Powerama

2011 recap

2012-01-22T19:36:00.004-07:00

This, along with a letter I wrote to Joseph for his birthday are late to being posted because I can't post from work for some reason. I don't know why. But here it is:

I'm not gonna lie, 2011 had its ups and downs. On the whole it was awesome because, well because I am awesome and so is my family. We were pretty much broke the whole year, but having a family on one income is not the norm these days, and there is a reason for that. Not that I would have it any other way. Jennifer is way better at raising my kids than a day care is. That might not hold true for everybody. Actually it would. Jenn could raise anybody's kids better than a day-care.
My job is holding steady at its current level of awesomeness. I get to basically draw pictures for a living. You can't beat that. Well, I guess I could get to have sex for a living, but from what I understand, most people in the sex industry are a bit broken.

Away we go:

In 2011:
• We had a new baby! Jillian Marie came along in August, and we couldn't be happier. We love her. The boys love her. The dogs love her. Basically everybody thinks she's the bee's knees. They are right think this.
• I entered my 36th year.
• Jackson, his 6th
• Joe his 4th (just a few days ago)
• Jennifer her 26th. Again. I don't know how she does that.
• I got hella plagiarized.
• Got into a fight with some tattooed miscreants.
• Spent almost the whole summer at the pool, and did not get a tan or loose any weight.
• On that note, I didn't loose any of the weight I promised myself I would.
• Joseph started a 3 year old program at Channing. He loves it.
• Jackson started Kindergarten at a language immersion school, and is excelling in every way. He's far exceeded the teacher's expectations. So much so, that he gets extra homework. Woo hoo! Extra homework!
• Jennifer has become very active in the PTA, to the surprise of absolutely no one.
• I did not change positions at work, nor did we move into a different house. This is actually kind out of the norm for us.
• What we did instead is an awful lot of small but significant work on the house. The sucker is shaping up nicely.
• A lot of very good television was made this year. I watched a lot of it.
• I went to the movies a total of three times. A new low.
• After a pretty wobbly financial state for most of the year, I finally feel like I have my shit together. It was a hard slog, and I could not have done it without the help of a few very awesome people.
• I went to get a physical for the first time in many many years. There were some problems that stem mainly from me being a fat ass. I also found out I have an honest to god syndrome!

So looking into 2012, I think we will kick some serious bottom. Jack will enter 6th grade, and Joe will start pre-k at the same school Jackson goes to. He can. Not. Wait. It's all he talks about. Well, not all, but a lot.
I do hope to get back into this blogging thing. I may start a new one, even.
Anyway.
Allons-Y!

-JP

|-o-|(-o-)|-o-|

Zombies are coming

2011-10-04T20:34:00.005-06:00

So like every good former (or closeted) goth/industrial kid out there, I love October. This is for many many reasons. Not the least of which is that the oppressive heat associated with Oklahoma has usually subsided, allowing me to venture outdoors without copious amounts of nasty, greasy sunblock and a sweat towel(being fair-skinned and overweight is a real bitch in the summertime*).
Another reason is Halloween, obviously. Halloween has taken on... not really new meaning, but perhaps renewed meaning now that I have kids and can vicariously live through them. We get haunted houses and candy and t-shirts with skulls on them and trick or treating in the neighborhood and the Zoo and the Mall and where ever else. Watching them have so much goram fun stabs me with nostalgia. Even when their whims don't coincide with my own. Jackson has tired of Star Wars, I am sad to say. Maybe because my own obsession started when I was his age and has yet to abate, I see SW going out of favor and being replaced by Super Mario with a little twinge of sadness. Mario is awesome and all, don't get me wrong, but I was never as into him as Jackson is now, and certainly not at the expense of Luke and the boys. I was all excited when Lego Star Wars III was going to come out because I really wanted to play it.** Jackson was underwhelmed, and we ended up getting Mario Kart instead. Which is also awesome, and a lot of fun with all three of us boys playing, but still.
So anyway, October. The main reason I love October is because of TV and movies. On the silver screen, we get an onslaught of horror movies to veg out on before all the Oscar contenders come in and make us have to think. Now that the torture porn genre is finally giving way to more traditional horror and comedy horror is on the rise, I actually have something to look forward to this year. On TV, all the American shows are starting back up, all the English and summer shows are winding down, and we get a whole mess of premiers and finales all jumbled up together.

I am extra excited this year because we get a new season of The Walking Dead.

I have high hope for this season, even given all the Hoopla over the summer of the showrunner, Frank Darabont getting fire or quitting or whatever. I have high hopes for three reasons:
1) Because Robert Kirkman is still very much involved. It is his baby, and hopefully, he won't let it go astray.
2) Because the webisodes were fucking awesome.
3) The cast and crew seem to think this season is going to kick ass, and I believe them.

They are also going to air an after show hosted by Chris Hardwick following each episode, so that sounds cool as well.

Happy hunting.

-JP

*In the winter it's okay because I have a layer of blubber to protect me from the elements, much like a polar bear or seal.

**We all know the prequels are crap for the most part, but we can also agree that the Clone Wars TV show is effing awesome, right?

A letter to Jackson on his 6th birthday.

2011-07-17T11:00:00.003-06:00

Well, buddy. This has been a heck of a year!
You finished up your last year of pre-school, and have open up like a flippin' lotus flower. Last year you played by yourself in the corner at play time. You participated when called upon, but were not likely to initiate much. This year was a complete reversal. You made friends, did great work and even asked to be on the soccer team. And that brain of yours! So smart.
It has been a bit trying to find you a new school. We thought you were going to Eisenhower because you aced the test and a lot of kids from Channing go there. Then they ran out of room. Same story with Zarrow, and with TPS reconfiguring everything, we didn't know if you were going to this new school they came up with or if we could afford a private school or just regular public school, which would have been fine. So finally we found out that you made it into the dual-language school, and I think you will do really well there. You have a really good grasp of language and grammar, so you should do fine.
Your brother sure is something, isn't he? He got to go to your school this year, didn't he?
He's got big shoes to fill.
You found out that you're going to have a sister this year! You should be happy. You have been lobbying for one ever since you found out Joe was going to be a boy. It's been awesome seeing the two of you wrap your heads around you mom's pregnancy. There was on night when this happened:
Jackson: Mom? Can I listen to your tummy?
Jen: Sure.
You put your head on her stomach and listened.
Jen: What do you think she's doing in there?
Jackson: Just swimming around... I wish I could control her mind.
And then you walked off.
This is what I love about you. Your imagination seeps into every day occurrences. I hope you keep it up.
You got glasses this year, adding to your Nerd cred.
You have been helping your brother a lot. Just kind of teaching him about the world and what not. He really looks up to you, but I think that once he figures out what his "thing" is, he'll be a force to be reckoned with.

This next year will see you starting at a real 5 day a week school, welcoming a sister, and mentoring your brother. It'll be a good one. Crazy but good.

I love you.

-Dad.

Pottery

2011-07-15T08:25:00.002-06:00

As anybody who knows me knows, I am a very big fan of British film, TV and literature. Actually, anybody who even vaguely knows me, or has read any of my blog posts over the past year or so would know that.
So here's the deal: I don't really care about Harry Potter. There. I said it. Feels good, actually.
Let me qualify this a little. I think Harry is fine. I love that a very English character has made it on a world wide level. Some may argue that Doctor Who did this way back in the '60s, but his following was always more cerebral and cultish rather that the all encompassing brand that is Harry Potter.
I put my time in. I read all the books. Or, more accurately, I read the first three, and listened to the rest as audio books. I thought they were okay. Not the best, but mildly entertaining. They are kids books*, but I don't really care about that because I read a lot of books aimed at younger audiences. Still read the occasional Hardy Boys book if you insist on knowing what kind of Nerd I am. So I give the HP books some slack. Perhaps because of over exposure, or because the blind fanaticism leaves me feeling a little icky(which is no small feat given my love of Sci-fi, and the fact that I have been known to frequent the conventions), or perhaps because I think that while good, the franchise isn't as wonderful as all the hype would suggest, but these days I'm more meh than anything else about it.
Maybe that makes me a poor Nerd, but I have to pick and choose what I can be fanatical about.
I don't have enough disposable income for everything. My kids still gotta eat.

-JP

Tardises? Tardi? Everywhere!

2011-07-12T09:55:00.005-06:00

So I've been all about Dr. Who my whole life. I've written about it a lot here, so you all know that.
But something is happening. Something awesome.
It seems the whole world is jumping on board. I know this because it has reached rural Oklahoma.
Observe:

Is that not awesome? The fact that people(nerds) from all over the world came together to get this girl a Tardis of her own is just adorable.

On a similar note, I have fulfilled a lifelong dream to make a door in my house into the Tardis door. I've wanted to do this since I was seven, but never had the guts to ask my parents if I could. Now that I have kids of my own who are following in my nerdy footsteps, and a wife who is awesome in that she will indulge me in my eccentricities, I was able to get it done. It is by no means perfect and i have a little more work to do on it. I fucked up the lighting on the panels because I was working on it upside down for no good reason, and my brain didn't reconcile that fact, but it still looks cool. And I have to make the "pull to open" sign, but on the whole, I'm pretty happy with it:

Thoughts on the new Beastie Boys album

2011-05-23T07:45:00.005-06:00

So I've stuck with these guys since I was 11 years old, and had saved my pennies to but a cassette of License to Ill. It was one of the first pop albums I found out about completely on my own. Through most of my youth, I mooched off of my older and wiser brother's musical tastes like a lot of younger siblings did. When I was 10, my Mom remarried, and for reasons that have nothing to do with anything relevant, my brother went to live with my dad, and I went to live with my mom. So I was kind of on my own to a certain extent.
As is every suburban kid's God given right, I lived in the basement of our house. I was lucky in that I had my own room, and my own living area, where my step dad eventually put a TV complete with cable. I think this was done specifically so that I would leave him alone. In the '80s, he was a very "beer and football" kind of a guy, where I was more of a "Dr. Pepper and Dr. Who" kind of a guy. So with a cable enabled TV and the '80s beckoning to me from the family room, I watched a lot of Bullwinkle, Robotech and MTV.
Naturally, MTV shoved the Beasties into my face, and I thanked them for it. I've kept up with them ever since, buying every album as it came out. This, in contrast to MTV itself, which I abandoned long long ago. I was one of the few who embraced Paul's Boutique whole heatedly, and Ill Communication and Check Your Head defined my High School years just as much as Nevermind or Pretty Hate Machine or The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste did. That was one of the wonderful things about the Beastie Boys. You could be a punky, little industrial boy and still be a fan. It was allowed because they were really doing their own thing. Sure, it was and still is deeply rooted in hip-hop, but the Beasties always managed to zig when everybody else zagged.
Their previous album, The Mix Up, an all instrumental done mainly I imagine because of MCA's throat cancer diagnosis, while not as good as the previous collection of Jazz-Funk tunes, The In Sound From Way Out, was nonetheless very good. Perhaps because I knew all about MCA's condition, the lack of lyrics added a slightly somber note to that album, and I could never get as into it as I could most of the others. It's like I could picture MCA back there on bass with a bandaged neck, and it just made me sad.
Now that I've had a few weeks to process this thing, I feel like Hot Sauce Committee is the exact opposite. This album exists to let everybody know that everybody is healthy and ready to party. A very nostalgic album, this thing could have been the follow up to License to Ill and nobody would have noticed. It isn't full of knock-outs, and I think they resort to their occasional use of a heavy, constant beat with almost whispered spoken word lyrics over the top a little too much, but what is good on this album is VERY good and very well made. Nothing seems over-mixed, which was the problem with a lot of To The 5 Burroughs, nor under mixed like the Check Your Head era. This is a party album, pure and simple. Just watch the 30 minute video for the Make Some Noise single if you had any doubt.

-JP

Brit Week.

2011-04-29T09:04:00.002-06:00

Is there a correlation between the premiere of the new season of Doctor Who and the Royal Wedding?
I think the hype around the new Who just a week before the wedding may have been a plot to get people used to seeing British people adorning their TV sets. Also to remind everybody that they aren't all stodgy uptight pricks, but some are actually pretty cool. I think that may also be why they devoted so much air time to the Beckham's red carpet entrance.

Hmmm.....

What's my deal with the Swedes lately?

2011-04-11T07:37:00.003-06:00

Maybe Sweden is having a Renaissance of sorts. Or it could be that they were always good at film making and I just never noticed. I do have great respect for Ingmar Bergman and Max VonSydow, but I always attributed that to a pair break out geniuses. In the last few months, and without any known intention, I have been watching an awful lot of film and TV that is either Swedish or based on Swedish work and in one case, I watched a Norwegian horror movie about Zombie Nazi.

First off was Let the Right One In, a fantastic Vampire movie about a 12 year old kid who befriends a thousand year old Vampire child. It's based on a book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, and I am tlod it is really good, though I haven't read it. It is on the list, though. This one was remade into an American version, but I haven't seen that yet, either. I already have some problems with it, though. For one thing, a big part of the Swedish version was the the weather, which was treated as almost another character. The story is set in a suburb of Stockholm, I assume because it would be the perfect place for a vampire to hide out. The Sun is hidden half of the year and behind clouds the rest. Everybody is already all pale and beautiful and creepy looking. They set the American version in New Mexico. I'm sure it gets cold in New Mexico, but not that cold, and not for that long. And to my knowledge, the sun still comes up in winter there. Maybe they were trying to steer clear of comparisons to 30 Days of Night, which I guess I can see. But if you want beautiful, creepy pale people in North America, just set the thing in Calgary. Problem solved.

Next was all three of the "Girl" movies(Dragon Tattoo, Played with Fire, Kicked the Hornet's Nest). Or as they call them over there, The Millennium Series. These were I resisted reading these books for a long time, because everybody else was, and my punk-rock sub-conscious told me that anything more than 5 people like has to be crap, so I didn't. The last time I jumped on a bandwagon like that, I ended up giving JK Rowling like a thousand dollars over the course of 10 years and counting. But I suppose I will relent with these books, if only because the movies were so very very good. Packed with style and attitude. They are making an American version of these as well, and I think I should probably knock out the novel before those are released so I can be an even bigger elitist and bitch about them with more gusto.

And Now I'm on Wallender! This is a weird crossroads, actually. In addition to all the Swedish media I've been obsessed with, I've been equally obsessed with British crime dramas. I've always been a big fan of all things British, especially their film and telly, but lately it's taken a more hard-core turn. After the new Sherlock, aired I got all goose-bumpy and re-watched Life on Mars.
Not the American version that not even Harvey Keitel could save.
Not good enough! So I watched the Red Riding Trilogy. Which was awesome, and I totally understand now why they picked Andrew Garfield for Spider man, because that kid is really good. Still not satisfied, I watched the first season of Luther. Also fantastic, and has a lot of Dr. Who cameos, but I suppose that with England having only a finite number of actors, you see the same people over and over if they are any good. Luther is one of those shows that keeps you thinking for a few days.
The thing with Wallender is that it is a re-make of a Swedish crime drama. I came at this one backwards, seeing the English language version first. But thank God the Brits got to this one before the Americans did. They went ahead and set it in Sweden. Where it takes place. Weird, I know. I have great respect for Kenneth Branagh, and I think he does really well when he gets to just act. He's really good in this. and the production does a really good job of pulling off the fact that everybody is in Sweden but speaking English.
I should also mention The Killing here. Though it is Danish and not Swedish, it might be important to note that the Europeans have suddenly become very very good at writing police procedural stories. They write characters that are incredibly real and believable. It is also note worthy that they manage to maintain this level of craftsmanship over several stories and arcs. Americans are having a tough time with this. Too many shows have an awesome first season and just crumble under their own weight after that(Lost? Heroes?). Some manage it just fine, like Mad Men or Breaking Bad, but what does it say when the best dramas on TV are nowhere near the networks? Not that there aren'y some jewels. I dearly love Castle and Lie To ME, but imagine what those shows could be if they didn't have to pull any punches?
They'd be awesome.

Some Tattooed Bastards probably owe me $35

2011-03-21T13:54:00.002-06:00

The back story: So my work used to own this parking lot. It was 6 blocks from the office, but it was free. Any of you who live or work in a downtown area can appreciate how useful free 9-5 parking is. Its in a not too awesome part of town on the other side of the tracks both literally and figuratively. There used to be a bridge over the tracks, but that got knocked down for being unstable, and there are currently no plans to replace it. There was also a free shuttle, but the city stopped doing that because of budget cuts. For the longest time you just had to walk the six blocks, and hope you didn't get stopped at the tracks by a train for 10 minutes. There always seems to be a 2 mile long train coming through town right at rush hour, and I can never figure out why they would schedule it that way.
Then the company sold the parking lot. They'd owned it since the dawn of time, and the area is slowly being gentrified, so they probably made a pretty penny off it. There were only like 10 of us cheap skates that still parked there any way. For a while the people that bought it let us park there for free anyway, but then they didn't. There was plenty of free on street parking around the lot, so a few of us just started parking on the street in front of the lot which happened to be across the street from a Tattoo Parlor.
The Indecent: For over a month we parked in a little line, happy as clams. Last Thursday, I got about half way home when I noticed a funny sound my car was making. I got out and my tire was flat, and apparently had been for a while, as it was totally shredded. I didn't think anything of it, as the car is a POS and crap just falls off it all the time. Friday morning, I drop it off to get a new(used) tire. $35. No biggie.
So I get to work, and one of the other guys in my department who had been parking in the same spot, asks me if the Tattoo Shop guy talked to me. No. No, he hadn't. He explained that as he got into his car the night before, the big burly tattoo shop guy came up to hes car and asked him to not park there anymore. See, according to this guy, us parking across the street was chasing off all his business.
I guess people were having trouble finding parking in the abandoned warehouse district of north Tulsa, and were just driving onto the next shop. Never mind that the area has plenty of parking all over the place, or that his shop doesn't even open until 1:00pm, is closed on Monday, and the area doesn't have another shop within 5 miles, or that 90% of their business is by appointment only. Tattoo guy even points out that the spots we all were parking in is actually a bike lane, but that he hack-sawed the no parking sign so his clients could park there. Seems a little weird, also probably a felony, but okay, I guess. I mean, it's on street parking. First come first serve. That is the law of the concrete jungle. At this point I hadn't put two and two together. Then coworker #2 showed up. He asks if I noticed any glass or anything around our cars last night. No, why? Because he got a flat last night. Rear passenger side, just like mine. Luckily, he caught it in time, and put his spare on before he left.
It was then that we all realized that we might be dealing with a bunch of assholes. We got confirmation of this when coworker #2 called me from the tire shop on Saturday to say that there was no hole in his tire, just that somebody let all the air out.
I think somebody owes me $35.
The rear passenger tire would be the easiest to deflate without being seen. If these dicks are so busy tattooing and expanding their business, when did they have the time to pull an immature stunt like this? If they are so worried about on-street parking, why do they all park their hoopties right in front of the place, and not up the block? If not being able to park right across the street for a few hours of their work day is what is ruining their business, they have WAY bigger problems. And what the hell, man? You could have just told me, like you did coworker #1. I may have argued with you, but at least it would have been civilized. Big tough guy has to deflate some tires like a in 4th grade bully? LAME. It makes me want to park right in front ALL THE TIME now, but who knows what they'll do to my car if I do.
Well there may be some fun and interesting ways to retaliate, since I can't prove anything. I won't throw a brick through the window or put gum in the locks or anything that would bring me down to their level. I could rally the power of the internet and have a bunch of people leave bad reviews on Yelp and Google, but that seems really dishonest. There is a number to call if signage in in Tulsa is in need of repair or update, however.
Let me know what you think.

