Teacher Power

When we find great teachers, we prize them not only because what we learn improves our lives but also because good learning can be one of the most exhilarating things we experience. Unfortunately, a lot of teaching stinks. It’s boring, misguided, useless.

I’ve made a study of teaching. I’ve had to. For almost 20 years I’ve taught and designed courses in the private sector. And for many of those years, my work has been in a revenue-generating department. That means that my classes had better be effective and interesting, otherwise nobody signs up, revenue falls, and a lot of folks will stand around and wonder if it might not be better to just replace me with a potted plant.

I kind of like having a job. And so I’ve tried my best to find the most effective methods for instruction. In the last few decades, education researchers have put many teaching techniques and principles to the test. We know better now than ever before how to structure learning that is effective and interesting. And I have yet to find a better explanation of the proven techniques and principles than Ruth Colvin Clark’s Building Expertise: Cognitive Methods for Training and Performance Improvement, 3rd Edition. 

Don’t let the “training” part fool you. We often associate “training” with learning procedures and simple tasks, e.g. the State pays for “sex education” in our schools, not “sex training.” But Clark isn’t using the term that way. Clark’s “training” includes all types of learning.

Two things separate Clark from so many others who would offer advice on teaching. First, she bases everything on tested principles and techniques. I’m not talking about tested as in some teacher somewhere tried it and was impressed. I’m talking about scientifically valid testing that controls for variables and shows causation. The methods she describes are practical and proven. Second, she writes clearly enough and uses enough examples so that I can read about the principle and immediately see how I can apply it in my own class.

Among other things, you’ll learn:

• Why working memory is key to instruction and how to overcome its limits
• How to motivate learners
• How to structure learning
• When to use lecture and when to put learners into action
• When taking notes can actually be counterproductive

You’ll even learn why assigning lots of practice is NOT always the best way to learn. In fact, sometimes your child will learn more if you do half of their homework questions for them. Sound ridiculous? It’s not. It’s science.

You’ll find that there is no yellow brick road in teaching. Instead, you’ll see that the effectiveness of any method depends on whether it’s suited to the specific situation. And Clark will explain what the key factors in any situation are so you know which methods to apply and the trade-offs you’ll make when you do.

If you’re a teacher in any setting–family, job, church, school, or recreation–or if you’re trying to teach yourself, this book (specifically the 3rd edition) will be a goldmine. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Crawdads & the Bear River Greenway in Evanston

Here’s a recipe for a whole lot of family or date fun. And it costs almost nothing. Drive to Evanston, Wyoming. Make sure you bring a bucket. Pick up a few pieces of fried chicken at Wal-Mart then picnic at the Bear River Pavilion park. It’s the one with the small lake west of Wal-Mart and east of the overpass on 89. Keep your chicken bones.

When you finish eating, attach a length of about four feet of string or yarn to each chicken bone. Weight the bone down with some rocks or washers. You want it to sink deep. Tie a loop for your finger in the end of the string. Then go out to the pier or the cement box on the northwest side of the small lake and drop your bone in.

Wait.

Slowing bring your chicken bone up. You’ll find a crawdad clinging to it, thinking he’s gone to free lunch heaven. Use a net to snag the crawdad. A simple fish aquarium net will do. You can get them at Wal-Mart for a few bucks. Plop crawdad into the bucket. Ooh and aah appropriately. Make sure he’s got some water to swim around in.

Drop your line in again and repeat until you and the kids or dates are bored. We had a bucketful in about twenty minutes. You might want to pick a few of the crustaceans up. Just grab them on the sides just behind the spot where the arms of their big pincers join the body. Wave the crawdad at a selected victim—wife, daughter, girlfriend–for special effects.

When you’re done, dump the critters back into the water. But don’t go home yet. Take a stroll along the greenway that follows the river and enjoy the beautiful sights. If you walk east from the park, you might be able to be at the right spot at the right time to see a train up close as it thunders by.

We just did this with family from Colorado and California and had a great time. Who would have thought Evanston had this gem?

Crocker’s Luscious Lemon Bars

I luv lemon in desserts. I especially love lemon pies, but they take too long to make. Plus you’ve got the meringue to whip up, and half the people hate that stuff anyway. I’ve found lemon bars taste just as good, probably better, and are far easier. Here’s a recipe I just tried and loved. It’s from our Betty Crocker cookbook. Please remember to include the sugar. My sister, bless her heart, attempted it without, and she can verify that, surprise surprise, it just doesn’t taste quite as good.

STEP 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

STEP 2: Make pastry crust.

1.   Combine: 2 C flour, ½ C powdered sugar, 2 T cornstarch, and ¼ t salt

2.   Use pastry blender and cut in ¾ C butter until it mixture resembles coarse crumbs

3.   Press mixture into bottom of greased 13x9x2 inch pan

4.   Bake for 18-20 minutes or until edges are golden

STEP 3: While crust is cooking, make filling by stirring together: 4 slightly beaten eggs, 1.5 C granulated sugar, 3 T flour, 1 t lemon peel (optional),  ¾ C lemon juice, ¼ C half-and-half (you can substitute with light cream or milk if needed)

STEP 4: When crust finishes, pour filling over hot crust.

STEP 5: Put it all back into oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until center is set, i.e. it doesn’t jiggle and slosh.

STEP 6: Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes.

STEP 7: Cut into bars, but DO NOT EAT IT YET! The lemon bars will taste 500% better if you totally chill them in fridge (the chill is the secret, folks). So put that pan in the fridge and wait! It will take a few hours.

STEP 8: When TOTALLY chilled, take out of fridge, sift some powdered sugar over the top, and serve.

Try to refrain from eating half of the pan.

Earth: The Biography is one of the most interesting documentary series I’ve seen in a long time. It’s produced by National Geographic and the BCC. Dr. Ian Stewart, a Scotsman, hosts the program and tells the life story of our planet, how it works, and what makes it so special.

There are five parts: “Volcano,” “Atmosphere,” “Ice,” “Oceans,” and “Rare Earth.” And while they were all good, the last two blew me away.

For example, I always thought the polar ice caps were a big waste of water. What do they do besides torment penguins and Eskimos?

But the program reveals that the ice caps are critical to all life everywhere on the planet because they power the great ocean conveyer. This conveyer is a slow current that carries surface water away from the equator up to the polar caps then down to the sea floor and back—transporting oxygen, nutrients, and warmth all around the globe.

We can see how critical the ocean conveyer is when it stops. There was a time when this happened. With no replenishment of oxygen, the water turned to poison. The poison was picked up in the clouds and rained down upon the land. And almost every living thing on the planet died a toxic death.

Sniff, sniff–we love you, Polar Ice Caps.

“Oceans” was fascinating, but “Rare Earth” was the kicker. How common is our cozy little situation here on earth?

