The Bus Rocks

By: Mrs. Swarr

Last week I dropped Declan off at school in the morning and was told he may be able to join the older kids for their field trip to a puppet show. This was a pretty big deal being his first trip out and first bus ride and first puppet show... but it was still uncertain if there would be an extra space for him.



I waited anxiously all day, wondering what tales our little man would have to tell later that night, if any. At home that night, we asked Declan all sorts of questions: "Did you go anywhere special today?" "Did you get to play with the older kids today?" etc. The answer to all was an uninterested 'no'. Sadly, Declan must not have been able to go.


Or so we thought. The next morning on the way to school we passed a school bus and Declan piped up, "Mommy I rode on a school bus!" I think he may have peed himself in fear with my uproarious, "What?!" (its ok he still wear diapers so no harm done) (except that he's still in diapers which totally sucks).


So after lots of questions, I discover that he had gone to the puppet show, had ridden the school bus, and hadn't told us. Honestly. Apparently Declan isn't to sure about Marionettes though. I asked him if he had fun and all I got was, "eh, sort of." Seems there was a scary monster that died (did you know there was a monster in Cinderella??), but the school bus was fun (duh, he got to sit next to Isabel).


So there he goes, having adventures, doing new things and mom and dad are oblivious. Maybe we'll book him for a communication class.

The Red Violin

By: Mrs. Swarr

First I want to warn you all against the rapid decline in quality writing in the Swarr Family blog. Why? The great writer of the family and composer of said blog (Zach) has decided it is time for him to move on and try new things. i.e. I told him to get up off his *** and make something of himself by doing some real writing. Okay that's not quite how it went down, but you get the idea. So from now on, I (wife of good writer) (who in contrast happens to have no writing talent) will be in charge of updating you on the family's goings on. And here my friends, is the kind of stuff I get excited about:

We bought a painting. At my urging. Me. Miss penny pinching, tight wadded, stodgy scrooge authorized the spending of many dollars on an item that does not fit into the category of "absolutely necessary for continued survival on Earth." What the hell? I give Zach a hard time for spending an extra $2 on brand name shampoo! But I couldn't help it. We do stupid things when we're in love. Here is the love story of me and my painting:


My father-in-law is an artist. Some of his stuff I like, some of it is not as much my favorite (did I skirt around that one well enough?). Well.... the moment I saw the Red Violin (the name I lovingly attached to her) I knew I had been ruined and would never truly love again. She was not complete when we first met, but that didn't stop my heart from fluttering.

Like the start of all relationships, this one started out with a lot of doubt. 'She's too good for me' and 'She deserves a better wall than what I can provide for her' and 'What if she meets someone else'. Nevertheless I continued to visit her in Dad's studio. I even went to see her when she was moved to a gallery to display herself for anyone who dared walk by (the little slut). Jealousy ensued, but I was reserved to the fact that a Lititz art snob could give her a better home than I ever could.

Weeks went by and we saw each other only in passing. We exchanged pleasantries, but the atmosphere was cool to say the least. Then came the studio tour in which I knew she would yet again be displaying herself to the world. I was prepared to deal with it, until we got to Dad's studio and saw the crushing news: All Items 50% Off. What?! At least before she was demanding a decent rate! How could she whore herself out like this? I left in a rage of disappointment and confusion. Now any slum could walk in off the street and leave with her on his arm - it was anyone's guess what kind of life she would end up in. Through my hurt and anger, I simply knew I could not let that happen. Zach and I were well on our way when I finally spoke the words I had been hiding from for so long, "Honey, we need to buy her." I prepared for a long discussion with arguments worthy to convince him that it was for the best, but all I got was, "Okay. You'd better call Dad or it'll be too late." He had known all along. My secret love affair had never been a secret.

Well the Red Violin came home last night, and although we have little wall space, we made a cozy little spot for her, and there she will stay until Zach hits it big with his superb writing skills and we can buy her a new wall that is truly worthy of her.

Roar... tiger-like

By: Mrs. Swarr

I was going to write a nice long story about Halloween, but when it comes down to it, this is all there was:

• Mommy works on tiger costume for days
  
• Family walks in Mt Gretna parade on Monday, during which there is a torrential downpour and said costume is all but ruined. Trick-or-treat night? Wednesday. I have 1 evening to remake Tiger.
• Tiger shabbily remade, trick-or-treating a success despite crazed rush from Lancaster to Morgantown.

