Luther's Life

This is the kind of Drummer I want to be

2008-04-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

4 8 15 16 23 42

2008-01-29T18:57:00.000-08:00

Maybe its because all I've had to watch lately is American Gladiators and Ghost Whisperer, but I'm really looking forward to the season premier of Lost on ABC. I guess there are only 8 episodes this season, but I'm really excited for some new TV. I think it will be interesting how they move the story forward from the last season finale.

On another note, I am suddenly realizing that I miss Jack Bauer. I really wish there was a new season of 24 starting. The last season wasn't great, but I've really started to get used to my fix of Chloe and Jack getting into and out of trouble every year right around this time. What will fill this void? Who knows. I haven't heard a premier date for the 7th season of 24, but I'm hoping it doesn't take too long. Please, everyone who can, cave into the writers! End the Strike!

Airplane!

2008-01-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?
-Airplane!, 1980

Cloverfield

2008-01-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

Boo...

My wife thinks I'm special

2008-01-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

But not in a good way. I'm back to writing in this blog after almost a year away. Angela and I started a blog together to keep everyone informed about our life together and what we are doing, but it has sparked my desire to ramble on about the nerdy/geeky things that my mind turns to when there is nothing good on tv or I am at work and space out. I know my wife would rather I didn't think about these things let alone blog about them on our shared site, so I'm back here geeking out a bit.

So my first subject has to be my excitement about Cloverfield. The movie started today and I hope to go tomorrow if Angela doesn't get called in to work. I am excited to see what is causing such a ruckus in the big city (as seen in the previews). My sister-in-law's boyfriend told me that the monster is Voltron or something, but that makes no sense to me, so I think he must be wrong. But if he isn't I really don't know what to think. I want to make sure I see it before someone really spoils it for me though.

There haven't been a lot of movies I've been excited about seeing lately, so it's fun to be excited about something new. I was surprised that Angela agreed to go with me. She went with me (and others from my family and hers) to see "I Am Legend" and had her head buried in my shoulder for half the movie, threatening to leave every couple minutes. So I thought she might never go to a scary movie with me again.

My posts will probably get shorter as I go, but another thing I did want to talk about was the following: Both my Tivo and my XBOX 360 died this last week. The Tivo was first, and was a hard hit for me. I tried my best to revive it, but after over 4 years and thousands upon thousands of recorded television shows, it has been declared deceased. I got the dreaded red rings of death on my XBOX 360 just a couple days later. The lame part is that I just got some great new games over Christmas, but the positive part is that I can send it in to get fixed for free (although it takes about a month or more) and I also got a PSP for my birthday in December so I will have some good time to get acquainted with it.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk about the most interesting tech thing I learned this week: Soon we will all have bionic sight! Based on some work being done at my Alma Mater, they are finally getting contacts to work the way I always thought they should. But my question is why they are doing the research on rabbits (aren't they supposed to have great sight with the carrots and everything)?

Just a couple days left to eat cheetos

2007-02-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

So the downward slope has come, and now I am preparing for Angela's return, instead of mourning her departure. I have stayed very busy the last couple weeks with Volleyball about 4 days a week as well as a busy tournament and work schedule. We had a Staffing Conference last week for work and this week I am catching up and trying to get ahead of our busy season of hiring PhD Interns and Researcher into Microsoft Research.

I started to eat well, but then stopped again because of the busy-ness. I am really excited for Angela to come home. I am making a lot of preparations at home and around, but don't want to give anything away because Angela will read this. She wants me to post some pictures of me on here, but I haven't had a chance to take any on my phone. Hopefully soon though.

That's really all I have time to write right now, but I hope to write in some more detail this weekend if possible. Remember to pray for Angela in Africa and me at home by myself.

Of Hockey and Exhaustion

2007-02-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

I had a tough weekend over the last few days. I’ve felt a little sick since before Friday, and it worsened during my busy days. On Friday, I had a bunch of things I needed to do at work, and then had a volleyball practice right afterwards. When I got home I was exhausted, but didn’t get to sleep until late. I gratefully slept in on Saturday, but didn’t feel that great when I woke up. I had another volleyball practice at 2pm which went pretty good. Then I came home and got ready to head to my brother in law’s (Camillus) house to meet up and go to a hockey game. The game was in Everett and it was a lot of fun. Our team lost pretty well, but it was a great game.

After the game, Camillus and his wife Megan and I went back to their house and played XBOX for a couple hours. I got home around 12:30am or so, and was so exhausted. I was able to go to sleep after just a little while, but I had to wake up for Sunday’s volleyball tournament at 6am.

I had to be in Kent by 7:30am, and made it just in time. It was a long day, but my players played great and we only lost twice (to the same team) all day. We ended up second in our Division at the end of the day. I didn’t get to leave until after 7pm however. By the time I got home, I was feeling pretty sick and exhausted. I was in bed by 9pm, and asleep around 10pm I think.

This morning I woke up rested but not feeling well. So I worked from home (and it was pretty busy for me actually). But I was able to relax a bit. I am still not feeling that great, but will try to go in to work around mid-morning, I think.