Well, for life to exist as we know it, we needed to be a certain narrow distance from the center of the galaxy, orbit a certain, less common type of star, be within a certain range of that star, have a big old fat vacuum like Jupiter hanging out in the wings sucking up asteroids and comets so they don’t hit us instead, have an orbiting moon of a certain size, an earth core with just the right amount of iron, a tilt to the earth that would allow polar ice caps, water, an atmosphere to protect us from all sorts of celestial mayhem. Heck, we even had to have that nasty mass extinction caused by the broken ocean conveyer. And there’s more.

So many rare events had to line up just right, that it’s bound to make the atheists among us celebrate their good fortune with illegal-Wyoming-firework abandon and the believers to rise up from their chairs and shout, “Hallelujah and Amen!”

Nellie, the girls, and I all loved this show.

***

I’m a nut man. Love nuts. Hazelnuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, pistachio nuts, cashews, pecans. But nuts are expensive. And while peanuts are lovely, I like some variety and grow weary of the mixes where you get about five thousand peanuts and one burnt almond. So when I saw the forty ounce jars of Planter’s Deluxe Nuts (sea salt, NO peanuts) at Sam’s Club in Logan, Utah selling for a mere $10.98, I just about fainted away and died.

Eleven bucks?!

For comparison, please note that a little ten ounce jar of the exact same nuts costs six dollars in the grocery store. Four times the nuts for less than double the price!

The nuts are good. More importantly, they’re a regular item at Sam’s. So with all the reports coming out about how good nuts are for you, reduce heart disease, reduce diabetes, blah, blah, blah, fight aliens, I can now afford to eat them and hopefully extend my stay as a carbon-based life form.

***

General David Petraeus has revolutionized the way America wages war. It was his strategy that turned the war in Iraq around. It’s his strategy that’s being used in Afghanistan. And it will be his methods that will inform how our soldiers face enemies in years to come.

The key to his thinking is realizing that there are two different terrains that must be won in the types of war we wage now—the geographic and the human. You know what geography is—take that hill, secure that town, remove the threats from that jungle. The human terrain, on the other hand, is made up of the hearts and minds of the people at the site of the struggle and has proven to be equally important.

It’s important because the wars we’re most likely to engage in now are not ones where two big armies square off and blast away. Anyone who tries to stand up to the United States using that method is going to very quickly learn what it means to get stomped, shredded, and served to the dogs. So most of the battles are likely to be engagements in unconventional war, where the enemy hides, and where the local populace will make or break the effort.

In May 2010, Vanity Fair magazine published a fascinating article called “The Professor of War” by Mark Bowden. It summarizes Petraeus’s history, the source of his thinking, and the kind of man he is. With so much at stake, I was grateful to get this well-written glimpse into the general and his approach to war.

While you’re at the site, you might want to also read another Vanity Fair article titled “General McChrystal’s Three Biggest Strategic Errors in Dealing With Rolling Stone” by Bill Bradley, published June, 2010. McChrystal was Petraeus’s right hand man. The contrast between the two men is enlightening.

 Of the 1.4 million people in the armed forces, only 2,800 of them are Navy SEALS (acronym for “sea, air, and land”). That’s 1/5^th of one percent. They are one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. However, less than 20% of those who attempt to become a SEAL ever succeed. To even try you must pass a physical screening test which requires you to swim 500 yards in ten minutes or less, perform seventy-nine push-ups in two minutes or less, and eleven pull-ups. You have to be able to run 1.5 miles in at least 10:20 minutes, and that’s while wearing boots and trousers.

Some may think: well, that’s not too difficult. I could work up to that. However, the reality is that this level of physical fitness will not be enough. Because once you get into the initial training, you’re going to be doing far more than this every day.

Can you knock out 500 push-ups in a day, along with a four mile run, hours of paddling out in a six-man raft into a ten foot wave that tumbles you again and again into chilling waters, hefting your share of a 160 pound log over your head until you can barely lift your arms, and running an obstacle course with obstacles three-stories high. You’ll do a lot of this while covered with sand, your thighs and armpits chafing. On some days you’ll have to swim a few miles in a cold sea. And then you’ve got to get up and do it all again the next day. No wimpy hour-long workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with rest days in between. Heck, on the third week, you’ll get only about four hours of sleep over four days.

Can you do it?

Maybe you can. But before you try, or assure yourself that you could have if you’d only had the chance, let me suggest you watch Discovery Channel’s Navy SEALS BUDS Class 234 to witness what it takes to become the best of the best. It’s a fascinating three-DVD set, just over five hours of programming, that follows class 234 through the initial six-month SEAL training called BUDS (basic underwater demolition/SEALS). You’ll see 114 men start the six-month course and only 17 finish it. In fact, less than thirty make it past the first three weeks, which include the most grueling and punishing training I’ve ever seen. Those initial weeks are designed specifically to weed out all but the most committed and able.

The Discovery Channel does a great job with this six-part series. And it’s not just for guys. It only took about three minutes for each of my daughters to get hooked as well. And why wouldn’t they? It’s as fascinating as any American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. In fact, in many ways it’s far more interesting. Heck, it was so good I think I’m going to watch it again. You can get it on Amazon, rent if from Netflix, or check it out from the Logan library.

For more info on the SEALS, let me recommend you start with these two sites: http://www.seal.navy.mil/seal/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEALs

*** 

My high school age daughters took the ACT last year and got good scores. But we wanted to make sure that they had excellent scores. High enough to put them in the upper levels of those applying to their desired universities. But how would we prepare them?

Back in the olden days when I was preparing to get my Masters of accounting degree, I knew I’d need some help to get a score on the GMAT that would be competitive. I looked at a number of study guides and ended up choosing the Princeton Review guide for the GMAT. I studied hard, got a great score, and became a believer. The guide made everything so easy. More importantly, everything the guide prepared me for was on the test. This is why, when I wanted to get a Masters of fine arts in creative writing, I used the Princeton Review for the GRE. Again, the study guide was easy to follow, and I got an equally good score on that test. Having had two great experiences, it’s no surprise I turned to Princeton Review again to help my two girls with their test. (BTW, some may see an attempt to get more than one graduate degree as smart, others as masochistic, and yet others as simple ivory tower bone-headery—I’ll let you decide which it might be in this case.)

The Princeton Review guide for the ACT is called Cracking the ACT. A new edition is published every year and includes general ACT test-taking tips, everything you need to know in the specific content areas, and practice tests. It also includes access to the Princeton Review’s online resources which include another practice test. It’s a big guide (this year’s edition was 619 pages), but the size is deceptive. There’s plenty of white space for taking notes, and the text is written so clearly, and everything broken down in such an easy manner to follow, that you’ll start only to suddenly realize you’ve just read thirty pages. Besides, you don’t have to study it all. You can focus on specific content areas, if that’s all you want to do.

