Christmas Movies

I was going to write about our family Christmas traditions tonight, but frankly the day got away from me and now I'm a bit too tired to think and write about them. So I'll just talk about a subset of our Christmas traditions, which is Christmas movies. I'll be the first to admit I'm a sucker for a good Christmas movie. I'll watch them over and over every year without fail. The first comes out on Thanksgiving because the movie itself starts on Thanksgiving Day. Sometime between getting the turkey in the oven and starting to peel the potatoes, I'll watch "Miracle on 34th Street".

I watch the 1947 version with Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara. In black in white and not "colorized". Occasionally I'll watch the 1994 remake with Richard Attenbourgh, Elizabeth Perkins and Mara Wilson, but I prefer the original.

The next four I watch in no particular order. It's whatever strikes my mood at the time.

First up is "Love Actually". I love this movie. Love the stories, love the music, love everything about it. The scene at the end where Colin Firth proposes to Aurelia always gets to me.

The next one I just watched tonight - A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott as Scrooge

I'll watch other versions if I see them om TV, but I happen to own the above version and I've watched it a lot. I've given a copy to Daughter#1 as well. I really like the 1938 version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge and Gene Lockhart as Cratchit, but it's hard to find on TV. Some trivia - Gene Lockhart also played the Judge in the 1947 version of "Miracle on 34th Street".

The next two movies took me a while to warm up to. I really didn't like them at first, but having watched them a few times I've really gotten to like them. The first of these is the "Polar Express".

It's the one Christmas movie I watch that I don't actually own. I have to catch it on TV. At first I didn't like the animation. It looked kind of creepy. However over time the message of believing and being able to hear the sleigh bell won me over. At times I think its a bit overdone and could have easily been shorten by 30 minutes, but thats just nit picking. Besides who doesn't like Tom Hanks?

The next movie, which I bought about two years ago is "Prancer".

At first glance it appears to be just another cheezy kid Christmas movie, but Rebecca Harrell's performance as Jessica Riggs will win your heart over. We should all believe as sincerely as Jessica. Watching her save Prancer as he in turns saves her will bring a tear to your eye.

This final movie is what the family gathers together to watch every Christmas Eve before we turn in for the night to await Santa's arrival. Even now that the kids are adults, we still watch it as a family. The movie - "One Magic Christmas".

It has sort of a "It's a Wonderful Life" twist to it. It's always interesting to contemplate how changing one small thing changes all that follows it. The scene where Mary Steenburgen (the Mom) reads the letter she wrote as a child to Santa that her own child has brought back from the North Pole is the high point of the movie for me.

What Christmas movies are your favorites?

Today's Prompt - Holiday Movie Scenes

There is no one in the world, as my kids will attest, who loves a good holiday movie more then yours truly. I'll start watching them on Thanksgiving Day (Miracle on 34th Street) right on through New Years. I love them all. Lets face it, they all come out for the good in the end and whats not to like about that? Lets go to the video tape and look at some of my favorite scenes:

Love Actually

Favorite scene has to be Jamie (Colin Firth) proposing to Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) in the restaurant where she is working. I could watch that scene over and over. Very magical and from the heart. Second favorite scene is the school pageant and Joanna Anderson (Olivia Olson) singing "All I Want for Christmas". That girl can sing. If you ever watched the movie with the Directors comments on he said that she was so good that they had to dub in breath sounds to make it more believable that a 10 yr old (I think that was her age) actually sang the song.

One Magic Christmas

Favorite scene is where Ginny Grainger (Mary Steenburgen as the Mom) finds the letter that Abbie (Elisabeth Harnois as the Grainger daughter) has brought back from the North Pole given to her by Santa Claus. He tells Abbie that the letter will help her Mom make her dad all better (The dad had been shot and killed). The letter was written to Santa by Ginny when she was Abbie's age (6) and still believed in things like Santa Claus. Gets me every time. The list of toys in the letter are from a much simpler time. A Mister Potato Head was one and it always makes me smile.

The Polar Express

It took me a while to finally watch this movie. The whole digital capture/re-skin the characters took a while to get use to. The scene I like the best is at the end, where the narrator (The Hero Boy) explains that only true believers can hear the bell (a gift off of Santa's sleigh that was given to the boy as a gift from Santa) and how over time all his friends and eventually even his younger sister, could no longer hear the bell. Oh that we could all still hear the bell.

