As a huge fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune, I’m hesitant about film and TV adaptations. I mean, really, how do you do justice to such a grand epic??

I don't have nearly as many photos for you today. It was a slow, relaxing day and I tried to stay off my phone as much as possible save for driving directions.

I can’t believe we’ve already hit the final full day of our vacation. Where did the time go?? Well, enjoy these photos. I may have more tomorrow from our departure. We shall see. 

Here are some photos from day 4 of our trip. Enjoy!

I'm really not sure what to title this post. I chose “LA01/03” because it’s my first generic post about days 1 and 3 of our trip to the Los Angeles area (Disney was day 2).

We learned how to use Lyft really, really early this morning. Not because we wanted to, but out of necessity. Ugh. 

Remember the old days of going to a pizza parlor and drinks were served in those translucent red plastic cups with either the logo of the parlor or a soda logo on them?

Do you remember that post about early morning walks and sunrises? Sometimes, even when it's dreary, it's still beautiful...

I find it kind of funny the memories that music evokes. Be it a personal experience that you tie to a song or some other media like TV or movies. 

Last week was another one of those situations where I really wish social media had better time stamps for posts and comments. As it stands, it could’ve been Kazza on IG or Eric K on FB that got #MiniMoviePosterMonday right. So… both?

Oh phew! Just when I thought I missed taking Nathan the 7-Eleven today for 7/11 and free Slurpees, I found out that, for the second consecutive year, there was no event held. 

For years -- heck, decades -- Hollywood has sought to reboot the venerated Fletch film franchise that starred Chevy Chase in what I maintain was his best role ever. He was perfectly cast as investigative reporter Irwin M. "Fletch" Fletcher. You'd swear author Gregory MacDonald wrote the books with Chase in mind. 

Almost any time I log into LinkedIn, I see information about new followers and conversations related to accounts for my employer. 

Six years ago, Katie’s family treated us all to a Father’s Day morning at the track. Arlington Race Track, more specifically. It was my first and only time ever at the track as I do not like gambling and only deal with horses via the Kentucky Derby on TV. 

Admittedly, I’ve always felt a little anxiety when it comes to vacations. Be it the planning of the trip itself — hotels, activities, transportation, travel docs — or the prep at home to have everything ready for when you go — packing, clean up, security, mail stop, thermostat reprogramming, letting neighbors know — or getting work responsibilities done…

It's time once again for everyone's favorite web show... STATE AN UNPOPULAR OPINION!

Okay, I admit last week’s #MiniMoviePosterMonday wasn’t entirely straightforward. I was scraping at the end of the night to post something and grabbed a case that was near our TV instead of digging through the library. 

Okay, so I’m reusing a photo from Memorial Day. But it works very nicely to help commemorate the 245th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from those British bastards (I keed! I keed!).

How often do you find yourself watching something that you know is gonna be bad, that just reeks of pure camp going in, yet, for some odd reason, you wind up loving it anyway?

We discovered that we were lied to by whatever site it was that said we could use those 13-year-old forever passes we got at Disney World for our trip to Disneyland. I mean WTF! It's on the web, so it must be true, right??? (le sigh)

30 days up, 30 days down. And just as quickly, we’re into the second half of 2021. 

As predicted, May raised the bar high. Too high. Unsustainably high. And I paid for it in June. Paid ugly. 

No, not the social media site that is supposed to be a portal for professionals to network with like minds and find jobs, that's LinkedIn (although after using LinkedIn for three job hunts, I can safely say it has not gotten me a single job). Also, no, not the neighborhood in Chicago that plays home to one of my favorite pizza joints around (Piece Pizza), that's Lincoln Park. 

Holy crap! Week 26! We’re halfway through the year now??? Ugh.

Contrary to what I may have said previously, it looks like we are going to a theme park while we are in California next month. And the winning choice? Disneyland. We're even going to try to do both parks in a single day. 

Today, we went on our first family theater outing since the opening weekend of Disney/Pixar’s Onward in March of 2020. We saw Disney’s Cruella, the live-action origin story of Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians. 

Katie and I are big fans of the 2019 version of Charlie’s Angels directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska.

I got a pop-up on my phone about an hour ago of a like on an Instagram photo I took from a name I didn't recognize. About 15 minutes ago, I received another notification of a comment on a photo from another name I didn't recognize. Both were attached to the same image in my account.

Remember how last year I said I wasn’t going to do my Kevin’s 7 Film list because of how the pandemic affected my film watching? I didn’t want to do a list that would wind up being only kids movies and bad teen melodramas.

Early morning walks are the best. Few people. Little to no traffic. No construction sounds. And views like this.

Our former next door neighbor, Mike 1 (or “Mike” of “Mike & Ike”) was first with Jumanji. I was happy that a few different people guessed it correctly. I enjoyed snapping that one. 

And how do we celebrate Father’s Day? Hunkered down in our lower level bathroom hiding from a tornado warning caused by a storm hitting us now that may or may not have produced a twister one town south of us and rotation due west of us that is heading east. 

If there’s one nice thing I can say about the current era of “entertainment personalities” on YouTube, it’s that they can certainly keep kids’ attention spans for long periods of time. Otherwise they’re god-awfully annoying, screaming, whining, attention whores that I cannot stand and that keep me from making YouTube a regular destination when I’m surfing. 

Annual physicals. Blech. That is all. 

It was about 11 years ago that I attended my one and only Brickworld LEGO convention in Chicago (actually I think it was in Rosemont).