A visit with Gomez Addams

 

Tonight we got to see a really good version of "The Addams Family" play locally here at Gainesville High School.  We got these tickets at the last minute, wanting to support our friend Caleb, who got the part of Gomez Addams, which he absolutely nailed.

It was a really good  night!  We enjoyed the performance and the vibe, and you know something?  I could come back and see this again.  We've seen it before at the Holly a few years ago, so the story was familiar. But the performances were fantastic!

Maddie and her friend, Thing.

The rest of the day was quiet for us.  Maddie had a big test in ELA today, but it seemed to go pretty well.  She was studying a bit tonight, but it was late enough that we went to bed right after that.  I read a bit from our book, which we're wrapping up soon enough.  In just a few days, we'll start off with "From a Certain Point of View" for "The Empire Strikes Back."  Maddie was good with that.

We said our prayers tonight and got to sleep quickly.  Tests this week, the school year wrapping up!

At Imaging Center

Here's Mom and I at the imaging center downtown, and part of this was somewhat routine, and another test was requested by the new oncologist.  Mom's bone density is low, that's the end result of this morning - we got the results later on and are sort of interpreting it on our own.  We'll consult with the doctor, but we're also looking into whatever ways we can to increase that bone density.  Mom's been doing a bit of research today, and we'll focus on that heavily the next six months or so until we can request another test to check for any progress.  Obviously we'll continue focusing on that, but any health concern at all with either of us is somewhat worrisome and we dive in wholeheartedly with adjustments in diet and behavior.  In my case, I'm still walking, walking, walking - and running - on that treadmill.  Lately, I've been on this enthralling journey to Zimbabwe, and it's just been a wonderful walk in the bush there.  

Speaking of journeys, we continued our Harryhausen Festival tonight with a viewing of the second Sinbad movie, which is not the second voyage of Sinbad, but in fact a later one, "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad." This was the one I remember watching a lot as a kid, especially that iconic scene at the end with the fountain and the fight in the foreground between a cyclops/centaur and a giant griffin.  

Maddie had her taekwondo tonight, and I was catching up on grocery shopping.  I picked up some things for Cinco de Mayo that should be fun, including mini-tacos and some street taco ingredients.  It should be fun.  "From a Certain Point of View" featured a small story about Lando once he saw footage of the Millennium Falcon swooping away from the Death Star.  It was an interesting short story.  Maddie and I read that, and then said our prayers, closing out a quiet day.  She's got tests tomorrow, and we want to make sure everyone gets enough rest.

Goodnight!

Weird Laws

Our surf movie series continued tonight with a movie called "Surf's Up," an old gem from 2007 that we completely forgot all about.  The "Napoleon Dynamite" connections were strong in this one, but even outside of vocal talent, the movie is actually pretty good.  We enjoyed it, and I was laughing out loud from time to time.  

Of course, this is all part of our theme at KidPak, where we've been "Hanging 10."  It's a series about God's Top Ten, the Ten Commandments, and this morning we were tackling Commandment Number One.  Josh is seen above, covering our memory verse, which is from the New Testament and sort of goes with that First Commandment.  

We have the old surf races up there, these animated contests with three racers competing for the surfing crown:  Frankie, DeeDee and Roach.  Of course Frankie and DeeDee are callbacks to the Beach Party movies, which we'll continue as this series goes on.  

It's been a fun series so far, a refreshing visit with a series we haven't done in fourteen years or so.  Everyone's been enjoying it so far.

Our skit team was pretty limited this morning.  Of course, the Ten Commandments make sense.  But we were talking about some "Weird Laws" in this country, a famous little segment we revisited where we were learned about a few odd laws that are actually on the books in various levels of government.  I found some graphics that I cobbled together to illustrate ten of them - here they are:  WEIRD LAWS.  Or ODD LAWS.  Whatever you want to call them, they were fun, and got the kids laughing, and of course wondering why these were passed.

After service, our day was nice.  There was this big ol' "Trump Bus" across the street as we left the church.  We thought it would be fun to stop by and take a picture for a photo op. 

