10 Months flew by...

Alex is really growing up fast. He's got Ma-Ma and Ba-Ba down. He can move himself around the house by crawling on all fours or by holding furniture and shuffling sideways. He's ten months old and is almost walking! He drinks out of sippy cups and almost nothing bothers him. I love being a Dad. =) Its the best thing I could ask for on a bd.

Ramblings...

School has been really REALLY different than what I am used to. We are writing and discuss so many things that are opinionated instead of factual that it is almost not school to me. I have to write a 4 page paper on how I applied a managerial skill to a situation at work. I need to explain how equality in the workforce affects the moral. About the only thing factual is my accounting class which itself feels like I am in kindergarten (assigned seats, participation points, when we ask a question the prof does not know how to answer - she makes us give her an answer that we "think" would be fair)... Its just really odd. I'm so used to having confident teachers that care about the students learning their material and now I'm thrown into classes "taught" by researchers who don't know how to teach, and are more concerned with writing their books (literally) than the sucess of the class... It should be a fun three years.

On the gaming scene, LOTR Battle for Middle Earth and Freelancer have been put on hold so I can finish LOTR The Third Age for PS2. It's been a more mindless game that really helps me wind down. Plus I can stay downstairs with Totem and Alex instead of disappearing up to my office...

I've just finished updating Gentoo on my laptop. After I got wireless working, I updated KDE and basically everything else on the system. The only task now is to get WEP working so I can actually use my own wireless network at home and not have to bum the neighbor's open wireless connections. I also got a new toy. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have a DVD Lightscribe drive in my hands. I'm looking forward to it for the snazzy "labels" I'll be able to make, but more importantly, it will do more than my current DVD burner. I found out last week that the old HP 600i dvd burner (which I have), can ONLY write to DVD+RW discs. Not DVD+R, DVD-R, or DVD-RW. It took me awhile to figure this out, and a lot of misc media purchases, but I'm glad I have a "modern" burner coming so I can use all the media I bought and have not been able to use. ;) Plus I get to do lightscribe and DVD DL too! =)

Alex is getting huge. =) He has his own personality and LOVES to giggle. He's even showing the "dog salivates when you ring a bell" type stuff too. I'll pick him up out of his crib in the morning and he starts smiling and laughing. If I don't have a bottom there waiting for him, he starts screaming. ;) And I think he's going to like cooking b/c he sure likes to BAM!!! =)

Life is a game of chess...

Keeping as clear as mud as I usually do...

I honestly believe I'm a pawn in my chessboard of life. It sucks being on the bottom and being use, abused, and sacrificed. It almost seems common place now so much so that I expect it.

There is one huge bonus when you are a pawn though... When used properly, they can be put into great situations where a move they make can be critical to their life (IE: upgrade to rook, knight, bishop or queen) or detrimental to their opponents (IE: checkmate via a pawn).

I'm in a position to take check. I'm thinking this is pretty awesome. I have the chance to win the game but on top of that be one of the "little pieces" to actually do it. What's better is that I am also in the position to be sacrificed. This of a pawn making check on a King. Why can't the king just take the pawn? Because the pawn (me) is being backed by the queen... And a rook... And two knights... And a bishop... AND three pawn buddies. (Is this even possible in a real game of chess?)

So on my chessboard of life, I'm posed to make a major move.

A.) Do I risk losing the protection and support I have from all my fellow chess pieces to move into the spot that will let me upgrade my role in the chess game??? Obvious loss is all the outward protection I have earned while moving along the board.

OR

B.) Do I stay back knowing that the support and guidance is still there from all the senior chess pieces knowing that I can't advance my role immediately. Obvious loss is the ability to give back and support all the other pieces (including those dear to my heart).

Option B is where I think I am going to head. Option A was extremely tempting but after I announced my intention to make a move, all of the powerful chess pieces made it clear that they would support any move I make, but wanted to let me know that I still have a place of protection in my current spot.

Why the hell am I writing about this? If the queen, rook, knights, and bishop had not spoken to me, I would have made the move without a second thought. But since I told the rook of my intentions, who told a bishop, who told the knights, who notified the queen, and then they all progressively sat down with me to talk about my reasons for the move, one by one, made me realize that they do hold my position of a pawn as powerful and valuable to them, something I had not felt in the past. (Beat that run on sentence. =))

Sad times...

"In Biloxi, Mississippi, Harvey Jackson told [the media] that he believed his wife was killed after she was torn from his grasp when their home split in half.

"She told me, 'You can't hold me, ... take care of the kids and the grandkids," he said, sobbing."

I teared up after reading this...
The story...

Observations...

I'm definately in a different mindset in gradute schol then I was in for undergraduate and even high school...

People would always tell me that high school was the best time of their lives... I think it was my worst. I didn't enjoy it. I felt pressured to go to school and "perform" to someone else's standards. I honestly think the only skill that I actually learned in high school was how to bull$hit. It is four years of my life I want to forget.

Undergraduate college was the best four year of my life IMHO. I had a great time. I met a TON of friends and felt good about what I was doing. But I still attended because I "had to". You can't get a decent job anymore without that magic peice of paper. So while I enjoyed the four years and loved doing what I did, it was still something that was just assumed you had to do.

But my graduate time, while still only in its infancy, is turning out to be completly different. The students and even the professors are in a different mindset. Everyone works and understands that you work (it is a night program). The work load is a different kind of load since I'm used to engineering type assignments. Still tough, but a different kind of tough... More importantly, I wasn't forced by anyone or any group to attend. I chose to go to grad school on my own to better my career. That is definately something I cannot say about my bachelor's degree or high school.

It's also very motivating. I'm encouraged by the different style of classes and the way thing work out. I'm very excited for the coming years. And, when I finish it all, I hope I can walk away feeling content and happy with what I just accomplished. Instead of just walking away saying, "OK, now I have a degree, my magic piece of paper. So what do I do now???"

Sensitized...

I don't know if it is the becoming a father thing or the I'm just getting older thing but I'm really getting sensitive to crap that goes on in the world...

1- Whenever a story comes up on the Internet about babies dying or mothers getting hurt... I watch them closer than any tech story I can find...
2- For some reason, the Discovery Health channel and all their baby shows are a lot more appealing now...
3- Watching people not take care of their baby or do things in public that I could never dream of doing, really REALLY bug me now...
4- Drug use. 'Nuff said. I don't want to talk about it, but if you know me in person, I'll tell you...
5- Extended family can be a blessing and a cruse now more than ever...
6- I guess the old saying that I will never really appreciate what my parents did for me until I had my own kids really is true.

And more stuff... I is really wierd, but reassuring, how much views change when your own baby is involved. And ask Totem, it happened for me overnight. She was worried about going home because I never wanted to hold my nephew for fear of braking him... Now I carry my son around on one arm while doing other things with my other arm. Jay says I look like a football player running down the field clutching a football. =)

Time... Lack there of...

Everyone was right when they said there would be no time for anything with a baby. (Except for time with the baby which right now is AWESOME.) Everything has taken a back seat so I can make sure Totem and Alex are getting the help they need. Computers, Journal, Gaming, all are on hold.

Surprisingly, I'm not upset at all. The same time consuming stuff happened back in college and high school and I would get frustrated when I didn't get some time to so them, but not now. I guess I'm enjoying being a father. ;)

Change is on the way though. Yesterday was Alex's baptism and the last of all major parties that we are hosting until his birthday party. So no more planning, running around like a chicken with its head cut off, or struggling to get everything packed on time. This weekend Totem and I are going on a vacation with Alex to celebrate our 1 year anniversary (it does not seem like it has been a year)... When we get back, all we have to do is get all the Thank yous written up and then focus on the fall, balancing school, my baby, and my job in one. I'm looking forward to the challenge because a lot of good things come back like just sitting for 10 minutes in a lounge to check email, and driving around thinking about the world, and spending time at home when I come home after a long day. Should be fun...

Priorities...

As expected, things have greatly shifted in terms of stuff to do and stuff need to do and stuff required to do. But surprisingly, everything is better than ever...

The computer and gaming have taken a much needed back seat. Now I only really get a time to sit down and play in the evening when Totem and Alex are asleep. It work out nicely. I don't have a huge amount of time to play so I get to look forward to relaxing at night. And on the flip side, I have a baby monitor at my desk, so when Alex get fussy for his 1AM feeding, I get off the computer and go feed him. It's like a reverse alarm saying "Daddy get off that computer, feed me, and then get your a$$ in bed so you can feed me again at 4AM!" ;)

But in terms of the family life, everything is running smoothly. Alex is a great sleeper. He does not really fuss that much at all. When people ask me if I am getting enough sleep, the answer is almost always no, but its like being back in college where I got 4 hours a night, so really it is a yes. ;) He's about 50/50 with ebm and formula. Bowels work wonderfully. :\ And he's growing. Last check about a week ago he was 6 lbs and 1 oz, above his birth weight and was 1/2 in longer. I still can't get over how perfect he is. That wna the proud feeling I get when I watch everyone's face who gets a chance to hold him. It's an emotion that cannot be described but every other dad in the world nows exactly what I am talking about...

Hopefully I get back into journalling so I can get this site whipped back into shape...

Damned good excuse...

...for not posting in such a loooong time. Three words...

Completly unexpected. Totem went in for a stress test on Wednesday the 8th and ended up spending the night because of high blood pressure and contractions less than 3 minutes apart. She called me right at 5PM and I ran straight over from work. I didn't go back. ;) She labored (pain free) for most of the dahy on Thursday until later in the afternoon when her blood pressure climbed to 179/110. The doctors were nervous about toxemia and decided that a C-Section was the best plan of action for the health of the baby and of Totem.

This was a huge let down for Totem... She really wanted to deliver vaginally. Fortunately, someone was feeling her pain and about 20 minutes before the scheduled section, her water broke. So regardless of the delivery method, Alex was coming on June 9th.

June 9th, 2005. 8:26PM. 5 pounds and 8.6 ounces. Alex was born. Check out the last shot in the first row...

Videos were taken. Pictures were taken. Hugs and kisses were given and the evening was amazing. I know know what all those father's are feeling when they smile and are speechless. =) I am so happy that words cannot describe it. It's just a miracle.

We stayed at the hospital until Monday the 13th (yes, I slept at the hospital with Totem every night) we Totem and Alex were discharged. We've made it through two nights now. Everything is going smoothly. I'm getting used to the sleepless nights but I'm not angry. It worth it for a glace into my Son's eyes. That sounds so wierd...

And thanks for Acwmaiden who brought up the fact that I get to really celebrate Father's Day this weekend... ;)

If anyone wanted to see some more pictures, head over to my Sister-in-Law's photo gallery at:
http://simpledreams.net/photos/ajalbum/

The last three weeks...

Where do I start... The last couple of weeks have been a different kind of hell for me. Nothing really stressful, which is a GREAT thing, just extrememly busy. I actually at one point last week stopped and thought back to college where I would go from place to place and work on project to project stressing out over getting things done. Now, I'm realizing that instead of stressing out about getting things done, I'm just moving around twice as much. It's almost robotic unfortunately. Wake up. Head to work. Leave work to goto second job. Head over to parents house to work on third job. Come home and sleep. Wake up, etc... I'm not stressed at all but time is flying because I'm doing so much. What's worrying me is what am I going to do when Alex gets here??? :\

Workplace. I've taken on a ton of new resonsibilities. Which is a good thing. It kind of guarantees that I'll be keeping my job, instead of being laid off for outsourcing... I can't talk about anything for risk of what could happen, but all I know is that I'm starting to feel like a pet. One that is acknowledged with a treat for doing something good, but reprimanded for responding to situations that I think I should be. IE: A dog who is given a treat, but yelled at for giving paw while receiving the treat. There are days where I wonder why I am still here and days where I wouldn't want to work anywhere else. It's just difficult to work sometimes. But I can't say anymore...

Gaming. Final Fantasy Online is gone. I needed one group activity and an anrgy wife to make me quit. Almost three weeks ago now, at 8AM on Saturday morning, I let Totem sleep in while I went upstairs to play. I came back down at 3PM after I accomplished absolutely NOTHING. First of all, I didn't eat. I didn't even take a shower... :( Yeah, the addiction that I've been warned about is showing itself. But what bothers me more is that for 6 of the 7 hours I played, all I was doing was trying to get other people to go on a quest with other players that I had joined up with. When we finally had the 20 people we needed to go on this quest, we ran there, enterred the mine where the objective was... And got slaughtered in 3 minutes. 6 hours for 3 minutes. Yeah, I was let down BIG TIME and never logged in again. Now before anyone goes off and just calls me a stupid n00b, this quest had a level cap and we had a bunch of level 70+ members in our squad. All knew what was going to happen and knew how to play the game, but because of the level cap (IE: everyone's rank who was above 20 got dropped to 20), everyone just didn't survive... Well... at all. Plus, I really didn't believe at first that I played for 7 hours before even saying good morning to my wife. Bye Bye Final Fantasy Online.

Enter Dungeon Lords. Not much of a switch unfortunately... Its not a massmog but it should have never been released to the public. IMHO it should still be in beta. Many of the ingame features that are talked about in the manual are not finished in the game. And the bad thing is that some of these features are missing from the character creation screen so right off the bat a bad first impression is set in (I felt really bad about buying this when I found out this "feature" wasn't a bug, and then it was intentionally left out and covered up by a game patch). I haven't gotten too far in the game, but normally when I get home and don't really have an urge to get on the computer and play it, for me, thats a bad sign...

Third Jobs. A lot of the webmaster jobs I am picking up are starting to pan out. Most are almost to completion and I have more clients coming in. Totem is really happy b/c she didn't believe me when I said we would be OK financially when she was not at work.

Another hobby. The model planes took off... And crashed... And burned. ;) Too much weight and too much speed does not bode well for styrofoam. So, I'm down one plane that is waiting to be flight tested. I think it's gonna be fun because Totem and I had a hell of a time killing my first plane. =)

Molly. She's growing up. Check out the pictures below. What I can't wait for is for her to realize Totem is pregnant. Shelby, my parent's dog, already knows. Every time we go over to my parents house, she get all protective and "snuggly" with Totem, sitting by her and keeping close at all times. ;) She did that to my aunt a couple of years ago when she was pregnant at a Christmas party. The odd, but good, thing is that she got protective of the baby too... She wouldn't let anyone but my aunt get close to my nephew. It was actually kind of neat to watch. Motherly instinct and all...

