Memorable Memorial Day weekend

Wow lots to cover, hopefully the details don’t fall through the cracks of my spotty memory. On Saturday we did a lot of stuff around the house.  Randall and his girlfriend were coming over on Sunday so we needed to get everything out of the way.  I skipped grass mowing so it saved a nice chunk of time. 

On Saturday night we watched Yes Man, the Jim Carey romantic comedy flick.  It was a typical feel good sort of time.  It was enjoyable and forgettable, a solid B performer.

Saturday night I was up late, hell I  have been up late for most of the past week and I can tell.  I have felt rather run down.  Well anyway, that particular night I was up late because of WoW.  I was asked to come along with the guild to do a new raid instance.  I generally dislike raid instances.  In my experience they always lead to more frustration than fruit.  Well this was no exception.  When I was recruited to assist a time frame for the encounter was estimated at an hour.  Well it seems like whenever I am involved in one of these situations it never goes as planned.  They never start on time, they never get done when they are supposed to and more often than not my reward at the end of them is residual stress, frustration and a large repair bill.  

It’s like a trap, you are in this encounter with 9 other people so even if you feel like leaving you feel obligated to stay till the end, else you could be giving the virtual shaft to the other 9 players.  Well in this situation I was clearly the weak link.  Since my gear was not as “epic” as everyone in the group I was not able to contribute equally.  After dying at least 10 times I had enough and just bailed shortly before midnight.  I just reached my limit.  I’m steering way clear of  raid instances.  I don’t think I ever came out of a raid feeling good about the time spent.

Sunday morning while Ali went to spinning class I finished up the work around the house.  I received an estimated ETA from Randall of  12:30 to 1 pm.  He called us during the trip saying he had hit a dead stop on Alligator Alley and wasn’t sure how late he would be.  It turned out that even with the delay he pulled into our place close to 1pm.

It was the first time Randall met Sadie.  Of course Sadie greeted Randall with much excitement.  It was also the first time he saw the new granite counters in person which he said looked great.   After Randall and Wendy ate lunch we talked about our game plan for the movies since that was the primary reason for his visit.  Randall had graciously volunteered to be my movie surrogate to watch the films that Ali decided she didn’t want to see.

So we formulated a plan to have Randall and I go watch Terminator while the girls would walk around Coconut Point.  I was surprised when we approached the theater and saw all of the Muvico branding had been removed and the place was now called “Hollywood Theater”  Evidently a huge new theater that only saw light use didn’t work out well in Muvico’s bottom line.  Since it was opening weekend for Terminator they were showing it every half hour.  Even though we arrived only 10-15 minutes before start time, the 250 seat theater had barely 50 people in it.  Randall and I were able to grab choice seats in the aisle that has limitless leg room.

So after sitting through double digit previews the film finally started.  I really was anxious to see the film, the previews for it looked simply fantastic.  Of course a film is rarely if ever as good as it’s previews.  Well once again Terminator somewhat missed my high expectations but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.  It was very good for the most part.  The epic special effects, crazy action and suspense made the $7.50 ticket price well worth it.  The movie started to fall apart towards the end when a few rather ridiculous plot twists occur that just make you think they could have come up with a better way to do it.  I was surprised to see a CGI created Arnold appear in the flick.  They certainly didn’t use a modern day version of the Governor’s body which is rather dilapidated anymore.  This sort of reminded me of the way I felt about Iron Man, it was great movie with a silly ending. I’d give it an A, although on a Terminator scale I would probably rank it in third place behind the first two and ahead of the third installment.

After the movie we met back up with the girls.  Ali surprised me with a gift she bought for me from Best Buy, EA Active for the Wii. (more on that later)  We ate dinner at a small little place that had decent food.  After we got home it was time to fire up the Wii for some Wii Sports action.

The last time Randall was over we had some intense Wii Sports battles.  At that time I proved dominant in tennis and baseball, Randall took the bowling and golf crown.  Well I was hoping this time around I would pull a clean sweep, taking all 4 events.  Well instead things followed almost the exact same script.  I took tennis and baseball and Randall took the other two.  Wendy was a hell of a bowler as well, she rolled a 220 game in the process.  So I guess the lesson learned is I am better at sports where you hit a moving object and Randall prefers to hit stationary objects. 🙂

Randall brought his road bike with so we could do a ride sometime during the weekend.  We decided to get one in Monday morning before it got too hot.  Randall has a much higher end bike than I do.  He also aero bars to rest his forearms on as well as the cleat style pedals that locks you into the bike, allowing you to use your hamstrings on the up stroke instead of it being an all quad exercise.  We did the Publix ride,a 18.5 mile round trip.  Last week the ride took me 1:14.  Well having Randall in front as the pacer made a big difference in my speed.  Even on the ride back when we went into the wind I was going much faster than the week prior.

