Over-connected

OK, so I've had the blog thing for awhile now.
Then I got into MySpace. (not a big fan)
Then it was Facebook. (this is now my fav).
My friend George got me doing Twitter (still can't figure out the point).
Plus I have pages for Aims on MySpace and Facebook that I update.
I am starting to understand why the Unabomber disconnected from everyone and went to live in a shack.

W

Saw it this weekend and thought it was pretty good. The acting was incredible. I couldn't believe that was Thandie Newton and Condi. Brolin was amazing. My fav though was Stacey Keach who played W's preacher/advisor. He was really awesome.

Bad movies

Two stinkers...
1. In the theater, Tracy and I saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. This is getting good reviews generally but it was so dumb. Huge plot holes. NO laughs (gum and puke aren't funny in a rom-com). No chemistry. I have no idea what EW and others are thinking by talking this one up so much. Maybe I'm just old. But personally, a good movie should transcend age (Juno did!).
2. On DVD, "A Good Year" with Russell Crowe. Tracy really wanted to see this. It was terrible (she agreed). It was horribly directed (Ridley Scott should stick to action flicks!) and horribly edited. Wasn't funny or touching. If wine is the central focus of a movie, I'm usually a fan. That's how bad this was. So far, this is my pick for the worst movie of the year.

Stupid people make me laugh

I voted ... now leave me alone

So, I got my mail-in ballot in today. So, how do I tell all the damn political people to quit bugging my ass!?!?!

Other crap ...

Saw "Flash of Genius" over the weekend. Good flick. Not sure if the point is how an obsessive personality made him lose his whole family or how one man could give up everything to fight for what is right. An idiot or a martyr? Still interesting especially since it was about windshield wipers.

Had two soccer games last weekend. Won one. Lost one. Season is going well. The kids are fun and my two other coaches are great.

Saw Uncle Bill, Tannae and Billy over the weekend. Uncle Bill is looking good. He's lost 40 pounds and seems to be getting around great. We're hoping to see him in Tucson when we go for Spring Training in March.

Typical McCain supporter?

Hall(elu)Yeah!

OK, I know I complain about this every year, but this year, there appears to be hope.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced the nominees for this year's class and they FINALLY have a great one.
Metallica.
Although they were eligible last year (when MADONNA got in), the hall realized they should throw a bone to actual rock and put the Bay Area boys on the nominee list.
So, thank you, "music experts" for giving us that one.
Now for the complaints (or in other words, the other nominees):

• Run-D.M.C. (I'm not a fan of rap but I will actually concede this one. This group opened doors and eyes and also crossed genres with rock when few others would admit to sampling ... yes, Vanilla Ice I'm talking to you).
• The Stooges ... Iggy Pop certainly is an icon. Don't know much of The Stooges. Hard to think of them as HOF material.
• Jeff Beck ... he's not in already? This should get cleared up.
• Wanda Jackson ... huh?
• Little Anthony and the Imperials ... huh (part 2)?
• War ... one-hit wonders are not HOF
• Bobby Womack ... seriously, did they just pick names out of the phone book
• Chic ... I have a hard time putting disco in the HOF. They were huge for about a year or two. Not HOF.

I know what you're saying: "That's it? That's all?" Yup, those are the choices. The top five vote-getters get in. If Metallica doesn't make it, I just might blow a gasket.

In case you are wondering, here are some of the artists still not in the Hall (or even been nominated):

• KISS ... this is a travesty to the point of being ridiculous. What do these people want? Great music? Check. Influencial? Name a band today that doesn't owe at least something to them. Longevity? Duh! Hit records? How about dozens plus the No. 1 song in the country and a Grammy for "Beth."
• The Moody Blues ... yup, not in.
• Rush ... just a travesty
• Alice Cooper ... should go in the year after KISS
• Stevie Ray Vaughn ... see how stupid this is?
• Deep Purple
• Yes
• Bad Company (if only Bobby Womack had been the lead singer, huh?)
• Neil Diamond (c'mon, admit it ...)
• Cheap Trick
• Judas Priest
• Iron Maiden
• Journey
• Peter Gabriel (for his videos alone, he should be in)
• Bon Jovi (eligible for the first time this year and they should get in sometime ... although Runaway is still their best song IMHO)

At least if Metallica makes it, the show will be worth watching. Fortunately Jethro Tull isn't on the nominee list so we don't have a Grammy screw-up AGAIN!

Martin and Frank

So, this weekend started on Friday as I got some tix from a friend for Martin Short (of SNL and SCTV fame) at the Union Colony Civic Center. Dono, Dan and I met up for dinner and more than a few drinks beforehand. Good show. Not great, but definitely had some laughs.

