Focused on the goal

This weekend, July 31-August 1, is the Families Supporting Adoption national conference.

I have been working on this conference for over four months. I got asked if I wanted to "be involved" and "help out" (such innocent terms), which quickly involved into a full-fledged planning committee, of which I quickly became a co-chair.

Last year was the first time birth parents were invited to attend the conference. There were a total of six classes offered for birth parents, only on the second day of the conference.

Our planning committee (which didn't exist last year either) quickly decided that this wasn't nearly enough. As we brainstormed ideas for sessions and presenters, we quickly expanded to fill both days of the conference. We more than doubled the size of the birth parent portion (which is still barely a fifth the size of the adoptive-couple side).

All of our hard work and time has come down to the wire. The conference starts Friday morning. Of course there will be hiccups, as there have been constantly over the past weeks. But I am so excited.

This conference represents the culmination of my passions. Firstly, I love adoption, I advocate adoption, and I love talking to people about adoption. And this is two whole days of talking about adoption. Secondly, I love organizing things. This conference has let me off the leash, and I have been able to organize and facilitate and detail-out to my heart's content. It's the utmost use of my stage management and administrative abilities.

It's going to be awesome.
It's going to be inspiring. (except maybe for MY presentations!)
It's going to be the adoption event of the year.

And I can't wait for it to be over. :P

Google Docs: A tool for co-writing

I've never really used Google Docs before. I've heard about it, here and there. But I simply have never possessed a need for it. I had Box.net for online storage, where I don't just use my wonderful Gmail account. But then I heard about file sharing.

My friends, this is not just storage. That's what I thought I was dealing with. I have a file, I save it on Google Docs, and then someone else I invite to share can also look at said saved document. And realistically, I could have simply done this through my Box.

But its better. So far beyond better, it's in an entirely different realm. It went from "oh, that's cool" realm straight up to, "THIS IS FREAKING AMAZING" realm.

It's live file sharing. Every time it saves the document, the text gets updated for all the users, simultaneously. And it auto-saves about every five seconds. You can literally be working on the same document simultaneously.

Do you see the potential?

My friend Sam and I are working on a new project, something we've been brainstorming for many weeks now. We have finally started writing. So in an effort to improve our co-authorship, I decided to check out Google Docs.

We can literally co-write. As I write, the text automatically updates itself on Sam's computer, and vice versa. We can make instantaneous corrections and changes. We can compare notes and work from the same set of written brainstorming. THIS IS FREAKING AMAZING.

Ladies and gentlemen, the muse has descended. Please excuse me while I join Google for some much-needed writing time. Ciao!

Harry Potter: A Review

I'll admit it, I like David Yates as a HP director. I know there are a lot of people who don't like the work he's done the last two installments, but I really do. I think that it's artistically appealing, on a visual and auditory level. And he also manages some nice emotional moments.

Even though they are aware that it's a cinematic adaptation, people still forget. They see that HP logo and they want the book that's in their head to be on the screen. It's just not going to happen, folks. Books and movies are entirely different medium, and they have to be treated accordingly for any kind of enjoyment of the latter.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is one of my favorite books of the series, though I have found it's often overlooked by others. The thing I enjoy most about the book is the closeness that Dumbledore finally allows himself with Harry. And that was played true in the movie.

I enjoyed the teen romance. Lavender was just as annoying in the movie as I experienced her in the book. Harry and Ginny never quite connected, for me, but that's just a shrug, whatever for me. And the hospital scene with Ron and Hermione was cute.

I do have to admit that the chase scene at the end was anti-climatic. I recognized the reasons for omitting the battle, and I'm fine with that. But Harry practically laid down and took it from Snape. And I felt like Snape should have lost control more. He could have been cold and menacing still, but I felt none of the barely-suppressed fury that I expected, and I felt let down afterward.

Incidentally, I really enjoyed the humor of this installment. I laughed more than I've ever laughed in a HP movie. The jokes were funny, the implied humor was amusing.

