Mindless Juices

I'm MOVING!!! I'm tired of the problems with Blogger. I've moved to WordPress. Please update your bookmarks to my new web home: The new and improved Mindless Juices, now with 100% of vitamins O & Z!!!

Today is our anniversary. At least, for a little while longer. Thanks to Curtis and Rae, we enjoyed a GREAT steak dinner at Firebird's Grill, our favorite steak place. I got the meatloaf because it came with the sides I was craving. I figured, if some chef thought these sides went great with the meatloaf, then the meatloaf must go great with the sides. So, you could say I ordered the Spiced Pecan String Beans and Golden Mashed Potatoes with a side of meatloaf. Well, and it's not just meatloaf... It's Buffalo Meatloaf. Anyway, we also decided to spend our anniversary in Lynchburg, city of our engagement and wedding. We decided this only a couple of days ago. But, our friends still said, "No problem, come visit!" So, we took a pretty leisurely drive up and arrived at Nick and Kelli's. The ladies left for a baby shower for Kelli. Nick and I were hoping to be joined by other men who were not attending the shower, but they all had other stuff to do. So, Nick and I played a massive game of Mario Party 4. The maximum game length of 50 turns. We got turn 41 when the ladies returned and we had to leave for a cook out @ Tim and Annie's parents' farm. We paused it to finish later. Annie's dad and Tim (and I'm sure other people) converted the barn and area around it into a perfect outdoor wedding/reception area... complete with serving line, electric lighting and fans and an man-made lake & beach, though the beach washed away in the recent rains because they never finished landscaping the area above it. The mud washed down over the sand and washed it into the lake. Anyway, we ate lots and spent time with good friends and their family. It was pretty cool to be welcomed to this "event" considering we sort of crashed it as somewhat spontaneous guests of Nick & Kelli. The farm was beautiful, the company was great and the food was pretty much neverending. Then, we returned to Nick & Kelli's for some board games. After everyone left, Nick and I finished our massive game of Mario Party 4 with a lot of stars which, I hope, helped unlock more of the game for him. All in all, it was a pretty good, very fun, and relatively cheap anniversary... all because we've got some of the best friends in the world. Thanks to everyone who spent time with us or helped us spend time together this weekend.

Angela, did you notice I changed the sub-title on your link? Josh, it's good to be back. Nick, the nursery looks great! Rae & Curtis, thanks again for dinner the other night. As always, loved the company and the timing of your blessing couldn't have been better. Lastly, I've been playing Zelda: Majora's Mask. I never played Majora's Mask back in the day. It looked dumb. Actually, it looked like Nintendo used all the same graphics to simply make another game, slap the Zelda branding on it and make some more money. Well, they kind of did do that, but they also made a really cool game. It almost feels like they were brainstorming while creating TLoZ:Ocarina of Time and they had a few different ideas... two very good ones... one become OoT and the other became MM. TLoZ:MM has a neat concept. The game happens completely in three game days. I think one real time minute equals one game hour. At the end of three days, the moon crashes into the world and destroys it. You have to stop that, but you only have 72 game hours to do it. WHAT? a 72 minute game?!?! No... remember, you have the Ocarina of Time. You can slow down time, speed up time and even go back in time to the first day. Why would you want to replay the same three days over and over again? Well, because you influence the game. What you do on day 1 affects day 2 and day 2 affects day 3. Plus, you get to keep the masks and treasures with you as you travel back in time to the first day... you just can't keep ammo or money. But, you can bank your money and, lucky for you, the banker writes something on your head to know how much money you have in the bank whenever you make a deposit or withdrawl. So, even when you go back in time, the banker reads your head and tells you your balance. Also, on the three day thing, the citizens of the towns do the same thing every time you reset time. So, perhaps you want to save the old lady from getting mugged? Simply, reset time and stop the thief! So, the bar doesn't open until after dusk, just move time forward and walk on in! You spend three days questing for a mask, then you go back in time and talk to someone on the first day wearing the mask and reap the reward! And, you get a little handy book that helps you keep track of the events in the town and help the townsfolk. Lastly, you've got three days to do the dungeons and side quests. Because resetting time resets the dungeon, you kind of have to do the dungeon within the three days. But, if you slow down time, you have a lot longer than 72 minutes to solve all the puzzles and collect all the things that makes Zelda games GREAT! Try Googling Project64. It's an N64 emulator. With the latest video and audio plug-ins it runs pretty smoothly. Just make sure you have legal copies of those ROMS you plan on playing. :)

