Getting "Strand"ed

 I'm not gonna lie. I've been waiting a year for this to happen:

Which 3 movies would you pick?

 Movie Madness is a video store in Portland, Oregon, that has over 90,000 films that members can rent. The knowledgeable staff members display movies on their recommendation shelves. 

Cole selected a nautical theme for his shelf with Uninvited, Deep Rising, Anaconda, Death Ship, and Ghost Ship. 

Ben recommended Battle of the Valiant, Treasure of the Moon Goddess, Short Time, and The Applegates, all on VHS, no less.

Movie Madness also has a state-of-the-art, 18-seat screening room where the public can watch films for free. The employees pick the three different films that they'll screen on Sundays.

We went to see The Pagemaster when we visited Movie Madness, and I was really impressed with the screening room. I was also impressed with the other eclectic movie choices for the day. 

Ninja III: The Domination is about an evil ninja attempting "to avenge his death from beyond the grave by possessing an innocent woman's body", and in Hiruko the Goblin, "Hiruko is a goblin sent to Earth on a reconnaissance mission. He beheads students in order to assemble their heads onto demons' spider-like bodies."

I'm not saying that I want to see Hiruko the Goblin, but I am glad to know that such a film exists, and I'm impressed that someone thought the movie was good enough to share with others. 

Movie Madness cannot advertise on their website what movies they are screening each week due to legal restrictions. You have to sign up for their email newsletter to see what new releases they have acquired, what classes are being taught in the screening room, and what's showing on Sunday. 

I've been receiving the newsletter since May 2022, and I'm always curious to see what's playing each week. The only patterns that I see in the three selections are that the first film is usually a family film, the second film can sometimes be a classic movie like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, and the third movie might be anything, but it's usually rated R.

I think picking out three films for the screening room would be fun, so let's play pretend!

If I had to use my own collection of physical media, then what three films would I choose for the screening room? I went looking for films that I think my friends would approve of, and movies that I would want to see on the big screen. I picked out nine movies for each of the three ratings categories: 1) G or PG, 2) PG-13, and 3) R. Why nine weeks' worth? I'm a teacher, and I think in semesters. Also, I tried to pick movies that could fit a theme for each week. I'll keep my comments brief.

Week 1: Time Travel

Char and I had a surprisingly fun time with Cinderella III: A Twist in Time back in the day. It's also fun to watch Tom Cruise being bad at something over and over again in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Mick Jagger is good at being a bad/good guy in Freejack (1992).

Week 2: Going to School

Sky High (2005) is Harry Potter-adjacent with super powers replacing magic. Charlotte and I think it needed a sequel, but that didn't happen. The Skulls (2000) is an action and crime drama that takes place at Harvard, and this movie got two sequels, and that's not fair. The teachers really are aliens in The Faculty (1998).

Week 3: Going to Camp

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) is a physical comedy classic. If you don't agree, I will fight you. The characters in The Final Girls (2015) find themselves trapped in the fictional cult film, "Camp Bloodbath." This has a surprisingly touching ending. If you tour the real Alcatraz prison, you'll see a sign that reads,“Break the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules, and you go to Alcatraz.” In No Escape (1994), the prisoners who break the rules go to "camp" Absolom.

Week 4: Wheels

Napoleon Dynamite (2004): "Dang! You got shocks, pegs... lucky! You ever take it off any sweet jumps?" I know this is a stretch for a "wheels" theme. Hot Rod (2007): We bought Char a shirt that reads,"I'm jumping the public pool tomorrow. 2 bucks. Tell your friends." She wears her Hot Rod shirt with pride. I scoffed when the remake of Death Race came out in 2008. After finally watching it, I told a friend, "That movie was waaay better than it had to be." He wholeheartedly agreed.

Week 5: Trapped on an Island

I had a student who worked at a video store in 1998. He gave me a 26x40 movie poster for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island when the store was done displaying it. The poster has been displayed in my classroom ever since.  The Jurassic Games (2018) isn't rated, but since the violence takes place on an island in virtual reality, I'll give it a PG-13 rating. It's a low budget blast. Like The Jurassic Games, Battle Royale (2000) is a "last one alive wins" contest. Think of the first Hunger Games (2012), but on meanness steroids. 