Miracle on 34th Street

The 1947 version with Natalie Wood, Maureen O'Hara and Edmund Gwen is my favorite version. There are two scenes that I love in this movie (actually more, but I'll limit myself to two). The first is where Santa first directs a Macy's shopper to another store to find that hard to find toy - a fire engine for her son. His talk to his Mother about where to find the fire engine and for how much and how Christmas was about making the children happy and not who makes the sale is priceless. The second is at the hearing into Santa's sanity (oh so politically incorrect these days) and the scene where Santa's lawyer is reading about the U.S. Postal Service and how big and efficient it is. That always brings a laugh and even more so when the judge tells him to bring in all the evidence and the bailiffs bring in bag after bag of letters (21 in all according to IMDb) to Santa that were in the NYC dead letter office. Love it.

Prancer

Another Christmas movie that I came late too. Your heart just goes out to this little girl who has lost her mother and her father is on the verge of losing their farm. My favorite scenes in this one is where the Minister reads an editorial from the local paper about her (Jessica Riggs played by Rebecca Harrell) and her belief in Santa Claus and her idea to get the injured Prancer back to him. The second is when her Dad reads to her from a book the article entitled "Yes Virginia There is A Santa Claus". Ok I'll throw in a third, but its a given when they release Prancer and he hooks back up with Santa (after thinking he jumped to his death - yikes) is always a tear jerker.

A Christmas Carol

I own the George C. Scott version of this classic although I always try to catch the 1938 version as well with Reginald Owen as Scrooge. It also stars practically the whole Lockhart family including a 16 yr old June Lockhart of "Lassie" and "Lost in Space" fame. Her father Gene, who play Cratchit also plays the judge in the 1947 Miracle on 34th Street. Actually my favorite scene comes early in the film when Scrooge's nephew Fred visits Scrooge at his office and gives a short speech on what Christmas means to him and mankind in general. I always use it in my Christmas Eve post.

That was fun reliving those memories and thanks to IMDb for help on dates and names. I hope some of you will jump in with some of your favorite scenes.

A Christmas Tradition

Pulling one from the writing prompt of the day, I'll talk about a Christmas tradition we have. It's not really an odd one, but beloved it is. Every Christmas Eve we'll gather around the TV and watch "One Magic Christmas". I can't really remember when we started watching this particular movie. It came out in 1985 and stars Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton and Elisabeth Harnois as Abbie. I'm not sure the movie did all that well when it was released as it was over shadowed by another holiday movie released at the same time - "Santa Claus", which starred Dudley Moore. It was a bigger budget movie and was marketed much more heavily. I originally discovered the film based on a review in the Washington Post that gave it high marks. As anyone in my family will attest, I'm a sucker for a Christmas movie. A brief summary from IMDB:

Gideon, a Christmas angel, is sent, by Santa, to help Ginny Grainger. Ginny is a cynic, and she hates Christmas. She and her family (husband, Jack and two kids, Caleb and Abbie) have fallen on hard times, making it even harder to believe in anything that can't be seen. With help from Abbie, and a trip to see Santa Claus himself, can Gideon find a way to make Ginny believe again?

What I particularly like about the film it employs the "if one things changes, then the future changes along with it". Ginny gets to change a series of catastrophic events, by the mere purchase of a camp stove. It's hard to go into much detail without getting into spoilers, but if you're looking for a movie to help you get into the spirit of Christmas, then this is a movie I highly recommend. And know come Christmas Eve, I'll be along with Gideon as he gets his assignment from Santa Claus to go help bring the spirit of Christmas to the Graingers. Merry Christmas!

A Wet Weekend

If there was one word to describe the weekend it would be wet. It rained almost the entire weekend. That does cut down on the outside activities. It meant a lot of TV watching. Considering my faux Tivo was almost full maybe it was a good thing.

