Friday, September 12th, 2008
Do yourself a favor and watch this movie … Will Farrell is amazing and try not to fall in love with the lovely Ms. Pascal - she’s mine!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420223/
A socially isolated IRS agent whose every move is documented by a disembodied female voice discovers that his life is the subject of a book currently being written by a best-selling author, whose creative block has stunted her repeated efforts to kill him off, in a quirky fantasy comedy written by Hollywood hot property Zach Helm and directed by Finding Neverland’s Marc Forester. Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) lives a life of solitude. Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) can’t seem to find a way to finish her latest book. Though Harold and Kay have never actually met, their fates are about to become intertwined in a most unusual manner. With her publishers growing increasingly impatient with her apparent inability to put the finishing touches on her latest novel, Kay is assigned a new assistant whose task it is to help provide the creative push needed to get her book finished and into the hands of her many eager fans. The subject of Kay’s novel is a lonely and despairing IRS agent named Harold Crick, who believes that his life has lost any real meaning. As Kay continues to weave Harold’s woeful tale without realizing that her protagonist is actually a living human being unable to concentrate on his life and career due to the constant interference of the narrator who inexplicably seems to anticipate his every move and read his every thought, her continued efforts to kill her perplexed subject finally provide him with the incentive needed to fully experience life by seeking out the source of the voice that plagues him. Penned by the screenwriter named by Variety magazine as one of the “Top Ten Writers to Watch” and who was also included in Esquire magazine’s “Best and Brightest” list of 2004, Stranger Than Fiction features supporting performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
David stirred as if he was being watched. He peeked over the edge of
his newspaper and tilted his head up so he could look through the
bottom of his bifocals. Kate was in the kitchen with her back turned,
cleaning the stove. He watched her for a moment and then returned to
his paper. He started reading an article on the recovery of the
President when the feeling came upon him again.
He laid his paper down and sitting in the chair across the table was
Karen. Only she looked so young.
‘I know what your thinking but my appearance will always reflect the
way you remember me.’ she said.
‘But … how?’ was all David could manage.
‘David, how are the boys?’ she asked.
‘Good. They both live about an hour away. Come to visit us every now
and again.’ he took a deep breath. ‘You have not come to talk about
the boys, have you?’
‘No David, not really. Time is not so important where I have been. Not
like here, where it is all about how much time you have for this one
or that one, for work, for the things you think need to get done. It
really doesn’t matter. Time is a restriction you put on yourself.’
‘I have tried to lead a good life. Kate’s father never did really
accept me, but before he died she made peace with him. The boys are
both fine, fine young men. You would be so proud.’
‘I have been … I am’ she said.
David looked over at Kate. He figured if she looked over now with him
talking to an empty chair, he just might end up in the home after all.
She held her own over the years. Looked after herself, and him. Made
sure they ate right, went for regular walks and got their 8 hours a
night. She was a miracle for the boys. How could he have done it on
his own?
‘David? David, are you alright?’ Karen asked.
‘Will it hurt?’
She reached out and touched his hand. ‘No, you will feel no pain.’
David could feel a tear form in the corner of his eye and roll down
down his cheek.
‘Will she …. ‘ choking back a sob ‘ … be alright without me?’
He couldn’t see Karen now but he could hear her. ‘She will of course
be sad, but the boys will be of comfort.’
David thought back to his time under the ice. That peaceful feeling
returned. He remembered hearing a voice before but this time it was
just so quiet. It reminded him of the nights that he and Kate spent
out on the lake in the summer. They would have a fire going and there
would be no sound. No cars, no phones, no music, no dogs barking. Just
peace. He thought about Kate and how over the years the good times out
weighed the bad and happy out weighed the sad. My god, how he loved
her.
He wanted to go over and give her a kiss … but he was feeling so
tired and so heavy. He just couldn’t. He lay his head down on the
table and whispered, with visions of Kate dancing at their wedding,
‘All the girls here are stars, you are …. the Northern Lights’.
Kate had been singing to herself, something about ‘every heart is a
package tangled up in knots someone else tied’, when she stopped
cleaning the top of the stove. She stood there with her cloth in her
hand and stared down at the glass stove top. In the reflection, she
could hardly recognize herself, when did she get so old? If someone
looked in and saw her they would wonder why this foolish old woman was
crying? She put her other hand on the stove top to steady herself and
could feel the shaking starting in the pit of her stomach. She tried
to say his name but nothing came out. She took a deep breath and
closed her eyes.
‘David?’ she said ‘David? Are you ok?’
Silence.
The tears were streaming down her face now. She knew. She just knew.
She turned and looked at were David had been sitting with his paper.
Her knees buckled and she had to hold onto the counter so she would
not hit the floor. For a moment, that seemed like a year, she looked
over at his vacant eyes. His glasses lay on the table next to home
where they fell. She always knew he would go before her but never
expected it to be like this.
She pulled herself up and closed her eyes to say a prayer. When she
finished, she took a step and then another, making her way to the
table where he lay slumped over the side. He reached out with her
hand and closed his eyelids.
‘Good night, love’ she said as she had a thousand times before.
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
Warm Up with CFWU
For time:
Run 400 meters
50 Sit-ups
Run 400 meters
40 Sit-ups
Run 400 meters
30 Sit-ups
Run 400 meters
20 Sit-ups
Run 400 meters
10 Sit-ups
Not sure of the times this morning … Paul and I both seemed to have forgotten our watches. In other news, Paul did an extra 400 meters at the end - what a monster!
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Taking digitial photos is great, viewing them - not so much. We have a couple of years worth of photos that we have not ‘printed’ or displayed. So I am in the process of cleaning them up, organizing them and getting them into an application that will allow me to display them online. What would be excellent is a digital photo frame that had a wireless network connection and could pull the images from my hard drive vs the need to put them on a USB stick. Either way, in the next week - there should be a large collection of our photos online. It is amazing to look at them all and realized just how much time has passed and how grown up Grace is getting. I have the video from when she is 2 days old to the most recent images (she is now almost 7 years old).
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
This weekend we had a great time at Vince and Mary’s 50th Wedding Anniversary Party! All Maria’s relatives came up from New York, Texas, and North Carolina!
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
On my own today … so I did
CrossFit Blackjack
20 Push Ups/1 Sit Up
19 Push Ups/2 Sit Ups
.
.
.
1 Push Up/20 Sit Ups
All rounds must equal 21.
Time: 30 mins
Friday, August 1st, 2008
So I have been up all night with Duke, now known as the puking dog. I am pretty sure he has Kennel Cough, with the added bonus of puke! Let’s just say, it was not a great night. If I could have strapped him to a rocket and sent him to the moon, he would be gone. And for all you dog lovers who think that dogs are human and treat them like children …. what the fuck is wrong with you …. they’re dogs!
Don’t get me wrong, Duke is an excellent dog - he just needs to be someone else’s excellent dog!
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
This is a video from the 2008 CrossFit Games. It is of one of the competitors (Kallista Pappas) completing the 100 pound Squat Clean and Jerk, 30 reps. She is 15! She competed against all the other women (some professional athletes, police officers, military) and came 25th over all (out of 91).
When the video starts, she is in the background and falls … she then gets up and completes her reps.
Take a look
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Amazing how after just a few weeks of CrossFit and some running, I feel soooo much better!
