Summer's goin by fast...

Well, July is pretty much over now but the blogging bug has bit me again so let's see what's been going on in my world.

Rachel's parents came down this weekend to spend some time with us. We managed to celebrate Dave's birthday by going to Natt Spil, an eclectic fusion restaurant just off the Square that has what is, in my humble opinion, the best damn pork sandwich EVER. On crispy home made french bread, with spicy mayo and plenty of cilantro and jalapenos. Mmm-mmm good.

We managed to get quite a bit of theater in this weekend as well. On Friday after attending a bbq at Joseph and Leah's we headed out to go see You've Ruined A Perfectly Good Mystery, a play written and performed by Madisonians that is headed off to the New York Fringe. The play was about a Sherlock Holmes rip off set in a completely irreverent choose-your-own-adventure and narrated by someone with a hilarious love of overworked simile and heavy handed puns, much to our main characters' dismay. Probably the best part about this play was the scenery, which was carried and acted out by the rotating portion of the cast. Particularly awesome whenever there was travel involved. Plus, at the end, dirigible battle!

Next up was Captain America. I liked it, maybe not as much as I liked Thor (THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRR!!!) but it was a fine addition to the Marvel line up. Hugo Weaving had an amazing clipped German accent as the Red Skull and, as Rachel put it, "Everyone hates Nazis, and when you have people that even the Nazis hate then you just don't care how many get blown up!" Hat tip to Marvel for including Nick Fury's Howling Commandos as part of the storyline and making Bucky into a badass. Also, the Avengers trailer at the end? YES.

Finally we traveled an hour out of town to Spring Green, WI to watch a play at the American Players Theatre. This place was very cool as it's an outdoor theater, and we have been blessed all weekend with absolutely perfect weather. Unfortunately we were a bit confused as to exactly how seating was going to work and brought a picnic dinner, only to find that there were actual theater seats and outside food wasn't allowed in the theater. Nonetheless we quietly broke out our peanut butter and raspberry & hot pepper jelly sandwiches and served ourselves slices of gourmet sheep and goat cheese on crackers while the play was going on.

The play that we saw was Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, a comedy about a man who accidentally brings the spirit of his first wife back from the grave with terrible results. It was very witty and the actors performed quite admirably and, for being an outdoor production, the special effects were good. I do have to say that it did drag on a bit especially towards the beginning, but overall it was a great way to finish out the evening. Plus I think I saw more bats during the play than I have at any other point, which is awesome.

And that's mostly what's been going on. Deb, as I know you're reading this, if you could send me some of the pics from the weekend I'd love to post them up.

Thanks for reading!

May Day!

May Day is a big celebration here in Minneapolis. One of the local theater companies, Heart of the Beast, gets tons of volunteers to help construct and man puppets that make up the bulk of the parade, generally following some kind of story. This year it was all about Tigers and apparently how they can save the world. Lots of cool puppets and pics... which you can see on my album!

May Day

Back Again

Well, I originally intended to wait for my computer to be fixed before I started blogging again, but that seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time. So here I am, yet again.

The new term of Americorps service began two weeks ago, and so far the new corps looks to be shaping up rather well. A new thing that we're trying this year is being social outside of Corps activities, and so far it seems to be a success. There's talk of going to the Summit brewery in a few weeks for a free tour for some free beer which I am particularly quite excited about. The corps also seems much geekier this year, which makes my alpha geek status an asset rather than an albatross.

I've also started doing some training on teaching finally! Only a year late, but better late than never I guess... It's with the Minnesota Literacy Council and is targeted at teaching us to teach adults how to read, write, do math and prepare for the GED, but there is plenty of material about classroom management and whatnot that I believe will be very useful for my basic computer class as well.

But not everything has been work related. I've been hunting down grad schools, studying for the Physics GRE again, and doing plenty of hanging out. Of particular interest:

- I was involved in a theater production! Bedlam Theatre, one of the more liberal establishments out there held a variety show called Super-ROMP and apparently always has a segment called the Five Minute Movie. This year's selection: Wrath of Khan. I got to play the part of First Officer Chekov and the Starship Reliant and it was very fun (if exceedingly chaotic and crazy).

- Went to a wedding on Wednesday September 9th where there were exactly three people that I knew and none of them were related to the bride or groom. Apparently one of Rachel's old family friends was getting married and chose her to be the maid of honor. Speaking of which, I need to get a pic of her in her dress up here, because WOW... The couple and their friends were all total dorks which was awesome, and the wedding was held in a large park with a vey nice vista to serve as the backdrop. We also got to take one of the three wedding cakes home, which was incredibly awesome! General note: allowing the wedding guests to blow bubbles rather than throw rice is a very nice and smart alternative. Plus it makes for some great photos!

- Went to go see the Muppet Movie last night at the Uptown Theater. I had never seen it before and Rachel was super excited about seeing it on the big screen. Have to say that I loved it and all of the exceedingly random celebrity cameos that populate it, plus general insanity of the different muppets and the plot line.

-District 9:  a gut punch of a movie if there ever was one. Expect a full post on this awesome but emotionally draining movie. And yes, I did just use emotionally draining to describe an alien movie... think Hotel Rwanda but with aliens.

That's all for now... will attempt to do some regular postage of stuffs. Until next time...

"Let us adopt geologic time. Then -- time being money -- there will be no more poverty."
- Mark Twain's Notebook, p. 137