-JP

Holy Shit, I've been plagiarized!

2011-02-22T08:23:00.010-07:00

So a few years ago, the Tulsa World did a little contest where they asked readers to tell the paper what they'd do if they were king or Queen of Tulsa for a day.

We used this nifty Illustration I did for all of the branding.--->

Super prominent on the rules page.

So today, we get an invite to a conference put on by a group called
Social Media Tulsa. This is their logo:

See what they did there?

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I'm glad my stuff is good enough to steal, but on the other hand, 'come on! This is pretty damn obvious.

The image is copyrighted by the Tulsa World, and the matter has been sent up the chain of command, so we'll se what happens from here.

Also, I love how they stole our image off our website, then use it in an invitation to us about attending a social networking conference.

Classy.

-JP

UPDATE!

They sent an email, and the response was along the lines of: We pulled the image off the web and didn't do our homework on where it came from.

They pulled the logo from their website, and are in the process of taking it off of everything else.

So the company that specializes in web related networking didn't do their homework on where an image from the web originated? Riiiight...

UPDATE 2!(3/2/11)

So after apologizing and promising to either remove or replace all existing instances of the work in question, they announced on their blog the other day that they had made a mistake, and are rectifying it with the unavailing of a brand new logo:

See what they did there? Totally different. If this is what they call a total redesign, we have problems. Perhaps they should look up what actually qualifies as a derivative work and even then they will see that our portion of the copyright still holds. Contact has once again been made and we will see what happens next.

UPDATE #3

So they finally made a change good enough to not be plagiarism(at least not of me).
Behold:

So yeah. I guess that's done.

-JP

Plausible.

2011-02-09T19:32:00.004-07:00

So we cuddle up on the couch to watch some Mythbusters*. Everybody gets under their blankets and we start the show. Jackson says he's thirsty, so I get up and get him a drink. Just as I sit down, Joseph says his drink is empty, so I get up and go get him some more milk. Less than a second later, Jackson says he's hungry and wants a banana because the Mythbusters are testing something banana related. Joe says he wants a PB&J. There are no bananas so I ask Jack if he wouldn't mind sharing the sandwich with Joe. He says that's fine. So I make the sandwich, even cutting the crusts off, and slice it into two triangles. The wolf them down in about a second. They both say they want some more. But Jack wants his cut into dinosaur shapes and Joe wants squares. After I lose that argument, I go in to make two more sandwiches. I run out of peanut butter on the second one, and have to root through the pantry to find a new jar. It's organic, natural peanut putter, so I have to stir it up to mix in the oil, a lengthy process. I make the sandwiches, cut one into dinosaurs with this thing which is basically a cookie cutter for sandwiches, and the other into squares. I come back, plates in hand and Joe has fallen asleep. D'oh!
Not wanting to waste the food, I go see if my pregnant wife wants the sandwich squares. Not really, she says, and I spend a few minutes convincing her to eat it. I leave the sandwich with her, and go check on Jackson. He had dropped the plate, and the dogs snatched up half of his sandwich. So I go check to see if Jennifer had eaten the sandwich she said she didn't want less than a minute earlier. Gone. The whole thing.
So I had to make sandwich #4. Jackson ate all of it, which equaled two whole PB&Js and a whole glass of milk only an hur and a half after dinner. I guess he'll sleep well tonight.

*I'd like to thank the Mythbusters, as Jackson can now use the word "plausible" correctly in a sentence. He's 5.

-JP

TV is crap.

2011-01-26T19:10:00.002-07:00

Can we play a video game?
No. It's way too late.
Can we watch a show?
Well, Okay, but it has to be a science show...
Let's see what our options are on Discovery/TLC (The Learning Channel)/Science Channel/PBS/History Channel, etc...
Looks like we have:

-I Have Too Many Fucking Kids
-You look Stupid in Those clothes
-We Suddenly Have a Boner for Alaska for Some Reason
-Rednecks in the Wild
-Ken Burns' Watchmakers Documentary, part 17
-Rednecks in the City
-Stuffy English People doing Stuffy English Things
-Hitler Hitler Hitler
-Look At Me, I Work in a Bakery
-Sell Me Your Shitty Junk
-Look At Me, I Have a Fucked-up Personality Trait

I guess we'll just put in a DVD.

2010 Year in Review

2011-01-03T07:43:00.002-07:00

I just read over what I wrote last year, and I had a very optimistic outlook for 2010. Turns out I was right to hold such an opinion.
2010 was pretty good. Way better than 2009. I was also a holding pattern of sorts.
We had some up times and some down times, like everybody does. Anyway, here goes:

In 2010:
- I celebrated my 35th Birthday
- Jackson, his 5th
- Joseph, his 3rd.
- Jennifer turned whatever age she is now.
- My mom got married.
- My mom's husband almost died due to complications from a surgery to remove some cancer.
- He got better.
- I got a raise and moved up to the 7th floor of our building to work with and around the print designers.
- Because of this, I was able to quit the coffee shop. I kind of miss the social aspect of it, but at 35, I have no business mopping floors for minimum wage. None whatsoever.
- Then, because of the departure of a colleague, at the very end of the year they moved me back down to the 5th floor to take over some of his work flow. Yay for me!
- We did NOT move. This is actually a big deal. Jackson is 5 and has lived in 5 houses. Though one for only three weeks.
- Jackson really came out of his shell this year. He's in his second year at Channing, and is much less shy, and has really started interacting with the other kids more. He used to just watch. Not in a bad way, he preferred to watch the other kids play rather than participate. He way better about that now.
- Jackson also got glasses. His Nerd cred is rising. Thank goodness Nerds are hip now.
- Joseph's health really improved this year. He hasn't missed a beat. In fact, I think he is making up for lost time, because that kid is never not moving.
- LOST ended, and along with it, one of my main obsessions over the last 5 years.
- Jackson and I were trapped in the Denver airport for two days.
- I lost 36 lbs.
- I gained 6 back. Don't worry, I'm going to take care of that pretty quick here.
- The new Doctor Who is awesome. The most entertaining yet.
- Jennifer took on a second job to get some Christmas scratch at a little boutique in Utica Square. They like her and have asked her to stay on for a while, so I think she will until something else comes along.
- I got the boys a wii, and we have been having a great time on it.

2010 is gonna be off the hook. I can just feel it. We're going to have a good time.

I hope you do as well.

-JP

Holy Crap Joe Turns 3 Today!

2010-12-28T06:55:00.002-07:00

Dear Joseph,
Three??!! Already??!! This has been a bang-up year, Mister.
There are a few things I've noticed about you. For one thing, you are totally effing crazy. I mean that in a good way. You just love being alive. You run, jump, laugh and giggle through everything life throws at you, good or bad. You are a super cuddle-bug. Way more than Jackson, whom I suspect is part Cylon. You already have a big imagination, and can hold your own against older kids when role-playing, and I've seen you defeat many an evil Jedi all on your own. You love to sing, which I find hilarious because it's always about whatever you happen to be doing at the time. You have a great sense of humor and are already the trickster of the house.
There was a night a few weeks ago where you took over the reading time during our bed time ritual, and you made up a whole 5 minute story about a dog named Jello-head just by looking at the pictures in the random book you picked out of the pile. That alone just about sums you up as a person. Pretty impressive for a 2 year old.
You are completely fearless. Still. Three years of banging your head, scraping up your hands, bruising up your legs and generally getting knocked around haven't had any impact on your wonderful ability to jump into any situation and hold your own. You once fell off the ladder to a slide at the pool. Eight feet down, and you landed mainly on your head. Within 20 minutes, you were back on that slide. I don't know if that's stubbornness or determination, but that's a fine line anyway.
Credit where credit is due, you are a happy, thoughtful kid due in no small part to having a wonderful mother. She is the best parent I've ever even heard about, and having such happy, healthy, smart kids is proof positive.
Anyway. I love you, buddy.
Happy birthday.

-Dad.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds

2010-11-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Kit Fisto!

2010-11-09T09:14:00.001-07:00

Dr. Zaius

2010-11-02T13:26:00.001-06:00

The Doctor and Amy Pond

2010-10-19T15:53:00.000-06:00

Skully

2010-10-15T06:46:00.001-06:00

Cyberman

2010-10-14T06:38:00.002-06:00

Brock Samson...

2010-10-08T06:29:00.000-06:00

21B

2010-10-06T10:39:00.002-06:00

V.I.N.CENT.

2010-10-05T08:16:00.003-06:00

Anybody remember this guy?

The Black Hole was Disney's fast-tracked answer to Star Wars, and was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I think it was one of the 3 movies that HBO ran non-stop during its infancy(the other two being Porky's and Patton). This movie and a few others, I have attempted to watch as an adult and have been severely disappointed. I remember this movie being awesome. It is not awesome. It is a very good effort, and is interesting on a cerebral level, but too slow moving and too high-brow for the crowd Disney usually brought in at the time. I hear the creative team at Disney that is responsible for the Tron sequel are making a new version. I don't really see the point. Back in the '70s, black holes were weird, mysterious things that many respectable scientists didn't think actually existed. Now that we know so much more about them and how they function, what ground could the movie really cover? Of course the original threw science and physics out the window, so why can't the new one?
I had similar experiences with The Dark Crystal, and Dreamscape. Both movies I loved as a kid that DO NOT hold up. I really wish I hadn't watched them as an adult and just kept the memory of them being awesome when I was little. Instead, now I know that I may have had shitty taste even back then.

-JP

It's a TRAP!

2010-10-04T07:54:00.000-06:00

Dr. Girlfriend

2010-10-01T12:07:00.002-06:00

Trooper

2010-09-30T06:42:00.002-06:00

Sketchy...

2010-09-28T08:48:00.001-06:00

What's with the codpiece?

-JP

Tales from On Demand 4

2010-09-04T21:45:00.003-06:00

2012

Well, this should be interesting. The wife and one of the kids are in Florida for a wedding this weekend. The younger boy is here, but he goes to bed at like 8:30, so my free time has grown by leaps and bounds.
I'm going to try something new this time, and comment as I watch.

00.01.34 - Ominous music and an opening shot of Saturn. I guess they want us to know that Saturn is about to do something really bad. Saturn's always been kind of a dick.
00:02.34 - There is a shot of the sun almost identical to the opening shot of Blade Runner. Weird.
00:03.14 - We meet our first main character. An intelligent, world traveled African American. I predict a gruesome death in his future.
00:05.59 - Enter the sleeze bag. Oliver Platt, even. I predict an even more gruesome death for him. Or he lives through the whole thing.
00:08.33 - Danny Glover! Looking too old for this shit.
00:11.00 - Arabic e-reader. Didn't the manufacturer know that reading white text on a black background is not only bad for one's eyes, but reduces comprehension?
00:13.20 - Enter John Cusack. I bet he's grizzled in some way.
00:16.24 - I was right. The ex married a plastic surgeon.
00:16.34 - grizzled old men. They will live.
00:21.26 - A father daughter talk about the world ending.
00:25.34 - Woody Harrelson playing himself.
00:37.14 - Hey, look! Linoleum cracks just like cement. I knew I should have just poured concrete in my kitchen.

...

Okay, I have to admit something. At this point, it was well after 3:00 AM, and I fell asleep on the couch. And let me tell you this: If you're an action movie, and you can't hold an insomniac's attention at 3AM, then you are not a very good action movie. I guess live blogging a movir wasn't a good idea at 3AM either. So that was friday. I didn't have the desire to finish watching it until monday while Joe was down for a nap. I have to say that this was not a very good movie. The whole point was that some made-up science was going to cause the Earth's crust to do all sorts of bad things, which it did. Here is what I don't get: After the explain that being on a boat is bad because of all the horrible tsunamis (that's tidal wave to you and me), and even show one of the main character's father die horribly by a tsunami while on a boat, the answer to saving civilization is to put everybody on boats. =/ It seems like hot air balloons or dirigibles would be the better choice, if you want to avoid both the land and the sea. Also, even though they explain that all the oceans will cover all of the land masses for some reason, it seems like even if the Earth's crust shifted, a good solid, high place in the middle of a continent would still be the place to be. May the middle of Canada or something.
Any way, skip it. Totally not worth it, even with all the mass destruction and people getting killed by walls of dirt. Okay some of that is pretty cool. I do always love it when a whole shit load of people die in movies.

Powers out.

Tales from On Demand 3

2010-08-04T11:46:00.003-06:00

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Meh.

-JP

Tales from On Demand 2

2010-07-21T09:11:00.003-06:00

Day of the Dead(2008)

So Zombies are in fashion now. I get that. Zombies are cool. I've been a big fan for a lot of years. Thanks to Zack Snyder and Danny Boyle and the Resident Evil frachhise, we even have a new breed of super-human zombies that rely less on over powering their victims with sheer numbers and more on kicking ass. And running. These new Zombies can run really fast. The new breed are also not really dead. It's a virus all the time now. This has shifted the idea of what to do about Zombies. Every Zombie movie is basically the same. The survivors have to fight them off long enough to get somewhere and hole up until they eventually break in, or you run out of food and had to leave or there is enough in-fighting among the survivors that they all kill themselves. Regardless of which, you are eventually fucked, and this is the basis for every climax of every Zombie movie. The difference being that before, the dead stayed undead forever. Until you put a bullet in their head, they are here for good. With a virus, Zombies could either die of Starvation or old age or decomposition and as long as you had a big, heavy door and enough cans of Spaghetti-O's you'll be alright. The purists hate this, and think the dead should be lumbering, brainless masses that use sheer numbers to over power whatever defenses the survivors managed to piece together. I can see it either way. I like gigantic swarming masses of Zombies. Always awesome. But fast, super-human Zombies make for some really spectacular death scenes. I guess it comes down to how much gore you like.
Day of the Dead is not much of a sequel to Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. It has Ving Rhames in it, I guess to add some street cred, but that's where it ends. It follows Mena Suvari, who is supposed to be believable as a military officer as Zombies over run her home town of Leadville, Colorado, where her unit just happens to be dispatched. That's really all the plot you need to know. The rest follows basic Zombie protocol. There is a sibling who needs rescuing, a family member who has to be killed, a remote bunker, and a government conspiracy that needs exposing. And there you have it.
The movie is perfectly serviceable as a Zombie movie. It offers nothing new. And this is where I have a problem. Not so much with this movie in particular, but with the last few years worth of Zombie movies. With the notable exceptions of Zombieland and Land of the Dead, all of the recent Zombie movies only deal with the initial out-break. I guess that's more exciting, but having the characters deal with a world already overrun with the undead seems like it would be more interesting. The original Day of the Dead was about a bunch of scientists living in a bunker, doing experiments on the Zombies, trying to find a cure, or at least a way to stave off the infection. Way cooler of a scenario, if you ask me. If the remake had gone that route, it would have been not only a more interesting movie, but could have had served as a better sequel to Dawn of the Dead.

-JP

A letter to my eldest son of his 5th birthday

2010-07-16T09:09:00.002-06:00

Dear Jackson,
Five years ago today I became a father. There is a song lyric that goes something like: The years go fast, but the days go slow," and that is how I feel today.
I fear you may have inherited my mild case of social anxiety. Just like me, you are open and talkative and funny and interested and smart until you walk into a room full of strangers or a room with more than three people in it. You don't like being put on the spot, and you don't like performing tricks like a trained monkey. You like playing, but you don't really like sports, especially team sports. You don't like to join it in things like wearing your Halloween costume to school, preferring instead to watch the action from afar. You tend to find a little corner and play by yourself within your amazing imagination. I used to think that was kind of sad, but I don't any more because that's how I was and still am to a certain extent, I'm okay with that. You are so much like me in so many ways, it gets a little frightening at times because I can sense what you are thinking because I'm thinking the same thing. It's weird and awesome.
You are so dang smart, and I love that. You would rather watch NOVA or the Science Channel than Sponge Bob or Power Rangers, and even when you do want pure escapism, it's Star Wars or something. I know people are thinking we are turning you into a little nerd, but I don't care. I guess there could be an argument for nature vs. nurture here, but you tend to gravitate gravitate to that stuff on your own, and I guess you can't fight what's in your genes, because you come from a long and proud line of nerds. I just hope you do something with it, because the rest of us seem to be overly educated and unmotivated all at the same time. Like just knowing things is good enough for us.
You also have the biggest heart of any kid I've ever met. There is a lot of love in there, and at times you seem to not know where to put it all. Like how you keep saying you want a sister, and how you want to name her, but you don't know what name because you'll have to decide when you meet her. That right there, where you love your non-existent sister so much you can't stand it. That's what I'm talking about. You also love your brother more than anything and want to teach him things. The whole reason you two share a bed room and a bed is because you lobbied for it for a whole year.
I hope this next year, when you go back to school, and keep learning and keep living and keep figuring out how this world works and how you fit into it, that you stay happy and stay weird and stay awesome.