Hopefully this doesn't get this page in trouble, but for some reason we haven't seen any Biden buses.  Anyway, Mom had some amazing spaghetti planned for us, and we largely chilled the rest of the day.  We started a new LEGO adventure with the Switch and a Star Wars game, spending most of our time on the Tantive IV, roaming about as the character Tech and Ahsoka too.  We got in some rest, and of course there was the movie.  We even got back into another episode of "Monk" before bedtime.  The forensics continues!  

Tonight we read another short story "From a Certain Point of View."  It was somewhat bleak again, even though it ended with the happy news that the Death Star was destroyed.  It was Mon Mothma's thoughts as she escaped the Yavin area, with her picturing what the next steps were if the Rebels failed in their attack of the Death Star, which seemed likely.  Contingency plans.  It was interesting, but I think we're ready for a more upbeat short story.

Anyway, we said our prayers tonight, and after that it was time for some sleep.  It was a fun day today!

Torch Tongue, Mithril Paintbrushes and Ray Harryhausen

Maddie started her day off with Team Edge, practicing with Master Edge himself and the rest of the team. We're inching closer to a competition, and Master Edge was tough but he knows what needs to be done and what needs to improve to get to competition level.  The students were glad at the end of the morning, feeling better and stronger.  Afterwards, Maddie went to a funeral of the grandfather of one of the students.  It was sad because this man was really like a caretaker, always driving his son to taekwondo.  I had no idea he was ill.  Some people bear these long journeys quietly.  

There was a bit of time between funeral and practice, so Maddie and I went to eat at Zaxby's in between.  She's really just there for the various levels of hot sauce.  The chicken wasn't that great today, but of interest is the hot sauce level of intensity.  I remember some time ago being afraid of that maximum heat level:  Insane.  We tried that a while ago, and surprisingly, I could bear it without wanting to guzzle a lot of drinks afterwards.  In fact, compared to other hot sauces, it wasn't too bad.  Nuclear wasn't as lethal as we expected either, but at the same time we both agreed that it wasn't really enjoyable either.  It was just a lot of heat and spiciness.  So we're down a level - I think it's called "Torch Tongue."  It's actually not too bad at all, a bit of sweet heat to add to the meal.  Maddie can tolerate more than I can, but this is one of those hot sauces we both could enjoy with the meal without needing any help afterwards!

The rest of the day was pretty quiet.  Maddie and I did finish LEGO Middle Earth, getting 100% once more, and making available that wonderful Blacksmith.  The final object he made was the mithril paintbrush, which we promptly used to attack all the citizens of Brie with.  They're all different colors now, roaming about and going about their days wondering what happened and why they're either bright green or purple colors.  

We took a break from surfing movies tonight and started another mini-marathon that Mom and I wanted to return to:  Harryhausen.  Yes, we went to "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" tonight, and after that we watched a documentary about Ray Harryhausen, and all the different movies he contributed his craft to.  He was so influential to many directors we know today, and Mom and I always remember watching those movies on television growing up.  The title of this movie does make me wonder what the previous six voyages of Sinbad were like though... I mean, I know there are two other voyages after this one, and those have movies we'll be watching shortly.  But about those first six voyages... were they just too boring to make a movie about?  I mean, was that "2nd Voyage of Sinbad" basically about him sailing from his home in Persia to...Delaware.  Nothing happens on the journey, although there's some light rain.  One of his sailers thought he spotted a mermaid, but it was actually a porpoise.  When they got to Delaware, there wasn't a giant Cyclops, but there were plenty of seagulls, and they can be a nuisance. 

Okay, I just looked it up.  Sinbad's second voyage is somewhat adventurous too.  It involves a lot of snakes, and some birds too.  Not seagulls though.  Apparently every time Sinbad goes on a voyage, threats abound.  So keep that in mind if you're on a voyage coming up - make sure Sinbad isn't with you.

Anyway, it was an overcast day, and a quiet day.  We read tonight, another bleak story about that final battle between the rebels and the Death Star.  I mean, things end happily for the good guys, what little are left.  For about five stories or so, we've read how one by one, most of the good guys get blown up.  I'm feeling the weight of the cost of the Rebellion now, that new hope sort of tempered by the fictions reality of a galaxy-wide war.  A-hem.  Anyway, we read tonight, and hopefully we'll be moving on from this portion of the overall story.  It's been good, or at least hit-and-miss with the authors.  They're all different authors, and we have a few good ones to go.

