The Van Gogh Immersive Experience

My kids often lack culture in their lives. The Moose is all about sports. Pedro Tulo would be happy watching MLW Wiffle Ball, Dude Perfect, and Mr. Beast videos on YouTube all day. Luigi enjoys Paw Patrol and Wild Kratts. None of these activities or interests have much to do with art, theater, or music. So after hearing good things about Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, I decided to get tickets for a family adventure.

Our initial plan and tickets were for late December. Unfortunately, Pedro Tulo was a COVID close contact from someone at his school and because of Christmas, there was a delay in getting the test results back. While he was ultimately negative, we were able to move the tickets to this past Sunday.

The first few rooms were fine. They showed replicas of many of Van Gogh's works and even created an actual room of the Bedroom in Arles painting. There was a lot of text about Van Gogh's life and the paintings, but my kids were more interested in just looking quickly and seeing what was next. And then we entered the "360-degree digital show" room. 

Sensory overload! And they loved it. In the video, you can hear Pedro Tulo share his excitement. Then, we went to a room where you colored your own Van Gogh work and take a picture to put it on the big screen. I did not intend to make Van Gogh look like a White Walker from Game of Thrones!

Overall, the kids enjoyed it. This was definitely something different for them and was more interactive than many other art exhibits and galleries, so that was a huge plus. Next up, maybe we can find an orchestra or symphony concert!

Cicadas Are Here

It was only a few weeks ago when I wrote that the Brood X cicadas are coming. Well, they're here. We spotted our first cicada on Saturday and found more and more each day.

We have a common area on our street with more than a dozen trees. There are shells and live cicadas on the trees and especially on the small plants below them. They are really everywhere now. What's interesting (at least to me) is that they aren't flying yet. They also aren't making any noise. I guess I should expect them to be flying everywhere and being extremely loud in the next few days and weeks.

The kids are fascinated by them. Three year old Luigi calls them 'cadas and is very conscious of not stepping on them when walking on his "balance beam" which is really the painted yellow curb separating the sidewalk from the street. If he sees a cicada on its back and struggling to flip over, he wants me to help. 

A friend on Facebook posted a picture of a blue-eyed cicada that she found. Who knew that there are white walker cicadas?

Oh, there is also a fungus that's making cicadas sex crazy. So basically, there might soon be millions of sex-crazed white walker cicadas. Winter is coming!

Who Wore It Better - Part II

Breaking news: Michael Phelps is really good at swimming. But, how does the Olympic great match up against the Night's King from Game of Thrones?

So who wore it better? You make the call!


The original who wore it better between the Night King and Mike Tomlin is available here.

Phelps photo by Laszlo Balough of Reuters.

Who Wore It Better?

During Sunday's Steelers-Bengals game, Coach Mike Tomlin was confused and perturbed by a call. He expressed his displeasure by making the gesture below. However, who "wore" this expression better: Coach Tomlin or the Night's King from Game of Thrones?

You make the call!

Thanks to @steelersnat for the Tomlin picture.

Maybe A PG-13 Dinosaur Train?

During my recent haircut, the barber/stylist was making conversation, and somehow, the topic of my kids came up (as in my wife is watching the kids right now as I'm out gallivanting around town getting a haircut and going to the grocery store). It started with the typical stuff like gender, age, do they like snow, and then this happened:

B/S: What does your 3 year old like?

Me: Mostly dinosaurs and trains.

B/S: Awww. That's cute. Has he seen Jurassic Park?

Me: Um, no.

Now the barber/stylist is probably in her 20s and clearly hasn't spent much time around young kids. Dinosaur Train is much more of my son's speed than Jurassic Park, a PG-13 movie with scenes like this.





I mean, sure I let my infant watch Game of Thrones, but I don't think my 3 year-old is quite ready to see Jeff Goldblum in a movie.

Sean's Best & Worst of 2014

Many television shows, magazines, websites and newspapers have best and worst of 2014 lists. Well, I do too!

Best Movie I Saw In The Theater: Gone Girl. A well-made film with a huge twist. Great acting by Neil Patrick Harris, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry & Emily Ratajkowski too.

Worst Movie I Saw In The Theater: Gone Girl. I liked the book much better. Yes, I only saw one movie in the theater in 2014.

If you think my list so far is a bit ridiculous, I encourage you to stay here. It gets better. Possibly.

Best Song: My rule is that the best song must be from a video that I posted on my blog. I actually didn't post many videos this year, but I'll take The Walker by Fitz and the Tantrums slightly over Vance Joy's Riptide. And yes, I realize that the video for The Walker was posted on YouTube in October 2013, but I don't think I first heard the song until 2014.



Worst Song: I think I'll go with Anaconda by Nicki Minaj solely for her desecrating Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back. I just hope that Sir Mix-a-Lot got paid well for this. (I don't even want to share this probably NSFW video here.)

Best Sports Moment: The Pirates reaching the playoffs for the second consecutive year, highlighted by Josh Harrison excelling in rundowns.

Worst Sports Moment: The Penguins leading the Rangers 3 games to 1 in the Eastern Conference Finals only to lose the next three games and scoring only 3 goals in these games.

Best TV Show: Game of Thrones. HBO had a free preview this spring, and I was able to record the entire first three seasons. It took me a few (okay, more than a few) episodes to figure out who was who, but what a show. Now I need to watch season four. Honorable mention to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a consistently funny show.

