Back from the Dead

My. Time. Flies. How is it I haven’t found time to post anything since February? I’ve been busy, but not that bad. Let me get to work on that.

Micro Movie Magic

If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you know I’ve spent a lot of time in the air this year. Since I always ride in coach and there’s no room for my 6’3” body to work with a laptop, I end up reading or watching movies whenever I’m not sleeping. In terms of films, both South African Airways and Delta Air Lines have pretty good in-flight entertainment systems with individual on-demand video systems.  As a result, I count 26 movies watched in the air this year. I thought I’d devote a post to movie reviews. However, since they have little tiny screens on airplanes, these are just little tiny reviews. Enjoy.

1. Juno: A quirky perspective on teen pregnancy.
2. Beowulf: All CGI. Angelina Jolie’s digital instance is pretty awesome.
3. Atonement: A little depressing. My one chick flick for the year.
4. We Own the Night: Not buying Marky Mark and Joaquin Phoenix as brothers, but there’s a really unsual car chase in a rain storm. I love car chases!
5. Knocked Up: Incredibly funny. Seth Rogan is great and Katherine Heigl is very sweet.
6. Dan in Real Life: Oops. Another chick flick. With Steve Carrell and Dana Cook, I expected it to be really funny, but this is a serious movie. Still pretty good.
7. Cloverfield: Not sure I’d see it again since the outcome is spoiled now, but everyone should see it once. Good, clean monster movie fun.
8. I Am Legend: A better kind of zombie movie. Check it out.
9. Jumper: Just okay. Don’t expect Anakin to wield any light sabres in this one.
10. Into the Wild: I gave up. Sean Penn goes overboard with the artistic stuff. I did like Vince Vaughn as the leader of a gypsy harvest combine crew.
11. Charlie Wilson’s War: Surprisingly good. I don’t agree politically with the real Charlie Wilson, but the movie was a lot of fun.
12. Elizabeth – The Golden Age: I fell asleep.
13. National Treasure – Book of Secrets: How can Nicolas Cage play this kid-friendly, quasi action hero role, then go off to another movie where he’s a complete psycho? Whatever. A good addition to the Nat T franchise.  And it has a car chase!
14. Gone Baby Gone: I usually hate this kind of “kid in peril” movie. But it had a lot of twists and turns and I enjoy Ed Harris (who was also in NT: BoS).
15. Semi Pro: Goofy. Silly. Prototypical Will Ferrell.
16. Be Kind Rewind: This is an odd little film. It was shot to look like a home movie which is funny given the plotline. The movie is a little Weird Science and a lot something else.
17. The Bank Job: Jason Statham is cool. Typecast, but cool. I can imagine him playing David Beckham in a soccer biopic.
18. Drillbit Taylor: Owen Wilson is slipping a bit. Just okay.
19. I, Robot: An oldie, but goodie, as they say. High quality sci-fi is a weakness of mine. This is almost as good as Minority Report.  And it has trucks-full-of-robots-chasing-a-car chase!
20. An Inconvenient Truth: Way better than I expected. The scariest part of this film is that it was made by a politician with clarity and who seemed to make sense. The situation must be much worse than it appears for that to have happened.  But no car chases.
21. Leatherheads: George Clooney and Renée Zellweger try a wee bit too hard to have chemistry, but it’s not every day someone makes a football movie from this era. Good for a view.
22. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Another favorite classic. I need to go to Wudan school.
23. 21: The book was better.
24. Master & Commander – The Far Side of the World: The next best thing to a car chase is a 19th century round-the-world tall ship chase.
25. 10,000 BC: I didn’t realize that in ancient Egypt there were massive mountain ranges full of mastodons, vast jungles with super sized flightless vultures AND the giant deserts you normally associate with the region (plus you could pretty easily walk across all this terrain in a few days), but it’s right here on film.
26. Vantage Point: This movie is good up until about the 4th run through of the assassination sequence from a different point-of-view, then it started to get a bit repetitive (literally).  Still it’s not bad.  And there’s a great car chase through the streets of Mexico City (the movie was “set” in Salamanca but not “shot” there).