We said our prayers tonight, and that was it for Saturday.  We'll be hanging ten tomorrow! 

Ducks

Tonight was a busy night - we had this event at KidPak, a chance for parents to have a few hours out while we entertained the kids.  Maddie also had taekwondo tonight, so there was a bit of back-and-forth with dropping her off and picking her up and getting back there with the kids for much of the movie.  It was a busy night, but it was good.  Maddie had a great time at taewondo as always, and then she had fun taking pictures and spending time with the kids and volunteers at KidPak too.  It was a pretty fun night.  We watched the movie "Migration," which of course is all about ducks.  More on ducks towards the end.

Our office is still evolving, the walls painted white and this "life insurance" furniture coming in.  That's been the description thus far - the leftover furniture from the Alpharetta campus is now with us at KidPak. It's our first revamp in twenty years, but it's not exactly exciting.  At all.  But we'll work with it.

It was a quiet day at school.  I picked up Maddie from the car line, and we got home to quickly get going towards the next thing, however we made the mistake of getting hooked on a Stormchaser network, basically a series of links to storm chasers in the Midwest, and wow, there were some storms out there today.

Maddie, Mom and I watched a few of these live, getting caught up with the storm chasers as they captured videos of twisters like the one above.  Intense stuff! 

The weather was much quieter here today.  The night ended with prayers, and reading "From a Certain Point of View," yet another bleak story, this one about Biggs.  We knew it wouldn't end well when we knew it was about Biggs!  We said prayers after that, and it was time for bed - tomorrow is another Team Edge, followed by a supportive appearance at a funeral.

Maddie is wrapping up the year at school, and she's racing against time to get some of her ceramics complete and ready to go.  We'll wrap up this post here with the evolution of a ceramic duck, still a work in progress, but getting closer!  She's enjoying this class a good bit, and we're so glad to see her reaching out and trying some new creative things.

Another "Perfect Date"

Well here we are at the "perfect date" again, April 25th.  The more that recurring memory strikes us, the more it cements the fact that we should probably watch that movie on this date each year:  "Miss Congeniality."  It's a funny segment, and a fun movie too.  

Today may not have been perfect, but it was a good day overall.  Maddie had another pre-cal test that was pretty big.  She had taekwondo tonight too, of course, helping with instruction and then attending leadership afterwards.  We got home after that and we watched the latest episode of "X-Men '97," which has been pretty heavy of late.  It's almost as if this were part of a "What if..." series, one where the mutant and human conflict really goes to the next level, with lots of casualties in the mix.  The loss of Gambit... we're still not over that one.  Gambit is of course, one of the favorites.  Okay, he is my favorite.  And this show actually killed him off.  Of course they didn't have the guts to kill Magneto for real.  Like that is supposed to make us feel better or something.  Anyway, back to Gambit.  The rajun Cajun is an absolute favorite of mine and yes, I gave the limited series of comics from back in the day, not to mention all the early X-Men books that feature him in them.  I do not have that first appearance, as much as I regret not getting that one.  Yeah, I should have picked that one up when I had the chance.  I do have Deadpool #1 and the first appearance of a few other characters like Domino and Jubilee.  And suddenly this one comic I have with Deadpool vs. Wolverine is a little more valuable.  But back to Gambit.  He was the coolest hero outside of Wolverine, who of course everyone loved and still does.  But Gambit sort of went under the radar, this suave and flirty Cajun with the long trench coat and exploding playing cards.  Playing cards?  What kind of weapon is that?  Don't think about it too much.  He throws cards and they explode.  As Stan Lee would say, " 'nuf said!"  

 

Anyway, Maddie and I watched that tonight, along with the in depth analysis we usually watch on another channel.  We might have to start watching the X-Men movies now, come to think of it.  And pull out those old comics again.   As Gambit might say, "I have no problem with 'dat."

We closed out the day with reading again, and we're approaching the end of the book.  The Death Star is about to go down, and things will turn around again.  And hopefully we'll see that with "X-Men '97" too.  And in the office.  Our KidPak office is in shambles at the moment, new furniture coming in and new paint on the walls.  It's been rough moving around so much stuff and keeping the other regular things going, but we're doing our best.

After prayers tonight, it was time for bed.  Not a "perfect" date, but not a bad one either!

