April 2015 Posts

Frito Pie vs The Force

Maroon9

Okay, I gave in.

Defeat finally called my number.

I tried — resisted temptation — with all of my might.

But on Thursday evening, I lost the battle.

For weeks, I had been avoiding the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars movie.1

But on this night, right before the new “Avengers” movie, a trailer with John Williams’ cue for The Force came up immediately after the “Please put on your 3D glasses now” message”,2 and I had one serious decision to make:

  1. Put down the Frito Pie burger34 that was occupying both of my hands so that I could plug my ears, or…
  2. Keep eating and just watch the dang thing.

Here’s the short version: The burger won.5

image

We had some nice weather in Central Texas earlier this week.

Sandwiched between days of 80’s and 90’s,6 it was a nice wink and a reminder of nicer, calmer times.

As in, long pants, long sleeves, and warm socks weather.

Breezy.

Cool.

Crisp.

Refreshing.

And… that’s all we’re getting.7

Just a wink.

That’s all.

With less than half of a lunar cycle separating us from the AP Exam, there is nothing “cool” and “calm” about the massive juggling act that we are desperately trying to maintain for just that “little while” longer.

Thirteen days from now, we finally get to land this crazy ride of a journey, and times will be sane once again.

  1. heck, up until a day or two ago I thought it was coming out this Summer. A student corrected me this week and said it was Christmas, and said “Haven’t you seen the trailer?!” [↩]
  2. There’s a side-story somewhere about how I bought my ticket for “Age of Ultron” eight weeks ago and somehow managed to inadvertently buy it for the 3D version… [↩]
  3. If you’re junk food illiterate: that would be chili, Fritos, cheese, onions, and BURGER. An explosive mess that is to die for. [↩]
  4. YES, Alamo has Frito Pie burgers now! The guy next to me got fish-n-chips as well! New munchies on the Alamo Drafthouse menu! [↩]
  5. ::shrug:: [↩]
  6. which honestly will feel like an ice-cold massage compared to what’s coming in a month or two… [↩]
  7. Until, oh… about December or so. November if we’re incredibly fortuitous. [↩]
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Time Egg

Highlights, Maroon9

If you’ve spent any meaningful amount of time on a treadmill, hopefully you’ll get the following:

stress vs 4th quarter

(For the record, I would never actually kick an actual kitten…)

One year ago this past Monday was the first day back from the Easter holiday, which I was able to spend with my sister and family up in Dallas. I got into my car after my last class of that fateful Monday and made the drive over to a strange, new place to discuss the possibility1 of starting over for the coming Fall. That was the day I paid my first visit to Round Rock High School.

It would be the first of a number of inflection points over the next three weeks of my journey. My visit would last for a couple of hours, and as I was getting the grand tour around the way, I remember how — with everything that led up to that moment and with everything that my mind would juggle in the weeks to come — that afternoon felt like a frozen moment in the stream of time.2

At that moment, the building that I now call “home” was little more than steel rods and concrete flats, and at that moment, changing allegiance to the Dragons would have meant no longer teaching AP Statistics.3 However, the thought of a much-needed reboot had me intrigued. Highly. intrigued.

I don’t remember much about the next couple of weeks,4 but this little, I know:

My mind see-sawed quite a bit. 5 And I didn’t get much sleep. Oh, and I was also in full-blown “pregnant-with-exam” mode.

I won’t lie: I may have had a moment or two where I’ve allowed my mind to take a glimpse at my life on the other side of those proverbial sliding doors. But in spite of the uphill climb that it has at times been, with two weeks-and-change6 to go until the big day,7 I know that I have been incredibly blessed8 with the way things have turned out.

Speaking of “pregnant-with-exam” mode, that is about where I am now. But with this being number five for me, it feels closer to “I’ve got this” and a lot less of “please put this zombie bovine out of its misery”. And that’s a good thing.

Multnomah Falls, just around the corner.

  1. emphasis on the word “possibility“… nothing would be decided for another few weeks. [↩]
  2. Hence the title of this post, for the very few of you gamers who will get the reference. [↩]
  3. At that moment, the discussion was not for me to teach AP Stat, but for Algebra II or possibly Precal instead… maybe. While this may be a surprise to some, by that moment in the campaign in mid-April, I had already come to grips with the possibility that I was teaching AP Stat for the last time. Ever. That was actually something I had resigned myself to before the opening day of Season 7, which made me cherish every day of the journey a little more so than normal. [↩]
  4. and there are also a lot of details that I am skipping for now… [↩]
  5. Think: mind jumping back-and-forth between potential alternate realities, a la Chrono Cross. I really didn’t know if I wanted to say goodbye to AP Stat — which, again, at the time was not on the table for me in Dragon nation. [↩]
  6. It occurred to me as I was typing that, that pretty soon, once we stop using physical currency, the phrase “-and-change” won’t make sense to kids anymore. #sadness #oldness [↩]
  7. game day #5 [↩]
  8. and quite fortunate [↩]
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Furious Seven

Maroon9

I saw “Furious 7”1 this past weekend,2 and while I don’t care to go much in detail about plot/spoilers, I did want to get a couple of miscellaneous thoughts down.

[Warning: very *mild* spoilers ahead… don’t worry, nothing major.]

  • They could’ve titled it “Furious Avengers:3 Ghost Protocol”.4 Seriously, it fits.
  • There’s a subplot in that Mia is with 2nd child… I’m willing to bet that this plot line was only written in after Paul Walker’s unfortunate passing.5
  • I’m also willing to bet that the very last scene with the Rock and Jason Statham was originally meant to be an after-credits scene. 6
  • James Wan is on record as saying he doesn’t wish to discuss which scenes involved the use of body doubles and CG for Paul Walker, but a couple were obvious.7 However there were a couple of scenes that I suspect involved CG for his face — but could not tell8 — and if so, I am astounded at how well the visual effects folks did. Which leads me to believe that Weta — Peter Jackson’s CG house — only did some of the Paul Walker scenes. (?)
  • The movie was ridiculous. Completely mindless. And I liked it.

And I know this will never happen — given the ridiculous pile of cash it made this past weekend — but: I hope they end the series with this one. Because if you’ve been following my blog, you know:

I’m all about the sunsets.

  1. I’m a big fan of the series. But now I truly believe that the “Fast and Furious” movies are like Microsoft Windows: Only the odd-numbered ones are good. Yes, I enjoyed Tokyo Drift, and despised 2. [↩]
  2. a couple of times, to be honest — part of a much needed break from the stretch run of the season. [↩]
  3. Think: Superheroes. With cars. [↩]
  4. Think: Tom Cruise jumping buildings in Dubai. With cars. [↩]
  5. None of the scenes where she mentions this features a real-life Paul Walker. And with the spirit of the re-written ending, makes sense. [↩]
  6. I’m glad it wasn’t. If you don’t remember it, it was forgettable. [↩]
  7. The scene with him putting his kid in the minivan in front of the house, before it explodes, and much of Abu Dhabi… though I wonder about the scene where they first stumble upon the Lykan… [↩]
  8. in particular, the first garage scene in DR [↩]
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