My friend Jimmy is in town from China and I am staying with him and his parents for a couple of days. The problem with having a close friend so far away is that when we finally get together there is soooo much to talk about. Did we cover this in an email already? Not sure, so let’s rehash it again.

Jimmy and I have lived together, worked at 2 different companies together, travelled to China together, worked as High School leaders at Denton Bible Churh and were even in Evangelism Explosion together when we were in High School. It’s been a long journey that has forged a friendship that has become more like family.

Now that I live and work alone I seem to have all sorts of information that just sort of builds up in me that I don’t have time to share through an email. Imagine going weeks and months at a time without really having a meaningful conversation with anyone. It’s easy to do because people are busy and you don’t just go sharing your doubts and fears and dreams with just anyone. So when I get around my friends that I know really care about what I have to say then I tend to just blab word vomit all over them. It comes gushing out in projectile streams that I can’t control.I apologize later and just like real vomit I feel so much better when I get things out of my system.

It’s been a good visit hanging with Jimmy while he’s in town. I think it is interesting how sometimes distance can actually grow a friendship. It makes you stop and take a moment when they are in town and you don’t ever take them for granted. I have friends that live just an hour away and I rarely spend the weekend with them and so our time isn’t focused quality time.

So if I haven’t seen you in a while and you can’t shut me up, then consider it an honor cause it means I count you as a close friend. One I could vomit on and we’d still be friends later.

china · Travel · visits

A couple of weeks ago the server crashed at the nursing home where I do IT Consulting. I got a phone call while I was at the chiropractor that they had received a blue error screen and that none of them could log on to the computer. My heart sank.

A blue screen of death or BSOD in geek speak is never a good sign, but it is a VERY bad sign when that computer is your primary domain controller and without it the entire office is shut down. No internet, no logging on, no access to the database for payroll processing – nothing.

I worked 12 hours the first day trying to restore the server which was still using a 12 inch monitor circa 1995 and was housed in someone’s very busy office. Women kept streaming into the office checking on my progress, residents would poke their heads in and ask how I was doing, but I really needed them all to go away.

My college degreee is in Business Adminimistatrion but my background is in computers. I have an MCSE that I received in 1998 which is pretty much worthless now, but at the time was very valuable and it gave me the foundational understanding of computers and networking which I used to start my career in Information Technology.  An MCSE is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and I paid $9000 and 6 months of my life to SMU to earn that piece of paper.

Day two at the Nursing home wasn’t much better and finally I had to call Microsoft and get them on the phone to help. The pressure was building since this was Wednesday and on Friday I had to be in Oklahoma for a wedding and payroll had to be done the very next day in order for all the staff of the Nursing Home to get paid.

I was starting to get a little panicky because I had figured out how to get part of the server back up and running, but I couldn’t get the rest fixed because I wasn’t the one to set the server up. I had no idea how it was configured and since I had been working at the nursing home my job had mostly been to fix the day-to-day activities and not to delve into the interworkings of the network.

At about 3pm one of the ladies from the home said she could call a friend who might be able to sit on the phone with Microsoft and help me out if I needed it. His name was Brian and he arrived at about 4:00 p.m. while I was in the middle of a call with Microsoft.  Brian sat next to me and I relayed to him what was happening briefly.  I had setup a remote control session with Microsoft on a partition of the server that had access to the broken portion of the server and while the guy on the phone was on the other side of the world, he was a computer genius. He literally edited the hexidecimal code in order to fix the broken server. People, if you ever get a blue screen of death on a server do not try to fix it on your own, just call Microsoft and these guys can fix it! It was amazing.

During that call I had this unbelievable sense of relief come over me long before the technician had repaired the computer. In Brian I had sensed competency and confidence. I felt like he was someone I could rely on if this problem got out of hand and it was like someone had pulled the plug on an over-inflated air mattress that was crammed into my head.

This revelation sort of floored me. I’ve been a loaner most of my life relying on myself to get things accomplished and never really felt like I had someone that I could count on in a pinch – especially in the realm of IT and Networking. Not only that, Brian and I just sort of seemed to click. We talked the same language and when the situation was resolved I felt like in different circumstances we would have become good friends.

