Viewing Mayhem - Outlander

When Outlander premiered, I didn't have a subscription to Starz. None of my friends talked about watching the show, so I didn't have pressure from them to check it out.  I knew it had a premise I was interested in. I just needed to find time to watch it.

Created by Ronald D. Moore and based on the set of novels by Diana Gabaldon, it follows Claire Randall, a WWII combat nurse, after the war, as she goes on a second honeymoon with her husband Frank Randall in Scotland. While there, she is transported 200 years into the past through magical stones and in time marries a Scottish man, Jaime Fraser, whom she comes to love with all her heart. I love the infusion of history to enhance fictional characters. I have not had a chance to read the books the show is based on, but I hope to some day since most of the time the book is better.

I tend to enjoy Moore's projects and this show has been no exception. I've been a fan of his work on Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica (BSG). BSG is where he got the composer for Outlander, Bear McCreary. I have had the honor of meeting McCreary a few times during San Diego Comic Con and have been able to see him perform BSG music live. One of my all time favorite concerts. He creates such perfect music for Outlander. Every time the theme plays at the beginning, I sing along. His music helps create more emotion than the actors in the scene portray and there are a lot of emotions in this show.

A few months ago, Starz came out with a show I just had to see, American Gods based on a book by Neil Gaiman. American Gods is the book that made me a Gaiman fan and I had watch it.  It was less expensive for me to get a subscription to Starz using my Amazon Prime, so I got it that way. After American Gods ended (I loved the show), I wasn't quite ready to cancel my Starz subscription. Season 3 of Outlander came out recently, and I finally decided to watch the first 2 seasons to catch up. The funny thing is I already had the first season on blu-ray. I picked them up both volumes during Black Friday deals, and they just sat on a shelf waiting for me to watch.

I found myself turning it on when ever I could.  Even if I had just a minute with no kids.  It was so hard for me to turn it off, but 90% of this show should not be watched around young children. Some of the dialog scenes are tame enough, but the show does not hold punches on being graphic. I managed to catch up on the entire show in just over a week.

Sex, rape, murder, gore, and war are found through out the show. Each episode is dense with drama.  There are some episodes that are very hard to stomach. The hardest episode for me to watch is Wentworth Prison. Episode 15 in season 1.  Spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the show, Black Jack Randall finally breaks Jaime. I won't go into specifics, but it is graphic and brutal.  It takes Jaime time to bury it, using hope that one day he will get his revenge and be the one to kill him. He finally does at the end of season two during the Battle of Culloden but we don't see the actually fight until Season 3 episode 1. Claire and Jaime spent season 2 trying to stop the Battle of Cullodne, but to avail. It happens just as history said it would.

We end season 2 with Jaime sending Claire back through the stones before the battle to protect her and their unborn child. Jaime believes he will die at the battle and wants his child to be raised by Claire's first husband Frank, so it will have a father. We see Claire with her daughter Briana 20 years later in 1968 coming back to Scotland. Frank Randall has also passed away by this time. They end up at the house of the reverend where Claire was taken when she returned from the past. Briana with the help of the reverend's adopted son Roger decides to do research to find out why her mom was so distant while she grew up. She finds information and accuses her mother of cheating on her father and figures out that Frank is not her father. Claire confesses everything but Briana doesn't believe her. Claire sees Geillis Duncan on a flyer. We met her in season 1 while Claire was in the past. They had been friends and were accused of witchcraft. Geillis told Claire at the trail 1968 right before she is taken away to possibly burn at the stake. Claire figured out that she was from 1968. She asks Briana about her and she tells Claire that yes she has met her, but she told them that she was leaving.  Claire believes this is the moment Geillis goes to the past and gets Roger and Briana to go with her. Geillis believed she had to sacrifice someone to go through the stones and burns her husband alive before traveling back through the stones. Claire, Briana and Roger get there in time to see her disappear and that gets Briana to believe her about traveling in time. Roger tells her about some research they had found in regards to Jaime Fraser. He did not die at the Battle of Culloden. Claire wants to go back.

