One of the first Egg Bros Inc vids

This is one of the first Egg Bros Inc Videos. I made it about a year ago after I attended a friends baby shower. It is, as always, a little rough.

I have posted it at the request of some of my coworkers.

Yep - I'm going to try the NaNoWriMo again. 50,000 words in thirty days.

I only made it to 15,000 words last year. I had kids at home all the time. This year, the kids will be at the program center until 7 four days a week, so I should be able to find more time to write.

If you are interested, you should check out the website. If you decide to write, let me know so we can suffer together.

Concert!!

The concert was six hours long! The line up was Seether, Collective Soul, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, and LIVE. It is the only concert I have been at where I was hollered a for standing. I also had beer thrown on me. I have had that happen before; just never thrown on me because I was standing at a rock concert.

The weather was summer weather. Due to a late start, Jerry and I did not have much time to tailgate. We did get lucky enough to park next to truck that was playing the Penn State game. We were, for a short time, the Penn State HQ at Hershey. Everyone who walked by just needed to know what the score was. Shame we didn't have a portable white board. We could have posted the score and avoided unnecessary conversations that cut into my pre-show tailgating feast.

Seether was just opening the show as Jerry and I made our way into the stadium. It was very sunny and warm. The crowd was happy. Jerry watched our seats while I went to get the requisite concert t-shirts (let's not ask how much). Then I went and bought the infamous six-dollar beer. That's about 25 cents an ounce. Uumm, uummm. Good beer.

Seether only had a 35 minute set before they had to leave the stage. It took about 20 minutes for the next band, Collective Soul, to be set up. They played for nearly 50 minutes before another break. Three Days Grace set-up and started playing.

It was during this third performance that things got whacky in the stands. I picked the front row of section six because it is above the crowd and I have a railing to lean on while I'm standing. Every concert I have been to, the audience stands and goes nuts while the band is rockin' away. As I get older, I like having something to lean on. Apparently the lady (well, she wasn't acting very lady like) behind us a row or two bought stand tickets so she could sit. I'd like to think that she was older than I, but I probably beat her by a decade.

She starts demanding that I, Jerry, and the 5 or so other people in front of her sit down so that she can see. If we wanted to stand, she informed us rudely, we should have gotten tickets on the ground. Jerry remained calm. The girls to his right did not. They told the . . lady (I don't really know why I feel compelled to censor this) to . . . be quite. (OK - they told the f***in B**ch to shut up.)

The lady continued to go on a tirade, trying to gain support from other less enthused members of the stands. Some jumped into the shouting, but most just ignored her. I think I may have asked her something stupid like "why do you think they call this the 'stands'?" or something. Then to further irritate her, Jerry had one of the girls climb up on his shoulders in order to further block this woman's view.

That is about when it started to rain beer. And at 25 cents an ounce, it was a very expensive shower.

I don't know what happened to the lady. Two of the girls went down on the stadium floor and asked for security. Eventually, after the yellow shirt security person contacted a red shirt security person, who in turn found a 'suit', the 'suit' said he didn't have the time to go up into the stands to deal with a crazy woman. He told the girls to go get her friends and he would let them go up to the stage.

By the beginning of the Breaking Benjamin set, Jerry and his new friends were about 5 rows back from the stage taking in the concert. I was happy to stay in the stands and, well . . . stand.

I was thrilled when Jerry came back and said he liked LIVE. He originally thought that they would be 'gay'. Turned out he really liked them. He listened to them in the car on the trip home as well.

Concert!!!

Jerry and I went to see Seether, Collective Soul, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, and LIVE at the Hershey Stadium.



More on the concert in the next post.

In case you didn't hear

Steelers 2-0
Eagles 0-2

The Pig Roast Video or Worst Music Video Ever!

It took a while, but I finally put together a short video from the pig roast. I didn't have a lot of video to work with and I decided to use Michael singing. Most of you won't get it, but I do; and that is all that matters.

