Thoughts on a Thursday

Every so often I like to do a post where I throw out some bullet points and tell you about the things I am thinking about these days.

• Last week for the first time in my life as far as a I can recall I saw three movies in a first run theater in one week. AMC celebrated the 25th anniversary of one of my favorite movies Top Gun. I may have seen this in the theater when I was a kid but I'm not sure. In any event it was awesome to see this cinematic gem on the big screen. On Wednesday we celebrated Dan Nelson's birthday by going to see Fast Five. It was like nine years ago when I saw the Fast and The Furious when I was in Norway. These movies have no business being as enjoyable as they are. Paul Walker is not a good actor, but it seems like the filmmakers figured exactly what to give the audience. Cars, fighting, explosions, and generous portions of The Rock. I enjoyed this tremendously and especially enjoyed the extra scene after the credits. On Friday the first comic book movies of the summer came out. Thor has always been a character I enjoyed. In fact when I got called to Sweden, one of the things I thought was, now I'll be able to pronounce Mjöllnir properly. I was worried they wouldn't be able to pull off the right tone for the movie, but it turned out great. Chris Hemsworth had a ton of charisma, and Natalie Portman was super likeable. There was the appropriate amount of action, romance, suspense, and comic book geekery.

• My batting average took a bit of a dip after Saturday's softball game. I went 2-4, with a single and triple, a walk. A couple of runs scored. I am now 6-9 on the season. On my first at bat, I grounded out weekly to the third baseman. Undaunted I sprinted out of the batters box trying to beat the throw out. I didn't. I did however manage to tweak both of my quads. This is the worst thing about turning thirty. When I was younger I was indestructible. Now if I don't stretch thoroughly before the game, this happens. I had to give up playing first base for the second game, but still batted. On my second at bat I pounded the ball to left field and was going to be content with a single, but the ball kept going and I had no choice but to keep running. From what I hear it was not pretty. I was all hips when I was running the bases. I probably would have had a home run had I been able to go at full speed. A lot of ice, ace bandage, advil, and rest and I am good to go for flag football tonight.

• The Lakers went out with a whimper form the playoffs. this will be the first time since 2007 that my basketball  viewing will end before June. A lot of people are giving the Lakers a hard time for being sore losers. My response is that they are so unfamiliar with losing that they don't know how to lose gracefully. I am a guy who gets fired about about rec league softball, so I know what it is to be a sore loser. 

• Speaking of rec league softball, I spent a considerable amount of time researching softball strategy online. Yes, I am that guy. When did I become so competitive.

• Last Sunday my ward had church for the first time in on our new building. So far, I hate three o'clock church. The AC was not working properly in the chapel, and when we are already 10 minutes over and it is 400 degrees in the room, nobody wants to here your quasi racist testimony, trust me interns/summer salesman. That being said, I love being able to walk to church and it reminded me of my days at BYU when you could do that sort of thing. Shannon helped to make the day even better when she made chicken and waffles for dinner at my request.
• I cut my hair on Monday. I was not prepared to commit to the full summer haircut, but I got really close. Here is the big reveal on my new haircut, and as a bonus, my new summer shoes that I didn't need but never the less purchased.