When I created this tag (the "movie review" one, that is), my intention was for it to be a review of new movies that were out in the theater. The problem with that is that as I get older, the less I really feel like going to the movies... in fact, after my last experience with 3D, I much prefer the comfort of my sofa!
That said, my movie reviews now tend to be of movies that are either out on pay per view or Netflix. Yesterday we finally got around to watching "The King's Speech", starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.
Synopsis: (from IMDb) Tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stammer and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country through war.
Rating: I would definitely recommend this movie to everyone. For me, it had a little bit of a slow start, but in the end, you can't help but feel for King George VI and fall in love with Lionel. There was definitely a reason why this movie won four Oscars (Best Achievement in Directing, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen).
Yesterday I had the pleasure of participating in a really fun C.E.R.T. exercise. It is called our annual "Mobex" exercise. Basically, it's our practice for deployment - if we're needed somewhere that we'd have to travel and spend the night. The idea is that our team is self reliant in the event that we head out to help at a disaster.
We practiced everything from start to finish - meaning we packed everything we would need for a 72 hour deployment and headed out to our deployment staging area. There we were issued bins containing lots of cool toys, we packed and turned in our car keys. We loaded up the three vans, the trailer and two rigs to head down to a big open field.
Once we got to the field, we set up our base of operations. I was on the medical team, so we worked on getting a medical treatment area in place. Other areas included Logistics (where we got all of our goodies from), Communications/Command (they house all the radios, TVs, etc), Shelter (where our sleeping and eating quarters are) and the latrines (I don't think I need to explain what happens there).
CERT 1 Functioning As Logistics
The Shelter Team Setting Up Our Cots
These are the wonders called "Brief Relief". Yup, it's a tent with a bucket. However, it's a very complex bucket system, that involves some snazzy bags and chemicals that make biohazards bizhazardous no more. While it sounds gross, it's really way better than the alternative of just lots of yuck in a bucket and is actually way more sanitary than it sounds.
Betty Demonstrating Proper Use Of The Brief Relief
All in all, it was a really fun exercise. We were out for about 8 hours total - which included getting back to the deployment area and putting everything away. I like these kind of drills because we get to practice the whole process from start to finish and have to deal with being hot and tired. Real life at it's finest!
Great title, isn't it? Basically, I do the first one so that I can have the second two!
We went for a fantastic bike ride yesterday. I know I keep going on and on about this cycling stuff, but I'm really getting into it. I absolutely love running, but a lot of the time it hurts. Whether it's an upset tummy or sore joints, there is a lot of mental pushing to get through a decent run. Don't get me wrong, part of what I like about running is the mental aspect. But what I love about cycling is that I don't really have that kind of pain. Since I'm getting ready to marry a billy goat, we've been doing a lot of hill climbing and descending (that's the part that is the hardest for me!). Yes, it is hard and yes, my muscles hurt. But there's something about that kind of hurt that I really like.
Yesterday was the longest ride of my short cycling career. We did 25.17 mile ride with 2,091 feet of climbing. It was fantastic. However, on the way back down the mountain people were barbecuing in their yards... nothing on this planet smells more fantastic than barbecue when you're as hungry as I get when I ride! We had planned to have chicken kabobs for dinner, but made a stop at 88 Burger (or "Happy Burger" as I call it) on the way home instead. To be fair, we ate the kabobs tonight, so no food was wasted.
Our second great feat yesterday was to meet with the baker who will be making our wedding cake. I'm very excited to say that we picked a cake! I'm not going to give it away here (there have to be some surprises at the wedding!), but it's absolutely delicious! Our baker is Ingrid Fraser and the cake that we picked is absolutely amazing! She's going to do some great stuff with the cake to make it really pretty. I can't wait!
It's always heartbreaking to hear of a celebrity death, especially a young celebrity. Today we learned that singer Amy Winehouse died at the young age of 27. Normally when I hear about a celebrity death (especially someone young) it feels like a quick little kick to the stomach. There's normally that little bit of surprise and sadness about what could have been. With this celebrity death, I thought "Well, that's not surprising". An autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow, but I would not be surprised if she died from some sort of overdose or complications from drug use.
