Ryan's Bio

smores around the old caveman TV

Oh boy summer is finally here, that means the kids are home with no school and life slows down just a little.  It also means a lot of time in the backyard watching the crackling flames of the fire pit or as I call it the “Caveman TV”.

I can only imagine our ancestors sitting around the flames with the same look on their faces as I have when I am watching a trashy reality show on VH1, just turn off the mind and stare.  It is fun to watch the flames and cook over the open heat.  We love to make a popular dish in the caveman times, the smore.

Now we do not make the graham crackers the way the cavemen did, we buy them.  We also do not grow the marshmallows ourselves or pick the chocolate from the chocolate tree but we do use store bought ingredients.  I do think nothing takes us back to the minds of our cave dwelling ancestors than the fire and smore.

Something even more manly is the fact that I split all the firewood and stacked it.  I went to Lowes and bought a maul and went to town on the logs from a downed tree.  I have never felt a sense of accomplishment like the one I got after splitting a log with one swing.   Nothing is also more sad than getting winded after three or four logs, Abe Lincoln is somewhere shaking his head at my lack of logging skills. 

the new “Star Trek” cast

Did the very dorky thing of going to the movies by myself yesterday and saw “Star Trek”.  My dad was a trek fan and got me hooked on it when I was a kid.  We would go to the theaters and see the movies with Grandpa everytime a new one came out.  We also never missed an episode of the original series, Next Generation, with some missed episodes of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.  My favorite Trek movie was “The Voyage Home” when the crew traveled back in time to 1980’s San Fransisco in search of whales. 

This new movie was a lot of fun and I seriously did not want it to end.  Chris Pine who plays young Kirk really nailed it and Karl Urban who plays Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy darn near steals the show with his spot on Deforest Kelly homage.

 I was surprised to see it made so much money in theaters because “Star Trek” has always been for the Geeks.  When I was young no cool person would ever admit to watching “Star Trek”.  The laughed at our Trek fan discussions of who was the better Captain, Kirk or Picard.  They gave us wedgies while we discussed the stupidity of the Federation honoring the treaty with the Romulans and Klingons prohibiting all Federation ships from using cloaking technology!  Well who is laughing now!!!!!!!!!!!!

The answer is everyone, the movie is making big bucks and no one is ashamed to admit they saw it.  No bullys are ready to pound you and steal your communicator toy because they are right next to you at the theater playing with the communicator toy they got at Burger King.

It is a great time to be alive for me.  It seems hollywood is making movies for folks like me with all of our dorky passions.  Here comes the big question, if geek is now mainstream who are the bullies and cool kids going to pick on?  The geeks are becoming the cool kids.

So in closing it is good to see the old NCC-1701 back on the big screen, if you understand that you are no doubt a long term geek.  It that number puzzles you ask a geek and let him mentor you on your way to geekdom.

Pigs are cute, and deadly. 

So there is talk of changing the name of the “swine flu” so as not to hurt the pork industry.  It seems like a good idea since it is more a bird/swine/human flu anyway.  What name should we use?  I am sure there are fancy high paid folks that are on the job right now coming up with a new name for the “swine flu” but still I think we can take some time here and come up with some new options.

I am inspired by the many name changes in music with these first couple.

Option 1:  The John Cougar Mellenflu

Great name for a flu, although new syptoms my include increased desire to smoke and sudden appreciation for the “Poor Man’s Bruce Springsteen”.

Option 2:  The Puff Daddy Flu

Unlike Puff whatever he calls himself now I hope we only have to rename this flu once.  I also hope unlike Piddly Diddly this flu doesn’t stay around way to long doing crummy reality shows on MTV.

For my next and final idea I can only think of something that would give this flu a name that is more truthful since the “swine flu” doesn’t really work.

Option 3: “The blown out of proportion by 24 hour news networks because they have nothing else to talk about and figure making you panic equals ratings flu.”

I think Option 3 all though it is long will probably be our best bet.  I am going to go have some bacon now.  Please post any more ideas if you have them.

Ok so here is what happened when my wife encountered Dave Matthews many years ago.  Believe it or not my wife once work at a security company and worked a lot of concerts.  She would work backstage and got to meet some really cool people.  She was backstage “protecting” the boys of U2 once.  To illustrate my amazement and wonder at how my wife could work security here is a photo of us.

Yes the one in the pretty dress is my wife.  She worked security, I figured out how once I got to know her.  She can be one tough mama that doesn’t take crud from anyone.

So on with the story,  my wife was “guarding” the backstage area at a Dave Matthews concert and was in charge of making sure no one got backstage that didn’t belong there.  You had to have a pass to get past Christina.  That went for everyone even roadies and band members, managers and family.  So very quickly all of those people understand that this little lady means business and they have their passes in plain view so as to avoid her wrath.  Well not everyone understood who they were dealing with.  Some fella tried to sneak backstage with no pass and when Christina stood in front of him blocking his way to the backstage area demanding a pass it took a moment for him to comply with the beautiful gatekeeper.  After checking his pockets and searching for a pass he finally produced one and showed it to the apple of my eye.  After a quick inspection it was deemed to be authentic and the fellow was allowed to pass.

Now the fellow security guard working the backstage entrance with my wife watched all this take place with mouth wide open.  After the man left and headed backstage he said to my wife “Do you know who that was?”  My wife’s response was “No, should I?” to which the other guard replied “Yeah that was Dave Matthews!”  Yes my wife was working a Dave Matthews show and didn’t even know who he was!  True story.

So I was Mr. Mom a couple of days last week when my wife had to go out of town for a funeral.  This was the first time that I have ever been alone with the kids for that long.  Thanks to the help of my great neighbors Sam and Sara, John and Tish, and Jamie and Adam it was a lot easier than I thought.  I found that if I promised them wonderful things in exchange for good behavior they would act rather well.