Friday was a day off and I was definitely looking forward to getting out on the water for a row. Before I leave the house I always check the temperature and most important, the wind speed. The temperature was mid 60 and the wind was around 5 mph. Both good for a row. I arrived at Sandy Run and the wind is blowing hard and the water is really choppy. More choppy then I care to row in. Its just not fun and if its not fun, why do it? There will be enough warm days with flat water where I can afford to wait. So disappointingly, I turned around and went home. By the time I got home, the wind at home had also picked up. So much so that my idea of doing a bike ride was put off too. Instead, Ann and I went to check out a pet spa and resort. I can't afford to go to a spa and resort, but apparently my dog can. Daughter#1's wedding is fast approaching and we need to board our dog, Rosie. Of course it always makes us feel guilty to have to board her. When we had two dogs, we would just leave them at home and have dog walkers come walk them a few times a day. Now that it's just Rosie, we didn't want to leave her alone all day while we are gone. So we drove out to the Old Towne Pet Resort. We got a tour of the facilities, including the pool - for the dogs. It was really quite impressive. We got to view all the various kennel alternatives, which come with a variety of walks and visits, etc We also checked out their doggy day care. We thought that might be good for her so she wouldn't be in a cage/room all day. They break them up by sizes with 50 lbs and below in one area and larger dogs off in another. The smaller dog day care had about 30 dogs running around. Now Rosie gets along with other dogs, but usually on a one on one basis. We weren't sure how she would do around so many and whether it would be too overwhelming for her at her age. She's 15 years old even though she looks a lot like a puppy. Our tour guide suggested we may want to bring her on on a Sunday when there are less dogs just to see how she does. That sounded good so we plan to do that before we head out to the wedding. We're also considering getting her a massage while she's there. Not that she's spoiled or anything.

Saturday I did managed to get out before the rain started and get in a bike ride. I skipped out on driving to the trail and just biked closed to home. It was a 17 mile trek just from the house to the end of Bacon Race Road and back. On the way home it started to sprinkle, but the rain held off until after I got home. Saturday we also settled in to watch the opening game of the Capitals-Pittsburgh hockey series. Unfortunately the Washington area is infested with a large number of transplanted Pittsburgh fans so for any local event involving Pittsburgh teams, they show up in droves and frankly they're pretty obnoxious. So it was sweet to see the Capitals win the opening game. Hopefully the Caps can send them home permanently.

Sunday it was rain all day long. By this point the rain was getting pretty old. No rowing regardless as George Mason was hosting the Mid-Atlantic Sprints and I'm not riding in the rain. Apparently that doesn't apply to crazy runners. Idiots. Anyway, I did laundry and did grocery shopping. I also dug out one of our Netflix movies that has been sitting around for a few weeks. It was The Day the Earth Stood Still. I loved the original and was eagerly looking forward to this remake. It was just ok. The little kid was just too precocious and with dreadlocks and all. Oh please. And the ending. What a crap ending. No getting the special phrase to the Robot as in the original. And the whole plague of bugs? Weak. Then its like, Oh I changed my mind, you eathlings can change and save your world. Bye. Its like they realized they were running long and need to cut the ending. Disappointing. If you want to see it, watch the original.

We're not suppose to dry out for another day or so. By then I'll have to start scrapping the mold off me.

The Cable Guy - Final Installment

So the problem with our Internet connectivity seems to be resolved. Comcast did show up and repair the box out front and we have had Internet connectivity all day. Its been lovely.

A good thing too since between the wind (gusts up to 48 mph) and the cold (30s), it was definitely a day to stay inside and surf the net. It was also a very lazy day. I watched some TV and devoured a Cinnamon bun along with my morning Coke in the morning before jumping on the erg for a 30 minute row. Not a great amount of meters, but I got through it and can build on it. I hope to add another row tomorrow to welcome in the new year. Ann and I did watch Nicholas Cage in National Treasure - Book of Secrets. It was highly entertaining and fit our mood for the day.

We have no real plans to welcome in the New Year. We are way past the time where a night of boozing it up sounds like a good idea. We do have a bottle of bubbly chilly in the refrigerator though. So to all of you, I hope you have have a wonderful 2009 as we usher out 2008.

