Step 1: Panic.

If you're not living in Oklahoma, you may be unaware that we're about under a state of emergency and was upgraded to blizzard warnings for this evening, even though there was no snow on the ground yet. Our weathermen are having a heyday. Historic Blizzard. Major, Major Storm. Travel Impossible.

That being said, it is sleeting outside now and has been plunking along for awhile now. Also, I heard/saw thunder snow for the first time, which I was pretty excited about. We're supposedly going to receive blizzard conditions tonight and throughout tomorrow morning and potentially receive 8" - 12" of snow depending on which way the wind blows.

So, if all that happens, we're hunkered down pretty well here. My tank is filled, we've got ice scrapers and blankets, food, cat food... My boss told us not to rush to work tomorrow, that we'd call each other and figure it out. If they're still going in, they can pick me up. And I'm pretty excited about the storm, just because I like the crazy weather for a change.

We did manage to rescue our paper early though (read: just now), which made my grandma very happy. (note: freezing rain hurts ears.) So thank you to our awesome paper thrower.

I'd be remiss if I let this day go by with no mention: today is my mother's birthday! She would have been 52. :) Love you momma!



Okay, so not the greatest pic of my dad, but I love that one of mom, so it wins out anyway. ;) Besides, I love that it looks like they took it themselves. :)

You're my sunshine, oo...

Today was a gorgeous, slightly breezy 75 degrees. Tomorrow has a high of 44 plus a wind chill. Tuesday we're being told to expect a major winter storm. Some forecasters have Wednesday & Thursday morning with a high of 6. 6. Bemusement, bemusement.

Anyway.

It's been a weekend of seeing friends.

Last night (Friday) Julie, Jenny & I celebrated Christina's birthday with her in the city. We munched down at Chilis and then wandered over to the Blazers rink for some ice skating. I've been ice skating before - only twice, but both times I succeeded slightly better than I expected so I assumed this time would go about the same.
This time I barely made it three laps and only by clinging to the wall on the third lap, falling onto the bench as my ankles gave way. Hm.
I did finally make it another round on Julie's skates which were three sizes smaller and fit much, much better. Oh, and Christina kept me from falling, which was awesome. I enjoyed it though and really think that if there was a rink within 15 minutes driving distance I would probably take a session of lessons. Nonetheless, I was terrible at skating this night. :)

Today was so beautiful that Regina & I soaked up some beautiful sunshine walking over to Holly & Sam's house. The three girls chatted while Sam worked off his cold playing video games, and then off to Pizza Hut where Philip, Eric & Brad joined us. And then Regina & I left for ice cream and a movie (Tangled) while a game of DnD commenced. A mini movie review is below, if you're interested.

A lovely weekend as we launch into....Valentine's Day.

Yes, it's true, we're two weeks out from the big day so if anyone's ordering flowers, order now. We'll be starting our main set of preparations this week. The weather may be an issue this week - no, it's not the big delivery day, but it's the week a huge chunk of our flowers arrive. Freezing weather during shipment? Hm.
All this to say, posting may be sporadic, but it's already that way, so you probably won't notice a difference. :)


Tangled
What I Knew Going In: The trailer, which leans heavily on the male character of Flynn Rider, and a lot of commentary on how Disney had marketed the movie so heavily towards boys.
The Movie: Was super cute. But I can see now how heavily it really did play to boys, because this movie was not what I expected from the trailer. This movie is a very traditional Disney princess movie. Sure, there are times when it's stretching it a bit, but it's forgivable over the great characters and fun lines. And Maximus, the horse, who is beautifully done. Personally, there were several scenes "borrowing" from Little Mermaid and Beauty & The Beast and at times felt like it was a smashup of the two.
Simply put: it's a Disney princess movie. If you like that, you'll love the movie. If you don't like singing princesses, don't go.


For those interested in the situation in Egypt, there is this live feed constantly running footage and information. They are also rerunning segments at times for people just tuning in to catch up.

Watching

I wasn't keeping up with the situation in Egypt at first. Mostly because it seemed to come out of nowhere and I guess I suspected it would stop as quick as it came. Then I saw where their internet access had been shut down and suddenly realized this was getting much larger than what I expected.
And when it came to the earlier protests in Tunisia, I had no information, period. This article actually clarified a lot of my questions about Tunisia and Egypt and their similarities and differences.

