Visit, Up, Kerplunk

I called mom Saturday morning and asked her if she would like to come over Saturday night to hang out.  In the past mom has been very resistant to impromptu visits usually citing that she was busy.  Well since she lost her job that excuse no longer holds water so she had to agree to come out although she initially tried to throw out a few excuses not to.   Ali picked her up on the way back from a meeting she was already at.

Mom made one of my old favorite meals, meatloaf, and brought it out with her.  On Saturday afternoon we mostly relaxed after I got done with weed whacking the fence line.  We got to enjoy the now toasty 85-86 degree pool multiple times.  Sadie of course was thrilled to have people in the pool that could splash her.

On Saturday night we watched Kingpin.  This movie was recommended to me by a co-worker.  It is an old movie, it came out in 1996.  It was great.  It has a good cast including Bill Murray, Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid.  It’s a comedy about bowling.  It had tons of laugh out loud moments, the funniest of which involved a scene with Woody and his disgusting, brown toothed landlady. The phrase “pump and dump” will always have a special meaning from now on. If you like to laugh and haven’t seen it, get it.  I’d give it an A.

On Sunday we again had a nice laid back time with mom.  Again the pool was put to good use.  We dropped her off Sunday afternoon on our way to see the movie UP.  We decided to see the 3D version of the film at a different theater.  For quite awhile we have been going to Coconut Point to see movies because it is big, new and empty.  Well the 3d/Imax theater was not.  There were a ton of people there, most of which were trying to see Transformers in IMAX. 

We dropped $13.50 each for the 3D experience, pricey.  We were handed our glasses and headed inside.  The theater was very nice but not quite as luxurious as Coconut Point.  We sat through the previews until the exciting message came on the screen to put on your 3d glasses.  I put mine on and immediately the images on the screen jumped to life.  All of a sudden there was depth where none existed before.  However Ali was not having the same experience.  “Everything just looks blurry” she says.  I was worried that maybe this was side effect of her having lasiks, maybe she can’t see 3D as a result?  My worries were put to rest when I looked over at her and saw that instead of having her 3D glasses on she had instead pulled her sunglasses off the top of her head onto her face.  “You have your sunglasses on Ali…” I say.  Ali laughed out loud at her senior moment.  Once she put the 3d glasses on stuff was actually in 3D, imagine that.  🙂

The 3D effect takes some getting used to.  It’s very cool for sure, especially for a techno-AV fan such as myself.  I did notice in certain situations some of the picture would appear to blur a bit during movement but for the most part it was fine.  The movie itself was great, Ali and I both liked it a lot.  It made her cry on more than one occasion while having lots of fun moments along the way.  I’m sure it would have been good in 2D too.  Up gets two thumbs up from me, an A.

Monday and Tuesday I was taking more at home, remote classroom training so there isn’t much to say about it.  It was more Exchange 2007 training.  I have been messing around with getting OWA secured by running it over SSL.  I have never had a need to mess with making certificates before so I knew very little about it.  I also have been trying to get Outlook Anywhere working, that has proved to be much more of a challenge.

After class yesterday I decided to put on a couple miles on the treadmill.  I need to crank my cardio base back up as well as get my weekly 300’s going again.  My weight has been creeping up just a bit in the past month or so.  At my leanest point in the past two years I was tipping the scales under 175.  Right now I seem to be fluctuating between 180-185.  No it’s nothing major but I feel better when I am leaner.

Anyway after running I decided to hop in the pool.  Sadie was very excited as I put on my swimsuit and grabbed a towel.  I ran out to the pool deck and did my customary big splash can opener as she was right by the side of the pool.  Well when I came to the surface I didn’t see her at first as the water was running in my eyes.  Then I realized she was in the water!  Evidently she must have fell in inadvertently when I jumped in.  She was swimming just fine but she tried to get out in the deep end.  I tried to assist her but she squirmed away and instead headed towards the shallow end.  Ali and I have wanted to make sure she knew how to get out of the pool herself so I figured this was a good time to show her.  I scooted over towards the steps and called her to come to me.  She swam over like a champ and got out of the water all by herself.

When she was in the water she looked anxious to get out but once she was out she seemed no worse for wear.  Immediately she was ready to resume the splashy splash game.  Nicki just stood safely in the distance looking with amazement at Sadie’s love of water.

I spent some time on Monday night setting up the new timing system in the living room putting it through it’s paces.  I think I have all the bugs worked out.  Of course the trial by fire with be on the 4th when 600 + runners descend on the race site.  It should be a challenge.

Billy Mays died, that wasn’t supposed to happen.  We already had 3. 

My brother just had his 39th birthday, it’s hard to imagine Todd will be 40 next year.

My Dad is officially out of New Mexico, they closed on the sale of their house yesterday and are now on the way back to Flying Hills.