Iron Man 2 was pretty good... nice start to the day

My daughter and I, and a friend of mine, went out this a.m. to see Iron Man 2 at the nice theatres in our region.  A bit of a drive to get there, but worth the run since the other nice theatres in our area tend to be over-crowded and difficult to get to since they are at a mall with a bad parking situation.  Anyway, the theatre was reasonable crowded but not overly so since we were going to the first show of the day and it seems that the people that go to that theatre don't like to get up so early.  I felt a little bad making my daughter get up early on the weekend since she normally likes to sleep in, but she was ok with it and really seemed to enjoy the flick.  Normally I like to sleep in too, but for some reason or another I just couldn't sleep well last night and wound up waking up early myself :(  It wasn't that bad, but I do normally get a few more hours in.  Maybe I'll be able to fall asleep earlier tonite though and if so, that would be nice.

As I'm sitting here with the TV on, waiting for the NASCAR race at Darlington to start, they're talking a bit about the flooding in the Nashville area.  Definitely a tragedy and I don't like to throw that word around that much (not nearly as much as those in the media seem to).  I made a donation to the Redcross yesterday (though they'll likely waste the money begging me to send more, which really does bother me.  I wish they'd spend less time begging for more money from me and instead put the money I gave them towards relief work as I asked.  I donate when I want and/or when I can afford to, and while I know they have needs constantly, I don't like to see them spending a bunch of money on postage begging for more donations when I have no intent to donate again until I'm darned good and ready to).  I have friends (or should I say acquaintances) in the Atlanta area that were hard hit by flooding there and now there are people that I know near Nashville that are also experiencing flooding.  If you can afford to give a little and haven't done so for a while, please consider donating to the Redcross or a similar organization so they can help those that so desperately need it now.

I also did a little giving in other areas over the last day or two.  An acquaintance is going to be doing the Avon Walk for the Cure and has taken pledges.  I've made two so far.  One a few months back, and now another one.  The most recent one inspired by my Aunt (mentioned in previous article).  Today while I was out shopping (went shopping in the afternoon, daughter wanted to buy some new clothes) there were some local people that were working on getting people to sign up for the local walk.  I dropped a donation in their bag before going off to join my daughter at her favorite clothing store.  I wish like hell that there was no need for any of these donations, especially the ones for breast cancer, as I want to see it eradicated soon and don't want to see anyone else's family suffer any loss because of cancer.

I wound up batting .500 on my own shopping.  I was looking to snag Saving Private Ryan on Blu-ray along with the silly Disney-type (it's actually from 20th Century FOX, not from Disney) flick The Tooth Fairy.  I reallly thought it was a Disney flick    Darn it!  I was looking forward to getting some more Disney Magic Reward points from it.  D'oh!  Oh well, hopefully it's not horrible and will give me a chuckle or two.  If it doesn't (and/or if it is horrible) I'll loan it to friends just to waste their time   (and hype it up big time to them, if I can keep a stright enough face to pull it off heheheh).

Darn-it #2!  I just remember what I was going to title this article and what I had originally intended to write it about: ANTS!!  Die Ants, Die!  We have ants in our kitchen.  We've had them in our house before, including in my computer area, and in our second bathroom.  They find ways in easily enough and then are nearly impossible to get rid of for us.  We can't spray stuff because we have birds for pets and they are sensitive to the spray poisons (we'd need to open every window for ventilation and even then if the spray concentrated in the air it could bother the birds).  Sprays don't work well anyway as the sprays tend to kill the ones we see but not the nest so the ants that die wind up getting replaced with others that follow the same pathyways back into the house.  I've put down poison crystals (here ants, eat this stuff and/or take it back home and share it with all of your neighbors!) and eventually those should work, but in the meantime I see the little bugs running around and just want to smash them all.  I really hate ants.  Really, really, really hate 'em.  I just want 'em all gone.  They're welcome to space out in the yard, but once they invade the home, they deserve to be dead.

Small favors and blessings.  My daughter wants to go to a concert tomorrow (my son will take her to where it is, or so she's planning to have happen) while I'll be going to the baseball game.  I was concerned that the place that is holding the show might not be open to all ages but they are.  She confirmed that and will get her ticket in advance.  Yay.  I'm glad to see her get to do something she wants.  I probably won't stay at the game long, but I wanted to go and snag the free water bottle that is being given away and see just a bit of the game from the stands.  I'll probably stay through the President's race and then be on my way home.  I can't sit in the sun that long anyway.

Almost race time... time to wrap things up here for now.  'til next time.