Message 641

Yesterday I rode with Helen and Jim to San Jose to have lunch with Joan and Dave at their new condo in San Jose. Dave is too run down from the effects of his chemotherapy to join us at Starbucks. Their condo is very nice, and Joan had fixed a very nice lunch. Helen and I agree that we do not want to make this trip very often, but we do not want to be unfriendly, so it is a somewhat awkward situation. In the evening I read some more of The Economist and watched the Olympics until time to pick Julian up at the airport at 10:15 PM. He and Alex had a good time in Cancun and visited several Maya sites. Alex finishes his internship in Connecticut in July and then moves to Los Angeles to start his residency in anesthesiology.

Message 640

Yesterday Josh came by for lunch. It turns out he does not fly to Amsterdam for two weeks until today. He did not come for 24 last Monday because he had been skiing and was in slow traffic coming home, so he watched at Pat's house. Last night I went with Larry and Judi to see the movie The Last Station. It was a biopic about the end of Tolstoy's life in Russia in 1910. It had great performances by Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren as Tolstoy and his wife. All I knew about Tolstoy was from watching the 13-hour production of War and Peace on PBS in 1974 and a couple of more time when it was repeated in the following years. Also I watched the PBS production of Anna Karinina. It was interesting to see the how these books reflected the experiences of Tolstoy's own life. I give this movie 3.5 stars.

Message 639

In the afternoon yesterday I watched a DVD of the movie Miranda. It was a romantic thriller-comedy with Christina Ricci. It was nothing special, but I give it three stars. In the evening I watched the Olympics, including cross-country skiing, ski-jump aerials, and women's figure skating. I also read some more of my book.

Message 638

I just got back from having breakfast at Heidi's Pies with Vanessa and Annie. Annie was too sick to take to the babysitter, but she was real good and did not cause any trouble. She sat at the table and ate her food and watched her DVDs on the portable player that Vanessa brought along. I dropped her of at Maureen's on my way home.

Yesterday I had a quiet day at home. I watched a DVD of the movie The Hurt Locker. It has been nominated for best movie this year, and I have seen a lot of discussion about it on Charlie Rose. It is a very realistic portrayal of the military experience of EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) units in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is directed by a woman who is nominated for best director. The screenplay is written by a reporter who was embedded with an EOD unit in the early days in Iraq. The actors are pretty much unknowns, but they are all very good. Even though the film has a lot of action, it is mostly a character study of the military people who do this work. It is very well done, and I give it 4 stars.

Message 637

Yesterday I picked Beech up at school and took him to McDonalds for lunch. He has now switched back to the Happy Meal so he can get the toy. After lunch I took him home and helped him with his homework until Annie and Vanessa got there about 1:45 PM. In the evening I watched four shows on PBS. Nova was about the extinction of the mega fauna in North America (mammoths, saber toothed tigers, etc.) about 12.9k years-ago. The next show was about the last day of Pompeii, which was interesting because Sally and I spent a day exploring Pompeii a few years ago. Frontline then had a report from a reporter embedded with the Taliban. To top it all off, Charlie Rose had another show in his series about the brain, which dealt mostly with the development of babies' brains.

Message 636

Yesterday I had a quiet day at home watching my usual news shows on PBS and reading The Economist. In the evening I watched 24. Josh never showed up. Maybe he has already flown to Amsterdam. I did not think he was scheduled to go this soon, but I may not have understood his plans.

Message 634

Yesterday I met Helen and Jim and Joan for coffee as usual on Saturday. Dave was too sick to get out of bed. In the afternoon I started reading The Economist that came on Friday. At 5 PM Vanessa brought Beech over to spend the night with me. We went to McDonalds for dinner and he had two McDoubles but only ate one, so I am saving the other one in the fridge. In the evening we watched the movie Shane. I last saw it about 30 years ago I think when I made Joshua watch it with me. I first saw it in 1951 when I was 15 years old, and it made a big impression on me. I still think it is the best western ever made. After Beech went to bed at 8:30 PM, I watched the commentary and learned several new things about the film that I did not know before. I think Beech enjoyed it, even though he is still too young for it. He is the same age now that Liz was when I took her to see Spartacus in Fairbanks. I give Shane 5 stars.

Message 633

Yesterday I finished reading The Economist and Science. After the usual Friday PBS shows in the evening I watched a DVD of the movie Appaloosa. This was another independent movie with Renee Zellweger. Ed Harris starred and directed, and Vigo Mortenson and Jeremy Irons were also in it. It is one of those movies that has such a good cast because everyone agrees to work for small salaries for the sake of their art. It is a western made in the classic style, but with a lot of realism in terms of language. It is the first western I have seen in a long time. I give it 3.6 stars.

