QuestionAbel Parenting

I just realized I’ve been tagging entries wrong. Maybe someday I’ll fix it. Not today.

Who is up at 3am? Me, that’s who. Like clockwork and then back to bed. But I am up for a little bit for reasons undisclosed. Things are permeating my sleep and maybe if I write ‘em down, they’ll stop keeping me awake. That and Zachary fussing somewhat. He is getting better, but still not sleeping all night every night, yet.

There’s ideas for plays up in there. Plays that would be best done at the Town and Gown, only I’m not writing them. I’ve already turned in my play and I really want to do it. I have until Tuesday to write these plays, which is a short amount of time. So that will doubtfully happen.

I am reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman and almost to my favorite story by him. “Sunbird.”  Read it!

I am also reading Origins by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith.  It’s very interesting, telling one the history of the Universe in rather accesible terms.  I’ve found myself thinking about the Universe lately.  My thought/questions are whether or not it is symmetrical.  If the Big Bang theory is what happened, it seems to me (and I know nothing of the fancy physics involved, but it’s how my brain interprets) than the Universe would most likely have emerged in a symmetrical spheroid in whatever ether it emerged into.  A giant lattice of swirling energy and matter, and if that is the case, our Solar System would have a myriad of mirror images on different corners of the Universe.

And what of the Milky Way?  Would it be symmetrical as well?  Would all the spiral arms have similar set ups to ours?  Are there a larger number of earth like planets than we think?

And if truly symmetrical, would that work itself down all the way to every chemical reaction firing at exactly the same time, so that even the life formed would develop the same way.  What would happen to affect anything in a different way if that’s the way it is?

And that’s a look into my brain.  I think about this stuff far more than you might think.

Poor Zachary has something called “Chrono-virus.” It might be Corona-virus, but I’m not looking it up right now. It is neither time, nor beer related, just a sicky thing Babies get. Poor guy. Brought on by too much travel and weakened immunity as Sam stopped feeding him breastically. No time, and the pump didn’t work right.

Well, she is going to fix that. She’s off to get a shot and renting the good pump from the hospital. It’s a steal at only ninety dollars a month. Yes, for that low price, you can pump milk without the pump breaking! I’m a little irked that it is so expensive and we can’t just pay a deposit or something of that nature. A well built pump should only need general maintannance, so why so much? I really don’t think that money is going into any sort of fund or thing of that nature. Stupid wealth gap.

But we’re sacrificing to get it, because the baby is important, you see. And he’ll be much better off with momma’s milk than formula. He’s a good guy.

Sam and I have borrowed her nephew, Tyler’s, Wii. Budgetary constraints prevent a purchase of the device, so we were excited to borrow it from him. It has three remotes, one nunchuck, and a couple of games. He had a hard time finding the components – apparently his room is akin to a jungle.

Wii’ve (you see what I did there?) had it for about a week and I’ve played a few games. Mario Kart has been rented and we are enjoying it a bit, even though we aren’t using any sort of “wheel” control right now. The joystick is much easier, we’ve discovered.

As far as “gaming” goes, I’m a little underwhelmed. What excites me is Wii Fit which we will purchase when we save our allowances to the proper amount. It sounds like a great bit of fun and exercise for us. It’s very challenging to do any sort of workout without guidance for me – even if I know what I’m doing. And it also means we can keep an eye on the baby while working out.

The online play is pretty tight with Mario Kart – we love that we don’t have to pay extra for some sort of Wii Live service. I enjoy the browser and various channels. I find it ironic that Nintendo made a fuss when the system came out that it was built for gaming and nothing but, as it’s become more of a fitness device for a lot of people. I do think it will be quite fun to multiplay with a large group.

The control scheme is okay. I’ve played the new Zelda on GameCube and on Wii now, and I found it a bit more accessible on GameCube. I’ve yet to really get far in it – no bow and arrow yet – but I’m a little disappointed. We are hoping to get the new Mario, though, which I think will be quite fun.