Alex. He's now around the 5lb mark according to the sonograms. Totem and I had our first birthing class yesterday evening. What kind of scared us was the fact that by the third of the five weeks of class, we'll be 37 weeks pregnant. Meaning, we might not have to go to the second last or the last class if Alex gets anxious. Totem is more beautiful than ever and it such an awesome feeling to have Alex not just kick back, but push. Miracles are amazing...

School. I got accepted into Graduate Management School so I am now an offical member of the Professional Masters of Business Administration Program, graduating class of 2008. I never thought I'd want to go back to school, but I really think I'm going to have to if I want to give the life I want to my wife and kid(s). Hopefully it should be a fun three years...

And thats it... Stuff after stuff after stuff. People are already warning me about not being able to do anything once my baby is born. Bring it on. =)

New hobby?

I think my brother turned me on to a new hobby. Remote control airplanes... He bought one on Ebay over the weekend and was kind of bummed with it when it didn't work (which is one of the reasons why i was over there). I helped him take it apart and we found that a wire was loose and that was it. Held the connection and everything worked fine. A little solder and twisting of cables fixed it and we were very impressed.

I didn't know a little circuitry, styrofoam, and some damn strong but tiny motors could put out so much power. If you weren't hold the plane tighly enough, it would pull away and turn in your hand... Plus, he didn't break the bank if he ever crashes it. I'm seriously looking to get into it just so we'd have something to do together again...

Plus, Totem always says we never go to the park enough. ;)

UPDATE: Bidding on a low end, cheaper, dual engine plane. Something to get me started if I ever do get into this...

The next rant...

The past week has been really rough. Really high highs and some really low lows (read second last entry)... Work has stabalized back into a norm and thing are returning to as normal as they can. Buts thats enough about that...

On the upswing, side jobs are picking up. I've taken on two webmaster positions with companies in the area. I'm also now the DBA of a third company that I work for part time. They all look like a decent challenge but I'm looking forward to puling through for all of them. Plus, I get some practical experience in the workplace instead of personal experience which is a great advantage...

Three days ago I was followed home, literally. Totem and I were coming home from lisalou's house, Totem was taking an odd route, and well, I had a little case of road rage. ;) We approached an intersecion with a green light, turn into the left turn lane, stopped, and then verred into the right lane and continuted going straight. So I'm fuming, but I notice a car behind me turn on his blinker to turn with us, turn it off and then follow us back on the road. I'm like WTF and I tried to figure out what was going on... Left turn, followed. Right turn followed. OK, now my paranoia has got the best of me. I let Totem drive home while I keep driving (she does not know this is happening BTW)... She turns and the person keeps following me. Left turn, followed. I did a "S" drive up and down a couple of streets and I'm still being followed. Now I'm creeped out... I manage to get a block ahead and park my car in front of a house. He/She (I couldn't tell) pulled onto the street and waited. About two minutes later, they drove off. I never saw them again. I have a feeling a punk a$$ kid was just trying to see what would happen if he keep following me. Whoever it was, they had a souped up neon with fog lights, spoiler, and decals... I didn't get the lics though. I'm just glad I figured it out and didn't lead whoever it was to my house... ASUS G60J REPLACEMENT LAPTOP LCD SCREEN

I also started playing Final Fantasy XI this week. The online one. I'm not that impressed. The game is huge and very detailed, I'm not putting that down. What got to me early on was the lack of info for newbies to the game... It took me a really long time to get used to the interface and when I did, there wasn't much for me to do. Again on the expansiveness, there are a tons of things to do, but for a newbie, many of those are in areas that I couldn't survive. So, for the time being, I'm limited to local areas with low end monsters. Needless to say, I'm only level 8 and things are very, very repetitive. I don't know if I am going to renew my subscription, maybe one month more, but I don't see me going beyond two months unfortunately.

When Totem and I buy a house, I want to it be one level. Now that the computer is up, I'm spending way to much time upstairs. Totem's even said I can go and disappear now. While being on the same floor won't eliminate me using my computer, we'd be essentially togther. IE: Me sitting on my laptop in the living while we watch TV is better than me going upstairs to play a game...

Onward and upward. New project, I'm redoing my Linux box with a new kernel. It's a biggie redo b/c I tried to upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6 and was not too successful... Plus the box needs to be rebooted every couple of days to make sure it still works... I think it's because I did a hardware swap without a new install (pulled all hardware out of old 350mhz box and put it into 700mhz box with no OS reinstall). Should be fun...

When you thought it had passed...

...it was just hiding in the shadows. Outsourcing.

News here...

UPDATE: The axe missed me... Barely...

T-Boned...

My Mom got into a car accident this morning. A National Fuel truck ran a red light and T-Boned her tiny Ford Focus... Good news is that she only has a headache (apparently the car was hit hard enough to blow out all the back windows, and still do a 360 spin, IE: it was totalled) and the driver of the truck as well as many witnesses told the Police that the red light was ran... So she'll probably be getting a new car ala National Fuel...

More details when I get them... :\

UPDATE: Mom got a checkup at the doctor. Everything is OK. Shes at home sleeping... More info on the truck that hit her. It was one of those massive semi-looking utility trucks with the bucket crane on it... :\

Guilt and motivation...

Early on Saturday morning, I was able to move all the computers underneath the desk and hook up the 4port KVM switch. I was so excited that I had a desk again, that I convinced Totem to come up to the office and work on hers too...

So Sunday morning, we both wake up and go upstairs. Totem's working on getting her office area looking pretty snazzy. What I am doing??? Playing MechWarrior 4 on one of those 5 minutes but really 2 hour long missions... Yeah. When we had to leave I felt really bad. Not only was I playing a game while Totem was working, but now she has an office, and I still have "a place to put stuff."

So that's where the guilt and motivation come in. I feel really bad that I actually got Totem cleaning while I sat on my a$$ do nothing. Secondly, her "office" looks really good. But now that I've got my computer stuff all done, I'm going to do my best to get my office done.

While setting up the KVM switch I managed to organize most of the cabling issues I had, so that is done. The computers are placed so the desk space that they were occupying is now free. I've got a pile of install CD's that I need to organize and catalog. And after that I've got a bin (one of those big tupperware bins) full of hardware and cables that I need to either chuck or try and sell on Ebay.

Not too bad. It's only been 10 months and we're finally unpacking the last boxes and setting up the last room. ;)

Our own little experiment...

Molly is really getting "older" recently. Not as much fooling around, letting us know when she has to go out or if she needs something, and bringing the toys to us when she wants to play. But what she has been doing the last week has made Totem and I laugh like crazy and want to stay home with her all day and every day...

Remember that famous experiment where a scientist rang a bell when he fed his dog and eventually over time the dog started to salivate when just the bell was rung??? Well, obviously Totem and I goto work during the weekday and Molly has to stay home. The other day, Totem and I are getting dressed and Molly runs into the living room. She's buried herself in the corner of a couch and is rolled up in a ball. Shaking.

For a split second, we both were like WTF??? But then we realized she knew by us getting dressed, it means we're going away. She apparently didn't want to be alone. ;) It was really cute. Almost like an innocent child type of thing...

What she also does is if either of us are getting dressed and the other is not (IE: staying home for day), she'll go snuggle up which ever of us is staying home and start to shiver if the other person comes near... :) It happened this morning. I was sitting in the living room, playing on my laptop, when Molly came over and layed down on me... It didn't phase me until I felt her shaking. I pet her and looked up... Totem was standing there with her shoes on. ;) We've got one damned smart dog.

It's chuggin'...

Got the memory last night. Everything booted. =) I left my Knoppix CD at work and I didn't feel like burning another one so I didn't get around to doing too much... I was able to boot off of a Gentoo Live CD. Took 15 seconds, from the last BIOS screen to command prompt. 8) Oh yeah, you know I'm drooling. I should be getting the hard drives in a week and then I'll finally have a desktop for the first time in I don't know how many months.

Another thing I'm looking forward to is that when the system is done, I've got a reason to go up to my office now. And clean it. ;) I never really moved in because right around the time when Totem and I got things organized up there, I ended up selling my desktop. Papers have been piling up and with the wireless network, I really only go up to my office if I need to work on the Linux box. Sitting in the living room, surfing the Internet is actually pretty comfortable. ;) But I do miss having my "space" to goto and vege out in...

Hurry up and wait... Relax...

Yesterday was fun... Totem and I ended up going to the hospital at 5AM. :\ Everything is OK now and nothing was ever wrong with the baby (the hospital confirmed it). Totem got dehydrated again... Midnight came around on Wednesday evening and Totem went running to the bathroom. Lets just say her stomach was empty after one trip. But the problem was that at 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, and 4AM, literally like clockwork hour after hour, she was out of the bed running to the bathroom... We called the doctor and he recommended we goto the hospital to make sure everything was all right...

Now before anyone jumps, this was not morning sickness. A.) We are 5 months along and morning sickness stops after three. B.) Totem was a lucky one and never got morning sickness...

So I make the calls to work and her work saying we won't be in on time, and we head to the hospital. 5AM and 6AM pass in the waiting room, but with each hour, she got rid of whatever stomach acid she had left... When they go her in the room, first thing was a sonogram, and Alex was OK. Still moving and kicking and heart beating (HE WAS SUCKING HIS THUMB =)). Then to Totem, they gave her a saline and sugar solution and some medicine to keep the nausea under control. A couple of hours later, they tried seeing if she could keep some fluids down, nope. Some blood work and fluid tests later, the doctors comfirmed from her "levels" that she was dehydrated. Another liter of IV fluid and she was still not able to keep stuff down... It wasn't until 12:30PM that she started to turn around, with tests coming back OK and she being able to keep liquid down. We ended up leaving at 1:15PM. 5AM to 1:15PM. Oh yeah, fun time...

We got home and Totem went right to bed, I stayed up to watch a moving. After the moving was done, and in comes the relaxing from the title, I went to take a nap with Totem who was still sleeping. Then my alarm goes off... It was the next morning!!! ;) I feel asleep at 6PM and work up agt 8AM the next day... Wow... I do feel really good though. =)

If anything funny is to come out of this, it was the discharge papers. You know the things that have a brakdown of all the stuff they found out about you? Lik a list of the sicknesses, how it is caused, and how to treat it... Well, she is obviously pregnant, and they included that on these sheets. One of the sections, in BIG BOLD LETTERS, it said, "What causes pregnancy?" Needless to say, I burst out laughing. How do you get a cold? How do you get the flu? Do do you become dehydrated? How do you get pregnant? Priceless. =)

Just a crib...

...and things start to seem that SO much different. I mean the sonogram was great, especially when we saw Alex kick and move, but last night when we bought a crib and set it up... Then put all the sheets and bumpers and pillows...

Wow... Just wow... :)

It really hit us last night. I mean, we're almost 5 months along. HALF WAY. Man, it goes by fast. Watch for a duplicate post in 20 years when he is going to college and me saying it went by so fast... :p

Waiting no longer...

The past week has not been too hectic, but definately busy. I was telling Smilemore that my brain seems to not be keeping up with the body. I'm doing things almost robotically just to get them done. I haven't really sat down for a long time just "veg" out lately...

Anyway, the wars ended over the weekend with a VERY good result. LisaLou gave a hint about it in the last entry. I still haven't scanned the sonograms in... Those will be up soon, I hope, maybe, this year, sometime, in the next decade... But I can't wait any longer.

Alexander Joseph ::snip::

You either know the last name, or by doing some easy searches can find out if you really really really need to know... I originally was against Alexander, but when other names were dished out (and I'm not going to post those name for the sake of flame wars), Alexander, or Alex as I'm liking it, seemed to fit more and more. We both settled on the name and were happy with it. The good news was that when we told our parents, we were expecting to hear negative things like that name is too common or you uncles second cousin on his wife's half removed side or something else... But actually, all four parents liked the name which made Totem and Me feel much more relieved than we had been...

The kewl thing was when I told my Dad about it, the first thing he said was, "A boy? HE'S MINE!!!" =) I can see it now, Me, Alex, Jay and Dad all going out on the town. Out on the town? Yeah, my Dad has already told me all the plans he has to buy Alex all the toys that he bought me when I was a kid that have come back into main stream. You know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles type stuff. Things he saw me play with that he can now see his grandson play with. ;)

Words cannot describe how I am feeling right now. :)

Name Wars...

Let the name wars begin... ;)

(More info soon, once I get the sonograms scanned in...)

The cravings... THEY'RE HERE!!!

Chocolate Milk.

Coming home from work and I get a phone call...
Totem: "Can you get me some chocolate milk???"
Me: "Why do you need chocolate milk???"
Totem: "Because."
Me: "...oh no."
Totem: "PRETTY PLEASE!"
Me: "This is one of those cravings, isn't it?"
Totem: "HEY! At least I'm not making you go get it at 2:30 in the morning!!!"
Me: "Point taken..."

So we have chocolate milk now. And more is coming. 4 Gallons in 24 hours. Wohoo! ;)

Another "must go to" event... Seriously...

I've always told Totem that I would be more interested in classical concerts if they played music from things that I know. Well, for the majority of them, that is movies and games. Star Wars, ET, Jaws, LOTR, there are a lot of good ones out there. And on the games side, Final Fantasy, IMHO, takes the cake. Guess What?!?!

They're starting a US Classical Tour are are only playing Final Fastasy music!!!

I want to seriously look into this. I know I can convince Totem to go because it's Music. ;) Whether or not it is sold out or if the tickets are outrageously expensive, I'll have to see...

UPDATE: The tickets aren't even that priced that bad!!! Best seats are only $125. I'm pushing this one... ;)

Changes... Here and everywhere...

Things have been happening over the last couple of weeks that have made me take a step back and look around... I've been very frustrated at the economy ever since I left college. I set myself up for failure and hit a brick wall before I realized it was coming. Now, with a baby on the way, with the first christmas as my own family, and with the very first tight, and I mean do we want gifts or to pay the bills, holiday season, things have taken on different meanings. And I mean everything.

