed up! All the proceeds went to help some needy families from the school district this winter. Bravo, my lovely wife!

Brandon's making all A's. He's also working on the latest Drama club production. He's Young Ebeneezer Scrooge, which is about the perfect role for him, the way he is with saving money. Connor is doing awesome at school, particularly in math. He's also becoming quite the artist. I'll try to get some scans up of his super heroes. No clue why he loves drawing super heroes so much...

This week seemed to go on and on forever. It started off well, but went south pretty quickly.

First of all, last weekend, the hard drive on our satellite receiver went out. There go all our recordings and the ability to pause and rewind live TV. I could live with that, but when the replacement was on its way, it stopped working entirely. No satellite at all, period. Luckily I have an antenna for over the air HD anyway, so at least we could watch local channels. I'd really like to have had CNN for election night, though!

Speaking of Tuesday, ours was pretty lousy. Deana had a real scare at school, with tremendous pain in her arm and back, and numbness and elevated blood pressure as well. We left as soon as we could and got her to the doctor. He ruled out heart attack and stroke first, and let me tell you, that was terrifying, for me. Deana was hurting so bad she cried when the doc had her lay down on her back. This is the woman who took 4 Tylenol when she birthed Connor! After blood work, X-rays, and an EKG, all he found was pneumonia. Deana has been on antibiotics and taking pain medicine as she needs it all week, but she's still run down. She went back to school Thursday and I think it was too much for her. I'm glad she took yesterday off, for sure. Hopefully she'll recover quickly.

Back to Tuesday, the Basketball Dinner was a success, though we were late due to being at the doctor's. We had a very good turnout, the kids (and adults) had a great time, and Brandon was hilarious when he gave out the awards.


Wednesday was a real headache. The replacement satellite receiver arrived, and swapping it out was a huge pain. Brandon and I both whacked our heads several times on our wall-mounted speakers. It looks like a rat's nest behind our TV, what with all the cords and wires running everywhere. Whoever invents wireless power will be very, very rich. Tesla may have been onto something, right?

Flu shots were this week, too. The big jock himself, Brandon, got dizzy and had to stay in the nurse's office for a while. I walked him back to class and told the kids to call him "Dizzy McFainterson" for the rest of the day. Connor was far braver, and as a result he got to open a new Power Rangers toy. Of course, he arranged it with some others "to put on the internet", so here is a picture.


The weekend, in contrast to the rest of the week, has been rather relaxing. I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures and the fall colors. Our yard is covered in golden yellow leaves, and Deana's mums are gorgeous. Lots of Xbox and even the Wii today. We're heading to a birthday party soon, at the movie theater, and watching Madagascar 2 afterward. I'll talk to you later, right now I've got to move it, move it...

Last night Brandon had several friends over for a Halloween Party. Connor was so excited too, and cute as he could be in his Bumblebee costume. (We had to alter a store bought one that was too small!) All sorts of cool costumes, as you can see by the slideshow above. Guitar Hero World Tour was a big hit with the kids. Not as bit of a hit was the Creepy Castle decorating contest. Let's just say 14 and 15 year old boys aren't really concerned with being neat with orange and black icing. I kid you not, there was orange icing on our bathmat this morning.

I'm thinking about updating here more. I'm not sure Blogger is robust enough for what I'd like to do. In any event, here are some pictures from a costume party we went to last night! I had most of the costume stuff already, thanks to my awesome Transformers collection. We really had fun with Deana's getup. She has little purple spiders in her hair, and I did the spiderweb pattern on her face. I knew drawing all those Spider-Man doodles as a kid would come in handy some day!

OK, here we are, it has been forever and a year since I posted anything at all. But today, somehow, I thought of something I could write about. Something that people might find interesting. So, here we go.

I miss The Far Side.

Today I was reading Dilbert online. Now, don't get me wrong, Dilbert is a good and fair comic. I have laughed at Dilbert many times. It is easily the best comic that is currently in the local Sunday newspaper. But honestly, it's just.. okay. Not great. Don't even get me started on Garfield, or other such junk. Foxtrot and Dilbert pretty much are the cream of the crop.

Think about it. Can you remember any Dilbert, or Foxtrot, off the top of your head? I can think of zero Dilberts and exactly one Foxtrot. Now, isn't that a shame, considering that they are among the best out there today?

