Thanky-ness

     Today is Thanksgiving here in the states (Canadian Thanksgiving was Oct 10th) and we celebrate by heading to Grandma Gerry and Grandpa Jacks for dinner with moms side of the family. It's a fairly traditional gathering with turkey, mashed taters, green beans, and pumpkin pie. The fact that they live in a log cabin in the woods only heightens the traditional holiday mood. Booze helps too :-)  It's nice to get together with the family and swap stories and reminiscences. After we've stuffed ourselves silly, and had a brief nap in my father's case, we bundle up and drive over to spend the rest of the evening with dad's side of the family to consume deserts, play games, and drink a bit more. We bring board games, card games, and Wii games to whittle away the night. Eventually the evening ends and we head home (hopefully with leftovers in hand) to put the kids to bed and sleep off the feast. A good time is had by all!

     I'd like to take this opportunity to share my list of things I'm grateful for, in no particular order

     I'm thankful for family. My family is very important to me. I would not be who I am without their influence and example to go by.
     I'm thankful for friends; old and new. I'm fortunate to have many, many friends, and I love them all.
     I'm thankful for my health. Though I am currently battling a sudden and unexpected head cold, my immune system is usually pretty impenetrable. On that note...
     I'm thankful for lemon tea with ginger, honey, and vitamin C. It's keeping me functional at the moment.
     I'm thankful for my wife and kids. Yeah, they're included in the "thankful for family" bit, but these three are special. Though they may drive me out of my ever loving mind at times, Jillian and Gavin are the best thing I've ever made. I don't know how she does it, but Belinda puts up with my insanity.
     I'm thankful for "the arts". I know, it's a catch all phrase, but I'm love it all. As an artist, writer, actor, sculptor, singer, puppeteer, etc, etc, tis the arts that feed my soul.
     I could go on and on ad infinitum with all this thanky-ness, but I'll spare you the long and winding list.

     I wish you all a festive Thanksgiving full of good food and good company! If you're not celebrating Thanksgiving today, I still wish you the same; it's never a bad time for food, friends, and family.

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Adventures in dinnertime

      Dinnertime at the Hamilton house and I'm looking through the pantry wondering what to make that the kids will actually eat. Hmmm... Got it! Boiled octopus with octopus eggs! Well, not exactly... Jillie and I made the octopi from items most households already have. Here, I'll show you.

Everybody loves hot dogs. Even the Arrogant Worms! http://www.arrogantworms.com/music/hot-dog-song/
We have hot dogs in abundance. Spaghetti is always plentiful. Olives? Yup, we gots olives. And last but not least, string cheese. Cut a couple hot dogs into sections and break a small bundle of spaghetti noodles in half.

Take your little spaghetti spears and skewer them into one end of the hot dogs in a circle. You can put as many or a few as you like, but Jillie insisted that octopus have eight legs so we stuck to realism.

these guys seem a bit stiff to you?

invaders from planet Frankfurter

Bring some water to a boil (if I have to tell you how to do that, just stop reading now. Walk away from your computer and go stand in a corner) and drop the little fake cephalopod's into the pot. Jillie made little "No! Help me!" noises as she mercilessly drowned the poor things, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Let them boil for about seven minutes. You may need to gently separate them with a spoon occasionally to prevent tentacle tangling. Once the tentacles soften up, your octopi should start swimming around. It's kind of hard to see through the steam, but ours spun in circles like aquatic wind socks.

While they boiled away to their hearts delight, I cut some string cheese into little wedges and stuffed them into the hollows of the olives to make inky eggs. When time is up, gently remove the little guys from their bath of doom and plate them up. Jillie doesn't like spaghetti sauce, so we didn't make any. You're perfectly welcome to add sauce to yours but it may make the plates look like a scene from CSI: Pacific Coast.

Jillie and Gavin devoured them with glee, nibbling off tentacles and squishing gooey yolks. Dinner and a show! Let me know if you try this with your own monkeys. Happy Eating!

