Hello world! If you can see this, the migration from WordPress to Docusaurus is complete. When I read this, I will do a happy dance.
More posts/info to come while I work out all the backend kinks and config changes.
Taking place between the first and second Saw movies, Saw X finds its lead (John Kramer, played by Tobin Bell) in need of a life-saving surgery - which turns out to be a scam (relax, this isn't a spoiler...it's in the trailer).
I can't believe I'm actually writing the following: this Saw movie has some heart. And not the literal kind that John's victims have to pull out of their bodies in order to escape his traps or whatever, but real emotion! To know he's walking into a scam is uncomfortable, but it helps you appreciate just how slick the players involved are. And I'm sure building up hate for the antagonists is very intentional by the writers - so that we don't mind at all when John starts carving them (well, making them carve themselves) into little pieces.
I haven't been able to watch movies like this since I had kids. Some of the scenes in here really made my stomach churn. I sort of blame my COVID fevers for picking this particular film, and while I definitely wouldn't say it was a bad film, it made me feel bad as a person to watch. And I took a shower immediately afterwards (night sweats might have been a factor as well).
Pretty much everything that happens after John captures the people who wronged him.
As much as a movie about that centers around torture can be "good" I'll say I was thoroughly entertained and there were some twists I thought I saw coming but didn't. And despite some over-the-top gore, there remains a tiny emotional heart at the center of Saw X.
4/5 stars
Logan Marshall-Green stars as a not-so-tech-savvy mechanic who, after sustaining serious injuries from a car accident, agrees to an experimental body implant "upgrade" that comes with some interesting pros and cons.
Sounds like some sort of Marvel movie premise, doesn't it? This is the kind of "what if" I would talk with my friends about at the elementary school lunch table. "What if you could get a super-powered body? Would you play it like Clark Kent and try not to get discovered? Or would you fully lean into it and get revenge on people who did you wrong?" The movie has a nice balance of both, and I enjoyed the tone all the way through. It is especially fun to watch Marshall-Green, fresh off his upgrade, slide into his first dangerous physical confrontation with a bad guy. He experiences both the joy - and terror - of having what is essentially a "Hey Google, kill this guy" device built right into his body.
I've heard people complain that the movie feels too "small" - that it's more like an episode of Black Mirror than a feature film. Comments like that always bother me. It seems outside the scope of critiquing the movie itself. Did the movie entertain you? Did you appreciate the acting? Was the story engaging? Then just say "Yes, I liked it!" Otherwise it's like saying "Well I liked the story but it seems like it could've just been a stage play."
Not "bad" per se, but there is some pretty gooey violence and gore (a decent share of which plays off humorously).
I loved it, and would definitely watch again!
4/5 stars
As I'm (hopefully) winding down this bout with COVID, I'm excited to start my second season as a dad and dancer this month. My youngest son, Atticus, has danced professionally for a number of years, and one of the opportunities his dance company offers to students and their families is called Dads and Dancers (I like to refer to it as DnD). Basically the students and their dads (or another family member) practice up a dance piece every week over the winter months and then perform it a few times during competition season.
Last year was my first year with DnD, and I was nervous! Not so much that I couldn't handle the choreography, but because Atticus is super competitive, and made it clear that I better "bring it" or I'd basically be a huge, embarrassing failure - not just to him, but to the whole dad group, and essentially all humankind.
Even though the weekly practices weren't at my favorite time of week (Friday nights), I had a great time getting to know the other dancers and their dads. I especially enjoyed the "safety meeting" we had after each practice (which was an off-site hangout with pizza, wings and beverages :-). And heck, the dancing went pretty well too! Here's a shot of me doing my best to hoist Atti in the air so he can show off his splits:
This pic is hilarious to me as I get ready to start this year's DnD season because Atti is as tall as I am now. Maybe he'll hoist me in the air this year!
I mentioned that over the past few days I've had a very limited appetite thanks to COVID. I'm a little concerned because today some foods taste...odd. Specifically, tonight Aimee prepared some chicken for dinner. That tasted fine, but I always eat chicken (and pretty much every other food but scrambled eggs) with an obscene amount of ketchup, and this time the ketchup tasted like copper! I almost spit it out onto my plate! I sanity checked this by having Cam and Aimee taste test the ketchup, and they thought nothing was wrong with it. This is the only food that has tasted funky, and my sense of smell is fine. So what does that all mean? No idea. But it's kind of freaking me out. Anyway, today I ate:
1 mint cocoa
1 caffeinated ice
2 pieces of pizza
2 chicken nuggets
1 apple
1 taco
A friend asked me, "What exactly constitutes your so-called COVID diet? Seems like you're just eating smaller amounts of unhealthy foods." Exactly, friend. Exactly.
