Facefreak

How do you facebook? I use to be a Myspacer and had many spacefriends. I still say it was better for blogging but facebook has more true friends instead of virtual ones. Their Myspace page says they are a 35 year old happily married mother of two and if you could see the other end of the computer they are actually a six year old troll with narcolepsy and torettes. The way people Facebook is similar to how they Myspace. Some people simply try to be a better version of themselves on facebook. I love the people that have 700 hundred picture of themselves on their page. They are obsessed with themselves. The person who has a million pictures of them posted in a bathing suit should never frown upon the guy in public that checks her out. She wants to be checked out just not by him. Another great picture trick is the ole hold the camera over your head and take a shot of your face from an angle guaranteed to take thirty pounds off your face. I have been guilty of that one before. I look hot as shit from the air but if you see me head on you'll feel sorry for my wife. I like the post every detail of your day person. The Facebooker that posts they just tooted and brushed their teeth and five minutes later post they are eating kiwi fruit and five minutes after that post they like green Lego's crack me up. They best thing in facebook for my money are these random statements. Life is random so why not Facebook. I love the Facebook blogger. He wants to show you how brilliant and funny he can be but when you talk to the bucket head in real life you remember he is about as funny as a dildo falling out of your uncles trunk while he is unloading gifts to bring into your parents house on Christmas morning. That guy cracks me up...wait a minute never mind that guy is redonkulous and looks good from a hot air balloon. I always wonder when I either am friended or friend an old friend that was very attractive when we were young but they have no pictures on their page if they went south with the passing years. I like to think they did. Pictures go both ways. I have a couple former girlfriends on my Facebook friends list (bless their souls) and I am sure they look at my pictures and say to themselves , "Phew!! I dodged that bullet!!!" or maybe "His poor wife". The political Facebooker is a real daisy too. They post random psuedofacts about one side or the other but only that side. Like they may tell you how Sarah Palin hunts polar bears with a dildo she found in front of someones car one Christmas morning but ignore the fact that Obama was caught beating a parrot with a corncob on the White House front lawn. Onesiders I call them. I am the family Facebooker. I will rain on your page a million pictures of my red headed Stink whether you like it or not. At first you think oh how sweet and after a while you think okay enough already lets see some pictures of you in a bathing suit from a hot air balloon. Facebook is fun but don't take it too seriously. Facebook kindly and stay thirsty my friends.

The Monster Moment: The Day We Met Elvis and the Pope

The Monster Moment: The Day We Met Elvis and the Pope: "Today was a very important and much anticipated day in my families life. The family I refer to is my daughter, wife, and me. We went to stan..."

The Day We Met Elvis and the Pope

Today was a very important and much anticipated day in my families life. The family I refer to is my daughter, wife, and me. We went to stand in line for a couple hours to meet a celebrity. The event we went to had all kinds of smaller events going on around it to entertain the hundreds if not thousands of guests in attendance. We choose to get in line to meet the events celebrity before going to all the free entertainment that surrounded the area. The event was scheduled from 10 AM to 3 PM. and we got there fashionably late at 11:30 or so. The people in line before us were moving very slow. Everyone in line wanted to spend as much time as possible with the person we were in line to see. Shan and I took turns holding our spot in line while the other entertained our two year old, Emma. Emma ran all over the place, climbing up and over picnic tables, running along a pseudo dock throwing rocks at the floating lily pads in the water below. After about an hour of distraction play Emma petered out. We were only about halfway through the line. I sat down at a nearby table and my baby girl fell asleep on my shoulder. I watched as Shan spoke to her neighbors in line. I was alone with my thoughts for the next 45 minutes or so. While my shoulder and arms fell asleep under the weight of a snoring little baby. I started to think about how the past two years have flown by. Just yesterday I had a baby that slept hard and long in a bassinet and today she can spell her name and go anywhere she wants. I get emotional in times like this because I never thought I would be a parent. Finally after a couple hours I see Shan waving at me to bring the sleeping monster to the front of the line as we get our turn to meet our celebrity. Who was this person you may ask? Was it the Pope, Elvis, Lady Gaga, or maybe Betty White? No it was Dr Robyn Poe Ziggler. Dr. Robyn is the fertility doctor that made Emma a reality. This was the first time we had the opportunity to see her since our daughter was born. There were hundreds of children at the Hunt Club today and Dr Robin was responsible for nearly all of them. I cannot imagine looking out at all of those faces children and parents alike and knowing I had a direct hand in creating these lives and making these families dreams a reality. Some of these kids, including my own, will become doctors or public servants that save and change lives.  Dr Robyn made this happen. I would not wait in line for anyone but I would have waited allot longer than I did to thank the women who gave Shan and myself our angel. We still rode the giant slide, ponies, and bounce house but it paled in comparison to meeting Dr. Robyn again. Every year Dr Robyn throws a family party for her past patients. She did not have one the past couple years after the economy dropped out. This was the first Robyn's Eggs event we could make and it was a highlight for the year. Thank you Dr Robyn.

