If there is something strange about this post, please forgive me. I am forced to make this entry directly into the database, rather than use my blog site. I’m not sure why, but I can’t get logged on from here.

I am at Microsoft Brainwashing again, this week. What?! Training on the week of Christmas? Yes. Isn’t that sad?

There is much I’d like to post about, but I dare not while Big Brother Bill is monitoring my every thought. I’ll be sure claw my thoughts into the flesh of my arm so I’ll remember to post about them next week.

Until then, BUY MICROSOFT OR DIE!

Alas, the Lord has heard my whining and granted a reprieve. We did not go climbing last night. Instead my dear wife and I sat on the couch from 6 to 10 and watched my new movie, ROTK. (Yaaay!)

Need I bother with a review? Well, of course! It RAWKED!! There were a couple of scenes in the extended edition that left me confused. It has been about three years since I finished the book and my memory is fading, but I’m pretty sure they changed some things. I’ll be taking some free time (Good Lord willing) over the next couple of days to reread a few passages of the book.

The acting in this last chapter of the LOTR trilogy was really moving. As doom closes in and all seems lost, we get to see the tender, emotional side of all the key characters and they all do a grand job. Sean Astin, as Samwise Gamgee, has already proven himself in the previous movies. More than any other character, I believe he deserved an Oscar.

The one that really struck me was Billy Boyd, playing Peregrin Took. His character is the child of the fellowship and always the one getting in to trouble. Up to this point in the story, he’s been almost entirely carefree. But in this last edition, he really goes deep with the character and does it with excellent results.

Many of the actors had to do scenes in which they had to tell the story without words. There are many long close-ups that serve only to express the emotion of the moment. Any actor can tell you that is the hardest kind of scene. And they all pulled it off wonderfully.

And so, I risk setting a dangerous precedent, but I feel it’s only just. For my very first movie review, I award the LOTR trilogy a perfect score of 5 grins.

Now look what you’ve done. You’ve gone and made me start thinking about movie reviews. I’m going to have to create a whole new post category and post reviews of all the movies I’ve seen in the last few months. Shame on you. Now go to your room.

Last week… no… the last month has been insanely busy. We wrapped up the Christmas play on Sunday with great success and relief. Tammy and I were looking forward to a solid week with no commitments AND (insert cheesy trumpet fanfare) the release of LOTR ROTK. (If you’re not geek enough to know what those acronyms mean try mousing over them.)

Sunday night, our great friends, the Preeces, invited us to “scream out our stress” from the last few weeks at Six Flags. Okay, we’ll start our relaxing “us” time on Monday.

Monday, we realized we still had yet to go grocery shopping since we’d moved into the new apartment… three weeks ago. We had absolutely no food and were dangerously low on other essentials, like toilet paper. Okay, we’ll start our time of rest on Tuesday.

Monday night (more like Tuesday morning) one of our kids called us. She’s been experiencing huge amounts of stress too and she really needed some quality time. So we decided to take her out for dinner Tuesday night. We ended up at the mall until way past our bed times. Tammy had picked up the ROTK extended DVD at lunch, so we would snuggle up and watch it on Wednesday night. Half a week of rest is better than nothing, right?

This afternoon (Wednesday) another of our kids called. She’s the one we’ve all been stressing about because she is suffering through a deplorable situation at home. Long story short, she needs a ride to church and there’s no way we’re turning that down, even if her mom has dragged her off to some new boyfriend’s house an hour away.

Okay, “us” time is not in the cards for this week. We’re going climbing with the Preeces tomorrow and Friday God only knows what’s in store. Maybe we can sit down and watch the movie together on Saturday. Maybe.

I don’t mean to sound whiney. I am humbled and honored by the fact that God has trusted us with so many responsibilities. I relish the fact that we are doing His work.

But still…. I’d really like to see that movie.

Well, it looks like the time has come for our Ultima Online shard, Montis Draconis. My old buddy Phlegyas (not his real name) who started and hosts the server has finally had enough with all the ex-OSI players whining about how things “should” work. So we’re making a break.

There’s no time table yet, but this will be a dramatic change for the players on our server. I won’t give away all the gory details, in case any of my readers play on MD (or would like to *hint hint*), but I can say that I’m looking for good custom UO maps. Yep, the world is gonna be changin’.

I’m also working on a new look for the site. All I’ve got so far is this banner that we’ll use on the top shard lists to advertise MD. Dai-San (not his real name) is also a GM on the server and will be working on many many custom scripts. Basically we’ve got a lot of work to do before this big event takes place, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.

From Despair.com:

There are no stupid questions,
But there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.

I stole this one from PvP. Have you ever heard parents complain about all the stuff they have to do for their kids? Soccer practice, piano lessons, fund raisers, band concerts; and that doesn’t even touch the surface of the added headaches of the holidays. Well, good ol’ Brent Sienna, PVP’s perpetual bachelor, had the best retort I’ve heard for all this bawling.

