Category: Melissa’s life (Page 13 of 20)

Public Enemies

July 17, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

I saw Public Enemies.

I guess I should say some things at the outset. I am a big fan of Art Deco. I love Art Deco buildings and other Depression era buildings. You can see them all over the East coast. Also, I love men in suits. The Sartorialist is a favorite “read.”

This movie is, of course, about John Dillinger and his eventually shooting in front of the Biograph theater. It has every attractive actor who is known for doing “independent” and “quirky” movies starring in it.

It’s well acted and has a nice pace with the action. For a movie that is based on real life events and one in which you know what is going to happen, there was still some suspense. The camera work was a little dizzy. It reminded me of the Bourne Identity and The Blair Witch Project at times where the camera just seemed to be flying everywhere. The art direct and sets were very realistic. If you look at footage from the news reels about Dillinger at the time, you can see that a lot of care was put into making the details realistic and as close to the actual events as possible, except all the actors are eye candy.

Away We Go

July 14, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

I finally got around to seeing Away We Go.

God I loved this movie.

It’s one of the most real love stories I have ever seen on film. Yeah, the characters say silly things but the issues and the relationship between the two main characters rings so true.

And there’s a comfortable stillness between the two main characters. It feels like they have known each other forever and don’t need to fill the uncomfortable silences with any noises. More precisely, they’ve known each other for so long and know each other so well that there are no uncomfortable silences, just the ability to sit in each other’s space and just be.

*sniff*

damn.

Monticello gets national attention

July 2, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

The University of Arkansas at Monticello gets national attention in a TV ad for having the “stupidest mascot” in an ad for KGB.

Thanks to the Arkansas Times for pointing this out.

July goals and listy fresh.

July 2, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

—Plato

I like this particular quote. It is something that I try to keep in mind in my daily dealings with people. Everybody has something going on in their lives.

Okay obviously I screwed up the National Blog Posting Month quest for last month. I think I posted the least amount I have posted since I started up this thing. The theme for July is ROUTINE. So I will post SOMETHING! every day for this month. It might just be a photo but dammit. I like to set goals and achieve them.

I have managed to miss a bit of blogging topics so you will get the list with the small topics.

Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson’s Thriller came out when I was 10 so I am the generation that pretty much grew up with Michael Jackson. I ate all of it up. I liked the Beat It Jacket and the moonwalk. I learned the Thriller dance. There for a while. Michael Jackson was it in my little preteen world. Also, one of his Aunts and some cousins lived in the town where I grew up. He was a genius. Also, I think he could serve as a cautionary tale about children being entertainers and working in a very adult industry. He’s a cautionary tale about child abuse. He’s also all about the music itself. Much like any other human being on the planet, he’s a bunch of contradictions balled up into one mass of energy.
I’m considering getting a bike. I love running but I have fears about my joints. I like exercising outside.
I got an email today that registration for the Little Rock Marathon has opened up for the 2010 marathon. Contemplating it. One of my life goals is to finish a marathon and I have already done the half there. It is hilly. Hrmm..
Remember Reality Bites. Well the apartment is for sale.
Yes I attended went to Hot Springs to attend the Bar Meeting. It was focused on technology which was real cool. It felt like an infomercial in the sense that all the folks talking about technology were also consultants or had technology products for lawyers. (yeah you see where this is going). I met a lot of people and overall it was a positive experience. Oh and my car broke down and I got to shell out four hundred dollars to get it fixed. Yeah that part sucked.
OH yeah Blake of “Blake’s Think Tank” got engaged to Jessica Dean of Choose Your News on Channel 7 fame. Congrats guys.
Rex Nelson talks about how to save the Delta

Nelson argued that it doesn’t make sense for governments to perpetuate numerous small communities from a bygone era that were once home to hundreds of share croppers and boasted thriving commerce, but that are nearly empty today and are lucky to have a convenience store.

“To be quite honest, there isn’t much reason for those communities to exist any more,” he said, adding that by propping up these tiny communities, “the government is sustaining misery” while wasting millions of dollars in public resources that could be directed elsewhere.

Father's Day

June 20, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

My father is a much more mysterious presence in my life than my mother. From about the age of ten until well into my adolescence, he traveled for work. He managed to go to pretty much all 50 of the states. Before the age of 10, we were buddies. I would sit in his lap and he would tell me stories of going to the farm and shooting bears. He’d sing these hilarious songs including one about a boy named Sue. (I didn’t learn until years later that this was a song written by a man named Johnny Cash).

He builds things. He has one of those obscure sounding positions like construction manager or project manager or something or other. I know that he overseas other people and he gets phone calls. He also has to be onsite. We used to drive around town and he would show me the stuff he built over the years.

He was in the Air Force when he was a young man and developed a “work wardrobe” consisting of khaki pants and a short sleeved button down khaki short. He also likes to play the guitar. As a result of this, I thought my father was Andy Griffin when I was a kid. “LOOK MOM Dad is on TV!” Yep.

