More Chess

I've been ignoring the blog lately. A lot of life has happened, and also when I could be blogging I've instead been getting a move or two of chess in over at Chess.com. It's a nice way to play. I basically make a move or two per game per day. Sometimes a little less sometimes a little more. So when I have had a second, I've either been at your blogs or there. My poor blog is feeling neglected.

Tagged By Big Sis, and the big weekend.

Well the weekend went all right, as in I survived it.



Now on to a meme that BigSis wanted me to do a while ago, but I had forgotten all about till just now. So here goes.



The Bucket List---- place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not. This is for your entire life.


(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida
(X) Been on a plane
(X) Been lost
(X) Been on the Opposite Side of the Country
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only?
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't?
(X) Made prank phone-calls
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
( ) Been skinny dipping outdoors
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Went Bungie Jumping
( ) Went Sky Diving
(X) Ever been Heart Broken
(X) Went Skiing - cross country
(X) Climbed a Mountain
(X) Played a Sport - Soccer and Basketball in middle school.

A second meme? ah well, here goes.

1. Any nicknames? Dad and Honey, Those count right?

2. Mother's name? Mommy, Miss you Mom!

3. Favorite drink? Coca Cola

4. Body Piercings? None

5. Tattoos? Nope

6. How much do you love your job? I like it. I get to write in code to a computer all day.

7. Birthplace? Denver, CO

8. Favorite vacation spot? Anywhere that isn't school or work.

9. Favorite place you have ever been? Northern Wilderness.

10. What is the Craziest thing you have ever done or want to do? Trying Haggis comes to mind, haven't tried it yet but would like to.

11. Ever been on TV? I think I was on the news when I was a kid, sitting in the front row of some school program. My family has been in the Newspaper many times because of the work my mom did with the mentally and physically disabled.

12. Ever steal any traffic signs? Uh... when I was growing up in Oregon a teenage kid pulled out a stop sign and waited till it caused an accident. The accident injured a mom and killed at least one of her kids, I was eight at the time and my memory is kinda shaky on the specifics, but not the horror of it all. I've never had the desire to remove any traffic devices because of that..

13. Ever been in a car accident? Yes

14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? Family vehicle is a minivan 3 door. Normally I'm on the bus.

15. Favorite number? 4 soon to be 5 as our family grows again.

16. Favorite movie? LOTR trilogy is pretty good.

17. Favorite food? Sushi.

18. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

19. Favorite Season? I don't have one.

20. Dream Car? Lincoln Town Car

21. Number of Places you have lived? HMmm.... 1, 2..... 18.

22. How do you relax? Playing Wow while walking on the treadmill, reading, hanging with the fam.

23. How do you see yourself in 10 years? Hopefully enjoying life to the fullest.

24. Favorite Smell? wow, I'll have to think about that. I dunno.

25. Favorite Sound? The Cacophony that erupts after I say, "Daddies Home"! Both kids go nuts and the bird does too. I love that. Superwoman is happy to see me 99% of the time, but she doesn't tend to make as much noise about it (as we grown ups tend to not yell as much), but sometimes after I shut the door, she'll tell the kids, "I think Daddy is home" and that leads to the same eruption.

26. Favorite Color? Purple

27. Who will respond to this the fastest? One of the two people who still read this blog after the scandal gate post. LOL.

28. Furthest place you will send this message? As far as the internet will take it.



(Edit moved down from above) I didn't get the 'A' I was hoping for on my test. Hopefully the professor will have a bit of mercy on us. I doubt it, but I'm hoping anyway since I studied about 20 hours for this test alone. (It was too many details to get down in any amount of time. From what I understand, the professor who made up the tests {and used to teach the course} would give a lot of hints at which details would actually show up on the test. The professor standing in for the class doesn't do this. But insists on sticking exactly to the old professors grading system. So we get all of the drawbacks and none of the benefits to the old professor's style, it sucks) (Edit, I got the high score for the class, and the test will most likely be curved instead of grading off of raw score. Hooray!)