So, I was brought into my boss' office today. The expectation on me has been raised... because my salary has been raised!!! Yes, God has provided. I think it inappropriate to publicize how much I make or how much of a raise, but the important thing isn't how much. It is that God answered a prayer that we weren't all too happy praying. Most of the time (including this one), your money problems are your fault and the lesson God wants you to learn is good stewardship. I think He usually let's you flounder in your own mess until you decide to do something about it. Even then, He doesn't necessarily do too much other than prevent you from getting in over your head, even if it may feel like it. We've basically been broke thanks to adoption stuff and some poor stewardship on my part. On the first note, I hope that is the reason my hard work has been blessed by this unexpected gift of a raise. On that second note, I'm surprised my wife hasn't kicked me off of the money handling and taken over. However, as stated before, I'm really trying to refocus on the important things. One of them being good stewardship. Here's the thing: Our small group seems to have a lot of prayer power. A lot of the prayer requests in our small group have been being answered in very obvious ways. Sometimes, God's timing or ways aren't exactly clear to us, but lately, He seems to be taking a more simplistic approach in our lives. A sort of, "Ask and you shall receive." It's been great to see our good friends blessed over the past few weeks as one couple found a house and moved in with relative ease... another's mother seemed to pull a 180 out of depression and into joy and happiness... ministry areas are moving along nicely and the church is growing and changing lives. God is good... (go ahead, finish it, you know you want to!) So, the first order of business in being a good steward is to adjust our tithe. The second is the continue to make the most of this gift we've been given. It means I'll be eating tuna and PB&J for a little while longer. It means I'll probably still cancel my subscription to GameTap. It means, I need to continue to work hard at both the job and my family. The latter deserves more of me than I've given in a while.

So, I signed up to do an NCTI course through the company. NCTI is the National Cable School. When you have certifications through them, you can take them to any cable system in the country and, basically, they'll know that you know what you're doing... or, at the very least, can be taught how they do things. So, I signed up for this class in July 2005. You have a year to complete it. I had to pay for an extension because I procrastinated, then the summer hit (our busy time) and then I completely lost the focus in my life for a while. The saddest part is that I completed the rest of the book in one weekend. I cranked through at about 15 minutes per chapter. I flew through the course and completed all of the lesson exams online. Now, I just need to complete the final exam, but that is administered. So, I just talked to my trainer and I'll be taking that on Friday. Hopefully, that means that I'll start filling out the paperwork on the next course some time next week. This time, I won't procrastinate. The next few courses is stuff I already know (from on-the-job training). I'm sure I'll learn a thing or two, but I should be able to work through them easier. This first course I took was hard because I had to remember the difference between the two heads of a wrench and which way it's supposed to face when using it. I guarantee their are engineers, mechanics, and various other tradesman who build our homes, cars, seats, etc. who have NO IDEA!!! For both of you who read my blog, it's looking like things are slowing down a bit at work. Hopefully, that means I'll have a few extra minutes that I can sneak in a post.

So, who knows if this post will even go through. For the three people who read my blog, thank you missing me and "voicing" your "concern" regarding my absence. I have had a terrible time trying to post all sorts of interesting things on my blog. I had posts encompassing topics about family, about friends, about the adoption, about travling, about video games and about recent news. I tried a total of four times to post rather large posts. The first one was my fault. It didn't go through because I was on my Sprint Card wireless connection. The rest, well, they didn't go through because Blogger didn't work right. For whatever reason, they neither posted nor were they auto-saved as drafts. So, they were completely lost. And after wirintg for 5-10 minutes or 20-30 or 45-60... well, you just don't feel like writing anymore, especially not everything you just wrote. The wise thing to do would be to write it down in a text file and copy and paste into Blogger. But, I'm not that smart. Moreover, I think Blogger's software should work like it's supposed to. I shouldn't have to work around it, even if I can. Anyway, the main thing I want to write about is the fact that we are, as of this moment, not getting a baby this year. Everything was going SO well, I finally started letting my hopes get up a little bit. THAT was a mistake. Korea has closed its doors and, thus, caused me a great disheartening. I was looking forward to being a dad this year. The timing of getting a baby in the winter (the wife's and my slow time) along with the way the money works out with tax credits and reimbursements... well, it was all just so well planned. Now, a foreign government throws a wrench into it all. There are some silver linings that I need to cling to. First, it is possible they might re-vamp the adoption credit and raise it. That would help out with the finances. Speaking of, this extra time gives us a chance to try to save more and be financially better off. And, well, we have to believe that God has a plan for all this... His timing, you know? And, being that He's omnicient, I'm guessing that He might know something we don't. So, changing subjects, I went to FL this past weekend. I saw my immediate family. My little sister graduated college and she moved into her new place and that was enough reason to go spend a little family time. My mom really wanted me to go and, well, I'm proud of her. But, here's the neat thing: I had a really great time! Maybe it was because there was a decent amount of alcohol (we all stayed at my sister's, so if no one is driving, party on!) Maybe it was because it was such a short trip, no one had a chance to get on my nerves. But, I think it's because, finally, everyone is treating everyone else like an adult, even my parents. Whatever it is, I laughed pretty much non-stop from the moment my sister picked me up from the airport. It was well worth giving up my weekend to spend most of it in the airport and on planes.