Week 6: Character Development

In Rango (2011), Johnny Depp is a chameleon who becomes the hero he was pretending to be. In Billy Madison (1995), Adam Sandler is a 27-year-old man who acts likes he's ten. By the end of the movie, he acts like he's 15. (Char has a "Rirruto" tee-shirt, but none of her friends "get" it. Makes me sad.) In Avengement (2019), Scott Atkins escapes from prison to get revenge on those who turned him into a cold-blooded killer.

Week 7: M and M and M

My Neighbor Totoro  (1998) is a nostalgia pick. Exactly 12 years and one day ago I showed this movie to a feverish little girl named Charlotte who was tired of feeling sick. It was the right medicine then, and I'll always love this movie for that. Plus, Totoro is awesome, but most people know that. The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) is what a really good modern family movie looks like. The cover for Mindhunters (2004) makes it look like it's going to be a police procedural, but it's really a slasher film. 

Week 8: It's a Race to the Finish

Char and I saw Storks (2016) at Flix together when she was in 1st grade, but this isn't a nostalgia pick; Storks is legitimately funny. I like Breaking Away (1979) so much I wrote a literary unit on internal conflict just so I could show this movie to my English classes. At the climax, fists would be thrown in the air, and once a girl yelled, jumped out of her seat, and danced around in a circle. This story about townies competing against rich college kids won an Oscar for best screenplay, and it shows. The Tournament (2009) pits 30 professional assassins against each other for a ten million dollar prize for the last one standing. The Tournament deserves the R rating, and I deserve to watch this again tonight. It's been that kind of a week.

Week 9: Masks

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm actually had a theatrical release in 1993, but like most people I didn't see it in the theater. I'd like to fix that. This ranks as one of the best Batman productions ever. The Wraith (1986) is a supernatural revenge film packed with some of the most bitchin' cars, music, and fashions that the 80's had to offer. The killer wears a racing helmet with the visor down, so I'm counting that as a mask. The 5 Deadly Venoms (1978)  is a classic martial arts flick ranked #11 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time." That says enough right there... love that Shaw Brothers' "SB" logo in the opening of their movies. 

Okay, that's a wrap. It's time to take these movies down to the basement and put them back on the shelf. This was fun, though.

Still curious. Which 3 movies would you pick?

We're with the Band... and with anything else she chooses to do

"Well, if you like burgers, give 'em a try some time. Me, I can't usually get them 'cause my girlfriend's a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian." Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction

I like how Samuel L. Jackson delivers that piece of dialog, and I quote it quite a bit when people ask me how things at the high school are going. I'll say, "Well, you know that line in Pulp Fiction when Sam Jackson says... ? Well, Char is in marching band right now which pretty much means we're all in marching band right now." I'm usually talking to another a parent, and they'll know exactly what I mean. 

When your kid is in an activity, then you're mostly in it, too. 

Daphne and I aren't on the marching field, but we are with the band. 

If Char marched at the Friday night football game, then Daphne and I watched the half-time show from the sidelines. That's because we volunteered to pull and/or carry something on and off the field before and after the show. We also pulled and pushed multiple things back to the band room. Daphne and I did this at some of the Saturday marching band competitions, too. We even spent six hours in the concessions stand the Urbandale Marching Invitational. 

Volunteering is a big time commitment, but it's worth it because Char loves marching band. She has said so many times. 

I was discussing this with Charlotte's Japanese teacher when he said, "Yeah, about that time commitment. You know we have the Japanese exchange coming up, and I'm still looking for host families..." 

To make a long story short: Char is a student taking Japanese, so Daphne and I all took in two Japanese students for a week. 

My challenge is posting about their visit without showing pictures of their faces. (I didn't ask for their permission because that would have been weird.) So, we'll see how this goes. For the purpose of this post, I shall refer to the Japanese students as "the girls."

The students from Owa High School arrived via a bus from Chicago on a Tuesday afternoon. 

The Japanese students were 16 and 17 years old. I don't normally take pictures of shoes, but I liked how the girls lined them up when they would get home from school. Char's shoes are on the left.

Here the girls (including Ellie) are taking a break from carving pumpkins. They're watching Spirited Away. Char's head is on the left.

For two girls who had never carved a pumpkin before, their results were quite impressive. Char's pumpkin is on the left.

The girls wanted to experience a high school football game, so we moved movie night from Friday to Saturday. We checked out a couple of Blu-rays from the Urbandale Public Library, and I was impressed  with the number of languages that were available on each release. We watched The Lost City in Japanese with English subtitles. I think they liked it. It was hard to tell because they were so polite.

