It's now December, the month that brings Christmas and thoughts of the New Year to the forefront of everyone's minds. This year has been pretty good for me. Even though I'm at a crossroads at the moment, I'm still aware that all in all things have been good. I don't miss Albany, not really anyway. Albany had two things for me primarily: My parents and my job. My job was not only a good job, but the people that I forged friendships with were great. I have no regrets about moving, primarily because the friends moved off into different directions. The job I once had is no more, and the situation is not what it was. It's another case of not being able to go back to that time again, so the only thing you can do is move forward. Once upon a time I had a problem with that in my relationships. I would reflect on how good it used to be while the whole thing was in the toilet. I would think if I only did/say this everything would be like it used to be. It reminds me of a lyric from the song "Pictures Of You" by The Cure.
If only I'd thought of the right words, I could have held on to your heart.
If only I'd thought of the right words, I wouldn't be breaking apart... all my pictures of you.
I suppose that I'm becoming more practical or perhaps even wiser these days. Although I still believe that little things do count, I don't believe that one misstep will cause the failure of a relationship. Knowing that I don't have to be perfect is very liberating. I tend to make more mistakes when I have to second guess myself. The whole point behind this little segue is that when we find ourselves drifting so far away from the dreamy past we should probably treat it as a new beginning, instead of wistfully musing about the great days of yore. I think that you can do the same thing in all parts of your lives. If your marriage is having difficulties you may need to have a new beginning. Either you need to have a new beginning with your partner or without them. Each situation requires something different and I'm not advocating divorce, and more than I'm advocating staying married for long periods when your needs aren't being met by your spouse.
On a completely unrelated topic... Wrestling! I've been getting a bit nicked and bruised as of late. On Sunday, I bruised my knee because we were wrestling in the basement. It doesn't hurt, but it is tender. I also think I sprained my left wrist today. It's not broken, and I can use it, but it still feels funny. Perhaps I strained some tendons, who knows. My nose is also a little tender and I have a few scrapes here and there. Other than that, everything is fine on that front.
One last thing... MSN is giving me fits. I can go online with MSN, but I can't get my MSN e-mail. If you sent me mail at my MSN account I haven't received it. I am receiving Hotmail and faulguy mail, but not MSN. So if I don't respond, you know why.
I'm going to see "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and we're going to look for a Christmas Tree today as well. It should be fine. Oh yeah, I rented Gladiator and thought it was great. It had foreshadowing and heroic sort of measures. It was well done. I recommend it. Talk to you later.
Boy does time fly. Let's recap my week thus far. Actually let's start with the daily routine, as I have gotten into one. Wake up at 8 AM. Make coffee, log on and check mail. Go to Washingtonjobs.com and check the new listings and read through jobs that have been advertised in the last 24 hours. Delete all jobs that I'm not qualified for, look at the remaining jobs and throw out a resume or two depending on my mood. This process can last from 1 - 3 hours depending on my energy level and other tasks on the table. After the job search completes, I either read the news on the internet or look at my site and try to find a way to take my site to a new level in design and interest level. E-mail people when I have something to say, or e-mail just to let them know that I haven't forgotten them. If there is something that I need to do outside of the house I do so. I need to get my car inspected by the people's of Virginia. My emergency brake doesn't work, I've been putting my car in first gear for the last year to keep me from rolling. It's time to get it fixed. Who knows what else they may uncover, so I need to take it to someone who can repair and inspect my car. This chore will have to wait until next week because I'm going to Richmond tomorrow for a Wrestling Tournament. It's an overnighter, so I'll return late on Saturday.
OK I have to interrupt this line of thought to make a little complaint. I am getting a disproportionate amount of calls for John Bowden. I think that he owes money. It wouldn't be bad getting calls, but as I enjoy receiving calls for me, and I'm not getting many, then my hopes get up every time the phone rings only to be dashed as I reply in my monotone voice "He no longer has this phone number" Today the score is John 2, Me 1. Mom called today :-)
I've run out of time for writing. I have to get ready to leave for Wrestling practice. Like I said earlier, time seems to fly by.