The Cable Guy

Today was just a total waste. The kind of day where you want to reach through the Ethernet and strangle the cable company. Our gateway (combination cable modem and wireless router) has been giving us trouble over the past week or so. Our connectivity has been on and off. Off mostly during the day and on at night. I figured it was time for a service call. When I called, the person at Comcast could tell that the signal to the gateway was much weaker than it should be and we set up a service call for today between 9:00 AM and Noon. Noon came and went and no technician. I called Comcast at 12:30 and asked when I might expect the technician. Apologies were made and I was told that I was "next in line" for the technician assigned for my call and that the technician or a dispatcher would call me within 15 to 20 minutes. No call was forthcoming. meanwhile Daughter#2, who had driven up to Washington the night before to see some friends dropped by on her way home. She wanted to go for a bike ride so I could try out my new bike, but I was shackled to the house waiting for the service call. More time passed and no technician. By 2;30 Daughter#2 was gone and I was dialing Comcast again when the knock finally came. Of course as these things go, our Internet, which had been down all day was now working when he sat down at our computer. Great. He did, after a few calls back and forth to the main office, get our wireless network back up and running so that was something at least. In the rush of it all, I forgot to ask him to check the signal coming to the house so I might need to go through this yet again. It just sort of wasted my whole day. Grrrrrr.

After that debacle, I decided to watch one of my Netflix movies. I chose the documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car?" Considering GM is now hat in hand it just makes you sick what they did to kill it off, their own car, going so far as to recall all the electric cars (they would only lease them - not sell them) they had built and marketed and crushing them all. It also calls into serious question the whole hydrogen car crap the Bush administration signed us up for. January 20th can't come fast enough.

Favorite Christmas Movies

I've been thinking about this post since Holidailies started, but haven't gotten around to putting it together until now. I saw the list of The Top 100 Christmas Movies and I thought I would rank my favorites. This isn't a comprehensive list of all the Christmas movies I've seen, just my favorites. Without further ado:

1. Love Actually (2003) - Not Ranked - A bit strange it wasn't on the list. Currently my favorite
Christmas movie. A collection of different love stories woven together. My favorite, the writer
and the Portuguese maid.
2. One Magic Christmas (1985)(Ranked #61) - It got lost in the theatres going up against "Santa
Claus" starring Dudley Moore. It has a very "It's a Wonderful Life" touch to it. The family
watches this every Christmas Eve before turning in for the night.
3. A Christmas Carol (1984)(Ranked #11) - George C. Scott plays a great Scrooge and the music
is fantastic. A must see for me every year. I bought a copy for Daughter#1
4. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)(Ranked #2) - This movie kicks off our Christmas season.
Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwen are great in the title roles.
5. A Christmas Story (1983)(Ranked #12) - This movie hits really close to home of what it was
like when I was growing up I never stuck my tongue to a flagpole though. Darren McGavin as
the Dad is priceless.
6. Prancer (1989)(Ranked #31) - This movie has slowly moved up my list of favorite Christmas
movies. You can't help but love Jessica Rigg and her belief in Santa and wanting to get Prancer
back to Santa.
7. A Christmas Carol (1938)(Ranked #6) - I love this Dickens tale as you can tell since I have two
versions in my top 10. Reginald Owen as Scrooge and Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit are
wonderful in this black and white version.
8. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1963)(TV)(Ranked #9) - Technically not a movie, but a
favorite Christmas must see. Watching the Grinch be transformed always gets to me. Dr
Suess was genius.
9. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1964)(TV)(Ranked #14) - Again a TV show and not a movie, but
I look forward to this every year and hearing Linus's speech on the true meaning of
Christmas.
10. Polar Express (2004)(Not Ranked) - The elves are a little creepy and the whole animation
was a weird, but I loved the bit about being able to hear the bell if you still believed in
Santa.
11. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (Ranked #1) - A perennial favorite. It's a bit long, but I love the
parts where Clarence shows how life would be without George Bailey in it. We all touch so
many lives.
12. Scrooged (1988)(Ranked #22) - Bill Murray rocks as the Scrooge type character. Funny
take on the old classic.
13. Home Alone (1990)(Ranked #23) - Another one that took me a while to warm up mainly due
to Macaulay Culkin. The relationship he strikes up with the older neighbor and how they
help each other makes it a hit for me and the comedy is pretty good too.
14. The Homecoming - A Christmas Story (1971)(Rank#79) - Made for TV movie that
introduced us to the Waltons. I loved that show. I don't have a daughter named after the two
younger girls for nothing.
15. Miracle on 34th Street (Ranked #56) - Remake of the classic. Richard Attenborough, Mara
Wilson and Elizabeth Perkins are great, but too many blatant product placements and the
whole ending was a good deal weaker, in my opinion, than the original.

Feel free to weigh in with your favorites. And to all a good night.

