Since Caleb got a post when he turned 1, it’s only fair that Tyler gets a blog post, too. Ha, “fair.” Chesney and I do our best, but we kind of stopped trying to make things completely fair – who knows how much he has been “cheated” out of since he is the 2nd child! I’m pretty sure that he has had half the amount of pictures taken of him in comparison with Caleb. …but maybe that’s a good thing… (remember the old Caleb Daily Photos?)

Anyway, Happy birthday, little guy! It was a year ago today that you joined our family and changed our lives forever.

His party is this weekend, right after we get back from an out-of-town wedding. Hopefully we will make it through this busy, busy weekend in one piece!

I don’t have a picture of Tyler from today, but I have this one from a couple days ago, when he was enjoying our new lawn:

I made it. I survived “Chesney Appreciation Month” this year! The month of May is especially stressful for me since, for some reason, we planned things so that our wedding anniversary, Mother’s Day, and Chesney’s birthday, are all within 3 weeks of each other. That’s a lot of pressure for a husband!

I told Chesney that I wouldn’t do too much heartfelt mush, so in short, Chesney, you’re a wonderful wife and mom, and have been really supportive of my extra-heavy work-load in these past few months. It has been an amazing 7 years–let’s shoot for 60 more. Or until I die, whichever comes first.

Both Honda and Toyota released their new green cars recently, and I can’t be the only one who sees the similarity…

Honda Insight (top) and the Toyota Prius (bottom)

Honda Insight (top) and the Toyota Prius (bottom)

I wouldn’t be a real Star Trek fan Trekker without the obligatory latest-Star-Trek-movie-thoughts blog post. (Don’t worry, no spoilers here)

I’m not going to lie: I was really wary of another Star Trek movie. The last couple had let me down, and despite all this new one had going for it, I still was afraid another Star Trek Nemesis bomb (I took Chesney to Nemesis opening night, and she still married me). The reality is Star Trek movies are hard to do right, and really, really easy to do wrong.

But this latest incarnation of Star Trek was, in a word, amazing. But not because I love Star Trek, but because it was just a really good movie! And that’s the way it should always be. The success of this latest movie is due in large part to the director…some guy named J.J. Abrams–maybe you’ve heard of him? Some of his earlier work includes little-known shows like Fringe, Alias…oh, and LOST.

It look Abrams, admittedly not a big Star Trek fan, to give the Star Trek movies a good reboot. Comic books have been doing this for a while with old superheroes who have so much back-story to them that it was impossible for newcomers (or even old fans) to keep the stories straight. Marvel did the same thing with X-Men, “re-imagining” the comic book series into a new series “Ultimate X-Men“, and shedding away the baggage of decades of back-story.

The result? X-Men has never been so popular. A cartoon series and 3 huge blockbuster hits on the big screen, both based off the new, Ultimate X-Men.

In this latest Star Trek movie, the plot re-imagines the Star Trek series in a way that doesn’t upset die-hard Trekkies/Trekkers, while paving the way for new fans. The movie is so well-done that it wows these new Trek fans and satisfies the old Trekkies.

The top-notch acting, great special effects, and wouldn’t you know it–a great story–has won over the public: as of today, Star Trek is enjoying a well-deserved 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating aggregated from a whopping 244 reviews! I would say that even if you aren’t a Star Trek fan, go see it. It’s a great sci-fi movie in its own right.

Man, I wish CSUN really was right across from
the Golden Gate

As a side-note, the movie had quite a few establishing shots of Chesney and I’s old alma-mater, CSUN’s Oviatt Library (picture). We spent a lot of time in that computer lab using telnet for our email. I’ll have to dig up some old photos of Chesney and I hanging out in front of the library.

Photo of actual Oviatt Library by acejr371 via Flickr