StumpTown Blog

I wanted to get a bunch of quick movie reviews posted and will try to do that this week, but haven’t had time yet. So first, the picture that is posted with this blog comes from a website that sells replicas of signs from London. This is apparently a real sign in London, England. Of course, the imagination is running wild with the possible contents of the box, but I also like how forceful it is. Apparently it is not enough to provide protection, but you must clearly direct someone to use it. Nice. Here are my thoughts on what might be in this box: 1. A note containing a strongly worded reprimand which is what the English Bobbies are armed with instead of guns. Not surprisingly, English criminals are still foregoing these notes in favor of guns. 2. A sandwich. Not only nature’s perfect food, but a recipe for peace on earth. Probably roast beef. 3. It’s not a real box, but one of those “air boxes” created by mime’s and street performers…oh no wait, that would likely encourage an assault,...

Day 4 There is a risk scheduling Disneyland on the first two days of a week long vacation. What do you do to follow that? Since we weren’t getting on a plane to fly to Disneyworld, anything else was going to be a let down right? I mean, it would take trained miniature animals, hand feeding a camel, exotic cross-breeds, children of moviestars riding million dollar horses at a beautiful ranch regularly featured in TV commercials. Now that I think about it, even that wouldn’t be enough unless you also threw in the opportunity to see family you don’t see as often as you would like. Now if you could find a place where you could get all that, then maybe, just maybe you would have yourself a decent follow up to toxic watermelon gas and Jedi training. Fortunately for us, there was just such a place only a few miles from where we were staying in Thousand Oaks. No, it’s not the Neverland Ranch (yikes), but rather the ranch where my Wonderful Aunt Sis (“WAS”) works along with my cousin Mark and h...

Day 3 was Day 2 in house of mouse. Our game plan was simple and straightforward. 1. Breakfast at IHOP to start out with a good fuel level as we started our day. For reasons I can not explain to this day, it was by far our most expensive meal of the trip. 4 people, two of them children, and it was more than anything we ate in the park by a wide margin. I looked at the bill up and down, but I still think I must have missed something, like the fact that I agreed to buy a round of pancakes for the house or something. It may be a long time before I try IHOP again. Just makes me nervous like traveling in Europe with your wallet in your back pocket after all the stories of pick-pockets. Ok, so I’ve never travelled in Europe, but I’ve heard stories including one where my lovely wife fought off two gypsies in an Italian bathroom and chased down a third to reclaim her backpack. Lovely and ferocious! It is very likely that if there really are people with superpowers living among us, she is one of...

Still buzzing with excitement from our victory over the evil empire, we charged off to ride the Finding Nemo submarine ride. This was a new attraction relatively and the kids were excited to ride it. How did they even know about it you may ask? I’m not exactly sure. My best guess is that Disney has spiked our drinking water with nanotechnology that sends messages to our brain on a cellular level informing us about the latest Disney rides, tv shows and movies. But I’m not completely sure. Just going with the most simple explanation. Anyway, the line for Nemo was going to take more than an hour and had no fast pass. You know about the fast pass right? It’s ingenious really. You grab a ticket for the ride that tells you when to come back to the ride so you can go stand in line for other rides and then come back and stand in a slightly shorter line for the ride you initially wanted to ride. It is possible that for a major ride it makes sense and I give Disney total credit for trying to do ...

And now the continuing saga of our recent vacation… Day 2, Part 1 – Disney, baby. Disney. The night before day 2 we sat with our friends to decide what time to leave. We wanted to basically get there when the park opened and my friends live “across town” from Disneyland which in LA means approximately 16 hours away if traffic is light. Also the term “traffic is light” in LA means your car is not moving in reverse, away from your destination. I find that many every day terms need to be defined when living in LA. You just need a different frame of reference for questions like: 1. Is that an expensive car? 2. Is that surgery medically necessary? 3. What do you mean the coke you’re selling doesn’t come in diet? 4. Do you know anyone in the business? 5. Do you know how to find the Paris Hilton? Anyway, since it was going to be a bit of a haul, we had to make a plan. Why is it that it can be so difficult for 4 otherwise relatively normal adults who are good friends to arrive at a plan with c...

More good news today about my Dad. He got scanned today and talked to the doctors and they all declared his surgery a success. Ding dong, the tumor's dead. Sadly, it took a big chunk of liver with it which is resulting in some fairly extreme pain for my Dad, but the surgery went well and the remaining tumor in his chest is stable so today was a day of good news. Praise God. No time to provide Day 2 of the Vacation extravaganza. Instead my thought for the day is I bet the ability to read other people's minds is the most overrated super power. It sounds like something that you would like to have, but I'm guessing it would make most people miserable. Think about the people you know with absolutely no social filter. Now think about how much fun it is to be around them. Now consider if everyone was like that. See what I mean? I would much rather have invisibility or the power to turn any rock into a sandwhich.

Hello all. Long time no blog. We are freshly back from a much anticipated, much needed, long overdue vacation. We went to Disneyland and California Adventure and Windy Hills Ranch with the two Indiana Jones doppelgangers pictured along with this post. My hope is to describe our trip in a new series of posts as time permits. First though, a brief update on my Dad’s health. My Dad is now home from the hospital (and has been for more than a week) and recovering well. He’s certainly not back to 100%, but the recovery seems to be going as anticipated. He’s in pain and it interferes with his sleep and it is no fun by any means, but he is on the road he needs to be in and recovery seems to be going well, so praise God. He will talk to the doctors again today and get another scan, so we may know shortly (though probably not today) how effective the surgery was in killing the tumor. Oh, by the way, this tumor was only the size of a baseball as opposed to his last nerf-football sized mass. That’...