Captivate and Inspire

Along the same lines as the previous post: (this is old news by now)

I love seeing movies in the movie theater; nothing beats a great movie theater experience. Recently, Tiff and I saw Juno, which was great, and the movie we saw before that was Transformers. It's been kind of a slow year for movies. Nothing really looks good to me anymore.

Anyways, the Oscars happened. Juno won one. Another movie I like a lot - I didn't hear about it until it was pretty much out of the theaters - is Once, which also won one, for best original song. It's a good category for it to win as it's about singer-songwriters and stars singer-songwriters. Here's the song, one of several great ones from the movie:

The old news is the story of Marketa Irglova, one of the two winners for Once, who was brought back on stage to give her speech. Turned out to be a pretty good one as acceptance speeches go:

"Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you."

How the story relates to the previous post is that I, however, really, really like the closing words of the other winner, Glen Hansard, who spoke before the music ushered them off prematurely.

"This is amazing. Make art. Make art. Thanks."

Make art. Captivate and inspire.

Art Museum

Last weekend, waiting for the U2 movie showtime, I went to the Hirshhorn sculpture museum. A great part about DC is that most of the museums are free and therefore, it makes sense to visit them this way, almost as a time filler.

I've been to the Hirshhorn museum a few times. It's permanent exhibits aren't all too exciting, but the section that changes every few months is definitely cool. Right now, they have a collection about dreams all done with film. It's pretty crazy, as most of it is not too exciting, but two or three pieces were incredibly interesting.

I was afraid that the doll hanging on the wall with some maniacal guy's face projected onto it would give me bad dreams - it didn't - and I wish I could revisit the lights in the cloudy room. The one that I keep thinking about, however, was a movie of a typewriter in the snow. There was no sound, no real action, just a typewriter slowly getting covered in snow. I have no idea what it means, but I like it.

(This is the cloudy room with the light. In writing a post about art I feel I needed pictures. This is the only picture I could find on the internet from the exhibit.)

I'll admit that I don't really understand art. I don't know what separates good art from bad art or if there even is bad art. It has something to do with emotions and beauty and meaning, but in the end, it seems it just needs to captivate and inspire, something U2 did easily.

After the Hirshhorn, we went to the Natural History Museum where we saw a nature photography exhibit. Pretty amazing pictures, each and every one of them. My favorite, the one that captivated and inspired me, was of a rowboat in the fog. It was taken by a thirteen year-old.

(Again, I couldn't find the one I'm talking about. I must not be a very good blogger. I like this one though. It's somehow patriotic. Here are some others.)

Starbucks

I own stock in Starbucks, a little more than 1.9 shares. I bought it a while ago, after seeing, the Starbucks produced, Akeelah and the Bee on opening night and joining in on the only standing ovation I've ever seen at a movie theater. Different cultures are so cool.

Then I started thinking about what I already knew about Starbucks. They have high-priced coffee that is good enough to turn me on to coffee, which I never thought possible. Their everywhere and always have people in them at all hours of the day. And they originated in Seattle, which I've wanted to go to ever since the Real World Seattle, about ten years ago, because it looks cool in a rainy day kinda way and, for no apparent reason, reminds me of this great song, "White Daisies Passing" by this guy from Seattle named Rocky Votolato.
So, when I found out soon there after that they treat their employees decently and the high prices in part allow them to offer benefits to their employees, I decided "what the hay, why not?" and put $64 into the company. My "investment" is now worth about $37. You win some, you lose some.

Anyways, all that is just so I can mention the interesting move the company is making today. They are closing the doors to all their stores today for three and a half hours, 5:30 to 9 this evening, in order to train their baristas how to make the perfect espresso. While the - umm - muted guerrilla in me wishes they were doing it for some grand cause, like closing their doors to raise awareness for - I don't know - freeing Tibet or something, I have to applaud them on this. It's always important to make sure you are doing something right, even if it takes a little longer, or costs a small fortune in sales.

U2 in 3D

I went into DC to see U23D last night at the Natural History Museum. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. While I enjoy the music of U2, I would not say that I'm a huge fan. This show is insanely good though, and I would highly recommend anyone and everyone to go see it. Plus, it's in 3D! How cool is that!

