Leisure

"Leisure: A fancy word for people who don't want to admit they're bored." - Gene Perret

Real Knowledge

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - Confucius

Those Who Believe

"Those who believe they can do something are probably right and so are those who believe they can't." - Unknown

Learn To Pause

"Learn to pause ... or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you." - Doug King

Enthusiasm

"One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life." - Edward B. Butler

Turnabout Dance

My oldest son had his turnabout dance tonight at his high school. They went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and the dance afterwards.

The Dreamers

I watched "The Dreamers" on DVD. Eva Green is hot. Foreign Films are free in February or I probably would never have watched this.

Synopsis

The tumultuous political landscape of Paris in 1968 serves as the backdrop for a tale about three young cineastes who are drawn together through their passion for film. Matthew, (Michael Pitt) an American exchange student, pursuing his education abroad in Paris, becomes friends with a French brother and sister duo, named Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle, (Eva Green) who share a common love of the cinema. While the May 1968 Paris student riots - which eventually shut down most of the French government - are happening around them, the three friends develop a relationship unlike anything Matthew has ever experienced, or will ever encounter again.

Dancing

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet." - Constanze

Last Home Game

Our basketball team played their last home game at Our Lady Of Peace. There was a rose ceremony where each of the players gave their Mom a rose. Every player's Mom showed up. We lost to St. Peter & St. Paul of Naperville 38-16. We got beat under the basket pretty good. Next weekend is the payoffs.

Problems

"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes." - Henry J. Kaiser

The Measure Of A Life

"The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation." - Corrie ten Boom

The More One Laughs

"The more one worries, the older one gets; the more one laughs, the younger one feels." - Chinese proverb

Winners

"Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don't like to do." - Albert Gray

The Harder I Work

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." - Thomas Jefferson

The Life Of David Gale

I watched the DVD "The Life Of David Gale."

Synopsis

David Gale (Kevin Spacey) is a man who has tried hard to live by his principles, but in a bizarre twist of fate, this devoted father, popular professor and respected death penalty opponent finds himself on Death Row for the rape and murder of fellow activist Constance Harraway (Laura Linney). With only three days before his scheduled execution, Gale agrees to give reporter Elizabeth "Bitsey" Bloom (Kate Winslet) the exclusive interview she's been chasing. But Bitsey soon realizes that this assignment is more than she bargained for, and that a man's life is in her hands. Putting her own safety in jeopardy, she frantically races to piece together the shocking events surrounding Constance's death, before it's too late.

What Great Thing

"What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?" - Robert Schuller

Night Time

"Night time is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep." - Catherine O'Hara

Love

"Love is the energy of life." - Robert Browning

The Extra Mile

"It's never crowded along the extra mile." - Wayne Dyer

The Family Stone

I watched "The Family Stone" on DVD.

Synopsis

A comic story about the annual holiday gathering of a New England family, the Stones. The eldest son (Dermot Mulroney) brings his girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet his parents, brothers and sisters. The bohemian Stones greet their visitor - a high-powered, controlling New Yorker - with a mix of awkwardness, confusion and hostility. Before the holiday is over, relationships will unravel while new ones are formed, secrets will be revealed, and the family Stone will come together through its extraordinary capacity for love.

Freedom

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln

To Dream

"To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are." - Anonymous

Flightplan

I wastched "Flightplan" starring Jodie Foster.

Synopsis

Flying at 40,000 feet in a cavernous, state-of-the-art 474 aircraft, Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) faces every mother's worst nightmare when her six-year-old daughter, Julia, vanishes without a trace mid-flight from Berlin to New York. Already emotionally devastated by the unexpected death of her husband, Kyle desperately struggles to prove her sanity to the disbelieving flight crew and passengers while facing the very real possibility that she may be losing her mind.
While neither Captain Rich (Sean Bean) nor Air Marshall Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) want to doubt the bereaved widow, all evidence indicates that her daughter was never on board resulting in paranoia and doubt among the passengers and crew of the plane.
Finding herself desperately alone, Kyle can only rely on her own wits to solve the mystery and save her daughter.

