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Potpourri for $500, Alex!

[Originally posted last Friday.]

1. I was a bit irked when I discovered the offspring had not set the alarm properly and was still asleep when I headed downstairs. I provided a poke, only to be informed fifteen seconds later (and quickly validated) that apparently either my alarm clock was screwed up, or else I had spontaneously awakened about half an hour early, thinking my alarm had gone off.

2. The offspring could have been forgiven for being a bit off, since she was in her first auto accident last night, driving home from a swim/dive meet in unexpectedly snowy/icy conditions, coming to a gentle (yet still ABS-invoking) stop at a signal, and getting rear-ended by another car whose ABS was not quite effective enough. NO INJURIES. Just a lot of jangled nerves (and a badly damaged rear bumper).

3. I actually served as announcer at said swim/dive meet, which was a first for me. It involved a lot less improv than I had been afraid of (which is good, since it was my first swim/dive meet, and I was unfamiliar with the cadence or what, specifically, I should be announcing). But it was a lot of fun, people asked if I did it for a living (!), and, to relate to No. 2 above, the girl who did the rear-ending was one of the competitors at the meet, and her mom (who drove up about five minutes after I returned to the scene) had been there, and both recognized my voice.

4. It turns out the Hulu app on our Blu-Ray player is no longer supported by Sony or Hulu, so we can’t watch Marvel’s Runaways that way. However, the Hulu phone app (but not the web page, as far as I can see) supports Chromecast, so that should work out well. Which is good, because we watched the first ep. and it was excellent.

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NaNoWriMo Victory!

Most of my posting about National Novel Writing Month this year has ended up over on my writing blog, but I do want to report here Victory as far as NaNoWriMo 2017, both for myself and for Kay (who stretched this year to a full 50K word target).

More details here, but the bottom line is, lots of fun, many thanks to Margie, creative juices stirred, and thank God it’s over for the year!

Time for a Victory Walk!

The Fine China Conundrum

(See also the “Fine Crystal” “Sterling Silver Utensil” Conundrum.)

It seems like there is something of a weather change in American generations, driven in part by economics (and associated reduction in sizes of homes), culture (what is considered “special” and how do we celebrate it), and aesthetics (“OMG, those are hideous!”). The fine china (et al.) of previous generations is coming available as those generations pass on (or even just move into smaller dwellings themselves), and their successors really don’t have much interest.

We’re seeing this ourselves, though we’re just on the other side of that cusp. We did the whole china / crystal pattern wedding register thing when we got married in the mid-90s (both of us brought inherited silver to the marriage). Having those sorts of place settings for special occasions was just part of the tradition of each of our families.

(I also have a set of china from my first marriage, which, for some reason, I don’t think we’ve ever used.)

As Margie’s folks downsized to move into a retirement community, we ended up with an additional set of china (which is good, because our wedding-purchased one really does not work with Thanksgiving colors), but as my Mom gets ready to do the same thing, she’s faced with figuring out what she is going to do with hers.

She has two sets of china. One was the wedding gift set, the other was a set of Noritake Dad picked up for cheap in Japan when he was in the Navy. She almost (?) never uses them any more, and is even less likely to do so at her new home. My brother isn’t interested. I’m not interested enough in those particular patterns to want them, either.

On the other hand, just getting rid of them seems an awful waste.

And there will be the next generation. Like I said, we have two (three) sets. Will our kid want any of them? I don’t know. Possibly, as we’ve not been the sorts that Never Ever Use the China Because If You Use It It Might Get Broken. As the article notes, family heirlooms are valued when they actually have memories associated with them. I enjoy pulling out the china and crystal and silver if we’re having a holiday dinner, or a special occasion dinner, or just plain old people over. That celebratory association might stick with the offspring.

Or it might not, and we’ll eventually need to figure out what local charity to send it off to (whether Replacements.com is offering enough money to be worth it).

Interesting thoughts.