I love you, buddy.

-Daddy.

Tales from On Demand 1

2010-07-14T09:46:00.003-06:00

So I don't know if you know this or not, but I have suffered from insomnia on and off throughout my life. It comes and goes depending on several factors, such as stress, food, caffeine and drug use*. My high-school and college years I hardly slept more than 3-4 hours a night, and that was when I was trying to go to sleep. If I wasn't too concerned, I'd just forget to go to bed, and it would magically be time for work all of a sudden. Well lately I have been in one of those cycles. In the past, I would draw comics and read and watch movies and listen to music and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and Dr. Pepper and get snacks from the local 7-11. I know what you are saying: All of this crap is exactly why I couldn't sleep, and to that I say: FOOLS! I didn't do all of that at the same time, and I periodically cut every last bit of all that out on similar assumptions, and it never worked. It actually made me more loopy because I was bored and hungry. Also, my insomnia started around age 12, long before all that stuff was so important to me. Well I am in a similar cycle now, and I can't blame it on junk food because of my new found respect for not being a fat-ass and wanting to live to usher my kids into adulthood. Since I now have a house full of people with relatively regular sleep schedules and not a house full of a brother with the exact same habits as me, I can't do all of the stuff I used to do to keep myself sane. If my gym was open 24 hours, I'd go there, but it isn't, so I can't. What I usually do is play computer games and read and watch TV. We all know broadcast TV sucks egg rolls late at night, and I haven't purchased the cord to hook up my computer to the TV like I keep threatening to, so I can watch whatever I want via download and hulu.
All this is a preamble to a new, hopefully short-lived series here at powerama called Tales from On Demand. Where I occasionally review a movie or show or whatever found on Cox On Demand.

Case File #1: Surrogates.
(Spoilers)
Is Bruce Willis done? I mean that in the "stick a fork in 'em" kind of way, not the "Can I get that plate out of your way, sir?" kind of way. I don't know. He's always been a little hit and miss, and I still love him, but he seems to be making really poor decisions lately(The notable exception being the Stylo video for the Gorillaz).
Or maybe I just notice when he's bad more than I notice when he's good, because he's supposed to be good, that's what they pay him for.
I can see why the movie was green-lit. A comic book movie starring Bruce Willis? With robots? I'm in. Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate ("Avatar" was taken. Twice.) robots the film follows Tom Greer(Willis), a cop investigating the death of the son of the inventor of the surrogates, who had been ousted by the company he founded to make these things. In this world, everybody stays home and their robot counter-parts live their lives for them. The benefit being that everybody is safe, free from bodily harm or disease. There hasn't been homicide or an accidental death in years. But someone has figured out a way to kill the user by destroying the robot, something that should be impossible. It takes the weird fascination we have with the Sims and Farmville out of virtual and into reality. But here is where the movie makes a few false assumptions. The most important being that people like me, and a good chunk of the world can't fucking stand the sims, and see it as a complete waste of time. They do address this, by way of a fringe element of society living without surrogates, relegated to reservations where they can sit and think about why they haven't kept up with technology. It would be like sending everybody who still uses Internet Explorer 6 to live in Canada. Naturally, these folks are the main suspects in the murders because they are all uppity. So the plot becomes very predictable here. After Greer's surrogate is destroyed, he has to venture out into the real world himself, uncovering a conspiracy to take down the surrogates. Guess who's behind the conspiracy? Yep. The guy who invented them, and who now thinks they are bad and is, ironically, leading the anti-surrogate movement by use of a surrogate. His idea is to destroy them all, along with their stupid users, and wipe the slate clean. Not if Bruce Willis has anything to say about it. He just wants to destroy the robots themselves. Which is what happens. Completely predictably. Everybody then ventures out in their house pants and woobies and see the sun again.
The movie is shot well, and acted okay, but is just kinda dumb. I like how the surrogates look a bit 80's glam in a little nod to William Gibson, but other than that, not much going on here.

Next time: Day of the Dead.

-JP

*prescription, silly.

Happy 4th, everybody!

2010-07-04T11:48:00.002-06:00

You know what the fourth always makes me think of ? Of course not, you are not in my head. Two things, actually:
1) The time when I was 14 and set off a bunch of fireworks in my room. They were cleverly hidden in a coffee can, and I was messing around with a bic lighter, and lit them. As soon as I realized what happened, I tried to smother the fire with my hand, and off they went. In a coffee can which also had my hand in it. When the smoke literally cleared, I had burns up to my elbow, and a big black spot on the carpet. The doctor at the ER asked me about my Sisters Of Mercy T-Shirt, explaining that he did his residency at Mercy Hospital, not realizing it was also the name of a goth band. We put an area rug over the spot in the carpet, and my room smelled like smoke for a long time after that.
2) Holy crap Jackson is almost 5! Do you know how different my life is now than it was 5 years and nine months ago? A lot I can tell you!
The boys are totally into Star wars right now. Joe just likes the robots, but Jack in starting to get into the ins and outs of the whole story. By chance, we are going backwards chronologically. We watched the Original Trilogy several times, but then we played Lego Star Wars a whole lot and they started wondering who the other character were, and so instead of watching the Prequels, we started on the Clone Wars movie and are about half way through the first season of the TV show. So when he eventually does see the Prequel Trilogy*, he'll all confused.

So anyway, Happy 4th everybody!

-JP

*If someone wants to purchase the Prequel Trilogy on DVD in widescreen for Jackson for his birthday. he'd love it!

Weight loss challenge!

2010-06-01T09:37:00.004-06:00

So as some of you know, I have been in a weight loss contest at work. It ended today, and even though I didn't win the whole several hundred dollar sha-bang, I lost the most weight. Yay, Me!

Here is how it broke down for me, according to the scale at the gym:

So 31 lbs! That's awesome. I haven't weighed this little since before Jackson was born! I was unemployed during the first three months of her pregnancy, and gained an Orca amount of Jobless depression/sympathy weight and never seriously did anything about it. Well now I have.

Everyone at the office did a great job, and we all look great, except for Brandon, who may have actually gained weight, by his own admission.

Round two starts tomorrow, so tonight I'm going to try one of those Double-Downs from KFC.

In Other news:
• Summer is upon us. I know this because of how sticky certain parts of my body get on a regular basis now.
Jackson starts Swim lessons today. Jennifer and Joseph will be splashing around while that happens. I hope they all stay cool.

• I everybody watching Doctor Who? I really love this new Doctor. He's all playful and stuffy all at the same time. They have really taken the show to new, very entertaining levels.

• I painted our entire family room over the weekend. Jennifer and the boys went to a family reunion, and I stayed home and painted without the little "helpers" under foot. It looks great if I do say so myself. Before it was all dark paneling and dreary, and now it's all happy and bright, and doesn't make me think I'm in the break room of a 1980s Insurance company.

I think that's it.

Powers out.

Science Fiction Double Feature...

2010-05-07T08:03:00.002-06:00

LOST. At this point, I just want the thing to be over. It's like December 23rd. There is still a bunch of last minute stuff to do before the big day, and all you really want to do is start drinking and opening presents.

If you get this joke, you rock.

Odds and ends

2010-04-28T08:42:00.007-06:00

This thing is awesome.

I want one.

Start:rant
So I need to ask what's up with Arizona? This whole citizenship thing weirds me out a little. What I do not get, is that a lot of people on the right, mainly Tea Baggers, who I do realize are on the extreme right, and are not indicative of the majority(or so they would like you to believe), thought it was fun to compare Obama's health care overhaul to practices of Nazi Germany. Take this little exchange with Barney Frank from a town hall meeting:

So then when Arizona decided to adopt a practice that Nazi Germany actually did use, and few in your party bat an eyelash. Some defend it. Including McCain:

"This law is a response to the president's and the administration's failure to secure our borders," McCain said.

See it here:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

So your party in your own state come up with a blatantly racist policy, and you blame a black guy who has nothing to do with your State's legislature. Nice.

You stay classy, Arizona.

End:rant

In other news:

G4 held a car wash to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation. The best car wash ever.

In which I phone it in...

2010-04-22T07:21:00.004-06:00

So I haven't posted in a while but I think that's because not much is going on. We were supposed to take a trip to Kansas City with Jen's parents, but decided that it would be cost prohibitive. So we just stayed home. We are still slowly renovating our house, and have spent the past few weekends working on small projects and trying to get the yard in order. So... that's exciting.

I did win an award a few weeks ago. It's from the AP. They held a little regional contest, and the editors from the newspapers in the region submitted work on behalf of their people. I won First Place for Graphics/Illustration. I even got a little plaque in the shape of Oklahoma. They had a nice awards ceremony at the Hard Rock Casino, and I was treated to free Newcastle all night. So now you can call me "The Award Winning Jason Powers".

That is all.

In which I rant about the airline industry...

2010-03-26T07:16:00.004-06:00

So I took a trip with Jackson to Denver to see my mom get married. It was lovely. Tim is a great guy.
We got in with no problems last Thursday. The flight in was with United, and they seemed to have their shit together as much as airlines do these days. I did notice that the already stupid practice of charging you to put your bag on the plane which is going to the same place you are is not only still in full effect, but that the prices have jumped 10 bucks since the last time I flew to a wonderful 25 bucks($175 if it was over 50 lbs!), adding $50 to the price of the trip. And that was just with one bag. If Jackson had to check a bag as well, it would have been twice that. However, my plane was small enough that most people's carry-ons weren't going to fit in the overhead, so they were gate checking those for free. So I guess the trick is to get a bag that is just the right size to be small enough to carry on, but too big to fit in the over head, and you won't have to pay to check it.
We stayed in a very nice hotel, on the 15th floor, which Jackson loved. Even more so when the blizzard hit on Friday, because he could watch the city get covered from above. My brother and his wife were in the next room, which was nice as well. I spent more time with them this trip than I have in a long time.

My dad took us all to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where Jackson freaked out about the Space Odyssey Exhibit. They have an awesome new "Science on a Sphere" display. It looked like a planet was in the room with you. Totally awesome. I half expected Admiral Ackbar to come out and start telling me where the shield generator was. We stayed in the Exhibit for a few hours, then did a whirl-wind viewing of the rest of the Museum, as Jackson was less interested in ancient Native American tools. We ate lunch and Watched an IMAX movie about the Hubble. A good time was had by all.
Let me tell you something about my son's crazy memory. Two days after we saw the Hubble movie, we came across a picture of Orion in one of his books. He started reciting the narration from the Orion Nebula part of the movie word for word, and went on for 5 minutes. That kid is a genius.

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, where I are one of the best hamburgers I have ever eaten ever. Jackson had one of the most awesome plates of Mac and Cheese ever.

Saturday was the Wedding. My suit is getting steadily too big for me. I'm gonna need a new one by summer. YAY! We had a great time Jackson did really well considering how boring weddings are for children. Mom looked great.

Sunday I met a few friends for coffee, and spent the afternoon at my dad's house. Jackson is fascinated with my dad's basement. We don't have those here in Tulsa, and the fact that it is a catacomb of shelves and books makes that much more interesting.

Here is where the fun started. Monday was our day to leave. Or so I thought. We had a 1:10 flight on Frontier, and My brother and his wife had a slightly earlier flight on Alaska Air. Dad picked us up a little after 10:00, and we made it to DIA about 10:30, a good 2 hours, 40 minutes before our flight. At check-in, the nice lady informed me that the flight was over-sold, and to check with the gate crew to see if I have a seat.
I assumed that traveling with a 4 year old would save me. Not so. Boarding started at 12:35, and they did the usual pre-boarding, including anybody with a child under 5. I waltz up and they say, "not you, you are on stand-by. If we have available seats 10 minutes before take-off, we'll seat you then." So I wait, and a steady stream of people who didn't show up 2+ hours ago parade by and take their seats. I'm getting nervous now. They make an announcement looking for a few passengers, and at T-Minus 9:59 minute, these two obviously hung over sorority girls in pajamas show up and take the last two seats. So they bump us. I ask why the guy with the 4 year old who checked in 2 and a half hours early even made it onto the bump list in the first place, and they say it done by when you check in, and that I should have done it over the web. I was in a hotel, I say, and they don't have a good answer for that. They start looking around, and tell me that there is not an available flight until Wednesday at 7:10, but that I can be on stand by for all the flights until then. They send me to the customer service center, where we wait in line for 30 minutes, then stand there hashing it out for another hour. They confirm me on the 7:10 flight Wednesday,give me a $400 check (double the cost of the two tickets) that I can't cash and some food vouchers, and tell me that if I can't get on the plane that night, they'll put me up in a hotel. What about my luggage, I ask. Well that went on to Tulsa on the original flight. Great. I have a 4 year old with me and no luggage. The guy says that the 7:10 flight is only over-sold by one, so I'd probably get on that one. After 5 hours wandering around the airport with Jackson (who is handling this way better than I am, BTW), we get in line for the 7:10, but don't make it. They only had one seat available. Not wanting to wait in line again for them to get me a hotel, I call my dad, who comes to get me. We stop at Target for some new underwear and deodorant, and crash at his place. The next day, we go to try for the 1:10 flight, and of course, don't make it. Luckily, the same gate crew was there, and seeing us in the same shabby clothes as the day before, and hearing Jackson repeatedly ask why we can't get on the plane, they felt really bad for us. I asked if they could get us on the OKC flight, which was miraculously held back because a connecting flight from Las Vegas was late, they put me on the top of the stand-by list for that flight, knocking out an equally distressed looking couple. I start to feel bad for them, but they don't have a Jackson with them, and haven't been at this for two days, so I decide to re-tune my moral barometer for the time being. I make it on the flight(YAY!), and call Jennifer to tell her to head for OKC. This was doubly awesome because another blizzard was heading for Denver, and was supposed to hit that afternoon. I make it to OKC, and Jen comes to get me after fighting rush-hour traffic, and after hugging it out, we get some dinner and head to Tulsa. Later that night, I go to Tulsa International to get my Luggage. Waiting with me in line was a woman who's 15 year old son was stranded in DIA because the 7:10 flight that I would have been on stand-by for was canceled because of the storm. So I dodged another bullet there, because if that flight was canceled, and every other flight was over-booked, that would have been a shit storm I would have been right in the middle of.
I have to say that the Frontier employees were awesome. They were just as frustrated as I was, and bent over backwards to get me into Oklahoma, and gave me every incentive they had available. However, the company's policy of over-booking every single flight they have and charging for every little thing, and not letting one know their status until the very last minute is pure bullshit. I vowed to never fly Frontier again, but since every airline now employs these practices, I may not have a choice. After my wonderful trip to New York a few months ago where I arrived on a Sunday, and my luggage arrived on Wednesday, I may be off air travel altogether. But we are home and safe now and that's all that matters. Jackson did really well. He's a good kid.

Powers out.

TL;DR: Frontier bumped me off three separate flights, stranding me in Denver, and they suck.

In which our hero has a slight headache..

2010-03-15T07:53:00.002-06:00

I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little hung over this morning. My buddy Chap decided for no good reason to have his bachelor party on the Sunday night after the daylight savings switch. I'll never forgive him for that. It was one of those nights where I was fully intending to just stop by, have a beer, say my congrats and go on my merry way, but somehow, probably (taking into account both my Irish heritage and the close proximity to St. Patty's day) Leprechauns, I kept getting drinks handed to me and they magically ended up in my stomach. I had a good time though, and am not too far gone today. If anybody asks, I never touched that inflatable sheep. My workout will be interesting.

In other News...
Jackson and I will be in the Denver area this weekend! Yay! My mom is getting married in a small ceremony, and Jack and I are gonna tear it up. You should see his tie. It's awesome. Jenn and Joe are sitting this one out, because neither of them like to travel, really and it was cost prohibitive anyhow. So. we'll be in Thursday night, and out Monday afternoon. The Wedding is Saturday, and other than that, I don't have much going on. We are staying in a hotel this time, so if you want to go out it'll have to be in the day because leaving 4 year olds in hotel rooms while you go clubbing is generally frowned upon in polite society.*

So call me or something.

Off I go to get a gatorade or something. Coffee, maybe. Screw it, I'll get both.

*Unless you're Britney Spears.

Charlie

2010-03-05T08:20:00.002-07:00

oh, Charlie... You were always my fav, and I hope you come back again.

Anyway, Our family has been doing really well. We joined the gym, and I was partially expecting it to be like every other time I've joined a gym, where I go diligently for a few weeks, then it fizzles out until I cancel the membership somewhere around August. But this time is different! Partially because of the $500 challenge my former boss threw down, but mostly because I'm sick of being the fat daddy in all the holiday snap-shots. And maybe because of a recently obtained sense of ambition, I'm going gangbusters on this. Previously, it was a chore, but now I actually want to go. Sometimes more than once a day. How crazy is that?
Jennifer is in on it too. The YMCA we go to has two awesome child areas, so every day, she brings everybody down there, the kids get to run around for a while, and Jenn gets to exercise without three crazy boys pawing at her every second of the day. Everybody wins! I'm down 15lbs, and Jenn is all toned all of a sudden. The boys are worn out, and sleep like.. well like babies. Which they never really did, so that simile doesn't really apply.
Also! Thanks to a little more scratch coming in, and amazing money management on the part of my wife, Jennifer and I have actually been able to go out on dates on a regular basis again. You childless people won't care, but you parents know exactly what I'm talking about. It's awesome. I get to wear the clothes that don't have juice stains on them, and I get to drink adult beverages. Yay!
And spring seems like it finally got it's ass out of bed, and made it to work. We've all been spending more time outside the last few days, doing yard work even.
So, yeah. We are in a rare spot where nobody is sick, broke, or angry. Good times!