Again, I enjoyed the movie on an artistic level. I feel like the cinematography was some of the best we've seen in the series. And the music! No John Williams here, friend! It had only the barest hints of his original theme, and some of it was just plain haunting. The sweeping shots of Hogwarts, the scene with Harry and Hermione on the stairs with the snow falling behind them, the sunset with Fawkes leaving...beautiful.

Overall, I think it was a good movie. I think it stayed true to the heart of the book, which is more than you can really expect from most adaptations. There's no way all of our favorite moments could have been included, and a movie is structured differently from a book anyway. I believe that it makes a solid movie, and I give David Yates a thumbs-up to finishing the series. Now to wait another 18 months...

Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out this week. I still don't know when I'm seeing it, but hopefully soon! The previews have me excited.

The last movie, Order of the Phoenix, was the first of the movies that I actually enjoyed. I felt that the director and the screenwriter created an excellent adaptation that stayed true to the spirit of the book without trying to quote the book word-for-word. Also...they had an artistic vision. I can't say that for all the HP directors.

Fortunately, David Yates took on HBP. Hopefully, he does as good a job with this one as he did with the last!

Harry Potter is such a strange creature. Deathly Hallows is now two years old, but the franchise is still strong. I grew up with Harry Potter, and I know many who feel the same way. No matter what you say about the style or quality of writing, no matter what you say about originality or lack thereof, you cannot deny that there is something special about Harry Potter. Something that has kept millions of readers and movie viewers engaged for a decade and more.

So yes, I'm very excited for the new movie. I'll give you my thoughts after I've seen it! Stay tuned.

Fourth of July recap

I love the Fourth of July. It definitely ranks among my top favorite holidays. It's the only major mid-summer holiday. It's got the fireworks, the barbeques, the watermelon, the swimming, the red white and blue. The Fourth of July is relaxing.

Especially this year. There were a few instances of fireworks prior to the actual Fourth. Friday night I had dinner with my family, then spent the evening with the Page's, and then with some ward-friends. Saturday morning, I slept in, and then read a book in bed until noon. I got up and cleaned my apartment, which actually was wonderful, because it's been getting ridiculous and I love a clean home. At the last possible moment, I made some rice crispie treats. 10 minutes flat, folks. I love rice crispie treats. They are easy, they are quick, they are cheap, and they are delicious.

Then is was off to my date. That's right. He's from my ward, and I like him a lot. =) We went to the Freedom Festival in downtown Provo, which actually was not as exciting as years past. I now have a good judge on his taste in ties, though. We watched a hypnotist show (it wasn't all that great, but it was nevertheless amusing) and had dinner at the fair. We met up with the Pages, and walked from their house to the stadium.

Now for a funny story. So...I had made these rice crispie treats. At the stadium, they weren't allowing any outside food or drink, and there were a bunch of people at the entrance checking bags and retaining everybody's snacks and whatnot. Well, the guard rather quickly found my rice crispies, and told me that I couldn't take them in. We stepped off to the side. I was in distress! Bret just wanted me to give up the rice crispies so we could rejoin my friends. But I stuffed one bag of rice crispies into the bottom of my purse and buried it with other stuff. Then I went back to the same guard. She was busy poking through somebody's purse. I handed her the second bag of rice crispies, and she just waved us through. Triumph! And so me and my date and my contraband rice crispies proceeded into the stadium.

Then it was time for the Stadium of Fire. I've never been before, and I'm not sure this was the best one for a first experience. But still enjoyable! The best part, to be honest, was the little patriotic dancing girls, who did the wave and other things with their flags. There was SheDaisy, which was tolerable, Glenn Beck and his Music-Man-dancer-singer-peeps, which was odd, and the Jonas Brothers, who went on for far too long. At least we didn't actually want to hear them, though. What with the screaming and the girls behind us who sang every word of every song, they were pretty much drowned out. But seriously...the fireworks were worth the whole thing. They were awesome. They were long, loud and beautiful. Oh, and the military fly over was cool too. =)

After the Stadium of Fire, we waded through the masses on our way back to the Pages, where we sat for an hour waiting for traffic to (somewhat) disperse. We hade cheese and BBQ sauce on Ritz crackers. I'd never tried this combination before, but I'm now completely sold. Mm. Then it was homeward bound after a long and well-spent day.

