Christmas Movie Quest

I have decided to attempt to watch 1 Christmas movie, short, or special each day leading up until Christmas. I'm pretty excited about it, because there are so many good Christmas movies (when you really think about it.) Here is my list in chronological order, though I won't be watching them in any certain order. What is your favorite? I think I have all the classics pretty much covered. I have all of these either on DVD, VHS (oh god!), or on the DVR except for Scrooged and White Christmas. So I'm hoping those will come on TV sometime so I can record them.

I'm kind of excited about this small project!

Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Little Women (1949)
White Christmas (1954)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
Frosty the Snowman (1969)
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1979)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983)
A Muppet Family Christmas (1987)
Scrooged (1988)
Christmas Vacation (1989)
Home Alone (1990)
Winnie the Pooh & Christmas Too (1991) 
Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
The Santa Clause (1994)
Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish (1999)
Elf (2003)

Jamie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Yesterday started off on the wrong foot. My day started off on a 'down' tone. Ever have one of those, where you just feel down all day? They come around once in a while for me. Anyways, I was having a cruddy day.

Part of it was because of Monday. After spending four days straight with one or both of us, Josie, our puppy, was extremely needy. She was rowdy, she was bored, she was in almost constant need of attention because she just wouldn't settle down. I couldn't get much done because I felt like I had to keep an eye on her all the time if she wasn't by me, and if she WAS by me she was trying to get into whatever I was doing.

So I was agonizing over not getting much done again. Plus the cruddy morning.

Then I made dinner, which was Hamburger Helper. I also had to wrap up some meat we bought, and  so I got the mixture on the stove and started wrapping. I put the lid on the skillet to speed things up, then forgot about it. As I'm wrapping up a steak, the cheese sauce is boiling over on the stove. So that was a big mess. I wiped off the bottom of the skillet and moved it to the other burner since my original one was covered in now-burnt cheese.

Back to wrapping. Well, after a little while I was surprised to not hear it simmering. I looked at the stove and it turned out I had the wrong burner on and it was melting my microwave cover. I kind of screamed when I discovered it, ran over and pulled it off. It was clearly ruined. That's not a huge deal since they cost like $2, but still.

I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Luckily that is the time Jarrod came home and helped calm me down. The house smelled like plastic, so we had to air it out. We turned off the heat, opened all the windows and played freeze out for an hour. The house got down to 57°, so not too terrible. But I was so glad when it was time to go to bed and call it a day. Let's hope today is better.

An Open Plea to the Christmas-Pusher-Uppers of America

Please quit it with the Christmas crap!

I find myself more upset year after year as the Christmas holiday slowly creeps into October more and more. This year has proven to be no different, and I believe sales, decorations, ads, and commercials have begun in record time. I'm sure Jarrod can't wait until Thanksgiving gets here so he doesn't have to hear any more mumbling under my breath every time I see Christmas stuff.

Halloween was barely over, and the commercials already started. Actually, I think they may have even started before Halloween this year.

Thanksgiving has, in recent years at least, always been a forgotten holiday. So the fact that Christmas has overtaken Thanksgiving does not entirely surprise me. Still disappointing, but not out of the question. But the fact that Christmas is now encroaching on Halloween is just flat out ridiculous! Why on earth do we need to be thinking about Christmas for a whole two-months straight???

The funny thing is, people ASK for this! I'm sorry, and I'll try to say this in the least snobby fashion possible, but NO ONE I associate with likes that Christmas starts earlier and earlier every year. So I don't really know the people who want this. But we drove by a home last night with their Christmas tree proudly displayed in the window! It's November 13th! What the heck are you thinking? Back in the 70s, according to my mom, it was somewhat strange for people to even put their trees up day after Thanksgiving. And now people are putting them up the day after Halloween?!

