“Celebrity” Sighting. Stuck in the Airport.

This evening I’m flying out of Tampa to Boston. I have a great opportunity with my job to work in Boston for the week at a pretty special event. I’ve been told it’s “confidential” – you know Corporate America and their security. Anyway, I’m super pumped. Not just anyone gets to take these trips and very seldom does someone in my position get to travel for business. Needless to say I feel pretty excited and special.

What doesn’t make me feel special is how late the airline is running today. My flight was supposed to depart at 6:30pm. Now, to the best anyone can guesstimate, it will leave Tampa around 8:40pm. Um, that’s ridiculous – delayed over 2 hours? Really? Are you kidding me?

So back to feeling special. I was sitting down just waiting for my flight and a “celebrity” sits down about 10 chairs away from me waiting on his flight to NYC. It was none other than Nate Berkus. Some of you may be asking who. He’s an interior designer who’s gotten a lot praise from the Oprah. And these day’s that praise will get you the nomination (apparently). All jokes aside. He seemed pretty cool with the recognition he was getting from all the ladies. One lady that would’ve loved to talk to have seen him is my lovely wife Jen. She would’ve been pumped.

So for now – more waiting.

ps: While writing this I’ve been listening to the new Sigur Ros on imeem.com.  It’s perfect background music for blogging at the airport, people watching, and just waiting, more waiting.

June ‘08 Wrap up.

Obviously it’s been a while since we’ve updated this page. There is a lot going on in our lives right now and that means the blog has taken a back seat. Both our personal and work lives have become a little more stressful and we are currently trying to figure out how to manage the situation for what is best for our family. However, we do want to keep you updated on what’s been going on so here is a review of June 2008.

June 1 – 11

Not a whole lot going on these first days of June for us. We finished watching the climactic 3rd season of Battlestar Galactica – if you’re not watching it you’re missing out. Jen’s been out of work since mid May and has been looking since the beginning of March if that tells you anything about the state of the job market here in Tampa. It’s pretty bad, so please pray that she will find a great full time job. Oh, and the weather is just hot.

June 12

1. Walter Howard’s Birthday! Sorry I didn’t get you called man. I’m a tool of a friend.
2. Had free seats in the Marriot Box at Tropicana Field to watch the Rays play the White Sox. We Lost.

June 13

1. Josh’s Dad’s Birthday! He is exactly 30 yrs and 4 days older than me.

June 14

1. Hayne Griffin’s Birthday! Happy Birthday man and congrats on your new baby girl (also born in June)
2. Surprise pre-birthday party for me at Jen’s sister’s house on the lake and the Mixon’s were the surprise guests. Plenty of fun to be had playing video games and being dragged on a tube behind a boat. Well done Jen and co. on a great birthday celebration.

June 15

1. Father’s Day. We’re not celebrating that at our house yet. But hopefully soon.

June 16

1. Final small group meeting for the year.
2. Final small group meeting with the Mixon’s.

June 17

1. Josh’s Birthday – 29 years old.
2. New Coldplay album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends. Here’s 42. (One more than Dave Matthews)

3. Celebrated birthday by buying new Coldplay album and a Chic-Fil-A chicken biscuit on the way to work and actually enjoyed the traffic that day.
4. Birthday dinner with great friends.

June 19 – a very sad day.

1. The Mixon’s (out dearest best friends) move to Nash-Vegas. (Nashville for those that don’t know)
2. Jen starts working part-time at Banana Republic.

June 21 – The near perfect Saturday

1. Slept in. Listened to the thunder storm roll in for close to 30 minutes and just layed in bed and talked.
2. Late breakfast – bagels and coffee. Began to pour down rain.
3. Went to see Get Smart (better than we thought) before noon – only cost $5 and we had a gift card.
4. Spent the afternoon with friends at a baby shower, and watched Euro ‘08 quarterfinals on TV.

June 22

1. Got to see Spain beat Italy in another Euro ‘08 quarterfinal match. Go Spain!

June 23

1. Happy Birthday Aunt Jackie!

June 24

1. Happy Birthday Carolyn Hull!

June 26

1. Happy Birthday Leah. She is exactly 1 year and 9 days younger than me.

June 27

1. Dinner with the Whites. First time since SF that I’ve had really good Sushi.

June 28

1. Lunch w/ Aunt Jackie – celebrating her birthday from earlier in the week. Hooray!

June 29

1. I watched Spain win Euro ‘08 deservedly. I repeat go Spain!
2. Played Pirate-opoly (Pirates of the Caribbean Monopoly) with my 2 nephews. The youngest (5) smoked all of us.

June 30

1. Jen went with her mom and the 2 nephews to the Lowry Park Zoo. Sounds like a great way to end the month to me.

What do you do when your dreams don’t come true?

What then?

Go! Speed Racer!

We went to see Speed Racer a couple of weeks ago. I had seen the onslaught of trailers that had been released both domestically and internationally and I was ready to go. The movie started and from the beginning you could tell everything was going to be over the top. The colors and the graphics were amazing. They were purposefully bright and unnatural and, well, beautiful. There was just so much going on all the time that you had to work to keep up. The movie made you work for it – but it was worth it. The Wachowski Brothers (of The Matrix trilogy) created another amazing world.

