Enough critics and friends recommended this HBO comedy series that I checked it out on YouTube. Hilarious. Season 1 of the show has made its way to near the top of my Netflix queue. Can’t wait to see more. Here is a sample:
Heart-breaking documentary
We just finished War/Dance, an Oscar-nominated documentary about refugee children (many of them orphans) in Uganda who made their way to the Kampala Music Festival competition for schools in 2005. The stories the kids tell about losing their parents to rebel attacks are heart-breaking, and their music and dancing are inspiring.
The competition is fierce, and those scenes are joyous. Contrast that with scenes of the same kids talking about being forced to kill innocent farmers and identifying their parents’ severed heads. Awful, terrible stuff. I highly recommend this movie. It is uplifting, but you have to get through the heartache first.
WTF of the Week: Teacher fired for practicing ‘wizardry’
So a substitute teacher in Florida made a toothpick disappear and reappear in front of a class. Someone complained, and the substitute was fired for practicing “wizardry”. That is the stupidest thing I have heard in quite a while, and I’ve been following the primary battles fairly closely.
Here is the entire story, what little there is because TV news, frankly, sucks.
Home with the sickos
Stefanie, Andrew and now Alex all have some sort of sinus infection. Andrew fought it off enough to go to school today, but Stefanie called in sick. Since Alex already had been grumpy all week because he is full-on teething, I offered to call in sick to take care of the baby while Stefanie rested.
A brilliant plan until you realize that Alex is LOUD. Really loud. Front row of a small concert kind of loud. Stefanie didn’t get a ton of extra sleep, but we traded Alex off all day and that seemed to work. I did get to hit the gym though, so that is great.
This week the first that I have made it to both of my weight-training classes since Alex was born nearly eight months ago. I had planned to get back sooner, but dislocating my knee ruined that. Initially I went back only once per week so I could get my knee back in shape. It has been healing nicely, although it’s still a tad swollen three months after I hurt it. Lame.
There was a bit of excitement this afternoon with Alex, although only parents of infants probably will appreciate it. For the first time, Alex rolled over today from his back to his stomach. Alex until recently didn’t like to be on his stomach, and as soon as he started rolling over as soon as I would put him down on his stomach he would roll over onto his back and stay there. So the rolling over thing was kind of, well, limited. Until today. Exciting stuff.
On a completely unrelated note, I received word from a friend that one of our friends has Burkitt lymphoma. It’s an aggressive cancer, but apparently treatable. He is young (not even 30, I think), in good health and the doctors caught it early. But it still scares the bejeezus out of me. Please save some room in your prayers and thoughts for Matt tonight. Thank you.
Family Guy meets The Matrix
Awesome editing combines two of my favorite shows:
Improv Everywhere: The Musical
I love Improv Everywhere, a troupe of improvisational comedians who stage public stunts and film befuddled watchers. This one is one of my favorites, answering that ages-old question of what would happen if someone busted out with a song just like they do in musicals:
Read more about the planning and rehearsal for this stunt here.
Back to the office
Tomorrow will be the first Tuesday that I won’t be working from home since Stefanie returned to work Jan. 2, and it’s going to be more difficult than I thought.
I initially was excited about working from home two days a week, and I was incredibly grateful that my boss let me do that so I could watch Alex. It helped that I have spent much of this year working a huge project to move our court (around 200 users) from Corel WordPerfect Suite to Microsoft Office 2007; much of my time has been spent helping users (mainly judges and their staffs) convert forms from WordPerfect to Word (it’s just as exciting as it sounds *snore*).
But working from home wasn’t really that fun for me. It broke my heart to have to focus on a tech support call rather than play with Alex. Alex is such a cutie, and I have so much fun playing with him that it took every ounce of self-discipline to not spend my day entirely with Alex. Instead, I mainly worked while he slept, and being a baby he slept a lot during the day. Then I caught up on my remaining work before or after work on my in-the-office days or during lunches, which I spent in the office while Stefanie fed and played with Alex at her office across the street.
I had been looking forward to going back to work full-time. The thought of fewer interruptions and fewer distractions made me smile. But now that I’m here, I don’t want to do it. I already see Alex so little — his 7:30 p.m. bedtime is only an hour and half after I get home from work every day — that giving up what little time we had is going to be really difficult for me.
So I’m trying to stay positive. This huge project should be finished by July, after which I should be able to focus more on some of my own project ideas (lots of geeky stuff that probably wouldn’t interest you much but that I love). And I’m really happy that Stefanie decided to go to part-time so she could be home more with Alex. I know that she is sacrificing a lot — not just financially — to do this, and I love her even more for making that sacrifice. Knowing that she will be with Alex makes me happy. And me? I look forward to the weekends more than ever.
Patrick Stewart on Extras
I have become addicted to the British television series Extras — too bad that like most great shows I discovered it after it ended its run — and just finished the wonderful first season-ing episode with Patrick Stewart. In one of his only scenes in the 30-minute episode, Patrick Stewart describes a screenplay he is working on. Utterly brilliant:
Return of the iPhone?
All of the rumors about the supposedly soon-to-arrive 3G iPhone have awoken my desire for the gadget to end all gadgets. Many months ago, I sold my first-generation Macbook Pro so I could save some money for a 3G iPhone. But when we decided that Stefanie would go part-time so she could be home more with Alex, the thought of switching us to AT&T and adding $20 per month so I could get the required iPhone data plan seemed to be, well, frivolous. So I scrapped the idea and picked up a second-generation Macbook Pro instead.
But with the 3G iPhone’s release likely this summer and with all of the rumors about its new features — GPS? Video chat? Third-party apps? Yum. — I’m starting to get that twinge again. I’ve even held off on replacing my Verizon phone (and re-signing a two-year contract) now that our contract has expired. This could get expensive. Need to find some money and justification quick.
