Light The Cauldron

The best years of my life? That's a hard question. Here are the options:

My pre-school years were the best years of my life.

Sure, I was born four weeks early and had to spend a week in the hospital getting into fighting shape, but I was born to a great family! I had an older brother that loved having me around, and we lived in a great area. My parents moved us to another great area in Michigan just a few months later, which was even better! Now I was closer to my extended family, who all loved me and wanted to hold me.

And what could make it better? A little sister! A little baby sister that my brother and I fawned over. Someone that we spoke up for and did everything for, even when we probably should have been letting her do it herself. I got to spend all day every day with my mother, and my father was home for short periods throughout every day so I got to see him too! I got to go to work with Dad sometimes, and I'd spin in his spinny chair and crawl under the church pews.

Y…

Non-Stop

Release Date: February 28, 2014

Who was in that one again? Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery

I can't remember the plot. A US Air Marshal (Neeson) goes on a trans-Atlantic flight to London and someone texts him, saying he'll kill one person every 20 minutes if 150 million dollars isn't put into an account. Unfortunately for the Marshal, all signs point to him being responsible for these problems.

The review: It takes a lot for me to watch a movie at home, start to finish, without picking up my tablet or computer and browsing. I don't lose any plot points because I kind of already know what's going on.

Not in this movie. I stayed focused on it from start to finish, and I still was second-guessing who the hijacker was. Was it Neeson's character? The stewardess? The other Marshal? The cop? The redhead? This is definitely not a predictable movie. Great action, not too much gore, and very much a thrill. I love thrillers.

MVP: I'll g…

If you have ever participated in a teenage sleepover - or at least surfed on the Internet for random, stupid things - you have probably come across the game that I am going to tweak a bit today. The game has been known for its many forms (some of which I can't type here), but the basic premise is that you're offered three people, and you have to decide which one you'll marry, which one you'd date, and which one you'd kill.

This can be a very difficult game for some people, especially because one of the choices has a very negative result. If you have three people that you like, how can you choose the one you'd kill?

Let's be rational here for a second: you'll never kill this person - and it's highly unlikely that you'd marry or date the other two (especially if they're celebrities). But why don't we take this game and play it to my strengths?

Namely, a music game?

I came up with this when I was flying back from Minneapolis and a great wee…

This weekend marks the end of an era in my family. We are all gathering in Minnesota to watch the youngest member of our family in the final musical performance of his school career.

Musicals have always been a huge part of my family's life. We were raised to love musical theater and saw many touring productions that came through Detroit. While our mother can be credited for passing down her singing and acting talent that she used when she was growing up, our father gave us our passion for musicals. He never acted in his life, but he has known and loved musicals since he was a kid, and that love has not waned.

Viewing Musical Theater

The earliest musical I can remember loving was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Other musicals that I was aware of, like Oklahoma! and The Music Man and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers were from thirty or forty years earlier, and Joseph seemed like a new-fangled kind of musical (even though it actually was born in the 1970s). My parents bo…