Jackson has suddenly found a love for Mickey Mouse. I'm really not sure what it is about Mickey that kids love so much. It's not like he's had a ton of exposure or seen commercials or anything - he just saw Mickey and adored him instantly.
Anyhoo, as he was watching Mickey House Clubhouse, I was half listening from the other room when I heard Stinky Pete come on, and his voice just sounded really familiar. I couldn't quite place it, but I knew I had heard it before, so I looked the voice actor up on IMDB to discover just where I felt the audio connection.
His name is Jim Cummings, and he has done a lot of voice acting, including Stinky Pete for over a decade, Winnie the Pooh for a while, etc, but none of those jumped out at me.
However, I saw one role he did the voice for and my jaw dropped - that was where I knew him from.
Stinky Pete's voice sounded familiar because it was the voice of Minsc, the miniature giant space hamster (named Boo) carrying berserker ranger from Baldur's Gate 1& 2, some of my favorite games of all time, rivaled only by Batman: Arkham Asylum and Planescape:Torment.
Minsc was hilarious! He offered such gems as:
What? Boo is outraged! See his fury! It's small, so look close. Trust me, it's there.
I trust those who prey on children no farther than they can be thrown, even if I manage to throw them pretty far!
And even those quotes fall short of the hilarity that Minsc offered.
But as I dug around, I found a couple more interesting connections, both through the Syfy show Eureka:
Senator Wen is played by Ming-Na Wen, who was the voice of Mulan.
Taggart is played by Matt Frewer, who voiced the imp Panic in Hercules.
One more cool one, though not Disney related. I was watching an ep of Batman Beyond with Mr Freeze, and his voice sounded really familiar as well, so I looked him up and found that Michael Ansara who voiced him also played Elric the technomage from Babylon 5, one of the greatest stories of all time.
Good stuff!
Current mood: geeky
Friday, May 18, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Acupressure given "empirically validated status" by APA
Ok, so it's not strictly acupressure, but it's quite similar. I've been using EFT personally and with clients for years with fantastic success, and so it was nice to get the note today that said EFT qualifies to be labeled empirically proven by the American Psychological Association.
Read that again, all you skeptics: A form of acupressure was proven through careful research to have significant success rates with a number of emotional traumas, beyond that of a placebo effect.
The implications of this research are enormous. Fun times we live in!
Current mood: validated
Read that again, all you skeptics: A form of acupressure was proven through careful research to have significant success rates with a number of emotional traumas, beyond that of a placebo effect.
The implications of this research are enormous. Fun times we live in!
Current mood: validated
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Big Announcement (and Moving)
This is the week that we are moving out of our apt. One of our good friends is putting us up for the month it will take to get us into our new place, so I'm quite grateful. Sadly, we have to put almost all of our stuff into storage, but hey, it's only a month. :)
The hard part is that Jenny is in the middle of morning sickness, plus I'm working literally almost every day and night this week and the next two weeks, not to mention that I was out of town almost all of last week, so she's had to do most of the packing herself. Luckily, some of our friends in the church are putting in some serious time and effort to help us get packed up since she's largely incapable and I'm just not there at all.
Wait, what's that, you say? Repeat what again? Morning sickness?
Oh yeah, we're PREGNANT! :D
After two years of trying and one miscarriage a couple of months ago, we have an official due date of Dec 29 and a very strong heartbeat. We think it's going to be a girl, though we thought that last time. Names are an issue - I like the name Yvaine (from Stardust), and she doesn't. We may compromise and use it as a middle name, but I think she's still iffy. I just love the thought of having a little girl I can call Evie, especially when I attach her last initial - Evie V (say it out loud). Jenny does not love that thought very much, and I have a strong suspicion about who will win that argument.
It's been odd for us - most everyone our age either has much older children or no children, so we tend to hang out with the younger parents. Here we are just starting our new family close to age 40, while others are nearly done.
Anyhoo, the house will be ready for us mid-June, so we are looking forward to having our family in our new place where we can STAY for a while...
Current mood: excited
The hard part is that Jenny is in the middle of morning sickness, plus I'm working literally almost every day and night this week and the next two weeks, not to mention that I was out of town almost all of last week, so she's had to do most of the packing herself. Luckily, some of our friends in the church are putting in some serious time and effort to help us get packed up since she's largely incapable and I'm just not there at all.
