=(

Today when I dropped Christian off at daycare he started to wail and wouldn’t go to the daycare woman. When I gave him to her, he tried to come back to me. It broke my heart, I didn’t want to leave him.

Nomad

Facebook is pretty crazy. The other day I got a message from my best friend from high school whom I haven’t seen since I stood for his wedding my Jr year in college. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour just catching up. We’re both fathers ~ crazy. He was a good friend, I even lived with him and his family during my senior year, until his stepdad kicked me out.

I’m really bad at staying in touch with people. Once when my friend Rich and I were arguing he said he was surprised how easily I can just drop my friends or forget about them. It kind of stung when I heard that but it’s true. If one of my friends move away out of state, I can easily forget about them. I mean we all are guilty of that to an extent. But I think I am extreme.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about my internal wiring and why I am that way, and I’ve come up with this. It’s because of my nomad lifestyle growing up. I moved a lot when I was growing up through high school. I think it was like 17 or 18 times. Anyways it was a lot.

I remember the first few times moving when I was a kid and getting really hurt having to leave my best friends. But after the 6th, 7th move I kinda got used to it. Callous, jaded, numb. After each move it was out with the old and in with the new. Yeah it sucked having to leave good friends and having to make new ones all the time, but you get used to it. So that’s it, that’s what I’ve come up with. But I’ve changed, and I’m trying to rewire the loose endings. Since college I’ve pretty much stayed in the same area and have maintained my relationships with my closest friends.

It’s actually my best friend Rich’s b-day this Saturday. It will be good to see him, and it was really good to hear from my old best friend Greg. I really hope we keep in touch.

Menace to Society

Went shooting with my friend Gary last Saturday. It was the first time I have ever shot a handgun. You can kind of tell that I was a little nervous. This was a 9mm and it had a lot of power. Check out this video.



This is Gary's very powerful rife. Not really sure what kind it was but man did it ever kick. Check out my body being jerked back.



This was Gary's other rifle. It didn't have a lot of power but it was really accurate, almost no recoil. It had a scope on it for perfect accuracy.

This is Gary's .22, it's almost like shooting a BB gun. BUT it could still kill you, probably would have to shoot you like 10 times though. Look how small it looks in my hand.

Me and Gary.


















One of the few bullseyes with the handguns.

































Guns are really scary. But I still want one. I asked Mary if I could get a 9mm and of course she said no. Then I asked her if I could get a motorcycle so I could commute to work on it and she said no. Isn't it weird that I ask my wife permission to do stuff!? Not really sure when that started happening. But it's not just me, all husbands do it. Strange.

Doubting Jin

Matthew 28 16-17

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.

Last night Mary and I had our usual talk in bed right before going to sleep. I shared a story about my co-worker and she shared a miraculous story from a book she read about a pastor who had died and come back to life. He was in a major car accident where his car got totaled and the EMT’s declared him dead at the scene. The story continues where two passerbys coming back from a church workshop felt compelled to pull over and check out the accident. The two passerbys asked the EMT’s if there was anything they could do and he replied that they could pray for some of the people injured that were still alive. One of the passerbys asked about the car that was covered in tarp and the EMT said, “Oh that guy is dead.” But for some reason God told him to go over and pray for that man in the car.

So the passerby goes over and starts to pray for the dead man who had been dead for 90 minutes already. Then he starts to sing hymns during his prayer. All of a sudden the dead man joins him in song! Startled the passerby runs to the EMT and lets him know that the dead man is alive.

Okay so I hadn’t intended on writing out this story in full when I started this post but let me wrap up. The dead man who came back to life is a pastor and he wrote a book about his visit to heaven during his death. He said that there was no bright light, but he passed through the pearly gates, and all of his dead relatives were there to greet him as sort of a welcoming committee. Then he woke up and regained consciousness.

So my reply to Mary’s story was, “He was probably dreaming.” And that really made her upset because the story really moved her and she was sharing from her heart. Then here I am just being my usual skeptical pessimistic self, kind of invalidating her experience.

That was not my intention but as I have posted in the past I am in general a very pessimistic person usually seeing the glass half empty. It is funny that this was the passage for today’s QT, because like Doubting Thomas, I probably would have been very skeptical about seeing Jesus back from the dead. It’s not something that happens every day. In fact he had to stick his fingers into Jesus pierced hands before he began to believe. I probably would have been among the "some that doubted" especially if I didn’t see it with my own eyes and only heard from word of mouth.

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

This morning at like 6am I was awoken by a sharp pain and a loud cracking sound from my neck. And now my neck is killing me and I can't move it backwards. I've been walking around all day with my head leaning forward.

I still went to the gym and did some arms and that made it worse.

Carpe Deeznuts!

I squeeze a lot into a given week. I work full time, work out every day during my lunch break, pursing my MBA, go to Muay Thai once a weeknight, MMA on Saturdays, church on Sundays, and pretty much once week I go to a small group or a leaders meeting or something at church. Of course that is not including the time I spend with my family and run errands.

I've definitely been purposely trying to live a lot more. I'm not sure exactly what happened that triggered all of this, it's a combination of things I guess. And no I'm not having a midlife crisis, I don't think. As many people say, life really does begin in your thirties.

But one person that has given me inspiration in the past, tho I can't give him all the credit, is my old Pastor, Joe. He seemed like he tried to get the most out of life. Even though he was a pastor he bought a Ducati, practiced Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, photography, and my personal favorite, archery (who does archery?). I admit I used to fault him for having so many hobbies, but you know what, screw that! Life is short and you really have to squeeze the most out of it. Otherwise life will pass you by in a blink of an eye and you will have only been a passenger just looking out the side of the window. Get in the driver's seat baby, pop it into third gear and rev up that engine. Carpe Deeznuts!

Ghetto

I looked up the word ghetto online and apparently it was first used to describe the isolated areas in the outskirts of town where Jews were forced to live during the Middle Ages in Europe. Later it became widely used to describe any poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination.

Fast forward to modern times and it began to also be used as an adjective to describe anything cheap, urban, or related to inner city life.

I definitely admit to being ghetto. I used be proud of being so when I was younger and definitely the rise of hip hop and the black gangster culture encouraged me. Now as a grown man with a family of my own I have begun to detest the ghetto culture and just the whole way ghetto culture is almost synonymous with disrespect.

But being “ghetto” is not just a black thing. People of all races, socioeconomic status, and geographical location can be ghetto. I am bringing this up because Mary’s mom is ghetto. She grew up in a very difficult time, in a not so affluent place, and didn’t get a chance to get an education beyond the 8th grade. Yet despite all of these things she was able to make something of herself and become independently wealthy through real estate. It was through sheer hard work and determination that she was able to make it as a single Korean woman. I definitely have to give her respect for this. But at the same time that same determination that probably made her successful has made her hard, tough, and what I call very street, or ghetto.

When someone keeps following you and yelling in your face when you try to walk away, that’s ghetto. When Mary locks herself in our room to avoid being yelled at and someone keeps banging on the door and yelling through it for like half an hour, that’s ghetto. When someone tries to block Mary’s car with her body to prevent her from going to work, that’s ghetto. When someone chases after the car when Mary puts it into reverse and continues to run down the street yelling with no shoes on, disturbing the whole neighborhood, that’s ghetto. When I have to physically restrain someone, so Mary can run away on foot, that’s ghetto. When someone just takes off for a week without notice and leaves two parents having to miss work to take care of their son, that's ghetto.

In my experience with ghetto people, sometimes there is no speaking to them rationally and the only thing they understand is fear and power.