There is absolutely no reason for this. You can't tell me that these people are in the Christmas spirit already. If they are, it's a fake Christmas spirit because as we all know, Christmas isn't about how many decorations you can fit in your yard, or home, or how much money you can spend on gifts. It's about Christ Jesus, and there is really no reason for me to be preparing myself for this right now. That time is called Advent. The only thing that fuels this entire movement is the dollar, and there's nothing religious, giving, or warm & fuzzy that even resembles "holiday spirit" in corporate greed.

I implore everyone who agrees with me to not buy a single gift, a single decoration, or a single holiday anything until after Black Friday. Money talks, and in my mind, the best way to cast my vote against the Christmas expansion is with what I buy. I refuse to buy anything Christmas-y until it is around the time of the actual holiday.

Who's with me?

Paul Ryan, A Comparison

I'm not going to compare Paul Ryan to Joe Biden, but I've been trying to figure out who he reminds me of.

So here's Paul Ryan:

and many people are saying, due the widow's peak, he looks like a grown-up Eddie Munster:

but I think, with his grin, he totally looks like this guy:

Adding Tomorrows

I was just flipping through my Twitter feed, as I am prone to do, when I came across a tweet from the CF Foundation to Whoopi Goldberg saying they were glad they could help her stop smoking. I dug through some @mentions to find out what they were talking about. This little video, that I have embedded below, according to Whoopi herself, made her stop smoking.

I just watched it, and cried; duh, knew I would. You might too (and if your name is Chuck or Lynn you most definitely will.)

I am sharing this video because it is a beautiful video. It's a beautiful way to spend six minutes of your time. It's really a piece about the newest, most revolutionary drug we have now called Kalydeco. Unfortunately, this drug only treats a small share of CF mutations, and mine is not one of them. Kalydeco treats CF on a genetic level, correcting the codons in the genes to make the proteins our bodies would not make on a normal basis. I am not able to take Kalydeco because I do not have one of the mutations it treats, but there are other drugs in the pipeline (shop talk for drugs in development) that will be able to help me. And I cannot wait until that day arrives.

If you've ever wondered what exactly I mean by "doing my vest" or what in the world a day in the life is like, watch it. If you're not even sure what CF really is, watch it. If you've ever wondered how I do it all, watch it.

I'm really not that unique. I believe that the majority of us CFers tackle life by the horns and are able to inspire those around us in small ways. I've heard of a few that are not like this, that would prefer to wallow in their sorrow or deplete their overall health, but they are far and few between. We live with a cruel disease, but that doesn't mean our lives aren't filled with great joys.

So sit back, press play, and learn about what it means to live with CF for six minutes.



Cystic Fibrosis Foundation - Adding Tomorrows from Cystic Fibrosis Foundation on Vimeo.

Home Brew

Jarrod and I have become a couple of home brewers. We are about to brew our 3rd and 4th batches tomorrow. This time around we are going to do two at once, since we have enough equipment and bottles when it comes time for bottling. Not only have we been saving bottles as much as we can, we scored 118 bottles at Brewfest a couple weekends ago, which was so awesome. That was about $140 worth of beer we didn't have to buy and consume over time.

I bought Jarrod his home brew equipment last Christmas, and his first batch was a Honey Nut Brown. It wasn't bad for a first timer, but it was very sweet; too much honey.

The last batch he did earlier this year was a "Tangelo Heifeweizen". The recipe was intended for blood oranges, but he couldn't find anywhere that sold those. So he bought tangelos instead. It was better than the first batch, for sure. Not very bitter with a touch of citrus.

These next two are going to be a red American ale and a stout. The red is called a "Brickwarmer Red" and is a winter beer with warm spices, I think. The stout will be a Chocolate Milk Stout. I have a running joke with this, because it means two different things depending where you place your inflection. If you say chocolate milk stout, it sounds like you're making a stout with chocolate milk. That's not the case. Actually, it's a chocolate milk stout, haha, which means there is lactose in it. Hence, making a milk stout. So it's a milk stout with chocolate in it (and there will actually be chocolate nibs in the brewing.)