What should young people do with Grandma’s china?
I call my Oma, who lives in Florida, to ask how her Thanksgiving was. We talk only for 15 minutes because she needs to get back to the lebkuchen she’s baking for a church Christmas fundraiser. She tells me her Thanksgiving was small but nice; she made Cornish hens for everyone instead of a huge turkey. She’s like this, traditional at times but flexible and pragmatic at others.

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The Princess and the Pea

Holiday Decorating Pro-Tip: If sitting on one rug is comfy, sitting on a stack of rugs is the comfiest.

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Father/Daughter Movie Week: The Reviews

+Margie Kleerup was off in California on a long business trip this past week, so +Kay Hill and I did a Father/Daughter Movie Week … which got interfered with mightily by both Dive Practice and NaNoWriMo.

But, that said, we got a few movies into play.

Time Bandits (1981)
Been years since I watched this. A glorious film with some great talent, but freaking depressing.
Review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/time-bandits/
★★★★½

The Addams Family (1991)
Always a fun, fun time, full of great performers (particularly Raul Julia).
Current review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/the-addams-family/1/
★★★★ (with a ♥)

Iron Man (2008)
The first, and arguably one of the best, MCU movies. Straight, simple, and to the heroic redemption tale point. [Watched this on my own, while sick at home.]
Current review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/iron-man-2008/2/
★★★★ (with a ♥)

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
A quirky, respectable, fun edition in the Holmes cinematic canon.
Current review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/sherlock-holmes-2009/1/
★★★½ (with a ♥)

 

In Album 11/19/17 — see the other movie posters, too!

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Spooky!

+Kay Hill carved our Halloween pumpkin. And a fine job she did!

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Tower o’ Kitty

Purrl looks down from atop the new Kitty Tower we bought.

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To rob from the middle class and give to the rich

I mean, that sounds like liberal rhetoric, but that’s precisely what some in the GOP are considering with their plan to cut income and business taxes — with the greatest benefits going to the most wealthy in our country — and paying for some of the loss in federal revenue by reducing the amount that people can put into 401(k) plans.

401(k)s have been the centerpiece of retirement planning for decades for the middle class. They’re too paltry for the rich to worry about, and require more investment than the poor can afford. Thus, they are a tool for the middle class to sock away tax-reduced savings (the tax savings themselves being the most immediate incentive), to create retirement funds that make up for the societal loss of pensions, strong unions, and the constant threat to Social Security from the Right.

So of course the GOP would target that as a potential offset for tax cuts that add massive income savings for the richest among us, in both personal income taxes and business taxes. Because nobody should feel financially secure about the future except the most wealthy, because God doesn’t like people who aren’t prosperous, and you can know that because prosperous people don’t have to worry about their (temporal) future.

It might be worth your while, if you are at all looking at 401(k) investments to fund your retirement, to contact your congressional representatives and suggest to them that gutting your ability to save for retirement might result in their early retirement from the halls of power.




Republicans Consider Sharp Cut in 401(k) Contribution Limits – The New York Times
A move to reduce contribution limits would almost certainly prompt a vocal backlash from middle-class workers who save heavily in such retirement accounts.

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Father-Daughter Movie Week

Margie was out of town on business this week, which should have meant lots of movies for +Kay Hill and myself. Alas, Marching Band practice and an actual competition mid-week limited our movie-watching … but we did get a few in:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

An iconic classic of science fiction, it’s a great movie but not necessarily a regularly enjoyable one. ★★★★½

Full review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind/

White Christmas (1954)

Music! Dancing! Snow! A great cast in a movie that was at the end of the musical extravaganza era. ★★★ (♥)

Full review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/white-christmas/1/
Prevous review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/white-christmas/

Dogma (1999)

Beautifully irreverent reverence. Not for those who feel that spirituality and earthy humor ought never be combined. ★★★★ (♥)

Full review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/dogma/1/
Previous review: https://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/dogma/

 

In Album 10/21/17

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“I find your lack of youth … disturbing.”