Keeping Up With The Steins

I watched "Keeping Up With The Steins."

Synopsis

Like the young Indian braves of long ago, Benjamin Fiedler (Daryl Sabara) is about to undergo an initiation rite that will take him from boy to man. But rather than face the perils of the hunt, he must endure something far worse - a Bar Mitzvah in Brentwood, California. It's not enough that Benjamin must stand in front of a Temple full of strangers chanting Hebrew, a language he doesn't understand. He must also cope with the efforts of his parents, Adam (Jeremy Piven) and Joanne (Jami Gertz), to splurge on a party-to-end-all-parties, a mega-bash where the Bar is more important than the Mitzvah and a Jewish Star means Neil Diamond. Above all, the Fiedlers must surpass the "Titanic"-themed Bar Mitzvah given by Adam's rival agent, Arnie Stein (Larry Miller). With his circus-sized celebration, Arnie has thrown down the gauntlet. For the highly competitive Adam, the war is on! But when Adam's father Irwin (Garry Marshall), now a gray-haired hippie, and his spacey younger girlfriend (Daryl Hannah) arrive in their broken down camper, the Fiedler's plans are thrown into disarray. Every family has their own dysfunction and neuroses and the Fiedlers are certainly no exception. Despite this, they ultimately realize that family is the most precious bond that can't be broken (but it can be bent out of shape at times).

Education

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." - Will Durant

Childhood

"Childhood is the most beautiful of all life's seasons." - Anonymous

As We Are

"We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." - The Talmud

Elbow Grease

"Elbow grease is the best polish." - English Proverb

Split Second

I finished reading "Split Second" by David Baldacci.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Michelle Maxwell has just blown her future with the Secret Service. With heavy reluctance, she let a presidential candidate out of her sight to comfort a grieving widow. Then, behind closed doors, the politician whose safety was her responsibility vanished into thin air. Living a new life on a quiet lake in Central Virginia, Sean King knows how the younger agent feels. He’s been there before. In an out-of-the-way hotel eight years earlier, the hard-charging Secret Service man allowed his attention to be diverted for a split second. And the presidential candidate Sean was protecting was gunned down before his eyes. Now, Michelle and Sean are about to see their destinies converge. She has become obsessed with Sean’s case. And he needs a friend especially since a series of macabre killings have brought him under suspicion and prompted the reappearance of a seductive woman he’s tried hard to forget. As the two discredited agents enter a maze of lies, secrets, and deadly coincidences, they uncover a shocking truth: that the separate acts of violence that shattered their lives were really a long time in the making and are a long way from over. With an adrenaline rush on every page and a plot that springs one jaw-dropping surprise after another.

Happiness

"Happiness is never stopping to think if you are." - Palmer Sondreal

A Day's Walk

"After a day's walk everything has twice its usual value." - George Macauley Trevelyan

Taxi

We watched the DVD "Taxi."

Synopsis

Belle Williams (Queen Latifah) is a speed demon. Flying through the streets of New York in her tricked-out taxi, she's earned a rep as New York's fastest cabbie. But driving a hack is only a pit stop for her real dream: Belle wants to be a race car champion. And she's well on her way until she's derailed by overeager cop Andy Washburn (Jimmy Fallon), whose undercover skills are matched only by his total ineptitude behind the wheel. Washburn, whose lack of vehicular skills has landed him in the precinct doghouse, is hot on the heels of a gang of beautiful Brazilian bank robbers, led by Vanessa (Gisele Bündchen), their cold, calculating and leggy leader. To nab the evasive crooks, drivers license-less Washburn convinces Belle to team up with him to pursue Vanessa and crew. Belle has carte blanche to drive at any speed and break any law. The car-less cop and speed-demon cabbie, New York's unlikeliest partners begin a high-speed game of cat and mouse with the robbers. That is, if Belle and Washburn don't end up killing each other first.

End Of Your Rope

"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." - Franklin D. Roosevelt