I was going to even mention that her name - Tessa - resembles Tessio, which is a character in that movie, but I guess that one is just a coincidence. ;)
I’m sure it is. Although that side of my family is very Sicilian. I just love how he fumbles that speech while trying so hard.
-xtien
“In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.”
Yeah, it’s a great scene. For those who read the book, even more so.
Wow. I forgot that I read that book when I was a teenager, and really liked it.
-xtien
I mean…
These are still in the closet. The kids haven’t gotten them yet. In fact the one is for my 15 month old daughter. My 4 year old can do these with help.
So I gladly get them and offer the help 😁
Hey, this is about uncles buying gifts for themselves their nephews/nieces, not parents buying stuff for themselves their kids!
Have I told you about that time when I got a Wii U for myself my kid? Well…
Ah, noisy toys. Before I was a parent I always told people I’d snip the wires of noisy toys that didn’t have off switches.
When I actually became a parent though, this seemed like a bad idea. The kid might like the noise. So a little surgery and a soldered in 100mA resistor right before the speaker did the trick. Quieter but not silent.
I went for a run today up by Reed’s Lake in East Grand Rapids. Got back to my car, headed home…and about 5 minutes into the drive heard a thump on the roof. Half a second later I realized that I’d left my wireless earbuds and run tracker (which was actually a cheap older smartphone) sitting on the roof of the car and the thump was them flying off onto the 4-lane divided highway I was driving down.
Considered going back to look, but there were cars behind me - fortunately, not close enough to have been hit by flying electronic devices - and I was going fast enough that there was likely major damage on impact with the asphalt anyhow. I’d been considering an equipment upgrade anyway, so I guess it’s happening now!
I’m getting the same earbuds because the old ones were perfect for me over the last few years. As for the run tracking, it’s going to be my regular phone for now, but I’d love to upgrade to a smartwatch if I can find one that lets me sync local copies of podcasts and music easily (i.e. not need to carry a phone). Sadly it looks like podcast syncing is a not-there-yet feature for most smartwatches, based on what I’ve seen about Android Wear and similar platforms.
Curious which brand you use. I can’t stand running with earbuds because they make noise every time they jostle, which is every step. I use a set of BlueTooth over-the-ear phones, but if there was a good set of buds that don’t drive me crazy, I’d be tempted to switch. Especially for indoor climbing.
Well, the ones I linked above are sort of hybrid…they go in your ear like buds, not over like traditional headphones. But they’re also connected by a strap that goes over each ear and behind your neck.
It’s summer time at the Refugee Education Center! Specifically, summer literacy program time. A lot of these kids come here with little English, plus they have missed a bunch of school while their families were on the move or stuck in camps. Improving language skills is the first step to being able to catch up on everything else. Of course, it’s not all work - playtime and lunchtime are important too!
Whelp I just finished my first High School Reunion. There was one before it, but I didn’t go. This time I felt I was around so… why not. It’s very weird seeing people you have seen in a couple of decades. Some people look pretty much the same to me. Others I don’t recognize. Heck a few even act the same, completely immature before the alcohol came out and… so much weed.
I was not tortured or tormented heavily in high school, and my closest friends were in the class ahead or behind me so it was mostly just a neutral event for me. I did pick up two more members for game night though. They just moved back into the area, we got to the interest part of the hello where do you live, what do you do, and like now part of the conversation. We’ll see how that goes.
I was sad to hear we did lose one girl a couple of years ago… only known death from our class so far.
i skipped mine when I realized that, aside from a couple people I still am in touch with to this day, I mostly hung out with people in years ahead or behind mine, who would not be at the class of 2001 reunion.
There were lots of awkward silent moments, a few guys that got so drunk they pretended to suck each in the bar, kind of like high school again, and some who were so high or so drunk I was a little worried about them. Apparently more than a few of my classmates entered the weed industry in CA and OR, and now their profit plummeted because of the glut of stock. I feel for them.
I changed high schools half-way through 10th grade and never really recovered, friendships-wise. My high school is planning their xx-year reunion and I seriously recognize zero names on the guest list. :( I wonder if I can crash the high school reunion from the school I didn’t graduate from, where I knew everyone.
I started school here in High School. There were people there who grew up with each other since they were 5. They kept in touch whereas I largely didn’t, and we didn’t have cell phones or social media to make that easier. I suspect you could crash the other party and no one would bat an eye.
My partner and I didn’t end up going to our 10-year. It was largely organized and attended by a mixture of the “preppy” athletes who’ve stuck around our crummy podunk hometown to become stay-at-home moms/belly wrap saleswomen, cops, and clothing store assistant managers, plus the weirdly over-keen student government types who no one very much liked, so we just sort of let them do all the SGA/yearbook/etc. type stuff so they’d keep themselves entertained.
As it is, my core friendgroup, the theater/band/choir geeks + gamer nerds, mostly all get together a couple of times a year, including the big cabin party I “cater” for each May. Why blow a couple hundred bucks on chintzy hotel rooms and bad catering in our old tourist trap home town to hang out with people we didn’t like, when we can go see the ones we did at no extra cost already?
I went to my 40th reunion recently and enjoyed it. It was the first one I went to. Most of the people I didn’t remember – we had about 450 in our graduating class – but there were a good 8-10 that I knew. Best part was most of them were from my grade school. I was there K-6 so I knew those kids pretty well.
I didn’t have to travel so it was easy enough to go to.
I want to add that one of my best childhood friends didn’t attend, but I recently reconnected via email with him. We were both interested in science and he was into those Estes model rockets. I helped him launch a few. I found out that he’s now working for NASA on the 2020 Mars mission. Pretty cool for him.
Wow, people actually go to their high school reunions? I figure if any were your friends, you found a way to keep in touch and if they weren’t, why would you want to see them again?
I don’t even know if my school had any reunions. If they did, then my efforts to make myself hard to find paid off.
This!
That’s really cool.
Haha, yeah, my thoughts exactly. I was on one of the lower rungs of the school hierarchy so I was trodden on a lot. It’s hard to forget that even when you suspect most of the bullies and turds will have changed.