Many people have called her "troubled". I really think her life goes far beyond just troubled. From legal problems to substance abuse problems to health problems, almost all of Amy's life on the music scene has been issues. In fact, her issues tended to overshadow her amazing talent as a singer-songwriter. It's heartbreaking to me to see someone who is surrounded by people spiral completely out of control (a la Britney Spears circa 2008) and to see that no one steps in to help. Amy struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues. In fact, those ended up taking a toll on her physical health (she came out and said that she had early stage emphysema in 2008).
I would like to think that if I ever developed such glaring issues that my friends and family would step in and help me out. I understand that addiction is a horrible disease, but it just sucks to see those around someone continue to use them rather than think about the long term consequences. Amy had been booed off stage in recent performances as she was incredibly drunk/drugged and unable to sing. You would think that her management team, family, etc would pull her out of all performances and get her more help rather than continue to prop her up on stage and hope that she pulled it together. I know you can't blame those around her, but I just wish that people would have stepped in.
They're now saying that Amy is a part of "The 27 Club". She joins Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, who all died at the young age of 27. Whether or not you agree that she has the same talent as those people, I think they shared the same torment. To me, it's almost like there was just too much talent for one person to handle and they were only here for a short time.
Regardless of how you feel, the music world was definitely robbed of a talent today. Rest in peace, Amy.
"And one night it did". Sorry, lame Garth Brooks reference. No, I'm not talking about Papa driving a truck into a hotel, I'm talking about falling off my bike. I decided yesterday afternoon to take my bike out for a little spin close to home. We've got some great hills to climb (and I've got a big hill in the Alp d'Huez to climb next year) and I figured that since it was my first solo ride, I'd be able to walk home if something went terribly wrong.
I was aiming to do two loops (there's a solid climb in there) but it was really hot out (90+ degrees). On my way back up the first loop, I started to get really hot and thought I'd pull over to take a little rest. Apparently unclipping while heading uphill is much harder than it sounds. I pretty much came to a very slow stop and then VERY slowly started tipping over. In fact, I even had time to think "yup, this is the first fall" before I hit the ground. Again, very low speed, so all it really did was scrape up my elbow and scratch the left side of my bike a little. Badge of honor, right? I did manage to land on my keys, which got all scraped up and tore a little hole in my jersey. Maybe now that everything is a little banged up and doesn't looks so new, people will think I am a real cyclist!
The one good part of the whole experience was there was not a soul around to see me bite it. I'm told that many people do this at a busy intersection or parking lot, so I guess I'm lucky there. I made myself get back on and keep riding just so that I didn't end up with a mental block.
In other fun and exciting news, I mailed our wedding invitations today! I can't believe it but three months from today is the big day! It seems like there's so much to do between now and then!
Ok, I'm officially starting a new feature on my blog called "The Creature Chronicles". Basically, I'm going to start posting pictures of all the scary bugs at my house. I saw this one out front on Tuesday evening after Mike and I got home from a bike ride. Without further ado, I bring you the first entry:
Centipede
It's some sort of creepy centipede thing. It's different than most of the ones I've seen up here - normally they're black and this one definitely was not. Bug lovers out there, do you have a name for this one?
Note that I was brave enough to put my finger in the picture. Historically, I've been very bad at getting close enough to some of these things to get something in there to show scale. I promise, now that I'm documenting my scary bugs, that I will get something in there to show you how big they are.
Stay tuned for more... I know, you're all waiting with bated breath...
Don't you love how a lot of my posts are about food with some sort of mildly athletic activity thrown in to offset the food? Well, today it's not even my athletic activity I'm going to talk about, but it is my food.
As I type this, the love of my life is bringing in bacon & apple stuffed barbecued pork chops. Ladies, this is why you marry a firefighter. They can cook.
Apple & Bacon Stuffed Pork Chops
I'm not gonna lie, these things were awesome. I'm not a huge pork chop fan because I haven't really found a great way to keep them... moist. Remind me to do a whole other blog on how much I hate that word. Anyways, these were fantastic. Mike sauteed bacon, butter and apples together, stuffed the mixture in pork chops and threw them on the grill. YUM.
