8/6/04

Well, its been an interesting end to the week for sure.  It started on Thursday morning, when we went up before Judge Collins for the hearing on the adoption.  We were joined by approximately 10 to 15 people for the hearing, including Mom & Dad and my judge.  It went very quickly and was essentially a formality.  I'm proud to be a dad now!!  Their names are now Andy & Kellie Poe-Bowdren!!  I suppose now the real fun begins.  I stayed at work until about lunch time and then we all met up at Chili's for lunch.  We surprised Kim with the old birthday song and a piece of cake.  UGH!  We had truly just begun to eat.  We went back to our house, hung out for a few hours and then went out for our adoption//birthday dinner at Buca De Bepo.  It was another total chowfest with everyone sharing portions of chicken parm, manacotti, chicken marsala & spaghetti.  They did a great skit for Kim's birthday where the waiter came out with a candlebra and had everyone in our section sing to Kim.  It was pretty funny.  Before we rolled ourselves home, we took my parents on a drive down A1A to show them the way that Ft Lauderdale beach has changed since they lived here.  This morning I got up and went to work for a totally unimportant meeting, did about 3 hours of work and headed for home.  I served as Mom & Dad's tour guide for the afternoon as they wanted to drive over to Plantation and get a look at the old homestead and we stopped for lunch at Red Lobster (MMMM!  Biscuits!).  I don't think the two of them were real impressed with how Plantation has changed.  Can't say that I blame them for that.  Back home for a little relaxation and then we went and saw Andy get presented with his brown belt in tae-kwan do.  He did a presentation for all the parents present, since he was the highest belt being graded.  Really amazing how he's progressed.  After that, we went and picked up Mom & Dad for....you guessed it...more eating (I'm going to be bigger than freakin Oprah by the time the weekend's over)...this time we stopped at Outback.  Good Lord...just get me home and let me recover from all the food.  Dropped Mom & Dad back at the hotel.  We had a super visit with them.  I think they were (and are) very proud to call Andy & Kellie their new grandkids.  And I think the kids are happy to have a new set of grandparents.  Especially with the gifts they got after the adoption   :)

Time for our continuing look at my top 10 movies of alltime.  Let's review so far:

10) The Shawshank Redemption
  9) Rear Window
  8) Outlaw Josey Wales
  7) The Godfather 1 & 2--hey, so I cheated a little bit.  I'd call it "The Godfather Saga", except comparatively speaking the 3rd movie is so friggin awful that to mention it would bring down the list.  Actually its only terrible in comparasion to the other two movies in the series.  Its not really horrible, its just that the first two are so good.  The 3rd one features a strong performance by Pacino & Andy Garcia, but is really hurt by the performance in a key role by a then film neophyte Sofia Coppola.
Anyway, back to the first two movies in the trilogy.  I would say that 90 to 95% of guys who do lists like this will include these two movies in their top 10.  Besides the great performances by actors like Marlon Brando, Pacino, Robert Duvall, Robert DeNiro, James Caan and others....there are the scenes and the quotes that some people take almost as codes to life.

"Never, ever go against the family Fredo."

"Leave the gun...bring the canoli."

Both movies are excellent but together they are film history.  The definitive look at crime and the american immigrant.  *****

Later,

Jeff