Facelift

Picked out a new pre-canned WordPress theme (Connections out, MistyLook in). I was ready for a change after nearly a year and a half. One of these days perhaps I’ll build my own theme.

Image adapted from Alice in Chains "Facelift” album cover art ©1990

Jägervison

The other day while driving to a meeting, I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed a large RV hanging behind me with an orange logo on the front. It only took a fraction of a second to realize I was being tailed by a Jägermeister-branded tour bus. I grabbed my BlackBerry Curve and frantically shot a picture out the back window.

Much like St Hubertus and his own encounter with a white stag bearing a crucifix between his antlers, I asked myself: “What could this mean? What shall I do?”. Unfortunately, unlike the stag in the legend, this bright orange vision behind me provided no clues, gave no instructions.

I was perplexed, nay, distraught over this experience as it had to have happened for a reason, but I knew not why.

Then it hit me… marketing! That was it! Here was clear evidence of a higher power (Mast-Jägermeister AG in Wolfenbütte, Niedersachsen, Deutschland) raising awareness of their brand. Obviously, advertising is rare in the US, so I had to learn more.

I visited their website and soon found the Jägerbus was not their only “vehicle” for promotion. They sponsor JägerMusic concert tours and have JägerRadio pumping out the tunes of their tour acts over the Internet, there are Jägerettes & Jägerdudes to froth up crowds at events, they have an on-line JägerStore with all sorts of logo gear (want a gravity fed Jägermeister tap system in the rec room?) and they have produced a proprietary mixology of JägerRecipes.

They even have something called Toughest Cowboy where I think competitors tackle three events each night (bareback, saddle bronc & bull), ride the Jägerbus to a bar, do Jägershots with their fans until closing time, then get up and do it all over again the next night. Sounds tough. Clearly, the good people at Mast-Jägermeister are a creative bunch and deserve recognition for their JägerVison.

To honor their efforts, I have decided to change the e-mail address for this blog. Henceforth, you can reach me via JägerMail at openkimono at jagermail.com. You must be 21 or over to e-mail. Please spam responsibly.

2007: A Brief Year in Review

On the Eve of my 38th New Year, I find myself camped out in a Scooter’s Coffeehouse in Bellevue, NE catching up on e-mails and pondering what the next 365 days will bring. It’s been an interesting year with family time spent, a business venture built, new friends made, old friends found, soccer seasons played, frequent flyer miles accrued, road trips executed, coffee drank, XM radio enjoyed, pounds gained and lost, miles run, chores completed, more dark hair converted to gray and blogs written. And a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember right now (I was up until 2:00am last night enjoying a few barley pops with my father-in-law Bob).

What will happen in 2008? Hopefully, more of the same. I’ve enjoyed life in the last year tremendously and cannot wait to see what’s next. To my loyal readers (all 3 of you!), I’d like to wish the best of luck in 2008 and may one day always be better, at least in some little way, than the next.

And I leave you with this: JibJab’s usual irreverent compilation of recent events encapsulated in their short film entitled In 2007.

Season’s Greetings

Tis’ the season, as they say. Normally about this time of year, I’d be drafting an annual recap to include in our Christmas card envelopes. This year, I thought we’d leverage technology a bit and announce the goings ons for the Rocky Mountain Fullers on-line.

As usual, we start with the youngest. Erin turned 5 this past October and is in the midst of her second year of pre-school at Bal Swan Children’s Center. While she claims school is boring, she comes home each afternoon bragging of new knowledge gained. She’s become a proficient swimmer and made great gains on the soccer field, while continuing to show a flair for performance with impromptu Hannah Montana impersonations breaking out constantly. Her top priority at the moment is some day making it on American Idol, much to her mother’s pride (huge fan of the show) and her father’s chagrin (not).

