Did you have a good Día de Acción de Gracias?

That's Thanksgiving Day in spanish. We went to my father's house and enjoyed the turkey he made. My dad has hosted Thanksgiving for us for a long time now, kind of a tradition. My mom often does a Thanksgiving meal as well, but the acutual day depends on her work schedule, so this year she hosted on Wednesday evening. We live just far enough away that it would have been difficult to make it there since I had to work Wednesday, but fortunately plenty of others made it so her efforts were enjoyed by others.

This weekend was a PlayStation and movie weekend. I recently bought KillSwitch and logged several hours this weekend. It's a pretty cool shoot'em up game. It's very challenging for me, but I've made significant improvement. I can't believe how complicated it is to walk/run and aim/shoot. The directions said that it becomes second nature after some playing time. Hmmm...it's getting close to being second nature for me. Guess I better log more time. It's funny, in one section you have to get from point A to point B in certain amount of time. Well along the way, you have to kill about 25 or more guys who are shooting at you and throwing grenades at you. At first I couldn't make it through the first room because I was so concerned with time and there were at least eight guys shooting at me. I learned eventually that if I just take my time and just relax and stand out in the open and pick them all off one at a time, it's not so bad. I eventually made it through and on to a more difficult section.

The movies we saw were Timeline and The Missing. The first movie wasn't much to brag about, not a thumbs up nor a thumbs down. However, The Missing is really good. Opie directed this one and he did a terrific job, Raquel and I enjoyed it. Clint Howard makes his usual appearance in his brother's film, but it was kind of different, he was actually good (didn't hurt that his screen time was under 5 minutes.

You should be scared.

Last week we went to the dentist. Raquel couldn't get her teeth cleaned because she has a heart murmur (we already knew) and she has to take an antibiotic before the cleaning due to the possibility of infection. This required coordination with the obstetrician to get an approved antibiotic. So we've got the medicine, now we need to make another appointment with the dentist. Who knew a heart murmur could be dangerous for something so common as a trip to the dentist?

Friday night we went to the movies. Gothika is pretty chilling. The theater was packed and the audience was really in to the film, letting out collective gasps and shrieks. This was another movie that I didn't really think I would want to see but Raquel wanted to so we went. I thought it was pretty good.

Saturday, I helped Jerry a little bit. He's been working on his house for years, and this weekend he wanted to get the siding finished. I've never done siding before, so I don't know how much help I really was, but I was there. We stayed for pizza and wings and I played Playstation with Jake. We played football (not sure which version) and he creamed me the first game. I really wasn't sure how to play (meaning what buttons did what) but then Jerry showed me a play. The second game was all mine. I kicked his butt! The poor kid was dealing okay with getting beat, but as the game wore on, I kept scoring and he couldn't do anything. To make matters worse, Jerry and another guy were teasing Jake relentlessly. Suddenly, Jake couldn't take any more and burst into tears and couldn't breath right nor talk. Sound cruel? Well Jake had been talking smack the entire time he beat me the first game, so he was getting a taste of defeat. But I wasn't talking any smack. But in the end, Jake sucked it up and finished the game so he was a trooper in the end.

Sunday we went to see the Looney Toons movie. It was really quite funny, but I got really sleepy while watching it (no reflection on the movie). After the movie, we went to Menard's to buy a toilet snake, you know, one of those roto-rooter things. We were having problems with the sewer backing up into the basement. Yuck. So we bought this 25-foot long snake thing that you connect to a drill. I snaked out a bunch of stuff from the drain, mostly roots. After doing this a few times (and being generally disgusted both from the task and from lack of major success) I gave up.

Today, Roto-Rooter came out and snaked out (with their powerful snake) our sewer to about 110-feet. Now we can flush with confidence.

Aim for the mizzenmast!

So we went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World yesterday. I must say, it is a very impressive movie. It appears they went to great lengths to make it look look authentic. I don't know what made me go see this movie, because the previews didn't make it appealing to me at all. For some reason we went, and I'm glad we did. It's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. The only complaint I have is that the accents took a while to get used to. If you go, keep in mind that it is about two hours and twenty minutes long.

That's all I want to write about. Good night!

Going in circles

A lazy Sunday afternoon. Temperature isn't too bad, but it's damp out. Flipping through broadcast tv and there's not much. NASCAR's final race of the season, so they're going in circles at 170 MPH. Bears vs. Rams on another channel, and neither team is playing well. Golf on another channel, just not interested at the moment.

We're going to see that new Russell Crowe movie, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World today.

Saw Elf last week. It was good. I had Dots.

I love the Budweiser Real Men of Genius commercials. My favorite is Mr. Foot-long-hot-dog Maker. Cuz he gives us what we all really want - a bigger wiener.

I read someone's blog saying that last night's Saturday Night Live was one the worst ever. Hmmm. I thought it was rather funny. I especially liked the way they made fun of the latest Prince Charles scandal. Seems the British press can't come out and directly talk about some accusations about Charles' private life due to libel laws. So this skit talked around the accusations. Another skit was Roy's comeback performance with the same tiger that injured him. I laughed out loud.

We've started work on finishing the attic. Not in any hurry. Before putting in insulation, we need to provide ventilation between the insulation and the roof. We're putting in Styrofoam rafter ventilation channels to begin.

Raquel's belly is getting bigger as Lourdes is growing inside. Everything is going fine with the baby. Raquel hasn't had any problems. She'll still get nauseous every so often, but nothing like the first few months.

Maybe Greg will put me back on his favorites.