Aftan and I are in Long Beach, WA right now. Staying the night down here, and we’re going to watch the New Year’s fireworks from the deck outside the hotel we’re at. We ate at Dooger’s tonight and I tried steamer clams for the first time…YUM.
Anyway I’m outta here, I gotta go shower then we’re both gonna play Scrabble.
My wishes to everyone for a Happy, Blessed and Safe New Year. Here’s to 2007!
I don’t know what relevance this has to anything, or even if it’s remotely interesting reading, but I thought I’d share it anyway. :)
Aftan is an animal lover to the core. The house could be overrun with animals of all different sorts and she would be in heaven. Myself, not so much. One pet would be okay, but if we had two or more I think I would go insane. We’re different in that aspect, and that’s not a bad thing. We just have different preferences.
That being said, we’ve been talking about what kind of pets we want when we get married. I told her I would like a dog, preferably a boxer or beagle, and that’s it…and I’d probably name it Scooter. She wants a miniature dog of some sort (read: something that will probably be unintentionally stepped on by me in the future) and wants to name it Tacori (after an expensive type of diamond ring she lusts after — hey, let the girl dream). She also says once we have kids and they grow up a bit, get a couple guinea pigs and have maybe a couple doves.
As mentioned before, I’m not much of an animal lover, so the prospect of a few animals making a house that I will be living in their stomping grounds too, does not sit well with me. Maybe I just don’t like the idea initially, and hopefully if pets get phased in — such as, we have one pet, now we’re used to that, let’s get two, and so on and so on — I’d be okay.
Ah, the things young wishful couples talk about while pondering their future.
Oh well. Onto more interesting things.
I guess I forgot to share what I got my family for Christmas. I bought my mom some Victoria’s Secret Pink perfume, got my brother Call of Duty 3 for his XBOX 360, and went in with my family to buy Dad a 32″ HDTV…that my brother has been playing his XBOX on non-stop, I’m sure. I’m glad I was able to get my family what they wanted this Christmas, and it really helps make being away from them over the holiday not nearly as bad as it could have been.
I’m outta here for now. Gotta wash this onion smell out of my hands…we had tacos last night and after repeated hand washing and a shower, the smell still hasn’t come out. Ewwwww.
Hope you all enjoy the new theme to the site. I was gonna change it up on New Year’s Day but I like it so much I changed it a bit early. That being said, onto the important stuff.
Christmas has passed and now it’s time for us to enter the year 2007 in a few days. Just think, 2007 already…yeah, we say that every year (twenty years ago people were saying “I can’t believe it’s 1987 already”) but for me a new year is a big deal. Not because I do some sort of resolution or anything, but just because I get excited about everything that will happen in the next year. Another year God has given me to be alive and enjoy, another year with my girlfriend, another year of freedom in this nation, et cetera et cetera et cetera.
This New Year’s celebration is going to be exciting. On New Year’s Eve, Aftan and I will go to my church then head out to the coast where I’ve reserved some rather upscale accommodations for us to enjoy the holiday and watch the fireworks go off over the beach and Pacific Ocean. New Year’s holds something special for us as a couple as well because it’s our one-year anniversary. So we’re gonna live it up over the New Year and have some good clean fun.
There’s more good stuff to look forward to in January. God is opening many doors for me personally day by day and I continue to be blessed, to my amazement. Washington COGOP Winter Retreat is coming up in three weekends and I will be a boys’ group leader there. Cris Birch visited his Grandpa up there for Christmas (his grandpa is the campground manager) and said there was about four feet of snow in the hills. Snow + friends + awesome church services = Good Times.
So as you can see there is much to look forward to. Christmas was just the start of it all and now I’m really excited for what’s to come in 2007. Keep me in your prayers, I need it in the next week!!!
I’d like to wish every one of my site visitors a very merry Christmas, and I hope you all are enjoying it wherever you are.
That being said, this year’s Christmas is much better for me than last year’s, given the fact I was deployed to Baghdad. Tonight we all opened our gifts at Aftan’s house. I got some good stuff like an Oregon Ducks track jacket, a tie and tie tack, and other cool stuff. I got Aftan and her family some cool stuff too…I rebuilt my old computer for Aftan and got her a promise ring, and I bought her mom and dad a new set of steak knives. Now, I just have to wait until my family opens the presents I got them.
Two days ago, I reunited with my old friend Michael Perozzo to go to a Blazers game against Toronto. They lost 101-100 in OT, but it was still a really good game and it’s great to see the Blazers competing at a high level against the rest of the NBA. After the game, we sought autographs near the team buses. The highlight of that was when we stopped Brandon Roy while he was leaving the parking garage in his Dodge Charger, and he gladly autographed some swag for us and wished us a Merry Christmas. Michael and I went to Applebee’s after that and I didn’t get home until about 2 AM. See, you CAN have fun on a weekend without getting schnockered.
Yesterday we didn’t do anything except sit around, and I did some extra Christmas shopping. That’s about it.
Now for some Christmas light sightseeing with Aftan. I’ll yell at you all in a couple days hopefully.