He knocked on the doors and said trick-or-treat all by himself

Post trick-or-treating:

• Declan learns he is not allowed to eat 3 lbs of candy at 8:30pm, even if he did just work for every piece of it.
  
• Our beautiful 2 year old magically transforms into a raging, screaming, spitting, writhing mass of evil.
  
• Said mass of evil is forcibly strapped to car seat (give me a break - I could have lost a limb) and proceeds to scream the entire 40 minute ride home.

I think he fell asleep at some point that night, but I've erased the majority of the event from my now frail mind.

Next year we'll give him door duty.

Oliver Swarr: A Tribute

We were actually hesitant to get another cat, but we talked it over and decided that Arty needed a friend. We went to the local shelter and I started to look around at the cats. Maribeth walked in the room and within 5 minutes had a tiger striped cat out of its cage and in her arms. It was the fastest bonding I had ever seen between an animal and a human. We found our Swarr.

We got him home and naturally he was hesitant of his new surroundings, but by the evening he was sitting on the couch with a little Declan hovering inches from his face. They exchanged sniffs and kisses and then whack. Declan hit him on the head with a Gameboy and under the couch he went for almost the rest of the night. If my memory serves me, I actually think he slept on our bed the first night and just about every night since.

He was fantastic. An instant part of the family. His bond to Maribeth was very strong and very visible. He wouldn't ever let me hold him for more than 6 seconds and he rarely slept on my side of the bed. When she had a bad day he would follow her and love her just the right amount. He was always there to greet her (and I) and never missed an opportunity to make it known that he was hers.

His patience with Declan was outstanding. He let Declan poke and prod. Explore and tug. Tickle and snuggle. And all the while he was happy. He would intervene with Declan at just the right times to get him to relax or help him do what we were asking. It was almost creepy, but he truly did.

Oliver was one of those cats that comes along once in a lifetime. He was an extremely loving cat who would always curl up on your lap. He would follow you around, but never get underfoot. He would nuzzle with you when it was needed and keep his distance when the time was right.

Although he was only living in this house for about a year and a half, he has more than earned the right to be a lifetime member of the family. He helped make this house a home and he will be sorely missed. And although (I'm sure) many other pets will grace the halls of this house, he will be the one to whom we will compare them all.

So to you, Oliver, we say, "Thank you. Thank you for coming into our lives and our hearts. You will always be with us."

-Your family

Arty's Test Results...

Ok...as all of you know, Oliver had Feline Leukemia. Feline Leukemia is very contagious and is transmitted mostly through saliva. Just for learning purposes, I'll break this down as simple as possible: Once the virus enters the body, it travels to the nearest lymph node. It uses that lymph node to replicate itself to the point where it enters the blood stream. If the immune gets defeated it then infects the rest of the lymph nodes and replicates itself on such a scale that it ends up killing the cat (or becoming semi-dormant yet embedding itself in the bone marrow, blah blah blah).

So given the fact that Oliver had it and he and Artemus played together and shared the same food/water dishes, we've been hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. Maribeth took Arty into the vet today to get him tested. As always he acted like the spawn of the darkest Hellcat. They took what they needed for testing and gave him a quick once over. Except for fleas, everything else seemed in order. Then it was back in the crate, devil-cat.

Now as most of you know, Arty is "my" cat, so I was extremely anxious for the results. After losing Oliver, losing Arty would have been equally, if not more painful. So I called Maribeth to see if she had heard anything and she had not. So I called....I spoke with the vet tech.

Artemus' test results: Negative. >sigh< Joy of joys.

That was very unexpected, but well needed news after losing Oliver. I asked about us getting him retested after 3 months or so and she said there is no need. If he was that exposed to Oliver and he didn't get it before now, he won't get it. So no worries.

The only thing we can think is that Oliver had it before we got him and it just chose to resurface when and how it did and he just couldn't fight it. On the other hand, we got Arty as a kitten and he had all of his shots, etc.

So here's to you Arty. Good job.



Up next: Oliver's Tribute post.