I did tell them that if they were good for Mrs. Sara who came over to watch them in the morning and send them off to school while I was at work we would go to the movies.  They were great so we headed to the mall to go see “Monsters Vs. Aliens” and invited Sam and Sara, plus their son Drake to join us.

 The Carmike was showing the movie in 3D so we all got these great glasses to wear.

Drake, Ava and Koen pose for the cover or their upcoming rap album

Had a great time at the movies and went for ice cream afterword.  Ok let me warn you all out there, if you feed your kids popcorn, slushies, candy, soda and ice cream they will become very hyper and run all over the mall.  Why didn’t my wife warn me of that?

So today on the show we talked about Miley Cyrus surprising some fans by showing up to random screenings of the Hannah Montana movie.  That is pretty cool and I am sure that some fans of hers will just be in heaven.

Just so you know if you see Hannah and she looks like this

it’s not her, it is my dad in my daughter Ava’s Hannah Montana wig. 

Me behind the wheel of the Cobra with a good cup of joe!

Let me start this post by saying that it is not paid for by either Ford or Starbucks.  I flew out to Kansas this weekend with my good buddy Sam to pick up his Mustang.  It is not just any old Mustang, it is a 2009 Shelby Cobra GT 500.  I don’t really know what all that means except that it is really, really fast, and you have to put the fancy gas in it.

Sam got the Cobra when he was on midtour leave and it has been sitting in his folks garage waiting for him to get back from deployment.  Let me just say that we wasted no time once we pulled into the driveway of “Vista Del Casador” (that is the name of his folks house).  After grabbing a quick piece of lasagna we headed for the garage and took the cover off the car and fired her up.  The sound was quite impressive compared to my old 99 Bonneville with the bolted on sideview mirrors.  We had to head to a wedding out in the middle of Kansas so we put the pedal to the medal because we were already running late.

We spent most of Saturday running around Kansas looking for gas stations and car washes, he didn’t want his baby looking too dirty and Kansas was in all her dusty glory.  Sunday we headed for home, it is about a ten hour trip but Sam said we could do it in 8 and a half in the Cobra no problem.  I really think we would have made it in that time as well until we hit the big speed bump in our road.

We were up late the night before enjoying some good bourbon and cigars and didn’t hit the hay until about one in the morning.  Needless to say we were a bit tired on the road so we really wanted to find a Starbucks for some coffee and fast.  We looked for miles and miles and not one to be seen from the freeway.  We figured we should stop in Lawrence Kansas because that is a college town and college towns always have Starbucks.  We were wrong, we drove around for an hour looking for the sweet provider of my Venti Soy Lattes and not a single one could be seen.  It was only about two or so hours latter when we hit Columbia Missouri (also a college town) that we saw the green sign beckoning us from afar.

Now I know what you are saying, “Why didn’t you just go someplace else for coffee you Goober?”  Listen, we were on a mission of speed and goodness.  We wanted something and dagnabbit we were not going to settle!  We are men and when we set our minds to something we will see it through!  You also maybe saying “Ryan, you seriously drink Soy Lattes?” I can’t help myself, something during the foaming process makes the Soy taste like the sweet milk of the gods.  Sweet Car, strong coffee!

Ok so I have been a little lazy with updating the blog lately.  In my own defense I have been busy with work and the Roxy.  So now that I am done with “All Quiet on the Western Front” life has slowed down a bit.  I would like to thank all of you who went to the Roxy to see the show.  It was a lot of work but it was a blast to do.  I hope to do another show at the Roxy in the future.  Here are some photos from backstage you might get a kick out of.

Patrick, Chad, Jeremy and I practice our scared face.

Chad gets hold of a wig and looks like the little orphan Annie in uniform

So this morning we talked about CNN’s Jack Cafferty who basically called parents nowadays horrible and our kids are all out of control.  He makes it sound like we are the worst generation of parents ever in this new book he has written.  Crud, just one more thing to worry about now.

I do think that my folks were better at parenting than I am.  My wife is a fantastic parent and all the blame for when our children misbehave is on me.  I only wish my dad had taught me how to do his look.  We always got the “look” when we were kids and acting out.  If we did not yield to the “look” then dad turned into a drill seargent in a heartbeat.  My dad was and still is a rather big man,  not in a fat way but in a solid way.  We learned real quick that the “look” meant that it was time to knock it off or else.

I tried the “look” once with my kids and they laughed at me.  I guess I must have not done it right.  Maybe I looked like I had smelled something funny, or that I was just trying to keep my glasses from falling off my nose.  I was completely discouraged from ever trying the “look” again.  Maybe it was my dad’s mustache that made him so menacing.  I sure hope the stach is not a requirement of the “look”, we all know how tough it is for me to grow facial hair.

where is the other half of my costume?

So tonight is the night that we open “All Quiet on the Western Front” at the Roxy Theatre.  It is not technically the open but a dress rehearsal, but we will have an audience all the same.  The biggest problem I have had with this production is keeping my pants up.

For some reason my pants keep wanting to fall down.  I have to spend most of my time concentrating on keeping my trousers up and when we had a rehearsal in costume the other day a missed a couple of lines while trying to keep my backside from the light of day.  So when people ask me if I am nervous about the show I only answer yes because of the whole pants thing.

 I am rather impressed with the cast of the show.  I have a feeling that a guy by the name of Brady Adair may steal the show.  There is a great scene that he has with Jay Dolittle and Michael Ellison that I think will be the one you remember when you leave the theater.  I would like to say I have something to do with it, but I do not.  You will only catch a glimpse of me trying to crawl on stage to finish out the scene, all the work is done by Brady, Jay and Michael.

 I hope you can check out the show this weekend or next.