This spring, both daughters worked through the book. We looked at their previous scores, identified areas for improvement, and set up a six-week schedule that required them to study about an hour per day, sometimes with help from Mom or Dad, but mostly on their own. One daughter studied hard, took the test in June, and improved her score by five points. The other daughter studied a little less diligently, took the same test, and improved her score by four points.

When 36 is the highest possible score, such jumps become significant. However, they’re not the result of special DNA. While I tend to think my girls are everything and a bag of chips (especially when they give me back scratches), the truth is the ACT doesn’t test some mumbo-jumbo innate intelligence. It tests skills. Skills anyone can learn. What my girls supplied was consistent effort. All they needed was expert guidance in how to apply the effort. And Cracking the ACT provides boatloads of that.

If you’re looking to improve your own score or help your children improve theirs, get this book. I have no doubt that anyone who supplies a bit of effort will be able see some nice results.

***

Imagine emerald pools, steep red canyons, and a gentle breeze. Imagine water so clear you can see the plants and rocks sixteen feet down on the bottom. Imagine trout swimming only feet away. Imagine swimming with those trout and then getting back into your raft to ride some rapids. Imagine picnicking a the water’s edge or atop a flat, shaded rock forty feet up that gives you a grand view of the river. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll see an osprey dive for a fish or watch a pair of river otters swim by. Imagine doing this with family or friends, all in a short twenty-four hour period.

This experience is only about three hours away from Laketown, Utah. Well, everything except the swimming with the trout bit. The fish don’t really swim with you. They mostly just flee, but you get the idea. To enjoy it, all you need to do is raft the seven mile stretch of the Green River from the Flaming Gorge dam down to the Little Hole campground.

My family and I just did this with some friends and had a grand time. Because the river is relatively slow and the rapids are relatively moderate and short, parents don’t have to worry every second that someone is going to fall in and drown in a man-eating surge. In fact, along many of the calm areas we actively helped the children into the sparkling cold water (grin), including one rafter who was only three years old. One of the most enjoyable moments was when we pulled the rafts up into the gentle backwash of a large rock in the middle of the river, climbed the rock, and took turns jumping into the current and letting it carry us downstream.

The sun was shining, the weather warm. It was a wonderful trip. A total memory-maker. We put in just before noon and hauled the raft out just before 6 PM. But we could have taken much longer to play along the way.

The experience was fairly cheap. It cost about $70 to rent an eight-man raft. Perfect for six people. But there are other smaller and larger raft sizes. You’ll need to arrange a way to get the raft to the river and back again. We simply tied our raft to the top of our minivan. You can pay the rental people to drive your car to the exit ramp at Little Hole after you put into the river, or bring two cars (or a bike) and drop one at the exit. Or you can pay for a shuttle service where they drive you to the River and pick you up.

You’ll want to bring a small cooler with drinks, snacks, and sunscreen. You’ll also want to have good footwear. The river bed is rocky, and when you pull into shore, you don’t want to be ouching it the whole way in. I don’t recommend flip flops. They’re no better than bare feet. Old sneakers are fine, but they don’t dry quickly. And they waterlog and get heavy, which makes them less than ideal for swimming. Your best bet is to get real water shoes that are made to be light and drain quickly and yet still have a decent sole–a sandal or mesh covered shoe that uses Velcro to strap up. You can be fancy and spend a lot, or do what I did and get yours at Wal-Mart for less than ten bucks.  

You could make it a long trip and drive to and from the gorge and run the river all in one day, but why push it? Just find a place to stay overnight. There are some motels in the area, but we elected to camp. The spots at the Firefighters Memorial campground were $27 per night. The campground was beautiful and tidy with restrooms and running water. One of the most surprising things about this particular campground was that I didn’t see one mosquito while I was there.

I’m one of these types that attracts the villains. If there’s only one mosquito within a mile radius, it will smell me, pass up many other suitable victims (including my wife), and risk its life and limbs to sink its #@!* proboscis into my flesh. I think my blood must be some kind of mosquito crack. There’s probably some mosquito black market out there for it, run by some nasty mosquito cartel, which is led by a murderous, malaria-ridden mosquito boss making piles of evil mosquito money and spending it on opulent mosquito yachts and guns!

Anyway, not one bite. We watched the sun set and then fell to sleep with the stars overhead and the wind gently soughing through the boughs of the pine trees.

To make campsite reservations, go to www.utah.com to get a good map view of possible camping sites. Then go to www.recreation,gov to make the reservations online. Make sure your specific camping spot has everything you need. Our campground was very rocky and not all of the sites had tent pads. If you want to scope the lay of the land, the recreation.gov site will give you GPS coordinates of the campground. Enter those into Google maps then switch to satellite view and zoom in. You see exactly what you get. This way you can avoid accidently booking the site right next to the bathrooms or road or the one that features no trees.

Finally, when you’re done, you might want to top it all off by stopping at the The Flaming Gorge Lodge restaurant, just a few miles south of the dam, and enjoying a monster-sized cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and one of their fabulous desserts. The blackberry cobbler and ice cream was delicious.

The Blind Side

Every time I see a sports movie advertised, I groan. Gee, what could this be–yet another story about an individual who, through pluck and determination, overcomes great odds to yadda, yadda, yadda win the game, yea, go team?

Yawn.

I enjoy sports, but only those where the outcome really is in question. Only those where I don’t already know the story. If I want a scripted win, I can watch some long-hairs and freaks on WWF.  

So you’ll understand why I didn’t rush out last year to see The Blind Side. What? A monstrously huge kid plays high school football as a lineman? Wow, he must have really worked hard at that. Is the paint still drying at the Zeyer’s house? Maybe I’ll go watch that instead.

And this was my response even though Sandra Bullock plays the leading role. I usually enjoy the movies Bullock stars in. Well, except for the last two–The Proposal and All About Steve–which I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than ten minutes of combined. But besides those, she’s probably been one of the most enjoyable actresses since Katherine Hepburn. This is because she actually plays real women, interesting characters, people with personality.

This is opposed to some actresses who don’t really play people at all, but are put in movies by directors who must think that if they can make the eyes bong out of male heads, those very males won’t notice that the story is dumber than a bag of rocks. These gals have lips that are so puffed up they look painful (e.g. Angelina Jolie, ouch, ouch, OUCH, somebody help her) or have seemingly nothing else to bring to the table besides their looks (e.g. Megan Fox, oooh, look at her shirt ride up over her belly, oooh, another shot of her eyes, oooh, white teeth), and so all their roles end up including very little besides posing for the camera so that we can see that, yes, Timmy, these women really were born with some mathematics, i.e. symmetry and facial proportions conforming to the golden ratio. Are your eyes bonging out yet, Timmy? See, that’s why you should study algebra and geometry. Math lets you do things like that.   

