Arrr!

I completely forgot last high tide' be Talk Like a Pirate Day (thanks fer th' reminder Sweetpea, er, I mean "Iron Man")! So I be playin' catch-up today. Here`s me seafarin' hearty name...

My pirate name is:

Mad Harry Rackham

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!
Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Take off, hoser

How long until we see something like this tested on MythBusters?


Firemen Lift Car With Hose Water - Watch more free videos

Enjoying the view

Whether you're a NASA buff or not, you've got to check out these pictures from the last shuttle mission. I'm not 100 percent sure if they're legit. But either way -- they're amazing!

Classic TV?

Nation Suddenly Feels Old After Seeing Nick-At-Nite Lineup

SCHAUMBURG, IL—The American people were thrust into a profound existential crisis Sunday after noticing that nostalgia-programming...

Armor up!

The "Iron Man" teaser trailer has arrived!

I had a YouTube version the foootage shown at Comic-Con posted here for about a day last month before Paramount had it yanked.

This new trailer is very similar to that. It's not quite as long and is missing some cool stuff -- but at least you can watch it in glorious HD Quicktime.

Enjoy some shots of ol' shell head in action while rocking out to Black Sabbath!

Sign of the times

The kids have enjoyed watching some of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons on YouTube. So over the weekend we went to the library and picked up "Space Jam," the 1996 movie where Michael Jordan teams up with the Looney Tunes gang.

Nolan was already familiar with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. But he admitted that there were a lot of other Looney Tunes he wasn't familiar with -- like Porky Pig. He hadn't ever seen him before.

Then the Road Runner showed up. Here was a character Nolan knew. He shouted, "Look! It's the Time Warner Cable guy!"

Keeping busy

We had a very full weekend. It started with an ice cream social at Nolan’s school Friday night. Since Kris is now on the PTO board, she had to work at it. Meanwhile, the kids had fun running around on the playground all night long.

Saturday morning Thomas and I went to a special screening of a Thomas the Tank Engine movie at Crossgates. It was billed as “Thomas & Friends on the Big Screen.” But you could tell it was probably just a DVD being put on the screen with a video projector. Every kid got a $5 Wal-Mart gift card. So we headed over there right after the movie to blow that.

Later that afternoon we attended my union’s annual clambake. After 13 years this was the first time we ever went. I don’t know why we never went before, but we’ll be going again next year. There was lots of good food and Nolan had fun in the bouncy bounce despite the fact it was raining and he got soaked.

I’ve mentioned before our family hobby of Letterboxing. We’ve found more than two dozen letterboxes so far. But now for the first time we’ve planted one of our own (I can’t tell you where – it’s a secret!). I carved a handmade stamp for it and then we packed it all up Saturday afternoon. Then we planted it Sunday morning after church and listed it online. Less than 24 hours later, someone had already gone to find it!

Sunday afternoon we attended our parish picnic, which was lots of fun despite a little bit of rain. Once again there was lots of good food -- and once again I ate far too much of it.

Somewhere in there I managed to watch a little bit of football and baseball.

It doesn’t stop there. We’ve got a busy week ahead of us. Either Kris or I have a meeting of some sort almost every night this week.

Never a dull moment!

Indiana Jones and the Official Movie Title

So much for "The City of Gods."

Last night during the MTV Video Music Awards, Indy IV co-star Shia LeBeouf announced (and IndianaJones.com later confirmed) that that new movie will officially be titled "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."


That's a mouthful. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for a trailer by the holidays, if not sooner.

'The Most Wonderful Time of the Year'

I swear to God, Kris was practically dancing around like this when the kids went to bed tonight...

Raiders of the Lost Change Jar

An e-mail conversation with Shannon this morning about Foxtrot, Indiana Jones and the Fairly OddParents led to me reminiscing about this classic Simpsons clip...

Fall preview

Summer is almost over. How did you spend your summer vacation?

Here's what Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam and the others at "The Office" have been up to for the last few months...



While we're on the subjected of the fall TV season, I've been meaning to mention that I recently got to see the pilot episode for NBC's updated"Bionic Woman."

When I first heard this classic show from the 1970s was being remade, I was not enthused. I thought it sounded like a lame idea.

