What started out as a dark, windy, snowy Chicago day ended up a movie marathon that none of us expected.

We had decided to take in Diary of a Wimpy Kid at the local googleplex on Friday.  Circumstances in the positive caused a delay so we decided for a Saturday showing, instead.  The kids had read and loved the Wimpy Kid series of books by Jeff Kinney.  Lillie, especially, was a fan and we would soon find out this was not a good thing for the film.

Most of learn as we grow older that film that are based on great books rarely live up to the source material.  Sadly, Lillie learned that lesson yesterday.  There were a number of scenes that presented things differently than the books as well as characters that didn't existing the universe of the written word.  As a result, she proclaimed this the worst movie she'd ever seen.

Was it really?  Likely, no.  Living in the family of a Godzilla fan, who loves sci-fi, horror and comic book movies, she has seen a lot of bad, bad movies.  But like all of us who have seen a film version of a beloved book, she was let down that it did not live up to her preconceived expectation of what a film based on these books should be like.

So for the non-reader of the series, was it a bad film.  No, not at all.  It was very funny.  It was full of life lessons and characters we could all relate to.  The grownups liked it more than the kids because we had no preconceived ideas of what the film should be like.

Afterward, we carried out a less thn acceptable haircut on the boy.  I wanted a good four inches taken off.  The hairdresser loved his hair so she would not cut it.  Instead she got rid of the unsightly ends to the strands.  At least we had a coupon for half off the cut.

A bit of shopping and dinner later and it was time for more movies.  I decided it would be Astro Boy.  As most fans of the original animated series found out, this was not our Astro Boy.  Sure the CGI Astro Boy looked a bit like the 2D Astro Boy we loved and the characters all had huge noses but it was watered down.  It didn't have the magic that the original did.  It was entertaining enough but not what I had hoped.  I know exactly how Lillie felt earlier in the day.

After that, we got ready for The Return of Dr. Phibes on Svengoolie but Mary requested District 9 since we'd recently seen Phibes on Sven.  I was happy to oblige.  I'd seen District 9 at the theater and really enjoyed it.  Much like Cloverfield, it took a film genre that we were very familiar with, in this case Alien Invasion, and presented it in a light that was ground breaking and very riveting.  Happily, Mary shared my appreciation for the film.

So it was a Movie Marathon Saturday.  Perfect for the turn the weather took.  Now if I can just get rid of this stinking cold, I'll really be happy.

Last night was the last Daddy/Daughter dance as it's time for Middle School next year.  We had a great time.  Funny moment was when the DJ split up the gym between Dads and Daughter to sing a rousing Summer Nights from Grease.  The problem was the girls did not know Grease so it was an Epic Fail.  Funny for the wrong reason.

Today was the last of the 13th birthday festivities.  It was a nightmare because the 13 year old apparently invited someone without telling us. This would not have been a big deal but the person lives about 30 minutes away and we had the actually invited guests on the way over.  We had to delay a visit with teh uninvited/invited guest until a later time.  Communication is a wonderful thing.  Sadly, with the teens just starting, I'm sure there will be plenty more of those.

Unfortunately, Lillie has a stomach flu.  That means no visit by Grandpa tomorrow for the Super Bowl. 

Life just stays interesting.

My boy becomes a man tomorrow.  He is a great boy and makes me proud. 

I love you Tom.  Happy 13th Birthday.

Love Dad.

Saturday and today were spent visiting the local Men's Warehouse in preparation for a very exciting trip that I found out about last week.  My team at work was notified that we were one of three runners up for the yearly Innovator's Award.  We were knocked out at the honor. 

We received an invitation to take part in the annual awards dinner to be held at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.   We will also be staying at the W Hotel in Times Square.  I have been to New York City once before and was given the whirlwind tour by my friend Michael in a period of a few hours.  This time, in addition to the dinner and awards ceremony, we will be taking a Movie and TV location bus tour.

As I said, we are very excited to have received this honor.  Our website received a Top Ten Best Support Website award from the Association of Support Professionals earlier in the year.  To start this year is a great way to start.

New York, here we come.