KP Filming on Location

Today we were all over the place, including right near our house at Port Royale, which is less than ten minutes away and yet we've never really been over there.  It's a boat dock you can see from Browns Bridge, and there's a restaurant there too.  We chose this venue to film a few KidPak videos at because there was a topical vibe with the palm trees and all.  We brought a surfboard and that sort of helped out a lot.  The initial plan was to drive down to the actual Georgia coastline, but that might have to wait for another day.   Anyway, it was a day of adventure for us, filming at a few places, including Old Federal Beach, a place I remember taking Maddie too a long, long time ago.  We filmed some in the car I was driving - it was a loaner from the dealership - and since we were on the highway so much, we actually made it all the way to Jaemor Farms.  So why not grab an ice cream while there?  That's what we did, and I actually got a pineapple flavor ice cream.  Delicious!

We got back and I actually had to go over to Alpharetta after that to get our car, which is now fixed.  The AC officially works, and guess what?  The AC works in our house now too, so that's all ready for the hot summer.  The bills for this week were unfortunate, but that's life.

Maddie had a good day today, and she did well on her forensics test, doing really well in that class.  Tonight's visit with FCY was good too.

Here she is with a few friends afterwards - oh, by the way there was the ice cream truck.  Lately, our number one choice there (and I say that because yes, I had another ice cream) is the Spider-man popsicle.

Surprisingly, its face wasn't half-melted.  It actually looked like what you see in the picture above.  This was somewhat disappointing, as you sort of hope for this mutated Spider-man face.  But that's okay - it was still delicious!  Yes, I used the word delicious again.  Ice cream is delicious!

Tonight we watched the penultimate episode of "The Bad Batch," which is hard to believe.  I mean, is there really only one episode left?  Tell me there's something else animated coming our way?  Maybe they'll announce something on May the Fourth, which is coming up.  I hope so, because this is an era of animated episodes - twenty years, right?  They've been great.  We squeezed that in, and then it was time for reading, yes another bleak short story "From a Certain Point of View."  We said our prayers after that, and soon after, the Plush Entourage was down the hall, tucked in, and ready for bed.

Seder

Mom created a wonderful setting tonight, as we did something we've never done before at the house.  We had our Passover Seder this evening at dusk, and it was very unique and memorable.

You can see above the different items of the meal placed in the appropriate spot labeled on the dish itself.  Mom ordered these dishes a little bit ago, and has been preparing the items today.  The salt water dish is nearby, and the horseradish is there, along with the bitter herbs, the roasted egg, the shank, and the charoset (a mix of nuts, apples, cinnamon, and honey).

We watched a live presentation of the Seder online while we ourselves participated, lighting the candles, listening to each reading, and of course eating the appropriate portions of the meal in order.  Of course "Seder" means "order," and when eaten in the correct order, each item represents a different part of the Passover story.  And afterwards, there were latkes, or potato cakes, as a meal at the conclusion of the ceremonial portion.

Maddie wanted hot sauce with her portion, and as far as I know, there's no scripture condemning hot sauce.  So sure, why not?  We'll just say it's symbolic of the heat of the sun that baked down upon the Israelites during their journey through the desert... sound good?

Anyway, it was very interesting and we were grateful to have done it.  And of course, we were praying for Israel this evening too, but that goes without saying.  So many hostages still unaccounted for.

Today was a better day.  Maddie had her school visit today at Chestatee again, and things are wrapping up for the year.  A few tests are this week, which means a bit of focusing at night on homework and studies.  We played some Battlefront II tonight, old-school.  It was fun working together to take down the Empire attack on Hoth, or do a raid on the Death Star.  I think reading stories "From a Certain Point of View" drove us back to that game for a small bit.  Inevitably, we might be watching "A New Hope" pretty soon at the conclusion of the book.  It actually might coincide with May the Fourth!

We got squirrel #75 today, and escorted him off to a new location, and today my walking/jogging concluded in Colorado with that series.  The iFit journey continues.  Also continuing is the "Sea Monkeys on Mars" adventure, which is currently thriving.  This next generation is made up of plenty of sea monkeys, all of them growing fast and moving around quickly in the tank, exploring the surface of Mars for food, while taking in deep breaths of the oxygen I pump in there a little more frequently.  

