Quick Update

Hey guys, I was just browsing around in my pictures and I found the one that was attached to the infamous email that introduced my to Stacey so for your viewing pleasure I present "Lizzy"

Now tell me how could I resist a smile like that?

Internet Romance

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Stress!

So far this has not been the best of weeks. I arrived at work Monday to discover that my supervisor had decided to go on vacation for this week and not tell me.

Now some of you might be thinking "Big deal, the boss being away is a good thing!" But not in my case it isn't. You see I work at a CNC Lathing and heat tempering plant as a quality inspector. Mostly we make axles for the big three. And this week we're working on a prototype part that might lead to the company getting more work. Usually my supervisor would be working on something like this while I handled the regular day-to-day inspections. But now he's on vacation and I have to handle the inspections for the prototype!



It's not that the part itself is so bad, it's a little more difficult than say a part we do every day but still not too big of a deal. A big part of the problem is working with one of the Production Manager's named John. John is a very loud opinionated man who is VERY impatient and unforgiving of mistakes. He wants everything done NOW and he wants it perfect the very first time!

John also loves to place blame. If something goes wrong it's NEVER his fault. It's always yours. Several times in the past he has laid the blame on me and caused problems for me. I know that I'm not supposed to hold a grudge and I try my best not to. But even forgiving him the best I know how doesn't keep me from trying to watch out for the next thing that I might be blamed for.

Setting up a part doesn't work that way however. John is the one who sets up the lathe to run the new part and NO first setup is ever right the very first time. So I have this manager who loves to blow his top looking over my shoulder all the while I'm measuring a part that I'm unfamiliar with.

Now, to his credit, John has been very good to work with so far this week. He hasn't blown his top so far. But that's the key phrase, "so far" I've worked with John for almost five years so I generally know how to deal with him. But from that experience I know that he could blow up at any time and it's usually something small that you'd least expect that causes it, that keeps me on my toes.

Any of you who know me know that I don't like to argue and that I don't have the best temper myself. So the last few days have been very stressful trying to do my regular work and at the same time help with setting up this prototype.



Now add to this situation the heat. It's been 88+ degrees the last two days and very high humidity. Now, my shop heat treats parts in large ovens and that means that whatever the temperature is outside it's 15-20 degrees hotter inside. Were all melting in there! The heat was so bad that yesterday I was ill after returning home after work.

Luckily this morning I woke up feeling fine. The last thing I wanted was to go to work and already be sick in this situation. And with my boss on vacation there would be no one to cover for me so I couldn't have called off.

God has definitely been a big help through this. I believe that it is He who is causing John to be so easy going. Also when things at work have been at a hectic pace, I've felt His calming presence with me. If nothing else I believe that this week is definitely teaching me to lean on the Lord more heavily to help me get through my day.

The Dead Walk!

Well, not really, but in the movies they do!

You may have noticed that I've tried to improve my blog a bit over the last couple of days. I've added fields on the side bar telling friends what music I'm currently listening to, what books I've been reading and what movie I last watched.

You'll notice that today's little update to movies was Resident Evil: Apocalypse. I absolutely love zombie movies. And lately I've been on a big time zombie kick. Unfortunately there aren't very many good ones out there. Oh, there are tons of zombie movies but most of them are hideously bad.



For a zombie movie to be good it has to be well written enough that I care about the characters. And most importantly it has to scare me. Very few are able to accomplish that last part but I at least want to be fearful for the characters.



One of the best writers and directors in the zombie genre is George A. Romero. I love the feel that his movies have. They are claustrophobic and you're constantly afraid for the characters. There are very few moments (if any) in his films where the characters ever truly are safe.

Many Romero fans site Night Of The Living Dead as his best zombie film but for me, it's Dawn Of The Dead. The original 1978 version is what I'm talking about, not the 2004 remake(While the remake is an ok film.) The '78 version of the film has very weak special effects in most parts but it has a realism about it that makes you think this is what it would actually be like if there was a zombie outbreak.



Now, the reason that I like zombies so much is simple. They can scare me. Of all the horror premises I've seen (ghost's, demons, serial killer etc..) zombies are the one that are consistently frightening to me. I think that it may come from the natural fear of death that we all have, but I don't claim to be a psychiatrist. In truth I don't really care why, if I knew that might ruin it for me and that would be a shame.

All I know, is if I really wanna watch something and get a good case of the heebie-geebies, all I gotta do is watch a good zombie movie.

