I think what I liked most about Up is that it’s really a good-natured movie. Not a mean bone in its body, even the villain isn’t too horrible. In fact you feel kinda bad when he meets his typical bad-guy fate.

There’s probably a way to either have my Facebook posts appear here, or vice versa have these posts go into Facebook. But I haven’t had time to figure it all out yet.

Plus it helped that this time Tom Hanks had a decent hair cut. Apparently they fired whoever did his hair styling from Da Vinci Code, because in this movie it wasn’t distractingly ugly like it was in that earlier film. Amazing what a huge difference a little thing like that makes.

One thing you definitely noticed was that a lot of the shots of Rome appeared to be CGI. St. Peter’s Square was definitely a CG throughout. Not sure if that was to save on the cost of location shooting, or if the Vatican simply did not give them permission to film. Given the subject matter it’s probably the latter. But it did look like a CG in several places, which was a little distracting.

Overall though a much better effort from all involved than Da Vinci Code.

It holds up well to multiple viewings, though of course I’m a fan-boy so my judgment is clouded. But I really think they did a good job with this reboot of the franchise. Now of course let’s see if they can make a good sequel or two.

And I’m pretty certain there will be sequels. At least one — Paramount didn’t spend all this money rebooting the series just for a one-time thing. They want to squeeze more money out of the franchise.

Now first off, I only saw the actual dentist for maybe two minutes. He came in after the dental hygienist had spent over an hour collecting x-rays, scraping and polishing my teeth, etc. He only spent enough time to just verify what the hygienist had already told me — that my gums were actually in pretty decent shape and that I had just a couple small cavities I need to take care of.

It was a surprisingly good check-up, considering it has probably been five years or more since I last saw a dentist. This is my first time since moving to Nashville, and in the three years I lived in Louisville I never went. So that means the last time I went was when I was living in the San Francisco Bay area. That means at least five years ago, probably longer.

The other nice thing is that my dental plan covers everything — the x-rays, the cleaning, the polishing, all of that. Now when I come back in a couple weeks for the fillings there will be a $50 co-pay. But all things considered it’s a lot less expensive than the last time I had to go. If it isn’t going to cost an arm-and-a-leg each time, maybe I’ll make a regular habit of this dentist thing.

It rained out our canoe trip this afternoon. We were supposed to go on a team-building exercise, a picnic followed by a canoe trip down the Harpeth River. We still had the picnic part, luckily they found a sheltered picnic area in a nearby park. The food and the company was actually nice — it really is the best team of people I think I’ve ever worked with. CNET came close, at least in the early days, but even that wasn’t quite as comfortable and supportive a group of people as this.

We all agreed we’d like to re-schedule the canoe trip for later this summer. When it’s warmer and hopefully drier.

But this year the IRS beat Kentucky. The Federal refund showed up in my checking account yesterday, which was also pay day. Made for an unexpectedly large balance when I went to pull out some money from the ATM.

In fact this is the fastest that I think I’ve ever received the federal refund — less than two weeks from the time I filed to the time the IRS direct-deposited into my account. I wonder if that’s part of the stimulus plan, to get refunds into the hands of taxpayers as quickly as possible? I had thought that since I filed so late, the refund would be delayed due to the crush of other late filers.

So now the question is how much later will Kentucky’s refund arrive? Like most states I assume they’ve got budget woes of their own, they aren’t exactly motivated to turn around refunds that quickly. They have to manage cash flow carefully, I’m thinking there’s a possibility the refund won’t arrive until May. So that the hit to state revenue happens as late as possible. It’s only a couple hundred dollars but every penny matters to the states these days.

I ran a marathon a few year’s back but hydration wasn’t that big a problem. Mostly because it was raining throughout much of the run. For the Nashville marathon tomorrow no such luck - a warm sunny day is in store.

Unfortunately I won’t be in town to watch the marathon. Made plans already to be in Atlanta for a quick getaway weekend. Just two nights, tonight and Saturday night. So I’ll have to try and catch it next year.

So anyway, I went to the Mio support site when I got home. Mostly to see if there’s any software updates or patches I have to install for the thing. And when I was looking through the FAQ, one of the items on the list was:

I see fetal error on my screen what should I do?

A “fetal” error? I’m quite certain they meant “fatal” error.

Seriously, if you’re going to run an English-language site make sure you hire at least some people who speak the language fluently. Don’t have to be native speakers but they should be fluent.

The funniest part is that the P550 is a discontinued product at least here in the US. So it’s been out a while, meaning this “fetal” error has probably been listed on the support site for a couple years or more.

Of course I did not sit down to work on my taxes until a couple weeks ago, last weekend in March. That was when I first noticed the missing W2. If I’d gotten an earlier start, like in February, I would not have been pushing up to the very last minute like this. So it’s not all Humana’s fault, though I do like blaming somebody else.

The Federal taxes I actually filed yesterday electronically. But for Kentucky, they apparently don’t let you submit partial-year returns electronically. So that I had to send through the mail today. I got it certified so that there’s proof I mailed it prior to the April 15 deadline.

I’m getting a little refund from both the Federal and State returns. Not a ton but enough to maybe pay for that vacation I’m hoping to take in a couple months.