Cerebrate Good Times

Clara started kindergarten this year. There's always something unique about sending your child off to school for the first time. There's a little relief, and a little sadness. And since Clara has always been our wild card, we weren't totally sure what to expect. She was really excited, though, and counting down the days. I don't really remember her expressing any fear about it, which seemed a little unusual. It's still the first week, but she's been goo about getting up early. As a side note, I swear our elementary school's 8:00 starting time is earlier than others. I think mine started at 9. And Clara has usually slept until past 9. So getting her up before 7 is a huge change. We'll see how it works out in the freezing winter months. Oddly, we requested afternoon kindergarten but didn't get it; in the past it's been no problem because more parents seem to want the morning schedule. Last week we had back to school night and met her teache...

This is one of those subjects I usually avoid because it seems like so many other people talk about it, but here we go. I enjoy a good horror movie. I think it's like vigorous physical exercise—tough while it's happening, but there's a rush of endorphins when it's over and you survived. I often discuss with people the concept of "scary" horror movies vs. movies that are just gross or trying to shock people. And a friend and I were considering whether PG-13 horrors might actually be more frightening because they have to rely more on atmosphere and implied violence rather than blood and gore. So we started making a list of "scary" PG-13 movies vs. R-rated movies. And that led to us listing movies that are great and fun, but not necessarily really scary. Anyway, this is far from an exhaustive list, but it's what we were thinking. PG-13 The Ring —Still probably the scariest movie to me at the time I saw it. The original Japanese version didn...

About a week and a half ago was the Idaho Falls Marathon. I was pretty excited for my first one in four years, and the culmination of the most intense training I've done. As the race approached, I looked more at the information I would need for that day, like the details for getting my bib and more specifics on the course.  I was generally familiar with the course, but there were a couple strange things about it. Most marathons (okay, the two I've done before) are big loops that are pretty simple to follow. This one started way up in the hills east of town and came into the city, as one would expect. But there were a few strange twists and turns once we got there. Here's one such area. A little weird I knew this was a fairly small race, so I thought it might be good to familiarize myself with the course in detail so I knew where to turn if there weren't a lot of supporters. For the last few days beforehand I spent time on Google Maps going over the city porti...