Mafia III - Today Is Not Now

A long time ago (when I was in college), in a  land far, far away (the great state of Wisconsin), my brothers and I filmed a movie on the fly and called it Mafia.  The idea came to us while David and I were taping a friend's wedding, and one of the groomsmen fainted.  The premise was that the mafia had tried to assassinate him, and the agents were going after the mafia.  In Houston, we filmed the second installment.  But if you have a second, you must have a third.  And so, while in Aledo, IL this summer, my brothers and I filmed the third and final in the Mafia Trilogy.

To give some clarity, Stephen, David and I each play one good character, and one bad character.  In retrospect, we should have dressed in particular colors throughout to indicate which character you were looking at, but the biggest key is the dirty, slicked back hair and bad accents.

After you've watched the movies, you'll be able to score yourself on the Mafia experience.  The higher the score, the more fully you experienced the movie.  Enjoy!

Part I

Part II

Score Sheet: (format blatantly stolen from the fantastic blog "Stuff Christians Like").

-You know which Alison is more embarrassed of after having watched the film this morning:  seeing herself in Mafia III, or seeing me in Mafia III.  +2 points
-You can successfully determine which punch actually landed on David's face. +3 points
-You are able to tell which building was edited in with CGI. +5 points
-You think you know which country Bruno's (David's evil character) accent is from. +4 points
-You said to yourself "David has an accent?" after reading the previous item.  -2 points (-4 for David)
-You are able to successfully follow the storyline.  +2 points
-Without asking anyone who was involved in the production.  +3 points
-On the first viewing. +10 points
-You asked for all the outtakes of Eva.  +1 point (and you get the honorary Grandmother Award).
-You asked for all the outtakes of the rest of us.  +2 points
-After reading the previous, you said, "They're all such professionals that there's no way there could be outtakes!" +3 points (+10 for the encouragement, -7 for lying).
-You think I'm a bad parent after watching this movie.  -1 point.
-You think that Eva is super cute.  +3 points
-You think I'm a good actor.  +8 points
-You can accurately determine where each scene is filmed.  +2 points for each correct scene.
-You can understand Jaque's (Stephen) mispronunciation of various words.  +3 points
-You finished watching both videos.  +7 points
-You watched the movie again.  +10 points (+12 for each subsequent viewing)
-You reposted these videos on your own blog/facebook.  +5 points
-You invite all your friends over for a viewing party.  +15 points

What's your score?  Are there any other scorecard items I should have used?

Christmas Day

This was our first Christmas with Eva, and it strikes me the importance of communicating that Christmas should be about celebrating the coming of Jesus.  He is Emanuel - God with us.  According to Hebrews, he is the exact imprint of God's nature.   We continued some of the traditions that I had growing up - such as reading the birth of Jesus from the gospel of Luke, and plan to continue some more - like the advent tree that we (sometimes) did leading up to Christmas.

Our Christmas was also full of fun times with friends.  We went to a friends' house for a large Christmas Eve lunch on Friday, another friends' house for Christmas day lunch and then yet another friends' house for Christmas Day dinner (really, light snacks) and a gift exchange.  I was given a book of Arab proverbs and English equivalents.  I'll share the really good ones on here. 

Unfortunately, Alison and I didn't do ANY Christmas shopping this year.  However, Grandma saved the day and had sent us a package full of presents - 3/4 of which were for Eva.  Here's a video of Eva opening her very first present. 

And here's just one of the goodies that Alison made to take to people's houses - homemade apple pie (she also made scrumptious candy cane cookies, delectable raspberry squares and succulent sugar cookies). 

Last, just because I can - a video of Eva bouncing on Mommy's knee.  Its so great to hear her squeal with delight (sorry, the picture is a little dark)

Merry Christmas from Bahrain!

This is a Christmas Carol from believers in the Middle East.  Merry Christmas!  Blessings for you as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord - Emmanuel, God With Us.

What We've Been Doing

A lot has been written on this blog in the last couple of weeks, but not a lot has been written about Eva.  Which is the reason people even come to this blog in the first place.  So here are some pictures of three random things we've done over the last couple of weeks.

1.  Animal Exhibition:  The king (or someone in the government) sponsored an animal exhibition.  It was kind of like a petting zoo that had a child with Goliath.  It was huge, fun, but you always wondered if it wasn't a little dangerous.  They had lots of animals - cows, horses, different kinds of dogs, birds, goats, sheep, and falcons.  Yes, falcons.  For petting.  Thus the danger part.

That, my friends, is a live falcon that Eva is petting.

Lots of birds.  This one even perched on Eva's arm, though Eva didn't know what to think about that. 

Petting a horse.  Just precious. 

2.  Christmas Tree:  After Thanksgiving, we had some friends over and we decorated the Christmas tree.  The girl was 3 or 4, and I didn't speak any of the languages she spoke:  Russian, Pashtun (language of the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan) and Arabic.  But as a four year old, I know enough Arabic to have a conversation with her.

