What I really want to do

So lately, my life has been sort of low key. Things are pretty much routine. I work. I eat. I take care of the dog. Watch my TV shows. Play my video games. Clean the house when it's dirty. Go to church on Sunday. Earn money. Spend money. Sleep. nothing too exciting. And while most of the time, I really like just being laid back and routine, I sometimes find myself, like now, wishing I made more time for other things. Things that would be more meaningful, constructive, worthwhile, enriching, and productive. It's not even a matter of can't or won't. It's just that I don't make the time or the effort for these things, even though I do want to do them. At one point or another I have tried to incorporate them into my routines, but they never stick. So here's a list of things I wish I did, things that I can do, but I just haven't been able to motivate myself to do.

Play the piano more
I took lessons from the age of 8 and through part of high school. I've played in my church, I've played for weddings, and I've written a few songs of my own. But lately the keyboard sits in the back room gathering dust and odds and ends that need to be organized.

Train my dog
Our dog, Hannah, is beautiful. But she's also stubborn, willful, and mischievous when she wants something her way. Rather than training this out of her, we've learned to distract her with food, toys and what not until she stops. This is just lazy. She can sit, go to mat, roll over, play dead, and a few other tricks, but she really needs to learn some basics.

Work on our website
When my wife and I got back from Scotland, I put together what I thought was a pretty cool website of our pictures. It's still active at www.tjandteresa.com, but I haven't updated it in over a year, maybe two. For one, I really like to work in Flash MX, and now I'm over a year behind in the program. It's probably all different now. On top of that, the website is incomplete, and so much more could be added to it. I'd like to start it over from scratch and make it better. That will take time to learn new programs and set it up though.

Exercise more
I'm not a small person, and I would really like to have a better looking and healthier body. That's not unique, I'm sure most people would say they want to look better than they do. One thing I have done is kept up riding my bike to work, and eating less sugar. But so far it's been negligible. A year or so ago, my wife got me one of the coolest presents: a wooden sword for exercising. It's a whole exercise program using a sword. I mean, awesome. I kept it up for a few weeks before doing what I always do and neglecting it. I'd really like to pick that up and keep at it. I'm not convinced it will help me lose weight, but it would be good for me to exercise.

Learn more Russian
In high school I took three years of the Russian Language. In college I took a trip to Ukraine for 3 weeks, and developed a flash based teaching CD for the basics of the Russian alphabet. Since then, nothing. I have the books, I have the knowledge, I just need to work on vocabulary and grammar. Eventually, I'd like to take a trip to Moscow or St. Petersburg with the confidence that I can speak the language.

Write more
I have a couple blogs. That's more than I've ever had in terms of writing sources. I need to write in them more. I like fantasy and science fiction, and I like to create. I don't really consider myself good at it, but I don't really think I'll ever be a writer for tv/movies/games or even a book. Well, at least one that gets published. But you never know.

Compose music
This goes along with play the piano more, but takes it another step. I want to write music and actually record it. I did a very very rough recording of a song I wrote for my dad. I'll post it up later. My sister asked me to do it, and I decided to take the challenge. It was a lot of fun and I think I could get better at it. I would especially like to learn how to use Garageband on my Mac to record these things. There's a new mac store near where I work that might offer classes on these things. I should check that out.

Find a better job
It's not that I don't like accounting. I do, and I can make a career out of it that I'm sure will support me and my family into the future. But sometimes it is so repetitive, and mundane, and tiring, that I really wish I was doing something more dynamic, more creative, and with less routine, repetitive tasks. Since video games happen to be one of my biggest hobbies, I often think about working in the video game industry. Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a composer for games. I scrapped that idea when I started college and became a business major. But I still think about it. I can't code, I can't write, I can't model in 3D, but I just might be able to write music. It's something I wonder if I couldn't try my hand at on the side, while still keeping my day job.

I said earlier that I've tried to do a lot of this stuff, but can't maintain the routine. But I can't let that be an excuse not to keep trying to work this stuff (back) into my life. So maybe if I choose one, and try to do it half an hour every day, or every other day, it might just stick well enough for me to eventually get another thing in there. It might mean giving up some time in front of the computer, or the TV, but I know it would be worth it.

