Unlike in April, where I made a late surge in reading, I read five books in the first half of May and then hit a lull when we went on vacation. Here's the recap...

And here are a bunch of random pictures from our vacation in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Fort Bragg.

Okay, I lied a little yesterday when I said I wasn’t going to recap our vacation at all. I will. Just a little. In the form of photos. These are from the second leg of our trip, which was down in Los Angeles, specifically Universal Studios Hollywood and Funko HQ Hollywood.

I haven’t posted since May 17. We went on vacation on the 18th out to San Francisco, Berkeley, and Hollywood and just got back today.

Chaperone /ˈSHapəˌrōn/

noun - a person who accompanies and looks after another person or group of people.

verb - accompany and look after or supervise.

We went to that Band/Orchestra Night that was being hosted as a "get to know your instrument" night for upcoming fifth graders. It was split in two with orchestra (string instruments) and band (brass and I think a few woodwinds) holding sessions in different places. We wound up going to both.

With The Flash, the final movie in the soon-to-be defunct DCEU, coming out soon in theaters and given the fact that Nathan and I watched Suicide Squad this weekend, I decided I wanted to counter the negative stigma from Ezra Miller and their portrayal of Barry Allen and Flash by introducing him to the far superior versions played on television from 2014 to the end of this month by Grant Gustin.

I love this scene so much. So powerful. So meaningful.

Next year, Nathan is eligible to start playing an instrument in either orchestra or band at school. And, yes, he's interested. 

As a diehard Gravity Falls fan, I wholly approve of the creativity, time, and money spent creating this musical masterpiece.

I’m plotting out some travel things for an upcoming vacation we’re taking. Mostly trying to figure out what I do and don’t want to take with us.

Why do people just not care anymore? A scarily large number of people were ignorant assholes prior to the COVID-19 pandemic as it was. But they only got worse and empowered and seemed to take another big chunk of humanity down the rabbit hole of civil disobedience using the pandemic as an excuse for their behavior. 

Normally at this point of the year, we’re struggling to get Nathan signed up for park district classes for the summer because with so many two-working-parent families, those classes fill up quick.

Nicolas Cage as Count Dracula? What could possibly go wrong? I can only see it going oh-so-right.

Apparently our washing machine has a leak.

How does a 48-year-old man spend his Saturday?

Good look with the hat or no?

I just received an email from Apple that the cost for an annual subscription to Apple TV+ is going to increase from $49.99 to $69.

This is the back of a T-shirt Nathan received at school to wear in a fun run tomorrow on Star Wars Day.

I work with a bunch of video game junkies. We have an entire interest channel in Slack dedicated to videogaming. I follow the channel and participate a little bit here and there. But I'm not much of a gamer so I don't contribute to it to quite the same degree that some people do.

Another blink-and-you-miss-it month this year. April? We hardly knew ya!