Even more than a decade after it ended, I still remember so many Far Sides. Cow tools. The skydivers school next to the alligator farm. The gifted kid pushing the "pull" door. I could go on, and for that, I am sad. The Far Side was the best comic, ever. It was worth every penny of the $75 I paid for the Complete Far Side set. I was saddened when I finished reading the set, but I am sure that when I read it again, I will enjoy it just as much as I did the first time.

Still though... I miss The Far Side.

Wow, it's been 4 years since I posted here? Crazy. Maybe I should update more?

I know what you are thinking! "An update? But it hasn't been a month yet!" Yes, that's right! I'm shattering all expectations by publishing a few days early! Actually, I am sitting here bored at school waiting on my late round of parents to arrive for conferences. I'm sure I could be grading papers or something, but it's not like I didn't work today! :)

We got Brandon's grade card today, and he is doing AWESOME. He's making 95% plus in every subject. His Stanford 9 test showed he is reading at a 7th grade level. The boy reads constantly. Comics, magazines, short books, long books, you name it, he reads it. Several at a time, too. He's really quite amazing and we are totally proud of him.

Connor is changing so much! He's becoming so indepedent. His latest trick is going over to where you are sitting and pushing at your legs and bottom until you stand up, then taking your hand and showing you something. I haven't gotten sick of it yet. ;) We had a pretty funy incident the other night. It was late, and Deana was rocking connor to sleep. I was on the computer, and the sound on the game I was playing was too loud. Deana asked me to turn it off so Connor could sleep. I plugged in my headphones and played away. About 30 minutes later, I felt something on my back. I didn't think much of it, just figured it was Deana's foot maybe. It came again. I turn around and look and lo and behold, there is Connor, standing up, poking my butt through the bars of my chair, laughing like a maniac. Put him to bed early? Riiiiight.

More next time! Bye!

OK, so I am getting better about the updates. This time, it was just a month and 2 days, that's 2 days shaved off! When you are hyper-busy like we are, it goes fast.

So where to begin? Life is really, really, super good these days. Almost every day, I think to myself how happy I am. I have a great home, wonderful children, a fantastic wife, and for the first time in a long time, I enjoy my work. I'm so thankful for everything. It's amazing how everything works out so well. Just a few short months ago, I was worried sick baout our future, and now, well... we're blessed, is all I can say.

Brandon is excelling at his new school! He has made an impression on all the staff at Halfway, especially his teacher, Mrs. Seifner. (That's SIGH-F-NUR, a good trick my mom told Brandon is to remember "sci-fi nerd". It works!) She told me the other day he should just wake up and be a 30 year old someday, because that is how he acts and talks. Then, he says something that reminds her he is still a second grader. I have no idea where he learned to act like a 30 year old kid. *Looks around innocently*

Connor has learned a new skill: removing his diaper! I'm not nearly excited about this new thing as I was, say, walking. So far, it has been clean or just wet, but sooner or later.... eeeewww.... He's also been running after the cones and soccer balls at all of Brandon's games. As I predicted, I DO look silly running after a 15 month old.

Deana is really enjoying her time at home with Connor. She is so much happier staying at home. She takes pride in running a tight ship around here, and I sure appreciate it too. We walk in to fantastic smells coming from the kithcen and a glass of ice tea and kool aid every day. I tell ya, this is the life!

Well, enough sappy ramblings for one update. See you soon.

OK so it has been over a month. It's been HYPER busy.

We're finally starting to get into a normal schedule! Brandon came back a couple weeks ago, and we were so glad to see him. I think he grew about a foot and got 3 times more tan while he was gone! My reasons for wanting him back were more selfish. Connor can't really play video games or Heroclix, and I needed a partner!

My brand new school career has started! I'm teaching 5th grade at Halfway elementary school. We've been in session for a week and a half now, and I have to say I am very happy here. The staff, kids, and environment are 500% better than the situatrion I was in last year. Maybe 1000%, even. I really feel like a TEACHER and not a lion tamer these days. Another cool thing is that Brandon goes to school with me! I'm really learning to enjoy the drive to and from school while me and Brandon talk things over. It's been awesome, just awesome.

Connor is a walking fiend! He can go pretty much anywhere he wants now, there's np slowing him down at all. He has been cutting teeth which makes him a bit grumpy, but I'm proud to see him doing his precarious little walk all over the place. Next up comes running, which I am not exactly looking forward to. I'll look pretty odd running after a 15 month old...