Anyway, so it was a Bullock film, yet I still didn’t want to see it. But my real-man brother-in-law suggested it for a date night, and so I reluctantly went to watch. (Date night as in double date with the wives, not him and me. Sheesh, you people.)

I’m so glad I went. The movie was excellent. Probably because it was not about the plucky athlete winning the game, but about something far more important and enjoyable. It’s based on the true story of a rich southern white couple–Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy–who try to take a homeless teenage African-American, Michael Oher (“Big Mike”), into their family. Michael’s mother is a crack head. His father is unknown. Michael himself is not doing very well. He’s failing school. He doesn’t even have a place to sleep sometimes. And he’s got the good old boys of his neighborhood wanting to hook him up with their gang and drug scene. But Leigh Anne soon takes charge.

And, boy, does she take charge. She’s one of the most delightful characters I’ve seen in a long time. I laughed again and again at her lines and personality. She also made me think about what I’m doing with my life. This woman and her family did something significant. I won’t tell you what happened with Michael–blah, blah, blah, yea, go team. You can find out for yourself. That wasn’t the important story here. The important story, the one that touched my heart and funny bone, was the one about a delightful family who went way out of its way to try to give a complete stranger a chance at a happy life.

Go see this show. No, it’s not in the theater, but you can buy or rent it. Me, I get all my films via Netflix. If you haven’t subscribed, consider it. Then you too can feel the excitement of seeing the happy little red Netflix envelopes waiting for you in your mailbox.

By the way, I have enjoyed a number of other great sports films over the years. If you like The Blind Side, I think you’ll enjoy Coach Carter, Miracle, Invincible, and Cool Runnings (a Brown family favorite).

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

We are told to make decisions based on logic, not emotion. Reason must prevail. The closer we are to Spock, the better. At least in our decision-making, right?

Well, no. That’s actually wrong.

Over the last two decades researchers have found that the vast majority of our decisions are made by our gut, in the blink of an eye. And even those we make consciously, we make with a large input from our emotions. In fact, people who have the emotion centers in their brains damaged seem almost unable to make good decisions. Give them seven types of apples to choose from, and they can’t seem to pick one. Ask them to schedule an appointment, and they’ll go round and round listing the pros and cons of different dates and times. Let them know one deck of cards is stacked against them, and they still choose to play with it. They have logic, but lack judgment.

The rapid, emotional part of our brain is critical for good decision making. Of course, out guts can often be spectacularly wrong. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explores both sides of the choices we make in the blink of an eye.

But this is no tome of dry erudition. Gladwell writes with fantastic simplicity, clarity, and power. He explains what we now know about human decision-making by letting us meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on just a few minutes of observing the couple; the tennis coach who knows a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; and the art experts who can spot a fake at a glance. He helps us see why New Coke failed, how we pick presidents, and how it was possible that the police shot down Amadou Diallo, who was simply coming home one night. He shares the story of Paul Van Ripper who beat the Pentagon war-gamers in a massive defeat and why.

Blink reveals that great decisions makers aren’t those who have the biggest brains and highest IQ, but those who have perfected the art of “thin-slicing”—focusing in on the factors that make the biggest difference.

The book was fascinating. Read it. You’ll start seeing the world differently.

The Tandoori Oven

While living in Orem, UT, Nellie and I got our first taste of Indian food. When we moved to the San Francisco area, we found a few Indian restaurants and really learned to love the cuisine. So you can imagine how excited we were when we moved up to boonieville Laketown and were told that just an hour away in Logan was a great Indian restaurant. So we followed the directions to the address we were given and ended up at the gas station just south of the USU football stadium on 720 East and 1000 North. And there above the gas station was the sign for the restaurant.

We both looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Were the people who told us about this kidding?

But I decided to just go look. Sometimes the little holes-in-the-walls can surprise you. Maybe in the back by the Hostess rack and chips we’d find some great food. I entered the gas station and found it run by a pleasant Indian fellow. I thought, dang, we’ve got our very own Apu’s Quiki-Mart (Apu being one of my favorite characters on the The Simpsons). However, there was no restaurant. I looked around and saw nothing but racks of normal gas station snacks. I was confused. “I was told there was an Indian restaurant here?” I said.

“Right over here,” he said in his Indian accent and pointed me to an entryway in the far wall hung with strings of beads. “Through there.”

Intrigued, I passed through the beads and did indeed find a small restaurant. They’d simply sectioned off a part of the original gas station. I also found that there was a separate door to the outside which I’d missed. I examined the buffet, which looked pretty good, went outside and waved Nellie in. We were going to give it a shot. We let them seat us, and proceeded to enjoy a fabulous meal.

The restaurant is called The Tandoori Oven: http://TandooriOvenLogan.com. Nellie and I go there regularly. It’s been updated since the first time we went and dished up our soup into treacherous styrofoam bowls. Now they use real cutlery, but the good food and friendly service hasn’t changed.

If you know Indian food, you can go in the evenings and order a number of dishes to share. But if you want the best deal, go for lunch. They put on an all-you-can-eat buffet which will let you sample a number of dishes. We love the kurmas, saags, vindaloos, curries, naans, and, dude, the spinach soup! Heck, it’s all good. Especially when we can sweeten it a bit with their tamarind or mango chutney. And make sure you leave room for their saffron helwa (spiced cubes of farina) smothered with cardamom rice pudding for dessert.

Bischoff Lotus Cookies

I recently performed a taste test. I got a package of Oreos and a package of Bischoff Lotus cookies, and I am here to state that the Bischoff Lotus cookies spanked the Oreos and sent them back to kindergarten for some schooling.

After the taste test, I had to force myself not to eat the rest of the Bischoff Lotuses in one sitting. I succeeded in lasting for two sittings. Yes, they’re that good—crisp, caramelized, sweet. They have none of the bitterness of gingersnaps, yet have enough spice to delight the tongue.

But these aren’t new cookies. The Dutch and Belgians have been enjoying them for years. Over there these types of cookies are called speculaas and are probably the most popular cookie around. I can testify they’re great with milk, hot chocolate, and Pero (hey, this is Mormon country). I understand they go great with coffee, even though I have not imbibed in that Aztec concoction and, therefore, cannot vouch for it personally. And for two years I enjoyed them, along with picturesque scenes of cobblestone streets, bicycles, and windmills.

When I came home, alas, I couldn’t find these delights anywhere except at specialty Dutch stores. And when we moved away from Utah, I never found them again. Then Delta Airlines started serving them on their flights. Oh, joy. But I don’t fly that often. So I’m excited to report that recently I was walking in Macey’s grocery store just across from the Stadium 8 movie theaters in Logan, scanning the packages along the cookie aisle and finding nothing appetizing, when the heavens parted, and a beam of light illuminated a white package with red lettering. I believe I heard a choir.

