Old friends and new things

So, I jumped out onto the limb and bought Colleen a new car for her birthday. Well, let me qualify that. I made it easier for her to afford a new car. I took advantage of my stellar credit and some discounts from the job to work it out so that she could get a new Nissan Xterra. It isn't fully loaded, and it is a 2004, but it had 38 miles on it, and is definitely more a family car than her old Mustang. I know she wasn't too happy with getting rid of the Mustang, she loved that muscle car, but it was falling apart (typical American automobile with rattles in the dash, doors, etc.) and didn't do very well in winter weather. Now she has what she calls a family car. I know she's happy with it, and that's the most important thing for me.

I wasn't too thrilled with the dealer experience, however. This was the same dealer I bought my Altima from (yep, I am now part of a Nissan family) but it was a night and day difference in experience. Oh well, you live and you learn, I suppose. I do intend to gripe quite a bit when the survey comes out. I may even call Nissan USA directly and complain, since I really feel I was given the run around based on information I got from the Nissan insider Web site and the deal I did actually sign. I probably won't get much satisfaction in return, but I would like to believe the company cares enough to not want me out there spreading bad stories about Nissan, and I can score some free service, etc. in the offing.

I am still trying to swing a trip to London for Wimbledon this year. I doubt it will happen, but I keep my fingers crossed. If I can make it, I will have completed the career grand slam, having attended every other tennis even in the grand slam over the last two years. That means Australia, France, England, and the US Open in NYC. The timing is short, since the event is in late June, and the space is always tighest there because it is an ancient venue, but man if I can pull it off. I can remember growing up as a kid and loving to get up early for live breakfast at Wimbledon. It was pure joy to watch Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Navratliova, Everett. Those are my sports heros more than any others, even though I never really played much tennis. Just the premise of being able to see centre court in person gets me giddy. I felt the same way when I got to go to the Masters. Augusta National is like Mecca for duffers like me, and it did not disappoint. Now, I just have to figure out a way to swing the Ryder Cup at St. Andrews next year, and I can probably die a happy man. Did I mention I really love my job? :-)

Looks like the logistics for the stag party were too tough to manage in June. That means I technically could still go back to the reunion, but I am sticking with declining. In the meantime, it will give me a better chance to work on my Texas Hold 'em skills prior to heading to Vegas. Not to plug the site, but The World Tavern Poker Tour is a pretty slick gimmick. I don't know how the Taverns themselves skirt the legalities, but the site is blameless. It is all about points, ego, and no money. I played my first event last week. I finished 19 out of 30. That's not very good, but it isn't too bad. I hadn't played against strangers before. To this point, it had been my home hosted monthly poker night with folks I work with. Playing with strangers requires more skills, but it is also something I feel I should be able to do better at in the long run. I have always considered myself a people watcher, and poker thrives on understanding human emotions and the tell. So, I can work on my game and then when I get to Vegas I should be able to at least keep myself from the poor house. :-) Who knows, if I am determined enough, maybe you'll see me on ESPN wearing some goofy glasses or some such and going for the Binion's WSOP title. (I just realized I said you'll, like I actually believe people are reading this. ROFL)

Since I posted my URL on the class reunion web site I suspect that some folks will wander over here and see what I have been up to. For those of you that have (again implying anyone is reading this site) a hearty welcome and how's it going. Send me a note. You can post comments on the site either anonymously or by registering for your own blogger ID at the blog site. I promise to respond to everyone that does. Oh, and if you know how to find Jonathan Weems, tell him to get his ass out there and off the Lost Bears list. I know he's back in AR, and from what I hear, he's actually in Little Rock working with the Attorney General's office.