I read on Wikipedia today that there will be a live-action Transformers movie coming out in July 2007. Amazing stuff considering I watched the cartoons a little as a kid and am pretty eager to see how it will be as a live-action movie. It’s directed by Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay and has some pretty big names in the cast, so I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
Speaking of Transformers, the one that dogged my Oregon Ducks football team all year, Intercepticon, plagued us once again tonight in the Las Vegas Bowl. Dennis Dixon, our much-maligned QB who had been cheered by the Autzen faithful earlier this year, threw two stupid picks, never got an offensive rhythm going and led the team to a loss to BYU. I don’t know the final score and don’t care to, although I know it was ugly. I absolutely hated watching the Ducks play the last half of the season, it was painful and boring. Our defense, which was supposed to have improved from last year, couldn’t tackle anyone to save their lives over the last five games of the season. Our offense became stagnant. Everyone just plain sucked and threw what could have been a great Oregon season down the crapper. Coach Bellotti has to be bleeding internally about now. Oh well, I hope Oregon State gets creamed in the Sun Bowl. Probably not going to happen but oh well. If there is a silver lining to the bad football season, it is the possibility the Duck basketball team stole the football team’s mojo and is doing pretty well so far.
And now with more basketball…tomorrow I am going to see a Portland Trail Blazers game against the Toronto Raptors with a good friend from my first stint in Washington state, Michael Perozzo. He recently moved down to Vancouver, which is just about the best thing ever, and we’re gonna go and treat ourselves to good seats at the Rose Garden. Blazers are surprising a few folks this year — they’re 12-14 and holding it together pretty well. The team has actually stayed out of the police blotter lately too. I’m impressed. Somewhere, Clyde Drexler is forcing a smile.
Onto the holidays…Tuesday night Aftan and I went to go look at the Zoolights, which is basically a huge display of Christmas lights at the Oregon Zoo. It cost $9 to get in, but we got a discount for taking MAX from Elmonica in Hillsboro over to the zoo. I was pleasantly surprised at the light display, and Aftan and I had a nice time snapping shots of the lights and ourselves in various uncompromising poses. A good time was had by all.
I met a friendly brown bear who had been milling about in front of the gift shop, and he shared some sad news about him not being able to be with his family at Christmas. I told him I could not be with mine this year as well, and we both shared a good cry. The photo directly to your left is of the bear — I think his name was Billy — telling me to let it all out while I cried softly on his shoulder. I felt much better after talking to Billy, and rejoined Aftan in much better spirits. You get to meet all sorts of colorful people in Portland, and Billy was definitely one of them.
If you want to check out more photos from the Zoolights tour, click here to be magically teleported to my Multimedia Gallery. Get ready to enjoy a little bit of Christmas light fun in your Web browser.
Peace in the Middle East.
Tuesday is upon us and that means we all have five days until The Fat Man swoops in and delivers gifts to households all across the world. Only thing is, there is a massive quantity of gifts under our tree already, so methinks Santy got a head start.
Aftan was going to work yesterday and today for the Oregon Fryer Commission to work off some of her scholarship hours, but everything has frozen over for the past few nights. Yesterday she got as far as Hwy. 217 until she turned around and came right back home because it was too dangerous. So I’ve had some extra time with her, which I don’t have a problem with at all. :)
I need you all to keep praying for me. In this Christmas season the best gift I could get is to be gainfully employed and able to move to Camas/Washougal. Cris Birch and I are thinking about becoming roommates, and there may be a two-bedroom house for us to rent in Camas. It’s by the railroad tracks somewhat, but it’s a house and not an apartment which is a HUGE plus. Plus there would be plenty of room for friends and family who want to come in and crash for awhile. So as you can see, opportunities are starting to show themselves and I’m doing my best to pounce on them. Just pray God’s will be done and I become part of the workforce again.
Great news from the craziness that is called fantasy football. I won the championship in the league I paid $45 to join. With sixteen teams in the league and me being #1, the payout is going to be huge. I beat the #1 team from the other conference, and his team was scary as he had amassed the most points all year in the league. But, it’s tough to beat a 175-point outburst, and I came away with a 175-100 win in the title game and took away $500. Good money for a guy who hasn’t been able to draw unemployment…
…because for some reason I still haven’t received my DD Form 214, the single most important document I should already have in my possession. I called my former boss, Michelle, yesterday and she made some calls, set some things in motion, and ensured that I would get my discharge paperwork soon. I don’t know why they hadn’t sent my 214 for an entire month, and it has hurt because I haven’t been able to get any sort of unemployment compensation (Oregon’s employment office requires a 214 for separating veterans). Someone should seriously pay for this because if I had not had any money or any place to live, I would have been screwed over pretty bad. I am going to make sure that someone gets disciplined for not sending me my discharge papers, you can count on it. It’s unacceptable and shows that someone in the personnel office wasn’t doing their job.
Anyway, that’s all from me today. Aftan and I are going to take the Christmas lights tour at the Oregon Zoo tonight so that will be exciting. Peace.
Sorry I didn’t update yesterday. Really didn’t have any reason to not update, as I didn’t really do much yesterday. All Aftan and I did was sit around and watch a couple movies, then bedtime for me came fairly early at around 11.
