One Hour Photo

     Sorry for being late on this update, dear readers. I  was out of town for the week of spring break, Princess Consuela Bananahammock (as always, names have been changed to protect those that claim to be innocent) and I took the kids to Grand Forks, North Dakota to visit some old friends we don't get to see nearly enough. The second winter in NoDak sucks every bit as much as second winter here. (I find it ironic that I posted a blog about the weather in Montana only to immediately go visit someplace that turned out to be worse.)

    While we were out of town for that break, we had some renovations started in our home, and I returned to find the house torn to pieces and without access to indoor plumbing of any kind. Over the last few days, we have slowly been putting rooms back together, and the renovations are almost complete, but the last room to be finished is the laundry room. (long aside here. A quick google uncovered that the goddess of laundry, actually the goddess of cleanliness in general is Hygieia. [Her name is the source of the word 'hygiene'] So from now on, when you face a mountain of laundry, you can shake your fists at the heavens and scream "DAMN YOU HYGIEIA!!") 

Nothing says 'Hygienic' like feeding a snake on your lap.

    There is a perfect storm of laundry in my house right now. With the laundry room out of commission, four full suitcases of dirty laundry, and a week (or two) of procrastination on my part before leaving for NoDak, we are very nearly out of wearable clothing. (I am, in fact, at this very moment wearing basketball shorts as boxers because I have no underwear.) None of this has anything at all to do with the story I want to share today, just explaining why I'm so late posting this.   

    This particular event happened a few years after Princess Consuela and I got married. One thing that anyone who knows Princess Consuela will tell you, is that she likes to take pictures. Like lots of pictures. Of everything. She was taking pictures of her food before it was cool. 

    In late 2009, we were living in Havre Montana. Princess Consuela was doing her clinicals at the hospital, I was taking a few courses at the local University, but mostly just being useless. The princess had been contemplating getting her digital pictures printed for several months. (This was during that nebulous time with cameras when people would still print most of their pictures they wanted to keep, not just shuffle them from device to device forever.)

Gone forever is the dramatic reveal in the darkroom.

    At this point, we had been together for 6 years. That's six years of road trips, barbecues, birthdays, holidays, new outfits,  basically anything you could imagine, captured as ones and zeros on her hard drive. (to this day, one of her greatest fears is losing all her photos in a computer crash) One fateful day, Princess Consuela decides the time has finally come to have all of these pictures finally printed out, so that she can make a full encyclopedia's worth of photo albums and scrapbooks.

    So she does some internet searching, and she discovers that the local Walmart has a feature where you can upload your digital pictures directly, and pick them up printed from the store. (convenient right?) So Princess Consuela uploads all her photos to Walmart. Literally thousands of photos. Every. Single. One. Then she clicks the little box that says "One Hour Photo" and hits 'Submit'. No extra charge, no file size limit. Just arbitrarily promised to be ready in an hour.

    At this point, I can only imagine the photo department Walmart employee losing their shit. I don't know who put that button their website, but mistakes were made.

    We didn't show up at the store 60 minutes later, demanding our photos.  We watched some TV, we had a dinner out. Perhaps three hours later we walk into Walmart, ready to grab a few groceries and pick up these photos. But as we walk in, we are stopped by a young woman. She places her hand on my shoulder gently and says, "Your order isn't ready yet."

    This woman wasn't wearing a Walmart vest, she didn't have the khaki pants and blue shirt, nothing that indicated in any way that she worked there. My mind went blank trying to think of who this woman was, how she knew me and how she knew I had ordered anything at all. But slowly, it dawned on me, Oh! This must be the woman who works in the photo department. She recognized us because she has been staring at us for the last three hours. She knows us, man.

    

Your order isn't ready and you should go.

    Another hour later, we headed home with our photos, laughing all the way home about the poor woman whose night we had inadvertently destroyed. 

    I will try to get next week's blog out on time. In the meanwhile, I've got lots of laundry to do. DAMN YOU HYGIEIA!!

'Spring' in Montana

     I love living in Montana. I always have. The stunning vistas, the open spaces, the lack of people - all great. But this morning, mid-April mind you, I woke up to find an inch of snow. And so I begin upon the one thing that bugs me more than any other about Montana, the weather. Today marks the 3rd 'false start' of spring so far this year. 

    Over the weekend it was sunny and 70 degrees out. I broke out the shorts, I got the yard raked and cleaned up. The wife and I started planning where we might take the four-wheelers, or where our first camping trip of the season should be. Instead I had to scrape the snow off the car and lament over all the things I'd left on the porch that are now covered in snow. (and Princess Consuela Bananahammock is not happy with me about that.)