I love the Fourth of July! I still have a good handful of sparklers that need to be set off. Maybe some post-holiday celebration this evening...

What did you do for the Fourth?

I have the internet on my phone

And it's the shiz. Seriously. I mean, I'm an internet addict anyway. But now I get it on my phone. Last night I was able to check Facebook while in the car with my parents driving 70 mph toward the Oquirrh temple. I can finally grasp the appeal of Twitter--when you can update your status from anywhere, suddenly you want to. It's still ridiculous, but at least it now makes sense. I answered an email in the middle of a croquet game on my lawn later in the evening. I forwarded one last note from my bed before going to sleep.

Welcome to my new addiction.

A sad commentary

This morning, I received a business email from one of our company associates. This would be a professional marketer who works with my company. The email was literally riddled with spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. It made me cross-eyed just trying to read it. It was barely comprehensible. It was embarrassing! I was embarrassed for him, that this working professional couldn't take the time to use a spell-checker, which is a sad commentary in and of itself.

Why did our society stop caring about this? When did it become socially acceptable for a working businessman to be unable to write properly? Honestly, I see emails like this, and I can't repress a certain amount of scorn. It automatically makes me feel like I'm dealing with someone uneducated, or at least uncaring.

Good writing skills are supposedly important. I wish we could take out the 'supposedly' there. I mean, doesn't the business world (and most of the rest of the world too, right?) function on good communication? Which is being severely hindered by the texting generation, and the utterly blase attitude toward anything remotely resembling educated thought.

Reader, I plead with you. Don't fall prey. Use good writing skills. At the very least, please employ your spell checker. It would do us all a world of good.

Life is good

I haven't been a very avid blogger here at the Muse lately. I just wanted to report that life is good. It is (predictably) very busy. I work full time, I go to church activities and to Taekwondo, I work hard as a volunteer with FSA, and I try to play hard with my friends, roommates, and ward members.

I've started working on edits of the novel I finished in January (aka the Behemoth). My friend Sam and I are also working on development for a new project, but we'll see how it goes. It feels good to be writing, I've been rather stymied in that department for awhile now.

Also, I've picked up "Warbreaker" by Brandon Sanderson, who is my current favorite fantasy author. So far I'm enjoying it immensely, as I have all of his work thus far. I'll give you the full scoop when I'm done.

Woot!

Families Supporting Adoption conference!

The national conference of Families Supporting Adoption is coming up fast! On July 31& August 1, friends of adoption will gather from across the country for two days of education, discussion, and networking.

I'm particularly excited to announce the birthparent portion of this conference. It's grown a TON from last year's conference (the first time birth families were invited to attend) and there are going to be lots of great classes for birth parents in every stage. Here's just some of the session topics:

-What Adopted Children Need From Their Birth Parents
-What's Next: Living Life Post-Adoption
-Uniting as a Birth Family
-Deciding Who, When, & How to Tell Your Adoption Story
-Being a Birth Mother is Just One Part of Who I Am
-Navigating the Difficult Conversations
-Telling Your Children Your Adoption Story
-Sharing Your Passion for Adoption
-Letting Go and Moving Forward
-Husbands of Birth Mothers (Panel)
-Desires, Expectations, and Disappointments
-Step by Step Through Your Pregnancy & Placement
-United by Love

While Families Supporting Adoption is closely connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, birth parents of all backgrounds are invited to attend, for FREE! All the details are over at this blog: http://lettinglovelead.blogspot.com.

Spread the word! It's going to be a great conference, for birth families and adoptive families alike. If you have any questions, let me know!!