Rolling into day 3 of COVID, my wife and I have been comparing side effects. One (and I know this may be just a coincidence) that's unique to me is I developed two huge canker sores directly under my tongue. Fortunately it only hurts a lot when I talk, eat food or drink. With limited appetite this is not really a problem, but then I got the b-day present my parents left for me while I was out of town:
Skittles and Starburst are my favorite candies ever. But to even look at them in packaging right now is making the back of my mouth fill with bile. However, we recently got an air fryer, and I found quite a few videos on using one to create freeze dried treats. Maybe out of sheer morbid curiosity I'll make a batch tomorrow and then enjoy them when the canker sores clear up. Of course...that's probably just inviting a new batch of sores to setup shop in my mouth, so maybe I just take the plunge right now?
Only things I've found to sit well in my stomach today:
Mint hot cocoa
Pepsi
Bag of lime rice
Bag of trail mix
Cheese stick
A couple apples
Let me be clear: COVID has not been fun and I'm not making light of it in any way. The Mrs. was exhausted - hibernating under covers for most of the daylight hours. She got exhausted from even a short walk around the kitchen. Also, I know this illness hits people in strange ways - and for long periods of time - with a potpourri of symptoms and complications. That part still freaks me out.
But (and maybe I'm going to curse myself by writing this) one good side effect for me has been this constant light fever that I can tell is making my heart race juuuuuuust a little bit. The reason I consider this a good thing is it has kind of put me in this mellow, chill state of mind even though my body feels like literal hot trash. I've found myself feeling optimistic and thankful, which isn't crazy out of the ordinary or anything, but often when my mind is in neutral it says things like, "Hey, mind if I bring up this memory from 15+ years ago where you really hurt the feelings of someone you haven't seen since and probably hasn't thought of you since? ROLL THE TAPE IN HD PLEASE!"
I get super easily annoyed at those overly peppy, "Go get the world by the tail!" life coach types, and I hate to say this but...I kind of feel like one of those today! I'm sure I will come to my senses tomorrow, but in the meantime I wanted to share an exercise I learned from (checks notes for source...and can't find source) about simple ways to get a tiny mood boost - and that is by regularly, either written or verbally, rattle off a freestyle list of things you are thankful for. Then end each one with "I'm thankful for that." That's it. No matter how small, simple or funny. Just do it. Here's one I started today:
Both my eyes work. I'm thankful for that.
I breathe without assistance from a machine. I'm thankful for that.
Outside of, you know, COVID, our family has been very healthy. I'm thankful for that.
My legs and arms work great. I'm thankful for that.
We have good jobs that provide food and school and clothes and shelter for our boys. I'm thankful for that.
We've got a neighbor who is like another dad to us and another grandpa to our sons. I'm thankful for that.
I got to celebrate Christmas with a ton of great friends and family. I'm thankful for that.
A situation that looked like it was going in the toilet today completely turned itself around at the last second. I'm thankful for that.
...and so on and so on...
Like I said yesterday, I promised myself I'd log my food intake for a bit in the new year - just to hold myself accountable and try to drop some poundage. Pretty proud of the list below, but can pretty much blame (thank?) COVID for my screwed up taste buds:
Mint hot cocoa (yes, I'm addicted, mom. Back off.)
Mountain Dew (yes, I said I'd stop Dews in the near year and I didn't mom. Back off.)
Bag of trail mix
Chicken noodle soup
1 piece of toast
1 apple
1 cheese stick
Last year, after my wife's Facebook account was hacked (and recovered - read about that here) we had two scary realizations:
Facebook support is absolutely awful (unless you're famous or an "influencer").
Her Facebook account is probably the best log of our family's major life moments since our kids were born.
So this year, I wanted to publish some posts from my perspective and be able to easily download backups of everything just in case, God forbid, the site is hacked. (For nerds: this site is hosted by WPEngine which has been phenomenal so far.)
And yeah, maybe nobody will read this except me. That's ok, I just enjoy writing!
My wife and I ended 2023 on an extreme high and low. We took a long weekend trip to Arizona sans kids so we could have some date nights - and also so I could do some indoor skydiving (all my posts on this topic are tagged with iFly) coached by Nik at AXIS Flight School. It was amazing! Check this out:
On the way home, we talked about how 2023 was kind of a rough year, and set some goals for 2024:
More patience with our parenting
Get to a place of peace more quickly when things are going south
Drop some weight and gain some muscle
Well, one day into 2024, I'm excited to say that #1 is going perfect (the kids are still at my parents' place :-), but #2 is already ruined. After both of us had a bout with coughing, runny noses and fevers, we took a COVID test and (drumroll please)...
Yeah, so that was a fun thing to celebrate! However, the silver lining here is that COVID has thrown off both of our appetites, which means that the 'rona has helped us start tackling goal #3! It's amazing how healthy eating comes easy when you have no appetite whatsoever. Can't taste or smell much.