Starz is 2 episodes into season 3. The show is flashing between Jaime surviving the Battle of Culloden and Claire with Frank and Briana. She is trying to be happy with Frank, but she left her heart with Jaime. I do feel sorry for Frank Randall because he is a good man, but you can't force someone to love you. I am hoping to see a reunion sooner than later between Claire and Jaime. Looking at IMDB, it looks like the reunion will occur in episode 6. Just a few more weeks.

Too Much Screen Time

Before I had kids, I would watch how friends and family were raising their children. I started making a mental list of all the things I would never do or allow my children to do based on my observations. You might make a list, or have ideas, but that all went out the window when my children arrived. One area I thought I would regulate to the extreme was going to be screen time.

I know too much of anything is never good. No one should spend the majority of their day sitting in front a screen whether to watch a program or video, or working or playing games.  I try to live my life by the Ancient Greek moto Moderation in All Things.

My two sons probably watch more television and play more video games than they should.  My 6 year old is really good at cutting himself off when he feels he's played or watched enough if we haven't cut him off by the time he decides to stop. My 2 year old has only just recently discovered the joys of watching tv and playing on a tablet. His favorite shows are SuperWhy, Little Einsteins, and this nursery rhyme called Little Baby Bum. We watch at least 1 episode of each on Netflix everyday.  He would spend a lot more time if I allowed him to, but the thing is he doesn't spend the entire time just sitting there watching and neither does my 6 year old. We do set timers for tablets, but if something happens to be on TV and they are familiar with it already or just not interested, they spend the time playing with their toys and puzzles.

Each one of us is different. We approach our life differently based on our experiences and our knowledge. I grew up an only child and frequently, I used television for company. Just to hear other voices. A lot of people use music in the background and I like to have on a movie or a TV episode. And that is one big reason it is hard for me to extremely limit my children's screen time, I have difficulty regulating myself.

Viewing Mayhem - So I'm watching Iron Fist

When Netflix first released Iron Fist, I was busy watching other television. With the reviews being so bad, I wasn't excited to watch it. But with the recent Defenders release, and my love of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, I finally decided to venture into the world of Iron Fist.

First, it is really hard for me to dislike something. I just started episode 6 and it is definitely not my favorite Marvel project. The pacing is just off and for someone who never looses, the Iron Fist is really good at not putting up a good fight at first with opponents who should be easy.  They must have been trying to save money on special effects because so far the "Iron Fist" is barely used. The writing feels a little disjointed, and it was weird seeing the character shift between him and Ward so quickly.

Second, there are bright spots in the show. I love seeing Claire of course who I am assuming will be the character who eventually will bring all the Defenders together. Also, the character of Colleen Wing portrayed by Jessica Henwick does a superb job. 

Third, Finn Jones does an ok job as Iron Fist. The writing hasn't been his best friend. His perceived naivete annoys me at times.  I understand he has been away from civilization since he was 10, but it is like he wasn't trained to be a grown up. As someone who is supposed to be The Immortal Iron Fist, he doesn't seem very much like a master and acts more like an impulsive angry man with family issues. I hope he matures by the season's end. On a side note, I did not recognize him as Loras Tyrell from GoT. He looks so different to me here.

I have 7 episodes to go. Sadly, I am unable to marathon shows due to my boys, so I average 1 to 2 episodes a night. Season 2 won't be here until 2019, but it will have a new show runner, so hopefully, we'll have improved storytelling. I do not dislike Iron Fist, but I do not like it enough to be in my rewatch pile. I do not regret giving my time to watch the show.

The End of Almost 25 Years

On September 3rd, I was officially laid off from the job I thought I'd have until I chose to retire.  It wasn't what you'd consider a career by any means, but I enjoyed my work and didn't dread going to work on a daily basis even when it was extremely busy and stressful. 

