It Doesn’t Seem Like Much But I Just Failed For The Third Time On The Exact Same Project And I’ve

Recently Allison and I watched the classic film Stand By Me. I don't want to ruin the plot for anyone who hasn't seen the movie but at a certain point the narrator says how he and the other boys felt better than they ever had before because "right then we knew exactly who we were and where we were going". Surprisingly it was at this point that I had a small epiphany.

I realized I had never felt this way before.

Never have I had something that consumed my whole life in that way. A goal that made me feel like I knew exactly what I had to do and why I had to do it. It made me a bit depressed but also made me realize that I was missing that one thing in my life.

The biggest question I need to ask myself now is what that one thing might be.

Up and coming

May 18th- Crawfish fest

May 25th- Tahoe race fundraiser

June 2nd- 100 bike race in Lake Tahoe

June 14th- Camping in southern Illinois

June 15th- Our second Warrior Dash

Let the season begin. Can't wait.

-Jake

Beorn the skin changer

I have long been a fan of the LOTR books with the Hobbit being my favorite. I think it's because I read it at a young age and t was able to make a nice impact on my imagination. Anyways I was excited when I heard about the Hobbit movies and couldn't wait to see one of my favorite minor characters, Beorn, on the big screen.

Needless to say I was disappointed.

Not only did they skip over the chance to lead nicely into the film with some down time at Beorn's house which would have allowed them to reestablish the plot prepare everyone for the events that would later happen in the movie, but they also cut down the content from the book drastically. Why go into the appendices and pull out extra information to help extend film time and then cut short scenes that are actually in the book  itself.

I don't want to be totally negative about the movie, it did have some great parts and as always the people at Weta did a fantastic job with the set, props and design work. However, I recently got a chance to look through the "Desolation of Smaug" design book that is out on the market (available on amazon below).

http://amzn.com/0062265695

All I can say after looking at all the designs made for the Beorn character is that they picked the wrong one. There were some truely fantastic concept ideas that were much more closely related to the book's description. Understandably you want the dwarves to look distinctly different so that you can tell the 13 of them apart, but there is no way anyone could mistake the giant Beorn for a tiny dwarf, so why try to make him look like one? Luckily the got all 30 seconds of screen time for his bear form right at least.

Every time I feel like my apartment is cluttered and over stuffed with possessions I just want to fit as much as I can, of what I want to keep, into a suitcase.

Sell the rest.

Hike into the wilderness.

Build a house (a treehouse would be cool).

And live there, away from it all, until I die.

This world needs to end. It needs to go back to the time when you had to carry everything you own on your back, food was raised by the person selling it to you, and careers weren't even a word.

Does anyone know how to block fake users from following your blog? I’ve got a bunch of followers suddenly that are nothing but blogs filled with advertisements (usually porn sites) and I’m sick of it.

After taking Allison canoeing for the first time, she said it would be cool to have a nice pair of paddles hung on our wall.

I am now in the process of making cedar canoe paddles. Pictures soon to follow!