What a great weekend

Pig Roast and Trace's Birthday party were wonderful, but let me mention the other excitement from this weekend --



Penn State beats Notre Dame! Roar!



Then Pittsburgh beats Cleveland! Wooo Whooo!



Then, to make it the perfect weekend -
Eagles get BEAT by Green Bay! Yessss!

A&P vs College Student Parody on YouTube

First - Read the article in the Daily Item.

http://www.dailyitem.com/lifestyles/local_story_241084310.html

Then my response -

I have just read an article picked up in my local paper about your companies suit against the D’Avella brothers. I have not watched the video that they produced. But your heavy handed over-reaction has piqued my interest and I may have to see if I can find the parody on the web.

I do not shop at your grocery chain. There are no A&Ps near where I live.

The article in my paper (Sunbury Daily Item) stated that your company has “at least one” customer who was offended enough by the video to no longer shop at our store. “At least one”? How many really were offended? Two? Three? A dozen? “At least one” is deliberately vague.

How many customers must you lose to make it worth all of the legal fees that you will incur by pursuing charges against these young men?

Frankly, your reaction to this situation is more distressing than any video spoof could be. Your over-reaction will likely disenfranchise you from your customer base more than these young men’s video.

I hate Apple

I had this great idea to use CNN Student news (I know, it sounds like I've sold out to the enemy. But FOX doesn't provide a student news program) in the morning at Bethesda/PATH. So Sunday night I download the news and try to xfer it to my Zen.

Error. Try again. Error.

Four in the morning and I'm still trying to resolve why my video converter will not work. No luck.

Tonight I finally find a discussion group that addressed this problem. Seems like Apple set up the latest version of Quicktime so that it would crash my Creative Video Converter.

I deleted Quicktime and installed a shareware version. Now everything is working fine. Yippee!

Silly Motivational Posters

Court Inequality

Well, I only had 5 responses to the poll. I posted it because of a court case in Perry County. The few Poll results I did get were what I expected. People seem to agree that people should get relatively stiff penalties for having sex with children.

What concerns me is the double standard. In Perry County, a 24 year old woman received a 3 to 18 month suspended sentence for having sex with a 14 year old boy. She is also a the mother of a baby boy. The baby is the son of the 14 year old boy. The judge (Kathy Morrow) doesn't want the baby to suffer from separation from the mother. Hence the lean (non-existent) sentence. I suppose the message is, ladies, if your going to have sex with a minor, make sure you get knocked up.

What if the roles were reversed. If the 24 year old were the father, he wouldn't get out of jail until the baby was 20 years old. I know that the role of the father is just as important as the role of the mother. Why do we treat the sexes difference in these cases?

Trace's First Christmas

A quick video I made off of a friends video. Her husband is stationed out of the country. I'm posting it here so that he can view it, but you can watch it too.

Baby Goes Boom breaks a Grand

One of my first editing jobs just broke 1000 hits on YouTube. Check out "Baby Goes Boom" on My YouTube and help make this video go big.

Knoebel's

Instead of posting the second half of the cooking vid (which can be watched on my YouTube Channel) I'm posting our Knoebel's Trip Video.

Cooking With Courtland

Junior's boys are in for a week or so. As promised, we filmed Courtland cooking. We stayed simple - spaghetti, meatballs, veggies dip, rice krispie treats. The whole video is a bit long, so it is in two parts. Here is part one of Cooking With Courtland --

Paintball Warriors

Mia and her gang all bought paintball guns. We decided to take them out for a test game on some of Frank's family property. Pretty exciting. No serious casualties. And I can still hold my own with my Tippman Pump Gun.

Dan and I worked real well together and managed to flank our opponents fairly regularly. Jerry - no surprise here - was a super athlete. He was a one man paintball killing machine.

Hopefully everyone will want to continue playing and we can get out again soon.

TV Widget

Added a TV Widget to my MySpace.

Get your own widget.

New Section Finished on My MySpace

I've finished adding the music section to my MySpace. I tried to get a sample of bands I like, but not necessarily the most known songs by the artist or band.