-JP

Slow news day.

2010-02-22T07:22:00.007-07:00

Am I the only one suddenly obsessed with Olympic Curling? I even spent an hour learning all the rules and whatnot so I could know what the hell is going on. I find the women's way more interesting than the men's. I think because they employ more strategy and don't just resort to brute force as much. They are a little easier on the eyes as well. The USA vs Canada game was awesome.

I turn 35 on Thursday. I'll finally be out of the coveted male 18-34 demographic that television and advertisers hold so dear. They will no longer want my money. Which is a relief because I was sick of buying Star Wars stuff anyway. On to retirement funds and mini-vans!

Regardless, I am stoked for the new Dr. Who. I'm a little nervous because they have a whole new production team, they're re-designing everything and the new Doc looks to be about 12. But, I'm excited for exactly the same reasons. I just hope they aren't trying to go all Twilight-y on us.

Last night Jennifer made me some awesome burritos and we had the family over. She also made this sickeningly wonderful cake that the boys decorated with little sugar Go, Go Diego heads and bits of Heath bar. Greatness.

-JP

LOST

2010-02-04T09:03:00.002-07:00

(Spoilers)

So I thought Locke was the Island. Turns out he's the Smoke Monster made incarnate. Which has happened before with Yemi, so that part is not so weird. What's weird is that the Shark in the beginning had a Dharma tattoo on its tail. So if the bomb even went off at all, since the flash of light may have just been "The Incident", as Jin alluded to, does time reset with the plane in 2004, or with the explosion in 1977? If it is 2004, then everything is hunky-dorie and they all just go on with their lives. If it is 1977, then any number of things could have changed. I think it is the latter, as things are already weird.

Discuss.

-JP

Indeedy.

2010-01-18T07:42:00.003-07:00

Alright. So. Remember in my last post how I felt really optimistic about this year? Turns out I had every right to be. The T-Dub just gave me a pretty meaty promotion. Well, I say promotion, but since I'm already doing several people's worth of work, it's more like I'm just being recognized for the work I already do. Though I am getting a lot more responsibilities as well, mind. The new position is basically my old position with some training thrown in, and a few obstructions taken out of the way. I'm basically in charge of making sure all of the ads that we create for our web site don't suck. And if they do, I'm who you go to. The ads we don't create are on their own. I'll still be doing Illustrations for the newsroom. There is a raise as well.

WOO HOO! Enough of one that I can quit the part-time job I had to get in order to make some ends meet. Also, Jennifer's sister Grace is working again, and Jennifer is watching her son Zane during the day now. So there is some extra scratch as well. I think we can finally stop living paycheck to paycheck and start putting away some money. See the trick is to stick to the same budget we had before. Most of the new money gets socked away, and the rest is gravy.

♥ I have to give Jennifer some big-ass props here, because her awesome budgeting is what makes it possible to live on one income and not feel like the Joads. She takes care of 3 rambunctious boys all day long, and takes care of most of the house-related business as well. She is awesome. Anybody that thinks being a stay-at-home mom isn't hard work is full of shit. All I do is draw pictures and carry heavy things. She does everything else. I picked a good one. ♥

So yeah. Awesome. This year is starting off well.

-JP

2009 year in review...

2010-01-02T23:15:00.002-07:00

Can't say I'm too sad to see 2009 go. There were some good points, but they were few and far between. 2009 saw the Powers in mostly a holding pattern, waiting for wages, recession and everything else to come out of their collective funk. The new year and the new decade hold nothing but promise...

In 2009:

-I turned 34.
-Jack turned 4.
-Joseph turned 2.
-Jennifer had a birthday as well, but she'd kill me if I revealed her age. To me she is perpetually 25, so let's just leave it at that.
-I saw massive lay offs at my work place and as a result, I have taken on a lot more duties, but somehow am not getting paid any more.
-I blew up my car.
-Eventually I bought a new one.
-Watched Joseph get double pneumonia and have to be hospitalized because of it, more than once. It weakened his immune system, and he seemed to get every cold and virus that went around, each one knocking him on his ass. He is only just now getting up to full speed.
-Jennifer watched a good friend's kid during the day for a few months, and though the experience was a good one, and the girl was awesome, it was insanely stressful on all of us. We couldn't really figure out why.
-We moved. Again. This time into town again. Glenpool was great and all, but it didn't really offer enough to stay. Everything we wanted to do usually happened in town, so there was a lot of driving involved in our lives. Now that we are back in town, our stress level has gone way down, along with our gasoline bills.
-Jackson started at a really kick ass school. He in insanely smart, but a tad sensitive and a little socially awkward (just like I was). The Tulsa school system is in such poor shape right now, that we are seriously considering home schooling the boys. Not in a creepy overly religious way or anything, but we both feel that things like music and art and science are important in a child's development, not regurgitating facts on some stupid standardized test.
-I started working at a local independent coffee shop to help make ends meet. I like the social aspect of it a great deal, but I thought I had moved on from sweeping floors and cleaning toilets for close to minimum wage.
-My work sent me to New York for a week long training trip. I had a really good time. Saw some really awesome friends, watched a taping of David Letterman, ate a lot of really good food, and did some touristy stuff. Oh, and learned all about the new ad serving system for the TW's website.
-I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is the first full calendar year that Jennifer has stayed home with the boys. I have to say, this is one of the best decisions we have ever made. Having two kids in day care would be cost prohibitive, and the last time we tried it we came away with nothing but one kid bullied horribly and the other one getting pink eye. Jennifer is the best mom a kid could hope for, and I'm happy she can be with them every day.
-I saw my sister-in-law start divorce proceedings. This is not a good thing. Although I know in my heart that she will be better off in the long run, watching her go through all the hardship associated with it is gut-wrenching. She's a great girl, a wonderful mother, and deserves all the best. She doesn't need this shit.
-Saw Jackson and Joseph get smarter and smarter. Jack is turning into quite a little brainiac, and Joe is starting to assert himself in amazing and wonderful ways. Their cousin Zane as well. He's a great kid. I realize that for the time being, I'm really his only male adult figure, and I'm trying to take that as seriously as possible.
-We took a few trips. Went to Texas in the early summer, and back to Denver for Thanksgiving. We had a great time.
-Work was good. I need to do more and get paid more, but on the whole, I love my job.
-I saw the country go in a really weird direction. It seems like politics has become a giant game of football. Way too complicated, and each side only cares about winning. Neither cares about sportsmanship. Each will do whatever it takes to stop each play, giving no thought to strategy or the bigger picture, and after three quarters of no score, each side is getting desperate and starting to play dirty. Each side also has completely rabid fans who will fanatically support the team no matter what. Even when playing very very badly.

I have really high hopes for the new year and the new decade. We have a lot of home improvements planned, and are really excited about them. The boys have the whole world at their fingertips, and my wife the the coolest person ever.

I am optimistic in a way I haven't been in a long long time.

-JP

My little boy turnes 2 today!

2009-12-28T08:15:00.003-07:00

This here is Joey. He turns 2 years old today. Jennifer swears that it took a lot longer for Jackson to turn 2 than it did for Joseph, but I sometimes think the whole five years of us having kids has flown by. Though sometimes I think it feels exactly like five years.

Modest Mouse has a lyric: The years go fast, but the days go so slow.

Joseph is so very different than his brother in a lot of ways, but almost exactly the same in others. Joe is friggin' fearless for one thing. He'll jump off of things, run right up to wild animals, eat anything we put in front of him, and I think Jennifer just signed him up for bungee-jumping. He's a lot more rough and tumble. more active, and really really funny. He cracks everybody up including himself.

He also likes to hit things with other things. Anything you hand him, he will take and hit something with it. He talks non-stop. He is stone-cold crazy.

The past two years in the Powers house have seen a lot of fun, a lot of moving, a lot of hardship, and a lot of awesomeness. Through it all, Joseph has remained a smart, funny, happy little kid, and I'm totally glad he's around.

Happy Birthday, buddy.

I love you.

-Dad.

Busy Bees

2009-12-09T09:43:00.002-07:00

Best. Doctor Who. Ever.

A friend of mine from Europe once told me that over there, nobody every says that they are busy. "Busy" to them implies that one does not have control of the situation. If you have everything in order, you shouldn't be busy. So if you say you are busy, they will respond with "that's too bad,". Americans love being busy. If we had everything right where we wanted them, we'd have to sit down and relax, and then you're just lazy. I don't know what it is about Americans that they think they can't stop. Our ambition seems to be what defines us(to ourselves anyway), not what we actually accomplish. Even in retirement, everybody had goals and planes and they want to re-do the bathroom or see Alaska or whatever. We have to DVR our TV because we're off doing something more important, and when we eventually do sit down to watch, we zap the commercials.

•••

Keeping the European definition of "busy" in mind, I have to say we are very busy. We went to Denver, we had house guests here from Austin last weekend, my dad will be here tonight, we have a Christmas party in the OKC to attend on Saturday, and that leaves just one weekend left before Christmas. This on top of everything else we do every day.

I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year, so I can just sit there for a while as the kids play with their new toys, and just stare off into the distance.

•••

The Valentinos were here from Austin over the weekend. They are awesome. Probably my favorite people. I did name my second kid after Joe Valentino, after all. I love it when they come because I don't feel like I need to talk up Tulsa or spend the whole time running around trying to show off the town. Really they just want to sit and visit and eat good food and watch the kids run around, and I love them for that. Good people.

•••

If you want to get me a gift, I kind of want an old-school Ramones T-shirt. Black. XL

-JP

The trip went well

2009-12-01T09:41:00.002-07:00

Phillip K Dick. You should read his stuff if you haven't already. All of it.

1) So the trip to Denver went really well. We all had a really good time. The boys did amazing during the 12 hour drive. Thanks in large part to Pixar. The main meal was delicious as always. I saw some great friends.
There will pics soon. I loved how I could walk or tram it where ever I needed to go. I miss that aspect of a bigger city.

2) I haven't owned a cat in over a year, and yet I keep finding hair on my clothes.

3) I have a cold. I hope to stave it off with a constant barrage of Advil, coffee and whiskey.

4) I took a week off, and returned to a rather intimidating hulu cue. I'll muddle through, I guess.

5) I'll go ahead and say it: The Pixies have lost it.

-JP

I Finally Watched This (1)

2009-11-20T08:59:00.003-07:00

The Spirit

I resisted this for a long time. But the magic of Netflix brought it to my door. I have a Love/Hate relationship with Frank Miller these days. I respect his earlier work a great deal, and I like about 50% of what he done since about 1995. But that other 50% infuriates me to my core. It's more disappointment than anything else. Like a parent who know his child can do better, but the kid just won't out of some misplaced sense of privilege. It's the same sort of disapproval I have for trust fund kids and lottery winners.

While I enjoyed certain aspects of Sin City and 300, there were more aspects that I didn't like. The good, we now realize was the the doing of the Directors. 300 managed to make a decent movie out of a so-so book, and Sin City was awesome just for the novelty how it was made and the dream cast it managed to secure. This film manages to only take what's wrong with the first two (mainly extreme misogyny and horrible performances) and leaves out all the good. Oh, and it manages to trample one of the best written and iconic comic characters of all time in the process.

Eisner's Spirit was essentially a very long love letter to New York. Eisner loved all of the breadth of culture and temperament and diversity of so many people crammed in such a small space. His character reflected that. The Spirit has it's problems, don't get me wrong. The chief among them the racism that would poke through from time to time. But it was always fun. Miller's version takes this expansive city and localizes it so much by over-use of small sets and tight shots, and very strict lighting that it actually feels very cramped. Miller took this wonderful, campy fun character and sprayed Sin City all over it, then presented it to us like a cat with a dead bird. While the cat thinks it did something awesome, in reality it's kinda gross.

People keep defending it by saying that it is visually stunning. And while I agree, and indeed Millers visual style is what I like most about him and his work. But this movie looks so much like Sin City that it could have been a sequel. But it isn't. But it's really close. But I don't like it for some reason. It's like that time in 1984 when I was expecting Transformers for my birthday and got Go-Bots instead.

The acting is phoned in. Pure and simple. Sarah Paulson seems to be the only one even trying. I have a feeling that the actors spend some time researching and preparing for their roles, wanting to bring depth to them, only for Miller to tell them, "Yer a dame, that's as deep as you go," and then the actor thinking: Fine. Be that way. And not putting any effort into it out of spite. The sad thing is that these are decent actors for the most part. The plot is basically nonexistent, and the characters seem to have no motivation for anything they do.

I think Miller would be wise to take a step back. I don't think he should give up on movies, because I think he has a lot of potential. But he may be able to really shine as a cinematographer. Robocop 2 and 3 showed us what happens when he writes a screenplay from scratch, and The Spirit has shown us what happens to actors when he directs.

He needs to just stick to visuals.

2009-11-16T08:44:00.003-07:00

1) We will be in Denver for the Thanksgiving holiday. Unfortunately we are driving. This will be the first really long road trip for the boys. We decided to break it up, and we found a hotel about half what that has an indoor pool with a water slide. That should help.

2) Why is it that a train can block 4 consecutive intersections for hours on end, but I can't park in a fire zone for 5 minutes?

3) My good buddy Joey V has re-launched his web radio show. Friday nights he spins Goth and Industrial for an hour. Check it out:

4) For an hour yesterday, Jackson and I were the owners and operators of an imaginary restaurant. The main dish we were serving to his mom and brother(and the dogs), was something called Chompwurst. I don't really know what's in it because he did all the "cooking", but it sounds delicious.

-JP

None Shall Pass

2009-10-22T09:49:00.006-06:00

Has anybody else been watching the 6 part documentary on Monty Python on the IFC Film Channel? I have, and I have to say that it is wonderful. Most Python docs try to cram the last 40 years into a one hour show, and there is just so much missing. This one is in6 parts, and separates them into projects. The first being how they all met, and what they all did pre-Python, the second being The Flying Circus, the third being Holy Grail, and so on.

I have been a Python fan my whole life. I'm trying to remember how I got into them, and I think I came to it gradually. For years and years, on Sunday nights, I used to listen to The Dr. Demento Show, which I think is still actually on. In the early '80s, it came on way after my bed time, like 11:00 or something, so I used to set my digital clock radio* to wake me up. Then I would pull the radio under the covers and listen to the show at a very low volume, so as not to let my parents in on what I was doing, as they were in the room next door. Sometimes this back-fired when I fell asleep again, having forgotten to re-set the alarm, and my mom would come in to wake me up and wonder why my clock was in the bed. The excuse was always that I was fumbling with it, trying to turn off the alarm, and fell asleep with it after hitting snooze a few hundred times. My best friend Sean would do the same thing, and we would always be excited to see each other Monday morning. Singing our favorite songs from the night before, always made funnier by crackling voices, mis-remembered lyrics and sleep deprivation. Anyway, in addition to introducing me to Weird Al, Spike Jonze, and many many other weird novelty acts, Dr Demento also played a lot of Python. I think at first, I thought it was one guy named Monty doing a bunch of different voices.

Years later, my uncle Roger, who kept me in a good supply of cool music via dupes and mix tapes through out my formative years, let me on to the fact that PBS was showing The Flying Circus late at night on Thursdays. By this point, I was living in the basement**, and had inherited a computer when my dad upgraded. But not just any computer. It was the TRS 80 Color Computer. The TRS-80 ran off of a normal TV, and used normal cassette tapes to store data. It also had an insanely loud, 35lb daisy wheel printer which I wasn't allowed to use during football games, while Dallas was on, or if anybody in the house were asleep. This meant that I had a legitimate reason to have both a cassette player and a TV in my room(score!). My parents were naive enough to not realize that these things also worked outside the confines of the computer. So under the guise of studying, I would watch Python(and a ton of other quirky British shows like Dr Who, and whatever else) with headphones that since the TV was mono, sound only had sound out of one ear. This was just as well, because I needed the other ear to listen for someone coming down the stairs to make sure my "homework" was done. Often, I would hold the cassette player up to the small speaker and record the whole show onto an audio cassette, so Sean could at least hear it if he couldn't see it.

When the video age descended on suburban Denver, Sean had a sleep-over movie party to show off this new thing called a VCR. One of the movie we got was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and our lives were changed forever. Sean and I made it our mission to collect every scrap of Python we could get our hands on. Sean recorded The Flying Circus off of the TV, I slowly purchased all of the albums with paper-route money and allowance, we saved up and bought a copy of Holy Grail after having rented it enough times to buy it several times over.

We would be able to insert a Python quote into every situation possible. I once got in big trouble when I was on a vacation trip to my grand parent's house in KY, and was running around their gigantic house singing "Sit on my Face" at the top of my lungs. By 1989, when Graham Chapman died, they hadn't done anything as a group in such a long time, that everybody figured they were over, at least as Monty Python, and this turned out to be true.

I have followed every member's career, post Python as well. Some have had great sauces, like Terry Gilliam, and some less so, although I still count Erik the Viking among my favorite movies.

Every time I see John Cleese in a move I get excited, and he's everywhere these days.

The group will always remind me of Sean. Sean and I lost touch when he went to a different middle school than did due to district lines, but I would run into him or his parents from time to time. He died tragically in a construction accident some years back. I hadn't spoke to him in several years, but his mom made an effort to find me so I could go to his funeral, which I am very thankful for. He was a good kid, and from what I hear, an even better adult.

I'm glad those guys are (mostly)all still around and still being creative. They seem to be settling down nicely. I'm completely excited for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

-JP

* The first real luxury I remember having. I only got it because when I mom married my second step-dad, he already had a clock, so I got hers. Having access to a radio in my room was a big deal for me.

** As is every suburban weirdo's right by law.

Sickies.

2009-10-12T08:49:00.003-06:00

Hunter. If only he looked that good when he died.

It doesn't seem that long since a posting but I guess it has been. Not for lack of material, mind you.

