John's Letter

Jason & Caroline
Jason and Caroline invited us over for dinner last Sunday. After the invite Janel and I had a good laugh because for the last week we have been trying to have this particular casserole (from the new family cookbook), but then Scott and Tim visited us, then Janel became sick, and our friend Pat came to visit. So we thought we would make it on Sunday, but then we received the invite...the poor ground beef has gone back and forth to the freezer so many times! Janel has a certification class Monday, so maybe Tuesday will be supreme. Anyway, back to the dinner, Bob and Daphne (sp -Janel's) were there. Near the end of summer the six of us went to Red Hook brewery and ate a picnic meal outside with about a hundred other people and watched a free movie. They had a baby boy, Collin, last year. Not two days later, Caroline was sick again.

(1.9.05) Bob & Collin

Movies
Janel and I relaxed with a few movies this week. "Garden State," a dark, but great story unfolds about a guy confronting reality (unmedicated) and falling in love. By the end the comedy picks up and comes together better. The soundtrack is awesome too. Then came, "The Princess Diaries 2," which was terrible. It was slow, and the whole point of the movie failed to keep me interested. I suppose that the other film and "Hidelgo" still remained heavy...and this film about disputing between who to marry in fairytale-like fashion just didn't rest well with me. It made other chick flicks look good. Also, get this, in an effort to win back some of the FOX audience (they say, but I disagree), CNN has pulled the plug on "Crossfire." Sheesh, even though I agree with what Jon Stewart said about the show on it, I really liked the Republicans just taking a pounding on their weak counterattacks and spin doctoring.

The Friday of MLK weekend we viewed the movie, "Anchorman," which was not all that special, but the handful of moments that made me laugh really made me laugh. I would not have missed much if I hadn't seen it.

On Saturday we hit the matinee of "Meet the Fockers." That was pretty funny, but it could have just as easily been a rental. We did rent Steven Spielburg’s, “The Terminal,” which was good too, I still don’t like Tom Hanks and the story is a concept based off a real guy living in a terminal, but that is all the similarities the two stories have.

Scott Brewer & Friends
Scott came by to visit Wednesday night. We played a few games but nothing special. Either this upcoming weekend or next Janel’s friend Darci and my friend Pat are coming up for a set-up like date. We will see how that goes!

Drinking without laughing.

Janel
Monday she had her certification class, Tuesday we finally had the casserole (which took over a week to actually make), she had a free class she attended about Microsoft Publisher (and loves it), several other meetings, and then Thursday she met up with her friend Darcy for dinner and to hang out. Some time in the week one of Janel's students showed her a picture of a guy and asked if she would be scared seeing someone looking like that. Janel looked at the picture and said, "no, isn't that Travis from the band Blink-182?" The student could not believe that Janel knew the band and wasn't scared. He was stunned furthermore when she said she had been to their concert. How old do they think she is! Sheesh!

Closure
That is everything for the week, short and complete.