The Monster Moment: Life Of Fortune

The Monster Moment: Life Of Fortune: "I watch the news and mostly all you see is bad stories. I see stories about missing children that seem to never get found and when they fina..."

Life Of Fortune

I watch the news and mostly all you see is bad stories. I see stories about missing children that seem to never get found and when they finally find the child we discover the asshat that hurt the child was the teary eyed family member telling the medias audience to please bring their baby back. I saw a special on 60 Minutes where over educated once highly paid people have been out of work for nearly two years. I mumble under my breath that there had to be a fast food place hiring part time somewhere but what do I know....thankfully. Families go to bed tonight not knowing where there spouse is tonight or if they are in a fire fight with terrorists in a foreign land. I know people now who still are trying to have a child while time breathes menacingly over their shoulder. My wife has told me of people coming to her pharmacy and having to choose which medications they could afford this month. Are they asking themselves which they would rather chance more this month diabetic complications or a heart attack. The world is a mess. The world is brutal. I do not have any reason to complain. If I complain please someone remind me to watch the news. Please do not get me wrong everyone has the right to gripe from time to time but if you look carefully in most cases there is someone that has bigger problems. Problems like life can be fleeting. Take care brother and sisters and know I love you.

When Family Bums You Out

I am writing this Blog for a friend of my wife and me.

I use to blog on Myspace. I became proficient at it. I wrote over 500 blogs and was lucky enough to have a great many readers. I write to burn nervous energy, express my creative side, and sometimes I try to reach people that have similar life experiences to let them know they are not alone. Sometimes difficult times are easier to endure when you know you are not the only person to travel the road you are so blue on.

Most of my friends know the story of my daughter. When my wife and I got married we were not sure when or if we would try to have kids. After about five years of marriage we got pregnant naturally. I was on cloud nine but just as quickly brought down to Earth a week later when we lost the child. My wife had once told me that some women do not announce they are pregnant until several months into the pregnancy because it is bad luck and makes things exponentially harder when you lose the child. I thought that was silly because getting pregnant is as easy as parking the car in the garage and after backing it back out, return to the garage nine months later and you will be the parent of a brand new Mini. I was wrong, dead wrong. We tried for nearly five years to have a baby. We went to two fertility clinics, took dozens of tests, several shots, lost at least one more baby, cried, doubted ourselves, but never once did we doubt each other.  I had a friend tell me that maybe God did not want us to have a baby. Is God that cruel? Who knows but there are many people that feel that way. My wife always held strong and even after we officially gave up on the baby campaign she randomly decided to try one more time. I had given up hope but she had not. I had not given up on her but I did not want to see her hurt anymore and question her womanhood, I love her too much for that. At one time she had even told me that I should find a women that could give me a child. That is the hardest thing I have ever heard. On October 20, 2008 our daughter was born. That was the best day ever. Her hard work had paid off. I was there and always supportive but the truth still is that women give up everything to have babies. Men have it easy in this department. The friend I am writing this blog for remembered me telling her in a prior Myspace blog how strong I thought my wife was. I still feel that way.

After the baby was born we were surprised at some of the negative things that some family members did. We had some family not show up, we had family tell us that we only wanted a baby because they had had one and we were basically keeping up with the Jones, we had family make us feel guilty (whether they intended to or not) for asking them to do certain things when handing our newborn because they were heavy smokers. All of these things do not matter and we love our family the same. I tell you this because sometimes family lets you down even when your dreams have been met.