A few weeks ago, Joseph started having pretty bad diarrhea. after about 4 days of it, and after he started refusing anything to eat or drink, we took him into the doctor, who promptly admitted him into the hospital. He was severely dehydrated, though we couldn't tell. As the doctor was telling Jennifer that he had to be admitted, he was at the time, swinging from the back of the exam chair and making monkey noises. "They're going to think I'm crazy, for admitting him," the doc said.

So after a little more than 24 hours in the hospital, they let him out and he has been slowly recovering ever since. He seems to be all better now. Turns out he had some kind of fungus in his digestive tract that the doctor actually had to go look up, as she'd never heard of it. Who knows what that kid gets into.

Jen and Jackson were thankfully spared for the most part. Jennifer was a little messed up, and Jackson was perfectly fine. I got it full on. I see why they admitted him. It was nasty. I had to take three days off of work, and do nothing but sleep and stay very near a toilet. No fun. I lost 16 lbs, and am not fully over it even now.

Now we march into Flu season!

I saw the Decemberists at Cain's Ballroom. That was an awesome show. Creeping up into my top five the more I think about it.

Other than that, Not much.

I think I may have a family of rabbits living in my shed.

-JP

Moving and Other news.

2009-09-18T09:04:00.003-06:00

Poe. One of the best. Not one of the best drawings of him, I mean one of the best writers. Well, maybe not one of the best, but one of my favorites. Anyway...

So we moved. We now live within the Tulsa city limits and it has made all of our lives easier and our petrol budget lower. The house is pretty much where we want it for now. There a re some project looming for the spring maybe, and a few that are waiting on cash flow. Oh, and Jen decided to re-paint the kitchen cabinets after we already painted them. They look way better.

We are on the look out for an orange couch for some reason, so if you see one for cheap, let me know. Jennifer's dad gave us his ginormous television when he purchased a flat-screen LED hybrid dilythium crystal something or other, and we had to cut out the back of our entertainment armoir to fit it in. It was worth it , though because boy does Zula Patrol look cool when the aliens are the same size as the kids watching the show.

Things we are going add to our house, and may need help with:

-A deck

-A fence

-French doors leading to the above mentioned deck

-Another Bedroom(maybe)

-New Windows

-A half-pipe(Never)

-A hot tub

-An underground Lair(definitely)

If you are experienced in building any of these things, and would like to help, there will be a sign-up sheet outside the drama room after 3rd period.

As promised, I have posted a bunch of pics from my trip to New York, but they are on my facebook page, and I'm too lazy to re post them here. So if you want to see them, go there. Friend me if you want.

Jackson started pre-school at Channing Day School, and he loves it. They do a really good job there. Hopefully, he will then go to Eisenhower, and some day take over the world Evil Genius style. No pressure though. The best thing they have taught him so far: "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit." I love them.

It has been raining in Tulsa for like a month now. I LOVE it! It kept the beast that is late summer in Oklahoma at bay. I haven't had a sunburn since Memorial day. The mold allergies can go screw themselves, but it is a small price to pay.

Powers out.

Sore hands.

2009-08-10T08:33:00.005-06:00

Been a while...

I've had a couple of busy weeks. We bought a house, we're selling the old one, I went to New York for a week, and am knee-deep in renovation. Oh, and work. And the other work.

New York was mostly fun. Every flight was delayed in some way, and the Airline lost our luggage. Well, they didn't actually loose it. They knew where it was, they just refused to send it to the correct city. We arrived in NY on Sunday night and didn't get our luggage until Wednesday. I have pics, but the camera is in the tool box at the new house, as we are semi-documenting our remodeling efforts.

So I'll post those along with a better wrap-up of New York in a couple of days.

Here is a pic of Tom Waits to hold you over:

In other news:

We've got a Nerd on our hands. Jackson has become totally obsessed with space and the solar system. He has a DVD that his Gramma C. got him and a few books, and he can recite them all word for word. When he's in the car, he'll spout off information and facts and what not the entire duration of the trip. He aunt Jenny got him some flash cards and he is loving those too. It's completely cute.

Joseph, who we now call Joezilla the Destroyer! has deiced that he is certainly not into the solar system because he cannot break it, throw it on the floor, or stomp on it. That's how he rolls. On Friday night, we were going to go out for once in our lives. When we were getting ready to leave, I reached into the fridge to get the six-pack of beer we had purchased earlier in the day, set it on the counter, and turned to close the fridge door. In the .03 seconds by back was turned, Joe grabbed the beer and threw it on the floor. One of the bottles exploded, showering us all in beer and broken glass. Then DHS showed up. Not really. But it would have been a good time to show up. It took for ever to clean up, and the house still smells faintly of malted hops and barley. Not in a good way.

Then last night I pulled a chunk of glass out of my foot that had apparently been there for three days with out my knowledge.

Um... That's it. New York pics are coming. Home renovation pics are coming.

-JP

So then we threw a party

2009-07-13T09:02:00.005-06:00

We held a joint birthday party for Jackson and Zane on Saturday. We learned our lesson last year, and it started at 10:00 am rather than 2:00 pm. Last year it hit 112° and everything melted. Last year was in a park, and we couldn't go anywhere to escape. This year was way more pleasant. We held it at the Grandparent's house, and could go inside whenever we wanted.

Way better. Also this year, we had a Super-hero themed Jupiter Jump. That was a big hit. The cup-cake train was also a big hit, thankfully, as we stayed up until 1:30 the night before decorating them. Jackson and Zane once again made out like bandits. The biggest hits being a pedal-powered John Deer tractor for Zane and (surprisingly) a book about the solar system & a toy lap-top for Jackson(nerd!). We were all exhausted by the end, but it was so darn hot that we still had to go to the mall to cool off and to buy a stuffed bear in a Spider-Man outfit. Her are pics:

More here.

Rock.

#6

2009-07-10T09:55:00.004-06:00

"what do you want?"
"Information."
"You won't get it."
"By hook or by crook, we will"

We lost a good man back in Janruary. Patrick McGoohan will always be remembered as #6, but his role as the evil evil king in Braveheart was awesome as well.

Ball-point Pens & Highlighters

2009-07-09T08:20:00.003-06:00

So I feel that I have been remiss in posting artwork. Most of what I do is commercial these days, and I can't seem to update my Zombie story for whatever reason (mostly writer's block).

What I am capable of doing, however, is doodling on my calendar. Some of you know this already, as I have collected them from time to time. Well, I'm going to start posting them a little more often, starting with this one:

I remember this as G-Force: Guardians of Space. It was also Battle of the Planets. In it's purest(and best) form, it known as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.

think that since Hollywood seems to have a hankerin' for making mediocre movies out everything I laid eyes on as a child, they are really missing out on some serious coin by overlooking imported Sandy Frank Manga. Especially since Transformers proved that you don't need any kind of plot to make millions of dollars a second. Imagine a live action Robotech(Macross) movie. That would be awesome. And given that there actually is an interesting and lengthy(read: high sequel potential) story behind it, along with transforming bots and aliens, and the fact that Manga is at it's most popular in America right now, it could be Hollywood gold in the right hands.

I'm just sayin'.

-JP

News and Accolades

2009-06-30T09:46:00.002-06:00

Well, we just hit the two year mark. I think I have mentioned before, that every two years, Jennifer and I need to totally upend our lives and make some sort of crazy change. Move to Tulsa, move to Stillwater(and have a kid), move back to Tulsa(have another kid), each time with a job change of some sort.
This time is a milder change. We are moving back into midtown, but I'm keeping my job this time. Actually everything else should remain about the same except our gas bill. Everything we do is downtown. Both my jobs, Jackson's school, the church, and all of our friends. Every time we wanted to do anything, it involved a 20-30 minute drive from Glenpool into town. No longer.
The house is a block away from Whiteside Park, where there is an awesome play area, tennis courts, a walking trail, and a free pool. We can walk to the mall, and work is a hop and a skip on the BA.
The house is cute. Full brick. From the 50's. It hasn't really been updated since then, but has been meticulously maintained. A few coats of paint and some new tile here and there, and it will be golden .Three extremely small bedrooms, but two living areas to make up for it. There is a shed and a huge back yard.
The move will be in the middle of August, and I'm still trying to figure out if that will be better or worse than the frigid late January/early February times we usually move.
I think it will be nice to be back in mid town.

In other news:

Attention NY peeps: The TW is sending me and my good friend Brandon Rowland to New york City for a week of ad serving training with Yahoo! inc. I'll be there the last week of July. The days will be full 9-5 with training, but the evenings are mostly free. So if you want to do something, contact me in some way.

Um... that's it.

In which our hero gets a new car.

2009-06-18T08:58:00.002-06:00

Finally.
Thanks to a small financial windfall, I am now the proud owner of a 1996 VW Golf. Its black and is a stick-shift has manual everything. No frills, except the sunroof, which I actually quite enjoy.
I'm excited about it. It is zippy and gets way better gas mileage than the gigantic farm truck Jennifer's aunt graciously lent me that I have been driving since my other car blew up.
Happy day!

I took Tuesday off so Jennifer could have a break. She stayed the night at her mother's house in order to get some uninterrupted sleep, and spent the day shopping and generally relaxing.
The boys and I had a great time. I think that with me having two jobs and busy as all get out all the time, they were needing some daddy time. We made scrambled eggs and apples and bananas for breakfast, played some video games, went to the library for story time (along with Grace and Zane), ate some gourmet PB&Js at McAllaster's, went to Jackson's favorite park (along with Grace and Zane), which Joseph slept through, watched WALL-E for the ten billionth time, built a massive train track around the living room, and made Beef Stroganoff from scratch for dinner.
Everybody was well behaved and had a great time.
Every time Joseph asked for mommy, Jackson would say: She took the day off, Joe!

At work, we are switching to a new ad server. Ad serving on our website is one of the many duties that I have. When I first got here, one of the first projects I had was to swap out our really ancient ad server for a way better one. Two years later, we have outgrown even that one and are implementing an even newer one that can do way more. The new one is so involved that I have to go to NYC for a week to get trained on it. Compare this to the last guys who sent us the software and a manual, and told us to call them if we had any problems. The new people are way cooler. And as excited as I am to travel to NYC since I never get to go on business trips, being away from The Fam for a whole week, and sitting through 5 days of all-day training does not sound fun. I do have a lot of friends in the City, so I can probably amuse myself at night, and we were even thinking of having Jenn fly up for a few days so we could hang out at night. So maybe that will work out. Still. Should be fun.

Powers out.

Ira at the Synagogue

2009-06-02T09:14:00.003-06:00

So we went and saw Ira Glass speak at the Congregation B’nai Emunah Synagogue on Sunday.
I have to say that it was one of the most interesting nights I've had in a long time. It was part of a new lecture series being put on by the Synagogue called: Talking Heads: Conversations with Interesting People. And the series is aptly named. If I were to make a list of the most interesting people in the world right now, Ira Glass would be in the top 5. He was there to talk about his radio show, and how it is made. But what his talk was really about was how to tell a good story.
Ira was introduced by the Rabbi, who offered a brief biography and some very kind words. Ira came out to thunderous applause from the thousand or so people who turned up to see him. It was a large room, and given that it was this particular speaker in this particular venue, the collective IQ of that room must have been off the charts. He started off by telling that he hadn't spoken in front of a crowd at a Synagogue since his Bar Mitzvah, and that since then, this was the Jeweyist thing he'd ever done. Then he told us that the last time he'd worn that suit was when he'd accepted the Peabody Award on behalf of This American Life, and that he still had a little chocolate version of the medal in his pocket.
On to the show. Armed with his wit and a bank of CD players, he provided for us, live, what can only be described as if This American Life dedicated an entire episode to the inner workings of This American Life, this would be what they would have done. The point of the whole thing was that TAL works because of a certain type of storytelling they employ, which, as Ira told was the result of years and years of experimentation and trial and error. Armed with this new knowledge, he and his staff embarked to spread the word and tell interesting stories that people might just learn something from. A while later, he found himself home for the holidays, sitting in a Synagogue with his family, and as the sermon was being read, he unconsciously began analyzing the structure of the sermon. To his horror, it was the exact same structure that he had come up with on his own, and the same structure that had been in the employ from every pulpit in every religion for 5,000 years. I guess he should have gone to church more.
Ira Glass has become one of the nerd Gods in recent years, and proved his street cred several times over, first by describing a tenacious young girl from one story as "very Buffy, season 3" then again by going on a little rant about how launching Kirk out of the ship and onto an ice planet full of deadly creatures made no sense what so ever. "The Enterprise has jail cells. They used them in almost every episode of the show!" he said.
All in all a great time and the fact that I was in the company of adults who don't need their diaper changed, or their hand held in the parking lot made it all the more enjoyable.

-Powers out.

So we went on vacation...

2009-05-28T07:46:00.002-06:00

...and had a pretty good time. We went to Abilene, TX where a good portion of Jenn's family live.
It was a lot of food and a lot of talking and a lot of wondering where Jackson and Joseph had run off to. The kids loved the hotel. We bunked up with Grace and Zane, which was extra fun because we had dueling scream sessions all night. As soon as Zane would finally get to sleep, Joseph would start in. Jackson slept through everything.
On the ride up, somebody told us that the drive would take 8 hours. Because we would have 3 toddlers in the car, we decided to leave at night, and let them sleep through it. So we left about 9:00, figuring that with stops for the potty and food and whatnot, that we'd be there around 6:00 am, and could just go to one of the cousin's houses for breakfast. The problem here is that the drive is actually 6 hours, and I drive fast. So we showed up at 3:00 with nothing to do. We decided to go where you go when there is no place left to go. IHOP. After a pile of eggs and funny face pan-cakes, we decided to call the hotel and see if they would take pity on us, which they did, and let us check in early and get a few hours sleep, which we did.
So. The way back would have to be in the daytime. there was no going around that. I figured we could leave at 9:00, do three hours, stop for lunch and some running around, then the other three hours, putting us home around 5:00, just in time for dinner. Wrong. We had to stop many many more times and for much longer durations because general child craziness, and we didn't roll in until 11:00pm. By that point we were all sick to death of the sight of one another, that we just dumped our stuff in a pile in the garage and went to bed.
Good times.
In other news...
I have gone viral. The animation I made for an interview the paper did with Ira Glass of This American Life fame, has hit the blogs, and made it to Ira's Wikipedea page.
I'm Internet famous.

um... that's about it.

Powers out.

Pop Culture

2009-05-11T10:32:00.006-06:00

Star Trek:
So the new Star Trek movie is awesome. I, like a lot of people I know, was iffy on the franchise for a number of reasons. After DS9 ended, Voyager went down hill, and I was unengaged enough by that point from the world of Trek to not take much of an interest in Enterprise. I tried but couldn't make it through season 1.
Also, even though Abrams is a genius, the whole thing had a very Phantom Menace/Superman Returns feel to it. I had a weary optimism.
Then they went and knocked out of the park. Good job. The cast was perfect, the acting on target. The writers deserve kudos for making each character three dimensional and believable. Scotty*, Sulu and Checkov weren't given enough to do, but this story wasn't about them. Hopefully future movies will remedy that.
What this movie got right was something lacking from Trek for 43 years, and lacking from a lot of sci-fi in general.. I don't quite know how to explain it. In the past, every Klingon was a carbon copy of the one standing next him, right down to the outfit. Same with the Romulans, Cardassians, etc... Every race was a stereotype. If an alien race came to Earth, they wouldn't find a whole planet of similar looking people with similar outfits on, who all have the same basic belief system. The writers of this Trek added that element to the alien races in the Trek canon. Even the Vulcans were given depth and breadth, with racism(specism?), ambition and a few new haircuts. The Romulans now have a class system and 4 separate languages. The Orions have slutty sorority girls, though that may be the one that actually extends to the entire race.
This may be a small point, but it opens up infinite possibilities. Suppose not every Klingon wants to die in battle? Suppose some of them want to start a country band? I'm just saying.

The Dollhouse:
A lot of people don't like this show. I like this show. It is so very different from the rest of Joss Wheadon's stuff, but you can still totally tell that it's him. This show should not be cancelled.
A side note: Alan Tudyk is awesome and should really be given a lot more work.

Lost:
I think John IS the Island.

There it is.

-JP

* Pegg was an inspired choice for this role. He's so expressive with his face and with his body movement that once the line does come out, it's more like a punch-line.

Big news from the party boat.

2009-05-04T08:40:00.003-06:00

Well, not really big news. Or interesting, really. Nor is it from the party boat.

The news:
1)So Joseph seem to be all better, but has somehow turned into the most accident prone kid ever. I don't really think he all that clumsy or anything, but lately he just seems to be getting knocked around a lot. Yesterday, he was coming over from the couch where Jennifer was sitting, to the chair where I was sitting, and slipped on a copy of Goodnight Moon. He then hit his chin on the coffee table and bit his lip pretty good. Poor guy.

2) Swine flu, Schwine flu. Looks to be about as bad as the bird flu pandemic, which barely left rural China.

3) I started picking up a few shifts at another coffee shop, The Coffee House on Cherry St. The shop is lovely, and they seem like good people. I was hesitant to get back into coffee after so long, but it all came back to me lightening quick. It's easy and I know it by heart and I need to save up for a new car. So come see me. I work nights. Part time. Maybe text me first to see if I'm there. Or not. You should go there anyway, actually. They serve good stuff. The meatloaf sandwich is the poo.

4) They keep cancelling, or are threatening to cancel some really good shows. The ones that make TV tolerable with Idol running around screaming all the time. Chuck, Life, The Unusuals, Castle, Reaper, Kings and several others all might get axed. This in addition to ER, Boston Legal, BSG, and few others ending that were actually supposed to. Seems like fall will be truly all new.
A lot of shows deserve it. I think the world will be a better place when Carlos Mencia no longer has a show.

5) Speaking of... Life on Mars ended after only one season, and I have to say, it had the worst series finale I have ever watched on purpose. (I'm talking to you, Seinfeld!). The original British version was way better, and was way more esoteric. Even the ending had several different possible interpretations. The American version gave us a definite answer, and it sucked. Spoiler: Echoing the "who shot JR? Oh golly nobody because it was all a dream! bullshit, the whole thing was a freaking video game! LAME.