I spoke, (gave a mini 15/20 minute sermon) in church on Sunday. I didn't have time to prepare as much as I would of liked, but all things considered I think I did OK. Or so I hope.

I finished my programming assignment and a bunch of other random un-notables, and helped Superwoman get the dog off to a better home, where she would actually get the attention she deserved.

All in all I didn't do anything up to the standard I like doing things, but considering I got everything I needed to done, I'll take it.

Autum weekend.

I took a test Friday. The first Midterm for me this semester. After the exam I wasn't feeling quite right. I came home and went to bed. Next day I was sick. Sick Saturday. Sick Sunday. REALLY Sick Monday. Still-sick-but-on-the-mend today.

Today Superwoman's kind mother came down and helped us out in the yard. I was at work and school and didn't see the results until I got home. She mowed the lawn (that I didn't get to Saturday) and got the garden ready for winter. Lots of work. Thanks Super-Grandma!

When I got home everyone wanted to go on a picnic. I wanted to stay home, but spending time with Superwoman and the kids comes few and far between lately, so I went cold and all. We went to a local pond and ate fried chicken and chips and then fed the ducks day old bakery bread.

The ducks -the bigger ones who are about the size of Cakes- were a little aggressive tonight. There were two white ones in particular that kept charging the kids, I would drive them off, but the kids kept getting scared, and dropping the bread, instead of throwing it, which encouraged the ducks to come closer.... which scared the kids etc... Well eventually one of the big white (almost goose sized) ducks had enough of waiting, and decided to take Cakes for all the bread she was worth. It charged her from close range. Instead of dropping the bread, she ran off screaming with the bread in hand trailing behind her. The duck bit her hand and Cakes was very upset. (she is fine, no skin was broken, but I do think it hurt a bit) She sat on my shoulders the rest of the time.

About that time Cookie Monster caught on to the idea that ducks/geese are cowards and that if you charge back, they will run off. He spent the rest of the evening chasing down the ducks and geese. Pretty much tormenting them (not physically). The geese looked like they were getting a little sick of it. I was sure if he kept it up that the geese were going to mount an uprising. We finally managed to convince him there were better things to do before he got flocked. :)

I've got another test this week. Tests, to a student like me, are sources of a lot of stress. People laugh because I always get good grades, and wonder why I get worked up about them. But in my case the stress helps me to do well, I'd rather have that stress with the good grade which comes with it, than earning a bad grade and being stressed about that after the test. Hopefully I don't give myself an ulcer.

Who has the time?

..... Not me. I was meaning to post over the weekend. About what? I have no idea, I had an idea floating around but it has since left me and I'm not sure there is room enough in my head for it to return. It ended up being a busy weekend.

Friday Superwoman and the kids picked me up to from work and we to a case lot sale. Which is when a store sells a case of cans/pasta/whatever at a discounted price. A great way to get the essentials like spaghetti, ketchup, canned veggies and the like.

After that we went to the mall to pre-order Wrath of the Lich King which is the next installment/expansion to World of Warcraft. While there we also looked for a tv wall mount, to mount a computer monitor (old crt) to the wall. We didn't find one, but I did find an updated version to a classic old game, Payday. I played this all the time as a kid.

Then we went to The Home Depot where I did find the a CRT (instead of flat panel) TV wall mount. They are getting harder and harder to find. By then it was late and we got the kids home for dinner and bed.

On Saturday we went for a drive around the Nebo Loop for a picnic and to enjoy the mountain scenery with the leaves changing colors. Then Big'Sis and Grizz treated us to a Teppanyaki dinner, MMMMM. I had a program due to be turned in online the next day and I was up till 3 AM working on it. I didn't get it done.

Sunday was no less busy with church and a family get together. I worked on my programming assignment during every spare second of the day, at midnight I finally had it right, but I stayed up another hour and a half trying to help a friend that was also having problems with it.

Between all that I completely lost my topic for post. :) So Monday instead of blogging I started working on my program due next week, in case it was as intense as the last one. It wasn't, I had it done in about 3 hours.