So things are going okay - other than the immense amount we'll have to pay to get AC back online for both car and house.  But these are first world problems, for sure.  

We read tonight, and said our prayers again.  And then it was time for sleep on this Passover night.

Muscle Beach Party

This is my favorite scene from this movie.  Imagine Dick Dale and his Del Tones right behind you, singing a surf song as they all hang out of their car driving down the highway.  And he's playing a guitar as they ride down the highway.  And there are surfboards everywhere, with a huge parade of cars, people singing, jamming and swaying to surf music.  What a scene! 

Tonight we watched another Frankie and Annette gem, a movie called "Muscle Beach Party."  It had the return of many of the characters from "Beach Party," including Frankie, Dee Dee, Cappy, Deadhead, and of course Candy.  Candy is just insane with these hyper dance moves that if properly harnessed, I'm sure could provide power for the greater Southern California area.  Cappy and Deadhead are favorites, and Frankie and Dee Dee seem to be reliving their same exact commitment issues from the first movie.  But none of that matters, because these movies are so light on plot that you could probably fit the entire story of the movie into a thirty second spot.  It's all about the era, the surfing, and the crazy comedy bits in between.  And the Peter Lorre cameo at the end.  Oh, and Don Rickles?  Yes, he and Buddy Hackett are in this one.  Maddie was busy doing homework while we were back to the beach.  We're committed though - we'll get through all of these too because this series at KidPak, we're going to "Hang 10!"

So today was a rough day for the wallet.  We are paying out close to ten thousand dollars in various sudden bills related to cars and air conditioning, and in one case, both.  The dealership gave me a similar car as a loaner as they fix our old car, and this place is so fancy they gave us this car that's got to be a hundred thousand dollars.  Here's something pointless that it does:  it projects the car logo on the garage floor when the car is parked.  Why?  Because nothing says money like projectors that do that.  If I got this car, I'd switch around the logo to something else seasonal, like pumpkins or Christmas trees.

Anyway, the other thing is the air conditioning in the house.  There has been a "catastrophic leak," which never is good.  The word catastrophic usually means something like "expensive."  And indeed it is.  But our air conditioning unit has been around for fourteen years, so that's about average.  The other air conditioning unit is older and working just fine, which just goes to show that they used to make them to last, whereas the new units are built to replace in a few years so the manufacturers can continue making more money.

Tonight was taekwondo.  Maddie was having fun, and Master Edge requested an AI-generated country song about "Mrs. Edge's Fit Class" that turned out so funny that he was laughing and laughing... and then getting Mrs. Edge to hear it, and she had no idea what it was and was surprised to hear her name in there, and then she got the whole class to stop what they were doing and come out to hear the song I was playing again.... it was pretty funny.

Tonight we were preparing for a Passover meal tomorrow, still collecting ingredients and learning a bit about the ritual and making sure we get it as close to correct as possible.  It won't be perfect, but we'll do our best.  Mom has got all kinds of good food prepared, and of course all the proper food prepared as well.

A few notes from the back yard:  I'm still leaf-blowing.  Got a lot moved today, but still have plenty of moving to go.  We caught squirrel #74, and released him elsewhere.  And we've got plenty of birds out there at the deck too - this is a yellow-rumped Warbler, a regular customer of ours.  We have a few of these birds.  There are a lot of cardinal, bluebird, and mockingbird parents we're spotting, feeding each other in ways that look like a kiss, and I've been seeing a thrasher up on the deck a lot lately, collecting worms to bring elsewhere.

It's been a fun day.  We're closing in on a million hits with this site.  Maybe Wednesday perhaps.  Tonight we read a point of view from Obi-Wan Kenobi, and after that we said our prayers.  It's time for bed.  Everyone's tucked in, including all our friends from the Plush Entourage.  Time to say goodnight!

Hang 10, Dudes and Dudettes!

Today began the start of a new series, "Hang 10," which had all our characters back to the beach for the first service in quite a long time.  We used to do these "beach" themed series a lot, and it's good to be back.  You can see the Big Kahuna back there sitting down in his chair, taking a siesta.  Just like in the movie "Beach Party," he's a character that will sit there for the entire series, as the cast waits to see his toes twitch and his head arise - and then suddenly he'll say something really profound!

