Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Joel

I’m in sunny Florida this week, having taken a Boeing 767-400 through United down to Orlando. Flight time is a relatively short 2+ hour, but I got some work done while watching Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) on the seat back monitors. Note to United: really nice plane and the complimentary screen with viewing options is a nice amenity for the passenger. The flight was delayed an hour taking off from Newark, and the crying children weren’t my choice, but I shamefully liked that it was a half empty flight. Funny, because when I attempted to book it, the flight appeared full. Instead, I get a window seat and two seats to myself.

Anyway, so I watched one of Chris Pine’s latest Hollywood films. I do love a good Tom Clancy / Jack Ryan film. I missed the previous film The Sum of All Fears (2002) starring Ben Affleck. I don’t think it reviewed or performed well, as I don’t recall much interest or buzz when it came out. Fast forward to 2014 and we Chris Pine stepping into the role. Directed by Kenneth Brannaugh, the 2014 film is a prequel or reboot of sorts. As I read the history on this film, it turns out this is the first Jack Ryan film that isn’t based on any of Clancy’s original works. It’s a prequel about Jack Ryans’ start within the CIA.

Without giving out any key spoilers, I found the dastardly villainous plot to be a little… anti-climactic. I was also surprised at how quickly “Jack Ryan the 1st year junior CIA analyst” got turned into a field agent with such limited training and experience. I mean, I love Jack Ryan as much as any self-respecting red-blooded American would, but geez, doesn’t the CIA have more experienced assets to put up in the field to battle wits with Kenneth Branaugh’s villainous Cherevin and his FASB cronies?

Kiera Knightley stars as Jack’s fiance then young wife. She’s okay. Kevin Costner stars as Jack’s handler or manager or whatever. He’s also okay. The action in the film got a little hinky and unbelievable towards the end, again, because Jack is an now an analyst with previously unknown action star abilities and reflexes.

What I found ironic was the movie tagline: “Trust no one.” Spoiler alert! You can easily identify the bad guys, and you can trust all of the good guys. The writer and director (and Marketing Dept) warn you that you shouldn’t trust anyone, but really, there are no big twists. Rather disappointing and misleading. Once you realize that, it made the film plot even more anti-climactic.

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Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

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You can never find a USB drive when you need one

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Joel

USB drives used to be a lot more useful. You could share files between home and work, or between coworkers. Nowadays, USB drives on your office laptops and desktops are all locked down. And how often do you need to transfer files via “sneakernet” at home? Not very often.

But you know, every so often, we need to put photos on a USB stick, and none are to be found. Amazon.com was running a short term deal, so we bought a 32 GB Kingston drive. I’m sure we won’t need to use it for 6 months, then we won’t be able to find the unopened package. It’s a given. 😉

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We have a new camera – a Nikon D5200!

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Joel

A little history lesson to get you up to speed. Please indulge me.

1. I enjoyed photography growing up, either using my own dinky point and shoot camera that my folks bought me, or those few instances where my Dad allowed me to borrow his old Yashica SLR. I even did some part time work as one of my high school’s newspaper photographers.

2. I also purchased one of the last APS cameras (mine was an Olympus model) right before digital photography exploded. I never said I had good timing. Good point-and-shoot overall.

3. In the early 2000s, I purchased my first digital camera – a Sony point-and-shoot. digital photography was so much easier and cheaper than regular cameras. No more photo development fees!

4. In May 2006, we purchased a beautiful, wonderful, fun, Canon PowerShot S80 digital camera after saving up for months. It was for the prosumer or professional amateur like myself. Great quality photos. It was no SLR, but it was good.

Sadly, I had one too many Jack Daniels, Indian chaat, and laughs with friends one night in October 2009, and I accidentally dropped it (while still on) and the extended lens met hardwood floor. I attempted to get it repaired, but every repair shop said it would cost $600 to fix a $500 camera. Much sadness.

4. We couldn’t afford a brand new camera with prosumer features so soon, so we made due with an ultra cheap Fuji FinePix digital camera. It did the job for the next four years, but the photos were flat and sad. Seriously. This camera also met its untimely death at my hands when I left it accidentally on the car roof after Easter 2013 church services. Notice a trend here? It’s a known fact that burn through electronics pretty quickly.