Meanwhile, Grace turned 7 in August as she entered 2nd grade at Aspen Creek K-8 School. Grace loves school especially those study units that emphasize science. She remains a sports fanatic and enjoys any game with a ball and running at high speed, particularly soccer where this past season she played up and down the field as a forward, defender and goalie. Grace is also a rock hound and was in heaven during a recent trip to Utah and Arizona, returning home with several pounds of new samples for her collection. She currently aspires to be both an archaeologist and geologist when not playing soccer professionally.

As the kids’ activity levels have accelerated, Julie continues with her volunteer work at their schools. She’s maintained her leadership role for the Bal Swan Ball Decorations Committee while taking on the Board Secretary position for the Aspen Creek K-8 PTA.

If you’ve been reading this blog the last year or so, you may have picked up a few things I’ve been up to. First, there was building a new business that included a great deal of travel around the US (California, Texas, Michigan) and a couple trips to the UK. While in the UK, I managed some quick excursions to Edinburgh to see my younger sister Corey. Along the way, I’ve threaded in coaching activities for both the girls’ teams as well as taking a Board position with the Broomfield Soccer Club where I’m responsible for Technology. And of course, I’ve been blogging.

Somehow with all the school, sports, work and volunteer activities, we managed to squeeze in a week on Maui, HI (both girls learned to snorkel in the Pacific Ocean!), made our traditional early summer run to Omaha, NE to see Julie’s family and capped it off with a Thanksgiving week trip to Sahuarita, AZ to see my folks. Busy year.

Finally, 11 year old Sam the Dog keeps his time filled with sleeping and trying to relax more. His big achievement this year was establishing his own web presence on Facebook. If you have an account, be sure to look him up.

BONUS: The Rocky Mountain Fullers make fools of themselves… CLICK HERE… it’s a little slow to load so be patient.

Falling to Pieces

It’s been a weird last couple weeks. On Sat 16.Jun.07, I pulled the old 1988 Four Winns 200 Horizon out of storage to prep it for an upcoming camping trip. A little dusty from a winter under the tarp, but looking okay. Fired up fine (I trickled charged the battery all winter) and ran smooth. Then the water came. Spraying from some unknown somethingorother on the back of the engine. I shut it down; swore profusely; then went to find my tools. After a pair of blood letting cuts, I remove the offending part. A quick flip through my Clymer manual revealed the broken piece was the heat exchanger for the power steering system. It’s plumbed into the water-based cooling system for the engine as well as the power steering cylinder. It had a leak. I went looking for a replacement on the ‘Net and found prices ranging from $100 to $250. Ouch. We ended up getting a steam fitter friend of my father-in-law to repair the leak. I got it back in the boat this past Fri 29.Jun.07 and trouble solved. But I tore my tarp putting away the boat today. It never ends.

Last week on Mon 25.Jun.07, my custom-built HP Pavilion dv6000t CTO notebook PC went on the fritz. It seems the on / off switch decided to quit working. While I’m on the road at a client location. Luckily, the client is located in a major city (Dallas, TX) and I had plenty to choose from in acquiring a quick replacement. So I picked up HP Pavilion dv2410us notebook PC running Windows Vista at CompUSA (getting hard to find WinXP in the stores). I still needed to get the data off my old machine. CompUSA wanted $100 to copy over my key files (Not mirror the old HDD, just copy files! Highway robbery!). So for $50, I picked up a Mad Dog Multimedia MegaVault 3.5in Anodized SATA/IDE (MD-35ESUSB) HDD enclosure and proceeded to help myself to my files. Three hours later (mostly spent downloading / configuring various critical apps like MS Office 2007) I was in pretty good shape. Not sure I’m real impressed with Vista thus far, but holding judgment until I’ve used it for a couple weeks. FedEx comes tomorrow to get my old machine and haul it off to HP for repairs.