Worst TV Show: Anything on Bravo. I can't stand any of the people on that network especially any housewives or Vanderplumps or people that work on a boat or sell houses. Bring back West Wing reruns!

Best Book I Read: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This is the summary: "Unbroken is a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war in several brutal Japanese prisoner-of-war camps." Any of these could be its own story, yet all of this happened to Zamperini. All of this is just unbelievable. I'm hesitant to see the movie since I don't know how it will work. To fully tell Zamperini's story, I don't know how the movie can be less than 5 hours. Honorable Mention: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. A fun Forrest Gump-esque book.

Worst Book I Read: I didn't read nearly as many books as I would have liked in 2014, so I'm the worst for this category.

Best Blog Post: My post on becoming a dad for the second time along with the 6-month update. I still like my idea of bringing a Pittsburgh festival to DC too.

Worst Blog Post: My post congratulating someone named William Tell on marrying Laura Conrad. Exactly.

Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!

Fatherhood Update

You may remember back in April that I wrote about my second child arriving into this world. (This sentence makes it sound like Superman coming to Earth from Krypton. I'm okay with this!) Of course, you may not remember this since I've barely mentioned him on the blog. Now that "Pedro Tulowitzki" is 6 months old, let's take a look back on the past half year.

For the first month or two, I was convinced that my son hated me. Much of this was because I was not his mother and could only provide so much assistance and support. Apparently, he didn't value my ability to change diapers or rock him to sleep.



Ever since he could smile, things changed. I just love making him smile and laugh, and I have been rather successful in accomplishing this (well, at least the smiling part).

As much as I think that Pedro Tulo loves me, I'm no match for his older brother. Pedro Tulo LOVES his brother and thinks he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, he doesn't know anything about sliced bread, so the greatest thing since his own hands which he enjoys putting in his mouth.

I know I shouldn't do this, but occasionally, I'll let Pedro Tulo sleep on me. He should probably nap in his crib, but it's a nice feeling.

In the early months, I often gave Pedro Tulo the "last" bottle before bed and watched Game of Thrones during this time. I clearly deserve Father of the Year for letting my infant watch Game of Thrones.

I'm really looking forward to the days of sleeping in past 6:00. Yes, Pedro Tulo still does not sleep through the night.

On a related topic, sleeping like a baby is a stupid statement unless the individual means that he/she woke up once or twice during the night and didn't sleep well.

Pedro Tulo now has 5 first cousins (plus his brother) all under 3 & 1/2. He's going to have a lot of fun with them as he gets older. I sense some mischief in the future.

In 6 months, he has had 2 or 3 ear infections. I write 2 or 3 since the last one was either a 3rd ear infection or the 2nd one never fully went away despite the antibiotic.


Pedro Tulo - If you're reading this in the future (or even now), you have no idea why I'm referring to you as PT, but don't worry about that. You certainly let us know when you need something and are quite loud in letting us know this. However, when you are happy, you are truly very happy and have an infectious smile. You are loved so much. Now please sleep until 6:30 or 7:00 this weekend!

My DVR

Back in the early days of Sean's Ramblings, I wrote several posts complaining about good television shows or sporting events featuring Pittsburgh teams airing at the same time. Each time I wrote one of these posts, I received comments that I should get a DVR. They were right. Besides electricity, the DVR may be the greatest invention of all time. These days, with the exception of sports, it's rare that I ever watch live television. Unfortunately, I'm way behind in my DVR-viewing, and it shows that the DVR is only 14% free. I need to remedy this quickly, although the pending arrival of a new child will make this difficult. Challenge accepted! Let's take a look at what's filling up my DVR.

- Season 2 (12 episodes) of Homeland

I recorded this during a free preview of Showtime. I haven't seen season 1 yet, so these episodes just sit on the DVR until I get Netflix or hope that there's another Showtime preview that airs the entire first season of Homeland.

- 24 episodes of The Middle

I saved all these episodes since this is a show that my wife and I used to watch together. She is no longer interested in watching this show. I'm so far behind, that a recent episode I watched showed commercials for future ABC shows Zero Hour and How to Live With Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life. Both of these shows have been cancelled for nearly a year!

- 8 episodes of Modern Family
- 5 episodes of Archer

- Season 1 of Game of Thrones

I had a recent conversation with a friend where he said that he watched the first season thanks to a free preview of HBO. I replied that I missed out on recording the shows. Guess what? I didn't miss out. I just completely forgot they were there.

- Nancy & Tonya

I wonder if in this version of the retelling of the figure skating drama, Nancy Kerrigan arranges to have someone attack Tonya Harding.

- The Bro Mitzvah episode of How I Met Your Mother and a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Bill Buckner. Two excellent episodes that I didn't want to delete.

- A Jeopardy! episode featuring a good friend of mine. I should probably delete this, but how often do I get to see Alex Trebek giving my friend a nickname?

- Multiple episodes of Little Einsteins, Thomas & Friends and Dinosaur Train.

Best used during snow days. Plus, I'm so happy that there are now shows other than Little Einsteins that my son will watch.

During every free preview of HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc., I record movies. For example, I recorded the Academy Award-winning The King's Speech...in January 2012! Maybe it's time to watch it.

Other movies on the to-see list include:

Zero Dark Thirty
Looper
Wreck-It Ralph
Life of Pi

I've got work to do!