Holy Moley… I just got my first senior discount. That’s just… wrong.

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Burning memories

So this Anaheim Hills fire in California is taking place about a 10 minute surface street drive from my in-laws’ old house. Nohl Ranch Road … Santiago … I’ve driven those streets. My wife went camping in the regional park where the fire is burning most fiercely. I’ve been along all those freeways shown.

It’s very weird seeing this going on in places I know. And my best wishes for the folk I know who still live there. Be safe.




Canyon fire No. 2 in Anaheim Hills

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The Five Movies Meme

What five films would you tell a potential Significant Other to watch to know what kind of person you are?

  1. The Princess Bride
  2. Undercover Blues
  3. Judgment at Nuremberg
  4. The Incredibles
  5. Dogma

What does your list look like?

Though not required as part of the meme, here are my reasons, what it is that I want to convey with each film:

  1. I’m a romantic. I believe in true love, and the hard work and being of service to succeed at it. I believe in happy endings. I believe in beating evil, with a wry quip and a steady eye. I believe in riding off into the sunset with my true love (and my pals). I believe in wordplay.
  2. As with the first, but I also believe in competence and intelligence, in family, in raising kids well, in shared memories, and in having fun with life. Also, I enjoy cheesy entertainment.
  3. I believe in the triumph of good over evil, and justice over injustice, even if it take time to make happen. I believe in jurisprudence and the rule of law. I believe in studying history and drawing lessons from it. I am aware of the dangers of “going along” with evil. I believe people can be good people and do bad things — and that even if they are good people there are still consequences. I believe that national self-righteousness and myth-making have a dark side. Also, that I don’t run away from the classics, enjoy a good black-and-white flick, and can be serious when need be.
  4. Along with 1 and 2, I’m a family guy, I like to think I’m a hero, but I can also have feet of clay. That said, I want to do the right thing, and I’m stronger doing it with my loved ones. Also some stuff about valuing achievement, the dangers of hubris (for everyone), and striking a balance between being ones own self and living in society.
  5. It’s important to be both reverent and irreverent, to not let outrage and anger override one’s principles, to stick together with friends, to value what one is, and to take time to stop and boop someone’s nose. Also that I’m a theist, but not a stodgy or vengeful or orthodox or commercially slick one.

Also, as an overall set of films, I would hope they conveyed a sense of fun, a sense of values and morality, and a desire to balance dedication to society, family, and self, all the while having a good time.

Not sure if that would send a hypothetical SO screaming out the door, especially if I overexplained it all that way, and since I just pulled that list from one video shelf there are possibly others that would work, too, but … there it is.

[h/t +Harold Chester]

 

In Album 10/8/17

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Band Season!

Yesterday was the first competition of the year, hosted by Legacy HS. Had a great time, exercised a lot of muscles that hadn’t been exercised for a while, and are glad that today is a day to sleep in and rest.




AHS Band at Legacy HS Marching Invitational 2017-09-30
46 new photos · Album by Dave Hill

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There’s No Place Like Home

As my wife and daughter insist on reminding me.

I look forward to being there soon.

 

In Album 9/29/17

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Oh, cats

So, so, so true.




I can hear the universe changing – The Oatmeal

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Caturday

Purrl and Kunoichi. (Not sure where Neko was off napping.)

 

In Album 9/17/17

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WE HUNGER!

I think somebodies are expecting dinner.

Now.

#caturday

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Cats Are Cats

This is like our cats in the living room when we’re opening up gifts.

Originally shared by +胡國忠:

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Is your child texting about anarcho-communism?

Parents, be on the lookout! Check your kiddo’s text messages on a regular basis!

(I’d be watching +Kay Hill more closely, but “pink” was never her color.)




BruceS

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“Back in my day …”

Heh.

[h/t +Stan Pedzick, Original http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2017/09/06]

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