Saturday we had our second soccer game of the year. Got creamed but my guys made one of the best goals I've ever seen in little kid ball, so I'll call it a wash.

That night, Tracy and I decided to get all dressed up as we had tickets to see Frank Sinatra Jr. at the UCCC. I'm a huge fan of Sr. but I didn't have my hopes to high for Jr. I was mistaken. Along with a 30-plus-piece orchestra, Jr. went through a ton of his dad's tunes. His voice isn't even close to Sr. but his phrasing and timing were perfect. The big band sound was so sweet. "I've got the World on a String" was definitely a highlight. Missed some of my favs such as "I get a kick out of you" and "Chicago" but it was still fun. Met Andy and Christi for drinks at the new Kress Theater after.

Here's a pic my friend Andy took:

The other big thing from the weekend was that the boys, for some reason, got on a kick to play racquetball. We played Saturday day at the Greeley Rec Center and they had so much fun, they made me take them again on Sunday and they both loved it. This was a pure joy moment for me as racquetball is one of my favorite things to do. The boys seem to have found my excitement in the game and they are surprisingly quick learners. I sure hope this continues.

Check it out

Check out the home of Pretty Like Deer.
This is the brainchild of Allyson Byerly, a designer I work with at Aims. In her spare time, she designs non-Aims stuff for greeting cards, invitations and t-shirts, with a strange obsessive focus on cruiser bikes.
She's extremely talented and very funny. She's even shooting her whiteboard in her office that she frequently updates with stuff that she finds amusing.

A sad day

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-EU-Britain-Pink-Floyd.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

I've seen Pink Floyd five times in concert and Richard Wright was always amazing. Dude's super talented and a class act. I'll listen to WYWH tonight in his honor.

Burn(ed)

A couple reviews from the weekend:
1776: Stampede Theater Group's version was very fun. My buddy, Andy, was in it and it was great to see him on stage (normally he's a director). Kids even liked it (except for the sex jokes!) Pic is Andy with the boys.

Metallica: New album is sweet. I loved St. Anger but I understand why many people didn't. It was like Kill 'Em All and this newest one is like Master of Puppets which is a little more accessible. The lone bummer: The Guitar Hero play is only for XBox 360 (grrrrr).

Burn After Reading: When EVERY single funny moment is in the previews, you know there's a problem. I thought the previews looked great and I thought we might have another Raising Arizona but instead it was more like The Ladykillers. Pitt and Malkovich were awesome but that's about it.

Rockies: They suck but Sunday's game was fun to watch.

Broncos: Haven't paid much attention but I watched the second half Sunday (after the Rox) and it was a great ending even though we should have lost.

Weird weekend

We celebrated Tracy's birthday on Friday with an awesome trout BBQ at Ruth's ... that's not the weird part.
On Saturday, we had Andy's first soccer game of the season ... I'm still hoarse from coaching but that's not the weird part.
Saturday night, we saw "Bottle Shock" with Andy and Christi Segal (excellent flick with major flashbacks for those of us in Northern California in those days!) ... still not the weird part.
On Sunday, I took little Andy to the Rockies (Alex has no interest) and we had good seats in the club level (nice Wells Fargo 2for1 thing!). I love going to game with just him because we really get to enjoy the game and just have fun together. By coincidence, the Segals were also there but up in the third level seats. A couple innings in, I got a call that Andy Segal was being taken to the hospital. So, I went up to their seats and sent Christi to the hospital while I watched their kids and took them home. Fortunately, everything was OK with Andy and my Andy had a good time hanging out with Nick as the pictures below show. But it was a strange day. The only thing that was normal was that the Rox lost ... ugh.


Andy and Nick liked that we were near the purple row so they wanted a pic.

Rally caps and rally towels couldn't help.


But they didn't care!

Long weekend

Nice to have three days off again.
Started off well Friday as Andy and I played Highland Hills (actually shot well) and then went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then saw "Traitor" (it was OK, but I'll admit I was tired and I'm pretty sure I dozed off in parts ... not a great sign).
Saturday, we took the boys to the grand opening of the new Toys R Us in Fort Collins. They had tons of characters in costume. Alex and Andy only cared about the Star Wars ones...


That night, Tracy and I went to dinner at Biaggi's (great Gluten-free menu) and then saw "Vicky Christina Barcelona" (the new Woody Allen flick). Very good movie. Great characters and dialogue.

Sunday was set aside for cleaning the entire garage and it sucked. But I'm glad it's all done now (I still had Christmas decorations in there to put away).

Monday was the last day at the pool and they had a nice potluck lunch. Kids swam for six hours and were exhausted (so was I).