Tiff's been to a real-life U2 concert, which she says was the greatest show she's ever been to. For someone with my limited concert-going experience to say that would be meaningless, but Tiff has seen them all... The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Cinderella and Poison, and I have to include Slash. Anyways, she also says the movie experience, while nowhere near the same, is still nothing short of genius.

After the show, we were debating if any other band could pull it off. I don't think any other band is good enough to have an entire movie of their concert for the movie going experience, except of course, Hannah Montana. Maybe I'm just a bit U2 intoxicated right now, but every song they have is so meaningful to so many people and so powerful in every way, shape, and form that their concert is unrivaled. The crowd can carry the lyrics throughout the entire show, not just one or two songs and without sounding all garbled together, but then Bono sings and you just feel it. It's hard to explain. Go see the movie.

Another great part is that it's in 3D. This is the first time since I was a wee little lad that I got to wear 3D glasses for something. While at first it was a little strange, it made for a completely different experience, and I definitely will be checking out some more 3D shows in the future. It's a couple extra bucks plus the cost of getting into the city, but it makes for more of an experience and is worth every penny.

Idolizing Nobodies

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I would not be watching American Idol this year. Well, I have a confession to make. I've watched it the past two weeks. It's a sad, sad truth, but they got me when I heard that the contestants could play instruments. Plus, it was the Hollywood week which might be my favorite part of the show.

I do have a lot of least favorite parts of the show. I hate the backstories of the people. I hate the banter between the judges and between Ryan Seacrest and the judges. More than that banter I hate the banter between the contestants and the judges, and I wish they had rule that the contestants couldn't talk when they're being judged. I hate half the contestants and of the half I do like, I actually secretly hate half of them. I hate the songs they make them sing and I wish they could sing whatever they wanted. At this point, all the songs that they sing have been sung already. I hate how they torment the contestants and draw out the show for no apparent reason. I basically hate the show.

Yet... I still watch it. I'm a sad, sad man. I should make a list of good things about the show. Hollywood week, which is where the final audition takes place, but that's already done. There's usually one, maybe two, songs every show that are good, really good. Let's see... I like singing in the shower afterwards. That's about it. Oh, I, unfortunately, usually like the ensemble things they do, even though they're usually the worst performances of all; I just like hearing the different voices all together.

Last year's group sucked, so I had said no more this year. Plus, Tiff and I were watching Biggest Loser, which comes on at the same time, and I was getting into it, but then they changed the rules on that so I got mad and cut it out of my list of shows.

Anyways, I do have my favorites. But once they're out, I'm giving up on American Idol, maybe even before then. The thing is though, what else is on? Another CSI? I really need a television sacrifice. Oh! Dexter's on CBS now... it's the first season, everyone should watch it. At least, everyone older than 18 with a sound mind and twisted sense of humor.

More Local News

I live in Manassas, VA. Manassas is building a giant parking garage right off of main street. It's a much needed addition to the city, as it has an underused commuter train station and an overused highway exit. The crazy part is though that it's five stories tall. All the buildings in Old Town Manassas are three stories by my count. Maybe I'm just adding them up wrong. Let's hope it goes underground.

I drive past this parking structure construction everyday, so it kinda tickled my noggin and I went looking to learn more about it. So I read the local paper, which was a little interesting, and found a local blog, which is interesting for all the wrong reasons.

The blog is written by a City Councilman, and while it's not a daily read, it's pretty impressive how well he keeps up with it, writing about both political stuff and city stuff. The strange part is, especially coming from an elected official, nowhere on the thing does it say who he is. There is no name. There is no title. I had to read through quite a few posts just to learn he is, in fact, a City Councilman and no, he is not running for Mayor.

Anyways, I'm adding this mystery man's blog to my exclusive list of links, replacing, the much loved but under-appreciated, Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century. If you keep up with it, maybe you can see the completed Manassas Skyline come June of 2008, in all it's parking garage splendor.

Middle School Banking

Going against my usual grain here... This year marks my 10 year high school graduation. I could say I'm getting old, but to be honest, the further away I get from some of those memories the better. Now, next year being ten years since I started college... that's a depressing thought.

I bring it up just to say that it's been awhile since I was in school, let alone middle school, and while I'm sure there have been a lot of necessary and beneficial changes to the schooling environment, I was surprised when I found this in my local paper under the "winners" section:

"Synergy One Federal Credit Union and Gainesville Middle School, which will jointly sponsor a new banking branch at the school with the official opening at 1 p.m. on Tuesday. This is the second middle school branch Synergy One has opened in the last two years and the first in the Gainesville area."