I can't offer comments on either, because I know absolutely nothing about the whole situation, except what I learned sifting through articles and commentary tonight. My mind can't even fathom the protests that have been occurring and I am at a loss about what it may be causing across the rest of the world.

Personally, my eyes have been on Sudan for the past few weeks during their voting. The residents were voting on whether to continue as one country or split into two, creating Africa's new country. But the government is shaky and despite their agreements there's an uncertainty that the President will allow the country to split even if voted for. (Results from the vote are expected in early February, with the latest date for an announcement being Valentine's Day.)
Sudan's north and south regions have been at war for years, and their President is wanted for war crimes for the mass killings and rape in Darfur.
If the south splits, their going to have to not only figure out their leadership, but also potentially deal with the thousands of displaced people that may return. (Current estimates say 2.5 million people are displaced due to the Darfur conflict.) There is also the large issue with the oil wells - the oil is in the South, but flows through pipes in the North for exporting.

As always with the Mideast, there is more going on here than meets the eye. Please keep all these thoughts, countries and people in your prayers this week.

This article is being continuously updated about Egypt if anyone wants to keep up.

Even my henchmen think I'm crazy.

Oh wow. I have discovered Jonathan Coulton. This is wonderful.

The ponies. Oh the ponies.

Watch.

I still remember Mole.

Yes! Hero Squad is officially published! This is wonderful news!

Hero Squad, of course, is a children's play written by my near and dear brother and I'm super excited for him. This is such a great script, full of beautiful characters and I'm so glad to see it out there for theaters (and kids!)

Congrats William!! I'm so happy for you!

You know what, bro? Sometimes you're just really cool. :)

Three weeks out

I would love to stay and chat, but I'd also like to take advantage of this sleepiness. This is the beginning of another very full week, not to mention three weeks out from Valentine's Day. Must finish displays. Must finish displays.

So I leave you with some links:

I love that they use Princess Leia as their test pilot.
MIT's Kinect-Powered Real-Time Hologram System Could Bring Holographic Video Chat Home

For my Megaman friends: The MegaMan Coffee Mug

This documentary sounds intriguing if you have any interest in puppetry or Jim Henson, even if you're not an Elmo fan. It's a Sundance film about the man behind Elmo, Kevin Clash, who worked with Jim Henson before becoming Elmo on Sesame Street.

Goodnight.

Oh, oh and you're Mary Tyler Moore.

Have you all sufficiently recovered from the fantastic Batman news? I'm still excited. I'm so curious how they'll tailor all that in.

So to complete our last discussion about the insane number of funerals happening so early in January, our final count of the rush was 37. 37 services happened between January 3rd and January 17th (and that's not including a few that didn't have services). And then we hit last Monday and not a single service has happened in the past three days and business has hit a brick wall. Ah well, at least it opens up time for us to prepare for Valentine's. (Boo.) Which we'll probably begin focusing on next week. (Boo.)

On a completely different note, have you heard scientists are trying to resurrect the Mammoth? Within five years?

Hey, I've seen more movies!
A-Team
Going In: I knew nothing about the A-Team. All I knew was that Mr. T was in the tv show. That's it. I was only vaguely interested in the movie because my friends were, but I never saw it.
The Review: I loved this movie. I really didn't expect to, but when Brad found out I hadn't seen it we had to watch it. I was shocked at how well it was done, how good the story was, how fun and interesting the characters were and what a great action flick it was. I loved all four guys (you can't help it) but Murdock was hands down my favorite. You spin me right round...
Go watch this movie.

Megamind
Going In: I had seen the trailer several times and was interested but missed it when it was showing. Yay dollar movie theatre!
The Review: If you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the first twenty minutes of the movie and that gets old fast. But if you stick around, it turns into a pretty cute movie. It doesn't say anything necessarily new to the superhero world, but it's cute, has some fun lines and makes you smile at the end. The relationships between Roxanne, Megamind and MetroMan are really well done and lots of fun. I enjoyed it.