Wait, what's that, you say? Repeat what again? Morning sickness?
Oh yeah, we're PREGNANT! :D
After two years of trying and one miscarriage a couple of months ago, we have an official due date of Dec 29 and a very strong heartbeat. We think it's going to be a girl, though we thought that last time. Names are an issue - I like the name Yvaine (from Stardust), and she doesn't. We may compromise and use it as a middle name, but I think she's still iffy. I just love the thought of having a little girl I can call Evie, especially when I attach her last initial - Evie V (say it out loud). Jenny does not love that thought very much, and I have a strong suspicion about who will win that argument.
It's been odd for us - most everyone our age either has much older children or no children, so we tend to hang out with the younger parents. Here we are just starting our new family close to age 40, while others are nearly done.
Anyhoo, the house will be ready for us mid-June, so we are looking forward to having our family in our new place where we can STAY for a while...
Current mood: excited
Monday, May 7, 2012
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!
Such a good movie. The Hulk had some of the best scenes.
And for those who haven't seen it yet, plan to stay all the way through the credits - there are two easter egg scenes, not just one.
For those who have seen it (and saw the first easter egg scene in the credits): (Spoiler in white, highlight to see it)
After the phenomenal success of this movie, I hope DC picks up the gauntlet (ha!) and tries to do something similar with the Justice League: separate movies with each of the main heroes leading up to the big showdown in a Justice League mashup. Even if people call copycat, it could be really great if the scripts and acting are well done. We all win!
And if Ryan Reynolds reprises his Green Lantern role, he could also do a cameo as Deadpool in the Avengers movie, making him a double-winner. As far as I know, he's the only Marvel/DC cross actor. Am I wrong?
Analysis: GO SEE THIS MOVIE TODAY. You should have seen it opening weekend, but you can keep your nerd card if you see it post-haste. Unless, of course, you are reading this a month or longer after release and you still haven't seen it, in which case, find the closest nerd and hand in your card. Be prepared to endure shame.
Current mood: Heroic!
And for those who haven't seen it yet, plan to stay all the way through the credits - there are two easter egg scenes, not just one.
For those who have seen it (and saw the first easter egg scene in the credits): (Spoiler in white, highlight to see it)
Holy crap Thanos! I so did not see that coming, but I am now super excited for the second Avengers movie. Here's hoping the script stays as awesome as this one did. I never followed the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, but I am aware of it and the kind of power Thanos was throwing around. This promises to be really really excellent.
After the phenomenal success of this movie, I hope DC picks up the gauntlet (ha!) and tries to do something similar with the Justice League: separate movies with each of the main heroes leading up to the big showdown in a Justice League mashup. Even if people call copycat, it could be really great if the scripts and acting are well done. We all win!
And if Ryan Reynolds reprises his Green Lantern role, he could also do a cameo as Deadpool in the Avengers movie, making him a double-winner. As far as I know, he's the only Marvel/DC cross actor. Am I wrong?
Analysis: GO SEE THIS MOVIE TODAY. You should have seen it opening weekend, but you can keep your nerd card if you see it post-haste. Unless, of course, you are reading this a month or longer after release and you still haven't seen it, in which case, find the closest nerd and hand in your card. Be prepared to endure shame.
Current mood: Heroic!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
House drama
A lot of people had invisible friends growing up. I don't recall having one, but I think I've had something following me around for many years now. He's a llama named Bob, but he's not a normal llama. He's a Drama Llama. Bob the Drama Llama. I can't seem to take two steps without this fellow spitting drama into my life. So he's definitely invisible, but I would hesitate to call him a friend.
We started our loan process at the beginning of March. We had a loan guy that has helped us try to get two houses in the past: one in Austin that got killed a week before closing due to Jenny losing her job, and one here in SA that got killed at the beginning because I hadn't been at my job long enough. We stuck with him because he has done so much work for us, and he had good rates. We liked him and really wanted to see him get paid for all the hard work he has done in the past. He's had periods of time where he went incommunicado, but they didn't last long and he always came through for us in the end.