I worked for a Corporate Charter School.  I won't divulge the name, but it has existed for a very long time. It existed when I needed help getting my diploma when I was 16 and suffering from extreme social anxiety. I began working for them 2 years after graduating. After 5 years, I quit to finish a Theatre degree at California State University, Fullerton. I could no longer balance my classes with my work schedule. 

At the time I graduated, I had just gotten married, and I made a choice not to pursue a career in Theatre due to the hours required. I tried working at a driving school because a friend worked there. It taught me that I do enjoy working with kids, but not to teach them driving. I love the mundane of paperwork and school records. I decided to try and go back to my previous employer.

It took a couple of months, but after being away for 2 years, I was back in a temporary position with them covering for someone on maternity leave. Within a couple of more months, a full time position opened and I was there for over 10 years until this recent layoff.

This layoff came about as no fault of my own, but I do blame the company on how they handled it. I will not go into specifics, but I feel like I've had a bad break up with someone I was in love with and the love of my life ghosted me.

This happened because of a change in California Charter School Law caused by a court case not involving my employer, but another charter school in Northern California.  It is known as the Shasta Decision. The decision was about the location of independent study resource centers in relation to their chartering district. 

The location I worked at could no longer legally stay open with its current chartering district, and had to close. Thankfully, our students were able to move to a location that did not have to close, and it was only a few miles from ours, so they made sure to take care of our students.

Before my layoff became official, the corporation managed to find another charter and reopen which is why I feel ghosted. 5 locations and each of them with a position I used to hold.  I had been the longest running employee in that charter in that position. HR called people to apply.  I never received a phone call that any jobs were posted.  I had been watching the job posting site too, but they didn't list them how I expected them to. I miss my job.

Not everyone agrees in the existence of Corporate Charter Schools. I personally like the educational choice. I didn't always agree on the decisions made at the Corporate level, but I saw the program working for the students. It worked for me 25 years ago, and the program only improved every year. Most of our students struggled in traditional school. Many had a hard home life, or struggled with keeping up with 6 classes starting to fall behind in credits, and a lot of our students were unable to graduate within the 4 years at a traditional high school. I miss it all. Many of the students would drive me nuts on a daily basis, but I looked forward to seeing them and my coworkers. It has been a struggle to figure out what I want to do next. 

My first main decision has been to restart this blog and vent about why I've been depressed the last couple of months. I look forward to sharing the exciting and not so exciting events that occur in my life. I hope you don't find it too boring.

Back yet again

I am going to try this again. I miss having a blog even though I didn't use it too much. I find FB has too much drama, and not everyone has FB, so back to blogger I come. Also, I can use it right on the iPad which I spend too much time on doing nothing important. I mind as well use it for a better purpose than games. 

Back on Blogger

I don't think it's possible to comment on Tumbler or I just can't figure it out and I've decided I'm going to come back to Blogger. And share what's going on with me here.

Here's to seeing how I keep up with posts LOL.

I'm trying Tumblr

I'm really bad about posting, but a friend showed me Tumblr and I'm going to try it.. I'll try to remember to link here when I post there so you know when I post. I haven't figured out how to link the two yet.

http://rellaageekchronicle.tumblr.com/

SDCC - San Diego Comic Con

I just looked at my blog for the first time in a while and I really haven't posted too much between this years and last years Comic Con in San Diego. Hopefully, tomorrow or Wednesday, I will get out a post or 2 of this year's Con. It was an awesome Geeky time with friends, new friends and meeting people I admire.

I have a few hundred pics and a few videos to upload to my computer too.

I can say.. I am never staying out of town when attending Con (no matter how much cheaper it is) again. It's just too much fun walking around at 2am running into Matthew Lillard also walking back to the same hotel you're staying.

Spring Break RV Trip

It's been a busy month and I keep thinking about blogging but am only now writing one up.

First thing was our RV trip during Spring Break:

Starting on 3/28, Erik and I took a weeks vacation with my parents in my Aunts RV to visit Family up in Northern CA and Nevada. It was a great trip and boy was it pretty up there. I finally got to see the Ranch in Bishop.