The cycling part I'm going to talk about is yesterday's Tour de France stage. Those of you behind the times (seriously? it's a rest day... catch up!), stop reading now.
In cycling, it's pretty much a given that at some point, you will fall off your bike. Most of the time, they're not terrible falls (more blows to the pride, I suspect) than anything. The crashes in professional cycling are a little more dangerous. They tend to end in broken collar bones, concussions, etc. Just this year, pro cycling lost a rider to a high speed crash. Most of the time they're caused by nervous riders, bad weather conditions or just bad luck.
Yesterday's crash just makes me mad. It was caused by a French television car who was trying to pass the group of breakaway riders. The road narrowed a little bit and the car had two tires on the dirt shoulder. A tree leaned into the road and the driver veered to the right to avoid it, clipping cyclist Juan Antonio Flecha. Flecha then tumbled across the road (the impact ripped the front wheel of his bike off) and into Johnny Hoogerland. Hoogerland did some fantastic gymnastics - directly into a barbed wire fence. The impact literally ripped his shorts completely off and tore up his skin. Both were able to eventually get back on their bikes and finish the stage.
The action starts about 13 seconds into the clip:
Absolutely horrifying, if you ask me. Hacing just started cycling, stupid drivers are one of the things I fear the most - in a day in age with texting and talking on the phone, it seems like no one is focusing on driving any more. What makes this so bad to me is that the driver had other options. Hit the tree. Hit the brakes. Nope, he/she chose to hit the rider, who had absolutely no defense or warning. Needless to say, the cycling world is outraged today. The very minimum punishment (that has already been enacted) is to pull the driver from the race. I'd pull their license if it were me.
Thankfully, both Hoogerland and Fletcha seem to be doing as well as they could be under the circumstances. Both lost tons of time (and any change of placing in the Tour), but it sounds like both of them are going to return to the race tomorrow. Hoogerland said today that he has 30+ stitches and Fletcha is obviously very sore. Absolutely incredible spirit, in my humble opinion.
Ok, cycling friends, if you haven't watched today's Tour de France coverage, you might want to skip this post until you're caught up. Translation: spoiler alert. I'll discuss my cool new scarf first so that you can make the decision to close the browser if you want.
My mama made me an amazing new scarf that she brought with her yesterday:
My Beachy Summer Scarf
I love the colors - it totally reminds me of the beach and is neutral enough to go with just about everything... I can't wait to wear it!
Now on to the TDF news. I'm so, so, so bummed that Chris Horner is out of the Tour. Earlier this year Mike and I saw him blaze up Sierra Road in the Amgen Tour of California (a race he went on to win) and he's been one of my favorite riders ever since. He gives some of the most awkward TV interviews not because he doesn't know what he's talking about, but because he starts talking super technical race strategy. I love listening to him because he's just really passionate and energetic.
Yesterday he was a victim of one of the big crashes that ended up taking out another top contender. The cameras were all focused on the other guy and the announcers had said something along the lines of Horner being involved and that he was up and back on the bike. He finished the race (VERY far behind) and was whisked off to the hospital. Today was saw video of him being put on the stretcher and asking "Did I finish?". Talk about a whack to the head! As it turns out, he broke his nose, banged up his legs and has a concussion. You have to hand it to an athlete who finishes a race but is so out of it that he doesn't know he did it!
Well, today my mom came up in the afternoon and we headed over to Gordon Hill Flower Shop to meet up with the gang there and discuss wedding flowers. This is one area of the wedding that Mike gave me free reign on. I like to think the he just doesn't have time, but since he's a guy, I'm pretty sure that he just doesn't care what flowers I'm holding when I walk down the aisle. To be honest, if he's looking at the flowers, I wasted a lot of money on my dress, but I digress.
I decided on a combination of roses and calla lilies with some willow branches and holly berries added in for that "fall" look. I'm so incredibly happy. Here's a sample picture, but keep in mind that we're going with more of a burnt orange (as opposed to the peachy orange) and some yellow.