Curtain call

Tonight we finished our run of "The Green Room." It's been a great journey from auditions to cast party. We had  more than our fair share of set backs; illnesses, multiple rehearsals spaces, even a last minute cast change (Carolina Rios, you rock!), but in the end we put on a great show. I've made new friends along the way and I'm really gonna miss seeing them damn near every day. I'm looking forward to auditioning for Mask & Mirror's next show, "Robin Hood: The Musical" and I hope my new friends are there with me. I've had a great time doing this, it's what I love to do, and I hope to keep doing it for the rest of my life. To Jenny, Maille, Greg, Mason, Carolina, Rod, and Arleen, you guys rule! I loved doing this show with you. I couldn't have asked for better castmates. To Gary and Pat, thank you for casting me and being a wonderful director and producer. To Sue, Michal, Chris, Deidre, Christina, Bev, and any other crew I may have missed, thank you all for keeping this show chugging along. And to Peggy Glisson, thank you for allowing us to be the first group to "test drive" your script. The Green Room is a delight! I'm sad that it's over, but happy that it happened and that it went so well. The show must go on!

More thank you's...

Thank you to my family and friends who came to see the show, I love you all. Thank you to my wife Belinda for putting up with my absence so I could go to rehearsals, I love you tons! Thank you to EVERYONE who supports the arts in their community, without people like you we couldn't do the things we do. And one last quick thank you to Drea Ferguson, my high school theater teacher. Okay, I think I'm done now. If I've forgotten to thank you, I'm sorry, I'm getting old and tired and my memory isn't what it used to be. I think I may have hit my head a few too many times; I hear ringing and I can taste colors. I think I should go lie down. G'night folks!

     Hello internet, it's been a while, how ya doing?

     A while back I told you about Mask & Mirror (http://jaxxonblogspot.blogspot.com/2011/06/mask-mirror.html). Well, a few months ago I went to auditions for M&Ms first production, "The Green Room" by Peggy Glisson. I was amazed at the amount of talent in the room! Needless to say, the auditions went really well and I went home feeling good. I was surprised when just a few days later I got an email from Gary (the director) asking me if I would accept the part of Jason in the show. I immediately emailed him back telling him; No, that part is unacceptable, I refuse. Just kidding! Of course I said yes, I'd take the part. Shortly after that, the cast met at the directors house to do our first read-through and it was pretty evident from the start that we had a great cast. Seriously, I love this cast! We're a few weeks into rehearsal and every single one is a blast. We all make each other laugh, sometimes to the point where Gary has to shush us. :-)
The show is about a community theater and their production of "The Untimely Death of Mr. Frumberg". All the action takes place in the green room of the theater. The cast is still reeling from their horrible dress rehearsal the night before as they prepare for opening night. Along the way, there are mixed signals, mis-communications, and missed cues. It all works out in the end, but only everything that can go wrong goes hilariously wrong.

      Tonight we spent the first half of the evening taking head shots and promotional pictures in costume. I can't wait to see what the photographer got, but I couldn't resist snapping a few on my phone.

Arleen (as Eileen, the maid) and Jenny (as Candy, the ingenue)

Maille (as Morgan, the put upon costumer) strangling Jenny

Mason (as Chris, the long suffering stage manager) giving Arleen some tips

Arleen getting into character

Greg (as George, the seasoned professional)

Me (as Jason, son of the president and inexperienced actor)

Allison (as Natalie, Jason's fiance and first time actress)

The show will run the first three weekends of November at Calvin Church in Tigard. That's the 4th, 5th, 6th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th. Shows are at 7:30 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 pm on Sundays. I'll post more pictures as rehearsals progress. Come see the show, we're gonna rock the socks off of it. G'night folks!

     A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (i.e. a quarter century ago, on the banks of the Tualatin river) my family created the single greatest celebratory event EVER. A day on which we gather together with friends and family to barbecue, enjoy a cold beverage, and to play Full-Contact Volleyball. This is the story of how this day of all days was conceived.

     Many years ago my dad's brother,uncle Matt, was coming home after being discharged from the army. At the same time my uncle Drew was getting ready to leave for grad school. To celebrate, we held a "Welcome Home/Farewell" BBQ at my grandparents river property. They set up a net for volleyball and, being wrestlers and all around rough and tumble guys, they stretched the rules and the game turned into a contact sport. The following summer, many of their friends asked if we could do it again, well, who are we to spoil the fun? The next year they figured, what the hell, why not make this a yearly event? My dad, uncle Drew and uncle Matt were talking it over at McMenamins and came up with the name "Ragnarok" after the Norse myth. So, here we are, twenty six years later, into our fourth generation and we're still going strong. Ragnarok has become the event of the summer. There's a certain ceremony to things, we take it very seriously.