Find upon finds!

So I've been perusing Google's patent search engine as of late and I usually come across some really cool stuff. The patent forms are very interesting to me because they not only have to contain a full description of the invention, but also a picture. I've also been fairly disappointed because it seems that every good idea I have, some schmuck thought of it, patented it, and is now squatting on the patent and not marketing their product/invention. Ah well.

I've actually found the patent for for a baby brain cooling device and also the patent for for the push pin. However, today (10 minutes ago, actually), I came across the absolute coolest patent form I have ever witnessed. It's for a toy gun which is convertible into a robotic humanoid form.

Yup. You guessed it. I found the patent for Megatron...





UPDATE: There is actually a whole SLEW of Transformers patents. That zany Takara.

Change of mood

It's been a very sobering week. It is strange to not see Oliver around the house as we used to. It's a definite change. It's different. But different is a part of this world and so is change. I'm working on a nice tribute page for Oliver...to celebrate the joy and friendship he brought to out home rather than just mourn his loss. So be patient.

But for now we'd like to lift up the mood of this blog by talking about something stress free and relaxing: the holidays. I know, I know. I was just kidding. The holiday season is one of the most stressful and non-relaxing times of the year. But you have to admit, it's a fun stress.

First is the spooky Halloween holiday. Halloween's origins are actually not very well known to most. If you have time, go here and read about it. As far as costumes go, I think we've narrowed it down to two options so far for lil man. I know I need to come up with a costume as we're having a work party again this year, so the only one with no costume is Maribeth, unless we have a party to go to. Any ideas?

The next one on the list is Thanksgiving. We all (I assume) know the origins of Thanksgiving, but if not, here you go. Declan is already talking about this one. All he needed to know is that Uncle Gabe and Aunt Karla are coming to visit and all of a sudden he's asking "When are Uncle Gabe and Aunt Karla coming to give us thanks?" ...every day. It's going to be a long wait until Turkey Day. I love the innocence in him how he broke down that word to think that on that day we all give each other "thanks" (as presents).

And lastly, is Christmas...I'm not even getting started on that one....all I have to say is this, this, this and last but not least...this. I am excited...for all but the last one. That was just weird.

So...let's all jump into the holiday season head first and have some fun!!

p.s. If my memory serves me correctly, I owe all of you a blog entry entitled, "Santa Nuts" this year.

goodbye my friend

By: Mrs. Swarr

Oliver is gone. I stayed with him last evening, holding him and watching him - hoping for a glimmer of a will to live. I could make his death a long story, but I would rather not just now. Suffice it to say I travelled to the vet this morning and then brought Oliver home to be placed in the grave lovingly dug by Zach and Declan.

I have never been a cat person. Dogs are much better - loyal and true and joyful. But Oliver was all of those things. He loved us from the moment we found him at the shelter. Of course Oliver belonged to all of us, but there is no doubting that he was "my" cat. He curled up next to me in bed at night - he was rarely far away if not sitting on my lap. Even Declan got along well with Oliver. Oliver was fond of laying in the middle of Declan's puzzles and was always happy to give a kiss or rub to him. There aren't many cats that are patient enough to enjoy a 2 year old.

A lot of changes went through Oliver when he got sick, but he never lost his love and kindness. He purred all through his visits to the vet, and snuggled in my arms anytime I wanted to hold him and love him. He truly was a great cat, through and through, and we miss him desperately.

Thank you Oliver, and may you rest in peace.

Oliver: Update #1: The Plan

After a lot of thought and heartache, Maribeth and I have come up with a game plan.

The vet's outlook was bleak. She said she believes he may have 2 days at the most. He hasn't been eating and that is definitely not a good sign. So without food, even if he fights this thing, he's not going to make it. His liver and kidneys could be infected already (from not eating).

So to put Oliver's needs first, we've decided to schedule an appointment with the vet to have him put to sleep. That appointment is set for Thursday evening. So what the plan is is this:

Tonight I'm going to force feed him some wet food. He needs to eat. There's no denying that. If he keeps that down, that's a good start. Then we see how he's doing tomorrow night and force feed him again. If that stays down, the appointment gets canceled and we take it one step at a time.

If I force feed him tonight and he can't keep that down, then we keep the appointment and just make him as comfortable as possible.