But then I watched the BBC's "Jekyll" (great show!), which also featured "Bionic Woman" star Michelle Ryan. I liked her in that. So I decided to check "Bionic Woman" out.

I was pleasantly surprised. They've updated the show very well. It's kind of a cross between the original series and "Alias" (with maybe a little "Buffy" thrown in). I'll probably be back for more...and I think I'm already a Michelle Ryan fan.

Staying connected

This morning while working out at the Y I saw a girl riding an exercise bike while listening to her iPod, reading a book and holding her cellphone -- which she at least once used to make a quick call or check a text message. Oh, and there was also a TV on in front of her.

Hey, I'm all into the Information Age, but that just seemed like a little sensory overload to me.

Just the facts, ma'am

Part of me is embarassed for Sen. Larry Craig and his family.

But if he's telling the truth and he's innocent, then he's completely handled this situation wrong and shot himself in the foot.

If the allegations against Craig are true, then he turns out to be a big hypocrite. Although I would still feel bad for him since he has remained closeted his entire life and is apparently terrified of his secret getting out. That's kind of sad.

All the same, this re-enactment of his arrest from MSNBC's "Countdown" is quite funny. The dialogue (most of it anyway) comes directly from the Minneapolis police arrest report.

How Vonage lost a customer

In the early days of this blog I went into great detail about our disastrous turn with AT&T’s broadband phone service.

But we were still interested in VoIP and in time we switched to Vonage. I was pretty pleased the with service most of the time.

Now, a little more than two years later we’ve dumped Vonage and changed to Time Warner’s digital phone service. Here’s what happened…

Back in July we picked up the phone one day and discovered there was no dial tone. Eventually, when I couldn’t solve the problem on my own, I broke down and called tech support. After spending an hour on the phone with a technician, she determined that our phone adapter was dead and needed to be replaced.

For those unfamiliar with VoIP, the adapter is a box that connects to both our phone line in the house and our cable modem.

Anyway, the technician told me that the warranty had expired on our adapter. So we would have to buy and new one ourselves out of our own pocket. They range in price from $50 to about $80.

We kind of felt like we were getting screwed and didn’t want to shell out the money for a new device. So we decided make the switch to Time Warner. But Vonage doesn’t make it easy for their customers to leave and it took about a month for the switch to take effect.

Here’s the kicker. Yesterday we were switched over. Today I got a phone call at work (I don’t know how they got my work number) from Vonage. The woman said she was returning a call from us.

I said, “No, we didn’t call you – in fact we just discontinued your service.” Then I explained why.

So she offered to send me a free adapter and give me a 60-day free trial to lure me back. But I told her that I just got done with the month-long process of switching and didn’t want to start messing with my phone service again.

She assured me that she wasn’t going to switch me now. She was just going to send me the free device. Then if I decided in the next 60 days that I wanted Vonage, all I had to do was just call them and I’d already have the device and be good to go.

Ok. Fine. If it’s free, then what the hell. Go ahead and send me the adapter. Maybe upon further review we would decide Vonage would save us more money and decide to switch back. We could at least think about.

So she starts taking all of my information – address, phone number, etc. – and then tells me she’s going to charge me $14.95 for shipping and a $29.95 activation fee!

Woah! Hold it right there. Forget it, I told her. I didn’t want to give them any money.

She insisted that all of this would be refunded if after 60 days I still didn’t want Vonage. But I still said no. So she offered to waive the activation fee.

That’s when I said, “Look, it’s nice you want to give me a free adapter now. But if you had just given me the free adapter back in July you’d still have me as a customer and we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

At this point I reminded her that she had called me at work and that I needed to go. We had been on the phone for almost 10 minutes now. She wouldn’t take no for an answer and continued the hard sell. So I basically hung up on her.

So the moral of the story: take care of your customers when they need your help. If you don’t they’ll move on – and no matter what you try, you might not get them back.

WristStrong

Check it out...I signed Stephen Colbert's cast!

My name might not be as big as some of the others (Brian Williams, Katie Couric, Tim Russert, Nancy Pelosi) to sign the cast that will be auctioned for charity on eBay, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.

Find out how you can sign the cast and also do your part to your part to raise awareness for wrist health at Colbert Nation.

