I love cool weather

It rained tonight. Finally. We’ve been without rain for a little while. The great thing was though that it cooled things off a lot. Gotta love that. Summer, as you all know, is not my favorite time of year. We’ve actually had a pretty decent summer with relatively low temperatures, few fires and clean air. What a change from last summer where we spent more than two weeks with temperatures over 100, (consecutive days) air fit for the inside of a cigarette and fires all over the place.

So my walk home from work tonight was slightly wet (it was raining lightly) but most importantly cool. I actually considered pulling the sweatshirt out of my backpack and putting it on. What a great feeling! I love cool weather. If I could live in a place during summers where the constant temperature was around 65 I’d be in heaven.

Unfortunately the weather forecast says it’s not going to stay this way yet. Maybe by the time we get back from our trip the temps will be on the way down for the year. The trip however will be hotter than anything we’ve dealt with all year. And humid. Very humid. I haven’t been back to the south in a long time so this is going to be quite the awakening. I’m so looking forward to it though. I can’t wait to show Jess the farm, drink sweet tea constantly and hear some great accents! This is gonna be a sweet trip.

So, to sum up… in terms Paris Hilton would use. Cold is hot.

Do parents think before taking kids to movies?

Jess and I went to see Batman: The Dark Knight. Good movie. Dark but good. We both enjoyed it.

What got me though wasn’t the movie, it was the parents bringing their very young children to see this movie. Now I realize this movie is a comic book movie but how could you not be aware that this movie was going to be pretty dark and probably not the most appropriate thing for a 5-year-old to see? There were SEVERAL kids that young in the theather we were in.

We’ve been in other movies where this was true as well. The kid in front of us was pretty freaked out by the Joker from what I could tell. I bet he didn’t get much sleep that night. I bet few of the kids at the movie got much sleep that night.  They shouldn’t have been in that movie. They should have been watching something more age appropriate or hanging out with a babysitter while their parents went to the movie without them.

I just don’t get it. I can kind of understand parents back in the early 80’s taking young kids… at the time movie rentals were unheard of and it may have been the last opportunity to see the movie. Now though movies are released within a couple months of their theater run. Why take them to see a movie that may not be appropriate for their age? The movie will pretty much always be available for them to see when they’re older (except super cool movies like “Rad” that seems to be lost forever). Why subject your kids to something that will scare them like that? Their young minds aren’t ready to understand characters like The Joker.

And I haven’t even gotten into how these same parents don’t know how to teach their kids proper movie theater etiquette.

Threes in a good way

I told you things happen in threes… this time though it was in a good way. (And fortunately, no other celebrity has died yet)

Last Thursday I came home from work to find a lovely item waiting for me. Powder Magazine. The first ski magazine of the season. Awesome. The season is coming. Buyers guide, full of new gear and all the wonderful things that harken the coming season of snow-filled bliss.

Friday I walked out to the mailbox and found… Skiing magazine! Awesome. Another buyers guide filled with photos of shiny new toys for the ski loving fiend. (That’s me) I love getting the first issue of the season. Two days in a row of happy mail getting. Woohoo!

Saturday, Jess and I went to see Dark Knight. Good movie, very dark. I’ll have a blog about it tomorrow maybe. After the movie though we came home and I wandered out to get the mail. What did I find but the Freeskier magazine buyers guide! Three days in a row of freshly printed gear filled goodness. I have more opinions on gear than I know what to do with. All complemented with lovely photos of the new gear.

This times out perfectly… while on vacation next week I’ll be going ski shopping while we stay in Colorado for a few days. I’m so excited.

5 newspapers, 1 re-design until vacation

See that title up there? That’s all I’ve got to do before I get some serious time off from work. To be honest, I’m not sure how the re-design is going to go. I’ve been asked to compeltely re-design the look fo the newspaper. I’ve been thinking about it off and on for a long time but lately I haven’t had time to even consider it. Now the Publisher wants it done before September 1. That means I’ve got to do it before I leave on vacation. So hopefully it gets done.

I’ve been watching the olympics when I get home from work. Since I’m now an expert, I’d like to just say that there’s no way those Chinese girls are 16. No way. China cheated. End of story. USA got robbed. At least the US girls took gold and silver in the individual all-around. That’s cool.

In other Olympics commentary… Michael Phelps is a freak. That’s the only way I can explain how anyone can win six gold medals and set six world records doing it. That’s just not natural.

The best news of all today? The very first issue of Powder Magazine arrived in the mail today. Ski season approaches. Jess is freaking out because she doesn’t think summer has lasted long enough. Whatever, ski season can’t get here fast enough. Pray for snow!

Threes

There’s a theory that I tend to believe in (due to my own observations) that celebrities die in groups of three. Seems like anytime you hear about one passing away it’s quickly followed by a couple more. I don’t know why this happens or if it’s just that I expect it so then I look for the news more when one celebrity dies.

So when Bernie Mac passed away a couple days ago Jess wondered who the next two would be. Sure enough, not long after word came out that Isaac Hayes had passed away. That’s two celebrities in a short time frame. That of course leaves me expecting a third.

I don’t have any idea who it will be and I almost fear hearing the announcement that is almost sure to be coming. I know death is a part of life but it’s never fun to hear about someone you admire passing away.

work, work, work, work, work…

I have been plenty busy with work this week. It’s brutal and it’s not going to get better for another week and a half.

Before this week started though we enjoyed a nice little float down the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. Very few people that read this blog will know what that means probably. Basically, we got in a raft and lazily floated down a portion of the local river. It was a pretty relaxing day though Jess ended up with a lovely sunburn. I was slathering on sunscreen every hour or two. I’m terrified of sun burns these days. I’m nowhere near as tan as I’ve been in summers past but I can live with that. I can’t live with skin cancer. So I’ll be white.

So then I started work again on Sunday and in addition to the daily paper I’ve been working on putting together the annual back to school directory. I’m about 65% done and I have to finish the rest of it tonight because it has to go to the press tomorrow morning. Then I’ll immediately start in on the next special section, the fair tab. I’m going to put together a thing about the fair which I will miss because I’ll be on vacation. The second year in a row we’ve missed the fair. Maybe next year.

So now I’m off to work… I can’t wait for the next vacation…