5.30.2009

Shaving Tips from Gillette

On Friday I discovered some videos on YouTube that Gillette has put out to give men tips on shaving, not just shaving their faces, but shaving other parts of their body. The videos are somewhat amusing, and something I didn't expect to see online.

They have videos to demonstrate to men how to shave their:
And as if that wasn't enough, they also have a video showing men how to shave their pubes. In that video they point out that "trimming the bush makes the tree look taller." Here, take a look for yourself.

Date Night

My mom came up to the Twin Cities from Iowa for the weekend so she could go to my sister's orchestra concert which is tonight. Since she came up yesterday afternoon, she asked if Mel and I would like to go out to dinner or a movie or something since she would be here to watch Emma. Since we seldom get a chance to go out in the evening without Emma, we jumped at the chance. So last night Mel and I went to Don Pablo's for dinner, where we proceeded to eat too much yummy food. After dinner we went to see the movie Angels & Demons. It was a good movie, not as good as Star Trek, but it was still really good.

5.29.2009

Three Wolf Moon T-shirt

Should I join the slew of people who are flocking to the Internet to buy the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt? This shirt, which has been available for sale for a couple years now, has recently become quite popular and is currently Amazon.com's number one selling apparel item. From what I have read, the phenomenon of the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt began after a review was written about the shirt detailing the powers it bestows on its wearer.

Now personally, I have yet to see anyone wearing the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt out and about, but with its popularity, I'm sure I will see one in good time.

Also interesting about the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt is the list of items also viewed by customers who viewed the T-shirt including a gallon of milk (Who goes to Amazon.com to buy milk?), Zubaz Pants,and the books Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dreamand How to Live with a Huge Penis: Advice, Meditations, and Wisdom for Men Who Have Too Much.

For anyone who is not yet sold on the idea of buying the T-shirt, a video has even been made which should convince anyone on the fence that he should definitely buy the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt.

Up Till Now

I have finished reading my first book of the year, finally. I do not tend to read very much, but now that most of the TV shows I watch are in reruns for the summer, I should have time to get some reading done.

The first book I read this year was William Shatner's most recent autobiography, Up Till Now.I have read previous autobiographies of his, Star Trek Memories and Get a Life!,both of which I enjoyed. This book revealed many more interesting details about Shatner's life, and it was pretty humorous at times. Throughout the book William Shatner kept plugging his website and the various products he sells there.

I especially enjoyed reading about the time Shatner spent in Iowa creating the show Invasion Iowa.Of course what made that part really interesting to me was that I taught at the high school in Riverside, Iowa, for three years, so I personally knew about the locations he mentioned when he was there. In fact, one of my students from when I taught there was in the program.

The only real complaint I have about the book is that it jumped around quite a bit. It may have been easier to follow if it followed his life in more of a chronological order instead, but that is a minor complaint. Overall it was an enjoyable read, and it gave me more insight into William Shatner's life.

5.24.2009

Star Trek

Mel and I finally made it to see Star Trek today. We dropped Emma off at my cousin's house where she played with my cousin's two-year-old son for the few hours we were gone. Before I go on, I do want to warn you that while I will try to avoid spoilers in this blog entry, I can not guarantee that I will be entirely successful in that attempt.

From everything I had heard about Star Trek, I was expecting it to be a good movie, and I was definitely not disappointed. From the moment the movie began I was completely engaged in what was going on, no pun intended. The intensity of the movie barely let up for a moment, and those scenes that lacked some of the intensity of the rest of the film still held my interest completely.

Before the movie began, I was worried about how they would explain, if they even would, any differences between what happened in this movie and the already established Star Trek canon. Oh I knew it would have something to do with time travel, after all it was widely known that Leonard Nimoy would be reprising his role of Spock in this film, but the time travel aspect of the movie did not entail what I thought it would. It was really quite well done.

While I feel that Star Trek was written such that even those with absolutely no background knowledge of the franchise would really enjoy the film, it also included plenty of details that a true Star Trek fan would catch and in which he or she would take delight. While the backgrounds of the main characters differed somewhat from what had previously been established, their introductions were quite good.

The casting was terrific! When Dr. McCoy was introduced toward the beginning of the film, I of course immediately knew that it was him based on the fact that he initially introduced himself as a doctor. However his mannerisms and what he said reminded me so much of the Leonard McCoy made famous by DeForrest Kelley. The role of the rest of the crew was also perfectly cast. Chekov and Sulu reminded me so much of how they were portrayed in the original Star Trek TV series. Simon Pegg also played a fantastic Mr. Scott, adding just enough humor to the role without going overboard. And finally, the actors who played Spock and Kirk, Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine were awesome! The character of Spock was different from what I was used to, showing a bit more emotion than in the past, but it was a great portrayal. And Kirk was indeed the Captain Kirk I grew up watching.

