Vacation, Part 1

As July comes to a close, I look back on the month as one of the best in my life. When summer school ended on Friday, June 27, I was raring to go. I missed vacation last year due to a, uh, miscommunication on the part of our school system. They told us before we left for China that Magi would have enough sick days to take off the rest of the school year to stay home with Sera, and then, with one week left in the year they told us that she was not allowed to use them for the last week. So, we had to basically eat an extra week's worth of her salary, which meant I got to teach another session of summer school to make up this completely unnecessary shortfall. So this year, I was determined to get the most out of my vacation, to say the least.


On that Friday afternoon, I drove immediately over to our new favorite car dealership, Heart City in Elkhart, to get an oil change. While I was waiting in their luxurious waiting room (and I mean that without irony of any kind. They have leather couches and current magazines and newspapers to read, as well as free coffee) my buddy Doug called with great news. He had Tigers tickets for us for the next day! We had planned on making a stop in Chicago at the comic book convention on Sunday, but that plan went right out the window. So on Saturday we piled into the Crimson Cruiser, as we now call our minivan, and headed for the Motor City. It turned out to be a very exciting game. Sera enjoyed the carousel and the fireworks, and I enjoyed the game. Although closer Todd Jones blew the save by giving up four runs in the top of the ninth, Miguel Cabrera picked up his teammate with a walkoff double in the bottom half, preserving the win. This game marked the first time the Tigers reached the .500 mark all season long and it made a great beginning to our break.

On Monday, we left for Utah. The first leg of our trip was to Omaha, Nebraska. Let me begin by saying that when you have seen Indiana, you have also seen northwestern Illinois and all of Iowa. Good grief, I was tired of looking at cornfields! When we arrived, we found every hotel room booked. Turns out that Omaha was the site of the US Olympic Team swim trials! We found a room a little down the road that suited us, and on Tuesday we got up early and went to Henry Doorly Zoo. I've been to a lot of zoos, and this one was pretty average for a big city. But like most zoos it had some features that made it shine. This zoo had a nice aquarium with a glass tunnel that you could pass through, watching sharks and rays swim overhead. They also had a great penguin display. Sera had been watching Happy Feet on the backseat DVD player, so this made her very happy.

As we made our way west across Nebraska we noticed...more corn. To save a little bit on restaurants, we had packed lunches that we prepared using our new Coleman camp stove/grill. We used numerous rest stops to cook hot dogs and chicken breasts and to get away from the van for a few minutes at a time. As we finally made it to the Colorado state line, we saw...more corn. Finally, cornfields gave way to a little more interesting landscapes as we approached Denver.
We arrived just a little bit late for the baseball game for which I had bought us cheap tickets. We got to Coors Field in Denver just before 8:00, only 55 minutes late for the beginning of the game between the Rockies and the Padres. I had just enough time to get Sera and Magi food and tour the stadium and then the game ended. I looked at my watch...9:00! Turns out that this was the shortest game in Coors Field history at one hour, fifty-five minutes. I didn't really mind. I only paid $12 for all three of our tickets. Coors Field has seats in what they call the Rockpile, which are about 500 feet from home plate. I never once sat in my seat but I did get to enjoy the atmosphere and a little bit of food, including the Colorado Rockies Blue Cheese Chips, freshly made potato chips with bleu cheese and bacon sprinkled over a zesty cheese sauce. They had Rocky Mountain Oysters, too, but I had to pass there, sorry.

We left Coors Field pretty much freshly rested, and thought about continuing past Denver on our trip for a while. Just one problem...the highway was closed. They actually closed the highway for construction from 9:30 PM to 5:30 AM, so we ended up getting a hotel. It was just as well. The rest of our trip was amazingly scenic and we would have missed it in the dark!

To be continued...

So Long, Pudge

The Detroit Tigers traded Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez today to the New York Yankees for relief pitcher and former Tiger Kyle Farnsworth.

I hate this trade.

When general manager Dave Dombrowski signed Pudge in 2004, it was the renaissance of the Detroit Tigers. Following a horrible 43-119 season in 2003, they immediately improved to 72-90, adding 29 wins. Pudge hit .334 that year, including going .500 for the month of June. The Tigers were able to add more free agents in the following years, bringing them back to respectability and a World Series appearance in 2006, and it all started with Pudge.

Kyle Farnsworth was one of the players who signed with the Tigers in 2005, but before he had played with the Tigers for even a season, he refused to negotiate a contract extension, instead expressing an interest in the free agent market. The Tigers traded him before the year was over, instead of getting nothing for him when the season was done. Now the selfish jerk is back.

Pudge wasn't likely to return after this season, as he is getting old for a catcher (36) and the Tigers have Brandon Inge under contract for next year already. But I really wanted Pudge to hang around to at least see his contract finished up. There's just a sour taste in my mouth giving Pudge to the Yankees, of all teams, for a guy who doesn't want to play for my team.

