Yes, yes, yes… anyone who remembers the tagline from one of the top box office draws of 1984 knows the answer to that question. The announcement that a Ghostbusters III is being planned made me scratch my head wondering when enough is enough and how old actors need to be before a franchise that was created in their prime needs to be shelved. Although successful back in the day, the original films (the sequel especially) were nowhere near as iconic as say… Indiana Jones. However, two writers (Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky) from the wickedly entertaining series The Office (season 5 begins September 25) have been assigned to develop the story that will pick up 20 years after Ghostbusters II. It also promises to reunite the four leads: Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and OF Course Bill Murray. At this early date, it is uncertain whther or not Rick Moranis (who has all but retired from movie making) or Sigourney Weaver would be included. But I suppose that if the story was worthy enough, I might consider going out to see it or renting the DVD.

Try Blockbuster Free for Two Weeks

I’m not exactly sure how I did it, but I volunteered to put up some new ceiling tiles for the theater. That isn’t much of a problem, but I do remember telling someone I would put them up if someone else painted them. Well, earlier this evening I was using some brown paint to paint all the new tiles before they go on the ceiling.

It wasn’t fun at all. The tiles were like sponges and just kept absorbing the paint. I couldn’t put it on to thick, because the tiles would have fallen apart under the paint load. Then all the little crevices and crannies in these tiles didn’t want to take any paint. So this took about twice as much paint as I guessed and twice as much time. I certainly hope they go up smoother than the paint job did.

Next week, ceiling tiles will be put in there place. Wish me luck.

WOW… tonight was the final dress rehearsal for The Nerd and to quote our director, “We have a show.” I do however, have a few questions about it beginning with the title of this blog… what exactly is gumption… Let’s find out together, shall we? Merriam-Webster’s on-line dictionary lists two definitions:

• common sense/horse sense
• enterprise/initiative (he lacks the gumption to try)

Ok… now that that has been settled, the last person whom Axel believes to have said quality was Marjorie Main. Once again, I haven’t the foggiest idea who he is speaking about so, I will consult the trusty wikipedia website and low-and-behold we get:

Marjorie Main (February 24, 1890 – April 10, 1975) was an Oscar-nominated American character actress, perhaps best known for her role as Ma Kettle in a series of ten Ma and Pa Kettle movies.

I KNEW I had seen her name somewhere before. I vaguely remember watching the old Ma and Pa Kettle series after church on Sunday mornings. She was nominated for an Academy Award for the 1947 Ma and Pa Kettle film The Egg and I.

So now that I have found answers to my two burning questions concerning the play, I can tell the cast of The Nerd to BREAK A LEG. IT IS GOING TO BE A SMASH.

Figures, to use a word Jamiahsh did on my last post.  Why do I use it?  Well, because the tech never showed up!  That’s right, no call, no nothing.  And get this- I called Comcast and they said the appointment was canceled!  What??  Actually, that was the second time I called.  The first time I called the representative was helpful and even gave me a $25 credit on the spot for their tardiness.  She then got in contact with the local dispatch and I was informed they would call me with an updated ETA.  As I said, they never did.  Now I need to wait until Friday. Sigh.  I am actually at my church right now using their wireless to write this.  I wish the local office was as customer friendly as the 888 number…

The above post was actually written two days ago, but for some reason I must have hit the save button instead of the publish button.  So, now that I am online again I thought I might as well post it.  Today the tech came (according to him he wasn’t the right tech- the one who had this job was tied up at another job- but who cares, I’m back up!) and I showed him the bad spot.  Ten minutes later, after a couple snips off the bad section and a couple of connectors put in place to join the ends, I am back in business.  Well, I am going to catch up on some news now.  I’ll post again later.   And thanks Taylhis on the update on C.  I did get the email, and read your comment on the last post.  I am glad the problem has finally been identified and is being treated.  Prayers that the biopsy tests come back negative.

Boy did I have a strange dream last night.  Normally, I don’t remember them, but this one was long, involved and memorable.