For the first time, I can honestly say I do not know what I want to do with my life, job wise. The jobs that I want I know are just not available anymore because they are either taken or are non-existent. I even tossed up the possiblity of starting my own business, but the risk is too great and I don't believe in gambling a job in exchange for a family. So, with the help of Totem, I've settled on what we have (having a job) versus what we want (a job I don't have) and I am going to change my outlook. Pending I still have this job next fall, I will be going back to school of my MBA (one of the benefit os this job is they will pay for secondary education). Plus, the Management school has what they called a PMBA program that will let me keep my job full time, attend classes at night, and get my MBA after three years. Should I finish it, not only would I actually have a Masters degree, the MBA would open the door to a completely different market of job opportunities for me that can help me move on in life and better support my family.

Totem is on the up and up as well. She got a new job recently and already the management and owners are impressed with her. So much so that they are going to help her get back into school to get her teaching lics. Something that is NOT a company benefit. Whats even better is that her job (which is at a day care) has a benefit of free child care for the first child and they have no problem at all that she is pregnant. Big plus for us not only b/c it will help out trememdously in about 6 months, but b/c she has the backing of the day care. Yeah, I know it is against the law to descriminate, but you can't tell me that when someone sees a new applicant who is pregnant, that they do everything to avoid hiring them. It happens. I've seen it.

In terms of coding, designing, website, geek type world... Dad (or Pops - what he wants to be called by his grandchildren ;))and I are trying to get a web design business off of the ground. We've got a couple of low end jobs lined up that will hopefully just get our name out there, I can only hope this balloons into a good thing. I've slowed down on doing my usual computer stuff. I'm going to let a couple of the "wishful thinking" domains that I have expire because I never got them off of the ground, even after a year has gone by... Others are just waiting to be finished (I've got a PHP site coded and almost ready for release, I just don't have time to finish it). Other sites, like this one, I think I'm leaning towards a revamp. Spam has gotten so much out of control here that I'm just going to take down all of the public tracking tools and blocks and just let everyone and anyone do what they please. Well kind of, I'll still be in the background but it will be much more transparent to the user... Basically my goal on this website is at least to trim the fat. Get rid of some of the things that are (literally) slowing down the response time. Images that aren't needed. Public stats that, while useful to me, are just being filled with spam sites. Inactive links. Stuff like that... Hopefully I'll have that done soon enough... Yellow screen of Death.

On the homefront, the computer situation is getting slightly better. Parts have not come in yet, but planning stages have been changes. I've got a better handle on how I'm going to get my Linux box back to the way I want it, instead of just being back. My laptop has become my production machine and it is holding up pretty well. Ever since I've picked up the browser based online web gaming, the lack of video power hasn't really been an issue. Totems laptop is out on loan while her mother goes into and recovers from surgery. When we get it back, if I've got some extra cash, I plan on getting a wireless network going in the house so Totem does not have to go upstairs to get to her computer. I think she'll use her computer that much more if she can just connect to the Internet anywhere in the house...

And me. Well, I kind of liked venting a little bit so maybe I'll try to get back into the swing of things. It helps me relax a little bit... And its nice to keep track of things. Enough from me...

Molly Pics...

Sleepy Molly pictures up over at Beregond.com.

Gawd I love my dog. :)

High Risk Pregnancy...

Less than a week after we get the good news, we get some bad news... Potentially really bad news...

Totem is RH-. I am RH+. The long and the short of it, from what I can tell, is that if left untreated, Totem's body will treat our baby as a virus/infection/foreign body and try to destroy it. Once the baby's blood gets into her blood, Totem forms antibodies. Those antibodies enter the fetus and begin to kill red blood cells. Obviously, if left alone, this will kill the baby. The good news, it is treatable. The bad news, we found out that we were already six weeks along when we found out she was pregnant. There is a chance that the antibodies have already formed...

Not only that, blood tests show that Totem is not producing enough progesterone (sp). Again, I'm not a pro at this, but the doctor said that if her levels do not increase, she is at a much higher risk for miscarriage. Under 8 is extrememly high risk, above 20 is normal. Totem's levels are at 15. They're treating her and over time, this should improve. Only time will tell, though.

Needless to say, Totem is taking this extremely hard. She's always been afraid that she won't be able to get pregnant. Then, when she does, she's given this news. I, myself, am trying to do what my dad has always told me to do. "Go with the flow." It's really too early to tell one way or the other how things are going to go. But I'm really, really worried about Totem... She means the world to me. I hope everything is going to be OK. I'm praying everything is going to be OK...

Awesome news...

The entire camping weekend was overshadowed by some news Totem and I got on Friday...

WE'RE PREGNANT!!!

I'm going to be a daddy. 8)

Excited...

Totem and I are getting prepped and excited for this weekend. No, we're not going out trick or treating, but we're going on a big camping trip with smilemore, kirk, and a lot of other friends. Plus, we're bringing Molly. :)

It kind of weird, in a really really feel good kind of way, how we are forming a family. Molly pushes her way in between us every night, she even pulls blankets off of us to cover herself up. She know that she she nuzzles our legs and starts to bark, she'll get to go outside. (Who's training who???) And, thanks to Jay, she knows how to paw now and will do it instinctively (sp) if she wants something or even thinks she is in trouble (IE: We were playing earlier, I was chasing her around the house, when I cornered her, she realized it, whimperred, and put her paw up. Cute is not even the right word for it. =) )

Anyway, this weekend should be a good time to get away from it all for us. Spending time with friends. Watching movies. Nature... All the good stuff for the soul.

Busy Weekend...

Things are finally wrapping up with the box building switching thingy type project. The Linux box is back. Ended up putting Debian back on. Right now it's giving me some issues with X and other GUI type applications, but since all I really wanted to do was get the firewall and NAT back up, everything overall went smoothly. My backups are back, DHCP, DNS, SAMBA, and Seti are all back. X windows is... Meh. Not important at the moment...

Spent a couple hours with Jay at a friend's house. New brakes and rotors are a good thing. =)

We saw Stomp too. Unfortunately, we left in a slightly better mood than "Eh". Don't get me wrong. The synchronization between all the actors was great and some of the stuff they did was awesome but Totem and I just didn't have fun. I guess we have our standards set high after seeing the Blue Man Group... All in all, not a bad show, but we won't be going back if they come back to town.

Speaking of economy... How about Credit???

You know all these debt consolidation service you see on the TV??? Did you ever know they can hurt you if you're not in a dire situation??? Yeah.

I just called a bunch of them to see what I could do about consolidating a bunch of credit cards I have b/c of stupid decisions made in college. I'm not behind on any of them nor do I have bad history with any of the creditors. I just have a lot of 'em. And I can't get a secured loan b/c I've got nothing really valuable to secure. (Yeah, I rent...)

First agency I called said their plan was to just let the cads sit in limbo. "Don't worry about it. The credit card companies can only report you as late for 120 days." HA! Don't worry about it??!?!?? I though you were going to help me??? What they actually do is just say ignore the collections agencies and creditors and only speak to them. Over time, the help you manage a bank account where at preset dates, you send in a sum of money to payoff the account. When I asked about the credit thing, they said I can pay $450 to have someone contact all the credit agencies monthly and try to get the old accounts removed after they are paid off.

Nice try. Buh bye!

Agency number two. Sounded much more promising. Sounded. None of this "make the creditors sit and wait" stuff. What they do it setup another bank account at a mutual firm, which gives no interest back to me (but I'm sure it gives it to this agency), and they mail out the payments for you. So all your bills are lumped into one monthly payment. Not bad. The even manage to reduce the payments are are going into each account. So, say your min monthly payment for XYZ credit card is $50. Well, they drop it to $48 or $45. They also collect some extra money from you to pay a little more on each credit card. This goes along with their "pay it off faster" idea. Hmm. Not bad again. So I'm 90% of the way in, feeling pretty good about this (ask Totem, I was) and then I get the contract with the fine print.

There is no guarantee that the reduction in monthly payment was approved by the creditor. So they will be sending in payments, just not the montly minimum required by the creditor. Hello bad credit and lates fees up the a$$. And that extra money doesn't cover it either. They don't promise how much or who gets it... So one account might be doing well, but not the others...

Nice try. Buh bye!

Sure these solutions would be perfect for someone who is behind on their payments or just struggling to get by. But come on. I can just make my payments as I usually do, pay a year or two longer than what these companies are promising me, and still be able to apply for credit or a home loan when I am done. Versus being debt free and not able to get anything...

Why does everything out there meant to help people have to be at the extremes??? Great loans with 0% interest for the perfect people and Bad Credit loans for people who have thousands of dollars of debt and haven't paid any of them for over a year. But nothing for the college student with good credit and a bunch of debt he is trying to pay off early in his life.

::shakes head and walks away:: You try to fix things and no one is willing to help...

What economy??? Was it worth it???

Last night I spoke with a Mom who has a son that is in the same boat as I am. Graduated Computer Engineer from Clarkston University. Promised he would have 10 job offers when he graduated. Was so excited about going into the field. Loved computers and what they could do...

But he's flipping pizza dough and working in a grocery store.

I'm not in as much of a dire situation as he is, but on the other hand, I'm working with High School students who don't have degrees and know how a computer works just from tinkering with it. That's not a bad thing, but one major link between me and this mother's son was the question we are both asking ourselves. Was it really worth all the money and time?

No one can't doubt the value of a degree. I see people who are in their forties and fifties and are locked into their jobs because everything else that is in their field now requires a degree. So they either have to live with their current jobs, which can be hell, or risk starting over at minimum wage, which can be hell. But on the other hand, I have a very sucessful uncle who is a manager at a worldwide bank. He just has a BS in Geology.

...WTF?!?!? Yeah, thats my reaction. I could have got the job I have right now, with a BS of Poly Sci, had a MUCH easiler time at college and maybe even enjoyed my tim their, and still be making the same amount of money. I got hired here b/c of my past tinkering with computer equipment, I had previous call center experience, and I can speak to a non-technical person without talking down to them. NOT because I have a degree in Computer Engineering.

So here I am, granted, still doing much better than minimum wage, and still employed (which many of my friends who graduated with me are unfortunately not), but at a level that is half the worth of my degree.

Some people have asked why I am even thinking about this stuff. Some people have told me to STFU. Some people have made me look at their lives and realize where I am compared to them. All of these are good, very good points. I'm not poor. I'm doing well above min wage. I am supporting two people and we are not falling behind. I just feel empty. Like a major void that was supposed to be filled with the goal of graduating college has been left just that.

A void.

At my current job, the glass ceiling is far from reach and even sight. Opportunities abound here. I just wonder why I didn't do this four years ago when I was in college. They not only would have paid for my education, but technically speaking, with the work I am involved in (general computer parts and service), I'm no farther ahead now then I was then. Granted, I can code you almost anything you want now and I can design and maintain kick a$$ websites, and I can even administer complex computer networks and software, but none of that is relevant to my current job. I think thats what the void is... The lingering question if was it really worth it...??? Especially because like most things in life, if you don't use it, you will lose it. And right now, I'm losing valuable time that can be used as experience on my resume for when I want to apply with a company to become their network administrator.

Maybe I should just start my own business. Any venture capitalists out there? Seriously... Either that or the next president better fix our broken economy.

Changing... Whats going on?

Things are kinda wierd now... My days aren't the same anymore. Maybe I'm just getting into a new pattern now... I haven't been able to keep up with my blogging. I haven't been able to keep on track with some of my website goals. Its kind of shocking because after I graduated I thought I'd have all the time to focus on getting those done, but instead I'd rather just come home and relax with Totem. My plans and ambitions for "re-doing" my computers and network has slowed, but when I get a part in/dropped off/deliverred, I'm all over it. :\ I started the project by getting rid of old data and sorting data. But that lasted a night. I didn't have a want to do it the next day, even though I kicked a$$ on progress the night before. Jay's g/f's computer was on hold for almost a month, but when I got her last part in, I had it finished in a couple of hours.

Its really really odd. When I was in school, I used to stress myself out every night about not having time to do the things I wanted to do. I'd rush home, stay up late, avoid family, avoid Totem. Now, I'm spending more time with her, doing family things, and not doing the stuff I want to do, and really don't care. We just went to a family reunion yesterday. 6 hours at a park with family that I barely even knew or didn't even know (it was her side). I had a blast. :) And you know what, I didn't do anything at all except eat and admire the wilderness. We both sat on a hill looking at the blue sky for almost an hour and just stared. You couldn't have paid me to go if this happened a couple of months ago but doing nothing was so relaxing...

Back on the tech side, Totem suggested that I shift all my computer usage to my laptop and work on selling my desktop system so I can start to get the Linux boxes up, and then eventually get all the part ready for my new desktop. When she asked this, I would have normally asked her what was wrong with her. But I caught myself, and wierd thing is that I remember thinking that way, but saying yeah, it would work. Its almost an instinct to react "NO! Don't touch my computers!!!" but it made a lot of sense. I only use my desktop for gaming at this time. I use my laptop for all my email and basically to surf the web. All I would have to do is get the data off of it (which is what my Linux box is for) and they I can start the ball rolling... up hill. Or basically leave my new desktop systems for last instead of holding everything else up on it...

The other thing that is happening is almost like procrastination, but really not. I'm putting off projects and gaming and "stuff I used to called fun" for things like walks and cleaning the house, and watching tv with Totem. I'm sure the marriage has a lot to do with it, but I think that fact that I'm done with school has shifted my frame of mind to how I deal with things in life. I'm starting to be able to push the "fun stuff" to the back to do things that need to be done, but I'm not feeling stressed about them anymore. Prime example. Dishes, vaccumming, washing the floor, garbage, and cleaning the fish tank. Chores before May 2004. Fact of life now. Plus, instead of feeling like I just cut into my gaming time, I feel like I've gotten something big done. And if its late night, I won't, usually, even go up to my computer. I'll stay downstairs and watch TV with Totem or play with molly and her toys.

Wow. I just thought of something. Is this what a family is supposed to feel like? Because I really really love it. :)

Slooow week...

This week has just chugged along... Every day has been really slow, but on the other hand, I haven't stopped moving. I've actually managed to finish moving into my office. 3 month's isnt that bad is it? ;) I beat the main campaign on Neverwinter Nights. I managed to get my hands on my copy of Doom3 but I haven't installed it b/c I really want to wait to play it until I get my new system up and running (2-3 months away). I've also started working on Jay's g/f's new computer. All in all, everything has been so slow while I'm doing it, but I guess it went by fast when I'm looking back...

