Death At A Funeral movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795368/

Put it on your netflix queue, go to blockbuster, borrow it from a friend or buy it.

One of the funniest movies I’ve seen you must see it.  I just saw a trailer for the american version with Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence.  The british original looked much funnier.

Reaction, Attitude, and Perception

My wife is fond of saying “Perception is the all”, and I agree. How you perceive things is how they are…for you. Perception dictates how we see a thing, a situation, a problem, a gift. It dictates not only how you see it, but how you’ll react to it. Control is a tricky thing, take too much, and your bossy or obnoxious. Take too little, and people walk over you, or you don’t feel like you matter.

I think the thing I have learned this week is to be active in your life. Take part in the decisions you can influence or help, and move forward and don’t concern yourself with the things you aren’t and shouldn’t be involved in. Too many times we’re so caught up in she said this, or he did that, and we get stuck on that thing, or event or whatever it is. I think the key is to continue to be involved in things, but don’t let the negative stuff weigh you down too much. Have a positive attitude about something that might be negative, and it’s not necessarily going to always come up roses, but maybe it won’t stick quite so bad as it would have if you had indulged in the negativity. And maybe, MAYBE, you can learn something from it and grow in your experience.

I never thought I was a jealous person by nature, but I think that I do have issues with it. I’ve gotten caught up in what I did or didn’t get, what I did or didn’t deserve to the point where I start feeling sick from holding it in or stewing over it. Rather than looking at what someone else has or what I didn’t get, I need to concentrate on what I do have and what I do deserve, and the real why of what is involving me and not anyone else. I think by concentrating more on me, instead of on everyone else, I can find my real talent and my real gifts. For a long time I have never felt good enough, or that I knew enough to be entrusted with responsibility. I always wondered why I was never really getting anywhere, in multiple aspects of my life, and felt like I was spinning my wheels, or waiting for that ‘thing’.

I’m done with that. I’m done with reacting to things in a negative manner or getting involved in things that I see as negative. I’ve learned that a lot of it is bullshit, a lot of it doesn’t concern me, and that my perception of things in many cases are not what they seem. I just sat for too long, brewing up things surrounding this event or that thing, making it all worse in my own head, or completely misunderstanding things and making something out of nothing.

Time to move forward. Time to get things done. Time to take a handle on my life, tell people how I feel sooner, and not sit on things making them worse or being eaten up my misconception.

Nice thing about the new attitude is it coincides with my promotion I’m the new Application Development Manager for my company I’m in charge of just about everything that I’ve built so far, plus a lot of projects we’re going to be building in the near future now that the MONDOPROJECTFROMHELL is done Yes, thank goodness, that biggun is over

What to do when you’re pissed?

So I’ve been using this blog for online therapy for a while now, and for the most part it works pretty well. I start writing about something and by the time I’m done with the post, I feel a lot better. Not necessarily because I’ve found the meaning of life, or solved world hunger. It’s mostly because I’ve sorted through my feelings and emotions and thoughts and at least put them in order. BTW, what’s the difference between feelings and emotions?

Anyway!

So, what do you do if you want to work out something that you can’t write about on your blog, or at least don’t feel comfortable about writing on your blog? Obviously I can’t blog about work because I don’t want to get Dooced. Plus I like to think that I’m fairly professional and I don’t think it’s right to do that anyway, good or bad, because that company info, not public info. I can’t blog about friends or family because I just don’t want to expose them or talk about them in a public forum whether it’s positive or negative. Fae has told me I can say anything that I want, but she’s always been different

It’s been several weeks, lots of stressful situations, pending crap that never wants to seem to happen, and a general feeling of the world is out to get me, take all my toys and give them to other people. Like the universe is sticking out it’s tongue at me or giving me the universal finger.

Wah wah wah, why don’t I whine a little more?

Okay, I’m fat too Well, I’m heavier than I have been in a while, mostly because I haven’t gone to Kendo in a month due to a huge work project one week, a blizzard the next week, cancelled class the 3rd, and having to take my wife to the hospital with a cluster headache last night. Yeah, that part sucked, she scared me when I got home and although I didn’t like being at the hospital until midnight last night, I’d do anything for that woman.

“But Matt, you have a gym downstairs from your office in White Plains.”