For those of you that do come to read, I hope I can list you among my old friends. Growing up a military brat made that tough. I realized that I never spent more than 5 years in any one spot until after High School, and it has definitely given me the wander lust in general. That's probably how I ended up in NC instead of still in AR. I do know it is almost what got me to TX from here, though I suppressed that urge and stayed here. It also meant that I never really established any long term friendships. I can remember jealous pangs when I got to hear about how some of the folks in the class of '85 had known one another since they were in 1st grade. That's an experience I won't ever have of course, but I am going to try like hell to provide that opportunity for my kids, when I do have my own. :-)

I am going to sign off for now. I hope to keep up a better posting regimen, but I know for a fact I have said that more than once, and I am still not posting as often as I feel I should. I don't know if that's laziness, or just that I don't really have much to say. :-)

Cheers!

Losses and Gains

Well, dear reader, I managed yet again to not really follow through. I haven't updated my blog since 3/10. And, since that's now more than 2 months ago, I thought it might be time to snap out of it and actually post to the thing. (Special thanks to that special friend that reminded me I was being a slacker.)

First, if you don't regularly read Colleen's blog, we lost the baby. I was none too pleased. I felt so powerless. I tried to be there for her, but there were many times it felt like I just made the problem worse. She still has issues at times. At least we know we can try again. I just wish she'd cool her jets. More on that in a bit. I was very uptight about losing the baby. I was excited about the prospect of becoming a father, and the let down was hard to deal with. Given that we weren't married, it was tougher. The hospital wouldn't really let me know much during her procedure and if there had been problems, I wasn't even really legally allowed access or information. All in all it worked itself out. It was amazing to me to think that she hadn't had a period since early January. We had to wait on pins and needles to see when that cycle started again, since until that restarted, we didn't know whether or not we'd be able to try again.

The second loss since my last update was the passing of my Grandmother. She was 91, and had lived a very full life. She had to have a pacemaker put in two years ago to cope with a resting heart rate of 42. That's great if you are a marathoner in your twenties, but not so good if you are her age. She was sleeping on the order of 19 hours a day prior to the pacemaker. She died on her way to the bathroom. People ask me if it was sudden. That's an odd question. She was old, and old people are prone to system failures of many kinds. She had respiratory issues that made her take steroids for most of the last 20 years of her life. But, she was still in good enough health to be able to be at my mother's alone, and on her way to the bathroom. Is that sudden? I'll leave the semantics to you, my readers.

The funeral was surreal. Colleen and I drove like bats out of hell from here to Arkansas. 31 hours of total road trip there and back, and about 32 in Arkansas. Brutal. The memorial service was done by my brother's pastor. That's an odd quirk. He is a cousin of Angela, Matt's wife. He may also be related to my Grandmother's family, as he is a Whitley, which is her maiden name. He knew of the Mint Hill, NC Whitley's as his kin, and that's where my Grandmother's family is from. We never did trace the tree, but it is a very Southern oddity. Mint Hill is outside Charlotte. I don't know any of that side of my family. I was 6 the last time I saw my Great Grandmother and since my Grandmother was the 8th of 13 children, most were much older than me and the corresponding cousins weren't close in age to me. Anyway, I should do a better job of going to see them, but I haven't. Back to the funeral. It ended up being much of the same. I don't really know my cousin Cy or Lee (one boy, one girl, you figure it out. :-P) but they were there with my Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Eddie. Bobbie and Eddie are image people. It isn't how you feel, it's how you look! Seriously, they have always been about keeping up with appearances. I believe this has rubbed off on their children to a greater extent. At least Cy hadn't been married very long. He's in Atlanta now. Momma and Bobbie fought over "the will" not that there's much of an estate to settle. I don't really care about any of that mess. Momma said Grandma's opinion was share and share alike, and that sounds much like something she'd say; and momma did take care of her much of the end of Grandma's life, so if Momma wants to horde something (which I doubt she is) she should go for it. I don't need anything from that, and Grandma wasn't a wealthy woman with land or some other such Southern tradition.

The only positive to really come out of that time was that it gave Colleen an out to avoid thinking about the loss of our baby. It of course hit her like a ton of bricks when she got back here, but at least for that weekend, it didn't matter.

