My Top 100 Favorite Movies of All Time (updated Feb. 26, 2012)

# 1. To Kill A Mockingbird
# 2. The Passion of the Christ
# 3. End of the Spear
# 4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
# 5. It’s a Wonderful Life
# 6. Star Wars (All Star Wars Movies)
# 7. Saving Private Ryan
# 8. Fireproof
# 9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Trilogy)
# 10. Regarding Henry
# 11. When a Man Loves a Woman
# 12. Les Miserables
# 13. The Story of Us
# 14. Mr. Holland’s Opus
# 15. The Shawshank Redemption
# 16. The Godfather (Trilogy)
# 17. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
# 18. Arsenic and Old Lace
# 19. 12 Angry Men
# 20. The Princess Bride
# 21. The Dark Knight
# 22. Up (animated)
# 23. The Help
# 24. I Robot
# 25. Secondhand Lions
# 26. Amistad
# 27. Primal Fear
# 28. A Few Good Men
# 29. The Hunt for Red October
# 30. Toy Story (Trilogy) (animated)
# 31. The Man From Snowy River
# 32. Amazing Grace
# 33. Steel Magnolias
# 34. Facing the Giants
# 35. How to Train Your Dragon (animated)
# 36. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (All Harry Potter Movies)
# 37. Jaws
# 38. Dances With Wolves
# 39. Mississippi Burning
# 40. The Silence of the Lambs
# 41. The Incredibles (animated)
# 42. Dave
# 43. Time Changer
# 44. Remember the Titans
# 45. Schindler’s List
# 46. Ghost Busters
# 47. Despicable Me (animated)
# 48. Apollo 13
# 49. A League of Their Own
# 50. Star Trek (2009)
# 51. Jurassic Park
# 52. Doc Hollywood
# 53. October Sky
# 54. Chicago
# 55. Rudy
# 56. Finding Nemo (animated)
# 57. Hotel Rwanda
# 58. My Cousin, Vinny
# 59. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
# 60. Glory
# 61. The Right Stuff
# 62. L.A. Confidential
# 63. Casino Royal (All James Bond Films)
# 64. The Prince of Egypt (animated)
# 65. Field of Dreams
# 66. Inception
# 67. Avatar
# 68. Monsters, Inc. (animated)
# 69. Gone With the Wind
# 70. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
# 71. Big Fish
# 72. Charade (1963)
# 73. Shall We Dance?
# 74. The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
# 75. The Alamo (2004)
# 76. A Walk to Remember
# 77. The Last Emperor
# 78. Parenthood
# 79. Chicken Little (animated)
# 80. Harvey
# 81. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
# 82. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
# 83. The Matrix
# 84. Sherlock Holmes
# 85. Dead Poets Society
# 86. The Rookie
# 87. Courageous
# 88. Eight Men Out
# 89. Life is Beautiful (La Vita e bella)
# 90. Fantasia
# 91. Easy A
# 92. The Last of the Mohicans
# 93. A Beautiful Mind
# 94. Halloween
# 95. March of the Penguins
# 96. The Nativity Story
# 97. Captain America: The First Avenger
# 98. Rain Man
# 99. Napoleon Dynamite
#100. Cars (animated)

Happy 45th Birthday To Me!

Today I celebrated my 45th Birthday! I didn't do anything terribly exciting; however, thanks to a special that Totino's Pizza is currently featuring, I got a free movie rental from redbox. Even though it is not considered a "manly" movie, I decided to rent the movie The Help. Turns out this is one of the best movies I have seen in a while. In fact I added it to my list of my favorite 100 movies of all time. It is getting harder to make that top 100 movie list. Only three movies I saw last year made the list. (I will post my updated list again tomorrow. My top 20 appear at the bottom of my blog.)

I have a few goals going into my 46th year of life; Getting out of debt is the number one goal. Another goal is to work full-time again, which will help with the debt goal. My son Caleb is going to be a Senior in High School next year, so helping him, and Rachel, who will be a Sophomore, prepare more for college will be high on my list. Getting him a decent used car for Caleb to drive is also on my list of things to do. As always, keeping in touch with Jamie and working on our marriage is very high on my list of priorities.

I Am Such a Geography Nerd

I have already indicated I am a political nerd, by posting about presidential candidates, in the past. Now I admit to being a geography nerd as well. I recently found a web-site that allows you to test your knowledge by naming all 195 independent countries of the world (196 if you count Taiwan, which is technically part of China). Can you Name the Countries of the World?

I recently tried my luck and I could name 179 countries without any assistance; although, it did not count several of my answers because I could not spell the name of the country correctly. Some of them are hard to spell. I didn't know I knew that many. The two newest recognized country on the planet are Kosovo and South Sudan, by the way.

There is also a link to name the 50 United States if you wish.

President's Day at the Dallas Zoo

Today my family and I spent mos of our President's Day at the Dallas Zoo. They were having a special "Penguin Days" promotion going on (due to the colder weather), where admission was only $5.00 per person.

We saw plenty of snakes, lizards, alligators and frogs in the Reptile House, including one big albino gator. We also saw plenty of birds in the aviary exhibits; however, most of the other animals were being a little elusive. Although the weather was over 60 degrees, some of the animals were inside the closed off sections of their enclosures or were grouped together in the farthest corners of their enclosures. I am assuming this was their, or the zoo's, effort to keep the animals warm. We did get to see some elephants and plenty of giraffes, which are always cool to see, and we saw some very smelly warthogs. The big cats were hiding out or sitting in places that made them hard to see. We really wanted to see the cheetahs, lions and tigers, but all we got were glimpses of them. The gorillas (photo above) were mostly indoors; although we did see one gorilla sitting forlornly by himself on a stump. The chimps were the same way. The lemurs were hiding out, but the flamingos were out in their full pink glory. We did see two very curious meerkats who came very close to the edge of their exhibit. Somehow we missed the kangaroo area. The new Koala exhibit opens in the spring.

Today was still a fun day with the family and we hope to return in the summer, when maybe the animals will be more active.

Woo-Hoo! I'm Going to See Jimmy Buffett in Concert

I am so excited; I just purchased two tickets to go see Jimmy Buffett in concert. He will be in Dallas on April 19th.

I used to listen to Jimmy Buffett as a kid, but I really became a fan when I was attending Tyler Jr. College. A friend of mine was a real "Parrothead" (fans of Jimmy Buffett are called Parrotheads) and he listened to Jimmy Buffett all the time. Now, after all these years I finally get to go see him in concert. I will blog more about later, as the concert day approaches. Yea!!!!

Words With Friends and Other Stuff

Recently I finally decided to get in on the latest internet/online game app around; Words With Friends. Darn it, now I have 6 games going among family and friends. It is an online version of Scrabble and it is very fun and addictive. Since I do not have an I-Phone or an I-Pad, I have to play through my Facebook Account.

Other stuff: My wife and I do not like the new Starbucks Blonde Roast Coffee. We tried the Willow Blend and found it to be very weak and it just does not taste right. Sorry, Starbucks, nice try but as far as your coffees go; Blonde is not better.

Jamie and my, Mystery Dinner Date was fun. We hope to do this again sometimes, maybe with the entire family.

I also substituted to the first time with Mansfield ISD today. It was only a half-day assignment; however, it is work and hopefully it will lead to a full time job with the district soon.