Ocean City MD

We left Wednesday morning on a semi-spontaneous trip to the shore. The ride down was great. No traffic jams, construction, or any other problems. We made it to the shore by lunch.

I spent most of my time reading on the beach or flying my kites. Jerry bought a body board and beat himself up with it in the surf. He also went to H2O, the only under-21 club in OC, in the evenings. He had a great time at the club and it was probably the highlight of the trip for him so far.

Today we head north to Rehoboth Beach.

Vacation Time

Going on vacation. Jerry and I are leaving this AM and will return early next week. Stay tuned for updates.

Simpsonized?

I fell for the marketing ploy. I sent my picture to the "Simpsonizer" and this is what I look like after I get squashed into two-dimensions.


Not a horrible un-likeness. I think I look better than Jerry.
Well - in two-dimensions anyway.

Have not seen the movie yet, but plan to soon.

Can this be real?

I don't follow the sports drama, much. I was sad to hear about the assistant coach who was killed by a line drive. I heard that an NBA official is alleged to be helping 'fix' over/unders (I just except that sports betting is corrupt). And Vic got busted for fighting dogs.

Here is a supposedly true copy of the court document. It is from SLATE and I suspect it is the real deal.



You may have to blow up the image. Note the top of the complaint. The Defendants are "approximately 53 pit bulldogs". This concerns me. How do pit bulldogs get a legal standing and why are they on the defense? And why 'approximately'? Could the officials involved in this search and seizure not count? Apparently not. The top of the third page of the document says they found 54 pit bulldogs. Maybe it is 'approximately' because they don't want to make it appear that all of the dogs are defendants. Maybe some of them were just visiting and not involved in the fighting.

Shouldn't Vic be the defendant? Does anyone think Vic is going to lose in the end?

Hey - It is our tax dollars at work.

Picnic Video

I got just a wee bit bored tonight.

So I made a short video (mostly of the kids) from the picnic. I used Sting because (of course) I just went to the concert and it seemed apropos.

Enjoy!

Picnic and mini-graduation

Thanks to Nicole Bingaman, we managed to pull together a summer picnic for the Milton Program Center. We also had a short but meaningful graduation ceremony for Jerry (who passed his GED this Spring). We had a great turn-out and I thank everyone for showing their support for Jerry.

Mr. Jim and Ms. Nicole both said a few words of recognition. Mr. Jim recalled Jerry's academic efforts. Ms. Nicole commented on how much Jerry has grown in his heart. She also gave him a 'HOPE' hoody.

Jerry impressed everyone with his comments. He thanked everyone for their help in getting him to where he is in his life right now. He spoke very well and with sincere emotion. He even remembered to thank Mia and I.

The Police 2007 - 2008 World Tour

Saw them!!!
It was everything I expected and a bit more. I figured that they would sound good. I knew I would enjoy the show. I was surprised at how enthused The Police were and how the enthusiasm carried through the crowd.

The opening act was "Fiction Plane". My brother had already explained to me that "Fiction Plane" was a band lead by Sting's son, Joe Sumner. Even without that knowledge, it would have been likely that I would have figured that out on my own. He looks and sounds like his father in many ways, with enough of a shift to not sound like a young version of his dad. Fiction Plane is a band that will go far with or without the support of "The Police".

I could go into a long list of what I liked about the concert and detail how the show went, but Kira Schlechter of the Patriot-News wrote a near perfect article. The only additional comment I would have made is that it was great to hear (and watch) Andy Summers do solos. Back in the 80's, he never got to do that. I suppose it was because it would not have fit the Punk feel of the band.

Of course, the best part of the concert was that I went to see it with my brother and sister-in-law. We get to spend so little time together. It was great to be able to take most of a day and just go do something without being interrupted. And if your going to go do something, well . . . It might as well be watching the Police back together again.

Athletic Shorts

Chris Crutcher returns to some of his characters from other books. This collection is a quick read. Crutcher shows that he is able to capture the same intensity that he does in his novels in short stories. Read the other books first.