Winner! If I try really hard I could see some reasoning behind putting a bank in a middle school... help teach the kids about the importance of savings or something, but it seems like a pretty big stretch to me. Plus, from the bank's perspective's, who's it attracting? Middle schoolers? New teachers? I'm guessing old teachers already have a bank, as well as parents of middle schoolers. It just doesn't seem to make any sense.

But hey, I don't know much about schools these days, maybe it's all the rage. Maybe it's hip. Maybe it's happening.

My Valentine's Feast

Last year, Tiffany unleashed the greatest Valentine's of all time. This year the onus was on me to, as Bon Jovi says, make a memory. While I stepped up to the plate, ready for the challenge, my home run swing at making the best Valentine's ever fell far short. I could write a thousand li-i-i-i-ines, about what went wrong, but the bottom line is cooking easy is easy, cooking hard is not easy.

With the savings challenge in mind, I vowed to cook something myself for my beautiful wife, who cooks for me almost all the time. Normally, we would be heading to a fancier restaurant than normal and maybe order a bottle of wine. Not going out to eat has been a successful part of our sacrifice, with some new and strange meals. Wednesday night Tiff threw all these odds and ends into the crockpot, the main ingredient being lentils. Both of us looked at it with sour faces as we were dishing it out, but by golly, it was good. It was really good.

So I knew we weren't going anywhere, so I had to make something nice. Tiff likes shrimp and shrimp sounds nice and expensive to me, so I set out to cook shrimp for Tiffany on Valentine's. I think this was my first mistake as I've never cooked shrimp, or any other type of seafood before and has no idea how to go about it. I searched the internet where I found a recipe that looked a little complicated but interesting enough to try.

The morning of I went to the store for ingredients. I bought shrimp, mozzarella cheese, roasted red peppers, pasta, sauce, ice cream, strawberries, and flowers. The recipe also called for prosciutto and pano bread crumbs. In my head, honey baked ham and a loaf of bread would make suitable substitutes. Hindsight is 20/20.

Tiff was determined to snoop when I got home and I ended up ruining, freely and willingly, the surprise of what was for dinner. She questioned it and had a good chuckle at my expense before I ever got started cooking. This kind of irritated me as I was both excited and mainly nervous about my attempts at cooking something new.

Long story short, once I started cooking I new I was in over my head and immediately scrapped my Shrimp Nicholas recipe of wrapped butterflied shrimp, choosing instead to make a mish-mash of flavors to cook the shrimp in. Then I just threw it romanticly over basic pasta, with essentially a jar of red pasta sauce. Mmmm.

Tiff, always the good sport, said she liked it, but she pushed the second half to the side in favor of a salad, and now, hours after the fact, all I can taste is garlic. At least, the flowers look good, but I think I still have a few years of Valentine's Days to catch up with her.

And tonight, I think both of us are very much looking forward to some leftover lentil soup. Happy Valentine's Day.

Another Steroids Story

I'm down to two pills of steroids a day, which means I only have four and a half more weeks to go! At the allergist that awful day, Tiff and I were in the waiting room waiting to make sure my meds were working. The receptionist started up a small conversation with Tiff.

Receptionist: They put me on a long course of steroids once.
Tiffany: Oh yeah?
R: Yeah, it really gives you quite the appetite.
T: Oh?
R: Yeah, I remember being in the store and seeing packaged liver and thinking I had to eat it, right there. I've never liked liver before, but I wanted to eat it raw, right off the shelf.
T: Eww.
R: Yeah, watch out. He'll be hungry... and extremely irritable.
T: Well then, I better shut up and start cooking.

I love my wife. While I have yet to come across liver or any inkling of a liver craving, I have been eating like a madman. It's strange too. I'll eat until my belly is full - I'll be very aware that my belly is full - and still, I'm searching the kitchen for more food. I'm full but very hungry at the same time. Part of me just thinks this is all in my head and I eat constantly because I've finally been given a free pass to do so.

My liver story is actually much less disturbing. Bananas are a food that I don't ever remember enjoying. When Tiff put four pounds of them in the cart last week at CostCo, I only accepted it after learning the four pounds cost $1.29. A couple days later, I was looking through the dusty parts of our cupboards in search of food, when like a beacon from across the room all those beautiful bananas caught my eye. I struggled a bit getting the first one open as it was still a bit green, but good god was it good.