New York City, part II

Let me just say this: my expectations for Wicked were COMPLETELY blown out of the water.

It was amazing. (Read: REALLY FREAKING ASTOUNDINGLY AMAZING.) Afterward, I was at a loss for words. All of the little tiny nit-picky details that had bugged me about Wicked in Chicago were gone. And so much more! It was wonderful.

The best thing about Wicked is that it is so clever. The script is clever. The lyrics are clever. The music is clever. It's all so well-written. It takes your breath away.

Obviously, I really enjoyed Wicked. =)

Friday morning, we started off by getting lost on the Subway. We ended up in Brooklyn, briefly. That subway station, by the way, was incredibly ghetto. The best ones are the ones where all the tourists go. Anyway, we eventually made it back to Manhattan, down at Battery Park. From there, we boarded a ferry on our way out to the Statue of Liberty.

It had rained all day Thursday, and the fog Friday morning had us worried. However, during our trip over to Liberty Island, things started to clear up. The Statue of Liberty was beautiful. It was even larger than I thought it would be. We walked around the island and took pictures, and I enjoyed it immensely. Definitely recommend it on your future visits. Then we sailed over to Ellis Island. In the brochure itself it says to plan on at least three hours to even begin to see everything at the museum. Well, we sure didn't have that kind of time. So after a brief stop and a glance, we were back on the ferry and heading back to Manhattan.

After lunch, we walked down through the finanical district, past Wall Street and the bull and the square where Peter almost blows up New York at the end of the first season of Heroes. Then it was a block over to Ground Zero. You can't see much, now, because the whole block is wrapped up for construction. But it was still powerful to see this whole block, empty but for the construction cranes. Crazy.

Then it was up to the Empire State Building. I was thinking it would be like the Space Needle...pretty, but not that exciting. However, we got the audio tour as part of our city pass. Totally worth it! I wish we had done the audio tour at the Met. With that, we were able to identify what we were looking at. I've got such a better understanding of New York City now than I ever would have without it. And the view! It was crazy. 86 floors up, you sure can see a lot!!

Friday evening we saw The Phantom of the Opera. We sat on the 2nd row. Seriously! When the chandelier dropped, it was literally dropping right toward me. So cool. However, Phantom just didn't measure up to Wicked, or to the Lion King. Still AMAZING, of course. And the technical aspects were really stinkin' cool. =)

On Saturday morning, we were visited by some relatives of my mother's. I swear to you, I've never heard of most of these people before. I'm pretty sure my mom's only met them once before. But it was nice, I suppose, if awkward. It was my grandpa's sister and her three kids, along with a husband and a boyfriend. They were over for about two hours. The hummus was very popular.

Then it was off to the matinee of The Lion King. Again...astounding. Blown. Away. I was expecting it to be good, but I've seen the movie and we have the original Broadway cast recording. So I wasn't expecting to be surprised. But I was blown away. The puppetry. The technical aspects. But the singing! The vocals were overpowering. I was moved. Mm.

After the Lion King, we hurried over to this big discount ticket place to see what tickets we could get for that evening. We were (yes!) hoping that we could go see Wicked again, but it was probably sold out months in advance. Without Wicked, we were a bit at a loss. Dad wanted to see South Pacific. Mom wanted to see...something else, I can't remember. I kind of wanted to see 9 to 5: the Musical! but only because Allison Janney is in it, and I love her. We considered Mary Poppins, but eventually settled on Shrek the Musical.

Yes, sounds silly, doesn't it? But don't worry, it was still entertaining.

First we went shopping (my mom and her shopping! She's so funny) then out to get some authentic (read: GREASY) New York pizza. I won't lie. I prefer Chicago-style pizza. The thin-crust stuff just doesn't do it for me. The Pesto was good. The grease was gross.

Then it was back over to the Broadway Theater for Shrek the Musical. It was some lighthearted entertainment. I found that the music itself was good, but that the lyrics weren't particularly clever. Lord Farquaad was highly entertaining. But overall, it just didn't compare to the other shows we saw.