Design notes... I managed to write my own PHP login script with MySQL in the background for info grabbing and checking. I'm actually kind of excited b/c while it took my awhile to do, I was able to do it with all my own code and only minimal help from others on PHP. Hopefully the website its going to sit on will go as smoothly as this login script did...

Observation...

How many people have you see today that walk by each other and have the following conversation...

Person A: "Good Morning!"
Person B, in reply: "Great, how are you?"

I just thought that was a little odd... :)

Wedding and Honeymoon - The Report - Part #3

Finally, on to the honeymoon. Totem and I got home as fast as we could, got changed and went to the hotel we had reserved for the night. It was'nt that bad of a deal especially considering that it allowed us to park there for a week. In fact the only bad thing about the night was the lack of sleep. We both fell asleep at 2AM to have our wakeup call at 4AM to be at the airport at 7AM. Got our tickets, boarded and we were on our way to Las Vegas. We were presented with a bottle of chapagne from the travel agency as a congradulations on the marriage. It was a pleasant surprise. I just wish I was a little more conscious when the flight attendant gave us the bottle. ;)

Five or six or four (I don't remember anymore) hours later we were in Las Vegas and on our way to the Luxor hotel with oddest of Taxi drivers... I think Totem was just plain freaked out so I tried to keep the conversation going as long as I could on the way to the hotel. And of course, when we got there, check in was not going to be until 1:30PM and it was 8AM in the morning there. So we're pooped and now we can't even take a nap. ;) Fortunately, baggage was able to hold our stuff for the time and the Luxor had a lot of things we could do in the mean time. We went on the Reboot Imax ride film. Went on a tour of artifacts found in King Tuts tomb. Totem is proud that my first 4D exerience was with her. ;) We saw Pirates 4D and needless to saw it was a blast. 3D was cool but feeling wind, getting wet, and seeing bees come out and try and attack you was awesome. Plus, we saw Nascar 3d in the Luxor Imax theater. After that we were able to get some show tickets and finally got to take a nap in our room.

Don't even start on the order...

15 hours later on Tuesday morning at 6AM, we woke up. Nice nap huh?!?! :) Had a great breakfast at the Luxor buffet but a little too pricey for us to do every day. It was about $12 a person but was really really worth it. We went on more walks that day and like usual, got suckered into a lot of things b/c we looking like newly weds, even though we were. :) After trying to hit up free shows and tours and food, the sales rep got down to the nitty gritty because, as usual, nothing is free. We either weren't old enough, didn't make enough, or weren't staying long enough in Las Vegas. Meh... Walking around a little more we found the Tropicana and their free spin slot machines. Only thing really worth getting out of the were the free playing cards. We came home with 6 decks. :) We also found the $20 for $50 slots area where basically you pay $20, but get $50 worth of slots. The only problem is that you can't cash out and you must use all your credits, even if you don't win. The plus is that if you don't win, you can get a prize. :) That was the life saver for us this week. Totem picked a shoulder bag, something we didn't think to carry around while we were walking. It was a life saver! We had so much stuff *cough* crap *cough* to look through every day that it made life much easier since we were no where near our room.

We hopped on the bus and went over to Circus Circus. Totem got me to go on the roller coaster and we bought the pics. She went on a bunch of other rides that I wouldn't touch. Look at the pics and you'll see why. 8) After eating lunch, we walked over to the Reveria and did their free spin. Got a deck of cards and a mug. We got back on the bus and went back to our hotel for a nap before the Blue Man Group Concert.

You know the drill...

Another concert by Blueman that was WELL worth the cost. We had a great time. They did a good job with mixing the senses again. Throwing stuff at us, getting the audience involved, actually bringing members of the audience up to the stage with them. Not to mention a slew of stuff that made you think, "How'd they do that!?!?!" This was the best thing we did all week and we wouldn't even mind going back to Las Vegas just to see them. 8)

Tuesday, the only highlight was the Zumanity concert in the evening. Interesting cannot even come close to describing the show. Sexual, topless, funny, amazing, acrobatic, twisting, dark, and waterful just start to decsribe it. I never realized how you could make a show out of things that seemed to have no real relation to each other. It was almost like those images that from a distance look like a face or something, but up close you can see the thousand or so individual images that it is actually made of... Still not as good as Blue Man though. ;)

Wednesday was more of a just walk around and be a tourist day. We visited NYNY, MGM, Excalibur, and the Tropicana again. NYNY has the Coyote Ugly club that has great prices on drink so we stopped and got refills for our mug we bought there. Plus they have a rollar coaster of their own that Totem got me on. Gambled a little bit, I lost all, Totem won it all back. ;) Around dinner time we got to go see the Tournament of Kings, which was a midevil dinner show. Interesting, to say the least. Dinner with no utencils and "Dragon Juice" for a beverage. I guess they do know what to call "pop" or "soda" that goes in their authentic midevil plastic mugs... ;) We stayed up late on Wednesday to check out the Bellagio water show and Treasure Island's pirate show. The water show was awe inspiring, but being the dork geek moron I am, I thought was was really simple. A little computer script pumping water at different pressures through pipes. Easy. 8) The Treasure Island show was cancelled last minute because of a gust of wind no more powerful than the fan that was on my desk. That was depressing see we were beat an now had to walk all the way back to the Luxor at midnight...

You're still reading this???

We packed up most of Thursday morning b/c we were switching rooms that evening. When we first got to the Luxor, we asked if they could do anything for us since it was our honeymoon. They offerred us a jacuzzi suite for $50 a night. We really didn't want to cut into our spending money so we just reserved it for the last night. It was 12 floors lower but over looking the front corner of the Luxor instead of the back this time. See pics. We managed to take a three hour nap... In the tub. 8) We also made the decision that if we are going to build a house, we're getting one of these babies. We just need to remember to use less soap next time as we had a little bubble problem once the tub filled up. 8) Later in the evening we went and saw Midnight Fantasy, another topless dance revue. Meh was my reaction. What?!?!? Meh and topless???? Yeah, that'll give you an idea of how bad it was... The funniest part was the comic who came out and did a 10 minute or so comic intermission. Seemed like it was just thrown in with no real purpose, but then again, I would have rather watched her doing standup for an hour or two than watch the dancing... Go figure...

Meh or not to meh? That's the question...

Since the hotel was booked to 100% capacity, we couldn't arrange a late checkout so we were out of our room around noon. Great, the flight didn't leave until 10PM at night and we didn't have a room to relax in... Not to mention we were out of money. :\ We basically walked around until about 6PM checking out some of the hotels and casinoes that we didn't go to before, but not much more than that. We got our bags and took the shuttle back to the airport. Using the wonderful amount of decks of cards that we had, we played a bunch of card games for a couple of hours, boarded and were on the way home to Buffalo. Only downside of this flight is that for close to an hour, it felt like we were falling. I don't know, it was almost like my stomach never settled. I guess I was lucky I could fall asleep, at least it was dark. Totem woke up around 3AM Las Vegas time to the woman behind us throwing up. Yea... Landed around 6AM, bright and early and very tired. We got the shuttle back to our car, went home, slept and let life slowly come back to us.

We have over six rolls of film to develop and once we do, I'll get those up here, but for the time being you'll have to deal with my digital pics. We had the time of our lives. Something that if we do again, we'll be going a cheaper route, but we have no regrets. We had fun and that is what matters. We are finally happily married and can begin spending the rest of our lives together. 8)

PS - Kirk, the glass elevators that move sideways up and down the Luxor, are not on the outside so there's nothing to see. Check out the pics. ;)

Wedding and Honeymoon - The Report - Part #2

After the pictures we went back to the reception hall. We pulled up at right around the same time our parents had just finished setting up. (There was bingo in the hall a couple of hours before so everyone was rushed to get things setup.) Walked in, saw everyone had basically just hung around for a little bit. When more people started showing up, we formed a welcome line or whatever they are called and greeted everyone who came in. Smilemore made this awesome photo album of the wedding while we were out getting our pictures done and that was a BIG crowd pleaser. Many were not able to attend the wedding so that anwered a lot of questions about what happened for us. :) Once everyone was in (I think only two people didn't show), we were ushered in by the DJ with Eye of the Tiger playing in the background. Interested and fun to say the least. I couldn't really see afterwards b/c of the flashes. ;) Totem and I went right over to cut the wedding cake b/c that was the dessert for the evening. We were both nice to each other and only slightly smashed the cake into each others face. See the pics. ;) After we cleaned up, my mom said the blessing that she found out that she had to say a couple of hours earlier. Opps... Damn memory. 8) Jay did a good job at ad-libbing (sp) his toast. I guess he did some research as to what the heck he was supposed to say. One of the big no-nos was to talk about x-girlfriends. He wanted to but in my case he couldn't. I don't have any! Then he tried hitting on how Totem and I met. Normally it goes, "How did you meet?". Then I say, "I met my girlfriend at a Boy Scout camp." ... Yeah, you figure it out. But trust me, Totem is DEFINATELY female. ;) Now I actually did meet her at a boy scout camp, but I think everyone in the room missed the point. My friends and everyone at the wedding party table were the only ones laughing. Oh well... Then dinner was served. Damned good meal...

During dinner, we got another pleasant surprise. Our friend Angela who had sung at our wedding sang a song for us at dinner. Words cannot describe her singing. It was just beautiful. Think of Enya and the Lord of the Rings. Thats how good it was. We were done eating at the wedding party table while the last table in the hall was getting their meal condiments. So Totem and I got up and started mingling. We got halfway through the hall when we were called over to the dance floor to have our first dance together as husband and wife. The song was "our" song, Aerosmith's I don't wanna miss a thing. What made this dance even more special was the bubbles. Let me explain. ;) We had bought bubbles for everyone to blow when we left the church. Rice and confetti were not allowed... Since it was raining after the wedding, we had to hold on to all the bubble bottles. Well, everyone unloaded close to all 200 bottles during our dance (and made sure to empty them by the end of the night). Check out the picture, it was a blast!!! 8) Then we went on to the Father-Daughter dance and the Mother-Son dance. General dancing and then wedding party dancing. The night was turning out great but it was far from over.

Totem threw her bouquet (yeah I know its probably spelled wrong) and my cousin caught it. When I got Totem's garder off *cough* with my teeth *cough* my cousin also caught it. Hmm. Brother and sister cousins catching the stuff. ::shudder:: Luckily the DJ was a quick thinker and got the group wriled up and quicker than we could think, my aunt and uncle (the parents of my two unfortunate cousins) were together in the spotlight and everyone was celebrating their 17 years of marriage. Followed that was more eating, drinking, and dancing. Not like it was bad, I just seriously think most of us there danced for more than an hour after that. My dad's got a little bored and decided to change (check the pic). Towards the end of the evening we lined up for some pictures with the new families. We said some good byes on our video and basically thats how the night ended... Six hours later we would be waiting to board an airplane to Las Vegas.

This time, I'm just out of time to write up the honeymoon part... :p I know when I get around to it in a day or two I'm going to do much more writing then posting pictures. We got 6 rolls of film still to develop but only about 30 digital pictures. Totem was a little more active with her camera than I was with mine. ;) If you want a quick preview, head over to my photoblog for some of the pics. Otherwise, I'll be back in a bit to wrap things up...

Wedding and Honeymoon, The Report

OK. Here we go... EVERYTHING WAS GREAT!

...thats it. Why are you still reading??? ;)

No really, everything went better than anyone could have expected. There were some hitches that no one really noticed. We didn't either so it doesn't matter. ;) But I'm gonna start from the rehersal...

The night seemed to be rushed and a little confusing. The married couple that was going to rehearse with us did not seem to... well not know what they were doing is not right, but they didn't seem to know how the priest was going to do the marriage so they had a lot of things backwards and mixed up. It probably didn't help that they had a different version of the rehersal book than we had... :\ Anyway, the practice went fine, and so did the dinner afterwards. A lot of food. Tons of talking and chatting. Looks like everyone liked the gifts from Totem and I as well. She got all her brides maids jewelry boxes with a necklace that had the first letter of each of their names on it. I got the grooms men all tall mugs that held about a liter of whatever they wanted. I stayed a little later than everyone. But ended up at my parents house around 11PM for the sleep. Totem stayed at her parents house with all the girls. The guys were invited over to my parents house but b/c of distance, only half stayed there.

The day of... July 31, 2004. I wake up around 9AM. Get dressed and ready to go. We were all ready and the only one who seemed to be nervous was my mom. :) So we pull out of the driveway and we see a limo coming. No... We all started saying it couldn't be. It was supposed to be picking us up at the reception hall. It passes and it is from the limo company. It gets to the end of the street and turns around. Crap. I hop out and drive with him back to the reception hall while my dad and bro go get everyone else. When we got to the hall, everyone was there in about 10 mins and we headed over to the church.

Then the wait. And wait. And wait... Traditional, I was told. To my surprise, I wasn't really nervous. Sweating, because of heat, yes. Some pictures were taken and I got to say a message to Totem for our wedding video. 15 minutes after the wedding was supposed to start, the limo with the girls shows up. Nerves kick in. :p And the girls start walking up the aisle before the priest was ready. He peeks out and sees 2 of them almost all the way to the frint and we rush out with the altar servers. The rest is just typical. Read from bible. Do you. Do you. Kiss. Married. YIPPEE!!!

Pictures. Our photographer shot everything digitally so my Dad was able to get them online a day or two after he go them back. Since there are over 620 of them, I'm not going to repost all of them, but just list a link. Some of my favorites are displayed right below the link here. Click it if you want to see all 620 of them... Included the "circus" that happened the morning of at Totem's parents house. ;)

Wedding Pictures.