It was in these moments of stress that I realized that this is why God created Eve. He saw that Adam needed a helper, not because Adam wasn’t competent and completely able to handle everything himself, but because sometimes it is just nice to share the burden with someone else. There is something amazing about human presence and how it affects us all.

So if you are dealing with something, don’t try to go it alone. Get help. Share that burden.

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“I’ve known Chanc since before he was even born and so I’ve seen him go through a lot of women…”

This is a shortened version of my impromptu toast that I made at my cousin Chanc’s wedding reception last night. The best men were his brothers but they are a little microphone shy so Chanc asked me to step in and give it a whirl. I had this great speech planned out where I was going to say that Chanc knew how to pick good girls and he had a good head on his shoulders and he was a great father, but instead I made him sound like some sort of womanizer that was finally settling down.

You should have seen everyone’s faces when I said, “I’ve seen him go through a lot of women”. For a moment there was stunned silence, a look of shock on Jen and Chanc’s faces, and then a roar of laughter. I was embarrassed, but it was all said in love and meant to be a compliment. Sometimes the best toasts are the ones where something inappropriate is said.

Another snafu that happened with me was during the ceremony before I was supposed to sing I started walking up to the stage too early. As a groomsman I was at the end of the row of guys and I thought the minister was looking at me and telling me to go up to the podium when in reality she was looking at something else entirely. I slunk right back to my spot and then when it was finally my turn to sing I went up and thankfully sang without any glitches.

My favorite part of the entire weekend was just getting to spend quality time with my family. I love getting to see Aunt Becky and all of the Gomez’s and Chanc and I have always been close, but it is rare that I get to spend the weekend with my two cousin’s Kidd and Tony and I really enjoyed getting to hang with them a bit. We danced the night away at the reception and just got stupid on the dance floor doing all sorts of dancing. Obviously the Gomez family inherited my dancing ability because all of them can dance – especially Tony, which was quite a surprise. All those boys are super talented in one way or another and I’m proud of them.

Another great thing about weddings is getting to hang out with the fellas. Chanc has some great friends and it was cool getting to know some of them and spending time with some that I already knew.

The weekend was a blast, weddings are always great and I’m very excited to have Jen as part of the family. Chanc definitely upgraded – cue Beyonce…. let me upgrade ya.

And on a fun wedding note, you MUST watch this video…

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On Friday I play racquetball with one of my buddies and I love it. It is the highlight of my week. After we had finished playing he asked me how I was doing spiritually and physically. “Not Good” I replied. He continued to probe and question and I kept giving him these reasons for my lack of focus and overall complacency and when we were finished talking I felt like a big toad.

Normally a good talk makes me feel better. You get some things off your chest and you breathe a big sigh of relief. That didn’t happen form me on Friday. Instead I kept replaying the conversation over and over in my head and I thought, “Wow, that was a load of crappy excuses. How pathetic!”

It was a pathetic outburst followed by a wave of clarity. It was as if voices all these inner complaints helped me to see them for what they were – whining and feeling sorry for myself.

I don’t like to admit this, but I find that sometimes showing weakness allows other people to relate to me better. Weakness makes us human and in our weakness we realize that we must rely on God.

So after this talk I resolved to stop making excuses and to start making some adjustments. If I can’t correct my problems immediately I can stop the self-sabotaging behaviors and the excuses which are nothing more than tools of the incompetent and I had quite a few in my toolbox.

As a leader I am someone that should be setting an example. Life is hard for all of us and when we overcome challenges, when we fight for what we want then that makes reaching those goals all the more pleasurable.

I recommend finding someone in your life that challenges you to do better, to be better, all the time. It’s not always easy to hear that you need to make improvements, but it’s nice to know that someone cares enough to say something and challenge you to be the best you can be.

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I had an interview yesterday with http://www.fellowshipchurch.com and it was awesome. Not only did we talk for 2 hours, but I learned a great deal in those 2 hours – about Fellowship Church and about myself.

In my interview yesterday I was given homework which is due next Wednesday. We were given 4 topics to plan a night around and I have 4 really great ideas – but I can’t share them with you here. They are my babies and I have to protect and nurture them. However, I was wondering what your thoughts are concerning Alternative LIfestyles which happens to be one of the topics of discussion. It’s a hot-button issue in our culture today that is gradually becoming warmer and warmer and eventually it may not be an issue at all – or will it?