Tiff has since then cut me back to one banana at a time. There are three left... make that two.

The Medicinal Moon

My list of places I would like to go has slowed it's growth considerably recently. It was easy for a long time to find new and interesting places to go. I would either stumble upon a cool picture or hear of something interesting and hope that Wikipedia has a picture of it.

Everything changed when, just before Christmas, I heard of the Interstellar Light Collector. It captures the power of lunar light and focuses it at you in some sort of weird therapeutic procedure. It was the first place on my list that was less "wouldn't it be cool if..." and more "I need to do this before I die." And well, since then nowhere seems as cool.

Before you label me a freak, I freely admit that I'm open to some of the eccentrics of alternative medicine. Perhaps it's a holistic approach, but that sounds too Birkenstock. I would, however, love to try acupuncture and maybe a hot stone massage to unblock my chi, or whatever. Just last month, I bought a jar of lavender scent with sticks sticking fashionably out of it, because I heard it might help me sleep. It's right next to my bed.My sister, hi, Becky!, gave me the idea. She heard about it from the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook game. The verdict is still out as to how effective it is.

But this giant moonlight mirror is so different than anything I thought reasonable that it has captured my imagination and six weeks after learning of it, I'm still thinking about it. Check out the testimonials. Just about everyone says something along the lines of feeling relaxed, energized and all-over good, but then there are these lines, "toothache gone within hours," "my appendix scar faded as well as some other old scars" by morning, "arthritis and tinnitus are greatly reduced," and - hold the phone - "after a 3rd moonlight experience, my asthma seems to be gone." Moonlight it seems works miracles. If only moonlighting worked the same way, as I work overnights.

If anything, I think it's definitely worth seeing what happens under the intense moonlight. I predict that it will prevent the brain tumor that will surely kill me in my old age, thus I will live forever. Then maybe I'll get to actually visit the other places on my list of places that I want to go.

Upgrades

Something strange has been happening to me lately. I have been trying to improve things, recently, things I'm not suppose to improve. I can't seem to stop myself.

Let me back up and make clear that I have not taken any proactive steps to improve anything... well, maybe myself, but that's another blog entirely. I'm more of an idea guy. What happens is, I'll be doing something, going about life like it ain't no thing, when right in the middle of the most common, mundane thing I'll have a thought that I can't help but share with the world.

For example, "They should put the parking lot under the Wal-Mart!" I had this thought walking across the Wal-Mart parking lot from my car. I realize that it would never happen, that Wal-Mart has it's own savings challenge, and it would never fork out the extra money to build it's store over the parking lot, but I do think it would make a great improvement... for all stores. It would be like a suburban Big Dig Revolution! There would be so much more space, and I wouldn't have to see an empty parking lot of street lights glowing in my window at night.

Most of the time, my improvements aren't quite so profound. TV commercials are like cannon-fodder to my always-upgrading mind. "What the should have done is ended with the dancing dog." The sad underbelly here is that I'm actually paying close enough attention to critique.

But critique is a harsh word, and I don't think I'm complaining about any of these things that I'm improving. It's more that I'm genuinely hoping to improve them. It's not the flaw that I see, it's the improvement. And aren't we suppose to be trying to improve the world, or at least the world around us. Maybe one of my ideas will catch on and I'll leave my footprint on mankind!

I've had so many of these random improvement thoughts, matched by my obvious delusions of grandeur, that I thought about extending my blog empire with John Duffy's Upgrades, but after some thought, I was afraid it would sound too whiny and ultimately decided that it would not be an improvement to anybody's life... namely mine.

...but, who's counting?

I think it's time to draw everyone's attention to the semi-new Scrabble Counter to the right --> See, over there on the sidebar? John and I are now involved in an intense war of daily scrabbling. It's time to draw your attention to it because I am winning right now (also because I think that a slew of brutal losses -before we started keeping a talley- was the underlying cause of John's recent onset of unexplainable hives).

We lead highly exciting lives... Keep an eye on it as we battle it out.

In other exciting news:
Our cat has now learned to sit for treats. John doesn't find this blog-worthy.

Hives are for the Bees

I'm not a fan of long posts, so I apologize in advance.