Because we have dumped all our extra cash into paying off debt (we have slightly more than $10k left, including our student loan - we even own both cars outright at this point), we haven't kept a ton of money in the bank for backup. This means that the only loan we could get was a USDA loan, which allowed for no money down. Our credit is in the mid 700s, our income to debt ratio is amazing, job history is solid - aside from the lack of liquid funds, we are an ideal borrower.
USDA in Texas currently has about a 4 week backup, but that was a non-issue. After all, we were starting the process a full 8 weeks before the scheduled closing date.
The trouble began when we couldn't get our lender to return calls. We'd get little snippets from him along the way, all expressing confidence that we could get closed as promised, but no real communications and full disclosure. because he had gotten us all the way to the end on the first house he helped us with despite some periods of this kind of communication gap, I wasn't too worried. My realtor, the seller, and the seller's realtor were all expressing doubts, but I trusted our guy. He had proven himself.
But the silence went on and on and on. He wouldn't return phone calls, texts, or emails.
A week out from closing, our realtor sent us an email from a lender he knew - enclosed was the number for USDA. I called them to see where our application was, and they had no record of us. Our lender had never submitted us to USDA in the first place. I was stunned and angry - what the heck was our guy doing?
I expressed frustration to Jenny that he was working solo and there was no office number to call anyone else at to see what was going on. She told me that there was an office number in his signature. I went and looked, and sure enough - there was an office number in normal text surrounded by his hyperlinked cell number, fax number, and highlighted email address. I am so used to looking for the hyperlinks or other important information highlighted that I never saw the office number, even after a hundred times looking at his signature.
I may claim XY chromosomes on this one since this seems to be a common occurrence at our house. "Honey, where is [object]? I can't find it anywhere, and I've been looking for 10 minutes."
"It's right in front of you."
[look for another 2-3 minutes, see nothing]
"I don't see it."
"It's right there."
"Ohhhhhhhhh!"
Like seriously major blind spots somehow.
Anyhoo, I call the office number and that's when things really start to unravel. They had no file for me. There's some mention that our lender was working on a loan for us, but there was no info. He had never gone to his own branch manager for help after hitting some kind of snag at the very beginning regarding my job history, so they had no earthly idea what was going on either. He got a hold of our lender and told me that our guy had hit some kind of major personal life snag that caused him to just fall apart. We happened to catch the brunt of it, because it seemed that he hadn't done hardly a dang thing for us since the very beginning of the process.
Our guy was stepping aside and giving all of his files to his branch manager to finish up, but it was too late for us. We were not closing when we thought we were.
We decided to go with the seller's lender to keep things smooth, but we are looking at another 5-7 weeks before we get to move in. And lucky for us, the sellers are an awesome couple. The four of us get along famously, and they said to me on more than one occasion that if they had been selling to anyone else, they would have backed out and put their house on the market again, but because they like us so much, they really want to sell to us. The feeling is mutual - we all feel like we've gained some good friends through this whole thing.
However, there are some other issues. We had already given our 60 day notice, and when I checked with the complex, they had leased out our place, so come end of May, we have to find a place to live for a month until we can close.
I had gone out of my way to prevent all of this. I have moved so much, I wanted to move once more into a house and STAY, so this is why we went with someone we knew would do a good job, gave plenty of time for any snags to work themselves, and otherwise be completely smooth. But dang freaking Bob had to go and stick his drama llama head in the middle of all this, leaving spit everywhere.
If he wasn't invisible, I'd break his stupid drama llama legs.
Though I have to admit, at the end of all of it, while I don't like what has happened, I'm actually doing pretty well. I've dealt with much worse and come out on top, so I can handle this. I have a fantastic wife who was been wonderful through the whole thing, helped me keep my head on straight when I got hot (and vice versa), great sellers who are turning into great friends, and we are still getting our awesome house, just not when we had planned on it originally.
Life is good, I just wish Bob would find someone else to bug for a while.
Current mood: paradoxically chipper
We started our loan process at the beginning of March. We had a loan guy that has helped us try to get two houses in the past: one in Austin that got killed a week before closing due to Jenny losing her job, and one here in SA that got killed at the beginning because I hadn't been at my job long enough. We stuck with him because he has done so much work for us, and he had good rates. We liked him and really wanted to see him get paid for all the hard work he has done in the past. He's had periods of time where he went incommunicado, but they didn't last long and he always came through for us in the end.