Message 632

I read some more of The Economist yesterday, but I still have not finished it. Last night I watched a DVD of the movie The Whole Wide World. It was made in 1996 , and I had never heard of it. When I saw that it had Vincent D'Onofrio in it, I was not expecting anything great because I have never found him a believable character in his roles in other films and TV shows, so I was shocked at how good this movie was and how much it resonated with me. I think it may have been the first film Renee Zellweger ever made , and she was stunningly brilliant in it. Likewise it was a stellar performance by Vincent D'Onofrio. It was based on a memoir published by the woman played by Renee when she was 76 years old. It was set in rural Texas in 1933-1935, about when I was born. Even though it seems now like the people had strange old-fashioned ideas, those were the ideas I was exposed to growing up, and the conversations the people had were much like ones I had when I was young, and I suppose I still have to this day. The screenplay is extraordinarily well written, and the dialog is taken from the original book. The fact that it is a true story may be one of the things that make it so powerful. In its way it is a picture of a time and place and society every bit as revealing as a Jane Austen novel. I recommend it highly. It may be one of the best movies ever made. I give it five stars.

Message 631

Yesterday at 8 AM we had a plane crash in East Palo alto that knocked out power for the whole city of Palo Alto. Three guys from Tesla Motors were killed in the crash, but fortunately Elon Musk was not on board. Anyway it knocked out my internet connection, but not my power or cable TV. I just got back from having breakfast at Heidi's Pies with Vanessa as usual on Thursday. When I got home I called I still had no internet connection, so I called Comcast and they walked me through the reconnection process. The upshot is that the message that I thought I sent out yesterday (Message 630) did not go out until this morning. Thus, you will be receiving two messages today. Yesterday evening I read some more of The Economist and did not watch anything on TV.

Message 630

Yesterday I picked Beech up at schooled and took him to lunch at McDonalds. He told me to order him two McDoubles instead of a kids meal. I had never had a McDouble, so I ordered one for myself too. I thought it was quite good and clearly a bargain for $1.00. I am very impressed by how much Beech is growing up. After lunch he did his homework, and then we played wii-games until Vanessa and Annie came home. In the evening I watched Nova about deciphering the Maya hieroglyphics and another PBS show about the new discovery of the world's oldest city, which is in Peru. Because I had already seen the Frontline program that came next, I then watched a DVD of the movie Becoming Jane. I have been immersed in lots of movies about Jane Austen for the last few years, and I confess I have become quite a fan. I did not expect to think very highly of a biopic about her life, so I was amazed at how good it was. I give it five stars. It is based on a recent biography of her, and it has a wonderful cast. I recommend it to any of you Jane Austen fans who have not seen it.

Message 629

Yesterday morning I went down to visit Ginny and Jim and the twins. Julian and Annie were planning to come with me, but Annie got a cold and we did not want to infect the twins. Vanessa and Beech had a previously scheduled activity with her mothers' group. Audrey held on to my finger on the way to the park, which is only a couple of blocks from their house. When I saw her a few days ago, she started crying when I gave her a kiss, so I guess she is getting used to me now. Ginny had some deli sandwiches that we shared for lunch. Jim picked Jamie and Chelsea up at SFO in the afternoon, them Jamie took Ginny and Jim back to SFO in the evening. The took the red eye back because Ginny has to teach today.

In the afternoon I read some more of The Economist, and in the evening Joshua came over and watched 24 with me. He was only seven minutes late, so he saw most of the action. After the show, he worked on his baseball card collection which he stores at my place until nearly midnight.

Message 628

Yesterday afternoon I went to Nealon Park with Julian and the kids for about three hours. We had a great time. In the evening we had the usual family dinner in San Mateo. Beech and Annie had fun in the back yard on the trampoline, and even Maureen joined them in the jumping for a while. Julian and Vanessa fixed a pork stew in the crock pot, and we had peach pie for dessert. In the evening I watched Northanger Abbey, another Jane Austin novel on PBS. I also read some more of The Economist.

Message 627

Yesterday I started reading The Economist. In the afternoon I worked some more on my memoirs and then watched the Sharks lose to Buffalo 1-3. After their good game against Detroit they just did not have their heads in this one. Many of them were already looking ahead to playing in the Olympics for their national team, four for Canada, and one each for USA, Sweden, and Russia. I think there is another one too, but my memory fails me. I thought Josh was going to join me to watch the game, but he never showed up. It was a nice sunny day, so maybe he was riding his bike, or maybe his cold has gotten worse.