As I've mentioned, I was on steroids for hives a couple of weeks ago. And as I mentioned, they did a lot for me, but didn't get rid of the hives. I wish that that was the end of the story, but there's more. So last Tuesday, when I stopped taking the steroids, I still had pretty bad hives. Bad enough that I was still taking claritins as much as possible just to stop itching.

Wednesday morning at work, just before I got off, I felt hives coming on pretty strong and without any meds from home, I took what was available at work... two benadryl. I found relief, but I was woozy driving home before I drifted off to sleep in bed. I did not sleep very well, and around four when I woke up, I didn't feel very good. I thought it was just the Benadryl making me feel funny, but then Tiff saw me and said something to the effect of, "Oh my god!" Apparently, my eyes were more or less swollen shut. It didn't surprise me, and I just said my throat feels funny.

We rushed to the hospital as my doctor's office was closed for the day. I was reluctant to go because I wasn't sure it constituted an emergency, but as is becoming the norm, my new wife won out. The ER folks were very nice. They set me up with stronger steroids, stronger anti-histamine's and heartburn medication, which they said acts both to counteract the steroids' side-effects and is an anti-histamine for a different kind of histamine.

I sat there a long time, and as my eye swelling went down and my throat went back to normal, I thought about posting about how boring the ER is compared to what you see on TV. We were there for a few hours, and there were no multiple gunshot victims or seven car pile-ups, no hatchets lodged behind eyes - there wasn't even any one who came in with something minor but it turned out to be an inoperable brain tumor. Just a lot of kids and a lady with a toothache. I would say that my situation definitely was an emergency comparatively. So they declared me healthy and sent me home stocked with more meds, all the while, with me still scratching. - There's so much more though that all that thought just gets a mention.

The next day, Thursday, I called my doctor up for a referral to an allergist. Concerned, she called for me and set up an appointment for that afternoon. Then she sent me to be tested for strept throat. As I'm waiting for the lady with the long Q-Tip - they have their own waiting room for lab work - my throat starts to feel funny. In the brilliance that is me, I wait for my test, then leave the doctor's. As I started wheezing in the car, I had the thought that I should turn back towards the doctor's, or maybe even the hospital, but boldly I continued home.

I told myself that I just needed something to clear it up... Claritin, Benadryl, it didn't matter. But as I got closer, and my wheezing became more audible, I began to worry. It would make sense to worry here but I was worried about the allergist's appointment that afternoon and whether or not it was okay to take anything before the doctor sees me. I make it home, climb the stairs and call the allergist. By this point, I need to take something. My wheezing is audible and uncontrollable and big breaths don't feel like enough. The receptionist notices this and asks if I'm okay. Then she tells me to get there immediately if I can get there. Otherwise, go to the hospital.
Tiff drives me there, twenty minutes in a new direction, which for her is a big deal in and of itself, but when about halfway there, I say through big breaths "Okay, if my throat closes up completely..." and then give the little bit of advice I know from my three hour First Aid class as I'm holding onto expired Benadryl FastMelts.

We make it there, only to get lost in the office park. When we finally walk in, I'm admittedly feeling better. It was like walking onto a movie set though, and I was the big name star. Everybody stopped what they were doing. "Oh you made it!" "Are you okay?" "Come right back, we'll do the paperwork later." Oh man, it was great! Although the first thing they did was take my blood pressure... something that's been happening all too often with all my recent trips to the doctor. That morning it was somewhere around 125 over 80, which was slightly higher than it normally is for me; right then, my blood pressure was 175 over 100. "Are you scared?" asked the nurse.

So in the end, I lived. After about eight hours of my skin feeling like it's crawling or shedding or something very painful, a nice talk with the doctor, a trip to the phlebotomist, back to the allergist for a painful shot in the butt, and back to the pharmacist for the second time in two days, I returned home and took a bath with oatmeal in it - it's supposed to help. I'm on much stronger steroids now for a much longer period, as well as some other meds. And I have to carry around an EpiPen to give myself shots when my life depends on it.

Here are some pictures from that night, after all the meds and after all the swelling went down. My legs are the worse of it but by "legs," I mean where I wear underwear, my thighs mostly, and nobody wants to see that much of me.
Later that night, I finally admitted to Tiff, "Yes, I was scared." I was very, very scared.