I read the book today. I did skip one of the stories with a character from another one of the novels, 'running loose', until I get a chance to read it.

It was a wonderful day to lay outside and read. I read the first half of the book this morning while sitting on my porch. I finished reading the book at the Selinsgrove pool.

Went to a friends for dinner. All-in-all, A real kickback kinda day.

Death of the Flicker Widget

I decided to ex-nay the Flickr widget. Picasa is working just fine and it will save a little loading time on the blog.

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called blog badge. Make your own badge here.

So - So Long and thanks for the pictures little widget.

Cell Phone Angst

I don't remember if I mentioned this before. On our way back from New Hampshire we stopped at a rest stop (well, several rest stops). I was amazed when I walked into the rest stop following an older gentleman talking on his cellphone. He wasn't on any fancy remote or bluetooth. He was just carrying it in his hand. He managed to undo his pants, pee, and zip himself up, while carrying on his conversation. I don't remember if he washed his hands.

WHAT THE H#@L IS SO IMPORTANT! Couldn't it have waited?

I wrote about going out to dinner last night. I didn't mention the cell phones. At one point in the evening, there were six people on cell phones just in our section. I took notice, because every time a cell phone rang, Junior and my kid would go for their cell phones to see if the were ringing.

AGAIN - WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT?!

I'm vowing right know - this evening - to leave my cell phone at home as often as possible. Or at least turn it off when I am not at home or work. How did we become so dependent on these things? It is no wonder we have so many ADHD people. "I want it and I want it now!", even if it is to talk to someone. Crazy.

Lazy Saturday

The day got off to a slow start.

After lunch, Junior stopped in and said he wanted to go fishing. We packed up the car and went to the Montour Preserve. We fished there for about an hour and caught nothing.

Then we headed through Turbotville and followed the road leaving town to the river. Somewhere between Montgomery and Dewart we found a path that led down to the river. It was also near an old railroad bridge.

Jerry and I swam out to the railroad bridge piers and fished in some deep holes. We could see some big fish, but didn't catch any monsters. We did catch a few keeper sized, although we didn't keep them.

We fished until 6:30. We cleaned up quick at the apartment and went to Bonanza for dinner.

Now, I can eat a lot. So can Jerry. (I'm fat and he is a growing boy/young man). But Junior put us both to shame. He ate four full plates from the buffet and two 10oz. steaks. He skipped the french fries, but did eat the baked potato. What a monster appetite!

Whale Talk

I have always been a fan of "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes" by Chris Crutcher. Whale Talk has a far stronger emotional punch. I cannot recall the last time I read a book that had me in tears as I finished reading it. I often look for the characters I identify with when I read a book. In Whale Talk, I also found myself identifying my real students with the characters in the book.

Maybe my view on this book is skewed by my own life circumstance. I will say it is the best book I have read this year. Cheers to Chris Crutcher.

HALO or MySpace

Seeking to find a higher level of geekiness, my kid and I MySpaced each other while sitting in the same room. Nerds!

But is it much different than playing head-to-head HALO with two xboxs?

We may not have been shooting guns at each other, but we were taking shots at each other. And the audience is bigger. If you keep everything in the 'comments', other people can follow along or get involved in the battle of words and wit.

Still, the effects are better on HALO and the soundtrack is better.

Order of the Pheonix

Went to see Harry with Jerry and his girl, Ms. Hedder, and Ang. We saw it at the Campus Theater in Lewisburg and it was a good crowd. Applause at the end of the movie.

The movie was well done. Being the largest of the novels, I didn't expect that it would have every part of the book in the movie. It didn't. But it may have been the best movie yet for catching the 'feel' of the book. Umbridge's character was very well played. The movie kept a brisk pace. It wasn't as thrill packed as Transformers or Die Hard, but it never lost my interest.

The sets and effects captured the magic of Harry Potter perfectly. The movie transported me to a different world for over two hours and entertained. Well worth the ticket.

