You know it's going to be a long week when you wake up Monday morning and the distance between it and Sunday night was a blink. Then, laying there listening to the whirly sounds of Playhouse Disney emanating from the downstairs, you try and make sense of the dream you just had, where you went for a vacation on Maui but just rented an empty field for lodging. It was boggy, and rain was coming, but you were trying to make the most of it... Anyway, as you make your way downstairs, you come up with an elaborate and hella-detailed plan to get everything done this week, but then your wife derails the train of thought with: "It's going to be a busy week. I'm going to need your help." There's dentists appointments and swim lessons and vacillating customers who are just putting your mortgage on hold... Then you check your email and it's filled with all the friendly obligations agreed to last Spring, under quieter skies. I almost turned to the Little Ditchman and broke the bad news: Sorry kid. WALL-E's going to have to wait some. There's no time. There's no money. Looks pretty good, though.

BUT oh well, that's life and it's a good one! I've always been a busy person, so it's nothing new. I've always been a complainer, too, so I'll have to work on that. (But whatever would I blog about? Now there's a good blog: The Most Significant Complaint)

Speaking of complaining, I got an E-mail late Saturday night from a customer complaining about how I broke the column during the install last Friday. I wasn't finished yet, and hadn't gotten around to repairing the mistake. Don't you love it when that happens? These things are so poorly designed, they always break in the same place -so I'm getting pretty good at repairing them- but I need to print this on the backs of all my construction t-shirts: "PLEASE HOLD ALL CONCERNS AND CRITICISMS UNTIL THE CONTRACTOR IS FINISHED WITH THE INSTALLATION". It might work.

It doesn't work in life, however: Please wait until I'm seventy-six before criticizing me. I'm not done installing myself yet. You'd just get laughed at.

Also, the customer had a defective beverage cart.


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Well, Friday hasn't seemed to matter much in the past month or so, but we do still change gears around here so it at least feels like the old routine. June will end on Monday and then there's -wait for it- ...JULY! That should be fun, with its fireworks and all -that is, if we can fit them in to the busy schedule. I just realized that makes next week a short week, so I'll probably still be a couple days behind for most of the next month, that is, a couple of days behind on the r&r and personal projects, but caught up on work. No matter. There's nothing on TV anyway and I can get a few things done at night before an early bedtime.

There's not much in the news either, now is there? That's a good thing, actually! Peaceful, happy times put all the journalists out of business, you know. Then again, if they all just took a year off, we might just enter an age of beauty, peace and prosperity immediately and altogether. The economy would rebound! But no, let's dwell -that's good news reporting.

Speaking of old news... I'm doing some work today on a beautiful house in a gated community that last year's fires licked pretty hard. His neighbor's place is gone, boulders on the property are charred, and the surrounding palm trees are only beginning to come back. He was pretty cheerful about it, and grateful, I guess. It must've been a horrifying time for him and his family, filled with fear and flight. Now he just looks out at all the devastation and comments on how the neighbors are planning on rebuilding, what a mess it was to clean up, how he's having some old friends over this weekend for a barbeque, how a patio cover will be nice. I picture them out there this weekend with that blackened landscape behind them, while they pour drinks in the sun and flip steaks, laughing about something else entirely.


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Sometimes when life keeps throwing curve balls, you just throw one back -which is why the Ditchman family got in the truck and drove to Vegas Monday night after work. There was something that only slightly made sense about it, which was enough justification for us. You see, the family business had a Spring Special! (Those are some sweet beverage carts, right?) Unfortunately for the marketing and planning department, we didn't brace ourselves with the inventory, leaving us at Spring's end unable to find any beverage carts less than three hundred miles away.

But a Las Vegas merchant had 14 in stock! We needed five or six of them, so we trucked out there with the trailer and picked them up Tuesday, stopping in at the manufacturing plant on the way back to load up on some more materials and introduce the aluminum workers to the clan. And we have some family out in Sin City, so we were able to stop in for a bit there and say hi. On the way back we pulled the truck off the highway in Baker, California to get some garlic-stuffed olives at ALIEN FRESH JERKY -just down the street from the Bun Boy, and across from the world's tallest thermometer:


It read 98 degrees when we were there.