Now, onto bigger and better things. If you have been at the site at all recently, you should have seen the wedding pictures. If you haven't seen them, get over there and then come back. Yes, I got married. The second and (one way or another) last marriage I'll participate in. Colleen was so beautiful. The weather cooperated and we were able to get married barefoot on the beach. I had tried to work out getting the video out there, but I couldn't get it down to a small enough size to upload without paying some exorbitant fees to Time Warner Cable for hosting it. (At $0.99 per megabyte, that works out to more than 150 dollars just so you could see my movie online and that was a per month charge. YICK!) We are ecstatically happy. We didn't get much of a honeymoon, but hey, we have a week long Carribean cruise booked for the middle of July, so it should make up for that. I was very happy with the ceremony, and all of what it entailed. I was a bit disappointed that none of my family was there. I did get Wade, my best friend from AR, to fly in, which was a saga in itself. He ended up having to fly into a little town about 60 miles from the beach and we had to drive in a driving rain storm to pick him up. Colleen insisted she go with me, since there wasn't much chance she was going to let me get into a wreck in the middle of nowhere. :-) The day of the wedding, she told me I lost my driving privileges until after we were married. I could only laugh. Still, it would have been nice had someone from my family made it. I guess I am too far away. They haven't ever visited in the 4 years I have been here.

Anyway, the cruise is why I would like Colleen to cool her jets. I know she's anxious to have a baby, and I definitely want a family, but I don't want her sick and uptight the whole cruise. If we can just wait until after, or during, then we can go for it with all the aggression in the world. After all, the making a baby can be quite fun. ;-)

Another recent gain was the publishing of my second technical manual. I never really thought about it much, but I am a published playwright, a published poet, and now a published technical writer. Not bad for a country boy from the Louisiana bayou. :-) It is probably a bit more than most folks would understand, but you can see it at the IBM Redbooks site if you need a good cure for insomnia. It has been a very odd road my career has taken, but I think I have found my niche. Now, if they just won't outsource my job to some third world country that can do it for seventeen cents on the dollar, I'll probably do well. :-)

I finally made the call I wasn't going to attend my 20 year high school reunion. I liked some folks in High School, but I don't talk to many any more. Those that I do, I know how to reach already. Seeing them wouldn't make much difference. Add to that the fact that I am having my stag party in Vegas that same weekend (yes, it is after the wedding, but then again, our pregnancy was before the wedding, so there!) I have a good excuse to not go. A friend from work really surprised me and stepped up. I remember him asking me if I was going to have one. I explained that I didn't really have a best man for the wedding, and that it seemed somehow creepy for me to plan my own. Much to my surprise, he started sending out notes indicating the plan. I don't know if he knows how much that really means to me. I told Matt, but once again, I am too far away or there's some other reason it just can't happen. Another disappointment I'll just have to deal with. In some respects, I think I may have cost myself my relationships with my family. Maybe I am just being hard on myself. Still, it does hurt a bit.

Colleen walked in and was hassling me for being on the computer until she found out it was because I was working on my blog. She said she had been surprised by some of my more lengthy posts, and found that I was far more open in mine than she was in hers. I don't even know why, other than to say I have been treating this more like a journal than anything else. I have always found writing to be cathartic. When I was in my teen angst years, I used to scribble poetry all the time. Now, I just type in here. :)

Well, my 3rd attempt at burning my digital camcorder to DVD has failed. That has been quite disappointing. I am going to try to create it as a Video CD instead. If I can get it to play on one of the regular players, I will consider it a victory. If not, I'll be mad as hell. I don't know what I bought this digital camcorder for. Well, yes I do, someone in my life at that time wanted it, and I used it as an excuse to buy a new toy. LOL Hopefully, it will come out well, and I'll be able to send out our version of the wedding as well. I'll have to change the music, since I included King Missle 'Detachable Penis' as part of the soundtrack. After all, what man doesn't feel like marriage means he's now required to check out the wedding tackle. ;-)

I am going to sign off for now. Hopefully, I will do better and keep at this. I enjoy the format, and it is good to know someone out there is reading it. :-)

Cheers.