If I don't start writing more often, I might lose my fan base. I don't have a heck of a lot going on right now, but I do have enough going on to relate. This weekend we had our first Tournament down in Virginia. It was a duel style tournament. There are two types of tournaments that you can go to: Team and Individual. This past weekend we went to a team tournament. We wrestled 7 teams and ended up with a 5-1-1 record and tied for 5th out of 17 teams. We lost one of our matches by a point. We had a great time, and this team really rallied together. They've accepted me as one of their own. They still yell Timmay when I walk in the room, I just smile and shake my head. The trip was a success, and it helped the wrestlers become a more cohesive unit. We have another tournament this weekend, this one will be an individual tournament. The wrestling this weekend will be a little more competitive than this past weekend. We wrestled a few teams this weekend that were a bit week overall. It was a good confidence builder, but they will be wrestling much tougher teams in the coming weeks. I'm still a little beat up. The wrist is fine if I don't do anything stupid, but then I had to pull my groin muscle yesterday. It only hurts when I lift my leg up high. The good thing is that it feels better today. More stretching is required.
I talked to someone about a job today. The job would be as a VMS systems manager. I may have to reconsider my position about getting out of VMS. I do want to stay out of operations, so this would be a small compromise, not a complete compromise. The pay will be good enough, (no pay cuts) and I will just have to insure that I begin going to school so that I can migrate over to the technologies that are more popular. I was doing that exact thing, when we were bought. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to get completely solid work experience. Hopefully I'll receive a call soon. I hope it works out, I've been in a little bit of a funk, creatively and otherwise. I'm trying to wake up earlier and earlier, but then I don't want to get out of bed when I do wake up. I don't like admitting it, but it's true.
Well, I've got to get moving. I've got a birthday present to buy, I have to get my suit pressed again, and deposit some money in the bank. In short, I have to get myself moving again. Hmmm, I was just reminded of something sort of amusing. One of my nieces cries on most mornings because she gets frustrated when she has to do school work. As an adult, I don't cry, I just find other things to do, while shirking the least appealing duty that I have to take care of. I don't do it every morning, but some days are like that. Yesterday was like that, today is better. What will 2001 hold? 2000 was pretty good over all.
Last night we had an Ice Storm of sorts. Ice has covered the trees and frost is covering the grass with a sheen that I haven't seen in years. Looking out the back window I see crystalline webs of lacy ice covering willow trees. It's quite beautiful. Many of the local schools had a 2 hour delay this morning. My Brother's school district canceled school altogether. Nonetheless I had to make 40 phone calls this morning, to tell the wrestler's we are having practice today at 3:00 PM.
We officially have a new president. The events of the past 5 weeks have been very interesting, but in the end I'm glad it's finally over. I applaud Al Gore on his speech, I was more impressed by how he delivered this one, than by anything else he has said during this election. It was the first time, that he sounded sincere. (I'm not saying that he hasn't been sincere in the past, but they don't call him wooden for nothing). Bush's speech was OK as well, it was very similar to other speeches I've seen. This election will always be a backdrop and a reminder of my own time here in Virginia. The election occurred a few days after I got here, so for a solid 5 weeks, it has been the topic in the air while I've been looking for gainful employment.
AT&T is pissing me off. I've been a loyal subscriber for years, and they are giving me the shaft at the moment. I cancelled my phone in New York on November 1. I just received a bill from AT&T for $5.73. This bill includes taxes and some charge. I don't even have that phone number anymore and I'm getting billed for it. It's time for me to make a little phone call. Please wait while I dial their 800 number...I'm currently navigating through the menus and I'm looking for an operator... I found her. We're trying to negotiate a deal on cheaper rates. I got burned this past month when I talked for 2 hours from about 12:00AM to 2:00AM in-state and they charged me about 25 cents a minute. This has been halved and they threw out the service charge for the phone that is now gone. Glad that's over with.
My car has been officially rejected on it's general inspection. My emergency break has not worked for over a year, and now I need to get it fixed so that I can be legal in this state. They will be working on it tomorrow. It's going to cost me about $300. It's either $300 for one month, or I'll have to fork out a monthly car payment. This is the cheaper solution by far. I also had my insurance moved to Virginia. It's actually cheaper here in Virginia than in New York.