We don't have many rules to our Volleybrawl, but here's the gist of it

1. There's no such thing as a net violation. If you touch the net, no biggie.
2. It's okay to go under the net. You can push opponents away, just make contact above the waist and try not to let the other team catch you
3. No referee. Any disagreements over a point is "disputed in force" i.e. the team left with the ball after a big scrum gets the point
4. No running or "keep-away" with the ball. Enjoy the scrum, don't run from it. (and stay away from non-combatants)

     At it's core, whether you're a player or a spectator, a scrummer or not, a child or a child at heart, Ragnarok is our day to have fun and let go and have fun. I plan to keep Ragnarok going for years to come and then pass the torch onto my own children. It's the greatest show on Earth, the most wonderful time of the year, and the end of the world as we know it!

Instrument of battle

    I sit up late, back bent, eyes focused, working on a task I take very seriously. Ragnarok is coming and the embattled warriors require something to wield. It is my job to inscribe the sacred words. Like the dwarf, Eitri, who forged the mighty hammer Mjolnir for the god Thor, I think of little else as my hands go to their craft. Meticulous detail and precise placement are my goal; anything else would be a disservice to the sphere over which I toil. With pen in hand, I carefully and slowly trace out the letters. It is a job I enjoy. It is my duty and my pleasure to perform.

    Once done I sit back and take in my handiwork. Tomorrow we lay the field and hang the banners, tonight I am the wordsmith.

This summer so far...

     It's going to be an action packed summer this year, full of trips, events, and goings of on. There's the usual summer activities, like birthdays and holidays, not to mention Ragnarok (more on that later), but we've also a wedding in Reno and a big-time camping trip. Probably the biggest thing going on this summer is right here in our apartment everyday. I'm watching my nieces, Olivia and Gwyn, while school's out, so I've got a seven y/old, a five y/old, a four y/old, and a soon to be two y/old.

     I figure the only way I'm going to survive, let alone retain what little sanity I still have, is to treat it like school. I've got a schedule for the whole day, science projects lined up, art projects to keep them busy, and even field trips. Once the girls get used to following the schedule instead of running amok, like most summers, I think it's gonna work well. So far we've gone to the Oregon Zoo and the Tualatin Commons fountain. The zoo was fun. We took the bus to the MAX (Portland's light rail system) in so we wouldn't have to deal with shitty parking. We spent most of the day there and let the kids run out all their energy. On the way back, we figured Gavin would crash pretty hard but he stayed up the whole time. He loved looking out the windows. Jillian and Gwynny on the other hand both conked out within minutes. All in all, a day well spent.

Ride 'em Dinoboy! (and Dinogirls)

Tuckered out

Too tired

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

Yesterday was our first day of "Uncle Nicks Super Science Summer School". The day started out with some fun science experiments with friction. You can do it too if you want. All you need is two paperback books of fairly equal size. I grabbed Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar

Take the books and interlace the pages, kind of like shuffling a deck of cards only slower. It can be a bit of a pain in the ass if you pick really thick books. When you're done, it should look something like this

 Then all you have to do is grab each book by the spine and pull them apart. Here, watch Gwyn give it a go...

That's the trick, you can't pull them apart, even two people pulling can't get the books to budge. Each overlapping pair of pages has it's own friction and when you have that many pages pulling at the same time, the friction is compounded. Mythbusters did this experiment with phone books. Here's their results http://youtu.be/hOt-D_ee-JE. Try it, it's fun! After Gavin's nap, we tried some experiments with bubbles and surface tension, but my bubble solution was crap and our bubbles never lasted, so no pictures. Stupid bubbles.

     When Belinda and Christina got home we packed up and headed to Tualatin Commons to play in the fountain and cool off. Gavin didn't quite grasp the concept of "Walk or you'll slip" so I strapped his backpack/kid leash on him and followed him through the water. The kids had a blast and, once again, fell asleep pretty quickly, rarely a bad thing.

     Today, we went on a nature walk down by the river and saw some deer tracks (and deer scat) and watched some newly hatched spiders. We were going to eat lunch there, but there were too many bugs for girls liking so we hoofed it to Jurgens park nearby. After lunch I brought out my science toys and we played with the Bernoulli blowers, paper helicopters, and Wright Fliers. Now we're chilling out at home, watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Not sure what we'll do tomorrow, but I'm sure it'll be fun!