I didn’t get to talk to Angela at all on Saturday or Sunday, so that was the longest we’ve gone without talking since she’s been gone. I was already really missing talking to her by Saturday night, but Sunday morning I was so busy with volleyball I had no chance to call her. We talked this morning and it was obvious she missed talking to me as well. It has really been so much harder to be without her the last week plus.

I set up a blog for Angela and linked to it in my list, but her new site is at http://angelasafrica.blogspot.com/. She hasn’t been able to get into her NW University Blog (also in my Link List) to blog, so she asked me to set one up for her that I could just relay her thoughts and words, etc. I’m also using it to write down things I’ve learned about Zambia.

It sounds like Angela and I might be able to talk tomorrow, but then, because of my staffing conference this week and her travels to Victoria Falls this weekend, we might not get to talk again until next Monday. I will probably try to call her anyways on Friday and maybe even this weekend (just in case the phone she has works where they are going). I just can’t imagine not talking to her for that long. I am excited to hear about her trip outside of Lusaka into the wilds of Africa. I put pictures of Victoria Falls on her site and it looks awesome. I hope she is taking lots of pictures for me.

As I said above, I have a busy work week, but I don’t have volleyball until Sunday. I don’t know if I am looking forward to this Staffing Conference in Bellevue this week. I think it will be a good change of pace, but I also know that it will just mean more work for me next week for the things that wait for my return to the office. I think I need a new job.

Anyways, I think I am going to try to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and I need to email Angela before I go to sleep. I’m watching a special 2-hour 24 right now with Jack Bauer. I like this show.

Last Netflix I sent back – Jet Li’s Fearless
Last fruit I ate – I can’t remember
Last Music I listened to – Enter the Worship Circle (not sure which album)
Last thing I yelled at the top of my lungs – probably something like “Move your feet” (at my volleyball team)

The Countdown Begins

2007-02-08T21:01:00.001-08:00

As of today, I have 20 days until I see my wife. I am very excited to see her again. I have pictures of her on my Zune, but not enough, and they really don’t compare to the real thing.

I have a list of things I made for myself to do(in addition to the list my wife left me). I haven’t done anything on my list yet, and I really need to start. A couple of the things on my list are “Clean Angela’s car”, “Clean My car”, “Clean bedroom”, etc. I am excited to do these things, but I have just been so exhausted that I just want to rest when I am home (which has only been for a couple days this week really). I have a busy next couple days, and then next week is very busy. I thought I would have a weekend free on President’s Day Weekend, but I found out I am supposed to be the Day Administrator for a volleyball tournament in Bellevue. One thing that I am grateful for is that this is my busy month, so if Angela had to be gone for a month, this is really the best month because of my busy-ness.

A new season of Survivor started tonight. And really, that’s all I have to say about that.

My last couple days have been pretty uneventful. Tuesday I went to work and then to a volleyball coaches meeting for my club. Afterwards I went home and watched some tv and then went to bed. On Wednesday, I went to work, then came home, played some xbox and then watched tv and went to bed. Today, I went to work, came home and played some xbox and now I am watching tv and will soon go to bed. I did start back on my diet today. I was supposed to start working out again as well, but my stomach hasn’t felt very good the last couple days, so I think I will start working out on Saturday or Monday (which means Monday). I was talking to Angela this morning (I have been able to talk to her for a little while every day so far), about the diet I started today. I was saying that I have a compulsiveness that helps and hurts my dieting. It helps my diet because I stick to eating what I buy, and stick to it rigorously. It can hurt my dieting because if there is bad food around, I want to get rid of it first (but Luke does not waste, so he must eat it). I am trying to stay true to the diet however, so I can only eat small amounts of the bad food. This means that I had a small bowl of Lucky Charms this morning and a very small bowl of Cheetos with my dinner. I’m just glad I am out of ice cream.

Well, I have a busy tomorrow with work and volleyball. I should be home around 8:30 or 9pm tomorrow and get to sleep in on Saturday, so I’m hoping it will be a good rest before our volleyball tournament on Sunday. Otherwise, I am excited to get a couple more days under my belt so Angela is closer to coming home.

Day 3 & 4 - Goldfish Crackers and Tomato Soup

2007-02-05T23:38:00.000-08:00

I just spent over an hour writing my latest post, but when I was editing it, I accidentally erased it. I am too sleepy to re-do that whole thing, so here is the quick version:

The Tornados took 2nd in the Silver Division of our tournament.

Natalie liked her presents.

I'm exhausted after this weekend, work today, and volleyball practice this evening.

I'm reading more about Zambia and a couple scary things make me think about Tears of the Sun with Brue Willis.

I miss Angela a lot, but hopefully she will get a chance to email me today to tell me all about everything she is up to there.