Sunday we were homeward bound. I would just like to reiterate here that I hate traveling on airplanes. They make me sick, they are claustrophic, and they are exhausting. After finally arriving home, I crashed from about 8 o'clock pm until 7 o'clock this morning. If time weren't always so limited, I would rather drive.

My feet are sore

In case you didn't pick this up from other sources (aka Facebook, email or ME), I'm in New York City! It's a family vacation with my parental unit, whom I adore for bringing me and indulging me every step of the way. =)

We got up at 3am Mountain time yesterday, caught a flight from SLC to Minneapolis. Our flight out of there was delayed, and THEN we were put in a holding pattern above Pennsylvania for over half an hour while the weather cleared in NY. Finally we landed at La Guardia. Then we took a taxi into Manhattan--and I will make a note here that my mother does not handle taxi rides well. Sorry mom, just sayin'. Finally we arrived at our hotel. It's called the Manhattan Club, and it's literally a block off Broadway, and just a few minutes' walk from Times Square, which we visited later last evening after a dinner at the Whole Foods Market just off Columbus Circle. Times Square, by the way, is a gaudy tourist trap, but it was still immensely satisfying to go and take pictures like any other tourist. There's just something about five-story neon ads for musicals that makes my blood race.

This morning we were part of the studio audience for "Live with Regis and Kelly", except that they had given out too many tickets, and we had to stand off to one side in the aisle. I'm pretty sure we were on TV once, for about a second and a half. But it was still fun to go and see the live filming of a TV show. The stage manager (or whatever her title is) was fun. She had tape on her pants and what looked like four sharpies strung on a lanyard around her neck.

Then we took a stroll across Central Park, which is a lot bigger than you imagine it being, even being forwarned that it will be bigger than you think it will be. We didn't even see half of it. I wore my cute new shoes, and they gave me a blister (or maybe two), but still totally worth it. After exiting the park, we bought lunch from a sidewalk stand, and they totally ripped off my dad. You live and you learn, I guess.

But the highlight of the afternoon (well, the sole thing we did this afternoon!) was visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is enormous. They say they have over two million works of art. The museum practically takes up a city block. We spent, what? four hours there? More? And I feel like we barely breezed through. I really loved the 19th century paintings (those were the ones I recognized most frequently--lots of Van Gogh and Degas and Picasso, etc), but I also really enjoyed the early European paintings and sculpture. They also had an ENORMOUS wing of Ancient Egyptian stuff--that was the first exhibit we visited, so we spent more time there than those that followed, because we hadn't yet realized that it would take us years to get through at that pace. Anyway, it was an amazing experience.

Tonight we're going to see WICKED. I'm very excited. I'd probably be more excited (as in, ridiculously, uncontrollably excited), except that I saw it last year in Chicago. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very excited. =) But for me there is a magic in a show that I've never seen before. That's why both Phantom of the Opera and the Lion King have a bit more hold on me right now. We're also thinking about seeing a fourth show on Saturday night, possibly the Fantasticks? We'll have to see--we were planning to go to two museums today and only made it through the one, so we'll have to see what happens. Either way, I'm a happy girl.

Yay for New York City!

Watch the video, it makes me laugh

GOING CAMPING

I absolutely love camping. I am ecstatic to be (finally) going camping for the first time this year. Hopefully there will be many more trips to come. With several friends, I'm going to my favorite place on Earth. It's a little recreation area in Southern Utah called Red Cliffs. It's a slot canyon that has a series of waterfalls. When the water is high enough, there are places to cliff jump or waterslide. But any time, it's a beautiful place to hike and explore.

This year marks the fifth May in a row that I have gone to Red Cliffs. I love traditions, and my family doesn't have that many, so I've started making my own. This one's my favorite. I love going to Red Cliffs every year. I love seeing the familiar sights and sounds, I love the warmth of the red rocks, I love the warmth of the friendships in which I so fortunately find myself enveloped. More for the memories and tradition, this really is my favorite place in all the world.