For most of the ride I was able to keep up with Randall however on the ride back I had to relent and drop a gear which made me fall back quite a way.  Randall eventually noticed I had faded and slowed down.  Even with my fading, overall we covered the distance much faster than my solo effort a week ago, a full 10 minutes faster. 

As we were getting home the girls were in the van getting ready to pull out which we didn’t expect.  They said they were going to go to the track to get a quick run in.  Cool, I am never one to gripe about exercise, go knock yourself out.  Randall and I jumped into the pool to cool off from the ride.  Sadie was thrilled to have two people in the pool at once to play the splash game.  Within a few minutes she was soaked from head to toe and loving it.  The girls came back and joined us pool side.

Ali initially was refusing to jump into the 80 degree pool water, claiming it was too cold.  Eventually she relented and jumped in for a couple minutes.  She admitted it wasn’t horribly cold but not warm enough for her to spend extended time in the water.  Wendy dove in as well for awhile.

I wasn’t really sure what we were going to do the rest of the day.  I didn’t know if Randall wanted to venture back out to the movies or not.  Well as we ate our Memorial Day burgers from the grill he said he would be down with going to see Star Trek, cool.  This time the girls stayed at home while we ventured back out solo.

This time we got there even later.  We learned our lesson from the day before and instead of dropping $5 for a bottle of water we smuggled water in.  Even though we arrived later we still had no problems getting good seats for Star Trek.  I was VERY tired and sleepy before the flick started from the late night of Wii Sports followed by the bike ride and pool time earlier in the day.

Much like Terminator, the new Star Trek prequel looked fantastic in the previews.  I have never been a hard core Trekkie but I always enjoyed both the original and Next Generation tv series as well as most of the movies.  The movie was once again good, not great but good.  The prequel format made for some interesting twists along the way as you are introduced to an array of actors playing  younger versions of the established characters.  I had heard Leonard Nimoy made a cameo.  Hell it was much more than a cameo, he was in many scenes and was sort of a crucial part of the plot.  Did I miss something along the way, since when did Spock ever have a romantic relationship with O’hura?  That was kind of weird.  The plot involved time travel where the future conflicts with the present which can lead to a lot of confusion trying to keep it all straight.  That is once again the case with this film.  The ending was a jumbled mess of improbable, borderline ridiculous events that all work out happily ever after.  Still, it was a good movie overall.  I would say I liked Terminator more though.  I’ll give this one an A-.

After the movie we headed over to the Trek bike store just to look around.  It was interesting to look at the $3000 – $4000 bikes, $400 bike shoes and various other very expensive, hard core cyclist gear.  There were a couple lower cost items there I have my eye on, a softer, more supportive seat as well as a rear rack.  A rear rack is generally frowned upon by road cycling purists.  You normally would see it on a mountain or hybrid style bike.  Oh well, I guess I will just be nontraditional.

I wasn’t sure how late Randall wanted to stay since he had the drive back across the state yet.  It turned out they stayed till almost 9pm.  I grabbed Hungry Howie’s pizza for dinner and we watched some of the Jon & Kate plus 8 marathon.  Wow that is a weird situation. 

Shortly before they left Ali was our guinea pig for the EA Active game she bought for me.  She went through an “low intensity” workout.  The game is pretty impressive.  Wii Fit’s biggest plus and minus is it’s simplicity.  It’s pretty basic which makes it easy for exercise novices to follow.  It also can get pretty repetitive after awhile.  There is absolutely no variety in music or scenery in the game.  My Fitness Coach which we bought a few months back had a lot more variety but it had no interactivity with the Wii controllers or Wii Fit board.  It basically was like a glorified exercise DVD, it had no confirmation that you actually were doing what was on screen.  Neither of us have used that game for a long time.

Well EA Active bridges that gap.  Not only does it use an innovative set up that utilizes the Wii controllers to monitor your movements, it also supports the Wii Fit board.  I was impressed by the 20 minute work out Ali went through. There is lots of variety in the music, scenery, activities and exercises.  I’m looking forward to giving it a go myself this week.  It seems to be very cool.

So like I said, Randall and Wendy pulled out around 9.  I thanked them both for coming and specifically Randall for being my movie date.  We had a great time.  I wound up once again staying up way late last night, 11:30 or so thanks to watching the John & Kate season premiere where they address all of the tabloid shit going on.  It seems pretty clear to me they are on the outs.  Kate seems to have a very controlling, entitled and annoying personality. John seems just plain worn out from dealing with her, 8 kids and being a reality tv family for the past 3 years.  The show holds added interest for us since J & K live in our old stomping grounds of Wernersville. 

I’m tired today.