In the evening I watched a DVD of the movie Good Dick. It was an independent movie written, directed, produced, and starred in by a girl from Scotland who has been in Los Angeles for the last decade. She and a bunch of friends managed to make the movie for a million dollars and showed it at Sundance a couple of years ago. They did a good job and dealt with important subjects in a new and different way. Although it gave the impression of being an amateur production, I give it three stars.

Message 626

Last night I went to a movie with Larry and Judi. We saw The White Ribbon, which is a German film set in Germany just before World War 1. It is puzzling to watch and a lot of mysteries are never explicitly solved, but it is implied that the kids did the bad things. It shows an aristocratic family in which the Baron abuses and exploits the peasants, a minister who whips his children and forces a lot of religious discipline on them, a doctor who abuses his nurse and molests his daughter, and the Baron's steward who beats his kids, and a farmer who commits suicide because he can not feed his many kids after the Baron quits letting him work on the estate. It also shows a young school teacher who is the only middle class the narrator of the story in his old age. The movie ends with the start of WW 1, and the final scene slowly fades to black which presumably is a metaphor for the terrible things the kids will do when they are the grown-ups during World War 2. It is very well filmed in black and white to give a sense of the time and place. The white ribbon, which is a translation of the German title is a sign of purity which the preacher ties of his kids when he thinks they need reminding that they are supposed to be pure. I give it three stars, although it is nominated for a best foreign film Oscar this year.

This morning I met Helen and Jim, Joan and David, Ginny and Jim (who are in town babysitting the twins so Jamie and Chelsea go to Houston for a band weekend), and Julian and Vanessa with their kids. At the beginning there were a total of ten of us, but Julian and Beech had to leave early to go to Kung Fu. Ginny and Jim left the twins with the babysitter who regularly takes care of them on Saturday mornings. It was fun to have everyone get together, and I got a lot of exercise and had a lot of fun chasing Annie around.

Message 625

Yesterday afternoon I watched the Sharks beat Detroit 3-2 in an overtime shootout. It was quite a good game. The Redwings always give the Sharks a tough time. Thornton scored the first goal, and Marleau scored the winning goal in the shootout after not contributing much of anything during the rest of the game. In the evening I watched a DVD of the movie Battle for Haditha. It is a fictionalized depiction of an actual event in which Marines were charged with killing civilians to retaliate for a roadside bomb that killed and wounded some of their patrol. It is a good representation of the absurdity and hopelessness of all sides involved in Bush's war in Iraq. I give it 3.5 stars.

Message 624

I just got back from my usual Thursday breakfast with Vanessa at Heidi's Pies. Afterward I met Vanessa briefly at Beech's school to offer support to him in his art class. His teacher was very complimentary about him, but it turned out he did not need my support, so I did not stay long.

Yesterday I watched the Sharks lose to Columbus 0-3. It was the first time they have been shut out in a long time. The third goal was an empty netter, so the game was actually pretty close, but their goalie played exceptionally well. After the game I watched a DVD of the movie The Great Caruso with Mario Lanza. It was a biopic, based on his wife's book, that I had seen it in high school. I prefer watching actual operas, but it was interesting to learn about Caruso's life. I give it 3.3 stars.

Message 623

Yesterday the mail that was delivered to someone else was left outside my door, so that explains why I got nothing on Monday. Yesterday I picked Beech up at school and took him to McDonalds for lunch. This time he requested a six-piece McNuggets Happy meal, but he only ate four, but I took the leftovers home for him to eat later. We played a game at home until Vanessa and Annie got home from little wonders.

In the evening I watched a DVD of the movie Rescue Dawn. It is based on the true story of a Navy pilot who escaped from a Prison camp in Laos and eventually was picked up by friendly forces. Because it is a true story, I found it interesting. I was not familiar with any of the cast or other people involved in making the film, but the did a good job. I give it four stars.

Message 622

Yesterday afternoon I watched the Sharks beat Toronto 3-2. It was a closer game than it should have been, but we won. It was an afternoon game because it was played in the Eastern time zone. The Sharks are on a long road trip, so all of their last three games before the Olympics break are in the East. As a result, Joshua did not make it to my place in time to watch hockey, but he did make it for 24. Afterward I finished reading Science. For some reason I did not get any mail yesterday. So far as I know, it was not a holiday, so no mail is a mystery. I always get some junk at least.