So, we're almost home after a rousing trip to Jersey. All in all, it was a very good trip. Thanks to a laptop, a GPS sensor, MS Street & Trips, an iPod, and a power inverter... We were totally prepared for a road trip. Some highlights of the relatively new tech, the GPS, were: On the way up, we found the next closest McDonald's because that's what we wanted. So, we passed a few exits knowing there was one only 20 minutes further along. We beat my aunt and uncle who were leading us from their house to the wedding, but we got separated. Apparently, my laptop and some satellites know their town better than they do. On the way back, we saw signs saying their was a wreck at exit 58 on I-95. The signs suggested exiting on I-295 about 15 miles before that exit. So, with that sufficient notice, we were able to come up with an alternate route that just bypassed THAT exit. It was only three miles out of our way and the 3 miles back in was a nice diagonal that dumped us off right on to the exit for I-85. On the way back, we found the Goodberry's in North Durham and stopped off for some concretes. It was absolutely great to see my family. So many of my cousins are finally getting their lives together. Of course, many of them had parents and friends who had parents that had very nice homes and lived just a few minutes from NYC. Why would you bother getting your life together enough to move out? Still, it was good to see that many of them are finding happiness. Apparently, I've been considered MIA by most of the family since 1997. All throughout college, I was trying to figure out myself and then, after we got married, we were trying to make sure we focused on being married. So, now that a lot of that is behind us, I think we're ready to re-join the ranks of the family... To a point. I mean, while my cousins may be stepping into adulthood, they still drink a lot, smoke a lot and occasionally indulge in some other smoking. Soon, we'll have our own little one. I want my family to open their minds and hearts and accept our child who doesn't look like us and has a history unlike anyone else in the family. However, I also don't want them to "corrupt" him/her as they have a tendency to do with each other. I suppose living in NC will help. I'd like to think that we'll do a good enough job of parenting that it wouldn't matter, but there's something weird about the "peer" pressure that family brings to the table. I don't know what it is, but it's only good when they're looking out for your best interest. And, most of the time, we're so caught up in our own self-love-affair, we too blind, deaf and dumb to pay any attention to our mother, aunts, sisters, & cousins screaming, "She's not good enough for you!" or our father, uncles, brothers & cousins shouting, "Your business partner is stealing from you!" Sometimes, they start pressuring you into their lives or out of their lives for fear of you repeating their mistakes. That's when things get crazy: Sure, some uncles know how to impart wisdom and tell you how they became workaholics and almost lost a marriage over it, but others will tell you to focus on the career because your wife will leave you anyway, so you'd better have enough money to pay the alimony. A college kid might not be ready to hear either of those... My advice would be, "YOU need to find the balance, and if family or career doesn't allow you to find a balance, then you need to decide which one will have to change, otherwise, you certainly lose one and may even lose both. And, you always have to re-evaluate the balance and make sure you really are balancing and you just don't think you are while things are falling apart around you. I'm still doing it and I will always be doing it. And you may not always be perfect at it, but you don't have to be. You just have to try and you just have to be either good enough to do it or smart enough to realize you can't and figure out how you can." But, it's weird going back to the folds of the family and looking at them with a different pair of glasses on. Sure, everyone's changed and grown, but I've realized how worthwhile being on my own, making my own mistakes and seeking my own assistance really helps you figure out who you are and what you're made of. Moreover, I've really come to appreciate the amazing woman who was crazy enough to marry me. We've worked hard to get as far as we have with our relationship. Yes, there's lots more, but I know we can work through the "more," too. That security, that foundation, that knowledge of what we've been through... That all translates into a real happiness that I see others in my family starting to find, even some of the older members who have been married for years or are recently retired. They're learning things that I learned along the way as wise men and women passed along knowledge and wisdom, and as I saw others stumble, struggle and overcome and learned to do the same. I'm not claiming to be wise beyond my years or any better than anyone else I know... But, I'm finally seeing the desire to be happy in my relatives and understanding why they do what they do to try and be happy. Now, I know I'm happy and I'll continue to work and do what I need to do to continue to be happy... But now, I want to help some of my relatives be happy, too, or happier. i.e. - My cousin wants to be in the music business. I want to help him break into the business. My uncle has a passion for his cooking and an entrepreneurial venture he is taking with bottling the family's curry sauce. I want to help him make that as successful as it can be. My other cousin has had seizures recently. I want to help her cope with those and let her know, at least, one of us has an idea of what she's going through. Another uncle is building a winter home in Barbados. I want to visit it in the summer. :) I have three cousins heading to college next year and will be taking the first step towards figuring "it" out on their own. I want to encourage them and let them know they can always call if they need something. And, another cousin has a fairly new relationship with someone who seems like a good fit and other people in the family who have known her longer think so, too. I want to encourage him to not give up when the going gets hard, but be sure she's worth it, too. But, the high point of my weekend may have been: My uncle, who put himself through medical school right after my grandparents moved to this country with basically nothing, had success with his work and eventually saved and opened his own practice which has been very successful, had two children who are successful in their own right... My uncle, a man I respect, and he is someone of whom the whole family is proud and admires... My uncle complimented me a few times this weekend about how I'd grown up and become the man I'd become. Maybe I am getting some of this right! Maybe I'm not as far behind the curve as I thought. I have a great wife, a great house, great friends and a great family. Life IS good... Sometimes you just need a change of scenery to realize it.