In the meantime, we're all just here ready to surf!  The skit was fun today, as was the message, an overview about the Ten Commandments and their importance.  

We found the old surfing races, these animated races that pit three surfers against each other, and of course everyone is wearing Hawaiian shirts, or in Nerdo's case, a "lifeguard trainee" shirt we just made for him yesterday.  I printed the decal and Mom ironed it on.

Notice the shark's tooth around my neck there, hanging lower.  Mom made that yesterday, and it came out so well that several people were really taking a good look at its detail.  She did a great job.  Also, that t-shirt came from the Georgia Aquarium a few Summer Xtreme ago.  

Finally, that inflatable surfboard... it's been in a package, waiting for this moment.  We picked it up at this book store on the Georgia Florida border, a place we used to go to all the time for books and resources, just to look around.  It was a great resting point, just stopping to see what they have.  We got so many ideas from that place that we used in KidPak, one of them being this series.  They had overstock of all kinds of VBS material, including this inflatable surfboard that we picked up over fifteen years ago.  It says "Hang 10 - Surfing through the Scriptures."  Great prop!  I picked that one up on stage and was ready to go off surfing with it!

Maddie and the younger cast members were with Camille this morning, doing some more acting exercises and then looking up things in the Bible to talk about.  They were testifying about miracles and sharing stories in that direction.  It's been so good.  Camille is good to continue this, and Maddie and her friends are good to continue with it too - everyone's been enjoying it quite a bit.

After service there was another KidPak Meeting about safety and security, and we were also cleaning up that office and preparing it for the Great Whitening.  The whole church is being painted this brilliant white color, with our area as usual being the last thing thought of.  But we got a lot of things moved around again.

This afternoon we got a rotisserie, and we got some rest too.  Maddie and I were back at Middle Earth and we're about 95% done on our return visit, thrilled with the Mithril Hairbrush that changes people's hairstyles when you whack them with it.  

Tonight's movie was "Teen Beach Movie," of course.  We hadn't seen this in years.  But it holds up well and all of us really enjoyed it.  Thus, we shift from "Exodus" movies to "Beach" movies on and off.  It'll be fun.

We finished a story about that lonely creature in the trash compactor on the Death Star this evening, a rather curious little tale.  And then, prayers... and off to sleep, dreaming of totally righteous waves to surf on!

Apefest Concludes... for now!

Apefest continued tonight with movie #9, and that of course is the final movie so far, "War for the Planet of the Apes."  None of us had seen this one before, but all three of us enjoyed the big finish to the most recent trilogy.  These last three have such heart, and characters you really care about.  Maddie liked these last three better than the originals, of course, but they're all fun in their own way.  In just a few weeks, we'll see the tenth movie in the franchise, which should be pretty fun to go see in theaters.  Maddie's first Planet of the Apes movie in the theater! 

Okay, so today was a quiet day.  We had a lot of "Hang 10" prep to do, including costuming for surfing beach characters on stage tomorrow.  We went to a few thrift shops, and on top of that, Mom was making me a shark's tooth necklace, which actually turned out really well.  You'll see that on the stage tomorrow with the rest of the service material.  We were out shopping for a few items for the KidPak service, but we were also grocery shopping for a few items for Passover coming up.  Mom got the plates and some other things to help us through a Passover Seder, which of course is next week.  We'll be studying up on that so we can do it properly.  

While we were out, we got some ice cream from Dairy Queen, a few Blizzards and a non-dairy Dilly bar for me.  It was all pretty good for a hot afternoon.  We got home and played some games, including a visit to LEGO Middle Earth, which we're almost done with.  It's such a large world, and it's been a lot of fun spending this time there.  We'll be back again, probably starting from scratch again.

Tonight was a cooler evening by far, and that was a much-needed break for us, especially given that both the air conditioner in the car and the one in the house gave out simultaneously.  We're getting both looked at next week, and going on from there.  

Maddie had her training again this morning, her practice time with Team Edge.  I was at the church getting things ready again with some music cues and printouts and so on.  Tonight we went to bed on time, reading some more from our latest Star Wars short story, and then after that - it was time for prayers.  It's been a decent day.  Tomorrow we start a new one with "Hang 10!"