Recent Movies: Little Miss Sunshine

While I'll still likely post plenty about politics, simply because it is a topic I'm increasingly interested in, I also want to guide this blog a little more towards pop cultural topics as well. I'm going to try posting about some of the movies we see (there haven't been very many lately) and we'll see if any of them are "discussion-worthy."

A few weeks ago we caught "Little Miss Sunshine" - we'd been looking forward to this one since first seeing the previews several months prior to its release. We loved it. Its a pretty "off the wall" comedy/drama about an extraordinarily dysfunctional family that ends up taking an ill-fated road trip through California when the 7 or 8 year old daughter makes it into the national Little Miss Sunshine contest. The family includes a motivational speaker (the father, played by Greg Kinnear), a suicidal Proust scholar (The Office's Steve Carrell, in a characteristically great performance), and a teenage devotee of Nietzsche who has taken a vow of silence. I don't want to go into any more detail because this movie really is worth seeing - it is an endearing study of family dynamics and how members of a family support one another, no matter how flawed they may be.

Update #2

My apologies to anyone who has been faithful in checking this blog with any regularity over the past couple weeks. I haven't been able to post as often as I had planned or would like to, partially because of a lack of time recently, and partially because of a lack of ideas. Still, I hope you'll all stay with me - I do plan to continue posting, and hope to do it at least a little more regularly.

By way of an update as to what's going on with Cari and I, we're doing well in Omaha. Its been nice to be closer to family for a little while, after being 9-12 hours away for 5 years. I am currently working at TD Ameritrade opening new accounts - while it is not my dream job, its not bad. I spend my days processing new account applications while listening to my headphones (usually jazz - instrumental music is better when I have to concentrate), and occasionally I speak with customers when I need additional information. Its a job that requires a good deal of technical knowledge, but I'm starting to feel more comfortable with it. Cari is still working for Avantas.

We had a chance to travel to Spearfish, SD over Labor Day to visit our friends Matt and Becky Branum, who moved there a couple years ago to plant a church. They're doing well, with a very cute little girl around 2 years old (and I don't always think kids this age are cute) and a growing church. Cari and I saw Mount Rushmore for the first time (it was cooler than I thought it would be), and we visited Bear Country as well. Bear Country is a drive-thru outdoor zoo - lots of animals (I'm sure it will surprise you to learn they have bears), and at one point our car was literally surrounded by a pack of 6 arctic wolves. It was pretty cool.

This week (Thursday, September 21) we'll be celebrating Cari's birthday, and this weekend we'll travel to Des Moines to celebrate her Dad's birthday as well. We also hope to make it to Norfolk, NE soon to visit some college friends. Sometimes it seems like we travel every weekend, but Cari assures me that is not the case.