I bought my very first Beatles CD this week. I decided to buy 1, which is a collection of 27 of the Beatles' #1 hits. I've been meaning to add some Beatles to my collection, but never got around to it. A few songs stick out as more than just bubblegum pop. Eleanor Rigby has always been one of my favorites, and songs such as Help! and Hey Jude have new respect now that I've been able to digest them in my own home. I can't help wondering who is getting my money on this one though. I was under the impression that Michael Jackson owned the rights to all their songs, so I would prefer to not make him richer, because I think it's wrong that he outbid Paul McCartney a number of years ago for the rights to his own music. I also wonder if Paul ever wishes he were dead, so that he could achieve the Martyrdom that John has achieved. It's just a thought, and I'm no Beatles historian.
Time to go, practice is imminent.
I used to be an excellent Lego architect. Tonight I was building ships with my nephew and within 5 minutes he's built a pretty cool ship; an hour later, I'm still deciding on how mine is going to look. I quit because I was beginning to develop a headache from staring at the blueprints I had drawn up.
The kids were delighted this week when my brother in-law brought them a play table he had made. It's great for playing Playmobile, Legos, puzzles etc. He made it with an inch or so of lip around the table so that things wouldn't fall out unless you wanted them too. It looks as though it came from IKEA.
This weekend the wrestling team had another tournament to go to. This one was local, but was exhausting nonetheless. On Thursday night we had the Seeding meeting. At the seeding meeting, all the coaches get together to decide how the wrestlers will be ranked at the beginning of the tournament. (This is done to insure that the top two wrestlers don't wrestle in the first round.) The meeting took 4 hours! Apparently, this was much longer than necessary, it was my first seeding meeting, so I didn't know what to expect. I went to bed late and woke up to the sound of the phone ringing in another part of the house. After the second phone call, I realized that I was late! I had an appointment to get my car fixed at 9:00 AM, and I was already 10 minutes late (Yeah, I know, 9:00 AM is extremely late, just hand me a Duff Beer and leave me alone)
So I quickly dressed and drove to the Service Station that was going to work on my car. I stood for two hours while they worked on my car (There were no seats for waiting customers). After that, I drove home and packed what I needed for the tournament and drove off to Circuit City to find a video camera battery. I sat in horrible shopping center traffic for over twenty minutes only to find out that Circuit didn't have the proper battery in stock. From there, I fought my way through the traffic and drove to the school. Meanwhile I was out of gas, literally and figuratively. I hadn't eaten, but I didn't have time. I immediately put 4 of the largest kids on the team in my little car, which, if you didn't know has no shocks. Thankfully, my car was pronounced road worthy by the good folks of Virginia, so I was fine, but I was low on Gas and these big kids were making my ass drag low to the ground. Thankfully we arrived at the school without incidence, but didn't arrive home until a little after 10 PM. We had a great first round at the tournament, so I was still pretty Jazzed, plus a friend left a message on my answering machine, so I was doubly excited, and returned the call. I didn't get to sleep until at least after midnight. At 6:00 AM the alarm went off and we were on our way. We spent the day running around making sure that each kid had a coach in his corner when his match came up. It was a long day in which I hardly sat down at all, It's hard not to become involved in every kid's match. We want them to do well, and sometimes become quite animated in the process. Our second day was not as successful as the first day, we ended up in 6th place out of 16 teams. We started the day in first place. After that ended, we went to IHOP for the second straight weekend. I ordered my usual belly busting meal there. 4 pieces of French Toast, 4 pieces of Bacon, 2 eggs over runny and 2 pieces of wheat toast to sop up the eggs. We arrived home at 12:30 AM and I was toast. We'll be repeating this strange ritual on December 28 & 29.
So far, this team is one of the most cohesive that I've been a part of. There is very little divisiveness on the team, and we consistently have a number of kids in the corner during the other wrestler's matches. Even though we aren't the best team out there, we are very much a team.