So I'm through 4 weeks of the current semester. I have the option of finishing two of my classes early, if I can handle the added workload of getting ahead. That would be nice as the baby is due to come about 2 weeks ahead of the end of the semester. So far I'm about a month ahead in one class, a week and a half ahead in another, and right on schedule with my third.

This year I've...

Today I saw a young woman and her mother on the bus on their way to the university orientation. Although I wasn't a freshman (I went back to school as a senior credit-wise) I was new to the institution and attended orientation last year anyway. I remember feeling really old. There I was 30 years old (yes I know that's still young) in a room full of 18 year-old's who were so excited to be 'in college'. I found someone with a kid and a stroller and sat with him. We were both going back to school after long hiatuses. Together we weathered a rousing round of shouting the school initials and other activities targeted to the students over a decade younger than I am. I wasn't sitting there thinking, "this is so stupid.", but try I as I might I just couldn't get excited. I sat there wondering what in the world had I gotten myself into, but I was determined to do well. I felt like, and I still do, that this is my last real chance to finish my degree and have it really help my career. That was a year ago, give or take a day or two.

Since then I've....


Completed 19 credits of coursework. Engineering Analysis (basically Linear Algebra and Differential Equations), Embedded Systems (i.e. how to design a computer system for a car, cell phone or alarm system etc), Computer Organization and Architecture, Digital Design II, Ethics and Values, and Statistics.

I've been undertaking 6 credits a semester, but I took 7 over the summer.

So far I've maintained straight A's.

This February I worked myself into the ground. I was really sick for two weeks and my work was kind enough to let me go into negative vacation and sick time. I'm still not out of the hole 6 months later.

I gave up caffeine for two months after I got sick. It seemed to help. Now I'm as addicted as ever. I think its time to give it up for a while again, if not for good.

I dropped from 40 hours a week to anywhere from 40 to 32 hours a week at work. Usually closer to 32 hours. I miss the money, but it is a lot better on my health and nerves and everything else. At 32 at least I get to keep us insured. Paying for gas about bankrupts us, and we only have one vehicle to fill. I ride the bus, if I didn't I don't think we would be able to afford the cut in paychecks.

I've found out that I am still a competitive student. I thought I might have a hard time competing with the younger, single, unemployed, childless students with more free time to study and all of that youthful energy. If anything I'm a better student now than I ever was before. I think it is because I am more motivated, I see my wife and kids and I can't help but be motivated to do well.

I needed 55 credits to graduate, depressing, considering I had around 100 transfer credits and a lot of other stuff didn't transfer. Now I'm down to 36 credits and have two full years left. I'm not quite halfway, but I'm pleased with how much I got done this year, if you can spare some prayers, I could use them on my behalf for the coming two years.

Last night I was up till 4 in the morning just wasting time (playing Klondike solitaire on my iPod of all things). I didn't want to go to bed, it felt like if I stayed awake my vacation would last longer. It seems like the two week vacation that I have had from school has gone by in a blink. I don't want it to end. But it will end, and soon. Come to think of it this entire year has gone by quite quickly, I've been so busy that it wasn't until this morning, when I saw that young lady excitedly anticipating the opening of this chapter of her life, that I really realized how much has happened in the last year, and how much time has passed.

The funeral and work.

The funeral was a bit exhausting. We drove around 24 hours in two days time, but the services were good, and worth all the driving. We dropped off the kids with my cousin and his wife. Big Grizz and Big Sis' rode in the van with Superwoman and I. I'm sure they are sick of us by now.

I missed work Monday and I'm trying to make up hours so I don't have to work very much on Saturday. Not what I had in mind to do with my vacation from school, but again, going to the funeral was worth it.

I haven't unloaded my camera, so pictures will have to wait. My Grandmother and Grandfather (on my mothers side) ran a ranch in the high country of Idaho near Salmon Idaho and the Montana border. It is beautiful up there, even though the weather can be harsh. It's been more than a decade since I have been up there and it was nice to go back.