You'll notice that the bottom portion of the tree doesn't have many decorations.  Which of the options below best explains this phenomenon?

• A) Alison kept the decorations high so Eva couldn't get to them. 
• B) Eva already got to the decorations and has de-christmased our tree already.  
• C) I decorated the tree starting at the top, ran out of decorations, but just decided to leave it. 

3.  Off-Roading:  I went to the desert with some friends and putzed around the desert.  Its always a good time, and I usually break something on the jeep.  I didn't break anything this time, but realized that the 4 wheel drive was broken from the last time we went out.  Will have to get that fixed.

I'm not actually in the car.  But it looks cool anyway. 

One in our party was stuck.  About 10 Bahrainis descended upon him to help out. 

Baby Widget on the Blog

Look to the right --------------> and you can see the latest development of our child.  This is actually good for me because I can see how far along Alison is.  With the second one, I'm following it a little less closely.  Its hard for it to be too real before the baby starts kicking.  This way I know what to say when someone asks, "How far along is Alison?" 

If you are reading this on Facebook, go directly to my blog to see the widget.  

In case you are wondering, Alison is currently... ... 14 weeks along.  That means little buddy is about the size of a ...<checking website>... an apple. 

Wait, not THAT kind of apple.  This kind. 

30 or Two Kids - Reflections on Being Young, Hip and Cool

Side Note:  If you want to know if you are young, hip and cool, spend a day teaching 12th graders.  Act hip and cool.  If they jive with you, you're cool.  But most likely they won't.

Youth is a hot commodity.  The essence of youth is usually somewhere in the early 20's - college and just beyond college.  Old enough to be independent and (somewhat) responsible but young enough to still do crazy things.  TV shows that show people who are cool beyond this age have characters who are still acting like they are in college.  So what does that mean for me?  I'm beyond the "normal" age for being "Young Hip and Cool" (YH&C), but am I really out of it?  Well, here are some of my thoughts on this regarding ages:

20-25:  If you are in this age, you are still YH&C.

26:  At this point, you are only one year out from 25.  To be more precise, you are only months out of the Cool Zone.  You are probably still cool.

27:  Further away, but you're still pretty young.  30 is still a long way off, and if you round to the nearest 5, you are still 25.

28:  Your body isn't quite able to do the things you did in the past - staying out late, eating whatever you want (and not gaining weight), etc.  But you're still 2 years from 30.

29:  You're almost done, but you can still say, "At least I'm not 30".

30:  You're finished.  You're not in your 20's anymore.  You're not YH&C.  If you are one of the few and the proud who can break this almost-rule-of-nature, kudos to you.

All this is thrown out the window by one thing:  two kids.  If you are still in your 20's, but have two kids, you are automatically the essence of responsible and (usually with that) dull.  One kid is a little different:  you have one foot in the grave, but one foot is in the YH&C life.  You can still go out to dinner.  It's not too difficult to find a sitter for a movie.  But two kids?  That's just it.  You're done.   Any one who is YH&C will not distinguish between you and someone who is over 40 (but they will probably distinguish between you and their grandparents).

Alison says I'm not YH&C.  I would appreciate any support.

The King Declares A Random Day Off For Schools

I should be at school right now.  It was supposed to be a special day at school for National Day celebrations.  I was supposed to take the 12th grade class on a trip to the Bahrain Stock Exchange.  So why no school?  I was at a friends' house last night at about 6 o'clock and he got a call from a friend.  This friend told him that school was canceled - by the king, no less!  She didn't know why, but school was cancelled.  I called my vice principal later to confirm, and she said yes.  And so here I sit at 7:45am while Eva plays with my keys and I write a blog post.

There are two observations I'd like to make about this:

1.  "Random" Days Off:  Since I have lived in Bahrain, this happened once before when a leader of the UAE (?) died a couple years ago.  This time its for a National Day Celebration.  Either way, we find out the day before, and we are pleasantly surprised with a day off.   No warning at all.  Frustrating?  Initially, but after a while you just get used to things like this.  I've learned that I can't plan too far in advance at school, for inevitably something happens (like today) that completely messes with what I wanted to do.  So you just learn to go with the flow.

2.  Spreading the Word:  This mystifies me even more - how an announcement can be made literally 12 hours before school starts and the entire country now knows.  In fact, I would venture to guess that 75% of the country knew in the first hour.  I imagine it was announced on radio stations (which I don't listen to) and local news stations (which - not knowing Arabic - I never watch).

But beyond that, its just expected that everyone will hear about it in time.  And, in general, most people do.  And that's the part that amazes me.  Word spreads like wild-fire.  And I know that, as an expat, I'm relatively out of the loop.  So if I know about things so fast, you know that word spreads 10 times faster among Bahrainis.