Shane Life

What a crazy few weeks it’s been.

It started with Alli taking off for drill team camp at Emporia State for a few days. They had a very successful camp and Dreyfuss and I held down the fort. As soon as she got home, her sister took the dog with her up to their parents’ house. Dreyfuss struggles with kennels, so we send him up to Grandma and Grandpa’s where they can spoil him.

Then, we were off to Negril, Jamaica via Memphis for Jake and Kelly’s wedding. Four days in Jamaica, then a day and a half at home before we headed up to Council Bluffs to get the dog. We spent the weekend with Alli’s parents, celebrating her mom’s (belated) birthday and then returning home about 7:00 this evening.

Now, we’re parked on the couch, I’ve got the DVR remote in hand and we’re catching up on some TV. Sure, I’m back to work tomorrow, but it’s nice to have everyone home.

So I’m back from Jamaica.

Alli and I and the rest of the family have been at Beaches Negril since last Saturday. While we were there, my brother and his lovely significant other Kelly got hitched on the beach on Tuesday afternoon. Both families were there as were a bunch of Jake’s friends and we had a great time. After an all-day journey yesterday, we’re back in Kansas City, away from the island humidity.

It looks as though the internet didn’t break while I was gone, although I  did win a contest and my biography was posted on Brad’s site. It looks like everything else is as it was. 

I read two books while I was gone, finally finishing Wild at Heart by John Eldridge and quickly consuming Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. I’ll post reviews soon.

As far as the rest of the week…I’m taking the rest of the week off from work. I may tackle a redesign of my own site if I can do it quickly. We’ll see.

How are you?

I’m taking a break from blogging for a few days.

OK, so I was having an e-mail discussion with some friends and we were discussing what the best trilogies of all-time might be. I think that everyone will agree that if you have that discussion, the Godfather is almost always hands-down the winner. The only problem is that I’ve never seen the Godfather (I know…I know).

Anyway, I wanted to rank my top 10 Trilogies of All-Time. I’m going to put out the following rules:

1. There should be no changing of the main characters.
2. All movies should work by themselves
3. The movies should enrich the other movies in the series.
4. Must include more than just a sequel.

Those are the rules. Some of the below might break them in some ways, but they are good enough to overcome the rules, they will be included. So without further adieu…

The List:

1. Original Star Wars Trilogy - Will always be #1 to me. I’ve always loved these movies, ever since I was a kid.
2. The Matrix Trilogy - So it isn’t great at adhering to #2 on my list, but I loved these movies. I loved how Reloaded set up what was going to happen in Revolutions and I even loved Revolutions.
3. Indiana Jones Trilogy - I don’t think that there has ever been a more likable hero than Indiana Jones. He’s a man’s man and a woman’s man. Plus, the movies were all genius. I’m not sure we need a fourth installment, but I’ll go see it all the same.
4. The Lord of the Rings - Despite their excessive length, these movies RULE THEM ALL.
5. The Die Hard Trilogy - I can’t even begin to express how excited I am about the new one coming out this summer. John McClaine is one of the great characters of all-time. I still cringe thinking about him walking barefoot across the glass in the first movie. Ouch.
6. The Back to the Future Trilogy - As much as the third one sucked, I still loved these movies. Michael J. Fox has spent the rest of his career trying to re-capture the genius of Marty McFly.
7. The Terminator Trilogy - Arnold Schwartzennager at his awesome best. Hasta la Awesome baby.
8. The Austin Powers Trilogy - This wasn’t on my original list because the first time I watched Goldmember, I just didn’t think it was all that funny. After a couple more times watching it, I really started to find its hilarity (not the unintentional hilarity of Beyonce’s awful acting, but the real hilarity). Plus, the scene where Austin and his dad are talking to each other in “English” English cracks me up.
9. The “Vacation” series - I know that Vegas Vacation is pretty awful, but the other 3 are absolutely genius. Sure, they ignore rule #1 for Rusty and Audrey for all the movies, but still…Chevy Chase is just so gosh darn funny. Christmas Vacation is a top 5 comedy of all-time…not just a Christmas movie. It’s THAT. FUNNY.
10. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies - OK, so At World’s End doesn’t come out for another month or so, but the first two were great. Johnny Depp is so brilliant as Captain Jack Sparrow that you have to appreciate these movies. Plus, you have to appreciate how they made something totally sweet out of a relatively lame ride at Disney World.