6) We are turning into commune hippies. We have a garden, Jen bakes all our bread now, and she successfully served three children smoothies this morning that contained spinach and cucumber and soy milk. Peace, dude.

7) I find it laughable that after living in Colorado in the '90s and having Blues Traveler crammed down my throat for so long, they now have to play casinos. Bite it, fatty.

8) My computer caught a virus, and destroyed itself. Everything gone. Luckily, most of the family pics were on Flickr or on my work computer. The movies are gone, but I hear you can move music back to the computer from the ipod, so I'll have to mess with that a bit. The shit thing is all the graphics programs that I acquired through "completely legitimate" means. I cannot acquire such programs in such a way now. So I have to save my pennies now, I guess. bummer.

That is all.

-JP

Over a month!

2009-04-16T09:41:00.002-06:00

My longest time between posts, and for that I apologize.
What ever has been happening? I haven't had a car in almost two months, and it turns out I don't really need one. I have two colleagues that live close by that I can bum rides off of, and since Jennifer works from home, as it were, she can usually take me to work when I need it. I guess I won't go get a second car until either I can afford one, or it get too irritating to not have one.

Joseph is recovering nicely from having double pneumonia. He isn't healing a quickly as the doctors would like, but he is healing nonetheless. He's been a little dope, but other than that, he's in great spirits. If he hadn't had a fever, we wouldn't have known that anything was wrong.

That's about it. I guess I hadn't posted anything because I haven't been doing anything interesting.

-JP

The Human Torch was denied a bank loan.

2009-03-17T08:58:00.003-06:00

Well, since the car fire, not too much has happened. It turns out that we don't really need a second car right now. I was car-pooling with my boss anyhow, and now that Jenn keeps his daughter during the day for a little extra cash, it is even easier to get around without a car.
The fire car was only driven once a week anyway, and was basically taking up space in the driveway and sucking money insuring it. So we're just gonna deal for a while.
...
We toured a private school last week that we decided to try to put Jackson into. As far as private schools go, it's pretty inexpensive because it is fairly new. Hopefully he'll get in. He's very smart if I do say so. I wonder where he got that from.... It wasn't me.
...
I have been doing a lot more Illustration for work, which is cool. They are even comfortable enough with my work to assign it even though they may not use it, which sounds bad but really isn't.
...
I entered a poster contest, but didn't win. :(
...
Did any of you watch the Will Farrell special this week. I think I peed my pants at one point.
...
I think that's it. Happy St. Patrick's day!

-JP

Car on Fire!

2009-02-26T09:59:00.003-07:00

This is what is left of my car after it caught on fire this morning. I'm fine as it was a gradual thing and not an explosion.
What happened was: I was driving along and the car died. I couldn't get it started again, so had to push it into the center of the highway. I called Jen, and sat and waited. I noticed some smoke, but I had just had the car worked on twice for two separate fluid leaks, which were dripping onto the exhaust, and the mechanic said that it might take a few days for what was still on the exhaust to burn off. So I didn't think much of it. Then another motorist stopped and said that the grass had caught fire, and i noticed stat a lot more smoke was coming from under the hood. I then decided to call 911. While on the phone with them, a passing cop noticed and stopped. They called the fire department, and for a while until the FD showed up, we just sat there and watched it burn. It got worse and worse, and by the time the firemen showed up, there were 8-10 foot flames and a hell of a lot of smoke. They shut down both sides of the highway because my car was taking up one side, and all the smoke was blocking the other.
The fire moved into the cab, an they had to bust out a window to spray down the inside.
Eventually, they got it under control. A wrecker came and hauled it off, and my father in law, who lives about a mile away from where this all happened, gave me a ride to work.
So everything is fine. The wrecker is going to buy it off me to part out the back end, and I can probably get a new car with my tax return.

So there you have it.

-Jason.

Stolen from Facebook

2009-02-19T09:17:00.002-07:00

Here is my list of what I believe to be the 40 (or so) best and/or most important (to me) albums of all time (and sometimes why).
(I'll TRY to do this in chronological order, not the order that they were important to me. I don't know why.)
1977 The Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
1979 Joy Divison - Unknown Pleasures
1984 Repo Man - Soundtrack (this movie/soundtrack pushed me into my fascination with punk)1985 Weird Al Yankovic - Dare to be Stupid (The first album I ever bought, and the first concert I ever went to.)
1986 The Beastie Boys - License to Ill
1986 Firehose - Ragin', Full On
1987 The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
1987 Love and Rockets - Earth Sun Moon (I was the only skater in my middle school with a L&R sticker on my board)
1987 The Pogues - If I Should Fall from Grace with God
1988 The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
1989 The Vandals - When in Rome/Peace Thru Vandalism
1989 Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (I wore out a cassette and a CD of this album.)
1989 The Cure - Disintigration (I'm pretty sure this was playing when I lost my virginity :P)1988-1995 Everything Wax Trax/Nettwerk/TVT put out (All Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Pigface...*)
1988 Bauhaus - In the Flat Field (reissue)
1990 Peter Murphy - Deep
1990 MC 900 Foot Jesus - Hell with the Lid Off
1990 My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
1992 Morphine - Good (I met Mark Sandman about 3 weeks before he died while working a festival.)
1992 Tom Waits - Bone Machine
1993 Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
1994 Portishead - Dummy (Memories of drawing comics in St. Marks with Tony Leonard and the crew.)
1994 Blur - Parklife
1994 Dead Can Dance - Toward the Within
1995 PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
1995 Radiohead - The Bends
1995 Pulp - Different Class
1996 Luna - Penthouse (Luna was one of the first things that Jennifer and I realized we had in common)
1996 16 Horsepower - Sackcloth and Ashes (Other than the Psychedelic Zombies and Foreskin 500, this was one of the few Denver bands I followed.)
1996 Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk
1997 Radiohead - OK Computer1997 Stereolab - Dots and Loops
1997 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
1998 Belle And Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
1999 Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret(This album will always remind me of Heather O. and Pandora Jewelry)
1999 Rushmore - Soundtrack
2000 Modest Mouse - Building Nothing out of Something
2000 The Black Heart Procession - 3
2001 The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
2001 Gorillaz - Gorillaz (Where pop music and comics meet)
2002 Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights(They picked up where Joy Division left off, albeit 20 years later.)
2002 Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
2006 The Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
2007 Kings of Loen - Because of the Times2007 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2008 The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing

*After Filth Pig came out, I totally lost interest with both Ministry and the Genre as a whole.

Overheard on the police scanner:

2009-02-09T07:54:00.003-07:00

"Black male, mid twenties, wearing a red jersey. He's on crack, standing on the corner exposing his penis to the cars driving by. Apparently, his girlfriend didn't like that, and she's now chasing him down the street with a baseball bat."

Discuss.

A real post. Long overdue.

2009-01-30T08:38:00.002-07:00

So I have been posting Internet memes and videos and crap like that for a while, and not telling you anything of substance. Sorry about that.
Well, 2009 is off to an odd start. Following the layoffs at work, I've been given extra duties to help carry the weight. Which is fine, I guess, but since right before the layoffs, they froze wages and raised our health insurance, I basically took a pay cut and am doing a lot more work. But I have a job, and a good one at that, so I can't really complain.* Also, some of my new duties are way better than the old ones. Like the Illustrations.

See Here and Here

So that's cool. Truthfully, since illustration is my actual background, if they want to steer me that way a little more, I'm just fine with that. People around here seem to like what I've been doing, so keeping me around in that capacity is definitely a possibility.
In other news:
Do you guys remember the argument clinic skit on Monty Python? That pretty much sums up our everyday dealings with Jackson these days. Three is definitely the new Two when it comes to pushing boundaries. Anything we say to Jackson is immediately met with contradiction. A friend suggested that we offer choices instead instead of just telling to do something, like do you want to wear this coat or that coat, so that it's hie decision, we get "I don't wanna wear a coat!"
Time outs and the like just make him laugh, and neither of us are willing to use physical punishment, because we both know from experience that it doesn't work. That doesn't mean we don't loose our tempers from time to time. I've wanted to throw him out the window on several occasions, and one night last week, we had to take him to his grandparent's house so we could get a break. He's still a total sweetie, and the awesomest, smartest kid I know, but I sure hope he grows out of this soon.
Jen may start watching a boy almost Jackson's exact age two day a week, so maybe that will distract him a little.
Joseph, on the other hand is being totally awesome. He started really walking in earnest this week, and I am getting a lot more exercise chasing him around the house. He friggin' fast!

Um... That's it.

-JP

*The old punker Jason is screaming inside right now.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)

2009-01-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

RIP #6

2009-01-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Patrick McGoohan has died

Jan 14, 2009, 01:29 PM by Ken Tucker
Categories: '60s mind-blowing, Television
Patrick McGoohan, the man who embodied hope over despair in the coolest way imaginable in the 1960s cult TV classic The Prisoner, has died--he was 80 years old.

The Prisoner was a British TV series that aired in America starting in 1967. Only 17 episodes long, The Prisoner was a strikingly original show about a former British spy who wakes one morning to find himself in a psychedelic fantasy-land that's not all candy and sunshine--it's a combination British village/futuristic prison, and McGoohan's character was stripped of his identity and known only as "Number Six." McGoohan (who'd starred in an earlier spy show, Danger Man, which was titled Secret Agent in the U.S.) had the rugged good looks and clipped accent that leant The Prisoner a gravity its giddy alternate-worldliness might otherwise have lacked. Number Six's famous cry, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" became both a counterculture catchphrase as well as an anguished plea for freedom. The Prisoner was James Bond for acid-heads, and McGoohan's straitlaced image made his small-screen version of a hip spy all the more appealing.
McGoohan also appeared in many films, from Ice Station Zebra to Braveheart, but for TV fans, he'll always be The Prisoner.

I lost 7 lbs in 3 days! Ask me how!

2009-01-14T08:03:00.003-07:00

It's called: Debilitating Stomach Virus! Horay!

I woke up Saturday night, I guess actually early Sunday, around 2:00am and started throwing up. Around 4:00 it started coming out of the other end, and this went on until yesterday. I had some pizza last night and that was the first solid food I'd had since dinner Saturday, which I threw up, so it doesn't count. ugh.

Don't worry, I'm fine

2009-01-07T08:31:00.001-07:00

Tulsa World announces layoffs of 28 employees

It was a hard day yesterday. Some really awesome people were let go.

-JP

Year in Review 2008

2009-01-02T10:41:00.010-07:00

And what a year it has been.

In 2008:

-I turned 33
-Saw a lot of good movies based on comics, and a few not so good ones.
-I obsessively followed the Election, which not only made history several times over, but both renewed my faith in humanity while simoultaniously destroying it.
-I finally got on board with LOST. A friend lent me a copy of season 1, and Jennifer and I couldn't stop watching until the end, to the point where we would cancel plans to watch LOST.
-I put my kids back in daycare, only to take them out again after only 2 months.
-I realized that daycare sucks eggrolls.
-I helped Jennifer nanny for a sweet little girl who later ended up dead under mysterious circumstances. (not because of us)
-I had to deal with an ex-stepfather's death.
-I did not attend his funeral. I sort of... dealt from afar.
-I had to put my cat of 7 years down.
-I only went to Denver once. Sorry, guys.
-I did, however, host many more people in Tulsa than ever before. Thanks, guys.
-I was severely dissapointed by Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas. Again.
-I helped Cody and Grace (seperately) move to Tulsa. YAY!
-I watched a shit ton of weird drama develop around Jennifer's step-brother.
-I watched Jackson Turn 3, and Joseph turn 1.
-I watched Jackson come to terms with actually having a little brother. Well, start to come to terms with it.
-I got really pumped about the 2009 movie schedual, especailly for Watchmen and Star Trek.
-I doodled a lot at work on my desk calendar:

Happy new year, everybody!

-JP

A letter to my second son on the day after his first birthday.

2008-12-29T09:43:00.002-07:00

Joseph,
Holy crap you are one year old already. What a year it has been. When I first met you, your mom was having a scheduled C-section. I was a little less worried and strung out than before, but only a little bit. Your C-section went a lot more smooth that your brother's did. The weird thing is that even though you two look very different to me now, when they pulled you out and handed you to me, I got a weird look on my face, like that dog looking into the gramophone tube in the old RCA ads because you looked EXACTLY like your brother did when he came out. The first words you heard me say were to the doctor: "Hey, didn't we already had this baby?"
Then we spent a few days in the hospital, which also went smoother due to the absence of a really bitchy nurse, and the fact that at that time you were so like your brother that we knew what was in store. Jen was a much more confident mother because she wasn't new to it any more, and during the last few years, the "mom" part of her personality has come front and center, and isn't likely to go anywhere. We spent our time in the hospital watching movies on the laptop rather than endlessly worrying that we were going to make horrible parents. At Your mom, being the tough girl that she is, wanted to go home long before they let us.
In this last year, you have made it very clear that those early similarities were to end very quickly. You are more daring that your brother, more hands on, and oh, so much louder. You sleep better. Not great, but nothing like Jackson's first year. You became very mobile very quickly. In short, you became your own person so fast that the constant comparisons to your brother that we all initially made soon became moot. You have a different fire in your eyes, and I can tell that you will be the devious one. You will also be the funny one. Children will get in trouble around you due to your actions, but you will be safely to the side, watching.
Because you came out looking just like your brother, we assumed you'd look a lot like him, and you do, but you also have green eyes and curly reddish hair. Where did that come from?

I love that you try to bulldoze all of your brother's belongings in that Joezilla way you have, and how patient Jackson is with you, saying: "He's just little, and still learning," when he sees that his train set in now in pieces on the floor.
I love that every time I pick you up, you go straight for my glasses, and usually succeed, which is why my glasses are hopelessly disfigured and scratched up now.
I love that look you get when you are trying not to laugh. Like you could hide anything from me.
I love that you crawl so fast, and with such determination that you sometimes run right into the wall.
I love how you always want to get into boxes, drawers, and buckets. And then just sit there.
I love that you look so much like your mom.

You are a good boy, Joseph, and I love you. Happy birthday.

-Dad.

Christmas is coming.

2008-12-17T10:49:00.002-07:00

And there is nothing you can do about it.
We, like everybody else in the free world, are taking it easy this holiday season. No trips, few gifts, and only taking the time off that work will take away if we don't.
Jackson is getting an expansion for his train set, and a few odds and ends, but nothing outrageous. Joseph would be happy with a ball of tinfoil, so we got him a ball of tinfoil. Kidding.
He's getting some lovely age-appropriate stuff. We promised to make a bigger deal about his birthday than Christmas, but it's hard with all the lights and whatnot.
Speaking of: Holy shit, Joseph is almost a year old! Time really flies. He's an awesome kid, so very like his brother in appearance, but unlike him in personality. Joseph is way more loud, and tends to destroy more than he creates. He is happy way more than he is sad. He is also huge. He can fit into 12 month stuff, and freely swaps clothes with his cousin Zane, who is 17 mo. He is in the 98th percentile for height, but 50th for weight, so he is not fat at all. He's just awesome:
My mom will be coming here for Christmas. She wanted us to go down there since we stayed here for Thanksgiving, but we chose not to do that, and here is why: Jennifer and Myself are both latch-key kids, meaning that holidays were more about travelling from this house to that in bad weather than anything else. As we got older and started dating, it just got worse, because then you had to go to all of those houses too. So I put my foot down. I did so much travelling throughout mu life for all of my relatives that now it is there turn. My kids will open their presents in their own house Christmas morning. If you want to be there, that's great. We'll work out Thanksgiving, but Christmas is ours.
So there.

-JP

A dead cat and The Christmas Train

2008-12-09T12:24:00.002-07:00

So for those of you who didn't know, Audrey the cat died. She had stomach cancer. She is sorely missed.
Now that we have that out of the way, on to The Christmas Train.
The Christmas Train sounds like a great idea in theory. Some movie company made a wild west town outside of Pryor, OK some time in the '80s. When shooting was done, a church bought the land and turned it into a western themed summer camp. During the holiday season, they decorate the place with lights and all that and turn it into a Victorian/Cowboy Christmas theme park, complete with a vintage train that actually still runs on steam. Fair enough. The kids should like it.
One of the things they keep talking about in all of the Literature is the true meaning of Christmas, and how one might learn of such during the train ride. In my mind, the "true meaning of Christmas" conjors up all sorts of imagery that mostly involves Charlie Brown and his sad little tree. This was not the case.
All seemed well and good after the hour and a half car ride. Grace and Zane were there to keep us company. Everything was quaint and charming. The main problem we had was that the tix we had, (which aren't for the train itself, only for entry into the complex) were for 6:00 and the boys hadn't eaten yet. We thought about eating first, but Jackson was so gung-ho about riding the train that his exuberance superseded hunger. The night was terribly cold, and we spent a long time getting everybody bundled up. We make it into the complex, and it is very cute. We see the boarding area for the train, having to first check the strollers. The line moved slowly and the kids were getting cranky. Finally we board the train. It's a snug fit. Everybody is wearing extra clothes due to the cold. Jackson is as excited as can be for the train ride. The conductor even yelled "ALL ABOARD!!" like he was in it to win it. The train gets rolling. There is steam and a whistle and everything seems perfect.
A few minutes into the ride, as we were riding through a tunnel decorated with hanging Styrofoam planets and stars and a lovely space mural, a gigantic, loud, booming, Darth Vader voice comes over the PA system....
"IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH!!!"
Almost every kid on the train lost their shit. The crying was loud, but not as loud as the magic voice. The rest of the twenty minute train ride, we chugged past painted murals of the story of Jesus, and in a few thematically important areas actors portrayed the events live. Joseph and Zane were calmed my hand-feeding them kix cereal, but Jackson just sort of stared out the window. Until I hear him say: "Daddy, what are they doing?", and I look out the window to see a bunch of guys dressed as Romans nailing a guy to a cross in a pretty graphic way. Um... our kids are all 3 or under. We don't really need blood and scary voices and violence with our theme parks, thank you. We got back to the station and they lead us all into a theater where they wanted us to watch a movie. After a collective "fuck that", we left and went to get some food. Jack played on their playground while the girls want to get the strollers, and on to some really expensive and extremely mediocre food. As the boys' blood sugar raised, attitudes were improved. We had as semi-lovely a meal as we could in a cafeteria setting. Then Disaster #2 struck. As we were getting read to venture back out into toon town, Jackson got so excited at the prospect of seeing Santa, he peed himself. Boys will be boys, but we did not have an extra outfit on hand as we usually do. So much for sitting in Santa's lap. Time to go home. All I could find in the car to put Jackson in, were a pair of his brother's pajama pants, which looked like bicycle shorts once I got them on him, and a pair of my socks. Lookin' sharp, Mr. Powers. Joseph cried the whole way home, and Grace had to feed him raisins and jingle her keys for over an hour.
So....the verdict: If it had been warmer, and if we had eaten beforehand, the old west town would have been pretty cool for the kiddos. There were pony rides and a merry-go-round and and arcade and Santa, so they would have enjoyed that. The Propaganda Train, however, we would not do again. I'm all for the Story of Jesus and all that, but for goodness sake, ease the kids into Romans and nails and raising from the dead Zombie style. That shit can wait until they don't believe in Santa anymore. Which I also thought was odd. They make a big deal about the true meaning of Christmas, but then want you to spend $15.00 on a picture of your kid with Santa. Hmmm....