Also, I finished Veronica Mars. They definitely need a movie to wrap it all up. It was an impressive series. Not sure I'd agree with Kevin Smith that it's one of the best shows ever but it's really good.

Now I'm starting "Rescue Me" from Season 1. Heard so much about this and NetFlix is a great way to catch up on these shows. The 45-minute shows are perfect for timing my stationary bike rides.

Not much

Nothing new in my world. Saw "Longshots" last weekend with the kids. Cute but nothing great (better ending than I expected).

I am teaching a racquetball class from 10-11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I need more students so, if you know anyone ...). Just call me Professor Fiel.

Also, I'm coaching Andy's soccer team again this year. Working with Brad Shade and Scott Horton so I'm really happy to have such great help.

I'm also taking racquetball on Tuesday nights and playing softball on Wednesday nights. With all of this exercise, I better start losing more weight (oh, yeah, I'm not focused on weight, just staying in shape ... blah, blah, blah!).

We're here to help ...

Last three-day weekend

Back to a normal-hour week this week.
The weekend was nice because we didn't have much on the agenda at all. Took the boys to the "Clone Wars" movie after school on Friday. They loved it and declared it the greatest movie ever. For me, it provided a wonderful 90 minutes of naptime.
Tracy and I went to "Tropic Thunder" on Saturday with Christi and Andy. Andy and I loved it and the girls thought it was "ehh." I really thought it was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time.
It was a boring weekend which makes for a boring blog, but it was really nice.

Express

With Tracy out of town and the boys staying with Grandma last night, I figured I'd take advantage and go see "Pineapple Express" (since I knew Tracy would have no interest).

The flick was pretty funny. Some big laughs. A lot like the Cheech and Chong movies. Two stoners who get in or cause a bunch of trouble. Mixing in the Apatow era is interesting and made for some great lines. Some of the characters are a little strange (Rogen is dating a high school girl!?!?!) but still funny.

The best part of the movie, however, was the soundtrack. Starting with "Electric Avenue" by Eddy Grant and moving into some classic reggae with Bob Marley and then a little-known Peter Tosh song was sweet. The final credits roll with a new song by Huey Lewis and the News called "Pineapple Express." It's amazing because the lyrics are pretty funny but it sounds like it could have been produced in the 80's (even sounds a little like "Hip to be Square."

Honesty

Wet

So, Wednesday we had a huge storm hit Greeley (something like 3-4 inches in an hour or so) and many people had flooded basements (not ours, happily).

On Friday, we took the boys to Elitch's and the first thing they wanted to do was ride the water ride (basically, you go down a big hill into water that sprays about 200 feet in the air and then you stand on the bridge after you get out of your boat so the next wall of water hits you, too).

This is how they looked:

After that, they wanted to spend most of the rest of the day at the water park part of Elitch's and Tracy and I lounged out as they played (not a bad day at all). When the sun went down, we went on a few more rides before another storm rolled in and sent us home even wetter than the water ride.
Saturday Tracy left on a business trip and the boys and I just recovered from an exhausting Friday by swimming a little and then renting the Water Horse movie on OnDemand. I was shocked because it was actually pretty darn good.
Sunday we went to Fort Morgan for a family reunion which was very nice and pretty toasty so the boys enjoyed splashing around in the Fort Morgan pool (which is pretty huge!). The pool closed when somebody spotted a floater (unlike Caddyshack, it wasn't a candybar ... sorry for the mental picture). But storms were rolling in also and we drove home through another gully-washer.
But then when we got home, this was the view out our front door ...

Vote, Chimp

This weekend saw Swing Vote with Tracy and Space Chimps with the boys.
Chimps was terrible. Boring story. One or two funny lines but it was trying too hard to be clever and failed. The animation was crap, too.
Swing Vote was better than I expected. We mainly saw it because Tracy's aunt and uncle were extras in the final big scene (never saw 'em but I believe 'em). If you can get past the moronic set-up of the movie, it was a pretty good story about politics and how much people change to get elected. Some great ads in the movie for the candidates, talking to the one voter, Costner.
At home, I've been watching Season 2 of Veronica Mars. It's a really good series. I hear I'm going to be pissed at the end of Season 3, but it's a really good show. Too bad I didn't get into it until after it was off the air.
Also, Tracy and I have caught up with Mad Men. What an amazing show! Absolutely brilliant storylines and characters and the acting is fantastic. Believe all the hype.
Other than that, we had a fairly mellow poker night on Friday. I didn't play well and the cards sucked for the most part but it was a fun night. Hopefully we'll get a few more folks next time.
For our last big woo-hoo before the kids go back to school, we're hitting Elitch's this Friday. Should be fun.