The Great Chiken Wing Hunt

A noble pursuit of there ever was one. This group of wing buffs passed through Albany recently and declared it was a great wing town (who knew?!?). Their quest is being made into a documentary about the search for the best chicken wing.



MMmmm...it's been too long since I've parked myself in front of a plate of wings. Anyone out there remember Tuesday night Wing Nights in high school? Or how about a heaping order of wings from Monopole in Plattsburgh?

Ok, now my mouth is watering.

Going to the dogs

A friend passed this along this morning...

Thanks, Pat.

Leona's legacy

How would you like to be remembered? The obit for Leona Helmsley on Forbes.com begins like this:

Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean," has died of heart failure at the age of 87, surprising since many thought her heart had stopped working long ago.

Gotcha Day 2007

Today we celebrated Gotcha Day -- the fourth anniversary of when we got Thomas.

It was a low-key event this year. We just hung out around the house today playing in the backyard. But tonight we splurged and went out to dinner.

Here are the annual then-and-now photos...

Scout Night at the Joe

Last night Nolan and I went to the Tri-City ValleyCats game at Joe Bruno Stadium for "Scout Night."

All of the scouts who came to the game got a patch. But the really cool part was that after the game we got to go down on the field, pitch our tent and spend the night sleeping in the outfield.

It was a late night. We wound up joining an impromptu whiffle ball game in left field. There was also a flag football game going on in right field, and the movie "Garfield" was playing on the jumbo screen. The whiffle ball game broke up a little before midnight, at which point we got in our tent and watched the end of "Garfield."

We had a great time, despite the fact we were the sole representatives of our Pack. We didn't know anyone else there, but fortunately for Nolan he's always been good at making new friends. As long as there is a bunch of kids, that's good enough for him. You could drop him in a foreign country where they don't speak English and he'd do fine as long as there were some other kids willing to share their ball or Frisbee or whatever their playing with. I really admire that about him.

The only other downer on the night was the outcome of the ValleyCats game. The Cats are in last place in the New York-Penn League. They got clobbered by the first place Oneonta Tigers, 14-1.

Doing what I do best

Making a fool of myself, that is.

A couple of weeks ago we attended a fun event at the Niskayuna Community Center. They put up a big screen outdoors and showed the movie "Happy Feet." People could bring blankets and lawn chairs and watch the movie under the stars.

The movie started once the sun went down. But before the movie, Radio Disney was there with music and all sorts of games and activities for the kids.

One of the games involved hula-hoops. I think we were supposed to see who could keep their hula-hoop going the longest. I couldn't do it very well around my hips. So I opted for the around-the-neck technique.

Anyway, this event was sponsored by the county. Small world that it is, it turns out that a friend we haven't spoken to in a long time was in charge of organizing it. She snapped this picture of me being a goofball and just passed it along yesterday. Thanks, Wendy!

(BTW, although the rest of the family liked it, I wasn't wild about "Happy Feet." I thought it was too preachy. But I still had fun anyway.)

Another sign we're getting old...

The baby on the cover of Nirvana's hugely successful 1991 album "Nevermind" is now a 17-year-old high school student in California.

Spencer Elden says he feels like a porn star because so many people have seen him naked.

The ire of Red Sox Nation

I saw this on The Onion this morning. It appears to have been written a couple of days ago. It would be even funnier if the Yankees hadn't just dropped their last two games against Baltimore...

Fucking Yankees, Reports Nation

BOSTON—Moments after the New York Yankees continued a month-long stretch that has seen them climb from the bottom of the AL East to pull within a once unfathomable four games of the first-place Red Sox by defeating the Baltimore Orioles...

Last trip of the summer

We made our final camping trip of the summer over the weekend with a return to Old Forge.

In the five years that we’ve been camping, this is the first time that we’ve ever repeated a campground (not counting our stays at Uncle Rush’s cabin this year and in 2005). Usually we always try to pick a different spot, but we enjoyed Limekiln Lake so much last year that we went back this year.

Our campsite was even better this time. This year we were right on the water. The panoramic shot above is the view from our site.