Daybreak ministry was especially good on Thursday as we doubled last week’s output and had four kids there this week. Cris Birch and I were the only ones from New Horizons that were there, as Rainier was out on a business trip for the week. Two accepted Jesus as their savior, which is awesome. Almost equally awesome was how good Cris was in leading the devotion and worship. The kids got involved and it was great to see.
Driving home on Thursday night after Daybreak was a chore. The wind was blowing hard, it was raining like crazy and power was out in a bunch of places in Vancouver and Portland. It was especially scary driving past Jantzen Beach in Portland and seeing the power out to the mall, restaurants, stores…basically everything within a mile or two radius was dark and it was really weird to see a normally busy shopping district shut down. Coming back home on Hwy. 30 they had ODOT crews on the road cleaning up a mudslide in Linnton (I had driven through the flooded road earlier to get through) and cops were everywhere, blocking off roads and telling people which way to go. Definitely scary storm, it knocked out power to more than a million in the Northwest and killed four people. Here in St. Helens we had sustained winds of more than 50 mph and gusts of 65. Thank God for his protection!
Like I said earlier, not much happened yesterday, but today Aftan and I are going to go out to eat around 2:30 and then catch the Christmas ships sailing through later on in the evening. Just part of our many Christmas plans.
Hope you all have a wonderful day too, and remember, don’t spend too much on presents. Just get gift certificates instead.
Sing a song of praise, triumph, and love for my brothers and my sisters, aaaaaa-aaaall over this laaaaa-aaaaa-aaaa-aaand, oooooh oooh ooooh.
Mom called me today to tell me the family received the best Christmas present they could have got this year — Dad landing a job. She billed it “the job of Dad’s dreams,” and described how he has taken a position with a concrete company and basically had a position created for him since someone else got the job he originally applied for at the same place. Let me just say his wages will be good enough in the near future that Mom won’t have to work anymore, except just be a homemaker. She’s really excited about that. I’m excited for the family, and it makes my Christmas so much better too. It’s great to see Dad have a job again. He starts later this morning.
Thanks for everyone’s prayers for my dad to get a job. Now if you’ll only keep those prayers going but replace the name “Jerry” with “Chris,” I would really appreciate it. Seriously, I need a job since the military is so slow in sending my DD Form 214 and I cannot claim any unemployment benefits yet. And I want to move to either Vancouver or Camas too. Keep that in your prayers as well, that God opens up a huge door.
Tomorrow I will be in West Linn, Portland, Vancouver and Camas all day (and in that order), so it’s looking pretty busy. Pray for the Daybreak ministry tomorrow night. I think it’s gonna be Cris, Pat and I going down there.
My family’s house in Republic, Missouri. Not too big, not too small…but it’s just right for what they need. And they have a garage too!
The city of Republic, Missouri, just seven miles southwest of Springfield. It’s a nice little town, and has a Wal-Mart, a few gas stations, banks…and it even has a community rec center and pool.
A nice house just a few miles from Republic, I think right off of State Highway ZZ.
The sun setting over Nebraska as I drove west on Interstate 80. I’m pretty sure that if I took my hands off the steering wheel and set the cruise control, I could have gone to sleep for an hour and still been in the right lane.
It’s true. I took Aftan to a Saturday afternoon performance of The Nutcracker at Keller Auditorium in Portland. Our seats were on the second floor balcony, and even though we were two rows up, we got a great view of the performance. Added bonus: the Oregon Symphony was there and provided musical accompaniment, and it was awesome to see how the symphony and ballet dancers synchronized everything perfectly.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. We had to dress a little nicer than we usually do, but I didn’t mind that at all. I gained an appreciation for how hard each of the performers train — and the result of their training was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that uneducated individuals in the crowd kept clapping whenever someone did something amazing — even while the music was still playing. Grrrr. If only people knew proper etiquette for events like that.
Suffice it to say that what I thought were going to rank among the most boring hours of my life turned out to be a wonderful memory for Aftan and myself, and it kicked off my Christmas state of mind.
Sunday I went to church at Grace Baptist in St. Helens with Aftan, her mom and her aunt. The worship was boring — stand up, sing one song one time through, sit down, sing the second song one time through, stand up again to ensure you’re not asleep yet and sing the third and final song one more time — oh, and make sure not to raise your hands too high or sing the song more than once. The pastor’s message more than made up for the worship session as he spoke on how Noah was a parallel to Christ in many ways. Good history lesson, and good thoughts that I honestly had never really pondered before. It wasn’t a message that made me reflect on anything or cry out to the Lord for healing, but it was still good in its own way.
Oh and after the service I saw Aaron Stansbury, an old friend from high school. We talked for a bit then I left with the Rehling gang. We went to eat at some Mexican restaurant, then went home where I watched football and saw my fantasy football team complete a scintillating comeback from down 20 points to win and send me to the league championship, where there are $500 up for grabs. I kinda need that money about now.
No new news involving a job search. I’m still looking.
Tomorrow, Aftan and I are gonna finish up Christmas shopping in Portland and then come back, and join the family as we all go to a U-Cut Christmas tree place to get the tree. I’m excited about that.
Cheerio.
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