Dad likes to carve things over the years he has made my Mom quite a menagerie. There are a whole bunch of people around town who have “peachpit monkeys” and “Arkansas Razorback pendants”

He’s the guy whom every time he hears I’m going on a trip calls me to see if I’ve checked my oil lately. He gives me the “your car is like a horse” lecture. He’s also the guy who foot the bill for my piano lessons, dance lessons, band camps, and all that jazz.

So Thank you Dad for all you’ve done. I love you.

Funniest thing I've seen all month.

June 20, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

From LOL CATS = I can haz cheesburger

Bar Meeting round up for later but I got to give props.

June 16, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

My life has gotten ridiculously busy but I will say

If your car breaks down in Hot Springs while at an “annual meeting” or Convention

Burks and Mahoney are the wrecker service to use. They went above and beyond the call of duty during my unfortunate automobile difficulties while attending the Annual Meeting of the ABA.

Burks & Mahoney Wrecker Service
(501) 321-2232
1300 Malvern Ave, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71901 (there is the information.)

Also, these guys were amazing.

Automotive Service Center
(501) 623-8832
1540 Malvern Ave, #A, Hot Springs, AR 71901

I watched the mechanic do 10,000 different types of tests on my car. I eventually got tired and waited in the waiting room. When the original mechanic decided it might be the distributor, he got another mechanic to double check his work. I got to see enough of that process that I genuinely believe that is what happened. Also, they got a guy to drive me back to my hotel. They waited for me to pick up my car on Friday. It was close to closing time for them. They made special arrangements to put my car under an awning so that my car wouldn’t suffer possible hail damage during a particular nasty storm that rolled through.

I can’t say enough nice things about them.

Fitness and other craziness.

June 8, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

It’s amazing how the minute you commit to posting daily on your blog that life will suddenly get a lot busier so that you’re too busy living to write all the time.

I have made a new commitment to fitness. I am by all accounts fat. Back in the day (like high school and college), I was a “normal” weight so I’ve not always been fat and am definitely not accustomed to the sneers, snickering, and biases that fat people endure. To be fair, I’m not sure that anyone ever gets used to the abuse that people dish out towards the fat. People are MEAN! no wait.

MEAN

to fat people.

Starting June 1st, I committed to doing 45 minutes of exercise a day with a day of rest. This means 6 days of exercise. I’ve been doing running every other day or 3 of the 6 days. The other three days are something else.

I finally did my initial push up challenge. I managed to push out 5. My arms and chest hate me now.

I haven’t done the sit up challenge. I keep doing other core exercises other than bonafide situps. I’m not sure what I want to do about that. I’ll probably do the set up test tomorrow.

I also found via this site, the 200 squat challenge today so I’m thinking I can try that as well.

I figure that running and doing the situp, push up, and squat challenges with some yoga would be something I can do this summer that will shape me up. I have found that I can’t eat heavy before running and somehow exercise makes me eat less. No really. I had a big lasagna dinner the first day I ran and threw up. Okay that was TMI but it happens.

So that’s what I’m doing this month.

Listy Fresh . . . or a list of favorites

June 3, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

Since I like to read, watch movies, and listen to music, I tend to respect those who can write, sing, write songs, write books, and make movies a lot. Those creative artists are my heroes for today. (it’s part of that nablopomo thing)

So here are my list of favorite books

Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
East of Eden by John Steinbech
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Movies

Pan’s Labrynth
The English Patient
Shawshank Redemption
Giant
Blue Crush
Amelie
Vertigo
Splendor in the Grass
Kill Bill Volume 1
The Sixth Sense

Music (some of these are albums and some are songs)

When the Pawn . . . by Fiona Apple
August and Everything After by The Counting Crows
A Thousand Kisses Deep by Leonard Cohen (pretty much anything by Leonard Cohen but I’m not familiar with his individual albums)
Adagio in B by Barber
Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones
American Idiot by Green Day (the whole album)
Man of Leisure by the Big Cats
White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
Firestarter by Prodigy
Warning Sign by Coldplay

Running day. every day

June 2, 2009 / melissa / 2 Comments

“The Hero lies in you” — Mariah Carey

Tomorrow is National Running Day.

According to the website.

National Running Day is a national initiative whereby many of the major organizations within the running industry are joining forces in an unprecedented unified effort to nationally and locally promote running as a healthy, easy, and accessible form of exercise. The inaugural National Running Day will be Wednesday, June 3.

I ran the Little Rock Half Marathon in March. I must confess that I haven’t stayed on schedule after the post race tapering down phase. I was there for a little while and then it began to rain every day. Well, I’m not going to excuse it. I just didn’t get back to any sort of mileage.

Being a woman who is a chronic list maker, I always manage to take a half year assessment of my life and make a list of the things I want to do in the following year. Sometimes I look at my New Year’s resolutions and see how I’m doing with those. It just depends.

I am very proud for completing the big goal of completing a half marathon. I’m going to start running 4 days a week starting yesterday. There’s another half marathon in Conway around October. I intend to finish that and I want to try the Little Rock Marathon next march. I guess I better get training.

MEAN

Archives