Bask in its glory, why don’t you? Go ahead, I’ll wait. It’s glorious, isn’t it?

A little background history: In 2003, I started to long for a better desk. I had this crappy OfficeMax desk, but it was neither wide enough nor long enough to accomodate what I wanted to do. Seriously, 2003. I had my eye on this IKEA Yerker desk that he rroommate had. It wasn’t perfect, but it was interesting. However, I didn’t pull the trigger. The hunt continued. Late last year, I found the Vika Amon build-your-own-table model at IKEA, and I was intrigued. A simple large, wide table, customizable, with legs of your choosing, at a reasonable price? That’s all I’m looking for. This week, we got it. So far, very spacious, with room for docking both devices and cats.

In addition, I started thinking about getting a widescreen HD LCD monitor for the office. While I liked my 19″ Dell LCD was so much more compact compared to my old CRT, 19″ monitors are so 2005. I wanted big. Late last year, I started considering the benefits of two monitors. Dual desktop screens, working on one, watching tv and movies on the other. True multitasking. It took a few more months, but my wife bought them for my birthday. I set up them tonight, and they’re just fantastic. Two 24″ Dell U2412 HD monitors.

You can weep now.

Not quite done yet, though. Next on the list is a wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, and an HD webcam. I’ve narrowed all three down to specific Logitech products, but I’ll need to space those purchases out this year.

My almost-revamped home office

The wait is finally over — Marvel’s summer blockbuster superhero ensemble film The Avengers was finally here. Years in the making, nerds and geeks like me have waited with anticipation for this film to come out, hoping for it to be good. Who doesn’t love the Marvel characters? Although it wasn’t easy, we watched the early Marvel films about these particular superheros (I’m temporarily ignoring Spiderman, Daredevil, Punisher, X-Men, etc.)

• We endured Ang Lee’s 2003 snoozefest of a film, Hulk, and kinds got what we wanted in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk starring Ed Norton. [My original reviews here and here.]
• We were awestruck by how awesome the first Iron Man was, and yet disappointed by how lousy Iron Man 2 turned out to be. [My original reviews here and here.]
• We enjoyed the good aspects of the 2011 Kenneth Branagh Thor film, and tried to look past the slightly dull scenes on Earth. BTW, wasn’t Asgard interesting? [My original review here.]
• We really enjoyed getting to know the interpretation of Captain America by actor Chris Evans and director Joe Johnston. [My original review here.]

I’m sure everyone knows the basic premise of this film. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army. So was it good? YES, but first, a little background information.

As usual, Saturday May 5th included many activities before we could get to Saturday evening.

1. Josh and I had a soccer game at 10am that turned into a 5-0 beatdown of our team. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.
2. Simultaneously, Nums took Lily to her dance class.
3. Next, we raced home to pick up the girls and head over to Lawrenceville to hit a comic book store for Free Comic Book Day. Josh, Lily, and I each picked out 2-3 comics to take home. I also bought them an Avengers one, so I hope they appreciate it. We then had some pizza at a nearby pizza place.
4. Lily’s game was luckily cancelled, so we had some free time. I gave Lily a shower in the afternoon.
5. I took Josh to his swim class at 4pm.

Now this is where it gets tricky. The movie was playing at 6:30 pm at a nice theater in South Brunswick, and was bound to be packed on a Saturday evening. Doug, Kathy, and Mike were to meet us for the movie. We bought our four tickets, and Mike bought the other tickets. Mike was to get to the theater early to reserve seats for the seven of us. Luckily, the Ipes worked like clockwork to get Josh back from swim class, get him showered and cleaned up, and we were all out the door miraculously by 5:20 pm. We met up with everyone at the theater, waited in the lobby for the crew to clean up the theater, and then they let us in. We got great seats in the middle, and we all sat together.