Wish us luck and keep the Swarrs (especially the little furry ones) in your prayers.

I'll let you know how it goes...check back for more posts.

Diagnosis: Feline Leukemia...Prognosis: not good

This isn't an easy post. Oliver doesn't have much time.

Just to give you an overview of the events, about 3 weeks ago, we found that his Lymph node was swollen under his chin on the left side. None of the others were, so we kept an eye on it for about a week and a half. No change. So we decided to schedule an appointment with the vet. Better safe than sorry.

So while all of this is going on, I had purchased a different kind of cat food...oops. Arty was doing ok with it, but Oliver didn't seem to like it at all. He wouldn't touch the stuff. A couple days before his Saturday vet appointment, he started throwing up and having diarrhea. He also looked very thin. We called the vet and bumped his appointment up to Friday. And by this time I went and picked up a bag of their usual food (which they both started to eat- however Ollie kept throwing up).

On Friday, Maribeth took Oliver into the vet and they checked him out. Aside from him losing approximately 2 lbs, he was fine. The Lymph node was back to normal size (which the vet didn't think it was his Lymph node anyway. Tard. Obviously it was) and the vet attributed the bowel/stomach issues to his lack of food intake.

However throughout the weekend we noticed that Oliver wasn't eating and he was just overall bad. He had taken to sitting around and sleeping and doing nothing and still pooping all over. We couldn't get him to eat anything substantial and what we could get him to eat was just thrown up within 10 minutes.

So off to the vet again. Maribeth took him in and this time the outcome wasn't so good. I don't know numbers, but he lost more weight, he was running a fever, he was dehydrated and on top of all this, he has fleas (which is odd, b/c he's an indoor cat and neither Arty nor the house show signs of fleas). So they pumped him full of liquids and drew blood to see what was up. They tested some of the blood in house and sent the remaining out to a lab.

The in house testing showed that his white blood cell count is extremely low. That's never a good sign. As far as the lab tests, they found the culprit: Feline Leukemia. From what the vet said, it's just a matter of time. A few days at most and that's the best they could give us. The fact that he's no longer eating is not a good sign. His chances of getting through this are slim to none.

So...I would say that at the rate of things, by week's end we'll be down one Swarr. We also need to get Arty tested. He may have contracted it too.

It's rough. He's good cat and a good friend, especially to Maribeth. He's her boy.

We'll keep you posted.

Playing Ketchup

We haven't posted in a little bit so I'll try and "catch y'all up" (ha ha).

The yard sale was not very successful for Swarr Family, Inc. I think we ended up selling $7 worth of crap, but the Schaeffers did great, so I guess it wasn't a total loss. And yes, the yard is still there.

The house is coming along nicely. The stairwell is painted (thanks to the wonderful Maribeth) and most of the pictures have been hung. They look really nice so far. It makes a huge difference. It's starting to feel more and more like a home than a work in progress. As for my honey-do list, I think I'm going to kick myself in the you-know-what to build the box for the can lights above the bartop. That will make a huge difference. I'll take before and after pics so you can see my craziness in action. Hopefully I'll have enough gumption to get up early Saturday morning and measure, go to Lowe's and start cutting. Then, come early afternoon it's off to my company picnic.

BUT FIRST...it's off to Hersheypark tomorrow! No work and no phone calls. The Nelsons and we are going in the morning and not coming home until we ride every ride twice. Lil man will be at daycare and then he'll be picked up and sat on, er- babysat for the evening so it's time for fun fin fun. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather is great and that Maribeth feels 100%. She's been fighting something lately.

So let us get through the weekend and hopefully we'll have before and 'during' pictures of the lights above the bartop and possibly some Hersheypark and company picnic pictures. So that will mean lots to blog about.

Maribeth and lil man. San Diego '07

Talk to you in a few days...

-zs

Saturday! Saturday! Saturday!!

Yard sale at the Swarr's...

you'll come and buy our crap if you know what's good for ya.

60 + 60 = 60? A Birthday Celebration for the Ages!

Hello students. Let's jump in the time machine and go back to math class. woosh! There we go. See? Time travel was quick and painless. Who knew? Here we are. Math 101. Oh look there you are listening intently. Let's listen too.