School activities for the girls included touring our state capitol and spending a day at Living History Farms. We took them to a Spirit Halloween store, Char's church youth group, Char's evening percussion party at school, a volleyball "tournament" where the girls got to play, a Leo Club tailgate, the football game, the Downtown Farmers' Market, the Pappajohn Sculpture Park, the Jordan Creek Mall, Sunday morning church, and the Hurt's Donut Co.  

The girls liked the doughnuts, but they later admitted they wanted to go for ice cream instead. That was an easy fix. We hit up a Baskins-Robbins on Sunday after church. I really like the retro VHS design on the Hurts Doughnut Company's boxes. 

I'm pretty sure the box's slogan, "It's a Jelly", is a reference to the movie Strange Brew.

Wow. Bob and Doug MacKenzie. That takes me back. But I digress...

Daphne bought a Halloween Witches' Tower Cookie kit for the girls to assemble.  Here are the parts for the kit.

And here is how they did. Looks good!

The girls were with us for six nights, and to be honest, it would have been okay if they stayed a few days more. All three seemed to become more and more comfortable with each other as time passed. By the last night, they were really having fun just hanging out and playing online games.

That went on for an hour and a half. Good times.

Hosting was a big time commitment, but it was worth it because Char loved having the girls stay with us. She has said so many times. I think the girls liked being with us as well. They both wrote very nice thank you notes in both English and Japanese, and Char has heard from both of them since they returned home.

High school activities. You don't pick them when you're a parent. They pick you. 

It's okay.

Oh Man, I Should Have Stretched Out First

You know that feeling you get in your legs when you've been sitting for a long time, and then you stand up and take a few stiff strides across the restaurant's floor or through a parking lot to get to a bathroom? 

No? Well, then you must not be old. But if you do, then you know what my mind feels like right now. I haven't written anything in months, and now the process is slow and slightly painful. There are all kinds of ways you can get out of shape. Instead of the gym, I need to go to the blog for a mental workout. 

Like taking those first arduous steps, the hardest part of writing for me is simply starting. The ideas swirl around in my head like fall leaves in a strong wind. I can't pin any one down. 

I need to stop complaining and just start typing...

Okay, let's see. What have we been doing?

Charlotte is a drummer in the high school band, and now she's busier than ever. Char has early morning marching band practices, after school band lessons, evening percussion sectionals, and evening jazz band practices. Then there are the home football game performances on Friday nights, and marching band competitions on Saturdays - both at which Daphne and I volunteer to help move the pit on and off the field. Band... it's a family affair. When marching band is done, Char's jazz band practices will move to mornings, she'll have concert band during the school day, and her show choir practices (she drums for a group) will move to the evenings. Sports have seasons. Band runs all year long. 

I'm just glad that she is enjoying herself so much. When I asked, "How was your first marching competition?"

"Fire." was her one-word reply

When we're not driving Char to and from school/band, Daphne enjoys her sewing room and our kitchen. I enjoy my basement and our garage. Here's my latest garage project's before pic:

It's a Mongoose Hilltopper SX from 1997 (I think). Where it's at: I've got two flat tires and the grips are blown" (my apologies to Beck). I'm guessing Goodwill was only asking $15 for this bike because the index shifters weren't working, one pedal's toe clip was broken, the locked bike lock had no combination, and everything else was dirty, oily, or greasy.

That, my friends, can all be fixed.

Besides, it was sporting a bike shop sticker. That means this bike had been in the hands of a professional who was proud enough of their work to put their name on it. My guess is that Wayne Donohue assembled this bicycle sometime before he closed his shop in 2002. He owned and operated his business for 12 years, and I bet he knew his stuff (info provided by Linked In).

I've seen people on YouTube fix shifters like these with a can of WD-40 or B'laster. The idea is that the original factory grease in the shifters has become sticky, and the little pawls that help pull the cable are stuck in place. The old grease needs to be flushed out and new lube needs to be sprayed in.  

I pumped up the tires and then went shopping.

I found this generic-looking can of "Spray Lubricant" at our local Dollar Tree (which now charges $1.25 for everything). I'm impressed with this stuff. I used the thin straw that's taped to the can to shoot lube into the insides of each shifter housing. Then I flicked the shifter levers back and forth until the sticky pawls started catching. Both shifters took about 15 minutes to come back to life.