So what do you think of my list?

My last day at Perceptive Software was November 10. I start my new job on November 27. I think my new employer would have liked for me to start on November 13, but I really needed this time off to decompress and prepare myself for my upcoming new position.

I’m thrilled to be starting this new job. I can’t wait to get in there, but for the last 2 weeks, I’ve been really enjoying not working.

Since Alli works for herself, she has been able to schedule herself available as well. We’ve had such a blast just hanging out the two of us in the house, getting Starbucks and muffins from our Price Chopper and so many other memories that I have to list some of them here:

• Starbucks and muffins from Price Chopper every day
• Chipotle almost every day
• Our annual Shopping Day
• Our Chiefs Excursion
• Alli punching Clay Aiken at Sam’s
• Seeing Casino Royale and Stranger than Fiction in a span of less than 24 hours
• Our Netflix trial and seeing Roman Holiday for the first time
• Watching Today, Regis & Kelly, The View, and The Megan Mullaly show. Seriously.
• Talking ourselves out of spending $3,000 at Nebraska Furniture Mart
• Seeing Tim Gunn and Angela Keslar from Season 3 of Project Runway at the Leawood, KS Macy’s
• Meeting little Stella Anne less than 24 hours after she was born…you guys make good-looking kids, K&S
• Naps
• Interviewing a new member of my new team
• Snuggling with the dog
• Spending Thanksgiving (and Ashley and Tom’s birthdays) with Alli’s family
• Late night text-messaging with Jake
• SUGAR COOKIES
• The onset of Christmas music, including our newest Christmas CD, Wintersong
• Finishing 2 books (Review of Fletch Reflected coming soon)
• The Chiefs beating Denver on Thanksgiving
• Staying up late by myself to watch the KU-Florida game go into overtime and have KU win
• Returning home
• Relaxing
• Spending 2 weeks with my best friend

Some of that might mean nothing to you readers, but it has meant the world to me. I’ll try to be a more prolific poster, but with the new job starting, we’ll see.

Every year, Alli and I take one day and try to knock out all of our Christmas shopping for our friends and family. In the past, I’ve taken a day off of work early in December and we do all the shopping in that one day. Since I’ve been off the last week (and am off the next as well), we used today to get our shopping done.

It’s such a relief to have all that done. I can’t believe that we got through all of it, but it helps when you have a good game plan (like we did). We could have been even more efficient and we probably would have been done by 1 or 2 this afternoon. Even so, we got done by 4-ish, home in time to take a short nap (I did, while Alli wrapped presents…what a jerk), and I even got up our monstrous 9-foot, pre-lit, fake Christmas tree. It looks awesome.

In the past, we’ve always waited until after Thanksgiving to put our decorations up, but since we’ll be in Council Bluffs and we’re hosting Christmas this year, we got a head start on stuff while I can be home to help.

We’re planning on taking most of the day tomorrow to get the rest of our stuff up, but we both have appointments tomorrow (I have an interview at my new company and Alli has to go meet with a client), so we’ll work when we can. On Wednesday, it’s off to Iowa for the holiday weekend. I can’t believe that my time off is coming to a close. It’s going to suck next Monday having to go to work. But I’m excited to start my new job. I’ll just have to relish in these last few days off.

Volume 2

Today, I’m thankful for days off. Today was a good day. I took a long-needed day off from work. I’ve been pushing very hard lately with our company open house for our new building (which was last Friday and was totally sweet) so I rewarded myself with a day off (considering I have about 3 weeks built up…I needed to use it anyway).

Alli and I slept in, made breakfast, almost went to the Plaza, shopped for shoes, both bought a pair (her: brown boots; me: black slip-on work shoes), ate some food, watched some “That 70’s Show” and just relaxed.

It was a great day and I’m thankful that not only I could have that day off, but that my wonderful wife has a flexible enough schedule to spend the day with me.