It's football season! I'm totally stoked about this weekend, where I get to go see the Chiefs/Rams preseason game with Curtis! I've never been to a Chiefs game at all, and to get the bonus of seeing the Rams too.... well... it's incredible. I just walk around grinning thinking about seeing all my favorite players in real life (albeit far away). I'm not planning on wearing my Marshall Faulk jersey up there, that's for sure.

I think that's all for now, hope to update a BIT more often!

Reign of Fire was a good movie. Not great, but good. I was expecting more of an Independence Day type of movie, and it actually was more like Aliens. I'd like to have seen more scenes with multiple dragons, and more of the war between dragons and men. There was a few awesome sequences, notably the parachuting scene. All in all, worth the price of admission.

We leave in 2 days for the final wedding of this summer of many weddings! Marcie and Kevin are getting marriued in Michigan, and Deana is in the wedding party! We'll be gone just over a week or so. And then, it's almost time for school to start. Wow, the summer has gone quickly!

Let's see what other interesting things have happened lately...

How about Connor running off from the bathtub into the dining room (minus diaper of course) and leaving a little... shall we say... present for us on the floor. All I heard was Deana's scream and ran into the bathroom, where she had Connor on the toilet, and he was hanging on for dear life! Hehe. He thought it was hilarious and of course it was, once everything was all cleaned up!

Deana bought be Warcraft 3 for my birthday, as I had requested. :) The game is awesome. I enjoyed the beta a lot, but I gotta say, the single player missions are incredible. The plot is better than most movies, the cutscenes are high caliber, the in game movies are perfect... It's a masterpiece, really, and well worth the wait. I tremble in anticipation of Starcraft 2 and especially Worlds of Warcraft.

That's all for now, live long and prosper!

Here we are, all moved in and good to go.

It seemed like it took FOREVER to move. Moving from a 3 bedroom house with a garage and a nice yard to a 2 bedroom townhouse apartment was pretty tough. We had to get rid of so much more stuff even after the garage sale. But, for the most part, we are all unpacked and only a few things are left to be done. I like the new place very much and am already feeling comfortable here. My allergies have been really calm here, too. All in all, a nice move.

Again, we have been busy even for this ultra-busy summer. Last week was Brent and Dana's wedding, as well as Brandon's last week here in Missouri for a while. Deana's family came back for a visit too, which we enjoyed. They helped us with the move a bunch, we appreciate that for sure!

Going to go see Reign of Fire in a few hours, I will let you know how good it was. :) Bye!

Wow, how busy can we be?

2 weekends ago, Deana's family came into town! We had a really nice visit. I enjoyed watching Justice League episodes with Brandon and A.J. and teaching A.J. how to play Heroclix with Brandon in particular. Oh, and watching The Sum of All Fears with Deana's Dad. And, the steaks for Father's day, and the grilled chicken the next day! I tell ya, we just get into using the grill again and then we have to sell it, since we can't have one at the new place. Maybe an electric (and legal) grill is in out future...

Speaking of the new place, we move in this Friday. We have packed up most of what we don't need to live with from the bedrooms so far. Tomorrow we will finish up, and then start filling the U-Haul Friday morning. We expect Deana's family back (and the little man too) Saturday morning, so there is a LOT to get done! Luckily, the garage sale was a big success and we got rid of a lot of stuff, and made enough money to get the new desk I'll need for the computers!

The best part of the summer so far has been my daily naps with Connor. We are getting to be good buddies! Too bad that'll just make school starting back up harder hehe. Course, this year, I am REALLY looking forward to school, for once. Can't wait to get my room set up.

I'll update again after the move, we'll have no internet for a while, until the 3rd actually. So expect more then.

I thought summer was supposed to be nice and relaxing!

We have been really busy since school let out. Now that I accepted the job in Halfway, we've been planning our move, looking at new places to live, checking all the options, that sort of thing. We've found a really nice townhouse style apartment, on the north side of Springfield. It seemed to be a good compromise, as it allows me to have a far shorter drive to work (about 40 minutes tops) while still staying in town so Mom can watch Connor, and Brandon can still go to WINGS. We hear this week whether or not we are approved to move in.

Of course, scaling down from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment is quite a chore! We have thrown away so much stuff! The trash dumpster and several bags and boxes were picked up just yesterday, and already the dumpster is full again! Also, we have about half of the garage filled with things for a garage sale. I'm hoping we can get rid of all that stuff and get some extra money for the move, to boot.