We started on Sunday driving up to my parent's house to hitch a ride in their minivan to the Ranch to pick up the RV. We stayed the night at Tanya's and it was fun having dinner with them and the kids. The next day we headed out in the RV and boy were we nervous about it. None of us had driven an RV before.

We wanted to stop at my Uncles in Nevada on the way to my Mom my's Sister's place, but we had to beat a storm over the mountain, so we planned on hitting them up on the way back. It was great to see my Aunt, who I hadn't seen since Thanksgiving 1998, and my Grandpa, who I hadn't seen since my wedding. My Mom's Dad is only 3 days younger than my Dad's Dad. It was nice to be able to have a conversation with a grandpa who remembers me and share laughs over the same stories. I miss my Dad's Dad who has bad dementia and doesn't remember me at times when I see him. My Mom's Sister isn't doing to well health wise either. She's on oxygen 24/7 although I don't know for what, she's never been very open about health problems. She does have some of the cutest cats though. Although only about 3 socialized with us during our visit, she has about 9 that are indoor/outdoor cats. It even snowed one of he nights were were there. We were a little worried we'd be stuck there due to snow on the 88, but we lucked out and traveled between all the storms.

On the way back to the Ranch, we did manage to stay one night in Nevada with my Dad's brother and Erik and I stay in a bed at my Cousin Jessica's awesome house. Her bed gave me inspiration to finally by a new bed.

When we made it back to Bishop, I got to see my Cousin Dylan play in his very first baseball game and we went out for Sushi afterwards.

We only had one snafu in the RV while Erik was driving. We were on the 24 heading to the 88 and we were banking around a turn with a guard rail with ends that stuck out a little too much.. sorry for the scratch Aunt Debbie. Thankfully, it wasn't worse.

My mom also ended up very sick the last day of our trip and two days after arriving home, she ended up in the hospital for 3 nights with a Kidney infection. She doesn't like that I harp on her soda drinking, but she drinks way too much and just doesn't want to hear it. I'm just glad she's getting better.

I myself ended up with some kind of food poisoning on Easter Sunday that lasted a little over a day. It was the first time I'd thrown up for being sick since I was 17. I'm not a fan of throwing up. I'll be posting photos of the trip on my FB and PhotoBucket http://photobucket.com/rickiella

3/18/2010 - SDCC Hotels go up for reservation

Today, the hotels for the San Diego Comic Convention (SDCC) went up for reservations at exactly 9am. Erik and a group of our friends all logged in and filled out their preferences. Since we have preview, Erik put in for Wednesday - Sunday night while all our friends only chose Thurs - Sun.

Hours go by... 2 of our friends are informed where they were placed. At none of the hotels on their list and too far from the convention center. One of the closest hotels to the convention center wasn't opening for SDCC reservations due to a 3-day Healthcare summit where Al Gore is planning on speaking. One of my friends managed to book a room there anyway. Erik booked one too, but we still hadn't heard from the reservations where we were placed. At 4:45pm, they finally sent Erik and email confirmation for the Hilton San Diego Bayfront which is also right next door. We decided to keep this reservation and drop the other once since we don't want to deal with the summit even though the Bayfront would be more expensive. We need a Wed - Sunday reservation due to preview night so we really trying to talk some of our friends into joining us. Right now most want to stick with the Hyatt, but we'd loose a Wednesday night if we joined them there. Thankfully, we don't have to set any of our plans in stone till May 18th when the deadline for full refund ends. Either way, since we're in a hotel right next door, I'm sure we'll talk others into joining us. This whole fiasco took up a significant chunk of my work thoughts today and didn't get as much done as I wanted. I'm so excited for this year's SDCC.. should be a blast! It is almost completely sold out. Only Sunday is left and Sunday isn't that great a day there.

At least, I got a 40 minute step-aerobic exercise even if I didn't make it to the gym.