Head north out of Baker on Highway 127 and just before Death Valley you'll find yourself skirting the fence of AREA 51, the nation's repository for crashed flying saucers and preserved alien specimens. It's a hot, empty landscape out there -so don't go without jerky! Year's ago, some genius decided to capitalize on the UFO enthusiasts passing through and just started selling jerky and nuts and honey and the enterprise took off (though, not literally.) Mrs. Ditchman and I made it a point of stopping every time we drove past, back when it was just a shack and an alien mannequin, back before the billboards read BEST JERKY IN THE UNIVERSE for a hundred miles either way.


Now, the place is a success story, the entrepreneurial spirit of roadside America in full swing! There's more than a few alien mannequins and flying saucers in the parking lot, some informative placards with UFO facts (California has twice the UFO sightings of any state in the union!) and you can get all things "alien" at the store. (I've had my eye on an "Area 51" mug for some time. Next time, I'll buy it for sure.) There's a whole building for the place now, and another building going in next door, complete with "Alien Fresh Coffee" and a "Galactic Cyber Cafe" for passing Vogons. The place is pretty funny, with people always stopping by to get snapshots. I wish I'd thought of it! (But on second thought, I couldn't handle the commute.)


Why jerky? Well, what do you think the aliens do with all those abducted cows, anyway? But the garlic-stuffed olives are good and the bathroom is clean. It's really all about the bathroom, I think, because when it's all said and done we're not capitalizing on the local alien population, but the boring length of the highway in proportion to the average earthling bladder capacity. If you build it, (a clean bathroom) they will come (and pee.) It's America.





It was a crazy idea, and it worked. Dropping everything and going to Vegas to procure a truckload of beverage carts worked, too, as it was just the distraction needed to jump-start the stalled interest in the current overwhelming workload, even though we're another day behind schedule, now. My sister was meeting with some friends in Cabana 5, poolside at the Marriot, so after we did our business we thought we'd join up. It took me all of a minute to unwind.




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Well, there's just been a lot of everything. I think this will be one of those years we'll be glad to pack away come December, but in the distant future the photos will come up on AppleTV and we'll gaze in awe at them and think, My what an amazing time that was. That's life. The mind has a way of disappearing the tough stuff (ask any woman who's given birth) so we'll all be okay to move on to the next pitfall, but old pictures have a way of reminding us of the finer things. I commented recently how we never take photos of the tough times in life, yet there are plenty of pictures of us smiling, people with their arms around each other staring straight at you, as if looking into the future to remind you specifically how fun this or that was. In this day and age with all of our pictures as bits and bytes on a hard drive or Sandisk card somewhere, it's something of an un-fun chore to sit down in front of a computer and look at old pics -which is what's so great about the AppleTV. You grab dinner and move to the couch one lonely night, and there it is: your fun life floating slowly past. And with all of the low times cropped out.

Years ago I heard of a study that asked elderly people what they wished they had done differently in their lives. Two things rose pronouncedly to the surface: they wished thy had risked more and they wished they had reflected more. Risk more, because life is so short, but reflect more? This came as something of a surprise to the researchers. Reflect more because, well, life is so short. Sometimes you have to stop, take it all in, and pull focus on what is -and was- good and right in the world. And there's plenty of it.



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Friday! I should really have some movie thoughts or Indiana Jones thing to slap on here, filling out the "Movie Week" theme. I don't, really. Sorry to disappoint. Last night I turned on the TV to see what was going on and it was just all dreck. There is actually a show called "Celebrity Circus". I won't bother explaining the premise, but isn't that what's always on?

I'll be back out in the heatwave today, installing four, eight-foot high, round, Roman columns. Tapered. With Tuscan cap and base. They're not centered on the spa, they're centered on the house. The spa is not centered on the house. This is a point of much contention for my customer. Would that we all had such problems.

And I'll be back at the Circle this weekend, taking care of more of the home makeover epic. It's no Indiana Jones, but it is the adventure of our lives, with its highs and lows, snakes and ladders, fears and furies. I still entertain the thought that, come the conclusion of our life, we'll be sitting in that great moviehouse in the sky watching the flick that is our biopic. The Music of the Spheres for the soundtrack, the camera angles lending beauty and perspective to all that was so confusing for so long, and God Himself will edit out the boring parts. I'm not sure if anyone else will be in the theater with me, but I can think of a few who might.

Anyway, for now, until God tears the ticket and hands me the stub, the cameras are rolling. It keeps me humble. (I hope.)