Being on the water also meant that we had some extra visitors. As soon as we arrived, a duck heard us and swam over to the shore. He came out of the water, hopped up the embankment and then waddled right over to the picnic table where we were eating lunch. We didn’t give him any food, but he was persistent. He returned several times, and with reinforcements. The ducks were obviously used to getting free handouts.

We also made a return visit to Enchanted Forest Water Safari. Once again, I let the family pick any slide in the park for me to go down. This time they wanted me to go down “The Shadow” – a 42-foot-tall twisty, curvy tube that sends you sliding down pretty fast.

Nolan wanted to try to The Shadow too, which really surprised me. I remember how scared he was of most of the rides at Disney World and last year it took us while to convince him to try the kiddy slides at Water Safari. This time he seemed all into it. He stood in line, but had a change of heart at the last minute. That’s probably just was well. The ride was faster and little scarier than I thought it would be.

We were supposed to stay for two nights, but with the end of our busy summer in sight the fatigue is starting to set in. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want summer to end. But we’ve been doing so much that our heart wasn’t completely into this trip. We might have skipped the whole thing, but the kids (ok, and me too) were looking forward to Water Safari. So we only went for one night instead.

Next year we might take a break from tent camping and stick to cabins. But you never know. That’s what we say now. Maybe by next summer we’ll be anxious to break out the camping gear again.

BTW, it was cloudy the one night we stayed (in fact, there was a thunderstorm overnight). So we didn’t see any of the meteor shower. Bummer.

Here are some more photos from the trip…

Wish upon a falling star

Cool! We're going to be out camping i the woods tomorrow night when the Perseid meteor shower hits. We should have a great view.

That's assuming I remember to look up. The light show begins at 9 p.m., but will hit its peak around 2 a.m. when there should be one or two meteors streaking across the sky per minute.

'The Procedure'

You've got to wonder why Willem Defore hasn't been cast in more comedies. Check him out in this short film with Will Farrell, Andy Richter and Ana Gasteyer.

Quest for the big screen

This is crazy. Just yesterday I was talking to a co-worker, saying how for the life of me I never understood why someone hasn't tried to make a live action "Johnny Quest" movie. Now this morning, I read that it's in the works!

This was one of my favorite shows on Saturday mornings as a kid -- although I always preferred the reruns from the 1960s to the newer 70s episodes. The original episodes were a little darker, had more action and relied less on comic relief.

When I was a freshman in college, Dennis Miller came to perform on campus. During his stand-up routine he made a reference to Race Bannon that fell flat. Miller muttered that it was a sign he was getting old when no one knew who Race Bannon was. That's when my roommate and I enthusiastically yelled out "Johnny Quest!" He pointed to us and smiled and said "Hey, alright!"

So who do we cast in the movie? How about George Clooney as Dr. Quest? Ten years ago I would have pushed for either Arnold Scharzenegger or Harrison Ford as Race Bannon. Who do you think should play him now?

Finally, here's the way-cool original title sequence...

This and that

There’s been a lot going on lately that’s been blogworthy, but I just haven’t had the time to get to it all here…

• Kris and the kids are keeping quite busy this week with Vacation Bible School. Everyone seems to be enjoying it.
• We visited Kris’ parents last weekend. Grandma had redecorated the room the boys usually stay in. The décor includes some of their favorites: the Yankees, Spider-Man and SpongeBob SquarePants. They loved it.
• Along the way we made stops in Schroon Lake and Ticonderoga to complete our collection of commemorative Adirondack pins. Unfortunately, the Ticonderoga Chamber of Commerce was closed when we stopped by. So that’s the only pin we’re missing in the set.
• I finished “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in about a week. Kris is reading it now. I loved it and was very satisfied with the ending. There’s lots I could say about it, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone still looking forward to reading it.
• I’ve discovered a great new show – the BBC drama “Jekyll.” Joe Video has been telling for a while to check this out. It’s written by the same guy who has penned some of the best of the new “Doctor Who” episodes. I believe it recently started running on BBC America. I don’t get that channel. So I had to find it on the Internets. However you find it, it’s worth checking out. Here's a trailer.
  

To know him is to love him

We had Chinese food for dinner the other night and this was Thomas' fortune...


If you know Thomas, then you realize just how appropriate that is. We thought it was pretty funny. So we set that fortune aside to hold on to.