You're still reading??? You deserve a cookie!!! On to the 6 hour limo ride with LOTS of pictures. FIrst stop on the trip was the Buffalo Botanical Gardens. The weather was not cooperating so we were seeking an indoor retreat. Unfortunately, we were, or at least I was, kind of taken back by the little old lady sitting at the door. "$50 donation to get your pictures taken here." We said OK and proceeded to walk in out of the rain. She was like a hawk. The daggers in my back made me pay the $50 (with the help of everyone, and especially kirk11235) even though some in the party objected. I just wanted a picture. If the little old lady wanted money, I gave it to her, but I made sure it went into a donation box for the gardens instead of her pocket. At least that way I know were the money was going... I hope. Anyway, it was warm. There were a lot of plants and I think Jay and another one of my grooms men had a little too much fun playing with the bushes shaped like animals. I'd post pictures but they are on his camera... :p

Afterwards we went to a local waterfall called Glens Falls. Just a beautiful place. It wasn't sunny but there was no rain so Totem and I got our wish for some nice outdoor pictures. Posing was fun. Got some very interesting shots (me holding my sister-in-law's leg, my brother-in-law face planting in his girlfriend's chest, couple shots, etc...). We were there for a little while, but managed some how to show up before the other 3 or 4 wedding parties showed up. It was nice to see all the different colors that everyone chose, especially because of how good the purple looked when compared to the teal-ish and blue dresses we saw...

After that we went back to my college and got pictures at the usual picture spot for most people who go there. The University at Buffalo's Baird Point. The only thing the really happened here, which was out of the ordinary, was that we (maybe just me and not we) made all the bride walk through mud and goose "stuff" to get to the point. Only after we got there did we find a path. Opps... ;) Plus, since the point was high up almost all the girls had to be lifted up. I think totem's sister was the only one who got up on her own, even if she did have a little slip. ;)

And another first... I have to make a part #2 b/c I ran out of space in this entry... I didn't know there was a limit. ;) If you're still reading this, you REALLY deserve a cookie! :p

If anyone wants to see the pictures that Totem's sister, Raindancer, took, click here... They're really good!!! Check 'em out!

Part #2 will probably be up tomorrow...

Back...

Married. Tired. Very happy... I got a long one coming, just not tonite. I have to unpack and rest for a day or two. Jet lag sucks...

And no. We didn't win. Any money at least... :p

The time comes...

Well. It's here. I'll be married in less than 24 hours. I'll be on my honeymoon in Vegas in less than 48. Nerves are finally kicking in. I don't think I'll get a chance to post how things went until I get back a week from now... We are bringing Totem's laptop on the honeymoon to watch movies on the plane but I'm not allowed to touch it. ;)

The plus is that all the pictures are being shot digitally and the cameras that we are giving everyone will be developed onto CD. You can guarentee LOTS of photo galleries when I get back. See everyone in a week!!!!!!!!

WISH US LUCK!!!

Just a thought...

This time next week I'll be in a limo with a bunch of my friends and a new bride at my side, speeding around to get pictures taken.

8) I'm excited.

Help...

Anyone know how to forget about life temporarily??? Legally? :p

Time flies...

Six years ago today, I asked Totem if I could borrow a bench from her dining hall at the summer camp we worked at. Now, with just 23 days left until the big day, we couldn't be any happier.

I love you, Jen!!!

The secret is out...

Totem and I got a new addition to our family a couple of days ago. Her name is Molly.

Shes about 9 weeks old now. A little bundle of fur who seems to be afraid of the dark and only sleeps during the day. ;) She's a welcome addition for Totem and I. The plus is that when we got her, Totem was off from work for that week so she didn't have to be left alone on the first day we had her... She fitting in really well and is a definate people pleaser in crowds. She's probably been manhandled by more people than she wanted to be but has yet to nip anyone or bark at anyone. We can't believe how well behaved she is. Outside of her needing to learn where and where not to go to the bathroom, and learning the Totem's hair is not a chew toy, she fitting right in. :)

Great read...

In my area, this applies to white kids as well... A great read, none the less...

CNN Article

Welcome oddity???

About a month since I started working full time monday through friday... Keeping busy night and day... Feeling like I have no time for anything...

But you know what? It's nice. :) Seems like I'm having less time to do everything, but theres no stress...

ITS GREAT!!!

Wohoo!

Pleasantly Surprised...

I was dreading today for about a week now... I just got out of Totem's (and my) wedding shower. I figured myself, my future father-in-law, and 60 of my future and current aunts, grandparents, and female friends would be torture.

Outside of the crazy sun burn I got, nothing was torture at all. :) We got a LOT of great stuff to help us make our apartment (and future house) feel more like a home. I got a grill. ;)

Six more weeks. Totem and I are getting really really excited...

Memory...

Watching Ronald Reagan's funeral on TV today was pretty nostalgic. Something I'll definately never forget... Even if I only was able to catch the end of it. You never realize how much a person can influence so many other people until they are gone... :(

Damn, I miss my grandma. Nana died from Alzheimers too...

Note to self...

Write about the joys of the "Tech 20"... Ungh... :\

The last week...

The last week has been kinda hectic, but in a good way. The job is going great. My days are flying by. I'm not looking at my watch every five minutes only to see that two minutes have gone by. (Intentional play on words...)

Sorry to everyone I normally see in person. Things are finally settled down at the new apartment enough that I can arrange my office so contact to the outside world has been slim to none via phone, and virtually non-existant online. Kirk, I know you called and I'll be getting back to you soon. Smilemore, I owe you a movie with Totem sometime. Acw, I owe you a firefly night. And lisalou, I owe you a dinner once you recover from your wisdom teeth surgery.

But all things considerred, Totem and I are doing better than we have for any other move we've been through. We're actually calling the new place "home" which is a welcome change. :)

In the Linux world, the tweaks to the laptop are coming along smoothly. I've got wireless installed and since I have access to an insecure network from my house, I should be able to test it. ;) From what I can tell, there really isn't any good support for WEP yet, outside of writing the drivers yourself...

On the network side, I got my 1000ft spool of cat 5 dropped off a day or two ago. Totem's office is now networked with my office on the third floor. Once I get the cable drops put in, my Linux box will be up an running like it used to. It really only serves as a firewall and file server so it's not doing much right now. ;) The advantage of broadband though (outside of the speed) is I'll be able to let the box "do its own thing" during the day. Once I get my other computer back from Jay, I'll be starting over. Well, since I'm either going to use Debian or Gentoo, I haven't decided yet, I need a broadband connection for the box to sit on. In come advantage of cable internet...

OH! Totem and I did our pre-cana today. Not much to say on that cause I don't even wanna touch the religious stuff (way too sensitive of a subject) outside of that the big day is getting closer and closer. Thats not a problem, either, so don't get me wrong. It's just coming faster and faster... ;)

Consciousness strikes again...

More observations that I sit through on a weekly, almost daily basis...

1.) Alcohol seems to only negatively affect those that are not drinking.
2.) Choosing between family and friends sucks the big one...
3.) Doing the right thing, is not always the right thing...

Sigh...

Ahh...

So this is what a vacation feels like... 8)
::deep breath:: Ahhhhh.... ::exhales::

Movin' on out...

If things go as planned, Totem and I should have the keys to the new apartment tonite or tomorrow. We've already reserved a UHaul and have made plans with a bunch of people to come over and help. We're hoping that we can get this done in a single day, unlike every one of our other moves that took a week or longer...

We're both very excited (duh!) and we can't wait to be in our own place. The obvious reason is that we'll be on our own again. Something we've both missed ever since her parents took us back in... But another reason, moreso for Totem than me, is that we're each going to have our own office. She'll be able to practice her music and give music lessons without me sitting in the background with some RPG going off. ;) One the the main reasons I'm looking forward to moving to the new place is... Yes, I'm an uber dork... The broadband. :p

I can't wait to fire up some of my multiplayer games and just frags for a couple of hours...

Chapter by chapter... Closing...

This past weekend (and some of last week), event after event just kept coming. Final exams, work, job interviews, apartment finding, graduation, work again, 2 week notice, work... I'm pretty surprised at myself. Not too much stress...

Exams went better than I had hoped for on Thursday last week. Software Engineering was OK. No surprises, nots of writing, and lots of "can you convince the teacher that I know what I am talking about" questions. Everything was subjective. Good or bad, I don't know. I'll let you know after I get the grades. ;) My Operating Systems was almost an exact duplicate of the practice questions she had given us. So when she allowed us to bring in two sheets of notes, you can bet what myself and the rest of the class did. None of us thought she would make the questions so similar so we were all pretty happy after the exam...

Friday morning was work, followed by an afternoon at job interviews. Made some critical decisions that evening. One was to not take the apprenticeship that I was offered. Everyone I spoke too said it was not worth it. Let me put it this way... The program offerred two years of work along with certifications to boot (MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+, NET+, Security+, yadda yadda yadda). The only hitch is that I had too pay for it. Yeah, pay. The student loans would have cost me 28K by the time I was done paying them. That's more than half of what I spent on college. While no one doubted that having certifications was a good thing, everyone said there were cheaper and easier ways to get them (IE: Not having to fly to another state for training, then be sent to another state for two years as an apprentice). Luckily for me, the interview went VERY well, and I won't have to fall back on the apprenticeship for work... :)

After all that, Totem and I went apartment hunting again. We had our minds on a place that was going to be nice, and a place that we'd be willing to live at for more than a year. First one we looked at had everything we wanted. Great price. LOTS of space. And is it right by everything we would ever need to get to, and in the middle of our parents (20 mins to each house instead of living near one and have a 40 min ride to the other). That got us pretty excited and started the weekend off right...

Saturday was all graduation. Lots of names. Lots of sitting. Glad it is done. Had a nice dinner with my family and Totems. Congrats to you too, Starfire!

Mothers Day was fun. We worked in the morning (kind of a gift to Totem's Mom who normally works, we coverred her morning shift). Spent the rest of the day with my parents. Spring cleaning actually was good this year. We got a lot done. Mom won $100 on a lottery ticket. She was happy. ;) Dad treated us all to dinner. First time in a while that Mom and Dad had both of their sons and their significant others at one place.

This morning was work again. Handed in my two week notice. Tonite, I think I'll be playing on my computer since I don't have any school work to do (YESSSS!!!). If I'm lucky, I'm gonna see if I can get Gentoo up and running on my laptop. I downloaded all the files I needed when I was at my parents house so hopefully I won't have to try and get a PPP connection up...

Anyway, things are still looking up. For a change...

First time in a long time...

For the first time in a very very VERY long time, I can say...

I had a good day. :)

GASP...

Reads email... OH YEAH!!!!

Does happy dance waiting anxiously for FEDEX package...

Engineers...

I can relate to this all too well... :)

The pessimist says, "This glass is half empty."
The optimist says, "This glass is half full."

The engineer says, "This glass is exactly twice as large as it needs to be."

Found on Slashdot...

Burnt out...

And even though it is the end of the school year, I'm not feeling this way because of projects... I'm feeling this way b/c of Totem... :(

Long story short, she ended up going back to the hospital and has been there since Monday. I'm not going to go into the details because she is planning on resurrecting her blog (laptops and phone lines can be good things in hospitals) in the next day or so to talk about all of it, I think think if I could get a bunch of people over there to wish her luck, she'd be that much more happier... Plus, that will let her do the talking...

The reason I'm getting burnt out is that the doctors still do not really know what is going on. They have essentially kept her there for observations... For three days now... That does not bother me as much b/c at least they are concerned about her, but whoever said, "No news is good news" obviously didn't have their loved one on the other side of the table...

Winding down, one last time...

I guess I should have been expecting this. It is nearing the end of the school year and everything seems to be piling on. Totem got sick and that has been a drain. Projects are due (when aren't they?)... Work is work...

But I'm getting pretty excited. I'm looking forward to 8 hour days. ;) I'm really happy that I'm going to be done with school. Every day Totem and I get closer to our wedding. We got the rings the other day. 8) Plus, that also means we're closer to our vacation in Vegas.

Besides all the normal stuff, I'm also looking forward to getting back on a normal schedule with the stuff I used to do. We will hopefully be getting our own apartment again once I start working 40 hours a week. I'll be able to get back on broadband and back to updating this site regularly. Not to mention I really really really want to keep Beregond going... I've either not had the time to upload pictures or I find the picture I want to take but don't have my camera... I also have a bunch of other projects sitting on the back burner. Three websites are waiting to be designed. On that will hopefully make just enough money to break even on my hosting fees (more if I am lucky). Another one that will be dedicated to providing a free service to anyone. And another where I will "showcase" I'll the scripts and applications that I have custom made for this site. All the referrals scripts, automatic updates, and tracking applications. I figured since so many other people have their own site to show off their simple applications that they have written for their sites, why shouldn't I? ;) Plus, I've got another one that I want to develop as a community. I have an idea for the theme, I just don't have a clue how I'm going to get it up and running and active (as in people coming to the site for something)...

Anyway, this summer is looking up. Really looking up. It has been a long time since I have looked forward to a summer. This one is definately going to be one to remember, and not just because I am getting married... ;)

Roughs days for Totem...

The last days have been pretty rough on my but even worse for Totem...

Tuesday morning at 3AM we woke up to her being in tremendous stomach and back pain. She had been prescribed a new medicine and was complaining about back pain over the last weekend so we figured she was having a reaction to it. We woke up her doctor and after a quick couple of minutes trying to figure out what was going on, he told her to goto the Emergency room.

4AM we were there. One IV, a bunch of tests, and two hours later, we had an answer. Infection. The bladder type. Turns out the infection was bad enough that the pain was being spread to her back, stomach, and abdomen. (We learned from our doctor later that an infection of this type mimicks many things from appendicitus (sp) or pancreas attacks or anything - thats why he sent us to the emergency room.)

So she was given some pretty powerful antibiotics and muscle relaxers (to control the spasms) and we were heading home. I made it into work later that afternoon after she had rested a while. When I was at my second job, she called me. Back to square one. Horrible pain in her stomach and back. Worse then on Monday when we went to the emergency room. I couldn't get out early so all I could do was wait to get home at midnight and see how she was doing. Talk about feeling helpless again... Nothing like listening to your fiancee wailing in pain on the phone and there was nothing you could do... And she wouldn't wake her parents up b/c they were babysitting our nephew and niece.

By the time I had gotten home, she had thrown up everything she had eaten (medicine included) and she was AOK. She was smiling, happy, no pain at all, everything was good... Bad assumption again. The medicine was doing its work and getting the stuff out of her system. So we agreed that she should take the next dose.

4AM Wednesday morning. She's feeling sick again. Pain everywhere and she wants to puke. By 7AM he mother had woken up and was now downstairs trying to console her. Once again, she lost the entire contents of her stomach and all was well. We (her mom included) agreed to call her doctor for an emergency appointment.

12:30PM Wednesday. The doctor confirms everything the ER had said. Prescribes some anti-nausea medicine and something to promote healing in her gastro-whatever track.