Bischoff Lotus cookies.

Could it be?

It was.

I heard reports they were also in Wal-Mart, but I didn’t see them there. So for the sure bet, go to Macey’s, buy, enjoy. And consider yourself Dutchified.

Toy Story 3

It’s interesting that two of the most enjoyable films this year are both animated. The first is Toy Story 3. We all know how awful sequels can be, and, in fact, I didn’t like Toy Story 2 all that much. But Pixar defied the sequel slump with this one.

Andy has grown up and is going to college. From a toy’s point of view, that’s tantamount to death because Andy has to clean out his room, and what is he going to do with all that junk anyway? The last few remaining toys barely miss the garbage truck and get sent, by accident, to the local day care instead. Sounds great for a toy, right? They’ll get played with every day forever. But things are not as they seem at the day care, and our crew of toys is put on the fast track to an early death. Will they be able to escape when the other toys there are ruled mob-style by a big pink teddy bear that smells of strawberries?

I laughed and cried and cheered in this movie. There are hilarious scenes featuring Barbie and a Ken who’s gone over to the dark side. More gut busters with Buzz Lightyear when he’s put into Spanish mode and Mr. Potato Head who has powers we never would have suspected.

But the movie goes beyond toys and action. It’s not just a cartoon. It’s about loyalty and friendship and heroics and love and family. Because my oldest will be leaving the nest next year, the final scenes carried extra power for me. But I think they will be effective for almost anyone because Pixar does in this movie what all great art does—it reaches into themes we all share. And in that moment, we identify so strongly with the characters that their situation becomes our own.

How to Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, based on the novel by Cressida Cowell, is the movie I should have seen for my birthday. Instead, we went to the mind-numbing Clash of Titans. I still cringe at some of the massive plot holes in that one, even though Medusa rocked. Which only proves, once again, that cool effects can’t save a bad story. How to Train Your Dragon, on the other hand, delivers cool monsters, but never once did the writers make the mistake of thinking that cool monsters is what the story was about.

The movie is about a young Viking named Hiccup who wants to be accepted, wants to become one of the burly defenders of his city, like his dad, Stoik the Vast. But Hiccup isn’t brawny. However, he is resourceful. And during a dragon attack, he brings down a mysterious Night Fury dragon with his invention. However, when he finds the dragon, he can’t bring himself to kill it. Instead, Hiccup and the dragon begin a friendship. But will Hiccup be able to save the dragon that everyone wants to kill? Will the Vikings be able to see the truth about the dragons before they’re destroyed? Most importantly, will Stoik be able to accept his son?

I enjoyed the superb animation in this story as well as the dragons. But it was the characters and humor that made this movie so good. There’s Stoik who just can’t relate to his son, but tries to bond with a very interesting use of his dead wife’s brassier, Hiccup, the son, with his dry wit, and Gobber, a peg-leg family friend who has some of the best lines in the movie.

Go see this show. You’ll laugh, and then you’ll wish you had a dragon of your own.

Rumbi Island Grill

The Rumbi Island Grill is a restaurant chain that started in Salt Lake City in 2000. They serve fast, casual tropical food at incredibly good prices. My favorite is their rice bowl. It comes with your choice of sauce, rice, and meat with sautéed vegetables. In the Netherlands I learned to love Indonesian food and the spicy-sweet peanut sauce that often accompanied it, which is why I can’t get enough of the Bali Island bowl with brown rice and shrimp. You might find you love the sauce so much you ask for two servings to pour over your bowl (oh, and add a dash of the hot sauce). The food’s great, but they’ve paid attention to the Hawaiian atmosphere as well. So even though it’s fast food (you order and they bring it out to you), you feel like you’re sitting in a casual dining restaurant.

I always look for a Rumbi when I travel down to Salt Lake City or Provo. Now I don’t have to go so far–a restaurant has opened up in Logan right across from the Wal-Mart on the south end of town! I took Nellie there recently. The staff was friendly and the food was delicious–just what I’d come to expect.

Now all we need is a Cheesecake Factory!

Aspiring authors, I wasn’t able to attend, but heard from a few who were that the Superstars Writing Seminar in Pasadena with Eric Flint, Brandon Sanderson, Dave Wolverton, Rebecca Moesta, and Kevin J. Andersen was EXCELLENT. 

See clips of parts of the videos here (still a lot of good info): http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2F211054CBD822A8

Purchase the full recordings on DVD or MP3 here: www.writerscanon.com

Topics include:

• Econ 201 for Writers: Economics of Commercial Publishing
• Inside Editors: How editors look at manuscripts, novels & short fiction
• Dirty Secrets: What you need to know about being a Professional Author
• From Slushpile to #1 New York Times Bestseller in 4 Years
• Intellectual Property: How to Exploit Yours
• Balancing Acts: Writing World & Real World
• Agents: the A Word
• Networking for Writers
• Self-Promotion for Authors
• Novel Contracts
• Self-Publishing: Realities & Pitfalls
• Pitching the Big Proposal
• Two Heads Are Better than One: Collaborative Writing
• New Media: Using It to Get an Edge
• E-Publishing
• Movies, TV and Authors
• Anatomy of a Major Book Release
• Myths of Publishing
• Eleven Tips to Increase Your Writing Productivity

As of 5 PM this last Saturday I have finished 15,000 words of the climax of Curse of a Dark God. I think I have another 10,000 to go and the book will be done. I’m so close to the end of this draft! So don’t let the progress bars fool you. The ending is coming together fabulously–lots of spectacle, big reveals, and major heroics. At least, I think so.

While working on this, I had to spend a number of hours finding out how strong a wind must be to pick up humans and stones. I also needed to know the destructive forces of various classes of tornados and hurricanes. Why would I need to know such things? I write fantasy, for Leroy’s sake!

(Yes, that’s good English; I’m a writer, and one of my prerogatives is to make up silly versions of common expletives using the names of friends and enemies.)

Here’s why: I just can’t write if I don’t believe in what I’m writing. And when I’ve got monsters (skir) that can generate winds that will be used in a siege, well, I had to know the terminal velocities of what these creatures could throw, and what that might mean for fortress defense. I had to know the limitations and ramifications.

I won’t rehearse all the fascinating details (and it WAS fascinating), but all that research did lead me to a wonderful documentary. It’s called Secrets of Lost Empires 2: Medieval Siege and was produced by Nova in 2000. You can get it on Netflix or Amazon.  In the film, fifty carpenters worked day and night to create and test what they dubbed ”the fourteenth century version of the atom bomb”–the trebuchet (tre-byou-SHAY). The trebuchet as the most popular throwing machine in Europe during the middle ages. If you love the history of medieval war, you’ll love this film. You might want to add to it a reading of the excellent Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov, which you can get via the inter-library loan program.