-JP

Fighting kids, a job gained and then given back, a sick cat, and another death.

2008-11-26T08:28:00.006-07:00

Where oh where to begin?
Okay. About a month and a half ago, Jennifer was offered a job managing a foundation started by the church we attend which is also where Jackson used to go to school. They couldn't pay much, but it was only part-time and the boys could be looked after on-site and for half price. Sounded awesome, and in a lot of way it really was. Jennifer wouldn't have a massive gap in her resume, we would get some extra cash, and the boys would be going to a pretty decent school. This is not exactly how it turned out.
The job part was fine, except that the retired pastor who ran it, and is getting on in years a little, turned out to be a bit of a Flibbertygibbet. A good man, and an excellent pastor, but a bit unorganized and scatterbrained. Jennifer is very left-brained. Disorganization in something she's being paid to maintain makes her want to beat up bags of cats. This, however can be dealt with.
What happened in the school turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. First off, Joseph has been sick every single day since he started going to school. First a cold then a crazy eye infection that looked like that disease coal miners get, then another cold, and a chronic cough that he still has.
Second off, Jackson started acting out. A lot. It started slowly, with a little more defiance than usual, but escalated into hitting and fits which is so not like him, and regression in his potty-training. I won't get into that. During all of this, he started saying some weird things about his class, like how he doesn't like being choked*, and saying that he didn't want to go there anymore. When Jennifer looked into this, it turned out that Jackson was being terrorized by another little boy in his class. This other kid's mom was getting a divorce from the kid's step-father (he's only three, and already has a step-father) who was pretty abusive, if you take that time he punched her in the parking lot as ant indication. So that kid was taking it out on Jackson I guess. They talked to the mom about the whole thing, and she was completely unaware of the situation, and was very upset about it, and agreed to go to some family counseling. Which is all fine and good on one hand. It's not really that kid's fault his parents are messed-up, and he'll probably settle down after the divorce and all that. On the other hand, fuck that kid. He's beating up Jackson, and that can't happen. So we gave it a couple weeks. On Tuesday, Jackson and the other kid got into a fight over a match-box car. When the teacher finally got there, Jackson was choking the other kid, who had just bit Jackson on the chin pretty good. That was kind of the last draw. We decided that this would be their last week there.
When Jennifer went in to quit her job, she explained that the good was not outweighing the bad any longer, and that she would be happy to work from home until they found a replacement, and suggested that she could work from home permanently if they would go for that. Well the good news is that the board members were all for it, saying that there was nothing preventing this, but the pastor was decidedly against it, saying he wanted someone on site as much as possible. So we will see how that shakes out. Hopefully the board will get there way and Jennifer can work from home, which seems likely because it will be a very difficult position to fill. Cross your fingers. Next week, everybody is home, so things should settle down.
On to the sick cat. I realize that this will may cast me in a bad light, but because of the boys, pet ownership has become less practical. Having two rambunctious boys, a cat and two small. obnoxious dogs was becoming way too much. Over the summer, My aunt's cat Lady, whom she'd had for years and years died. She was wanting a new cat, but didn't want a kitten, and wanted a cat that could get along with her son's two dogs. My cat Audrey fit the bill pretty good. So after a little discussion and a but of a cry, I gave her my cat. About a week ago, I get a call that Audrey wasn't eating and had dropped to 7lbs from her usual 12. My aunt has had numerous trips to the vet, and after an ultrasound, there seems to be a blockage of some sort in her small intestine. The pulled out a chunk to send to the lab so they can see if it is a virus, and infection or cancer or what. Those results will be here in a few days. I feel really bad about it. I gave my aunt a sick cat, and she just went through loosing a cat and now she may have to do it again. And she's paying all of the vet costs. And I miss my cat. I had her for almost 9 years. Bummer!
Now for the really freaky story. Remember the little girl Jenn used to nanny for? The one who's mom worked at the massage parlor? That little girl died last week. She was just about to turn 2. On Friday, Jennifer saw an odd message on the girl's sister's mySpace saying "RIP my baby sister" and a pic of the girl. Jennifer and I started investigating, and we found a death notice in the paper from the Sunday before. Jennifer called around to no avail, but ended up going to the funeral, which happened to be that day**. Once there, more questions were raised than answered. The "official"story Jenn got from the mom is that while at their current nanny's place, the girl started coughing up blood. They got her to the hospital where they thought she had a tear in her esophagus. When they operated, the girl had some kind of heart failure and died.
Everyone thinks this is bullshit. There were all these bruises and scratches all over her face that the mom said were from the tubes they put in, which is bunk. I guess the story has changed a few times. I had one of our reporters call the medical examiner, and they said that they had to do a more involved autopsy because they couldn't figure it out. That report takes a few months. The cops were equally confused. The whole thing was sketchy and weird.
It sucks because we really liked that girl, and Jackson still asks about her. We still find some of her toys around from time to time. She was messed up, but curious about everything and very sweet. And this whole thing could have probably been avoided by removing the kid from the circumstances. The mom had already had two kids taken away from her. Just before Jenn stopped watching the girl, she and the girl's weekend nanny were concerned enough about the girl that they called DHS. DHS said that nothing life-threatening had happened to the girl yet and unfortunately, there is no law against being a shitty mother.
There sure as hell should be.

-JP

*Yeah, WTF?
*8Ask Jenn to fill you in on the Funeral. It was a spectacle in itself.

Color me excited!

2008-11-17T15:38:00.002-07:00

woo hoo!!

This is about how I feel...

2008-11-17T08:45:00.001-07:00

Silly onion...

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Some thoughts on the election.

2008-11-05T08:02:00.002-07:00

First off, congrats to Obama and Biden. You guys deserve it.

Finally people are engaged in the political process again. People are excited about performing their civic duty again. Gone, or at least lessened are the days of apathy. The feelings of why bother, my vote won't count, or politics has nothing to do with my day to day life.

Finally people other than aging baby boomers and values voters showed up at the polls.

It is very telling that when John McCain mentioned Omaba's name during his concession speech, the crowd booed, but when Obama mentioned McCain's name during his victory speech, the crowd cheered. It tells me that closed-minded arrogance has run it's course, and the American people are ready for real solutions that go beyond finger pointing.

I fear for Obama's safety and for that of his family. All the good ones get killed.

I can't wait to hear the political back-pedaling from the pendants.

It's a good day. Were it not overcast, I'm sure the sun would be a little brighter today.

I am sad that the State I live in is always way behind the curve.

More as I think of them.

The perfect quote about how I feel:

2008-10-29T08:34:00.007-06:00

The always awesome Jeffrey Rowland puts it thus:

"It's almost over, I swear. Four years ago I would've been totally okay with John McCain, but things are different now. He's irresponsible. And don't think just because all the polls say Obama is definitely gonna win that you don't need to vote. If you failed to register, shame on you. And I'm not saying there's a possiblity we might not end up regretting Obama. But that's a lot better than the 100% certainty I have of regretting Vice President Palin. "

That about sums it up. I am sorry for not posting more often lateley, but between obsessively following the election, work, my newfound obsession with Lost*, and kids, it hasn't been on the top of my radar. Here is some cuteness to make up for it:

We had Joseph baptized last weekend, or was that the weekend before? Anyway. I had a heap of family in, and we all had a great time. Other than Jackson being a rambunchious 3-year-old, everything went off with out a hitch.

Last weekend we celebrated Papa Norm's birthday, with massive amounts of red meat and cake. He's all American, you know. We also went to the Boo-ha-ha thing on Peoria. Crowded, but fun, I guess. Zane and Jack started getting speepy/hungry/grumpy early on, so we skipped the parade in lew of naps in the car. Last night was Hallow-zoo-een, tonight is the fall festival at the church**, and then begging for treats Friday night. Then back to normal, whatever that is.

So, um... that's it.

-Powers out.

*I'm late to the game, I know, but a buddy lent me season 1, and Jen and I have spent all week staying up way too late watching episodes.
**As well as Obama's infomercial. Everyone should watch.

A-ha the literal version

2008-10-17T08:23:00.000-06:00

Keep watching.

Once again...

2008-10-06T08:29:00.001-06:00

Sarah Silverman graces my blog.

enjoy.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

This is why he will win

2008-10-02T09:43:00.006-06:00

A Second of Drama on the Senate Floor

"It was Senator Barack Obama who crossed the aisle."

Day out with Thomas

2008-09-30T08:02:00.003-06:00

So last Friday we took Jackson to see the real live Thomas the Tank Engine. This thing looked so much like the real one that for once, a capitalist marketing ploy to sell you toys and t-shirts was totally worth it. Thomas has been the one thing that has kept Jackson's attention for more than a few days. He's been totally into all things Thomas for well over a year now, which in kid terms is forever. It's almost half of his life. And considering all the loud, brash idiotic crap that kids are into these days(I'm looking at YOU, Spongebob!), a show made up entirely of some guy's train set, with narration by The Late George Carlin is okay in my book.

My dad happened to be in Oklahoma for the Gene Autry Festival* which is near Ardmore, so he drove up to OKC to hang out with us and Thomas. It was held at the Oklahoma Railway Museum, so we were able to look at trains and things while waiting for our trip on Thomas.

Everybody really had a great time.

In other news:

Heroes doesn't seem to suck this season, so that's awesome.

Um... I think that's it.

-JP

*Don't get me started. My dad has this weird fascination with '50s Coyboy culture.

Ramblin'

2008-09-18T14:01:00.002-06:00

Well, I've been meaning to post about a great number of things, like the current state of the election, and our trip to Wichita over the weekend, and gushing on my new phone, but every time I sit down to write, I either get distracted or nothing comes out.
So I'm just going to ramble a bit about Internet TV.
I've been a little slow at work lately. Well, not really "slow", but I seem to get everything I need to get done by about noon or so. I guess "fantastically efficient" would be a better phrase. To help pass the time, I re-enrolled in college to get what amounts to an associates degree in web design. The cool thing there is that I can take about 98% of the classes over Internet.* But even that I'm fantastically efficient at. I've been filling the reaming time watching TV shows I can't watch at night because I actually play with my kids. I watched the entire run of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If you think in your head that the third movie never existed (as I'm sure Claire Danes is), and that plot holes are just a part of science-fiction/time travel movies anyway(How in god's name did Marty McFly's parents not know that their son looks amazingly like the guy that got the together?!?! AND has the same name!), then the show is actually pretty good. They beef up the conspiracy aspect to account for mountains of terminators suddenly running around Los Angeles, which is okay. They need things to do other than just run away from the Terminator of the week. Not even Brian Austin Green could ruin it, and they balance that out by putting Garbage's own Shirley Manson in it (Whom, BTW, I still have a crush on no matter how mediocre her music has become).
So as long as I don't have to keep track of it (ie.: it stays on hulu), I'll keep watching.
I also downloaded all three seasons of The Venture Brothers, which is the best animated show on the air right now. I've seen most of the eps before, but not all in a row. Awesome stuff.
I tried to watch the new Knight Rider. I watched the pilot, and didn't think it was that bad. Mostly because I loved the original when I was 7. I thought maybe the show would have some potential. It does not. Not even Val Kilmer as the voice of the car saves it. Don't bother.
Other bright spots: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and maybe Life on Mars. The original British version was phenomenal, and I am weary of the American version, due to a leaked pilot I saw a few months back. They have since re-tooled the show with better actors and a tweaked plot, so we'll see.

That's all I got.

-JP

Shoes

2008-09-03T10:42:00.001-06:00

Odds and ends....

2008-08-15T08:33:00.002-06:00

Okay. First off, if anybody believes that a monkey suit with somebody's lunch dumped on it is a real-life bigfoot, you are no longer my friend. Also, since when is bigfoot in Gerogia? He's strictly a north-west dude. Or if it were "found" in the other Georgia that suddenly everyone cares about, I'd tell you that Yetis are strictly north-east Asia dudes.

A note on Sweded films:

I know I am way behind the curve here. Most of them suck. They have no heart. Even the Star Wars one that Internet is raving about is kinda sucky. The main exception being the one for the bike scene in Tron:

Also, and I love this one just because everybody has been doing re-makes, and these guys broke that rule, but the Spoof of Boston Dynamics Big Dog is just plain awesome. Watch at least a little of the original before you watch this:

In Other News:

This has been the most temperate August ever. Today's high is only 80°!! This makes up for the one two years ago when it was over 110° for 3 weeks straight and the foundation of our house cracked and I almost moved to the Yukon.

-JP

Jackson loves the ladies.

2008-07-30T12:36:00.002-06:00

That is the electronic Truck Jackson got from his Papa B for his birthday. He had it 5 seconds before it was full of girls. He's going to break some hearts, that one is.
So other that it being the hottest day of the year, Jackson's birthday party was awesome. He had a great turn out, and everybody seemed to dig that it was in a park(the kids, anyway). The kids played and ate cup-cakes(which completely melted) and played with his new toys, and then were whisked off before they passed out. The whole thing was maybe 2½ hours. Having a kids party at 10:30 in the morning is awesome. Everybody is energetic, they eat everything you bring, and the crash out when it's done. No more afternoon parties for us anymore.

In other news, if anybody in the Tulsa area wants to house a foriegn exchange student, please contact my wife. She has been tasked with finding homes for 20 kids 15-18 from arounnd the world for between 4 and 12 weeks by August 14, when they may land in Tulsa and have no where to go. She cound really use your help.

Also, my other kid is a vampire.

Powers out.

Cute kids and Summer Movies

2008-07-25T08:50:00.003-06:00

Man, my wife makes cute kids.
Thanks to the mighty Bucaroo for the pic.

it is now one of my favs of all time.

Laura took thins pic while here last month. We had a grand time.

My other kid, who had a birthday last week, gets his birthday party this week. It's going to be in a park at 10:30am because who doesn't like cake before noon. If you want to go, email me. We have had a mild summer* by Oklahoma standards this year. July is almost over, and we have yet to hit 100°, thanks to Al Gore. Need I remind you of the summer of '06 when we had 34 days over 100°? I thought not.

That being said, it is supposed to get to a hundred on Saturday, the day of the Party. Hopefully, we'll be out of there by noon or 1:00. Jackson is excited for the Party, and actually has no idea that his birthday was last week because we didn't tell him. I don't think his just turned 3 brain could have wrapped itself around the concept of birthday now, party later. My brain can barely deal. Let's just let him open a present now, I would say. You aren't getting it, Jenn would say. It's because I'm slow.

In other News:

Finally saw the Batman movie last night. It met my very high expectations and exceeded them. That's all I'm going to say, because I sure you can't shop for toilet paper without seeing a Welshman in a batsuit on the package**.

I am extremely excited for the Watchmen movie. I know Alan Moore didn't want it filmed, but let's face it, Moore is kind of a dick.

I'll tell you what I'm not excited about is The Spirit movie. It appears that Frank Miller has taken a beloved, wonderfully campy and groundbreaking strip from the '40s and is using it to further is juvenile, chauvinistic, über macho agenda. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of what Frank has done. It just seems like as time went on, his male characters got less and less sympathetic, in direct proportion to his female characters wearing less and less clothing. But let's face it, Miller is kind of a dick. And can we please make a comic book movie without Sam Jackson in it for once?

Powers out.

*Way to jinx it, Powers!
**Wipe out crime!

Tomorrow my first born will turn 3!

2008-07-16T09:22:00.002-06:00

Holy shit, time flies!

Jackson is turning into an incredibly smart little boy. I can tell because he has quickly become bored to death with just about everything, especially his parents. He needs constant stimulation, and luckily for us, he can't really stand the TV. Too slow. He'll watch for about 7-8 minutes before he's off and running. The only things that can hold his attention, other than constant movement, are sleep and building the tracks for his trains. Neither of which he does very often.

One thing he does love is soccer. He gets to run around for an hour kicking things. Right up his alley.

This year his personality has really come into the forefront. He is sweet and hyper and funny and has even begun to make up jokes. Jokes, people. He also likes to trick you, and he likes to hide and jump out to scare you. He picks out his own clothes, and like his dad, prefers t-shirts with comic book characters on them.
He has also developed broken record syndrome. He'll ask the same question over and over until you give a different answer and then he'll say "No, Daddy, its (first answer)!" and start all over again.

He also at that age where we spend equal amounts of time thinking either, "I can't believe how smart you are!" and "I can't believe what a little shit you're being!" Which I'm sure sounds harsh to anybody who doesn't have kids, but incredibly accurate to anybody who does. And keep in mind I said thinking, not saying.