3:30PM. Guess what? Its back. Totem cannot stop screaming from the pain. She just can't handle it anymore. A walk in some fresh air does not help. She starts to say that she wants to vomit to get rid of the pain but now she can't because of the new medicine keeping her from doing so... Great. Nothing like handcuffs for stomach pain... Eventually, much later, she does and things look up. She's feeling better so she takes a nap.

Now I start to get nervous. She hasn't really eaten anything in the past two days. Everything she has tried to eat has come back up. We've been through an episode of dehydration with her before and I don't want to go through that again...

Around 8PM she wakes up in a little back pain. Not as much as before, but the same amount and type of pain she was in on Sunday when we first thought her first prescription was causing...

Luckily for me, both her parents were home and did a much better job at making her feel better than I could. Maybe it was because they were telling her to do stuff, instead of offering to do things for her. Maybe because it was Mom and Dad. I don't know...

Stomach pain started to come back. Her father's trick, that seemed to work pretty damned good, ice packs all over her back and stomach. She was in pain still, but not wailing or tossing and turning like she was before.

So I started feeling bad that I couldn't make her feel better but was glad that someone at least could... She's everything to me and watching her scream in pain, knowing that there wasn't much at all that I could do, really rips a guy's heart out...

Her parents go to bed and I try and get Totem to do the same. She tells me thank you for everything I've done. I told her that her dad was the one doing the magic, not me. Then she said to me, but you were there and thats what matters. Now for the sappy part... I smile and tell her, "In sickness and in health..." :) She smiles and seems to be in better spirits.

I get her downstairs and slowly she goes to sleep.

Now wait, I haven't said so far is that when her parents came home, her mom had a long talk with her doctor about what was going on and what to do. Unfortunately, b/c Totem is over 21, the doctor couldn't tell her much b/c of some new privacy law that was just enacted. So she did what every Mom would do. She became Dr. Mom and told our doctor that she was taking Totem off of all the meds. He agreed and suggested she taken some extra strength tylenol.

While her Dad was doing his magic, he thought she should at least try to take the antibiotic again, to get rid of whatever was left in her system. Nothing else, just the antibiotic. So she did...

Midnight Wednesday. Nope, no good. She couldn't keep that down either. But, like usual, she felt a little better afterwards. Just enough to get back to out room and goto sleep...

Now, I've got to head out to work... I've left her with a bunch of ice packs and I hope she'll be doing fine throughout the day. I won't be home until 8 or 9 tonite so all I can so is just hope she'll be OK...

Need to make friends with a judge...

In traffic court today, I was waiting in line to speak to the County Clerk. Two or three people in front of me was a young woman waiting to do the same thing. The judge walks in...

Real Situation:
Judge: Come over here, Heather.
Heather (The Woman): Hello.
Judge: Does your Dad know you got this ticket?
Heather: Yes.
Judge: Did he get mad?
Heather: Yeah, he was pretty angry.
Judge grabs ticket... Looks at it...
Judge: I'll see you later Heather.
Heather: Thanks!
The woman smiles and walks out...

Any judges out there that want some computer work done??? ;)

Whats going on here!?!?!

I don't think I've ever gone an entire week without posting before so this is out of the ordinary... Lets just say I'm on vacation and can't write much right now... :(

There is an odd trend developing though... On days that I don't post, I get close to 100 less visitors and 300 less page views when compared to days that I do post... Hmm... When I post, MT pings a bunch of sites to let the world know that I have written something new. Those listing usually last a little more than an hour before they are erased by other people updating their blogs... Do a lot of you come from weblogs.com or any of the other blog syndicating sites???

Geek before my time???

This has been pent up for a couple of years now. I've always keep my feelings on the issue to myself but yesterday's morning talk show on a local radio station pushed me over the edge...

Marriage at 21.

Some "girl" called in to let the hosts know that last week she talked to them about getting married. Well her boyfriend proposed and now they are. She sounded really immature (giggled and dodged all serious questions) and once the hosts found out that both she and her furutre husband still live with their parents, all of Western New York seemed to called in to tell her that she was basically dumb and shouldn't be getting married at 21. They then shifted the entire conversation away from her (rightly so, because it became one huge flame war) and went on a "Don't get married when you are 21" schpeel...

I've got a lot of opinions but I want to bring up some of the good things that the hosts and callers said. First of all, calling a radio station for "social advice" on marriage is one MAJOR indication that you are NOT ready to get married. Second, lots of women called in to say that they got married early and now they are divored with children because their husband didn't want to leave his friends behind for his marriage. They said that the husband didn't want to be married anymore and that they (the wives) were now stuck with kids. There was one (and only one for the time I listened) male caller who also said don't do it but for completely opposite reasons. He and his wife were on their own. They fincanced their own wedding and he wanted to warn her how difficult it would be to get started because of fincances... Did I mention that the girl who called in was not employed??? He asked her if she knew how much a wedding cost and she giggled... He said his beer tab alone cost him two grand and she stopped giggling...

Now for my turn... I agree. That woman who called in (IMHO) should not be getting married. She did sound more like a girl than a woman, and not just in her voice... Her language, the way she couldn't answer questions, and expecially because she couldn't defend her decision to get married. But on the other hand no one has the right to say should CAN or CANNOT get married when you choose.

Then the DJ said you should not be getting married at 21. To the audience, not the caller. And she kept saying it. Even the other DJ's got in on it. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME SO HOW CAN YOU SAY I AM TOO YOUNG TO GET MARRIED!?!?! I do not think 21 is too young for me. Hell, I think 23 and 24 is too old! (In the terms of you should already be married or have serious plans by then...) I have been with Totem for almost 6 years now and we have been on our own for 2. We know what life will be like when we are supporting ourselves. Trust me. We've had fights, lots of them, about finances, about family, about moving, about dying, about children, about houses, about EVERYTHING. I know of couples who breakup before they even get to the "level" of fights that we have gotten to.

I got extremely upset when the female host of the show started to act like that girls mother and told her to get away from her fiancee. They even started to trash talk him without getting him on the phone to defgend himself (because it was obvious that his fiancee was not going to). Then the girl's real mother got on the phone and the DJ kept at it!!! Its like she was come all know all of everything... But then everyone else started to chime in. At least five women said that their husbands left them because they didn't want to be married anymore and now they are stuck with the kids. The wives said their husbands wanted to be with their friends and at parties and socializing and drinking more than with their wife and kids...

So when I finally got around to ignoring the host and listening to the callers, I started to think. Friends. I have them and I've had them for a long time. Why would that stop my marriage? Totem has no problems with me spending time with my friends and I don't have a problem with her spending time with hers. Even of the opposite gender. My best friend is female and hers is male. And we know that we talk about personal things with our friends too (marriage, children, finances, life, etc...). Neither of us have a problem with it. Were all these women too insecure or not trusting of their husband? Whats the problem with being married and having a social life?

Drinking. I don't do it much so I guess I have missed that boat. Good.

The other point was the children... How can a husband bring a child into the world and then ignore them??? I can't wait to have children. Everyone who knows me knows that. Totem wants them too. Everyone whos knows her knows that as well. How could either of us bring a child into the world and then just discard them because they are an inconvenience??? A child, AN INCONVENIENCE?!?!?! WTF!!!! I'll never understand fathers who don't play a part in their childs life. I couldn't have gotten anywhere without my Dad. Same goes for the mother. I know of many mothers who wouldn't give a $hit about their child if friends came over. I also know of a couple of Moms who WON'T let the child's father play a role in his/her life. (Which I think is one of the worst punishments you can give to a willing father, IMO. Law is working its way into this couple's life BTW to fix this problem...) So this is not a felling I get towards a father. Its a feeling I get towards a parent...

But why I'm wondering if it is before my time is because I don't know if I missed something. My parents where on their own when they were my age. So were Totems. We've lived together for two years. We've fought and struggled together. We've loved each other for six. Thats more than some marriages even last... So why is it such a problem for the public to see that we are getting married, and that we WANT to? Totem wants a family and I want a family. She'd love to become a housewife and teach music lessons out of our home and I'd love to be there supporting them. Why is this wrong only because I am 21 (22 at the marriage)??? What is the problem with getting married early?

Some people have told me that it is the experience... The experience of what? Sleeping around?!?!? I've found the woman I love. Why can't I just have her??? By living together we know what life is going to be like and how hard it is. Trust me. There was a time where we went a month on nothing but credit and canned goods... On the other hand, we survived. It made us stronger.

Other people tell me that by having kids young, I am cutting my life short... How? So I don't get to go on a MAJOR vacation for a decade or two. Big woop... I'd rather be in my forties and truely ENJOY my vacation knowing my kids are in college, then have a little fun now and watch my kids in college when I am in my late fifties or sixties...

Still others have said we are making a mistake because Totem and I have never dated before we met each other. You don't believe in true love? That's fine. Because I do. I wouldn't be getting married to my soul mate if I didn't...

I guess that my whole point is that this was our choice. If you don't like it or if you yourself didn't make it because you married young, then good or bad for you. I'm sorry. I don't think anyone has the right to tell me what I can or cannot do except me. Especially when I have my heart set on it and I know it is the right thing to do...

Progress...

Totem and I are making progress with the wedding plans and preparations... She has her dress bought and all the brides maidens dresses ordered. Her and her Mom picked out all the flowers the other day. I've got my tuxedo arrangements picked out. Black tuxedo with white vest and bow tie. The best men and brides maids are in a light purple color dresses and vests. And this morning Totem and I picked out the wedding cake.

Things are moving right along. Whats hitting us so hard is how fast it is coming. Four months... We're gonna be married before we know it... :)

Next Chapter - Writers Cramp...

This weekend turned out to be much busier than Totem and I had thought it would be...

Friday night we had a blast at the annual Engineers Ball. While the dancing wasn't the greatest (the DJ played music like it was a dance club - after three hours only 2 slow songs before we left) and the people working at the place were disrespectful, but we got to hang out with a bunch of friends and forget about the world around us for a little while. I've got pictures, and I plan on posting them, I just don't have any of me. No one grabbed my camera while I was dancing. :\ So if anyone else who was there ::cough:: acwmaiden, autonomy, kirk11235, smilemoreb ::cough:: got pictures of me, send 'em over here and I'll get them online with mine...

After the dance we went midnight bowling with the entire gang (11 of us) and had a blast. We all got around 4 games in before they closed up and I managed to score pretty well in all 4 of my games. Better than I did when I was in a league... Maybe I should have played in the league when I was tired and falling asleep. ;)

Totem and I had to get up early on Saturday morning. She and her mom went out shopping for floral arrangements for the wedding while I started "finalizing" the old apartment. I managed to get the office, bedroom, and bathroom all packed up before Totem came back. So loaded up her van with stuff and moved it over. She then tagged along with me to my second job where I spent a couple of hours coding and swearing at myself (READ: I've got a rant brewing...).

Sunday morning was early again because we weren't able to finish the apartment on Saturday. Thats when it started hitting us that we were doing it again. Moving. Another chapter had closed in our book and we were starting another one. That's why I wrote writers cramp in the title. We're tired of moving. We both promised ourselves that on the next move, we are first going to get a UHaul. :) And second, that we are going to move into a house that we will live at for more than a year (We've lived only a year at the last three places we've rented so moving is becoming all too common for us).

But, on the upside, change is normally good. We managed to finish cleaning out the old apartment and get it inspected by the manager with only being an hour late to work (Totem Mom's was understanding which was nice).

So now we are in. Everything is at the new place (either in the garage/storage or in the basement with us) and we're settling. Now just to focus on graduation and then I'll be able to fully concentrate on my wedding...

Thought provoking...

I took this picture earlier today. It came out better than I had hoped. The shot drew out a lot of meanings and emotions... Take it for what you want... I just like it.

Pretty good actually...

Well, Totem and I are officially moved in. We got almost everything over to the "new apartment". The only things we have left are boxes of paper things that eventually need to be filed, and stuff like our dishes and food in the fridge... If all goes as planned, we should have it completely empty tonite or by tomorrow night.

As for Internet, I got lucky. I don't get a 14.4 connection out there... I get a 28.8!!! ::sarcasm:: Wohoo!!! ::/sarcasm:: Its not as bad as I had thought, though. Granted nothing comes up as fast and downloading almost anything is out of the question, but text comes up pretty speedy. I was actually kind of surprised when the text on the main page of my blog (you're looking at it) came up in 2 seconds... The rest of the page took 15 seconds to load... But you're coming here for the journal, right? So it dosen't matter. ::cough:: Bull$hit! ::cough:: Excuse me...

Outside of a nasty cough ::evil grin::, my cold seems to have passed. So all in all, things are changing. And as of yet, the change has been pretty good. Now to start playing X2: The Threat and Neverwinter Nights since I really can't do anything on the Internet...

Moving out...

We're progressing pretty well... Totem and I have most of the "we don't use this" stuff either thrown out or moved into storage. Tonite we should be able to finish our clothes situation. Tomorrow we'd like to have our living room and kitchen finished. That'll just leave our bathroom and office stuff left to do. Basically the things we need/use daily. Next weekend is the "big" move. My brother is coming over to get out bed and furniture out. Then all we have to do is clean up and we'll be out...

It might not be exactly what Totem and I have planned, but it is a welcome change...

SJCI History...

More responses from the newspaper. I'm really surprised at how many people that I knew years ago still remember me and are glad read about me in the paper, seeing that I'm still up to my old tricks... I ran into a parent that I knew when I was in 8th grade, more than seven years ago. Priests that I knew when I was an altar server in 3rd grade (12 years ago) have contacted me. Even some of my best friends at my High School have contacted me.

I never thought that I even knew this many people. ;) Let alone do something that would make them remember me so many years after I had left their lives...

The best and most heartfelt emails I have received have been from two of my friends that were faculty at my high school back when I was a student there... I don't really want to post their names (because I'm all against that here)... What I will say is that they were both my mentors and best friends throughout all my four years at SJCI. Here is some of the stuff that they have said about me...

"Students come and go and become an amalgam: one image of many. But rare
is the student who will forever be etched in the teacher's mind as a
terrific person, a guy truly a pleasure to have known for that short
time spam of high school. You are that student."

"We've never been able to replace you here Andy. You are indeed one of a kind!"