I am very much looking forward to a sequel, which I hear may have already been in the works before this film was even released. And if the box office numbers for Star Trek are any inidication, the prospects of a sequel look to be quite promissing.

Anyway, after the movie we went to my cousin's house to get Emma. When we got there, my sister was also there, so the whole group of us went out to dinner at Red Robbin. We had a very pleasant dinner before returning home. We didn't leave the restaurant until after 8:00, and as it was about half an hour from our house, by the time we got home and gave Emma a bath, it was pretty late. Fortunately Emma didn't struggle with going to bed. In fact, she told us that she was ready to go to bed. Once she got in bed, I read her a few books and then left her to go to sleep. With her going to sleep so much later than ususal, I really hope she sleeps late tomorrow morning. It would be especially nice if she would sleep later than the 6:00 time at which she woke up this morning, altough that was an improvement over waking up at 5:30 as she did Saturday morning.

Cycling

Yesterday we all went for a leisurely bike ride in Lake Elmo Park Reserve. Since both Mel and I just have road bikes, we stuck to the paved trails. Emma once again rode in the Burley behind my bike, and she seemed to love every minute of it again. We ended up riding on most of the trails around the lake and through the park twice, making for a total ride of just under ten miles. We did make a stop to let Emma play on some playground equipment. We are thinking about returning to the park tomorrow to swim in the pond they have there, but that will depend on how Emma is feeling.

5.21.2009

Visit at Daycare

Yesterday I made a visit to Emma's daycare to help out with their WonderWalk, an activity they did to help raise money for March of Dimes. When I arrived at 10:00, Emma came running up to me and wanted to go to the car. I told her that we weren't leaving though, and I sat in a chair at one of the tables in her classroom. She sat on my lap, and a couple of her classmates came up to me and started talking to me.

Shortly after my arrival, all of the children lined up at the classroom door and we all headed outside. The first activity they did was to throw water balloons through hula hoops that were attached to the fence. The kids enjoyed that, especially when the balloons broke. The next activity was to involve playing with a parachute outside with little toy animals on it. However it was extremely windy, so handling the parachute was quite difficult. It practically turned into a kite! The children all played on the slide on the playground where they were. It was the bigger kids' playground, so the slide was bigger than the one they usually play with. They all seemed to have a lot of fun.

We then went inside where the children divided into three groups to do different activities. They included drawing on a spot which they then attached to a large picture of a giraffe. Another activity was "feeding a monkey" by throwing yellow beanbags at a drawing of a monkey attached to a box. The third was making necklaces out of yarn and Fruit Loops. The groups rotated among the three activities. Emma really enjoyed all of the activities.

I really enjoyed seeing Emma interact with her classmates. I usually don't get to see much of that. On the days I pick her up, she usually runs to me as soon as I arrive. It was good to see her playing with the other kids and even using some of their names. I had a good time helping out and hope I have other opportunities to participate in activities at her daycare in the future.

5.17.2009

Family Bike Ride


Emma After a Bike Ride
Originally uploaded by mathman72
The weather was good this evening, so Mel, Emma, and I went out for a bike ride after dinner. Mel rode her new recumbent bike. This was her first real ride on the bike since buying in recently. Oh, she had gone for a short ride around the block before, but she hadn't gone on any other rides before this evening.

I rode my road bike pulling Emma who was riding in the Burley trailer. This was the first time Emma rode in the Burley since last summer. At that time she was not too thrilled with riding in it, but she seemed to enjoy it much more this time. Before getting into her seat, Emma was really excited about going for a ride. She had fun, although she did fall asleep during the ride.

Pulling the Burley did slow down the ride a bit. We rode for 35 minutes and ended up going either 8.8 miles or 6.6 miles, depending on whose bike computer to trust. Perhaps I should make sure I set Mel's computer up correctly for her bike.

In other bike news, I sold the Univega Modo Vivere road bike I got after my previous bike's frame broke in 2001 when riding on RAGBRAI XXIX. I listed it for sale on Craigslist yesterday, and within two hours of placing the ad, I had two people email to express interest in buying it. I rode that bike on RAGBRAIs in 2002 through 2004. It was replaced with the bike I got that my dad bought shortly before passing away in 2005. The Univega was a good bike, and it fit me better than the Cannondale I am riding now, but the Cannondale is a much better ride.

5.14.2009

Goodnight Emma

For the past couple of weeks, ever since the cat scared the crap out of her, getting Emma to go to bed as been extremely difficult. That first night she slept in my lap all night as I slept sitting up in the recliner in the living room. Then almost every night since then, we spent a very long time getting Emma to go to bed. Most of those nights I had to hold her while sitting in what she calls the cuddle chair, until she fell asleep. I then had to carefully move her to her bed with her waking up. This had the effect of effectively pushing her bedtime back from 7:30 until some time between 9:00 and 10:00.