I’ll share two cool factoids for you history fans. “Catapult” means “shield-breaker,” “cata” meaning break or penetrate and “pelta” being the name of the shield used by the Greek light infantry. The original catapults were NOT big spoons–they sped arrows and balls along a track like a crossbow. However, instead of using the spring force of a bow, they used torsion-springs, which is what you get when you twist fibers that want to be straight. In the case of catapults the fibers were ropes made out of animal sinews or hair (horse or human, a woman’s hair being considered the best) and soaked in oil. Click on the image to see a larger picture. 

A modern example of a torsion-spring are those balsa wood airplanes with propellers attached to a rubber band that’s hooked to the belly of the plane. To fly them, you rotate the propeller round and round, twisting the rubber band. Then you let the propeller go. Because the rubber wants to be straight, it reverses the twist, spinning the propeller the opposite way you twisted it. 

You might think these torsion-spring engines were weak. But one catapult was reported as being powerful enough that an arrow shot from it broke through a shield, and the armored warrior standing behind it, at a distance of 400 yards! Hence, the name.

The other factoid is that “trebuchet” comes from the French term meaning to overthrow. If you saw Return of the King, you’ll recognize them as the engines used on the towers of Minas Tirith. Trebuchets are simply an evolution of the staff sling. When it came to breaking castle walls, there was nothing more effective until the cannon appeared. Of course, in my book I use them a bit differently. You’ll see.

One funny thing. I watched the movie with my oldest who was just as fascinated with the engines as I was. When she was telling my wife about the film, she kept referring to trech-uh-butts. Which, I guess, is as fair an attempt at ”trebuchet” as any. However, my wife kept picturing buttocks and couldn’t figure out what the heck my daughter was talking about–”You were watching what with your father?!”

The French make things so hard . . .

***

The Monday after CONduit I left for work in Mexico and then Vegas. I didn’t get back until this week. So I just wanted to say I had a great time at the con. Loved chatting with all the folks there.

It was great to see the Larry Correia, Paul Genesse, Jessica Day George, Isaac Stewart (and his brother Dan), Mette Harrison, Eric James Stone, Darren Egget, Julie Frost, Sandra Tayler, LE Modesitt, Josh Perkey, Nicole (whose husband is an Orem cop and I lost his number), Daniel Who-I-Sacrificed-to-My-Editor, and the Dungeon Crawlers Radio guys.

It was also nice to speak with Julie Wright who was one of the initial judges for the Whitney Awards. She’s always nice to chat with, but this time it was especially nice since she said reading Servant of a Dark God was like eating chocolate. I’ll take chocolate praise any day.

I also met new author Janci Patterson who just sold a YA with a great premise. It’s called SKIP and is about a young girl whose parents are divorced. The girl has to go stay with her dad who lives in a trailer and is a bounty hunter. I’m a sucker for bounty hunter stories. Especially this one, because she goes out with him and falls in love with one of the guys her dad has to haul in. I’ve slaughtered the pitch, but I got that good old writer’s envy when she told me about it. Can’t wait to read it.

I also got to see Barbara Hambly. I was at LTUE when she was there like 20 years ago. We loved her stuff. She suddenly dropped out of the writing scene in the early 90′s and now I know why–it appears Del Rey dropped all their midlist authors except for Anne McCaffery and someone else. Hambly was one of the causalities.

***

After Hambly’s main address, I sat with a few authors and had a brief discussion about the book industry where it was suggested the industry was shrinking–fewer readers, fewer sales, doom, doom, doom. But that is exactly opposite all the data I’ve seen.

1. Book sales have an annual average growth over the last seven years of 1.1%, adult paperbacks are growing 2.9% http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm or http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/documents/S12009Final.pdf . Now, this doesn’t show units sold. So it could be that they sold fewer units for more money per unit. Still, it shows at the very least that $$$ aren’t shrinking.
2. The New Book Titles report here shows an increase in the number of titles: http://www.bowker.com/index.php/book-industry-statistics — 80% increase from 2002 to 2009.
3. Reading rates are actually on the rise: http://johndbrown.com/2009/03/literary-reading-rates-on-the-rise/
4. Finally, I contacted Bookscan for their numbers for an ALA conference I did last summer. This is just juvenile fiction, but the numbers are in units. Now, I don’t know if they added more sources to their database and so that caused a rise, but I explained to them what I was trying to do—see trends over time—and this is the data they provided. According to their numbers, more juvenile books are being sold now than in 2004. Click on the graphic below. This means we have more and more readers rising up through the ranks! One author asked how much of that was Rowling and Meyer. During that period books by those authors accounted for an average of 7-10% of all juvenile fiction. Bookscan categorizes ”juvenile” as everything for kids. That means from Go, Dog Go up through what we consider Young Adult. R&M accounted for an average of 33-36% of what Bookscan categorizes as science fiction, fantasy, or magic within the juvenile mega-category. What all that means is the growth is across the whole category, not just with their books.

So I’m very sanguine about the book industry’s prospects. Today’s youth seem to be able to play computer games AND read in great quantities.

***

Finally, one last bit of news. Robinson Wells was the one of the main ones to start the Whitney Academy and the Whitney Awards. Well, he just got some fabulous news. Here’s the announcement from Publishers Marketplace: “Robison Wells’ YA debut dystopian thriller VARIANT, a modern-day LORD OF THE FLIES, set at a boarding school where not everything is as it seems and every day is a fight for survival, in a significant deal, in a three-book deal, to Erica Sussman at Harper Children’s.”

For those of you who don’t know, here are the PM deal categories.

• “nice deal” $1 – $49,000
• “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000
• “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000
• “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000
• “major deal” $500,000 and up

Oh, baby. Someday. Someday. Of course, I’m nothing but happy for Mr. Wells!

Links

• Nova’s Medieval Siege (2000)
• Wikipedia on the trebuchet
• Wikipedia on catapult
• Dungeon Crawlers Radio
• Eric James Stone
• Janci Patterson
• Jessica Day George
• Julie Wright
• Larry Correia
• Mette Harrison
• Paul Genesse
• Robinson Wells description of Variant
• Sandra Tayler
• The Whitney Awards

Being a crass American I have always considered the current British royalty as nothing more than very expensive mascots. What function do they really serve besides acting as some kind of high-society-reality-show soap opera? 

Not that this is bad. If the British want to spend their money on queens, princes, and princesses, who am I to oppose them? After all, we Americans have kept the stellar Survivor series going for ten seasons. And when it finally ends, we’ll probably replace it with something else of supreme value like World’s Biggest Belchers or Kids Who Eat Boogers. At least the Royal Family has some modicum of class. Still, the point is that I’m not disposed to feel much sympathy for state-supported rich folk. So when I tell you I just watched and loved The Young Victoria, it should tell you something.

