a father's day post minus any mention of father's day

So we taught the children's class at our church today (4 year olds I think, but I could be off by a year in either direction) and it just cracked me up. One of the kids in the class is absolutely obsessed with backhoes, excavators, and any other construction equipment he can think of. He spent the majority of the class pretending his arm was an excavator and kept pushing his forearms like he was pushing buttons. He looked like a Junior Terminator or something. It was funny. Anytime we asked a question he'd answer with something about backhoes. Kids just make me laugh. Also, I'm glad I don't teach them every week. I thought getting 19 year-olds to pay attention was difficult!

Also, we rented House of Flying Daggers the other day. Big thumbs up for me. If you liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero then definitely check this movie out. The effects are better and the story is quite a bit more emotional--unlike Hero, which I liked but struggled to get through since all the characters were so mythic and distant. All three lead actors are really excellent (I especially like Andy Lau. Have you seen Infernal Affairs? Scorcese is remaking it with Leonardo DiCaprio, but the Chinese version was pretty dang good, if you ask me). Plus, director Zhang Yimou is one of my very favorites because of the way he uses color on the screen. It's like watching a painting come to life. Each shot is so meticulous and carefully composed. I will definitely be purchasing this one. So check it out.

There are loads of places I would like to visit while we're here in Pennsylvania. The problem is, trips cost money, which is a commodity in short supply. But here are the other places I'd like to go to (or go to again) before we leave next year. They're not necessarily in order, and I'm almost positive we won't get to all of them:

1. Philly
2. Pittsburgh
3. Niagara Falls
4. Toronto (preferrably during one of the film festivals)
5. Falling Water (the Frank Lloyd Wright House)
6. Harrisburg (just for a day or so)
7. Gettysburg (a 2nd time--and this time I'd do the car tour)
8. Hershey (a 2nd time--this time when the amusement park is open)
9. New York City (a 2nd time--this time to see friends and spend more time there, as well as not freeze to death)
10. Boston (probably the least likely to happen in that it's a good 8 or 9 hours away and I hear it's very expensive
11. DC (again--because there's a ton to do in that town, and most of it's free)
12. Lancaster (again--maybe an overnight trip; there was a lot to do there that we didn't have time for, including touching an Amish person)

Numbers 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 will be no problem--we already have at least tentative plans for all of them. 1, 11, and 12 should be doable, though we'll probably need to make an overnight trip out of those visits to be worthwhile. Canada and Boston/New York will take some doing though. We'll have to work hard to make those happen. When we moved here, we thought we'd be here for about 5 years, so we didn't take a ton of trips this past year (except to see family, for the most part). But now we'll probably be moving to who knows where in less than a year, so we've got to get all these trips in right away! That's the hope anyway. I do like travelling, and with our current budget trips like these are way more doable than, say, going back to London or Japan.

The new design has been up for more than 24 hours now. I'm still pleased. This is good.