MichaelandChrissy.com

Chrissy and I finally got around to painting the kitchen and dining room. We had already decided on a “less bright” shade of yellow for the dining room, so Chrissy bought two gallons of wall paint, two gallons of primer, and a gallon of ceiling paint. We were up and ready for the day at 8 AM on Saturday morning. Our prep work done the previous day (covering the furniture with plastic, disassembling the ceiling fan, etc.), we went right to work.

I started with a coat of primer on the ceiling. Chrissy then started in on priming the walls with a yellow-tinted primer. Felice came over and helped. We got both rooms primed by lunchtime, when we stopped to feed Aiden and ourselves. After a little break to let the paint dry, we started coating the walls with the actual paint. We didn’t bother to paint where the new cabinets would be, but we still had a lot of wall to cover. And I got the ceiling again.

We were pretty dead to the world by the time the painting was done. I still had to put the ceiling fan back together though, and Chrissy wanted to put the first coat of trim paint on the back door. It was hard to believe that we had done so much by the end of the day. The only downside was that we would have to wait until the next day to see the whole room in daylight, since that’s the final test of a newly painted wall. If it looks good in the daylight, then you’ve done a good job.

Swavek and I went to see Frank Miller’s 300 today. We saw it at the IMAX in Portage, and I was blown away by the sound system. We got there early, so the previews and commercials were cycling through on the upper half of the screen with the audio on a regular sound system. We saw the Spiderman 3 trailer and the Harry Porter trailer — neat, but nothing that I hadn’t seen before.

Then the lights turned down, and the Spiderman 3 trailer started playing on the full screen. The screen was so huge that I couldn’t see anything around me except the movie. Then the IMAX speakers kicked in, and suddenly I couldn’t hear anything around me except the movie. It was awesome. Kerasotes should have built an IMAX in Schererville.

The movie was great, but I felt a little guilty afterwards because it was the first time that I had left Chrissy alone with Aiden (aside from business trips). Here I was, enjoying myself with my friend, eating Culvers (the best fast-food burger ever), and Chrissy was at home with the boy. I bought her a “love you” card and some Dove chocolate eggs on the way home.

Chrissy and I don’t normally celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. We don’t drink much, and we don’t own much green. However, this year we have a boy. It was tempting to take him to the parade in Chicago, but he’s too young right now for that. Maybe in a few years. For now, we settled on extensive photos.

Chrissy got Aiden a cute little St. Patrick’s Day outfit, complete with floppy green hat. The shirt says “Happy Little Leprechaun”. He had a hard time sitting on the guest bed mattress (it sags a bit), so we ended up setting him on a pizza box (it’s under the sheet).

The kitchen remodeling project is coming along. Uncle Marve moved the conduit that was behind the soffit and added some new outlets. Then, Glenn put up new drywall and started on the taping and mudding. We also installed a new back door, although we still might salvage the storm door.

We might be able to start painting next weekend. Chrissy picked out a less bright shade of yellow for the walls, and we bought some ceiling paint as well. The cabinets are due to arrive in late April.

I’ve got my own little sandbox now over at E-Trade with a dozen Uranium stocks in it. Last week’s stock market dive bottomed out on Monday, when I backed up the truck to load up on my favorite Uranium picks. That turned out to be good timing, since the international markets began to correct themselves the next day. The Dow jumped over 100 points on Tuesday, and all my stocks went up with it. As of today, my portfolio is up 8% (which includes the trading fees from E-Trade). That’s not bad for two day’s work.

The crash was due to the global markets downturning in a domino effect, so I figured that it would correct itself quickly (unless the entire planet fell into recession, which some experts were warning against). I still have a lot of faith in the Uranium market, and that, coupled with my belief that things would turn around quickly, led me start my portfolio on Monday morning. I’m glad that I did, since I walked away with some great deals.

Chrissy is always taking pictures of Aiden, and sometimes she will switch the camera over to video mode to record some live action. Up until now, those movies just sat on our hard drive. With a little editing in Adobe Premiere, I was able to stitch some of the footage together and post the results on YouTube. I think that it turned out well, and I'm happy with the quality of the video (smaller resolutions looked like crap).

The finished movie was a minute and a half long in MPG format, and I was able to get it down to 93 Mb (YouTube sets a limit at 100 Mb). I'll be making more movies and posting them in the future, since Chrissy has taken plenty of footage. The nice thing is that there are no other "Aiden Michael Wilson" references on YouTube, so a search for his name will always yield his movies.

The new Transformers movie is going to cause a marketing blitz the likes of which we have not seen since Star Wars Episode 1. I’ve already heard of Transformers pillow cases, Transformers pez dispensers, Transformers backpacks, and now Transformers shoes. These are actual Nikes with Autobot logos that are decorated like Optimus Prime.

I’ve seen the Japanese Transformers that turn into shoes, but the release of Nikes in Optimus Prime colors has left me shocked. Before they start releasing Transformers spaghettios, I’m going to come right out and say that I will not be collecting Transformers Movie items. At all.

Unfortunately, I’m a completist. I have to own it all. Every last color change, every variant, every character at every price point, even if I have to import it from Japan. And the amount of stuff that will come out around this movie will be too much for me (or my pocketbook) to bear. So no more for me, unless it’s on super-clearance at Wal-mart three months after the movie releases.