I can smell summer coming

I feeling much better. There's something about the return of warmth that helps make life a bit easier. The past several months haven't been my best, but I'll learn and move on. Work is ever changing, several nurses are moving on and several techs are becoming nurses (not neccesarily on this floor). I'm looking forward to no more Mason dinners, so work will stop conflicting with them. (Let's face it, how often do you have managers that give you the hours you asked for, but to their credit, they do have lots of people to deal with...)

That's all I have to say at the moment. Pictures and links will be making their way back to the page soon!

Why my life is wonderful

My wife Em is my lifeblood and the sunshine in my currently overcast life

Baseball just started

Eventhough it's a bit cold, the sunshine makes it look like spring

MLS just started and I now have a team to support, the Colorado Rapids. (mainly because they have business connections with Arsenal)

I gave in to WoW

Casino Royale

Almost done with the semester, and the fresh start that comes with it

Just buying Season 9 of The Simpsons, bringing the total of seasons I own to 5

My wife's creativeness and drive to make our lives beautiful

The word "Funner"

That's it for now....

Fireflies

I didn't discover fireflies until I moved to St. Louis. There is no memory bubble in my head that has an attachment from childhood to the luminous bugs. I suppose the closest thing I have are the fake fireflies at the beginning of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland, where you go through the bayou in the beginning. Needless to say, I thought that the tiny glowing lights floating around the creole hut were just something that came out of cartoons.

I'm not quite sure how to describe my reaction to my first lighting bug. To put it the best way...."HOLY $#*%!"

I believe I've lost the sense of awe I once had. Maybe it's something to do with the innumerable amounts of crap I clean up at work. I used to love looking up just to see stars. Now I just don't have the time.

I think this is the reason why I feel like I'm losing it. Or at least one of the reasons. I think constant discovery is important. And not just learning new things for work or because you have to, but because you want to.

Discovery for it's own sake has a certain beauty to it. I've stopped learning things because I want to, and now feel suffocated by the things that are being forced at me.

So here's another thing that I need to incorporate into my life, and that's to actively discover things again. And this especially pertains to the things that I have to learn.

What a surprise... it's 3 in the morning...

No, I'm not at work. I'm in Columbia, MO at my in-laws tonight. I got to watch Saturday Night Live (It might not mean much to you, but I do enjoy me some Weekend Update). I love coming to Columbia, it's for St. Louis as St. George is for Las Vegas. A great place to get away for a weekend and hang out with good people. Sure, there's no raquetball or swimming pool, but the in-laws are fun to hang out with, so it evens out.

School begins again on Monday. I wish it could've been 2 weeks. I don't want to go back, but who does really. And at 27 I'm lucky still have a spring break, even if I do still work.

Growing up isn't what it's cracked up to be. I long for no bills, and for bumming rides from seminary to school. I wasn't a good student. I think at times, I'd be one of the students that Emily can't stand. I feel like I'm falling back into those rutts now (student wise, I don't bum rides to school anymore).

I'm very lucky that I have a wife who loves me. I'd probably be a bigger mess without her. She's sleeping right now in the basement. I miss not getting to see her more often.

I'm sorry this whole entry is fairly a downer. And recently my entries have been as well. But hey, it is 3 AM.

The Lie of "Spring Break"

I'm sure if I was younger, living off my parents' money and waking up from a hangover on South Padre Island, I wouldn't be writing the same things. But I'm not, so bear with me for being a little bitter.

I really can't complain too much, I'm getting work out of the way at the beginning of the week and I don't have to feel guilty for falling asleep during class. But I have to work on a case study (15 pages) for class (I wish I only had tests, I HATE homework), and I do have to go to work, though I do have the weekend off.

I suppose my bitterness is fueled by sleep deprived depression, which is helped a bit by trazadone (my favorite side-affect is a priapism, ask and I'll tell you), my beautiful sleep drug. I'm lucky to have a wife who loves me, and gives me permission to have fun and take time for myself.

I know that might sound odd, that she "gives me permission" but it is vital to my psyche. I sometimes feel crushed by expectation and thoughts of the future, to the point that I let it drag me down into inaction, so I need her to tell me it's OK to chill. Again, inaction sounds odd for when getting out there and doing something would make all the difference, but that's just the way I am, so deal with it.

Anyways, even though I will be unable to really enjoy the first half of the week, I plan on doing the most I can to make the second half of the week to feel like a real break. With any luck I'll be able to get a little fishing in with Paul (Emily's friend Melody's husband, and my constant source of temptation to play World of Warcraft) and play soccer on Saturday with church guys, which would be awesome.

Anyways, I suppose that Spring Break isn't so much the lie my bitter side would like it to be.

Les Cuisses de Grenouille

I just finished reading Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, and like the Foundation series it focuses on how one event can shape history/destiny. Adding to that UNLV has had its best season in basketball since Tark the Shark left amid scandal in the early '90's. And thinking of UNLV and the books that I've recently read have gotten me to thinking about many of the events that have helped shaped my life, several of which had UNLV as their backdrop.

I'd say my first real defining moment took about 2 years. Everything that happened up to that point really feels like a wonderful prelude to my life. The friends that I had growing up and through high school helped me survive as a teenager must, and gave me the positive enforcement I needed not to do anything incredibly stupid. The BoB will forever be the best friends I could have ever hoped for.

My mission, when I look back at it, feels like my beginning. I am was longer, the wild zit faced scrawny white boy of the '90's. I calmed down considerably, my faced cleared up and I got a farmers tan. France shaped me. I suppose that's why I hated it for so long. I didn't love it like I should have.

I now think of it as home, and I love the people of my mission. I wonder what I would be like now if I had felt the same way while I was there.

I'm sure I'll write about other events of my life that have helped shape me (nursing school is one of them), but for now I'll leave it with the first big one.

By the way, UNLV beat BYU in the MWC Championship game. I love it when BYU loses (I also like it when U of U loses).

P.S. I may love the Bordelais and the Bayonnais, but Parisians are still assholes.

Calvin and Hobbes...?

I love Calvin and Hobbes. And I imagine some who does would find this somewhat blasphemous, but you can't help thinking that this is possible.