Resorting to Panama

I'm Up From my Nap and Ready to Conquer the World

My wife finally re-established contact with me yesterday from her stay in a resort on the central Pacific coast of Panama. The resort only has Wi-Fi in the central lobby so our conversations were somewhat limited. She’s having a great time with her sister, brother, and mom and reported some late night beach dancing, at least by her slightly wilder sister. She heads home today with plans to spend the weekend at our own personal resort, the condo in Las Lajas. I dutifully reported how cold it was so she could luxuriate in the beach temperatures. I also reported my herculean efforts to protect her beloved flower beds (I need all the good press I can get). The story might have grown in a little bit in the telling. She also sent along these pictures.

Family Dinner

View from the Lobby

Heading out Crazy Sister on the Right

The Celtics kicked off their new season last night with a thud. Their big off season acquisition lasted all of five minutes before dislocating his ankle and breaking his tibia in particularly gruesome fashion. It sounds like the exact same injury I sustained during my military career while parachuting into an airfield in Panama. I know it smarts a bit – especially when they put the ankle back together. I was back running (and parachuting) in a little over two months so he might not lose the entire season.

I was out on dateless date night to see Happy Death Day. Groundhog Day is once again gerrymandered into another horror movie as a seemingly clueless sorority gal is forced to re-live her birth/murder day over and over again. This premise would have failed without a more lively cast, especially the lead actress. She adds just enough depth that we can see beyond the shallowness of her existence to deeper waters beyond.  We can therefore root for her to figure things out. There’s even a well done homage to Groundhog Day thrown in at the end. This ends up being a very clever send up of college life and sorority life especially. While that’s an easy target I liked that the main character was anything but a helpless female. She takes a very direct role in figuring out who’s repeatedly killing her (yep, I just said that). So, a lot of fun, with a great cast of young actors who make this work on a number of levels.

I rushed through another of L.E. Modesitt’s excellent Imager Series with Madness in Solidar. Modesitt returns to the same land as the earlier series but pushes events 400 years later as we see the combined kingdom the first imager created is now faced with an immense crisis. The imagers are under attack from the king, the military and the aristocracy and a newly appointed head imager, Alastar, has to deal with it all. It was fascinating to see the descendants of the original characters subtly inserted at various times throughout the story. Alastar is another of Modesitt’s understated heroes who is impossible not to root for. The book takes a while to get going but rushed to the finish line. More correctly I rushed to the finish line to see how Alastar would solve the seemingly impossible tasks he is confronted with. A great read.

The Bad Cinema project count rises to #35 out of 100, with The Astral Factor, more junk from the late 1970s.

Pillow Hair!

Octobers are Colder than in L.A.