Movies and Readings: I skipped a week so I will have to cover two weeks worth of activities in this journal. I attended "Bringing Out The Dead" starring Nicolas Cage. Cage was very convincing as a burned out paramedic and displayed touching sensitivity to people caught in horrendous circumstances. If this movie did anything for me it was to make me appreciate living in a small town. New York's underbelly was recreated in abhorrent detail. There were a few moments of humor just because of the absurdity of some of the characters but it is definitely not a film to see if you need a couple of hours of entertainment. I think the trailer for the film was a little misleading because it alluded to encounters with the paranormal but the only paranormal sequence was a drug-induced hallucination. Maybe promoters tried to infer this connection because of the success of "The Sixth Sense". Cage's performance was outstanding. He definitely looked and acted like he had already "left Las Vegas". His wife, Patricia Arquette, however, seemed to drift through her performance. I certainly didn't detect any onscreen chemistry between them. Tom Sizemore's character vacillated between being just plain wacked out to being downright vicious so you had little empathy for him either. My sister tells me I should have gone to "The Three Kings" instead.

I had some free time after attending the ITEC conference in Portland Wednesday so I took in the IMAX presentation of "Mysteries of Egypt" at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Even though it was less than an hour long, the film made you truly feel like you had been to some of the most breathtaking ruins in Egypt. The immensity of the huge theater dome really emphasized the staggering size of Ramses statues at Abu-Simbel. The opening sequence where a procession of Egyptian priests and mourners bearing the sarcophagus of Tutankamen wind their way through the desolation of the Valley of the Kings made you feel like Osiris gazing down on the assemblage of humanity. I also felt like I was truly exploring a cavernous tomb in the sequences where beautiful paintings and hieroglyphs were illuminated by a wandering beam of light as if you were searching through the tomb yourself with a flashlight. It was produced by National Geographic but is actually a totally different presentation than their VHS video by the same name. This is the fourth IMAX presentation I have seen and this film format is breathtaking. I have also seen a film of the Grand Canyon at the Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas, The Dream is Alive, a space shuttle film, at Cape Canaveral, and a dramatic film of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens at the IMAX theater in Seattle, Washington. I could have kicked myself for missing T-Rex when it was also at OMSI. Hopefully, it will return for an encore.

Music: My husband returned from his elk hunting trip just in time to go with me to the Marine Corps Band concert. Of course the John Philip Sousa march numbers were wonderful, particularly the fife solos in the "Stars and Stripes Forever" but I also really enjoyed the salute to Benny Goodman. The young female sergeant on the xylophone was a joy to watch and hear and the young African-American sergeant on the bass was really quite a cut-up too. The saxophone soloist was absolutely amazing but I was unfamiliar with the selection of songs in which he was featured. I enjoyed how gentle the saxophone could be played as opposed to the raucous ragtime tunes in which it is usually engaged. At the close of the performance, the band played a medley of each of the armed forces theme songs and veterans in the audience were asked to stand as they heard their song played. Of course my husband stood up proudly when they concluded with the Marine Corps hymn. He noticed that several veterans had tears in their eyes.

Technology: This week I discovered an amazing web site that enables Windows users to make long distance telephone calls for free. The site, http://www.dialpad.com, is the result of a collaboration between a company that developed voice over IP software and General Telephone and Electronics. They only ask you to fill out a form telling them the types of activities you are interested in so they can target the banner ads on the site appropriately. For example, I checked PC games and educational software, so when I am using the service I see banner ads featuring software titles like Sim Theme Park and Jane's USAF. I used the site to call my sister in John Day, Oregon about 5 hours drive away and my sister in Partridge, Kansas. The quality of the call seems to be somewhat dependent on the quality of the data lines to the location you are calling. My sister in John Day said I cut out a little when I called her from my office where I am on a fiber optic connection but I cut out a lot when I called her from home on a modem. Both my home and hers are out in the rural area and the phone line quality is marginal at best. I have a 56k modem but because of the quality of my phone line I am only able to connect to my ISP at a maximum rate of 26,400 baud so that's an indication of the line quality. However, a friend at work was able to call Dallas, Texas and get an almost crystal clear connection. He said it was a real godsend to him this week because his father is extremely ill right now and Dialpad made it possible for him to call Texas three or four times a day to check on his father's condition. It is at times like these that helping people use new technology is so gratifying.

Miscellaneous: It is my daughter-in-law's birthday this week and she loves ancient history just like I do so I went to the Store of Knowledge, a chain of stores featuring educational toys and games, and found her a 3-D puzzle of an Egyptian pyramid that has clues for construction in hieroglyphics around the puzzle's border. The Store of Knowledge forms a cooperative agreement with local public broadcasting networks and donates a percentage of each sale to them so you are not only buying a unique gift but donating to a worthy cause at the same time.

My daughter sent me an email and asked about Christmas ideas for her father. At first I was stumped for something interesting (besides a new shirt or something) until I thought of his interest in antique clocks. So I searched the web for sites offering clock repair tools or books about clock repair and found a really interesting site: http://www.timesavers.com. They have a full line of products to repair and refinish old clocks and a lengthy list of books about all makes of old clocks. If she selects a gift from their catalogue, I'm sure her father will be pleasantly surprised and pleased.