For this fourth of July weekend, I had my mom and sister up to visit! We had a blast. Well, I can at least speak for myself. :-) On the evening of the third, we put my grill to good use – it has been getting used quite a bit recently, which makes me quite happy. We grilled chicken, corn-on-the-cob, and asparagus wrapped in bacon. Delicious! And some of my friends brought cole slaw and spinach-artichoke dip.

The weather on the fourth was pretty pitiful, so we didn’t see a full-fledged fireworks display; however, I discovered that the Fourth of July is an amazing time to see a movie! The theaters were empty, so we could laugh as loud as we wanted! I took my sister to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was her first modern 3D movie, so she was pretty amazed. (I had seen Avatar when it came out.) I’m not sure what my favorite part was, but Barbie and Ken’s interactions usually had me laughing – haha.

No one around here appreciates clothes. ~Ken

And Mr. Potato Head defending the Mrs.:

Nobody removes my wife’s mouth but me! ~Mr. Potato Head

There was also an enjoyable short film at the beginning entitled “Day & Night”. I thought it was a very interesting and creative animation – it reminded me of some paintings that I’ve seen before, where the background is an element of the foreground. As it’s kind of hard to describe, here’s the trailer:

Mom, my sister, and I also played a lot of Guesstures, Apples to Apples, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Party 8. My other sister and her husband, and my dad and brother weren’t able to make it up this time around – so hopefully, I’ll get a chance to see them sometime soon!

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I had a couple of good friends from my time in Rochester, Minnesota, down to stay the weekend at my place. They got here Friday evening and left this afternoon.

We went out to see the movie, The Losers (Trailer), Friday night. It was an average movie, I thought. It was entertaining, but sometimes it seemed that the characters’ actions were a step removed from their apparent motivations. Sometimes, there would be a small skip in time that wouldn’t have seemed possible under normal conditions; for example, the enemies often seemed to give up way too easily. They’ll stand and shoot, but they won’t chase. Considering the power that the bad guy is supposed to have at his fingertips, it sometimes seems implausible that the good guys could get away and stay hidden so well. Entertaining all around, but not one of my favorites.

Yesterday, we went to the half-price bookstore in town, which was a lot of fun as well. I picked up a copy of Freakonomics. I’ve already read it, but it was dirt cheap, and I already owned the second book in the series. I also picked up a copy of People Before Profit, which I haven’t read yet. It looks like a book about the future of globalization. I just thought it looked interesting – I suppose I’ll find out soon! I decided to pass up a book about stem cell research for now. It looked like a scientific and historical view of stem cell research (both adult and embryonic). Maybe one day I’ll pick it up as it has the potential to become such a salient issue in the future.

We went to Hu Hot at the Lindale Mall yesterday. It was pretty good; however, it was more pricey than the other Mongolian grill place I went to recently. Granted, it’s all-you-can-eat. However, I was pretty stuffed after the first time through. The guys sang me Happy Birthday. It gave another group enough courage to sing Happy Birthday to their mom, too. (My actual birthday is May 1).

After that, we headed over to another friends house yesterday night and watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I found myself laughing a lot! That friend has a pretty sweet home theater projection set up in his basement and has over 350 DVDs! So I know where I’m going when I want to watch a movie. It was the first time I’d been over to his house since I got here, so I got to meet his pet rabbit and check out his wood carving project as well.

Fun times.

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I signed up for the soccer league along with a couple of guys I know from work last week. I still haven’t seen any specific schedule, but I’m sure it’s coming into existance at some point. I’ll be playing soccer every Wednesday evening in May, I think – ten games, maybe? There’s a Spring, Summer, and Fall league…no Winter league, though. Of course, that should be expected – it’d probably be hard to play soccer in the snow! I’ve been brushing up a little on the rules so hopefully I won’t embarrass myself. It should be a ton of fun, and I’ll be getting some much needed exercise.

Speaking of exercise, I ordered Wii Fit Plus today. I played the Wii Fit game a friend had and really enjoyed it. I’m sure the Nintendo will be happy to get dusted off! I had to order it online because I couldn’t find it anywhere in Cedar Rapids. I didn’t know this before yesterday, but Nintendo works their employees to the bone in December for the holidays and then gives people (manufacturing, at least) January off. Apparently, about two have been coming into each place once a month and get sold within a day or two.

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