Mario Kart Wii is fun, I’ll say that. I think the “wheel” concept is okay, but since the wheel offers no resistance when you use it, it’s not as dexterous as I’d like. I also think the “BS” factor is a little high when you’re winning the race. I haven’t had anything as frustrating as the N64 – when I’d be ahead by a substantial margin and still get caught up to by slowpokes. But the lack of customization for the races is annoying. By that I mean deciding items that you can and can’t use. I don’t think Nintendo really stretched themselves on this outing. Which isn’t that big of a deal since people are going to play it anyway.

I’m still a bit more excited to get xBox Live so I can finally play Left 4 Dead with Christofski online.

I am dangerously close to the purchasing of a shiny new laptop and am hit by the realization that I don’t know what kind to get. Fans and friends may know my main computing is done on an iMac G5, the last of the PowerPC models before Apple made the switch to Intel chips. It’s a nice computer. I am somewhat misfortuned as I discovered it won’t run Netflix movies because it isn’t Intel based, something that saddens and angers me.

I am not a hardcore gamer, and the presence of an xBox 360 and Wii in my house mean any games I purchase will certainly be for those. Yet, my closest associate has an HP meaning Windows base.

A MacBook seems the gut choice for me, but I am not so sure. Apple tends to release brand new whatzits immediately after the grace period ends when I could return whatever I’ve purchased for the new model. I am worried I will get one and all of a sudden the new version will be released.

Add to that a frustrating compatibility with my GPS, and I am flustered. I do so love Macs, but I also enjoy right clicking with a mouse. Maybe Google Chrome should come out for Mac already and my decision might be easier.

The hardware in question is funded by student loans, so I can get a decent book, whatever the model. But what, if not Apple? I possessed a Dell for a few years before it suddenly stopped working. No warning whatsoever. Sam has owned one that is still kicking in it’s fifth year. She swears away HP, but I have heard good things from web denizens.

What I may do, out of sheer madness, is get the MacBook and a cheap netbook as well. But can I justify the ownership of three computers? Plus Sam’s new tablet PC? I am a madman, no doubt. A madman.

What I want most is portability, with excellent battery life. But I also want some decent specs. I was looking at Alienware yesterday and was quite intrigued. But I don’t want to buy a Windows laptop before Windows 7 emerges from it’s pupa. It seems a mug’s game.

I suppose the MacBook will be what I get. It’s something I know I will love. But we shall see what the future holds.

My friend, Mark, sent me a CD the other day full of tunes I greatly enjoy. Lots of artists I hadn’t heard and a few I had. It’s got a good Mason Jennings tune on there. Mason always hits or misses with me. Sometimes, I’m all “This is awesome.” Other times, “Mason, what the Hell are you doing?” But it’s a good track on here.

I have discovered our new car’s CD player is picky on burned CDs. Songs skip at times and certain CDs refuse reading. I may confer with Sam on purchasing a better music solution, but that won’t be for a long while.

There is an Arcade Fire song as well. I’m off the boat with Arcade Fire. They are akin to Sufjan to me – I just don’t dig it. Everyone else is all “God, I love them. They are musically all of it” and I am “What the Hell is this?” This song – Headlights – is okay and fits well with the disc Mark has spun me, so that’s all okay. He makes a fine mixtape.

My friend Lauren makes a good one, too. Since January, Lauren has been supplying Facebook denizens with mixtapes for each month. I am challenging her to make some sort of musical out of these, complete with a libretto to go along with it. Time will tell. I haven’t bothered to burn the disc to listen where I go, but I probably will. The car is the best spot for me to listen to music fully as I don’t have time to sit and listen as I like.

She did send me a copy of The Decemberists latest album, for which I am thankful. I like it. It’s pretty good. That’s about as far into music review as I generally get. I love complete albums, which it is, so that’s nice.