Hiking England and On To Scotland

We heard from Daughter#2 this morning. They are well and they have finished their hiking through the Lake District of northwest England. They've hiked about 45 miles or so total. They hiked, among other things, the famous Fairfield Horseshoe, which looks like quite the hike. You can follow the trail on Google Earth out of Rydal, which is just northwest of Ambelside. Apparently William Wordsworth was a resident of Rydal. Looks like such a pretty area. They are now in Largs, Scotland. Largs is west of Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde and the home to our cousin Madeline. In our family, relatives from Scotland visit my Dad in Orlando and Cocoa Beach. On the flip side, our family from this side of the pond all go visit and stay with Madeline. This is Daughter#2's second trip to Scotland and her husband's first. I'm not sure what all they have planned. I know they would like to take in a soccer match if they can find tickets. I'm very envious of our daughter and Son in Law.

It was a wet, rainy dreary day here in northern Virginia. Ann and I used that as an excuse to go see a movie. We saw The Bank Job. It tells the story of a big bank heist in England in the early 70s and how it was all covered up by the Government. Entertaining, but not for the little ones. Tomorrow we need to do a little shopping. I desperately need some new jeans. Hope to get that done before lunch time and then settle back to watch some conference tournament basketball. Have a good weekend.

Basketball and Movies

Saturday was a day for watching basketball and Sunday a movie day. My usual Saturday routine, when it's not rowing season, is to get up around 7:30 or 8:00, grab a Coke and a breakfast bar and go read e-mail and what not until it's time for lunch. Sometimes I'll do some erging if I haven't done so the day before. This Saturday was such a day. I wasn't feeling all that up for it given that my 5,000 meter time the week before was depressingly slow. I was determined to do better and I did. I think a lot of my erging problems stem from erging alone and therefore not pushing myself as hard as if I was doing an erg test and surrounded by teammates. This Saturday I did much better. Not great but back in the normal range for me at this time of year. Now if I can just make myself erg during the week to keep aerobic capacity up that would be a plus. Saturday there was also a number of college basketball games Ann and I wanted to watch. George Mason, which is sort of right down the street from us, and Ohio, Ann's and Daughter#1's alma mater were playing in the Convo Center at Ohio. That game started at 1:00. Maryland was playing at 2:00 against Miami and finally, Radford, The Son's alma mater, was playing VMI at 4:00. Somewhere in there we also had to do our grocery shopping. After we finished lunch, we headed to the store and started taping the GMU - Ohio game. We finished at the store such that we only had to rewind the first ten minutes or so. We like both schools so it was hard to route for one over the other. It certainly was a game of two halves. Ohio couldn't score in the first half and Mason couldn't score in the second. Ohio did better in the second half then Mason did in the first and ended up winning the game. I fell asleep for much of the second half and missed most of Ohio's comeback. I then watched the first half of the Maryland vs Miami game and DVRed the second half. Maryland was behind by 9 at the half. I the switched over and watched the Radford vs VMI game. It was sort of like watching a high school game more than a college game. The difference in athleticism between say the ACC and the Big South is pretty dramatic. But I wanted to support Radford and watched to the end of regulation. Of course they played to a tie and went into OT and we had to head off to Mass. So I started recording that game as well hoping for the best. After Mass I put the game on and going into the last minute of OT, Radford had the lead and then the screen went blank. Crap. I had to look up the final score on line. Radford won, thank goodness. I didn't watch the second halve of the Maryland game after Ann informed me they ended up losing by 15. I didn't see the point. So a lot of basketball and I'd say my teams went 2-2. Radford won, Ohio won and Maryland and GMU lost. We were in bed asleep by 9:00. We are so old.

Sunday I got up the usual time and walked the dogs. They had been neglected what with all the basketball on Saturday. They are old dogs and seem to do much better during the day if they can start it off with a walk. After finishing our walk, Ann fed them breakfast, while I got the laundry started. Sunday is our laundry day. I hate doing it so I try to get it started and therefore over with as early as I can so it's not hanging over my head like some albatross all day. At eleven I went and erged at my class and managed 11,200 meters. It felt good and not as exhausting as it has felt recently. I already miss football and baseball hasn't started and there were no college basketball games I wanted to see, so we dove into our Netflick stash and pulled out National Treasure. It was was light enough and action packed enough to be entertaining. Just what the doctor ordered. We also have The Passion of the Christ at home. Ann has wanted to see it for a long time. I can't say that I have. It creeps me out. I'm just not sure I'm up to watching a realistic portrayal of the Crucifixion. Even if it was to save us all. Ann got about a third of the way through it before stopping it. We haven't sent it back yet, but I think it's only a matter of time.

