Movie Night at the Geer's

A couple at my church puts on a free dinner every Wednesday night which I've gone to for a couple years now. Sometimes 40 people pack into their modest sized house, other times 10. Along the way I've come to know the Geer's. First the son, Dan and later the dad, Rich. Both are big movie nuts. I like movies a lot too, which gave us common ground to strike up conversations. Rich also a walking Bible encyclopedia and inevitably winds up getting involved in the most fascinating conversations which I do my best to listen in on.

A few months ago Dan invited me to come over to their place for his recently unveiled Sunday movie night. It didn't take long for him to discover I'd never seen Frankenstein, Dracula or much of anything before the 1970's. Well this had to change!! So for the past few months we've gone on a 50's and older sci-fi/horror marathon featuring a B movie to start out and then a classic to finish things off. We've gone through all the Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man and Invisible Man movies, several old German silent films (fascinating), a bunch of Vincent Price horror films and a generous selection of 50's sci-fi. Sometimes the horror films a bit much and I have trouble sleeping afterwards, but all in all movie night the highlight of my week.

Three weeks ago Dan surprised us with a change in format. Now we are going to start off with two X-Files episodes, with the goal of seeing them all in order (complete with the movie and the Lone Gunman between seasons 5/6 and 8/9 respectively) over the next 2 1/2 to 3 years. I always liked the X-Files, but for various reasons rarely got to watch it, so this a real treat! Since the X-Files episodes are relatively short, we still have time to watch a full length movie before our normal 10P stopping time rolls around.

Of course it not just the movies. The Geer's are great fun to hang out with and make me feel like I'm part of an extended family. I've always thought Dan a cool guy and now I get to hang out with him on a regular basis, ditto for Alex who almost always comes over later in the evening and of course I can't forget Rich, his brother James ... and Carol ...

Dans' mom Carol has a tragic pre-operative accident a few years ago that left her in a vegetative state. Thanks to Rich's tireless efforts, she's improved to where she clearly follows movements in the room, makes noises and can blink in response to questions. Most recently her feet have started to relax a bit. Rich brings Carol from her nursing home most every movie night so she can hang out with the rest of the family. No small feat, as it involves a 30 min. drive each way and loading/unloading her from the full size van donated to the family by several friends. I still marvel when I stop to think about it.

Speaking of marveling, we spend movie night in front of a 50 something inch plasma screen TV. Paying for Carol's care has pretty much wiped out the Geer's financially (believe if or not, you're on your own when something like this happens, the hospital hasn't paid a dime for her post-accident care and her insurance stopping paying when she left the hospital), so you might wonder how did they come up with the money for this? Well, Dan graduated from college a couple years ago. When the family came home from the ceremony guess what they found sitting in the front hallway ... pretty cool.

Almost a year to the day ...

Hi Eric and fellow blog readers,

I know I haven't had much of an online presence, but didn't realize it quite this bad. Almost one year since my last post. Wow. I suppose this it how people feel when they sit down to put together their Christmas letters.

After several years of denial I finally decided to try living the way my body likes to live. I've always had a tendency to get up around 10A and go to bed at around 2A if my schedule didn't force me to a different routine, but it always seemed I should strive for early to bed, early to rise, ... So far the experiment working well, so I'm going to stick with it.

Things in the train world continue to develop. I've come to realize I really like the electronics side of the hobby and am having great fun getting the signals at our club up and running. I'm also helping a friend here in Lansing get his signals working. He hosts something every April called the Annual ProTrak Weekend and I hope to have his signals working in time. Of course unexpected problems are complicating matters, but I think we can work them out.

I spent _way_ too much on train stuff around Christmas time and am still debating what to do about it. I could sell some of it, but I like it; yet I don't really use it that much, since as mentioned above, I spend most of my time on the electronics side.

I haven't had much of a chance to focus on this problem since around Christmas time things at work became crazy busy. It turns out I'm playing a part in helping prepare the building I work in for our role in the Bio-Fuels Initiative, announced earlier this year by the federal government. This the real deal and we need to make several fairly major infrastructure improvements to pave the way for the substantial amounts of new equipment arriving in support of this venture. Some of the work complete, but some other critical projects still in process. I'm hoping towards the middle of April things will start to return to normal.

My church in the process of building a new and badly needed auditorium. I just watched a progress video and see it really coming along. For a while now I've "tele-churched", listening to the sermons on streaming audio and doing my giving via the handy online site they set up a couple years ago. I have mixed feeling about this, as I do participate in a small group of sorts (organized around food and socializing with no formal structure) through which I've made several friends.Yet I still wonder if I'm kidding myself. Most older folks in my life more or less think "I've stopping going to church" and have a look of horror on their face. While friends closer to my age or younger don't see it as a problem and a few even go so far as to say they think what I'm doing pretty cool.

I originally stopping going in person because, while my current church home an awesome place which clearly has a life changing effect on a lot of people, musically it just never clicked for me and I found myself anxiously waiting for things to get around to the message. I also sat alone every week, since I'm in my 40's and most everyone else in their 20's. Lately with things so crazy I really cherish having the time to stay at home and get stuff done.

With my new circle of friends, the sitting alone thing no longer an issue, and my church now has roughly 6 different bands that play on a rotating schedule, so I'm becoming more inclined to give going in person again a try again. Besides the last time I went, Noel's brand new iPhone picked on my Motorola Q and it wants to have a rematch :-) Actually my Q crashed several months ago because I didn't have my memory card setup right and I lost all the cool stuff I'd setup on it, so Noel's phone would still win, at least for now. Did I mention I finally bit the bullet and sprung for one of those cool PDA type phones? Oops ... Well its great, I should have done it sooner.

Folks often ask me how my cat Oreo is doing. In a word, terrific! I've never had a pet before and he's better than I ever imagined. I'll really miss him when the inevitable day comes that nature takes its course, but in the mean time I'm thankful that God brought such a wonderful animal into my life. For the first couple years he always liked to lay along side my leg, but in the last few months he's turned into a lap cat and loves to hop right up if the laptop not in the way.

Oh, I suppose this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention Smallville. My friend Dan puts on a movie night every Sunday. For the last several months we've watched 50's sci-fi and old horror flicks. I think I've become Dan's "project" and he's set out to familiarize me with all the old classics and well as a goodly selection of B movies such as Plan 9 from Outer Space. Lately he's taken a new twist and we're aiming to go through all the X-Files episodes over the next few years. We are on episode 4 so far and I'm loving every minute. "Hey, I thought you said something about Smalleville ...", oh ya, right ... Dan's dad and sister love Smalleville. It always sounded a bit hokey to me, but one night after movie night his sister and her fiancee sat down to watch an episode and I became hooked. They have all 6 seasons on DVD and I'm about ready to start on season 4. A lot of things about Clark's character touch me deeply inside and I often find myself in tears. I've thought about things I haven't thought about in a long time. Its painful to watch how Clark often can't bring himself to say things that need to be said and I've realized I often do the same and have aimed to work on this, with some success I might add. I look forward to seeing how the characters develop in season 4.

I see it getting past 2:30A so time to sign off. Till next time, Steve