So, I may have gone overboard in my excitement this week. But I sure don't care. I literally have been counting down the days (and now hours!!). I am absolutely stoked.

Hopefully in a few days, I'll have new pictures to post. =)

Life as a Blogger

I was looking at my blogger profile today for some arbitrary reason, and I took note of the little box in the corner that says, "On Blogger Since". I've been on Blogger since November 2003. And I was like... "Wow. That's a pretty freaking long time."

I started blogging that year because I was a stupid high school student with stupid high school drama (mostly self-inflicted), and I needed an outlet. I had this blog back then that was basically a mind-dump for my depression, my angst, and my frustrations with life in general. It's still live (no, I will not tell you where to find it) and it's almost embarrassing for me to read now. It's like an emo version of myself wrote it. Maybe that's what it was!

When I went to college, there was a year or so where I didn't blog much. Occasionally I'd post to the old blog, but that year was pretty dry.

The year after, I took a class from Dr. Jill Talbot in Creative Non-Fiction writing. Great class, by the way. We had a blog, and we were all required to post to it. I began to see new, non-depressed ways to blog. To express myself, not emotionally by neccessity, but artistically.

It was during that same semester that Ian was born. Suddenly I had a lot to write about. I started a new blog of my own, which I wrote to over the next several months. That blog helped me process the placement experience, as well as my postpartum issues. But as I healed, the less I wrote.

A semester or two after that, I took a great class from Dr. P about editing and literary production. One of our projects was to produce literature in an out-of-the-ordinary format. Like writing poetry on telephone poles or something. I worked with McKenzie, who authored a fiction piece that we structured in a series of blogs. I built a blog and we set up the story within that context. It was a great deal of fun. That project can still be viewed at http://suu.edu/honors/newhorizons/

This brings us almost to the present. I graduated from college in December 2007, and quickly found that I needed something to occupy my thoughts. Thus was born the Descent of the Muse. And I've been at least fairly regular in my blogging since that time.

As I started becoming an active advocate of adoption, I found that I needed a forum, separate from "daily life", as I think of here, to discuss my thoughts and views on adoption. So I now also maintain my adoption blog next door.

November 2003. That's five and a half years. It'll be six this fall. Six years, jabbering away at the universe-at-large. They'll never claim that I didn't have anything to say. That's for sure.

Movie update

Since I wrote my summer movie list, I have seen two more movies, about which I wish to report.

First was "Angels and Demons". This was an indulgent summer flick. It was engaging, certainly, though a bit thin in some places. It was action-packed, and I was very engaged by the characters. However, halfway through the movie I leaned over to Melissa and whispered, "They're ALL bad guys!" and she whispered back, "Why do you think the Catholics don't like this movie?" Overall an enjoyable spectacle, but I would not go see it again. And that's pretty much how my ratings work.

This past weekend I went to see "Terminator Salvation" with Gregory and Justin. I watched the first two in preparation, which is a good thing, because I don't think I would've understood anything if I didn't already know these characters. I'll agree that Salvation was pretty light on the plot, which for me is often a major turn-off. However, I think that people hold the first two movies in a little too high a regard. I mean, how much plot was there really in T2? There's a good Terminator and a bad Terminator, and lots of chase scenes, and the mental hospital stuff with Sarah. Really, plot? Not that much. Having seen T2 for the first time just before going to see Salvation, I don't think my expectations were unnaturally high. It was LOUD, and there was three times as many explosions as there were lines of dialogue, but I enjoyed the character dynamics where they were found (though, did Blair have to become a damsel in distress so fast? She was cool...) and I enjoyed the eye candy. It wasn't Star Trek. But it was good.

And really, I'm pretty much set until Transformers next month. There's a couple of peripheral movies I'm interested in through the meantime (Up, Night at the Museum 2) but I've already seen the ones I was looking forward to most. Is the summer movie season getting pushed earlier or something? It's only Memorial Day!