A funny side note. My wife can't stand to watch most horror movies because they scare her to death and give her nightmares, with the exception of zombie movies. She says that they don't scare her in the least!



Sadly, most of what passes for horror these days is just gore. The Saw films are really interesting movies that I enjoy but to me they are in no way horror. They have a lot of blood and guts but nothing really frightens me about them. The same is true for Hostel, lots of gore, not scary.

To me, a movie is scary when the tension builds and the suspense is driving you crazy! These two elements cause your fear to rise and make you afraid even if most or all of the killing is done off screen. If you don't believe me go and watch the original Halloween. I've noticed that there is actually very little blood and/or violence in this movie compared to modern horror movies. But the suspense of when is Michael Meyers gonna pop out of the shadows and get them plays with your nerves and you can't help but jump!

So if any of you know of any lesser known zombie or horror movies that really scared you let me know.

The Dark Tower

First off I hope everyone has noticed that I've added a few things to the blog. I thought it would be good to make a few lists on the sidebars to my favorite sites on the web and such.

One thing you will also notice is a new little blurb to the right entitled "What I'm currently reading". The name is self-explanatory so I wont bore you telling what you already know. But instead I'd like to tell you a little about the book itself and the series that it is a part of.

Most constant readers of Stephen King are already familiar with this series called The Dark Tower. But to my surprise I've met a few King fans who haven't read his "Magnum Opus". Usually when I ask why they say that they tried the first book and it wasn't like his other novels. A few others say that they don't like to read series of books that take more than one volume to tell the whole story. Whatever their reason they don't know what they are missing.

The Dark Tower series was inspired by the poem Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came written by Robert Browning around 1855. It tells the story of Roland who is questing to reach a dark tower and his adventures getting there. It is a very dark poem but full of rich descriptions.



Stephen Kings character, Roland, the last gunslinger is also questing to find a dark tower. It is a quest not only to save his world but ALL worlds. The first volume, The Gunslinger focuses mainly on the main character Roland and his pursuit of a villian called The Man In Black. Who also happens to be a villain a from a few of Kings other novels, The Stand, being one of them.



I think many readers are thrown off by the first volume because it feels a bit different than most of Stephen King's work. It's hard to explain but to me King's writing style is a bit different than his other books. However, starting with the second volume, The Drawing of The Three, Stephen's regular writing style seems to come through and if most readers make it here they're gonna get hooked on this series.



What is really amazing to me is that nearly EVERY book Stephen King has ever published ties into the Dark Tower in some way. It is my opinion that those who only read his other works can't fully appreciate what King has accomplished here. Even as early as King's second novel, Salem's Lot, directly connects to the Dark Tower so that I have to think that Mr. King was planning on creating this huge web of stories from the very start. Whether this was done consciously or subconsciously only he knows.

Recently, the final volume, The Dark Tower 7 was published. King had been very slow about putting these volumes out in the beginning. Usually only about 1 book every 5-7 years and this drove fans crazy! But a while back tragically, Stephen was severely hurt when he was hit by a mini-van when taking an evening stroll. This somehow make Mr. King aware of his mortality and his desire to finish the series, and he published the last three volume in rapid succession.



I've read almost all of Kings books and I can easily say that The Dark Tower series is by far my favorite. It is connected to so many of my other favorites such as It, The Talisman, Black House, Insomnia, Salem's Lot and many others. Even some of his short stories are indirectly connected to it. It makes me feel like I'm revisiting those other novels as well.



Another treat is that Marvel Comics has reached an agreement with King to publish a mini-series of comic books called The Gunslinger Born, that tell some of the back story of the main character, Roland. So for those fans saddened that the series is complete can revisit that world before the first book takes place.



Anywho, I've babbled along long enough about this for now so I'll shut up now.

What are you doing still here?

Go on, get out there and buy the first volume, you don't know what your missing!

My Transformers Movie Review

As my post two days ago should show, I'm a huge transformers fan. Ever since the movie has been released all my friends keep asking me what I thought of it. I thought I'd post it here so that from now on I'll just direct them to my blog.

First off, I really had reservations about this movie because all the pictures I saw of the robot's designs looked terrible to me. They looked very different than the blocky forms I have grown so used to since my childhood. The only way I can describe my first impression of the pics I saw before the movie is "insect-like". In some ways they actually looked almost organic and I didn't like this very much.