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Saw it last night. Actually took the kid to a sitter for once and went out for a nice date with Mrs. Ditchman. She stayed awake for the whole thing. There were plenty of commercials before the film, but no cel phones. I had my box of Red Vines. We sat below the stadium section so I could look up at the screen and have it fill my field of vision. I enjoyed the volume. It was the first movie we'd been out to see since some Harry Potter flick in November of 2005, before the Little Ditchman was born.

Roger Ebert's review said plainly, "I can say that if you liked the other Indiana Jones movies, you will like this one, and that if you did not, there is no talking to you." That sums it up. Who in the world sees the title and thinks, "Well, that sounds like an interesting flick!" and then after viewing: "Hey that was fun! I should check out those other 'Indiana Jones' movies on video!"? No one does, unless maybe you're eight. And unless you've been stuffed in a lead-lined refrigerator in the Amazon or the vacuum of space on another dimensional plane entirely, the trailer is here (If you can find it behind all the commercialism.)

The first one is still easily the best, but yes, I liked it. It was fun. It was no genius, life-affirming tract that I could wrap myself around, but it was satisfying. Good movies always leave me with nothing to say about them. They're just, well, good. I have to digest them for a long while and then compare/contrast them with something similar. Bad movies I could talk about forever. You can judge how I feel about a movie by how much I have to say about it, more or less, and this movie I could talk about for maybe 15 minutes. (That's a good sign!)

So, yes, Indy is older now. We've seen this shtick before and I was mostly worried it wasn't going to work, but they pulled it off, somehow. There are actually a few nice moments where Indy reflects on his age and it works great, but when you think about it, the age thing was always an issue, even back to Raiders. Remember Marcus Brody commenting on how he misses all their old adventures and he wishes he could join Indy on this one but he's getting too old for it? And Indiana's famous line, "It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage." rings true throughout the films and reminds one that Indiana Jones is just Indiana Jones -a driven man at any age. Thankfully, Harrison Ford didn't die his hair for the film, so the gray is there and it's real, but I would've appreciated it if he had put a little bit more effort into his acting -some scenes are just phoned in. (And in some cases, teleconferenced -where whole scenes are poorly acted by everyone on camera.)

But it's Indiana Jones! There's Cold War Russians and the Atomic Age, and rainforest natives and spooky caves and magic relics and, yes, (oh God, no) even space aliens -but it all has that Indiana Jones feel to it. The sets are colorful, terrific, and the camera swoops around the car chases with some inventive Spiebergian shots. The effects are great and there's some real stunt work and the CG is kept to a minimum (only a third of the movie, according to press notes). And then there's the music. That music! John Williams is the best thing in the movie.

Side note: the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has called for the film to be banned, accusing the production team of demonizing the Soviet Union. Awesome. I mean, how dare you demonize a government that brutally murdered millions?

I noticed that each of the Indy films has a slightly different feel to it, but they all basically work. I think I liked the first half of this movie better than the second, and in trying to ascertain why that was, I came to the conclusion that there were no sidekicks in the first half. The success of the first Raiders is partially that Indy has no sidekick throughout. He's a lone hero, mostly working on his own, with no one bringing him down but his nemesis. This one has sidekicks, sidekicks, and more sidekicks -seems they've added to the number of sidekicks with every sequel- thus diminishing Indy's stoicism and inflicting comic relief on Jones and, really, all of us. That laws of physics-defying slapstick and "comic relief" I have been very critical of in the Indiana Jones sequels, but forgive me, I thought Indy was a man who never got any relief? In Raiders, Marion actually says, "We never seem to catch a break, do we?" No! That's one of the reasons it is so bitchin and he is so badass!

And, you're not going to believe this, but in what was probably the second scene, Indy's hat comes off and rolls over. How clean was the underside? VERY CLEAN. Man, it bugged me. And then it happened again a few scenes later. And then again! And then again! I got over it two-thirds of the way through the flick and thought, "Aww, well." And then, amazingly, in the very last scene, the hat rolls over for a final time, and Indy picks it up and puts it on -and it was totally clean inside. I must say it seemed a tad bit dulled, but clean nonetheless. Perhaps Indy has it professionally done after every adventure, eh? Probably. But I'm sure it was Steven Spielberg himself, cornering me and staring me down, "None of this is real, kid. It's a movie. Now go home. Live out the adventure of your own life." If you've seen the movie and know what happens in the final scene, you know what I'm talking about. Indiana Jones is not coming back for any more adventures.