We're looking forward to having Deana's family down to visit this weekend. It will be nice to see them again! I'm not sure that trading Ashley for Brandon is a good deal tho hehe.

Catch ya on the flip side!

Well, it turns out I was only unemployed for 3 days!

I accepted the position teaching 5th grade at Halfway, MO. Where is it, you ask? Well, it's HALFWAY between Bolivar and Buffalo. It's 45 minutes to an hour from our house now, but we'll be moving soon, to the north side of town. That will cut the drive down considerably. I'm totally excited about the prospect of teaching in a small school setting. It should be a real pleasant change.

Well it's been a couple crazy weeks here in the Allie family. A few items of note:

"I'm so excited about Star Wars I have a rash!"

Yes, that's right, my poor allergic-to-everything body decided that the amoxycillin I had been taking for an upper respiratory infection, stuff I've used since I was a kid, was BAD NEWS! And, starting at my hands, I slowly got covered with a nasty, itchy rash! Of course, it didn't happen til 20 minutes before school, and the were no subs, so that was a mess. Anyway, I go to the doctor, get a cortisone shot, and she says to take Benadryl to control the itching. She told me to not go to work in case I had more reactions. Luckily, she didn't say to skip the movies! However, the rash got worse overnight and I had to get even more doped up to control it.

"Why Yoda is MY HERO!"

Ok, my expectations weren't THAT high for Episode II. The Phantom Menace was a bit of a chore to sit through even recently, and I was afraid Lucas was gonna screw everything up. However, by and large, Ep. II was quite well done, very exciting, and the scene with Yoda alone was worth the price of admission!

But...

It's sad the CGI Yoda acts better than the dude playing Anakin. He seemed to be trying awfully hard, and it came off like someone playing the lead in a high school play. I know that there couldn't be a harder role to play, after all, Vader is a cultural icon, right? Still, his acting was pretty bad, and even notorious in the love scenes. I realize we are supposed to think he is a jerk; after all, he DOES end up slicing his own son's hand off. I think, though, that if you took out the love scenes, the movie would be almost perfect. I found the romance to be contrived at best and silly at times. Anakin standing on some cow-looking alien to impress Amidala? OOOOOkay. Rolling around in the grass? Riiiight. I was reminded of the scene in Shrek where Shrek blows up the snake and ties it like a balloon. It was hokey, but cool in Shrek because it was for laughs, but in Star Wars? Eeeww. And the scene right before the arena battle where Amidala all of a sudden loves Anakin came practically out of nowhere. Go watch the scene in Empire where Leia tells Han "I love you" when he is being frozen. Now, THAT is a fantastic scene. And since the whole Anakin/Amidala relationship is the CORE of the Sar Wars story, I expected much more.

The new ranking of the saga is:

Empire > Attack of the Clones > Jedi > New Hope and Phantom Menace (tie)

"A Wedding, Dinosaurs, and the Best Steak I Ever Had!"

Last week, of course, was my brother's wedding. I was quite impressed with it, overall. The ceremony itself was shorter than our own wedding, which was about impossible I thought! It was also way too hot in the house they got married in, but it was really really nice otherwise. The highlight, though, was the dinner at Devito's in Eureka Springs. Oh man was that a great steak. New York Strip, baked potato, some broccoli I didn't eat, and a great, dark leaf lettuce salad with awesome parmesan dressing. I know my steak and this was one of the best I've had. Makes me hungry thinking about it!

We spent the night in Eureka Springs, and the next day, after breakfast with the newlyweds and my parents, we took a sidetrack and toured Dinosaur World. It's basically a little park and gift shop. You can drive through what is probably a couple miles of gravel road and look at probably 2 or 3 dozen plaster sculptures of dinosaurs. Some of the dinos were life sized, but not all. The highlights were the T-Rex, King Kong (with a woman in his grip!), and the Octopus in the lake. Maybe I will scan in some of the pictures soon. The boys both got little Godzilla toys at the gift shop, too, but Connor lets me play with his.

"6 hours and 45 minutes left of school!"

YES it's the last day! I am almost through at McGregor Elementary! It couldn't come any quicker, in my opinion. I will have all summer to find a new job, so that is a good thing. I've a second interview at Halfway, MO next week, for a 5th grade position. I am confident it will all work out in the end.

That's all the news for now, more to come soon!