A New Door

The weathermen were predicting a sizable snow and ice storm for us today. The schools were closed in anticipation. Of course all we got was rain. Mostly. There was some minor icing on the grass and on cars, but the roads were fine. Not that it mattered to me seeing today was my off Friday.

Yesterday, I took a work from home day so I could babysit at The Son's condo while his sliding glass door was replaced. His old door was an accident waiting to happen. It wouldn't slide very well and kept jumping the tracks and actually fell in on him and his gf one time. Definitely time for a replacement.

The contractor showed up just after 9:30 to begin work. First order of business, remove the old door and install the new frame.

This turned out to be trickier than planned as the brick frame wasn't square by a long shot. Thank god I wasn't doing this. Once the frame was in, the job went much faster. Here the frame and door are in with just some framing on top to complete. The building dates back to the 60s and I assume the size of a standard sliding glass door was a few inches taller back then. No one makes them that size any more, hence the need to frame in the open area left by the bigger older door.

I might add that while all this was going on, it was about 25 degrees out. It was freezing inside what with no door and all. I had the heat cranked up, but it was still cold. I worked out of the second bedroom where The Son has his desktop set up.

Here is the finished effort. The door is in and the curtains back up. The Son is cleaning off the adhesive left by after peeling off some labels on the door. Looks pretty good. Now he can go out on his balcony and smoke (yuck).

Since today was our day off, Ann and I decided to take in a movie. This is not a great time of year for new movies. Too late for the Christmas releases and too early for the summer releases. It's known as the dumping ground for bad movies. So not a lot appealed to us. We decided to go and see Juno. It was a cute movie and handled a delicate subject well. Juno reminded me a lot of Daughter#2, less the being pregnant at 16 part, of course. It had a lot of good laughs in it and a reminder how painful high school can be.

Teeth and a Movie

The last two days have been uncomfortably cold in the morning. So much so that we haven't been taking our furry kids for their morning walk. Yesterday's temperature (Thursday) it was 18 and this morning (Friday) it was 17. It wouldn't be too bad if our dogs actually walked, but most of the first 15 minutes outside is spent smelling every possible blade of grass to find just that right spot to go on. I'm just getting too old to stand out in the cold while they sniff around. So we've just be letting them out the door and then right back in. We're suppose to be getting a warming trend over the weekend so we can go back to our old routine. Here are the furry kids - Rosie, on the left with the alien eyes, and Winifred on the right.




I slipped away at lunch time for a dentist appointment. Actually my dentist is a periodontist. Not that I have bad gums or anything gross, just bad genes. My back wisdom teeth didn't come in properly (do they ever?) and caused some damage to my back molars. I've been seeing a periodontist since I was 24 years old. Seems like a long time now, but really its been pretty unremarkable 99% of the time. Today's visit was pretty typical. I go in, get my teeth cleaned and polished by hygienist. The dentist will come in at the end for a quick look see, tell me things are looking well and we'll keep an eye on those back teeth and see you in four months. Frankly, I prefer keeping the visits boring. Now my periodontist is in Friendship Heights and for those of you familiar with the area you know its a pretty hoity-toity area. There's a Tiffany's next door to the building that houses my Dentist just to give you an idea. Upon leaving after my appointment I had a celebrity sighting. George Michael, the long time local NBC sportscaster and host of the Sports Machine got on the elevator with me. He retired in 2007 after GE/NBC ordered him, in a cost cutting move, to dismiss a large portion of his staff. Good for him although he is sorely missed. Photo by Washington Post and NBC Channel 4.


After finishing up work for the day, Ann and I headed out to catch a movie. We saw Charley Wilson's War. Very entertaining and pretty remarkable what one man was able to do to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Tom Hanks was good as was Philip Seymour Hoffman. Amy Adams is pretty cute as Wilson's (Hanks) Administrative Assistant. There is nothing more enjoyable than watching a good movie with a large bag of popcorn. Yum!