Yeah Yeah Yeah, I’m good at making up excuses, did I mention that?

So what is this post about really? It’s about me bitching in general because somehow in some small way, it makes me feel better. I have a really bad tendency to let things sit, let them fester until I get so upset/resentful/pissed off that I say or do something stupid. Either that or I sulk around until someone asks me what’s wrong, and then I usually say “NOTHING!” or pretend that everyone knows what I’m pissed about.

Yeah, I”m lame, sue me. I feel bad because I feel like I’m turning into the Anti-TerriTerriTerri. She’s a wonderful woman who is always so upbeat and positive. I’m hoping that my goal of working out and eating better will lead to me feeling better about myself, give me a better position to deal with crap that I have to, and allow me to operate from a better place.

I think one of the keys to my future is setting expectations, and making sure they’re realistic. Things I have thought to be one way have turned out to be only that way in my head and I end up getting slapped in the face. Stings too. Do I lower my expectations? Do I stop taking crap, or just not sweat the shit I can’t do anything about? Speak up when I see unfairness or bullshit? Maybe a little of all of it. I’ve always been Mr. Nonconfrontation, mostly because when I do bitch about something, I think a lot of it is in my own head or I’ve been stewing on it for so long, it’s a lot worse in my own head.

If you made it down to this part, I’m truly impressed, and truly grateful that you’ve listened to me spew. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot to be thankful for. Problem is, the crap feels heavier right now, even if it’s not in reality. This is my pity party and you’re invited, but thankfully you don’t have to stay

Anyone got a shovel?

Bridgewater NJ as of 6pm is forecast to get 16-22 inches total.

Wow dude. that’s nuts. We had a little snow over the weekend that stuck for a little while until SNOVERKILL came thru MD and VA and kicked our butts today. Not that I mind tho. My boss is cool with me working from home so I worked from here today – as did most of us anyway. It wasn’t bad this morning, but by 10:30 or so, it started coming down in buckets. Gilli’s sick, which really sucks, so she read, and watched TV and she and I played Mario Kart for a while. Aidan’s been outside or at his friends house for most of the day, he just came in about 20 min ago.

So, how the heck is everyone? I just got through the migration project I’ve been putting together for a long time and thankfully there have only been a few hiccups here and there – server adjustments, small bug fixes in an application. I’ve been working a lot on my laptop so my elbow is getting sore again unfortunately. I was really hoping that the last cortisone shot would have taken, but no such luck. It’s already getting sore. Sucks to be me.

Got lots of cool stuff planned so I’m looking forward to doing something new at work. Being buried under this big thing has been depressing, but now that it’s out, it’s going to make it easier for a lot of people, me especially

One more and I can breathe!

I’ve haven’t been writing a whole lot lately because of some major releases at work. Nervous, paranoid, and stressed, but truthfully I think the fallout will be minimal and manageable and I’m freaking myself out for no real reason. Got a big one on Friday and when it’s done it becomes a series of managing much smaller releases, which is the way it should be anyway. Plus we start using some cool stuff and get rid of some old dusty manual processes, YAY!

I’d rather be ready for anything than slammed by stuff I didn’t think of. Even now, a few days before, I’m coming across little things that wouldn’t bring the walls down, but will make it a lot cleaner when all is said and done. It’s funny how I never thought I was good at paying attention to detail, but when I work on these big migrations, I go back to an ex-boss that I couldn’t stand but knew the value of crossing every single t and checking everyone else’s t’s before even looking for i’s Thanks man, I wanted to strangle you then, but I’m thanking you now. Even tho you were a putz.

As always, thanks for stopping by! Drop your .02$ in the comments!

Slowing down

Take a minute. Take 5. Slow down, you’re moving way too fast. Got to make the morning last… heh, sorry. Sometimes my fingers just keep typing.

We sometimes run through life so quickly that we don’t take the time to smell the flowers…or is it roses? Who knows. WHO CARES!