The important thing, my friend, is that you love the moment. Even while you struggle to make your dreams a reality you remember the one you are with, the one you love, and will grow gray with. It is him that will be next to you no matter the size of the family that lives in your home. Dig deeper into your marriage and love harder everyday. You may find eventually that this love will help you to laugh at the pettiness that sometimes even our family brings to our doorstep. You know that no matter what the man next to you is there for you and that her married you not your ovaries. Stay strong my friend and know we are here if you need an ear. Know also that you are stronger than you may know. To talk to my wife you would think she is weak. She will tell you every negative thing she thinks she is but at the end of the day she will kill you to protect her family. She is strong and is not aware of it. I think you are too.

On a funny note, when my wife reads this I have to ask her: Okay I never in a million years considered finding another women to have a child with when we struggled but do I still get to keep "Dancing With The Stars" Cheryl Burke on my list? :) Love you babe.

Failures and Redemption

I have no problems putting my beans out there for the world to taste and criticize. I figure that everyone has made mistakes, errors, guffaws, lapses of reason, lapses of judgement, lapses of good sense, or generally just fragged up. It is not always the mistakes we make in life as much as what the mistakes make of us and what we allow them to deduce from our lives. I am not proud of my epic life fails but I will not deny them either because to run from your past is to not truly enjoy the present and the present is all we have.
    In my 41 years I have skinned my knee many times. Many of my friends know that I grew up in a very violent childhood. My mother was often abused by my Dad and I decided to break that chain of violence by always being a non-violent man. I grew up in fear but I became strong over the years. I decided I would be a police officer and do what I could to make sure others did not live in the fear I did. I did not have a mission to correct the nature of my upbringing but I kept that fear in the back of my mind when I dealt with victims because I could empathize with them. I did a lot of good in my time as a police officer. I was not the best officer but I truly cared. I loved the camaraderie that came with the job and the family that it provided. I married for the first time while I was a young officer. I married a girl without knowing myself much less her. She was violent and had other issues we never fully had a grip on. I felt I could make her life better without considering the consequences it would have on my own life. The process of the end of our marriage was explosive, bloody, painful, and unrelenting. My friends told me where things were heading but I did not want to believe them. Somewhere between my past, my desire to make things better for her, and wanting make a difference in my community with my job I failed miserably. I was not the best husband but I did not cheat or respond in kind with violence of my own. I allowed myself to make terrible decisions in the name of love. I eventually left the job and shortly thereafter finally left the marriage. I hope her life is better and it is was the beginning of my life. I was 29. I was jobless, several states from home, and most of my friends I had separated myself from dealing with the life I had created. I started over, found a new job and career, made new friends, and met the love of my life who gave me the singularly most amazing gift ever, my daughter Emma.
     I could have given up many times. I could have blamed my past for my failures as some people do but I cannot live with that kind of lie. We truly create our luck and our past may have impact on who we are but it is not an all you can eat buffet to screw up for the rest of your life. My past good or bad makes me better today. I know what violence and fear does to someone and what it can make them do. I understand blind love that destroys self. Love makes you stronger not by keeping you blind but by shining a light on you so bright that you see life as it is no matter the consequence and you make solid choices that are best for not only the ones you love but for you as well. Had I not followed the path I did I would not have as much respect for others, especially women. I do not think my having a daughter was matter of luck but more faith. I know how life can be and how hard it can be. I want her to know me warts and all. Many girls judge the men in their lives by their father. If my daughter sees me in a way that I carefully orchestrate then she will have unrealistic expectations on the men in her life. I want her to know confidence is important and self love is a must. If she knows my mistakes, she make of them what she wants and hopefully apply them to her own life in the way she sees fit and be more willing to come to me when she has her life hiccups. She is my redemption. She will make mistakes even when I warn her of the outcome but I want her to know that is okay. Mistakes are growth. I know many people that judge people only by the mistakes they make. I often feel these are the ones that are not honest with themselves and hide the most. When does their other shoe drop? And how do they cope? I am not talking about mistakes like murder but simple bad calls. I live in the present, remember the lessons of the past, and try to prepare my daughter for the future. I will always kiss her skinned knees.
    Never give up on yourself my friends because someone needs each and everyone of us.