Friday, November 16, 2018

Dad Movies....

Dad's been gone a little more than a year and a half, now.  And every now and then, it'll still hit me like a hammer that he's gone.

I miss going to movies with Dad.  My attendance at the theater has decreased dramatically since he passed.  His desire to go see a movie would usually put me over the top if I was on the fence...and even on a couple occasions where I had no desire whatsoever.  Now, I usually wait for streaming if it's something I'm on the fence with.

He actually had pretty good taste, if not always the best instincts when it came to picking.  I think the biggest surprise was John Wick, which I still maintain is better than it has any right to be.  Other good ones that come to mind:  Deja Vu, Source Code and the surprisingly tight Patriots Day, which was among the last movies I went to see with Dad.

If we saw a turd, he'd call it a turd.  The 33 was one.  There were four people in the theater for that one, and I think all four of us struggled with sleep at various times.  London Has Fallen was another one, which was a shame, because we both kinda enjoyed Olympus Has Fallen.

He was also pretty open minded.  If there was something he wasn't interested in, but I was, he'd tag along.  I think the one that impressed him the most was The Witch, which he didn't have much interest in, as horror flicks didn't usually do it for him.  Slither was another.

He loved Creed.  And we'd both been excited to see that one.  He liked it so much that he ended up going back a few days later to watch again.

The Creed sequel comes out next week.  And that's what began this particular slide down memory lane.  There have been a handful of movies that popped out since he's passed that hit me hard.  The one that pops to memory was a trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming that hit me right in the solar plexus with the knowledge that we wouldn't see it together.

I still haven't seen Kong: Skull Island.  It was released the week after he died.  I'd gone to eat breakfast with the folks the day he passed, and a trailer had come on, and he'd really wanted to go see it.  I just haven't felt good about watching it.  Maybe I still will one day.....

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Sixteen Sixteen Sixteen

Sixteen years ago, my buddy Bill explained what Blogger was.  It took a while.  Lots yelling, a bit of crying and nearly an entire tablet of drawing paper, but after a while, I was yelling ones and zeroes across the interweb.

At the old salt mines, I tend to mark new hires by their relationship to major events from my life.  We occasionally hire teens at the salt mines.  To mine salt.  As you do.  And I mark their ages.  By the events of my life.  (There's some of that beautiful prose that just keeps you coming back).

In 2009, I hired the first person born after I was permitted to drive.

In 2011, it was the first person born after I graduated high school.

More recently, it was the first person born after 9/11.

Well, in personal terms, I'm gonna hire somebody at some point soon that was born after the start of my blogamathing.

It's been an interesting run.  It became less a primary hobby in the past few years than in its beginnings.  Still, if I ever need to come rant someplace about Marvel movies, flatulence or what I would do if I had a pet rhinoceros (the world's most dangerous game of ring toss comes to mind), I know that I have someplace to holler into the ether.

Anyway, I just want to say thanks for reading.  Thanks for saying hi.  Thanks for being you.  Unless you're a spy or somehow possessed by the spirit of a dead Mesopotamian Holy Man, then thanks for being somebody else!