I dig acoustic rock, that type of thing. So I am saving to buy the new Ben Lee album, and the new Ben Harper, and the new Jack Johnson. Someday. It will be happening.

Hi everybody! Sam’s vacation starts on October 11th and continues until she starts her preceptor.  This starts in November and goes through December.  And it takes place in Port Huron.  Yeah, that’s right.  Michigan.  We are planning on a Scotland trip during vacay, but afterward it’s all about MI, my friends.

This is good for me, as it gives me two opportunities for Play Participation at the Town and Gown.  Especially as I’ve submitted a play for directing.  I am quite nervous about the endeavor as I’ve not had a lot of real-world play experience.  But I am good at directing things.  And I really enjoy the Town and Gown.  If you don’t know, it’s an arena style theater.  Not a lot of full-in-the-round plays take place, which I find unfortunate.  It’s a great opportunity for intimate, metadrama.  The crowd’s not that style, though, and I wonder if they ever move (which is unlikely – its a nice location and it seems to fit the needs) if they the theater wouldn’t be better in a traditional style.

But I digress.  The play submitted? you ask.  A version of “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”  I contemplated cobbling together my own, but went with a drama copy instead for ease.  It’s fairly good and hits the main happenings of the original book.  I’m hoping it gets picked – I think it would be quite a popular selection.  Who doesn’t love Sherlock Holmes?  You are a liar if you said “I don’t.”

I’m running sound for “The Bad Seed” at the ol’ Town and Gown, the first community theater I’ve been a part of. A small part. Were we in town longer, I think it would be my main source of socialization. Because it already is. Several very nice folks.

We met the Prchals through the theater and I get along quite well with them. As does Sam. I enjoy the company of all the folks I was in “Cover of Life” with, but we have the most in common with them, and they live close by, so we’ve hung out.

Last weekend we missed their Danish science-fiction movie spectacular. I was a little saddened.

How about that.  200 posts in around a year.  More than a year.  Whatever.

We are back in Oklahoma after a great whirlwind of a vacation in Michigan.  It was quite a lot of fun and we saw most of the people we wanted to, but not everyone.  Now that we are home, we want to move back as soon as we can.  Which is a year away.  Last night brought high winds and we feared death by tornado, which didn’t help the situation.

Zachary did very well on the plane.  We used Benedryl to calm him a little bit and he slept most of the time in the air.  His pacifier helped his ears.  We flew out of Oklahoma City and into Detroit.  Airports are crazy places.

OKC is a small airport compared to most of the International ports I’ve flown through.  It was clean, which is nice, and the seats were comfortable.  There aren’t a lot of eating options compared to many others I’ve been to, so we ate at the Sonic there.  Sonic, without a car, is still pretty tasty.  The flight was unceremonious.  Despite the several flights I’ve been on, planes still scare me a little bit and I’m always worried the worst will happen after we take flight.  Or worse – that we won’t take-off before the end of the runway.  But we made it safely to Detroit and got to walk through the big lighted tunnel.  Zachary loved it.

We had a stroller so the elevator called to us.  The elevator after the lighted tunnel is in a very non-descript area past the escalators and seems very “behind the scenes.”  It was cold that night, and the rental car shuttle took forever to arrive, but we soon got to the rental place.

We rented a Pontiac G6, which was too small for me, so we traded it the next day for a Chevy HHR, which was too small for me.  Both of these “mid-size” vehicles seemed to have less space than my “compact” Toyota Corolla.  I’m somewhat confused by people who don’t understand why people aren’t buying solely American cars.  I’m fairly certain the HHR violates the Geneva Convention, so Chevy could go on trial for crimes against humanity with this thing.  Once we started driving it, we noticed them everywhere, of course.