God I miss have relationships like that. I've never been able to "gel" with ANY faculty here at college like I did with my teachers at High School... I guess it is one of the side affects of going to a huge public college. Anyway, it was great to hear from them. Really good warm feeling. I'm glad I made a difference even if I couldn't see it myself... ::warm smile::

Viva Las Vegas!!!

Its all done. Flights are booked. Hotel reservations are made... 5 nights at the Luxor Hotel on the strip...

Free can be better than not free, but having the confirmation in my hand is SO much worth it and knowing that everything is already taken care of now is SOOOO much worth it...

It just won't stop!!!

In a year that will be, and so far has been, full of changes for Totem and I (college graduation, "permanent" job, wedding, house/appartment after wedding, living with parents before wedding, etc...), something else has gone awry... But this time, even though it is a negative thing, it looks like it is for the better...

Free is not always good... Our "free" trip we won for our honeymoon. It is very quickly going downhill and gaining speed. First of all, we want to go relatively soon after our wedding (sometime that week). The company that is doing the promotion cannot tell us anything about the trip (such as a confimation that we would actually be going on it) until 45 days before. That means if all goes well, we'd have to book flights and land travel and everything else we would need in about a month before we got there... Totem's Mom is a travel agent and said that was BS (we agreed). So I called them to be sure. I got a woman who was VERY mean and didn't give a $hit whether or not we wanted more days. "It was free so deal with it" was the attitude I got...

So I held my tongue and went along with it. I sent in the reservation card and asked for the three weeks after our wedding. We picked the week of, the following week, and the week after that. Yesterday, I got another letter from them in the mail that sounded even worse than the a$$hat on the phone. "You did not follow the terms of our agreement. This is the last letter you will receive from us. Please fill out the proper dates below. We will not contact you again in the even that you fail to follow our directions." Nice. BTW, they never told us we HAD to pick dates that were 30 days apart. They just suggested it.

Now Totem and I are looking at the calendar... We've got the week after our wedding planned. Good. But then Totem goes back to school... So the other two weeks we have been forced to pick, to not mess up her schooling that much, was Thanksgiving Week, and New Years week... We just got a whole lot more frustrated...

We went back to the professional (Totem's Mom :)) and asked what we should do. She suggested getting our deposit back. (We are both starting to feel that this is much more than it is worth.) Totem's Mom also keeps reminding us that we only get married once. We don't want to screw everything up, not to mention somethign we're going to remember for the rest of our lives, on a "free" trip... I think I'll be calling for my deposit in the next day or two...

Now, on the good side of things. She did do some looking for us. Totem's Mom was able to find a bunch of cruises that we would like. Price wasn't bad, itenery (sp) was OK. But it still didn't seem like there was much to do. Then she suggested Las Vegas. Las Vegas. More to do and "cheaper" than a cruise (for the cruises, the airfare was almost half the cost of the cruise).

But I didn't know that there was anything else to do except gambling and strip joints until she told me to check ou their website: http://www.lasvegas.com

So that's what I am looking at right now. Las Vegas is sounding much (MUCH) more attractive than our free vacation, or a cruise, at the moment. Even if we have to pay for it. Totem and I are not gamblers, and after readin that website, I was sold...

Plus there is one EXTREMELY HUGE selling point for me... Three words...

BLUE...
MAN...
GROUP...

Did I mention that it won't break the bank either??? ::does jittery excited sitting in chair dance::

Classic...

One of the people at my work had a little slip of the tongue that worked out to his advantage...

"If it's not fixed, don't break it..."

Priceless... :p

Where have you been?

Wow. It's been a really long time since I have written something... :\

These past couple of days haven't been hell, but they sure have been busy. Friday and Saturday were pretty much uneventful. I had to go to work for most of each day. Surfed and coded and usual...

Sunday was a little busier. The day started by my actually blowing my windoze box away. And, as expected, I did forget to back some minor stuff up. (It happens to me every time.) I lost all my email account settings and mail filters... At least I managed to save the emails... :p But as that chugged along, something else popped up. Most of my software and things I needed weren't at my house anymore. They're in boxes. I ended up downloading mostly new drivers and software from the Internet so it wasn't a completely bad thing. What was bad was not having my Quicken CD with me. When your normal routine is to come home and check your finances and email, and suddenly I couldn't do that, everything becomes really weird. I was so out of place. At one point I was just sitting in my chair trying to think of what I could do next (in terms of reinstalls) and Totem walked in asking what was wrong. She said I looked so confused and lost... ;)

Needless to say, the computer is feeling healthier... Software installs are going slow but I've got all my data, email, and financial stuff back up and running so all is well. Unfortunately, on Sunday, not everything went well.

We spent the rest of the afternoon packing up stuff and moving it over the new place. We then got news that Jen's (step) Uncle had died. Now her grandmother has lost her husband and son within two years. Just as she was starting to be able to cope with the loss of her husband, her son dies. She is a wreck, the poor woman. I hope everything turns out as good as can be expected in the end...

Monday. Totem's first day of classes this semester and our first day to attempt car pooling. ::fake sarcastic laugh:: It was also the first day of really really bad snow in the area. Driving was a pain in the a$$. It should have taken me about 45 minutes to get her to school and then get to work. It took an hour and 45 minutes... What a way to start a Monday.

But, the day went off without a hitch for either of us. Work kept me busy all morning and school was nice too. I'm really getting used to this 3 days of school stuff. Totem's classes went well too. She was glad to be back with a bunch of her friends.

Tuesday was even worse than Monday, in terms of weather. Driving was horrible ALL day. Snow everywhere, and I mean everywhere! Another couple of hours drive for us in the morning. The day was normal. Work, meh... School was OK for Totem. We had dinner at a local sports bar (kinda a back to usual schedule treat type thing) and will never be going back there again... Not the worst $30 we have ever spent on dinner. There just wasn't much to quantity and Totem's chicken was drying than cardboard...

I got myself registerred for Tuxedos for the wedding. Its kind of a nice feeling to get that out of the way... Just one step closer I guess...

Wednesday morning. This morning. BAH! 2 hours of driving and I was still late for my class... All the roads were moving slower than usual. Wierd thing was that the side roads were going faster than the thruways... :) That's the only reason I was extremely late to class. I took all side roads to campus instead of the thruway after I dropped Totem off...

Now I'm just sitting here in a computer lab waiting for my next class... Creative Nomads (the devices, that play mp3's, not creative people that move from place to place, even though I qualify as one) are so nice... 8)

Hot off the presses...

The story made the front page of the Sunday news... My picture was featured a little later in the first section. (So yes, you can finally see what I look like if you want to.) The article was written very well and sounded better than I ever thought it would. So I'm pretty excited. The neat thing is that my parents are getting calls from friends they haven't spoken to in a long time asking it that was me. :)

Here is the link...

I'll have a local copy up as soon as I get home...

Eat that!

Looks like the old playing-too-much-on-the-computer trend of thinking is wrong...

CNN article here...

EAT THAT!!! Geeks rule... ;)

OH YEAH!!!

A journalist for the local newspaper contacted me a couple of days ago about a story she was doing on weblogs in Buffalo (where I live). She asked if I would be open for an interview. (::jaw drops::) I said yes (DUH!), and we met today. She asked a bunch of questions about when I write, how I write, cost, and stuff like that. I had a great time and it was a lot of fun.

Probably the best thing that we discussed was how she said I sound like my blog. Of all the interviews she did, most of the people write differently in their blog than they speak in normal life. Apparently, a group of attorneys in the area use blogs and the way they write in them is completly different than how they speak in real life, and obviously, how they speak in court. She was surprised to see how much my blog and I were alike. :) Plus, I got the impression that she has been reading my entries for a little while just because she made that connection (and she told me that she was reading it). Pretty kewl. 8)

She also said that she has found a lot of blogs out on the Internet that really aren't that interesting. People complaining about life (aparently more than me) or looking for an "out" of something or just not that much fun to read. But my blog was not any of those. I must have done something right. ::score::

Once I get more info from her, I'll be out buying a couple of copies of the paper and getting the link to the stories up here (Did I forget to mention the entire paper is also posted online?)... Plus they're going to include a picture and link to my site.

::NYS Lotto Guy Voice:: Cool... ::/NYS Lotto Guy Voice::

Belly Up...

Well everything that Totem and I have planned for the past year or so has gone belly up. We have literally done a 180 on life. We've come to realization that living on our own has finally gone beond our control and is an unattainable goal at this time, even though I've thought it could be, and fought for it to be, for over a year now...

Totem is not able to work this semester. I am limited in the amount of time that I am allowed to work at my job. We cannot live, even in a new place, on my salary alone. Student loans are not an option at this point. After talking with both of our parents, and having very long talks together, we decided...

We're moving in with Totem's parents. They have a guest room in the basement that they are allowing us to live in for the next couple of months until I graduate and get a better job. This will allow us to save the money that we would be spending on rent for either a deposit for an apartment in the summer, or maybe even a down payment on a house.

This is not something we've wanted to do, but it is the only thing we can do to not get ourselves any deeper than we currently are. With both sets of parents offering rooms in their houses, we figured her parents would be least inconveniced (sp) by us because they are not currently using the guest room. Whereas if we moved in with my parents, we'd force my dad to move our of his office.

I originally was extremely bummed and depressed about all of this. I've been trying to separate myself from any attachment (financial) I've ever had. IE: Use my money to live my life. Not living off of others. All four parents realized that I have been doing this, and all have been there to talk with me and let me know how they feel. They are welcoming us into their homes with open arms. So, even though I think I will be a burden on their lives, they have reassured me that we will not be.

So while this is not the step that Totem and I wanted to take, we are very gracious for everyone helping us out. Totem and I are happy. That is what I wanted. Thank you Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad. :)

Would you like some carpet with those pine needles???

I've had live Christmas trees before for Christmas. Only I've had them on hardwood floors. I need to remind myself to never again put a tree on carpet. Totem was literally sweeping our rugs to get the pine needles out. I swear there was close to an inch of needles on our carpet after we actually got the thing out of our apartment.

I guess I paid the price for letting the thing die and not keeping it water'd every couple of hours... The apartment does smell like pine, though. ;)

Apartment Hunter Here...

Totem and I think we have found our next apartment. We're moving out of our current apartment in late Feb. because we're kinda annoyed that her brother had his house built for him, and he's paying less than our rent for his mortgage.

It is not as big as our current place, but it has two floors (its an upper apartment with access to a 2 room attic inside the appt, IE: it would be only ours) and it is very cozy. Two nice bedrooms. Decent bathroom. Small kitchen but we can live with it. The rent is MUCH cheaper even with having to pay our own utilities. Plus, there's no contract. The landlord said he'd like to have someone stay for a year but he's not going to lock us up...

The other nice thing is that my Mom loves it. 8) Tomorrow Totem's Dad gets to check it out...

Yeah, I know, why am I letting the parents on on it. Like why is it not our decision??? The reasoning behind this is that our last two apartments, while not bad at all, have been, lets just say tough on Totem and I. We're looking for that third (and fourth) voice to "guide" us on a good choice. We don't really want to have to move again in a year (like we have for these last 2 appts). We'd like to settle down and four heads are better than two. ;)

The day after...

Lots of good things... One bad thing. I don't want to talk about it but my Christmas was overshadowed this year. I love all the stuff I got. I didn't like the sleep on Christmas Eve or wakeup on Christmas Day.

SSDD.

Fed up...

I've been reluctant to post this clip for a couple of months now because of how graphic its message is. But I've had enough...

Till Death Do Us Part

I'm sick of hearing about dead-beat dads, or people who put alcohol in front of their families, or dads that don't realize how good of a wife they have and how much their son idolizes them. I'm sick of watching wives/girlfriend worship physically and/or mentally abusing husbands or boyfriends. I'm just fed up. This movie is EXTREMELY graphic and should not be watched by children. There's lots of blood in it...

For any father who has neglected their son or daughter or wife or caring girlfriend, listen to this. There are many other people out their who would LOVE to be in your shoes but can't for some reason or another. DON'T TAKE YOUR CURRENT SITUATION FOR GRANTED.

Just remember. Someone is always watching you. Inside or outside the family...

And yes, this video did hit close to home... That's why I'm posting it and venting...

New Years Resolution...

Five times today I've caught myself saying, "I wish I had my camera on me." I think my New Years Resolution is going to be keeping my camera on me at all times so I can get those pictures I want so bad... Not to mention keeping my photoblog updated more often...

Slump...

I hate this time of year. Not the Christmas part, but the study like crazy and rush everything to make sure you do good on the exams and then...

Nothing.

It's like a movie with no climax or ending. It just ends. Sorta like Matrix Revolutions... I can't wait for Christmas to get here so they'll be something to shake up things around here...

Geek's Life Questions...

Did Atlas ever get tired of holding the world on his shoulders???

It just keeps coming...

I never really realized how hard all this school work is hitting me until last night. Totem came home around 11PM and went straight to bed. She had to. Her work needed her at 6AM the next morning... What hit me was that I haven't really seen her for 5 days now. By seen I mean do more than say hi and bye. Outside of sleeping, we haven't been able to spend any time with each other... I've been at work, or she is out with her parents, or I am working at school on a project, or she is babysitting our nephew, or whatever... We're never around for each other anymore...

Of all the BS that goes on with life, this is what I am regretting the most...

A Geeks Soul...

I've been brooding over this story for a very long time. It's more of a tale than a rant. Something that I have just felt over a the last year. Dark, cold, true to life, depressing, and hopeful is the tale. Inspired by many things. Acwmaiden's vivid day dreams, the language that Tolkien uses in his books, the swing of emotions over the past week, the haunting dreams that have come over the last two months, and the resolve of people that I once knew... Do not read this. You have been warned...

Opening its eyes, the soul did not know where it came from, what it was doing, or what had happened. All it knew was that laying down and looking up into the bright hot sun was the only memory, past and present, that it had. The soul was whithered and weak, laying almost as if thrown on the ground of hot white sand. When looking around all it at first noticed was an endless desert. No features, no details. A barren landscape in all directions.

Slowly it realized that bound around each of its limbs was a very thick and sturdy rope. Being too frail, the soul did not even try to remove them. Poised as if making a snow angel in the sand, its limb were drawn outwards in four directions by the tension from the rope. Soon after, the soul noticed four separate black horses at each end of the rope. Each of the horses had a body of some type standing next to it. All were different and served a different purpose. Good or bad, the soul could not guess.