Stage manager at heart

This will tell you how big of a nerd I am. So last night, I got home pretty late after a meeting in Salt Lake. I was in the mood to pull out a book, but there wasn't really anything I was in the mood for. Get this: I ended up pulling out my Honors undergrad thesis, and I read the whole thing before I went to bed.

Yes. I am a nerd.

But it got me thinking this morning. My thesis was about the Art of Stage Management. I have to tell you, that this meeting last night (and all the meetings like it) have seriously employed the skills I gained as a stage manager. Committees of any kind need someone to organize them, or they're useless.

Here's my thing: I don't necessarily consider myself a leader. In the theatre, I wasn't ever the Director, the one with the vision. But I was the Stage Manager, who organized and enabled the visions of others to come to pass. Certainly I was deeply involved. I had my fingers in everything. But it was only to add upon the skills and vision of others, to enable them to accomplish their tasks.

I have carried these skills, inclinations and abilities with me, as I probably will for the rest of my life. Everything I do is affected by the fact that I am a stage manager. It's only the venue that has changed. Instead of Henry V, I have an adoption conference. But I remain the same.

I love summer! (Summer movie list)

I think I may retract that statement a little later in the season. Perhaps a more accurate assessment would be, "I love late spring and early summer", but that doesn't make for as clean a blog title. =)

Seasonally, May is one of my favorites. I also really enjoy September. But May just has so much...potential. Starting to get warm, drifting toward the languid summer nights were you sit on your porch and talk or listen to music and just enjoy life.

Thus, I believe I picked the perfect time to move out. I was sitting on my back porch last night talking to Melissa, and it literally was perfect. I had just gotten back from Taekwondo, so I felt good about myself and life in general. Wunderbar.

I particularly love the summer movie season. I've already seen three of the movies on my summer list, which (a la Gregorio) I shall enumerate below.

The Soloist. Now playing. This movie was somewhat strange, but I nevertheless enjoyed the performances of Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx. Perhaps running a little too long, I liked the resolution (and lack thereof) for the characters.

Battle for Terra now playing. I was more excited about this when I first heard about it, especially because there are several good names attached. However, my interest is diminishing the more I hear about it, so we'll see.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Now playing. As I stated in an earlier blog, I didn't much care for this movie. It was visually appealing, but the story and characters were weak. And a bit too much action for action's sake.

Star Trek Now playing. An absolutely engaging and enjoyable flick. Not much in the way of depth, but the charisma of these fresh new actors completely made up for it in my mind. Loved Bones!

Angels and Demons opening this week. I've never read the books and I'm not a fanatic, but it looks interesting.

Terminator Salvation the first Terminator to earn a PG-13 rating. Is it less R-rated or have we grown desensitized? Anyway, I got interested almost solely because of Christian Bale, but I've done a little reading, and I'm actually interested in seeing the previous incarnations of the Terminator. Something about the predestination paradox intrigues me.

Night at the Museum 2 The first one was, I'll admit, rather amusing. I have little hope for the second Ben Stiller romp, so we'll see if this ends up as a Netflix request instead.

Up because it's Pixar and it has the "Squirrel!" dog that makes me laugh every time I see the preview.

Away We Go because it has Allison Janney! No, really, the first time I heard about this movie, I was mildly interested, but the more I hear about it the more I want to see it.

The Proposal a distant possibly simply because Ryan Reynolds is cute. (Yes, I give into such nonsense every now and again.) More likely a subject for Netflix.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen which promises to be a lot darker than numbero uno. I just hope they let Shia LaBeouf act instead of being whiny the whole time [Compare Transformers to Eagle Eye. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.]

My Sister's Keeper because I saw a preview and it looks interesting (Abigail Breslin? We'll see)

[Public Enemies looks interesting, but a bit too violent for my tastes. Probably not one for me. Which is too bad, because I'll miss out on the eye candy!]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince just cuz. (Incidentally, I think HBP is at least tied for my favorite book in the series. I hope David Yates holds up!)