5. For the past year, my wife and I have gone without any real camera, and relied solely on our respective camera phones. I know many digital camera doomsayers have proclaimed in recent years that camera phones would supplant the need for a separate digital camera, but I have to disagree. Yes, having a built-in camera on your phone is handy, but it should be considered the “Best option on hand.” Although my iPhone 4 camera was pretty good, my Samsung Galaxy S4 camera doesn’t take good photos if there is even slight movement. Maybe the shutter is inherently slow, or I’ve dropped it one too many times, but I have almost a year’s worth of slightly cruddy and/or blurry memories captured on photo. It’s bugged me for months. Are we to resign ourselves to blurry memories?

I’ve been looking at reasonable DSLR cameras that would balance price, features, and ease of use for someone still wanting to be more than the amateur who leaves the camera on “Automatic” mode. I read a lot of good things about the 2013 Nikon D5200, but most of my friends with a DSLR were split between Canon and Nikon.

Lo and behold, my wife surprises me for my birthday with a D5200 camera and 18-55 mm lens. I was very taken aback, but in a great way. What a sweet woman she is.

Now I have to wait to get a camera case and eventually a telephoto lens. And find time to register for a basic photography class.

Nikon D5200
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR II
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Easter 2014

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Joel

I mentioned earlier that my niece Sophia was in town for Spring Break, staying with her grandparents, and the kids had a sleepover with her Thursday and Friday. My wife and I made plans for Easter Brunch with Num’s sister Anjana and her daughter Sophia after church. I made the reservations a few weeks in advance at Pierre’s in South Brunswick for 12:30 PM. We’ve been to Pierre’s for lunch a few times, and used their bakery services dozens of times. First time for brunch though. Pretty pricey as well for brunch, but guys aren’t generally big on brunch, so what did I know?

After church services and a wildly successful Easter Egg Hunt, we all drove to Pierre’s. Wow, a lot of people. Guess this was a big deal. In speaking to the guy handling the check in process, he said they were expecting one thousand attendees. Geez, all for brunch. The food was okay, but I don’t think it was all that. I had also begun to get pretty sick that weekend, so my stomach wasn’t all geared for a gastronomic feast.

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We finally got our closet doors

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Joel

Back in late January, we redesigned and completely remodeled our hallway closet. The only component missing were closet doors, but we figured that I could go buy them at Lowes, and install them myself. Sadly, easier said than done. At Lowes one fine day, I was disappointed to discover that our closet width is about 1″ narrower than the standard 80″ wide bi-fold closet doors. Or 6″ too wide for the next size in doors. There was no 79″ variety available.

What to do? If I had a table saw, I could shave off a 0.25″ off each side, then hang and paint. Oh boy. Sorry, don’t have a table saw or a workbench. Crap. So we had to wait and hire and wait some more to finally them installed this month. They look good, but it was a long time coming. And more expensive than originally planned, but isn’t every home improvement anyway?

Houses are nice, but they’re like a money pit sometimes. Still better than an apartment though.

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Our new closet doors

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Spring Break with the Kids

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Joel

The kids a shortened Spring Break this year, on account of the higher than expected snow days this past winter. They had a full day on Monday, a half day on Tuesday, then off Wednesday – Friday. We didn’t have any major plans to go away on vacation, so I feel bad those families that did have plans. Namita and I worked most of the week, and I planned to take off Wednesday to take the kids out to the planetarium or somewhere. We didn’t huge plans laid out for the week, but the kids were to sleep over at my in – laws’ place with their cousin Sophia Thursday and Friday.

To start off that semi-normal Spring Break, I took the kids around to run some after-work errands on Fri April 11th, and then to a relatively new family owned ice cream shop that opened up late last year called Scoopers Gourmet Ice Cream. It has a nice neighborhood ice cream parlor theme, and they sell Thomas Sweet ice cream.

I was supposed to off the entire Wednesday, but there was a small flare up at work so I worked the AM. We missed the good 11 AM planetarium show down in Trenton, but I found out through my wife that the kids’ good friends Kaiya and Ellie were home with their dad Jason as well. He was also working that morning, and free in the afternoon. So we made plans to separately feed our kids, then all meet up at iPlayAmerica in Freehold to keep the kids busy.