Thursday night we saw the Red Wings play Calgary. Our seats were almost box seats – ha ha.   And there, the troubles began.  The Wings were winning 4-2 with ten minutes left so I suggested we leave early.  Avoid traffic.  Crowds.  And watching Calgary come back to tie the game 5-5 resulting in overtime.  I was a fool!  A fooooool!

After a stop at Grandpa Grimm’s (the amazing 91-year old man!  SEE him hand-spade the potato Patch!  WITNESS him hand chop wood!) who Zachary loved, we arrived at my parent’s house.  Home.  It was home.  I love my parents, and it was so nice to be with them.  And the excitement didn’t stop there as Sarah arrived.  My little sister, the PR person.  And then my brother arrived.  My brother!  I didn’t even know he was going to be there, but he surprised me, showing up with his new, cooler, fiance, Bobby.  Nic arrived, too and my mother’s grin could not have been removed by a nuclear attack.  She was so happy to have all her kids and one grandchild under the roof.  If Chip’s (my brother) kids had been there, I think she might have been legally high.

Saturday brought Pi-Day and it’s celebration as folks came to see young Zachary.  A few good friends from camp were there (Krog, Jessa, Will) and folks who knew me as a babe.  Mrs. Swisher, a family friend who holds a sacred place in a family tale, brought us a Mother Goose book.  We had said no gifts, but books aren’t really gifts to me.  They are far more.  You can never have too many books.  Christofski arrived with Amanda and they shared the happy news that Zachary will have a playmate in nine months.  And Christofski and I have a DD for that time, too.

And lo, a friend from years past, Ms. Brianne Frucci arrived with husband, Pat.  Brianne is the only Brianne Frucci, so she’s hyphenated her last name to maintain that uniqueness and may find herself reading this with a simple Google search.  Pat (Tucker) is an amazingly likable fellow and we had great fun with a triple date of sorts that evening.  A large group, including this trio of couples, as well as my family and Chris’ Brother Steve and wife Jamie attended the Lumberjacks game that night.  Muskegon Hockey, yeah!

The Lumberjacks (originally the Fury, originally the Lumberjacks) lost to Bloomington by a sad score.  But they did it with zero style as the end of the third period brought a massive five on five brawl between the two teams.  Bouchard (our side) ripped his jersey off and went to town on Bloomington.  My inner caveman came out.  Zachary loved most of the game except the very loud bits (when our side scored).  Afterwar, Buffalo wings were eaten and beers were drank.  It was more fun than we’ve had in a long time.

The next day I saw Christofski’s family and was there for the big announcement to his mother.  She was very excited.  After this, Chris and I hung out with Zach as Sam and Amanda shopped.  It was so nice.  Steve came over and we played Left 4 Dead the way it was meant to be played.

We didn’t do much Monday.  Geocaching fell short, but we did do a little shopping and relaxed. Also visited camp and Lori and Dan and their awesome kids.  I saw the renovated Apache cabin which is amazing.  I like it far better than even the brand new cabins.  It has a large deck, perfect for chilling on, and a nice bathroom inside.  I was tired and not feeling well (Sam had strep throat) so I wasn’t too chatty.  Zach played with Kevin (wh0 was very good with him) and we talked about life and camp.

It was time to leave Muskegon, so we did on Tuesday.  It was hard to say goodbye to the family, but I was very happy my brother made it over.  We headed to Port Huron.  Sam’s mom was very excited to see us, and we had a great time seeing her.  Wednesday and Thursday were a blur of picture taking, and Sam’s Family.  We saw her friend Hugh and his wife on Wednesday night, very nice people, and we visited most of the family.  Friday night we had a romantic evening at the Thomas Edison Inn.

Of course, that was the plan.  But fate intervened and gave us awful service.  In the Ivy Dining Room we sat for around two hours, eating sometimes, but mostly waiting for our food and water glasses.  Sam complained, winning us free breakfast where we had an awesome server.  Saturday brought massages!  It was very nice.  We spent Saturday evening at her stepmom’s playing cards and eating food.  It was relaxing, but we stayed too long and got very tired.