I took my final for Stats Thursday of last week. I'm a little nervous that I didn't do as well as I would like and that I will no longer have a 4.0 Grade Point Average. Its nice having the class out of the way, but I hate waiting for the results.

Life, Death and Sushiboy

I'm not sure how to start this post off other than to say it might be lengthy. Read on if you have some time. I think I've started and scrapped some version of this post a dozen times. I just didn't have the courage to write about it or post it. Crabacuracha posted her touching story about her relationship with her father and I was really inspired by her bravery and openness. Thanks LaC. Shortly after her excellent post I've had a few more brushes with death. The first, one of my best friends father passed on. Which, along with LaC's post, brought back many of the emotions and feelings I felt when my own parents passed away. Then someone I know took their own life, and that brought back the time in which I almost took my life, and how glad I am that I didn't.

I can tell you the exact moment that my mother died. I don't know the hour, minute and second, but that moment is memorialized in my mind. Mom was fighting her second battle with cancer, and this time there was no chance that she would beat it. Barring that, she fought with everything she had, largely, she admitted to me, for me. She fought, she lost her hair, couldn't keep anything down other than coca-cola, and endured the living hell that is chemotherapy so that she could be around a little longer for her kids. When she was dying she was fighting. The pneumonia which was drowning her, forced her to fight for every breath. As I sat by her bed, she kept fighting and turning to look at me. Deep down I knew this was it. But I couldn't admit it. So she fought. She fought well into the night, drawing ragged, raspy breaths and looking at me with the love of a mother in her eyes. When I couldn't deny the facts any longer, I told mom that she could let go, that I would be OK. She stopped fighting and looked into my eyes until her soul left her body. I saw her empty eyes, and I felt that special space of my soul that was hers hollow and drain from me. There isn't quite anything like accompanying a departing parent, other than witnessing the birth of your children. Though one is the deepest sorrow and the other the deepest joy, the experiences are very similar, an intense spiritual experience that only has come when another human soul arrived into or departed from my life.

Like most people who look into the eyes of a dying loved one, and promise they will be OK, I wasn't entirely truthful. In my mind, from that moment on I hadn't promised I'd be ok, I'd promised I would be perfect. And for about 10 years I tried to be perfect and beat myself down mercilessly when I fell short. In most ways the promise I made to my mom has been a good thing. It forced me to grow up and accept responsibility, and more importantly I finally believed what my mom had told me time and time again, "Sushi, You can do anything you put your mind to." Mom would look me in the eye and tell me this often. I'm not sure I really ever believed her until that day. Mom was right. I'm smart. I don't know how much I accepted that before that day. It turned me a round in a lot of ways. Confidence was not a quality I possessed. But one I which began to instill from that day forward, and was a key to any success I've had since then. My intellect (humble as it is in certain areas, like spelling) is my greatest strength. One of the defining things about me is my ability to absorb information by reading. I feel a lot like Hermione Granger. The first thing I do, when trying something new, is read all about it, and then I try it. And I'm good at it. Before my promise I rarely earned any A's, not so now. There are times that I collapse under the weight of my own expectations, and that, other than the grief, is probably the hardest thing to get over.

That being said, you may think that I became suicidal after my mother passed away, after I was failing to live up to my impossible expectations. Not so. I had long before that I would never take my life. For me the hard part was knowing these deaths were looming before me.

It's the rain that I hear coming
Not a stranger or a ghost
It's the quiet of a storm approaching
That I fear the most
Innocente: Delerium

Mom was diagnosed the second time, the fatal time, my senior year of high school. We were just forced to enter my dad into a nursing home because my mom and the family couldn't take care of him anymore. Dad had been withering under the effects of Pick's disease. It came as my mother and I were planning a senior trip so that I could see Yellowstone National Park for the first time, one of my mom's favorite places. That trip never happened. The rest of the world seem stacked against me. I hadn't been a good student and wasn't looking forward to college at all, I hated construction (which is what I was doing at the time), my sister was engaged to an abusive idiot (I'm glad she married Big Grizz' instead) and worst of all in the dreary sunless future, I could see the gun primed and aimed straight at my heart. When it went off, when my parents died, I didn't think I could survive. I was in a deep as a depression as I have ever felt.

