I was out of town / away from Husi for a while there.  My Husi Hotlist is HUGE.

Garage Shelves

I’m building some shelves for my garage.  I am not the least bit handy.  Provided that I survive I hope to post some photos of my finished work.

Old Computer Books

In preparation for the fiancé moving in (T minus two weeks :o ) I am going thru old boxes in order to clean out the crud.  I found a box of old computer books such as manuals and educational materials.  Much of it is out of date and as far as I can tell 100% useless.

I hate to destroy a book but I see no use for this stuff except to recycle them.

Chuck Close

I found this video about Chuck Close on Google Video interesting (30 Min).

I’m by no means well educated in the world of the arts.  My introduction and much of my appreciation of the arts came from a 12th grade English class.  The video reminds me of how nice it is to have a little bit of the artist’s perspective in mind when seeing their work.   The local modern art pantheon in the Twin Cities has at least one piece of Chuck’s.  This one.  While I did take the time to observe that piece more than most of the items in the museum during my last visit, I think I would have appreciated it more had I known more about the man and his thoughts.  Those little square plaques they have just don’t help much.

I wish I knew the name of the music they used for that video.

MLP: Fear the Hello Kitty Air Guitar Master

Words fail me.

Movie: Open Range

It seems every new western I see takes a darker look at the classic old west gun battle, and it takes Open Range a while getting to that battle.  Much of the opening seems like a promotional video for being a cowboy or some western state that only has the imagery of some folks on horseback to sell me.

Once the plot gets going there’s this almost Video Game RPG quality about how the main characters visit a town move from building to building getting to know their occupants and moving on to the next building.  Fortunately it worked enough for me.

I thought the dialogue between the two main characters plaid by Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner was interesting.  There could have been endless “tough guy tries to talk about his feelings” clichés as they moved from their old arrangement from boss and ranch hand to something more like partners.  Rather the characters and their discussion are handled respectfully as they manage the situation in their own way.  It seemed very genuine as I know people like that.

There’s noting particularly new here as far as such movies go, but I enjoyed it.

The Short List of People I Would Like to Have Avenge My Death

Charles Bronson
Robert Duvall

Free Mail

The U.S. Postal Service seems to have taken pity on me lately.  I mailed some bill payments one cent short of postage and they all seem to have made it to their destination.  In addition the fiancé received some important paperwork via a big envelope that had no postage and yet was sent to her from another state . . .

U.S. Government

Dear U.S. Government,

I would like my tax refund money now please.

Thank you.

-duxup

P.S. Please don’t bomb me.

Movie: Good Night, and Good Luck

I saw Good Night, and Good Luck recently.  After finishing the film I kept wondering how is it that a movie like Good Night, and Good Luck gets nominated for best film along with a cookie cutter film like Walk the Line?

I’m no Murrow historian but I thought David Strathairn nailed his part.  The integration of the original black and white film from McCarthy hearings feels seamless at points.

What I particularly enjoyed was that the film didn’t just address the issues regarding the McCarthy hearings.  Questions are raised about how the media in addresses issues such as the McCarthy hearings where the facts so strongly conflict with a person’s position that there simply is no factual opposing viewpoint to present to the public.  Additional thoughts about television are addressed via a speech by Murrow as well.

Home

I went home for a week.  It was a combination visit mother and see how the chemotherapy is going and finalize wedding plans trip.

Mother is doing well, relatively.  Her wig is surprisingly realistic.  Had the hair style not changed I could have been fooled.  It is a bit disconcerting when you head to the bathroom to find your mother’s hair sitting on its stand on the countertop.

I’ve been educated by mother about the perils of chemotherapy.  Loosing your hair is apparently the least of the pains such drugs bring on.  In fact mom made the point to several people that if loosing your hair was the worst thing to happen (other than the actual cancer of course) she’d be quite happy to take the drugs.

She’s lost weight but not a ton of it and she says most of that seems to be from loss of appetite.  Fortunately she’s strong enough to keep eating and the stepfather does a good job keeping an eye on her.

Mother is still working (teaching) thru all this.  She basically takes two days off for each chemo session and rests thru those days and the weekend and returns to school.  She’s incorporated the whole thing into her class.  Obviously it is heavily edited info that is given to the children to keep from scaring them.  Yet you have to tell them something as being third grade kids you couldn’t possibly hide it all from them.  

Until the day mother chose to simply cut all her hair off and use the wig debates amongst the students occurred nearly every day regarding if her hair was a wig or not.  Being a long time third grade teacher my mom thought it was adorable.

During chemo apparently you know jack squat about the progress in terms of cancer until the chemo is over, that sucks.