Update: I forgot to mention that I personally took this photograph of Pudge in 2005.

Back Home Again

How was vacation? Here's my favorite photograph. It's sunrise the morning of July 24 at the backwaters in my hometown of Mesick, Michigan. Click to enlarge. This says it all:

Still Alive!

I rode a bicycle 7.5 miles around Mackinac Island today. Back home tomorrow. And then I'm buying a bicycle! I've finally found an enjoyable exercise!

Back on Vacation

After a week of recovery from our two-week trek to Utah and beyond, we're taking off tomorrow for a week of camping in northern Michigan, ending with a weekend at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. The latter was a gift two years ago from Magi's father, which we couldn't use last year because I was working the whole summer. There was literally no two days I had off that they weren't booked. We had our honeymoon there in 2000, so we're really looking forward to returning.

I'll try to catch up everything when we come back!

The Dark Knight

Well, I was ready to eat all kinds of crow, hyped by Kevin Smith's rave review and the box office numbers, and...I hated it. Like Lord of the Rings (take your pick as to which one), this movie was about an hour too long. It was slow, there were too many plots that ran each over like steamrollers, and once again, too many villains.

Spoilers Follow

The Joker pulls off so many different and major acts of terrorism in this movie with no time to prepare and virtually no resources, he makes Al-Qaeda look like the Three Stooges. Batman and every other idiot in this movie actually believes the madman when he tells them something. Uh, hello, this is the Joker? When he gives you an address you put all of your resources into investigating it? When he threatens you with the death of innocents, you comply and believe that he will follow through on his promises? You deserve what you get from him.

And here's the true winner of this movie (paraphrased):

"We found three different sets of DNA on his card."

"Whose are they?"

"The judge's, Commissioner Loeb's, and Harvey Dent's."

"Where'd he get their DNA?"

No, the question is, where did YOU get their DNA? Is there a new requirement for public officials to have their DNA on file that I don't know about? I've been fingerprinted for federal background checks, but I never had to give a blood sample. Talk about harsh hiring techniques!

Ever since Batman Returns, comic book movies have this horrible pattern of putting too many villains in the movies. The Joker was a good choice for a villain, but to add Two Face was just too much. Harvey Dent's presence in the movie was welcome, but to make him into a villain was unnecessary to the plot and just to throw him away was wasteful.

And I'm just thinking aloud here, but if you have a device that can use every cell phone in the city to create a virtual imaging environment, then maybe you could use that technology to turn them off so THE JOKER CAN'T BLOW UP ANY MORE STUFF REMOTELY WITH THEM?

I don't know, I am just so tired of seeing movies with plot holes you can drive Bat-tanks through. And speaking of Bat-tanks, are they actually trying to tell me that they designed the Tumbler as a bridge jumper that breaks off into a motorcycle? No wonder the military didn't buy it. If Lucius Fox made modifications to it so that it did so, you'd think that they would have built a spare Tumbler, too, so that Batman wasn't limited to just a motorcycle for the rest of the movie.

And how did Bruce Wayne corrupt Lucius' cell phone technology all by himself? Did he go to engineering school between movies? I'm sorry, but that's Lucius Fox's whole role in this series and to think that Bruce can just go ahead and modify it like that without his knowledge or help is just going too far.

I really wanted to like this movie, but my sense of logic was assaulted too many times. Sorry, Kevin Smith, but I have to disagree with you here when you said, "It's the 'Godfather II' of comic book films."

"Goodfellas," maybe, but not "Godfather II." Okay, that's too strong. I liked "Goodfellas."

DC Motion Comics

Speaking of Watchmen, this is a really cool little thing. Slightly animated from the original artwork, iTunes brings you Watchmen #1.

Watchmen Trailer

The Watchmen trailer should be preceding viewings of the Dark Knight starting at 12:01 AM. Go here to see it now. I can hardly wait!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Go watch this right now! It's from Joss Whedon and it's shiny. Click the button.

Double Feature Redux

I'm still putting pictures together from our trip, so that post will have to wait. We did go to the drive-in last night to get start getting caught up on what we'd missed, so let's start there.

Heckboy II: The Golden Army. Yes, we call him Heckboy around Sera. No need getting her vocabulary to that level just yet. The term comes from the special features of the Atlantis DVD, in which the producers pay homage to the art and style of Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy. They jokingly say they have to call him "Heckboy" because they are working in a Disney studio. Anyway, Hellboy II was pretty good. They pick up where the last one left off, with Hellboy and Liz Sherman together as a couple, and Abe Sapien hanging around the old BPRD headquarters waiting to bump back against those things that go bump in the night.