"...and if you take the square root of 3600, multiply that by the sum of 357/459 and 28/126, then add the number of ghatikas in the ancient Hindu day (being sure to take into account the proper aging and manipulation of the vitis vinifera) you'll easily see how we get the answer."

Uh. OK. So maybe going back to math class wasn't the best of ideas to understand what's going on. woosh!! (Back to the present time) Let me just break it down for you:

Take 60 years. Add 60 paintings. And you get 60 bottles of wine. OK, so you don't normally, but this Saturday you do. No it has nothing to do with the once-in-a-lifetime alignment of Pluto and Uranus.

It's because Fred Swarr (aka Dad) is turning 60!!! And to celebrate this great milestone, he will be painting 60 painting in 1 day! You heard it: 60 PAINTINGS!! ONE DAY!! On Saturday, August 4th from 7 AM until 5 PM it'll be paint paint paint in Mt. Gretna (directions here). Then, at 5 o'clock you (yes, YOU!) will be able to get one of these momentous paintings for the mere price of a bottle of wine. Now that's a deal you can't beat anywhere. Snazzy, huh?

Ladies and gentlemen, feel free to come out at any time to see the master of majestic mayhem paint a plethora of perfect and priceless paintings. Well....by "priceless" I mean "the price of a bottle of wine".

This is a once in a lifetime experience!!! So play your part and help an old man get enough alcohol to last him until his next birthday (or at least until next week). If you don't feel like giving up a bottle of wine, at least come out and cheer him on. After all it is his 60th.

Make us proud, Dad! Paint away.

-The Other Swarrs

HEAR YE!!! HEAR YE!!!

One more Swarr off the market. Check it out! Way to go, sisters!!! You made all of the PA Swarrs happy and PROUD!!!!
GO, T AND AMANDA! GO!! Woo Hoo!

From the Tuesday edition of the Seattle Post Intel.

tired. but satisfied.

Last night was was an odd night. As I stated, my mom was watching Declan, so we cleaned the house very fast and sat down to finish HP and the DH [don't worry...still NO SPOILERS]. Although I had the amount of chapters accurate, the page count was wrong. We had around 270 pages to go. So we read and read. Again, we couldn't stop. Before we knew it it was time to pick up lil man. The events in the book were already in motion so we had a hard time stopping. But alas: no choice.

I laid down with Declan to get him to go to sleep and he did around 10:00. I walked over to our bedroom and there was Maribeth: in bed with the lights off. I bugged and pestered and grumped, eventually getting my way. The lights were on and we were reading again. Then around 11:30 we turned the lights off with sighs of near exhaustion. We still had 70 pages to go. I was so anxious I couldn't sleep. I wasn't even tired and Maribeth knew it. She was happy that I made the choice of sleep over keeping her awake o finish the book, but apparently there must have been something chewing at her too. After about 6 minutes she said, "Ok. You can read."

It didn't even dawn on me what she had said. Then, after a second or two it clicked. I was out of bed faster than Dudley on a cupcake. Book in hand, glasses on my face reading. I was going full throttle. But realizing the reality that we both have to work the following day I said that we can read until 12:15ish. If I didn't finish, I told myself, it would have to wait until tomorrow night.

However, by the time 12:15 rolled around, things were so intense in the book that we both lost track of time. We pressed on and finished the book at 1:37 AM. Utterly fantastic. Totally worth it.

So I realized, there comes a time when one is reminded of what one has. I was reminded last night of what I have. I have a stubbornness beyond all measure. I also have a beautiful, loving wife that would do anything for me and who understands (mostly) how my brain works. This morning I realized that last night's events were attributed to the latter of those two. Although I know that the former played a part at times :)

Thank you for staying up and finishing the book with me.

-Zach

Harry Potter- NO SPOILERS!!

[No Spoilers here!]

Ok...first off I just want to say that we are still reading the book. And obviously, others are still reading too. So I won't post any spoilers nor will I tolerate any in the comments section...they will be deleted and you will have problems.

Maribeth and I have been pushing through reading the book aloud and we have only 10 more chapters to go (plus the epilogue from what I hear). I'm being told that the ending is amazing!