The first 20 mins. was difficult for me because they were trying to cram in a lot of story so they could get to the action and the resolution. But when we finally got settled in and everyone’s role was established the movie really took off. The racing and action scenes were brilliant fun to watch and it was impossible not to be amazed by what went into making this movie. Everything from the clothes to the scenery to the cars were amazingly over the top. Ultimately the only way to describe it was like a real live action cartoon. It was silly, and handled action a lot like a cartoon would. But it wasn’t annoying, it was humorous.

It didn’t do very well at the box office, which is sad because I really enjoyed and would recommend going to see it. Even if you don’t want to shell out the money at the theater, don’t miss this one when it hits DVD.

Next up: The Chronicles of Narnia; Prince Caspian

Covered! 05/15/08 80’s Edition!

I know it’s been a while since you’ve gotten some good cover tunes so I tried to come up with a little something special. I know I have some 80’s music fans out there (namely my wife) so I thought I’d share some of the better 80’s covers out there (that I could find).

We’ll go in chronological order…

1983:Girls Just Wanna Have Fun made popular by Cindy Lauper. Covered by Greg Laswell. (Live Fan Vid. – It’s the best I could find)

1984: Against All Odds by Phil Collins. Covered by The Postal Service for the movie Wicker Park. Here’s the video.

1985: Careless Whisper by George Michael (while with WHAM!) Covered by Ben Folds and Rufus Wainright. (poor video quality – please stick out to the end)

1986: Take My Breath Away by Berlin. Covered by Copeland (no, not Jessica Simpson).

Did I miss your favorite? Do you have a cover that you think should be featured here? Please let me know – I’ll get it in.

Free Stuff Tomorrow (May 15th)

1. McDonald’s

Tomorrow you can have a free breakfast and a free lunch on McDonald’s. During breakfast hours on Thursday, May 15, 20008 they’re giving away a free Southern Style Chicken Biscuit with the purchase of any medium or large drink. Head back at lunch time for a free Southern Style Chicken Sandwich with the purchase of a medium or large drink. Valid on 05/15/2008 only.

2. Dunkin’ Donuts

Dunkin’ Donuts is giving away free 16 oz. Iced Coffees tomorrow, May 15, 2008. Stop by your local participating store between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. to pick up one of these refreshing drinks that offer a pleasant change from traditional hot coffee. Offer valid 05/15/2008 between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. only.

What happened last night?

Well, American Idol may be on a downward spiral. Last night was one of the most boring nights I’ve ever seen on Idol. I will say that Archuletta, Cook, and Mercado did well- Archuletta being most consistent. Castro did terribly and needed to go home weeks ago.

I finally realized last night why this season has been so different. Yes, I believe the collective talent is better than past seasons, but what hasn’t happened is a growth during each week. The only person who has shown a bit of this is Syesha Mercado, but that’s not saying much.

I really could care less who wins this season. My guess is that Archuletta will win and Cook will come in 2nd.

We’ll see.

Iron Man: Just Go See It.

Jen and I went to see Iron Man on Saturday morning. It was the start of the 2008 Summer Blockbuster Tour and I had been anticipating the moment for the entire month of April – counting down the weeks. I already knew that some online critics I agree with had enjoyed the film but didn’t let that determine my expectation level.

I didn’t grow up reading comic books but I’m a sucker for a good comic based action flick. So going in I didn’t know the history behind the characters or the story and it turns out, that wasn’t necessary. I won’t give you much of the story because you just have to go see it. I thought it was a fun, brilliant, and absolutely exciting movie to go see and I would recommend it. Seriously, this movie was amazing! The cast was perfect and Favreau directed one heck of a film. The action sequences had me grinning and on the edge of my seat like last year’s Transformers. Lots of eye-candy.

Jen says it was the best “Superhero” movie she’s ever seen, beating out Batman Begins and the Spiderman trilogy. I almost agree, I think it’s a close 2nd to Batman Begins. But to be honest the movies are not very similar other than they are comic book adaptation. Batman is much more dark and psychological and Iron Man is much more bright and fun. However, no matter what your taste in comic book movies is – this one takes the whole genre to the next level which makes it’s future very exciting – at least to me.

Next week: Speed Racer

ps: If you’re going to see Iron Man – make sure you sit through all of the credits to the very end. wink. wink.

…and we’re back

We’ve missed you guys. Sorry we haven’t been around as much as we would’ve liked. April proved to be an absolute blur – I mean it just flew by. I have no idea where it went. It seemed like all aspects of our lives got busy and complicated at the same time. So with all of that – the blog suffered a little.

Jen had a great couple of weeks celebrating her birthday and we hope to share more details of that soon (hopefully with pics). Also look for other stuff that happened in April that we haven’t had time to share yet. I’ve got some fun “Covered!” ideas lined up as well as some new music to share. Summer movies started this past weekend and so look for out takes on some of the blockbusters we’re going to try to get to.

Thanks again for sticking around and checking us out even though the blog-flow was a little slow for a while. Later.

J & J

My Irish eyes are not smilin’!!

This is probably the most dissappointed I’ve been with American Idol results since I started watching Season 1.  I was a huge advocate of Carly from the beginning, and always hoped people would see how great she really is.  Because of my dissappointment, I have no comments about the show this week, except to say, I hope Carly gets a better record deal this time around and that she makes a great album that really suits her.

jen- avid idol opinionist