***** Dream cloud surrounding the following narrative.  Comments are in italics ****

I was sitting on the porch of my house and a mid-sized red car comes up the drive. A lady I knew stepped out of the car and asked if I wanted to go someplace with her. She was very sorry for coming out to the house without calling, but really wanted male a companionship for this outing. I was more than willing to go, since I was thinking of asking this lady out for some time. I hadn’t been asked out much during my life, and I liked the feeling….
In reality, I have no idea who this woman was and the house porch I was sitting on was my parents’ house, and it was sold to my new neighbor almost 5 years ago. Yes, I do like the feeling of being asked out.

Before I could even step into the house to get my wallet and keys, a LifeFlight helicopter was landing in the front yard. Now I had no idea why they were coming here, and the life flight nurse was sure that this was the place to pick up the an emergency patient. I tried to explain that the only two people there were the two they saw now. Then a school bus comes barreling through the woods, not on the road, but right through the woods, and over the swamp. This is when I told the LifeFlight crew that this must be the person/people they were waiting for. While talking to the crew, the school bus turned into a tanker truck. Helping the people out of the tanker and unto the copter took so much time that my date and I were too late to go to her function. So we made plans to get together at a later date.
Ok, this just happened very quickly in the dream. The lady in question (I sure wish I would have had a name associated with this dream.) The next section of the dream occurred in the blink of an eye.

I was sitting at a table of a park lodge with the lady of my dreams (I like the way that sounds!) and someone fell off a speed boat on the lake in view from the lodge. Leaving my date behind I run and swim out to rescue the person. Coming back into the lodge, I ran into my father-in-law. He was giving me a thumbs up sign on my date. I then went into a restroom (straight out of a Harry Potter Movie) to change my wet clothes. My brother-in-law came into the restroom to make sure I put on the suit he brought me. He wanted to make sure I was ready for the wedding. What wedding, I was here on a date?? Anyway, I get dressed and step out of the restroom to tell my date about the wedding. Instead of finding my date, I find my late wife. She said “Hurry up, we can’t miss this wedding.” I’m going, “Wait, you aren’t supposed to be here, you died years ago.” She said, “I know that silly, I just couldn’t miss this wedding. Come on, let’s go.” I said I had to explain it to my date. My wife said that this was already taken care of. Me, I’m wondering how she took that.

The gorilla ushers took my bag (where did that come from?) and we took our seats. The wedding was over before it even began
Yes, this was surreal. Even in the dream it had a feeling of weirdness. I’m not sure who the wedding was for, but all but 1 daughter was in the dream.

After the wedding, my dear wife said she had to be going. I wanted her to wait, but her time was at an end. Then I went looking for my bag. (Why not the date?) I couldn’t find the gorilla who took it. In fact I couldn’t find any of the gorillas. The girl at the lobby desk told me she would go through the security tapes to find the gorilla that took my bag. I was watching it with her and saw the part where I came out of the restroom. I saw me talking, but I was talking to nobody. My wife was not in the video. Then I remember my date. Did she know why I was gone, did I ruin another date? I find my date, and she was still waiting for me. I told I was sorry for being gone so long, and she said it was no problem. She had a nice talk with some lady who told me I had to be at a wedding at the lodge. She was told I was surprised and didn’t know about the wedding. Hmm, how did that work out. She then said a gorilla gave her my bag.

******* Here the dream ends….. *******

I’m not what was going on in this dream, but after telling it to my youngest, she reminded me of a dream I had a bit ago. In that dream I had a date with a raven haired psychic. This lady in my dreams, also had raven hair, but I don’t recall the face of either lady. Hmm…. But then again, I’ve always liked dark haired women. Just a weird dream I remembered today.