All I will say thus far is that the book is an utterly fantastic roller coaster of story and emotion. Wow! I CANNOT WAIT TO FINISH!!!

My mother has graciously agreed to watch the lil man tonight so Maribeth and I can finish the book (thanks, Mom).** When we do finish, I still will not post any discussions until it seems that the Harry Potter fans out there start resurfacing from their spoiler protected hidey-holes. I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

So if you are reading this, please post in the comments section whether or not you are still reading and also when you are finished...I can't wait to talk about it.

Happy reading Potter-fans!

-The Swarrs


**If you try calling our house or stopping in unannounced tonight you will be ignored. I don't care if you look in the window know that we are home. Unless you are bleeding profusely and are in need of medical attention, you will be completely ignored. My feelings won't be hurt in the least.

My job

By: Mrs. Swarr

While working for a living usually isn't fun (I would much rather spend my days hiking through the mountains and hanging out with Zach and Declan), I have to say that I am lucky enough to have a job that I can enjoy. And on the days I don't enjoy it as much, at least I can believe in it and feel good about what I am doing.

For those of you who don't know, I work at Mission Research makers of GiftWorks. We make fundraising software for nonprofits. Ummmm..... who cares? It's just a software company.

But see that's not the point. Our CEO (frustrating though he may be) has this vision that we are going to make the world a better place. He's one of those people who can turn a piece of software into the idea that we can help enough nonprofits who can in turn help more people (or animals or whatever) and then our world will be great. Ok so I don't say it as well as he does. The thing is, every person I work with thinks like this. We are all here to help the world one nonprofit at a time.

I have never experienced a place like Mission Research. While it is not the same as taking a journey to Romania to help the horribly condemned orphans, I can come to work everyday hoping that what I do will further the cause of those working to save those same orphans.

I'll admit it, I'm an idealist. I am convinced that if we all do these little things to help the world, eventually it will all add up and we will find ourselves living in a better place. And if that is not the case, well, at least I will have done my part and will feel that I have done something good with my life.

Our new endeavor is SustainableNonprofit.org. This is our attempt to bring the world of nonprofits and nonprofit experts to one place where they can share their experiences, problems, issues, insights, and whatever else is on their minds. Like Mission Research, it might not change the world, but if we help just one nonprofit who makes a difference in multiple lives, we will have done something good.

~ Maribeth

Blah blah blogging

Alright. It has been fairly uneventful at Swarr Family Inc. lately and that's not necessarily a bad thing. With the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie (which we have nearly a dozen people going to see tomorrow evening!!) and the 8 days away release of the seventh and final book, I attribute the lack of goings on to sheer disbelief (for myself anyway). I honestly don't know how I'm going to control myself when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hits the shelves...and my hands. So because of the lack of eventful things, I am going to blog about uneventful things. Yay! Like to hear it? Here it goes.

Declan and I were riding in the car this morning and he had his first taste of classic They Might Be Giants. I played 'Flood' for him and more specifically, 'Particle Man.' He loved it. His little arms were up and he was wiggling. "Dance, lil man. Dance." I explained to him that Daddy and Uncle Gabe listened to these guys and they are a lot of fun. All he heard was that Uncle Gabe liked them, so now they are "Uncle Gabe's favorite songs." Regardless, listening to old TMBG was a little nostalgic this morning. It was a good break from NPR and Harry Potter audio books.

Last evening was also uneventful. I decided to light a little fire relax. I pulled the fire pit over to the middle of the patio and then I got some matches. Next I needed wood, so I shifted some wood on the woodpile and in a torrent of grossness, around a hundred earwigs scattered across the patio. I started smashing them with the fire-poker and then set that down to use a piece of wood and my feet. Lil man picked up the poker and started hacking away at them saying, "Bad bugs. Those are the ouchy ones that pinch."

After lil man went down for the night, Maribeth and I finished watching Pan's Labyrinth. I don't want to speak for Maribeth, but I know I felt it to be a little disappointing. I liked it. Don't get me wrong. Conceptually is was great, but I thought it was a little lacking. The previews and reviews played it off to be much more along the lines of Mirrormask, only darker. Overall I guess I was just expecting more fantasy world and less real world. Ah well...it was still good.