That’s what you get for reproducing!

Nice!

Wow… Where to begin…

Nine days ago, Sunday before last, I headed out on a camping trip with some of the guys from the church youth group for a retreat. We were planning to go to Pedernales Falls State Park near Austin, but it had been raining the whole week before and the forecast was for more rain. We decided to stay closer to home and opted for Mineral Wells.

It did rain every day we were there. It was soggy, but we all still had a good time. We got some good hiking time in and the guys got to spend a lot of time with the Lord.

I got home Tuesday afternoon cleaned up and hung my tent and sleeping bag up to dry. I took my wonderful wife out to eat and then got a phone call from my sister, Sabra. Sabra and her fam were going to be driving through the next day on their way to my folk’s ranch in La Grange and offered to save me the gas of driving down myself. I took her up on it.

They pulled in to Arlington at about 3:30 on Wednesday and I hoped in. (Tammy flew to Amarillo on Thursday morning to spend Thanksgiving with her family. Long story, but it was a good decision.)

My dad was having some survey work done on the ranch which required cutting some paths through the dense woods along the perimeter of the property. These paths revealed other, smaller trials through the woods created by the horses and wild deer. This gave him the idea to buy some cheap paintball guns from Wal-Mart. Thanksgiving was great. We had paintball wars in the woods every day. Oh, and the food was good too. (Thanks, Mom!)

I got back from La Grange around lunch time on Sunday. I met Tammy at the church and we did some counseling with one of “our kids” who’s having some personal problems. We got home in time to catch the 3:00 football game. Then we started packing.

“Packing?” you ask. Yes, packing. The apartment next door to ours is an end unit, thus no neighbors on the bedroom side, thus much quieter. It also has a bigger balcony that’s screened in and new appliances. It’s been vacant for a couple of months now and we decided to move. This is certainly our easiest move ever. Our living room couch is moving literally about a foot, even though we have to carry it out one door and in the other.

Last night (Monday) we started moving and got about half way done by 9:30. We both tuckered out and called it a night. Today we should have 90% of our stuff in the new place. Since we’re not really packing most of it, there’s no unpacking to do. Just take and arm load off this shelf and put it on the exact same shelf next door. We do still get the benefit of moving in that we are going to get rid of LOTS of junk we don’t really need.

Once we’re done moving and cleaning up the old place, we’ve got our usual busy weekend ahead, and next week is going to be the craziest of all. As I inherited the church’s Christmas play, and it is STILL behind schedule, I’ll be at the church EVERY NIGHT next week for tech set up, que rehearsals, dress rehearsals, final run throughs, and finally, three performances on Saturday and Sunday (Dec. 11th and 12th).

So, now you will understand and hopefully forgive my lack of posting the last week or so and for the next two weeks. Hey, at least we’re not bored!

I went on a “Young Men’s Retreat” this week. To you lay people out there, that means I went camping with a bunch of teen age boys with a bunch of penned up energy. There were many, many, many very funning quips flying through the night air in those rainy woods and I hope I can remember them all long enough to use them as White Board Quips.

It’s like Goonies for grown ups!

Ahh youth.

I’ll be gone all this week. The first half, I’ll be camping with the guys from the youth group. The plan is to go to Pedernales State Park, down by Austin. But with the weather map being green from Nebraska to Mexico, we may choose plan B, which is to go to Mineral Wells. If we going to get rained on, might as well be closer to home.

After the camping trip, I’ll be back in DFW just in time to put Tammy on a plane to Amarillo, change out the clothes in my bag, and head down to La Grange. Tammy’s doing Thanksgiving with her family, to lend support to her sister who is getting divorced. I’m going down to our traditional Ladd family Thanksgiving on the ranch. There has been talk of paintball wars in the woods, and I plan to bring my “game face”.

So, please forgive me if your comments don’t get approved for a few days this week.

Now, go and be thankful! God think’s you’re special and He loves you very much!

Society has labeled me yet again. First I was Gen X (read angst-ridden yet apathetic). Then, I was a victim of the Dot-Com Bubble (read laid-off). Then I was part of the 9-11 Fallout (read laid-off AGAIN). But now I’ve been placed in a new social classification. Problem is, this one is the truest of all.

I am part of the Tech Support Generation. Geek is sheik, google is a verb, I read more blogs than “media” news, and life is all about owning games that push my video card and owning a video card that can keep up with my games.

The true litmus test of Gen Tech is explained in this article.

…the Thanksgiving holidays. We’ll sit with our families in warm, candle-lit dining rooms eating stuffed turkey, reminiscing over old photographs, preparing holiday shopping lists and … Please. Let’s be frank. We are going home to fix our parent’s computers.

Yes, we all know it’s true. No sense hiding from the facts.

And just to make myself perfectly clear, I own that shirt, and wear it often, but no one seems to care. They ask, and I end up fixing their computer anyway.