The movie was sublime. A large part of it was because the story left me edified, left me wanting to be a husband–a friend to my wife–as good as the Albert portrayed in that film. Compare this to Killers which could have been so good, but devolved into dumb sex jokes and dumber action, which then only got worse. When that one ended, I staggered out of the theater having lost half my brain.  The Young Victoria, on the other hand, enlarged my soul.

The movie is a romantic dramatization of some of the events preceding and following the coronation of  Alexandrina Victoria (Queen Victoria), focusing on her early reign and romance with Price Albert in the 1830s. She was only 18 when her uncle, the King, died and the crown fell to her. Some suggested she was too young and should sign her powers over to a regent. Others wanted to use her as a puppet. The question was: would she fall prey to the political aspirations of others? I will let you watch the movie to find out.

Emily Blunt does a wonderful job as Victoria. I loved her in the Jane Austen Book Club as well. She’s supported by a great cast, including Rupert Friend as Prince Albert, Mark Strong (the villain in the recent Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood) as the domineering Sir John Conroy, and Paul Bettany as the dubious Lord Melbourne.

When recently compiling my list of favorite movies of the decade, I lamented the dearth of good love stories. Well, I just found one. This movie was golden.  If you love Jane Austen, you’re going to love this show.

(BTW, the Royals actually do perform a number of worthwhile tasks. Read this wiki on the British Royal Family. You may also want to read this on Victoria after you watch the movie.)

Have You Got a Brain Nazi?

If you’re conscious, you’re monitoring your environment. You have to. It’s how you survive. This is not something you can turn off. It’s just one of those systems that runs automatically, like your liver. You’re always appraising the situation.  

And as soon as you encounter something that’s likely to be of importance to you or yours, your monitor kicks off a physical response to prepare you to deal with or take advantage of it.    

The problem is that sometimes a Nazi propagandist worms his way into the monitoring station. And like any good Nazi, he distorts reality.    

Sometimes those distortions lead to burning resentment, sometimes to unwarranted shame or anxiety, sometimes to eating disorders, sometimes to grave depression. When I heard of the tragic suicide that occurred in our community a few months ago, my heart went out in sympathy to the girl, her family, and friends.  I’m not a doctor. I don’t know the situation. But I’m positive she was dealing with one of these villains.  

I wished I’d been able to share something that’s been a literal life saver to me. Now, it might not have changed anything. But hopefully it can change things in the future for you and others you know who may have to deal with a Nazi in the brain.    

And you will have to deal with a brain Nazi at some time.  

This is not something that affects a miniscule portion of the population. In any given year you can expect more than 15% of a population to experience some form of this [1]. That’s roughly 238 of the estimated 1,592 people 18 years and older in the little county where I live [2]. Rates for teens are similar [3]. Besides, you don’t have to have a full-blown case of a depression for distortions to affect you. How many of us haven’t made faulty comparisons with others? “Oh, she’s so thin and has such great hair; I’m so dumpy.” “Oh, he’s doing so well, and I’m not. I’ll never be a success.”   

The question is not whether you or someone important to you will have to deal with it. The question is how prepared you’ll be when you do. Everyone deals with distortions now and again.  Which means everyone can find a little more enjoyment in life by showing their brain Nazis the door.    

So how does it all work? How do you show the villain out?    

I’m going to summarize it below, but I’ll tell you right now that the book that saved my life was Feeling Good by David D. Burns, MD. This isn’t positive mental attitude. It’s not neuro-linguistic programming. It’s not the mumbo jumbo of Freud and Jung. This is practical and proven. It is the most prescribed intervention for dealing with these issues in the current medical community. It’s prescribed because it works.    

Your Brilliant Appraisal-Emotion System

To understand this, you have to understand how emotions work. As I said before, you’re always monitoring your situation. You hear a buzz and see a rattlesnake on the path two feet away. Your monitor immediately responds. Alarm, adrenaline, increased blood flow–all of that to get you ready to deal with the situation. Your monitor writes “alarm” on your face to communicate it to those around you–to warn and ask for help. This happens in less than a blink of an eye.    

But this doesn’t just happen with danger. It happens when we encounter unfamiliar things. When we encounter positive things. You see a great friend who makes you laugh all the time. Boom, your monitor responds. You smile. Feel. Focus. You do so because you not only want to avoid dangers, you also want to seek out the things that make you happy.    

Our emotions prepare us to fight, flee, seek, and pitch woo. Our little monitoring and physical response system is brilliant.    

But there’s more. We don’t rely on just the automatic subconscious monitoring. We also have a cognitive (conscious thinking) part. Let’s go back to the rattlesnake. You walk out into the garden, step on a slither, and immediately go into alarm mode. Then you look, consciously see the slithery thing is not a snake, but the garden hose. You relax. Laugh.    

The quick subconscious appraisals keep us alive, because with snakes and other things, if you’re slow, you’re dead. We don’t have time for thought. If you touch a hot stove, you want an immediate reflex. You don’t want to ponder it for a second or two. On the other hand, the cognitive appraisals help us further appraise a situation. They bring more of our resources to bear on the situation.    

How Does the Nazi Get In?

So there are three parts of the appraisal-emotion system: the subconscious appraisal of the situation, the physical response, and the cognitive appraisal. Each of the three parts affects the other two. And when things are running smoothly, we don’t have problems. But sometimes we get a distortion mucking up the works. We make a faulty appraisal of the situation. And therefore have a faulty physical response.    

For example, you’re a mother. You’ve had a hard day. The kids make a huge mess with flour in the kitchen. You yell, freak out. When they’re cowering in their rooms and you’re cleaning up the flour, you think, “There I go again. I’m a total failure. I can’t stand it! I never do anything right! I’m a terrible mother.” These thoughts make you even sadder.    

And that’s the propaganda. That’s your brain Nazi with his all-or-nothing thinking, telling you that you either perform perfectly or you’re a failure.    

But is that true? No, it’s not. You might be a B+ mother, filling the lives of your kids with all sorts of goodness. You might have just had a great time reading with the kids not thirty minutes before. But the brain Nazi tells you to forget that. “Vatch dis film,” he says, “und see de horrors of vut you are!”    

And the all-or-nothing thinking gambit is just one of ten common weapons he uses. Furthermore, this happens so quick that we often don’t notice it. In fact, we’ve often repeated some of these distortions so often than they’ve become almost automatic.    

Mr. Nazi, Meet Mr. Bazooka

The good news is that you can pull the lid off the lies. You can open the door, spot the brain Nazi that slipped in, and take him out. You can do this because one of the three parts of the system is our cognitive appraisal. This means you can consciously stop the movie, pin the distortion on the wall, and uncover the truth. Once you do that, it’s like the rattlesnake scenario above—oh, it’s a hose, we realize, not a snake, and the appropriate emotions immediately follow.    