With the peace between the paranormal and humanity threatened, Hellboy and his amazing friends have to choose sides and prevent the Golden Army from being used to wipe out humankind. Unfortunately, there was only one real surprise in the movie, and it's given away fairly early. I won't spoil it for you, but it really wasn't important to the plot, and it won't become important unless there are more Hellboy movies. I hope there will be. I just thought this one was fairly standard as far as comic book adventure movies go. Maybe there are just too many to make a fair assessment.

Wanted

Okay, this one was just weak. Poor account manager/schlub Wesley Gibson finds out that he can shoot the wings off of a fly and joins an assassin's club to get revenge on the man who killed his father. Yawn. He learns how to shoot bullets so that they can bend around things like a curveball. Uh, okay. It's not mind over matter, but just the way they twist the gun as it goes off, like the snap of the wrist providing enough spin across the seams of a baseball? I think a bullet has a bit more spin than you can overcome with the flick of the wrist, but whatever. An hour and half later you wind up with the "everything you have been told is a lie" cliche and you have Wanted in a nutshell. This one was just plain bad. I liked the comic, hated the movie.

Last Day in Utah

The flower in my palm is blinking, red, black, red, black.

We will start on our way home tomorrow, hoping to catch a ball game in Kansas City. Should be home Saturday, I think.

Corner of No and Where

We are traveling in Utah and only got access to the net today to check email. We'll be traveling back across the country and will have a lot to say when we get home, with lots of pictures!

Hot Wheels

My daughter Sera has recently been playing with some small die-cast cars we got for free inside one of our 200 boxes of Golden Grahams. I never really considered buying her any toy cars, but the other day we were at Toys R Us looking for pads for her tricycle, and I found Hot Wheels track. Yes, they sell individual pieces of Hot Wheels track for $0.89! You remember the orange strips of track with the plastic pieces that hold them together, don't you? Well, today we had some fun as we put them together to make a track all the way across the living room. The only two cars I had handy, of course, were Batmobiles, so we put them both on the track. And yes, the 1966 TV Batmobile is faster than the 1989 movie car. As it should be. It's way cooler.

WWGCD

I wonder what George Carlin would have had to say about this.

Yahoo! I'm a Teacher!

Yahoo has a great article called, "Five Rewarding Careers that Let you have a Life:"

"Teacher K-12
Many teachers use the summer to catch up with family, enjoy long vacations, and complete additional online education courses. Even with three months off, many K-12 teachers earn over $41,000 per year. Changes in recruitment policies now mean that you can start a teaching job in many places before completing a degree in education.

New state and federal mandates require job applicants to complete at least a few online education courses before beginning their teaching careers. Many school districts have even invested in dedicated recruitment programs designed to help professionals from other fields earn education degrees. For retirees, a teaching career offers the chance to stay active while earning an income and enjoying summers off."

Do any of you teachers out there have three months off at this point? Our school system is about three weeks short of that every year. It's called June, July, and the first week of August now. And, do you know that under No Child Left Behind, you are not a "highly qualified" teacher until you have a degree in the subject which you are teaching, as well as certification? And wow, $41 WHOLE thousand dollars a year? I couldn't make that if I worked in a factory. Oh, wait, yes I could. The part they left out is that 50% of new teachers quit within five years of joining the profession. It's high-stress little reward, and Yahoo makes it sound like a vacation for retirees. Sheesh.

Getting Ready to Roll

Preparing for a long trip can be tiring. Ordinarily, our big trips are south to see Magi's whole family. We stay in the same condo every time, stop at the same hotel every time, and usually stop at the same restaurants on the way down.

This time is different. This time, we are traveling west, to somewhere we've never been. We're going to go to Wizard World Chicago (a comic book convention) on Sunday, then leave for Omaha Monday morning to go to the zoo. I just got tickets to the Rockies game at Coors Field in Denver for Tuesday, and then on to my dad's house in Utah on Wednesday. I've been west several times, mainly to Arizona and once to California, but I've always flown in. I've never driven west of St. Louis, so this will be a truly different trip. I've been picking up picnic supplies so that we can make stops on the way out to eat lunches. I have to pick up a little gas grill this week to tailgate on the trip as well. McDonalds is okay to buy a Coke, but I hate their food.

Next up is making hotel reservations. We'll stay at hotels on the way out, but I'm not sure what we'll do on the way back. Outside of visiting my sister, I haven't planned that part of the trip at all, which makes it kind of spontaneous and fun. We may camp; we may find something else we want to do. I guess that's what vacation is all about, right?

Fore!

I played golf today for the first time this year. I'm more of a social golfer than a serious one. I have a cheap set of clubs and I'll go when people ask, and generally enjoy myself. But today was kind of nice, as it was the best nine holes that I ever played. I shot a 56, which is not good, but for me it was a tremendous boost. I didn't get double digits on any hole! I hit everything pretty well today except my driver, which I'm pretty sure is hopeless. I'm going to get one with a steel shaft. The flexibility of my current one just makes me slice everything. I gave it up after two drives and started teeing off with my three wood. It was 100% better.

