Works in Progress

An aftershock from Aerospace is the creation of two (!) sites hosted by weebly.com. The first will be my personal collection of miscellanea (wow, spellcheck didn't even have to chide me on that one) including a link to this blog, things that tickle my fancy, my genealogy scraps, etc. The second is a resource for my students that will hopefully serve as an enrichment resource to the daily/weekly lessons. The potential is there for podcasts as well, if I am in an extremely outgoing mood. Find the first at cmparry.weebly.com and the second at mrparry.weebly.com.

The neck is progressing. Doctor was nice, did some muscle resistance tests and then x-rays, explained that there were no obvious compressions, but only an MRI would show enough detail. However, my insurance won't cover it on a first visit unless there is trauma. So he loaded me up with some steroids, anti-inflammatory pain meds (when they say may cause drowsiness, and two pills at bedtime keep me from coming fully conscious until 9:30 the next day, well yeah). Two days in and I seem to have more neck mobility and a lot less nerve pain, so this could be the ticket.

2008 seems to be the summer of movies, many based on pretty decent comic book characters. So far have done Iron Man (highly recommended earlier), Hulk (quite a fun movie, Ed Norton is enough of a reason to watch it), Wanted (the comic was different, and I think better, but they turned this into a decent high-energy action flick), Indiana Jones (as good as expected, you make the call how high your expectations are), and today Wall-E, which was very cute Pixar stuff. Soon to come (and, mind you, these are the movies I plan to see...I have already seen more movies this summer than in any prior year post-college) Hellboy, Hancock, Dark Knight. There are few others with interesting trailers, but not interesting enough to make me salivate. Don't get me started with Watchmen for next summer.

Lots of reading. LOTS. Cruised through The Last Lecture, and enjoyed it. It gave me a bit of perspective on the way I live my life, compared to how this man lives his. Interesting to juxtapose his diagnosis/situation with prior clinical depressions of my own, and how I would live differently (or similarly to him) if death were imminent. Brings a lot of questions to mind vis a vis people in high risk jobs (police, fire, military). The thoughts generated from the book (which I will probably buy when it hits paperback - this is the impact it made) dovetail nicely with the shift in my world view from endless repetition of the same thing to hopefulness that the future holds something worthwhile and that I am not locked into my life as it currently stands. Mostly it has to do with my job and the city, so nobody panic yet.

Also read Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind) as it was on somebody's list of books to read before you die and have to admit you didn't read them at the pearly gates or something. Didn't know it started a series, but should have guessed. So now the second book is in my pile, waiting for my attention.

About to fire up the grill. Funny, I never knew the little folded metal vanes that distribute the heat in my grill could corrode, but years (yes years) of meat drippings, flare ups, etc. have eroded some to instability. Next year might have to replace them, and the grill bars, too. Nice the Weber has all this stuff available, so I don't have to scrap the whole grill and upgrade. Weather here sucks. Walking outside is like walking into an indoor pool. The air is saturated, you can literally smell the moisture, and you get an instant sweat. Hoping the radiational cooling at sunset will generate a storm or two to cool things off.