I would totally watch this

Friends

I have a few friends who would do this for me.

Pillow head

Getting up before 6 every morning for this rotation. My pillow is now my new comb.

This is awesome

Five Manly Movies That Will Make You Cry and Still Make You Feel Manly

Today's intro is short and sweet. Five Manly Movies That Will Make You Cry and Still Make You Feel Manly (okay so the title is long, but that's all the intro you get)

(Spoiler Alert! Do not read below if you don't want to know some surprises in these movies)

Saving Private Ryan

This is an intense movie throughout. But the final scene, where they are standing in the cemetery and the old man pleads to his wife, "Tell me I've led a good life. Tell me I'm a good man." Wow. It puts a lump in my throat just thinking about it.

Tears of the Sun

I make it through 90% of this movie questioning how it could ever make me cry. Explosions, gunfights, chases, more explosions. It's super manly, low on emotion. And then the final chase scene happens. The one guy goes back for the pregnant woman, and shields her with his body. And I lose it. Seriously, I'm a wreck for the rest of the day.

The Green Mile

A gentle giant gets put in the electric chair. He saves a dying woman, and her husband is the one who has to put him to death. "Please boss, don't put that thing over my face, don't put me in the dark. I's afraid of the dark."

Braveheart

Does it get any more manly than this? Bunch of dudes running around with blue paint on their faces, chopping off body parts, throwing off tyranny, and delivering passionate speeches. I can feel the testosterone coursing through me just thinking about it. And then his wifey dies. Not cool.

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

What an amazing trilogy. While there were plenty of emotional scenes throughout the 400 hours needed to watch all three movies, the scene in the final movie when the hobbits are told not to now.

John Q

A desperate father, whose insurance won’t cover his son’s heart transplant, takes the hospital’s emergency room hostage until the doctors agree to perform the operation. But a heart donor appears just in time to stop John from committing suicide to save his son. I cried at this one even before I was a father. I'm not sure I could handle watching it now

Some titles that almost made the cut:
Rudy
Up
Toy Story 3
Armageddon
Old Yeller
I Am Legend

Boys

My brother and I had these moments as kids. I fully expect my son to carry on the tradition of the Y chromosome.

My biggest concern

I'm having a daughter in June. I think she is going to be a nun when she grows up.

Man feeding

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna try this with my daughter when she arrives in June.

Sneezed a great sneeze

If I ever lost my dad in Walmart, I always knew where he was by his sneeze.

Becoming Rainman

So the other day, I was seeing a patient with my doctor. We were calculating the due date for our pregnant patient's baby and it came out to be October 31st. My doc absentmindedly said, "I wonder what day of the week that is?" To which I promptly responded, "It's a Wednesday." She gave me a quizzical look. I wasn't looking at my phone or a calendar. I could see it in her eyes, she made the call - I was no longer an idiot. I had been upgraded to idiot savant.

Now what I actually did was cheat. You see there's a system of knowing days of the week by knowing the date - you just need to know a single anchor day. Every year but leap year, that day is January 3rd. Since this year is a leap year, the day is the January 4th instead, which is a Wednesday this year. Now we need some other easy to remember reference points - 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12, 7/11 and 11/7, 9/5 and 5/9. These dates all share the same day of the week as our anchor day. When my doc asked about October 31st, I just took 10/10, which I knew to be a Wednesday, and then moved forward 3 weeks, and voila! What if she had asked about August 10th? I take my reference point of 8/8 and move forward two days, and I know August 10th is a Friday.

Look, this doesn't come in handy all that often, but it sure is a fun way to convince people you are really smart. Or you can use it to convince people that Tom Cruise is your long lost brother and you should go to the casinos and play some blackjack.

Easter Bunny Massacre

So this happened last night. Yes, that is a little boy wearing bunny ears, wielding a battle axe. No, he did not like being a bunny. And yes, we did purchase the battle axe.

8 Essential Books for Kids of Geeks

My son has discovered a love of books. So I got to thinking, what are some books that I loved as a child, that I want my kids to read too. And here they are, 8 books/series of the YA type that every good geek father should have his kids read. These were chosen based on the character traits they promote as well as the morals the protagonist adheres to. Also, almost all have heavy fantasy/sci-fi elements.

For those of you too lazy to scroll through all the books, the pics, and the amazingly written discriptions, here is a quick list in no particular order:

The Tripod Trilogy
The Chronicles of Prydain (The Black Cauldron)
Hunger Games
Chronicles of Narnia
Wrinkle in Time
Little House on the Prairie
The Hardy Boys
The Hobbit

Some of you will no doubt be sending me nasty emails complaining that I left off Harry Potter, Twilight, and Lord of the Rings. First of all, in no way do I think Twilight is in the same league as Lord of the Rings nor should it belong in a sentence mentioning great fiction. But I know you people. You are fickle. And you like your Twilight. But it is not great literature. So it shall not go on the list.

LotR and Harry Potter are in fact both excellent. However, I believe LotR is a little more mature than most of the books listed here, and I believe The Hobbit is a good measuring stick to see if your little geek is ready to tackle the more meaty LotR. As far as Harry Potter goes, I really like the books by J.K. Rowling. They are a fun read, there are good morals (usually), but there are other series on the list that fill pretty much the same spot and do it better.

