Matt’s Blog

I’ve always admired the architecture in the Star Wars movies, particularly the massive scale of Coruscant (pictured). Apparently so do the people over at the Architect’s Journal.

Many of  you have been wondering what I’ve been so busy with this summer, well now I can tell you:

http://topsellingauthors.com/world/top_stories/1383/3056/matt_roe

Last night we discovered some of the cool things you can do with a flashlight and the extended exposure settings on your camera:

I came across the following screen on at a gas station after I had finished filling up my car on the way to Texas.

If I push “Cancel” do I have to put the gas back?

Last Saturday I went to see Pixar’s new movie: Up.

IMPORTANT: To conduct a decent review I need to talk about the movie so if you haven’t seen it yet, and don’t want to find out what happens before you do, come back and finish the rest of this post afterwards.

First, I’ve got to give kudos to any movie that can have the audience on the verge of tears in the first 20-minutes without any dialog. Right away you form an instant bond with Carl Fredricksen as we watch him meet, marry, love, and bury his wife Elle. In this story we find the explanation for the elderly Carl who just wants to complete the vision of adventure that he and Elle had dreamed of, but which always seemed to come in second to the demands of everyday life. Instead of dismissing Carl as just another cantankerous old man, we’re drawn into his experience and emotionally invested in his mission to fulfill the memory of his late wife. Add Russell, an ambitious young “boy scout,” who plays the young idealist to Carl’s mature reservation and the stage is set for a redemption story of a depth that I did not expect to see in an animated movie.

It had always been Carl and Elle’s dream to move their house to “Paradise Falls” in South Africa, but as life wore on those dreams had to be put on hold until Elle finally passes away. Carl, now alone and facing off against developers who want to tear down the house in which he and Elle made their life, finally decides to lift off (literally) and complete the vision that his late wife had proposed in her childhood. Carl faces many challenges, but moves onward with single-minded focus on fulfilling their vision until he finally lands his house at the location he and Elle had decided upon all those years ago. It’s only then, while reviewing their old photo album, that he realizes the dream of adventure they had envisioned had already been manifest in their marriage, and that now he needed to do as Elle implored on the last page and “…go and make your own adventure.”

The symbolics of moving on are thick as we watch Carl empty his floating house of all his possessions in order to make it light enough so he can fly to the rescue of Russell who has already set off after the film’s villain.

While there’s a lot more to the story than that, I think that the storyline I described is the part that I found the most interesting. Perhaps it’s because I’m nearing the point where I need to move on, but I definitely felt for Carl as he remained committed to what he thought would put the memory of his late wife at rest. And I understood the feeling of freedom that came when he realized that the only way he could do that would be to let go of all the old and pursue after his calling.

On a lighter note, Doug the “talking” Labrador retriever, is one of the funniest characters I’ve seen in an animated film. If dogs could talk, they would sound exactly like him.

Blog crossover wtih the Pro-Blog about the physical arrangement of my new server system:

http://pro-blog.mattroe.net/?p=117

That’s one heck of a educational discount.

It’s hard for me to imagine now why I didn’t want to rush as a freshman. I even remember stopping by the house my first week at Tech and somehow thinking that I would never, ever “Go Greek”. Now I don’t know what I would have done without it. Even though I officially graduated from Theta Xi two years ago when I completed my undergraduate work, I still feel a part of the house. Probably because I was too cheap to move out :-). Almost every significant relationship I’ve developed at Tech has come from the fraternity, and there are so many good memories that I’m sure I’ve forgotten more than I can remember. Here I will present a semi-exhaustive list of everything associated with Theta Xi that brings a smile to my face that I can think of:

• Formals
• Semi-formals
• Greek Week
• Greek Sing
• Homecoming
• Mock Rock
• “The Hovercraft”
• Diet Coke Sandwiches
• Kitchen Chores
• Unicorn Power
• Intramurals (Even though I have yet to go to a game)
• Catapult (For more reasons than are immediately apparent)
• Football Block Seating
• Halo in Fox and Jones’ room
• DOW With Fox and Jones
• Croakies
• 24 (I learned of Jack Bauer here)
• Scrubs
• Tug
• Front Porch Swing
• Broomball
• The Malibu Mixer
• Steak and Shake (Preferably very late at night and with girls… erm that doesn’t sound right)
• Taco Mac
• Good Beer
• Not-so-Good Beer (“Diet Coors”)
• Rainbows
• Matt Wertz, Jon McLaughlin, Dave Barnes, Anberlin, Cartel, Augustana, Country Music, Diana Krall…
• Front Lawn (Particularly the use of a skid-steer)
• TX Golf
• Monster Golf
• Date Nights
• “Announcements”
• Chapter Meeting Secrets (Some funny, some lame, but all secret)
• The “Make-Out Spot”
• Initiations (Locations and Experiences)
• Moustache Week
• The GTG’s
• Getting the Pig for Rush
• Rush Bingo
• Breaking Femurs
• Rage in the Cage
• Cooking Mealplan
• Re-Tiling The Kitchen
• Road Trips

Honestly, I could keep going for a while, but I have to stop somewhere.

God was so good, giving me a whole house full of brothers to entertain me, help me, grow me, and hold me accountable. When I was a little kid I used to come across my dad’s old fraternity memorabilia in boxes and drawers in the house. I never understood what it was all about.

I understand now.

So it’s been a while. Not that there hasn’t been a lot going on. I finally graduated and walked across the stage for the last time. More on that another time. My parents were in town for that and we got to hang out a little bit which was nice. Although this was likely the last time that they will be visiting me in Atlanta.

Now I’m just hanging out and getting things setup for the move to Seattle. Eventually I need to get a list of things to accomplish this summer together, preferably before it’s over.

I have a bunch of blog posts ready to go so, but unfortunately none of them are available as I’ve been in the midst of a domain re-organization project for the past few  days. Once that’s finished updates should be both more interesting and more frequent.