When I got home from my round I took Sera out to play miniature golf. She whacked at the ball a few times, but generally had fun looking at the elephant and giraffe statues and throwing her yellow ball and retrieving it. Next time I'm bringing my own putter to the place. I could use the practice.

Hail to the Chef!

So there we were last night, headed out to a Father's Day dinner. The Tigers had won their sixth consecutive game with a nail-biting finish and we were all hungry. We piled into the car and headed west...right into a hail storm. It came on without warning. One second it was fine, and then a torrent came down on our windshield. Tree branches started falling across our path, and hail the size of quarters rained down on our new van. We turned around and high-tailed it right back home!

A few minutes after we got back the storm lessened and then moved on, but Sera was already scared by the first storm so we decided to just cook at home. I ran out and picked up some ribeyes, and when I got home about 20 minutes later, here was the scene in our back yard:

Sera's flowerbed (click here for the before pictures) was a little worse for wear, but her tomato plant and geranium survived okay, despite the collection of hailstones in the pots.

I cooked us all a nice meal and even had leftover steak, from which I made a Ribeye McMuffin with Egg (with a healthy whole wheat English muffin) this morning. When McDonalds starts serving that meal, they'll get my business for sure!

Double Double Feature

Okay, now what could be cooler than a double feature of "The Incredible Hulk" followed by "Iron Man?" Nothing!

No spoilers. Keep reading!

Saturday night was a perfect night for the drive-in. My buddy Doug and his whole family went with us to Plymouth. This is the time of year when the theater's concession stand starts getting crowded, so we ate before we left. We stopped by Little Ceasar's and picked up pizza and sat around and chatted for a while, then made the short trip down to the drive-in. From Doug's house, it's a really short trip because they live in a spot where back roads bypass two speed trap towns that we ordinarily travel through every week. The towns are no joke. When they post 35 miles per hour, they mean 35. Their main source of revenue is from speeding ticket fines. I think they have Mad Max's Interceptor vehicle from the 80s standing by in case it's needed.

When we got to the theater we pulled up next our blue poles as usual, and got out the chairs. We spread a blanket on the ground for Sera to play on and I ran in to get the popcorn. We always tell Sera to stay on the blanket so she knows where her boundaries are. When I got back, Sera asked for her baby's blanket, which I dutifully got from the car. She laid it down next to her blanket, thus extending her permitted travel area! This girl is a precocious one. Uncle Doug brought back cotton candy for his two youngest and Sera got to share in the sugary goodness. I figure they owed me at least one sugared-up kid. Back when their 16-year old was eight, I took him and his then-teenaged uncle to a movie and then bowling. We went to Seven-Eleven to get a 44-oz. Slurpee right before I brought him home, and they reported that he bounced off the walls for hours. At the time I thought I was safe from retribution, but I was mistaken!

When the sun set and the movie began, we settled in to watch. "The Incredible Hulk" did not disappoint! Unlike the Ang Lee film, which I didn't think was bad, this movie was great. I think it was almost as good as Iron Man. It captured all the right beats of the tragedy that is the Hulk's story. It showed Bruce Banner as a responsible guy on the run, and trying to get out from under the curse of his gamma-irradiated alter ego. Like "Iron Man," there are nods to the past, some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) in-jokes, and of course the ubiquitous Stan Lee cameo. Every time I see Stan on the screen, though, I always think that it's too bad that co-creator Jack Kirby couldn't have lived to see this.

Marvel Productions has really done a good job establishing a new paradigm for their superhero movies. Seeing both these movies together, you really do get the sense that both characters live in the same world. It doesn't appear to be the same world that the movie Daredevil, Fantastic Four and X-Men live in (I haven't seen "Ghost Rider" yet), but I do think Spider-Man and the Punisher as portrayed in the movies would fit in well. It will be interesting to see what they do next as far as establishing future crossovers.

It's a great time to be a comic book fan at the movies!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there.

I have found that being a father is the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I'll give you an example: Last night, we went to the drive-in to see "The Incredible Hulk" and "Iron Man," and Sera was awakened at 2 AM from all the cars leaving and didn't go back to sleep for the whole ride home. She struggled to sleep even after we put her in her crib last night. Finally, at 4 AM, I went to get her out because she was crying. As she lay in the bed, she jumped around and punched me in the eye! But one thing made the entire sleepless night worthwhile was when she kissed me on the cheek. Magi and I often pretend to be asleep and the one of us that remains awake tells her that the way to wake the sleeping parent is to kiss them on the cheek. So, when she kissed me on the cheek, I actually did wake up and gave her a hug and she told me, "I love you."

There is nothing better than this.