Because we have dumped all our extra cash into paying off debt (we have slightly more than $10k left, including our student loan - we even own both cars outright at this point), we haven't kept a ton of money in the bank for backup. This means that the only loan we could get was a USDA loan, which allowed for no money down. Our credit is in the mid 700s, our income to debt ratio is amazing, job history is solid - aside from the lack of liquid funds, we are an ideal borrower.
USDA in Texas currently has about a 4 week backup, but that was a non-issue. After all, we were starting the process a full 8 weeks before the scheduled closing date.
The trouble began when we couldn't get our lender to return calls. We'd get little snippets from him along the way, all expressing confidence that we could get closed as promised, but no real communications and full disclosure. because he had gotten us all the way to the end on the first house he helped us with despite some periods of this kind of communication gap, I wasn't too worried. My realtor, the seller, and the seller's realtor were all expressing doubts, but I trusted our guy. He had proven himself.
But the silence went on and on and on. He wouldn't return phone calls, texts, or emails.
A week out from closing, our realtor sent us an email from a lender he knew - enclosed was the number for USDA. I called them to see where our application was, and they had no record of us. Our lender had never submitted us to USDA in the first place. I was stunned and angry - what the heck was our guy doing?
I expressed frustration to Jenny that he was working solo and there was no office number to call anyone else at to see what was going on. She told me that there was an office number in his signature. I went and looked, and sure enough - there was an office number in normal text surrounded by his hyperlinked cell number, fax number, and highlighted email address. I am so used to looking for the hyperlinks or other important information highlighted that I never saw the office number, even after a hundred times looking at his signature.
I may claim XY chromosomes on this one since this seems to be a common occurrence at our house. "Honey, where is [object]? I can't find it anywhere, and I've been looking for 10 minutes."
"It's right in front of you."
[look for another 2-3 minutes, see nothing]
"I don't see it."
"It's right there."
"Ohhhhhhhhh!"
Like seriously major blind spots somehow.
Anyhoo, I call the office number and that's when things really start to unravel. They had no file for me. There's some mention that our lender was working on a loan for us, but there was no info. He had never gone to his own branch manager for help after hitting some kind of snag at the very beginning regarding my job history, so they had no earthly idea what was going on either. He got a hold of our lender and told me that our guy had hit some kind of major personal life snag that caused him to just fall apart. We happened to catch the brunt of it, because it seemed that he hadn't done hardly a dang thing for us since the very beginning of the process.
Our guy was stepping aside and giving all of his files to his branch manager to finish up, but it was too late for us. We were not closing when we thought we were.
We decided to go with the seller's lender to keep things smooth, but we are looking at another 5-7 weeks before we get to move in. And lucky for us, the sellers are an awesome couple. The four of us get along famously, and they said to me on more than one occasion that if they had been selling to anyone else, they would have backed out and put their house on the market again, but because they like us so much, they really want to sell to us. The feeling is mutual - we all feel like we've gained some good friends through this whole thing.
However, there are some other issues. We had already given our 60 day notice, and when I checked with the complex, they had leased out our place, so come end of May, we have to find a place to live for a month until we can close.
I had gone out of my way to prevent all of this. I have moved so much, I wanted to move once more into a house and STAY, so this is why we went with someone we knew would do a good job, gave plenty of time for any snags to work themselves, and otherwise be completely smooth. But dang freaking Bob had to go and stick his drama llama head in the middle of all this, leaving spit everywhere.
If he wasn't invisible, I'd break his stupid drama llama legs.
Though I have to admit, at the end of all of it, while I don't like what has happened, I'm actually doing pretty well. I've dealt with much worse and come out on top, so I can handle this. I have a fantastic wife who was been wonderful through the whole thing, helped me keep my head on straight when I got hot (and vice versa), great sellers who are turning into great friends, and we are still getting our awesome house, just not when we had planned on it originally.
Life is good, I just wish Bob would find someone else to bug for a while.