I'll try to get some "formal" movie reviews posted, but here's what I've watched in the last 24 hours of being couch-ridden
File this under "nobody cares!" but towards the end of the day I got some taste back. Here's what my weird COVID appetite was able to handle:
Mint hot cocoa from Caribou
Bag of trail mix
Bag of uncle Ben's lime rice
A Mountain Dew
A mountain of water
Chicken noodle soup
2 Ritz crackers
Not the way I want to start losing weight in the new year but...umm...I'll take it!
Today was fun - and a little frightening. I would have been all set to start my level 2 skill set after testing out of level 1 last time I was at iFly, however I had booked today's session in advance, the flying rules state that voucher time can be used for belly flying only.
I had a great time working more on all the level 1 skills with my trainer. He even flew with me a few times to practice docking and show me knee flying. That was all fine and dandy. At one moment though, one of my descents caused part of my body to fly directly over his, interrupting the air flow and bringing me semi-crashing down to the ground. Neither of us was hurt, luckily, though I was a bit shaken.
On my very last 2-minute flight I got to just free style it and do whatever I wanted. That was a blast, although I wish I had more tricks up my sleeve to show off :-). Hopefully that will change in the near future, as my next scheduled visit to iFly is dedicated to level 2 skills development! In the meantime, here are a few moments from today's visit:
Total time iFlying as of today: 2 hours, 25 minutes. And my new adjusted wind speed is 70.
As Napoleon Dynamite would say, "YUSSSSSSSSSSS!" I did it! I passed my level 1 set of flight skills!
I'm sure I've already said this one or five times in the past, but this was my favorite set of flights so far. For the first time, I didn't feel nervous or like I was setting out with a mindset of checking skills off the list. I went in with the mindset of just having a fun time (and yes, hopefully passing my side slides so I could stick a fork in level 1 flying)!
I got to do a couple new styles of tunnel entrances. I’m not sure what they are called (side fly entrances?) but they went pretty well. I learned later that the wind was unintentionally set a little high for one entrance - and you can definitely tell which one based on the video below.
I also got to do a ton of doubles flying (if that’s the term?) with my instructor where I had to mirror her movements as we did various formations around the tunnel. I felt pretty good about those, but the box flying (again, I can’t remember the terms…this is just what I’m calling it) still makes me nervous. It’s a weird sensation to feel the wind give out from under you ever so briefly as someone flies underneath you. I didn’t mind that feeling so much when flying solo, but for some reason, having someone fly right underneath me makes me worried I’ll fall out of the sky like a boat anchor and cause both of us to crash! Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Here are my favorite moments from this visit:
Going forward, I get to start working on my level 2 skills, which is rad! The other thing that changes is I get to start using what’s called block time. With block time, I no longer need to buy vouchers and schedule visits on the iFly Web site. Now I can call up the office directly, ask to get on a specific trainer’s schedule at a specific time for however many minutes I want. Then I just pay for the total minutes flown at the end of the visit. That’s cool! I’ve talked to some experienced flyers during my past visits, and they said they like to book 5 minutes with one trainer, then take a quick break and have another 5 minutes at the next time slot with a different trainer. I actually already booked my next iFly visit, so I’ll have to use the block scheduling going forward after that (I already asked if I could use my next visit to work on level 2 skills but no, voucher minutes can be used for belly flying only).
Total time iFlying as of today: 2 hours, 10 minutes. And my new adjusted wind speed is 68.
Today was a beast! For the first time ever, I flew 15 minutes in one session (chopped up into chunks of 1:30 I believe)! It wasn't my idea, though. A buddy of mine (who I flew with for the third time) planted the idea in my head last time we were here, and although several people told us not to do it, we did. The way it works (in case anybody reading this wants to do it in the future) is you have to buy three 10-minute flights. That books you and a friend (or two) the full 30-minute flying window. So my pal and I decided to trade off flying for ~1:30 at a time for 30 minutes straight. The good news is you don't have to take turns with a large group of other flyers. The bad news is this environment makes for a very short recovery time between flights!
As nervous as I was from an endurance standpoint, I think both my friend and I fared the flights pretty well. I was super pumped because I got introduced (with no prior notice) to a couple of new moves! I don't know what they're technically called, so I'm just going to call them knee stands, doubles tunnel entrances, and "OMG I'm standing in the tunnel and it feels suuuuuuuuper freaky and unnatural!" Check it out:
The instructor really gave us a nice mixed bag of skills and drills. And I was happy to keep working on my one remaining level 1 skill: side slides. I feel like the move is getting smoother and more under control, and I'm hoping by the next visit or two I'll have it checked off on and graduate to level 2!
Total time iFlying as of today: 1 hour, 55 minutes.