I’d like to know if you are for or agains homosexuality and why? Do you believe people were born with a same sex attraction? Was it nature vs. nurture?  What about transgendered individuals, bisexuals?

I’ve really appreciated some of the great feedback I’ve gotten on here. Keep it coming please!

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Matt Chandler is so great at teaching SOS…

This is available on SongofSolomon.com

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It’s 7:00 p.m. and we’ve arrived in Arlington at the University of Texas. My sister is about to graduate…

I remember my own college graduation as being anti-climactic. After 7 years of hard work and graduating without any student loans I felt as though there should have been a greater feeling of completion. We went to Good Eats after graduation and that was it.

My sister’s graduation was a little better. There were two parties planned leading up to her graduation and relatives came into town from Oklahoma to help celebrate.

When we walked into the auditorium my real dad was there standing by the aisle in a nice suit and tie. I was expecting to see him there, but I never really know exactly what to say when I am around him. He’s like a second cousin twice removed that looks like an older, shorter, rounder version of me.

I give him a hug and then move to the far end of the row to get me a seat. My step-dad sat in the row in front of me and we laughed and joked and talked and it seemed odd that after so many years that we are desperately close. We laugh at each others jokes and we have fun together, real fun like I have when I am with my buddies.

I looked down the long row and saw my real dad sitting down there next to some of my sister’s friends. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what to say.

The day before I had seen my real dad at a graduation luncheon. Once again I was at one end of a 35 person table and he was at the other. I was infinitely aware of the distance that separated us both literally and figuratively.

I distracted myself with conversation with my step-dad and a friend of the family Eliana. Eliana has a 1 year old boy who is beautiful and sweet. I held him tightly and pressed his cheeks against mine as he stood on my leg. His warm chubbiness felt like a small piece of forever was sitting their in my grasp and I never wanted to let him go.

I saw my real dad looking at me while I was holding Elijah. I wondered what he thought. I wondered if he had ever held me like this. If my cheeks had pressed to his and if so,  had he felt that feeling that I was feeling at that moment? If he had, how could he have ever let me go?

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I thought I was complete
I’d dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s
But before you, I was a run on sentence
An incomplete phrase, an unfinished book
A knight without a princess in a tower
A hero without anyone to save.
A frog that had never been kissed.

Before love came into my life
I was an empty glass waiting to be filled.
Perfectly complete, but somehow empty.

You are my silence when the world is yelling
My hope when all seems lost
My support when the ground is shifting
My warmth on a cold night

Until you I’d never known longing
True joy was just beyond my reach
It was as if I’d spent my life in a coma
And now suddenly I am awake… and I don’t ever want to go back to sleep.

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I’m not sure if I posted on here about trying e-Harmony again in December of last year, but  I did. Surprisingly I was matched with very few women and the ones I was matched with weren’t a match at all.

What is it about online dating services that makes me feel like I am bargain basement shopping? It’s like I have this selection of women served up before me that are last year’s models or returned items that someone else didn’t want. I know what you are thinking: Harsh Much! But it’s true.

I’ve been trying Match.com for a month now and it seems that everyone they are matching me with is divorced. When did people start getting divorced in their twenties?

I’m probably being too judgmental or even unrealistic cause I know there are some amazing divorced women out there, but I sort of want to be my wife’s first husband. When someone has already been married then I feel like “Hey, you already had your turn, let some the rest of us have a shot!”

Match.com gives me 5 new matches a day and most of the time I can look at their profile and tell if we would actually be a good match. I have talked to a couple of girls through email and I can’t help but be bored.

One girl said, “It’s torture for me to get to know someone through email.” And I wanted to respond back, “If that is the case, then you should give me a good reason to want to meet you in person. Be interesting. Be funny. Be witty. Charming. SOMETHING!” Snore.

I have a tendency to quickly write out a long email that gives insights into who I am and what I am looking for without coming right out and saying it. I ask important questions up front like, “Were you ever a dude?” and “Are you a Wiccan?” It’s important to get these questions out of the way at the beginning instead of finding out on the third or fourth date and you’ve already french kissed on the front steps of her lair.