Take a deep breath. Read to your kids. Give your wife/husband a hug just because you love them. Go do something you’ve always wanted to do, but never dared to. Life is too short to keep running so fast that you never see things flying by you unappreciated or un-looked at. (yeah, so my grammar sucks, it’s my blog )

I’ve been running around like a loon for the last several weeks and months, slowly working up a killer of a stress pile. I’ve had a bunch of stuff finish up, happen, resolve itself and it just occurred to me that I’ve been fairly absent from my own life because I’m too damn worried about what’s next, and how am I going to handle that, or waiting for THIS to happen and can’t do much until it does, etc.

It all starts with a breath. Going to take a deep one, finish up a thing or two, and go home and spend a nice weekend with family and friends and hopefully have a chance to rehook into my own life.

Fae – thank you for all of your help, love, support, and just putting up with my grumpy ass. I love you more than life.

Making Sushi with Gillian

Since Gillian has been diagnosed with Celiac disease, we’ve been trying to find ways to get her to eat more diverse foods than gluten free(gf) mac and cheese and gf grilled cheese and grilled chicken. I knew enough to download a translated card from the Celiac Disease foundation that listed the instructions and asked a few questions in several languages so the guys at our japanese restaurant could understand and make her sushi. They did, and she loved it.

Problem is, it’s really expensive. So for the holidays, Gillian bought me a sushi kit – a book, some implements and a wish to make it with me. I’m gonna say no to that face? Don’t think so.

	First things first. Pour the rice into a big bowl that isn’t white. Why not white? The first thing you have to do is make sure that you rinse the rice to pull off any excess starch and ‘dust’. Put the rice into the bowl and put in water so it’s totally submerged and then some.
	You’ll need to mix it around so you get all of it ‘clean’. Gillian kinda liked this part
	Once it’s relatively clear, you’re good to go. Drop it in the rice cooker. If you don’t have one, google what you’ll need to do. My roomie from college gave me the one we used and we love it.
	Gillian likes cooked shrimp so we decided on a cucumber, mango, and shrimp roll. Yeah, she’s nuts for mango. The key to cooking the shrimp is to use wooden skewers. You slide it into the shrimp, trying to keep it inside the shell, but not piercing the shrimp itself. The skewers are so when you cook them, they don’t curl up. Curled shrimp is pretty freakin hard to put in a roll from what I hear. We got jumbo shrimp from the Wegmans counter, so they were iced, but not frozen. Get them de-veined too. eww.
	If you’ve eaten at enough sushi places and watched them (plus a lot of Iron Chef), you know that you don’t chop up the cucumber. You pare it like you’re peeling an apple, just make it one continuous sheet of cucumber. I managed to get 3/4 of the cuke peeled like this before I broke it Gillian peeled the skin off initially and then sliced the sheet into strips, of course eating the ones that were too thick
	For those of you who have made sushi before, I know, this looks really sloppy. KEY NOTE TO MAKING SUSHI – WAIT FOR THE RICE TO COOL. I almost burned all the skin off the tips of my fingers spreading this out. Hot sushi also tends to melt or tear the nori. Here we have the bamboo mat with a sheet of nori (seaweed) on top spread with the rice. Don’t do it all the way to the edge, leave about 1/5 of the roll free so you don’t have too much. Another key note – spread it thin or it’ll be one big ball of rice. The other thing I learned is that my ingredients are too close to the middle, needed to bring them towards me a bit more.
	Here’s my first roll, cut into pieces. Key Note: hot/warm rice doesn’t cut well. Also: having a container with 4 parts water, 1 part rice-wine vinegar that you can dip the knife into is ESSENTIAL. As you can see, it’s not cut well here. Knife was plenty sharp, I was pushing down too hard, and the rice got too sticky on the knife.
The first roll is finished: Matt & Gillian make sushi from Matt Cushing on Vimeo.
	As you can tell by the thumbs up, I got better as I went along
We’re done: We’re done making Sushi from Matt Cushing on Vimeo.

All in all, lots of fun, and something we’ll definitely do again

Ack! Been too long!

I’ve been so busy lately that I didn’t even realize it’s been a while since I updated.  I think I’ve been waiting for enough time to download the pics and movies I took the other day when I made sushi for the first time with Gillian.  Tre yummy btw if I do say so.  I’ll post about that tonight hopefully.

Feeling okay in the elbow department thankfully.  Went through class on Wed with little to no discomfort, tho I forgot to wear the brace, but I seem to be okay still.   Currently wearing it because of a twinge I felt this morning.  Hoping it’ll go away.  Tho I kinda feel achy all over, not sure if it’s from lack of sleep or what.