And Sunday we flew home.  There is far more to this whole tale, but that’s basically how it went.  We miss home.  Thankfully, we have distractions to help us through.  Sam has school, I have school and the play.  Which starts next week!  Thankfully, I have sound room duties to fill in the major time I spend offstage.  I have two lines, you know.  But they are VITAL!

Actually… not.  But It’s fun, anyway.

Tomorrow we board that magical plane to whimiscal fairyland!  Well, Michigan, anyway.  Where you can buy things like pretzel salt at the supermarket, and the geocaches come in flavors other than “film can,” and there’s snow that stays for a while.  We’ve got a big week planned, and we are so very excited.  For those who don’t know, we’ll be in Detroit Thursday and then head to Muskegon until Wednesday morning next week.  We’ll finish our time at Sam’s Mom’s house.  She got us a nice night under the Blue Water Bridge with dinner and massages and all that, so that’s slick.

My own mother is helping us with Zachary’s Pi Day Celebration.  Pi Day and St Patrick’s Day fall very close together this year – as they always do.  Afterwards, there is hope of seeing the local hockey team.

Two hockey games in one trip.  Thursday night we are seeing the Red Wings.  Which is cool.  I’ve been to one Wings game and had a fairly good time.  I don’t think I was feeling all that well, but I enjoyed it anyway.  The big city confuses and frightens me at times, I will freely admit.  Not a matter of pride, it’s just how it is.  Call me crazy, but I’m a bit more excited to see the Muskegon game.

Muskegon has had hockey for somewhere around 50 years – pro hockey.  It’s like Slap Shot Live out there.  The team used to be the Lumberjacks, but they moved to Cleveland.  A new team called the Fury was formed and that’s the team I knew for a long time.  They are back to being the Lumberjacks and have better looking jerseys.  A much better name for the area, anyhow.

I never saw a hockey game until college.  And saw quite a few.  When I was living the bachelor life in Muskegon it was always an amazing night to go to a Fury game.  The arena isn’t huge so you can usually get a good view no matter what.  Since it’s relatively small town hockey, you can get glass seats with little trouble most of the time.  It feels far more visceral to be so close and the players seem less mythic in this setting.  I love hockey games.

Hopefully wherever Sam and I end up will have a local team.  There’s less and less minor teams these days, but I remain hopeful.  I wish Muskegon would be the place to end up, but it needs far more horses.

Just watched the new animated Wonder Woman with Sam, and I think we share the opinion on this one.  This movie is awful.

The animation is smooth, but that’s not too hard with the budget here.  The character designs fail to deliver.  The girls’ faces look weird with these giant lips, Steve Trevor looks like he’s forty, and Hades was this giant opulent fat dude.  I understand the want to develop a new take on a character, but I don’t think it really worked, especially with no explanation of why he looks that way.

The voices fit the characters okay, but the voice acting was poor.  Lots of flat tones throughout without much expression.  Things don’t have too be gee-whiz and yippee all the time, but I want a little more than a monotone.

The worst business is the characterizations – the script.  The first man the Amazons meet in this movie is a chauvanistic ass, there’s really not much likable about him.  I didn’t care for the Amazons either.  Everyone seems to be a stereotype.  Reading into it a little, I see that the writer was trying to put a new spin on stereotypes and use them in a unique way, but it fails.  The dialogue is terrible and unbelieveable, and it’s just awful.

The good bits are the fan service at the very end.  The rest seems like it was written by a 13 year old boy who wasn’t allowed to show any naked girls.  Otherwise, it might have failed even more.

The best part of the DVD is the look at the next movie – Green Lantern – which looks alright.  I like the voice actors.  It looks like there’s some decent GL fan service.  I don’t care for the character designs – they seem too busy.  But Michael Madsen is in it as Killowog, which is pretty damn cool.

Anyway, that’s that.

fan service at the end.