It's a thing.

    To a lifetime Montanan, the weather channel is a 24 hour comedy network. I still find it so amusing to watch shots of some icy hill where car after car after car hits the same patch of ice and crashes into the ever growing pile of cars. And several years ago, there was a blizzard that brought 4 inches of snow to Atlanta Georgia, and the entire city had to shut down. a measly 4 inches and I was entertained for weeks. (seriously it took them weeks to recover from 4 inches of snow)

    As funny as I find it to be stranded by four inches of snow, (Tip for driving on the highway in a whiteout, put your right tire on the rumble strip and drive, baby!) I can only imagine how I would react if I were caught in a tornado or a hurricane. I doubt I'd be so flippant then.

Road Construction and Fire seasons last much longer than indicated.

    My parents eventually gave up on the eternal winter and retired to Phoenix Arizona. I seriously doubt my father has seen snow since. He refuses to visit us between the months of September and May. (there is a very good chance it will snow during those 8 months of the year, and a moderate chance it could snow during the other 4 months) And sure he doesn't have to shovel the sidewalk anymore, but now he has to deal with 120 degree heatwaves, which sounds much worse to me than an inch of snow mid April.

He continues to disagree.

The Greatest Movie Ever Made

     I have a great love for pop culture. Huge parts of my personality have evolved from the movies and TV shows that I watch over and over again. My wife has movie amnesia. (She will insist repeatedly that she's never seen a movie we watched together the previous week.) I have the opposite. I have an almost uncanny ability to memorize line-for-line any movie that grabs me in a single viewing. (In high school I once orated 'The Matrix' word for word to the kid who sat behind me in math)

    While there are many great movies, and the debate over the best movie ever will never truly end, my personal favorite movie of all time is The Big Lebowski. If you have not seen this masterpiece, stop right now and watch it. This article may contain spoilers, and you need to experience the majesty this great work of art has to offer. Go watch it now.

Best movie ever? That's just like, my opinion man.

    Wasn't that great? The movie is hilarious, but only through repeated viewing did I pick up a few of the greater one-liners in the film. (Brother Seamus? What, like an Irish monk?) I have seen the movie several dozen times, and phrases from this movie still make it into everyday conversations I have. (whenever I see some new decoration at a friend's house, I will tell them how it "really brings the room together") But after doing some research, I found that this movie has one of the most dedicated fan bases of all time.

    The movie was not a record setter by any means. It only made 46.7 million at the box office, off of a budget of  15 million. It didn't win any major awards, it wasn't even nominated. (though it is certified fresh on rotten tomatoes, and is on imdb.com's best movies of all time list)  Most of its popularity came after its release to home video, as word of mouth spread. 

    The reason that, to me, this is the best movie ever, is because it is still making appearances in pop culture, despite the fact that it came out almost 25 years ago. (The Shawshank Redemption is my 2nd favorite movie, but no one talks about that anymore) Content creators are still making references to this masterpiece, and they never fail to make me laugh.

A screenshot from My Little Ponies - The Dude's cutie mark is a rug!

    The more you dig into The Big Lebowski, the more there is to find, and the more impressed I am at how big an impact this movie made.(Side note: at this point, I had to take a break to make myself a White Russian.) Every year there is a gathering of like-minded people at a festival called Lebowski Fest. Members of the cast are known to attend the fest, with Jeff Bridges even performing music from the movie with his band. (His band is called Dude and the Abiders.)

    But this movie has gone beyond the physical into the spiritual. That's right, this movie spawned its own religion - Dudeism. Over 600,000 people have been ordained as Dudeist Priests, and the religion is pretty much exactly what you might expect. Their major tenets are relaxed lifestyle and pacifism. And of course, the dude himself shows these traits exceptionally well. Opening of the movie, two thugs break into his house, break a door frame and the bathroom floor, shove his head in his own toilet , and piss on his rug. And all the dude has to say in response is a few cutting sarcastic remarks. (Hey, at least I'm Housebroken!) I seriously doubt I could have responded so coolly. I would have been inarticulate with rage.

Dudeism.com - the official website of the religion if you are so inclined.

    My wife and I have this adorable(I think) habit of naming our pets after our favorite fandoms. We currently have 2 dogs: our oldest is Penny, named after The Big Bang Theory. Our puppy is now about 7 months old, and we named him Jeffrey Lebowski. Of course we call him the dude, duder, or el duderino if we're not feeling into the whole brevity thing. I love everything about this movie, and I intend to love it for the rest of my natural life. Well, I finished my White Russian. Be right back, I'm just gonna go find a cash machine.