So, yeah, the movie was actually very good. I was honestly worried that it would be horrible, as I thought Iron Man 2 was frankly a mess. Thankfully, this movie was a whole lot more fun. Lots of great dialogue, a good story, and plenty of action to keep the story in overdrive. As a matter of fact, my wife gets bored by action films and scenes, and she enjoyed the film. Now that’s a ringing endorsement if you ask me. The film is rated PG-13, but if your kids were okay with the earlier Marvel films, you’ll be fine with the action and violence in this film. How did I know if the film would be okay for Joshua and Lily? Duh, I checked out the Wired GeekDad review 10 Things Parents Should Know About The Avengers (Spoiler-Free), duh.

Afterwards, I had plans that we would walk over to the nearby Buffalo Wild Wings, but on account that it was Cinco de Mayo, the place was packed. We ended up not waiting and ditching BWW, and walking instead to Longhorn Steakhouse. I’ve not had good experiences at Longhorn, but we were a little desperate with 7 hungry people (including two kids) at 9:30 pm. Thankfully, the wait wasn’t longer than 20 mins, and we were seats. The food turned out to be pretty decent, so that was a plus.

I hope this film is out on Blu-ray in a few months — I definitely will pre-order it. Great movie, go see it.

The Avengers (2012)

Last year, we wanted Josh to learn how to swim. Last summer, we signed him up for some swimming lessons / course at summer camp. Unfortunately, it was more of a weekly session where the camp counselors take the kids to a pool, and just whatever happens. The kids who can swim go swimming, and the kids who don’t know how to swim stand along the edges in the pool. There was no actual instruction, so that was frustrating to us. This year, my wife thankfully pushed us to find some money and register Joshua for personalized swimming classes. Every Saturday(and by every Saturday, I mean twice now), we take him to a nearby hotel that has a swimming pool. I’m a little unclear on the arrangement, but apparently the swim club organization rents out usage of the pool, and they have a slate of kids come in for individualized swimming classes on Saturdays. For 30 minutes, Josh gets individualized attention to teach him how to swim.

I hope everything works out, and he becomes the first Ipe to learn how to swim. We’re signing up Lily for individualized swimming lessons in a different program sometime in June. If the kids learn, then hey, maybe the grownups will take some swimming classes next year too.

We’re halfway through the soccer season, and Lily, Josh, and I have had a lot of weekend games and weeknight soccer practices since March 31st when we started the season. The kids play both Saturday and Sundays, and practices mid-week. So what’s my take so far?

Lily played last Fall, and she’s still in the Tiny Tots program. She still enjoys talking to her friends more than playing, but I’ve seen her run and get into the game. She also likes to make sure we’ve seen her doing something good. I hope she likes it, and I think she does. I hope she’ll play again next season.

Josh has attended almost every game on his team, and he’s certainly learning and improving each week. We have clinics (run by an outside firm) that teach the kids that show up various technical skills mid-week. I run my own weekly practice for my team mid-week to go over problem areas (or “areas of improvement”) that I see during games. Saturdays and Sundays are game days.

Coaching youth soccer is both the same and different than what I expected. I expected coaching games would be difficult, but it’s not actually. With so much stimuli (both teams of players, the ref, the parents), there’s really not much for me to do or say. I try not to yell too many instructions from the sidelines. Frankly, they can’t hear me very much anyway. I mostly just try to manage the subbing of players and giving advice to these K-2 boys to spread out, work together, etc. So, coaching actual games is much easier than I thought it would be.

Coaching the practices? A whole other ballgame. I spend a lot of time thinking and researching what kinds of drills (in for the form of mini games) to run every week. I have to watch and figure out during the weekend games which boys need work in various areas. From there, I use a variety of drills found on online coaching resources to instill various skills and techniques. At this age, it’s purely recreation soccer. There’s no real tallying of scores, no championship trophy. The idea is to get the boys and girls playing and touching the ball. I want the boys on my team to play smart, enjoy it, and have fun. I also want them to win games through their hard effort.

I actually kinda like soccer, in a small way. Cycling (watching and doing it) and (watching) basketball are still my favorites, but I’ve watched at least one Red Bulls game on television with Josh so far. It’s not bad.