The first one to work in would need to be one of the smaller ones. Maybe just playing my piano for 30 minutes a night. Maybe I could by a book on the latest Flash MX and see if I can't reteach myself. Maybe I could get out my sword and exercise for 30 minutes. 30 minutes really isn't that much, but it could make a big difference.

Business Trip

So for my work, for the first time in my career, I will be making a business trip. The trip itself is pretty bland. 5 days in a small town in West Virginia looking over financial documents for an audit on one of our properties. I will be going with my manager to sort out their accounts in one week. It has to be done too, so we'll be working long days. We're staying in a Best Western where we have our own rooms, so that's cool, but I'm not really looking forward to it. It's not like I'm getting away from anything except maybe the office, but I don't like to leave my wife behind, and there's nothing really fun to do in the few off hours we will have.

My manager looked it up and apparently found a horse racing track within a couple miles, and that was the only real entertainment. I might like to see a horse race, but I'm not a gambler (which seemed to be the draw for him), so I think I'd much rather spend the time in my hotel room on my computer playing WoW or talking with my wife. The hotel room comes with a king sized bed. I guess that's a plus, but I like to think I'm not king size, so it's actually a lot of wasted bed.

I'm thankful that we have a dog now as she can keep my wife company while I'm gone, and with any luck, we'll finish early and I can catch a stand by flight home on Friday. Some people like to travel, but I'm not really one of them unless it's with and for family. Here's to hoping I don't have to do these new business trips very often.

Congratulations Sis

We just got back from a long weekend trip to the west coast where we went to visit family and see my sister graduate from college. She is now a fully educated nurse getting her degree from Northwest University of the Assemblies of God. I had actually spent a year there when it was still Northwest College and it was fun to see the campus again.

We got to spend time with my Grandparents and my mom's family in Oregon before trucking up to Seattle to see my sister graduate. I love Oregon, and seeing it again made me miss it again, but I'm sure I'll forget about that in the next few weeks as I get back into my groove here in Boston. We did a lot of hanging out, visiting, and eating. I swear. From the first place we stopped for lunch after leaving the airport, to the last meal we had the eve of our flight, I was full.

While in Seattle we had time to visit Pike Place Market which was a pretty cool place, and my sister and wife graciously allowed me two whole hours of gaming at Gameworks to rock the arcade games. Even with that much time I still have a ton of points on a gameworks card that need to be used. The other cool thing about going to Seattle was that we got to spend two nights in a sweet hotel. A friend of my sister and me works there, and got us a good deal on a weekend stay. Apparently it's a business hotel, so they are busy during the week, and light on the weekends. The rooms were really cool, and the king size beds were amazing. Nicely decorated bathrooms, clean facilities and free apples too. If you're ever in the Kirkland, WA area, check out The Heathman. The hotel is located where my favorite arcade was when I was in Seattle, Quarters. It's not there anymore, and that made me sad.

Wedding Gift

My wife and I were married in June of 2005. She put a whole lot of work into it and it was really a beautiful wedding. At the time I had been working part-time for a web design and CD business card company. The owner did a lot of video work and he offered to video our wedding free of charge. After the wedding, we honeymooned in Scotland and then promptly moved to Boston so my wife could begin her master's program at Harvard.

A few months went by and I asked my former boss about the video. He said he hadn't had a chance to edit it yet, but he would get to it and send it to us. A little more time goes by and I ask him about it again and he says he still hasn't finished. I tell him to just send me the raw footage and I'll get it edited or do it myself. He says okay, and that's the last I hear of it for awhile. So again I email him and he replies that he sent it months ago when we last talked.

So now I'm pretty upset. It's the only video of our wedding, and now it looks like we're never going to have it. I regret having him do it, but there's really nothing we can do about it, except hope that it will show up one day.

Fast forward to last week. A day or two before my birthday, my best man, and best friend from high school calls me up. He had just gotten married in Hawaii, (sadly, we couldn't make it) and he tells me that he finally was able to get the video from my bachelor party on to a DVD. He was sending it to me along with video and pictures from his own wedding. A week or so later I get the DVDs and I pop them in the computer to watch the video.