It happened one day as I was driving down a country road. I was giving my little brother a ride. I had two severely handicapped brothers, and some people may think this was another strike against my life, but my brothers were two of the only bright spots in my it. My brother saved my life. My brother, who I had taught to walk, who I'd cheered for my whole life, who I'd loved like I love my son was sitting behind me. Almost without thinking I had begun to steer a Geo-Metro into an oncoming Mack Dump truck. I looked back at my brother to say goodbye, and realized if I went, I'd take him with me. I'd murder my brother. That shook some sense into me. I took my brother home and I thought for days on suicide. I weighed the issue over and over in my mind and finally decided that was the most selfish shitty thing I could do. Was I so anxious to end it all that I almost took my brother with me? What else would I have done? I would probably have killed my dear mother. It wouldn't have been the cancer that killed mom, it would have been me. She fought for me, she lived for me, and if I would have given up, I think the end of her life, as painful as it was anyway, would have been immensely worse. My life, as little as I valued it then, I realized had real and tremendous value to my family.

I can't judge those who do end up taking their own life. It's by divine intervention that I'm alive today. If my brother hadn't been in the car, I'd of probably smashed myself and that tiny car into the grill of that dump truck. (can you imagine the emotional effect on the driver of that truck?) I know what it feels like to have no hope, no light, no promise in life other than pain. If you feel this way you may be tempted to end your life, but DON'T. As I said before, I'm no dummy. I'm a pretty smart guy, but I just about made the worst, the most final awful decision I could have ever made. I don't want to preach how about how much pain you will cause (and you undoubtedly will) if you make that decision to take your life. What I will tell you is, life is better than I ever could have hoped. When I looked into the future all I saw was the loaded gun. Yes it went off, yes it hit me, yes it hurt like hell, but there was an entire life waiting for me on the other side. A good life. A great life. If you feel no hope. Get some help. Please. Now I can see what my life is, I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I had to take it on faith for a few months. For me it is Superwoman and the kids and the little joys that are sprinkled everywhere (like blogging). Your life may hold something different entirely, but it is worth living. And you are worth more than you will ever fathom.

I know good things
I know bad as well
any witness of the world can tell

If there is sorrow
there is beauty and trust
a secret pearl inside the heart of us

So, truly there is life and I wanna see
now that I know what I am living for,
Truly there is love and I wanna feel
Here in this world is were I wanna be
cause I cant cry anymore
Truly: Delerium

Mom's death, and then Dad's and each of my brothers that followed, were inevitable. Death is a part of life, its been a big part of mine. But in the end, the best parts of my personality, what makes me who I am, were developed while I was piecing my life back together.

The recent suicide, apart from the tragedy of it all, reminded me again how blessed I am to be alive today. Please, if you think life is too hard to go on, get some help. Life is hard, no doubt about it, but it is worth it. Live it!

It's Over

So I'm done mourning the end of the Harry Potter Series. I might actually start posting again.

I just wanted to say a few things about the books.

• Nitwit, Oddment, Blubber, Tweak
• Dumbledore is still my hero
• I never stopped trusting Snape (for good or ill)
• Hermione is the type of friend everyone should have, and that everyone should try to be
• Good will always beat evil
• Family is a kingly gift meted to all, value yours
• Harry Potter Rules

In other news I'm getting ready to go back to school in the fall. I will continue to work full time. I'm a little hesitant to give up my free time. Hopefully I don't have to give up too much family time with it.

Theme Park

Today we went to the local theme park and had a great time. The carousel is over 110 years old and has been in place for over 100 years. We just rode the kiddie rides today, none of the thrillers. Superwoman and I need to go back when we can get a sitter and hit some of the better roller coasters.