Last thing I ate - Natural White Cheddar Cheeto
Last game I played - Call of Duty 3
Last show I watched - Prison Break
Last thing I loaded onto my Zune - Newsradio

Without My Wife - Day 2

2007-02-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

I was up pretty late last night. I played my new XBOX game for a couple hours and was watching tv. I finally went to bed and watched The Wicker Man with Nicholas Cage and fell asleep around 3am-ish. The Wicker Man is not a movie I would recommend. Nicholas made a good attempt though. I heard my phone beep with a message shortly after I fell asleep, but thought it was just an email alert from my Yahoo account. When I woke up in the morning around 9:30am, I checked my phone and found that the message was a text saying "call Angela" with a long telephone number. After a couple attempts at dialing the number, I decided to text message reply to the number that texted me. I then gave dialing the number one last shot, and a beautiful voice answered the phone (sounding hundreds of miles away). What a relief to hear my wife's voice in the morning.

It sounded like they had a busy day, but we mostly just chatted about how she and I were doing emotionally. She said she is having trouble eating and is really missing me. I think her team is trying to comfort her, so I hope she does better soon.

After our call, I watched some Zune (actually re-watching the end of The Wicker Man). Then I got up and had some breakfast and watched some tv. After a little while I started playing some Blazing Angels, and saw that my little bro was online as well. He called me a little while later to see about seeing a movie with my mom and step-dad today. It was between The Last King of Scotland, The Messenger and Smokin Aces. We settled on The Messenger in the early evening. I mostly played XBOX and watched TV until leaving for the movie. Although I did pick up my guitar for about a half hour while I was watching a Tivo'd 30 Rock with Tina Fey. I realize I need to learn some new songs because my fingers were quickly bored.

"The Messenger" was a pretty decent scary movie about a family moving to a farm where the teenage daughter and toddler son start experiencing ghost happenings. That was my 3rd scary movie in as many nights (I'm including The Wicker Man, but don't know if I should really count it). I'm wondering if I can go for a "scary movie" record and see scary movies every night in February. Although I don't know if adding that to my loneliness will help my sleep pattern while Angela is gone.

I got home after dropping off everyone and played a little Gears of War on Hardcore. However, for the last couple hours I've been watching Psych and Monk. I'm hoping to get some decent sleep tonight as the volleyball team I coach (NW Juniors Tornados) is playing in a tournament tomorrow. We play in Everett, and I have to be there at 7am. I'm sad because my niece, Natalie's birthday is tomorrow and I am probably going to miss her party because of the tournament. I plan on stopping by after the tournament to drop her presents off though. I think it will make me sad though, as I'm sure Natalie will ask where her aunt Angewa is.

I did some reading on Zambia tonight. I was trying to see what kind of wildlife Angela might be running into down there. It sounds like there is plenty of standard African animals, including the ferocious Lion. I will remember to tell Angela to take Lion Precautions while she is there.

Last TV Show I watched - Monk
Last thing I watched on my Zune - The Omen (the remake)
Last meal I ate - Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza leftovers
Last XBOX game I played - Gears of War

Without My Wife - Day 1

2007-02-02T23:03:00.000-08:00

Angela got on a plane last night for Zambia via London. It was a tough parting (way tougher than I thought it would be for me). I was emotional all night, but I stemmed it a bit by going to the nearest movie theater, grabbing popcorn, soda and Reces Pieces and seeing the remake of The Hitcher. The movie helped to take my mid off my missing wife a little, but after the movie I needed to shop a little to help my demeanor so I went straight to Best Buy to get a new XBOX 360 game (Blazing Angels).

The drive home was tough (too much time to think about how long I will be wife-less), but it was quick (the movie also helped me miss traffic). I listened to "Enter the Worship Circle" but that wasn't helpful, so I turned on my Zune and listened to a "Newsradio" episode.

At home it was a lot worse. A home is a very lonely place without a wife (she'd only been gone for less than 3 hours at this point). I watched TV and played a little XBOX, but didn't go to bed until late. Then I tried to read, but it only made me think a bunch more about the empty pillow next to me. So I put in the first part of Angela's favorite movie trilogy, Lord of the Rings. This didn't put me out as soon as I thought. I actually got almost all the way through the first disc of Fellowship before falling asleep, but then the movie ended and the silence woke me. But after putting in the second disc I fell right back to sleep. About 3 hours later Angela called at 7am from London.

It was so good to hear her voice and know that she was ok and everything. We didn't get to talk for very long, but she told me about her long, sleepless flight and how she was not looking forward to her next 10 hour leg to Lusaka, Zambia. The rest of the morning was uneventful and quick. I went to work and was somewhat busy. The day was way easier than the night, but when I got home from work, it was sad times again. I ordered pizza for dinner (knowing I could order whatever toppings I wanted for once... yay! No mushrooms!).

I had volleyball from 7pm to about 9:30pm and now I am home. Sick from Pizza, playing my new XBOX game and being lonely.

I keep hoping she emails me, but I don't know how often she will be able to. I doubt we will get to talk much more than once a week and that seems unreal to me. I am surviving so far, and the house is still pretty clean. I have a whole day to myself tomorrow though, so we will see how that goes.

Currently Reading - Lisey's Story by Stephen King
Last thing I watched on TV - The Office (Tivo'd from Thursday)
Last music I linsted to - Enter the Worship Circle - not sure which album is was
Last game I played on XBOX 360 - Blazing Angels