Current mood: paradoxically chipper
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Child hilarity - Time outs
One of the best parts of being a parent is all the funny stuff your kid does/says. Jackson is finally getting to the stage where I start to see more of these, and I'm gonna blog as many as I can. :)
So a few nights ago, I was sitting next to him at the table, helping him eat. I gave him his water bottle, and looked away for a moment to answer a question Jenny asked. I glanced back just in time to see him huck his water bottle full force across the table. Well, throwing things when at the table is a no-no, so I put him in his crib for a 2 minute time out. He was upset, but calmed down by the time I got him out.
A little later that evening, I saw him pick up his animal puzzle (pieces are individual jungle animals) and grab the hippo piece. He threw the hippo piece across the ground, and said "No, no, hippo!" He then picked up the hippo, looked at me and said, "Hippo time out." He marched across the room to his crib, threw the hippo piece in, and marched back to room, to look me solemnly in the face and say again, "Hippo time out." Holding back a laugh, I nodded and answered, "Oh, did the hippo need a time out?"
A couple minutes later, he went back in, got the hippo out of his crib, and showed it to me. He then threw his tiger across the room, and repeated the whole process ("Tiger time out" - which will be the name of my new band). Most of the animals spent a little time in the crib that night for time out.
It's good to know that our lessons are having such an impact. :)
Current mood: giggly
So a few nights ago, I was sitting next to him at the table, helping him eat. I gave him his water bottle, and looked away for a moment to answer a question Jenny asked. I glanced back just in time to see him huck his water bottle full force across the table. Well, throwing things when at the table is a no-no, so I put him in his crib for a 2 minute time out. He was upset, but calmed down by the time I got him out.
A little later that evening, I saw him pick up his animal puzzle (pieces are individual jungle animals) and grab the hippo piece. He threw the hippo piece across the ground, and said "No, no, hippo!" He then picked up the hippo, looked at me and said, "Hippo time out." He marched across the room to his crib, threw the hippo piece in, and marched back to room, to look me solemnly in the face and say again, "Hippo time out." Holding back a laugh, I nodded and answered, "Oh, did the hippo need a time out?"
A couple minutes later, he went back in, got the hippo out of his crib, and showed it to me. He then threw his tiger across the room, and repeated the whole process ("Tiger time out" - which will be the name of my new band). Most of the animals spent a little time in the crib that night for time out.
It's good to know that our lessons are having such an impact. :)
Current mood: giggly
Monday, April 30, 2012
Where was *this* when I was growing up?
We stumbled on a Groupon a couple of days ago for custom superhero outfits. I mean, how cool is this? While it lacks full-body spandex options (you might see this as relieving or disappointing, depending), options for mask, cape, shirt, and bracers are all available. I saw this and said to my wife, "I know what Jackson is going as for Halloween this year." :)
Heck, *I* may want one of these. Father and son superhero team! V-Man and his little sidekick, V-Boy!
Maybe the names need some work, but the idea is good...
Current mood: geeky
Heck, *I* may want one of these. Father and son superhero team! V-Man and his little sidekick, V-Boy!
Maybe the names need some work, but the idea is good...
Current mood: geeky
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Life's not a beach, redux
Argh.
We were all set to go to the beach yesterday. We got out a little later than I would have liked, but we still headed out and found ourselves there at around 1pm after a 3 hour drive. We should have been able to enjoy a beautiful, sunny, warm-but-not-too-hot day at the beach. We had our beach umbrella, snacks, water bottles, folding chairs, books, etc.
We had even checked the weather to make sure it wasn't too cold or cloudy. Buuuuut we forgot to check one very vital thing: wind speed.
It was gusting at around 25 MPH. I had purchased a sand anchor thingie for the beach umbrella to keep it from being blown away, but it totally worked for about 25 minutes before it blew over because the wind was so strong.
From the time we pulled up to the time we drove away was about 1.5 hours. 45 minutes of that was setup and clean up. We had about 45 minutes on the beach with the wind whipping sand into our eyes and generally making everything miserable before we gave up and went home.
And on the way home, the freeway closed down because there was a some semi on fire about 20 cars in front of us. Billowing smoke and flames, with nobody getting by. After 20 minutes of not moving an inch, I drove up the shoulder and got off the freeway on the on ramp. :) Glad no one was cruising down that ramp at 50 MPH. We found a way around and got home safely around 7pm.