All in all, he is an awesome kid, and I love him a lot. I chalk it all up the the wonderful parenting that my lovely bride offers, as I do not know dick. I have seen the importance of being around, unlike the constant stream of "father figures" that wandered in and out of my childhood. And I am trying real hard to not be the dad that comes home, scolds the kids for what ever they got in trouble for that day, cracks a beer and settles into the barca-lounger to watch sports, because you may as not be there at that point.

The second kid is awesome too, by the way. He seems so much easier than Jackson was. I know that a lot of it is that we have been through it before, but this kid has a completely different personality.

For one thing, Joseph sleeps. Jackson never slept more than 45 minutes at a time until he was over a year old. He still doesn't sleep well, and getting him in bed is still a constant battle.

Joseph is just happy and giggly and bright eyed and perfect. It looks as though he's going to have wavy red hair, too. Which is awesome as long as nobody calls him "ginger balls" later in life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACKSON!

A Big-ass long weekend.

2008-07-07T14:49:00.003-06:00

Three day weekend!
Friday I tried to take Jackson to see WALL-E. What I saw of it was phenomenal. Unfortunately, Jackson being almost three and all, couldn't deal with it. We cooked out at our place with the whole family and then tried to go see an air show/fireworks display at the Jenks airport that we read about in the paper I work for that didn't actually exist. Nobody seems to know where the reporter got his info, including the security guard that turned us away at the gate. So we went to a park for a while and waited for the Jenks show to start. It was pretty good, but the little ones(We had Grace and little Zane in tow) once again couldn't deal, so once again we left early. Those of you out there that don't have kids don't realize the full severity of this, but parents are constantly late for things and have to leave early. It's just part of the package.
Saturday, I took Jackson in the morning to see the actual event at the airport, which was a 50th anniversary thing with a bunch of vintage aircraft on display. Some of which you could go in and look around. Jackson had a gfeat time, given the extreme heat.
It was then on to little Zane's 1st birthday party. Zane is an awesome little kid who belongs to Jennifer's sister. He dove into his little cake like crazy. He also got a shit-ton of presents. Everybody had a really good time. During clean-up, I broke a dish. That in itself wouldn't be bad, but I put the broken bits of glass into a trash bag, and while taking out that trash bag, I somehow stabbed myself in the leg. I'm going to guess that the glass bit went about a half and inch to an inch into my calf. There was a bunch of blood that didn't feel like stopping for like an hour. yummy.
Jackson stayed the night at the grandparent's place. Mostly because he fell asleep on the couch about 7:00, and we just left him there to sleep it off.
Sunday we did chores, ate leftovers and hung out at the Mall.
Fun, relaxing and painful.

How was yours?

-

Some clarifications.

2008-07-01T09:29:00.002-06:00

I guess I was mistaken on a few points in my last post.
The Hotel Scarlett is staying in is an Extended Stay hotel, so they do have a fridge and a sink and what not. That was my bad. It still doesn't explain very much.
Also, we thought the cousins were going to be here much later in the summer than they were.
Hence, we thought Grace might possibly be here, and it would have been awesome if she were, but we weren't counting on it by any means. Sorry, Grace.

None of this means anything, as the cousins are now gone. They decided that staying in the Ronald McDonald house with their mom would be more fun than hanging out with us.
So be it.

Scarlett is still back east with her mom, and will be until at least another week. So things are a lot calmer now. All sudden-like.

I think we are going to sit tight on the whole Scarlett thing. Only because we do think her mom isn't actively trying to neglect her child, she just doesn't really know how to be a parent. We're hoping she slowly figures it out. Maybe we can help her with that.

-JP

A nice week-end and some crazy drama.

2008-06-24T07:15:00.004-06:00

So we had a lovely weekend. Joe and Laura were and still are and always have been the coolest of people and the dearest of friends. We had fun times. Ate a boat load of food, and drank some beers. We actually did not make it to Momentum Tulsa because of all the food and beers we consumed Saturday night. In fact, except for a walking tour of Tulsa Saturday afternoon after stuffing ourselves at the Blue Dome Diner, we pretty much stuck close to home. Friday night we ordered pizza and made margaritas, and Sunday we just grabbed some Brunch before they headed back to Austin. Though afterwards, Jen and I took the boys to a birthday party for a two-years-old girl. Kellon is the daughter of a work buddy, and we had fun at the party. There was a pool and a pinãta and strawberry cake.

Joe and Laura did accompany us to Jackson's first soccer practice. He's two, so it wasn't really a practice so much as a bunch of little kids running around in circles. He had a blast. His one greatest love in life is running, so this may just be the sport for him. He also loves trains and puzzles, just so you know come birthday time.*

On to the drama. Remember the "massage therapist" who's kid Jenn watches during the day?
Well she and her roommate had a falling out while on a trip to Vegas or some shit. The roommate, who is also the receptionist at the Parlor, kicked them out. Now they are living in an extended stay hotel in the totally awesome part of town. She only recently got a car, but still doesn't have a valid license because of warrants out on her in like 4 states. So Jenn has to drive to the complete opposite side of town and hang out around a seedy hotel to pick up and drop off the kid now. This was not the Original deal. Originally, Jenn picked up Scarlett from a much closer and safer location, and They picked her up. The mom isn't really paying anything extra for gas, either. In addition to having to drive longer, Jen also keeps the kid longer. The OD (original deal) was to pick up Scarlett around 2pm, sometimes noon, and they would come get her around 9:30. Oh, no. It's more like 9am to 11pm now.
So let's talk about living in a hotel with a toddler for a sec, shall we? First, there is no kitchen. This means no fridge. Scarlett seems to subsist completely on food from the McDonalds across from the hotel. Last week, Jen picked her up at 9:45am. Scarlett had just woken up( which means she must have been up all night), and hadn't been changed(she was in the same diaper we sent her home in) or fed. Her mom handed Jenn $5.00, and suggested she get her some chicken nuggets on our way out. classy. 2) No sink. This means her bottles never get clean, and we have to wash spoiled milk out of them ourselves. yum. 3) While there are laundry facilities on site, The mom does not use them. The place is filled with dirty laundry, and after Jenn had gone through a bunch of winter clothing that didn't fit any more, she devised a plan. She bought a bunch of clothes Scarlett's size at a garage sale for like five bucks(after she told the nice soccer mom why she was buying a bunch of girl clothes when she obviously had two boys, the lady gave Jenn everything she had in that size for free), and she changes her when she gets her, then changes her back right before she takes her back. So sad that she has to do that. 3) No yard/place to play outside. A yard in not necessary to raise a kid, but it sure does help. The hotel has no amenities, not that Scarlett's mom would use them if it did. That kid barely sees sunshine unless she's with us. Jen has gathered that Scarlett just wanders around the hotel room while her mom watches TV and talks on the phone. She certainly doesn't do anything like feed her, that's for sure. Whenever Jenn gets her she's filthy.

There is more. A lot more. Ask Jenn about that.

So what is to be done? Scarlett had a different babysitter on the weekends up until recently(she was with us for up to 12 hours most weekdays, and with these other people on the weekends).
The other Babysitter works at the health department, and called to ask a few questions of DHS.
They said that when they get a call, they usually take the kid for a period of two weeks while they do an investigation. And int this situation, unless they found drugs or drug paraphernalia on site, she's not actually doing anything illegal. There is no law against being a shitty mother, just an abusive one, and nothing here technically qualifies as abuse. Jen is going to sit tight for the moment. We both feel like Scarlett's time with Jenn is the healthiest time she spends with anyone. If we put her into the system, there is no guarantee that they would put her somewhere decent. At least this way, we know she's taken care of. And we get paid as well.

However, new variables have arisen. Jackson has two cousins that live in Grove. Their mother just had a new baby(a story unto itself that could rival this one). Jenn suggested a few months ago that when the baby comes, the older kids could come to Tulsa, stay with their grand parents at night, and stay with Jenn during the day. This was also suggested at a time when we all thought Jennifer's sister would be living in Tulsa by this point. Well, the cousin's mom and the baby had some complications, and the baby was born early, and they were both life-flighted to St.Francis Hospital in Tulsa a few days ago. Depending on the health of mother and child, we may have the cousins for the entire summer. Also because of various reasons, Jenn's sister isn't here yet.

Scarlett and her mother are currently on a trip back east to see family. When they get back, it may shake out that Jen would be responsible up to five kids all by herself every day. That's way too much for her, especially since Joseph is still nursing. Jen's parents were going to pay her for keeping the cousins, and I think she feels like if that money is good enough, she'll let Scarlett go.
Personally, I'm hoping they just stay out east and start mooching off family there.

Suggestions? Comments? What do you guys think?

-JP

I think they should have started at the other end.

2008-06-20T12:33:00.004-06:00

Been a while, eh? But I start almost every post these days with some form of that.

So what I'm really excited about is that my friends Joey and Laura are coming here for the weekend! This is extra cool, because I have a lot of friends that I'd like to see, but with the kids and all it's a little hard to pace everybody up and take off, even for a weekend. So when friends come to me, I think that's extra cool.*

I'm not sure what all we are going to do, but it will be fun regardless. I do have some press comps for Momentum Tulsa tomorrow night, so we may do that. I don't think I have seen Joey since he and I went to Denver last April. Far too long in my opinion. Joey is also who we named our second son after. He rocks.

Also Jackson starts soccer this weekend. That's exciting. That boy loves to run, and soccer just might be the sport for him. At this age, it is more like magnet ball, where they all just clump up where the ball is and kick at it until it squirts out, and then they all converge on it again, but what are you gonna do?

Looks like we're going to need a new roof, thanks to all the severe weather we've been having.

Other than that, not much going on.

-JP

*Take the hint, people I'd really like to see.

Memes LOL

2008-06-05T16:07:00.003-06:00

Count the memes!

All hail! All Weekend

2008-06-02T08:45:00.002-06:00

So we sat through two separate and intense hail storms over the weekend, both about 11:00 am, both fierce. As you ca see above, the bulk of the hail was about the size of a quarter. It looked like it had snowed, and we had a drift in front of our door about 4 inches deep.

More pics here.

-JP

A lot of time...

2008-05-30T10:41:00.002-06:00

Has passed since my last entry. At least for me. What have I been doing?
Well, last week-end, Jen's family had their Family Reunion. It was small this year, as the younger generations tend to not go very often. It usually a pain in the ass is why. This year was no exception, but I had a lot of fun despite myself. The Reunion is usually held at beautiful Lake Murray, near Ardmore, OK. The reason is because half of us live in Oklahoma, and the rest in Texas, so we just meet in the middle. Lake Murray is very beautiful. There is camping, a Marina, and a Resort on site. It was one of Roosevelt's public works projects during the New Deal. It has not been updated since, and the maintenance has been lackluster. It is what I fondly refer to as "Jank City." We asked them on the phone if they had a couple of cribs they could throw in our room, which they did, and tried to charge us $10 a night for, which would have been $60. I let them know as nicely as possible that that was a crock of shit, and they waved the fee. This was a good thing, because both cribs were of the old fold-up variety from the '50s and didn't have any of their hardware attached any longer, and would completely collapse once more than a half a pound of pressure was applied. The first time it happened, all I did was put a pillow in it. Classy.
The wonderful thing is that children don't care about shit like that, and there were a lot of kids in attendance. Jackson's time was monopolized by his cousin Jaezie, who at almost 4 years old, is like a swarm of bees. It is as though she was raised by wolves. He sister Lenzie is awesome. At 9, she's smart and witty and wise beyond her years, which makes Jaezie that much harder to figure out. Jackson seemed to start to have a good time as soon as we implemented the "Hands to Yourself" rule, which made everybody happy.
Anyway, the weekend was filled with swimming and Grilled food and Smores and running around and tired kids and fits and evil breakfast buffets* and was actually quite relaxing even though Jen and I really didn't sleep much.

The best part was our trip to Arbuckle Farms. This is a place where old (and I do mean OLD) zoo and circus animals go to live out their days eating food out of wax cups held out of car windows by timid housewives and scared children. What a magical place! It was more fun than I thought it would be, and a lot less pathetic. The animals were friendly and only the ostriches were dicks, but in my experience, most birds are dicks. Since we rarely went over 10mph the whole time, we let Jackson sit in the front seat, so he could see everything. He had a BLAST.
Flickr set here.

The rest of the weekend was anti-climactic, to tell you the truth. We left Monday morning, but next time I'm leaving Sunday night, and sleep in my own bed.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we kept Gavin, the son of our dear friends Brandon and Gretchen, as his usual babysitter had a death in the family. They are about 6 months apart in age, and entertained each other better than any adult ever could. Wednesday night, Scarlett stayed the night so her mom could go clubbing, to mixed results. She's a sweet kid but has some problems. Mainly due to having little or no supervision most of the time. She kept us up all night screaming because apparently sleep is where the clowns eat you. That was fun. Jen had her up and dressed and out the door as soon as the call came, at 7:00am.

So that's about it. That's what I've been doing.

Go away now.

-JP

*
"Is the oatmeal instant, or do you make it?"
(blank expression)
"It's instant but we make it."

In which I tell you about my week-end.

2008-05-19T14:42:00.002-06:00

So it is all sudden-like summertime here in the south west. We hit 91 degrees a little while ago.
The good news is that we didn't get the hot until after the weekend. The weekend barely cracked 80, and was awesome because of it.
Friday Jackson had been asking Jen all day to go to the play area in the mall. He loves that place. I think it smells like feet. While in the area of town dedicated entirely to commerce, we decided to get me clothes. I was going to wait until I lost a little more weight (26 lbs so far!), but the fat clothes weren't cutting it, and I seem to have hit a wall in my weight loss for some reason. It may be that since Joey goes down at 9:00 now, I wasn't able to use the exercise machine while I watch the Daily Show like I was before. More on that later. So we got me some clothes that would be good for work, but also light enough for summertime. Rock. We also went on a fruitless search for a Sit and Stand stroller which allows two kids in one contraption. Everyone was out, which was a bummer.*
We were going to watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford when we got the boys to sleep, but when we realized it was 2 hrs, 40 min long, we decided against it.
Saturday was a big day. I put together a crib we procured for Joey, as he is out-growing the bassinet. This has the added advantage of being in his room rather than ours, so I get to exercise during the Daily show again. We then split up for a while, Jen taking Joey to do some grocery shopping, and I took Jackson to the bank. His piggy bank was over flowing and he got to put it into the big machine, and he thought that was awesome. All the cash went into his savings account, except for a few bucks for him to pick out a toy with. All he wanted was a hot wheels car, so he got a little bag of candy as well. You know what that is? That's bonding, mofo.
After naps and what-not, we started gearing up for the post-mother's-day-barbecue. Jen's sister came down from the City with her little boy, and Cousin Ryan came down from Stilly accompanied by his new girlfriend. Prior to the meal, Jen's mom found us the stroller we wanted at a place that sells baby stuff that we totally forgot about. yay! We ate a bunch of meat and pasta salad then decided to go to Mayfest. We had a grand time eat Mayfest, except that the Lemonade guy we went to first was a total dick. We wandered around, watched Larkin for a while and went home. All the kids fell asleep fast. I think a lot of the adults did as well.
Sunday Jen made an awesome brunch. Pappa B and Nana came over,and we all visited and played with the kids. We spent the after noon lounging around Jen's parent's house, and I fell asleep watching Temple of Doom on the sci-fi channel. We made a pizza, and Jackson almost fell asleep at the table, as he had no nap and had just gotten out of the hot tub all relaxed.
We went home, and I mowed the lawn while Jen got the kids in bed. We then watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , which was really good, if a bit long. A stellar cast in that one.
Then sleep. Well, a little sleep. Jackson has been waking up a lot lately. I don't know what that's about.

-Powers out.

*I am so old.

A shopping spree, houshold projects, and a death.

2008-05-05T08:33:00.003-06:00

Okay, so been a while. I had to play a lot of catch-up at work after the Denver trip. In the meantime, spring finally showed up, the Avs got their asses handed to them by the Redwings, The new season of Doctor Who started, and a new Portishead album came out. One of these things is very good.
So this week-end, we took Jackson on a shopping spree. He shot up a few inches over the last two months, and everything he owned magically didn't fit any more. So we went to the Mall, and to Target, and made him try on a bunch of stuff, when he just wanted to look at the toys. It took all day, but I think we have sufficiently clothed him for the remainder of the summer. He got a Hunk and and Iron man shirt, so that's cool. I'm glad I'm allowed to pick things out every so often. ( I bought him his first comic book while in Denver, a Spider-Man one-off meant for a younger age group. I read it three times on the plane ride home.)
We also attended a graduation party for our friend Craig. It took him 6 years and three schools, but he finally did it. He got a degree in History, which he will now use to be a Carpenter. Go, Craig!
Sunday, we did a whole mess of projects around the house that have been building up since we moved in. We painted the living room, replaced the sink sprayer which was leaking, fixed the bedroom toilet, which had broken in the dead of night about two weeks ago, causing it to refill loudly, and take forever when it did. I also put up some shelves in the living room, which still need to be stained, and I fixed the two holes on our fence that we obtained during the last big storm. It is actually, technically our neighbor's fence. I would have just waited for him to fix it, but he's in a rental, so he doesn't give a shit. But since the dog from two houses down was getting into our yard through various holes in fences and picking fights with our dogs, I decided to just hop the fence and repair the holes with whatever that guy had lying around.
Also on Sunday, my ex-step dad David died. For those of you who know me well, you know that he was the reason I moved out when I was 15, and the source of most of my bad self-esteem and neurotic behaviour. I am having a hard time trying to figure out how I feel about that. He had been sick for quite some time. A fact that I was unaware of until my mom told me while I was in Denver. And now he's dead. I don't know if I really needed to talk to him about anything, or if going to the funeral will bring me any kind of closure. I'm pretty sure I made my peace with all that a long time ago. What I do know is that there is some sort of emotion there, I just can't lock it down. For good or ill, and even though I haven't had any contact with him for 17 years, he had a strong impact on my life. The funeral is on Friday, and I don't know if I'll go yet.
Okay, Debbie Downer. Lay off.

Everybody have a good week!

-JP