Every Saturday morning before all the hustle and bustle begins, Nums takes Lily to her dance class. It’s an introductory program to teach elementary aspects of the foundations of dance such as positions, body placement, skipping, and balance  . From what I’ve seen, each class is comprised of Ballet, Tap, Jazz, etc. So does Lily like this class? No, she loves it. She gets dressed up in her leotard, tights, and I think a tutu, and they go off to dance class. I’ve taken her a few times, and I’ve watched occasionally through the little viewing window. She’s actually having a good time dancing

I’m happy for her. I’m glad she likes it.

Time to take a break and reassess. What’s going on in my life? It’s so hectic, with many moving parts. Running from here to there, jobs incomplete. Where to begin?

Life has been busy with all of the kids’ extracurricular activities:

• Lily has dance class every Saturday morning.
• Both have soccer games on the weekends (most Saturdays and Sundays.)
• Thy have soccer practices on at least 1-2 weeknights/week, so we take them there too. Josh has two practices.
• Since I’m coaching, I’m at obviously at every practice, but also developing drills and trying to instill skills in these boys. Two weeknights a week, I’m changing into workout clothes at the office, then rushing to catch a train, and make it to the practice field before the parents do.
• We recently enrolled Josh in an swimming class run by a swim club in the area. They offer individualized swim instruction on a weekly basis.

My wife and I have been busy with work. I won’t go into all the details, but we’re running around a lot these days to keep this well-oiled machine running. In my next series of entries, I’ll go into more details about each item.

Stay tuned. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Back to catching up on my Band of Brothers this month. I recently watched the remaining episodes in this miniseries (7-10.) Yup, I wrapped up the entire series, eleven years later.

Episode 7 – “The Breaking Point”
[summary from Wikipedia - Band of Brothers: List of Episodes]

Easy Company battles near Foy, Belgium, losing numerous men. The episode examines and questions the actions of 1st Lt. Norman Dike, the Company’s commander. He is eventually relieved by 1st Lt. Ronald Speirs, who becomes the Company’s new leader. Serving as narrator is First Sergeant Carwood Lipton, who attempts to keep the morale of the men up as they endure their trials in the forest near Foy, earning him a battlefield promotion to 2nd Lt. for his leadership ability.

Episode 8 – “The Last Patrol”
[summary from Wikipedia - Band of Brothers: List of Episodes]

Easy Company carries out a dangerous mission in Haguenau as David Webster (who narrates this episode) returns from a hospital. Together with new replacement 2nd Lt. Jones, he eventually (re)integrates with the other soldiers, whose experiences at Bastogne have made them weary and closed off from Webster due to the fact he didn’t try to leave hospital early unlike other soldiers in the company. At the end of the episode, Captain Winters is promoted to Major, and Lipton is officially promoted to 2nd Lt.

Episode 9 – “Why We Fight”
[summary from Wikipedia - Band of Brothers: List of Episodes]

As Nixon battles alcoholism, Easy Company enters Germany. A concentration camp near Landsberg is discovered by a patrol. This site leaves many soldiers both shocked and disgusted at what they’re witnessing at the hands of the Nazis. The episode was based on the liberation of Kaufering IV in the area of Hurlach.

Episode 10 – “Points”
[summary from Wikipedia - Band of Brothers: List of Episodes]

The company captures Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden, and also discover Herman Goering’s house. The battalion heads out to Austria where the end of the war in Europe is announced. While those with enough points go home, the remainder of Easy Company stays behind until the end of the Pacific War is declared.

Now that I’ve watched the entire series, what did I think? Heck, I thought it was pretty good. Being these were rented from Netflix, I didn’t get to check out any of the extra features. Still, an interesting HBO miniseries, excellent video presentation, and outstanding lossless audio that gets you in the thick of the story. I didn’t necessarily like each character over the course of the 11-hour miniseries, but I don’t believe we’re supposed to. It was interesting to get to know aspects of these characters, their perspectives and how they individually and collectively handled adversity.