So basically, Jackson spent all day in the car with very little time to run around. Jenny said it was a bust, but it was nice to have time to talk to her, even if we didn't get the nice relaxing beach day I had wanted.
Maybe next time we'll remember to check wind speed before we leave.
Current mood: disappointed
We were all set to go to the beach yesterday. We got out a little later than I would have liked, but we still headed out and found ourselves there at around 1pm after a 3 hour drive. We should have been able to enjoy a beautiful, sunny, warm-but-not-too-hot day at the beach. We had our beach umbrella, snacks, water bottles, folding chairs, books, etc.
We had even checked the weather to make sure it wasn't too cold or cloudy. Buuuuut we forgot to check one very vital thing: wind speed.
It was gusting at around 25 MPH. I had purchased a sand anchor thingie for the beach umbrella to keep it from being blown away, but it totally worked for about 25 minutes before it blew over because the wind was so strong.
From the time we pulled up to the time we drove away was about 1.5 hours. 45 minutes of that was setup and clean up. We had about 45 minutes on the beach with the wind whipping sand into our eyes and generally making everything miserable before we gave up and went home.
And on the way home, the freeway closed down because there was a some semi on fire about 20 cars in front of us. Billowing smoke and flames, with nobody getting by. After 20 minutes of not moving an inch, I drove up the shoulder and got off the freeway on the on ramp. :) Glad no one was cruising down that ramp at 50 MPH. We found a way around and got home safely around 7pm.
So basically, Jackson spent all day in the car with very little time to run around. Jenny said it was a bust, but it was nice to have time to talk to her, even if we didn't get the nice relaxing beach day I had wanted.
Maybe next time we'll remember to check wind speed before we leave.
Current mood: disappointed
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Custom. Made. Game. Tables.
I ran into this site today thanks to Geek and Sundry, and I about danced out of my seat.
Enter GeekChic - custom furniture, mainly gaming tables, for geeks/nerds/whatevs. I'm just sayin' - these are so totally awesome, I can't even believe it. Expensive as all get out, but holycrap awesomely worth it.
I have set a personal nerdgoal - own one of these puppies, totally decked out. I want it to be able to handle a game of Arkham Horror with all expansions present, a pen'n'paper tabletop game of D&D (or other RPG), any variety of wargaming (I mentioned Age of Renaissance a little bit ago), card gaming, what-have-you.
Ohmanohmanohmanohmanohman.
Wantwantwantwantwantwant.
Current mood: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Enter GeekChic - custom furniture, mainly gaming tables, for geeks/nerds/whatevs. I'm just sayin' - these are so totally awesome, I can't even believe it. Expensive as all get out, but holycrap awesomely worth it.
I have set a personal nerdgoal - own one of these puppies, totally decked out. I want it to be able to handle a game of Arkham Horror with all expansions present, a pen'n'paper tabletop game of D&D (or other RPG), any variety of wargaming (I mentioned Age of Renaissance a little bit ago), card gaming, what-have-you.
Ohmanohmanohmanohmanohman.
Wantwantwantwantwantwant.
Current mood: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
A Successful Class!
I taught my Train the Trainer class today for the first time, and it went fantastically wonderful. I had some excellent feedback, but this planted some very good seeds for my career growth. Everyone gave glowing praise (one person said it was the best remote training they've ever had), and I got some good suggestions on how to improve it as well.
I had planned on it taking between 2.5-3 hours, but we were done at 2 hours, which gives me a little more leeway to add in more interactive sections. Some of the principles get a little long in the tooth - too much talky, not enough interacty. Add in some practice sessions and other types of class engaging activities, and this class will start to show some real polish!
I do so love training. Every time I finish a class, I practically bounce out of the room (or off the phone in this case of remote training). I just feel so stinkin' lucky to be in a job that I get energized in.
Current Mood: accomplished
I had planned on it taking between 2.5-3 hours, but we were done at 2 hours, which gives me a little more leeway to add in more interactive sections. Some of the principles get a little long in the tooth - too much talky, not enough interacty. Add in some practice sessions and other types of class engaging activities, and this class will start to show some real polish!
I do so love training. Every time I finish a class, I practically bounce out of the room (or off the phone in this case of remote training). I just feel so stinkin' lucky to be in a job that I get energized in.
Current Mood: accomplished
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