Walking away from the theater I commented to Mrs. Ditchman that I didn't really have that magical Indiana Jones feeling that I got when I was a kid. I mean, I felt it a little bit here and there, but...

She said, "Well, you're older now."

I guess I am. But it doesn't make me want my Adventure Spoon any less.



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Hey look! it's the AFI Top Ten Top Ten list!

This three hour TV show was on last night and I made it through about the first hour and a half before doing the dishes became more important. Top ten lists are always fun because they're always so disagreeable, but I tend to view them as somewhat educational. I mean, if all the "experts" are getting together to vote on what's "important", don't you want to see how your opinions jive with the experts'? And if there were ever a set of Experts who really knew how things work in the world, it's Movie Experts.

Well, they didn't ask me. This list rides the line of mind-boggling and asinine, and reading it you can easily fall off either side of the horse. First they come up with the "Top Ten Genres", which is awesome because I didn't realize there were even ten genres to begin with. Seriously, did you know "animation" was a genre? I mean, I suppose it is. I always thought it was a technique, personally. I guess "Foreign Language" and "Black and White" didn't make it into the top ten genres. And we have "Courtroom Drama" and "Gangster" here, which is fine, too, I guess. Still, "Movies Located in Peru" and "Movies with Incas" could fall into that sort of categorization method. Note that there is no "Action" or "Adventure" genre, thus excluding anything with Indiana Jones. What genre is Raiders of the Lost Ark anyway? Why is all this important again?

I am particularly bothered by the "Sci-Fi" genre which the American Film Institute defines as "a genre that marries a scientific or technological premise with imaginative speculation." Look, I went to college. Did the AFI experts go to college? No, they went to AFI. This is why they put E.T., Back to the Future, and Star Wars on the Sci-Fi genre list. Excuse me professor, those movies are all fantasy. It should be obvious. Please explain your decision. The truth is, half of those Sci-Fi movies on the list are fantasy and the other half are only vaguely literate science fiction (except for Blade Runner and Terminator 2.) If they had just defined Sci-Fi as "having something to do, even remotely, with outer space" then you'd get no argument from me. It's always bothered me that no one understands what Science Fiction really is. Clearly, I have been wrong all along. I take back what I said.

Sports. Fine, it could be a genre. You have the underdog destined to win, either through contest or triumph of the spirit. He is the Everyman with a talent in a game. It conflicts with his home life, but his passion to win will make him complete, inspiring the world around him. But hey, I suggest we define it somewhat more loosely, like say, "films with protagonists who play athletics or other games of competition," that way we can slip Caddyshack in there at number seven and disregard that boring Chariots of Fire flick altogether. Or The Natural, anyone? It's shocking that Blazing Saddles didn't make it into the Top Ten Westerns, but that would so easily make it onto the Top Ten Comedies list.

Oh wait, "Comedies" didn't make the Top Ten Genres. Neither did "Musicals", "Horror", "Thrillers", or "Documentaries".

"Epic" is a genre. "Boring" could also be a genre. Most of these films are actually pretty good, but so are so many other films that vaguely have an epic sensibility about them. "Mystery" is a genre. "Noir" could also be a genre, but no one knows how to pronounce it. "Arthouse" could be a genre. Then we'd actually have a place for Blue Velvet, instead of having to shoehorn it into "Mystery." There are a bunch of Hitchcock films in there. "Hitchcock" could be a genre. When we run out of lists, we'll just have the "Top Ten Your Favorite Director/Star/Writer/Whatever Movies." Raiders would finally make a few lists!

These lists must make AFI a lot of money, because they keep putting them out. Bored people like me keep watching them, too, so I guess I blame myself, but I just like to see a bunch of my favorite scenes from a bunch of great movies all at once. It's my attention deficit disorder. I was hooked last night when they showed scenes from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -a terrific movie, and a total pleasure to watch. Rent it.

Here's a genre for the ADD set: "Top Ten Montages of Sweet Movies."

And everyone in Hollywood will agree, Precious Images is number 1. It's eight minutes long and a feast for the senses. It makes movie lovers weep every time. If you've seen a lot of movies, it will rock your memory cells. Most of all, it will remind you how great movies are, what great movies are, how many great movies there are, and why top ten movie lists are so utterly meaningless.




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