Then on Wed 27.Jun.07, Julie calls me. She was on her way back from seeing her folks in Omaha, NE when the car broke down about 50mi from home. I was still in Dallas, thus of little assistane. After sitting along I-76 for about 15min, the car decides it wants to start again and off Julie and the girls go. They make it to Brighton, CO before throwing in the towel and calling a tow truck. The car was still running, but performing very erratically. The tow truck arrived and hauled my pride and joy (2000 Saab 9-5 SE V6 Sportwagon) off to East of Sweden, my favorite mechanics. After a day with East of Sweden, it seems the fuel pump is no longer functioning at factory specified performance levels. Semi-big bucks to replace. Should get the car back today.

Not sure what the next 2wks will bring, but it’ll certainly be better than the past 2wks.

*UPDATE! Thu 12.Jul.07*

1. Boat’s fixed. But I ripped the tarp weekend before last. New tarp on order.
2. Old laptop is back from HP. It works. But they re-imaged my HDD as part of their repair process. Bummer. New laptop working dandy. Getting used to Win Vista.
3. Car got fixed. Then broke again. Then fixed again. $1,300 total for a new fuel pump and a crank position sensor (#%*@!).

Snow in the Front Range

And winter rolls on here in Colorado. I just checked out the NOAA Website for Boulder. The march towards the record for Consecutive Days of Snow Cover continues: by early this week, this year’s streak will be 3rd place all time. But… with the forecast calling for temps in the upper 40s to upper 50s for the next week, the streak might end before getting to 60days and second place.

Picture above by Dave.
Table below lifted from NOAA.

NUMBER OF DAYS                    INCLUSIVE DATES 63 DAYS………………………………NOVEMBER 26 1983 – JANUARY 27 1984 60 DAYS………………………………DECEMBER 1 1913  – JANUARY 29 1914 48 DAYS………………………………DECEMBER 24 1982 – FEBRUARY 9 1983 46 DAYS AND COUNTING…..DECEMBER 21 2006 – FEBRUARY 4 2007 (Updated) 43 DAYS………………………………DECEMBER 19 1973 – JANUARY 30 1974 39 DAYS………………………………NOVEMBER 21 1992 – DECEMBER 29 1992 38 DAYS………………………………DECEMBER 24 1987 – JANUARY 30 1988 35 DAYS………………………………JANUARY 2 1949   – FEBRUARY 5 1949 33 DAYS………………………………DECEMBER 17 1918 – JANUARY 18 1919 27 DAYS………………………………JANUARY 28 1989   – FEBRUARY 23 1989 WFO DENVER/BOULDER

Protect Open Space

I don’t consider myself a hardcore environmentalist, but I enjoy the outdoors and wildlife. I do what I can to be a responsible Coloradan including voting for anything the county and town I live in wants to do to preserve remaining open space. Open space is wonderful: it creates buffers between neighborhoods to relieve congestion, it breaks up the monotony of suburbia gone wild (which, I realize, is a rather hypocritical statement given I live in the ‘burbs) and brings recreation and a little wildlife to your doorstep. My home is about a block away from a very large open space and I frequently take advantage of the trails the meander around it’s edge for morning runs.

Anyway, on the way home from skiing @ Eldora today, we spied a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) hanging out in one of the open spaces. What a gorgeous creature and one you rarely see in built up areas. I don’t know what inspired this bird to hunt in our neck of the woods, but it appeared he / she bagged a gopher. We managed to snap a few photos sitting along side the road and I stitched them together to make a single panorama of the one bird. Pretty cool looking image if I do say so myself.

Anyway, it’s opportunities like this that make me thankful for open space. Protect it. There’s only so much left.

Photos taken looking south at the intersection of 96th St & Dillon Rd, Louisville, CO

Welcome to OpenKimono!

Since this is the first entry to my first ever blog, not sure where to begin. Perhaps with: welcome to OpenKimono! Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to check out the pages for Legalese and Ground Rules. I appreciate your attention to my comments on those pages. Now… on with the blogging.