I felt too restless to write blogs, but I’m too tired to take the kids anywhere, so it’s either write in my blog or sit here on my computer looking up scary ailments that could be afflicting my husband.  So blogging it is…

As you may have read on other tangents.org blogs, our community theater is about to open its production of The Nerd – an (I still hate putting the word “an” in front of hilarious, but oh well) hilarious comedy written by Larry Shue.  My husband is portraying the Nerd, a character named Rick Steadman, who is without any social ettiquette whatsoever, to put it mildly.  He does an excellent job at the part, if I do say so myself, and that’s a compliment, really it is – he’s not a nerd in real life!  In the play, Rick has an autographed picture of Hugh Downs, and all this time during rehearsal, I’ve been wondering, who is Hugh Downs?  The name sounds familiar, but I didn’t know anything about him, so I looked him up.  Turns out he is a fellow Ohioan, born in Akron, went to high school in Lima, and he’s still alive.  He anchored the newsmagazine show 20/20, hosted the Today show, was the announcer for The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, and he also hosted the game show Concentration.

So having an autographed picture of Hugh Downs is quite nerdy.  But then again, I looked him up on wikipedia, so what does that make me?

I have a few drafts of blog posts started, but I haven’t really felt like writing lately – too much effort when my mind is so preoccupied.  Then I got this fun forward in my email and thought it would make a good blog post.  Little effort on my part, which is great because I’m so tired from not being able to sleep.  And it is actually a pretty fun forward; I looked it up for each of my kids and put them at the bottom of the list – enjoy:

THIS IS REALLY FUN!

Last night (after C and taylhis‘ recommendation), I watched The Orphanage, a brilliant, suspense filled movie that just held your attention the entire time. So much so that to go into detail would almost certainly ruin it. Totally much more suspenseful than gory which is always a plus (but I think my favorite scene was probably the most twisted scene of the entire film). I also thought the use of the burlap mask was well conceived; harkening back to the Scarecrow’s face in Batman Begins which was also creepy. I think the idea to use a burlap face for our haunted attraction is a great idea. The Orphanage was in Spanish with English subtitles but (although necessary unless you are fluent in Spanish) was not a huge distraction.

Guillermo del Toro, producer of The Orphanage, is in the process of writing the two film prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He will also direct The Hobbit films (the first of which is set to be released in 2011). Peter Jackson, who was largely responsible for bringing the original trilogy to the big screen will share writing duties with del Toro. My experience with the adventures of Bilbo Baggins is limited to the Tolkien novel and the Book and Record (remember those?) set that was released with the 1977 animated feature. I never saw the animated versions of the novels. But, I will definitely see these two films.

So, I HIGHLY recommend checking out The Orphanage; oddly enough it is not available through Blockbuster.com

Well, I got the results from the Ultrasound today and there is good news.  They do not show anything.  So, there is nothing visibly wrong with my Pancreas, Liver, Kidneys, or Gall Bladder.  YEAH!

However, this also brings some bad news.  Lisa & I have to wait to find out what the heck is wrong with me until possibly next Wednesday!

I will be getting a gastroendoscopy and colonoscopy on Thursday and then we will have to wait 3 – 4 business days for the result.  🙁

Wish me luck!  I am trying to keep positive but also must admit I am very scared.  I just am so thankful to have such a wondeful wife to support me!  SHE IS PERFECT!

Yes, a fun day indeed, if you read Jamiahsh’s blog, then you know what I’m talking about.  To get our minds off of certain medical dramas (not like House or Grey’s Anatomy or anything like that – our real-life medical dramas taking place right now are much worse than some crappy tv), we decided to have a day of fun.  It began with go-carting, which is always fun but even more so if you can fill up the track and drive with people you know – which we were able to do.  I like the place we went to because they don’t charge any extra if you take a kid along with you, and seeing as how we had a few nice adults who didn’t mind chauffering some little kids, all 3 of our daughters got to go around the track a bunch of times.  But I’m the dummy who forgot my camera, so I didn’t get a picture of my little almost 2-year-old in a go-cart like I wanted.  It’s funny because I had the camera with me, just forgot to use it, which should signal how scatter-brained I’ve been lately because of the worry and lack of sleep resulting from my husband’s as-yet-unidentified medical condition.  And while we’re on that subject, we won’t know anything until next week now, because they’ve ordered further tests for Thursday, and they won’t get the results back until next week.  But they’ve eliminated gallstones, so at least we know that much.  He blogged a little update here.