I'd like to recap my day in a few short paragraphs.  Today is Sunday.  For many people it is the end of a four day Holiday weekend.  I spent it shoveling snow.  I snapped the handle of the shovel mid-job.  Fortunately, it snapped in the middle.  I have new, thick leather gloves that allowed me to continue the job.  That and my under six foot height made it possible.

I was able to replace the handle with a $5 shovel handle from the hardware store.  I then finished off the post break part of the shoveling that needed touching up.  The little things in life sometimes seem like great achievements.

The ladies went to visit a friend in Rockford for a girl's day at the mall.  More on that in a bit.  Tom and I hit the stores for a few things then came back and he disappeared to his new XBox 360 man cave.  I saw him for dinner and that was it.  I guess that will be how it is from here on out, at least until school starts again and the homework kicks in.

I took on the new Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 game.  When playing real gold, Caddyshack jokes are a constant.  When playing this game, Tiger jokes are the new norm.  I do fine until it comes time to putt.  I generally take as many shots on the putting green as I do getting to it.  I finished +37 for 18 holes.  The announcer in the game said "That is one of the worst rounds I've ever seen".  I believe she was right.

After the ladies got home, we played some Wii.  This is where things started to change.  I got the new drumset I picked up for Christmas and got ready for a game of Guitar Hero 5 where I could use the orange cymbal which is broken on our current set.  Unfortunately, the yellow cymbal stand on the new set is cracked.  This is before I even got a chance to use it.

Maybe I should just go to bed so the next experience I have will be a new day.

2009 is ending with a odd mix of weather.  But this is Chicago where if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change.

In the past week, we've gone from an ice storm to rain and 40 degrees to where we are now which is five inches of snow and counting. 

What a hoot it is.  I'm staying inside and assembling Christmas gifts like all good Fathers should do.

Here's Mary plowing the driveway in only the way the Pod can.

Twenty Two years ago tonight, two lives changed and would never be the same again.  On this day in 1987, a chance visit to a Wheaton watering hole reunited Mary and I.  We had met in 1983 when I went to Wheaton for Thanksgiving.  Memories faded as time passed but that all changed December 23, 1987. 

I walked into Hugh's Pub with two buddies and Mary recognized me.  We joined her and her friend for some refreshments.  Later she and I loaded up the jukebox with one of our musical constants, U2 and their album of that year The Joshua Tree.  Her friend left and the party of three became a gang of four.  Mary had hung with my buddies in high school so this would have been the gang if I hadn't moved to Indiana before Junior year in high school.

We then did what all parties must do, we went to Mr. Doughnut.  I'm not sure why.  We then got my car stuck in the Seven Gables park.  Then it came time to take Mary home.  My buddy said he would but fate won out again as I told him that's okay, I will. 

After some intense discussion, I did get my future queen home.  When I asked for her phone number so we could continue our brand new relationship, she tried to give me her Father's phone number.  She didn't live with her Father but was busting my balls.  The politics of passion.

So fast forward 22 years...  two children and plenty of real life later, we share each day and look forward to the next and the one after that. Who knew when I stepped into that tavern that night that my future Best Friend would be there?  I certainly didn't but I thank the Lord every day that she was.

Happy 22 years, Mary.  I love you.

The expected huge Winter storm turned out to be a wet, windy affair.  The temp is expected to dive into the teens tomorrow and twenties on Friday.  In typical fashion, the weekend will be well over freezing.  So that means no shoveling.  I'll let nature take it's course.

So Friday will be a day filled with more recording.  I have the beginnings of a new song recorded and will work on the structure, vocals and bass.  The floodgates have opened.

I have completed the first multi-track recording of an original composition in 15 years.  I got goose bumps when I listened to my final mix.  I have wanted to do this for years but with the demands of family life, I didn't think I would have time to start recording again, as I did in the early 90s.  Recording four tracks at a time, bouncing down to a stereo cassette recorder and then back to the four-track with two open tracks over and over until the song was complete is a very grueling way of recording.

As with most things computerized, the process of multi-track recording has been simplified immensely by placing it on a computer.  Creating tracks with a simple software called Audacity takes just a few clicks.  When I recorded on the Tascam four-track recorder, the highest number of tracks I ever went through was eight.  On this new song I have 22 tracks. 