As his vision cleared, the soul tried to make out each of the figures. Standing next to the horse attached to his right arm were two distinct figures. Both seemed as hollow ghosts. Outside, the shell was strong and sturdy but it was clear that both were empty. One was tall, muscular and brooding. The other, tiny and small, seeming insignificant. He soon realized what they were. The tall figure represented the soul's body. Overbearing and strong it was. Always pushing the soul towards pleasure and bodily wants without any regards to others or even itself. Empty were its eyes, not caring about what was to come or what had happened, only about what it could get. The smaller figure represented the soul's mind. Cunning and sly, smart and whitty, weak and frail were the eyes that shone out of the empty shell. It was obvious that the mind was useless without the body, but without the mind, the body was just a piece of flesh. The mind twisted and distorted the body to get what it desired. It took the body's want of pleasure and geared it towards material and intellectual things. Objects that the soul wanted and desired but had rejected because of the damage they would have done to others. Since the mind was free of the soul, it did not care anymore about others... The two stood grinning at the weak thing strewn in the sand...

Looking to the left arm and the horse that was attached to it, the soul saw a single figure with an uncountable amount of heads. Each head was distinct and different. None of them understood each other completely and few knew why they had to share the same body. For the soul it was easy. They were the friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. Each had a link to one another through him, the soul, but none of them realized it. They all stared at the soul and tried to bend their will, unsuccessfully towards the soul. None truely understood each other or the soul and that was why each failed in their attempt, though none though they were faltering. Still the stood over the soul. The pressed on and stared...

Soon the soul realized why those two were beings were attached to his arms. They wre significant in their influence over him, but not as much as the two figures that were attached to his legs, the stronger of his limbs...

On the right stood a faceless figure that was visibly old and wise. It had been through many things in its lifetime and was eager to spread its wisdom to any who would ask. Unfortunatly for the soul, once help was asked, the help would never stop. Family does not turn away easily and when it sees that a soul is suffering, they try their hardest to help. Unfortunately, they do not always see that they can cause as much harm as good when they forced their will over the soul. Still, the attempt did not stop. All the soul could sense in that direction was a deep sense of pity and disgust for some action that the soul had done but could not remember...

On the final limb, at left leg, stood a fair maiden. More beautiful than any he had ever seen. It was another soul, not a body that stood there. His soulmate. She was brighter than the sun. Sweeter than a flower, and more tender than any mother could ever hope to be to their child. He wondered why she was here. Soon, it dawned on him. She was there to stake her claim as well of him. She wanted as much part of the soul as the other three had desired, and maybe more. Her will was the strongest of all of them. She desired much between the two and might even go to an end to destroy the link that the soul had with the other figures to attain it. He knew that deep below the beautiful surface of her skin, that she could unleash a threat more deadly than he could ever imagine, if she desired it.

Lying his head back down, hope soon faded. All was lost, he began to think. Then looking up, something bright came out of the sky. What it was he could not see but suddenly he was filled with a sense that he had some control over each of the beings, even though he was in a frail state. Try he did to win influence over each... None too successful was he...

Over the body and mind he tried to fight back against all the temptation and desire the two wanted. The soul was able to unlesh a persistant pain in the head of the mind and body. They laughed because they had felt this pain before and long knew how to remedy it. When either of the two got what they desired, the pain vanished and only returned when another body wanted more control over the soul than they had...

With that he moved on to the multi-headed creature and try and mend his wounds. Before he could even speak a word, threats and taunts were sent back. The soul was sensistive and easily fell to the harsh things that were said. He was quickly reminded that even though he felt much pain, others apparently suffered more or so they wanted it to seem that while. Other tried to give the soul a mortal wound by reminding him that he was too old for his age. Making foolish decisions that were best left for time to make, rather than making them now and skipping out on so much experience... Since the soul could not remember before this time, he was not sure what they meant as every soul charts their own path... None the less, he was still stricken with a great sorrow that he could not explain... His attempt to win them over utterly failed...

On to the figure of the family. Not much time or energy was spent with them because he had already guessed the answer that they would give. Everything was already done by them and they had more experience than he could ever hope. To go off on his own was to doom himself. He felt doomed anyway and tried to not heed to words they said...

He then locked eyes with the beautiful maiden that stood on his left. Staring, he tried to reason with her a way to get out of this mess. Budge she did not. Stern she stood in her ways and thoughts and would not be easily swayed from her choices... Risking his all, he triggered the threat from inside of her. Trying to reason by force, his one flaw the he thought would work but never did, he pressed his will onto her in a last attempt to sway her. It did not work and as a result, fear and terror overtook him as she seemd to grow larger every second. Looming over him, he gave up and let her will overtake him...

When all seemed lost he again leaned back and let his body go limp... He did not care anymore. He was being torn, that he could tell. When and how fast it was to happen, he did not know and he no longer cared. An eternity seemd to pass as the horses and figures loomed over him... Then suddenly, all mounted their horses at the same time. The soul tried to brace himself for a quick and sudden pain but was too weak to even muster a resistance... Then he saw that flash of light above him again... He stared at it to try and figure out what it was... His attention was not held long...

The four hourses all started to move at the same time. None ran. All slowly, as if crawling, moved outwards. The ropes tightened. A voice inside his head told him to resist and he did, for it was overpowering. Strain over took him but he held strong. Then as his body was now held above the ground, he lost control and let his resistance shrink as a spring would that is stretched took much. He gave up and again, let his body go limp...

As his body hung there for what seemed like a second eternity, he dropped his head and wished for it to all be over. Then finally, he saw what the flash of light was. Standing in front of him, was another soul. An aged one she was. Still strong in the face and resolute she seemed. Fair she was and looked to be full of wisdom.

"I'm here for you" she said. Suddenly a memory of many years passed came to his mind. He remember losing someone dear to him a long time ago and on the day of her passing, she came to him to try and comfort his sorrow. Again she said, "I'm here for you" and walked towards him. He now recognized the face of his grandmother and she came and slowly started to massage his brow. A tear fell from his dry, burning eyes...

Unexplainably, everything seemed to stop. Whether it be that he found strength in himself again to hold the ropes firm and not let them pull any more, or from the fear that each of the four bodies had that the soul still might come over them, they stopped moving.

The soul closed his eyes and continued to weep, still hovering above the ground, tense as a steel cable.

Everything went black... The soul remembered no more... Was it over, or was it beginning, he could not tell. All he knew is that his grandmother was there to comfort him. That was all he needed. He prayed that she would give him the strength to withstand it all... He then waited another eternity for the answer. Whether he ever got his wish, he nor anyone else knows. For it lies in the future that is still being determined. Nonetheless, his soul held strong, contantly under pain from the ropes, but never giving in...

I don't know the end. It hasn't come to me because I think it hasn't happened yet. I miss Nana and I still miss everything that used to be happy. I'm always in pain, but there is a tiny flicker of light at the end of the road... For I think I have taken the one less travelled by... And I am hoping that it will make all the difference...

Geek's Life Questions...

Why, more often than not, do people who do a half a$$ job succeed but those who work their butts off fail???

Geek's Life Questions...

How does one make it ahead in life if for every step made forward, another two are taken backwards?

She said YES!!!

Short Story:
I asked Totem to marry me this weekend. She said Yes. :) Most of my family and her family already know. My parents and hers are VERY excited. She's gleaming over her ring (thanks Smilemoreb) and I'm buzzing off something Starfire said to me. "Finally, I'll have a nice brother." :) ::does happy life-is-finally-feeling-good smile::

Long Story:
Totem and I went to Canada this weekend as sorta a vacation / anniversary trip / Totem's birthday trip / I'm going to propose to her trip. Though, she knew nothing of the last part. ;) She had a clue that I was going to propose and was looking for subtle hints all night, but I kinda gave her wrong clues the entire night to throw her off...

Anyway, when we arrived there, it was pouring out and guess what we forgot??? So our first souvenier (sp) was an umbrella. ;) And it was of an American flag. "Hey Mom! Look what we brought back from Canada! It's an American flag umbrella!!!" We had reservations for dinner at the Skylon tower at 6 but showed up around 4 to be safe. I wanted a window seat and the reservations said to come early so I figured why not. We ended up eating at 4:30 which was really kewl because they had a special dinner for early eaters. We got tons of kewl pictures and had a really good time, aside from the fact that I am afraid of heights... (I did pretty good I thought.)

PICTURES! I'll have these up in a couple of minutes. I'm downloading them to my computer right now! :)

Here was the first bump for Totem. Chef4lisa24 had told her to call her after dinner. Totem was not sure why, figuring that she could not have wanted to know how good the prime rib really was. ;) She told me (later) that she was kind of expecting me to propose to her at dinner since she knew I would not go up that high up for no good reason. Well I didn't propose and I saw it in her face as we left. She was floored. I said she looked like she was going to cry, she said she wasn't. Either way, it proved to me that she had either heard rumors or the truth from someone. The reason I didn't want to ask at dinner is because I knew she was going to expect it. (As proven...)

After dinner we headed over to the casino where we proceeded to lose $50 Canadian very fast. My impression was three floors of slots and card tables. Tables were too expensive for me (I couldn't see paying a min of 15, 25, 50, or 100 to play a game of cards especially since I only brought 100) and slots we just not fun. We hung around for about 3 hours and only spent half of the money we brought in (the $50). Totem and I decided that we wanted to bring something home besides the menories of lights flashing at us asking for more change...

After this, we we able to do something that I had no clue about. Aparently, they have fireworks displays every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the falls during the Summer. So since it was getting dark, we decided to walk around the falls and check them out. They were really beautiful lit up the way they were. I wish I could have gotten a few good pics of the falls but they didn't come out... Anyway, since along the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is like a park, I took Totem off the main path a little bit and basically asked her. I told her that I knew she was expecting me to propose at Dinner and I said I was sorry I didn't. So I asked if I could propose now? ;) I did and she said yes. She loved the ring. Absolutely LOVED it! Thanks Smilemoreb again!!! :) We then watched the fireworks which was a nice way to end the night...

It turns out that she was expecting a bunch of things. First, she was expecting at dinner. Second she was expecting me to do it in front of a bunch of people. Third, she was expecting a speech. And fourth, she was expecting me to get on my knees. I guess I took her off guard by not doing it at dinner, moving away from everyone, being short and simple, and by just holder her close when I asked instead of being on my knees.

In the morning we had our free continental breakfast and checked out. As a last minute thing we took a ride on the Maid of the Mist. I've done it before on the American side and Totem has never been on the ride. It, as expected, was AWESOME! You'll know what I mean when you see the pictures...

(My) Mom and Dad's house was the first stop on the trip home. They were excited and tried to act like they knew nothing in front of Totem even though they were in on it from the beginning. ;) After this, we went over to my Grandparent's house to let them know of the news. Little did we know that three of my aunts would show up while we were there. :) I bet that the rest of my family found out within an hour of us leaving their house. 8) Next was a friends house and Chef4lisa24's work. Both were excited for and gave us hugs. We then headed over to Totem's parents house and got the same reaction. Hugs around and awesome comments from (to be) relatives like "I'm finally going to have a nice brother!" (HEHE Starfire ;) )

Since the reason for going over to her parent's house was to celebrate her birthday, lots of other people were there too, aside from the fact that we are now engaged. ;) Totem's grandparent's and great aunt/uncle were also there. More joy and happiness as the news spread...

Today was a good day. :)

Now were are sitting at home with Chef4lisa24 just relaxing. Her and Totem are watching a movie and I'm checking up on the news and reading my email (and writing this)...

I've had a great time and I can't wait until I can do it again. For anyone wondering, we are pencil-ling in a date in early August of 2004. Totem and I have to look over our schedules (like when school starts again for her) before we finalize anything. But you can bet that I'll post it here once I find out!!!

::does happy-content-excited-happy-happy-joy-joy smile::

Sirens over Baghdad...

God save us all...

Sometimes...

I just don't understand women... ::sigh::

A weekend we'll never forget...

One would think that would mean a bunch of good things happened. Well, they did. But unfortunately everything that happened on our camping trip was overshadowed on our trip home...

We decided to stop by Jen's parents house because they were on the way home from our camping area. While we were there, they got a call from a relative who does the normal "checking in" of another relative, Jen's Great-Grandmother, Nana. When Nana did not call her, and would not answer her phone, Jen's father was next in line. We offered to swing by since her house was also on our way home. We figured she went out with some friends like she normally does.

Now there is one thing you need to know. This woman was 93 years old and was healthier than an ox. She had her mind and her body still in tact at her old age. She even drove her own car. Yes, she drove a car at 93 years old. She used to joke with us that they gave her a license that wouldn't expire until 2010.

Anyway, when we arrived she did not answer the door. We found her Saturday mail in her mail box, the Satruday and Sunday papers outside, and her car parked in her garage. Our hearts started to race as we were trying to find a way into the house. She never forgets to get the paper. Luckily for us, a neighbor knew where a spare key was hidden so we could get into the house. By this point all things looked bad. When Jen walked in and got no response to her calls, both of our stomachs dropped.

Living room, kitchen, bathroom, no Nana. Jens heads upstairs and checks the bedroom. Nana was laying on the bed. She had passed away in her sleep.

I can only imagine what Jen is going through right now. Four months ago she lost her Grandfather. Now she lost her Great-Grandmother. I feel so bad for her because I can't do anything for her.......... =(

For me, this is the third death of someone I knew in 1 year. I lost my very close grandmother almost a year ago now. I knew Jen's grandfather very well when he died. I've only met Nana once, but that time I did, she was a trooper. I wish I could be in that health if I live to be 93.

So with all the rides and games we played at the amusement park, all the stars we starred at and campfires we built, all the fun we had this weekend, they will all be over shadowed by the memory of Nana; and Jen having to find her first...

Part of me is thinking, someone is going to say I'm a heartless prick because I wrote that our weekend was ruined by a death and that it's all Nana's fault that our weekend was ruined. Well I'm not a heartless prick. And it was not her fault. Anyone who has lost a love one knows what this is like. I'm not trying to downplay an awesome weekend. My point was to say that with all the fun we had, we'll never be able to forget it now because of this one tragic event that happened at the end of it. If you still think I'm a prick for some god aweful reason, step down and go somewhere else...