Aidan’s winter concert was yesterday, and I gotta tell you…they’re all 7th graders, but they are really pretty good.  The Wind Ensemble is made up of both 7th and 8th, and they were very good.  I’m really proud of my kiddo.

Anyway, Fae’s feeling much better both physically and emotionally which has made life so much sweeter knowing my honey’s back

I’ll post more about the sushi when I can download the pics.

Oh yeah, I’m designing a website too – http://campceliac.org  That’s where my girlie goes for a week of camp for the last two years and really loves it.

Almost…cut my…

Hair?  No, sorry.  No references to CSNY today.  Actually I’m growing a goatee, not sure about it tho.  Hmm, I should take a pic when I get home.

No, this is in reference to cutting something else.

I’ve been having issues with my elbow that make it next to impossible to practice Kendo on any kind of regular basis.  I got a cortisone shot before the holidays, and had two weeks off from Kendo for the holidays.  Nice and rested, I worked from home this past Tuesday.  Got excited to go and get my ‘rah rah’ s out as my sister puts it.  I had a bit of a hangnail on my big toe and I went to clip it.

Problem is, as I was about to, the cat jumped on the bed.  Yep, I took off a huge chunk of the top left part of my left big toe.  SHIT SHIT SHIT! I screamed getting up and hightailing it to the bathroom to run it under cold water and then sat on the floor like a total idiot putting pressure on the damn thing.  I finally get it to stop bleeding (like 20 min later) and bandage, gauze, and wrap in tape so it looks like my toe is the size of a baseball.

To add to the equation, about a hour later I get an email from my Sensei saying her teacher, Kato Sensei, is coming to run class.  PERFECT!

So we go and I get dressed and wrap it a bit more and go through stretching and warm ups and I’m feeling good.  Toe doesn’t hurt too much and I’m feeling a good sweat coming on, jacked up for once instead of having to sit out with my elbow.  We go to put our armor on and line up for suriyashi (it’s a moving drill that you move quickly across the gym doing strikes at intervals), and again, I’m feeling good.

And then I look down and realize I’m about to bleed all over the floor.  Everything was soaked through.  AWESOME!

Spent the next 30 min getting it to stop and end up watching once again.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Picked up some cool tips even tho I couldn’t practice, so it wasn’t a total loss and Aidan got to spar with Kato Sensei which is a plus.  of course I DIDN’T!!!! GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

okay, I’m done feeling sorry for myself.  It’s already feeling pretty okay, should be fine by Tues.  Please say a prayer my elbow doesn’t start hurting again by then

Sawks Talk:Offseason

Okay, so we got Lackey, Scutaro, Cameron, Hermida, and now Beltre.  We lost Alex Gonzales & even more importantly, Jason Bay.

I’m not sure we’re all that much better off for next season.  I think Scutaro is better than Alex Gonz, so that’s positive.  Surprised that happened, but it seems like they just wanted to switch teams.  Sorry, but as a hitter Cameron is done, fielding?  He’s definitely better than Bay, but Bay’s bat is better.

I’m hopeful that they’ll all hit better in Boston with the Monster only 310 feet away, but I still don’t think we should have dropped money on Beltre when Lowell is a question mark.  Mikey’s a great player, and has been an amazing Red Sock, but even with his injuries and uncertainty, I wouldn’t have made the deal for Beltre.  I would have saved up all my chips and made a play for Adrian Gonzales from San Diego.  Never know, they might do it anyway, using Lowell as a trade piece.

Ideally, I would love to see Youk move to 3rd to make room for Adrian, and have the Sox really start working on this Phenom – Iglesias – to get him ready for the bigs.  Maybe Theo Epstein is working on some midseason trades, who knows.

What it all comes down to is I REALLY don’t believe he’s setting the Red Sox up to compete with the Yankees.  Especially getting Johnson at DH and Granderson to take over in left or center.  They’re going to dominate again next year.  We may make it to the playoffs, but I dunno.

And even tho Lackey’s wife is a total hottie, I still think he’s a bad mouthed, spoiled little brat and I don’t see him p