'They're coming to get you, Barbara!'

President Bush has apparently been reading this book.



Thanks to Little Lost Robot.

Taking the Enterprise to search for Xenu

Now this presents a dilema. I made the statement a wihle ago that I had no desire to watch another Tom Cruise movie. So what do I do if he winds up in the next "Star Trek" film?

SciFi Wire reports that "Trek XI" producer/director J.J. Abrams is hoping to get his "Mission: Impossible III" star to make a cameo as Capt. Christopher Pike.

Cruise earned a reputation as a Scientology nut, alienating a lot fans and Paramount honcho Sumner Redstone in the process. Obviously, he still has enough fans to be a bankable movie star, but I'm not one of them. What about Redstone? Has he had a change of heart?

Trade deadline

Just under today's trade deadline, Yankees pitcher Scott Proctor has been traded to the Dodgers for infielder Wilson Betemit.

Nolan has an autographed Scott Proctor ball. He'll probably be bummed to hear the news.

Silver Lake Slideshow

I haven't had a chance yet to sit down and put together a whole video of our vacation, with moving and still pictures and music and whole nine yards like I had wanted. In the meantime, here's a Picasa slidehow...

The Deathly Spoilers

I'm about one-third of the way through "Deathly Hallows," which is why I thought this was funny...

Final Harry Potter Book Blasted For Containing Spoilers

NEW YORK—Harry Potter fans throughout the world were shocked, disappointed, and outraged to learn last week that J.K. Rowling's 750-page...

Raiders of the Lost Legos

The kids don't really have much an interest in Indiana Jones (yet). But after having so much fun with Nolan's "LEGO Star Wars" video games, I might just have to get this for myself.

"LEGO Indiana Jones: The Video Game" is set to come out in Summer 2008. Check out the way cool trailer for the game.

Here's a bit from the LucasArts press release:

"In addition to providing the quality bonding time inspired by any good family game, LEGO Indiana Jones delivers something a little different for everyone. Parents will enjoy the humorous take on some of their favorite movies, and their kids get some rousing action/adventure gameplay that may also introduce them to Indy's original adventures for the first time."

The game will feature levels based on the first three Indy movies. If the game and the new movie are successful, then I'm sure we can expect "LEGO Indiana Jones 2" down the road.

'Do you suppose she'll still be with him?'

It's official (as if there was any doubt)...Karen Allen will be appearing in Indiana Jones 4 as Marion Ravenwood.

This picture was posted tonight on Ain't It Cool News. They also have a little write-up on the Indiana Jones presentation today at Comic-Con in San Diego.

UPDATE: I've got to admit, despite my earlier naysaying about the prospect of a fourth Indiana Jones movie, I am getting really pumped up for this. I mean seriously, I'm thinking now about making sure I take May 22, 2008 off from work so I can be at the first screening.

Who was I kidding? I knew I would get excited once I started seeing set photos like this and tidbits about the plot started leaking out.

Speaking of which...IndianaJones.com got an overhaul tonight. The page now shows Indy's hat and whip resting on a large crate that reads "Property of Dr. Jones."

Hmmm...what could be in that crate? Have we ever seen a crate like that before in an Indiana Jones movie? I wonder...

A tale of two Spocks

It's officially official. Once again from AICN, here's Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy together at Comic-Con for the announcement of his casting.

UPDATE: There are more photos from the presentation on StarTrek.com. That's where I also found an image of the new teaser poster.

In other news, the part of Captain Kirk has not been cast yet. There were rumors for quite a while about the role going to Matt Damon, but that's not going to happen.

J.J. Abrams confirmed that Nimoy will be appearing in the movie as old Spock.

Right now the script does not include an appearance by old Kirk. But Abrams said they would like to include Shatner somehow if they can figure out how to make it work with their story.

The release date for the movie will be Christmas Day 2008.

'You were right...'

I spotted this on Ain't It Cool News tonight...It looks like George Lucas is finally ready to admit the fans are right. He was spotted wearing a "Han Shot First" T-Shirt on the set of "Indy IV."

Making it more ironic is the fact that this picture shows next to Han Solo, er, I mean Harrison Ford.

Sylar to live long and prosper?