Exercising

The last two months, I've been taking it easy with my exercising. Late in January, I started having more asthma attacks then I had been requiring me to use my expensive provental inhaler 1-3 times a day. I don't want to stop working out, but it so annoying. In February, I only worked out once a week. So far this month, I worked out twice the first week, once last week, and so far once this week, but I'm shooting for tomorrow so it will make 2. And what happened after today's workout which was 35 minutes on the elipitcal? Another bad asthma attack. I really hate my exercise induced asthma. I stay calm, but when you can't breath and only want to cough and these are you little baby coughs either. My doctor just tells me to take it slowly and it will improve. I wanted to get a change in prescription for the inhaler last time i was there but we got side tracked about pregnancy talk. Still no luck there, but we're hopeful. If nothing happens this month, I will start ovulation tracking on the fertility friend website my cousin Christina showed me.

I've been getting wired at night and not getting enough sleep. I'm going to try and get to be before midnight tonight. Wish me luck.

Thinking of getting back into Blogging

I've been wanting to get back into blogging but I'm just so lazy. I always find other things I want to do, but I really should update. It's a great way to journal and share with friends and family what is going on with me.

Just a quick update: Erik and I are trying to get pregnant. No news yet, but I'll keep you all updated :).

San Diego Comic Con 2009 - Preview Night Wed.

I remember doing a post about the one day Erik and I attended last year's Comic Con. This year we were able to attend from Preview Night all the way till Sunday afternoon when we were finally burnt out and left before the floor closed.

Our extravaganza began last Wednesday when we headed out to Santee. It took us longer to get out of our apartment than I thought it would be we made it there about 3:30. Then we realized the first trolley wasn't till 5:17. We were hungry so we stopped at a Carl's on the way to Quallcomm. The trolley got crowded by the time we reached the convention center, but that is the benefit of getting on a quallcomm, it's the first stop for the special Red Line so we always had a seat.

Preview Night was a lot more crowded than I thought it would be. We got our passes pretty darn quick and hit the floor. Our first stop was the NcSoft booth so we could get our special ingame code. I still can't believe I've been playing City of Heroes for 5 years. I don't play it as often now. I had been texting Jimmy and he and his girlfriend Aubrey found us at the NcSoft booth. I hadn't seen Jimmy for a couple of years. We met working the Ren Faire and he's growning up before my eyes. He's heading to his mid 20s and I've known him since he was 16. Erik and I also ran into our gaming friends Drew and Eric who we've been playing with for 4 years. After our hellos, Erik and I left them to go walk the floor. It took us 3 hours to walk from one side of the floor to the other. Too much to see and walking at a snail's pace. We visited some booths and I got my picture taken infront of the Stargate. There was a Twilight booth there which every time I saw it I said.. Comic Con Fail. Tomorrow, I'll post about Thursday. I'd type longer tonight, but my eyes are strained, it's hot and I want to go to bed :). I'm uploading photos to my photobucket right now, but I'm too tired to post them here, so I will get to that tomorrow. I have a feeling it will be a lot of pictures. But if you do want to look Comic Con Pictures

What a July!

I'm already subjectively forgetting many things that have occurred so far this month because so much has been happening.

4th of July weekend was great. Erik and I wanted to get out of our apartment and spend time with some family. I knew my parents weren't planning on anything so I contacted my cousin Christina and they planned to hit up the Del Mar Fair on Friday and the Wild Animal Park on Saturday. So we joined them. We left way to late on Friday and hit major traffic.. we finally decided to listen to our GPS and it took us on an adventure on side streets. It felt like it took us 3 hours to get to Del Mar and then parking was a pain, but we finally found parking, got into the fair and found the cousins. They had just finished riding rides in the kiddie area. We found food and I ended up eating a soft serve ice cream and chili fries.. I know healthy. We walked around a bit and looked at spas and people trying to sell us stuff. Eventually, the cousins left and Erik and I decided to walk around some more since it took us so long to get there. Erik decided to pick up some Shamwows which he wanted for some reason. We finally made it back to Aunt Debbie's where we actually got to sleep in one of the spare rooms for once and not one of the motor homes. We played some mad kerplunk that night.