People think dark beers will taste bitter or like tar, but that is far from the case. They can be kind of sweet, and taste like chocolate, or coffee, or both. Does everyone start with a coffee stout when they turn 21? Probably not. But no one starts with a dry wine either. You gradually work up to it, and once you do, they're quite good.

Did Ben Folds just resurrect the Fraggles?

Found this video today. It really made my Monday a whole lot better, I smiled the whole time I watched it. Mega points to Ben Folds for doing a video with the Fraggles. I forgot how awesome Ben Folds is playing the piano.

I loved it so much the Fraggles ended up in my office. The crazy yellow-green guy is my fave.

That thing going on half across the world

I'm sure you've heard of the recent attacks on the US Embassy in Libya which killed our ambassador and a few others. Attacks similar to these have continued to spread across the Middle East, and it seems there are new deaths, damages, and outrage daily.

What caused all this? A short, sub-par, extremely ridiculous, film that made claims about Muhammad was made, posted to the internet, the Muslims saw it, were offended, and revolted... in a nutshell.

I have not seen this film, nor do I think I want to. Usually in cases like these, I like to seek out the source and make my own judgements, but I heard a small audio clip from it, and it was enough. The audio was terrible, and it was very clear that the person being filmed was not filmed in one sitting. Meaning, things were taken out of context, here and there, clipped together, and produced. Think of it like that reminder service phone call with the automated voice: "This is SLUCare with a reminder about your upcoming appointment. {Jamie} has an appointment on {Monday, January first} with {Doctor So-and-so.}

Anyways, the lady in the audio clip said something like "I have never heard of someone so {blah blah blah} as Muhammad." The words in there, I can't quite remember, but they had something to do with womanizing, sexual abuse, and a third thing.

Pretty radical, offensive claims. Believe what you will about the Muslim world, those are still extreme, and very serious, things to say about someone's religion. As they said on NPR, you could relate it to if someone came out with a movie claiming the Virgin Mary was not in fact a virgin but was a whore. So that's what sparked this entire uproar.

Now, for my own personal reasons a long time ago, I decided to seek out the part in the Qur'an where it says you could use violence against others. After hearing this from so many people, I decided to seek out the source (like I talked about doing earlier) and see if there was any truth to it. Turns out there is. The Qur'an does tell followers that when someone is threatening you because of your belief in Allah, you are "allowed" to "use force" against them. (That's about it, the rest of what you hear is most likely exaggerated.)

I do have a bit of a problem with that verse. Nowhere in the Bible has it ever told me to use violence against non-Christians. Yes, you can preach and you are to proclaim your faith proudly to the world, but not to the point of violence. So that's a big difference right there. Aside from that, though probably closely tied, is the entire culture of the Middle East; it's just a different world from ours.

Back to America. So this "film" was made by Americans, and I've read they were Coptic Christians. After a quick detour to Wikipedia, I have found out this is a group of Christians whose version of Christianity was born in Egypt.

So, we have an extreme group of Christians riling up an extreme group of Muslims. The Muslims are calling for the US to take action against the filmmakers (jail, trial, or something like that) and remove it from the internet, which brings into the argument free speech.

I understand the free speech side of it, yet I also don't think that anyone should be able to spout off to the world any matter of lies. If someone ever made statements like this about Mary, Jesus, or whoever, I would be outraged too. I don't think I would go attack an embassy, but I'm pretty confident there would be marches, people would take off work to participate, and all manner of protest to get someone to take the video down.

Catholic bishops have blasted the Copts associated with the film, many others outside of the Middle East have come out against them, and others have said they made it out of greed. Whatever their motivation was, I think it is all extremely sad. If they truly believe the things they said, I think that's unfortunate. If they did it for greed (isn't that one of the seven deadly sins?) then that's not very Christian-like either. Maybe they wanted to call to attention that Islam is a "violent" religion. If so, then they have proven their point to their audience. I'm sure there are many people who know nothing about either side of this issue who will look at the TV say "Wow, those people are setting things on fire. They must be horrible people."