The Ipes had a quick lunch at Burger King, and then found a huge line at iPlayAmerica. Guess a lot of people were thinking the same thing as we were. No matter, we didn’t lose any kids over 2+ hours, then we called an end to the madness. We decided to cap off the afternoon with a quick drive up Route 9 to Jersey Freeze. I’ve always seen it, but I’ve never been inside. It’s your typical ice cream and burgers joint. Jason and I chatted some more and the kids did impressions. Lots of laughing.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Joel

I thought the debut of the 2nd Captain America film would never get here. It’s been been three years since Cap’s first film in the official Marvel movie universe, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). Notice what I did there? I am completely glossing over the early 1980s Captain America film with the motorcycle and the see – thru transparent shield. And all the baked-in cheesiness. It was on par with the equally cheesy 1970s Spiderman films of that era. The new Marvel Cap was an extremely likeable and heroic star of the original 2012 film. The long wait since his last appearance in The Avengers (2012).

What I initially liked about this film, prior to even watching a single minute of the film, was that it wasn’t a film about a single hero up against insurmountable odds. I like a good ensemble, and there’s a good sized supporting cast of characters working for and against Captain America. Besides Chris Evans as Cap, this sequel strongly features Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Nick Fury (Sam Jackson), and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). You will also see some familiar and unfamiliar baddies, including the mysterious assassin the Winter Soldier.

While the first film combined both heart, action, and humor, this one does much of the same. Maybe that’s the secret sauce for the new Marvel universe. This film pumps up the action but there are plenty of character moments to keep you interested on a secondary level.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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Cubarama at the Lakehurst Naval Station

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Joel

On April 5th, I took Joshua and Lily to this year’s Mercer Area District’s Cubarama event at the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurt military base nearby us at 7A. This year’s theme was Scouts To The Skies, all around flight. The only unusual component for the event was that we had to provide names, addresses, driver’s license number, etc, so that the military could check our backgrounds prior to arriving to the base. I heard it was at McGuire AFB, but after driving an easy 30 mins to the base, the soldier at the gatehouse had no idea why I was handing my driver’s license over.

Well, we thought it was nearby. All three bases were combined in 2009, but the Cubarama event. Turns out, Cubarama wasn’t at McGuire — it was at the Lakehurst Naval Station. The directions provided by the soldier sounded easy enough to follow, but we ended up lost somewhere at a live fire range. It took us about 2 hours door to door, from our house, to McGuire, to getting lost in the wilderness, to Lakehurst.

By the time we finally found where we had to be at Lakehurst, we only had about two hours left before the end of the event. Interestingly enough, Lakehurst is the same place where the old zeppelins and airships would land, including the Hindenburg. As a matter of fact, Cubarama took place in an old airship hangar. Pretty neat. With the limited time, we hurried through eight of the activities so that the kids could earn a Cubarama pin. We learned about flight, airplanes, gyroscopes, the history of Lakehurst and airships, and even saw a mock aircraft carrier flight deck. The kids even got to use Microsoft Flight Simulator to fly a plane.

We finished up a little after 4 PM, and we were all pretty hungry at this point. We had missed lunch, after all. We ran to the car, drove to, and ate lunch at the nearby McDonald’s around 4:30 PM. We were eating a very late lunch, but senior citizens started showing to eat their “early bird” dinners. Well, whatever.

While we ate our late lunches, we bought tickets to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier at the AMC Hamilton. Much driving later, we made it to the movie theater. Long day, but a nice reward too.

 

The airship hangar at Lakehurst Naval Station
A mock aircraft carrier flight deck
Playing with Microsoft Flight Simulator
Lily really enjoyed “flying” an airplane
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Business Trip to San Francisco

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Joel

Fourth business trip of the year took me to San Francisco, California. I flew out on a Sunday afternoon, and it was a going to be a long, crowded, “Damn! Only middle seats?” flight. I was at Newark Airport on time, but I was stuck walking around the concourse looking for edible lunch options (to eat on the plane) at 10:30 AM. Trust me, there is nothing that looks edible or appealing to eat for lunch at 10:30 AM. I’m not thinking about lunch at that time normally. I eventually settled on a chicken sandwich to hold onto and save for eating two hours later. I occupied myself by working and reading.