To send your hate mail, please put "I Hate Your Stupid List" in the subject line and our address here is MMM.lawteam@gmail.com. After my lawyers look over your death threats, the mail will be forwarded on to me at which time I will address your irrational overreactions.

So without further ado, the list:

The Tripods Trilogy

This was the series that first made me fall in love with the fantasy/sci-fi genre. Set in the not too distant future after aliens have enslaved the planet and reduced the human population to a pre-industrial revolution society, these books follow three friends and their quest to be free. It has aliens, giant tentacled robots, jousting knights, mind control, and pirates. It doesn't get much better than this.

The Chronicles of Prydain

The second book in this series (The Black Cauldron) was a Newberry Honor book in 1966. The series breaks from the norm and has an assistant pig-keeper as protagonist. It only gets better from there. Featuring a strong female love interest, wizards, undead, an evil, horned bad guy, a funny man-beast creature thingy, fairy folk, and plenty of epic battles, this is fantasy firing on all cylinders.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

Some of you will likely be upset at my pandering to the masses by including this series. While this is the most recently written series on the list, it brings some very good qualities to the list. It features a strong female lead, she's a girl I could readily point my daughter to as an example of a blend of femininity and strength - someone who looks fabulous in a dress but can also kick butt. Her male counterpart is strong, capable, and loves sacrificially despite many reasons to abandon his love. While I didn't love the way the series ended, it brings a lot to the table.

The Chronicles of Narnia

How could this not be on the list? C.S. Lewis is a master of the English language and this is a great introduction to him. But it also stands on its own as a great work of literature. The symbolism, the epic tales, and the vivid language captured my imagination as a child. Lewis does a good job of having both male and female protagonists throughout the series, and the lessons they learn are timeless. Plus there are epic battles, talking animals, witches, magic, and dwarves. My favorite quote from the book, talking about Aslan the lion, "Safe?...Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

A Wrinkle in Time

Another sci-fi book featuring a strong female lead. This series has a very clear battle of good vs. evil. I fell in love with this series many moons ago, but it still holds a dear place in my heart. It's a little strange, but if you can open up your imagination, it really is quite good.

Little House on the Prairie

Was Laura Ingalls my first crush? Hard to say, but I loved these books. Life in the 19th century was so accessible with these books. Following the life of the Ingalls family, and mostly the second daughter, Laura, the reader is taught to enjoy the simple things in life and return to a time when life on the prairie was a battle to survive. I think this one is a much easier read for the girls, but if you are weird like I was as a child, then it can be pretty good for a guy too.

The Hardy Boys

Whoah. I just realized that half of these books have a female protagonist. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this blog is supposed to focus on the manlier side of things. Quick, I better do something manly - *belch.

Now that we're back on track, let's consider the Hardy Boys. There are approximately two gazillion books in this series. I'm pretty sure I have read them all. Male protagonists? Check. Action? Check? Crime fighting, clue seeking, harrowing adventures? Check, check, and check. These guys have what every young boy wishes his life could be. Oh man, and when they did Nancy Drew/ Hardy Boy crossovers? It was music to my soul.

The Hobbit

Last, and certainly not least, the book that introduced me to Lord of the Rings and culminated in my descent into nerdery. Another master of the English language, Tolkien wrote this book after LotR in an effort to appeal to a younger audience. Wow. It worked. Dragons, wizards, dwarves, elves, trolls, crazy invisible rings, and Gollum - this is where it's at.

Tempe Festival for the Arts

It's a beautiful 75 degree day here in Arizona. We decided to go walk around Tempe for a while and look at the art.

You can't see them very well, but this is my son and I being manly as we look at the hand crafted knives.

A very manly ball of fire.

Cute pics

My wife said I need more "cute" pics of my son on here. Hopefully this works.

Morning shave

I'd probably slice my head off accidentally, but I totally want one of these. My birthday is in September if anybody needs a gift idea...

How to write a paper for college

First of all, picture is unrelated.

Second, on to the actual post. When I was in high school, a 3 page paper felt long. When I was a freshman in college, 5 pages felt long. By the time I graduated, I would start to write a 10-15 page paper 2 hours before it was due. Here's what I used to make my papers sound more official:

“IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN”… I didn’t look up the original reference.

“A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT”… These data are practically meaningless.

“WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS”… An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.

“THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY”… The other results didn’t make any sense.

“TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN”… This is the prettiest graph.

“THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT”… I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

“IN MY EXPERIENCE”… Once

“IN CASE AFTER CASE”… Twice

“IN A SERIES OF CASES”… Thrice

“IT IS BELIEVED THAT”… I think

“IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT”… I polled my roommates and we reached a consensus.

“CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE”… Wrong.

“ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS”… Rumor has it.

“A STATISTICALLY-ORIENTED PROJECTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS”… A wild guess.

“A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA”… Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of Mountain Dew.

“IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENON OCCURS”… I don’t understand it

“AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES”… They don’t understand it either.

“THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOTZ FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO CINDY ADAMS FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS”… Mr. Blotz did the work and Ms. Adams explained to me what it meant.

“A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY”… A totally useless topic selected by my professor

“IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER INVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD”… I quit.

Rise and shine

This is totally how I started off my day at the hospital, minus the gun of course. Apparently weapons are frowned upon in place where they try and make people healthy.

Questions for God

My son has just about reached this point. I'm scared.