The footage from the bachelor party was fun. We didn't do anything too crazy. Just a few guys being stupid, hanging out, and having fun. But when that stuff was over, the video cut to our wedding. Apparently, my best man had given the camera to my mother who video taped the entire wedding! We got to see the dancer at the beginning and all of the vows and ring exchanges and all of our groomsmen and bridesmaids on that wonderful day. We were thrilled to put it mildly. We had thought we would never be able to watch it again, and here we were seeing us get married all over again. It was really exciting. My wife insisted I call and thank my best man right away, and I agreed.

So props to my best man! Mad Dog, you know who you are! You're the best, and now it's on the internet so it must be true. I'm really going to make an effort to see you sometime soon as it's been too long. Blessings on you and your wife for years to come.

The First of April

Today is my birthday. No joke!

I was born at 12:01 AM on April 1st. I sometimes suspect I was born on March 31st at 11:59 PM, but the doctor couldn't resist writing 12:01 to make me an April Fool's baby. I don't know if I will ever be able to verify this.

Surprisingly, I can't remember having very many April Fool's pranks being played on me personally. Nothing that really sticks out anyway. I mostly get the response when I tell someone when my birthday is, "Oh, guess your birth was a joke!" or some variant. But I've never had a prank or joke played on me.

Today I went to work, and tonight I'm going home, so I'm not doing anything special for my birthday like a party or anything. I really don't mind. I'm pretty content to stay home and take it easy. My wife and I may play World of Warcraft together, which I actually consider a superb present that she plays with me now. I am recording the event in my warcraft blog, Good Morning Azeroth! Which is funny because now that we play together, I play more in the evening to late night than in the morning.

So, Happy Birthday to me, and thanks to everyone that made me possible and has been part of my life these last 27 years. Couldn't have done it without you.

Yet another blog

I finally started my World of Warcraft blog. The link is over on the right. I'm going to use it to write about anything and everything about the game I play the most, starting with the fantastic experience of getting my wife to play it with me just recently. If you've never played the game before, some of the stuff might seem unfamiliar, but it will make sense for anyone who's ventured into Azeroth.

The Golden Compass

I didn't know anything about this book before I saw previews for the movie. It was being compared to The Chronicles of Narnia, but other than that I didn't really show an interest in it. A few weeks later, on one of my long commutes, I picked up a random newspaper to read on the bus and there was an interesting article. Its basic statement was that Christians were up in arms about the movie because the author of the book is an atheist and the movie's plot revolved around the idea of killing God. Add to that that movie's target audience is children and young teens.

I have to admit that this perked my interest. I am definitely not an atheist, but the idea of someone who writes a fantasy book that is seemingly very anti-church intrigued me. What was more interesting though is that I later found out the producers of the movie actually played down the anti-religious sentiments in the screen adaptation. I guess they were afraid of what an overtly anti-religious movie's effect would be on viewers. In just seemed contra to what one would thing Hollywood's position is. I'm not an authority on the subject, but I wanted to read the book and understand what people were saying about it for myself.

All in all, the book is quite good. The action moves fast and keeps you reading to find out what happens next, and a whole lot happens. The protagonist is Lyra, a young girl with a destiny. The setting is Earth, but there are subtle differences such as each person having a dæmon which is a personal pet of some sort that acts a conscience and friend. One of the major plot points revolves around how people are connected to these dæmons. The girl is reckless, spirited, and intelligent, almost to the point of disbelief. She is able to resolve situations that were it not a fantasy book, I would think they were impossible for a small girl. I also thought that some parts of the book the reader is given to little knowledge to understand what is going on. Even when the characters are answering some of the mysteries in the book, I still found myself not quite getting it. This may be intentional as there are two more books in the series; so much is probably left to be explained.

I'll probably watch the movie now to see what differences there are from the book and how they've portrayed some of the underlying concepts. It will be interesting to see how far the sequels go and if the movies continue to down play the anti-religious views or if they begin to embrace them.