Landing at San Francisco International Airport, it’s certainly a lot nicer out there than Newark. Waiting for the train to take me to the car rental center and looking at mountain ranges? Wow. As a matter of fact, my entire drive into San Francisco and to my hotel was extremely picturesque. The only word I could find was, “Wow.” My room at the Intercontinental San Francisco was so nice, I felt the need to capture it in pictures. I was mostly amazed by the room view and the shower door – less shower. That was some interesting engineering. I met a friend soon afterwards to do a little sightseeing and dinner. We drove around to Twin Peaks, saw Dolores Park, and a simple dinner in the Mission District.

Monday and Tuesday were quite a blur at work. Imagine my surprise late Sunday night when I got a message from another friend who had just landed at SFO, and would be working in San Francisco that same week. Monday evening after work, I met her for dinner. Not a bad coincidence.

Tuesday night, I was at SFO on time, clothes changed, and ready for the red eye flight home. While at the airport looking for dinner, I saw a pretty neat art showcase around Japanese toys. Among the many display items, I saw two of childhood favorites — Tranzor Z / Mazinger Z, and all things Godzilla. I would have stayed longer to gawk, but I had a flight to catch. It was a long flight, but at least I didn’t have another middle seat. I haven’t done the red eye in over a decade, and now I remembered why people don’t like them. You can’t sleep restfully on a red eye. I don’t know how it is for you, but I was constantly waking up throughout the flight, including during an in-flight emergency around 4 AM EST. I couldn’t sleep after that, so I booted up the laptop and worked some more.

Eventually landed around 6 AM, eventually found my car in the airport parking lot, and made my way home after 7 AM. Long day and a long night.

AT&T Park
My room at the Intercontinental San Francisco
A shower without a shower door
The view from Twin Peaks
Me at Twin Peaks
Dolores Park
Interesting windmill thing at Dolores Park
A Japanese dog?
The Japanese Toys exhibit at SFO
Tranzor Z / Mazinger Z
Godzilla toys
Tranzor Z / Mazinger Z toys
That’s a lot of Hello Kitty
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Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Joel

It’s 2+ years since the last Muppets film came out, 2011’s The Muppets. Call it what you want, but it was a reboot of sorts for the Muppets. They’ve had a number of hit-or-miss films since the 1980s, with diminishing returns. In 2011, Jim Henson’s company and Disney rebooted the franchise the film with a fresh start of sorts, and breathed a whole new life into this great franchise. I grew up on the Muppets — be it the weekly show and the theatrical films. I was rather happy to see Jason Segel and Amy Adams starring in an entertaining film starring my beloved Kermit and company. Where to go from here?

And that brings us to Muppets Most Wanted (2014), a sequel to the 2011 film. Much like the original 2nd Muppet film, The Great Muppet Caper (1981), this one centers around a road trip to Europe and a series of jewel heists performed by people known to the Muppets. The 1981 film took place primarily in London, while this film traverses both Western and Eastern Europe, including Russia. Starring big names such as Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, and Tina Fey, it’s an interesting film, but I wouldn’t say that I’d want to watch this film on repeat. The premise of the film? What with the Muppets’ newly rekindled fame, Rickey Gervais’ evil “Dominic Badguy” convinces the Muppets to go on an European tour. Unbeknownst to Kermit and the gang, Dominic is secretly plotting to work with Constantine, an evil green frog who is an almost exact doppelganger for Kermit. Kermit gets mistaken for Constantine, and gets locked up in a Siberian gulag under the control by Tina Fey’s prison guard or warden. Lastly, with all of these jewel heists going on, Ty Burrell plays a bumbling Interpol detective working with Sam the Eagle to catch the thieves.

The songs were okay, the jokes were so-so, but I felt that there was a lot of time spent with the Dominic and Constantine characters, and I personally would have liked the film to have centered around the beloved Muppets. Maybe the thought was to focus on newish characters with their own quirks and personalities, but I thought people came to see the Muppets that you know and love. Look, it’s not a bad film in any way, but IMHO, a bit lackluster.

Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

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