But anyway, enough tangents, back to the fun day.  After go-carting, we decided to practice in the batting cages for our upcoming annual theater softball game.  The batting cages reminded me how hilarious last year’s game was – I mean, theater people playing softball?  It was a riot!

After that, we went to a nice little restaurant we like on the river.  If you sit outside, you get to enjoy the beautiful weather, the view, and a game of cornhole while you wait for your food.  I like cornhole; if anyone has a set, we should bring it to the theater family fun day and play that along with softball…  Why is it called cornhole?  Is that a NW Ohio term for it?  They have that where I come from in Illinois too, but I don’t think they call it cornhole.  In case you aren’t from NW Ohio and you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the game with the wooden ramps with holes in them…  you have 2 of these and station them about 15-20 feet apart with half of the team at each end; then you throw bean bags into the holes – hopefully.

After dinner, the kids fell apart (what else is new?  They’ve been acting HORRIBLY lately!), so we had to leave, but I hear the rest of the group went mini-golfing.  I was actually tempted to mini-golf earlier in the day but I knew the kids would drive me nuts because they get bored of it after about 6 holes.  So we left, thinking maybe the kids would fall asleep in the car, giving me and hubby a much-deserved and needed night alone together to watch a movie.  Didn’t happen.  And starting with the kids spazzing out at the restaurant about bees (and there weren’t that many – our almost 9-year-old is a wimp about certain things and her craziness got her sisters going – don’t you love how they chain-react to one another?  Hence the name of my blog), things went from bad to worse.

I’m going to blame Carol and Megan for this one, since they brought it up earlier in the day, but what a coincidence – we got pulled over on the way home.  So thanks Carol and Megan for jinxing us!!  Just kidding, of course it’s not your fault…  I guess poor Chris really got used to putting the pedal to the metal on those darn go-carts.  The state highway patrol officer who pulled us over had the personality of a housefly, and she wasn’t going to act like a human being and be thankful we weren’t drunk driving or even think about giving us a break on labor day, so our fun day ended up being pretty expensive when you include the $100 speeding ticket.  Our luck SUCKS lately, but if we can get the all-clear on my husband’s health, then I will stop complaining.

Oh yeah, so anyway, when we got home, our almost-2-year-old was the last one awake, and since she had only napped for about 10 minutes during the day, we thought we were almost home-free for a nice evening together – WRONG!  About 30 minutes into the movie, our oldest came down, asking for a snack.  No biggie, but “Did you wake your sister?” we asked her, panicked beyond belief because our 4-year-old has been a little hellian again lately.  She said she didn’t think she woke her up, but 5 minutes later, guess what happens?  Sammie comes down the stairs, and now we’re in the middle of an R rated movie with all 3 kids awake and downstairs.  So much for our peaceful early night, sigh.  We sent the oldest 2 upstairs, and that’s actually the last we heard from Sammie, believe it or not.  Disney, the youngest besides the baby (and he’s not old enough to cause any trouble yet, thank goodness!), got so OVER-tired that she started crying for about 45 minutes straight until she finally fell asleep.  But then Taylor, the oldest, must have come down the stairs at least 3 more times because she was worried about various bugs that were in her room and in the house, according to her anyway.  If this were still the age of the VCR, our movie would have been eaten by the VCR by now because of all the pausing and unpausing we were doing…  but ultimately, we just gave up anyway because I was falling asleep during the first part of the movie, and we could tell Taylor was going to be “bugging” us all night…  So we missed the end of No Escape – some crappy Ray Liotta action film from the 90’s.  I think it was crappy anyway, I really didn’t see much of it – let me know if it’s any good and maybe we’ll go back to it.

But for what it was worth, the day provided a nice destraction from the worries that have been plaguing us lately, so thanks to all who participated.  Now we just have to wait another week to find out more medical test results…  ugh, I hate the waiting!