The nice thing about the ease of use with multi-track recording software is you don't have to try and cram multiple parts into the same track.  I would regularly have the lead guitar playing the riff and the guitar solo on the same track.  This made playing very susceptible to screw up that caused re-recording and parts erased.  Now, you just record all the lead guitar parts on separate tracks.  One track can consist of a few seconds of sound and that's it.  It's an incredible relief and lets the creative juices really flow.

Before I let the new song loose on the unsuspecting public, a little info.  I started writing the song last week during Thanksgiving vacation.  It was just a three chord progression on my acoustic guitar.  I decided to start recording it with a Guitar Hero USB microphone, a stand and the guitar.  I installed Audacity and away I went.  At this point, the only vocals were a rough melody that repeated Eeyah a few times.  The snippet was only about a minute long because I was interrupted while recording by my daughter, another hazard to resuming the recording career.

After the proof of concept, I searched out a drum loop.  I found one at a website with free loops and set it up in Audacity to repeat 32 measures.  I then recorded six and 12 string acoustic guitars with the Guitar Hero USB mic.  I patched the bass directly into the PC, as well as the several electric guitar tracks with my Les Paul kit guitar plugged into my 10 watt Marshall amp.  With that, the instrumental backing track was complete-ish.

Over the past week, I'd listened to it on and off trying to come up with a melody.  I listened to it while walking at lunch and in my car on the drive home.  Last night, I hit upon a melody for the verse and chorus.  As luck would have it I can up with a few words for the chorus, as well.  I quickly wrote them down in a word processor, another luxery I didn't have in the 90s.  I then began to put together verse lyrics that fit the chorus lyrics.  The only tough part was coming up with a theme.  It was much easier while I was an angst-filled twenty-something.

When I had typed up lyrics that fit the theme of the song and the syllables iof the melody, I got out the Guitar Hero mic again and recorded a lead and harmony vocal.  I popped plenty of P's and for the first time a B.  With that, I and decided that this recording would be a rough mix, to be improved upon today.  I ran to Guitar Center in the morning to see what was available for Wind Screens.  They had many with a simple $20 model from On-Stage Stands winning out.  It worked as advertised.

What caught my eye next was a little treasure called ICICLE.  It is a Microphone to USB converter that allows you to take an existing stage microphone and connect it to your PC through a USB port.  This allowed me to use my old, trusty mic that I recorded all my music with in the 90s, spending a lot less money than if I picked up a USB mic that would only be of use with a computer.

And that brings us to the song itself.  It is called Open Up.  I double tracked the verse vocals and went with a three part harmony in the chorus to give it a bigger sound.  After the vocals were recorded, I re-recorded the bass through my bass amp to give it a bit more presence and punch.  I then over dubbed a few more guitar. 

Overall, I'm very happy with the outcome.  It is a lot less work to layer a lot more music.  I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing and recording it.  Now I just hope it doesn't take another 15 years for a follow up.

Open Up

My brother and I took part in our usual Black Friday Christmas shopping on Friday morning.  It was very successful.  Due to the public nature of this blog, I can't go into great detail about our scores but they were many.

We started mapping out our path and desired conquests on Thursday night.  We turned in about 11pm a short evening's sleep.

At 5am, we awoke.  He walked his dog as I shook out the cobwebs.  At about 5:20 we arrived at our first destination.  It was a big box electronics store.  It was packed, as expected.  The parking lots was jammed.  We saw people walking out with their lawn chairs in hand so we estimated the length of our wait in line.  We scored everything we had planned and walked out of the store an hour later, most of which was spent standing in a line that snaked around the inside of thestore like a line at DisneyWorld.

Next up, a much smaller video game store.  Although the store was smaller and only had two lines, it moves very slow because they keep all the games behind the counter.  The person ringing up the customer also has to get the games and place them in the case.  Henry Ford rolls in his grave at this one.  Total time... 90 minutes.  Not fun.

From there, it was fairly easy.  The first wave of shoppers had completed their rounds and the lines were manageable.  My favorite sale was found at CompUSA (Tiger Direct). Quite a savings on this USB hub.

Many people poo-poo this outing.  We have a good time.  Two brothers doing what they like best, searching for bargains and bringing home the success of the hunt.  That and ending the outing with a trip to White Castle.

Happy Christmas everyone.