I promise that I am not hardened or set in my ways, but the last 4-6 relationships, the girls I took out from e-Harmony, Wilbur Smith novels and the 33 years I have lived on this Earth have wizened me and enhanced my bullcraptometer.  Online dating services allow people to put their best foot forward on an online profile but I think it also attracts people that fall into these categories:

• Desperate
• Shallow
• Married
• Divorced
• Perverts
• Crazies
• Hopeless Romantics
• Gold Diggers

I’m sure that makes me sound jaded, but I’m just drawing a conclusion based on my own personal experience and observation. But I also believe that in every field full of weeds you can find a beautiful wild flower… Somewhere in this great wide world there is a woman who will understand my heart and see me for who I am – flawed, but awesome.  She’s out there somewhere and I plan to find her.

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The dream sequence started differently. I mean, I was there and then suddenly I was grabbed by this girl that I knew and she started kissing me. It caught me off gaurd and I fell down. She fell with me her tongue locked in my cheek and me wondering if she was going to cut me with her braces. Braces? She doesn’t have braces in reality so why does she have them in this dream sequence?

Her blond hair and milk colored complexion paired with her rich red lips remind me of Gwen Stefani or one of those blond girls in a comic strip.

I should be delighted that some girl is throwing herself at me, but I am perplexed because this person, where did she come from and why all of the sudden is she here? At this skating rink?

It’s not a sex dream, I rarely have those even though in Psychology 101 we were told that most of our dreams were sexual, what? I don’t think so. I dream mostly of food and chocoloate chip cookies and working at the nursing home and Ultimate Frisbee.

The few times I have had sex dreams I always wake up before the sex. Does that happen to you? To everyone? It’s like one of those dreams where you have won the lotto or suddenly your wildest dream is coming true but before it fully comes to fruition you wake up.

But lately, my dreams are different. My day dreams are different too. I’m scanning girls all the time wondering if they could be the future Mrs. because the last futue Mrs. hopeful was not interested in the least and she let me know by ingoring my attempts at starting up a super-delicious romance that would have started with her and I and a plate of Thai and we would be laughing and eating Pad Thai and our lips would touch as we slurped on a really long and fat rice noodle and it would be like a scene from Lady and the Tramp and then later we would have a batch of puppies.

For real though, lately, something is up. I think being self-employed has left me with too much time to be alone and the time that I used to spend alone on the weekends was “ME” time but now that is all I have, “Me” time and too much of that and so yeah, I’d love to have a woman in my life that I could take to breadwinners and to watch Grey’s Anatomy with. I’d sit with her on the couch and massage her feet and listen to her talk endlessly about her day and what she wanted to eat for dinner and how her mom is stressing her out. I’d listen and I’d be grateful that my time was no longer all mine.

So yeah, something is up, perhaps I am finally growing up… it’s doubtful, but maybe.

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Heather Flails her arms about wildly, but looks beautiful and pregnant nonethless

Last night I drove down to Austin to meet Heather B. Armstrong a.k.a Dooce.  It was a treat…

When I first started working at Texas Instruments I HATED my job. I sat in one of those cubicle that only goes about 3 feet how and makes you feel exposed like you are a kid urinating at a trough with your pants around your ankles and everyone can see your buttocks – except now you are an adult and this is totally unacceptable.

Texas Instruments was a thirsty tick that was sucking the lifeblood out of me and I couldn’t help but surf the net for a little bit of an escape from my suicidal reality – and that is how I stumbled upon Dooce.

Immediately I was taken aback by this woman who was writing some of the most hilarious and sometimes bawdy tales of her life. See this excerpt here that was written before her daughter was born and after I had already been reading religiously for a while:

I’m a Slave 4 U(nemployment)

I’ve cleaned every surface in this apartment: every tile, every crevice, every hidden corner littered with dust bunnies the size and attitude of Texas. Alas, I’ve nothing left to clean.

I always said that I’d strip this place bare once I had the free time to do so, much like I’d strip the sleeves from Britney’s trembling shoulders if ever given the chance to hit her, baby, one more time. Two weeks into unemployment and that mission is accomplished (the cleaning mission, not the Britney mission, you pervert). Now what the hell do I do?