But you need to know how to stop the movie. You need to know how to spot the lies. David D. Burns, MD tells you exactly how to do this in his book Feeling Good. (By the way, DON’T get this book confused with his Feeling Good Handbook–you DON’T want the handbook; you want Feeling Good, the book.)  In the book, Burns talks about the theory, the results, and then gets right down to the practical techniques used to blow the brain Nazi to kingdom come.  

A few years ago I hit a bad patch with a brain Nazi that had taken up residence. A very bad patch. He’d been there for quite some time. This book and a good counselor saved me. I thank the Lord for that. By the time I went to see a medical doctor to assess whether chemical issues might be playing a role, I was stable. I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but I had opened the lid and found the villain at the controls. I used the techniques Burns gave me, and I’m happy to say that while the brain Nazi still comes round every once in a while, I can spot him. And I can take that sucker out.     

Below I’ve included an assessment you’ll find in the book. Fill it out. If you, or someone you know, scores in the mild range, maybe you’ve just experienced a very sad event. But maybe you’ve also got a villain in residence. Get the book. Read it. Be happy. Nobody needs to live with a Nazi at the controls.    

Burns Depression Checklist

Instructions: Put a check to indicate how much you have experienced each symptom during the past week, including today. Please answer all 25 items.

* Copyright 1984 David M. Burns, M.D. (Revised, 1996)
** Anyone with suicidal urges should seek help from a mental health professional       

Interpreting the Burns Depression Checklist

To figure out your level of depression:     

1. Take the total number of responses in each column and multiply it by the column value shown at the top
2. Sum the values of the columns
3. Compare your score with the table below

For Authors

By the way, fiction authors should pay special attention to this stuff. Not because we’re more susceptible to brain Nazis than others, although we do have to deal with our fair share as we develop and share our stories. No, we should because the emotion process is exactly what we’re trying to tap into. Knowing the principles can be very useful indeed. Let me recommend you read the books on emotion listed on the Learning With Pros page. 

Sources

1. 1. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america/index.shtml
2. 2. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49/49033.html (find your state and county and see how many folks are likely dealing with a brain Nazi in your area)
3. 3. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k5/youthDepression/youthDepression.htm

Other Movies I Enjoyed: 2000 – 2009

Don’t have time to provide the logline and comments for each. But those with an * are movies I especially enjoyed.

2009

• Avatar: except for all the moments when I thought the characters were going to break out in Pocohantas songs–”haaave yooooou ever heard the wolf cryyyyyy to the bluuuuuue cooooorn mooooooon…”–I enjoyed it. When I came out I defintely wanted to be a blue dude.
• Julie & Julia: funny, although did they really need to show the “coarse” Julia?
• Monsters vs Aliens: I didn’t like the villain or the story, but BOB was hilarious and worth it.
• Star Trek: Best Star Trek movie. Second is Wrath of Khan.
• Up

2008

• Henry Poole is Here
• *Iron Man: Wow, I’ve wanted to fly since forever.  This movie was just cool.
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: The penguins and King Julian.
• *Slumdog Millionaire (RU)
• Taken: great concept. Ending fell flat, but I love the concept
• The Dark Knight: first 30 minutes all I could say was “I want to be Batman, I want to be Batman.” The Joker was amazing. However, something didn’t work for me in this movie. I thought there was only one heroic moment (the convict on the boat). I didn’t feel Batman’s dilemma in the end. The end was poetic, but I didn’t feel the drama. It was still a fun ride.

2007

• The Bourne Ultimatum
• *The Jane Austen Book Club: this one should have been a runner up. I really liked this.

2006

• Cars: Mater
• *Casino Royale (RU)
• Firewall: a good Harrison Ford film, excellent villain and situation
• Happy Feet: I thought it was going to be dumb, but I really liked it. The characters were great.
• Invincible: the story of Vince Papale, a 30-year-old bartender from South Philadelphia who overcame long odds to play for the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles in 1976.
• The Devil Wears Prada
• The Lake House
• The Pursuit of Happyness

2005

• Batman Begins
• Cinderella Man
• Coach Carter: Loved the story and Samuel Jackon’s character
• Hitch
• *Hoodwinked: really loved the humor
• Madagascar: Hate the lion and the story but the penguins and King Julian are hilarious. I laugh every time.
• Serenity
• *Sky High: fun with Kurt Russell and Bruce Campbell
• *Walk The Line (RU)

2004

• *Collateral: A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in LA. He must find a way to save both himself and one last victim.
• Ella Enchanted: goofy, but a lot of fun to watch with my girls
• I, Robot
• *Miracle: I hate hockey, but I liked this
• Napoleon Dynamite: was in shock until Pedro shaved his head, then I couldn’t stop laughing.
• *Spiderman 2 (#5)
• The Bourne Supremacy
• *The Incredibles (#2)
• The Village: watched it with inlaws and it scared them for days–totally worth it

2003

• Elf: syrup
• Holes: we loved the book and the movie did it justice
• *Last Samurai (#7)
• *Luther (RU)
• *Matchstick Men (RU)
• *Open Range: best cowboy movie in a looong time–I just love Duvall
• *Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl (#9)
• *Return of the King (#1)
• Runaway Jury
• *Saints and Soldiers
• *Seabiscuit (RU)
• Secondhand Lions
• The Italian Job: Yes, I cheered for criminals

2002

• About a Boy
• Drumline
• *Ice Age (#3)
• Minority Report
• Reign of Fire: best dragon movie to come along in a long time
• Snow Dogs: goofy fun, enjoyable to watch with the kids
• *The Bourne Identity: really liked the suspense and action
• The Sum of All Fears
• *The Two Towers (#1)
• Treasure Planet: I didn’t think it could work, but it did. Enjoyed the relationship between Jim and Silver
• Two Week’s Notice: a good romance
• *We Were Soliders (#6)

2001

• *A Beautiful Mind (#10)
• Behind Enemy Lines
• Legally Blonde: you didn’t like Witherspoon? Come on, tell the truth.
• *Lord of the Rings (#1)
• Monsters Inc
• Oceans Eleven
• Recess: School’s Out: I loved watching these on Saturday morning with the kids. The movie was just as good.
• The Princess Diaries

2000

• 28 Days
• *Cast Away
• Chicken Run: “Mrs Tweedy, the chickens are revolting…”
• *Emperor’s New Groove (#4)
• *Gladiator (#8)
• *Miss Congeniality: this was excellent fun to watch with the wife
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?: loved the soundtrack, characters, and story. Hated the abundant profanity
• Space Cowboys
• The Perfect Storm
• The  Kid: Bruce Willis and the kid are great
• *Unbreakable: really liked this one, great superhero movie
• X-Men: didn’t like it as much as others, but it rocks for pure super-hero power