Saturday night with no plans? Check? Random call to go out to celebrate Lesh’s birthday? Check? Sounds like a plan.

We got a call from our friend Sandhya, who was organizing a quick get-together for whoever was available to celebrate Lesh’s birthday. We normally all get together to celebrate, but April has proven to be a busy month. As her birthday was the 27th, a bunch of us were free Saturday night. We met up at Penang in Lodi. The restaurant serves both Malaysian and Thai cuisine, but we went anyway, and brought Josh’s Epi-pen just in case he had some contaminated food. By the time we got there, almost everyone was there. No worries. The food was very good, and the libations were large and in charge. Good times. I took four decent photos, so they are here below for your viewing pleasure.

So I’m 36 years old. Hmph. Big deal. To quote Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann, “What me worry?”

Yeah, I’m 36. So what? Sure, in some respects, the body isn’t what it used to be. My left knee took a beating twice last year, but it’s okay now. My tailbone isn’t what it used to be, but I deal with the pain. I’ve got a lot of grey hair now, and it’s all over the place like weeds. What hasn’t turned grey on the top of my head is slowly disappearing, much to my surprise. I’m not as rich and famous as I thought I’d be by my mid-30′s.

Still, if you look at the picture below, you’ll note that life is pretty damn good. My wife is hot, loves me, and puts up with my shenanigans for some strange reason. My son is smart, funny, and pretty awesome. My daughter is cute, funny, and such a character. We’re not rich, but we get the things that we need, and go places together as a family. Most important of all, we have lots of fun doing it.

Life is good. Life is wonderful. Appreciate and cherish what you have. You could have a weird mustache or something.

My 36th birthday dinner @ Mahzu

Way back in the ealry 1980′s, I still remember when my parents signed up for…… cable TV. Oh, the multitude of viewing options. Besides watching Godzilla and kung-fu films on the weekends on Fox and WPIX in the New York area, I used to watch a lot of Nickelodeon, MTV, and Disney. Disney had a lot of cartoons, shows, and movies, including The Journey of Natty Gann. Now, if I remember correctly, this particular film wasn’t shown on the Disney Channel. It came out in the theaters, but it was heavily promoted on the Disney network. It looked interesting enough, but my parents weren’t about to take us to see a movie in an actual movie theater. We never did that sort of thing.

Well, 27 years later, I finally got to see The Journey of Natty Gann. Can you believe it? Of course, I still haven’t seen E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Goonies, and a host of other 80′s films, but I’m working on it. So, what’s this film about? Um, instead of writing up a whole summary, I’m going to excerpt something I read on the IMDB entry:

Natty Gann (played by Meredith Salenger) is a twelve year old Depression era girl whose single-parent father leaves her behind in Chicago while he goes to Washington State to look for work in the timber industry. Natty runs away from the guardian she was left with to follow Dad. She befriends and is befriended by a wolf that has been abused in dog fights, hops a freight train west, and is presumed dead when her wallet is found after the train crashes. Dad gets bitter and endangers himself in his new job. Meanwhile Natty has a series of adventures and mis- adventures in various farmhouses, police stations, hobo camps, reform schools, and boxcars.

That’s basically it in a nutshell. It was interesting to see this slightly more realistic depiction of the Great Depression (people complaining nowadays should really stop their bitchin’, seriously.) I didn’t think this film was particularly all that. The acting was alright, but I never felt all that invested in the storyline. While the “wolf” in this film (played by “Jed” the dog”) was okay, but I didn’t quite buy him being wild and yet so friendly. I suppose that’s what makes this more of a children’s movie. However, it’s not quite a children’s movie with the adult-ish themes that come up.

BTW, the film is only available in DVD, and it’s a pretty horrible transfer. Apart from the stereo sound, it’s pan-and-scan (yet they filmed all this great Northwest / Canadian geography) and the film quality is very grainy. Bizarre. It gives the impression that this film isn’t much beloved by Disney, so they rushed out a DVD transfer.

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)