Scooter Chronicles

Marcia and I had one of those “first time” things happen last night, or should I saw early this morning. At about 12:45 Nigel woke up and started crying. There have been a time or two over the last year that he would do this. He usually goes right back to sleep quickly. But this morning he kept crying. I finally went in to check on him.

His voice had been squeaky all day, like he was coming down with something. We had given him something earlier in the day, and it seemed to help. So Marcia went and got it for him again while I changed his diaper. But a minute after he took the medicine, he threw up. So we ended up having to throw things into the washer (which needed to be rinsed off before going in), getting him...

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FINALLY!

Marcia and I wanted to take him for his second birthday. We kept saying next weekend, or in a couple of weeks. Before we knew it, it was June. As it is, we are closer now to his third birthday. Also, unlike before where Nigel was really gung-ho or at least cooperative, this time around he was scared of the lights. (The photographers said this usually happens between 2 and 3, and if not being scared of things, just not wanting to sit for them.) Thankfully we brought along some of his trains and train books to help calm him down and get him interested in sitting. They ended up in most, if not all, of the photos.

So here are a few that turned out well.

...

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On Friday afternoon I finished reading “The Brief Life of Oscar Wao”, the debut novel by Junot Diaz, which also won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

From Publishers Weekly, a review by Matthew Sharpe will have to serve as a plot synopsis for my review:

A reader might at first be surprised by how many chapters of a book entitled The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao are devoted not to its sci fi–and–fantasy-gobbling nerd-hero but to his sister, his mother and his grandfather. However, Junot Diaz’s dark and exuberant first novel makes...

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Well, almost that is.

Marcia has been encouraging him to sit on the kiddie potty we bought for him a while ago. And more recently she bought his some pull-ups, too. But today he took his first real steps towards using it. At one point yesterday he pointed to the front of his pants (as he has been doing lately when he has been “going”), and then ran for the bathroom. Marcia got his pants and pull-ups down, but he had already gone in them. But he still sat down and got a little more to come out and into the potty. Needless to say I was very happy to hear that when I came home from work.

Potty training is one of the things that I dread doing. Not being sure what to do and how to approach it. But at the rate...

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On Sunday afternoon, thanks to my Mother-In-Law babysitting Nigel, Marcia and I snuck out to see the movie version of “Get Smart” starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Dwayne (”The Rock”) Johnson, and Terence Stamp.

The plot is pretty basic. Control is trying to stop KAOS from, well, creating chaos. This time it’s nuclear bombs distributed to different countries by Siegfried (Stamp). Maxwell Smart (Carell) is Control’s top analyst, and though he has recently passed the test to become an agent, doesn’t get the promotion because the Chief (Arkin) doesn’t want to...

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On Saturday Marcia and I watched “Scarecrow” starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. (Yes, our “Pacino-Fest” is nearing it’s end … still need to watch “Serpico”.)

The movie was done in 1973, between Pacino’s appearances in the first two part of “The Godfather”. It follows Max (Hackman) and Frances, aka Lion (Pacino) as two drifters thumbing their way from the western US to Pittsburgh and Detroit. Max has money in Pittsburgh to start a car wash after serving six years in jail, and Lion is heading to Detroit to see the child he has never met after spending...

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The only reason this has really caught my attention is because we have been watching a lot of episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine narrated by him the past couple of weeks. (He is better then Ringo Starr or Alec Baldwin … though Baldwin isn’t really bad, just not as good.) Marcia got a couple of collection for Nigel this weekend and made a point of getting at least one that was done by Carlin. Strange how things like that happen.

Over a month ago we had been watching another train video with Nigel and there was a folk song at the end of one of them that had been growing on me. I looked the song up only to find out that the songwriter had died the week before.

I can’t say I was a huge fan of Carlin, but always...

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Collective Soul - “Collective Soul”

Tracks:

1. Simple
2. Untitled
3. The World I Know
4. Smashing Young Man
5. December
6. Where the River Flows
7. Gel
8. She Gathers Rain
9. When the Water Falls
10. Collection of Goods
11. Bleed
12. Reunion

This is the band’s second album, from 1994, but it was the single “Shine” from their debut album the year prior that brought Collective Soul into mine, and everyone else’s consciousness. I saw them twice for free before the release of this album. I liked what...

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On Father’s Day Marcia and I watched “Dark City” starring Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, Keifer Sutherland, William Hurt, and Richard O’Brien.

Thanks to Chris Makrozahopoulos and IMDB for the plot description:

John’s life has become a nightmare. He (Sewell) is hunted by the police (Hurt) for a series of murders he knows nothing about, a woman (Connelly) who claims to be his wife is after him, and so is a mysterious “doctor” (Sutherland). But his worst trouble is the Strangers, a series of vastly powerful beings who seem to manipulate just about everything in the...

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Back on Saturday afternoon Marcia and I watched the movie “Strangers With Candy” starring Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert most notably.

For those that don’t know, this movie is a prequel for the TV series. Sedaris plays Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old ex-junkie, ex-con, that goes back to high school to start her life over. In the movie she is spurred on to do this because her father is in a coma that was brought on by trauma, and the shock of her doing something good with her life may bring him out of it.

I never watched the series, though I knew what it was about. And...

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