However, as soon as I saw these figures moving on-screen I was put at ease. To tell the truth, I was so caught up in the story that I didn't think twice to criticize the robot's designs. And when Prime transforms to robot mode for the first time it nearly took my breath away. Here was my childhood hero brought to life! (I'm such a dork!)

I loved the voice acting! Peter Cullen was the original voice of Optimus Prime back in the 80's. And to me, anyone who has voiced the character in the later cartoons are poor imitations. It was great to have the "real" Optimus Prime in the movie. I also loved Hugo Weaving's work as the voice of Megatron.

Peter Cullen aka...

...Optimus Prime


Hugo Weaving aka...

...Megatron

As far as the storytelling goes, I generally liked it. There is lots of humor and I never thought I'd LOL at the theater as much as I did. Especially at a Transformers movie. I say that I "generally" liked the storytelling because sometimes the fight scenes were hard to follow. When the camera was pulled back for a medium or far shot everything was easily understandable, but several times when two bots were fighting, the camera was so close to the action that it was hard to tell one character from another, much less what they were actually doing. This is a minor gripe however and overall I thought the story was great.



I loved the movie score and immediately went in search of it. Unfortunately all that is available is the soundtrack. (Which I bought.) At the moment there are no plans to release the movies orchestral score which is a shame. But I'm sure that one will be released eventually.

I've been to see the film twice so far and have been invited by a friend to go see it again. (Finances permitting.)

There were two things I didn't like in the film however. First the language. While I don't consider myself a saint I was surprised by the Transformers themselves cursing in this movie. While I can understand it that people talk this way and easily accepted the human characters profanity, I was shocked to hear the bots curse. It's my feeling that if they were supposed to be so much more of a "mature" species than the humans they would have outgrown profanity long ago.

The second thing that bothered me about the movie was how much more powerful Megatron was than Optimus Prime. This really ticked me off, it seemed to me that it was all Optimus could do to survive for the few minutes they actually fought. At one point, before the battle begins Prime actually tries to cover the bases in case he gets killed in the battle by telling Sam to throw the Allspark Cube into his chest if it looks like he's gonna die!

This is completely out of character for the Optimus Prime of the cartoon. The Prime I know is able to go toe-to-toe with Megatron and fight him to a standstill. That was part of their dynamic as each other's nemesis. Megatron could basically trash any regular autobot he wanted, that was until Prime showed up. Optimus Prime was the one guy that could match Megatron in raw strength and thus stand up to him.

In general though I think that Transformers is the best movie to come out this year and I recommend that you go out and see it if you already haven't.

Trusting God

An iteresting thing happened to my wife and I yesterday I want to tell you about.

I was layed off of work for the first two weeks of July. I didn't have any vacation time available to use for the extended time off so obviously that meant no pay for those two weeks. I suppose I could have tried to apply for unemployment but I was greatly distracted by a tooth ache at the time while trying to plan a trip to WV to see my dad.

So the way things worked out was that since we only get paid every two weeks at my shop, we have been about 5 weeks without a paycheck. My wife works as a nanny and we've been making due with her income but it's not enough what with gas prices so high and a mortgage to pay and such.

Last friday I began to get very frustrated with our situation. It feels like I'm working for nothing! I've been working the last 2 and a half weeks and were broke! I didn't want to say anything to my wife because I didn't want to burden her or maybe even start her worrying if she wasn't.

So last night Stacey came home from work in a bit of a mood and said almost exactly the same things to me that I had been feeling for the last week now. In some ways it was a relief to know I wasn't alone feeling this way. In another way it made me feel terrible! I feel like a failure as a provider because my wife has to be bothered with the money situation at all. I'm old fashioned and look at providing for the family monitarily as my responsibility.

I have no problem with Stacey working but I want it to be for her own personal gratification not because she has too. That's why I've already told her that as soon as we pay off the mortgage she can quit her job if she wants. Or look for something else she likes better and not worry about the pay rate.

Anyway I reminded Stacey that God would ultimately provide for us no matter what our work situations were. She said she already knew this and had just read that in the bible that morning during her devotional bible reading.

Well today she sent me a text message at work excited because she unexpectedly came into some extra funds! How's that for faithfulness? God knows our needs before we ask and already has provision for us.

Also, thank God, tomorrow is payday for me. I think things are going to continue to be tight for a few more weeks untill we get caught up on all the bills, but I really needed the added encouragement of God's help today.

Anyway I'm posting while on my lunch break, gotta go!