Message 621

Yesterday I met Helen and Jim at Starbucks, and Julian brought Annie by to join us so I could watch her while he and Vanessa took Beech and his buddies bowling for his birthday. Jason took Ellie to Beech's party too, and Maureen took Vanessa's brother's kids Vivian and Jessie. I took Annie back to my condo for a while after coffee and then took her to McDonalds where she had a 4-piece chicken happy meal and played on the playground. She is big enough now that she enjoys running with the pack of kids on the playground, so she did not want to leave. She fell asleep on the way back to her house, so I let her sleep for a while before Julian came out and took her in. By then it was time for me to watch the Super Bowl, which I thought was a very good game. I did not care who won, but I am glad New Orleans got a chance to celebrate a victory after all these years.

In the evening I watched the last part of Emma on PBS. It was originally advertised as a four-part series, so I was surprised that it ended, but now I realize that they combined parts one and two and showed two-hours on the first Sunday three weeks ago. Anyway, it was a good production. I also finished The Economist before I went to bed.

Message 620

Yesterday I did my grocery shopping and started reading The Economist. In the afternoon I watched the Sharks beat Nashville 4-3. It was a closer game than I would have liked, but at least they won. Joshua did not make it because he was getting ready to drive up today to ski and watch the Super Bowl in the ski lodge. In the evening I watched a DVD of the movie Flyboys. It is based on the true stories of the Americans who joined the French Lafayette Escadrille to fight the Germans in World War 1 before the US joined the war. It was very nicely done and gave a good rendition of the time and place. I give it 4 stars.

Message 619

Yesterday I spent a quiet day working on my memoirs. I went back and added a couple of things to my high school years. After the Friday PBS shows were over I got a call from Larry and Judi and joined them in seeing the movie A Single Man.. I had seen and heard a lot about it on Charlie Rose and did not expect to like it, but it was quite well done. In spite of its bleak view of life, I give it 3.6 stars.

Message 618

Yesterday I met Vanessa at Heidi's Pies for our usual Thursday breakfast. In the late afternoon I watched the Sharks beat St. Louis 4-2. The game started early here because it was at home for the Blues. Joshua brought in a pizza during the second intermission, so he was able to watch the third period with me.

After the game I watched a DVD of the movie The Girl Next Door. It was a slap stick comedy and was sort of a chick flick. Jack's daughter from 24 played the girl who was a porn star trying to change her life, but she had no nude scenes. It was pretty lame, but I give it 2.8 stars.

Message 617

Yesterday I worked a little on my memoirs again for the first time in a while. In the late afternoon I went in the hot tub for the first time in several days. Jason had to come up to pick up a prescription at PAMF, so he and I and Caroline and Ellie had dinner at Ten Fu. It was good to see them all again.

In the evening I watched a DVD of the movie The Man in the Moon. I think maybe I saw it sometime previously, but I have only a few vague memories, so I can not be sure. It was made in 1991 and has a great cast. It is Reese Witherspoon's first movie, and she looks about 14 years old, which is the age of the girl she is playing. Sam Waterston who plays her father also looks very young. It is set in 1957 Louisiana and gives a good feel for the time and place. It is a coming of age movie about a family with four girls. Reese is the second oldest and she has something of a sibling rivalry with her older sister who is scheduled to start Duke in the fall. It has a very heavy ending, but it is a very good movie. I give it five stars, although if I did see it before, I do not think I thought so highly of it the first time.

Message 616

Yesterday Beech had a cold and had to miss school, so I had him at my place for a few hours so Vanessa could take Annie to her Little Wonders school. Beech was real good. He just played with his new electronic game system, I think it is call an LS, or something like that. In the evening Joshua brought in burgers from Jack-In-The-Box and watched the Sharks game with me. They scored the first two goals, but then lost to Detroit 2-4. I guess even the best teams can not win all of their games, but it is disturbing that even though the Sharks have the best record in the NHL, they have lost all three games to the Red Wings this year. I hope they do not have to play them in the playoffs. After the game I read some more of my science fiction book Hyperion.

Message 615

Yesterday I finished reading Science, and in the late afternoon I went out to dinner with Larry and Judi. In the evening Joshua came over and watched 24 with me. This message may be a new record for the shortest yet.

Messge 614

Yesterday afternoon I got back to the hot tub for the first time in a while. I also joined the family dinner in San Mateo. The food was great as always. In the evening I watched Part 2 of Emma on PBS , and later I finished The Economist. The sun is shinning at the moment, but rain is predicted for most of this week.