Apparently, Nancy Drew novels used to be a bit edgier. As in, Nancy packed heat. Which leads to this joke: “Nancy drew and 3 men died.” Ha! (I do realize that it’s probably only funny if you listen to this.)
I keep thinking “this is probably the last time I will X” where X is some activity that I do regularly in San Diego, but probably won’t in Provo. Like grab a quick sandwich at the VA to eat at my desk because I have a submission deadline looming. Or give a lecture at SDSU. Or hang out with the Wicks. Or wait for the stupid left turn signal on the street in front of my apartment complex.
So, the question we get asked most often these days is when we’re moving. The next question is usually if we know where we’re moving to. The answer to the first one is easy; July 15. The other one is also easy; no, we don’t know where we’re moving. We’re still looking for a house (to buy) and in the mean time it looks like we’ll be staying with my brother’s family. At least, that’s the plan today. A week ago the plan was to rent. We may end up living in our big tent.
Our friends threw us a going away party yesterday. It was a lot of fun. There was cake and ice cream and a pool. We would post pictures, but you don’t really want to see pictures of me in the pool, so we’ll spare you that. You’re welcome.
K’s friend gave him TEH BEST TOY EVERZ! as a going away party. I’m actually jealous of this toy. It’s a Transformer that goes from Han Solo and Chewbaca to the Millennium Falcon. Push one button and it spouts a random Han Solo line. Push the other button and it says a random Chewbaca line (of course, these all sound the same). L’s friend gave her a Disney fairy doll that is pretty cool (but doesn’t transform into anything).
The kids also got Japanese lunch boxes from one of my co-workers. They’re sort of like these, but cooler. They’re like bento boxes with foil-lined carrying cases to keep them warm. Very cool. Makes them want to go back to school. I know, they’re weird. Lucky for them, they’ll get their wish sooner in Utah than they would in California.
Chicken butt!
While leaving church the other day, the 2nd grader told me this joke:
K: Why did Sonic put a dog in the freezer?
me: Dunno. Why did Sonic put a dog in the freezer?
K: He wanted a CHILI DOG!
One of Maren’s students bought some studio time so that he could record a duet with Maren. This is the result below:
Last night Maren and I attended the Campus MovieFest International Grand Finale at the Paramount Studios lot in Hollywood as VIP guests. One of my labmates is engaged to one of the Campus MovieFest founders and got us VIP tickets. CMF stages events at a number of college campuses around the country. They along with their corporate sponsors provide a laptop and a video camera and the students have a week to make a short (~5 min) film. The end products were amazing. These students are really talented. There are a number of regional festivals and the best from the regionals were in the competition this weekend.
The whole night was pretty surreal. The kids stayed with some friends and we drove up to LA to the Paramount Studios lot. It was pretty fun telling the security guard that we were on the VIP list. We got to go to the VIP cocktail reception, where we were in the same room as Oded Fehr and Nora Zehetner (don’t feel bad, we didn’t know where we knew them from either). We were sort of expecting the rest of the presenters to be folks that you feel like you should know, but weren’t quite sure where you had seen them before until someone told you. We were mistaken. The emcee was Scott Adsit (the guy from 30 Rock). The first presenter was CHRISTIAN SLATER (Maren was beside herself). He was followed by Patton Oswalt (the voice of Remy from Ratatouille), who was hilarious and forgot the envelope for the award he was supposed to be presenting, James Cromwell (the farmer from Babe), who presented the award for Most Socially Conscious (or something like that) film and seemed like a genuinely nice guy, Don Johnson (best line of the night was from one of the guys accepting the award from Don Johnson: “I used to watch Nash Bridges with my mom.”), and John Cho (freaking Sulu from Star Trek).
If that wasn’t cool enough, the actual movies were great. During the course of the awards ceremony, they showed the 16 shorts that were in contention for best movie. They were great. We were so happy, though, that our hands-down favorite won the best movie award. It was clean, fun, and really well done. You can watch it below and all of the other movies are posted here. Enjoy!
Snail from Kirk Hansen on Vimeo.
I posted this for my kids, who are lovers of all things creepy, crawly and slimy.
We attended the 44th annual watermelon drop at UCSD the other day. This is the longest running tradition on campus. We’ve been once before, but (as you can see in the link) we didn’t get very close. We were a lot closer this year. Close enough to feel the splatter, in fact. It was great.
“We’ve got fun and games.”
I think I might like this house in Springville, if I could find it for the trees.