The tires were still holding air, and the brakes seemed to be okay, so I put on a helmet and took a slow test drive... alright! I had a bicycle that would go, stop, and shift. I could have stopped there and put the bike up for sale for a quick flip. But what's the fun in that?

I removed the toe clips, broken and whole, from the pedals. Then I used Super Glue Mounting Tape (also from the Dollar Tree) to adhere the toe clip's reflector to the "blank" sides of the pedals. That doesn't look too bad, and the mounting tape seems pretty solid.

 

For now I'm using these pedals that I bought for another bike, but didn't use. I think the pedal's blue does an okay job of matching the blue on the shocks and the kickstand.

I was surprised that this chain was not worn out. It was just dry and dirty. The same goes for the derailleurs, the cogs, and the chainrings. Those and the cables were cleaned and lubed after this pic was taken.

After a thorough cleaning and a lengthy tune-up, I added a new bell and new grips. 

Kickstands are pretty handy when you are moving stuff around a crowded garage. The pedals and the kickstand are from Amazon.

"Small Block Eight" reminds me of being a teenager with magazine subscriptions to Hot Rod and Car Craft. These 26x2.1 tires came from China via AliExpress. 

This stem cap, also from AliExpress, reminds me that my favorite holiday is right around the corner.

I think the cap is the rug that really ties the room together. 

A previous owner had a stem extender installed (I bet Mr. Donohue did the installation). That and the fat tires make the Mongoose comfortable to ride. I really enjoy bombing down our hill into our cul-de-sac. 

Speaking of tires... I liked the Small Block Eight tires so much I ordered another 26x2.1 pair for another bike, but I forgot to get tubes for those tires. But look what I found at Goodwill last week:

Trust me. This is weird. How often do you go into a thrift store and find exactly what you wanted? These tubes are the right size and have never been used.

Sure, they're older than my teaching career, but I think these tubes will be just fine. If they blow, I'll let you know.

Here's the "finished" bike. I did the math, and it owes me $110. Or $85 if I go back to the o.g. pedals. Either way, that's pretty cheap for how many times the Mongoose has made me smile. This isn't a bicycle that's going to make anyone jealous, but I won't be embarrassed to park it in front of our local brewery. 

Whoops, I almost forgot. I was able to figure out the combination to that bike lock by pulling it taut and turning the wheels at the same time. Sheesh. These locks really aren't very good. Although I suppose they could slow down a thief that didn't have bolt cutters in their pocket.

Okay. I feel better. I feel better just for getting off the couch and mentally working out for a bit. I probably should wait until tomorrow before I hit the "publish" button. I'm sure I made some grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes that I would catch later.

Nah. I'm gonna push it.

No Ball is an Island (update, again)

  November 18, 2019:

 You can see the baseball field at the end of the hallway on the second floor of UHS.

You can also see the top of this small roof.

Last year a foul ball landed on that small roof. The lonely baseball sat there during the summer, fall, winter, and spring. I'm sure the custodians are too busy to worry about retrieving it. I had thought about taking a picture of the ball during all four seasons. I've seen it covered in leaves and in snow. I suppose I didn't take the pictures because I felt a little sad for that baseball.

The ball was still there in August for its second year of school, but this time things are different.

Everybody needs a friend...

Update November 9, 2020: 

... or two.

Update March 28, 2023: 

... or three. 

"Hey guys, got room?'

Update September 3, 2024:

... or four. Glad to see they're keeping themselves hydrated. 

My Last Day of School Theory

I'm not a negative guy, but I do count down how many days of a vacation I have spent versus how many vacation days I have left. So, if I'm on a 10-day vacation, I go to bed thinking something like How can it be Thursday night already? We only have three days left...

But I won't be thinking that tonight!

Char was done with school last Friday, but the teachers in the Urbandale School District had to make up three snow days. That's okay with me. I remember how excited Char was for those snow days. They were worth it.

So, I'll leave the building at 3:30 and my '23-'24 school year will come to an end. And here's my theory about that: I don't think I'm officially on summer vacation until the calendar flips the page at midnight tonight.

So? 

Well, that means everything that happens this afternoon and evening is a freebie. I don't have work tomorrow, but I won't have spent even one second of summer vacation until 12:00 AM. 

And that feels pretty good.