Big Red Button

More Games at arcadecabin.com | Cool Generators

Transformers

Wow! Went to see Transformers last night. What a fun movie. A little light on story, the action more than made up for plot problems. The effects - well - this is the best effects movie yet.

I was impressed by the number of big names involved in this movie. Many directors, producers, and writers mention how they loved comics as kids. Apparently many of them also loved the Transformers.

A big screen 'must'. Do not wait for this one to come out on DVD. It won't be near as good on the small screen.

Long Pond

Monday

Todd had to work. Janine took Jerry to Long Pond and they went fishing in the canoe. I didn't get many pictures. I watched Sam.




Once again, Jerry did great with Sammy. Did I mention that Sam is only ten months old? He is a bruiser.

Egg Bros Inc

Todd and I spent most of the day working on a project for one of his friends. There is a wedding for their daughter next week and the family wanted to do something special. The parents wrote lyrics for a song. My brother helped compose the music and the mom, Martha, sang the lyrics. My brother played the guitar and mixed the music. I received lots of pictures and some VHS dubs to make the video. It is the first Egg Bros Inc project outside of the family.

Downside. It took all day and part of the night.

Upside. We know it was a success. Martha was crying after she watched the video. I'm so proud of our project. Todd and I work well together.

I might get eatin' by a bear

Jerry spent his evenings worrying about getting eatin by a bear or other creatures.

Deputy Sheriff Eck and Baby Sam

Stayed at my brother's last night. We all slept in. The baby kept my brother and sister-in-law awake. Janine made a wonderful breakfast. Then Todd, Jerry, and I went off to Todd's office and then the rifle range. Todd wanted to practice some.

It was a good opportunity to give Jerry a taste of what he might get to do if he joins the military. Jerry is talking about the Marines. I would be just as happy if he went into the Army or Navy.

Janine grilled some steaks and burgers for dinner. And again, it was wonderful.


Jerry spent some time with his 'cousin' Sam. Sam liked Jerry a lot. I think Jerry will make a great father someday. He did really well with Sam.

Ruggle's Mine

Jerry talked me into taking him to the Ruggle's Mine. It was a bit pricey ($20 each) to get into the quarry. We did get a bucket of rocks with some small gems in them.


That little speck in the middle of the above picture is Jerry.

Now we need to find a tumbler.

Sculpted Rocks Swimming Hole

Second Day of New Hampshire Trip

Went to a swimming spot called Sculpted Rocks. Turned out to be a great day to go swimming. The weather was the best we would experience on the trip. Made a video. You get to watch it.

Leaving for New Hampshire

Took off this morning for New Hampshire for a short vacation.

Saw a car wreck just in front of us on the way up. We were in New York and a car zipped across both lanes from left to right and into the grass. Jerry and I stopped to help. The car that went off the road backed up onto the road and took off. Before we could merge back into traffic, a State Police Officer pulled in behind us. A few minutes of explanation later and we were back on the road.

We stayed near Dartmouth College. After a dinner of steak (and for Jerry that means 'just steak'), we walked around the campus. Jerry found a Hookah bar and thought it was funny that they actually advertised that they smoked tobacco in the Hookah. A group of summer students was out front dancing to the beat of some bongo drums being beatin' on by some other students. Jerry also bought a huge Grateful Dead poster.

'Tis never boring

So Jerry and I are waiting for Junior to call. We were going to go out for dinner at Greshee's (I know I screwed up the spelling). I take a shower. Paige comes up stairs. I get into a compromising position. Jerry trots up the steps. Oh my.

Then Junior calls. Mia is on her way to the hospital. She is in an ambulance. Loss of feeling in one of her arms. Off Jerry and I go to the ER at Giesinger. Lots of other people hanging out in the waiting room. Dan is there. He was with Mia when she had her problem. Mia is to wired for visitors (according to her hubby), so I take Dan and Junior's two boys home with Jerry and I where we get into 3 hours of head-to-head Halo 2.

Did I mention that X-Boxes are down to $80 and Dan, Jerry, and I bought two just so we can play against each other on separate TVs. Way Cool!