That somehow ended up being a lot lengthier than I imagined when I embarked upon my list-making. But that just goes to show that there are a lot of good movies coming out this summer! I'm excited. Although, I have to admit that we've already bypassed one of my biggest anticipations for the season (Star Trek). But I'm still looking forward to a good few months of cinema viewing, in addition to camping and hiking and all sorts of good summery things!

Dixy's wedding and some thoughts

My friend/former roommate DixyAnn got married on Friday. I was an "unofficial attendant" so I spent the day with Dixy and our friends in celebration of her marriage to Matt Smith, who's a pretty cool guy. =)

She got married in the Logan Temple. She had a luncheon up in Logan, and then a ring ceremony and reception down in Salt Lake City. Her colors were black, red and white, and she had the reception in her single's ward bishop's backyard.

There were no major catastrophes, but I got to pondering about the value of stress. This followed a conversation/critique of Mormon weddings from a friend of mine, who was derisive about the lack of wedding planners in most Mormon weddings. So I was more alert to the fact that Dixy seemed to be under an undue amount of stress throughout the day. There were details that could (should?) have been handled by somebody else, but that fell to Dixy and Matt. The reception ended at 8:00, but at a quarter to nine they were still there, trying to organize everyone and make sure everything was taken care of, instead of leaving for their honeymoon. Small things that added up over the course of a day that should have been enjoyed, rather than still needing to be organized. Small things forgotten that should have been planned for in advance.

Like I said, no major catastrophes. And the reception did come off rather well. I just wonder, if it had been me, would I have instead trusted someone else with those details? I'm at least as controlling as Dixy, and I like to have things done my way (especially on wedding day!!) but I think it's still possible to get what you want while entrusting someone else to make sure things are run smoothly the day of. That's all I'm sayin'.

Funny story: so, Matt and Dixy forgot the garter at home, so they sent Christopher (of all people!) home for it. Under the guise of taking a long time to find it, he went to Wal-Mart and made a copy of their house key (SO Chris). We decorated Matt's car (rather lavishly--we had a little too much fun!). Dixy bought a new car recently, and literally threatened our lives if we touched her car. But after the newlyweds drove away, we decided to decorate their HOUSE instead of her car!

There had been some fake rose petals that were just going to be tossed after the reception, so we made a rose-petal path from the door to their bed (which we even made for them). Also, we took pictures of ourselves in their house with their camera, which was far too much fun. And Justin hid their shoes all over--kitchen cupboards, medicine cabinet, on the shower rod. Random, but really funny. At any rate, we had a good old time--even got the approval of Dixy's mother!

It was a good day spent with friends. I hope that Matt and Dixy have a great time on their cruise, and hopefully they don't catch the swine flu!

Wolverine: Meh

Just saw the Wolverine movie. My response is, "It was cool...but..."

Very disjointed, and the storyline was NOT cohesive. I'll frankly admit that the opening sequence (war transitions) was great. That's probably the only part I would label that way. Otherwise, I felt like the story was rushed (and it was a short movie, too!) the characters were not fleshed out--even Wolverine!!--and the plot had wide and gaping holes laced through it. For as much as some characters were anticipated (aka Gambit, among others) they sure didn't get a lot of screentime. And the Sabretooth/Wolverine conflict totally does not mesh well with where we pick up in X-Men(1).

The action sequences were (for the most part) engaging, though the post-credits scene was a bit much for me, simply because as far as I was concerned, it served no purpose. The whole Kayla thing...lame. The fact that Logan believed it?...lame. And what was with her wounded and then suddenly appeared by this recently-collapsed structure, out of nowhere? ... Like I said, major holes everywhere.

However, I still enjoyed it. Not one I'll go see in the theaters again, but maybe one I'll buy (unlike Last Stand, which I pretend does not exist). Maybe just so I can watch the opening a few more times...cuz it was seriously the best part of the whole movie.