So here we are again. After some much needed sleep, another work day started and the morning ritual of sending back and forth email forwards and crazy internet pictures began...I stumbled upon this site which I absolutely must try. The many uses of flies never cease to amaze me.

I'm a geek. But not a sell out.

Well I went to see the new Transformers movie and I must say that I liked it. Liked. Not loved. I attribute most of that like to the fact that I had such low expectations for the movie ever since it rolled into production.

Let me just start by saying that I am a huge Transformers fan. I have been since they first came out. My childhood was The Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, etc...80s classics. I will also say that I have the entire 80 issue run of the Transformers comics, Headmasters miniseries, G.I. Joe/Transformers crossover, Transformers Universe, etc... I will even tell you that I was very excited about and still love to read and re-read the Transformers: Generation 2 series. It was good. They did a great job. So hopefully you can see that I am not a total purist when it comes to the Transformers. I love G1, but I also watched Transformers: Beast Wars (somewhat reluctantly). And naturally, I got caught up in the new Dreamwave TF series, but that died when they crapped out X amount of spin-off titles.

Like most everyone else, when I heard they were doing a live action TF movie I was excited. Who wouldn't be? After a lot of convincing (by myself and others) I decided to not pass judgment until I saw the movie. That was hard, because that meant that I couldn't see or hear anything during the production period. What made it nearly impossible was that a certain individual -cough-Dean-cough- would try to tell me every blasted thing he read on every fansite in the world. So needless to say I did hear some mumblings and I did see some images. Most made me unhappy. But I still reserved judgment.

So judgment day arrived. It wasn't off to a good start: I didn't sleep well the night before, my back hurt, I had a headache and it was Independence Day (I have much better things to be doing than sitting in a theater for 2 1/2 hours...). But again, I kept an open mind and tried not to go into the situation with a crap attitude. I got a big tub of popcorn and ice-cold Cherry Coke. That cheered me up. The previews came and went. Then it was time...everything went dark. And then you heard it. The awesome, rumbling voice of Peter Cullen. Fantastic. Also, you hear the ever classic transformation sound (albeit the only time in the movie). Fantastic. Then you see Cybertron...not fantastic. But Peter Cullen is still talking, so that makes it tolerable. The nostalgia hadn't worn off yet.

I'm not going to sit here and type a play by play of the movie. But I will recommend seeing it. As a movie with giant transforming robots, it's amazing. From the eyes of a TF fan...I didn't like it.There were a million things I'd change and I won't list them all, but I will say two words: Welker and Frenzy. Two of the worst decisions of the movie. Another big gripe is this: because Michael Bay screwed with the look of the TFs and made them all look the same (aka 'crap'), it was very tough to tell what was going on in the battle scenes. The cinematography was all over the place and it moved very fast. So a lot of the time you're just trying to figure out what you're looking at as opposed to seeing giant Rock 'em Sock 'em Robot battles.

To end this post on an upswing, Shia LaBeouf was the perfect choice. Absolutely hilarious. His delivery was killer and his acting was right on for the movie. And don't get me started on Megan Fox. I'm just glad she could act too. In fact, the casting (with the exception of Welker) was great. There were a lot of unnecessary characters in the movie, but overall it was good. Again, I recommend going to see it. But go see it not as a Transformers movie, but as a big transforming robots movie. Big robots and big explosions should be seen on the big screen.

'Til all are one...

-Zach

Here we go...

I like blogging. I think it's a lot of fun. I also like reading blogs. Sometimes I pick random blogs on this site and just start reading. It's cool. You never know what you may find. Try it sometime, just look at the top of this page and click 'next blog'...

However, I have noticed that over the last 2 weeks or so a lot of the blogs haven't been updated (or in our case 4 weeks-ish). But I have a feeling that it may be because of how busy this time of year is.

In our case, we've been busy too. Between my brother's wedding and the upcoming 231st Day of Independence (please don't call it the 4th of July...it's the 4th of July in most countries...here it is Independence Day. Respect it.).

Gabe and Karla's wedding was SPECTACULAR! We had such a great time and the ceremony and reception were beautiful. I just wish we could have stayed a little longer, but alas...



I must add that little Declan had his first In-N-Out burger...and LOVED it. Congrats, little man.