We headed to the Wild Animal Park and Erik and I rode with Christina and Jim. On the way, we stopped at a place that sold ostrich eggs and Tanya's kids got one. Erik picked up some Habanero pistachios and then we headed to the park. Erik and I had never been so I didn't know what to expect, but it was. We mostly walked around and tried to see the animals. It was really hot. The kids made a cute hand print gift for Grandpa and later on the played in the water area. That night we drove up into the hills behind the house to watch the fireworks. It was fun trying to get up the hill. Aunt Debbie couldn't get it so Steve had to come drive it up for us. It was really dark and hard to find the right path. We got up there just in time. We decided to stay again that night. We went to Andy's for breakfast which was our 2nd time eating there that weekend. We headed home and were lazy for the rest of the day.

Last weekend, we had a little birthday gathering on Saturday with our friends in Huntington Beach. Good food and good company. We played Apples to Apples.

Sunday, I decided to have a Harry Potter marathon. I started the first movie at around 10:45am.. Talon and Tom showed up about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd movie and Ryan about 10 minutes after them.. They made it through 3 & 4 before heading home and Erik and I finished the last movie by 11pm. I'm finally watching The Half-Blood Prince tomorrow for my birthday.

Now the week work sucked. I was swamped in at my desk with folders and tons of smaller things to do. Tuesday UPS dropped off my curriculum order from 6/30.. about 7 boxes. It might not sound like much, but I have to catalogue the packets before I put them in the drawers. Then on Wednesday, UPS dropped off my order from 7/7.. two weeks of orders received back to back.. this time 9 boxes. At the same time, I'm trying to clean my desk of all my work since they won't have anyone covering for me next week. Then thursday comes and I was so tired, I decided not to bring a lunch which worked out because they had decided to surprise Pete and I with a birthday potluck. The only thing they forgot was Pete had it off LOL. This was the day everything decided to finally hit the fan in my company. Just before lunch, I was talking to the one CC I consider a friend about the new phone system since ours had already been switched out. We talked a little through email after lunch, but just random comments about over eating and I continued my day. During lunch, our counselor had received a text that she over reacted too and mention to my boss what it was about what was happening in Victorville. They would talk about it so we just continued on. As the day was coming to an end, my boss causally mention that some CCs had been laid off that afternoon and one of them had been the friend I had just spoken to a little over an hour before. We had no notice of any potential layoffs at all. I really hate that companies keep these kinds of things in the dark. We had a big meeting about it yesterday and they're changing a lot of titles and many people are taking pay cuts. They initiated hiring and salary freezes. In our corporate level 27 positions were cut, but they just won't tell you who. The biggest reason is because the state won't pass their budget and we don't know when we're going to get money from them. It drives me nuts the secretive way they go about it. I hate having to find out the gossiping way. It would be nice to know who I can't contact anymore. This all happened while I'm getting ready for my first full week vacation actually using PTO instead of relying on holidays. I stayed late on Thursday and went back to the office yesterday afternoon even though I didn't have to. For sanity purposes, I did not want work to come back to that needed done. I wanted it all done. I succeeded and was home by 5:30. My friend and I talked about what happened and she's doing ok. I'm not going to loose touch with her even if she no longer works with me :(. She was my meeting buddy.

Last night and today has been lazy. Erik and I watched a classic pirate movie of The Black Swan with Tyrone Power. It's a lot of fun. I'll probably own it on DVD someday.

I've spent today cleaning, watching movies, and playing on facebook. I still want to do a photo blog, but if you're interested in seeing photos check out my photobucket:

Long Picture Post

Yesterday I promised to make a bulk picture post. All my pictures are taken from my photobucket account http://photobucket.com/rickiella.

Except for these two videos also found on my camera.

Maddie's First Birthday



My Cat really loves the camera


























































































And that is the end of the pictures I took the last few month.