J.J. Abrams has promised some big "Star Trek" news at Comic Con later this week. But a juicy tidbit may have slipped out today at the Television Critics Association gathering in Hollywood.

Zachary Quinto, who plays super bad guy Sylar on "Heroes," was asked about the persistent rumors he's in line to don Leonard Nimoy's pointy ears as young Spock in the new Trek movie. Here's his answer, according to TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello...

"I'm under strict orders not to say anything,"

Hmmm...what does that tell you? Would be under "strict orders" if he didn't have the part?

One decade down...

Today we celebrate 10 years of debt home ownership! It was on this date in 1997 that we signed our name on the dotted line (repeatedly) and became the proud owners of our humble little abode.

Super snail mail

Right now if you get a piece of snail mail from the Rooneys, it's likely to come with one of the Postal Service's commemorative "Star Wars" stamps stuck to the envelope.

Maybe when we use those up, we'll pick up the Marvel Comics Super Heroes stamps that go on sale later this week.

Could all of this be the Post Office's attempt to reach out to geeks and youngsters who would be more likely to use e-mail?

Adirondack adventures

Well, in about nine hours I will be back at the daily grind. I’ve been on vacation since July 12, and it’s been terrific!

Actually, the vacation started with Nolan’s birthday – 7-years-old! We had his party at a nearby park with a really cool playground. He invited a few friends from school. They goofed around on the playground, had a kickball game and ended the party with a water gun fight.

Two days later we left town to spend a week at Kris’ uncle’s camp on Silver Lake, in the heart of the Adirondacks. It was a full week of hiking, fishing, swimming and other outdoor fun.

We spent our first day there with Kris’ family. Her sister and brother-in-law were up visiting her folks that weekend. So all four of them came out to the lake for the afternoon.

The Silver Lake Bog Preserve is walking distance from the cabin. We all set out to walk that on Sunday, but pets aren’t allowed in the preserve. So Thomas and I took Chester back to the cabin while Kris and Nolan continued with the hike. The route leads out to the bluffs overlooking the lake with a nice view of Whiteface Mountain in the distance. They came back with some nice pictures. Hopefully Thomas and I can make the hike next time (sorry, Chester).

Meanwhile, Thomas, Chester and I were having our own adventure back in the cabin. Our friendly game of Monopoly was interrupted by the discovery of a chipmunk inside the cabin. We chased him around from room to room before eventually running him out of the house not long before Kris and Nolan got back. The whole escapade was one the highlights of our trip for Thomas.

Monday brought one of my highlights—our trip to the summit of Whiteface. We drove up the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway, making stops along the way to take in the view (that’s where the panoramic shot above was taken). From the end of the road, it’s just a rocky one-fifth of a mile hike to the top of the mountain. We all made it—even Chester, perhaps the world’s only mountain-climbing Basset hound.

The view is absolutely breathtaking. I wish I could have spent more time up there taking it all in. I could spend all day just sitting there soaking up that scenery.

On Tuesday we hopped in the canoe and paddled down to the beach. It’s about a half-hour canoe ride, but once you arrive there you have a shallow, sandy beach all to yourself. It’s great for the kids. We actually didn’t swim a whole lot on this trip. The water temperature was never much more than 72 degrees. Maybe we were being wimps about it. But we did get in the water a few times, including this day at the beach.

Wednesday turned out to be our biggest hiking day. Despite the fact it rained earlier that morning and looked like it could rain again any minute, Kris declared, “We Rooneys are hearty folk!” And with that we threw on our rain ponchos and headed up Silver Lake Mountain. Round trip that was a 1.8 mile trek (and it never did rain again).

Later in the day, on kind of a whim, we drove out to the Adirondack Visitor Interpretive Center at Paul Smith’s College. This is a great, family-friendly stop that I recommend for everyone. There are some hands-on exhibits; live birds of prey and miles of nicely groomed, easy to hike trails. After spending some time in the butterfly house, we wound up hiking a couple of the trails (see the panoramic view of the Heron Marsh below), for a total of another 1.3 miles.

Thursday was our only real washout with the weather. But we made the most of it. Nolan recently declared fish are his favorite animal. So we paid a visit to the Adirondack Fish Hatchery and learned about how the fish are bred and used to stock the ponds and lakes. They had some impressive looking landlocked salmon when we were there.