So Junior's two boys are sleeping in the big bedroom. Jerry finally went to sleep. Dan went home. I'm sitting here typing this crap. Yippppeeee!

Into the Wild

Into the Wild

Add to My Profile | More Videos

I know I'm getting a little video heavy, but this trailer really caught my attention.

I used to get out into the wild. What happened? I have kids (other peoples kids) that require attention, bills to pay, 30 or 40 extra pounds of fat, and to many years of wear. But that never stopped Roy! Maybe I need to rethink some things?

Dane Cook

Jerry introduced me to a new (to me) comedian. His name is Dane Cook. I hear that he is in the movie 'Mr. Brooks'. You can Google or YouTube the guy and get lots of hits. He has some very funny bits in his acts. His comedy is made more hilarious because he deals with the truth. He is one of those people who can see and then report the state of the human condition; making you laugh while he does it. Here is a short clip.



Today I happened upon an interview with Dane Cook in PEOPLE Magazine. When questioned about what the future Mrs. Cook needed to know, Dane replied that he doesn't drink. "I've never had a drink or a drug. I want someone who wants to feel the moments of life and doesn't need a substance to enhance or decrease the experience."

Count Down to Summer Vacation

PacMan Fever

I put a classic version of Pacman on the bottom of the page. Page down and take a look. It should bring back fond memories.

Astrological Sign Stuff

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In a sorta 'Homage' to Paige, I added a Sign Widget for a few days. Check to see if we are compatible.

Magic Carpet Ride

Let's all go for a magic carpet ride!

I just did a YMCA Core Value Training at the Sunbury YMCA. It is so much fun to go train with these people. They are so motivated and smart. We did a team building exercise called 'Magic Carpet'. (We being Heather Hieny and myself) We thought it would take about 20 minutes and three or four restarts for the forty participants to flip the carpet over with their feet. It only took about eight.

The training was for Day Camp Staff. Many of the participants came from YMCAs other than Sunbury. They were all quality staff members. The Directors at these camps know how to pick people. These day camp staff members are going to be great with their kids this summer.

Personally, I really enjoyed two things in this training. First was returning to the YMCA to meet old friends. Liz is still a hoot, Bonnie (who I see all the time) brings so much energy into everything she does, and I straight up miss being around Lori - she is just a super caring person. All the new faces bring excitement and mystery into the mix.

Second was working with Heather. I had never worked in a training with Heather. I know she is a wonderful people person from working near her at Bethesda. She is the ace caseworker on the day treatment side (while I am a lowly math teacher at the soon to be done for the summer alternative ed.). She is as great a facilitator as she is a caseworker. I want to do more trainings with her.

Magic Carpet this year -- hopefully next year I will get invited back again and we can try something else new and exciting.

Pardee Rope Swing

I have a new neighbor. He moved into the third floor apartment next to mine. He had a U-haul truck full of stuff (some of it very big) and no-one to help unload it. I started to help him. Jimmie and Jerry helped when they got home. And then Eddie and a friend of Juniors joined in. It took quite a while to move everything.

After we got done I took the lads up to Pardee to let them try the rope swing. Jerry is a veteran.

Chuck Norris

It is sad, but I have really gotten into the Chuck Norris Jokes. You know them.

"You know how some kids wear superman pajamas to bed; Superman wears Chuck Norris Pajamas."

"If Chuck Norris were an element on the periodic table, what element would he be? The element of surprise, of course."

I've added a random Chuck Norris Fact Generator. Click the reload button to get a new fact.

The Big Leak

Not a good Friday morning. The sewer line on the third floor clogged and the wax seal on the toilet gave out. The resulting mess streamed through the horse hair plaster ceiling of the dining room.


All the plaster over the book shelf eventually fell . It is a mess. I don't think that the rest of the ceiling is going to fall. It looks like I have a summer project now!

At World's End

Jack Sparrow will be back soon. Check out the movie trailer at the very bottom of the page!