As you can see the language is often “colorful”, but the writing is downright creative and sometimes so hilarious that I would sputter and snort in my cubicle. I was supposed to be helping someone figure out how to double-click but instead I was finding a way to cope with that fact that my life sucked  – Heather/Dooce helped me realize that I wasn’t the only one with some serious issues and that sometimes you need to get help with those issues.

As the years went by I got to watch as Heather went through depression and pregnancy and how Mormonism has affected her life. I have read about her political views and ideas on same-sex marriage and although often times I find myself disagreeing with her it has never changed the fact that I have loved her like a sister – a far away online only sister, but a sister nonetheless.

Heather got up and read an excerpt from her new book – it was a story that we had read on her website about how it took seven months after giving birth vaginally with her first child before she was able to have sex again or what she called “Reconvening the Procedure”.

I suppose I could look for a job; that’s what any ambitious worker-bee would do. If I were any ambitious worker-bee I would put my shoulder to the wheel, as the Mormons might say, and find me some fucking gainful employment. After all, I’m a healthy blonde college graduate with seriously long legs. Finding a job shouldn’t be that hard.

What I love most about Heather is not the hilarious side, but the softer side. I love her monthly newsletters to her daugher Leta and the times when she stops and takes a moment to express her love for her husband Jon, like she did in this paragraph:

So it feels really good to have all these emotions toward Jon that I don’t normally experience because of our proximity. I miss everything about him, even the incessant talking and bear feet. It’s a longing that is somehow invigorating, and once where I would have been annoyed that we’d talked six times already on the phone I find myself getting a text message and hoping it’s from him. I ache to get back to the hotel room from whatever I’m doing so that I can call and hear his voice. Which I am about to do right this second, call and see if he slept well, ask if I can interrupt SpongeBob to say hello to Leta, and then stop and savor this feeling of missing the weight of his body on the bed next to me.

The way she expresses her love for her family  is so genuine and intimate that it makes me, as a single dude, hope and pray to God that someday I will find a love like that.

I plan to insert a picture here later that I got with Jon and Heather. I was elated to get a picture with both of them and I hope Jon doesn’t mind me using his photo at the top of this post. I was standing right behind him when he took it and so this was the angle that I had during the hour that she spoke.

Austin TX · Book Signing · Dooce · Heather B. Armstrong · It Sucked and then I Cried

Or at least Texas Holly and Miss-Elaine-ous are cool like that. Thank you ladies for planning such a great event!

About a month ago my friend Jes sent me an email that read, “DFW Blogger Dinner Party planned for February 28th” and I replied immediately, “I’m in!” I mean you are combining 3 of my favorite things: Food, People and Blogging. How could I say no?  The only thing more tempting would be a pillow fight with Giselle Bundchen, Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks.

When the date for the blogger party finally rolled around my best friend Joe came into town for a wedding and so I forced him to come along with promises of delicious food and fun people. Unfortunately for the price the food wasn’t all that delicious, but the people more than made up for it.

When Joe and I first arrived at the Grand Lux and we saw this gaggle of women all standing around I turned to Joe and said, “Do you want to stay or should we just go someplace else?” I was feeling a little out of place and that is when Texas Holly swooped in and introduced herself and then I met Jay and Jenny B and I was suddenly at home. In a group of strangers I need only a couple of nice faces to bring me out of my shell and then look out! Seriously, look out, because I have a tendency to try to dominate the conversation and put on a show. As Britney says, “There are two types of people in the world, the kind that entertain and the ones that observe.” I’m the one that entertains… or I try to.

At my table: Bianca, Jes, Laurie, Jean, Jenny, Anything But Nice and of course Joe. We had a great time talking about everything and nothing and then the ladies at my table started hovering together and talking about Twilight – here is where I piped up and said, “My name is Edward!” – what I didn’t divuldge was that I am also a Vampire and that the Twilight series was based loosely on my life.

At the end of the night I zipped down to the other end of the table and met Natalie and Dorsey and a few other cool ladies. I think part of the reason I feel right at home with a group of ladies is that I have two older sisters and I graduated from Texas Woman’s University and because women like me. I always smell like chocolate and I look huggable and women like hugs and chocolate.

Photo is courtesy of Jenny B.

It was very nice meeting all of you ladies and gentleman. I hope we can do this again soon!

P.S. Jean left a comment and so I have updated her blog site address! Yeah!

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