Friday we went into Lake Placid and hiked some of the Brewster Peninsula Nature Trails. The village was bustling with people in town for the Iron Man Triathlon. It was about as crowded as Lake Placid gets, but there weren’t many people on these trails. We thought it was kind of neat that we found a scenic place to enjoy views of the lake that a lot of the tourists in town probably didn’t even know about.

We had planned to leave first thing Saturday morning, but in typical Rooney fashion we wound up leaving Friday night instead. It just seemed easier that way.

So that was our big vacation for the summer. We took a ton of great pictures. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to throw together some sort of slideshow.

In the meantime, life now returns to normal. We’ve got one more camping trip planned before the summer is over.

Indy in action

I've got to admit...seeing this yesterday got the juices flowing...

The latest rumor says the plot for Indy IV, which we know takes place in the 1950s, involves the Russians, Area 51...and the Ark of the Covenant?!?

What would we do without the Net?

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Trailer park

A couple of good movie trailers popped up today that I thought I'd point out.

First up is "Fred Claus." How bad can a movie be when it has Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Spacey. In this one, Vince Vaughn plays Fred, Santa's underachieving and much less successful brother. It looks like if you liked "Elf" then this will be right up your alley.

Then there's "Get Smart." I mentioned here a while ago how spot-on I thought the casting was in this. Now we get our first glimpse of Steve Carell in action as Agent 86. Looks great!

Last, but not least is that mysterious J.J. Abrams project you may have read about. The teaser trailer is playing before "Transformers," which I haven't seen. However, it hit Apple's Quicktime site last night.

The movie is made up of a cast of mostly unknown actors. The trailer has a very "Blair Witch Project" feel, as it shows home video of a bunch of twentysomethings reacting to an apparent attack on New York City by some sort of giant monster.

The odd thing is that there is no title for the movie. At the end all we're given is a release date: 1-18-08. Or is that the title? Supposedly, the working title was "Cloverfield," but what is the movie's official name? No one seems to know for sure.

No one even really knows what the movie is about, beyond what we see in the teaser. Abrams and Paramount aren't saying. The whole thing is cloaked in secrecy. In this age of Internet spoilers, it's amazing how a project like this can be kept under wraps for so long!

There's a whole viral campaign to go along with this mystery movie. There are several sites that may or may not be connected to the movie and offer clues to what it's all about -- much like Abrams' hit TV show "Lost."

I don't know what it's all about -- but consider my interest piqued!

'Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit...'

What some people have called the greatest cartoon of all time celebrates its 50th anniversary this week. I give you Warner Bros.' classic "What's Opera, Doc?"...



Of course, when discussing Bugs Bunny and classical music, it's impossible not to give a shout out to "Rabbit of Seville" and "Long-Haired Hare."

Think before you blog...

Here's how I feel sometimes...

Comfy canine

Our friends the Brownells watched Chester for us when we went camping a couple of weeks ago.

Here's one of the photos Ray sent us to demonstrate Chester made himself at right at home while we were gone.

Happy Fourth of July

We managed to get some Independence Day activities in before the rain started today.

This morning we went to see the annual July 4th parade in Alplaus. That was a lot of fun -- I don't know why we've never done that before. This may be a new family tradition.

The boys and I also went for a bike ride this morning around the neighborhood and we had a cookout tonight at my mom's with my sister's family too. Although the "cookout" consisted of me grilling in the garage while everyone else stayed inside and out of the rain.

Hope you had a great Fourth. Here's some highlights from the parade...

We still hold these truths to be self evident...

EDITOR'S NOTE: I posted this last year on this date, but thought it was worth repeating...

Happy Independence Day one and all.

You can read a copy of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives site. Seems very appropriate today.

Indy & son

I thought Harrison Ford looked pretty good in that earlier shot of him in his Indiana Jones getup. But as you can see from this shot of him and co-star Shia LeBeouf on the set of Indy IV, they aren't going out of their way to hide his age.

There are plenty of more set pics here and here.

Approved for all audiences

I know I try to keep this blog family friendly, but I didn't realize it was this tame.

What is your blog rated?