As if that wasn't enough, except for the past two nights, and last Saturday night, Emma awoke in the middle of the night, usually between 2:00 and 4:00, calling for me to cuddle with her. I then had to cuddle with her in the living room chair to get her to return to sleep, and most nights I was unable to get her back into her bed without her waking up. So for about two weeks, I have only been able to sleep half the night in bed with the remainder of the night spent sleeping in a chair.

Last night and tonight however, we were able to get Emma into bed before she fell asleep, and she was sleeping by 8:00. To top it off, she slept all through the night the past two nights. I do wish she would have slept a bit later instead of getting up at 5:30 though.

On a similar topic, Emma's mood has significantly improved over the past couple of weeks. She even wants to associate with Mommy, although it seems that Daddy is the one with whom she wants to cuddle with the most.

5.12.2009

Bird's Nest


Bird's nest
Originally uploaded by mathman72
This past weekend when I was mowing the lawn, I noticed something sitting on top of the electrical meter on the back of the house. After putting the lawn mower away, I checked it out and found this bird's nest with some eggs in it located in a fairly well protected corner of the back of the house. I tried to get a photo of the nest while the bird was in it, but it flew away each time I looked in its general direction. I was able to walk out into the back yard, keeping a fairly good distance from the nest, but as soon as I pointed the camera toward the nest, the bird flew off to a nearby tree.

5.11.2009

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a pretty good weekend this past weekend. Last week Emma was in a bit of a crabby mood for most of the time she was at home. She did an awful lot of screaming, and she seemed to want absolutely nothing to do with her mommy, even telling her to go to the basement at one point. This weekend though, she was in a much better mood.

Our Saturday was fairly uneventful. We went shopping for a new mattress because the water bed mattress Mel had had for at least ten years sprang a leak on Thursday. We ended up getting a fairly good deal at Mattress Giant. We bought a mattress that was made by a company that went out of business last week. Because of this, there is no warranty on the mattress, but we did get it for sixty percent off. After the mattress shopping, we went to Toys R Us in Maplewood, after which we ate lunch at Broadway Pizza. When we got home from our shopping it was time for Emma to take a nap, but she absolutely refused to do so. We eventually gave in on the nap as it wasn't doing any of us any good to have her screaming at the top of her lungs. She managed to do well the rest of the day without one though.

On Sunday, Mother's Day, Mel and I went to the Metrodome to see the Twins play the Seattle Mariners. My aunt and uncle who live nearby took Emma for the afternoon and then the two of us set out for a Metro Transis Ride and Park lot where we caught the light rail train to the Metrodome. The game was really good. The Twins led for much of the game until Ken Griffey Jr. hit a home run in the eighth inning which started a string of four runs in the inning for Seattle. The Twins ended up losing the game with a final score of 5 to 3.

After the game we got Emma from my aunt and uncle's house and then went to Applebee's for dinner. It was a good meal. I tried something new, the Surf 'n Turf Burger, which had shrimp, Italian cheeses, and grilled onions in it besides the burger itself. It was very tasty.

5.10.2009

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day Mom. And everyone, remember to do as Mr. T says and treat your mother right!

5.08.2009

Hamlet

'entepray' lang chu' popmeH muchvam tlhIngan Hol «taH pagh taHbe'» qanob.

I give you this presentation of the Klingon language Hamlet in order to honor the new voyage of the Enterprise.


5.04.2009

May Day Parade

Yesterday Mel, Emma, and I went to the May Day Parade put on by the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater in Minneapolis. Instead of trying to park in the vicinity of the parade, we decided to park in the 28th Avenue Park and Ride parking ramp from where we too the light rail to Lake Street, and then we walked several blocks to the parade location. The parade was excellent! Emma seemed to enjoy it once it began. We did get there a little early, so we did have a bit of waiting though. The parade was really long, and we had to get up and leave before it ended because after a little over an hour, Emma was getting a bit impatient.

Once we got up, we wandered down to Powderhorn Park, the location of the festival. We didn't stay there too long, basically just long enough to get something to eat, because by this time it was after 3:30, and by the time we got back to the light rail station and back to the car, it would be pretty late for Emma. We ended up getting home around 5:00.

We had a great time and will definitely have to begin attending more activities in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area.

Below are a couple of the many photos I took at the parade, and a couple of videos that I also took at the parade.







5.01.2009

Fun Video

I already posted this video on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, but throught I would share it here as well for those of you who do not access those accounts of mine. It is "Rap Chop" featuring Vince, a remix of the Slap Chop infomercial.