But I think the makers of this film should be held accountable for their actions. Not only did they infuriate a nation of people, they single-handedly undermined a lot of progress made in the war on terror, including sacrifices made by our troops and many people others, and decimated our relations with the Middle East.

Moving

What a week we have had. I think I've experienced a wide range of emotions throughout this whole moving process, and I'm excited that we're almost finished. I figure I will get everyone caught up on our house situation...

Last Friday, the 24th, we closed on our new house. Friday evening, we began painting. Throughout all of last week, Jarrod, his dad (well, mostly his dad), and my dad painted our entire house. And I mean "entire" house; we painted the walls, ceilings, and trim. Since I couldn't spend a ton of time is paint-fumey house, I would make a stop after work, drop off a load of stuff, and head on home. My mom and I spent a couple days putting away things in the kitchen. My goal was to get as much little stuff put away as possible so when we had the big move, which was on Sunday, it would be just the large furniture items.

As stressful and hectic as it was, we were able to move almost every box over, paint almost every inch of the house, and get it all put back together by Sunday. We got the painting done in record time, I'd say, in one week and one day. The moving, well more on that record in a minute...

So our big moving day was set for Sunday. The Hurricane Formerly Known As Isaac was headed here Friday, Saturday, and into Sunday. I had faith somehow that we would not get rained out on Sunday and that it would all turn out. Despite some humidity and drizzle early on, this was exactly the case. I had asked most of my mom's family to help with the move, and Jarrod spoke with some co-workers and friends. We had about 20 people help us, and what a big help they all were. The plan was for everyone with trucks to arrive in Wentzville around 1:00pm. I headed to Washington before that, with a carload, and I had people coming there about 2:30. Around 2:30 the first truckload left, and by 2:50 everyone had left.

Trucks started arriving in town by 3:15, and by 4:20 I think we were done. Yes, done. Everything went so smoothly, from my perspective, as I was directing everyone unloading to different rooms. And not to mention, super efficient. It took us an hour to unload EVERYTHING. My friend told me that was, like, a new record. It was unbelievable, and so wonderful. I felt so humbled and extremely blessed at the amount of people that came out to help us.

Monday was Labor Day, and having that extra day off was so great. Not only to kind of recoup after Sunday, but to keep up the momentum and put more stuff away. My mom and I had my entire kitchen unpacked late morning, I got our master bathroom together, most of my clothes in drawers, and I'd say we are probably 50% done! Yesterday, I kind of took the night off after putting a couple things away. Tonight I'm back to work putting stuff away. Jarrod needs to build some shelves in the basement for storage, but there is still plenty to do upstairs.

The only things left at the other house, so I'm told, are food in the fridge; they ran out of cooler space. Then we close on that house very soon, and then we're finished. I can't wait and I keep praying that it's just smooth sailing from here.

Sorry, the address you entered does not exist

So in a bit of weird news, it has come to my attention that our new house cannot be found on the two most used map search engines, Google Maps/Earth and MapQuest. First time this was a problem was with my friend Becky using MapQuest, and just now with my friend Marie on Google. Sure enough, I looked into it, and our road shows as a road, but it has no name! It's a no name road... we don't exist.

Fortunately, Bing has our road in their map, so it is searchable on there. I also decided to try my Garmin and double-check that, and it did pull up Jessica Hills Court in the correct spot. Phew, thank goodness on that one.

But I wonder how to go about contacting Google about the no name road? Even with Google, there has to be a way to correct their map stuff, or email them with issues, right? If anyone knows this, let me know. I'm going to try to do some digging myself.

In other quick news, we are moving tomorrow. I'm just ready for it to come and go. I'm excited, because I like taking on semi-large tasks of this nature and planning them out. But I'm just so tired of packing, as Jarrod is so tired of painting, and I'm so tired of shuffling stuff over. I'm ready to be done.