I did some more Christmas shopping today, and now I have only a few more gifts left before I'm done. I always procrastinate on this. I want to get the perfect gifts, but it's hard to shop for some people. Well, it's time for me to get going. I have to get to bed at a reasonable hour so that I can finish up my shopping and to also mail out stuff tomorrow.
Merry Christmas! Well, it's one day late, but the spirit is still in the air right? This past week has been consumed by last minute shopping, snow, and the flu, I got it bad. I didn't really eat anything for two straight days. The Flu itself kicked in hard on Thursday night after I returned home from Christmas caroling. Yep, for the first time in my life, I sang Christmas Carol's door-to-door. I wondered if anyone still did that anymore. Apparently they've been doing it for at least the last 5 years. All the families that we visited smiled and a number of the older people were delighted. It's a fact that as a society we are very reticent to intrude in other's people's lives, even to give them something to warm them up. I can't recall ever giving or receiving a welcome to the neighborhood pie or cake. I don't know if that is the same everywhere. Some old traditions have gone on by the wayside. After returning home, I went immediately to bed, but awoke almost hourly, because my stomach was a wreck. I spent most of the day on Friday in bed. I got up once to visit the post office. Fortunately, my shopping was complete before I was visited by the flu. I have no idea where I got the flu, and whether or not I got the same variety as other's who are also sick around me.
This was an oddly scheduled Christmas in my house. To begin with, my father had to work today, so he had to drive back to New York on Christmas Morning. My brother and his wife alternate which family they will spend Christmas Day with, this year was his wife's family's turn. So Christmas started on Saturday for us. My brother and his family went down to my sister's house on Saturday morning, as I gave my gifts to my brother's children so that they wouldn't be carting my gifts down to my sister's. After the 1st round of gift giving, I packed some clothes together and drove down to my sister's house. My brother's family also drove down and the 2nd round of Christmas began. This was the exchange of gifts between my brother and sister's families. I stayed at my sister's house on Saturday and Sunday night. I awoke at 6 AM. It was a rough night sleeping in one of my nephew's bunks. Yes, I got the bottom bunk. I never sleep soundly the first night that I'm in a strange place, so this was par for the course. Plus, I was just getting over a bout with the flu. The 3rd round of gift giving started after an early dinner on Sunday afternoon. My brother-in-law's family came over to share Christmas with us. It was cut slightly short, because my sister and her husband were going to be singing in a Candlelight service. We almost finished the gifts at that time. We then packed their boys in their church clothes to go to the Christmas Eve service. Since my sister and her husband were singing, it was our job (my parents and I) to transport and watch the boys during the service. It was 3 against 3, and I didn't think it would be a problem to keep the boys quiet for 45 minutes. Did I tell you that all the boys are under 6 years old? I think that you understand now. There was moment that stands out and I had to stifle laughing, even though we were in the midst of praying. Someone in the audience sneezed, my 3 year old nephew looked up and said "Somebody Spit!" I had to hold in my laughter, lest I get all the boys laughing at once. It was the highlight of a longer than anticipated service. It wasn't a bad service, it was just too solemn for these 3 boys at that exact time. On Christmas morning the 4th round was started and concluded with the opening of one final present. The boys tore into the wrapping paper and were delighted. The next half hour consisted of 3 adults assembling the play-set with one hand and shooing the boys away with the other. I'm strongly considering assembling everything prior to Christmas when I have kids. Hmm, maybe not, it sort of gives us purpose on Christmas morning. We don't receive as many gifts, so if we can spend our time assembling, than we can in fact serve as more than just a wallet. I don't know, I don't have kids, so we'll see what happens.
Well, that's pretty much my Christmas this year. All of my presents were received well, which makes me happy. As I've gotten older, my expectations for personal gain have diminished extremely. I can truly say that on this Christmas, it was more about giving than receiving. After all, I've been pretty generous with myself all year long, and I'm not really in need of anything in particular, except, of course, a job. Here's to the New Year, and the wonderful possibilities it brings. I'll save the rest for my 2001 New Year's speech, which will be occurring soon. Stay tuned.