Sample Bouquet
I'm really excited about the bouquets and the rest of the flowers I picked for the venue. I can't quite check the florist off the list, but I think we have a good start. I have some really cool ideas for the centerpieces that I'm not going to give away on here, but I think it's going to turn out nicely!
After that, Mom and I headed over to Munnerlyn's Ice Creamery for a little ice cream snack. This place is seriously delicious... if you're ever in the Pine Grove area, it's a must stop place! I had the cake batter ice cream and Mom had the fudge mint. Yum! Then we came home and I made chicken cordon bleu. It was absolutely delicious! I tried this recipe out on Mike and Chris last week (it was a hit!) and Mom loved it too!
Tonight I'm hanging out and being mellow... a much needed restful night!
After yesterday's bike ride, we headed down to my parent's house for the Smithson family 4th of July BBQ. As always, the food was fantastic and we had a great time. I spent another hour or so hanging out in the pool with some of the family friends... it's definitely been a wet weekend!
Yesterday's festivities ended with a migraine at about 2am. Not entirely sure what caused that one, but I suspect that hanging out in the heat drinking beer and caffeine may have had something to do with it. Needless to say, this morning is pretty much shot thanks to the migraine hangover. Mike and I did make a trek down to the game camera as it's been a couple weeks since we've checked out what was on there. Unfortunately, the batteries went dead sometime around 6/23, so we only had four pictures. In fact, I'm pretty sure that for the last couple weeks the mountain lions have been dancing in front of it, knowing it's off. There's a ton of turkey poo around there as well, so we missed some bird pictures.
I'm lucky enough to have today off, so I plan to spend the rest of the day just hanging out with Mike and Shadow. We don't have any real plans beyond watching today's stage of the Tour de France. We did start up our own Tour de France fantasy cycling team - if you win the overall competition you win a trip to next year's Tour! We are planning on going anyway, so winning the trip would be awesome! It's a fun game to play even if we don't win. You basically pick 15 riders and can have 9 of them active for each stage. They get assigned points based on where they finish and if they're wearing any of the major jerseys at the end of the day. We'll see how we do!
Yup, that's right, we're watching competitive eating. It's on ESPN right now and again, I find my self both disgusted and in awe. The best part is hearing the announcers say things about the competitors like "They've really made a huge contribution to the sport". Seriously? The sport? I suppose it is trying on your body, but if you compare that to, say the dudes riding 21 days in the Tour de France, I hardly think they're even close. However, some of the stats are pretty impressive. For example, one of the guys ate 275 jalapenos in like 8 minutes.
This morning we went for a fantastic bike ride. It's the same road that we were on last week, but this time we went earlier and I didn't have my mocha first. I think both of those were good decisions. We added some distance this time, so we ended up at roughly 16 miles with a total of 1,200 feet of climbing. I felt great when we got back to the truck!
Yesterday we went to the Blankenheim's house for their fourth of July BBQ. It was a blast - Nicki, Sheri and I brought our bathing suits and spent about an hour playing in the pool with the kids. It's been forever since I've just done handstands in the pool or did tube races! Today we're headed to my parent's for their BBQ... that's right, we've had three solid days of food, fun and fireworks!
Well, it's July already. I can't believe how quickly this year is flying by! It seems like just yesterday we were in Seattle getting engaged and now we're under the 4 month mark until the wedding!
Yesterday kicked off our 4th of July weekend extravaganza. We headed out to the Cameron Park Summer Spectacular. It's held at Cameron Park Lake. It was a pretty cool event - they had arts & crafts booths, lots of yummy food, beer booths, live music, contests and a fireworks show. It was actually one of the better fireworks shows that I've seen... it was long, full of cool and pretty fireworks.
I have to say the most spectacular part had to have been the hot dog eating contest. The winner managed to eat six hot dogs in under three minutes... it both awed and disgusted me all at the same time. I think the part that was the worst for me was the guy who was dipping his whole hot dog and bun into his cup of water before eating it. Doesn't he know that mushy bread is incredibly gross?!
We've got a lot more in store for the weekend - stay tuned!
