I'm sorry

A sad, blue Christmas.

I am sorry for not posting any new information about things. I fully intend to write a full story on the matters of the past week.

Right now I, along with family and friends, are still in the throes of things.

On a very good note my father is doing impressively well right now.

More to come. Thanks for your patience.

Zach Galafianakis is funny. Like when your parents visit you at computer camp!

The proposal to my love

Not a work of fiction, it just sounds like it.

Thursday night was plagued with rain. I saw it coming the day before and started to panic. Where was I going to find another secluded location where my plan would climax? I didn’t want to have this happen at a restaurant, and I certainly didn’t want to to happen around anyone else, especially ones that I didn’t know at all.

I panicked in a very real and sweaty way. My palms were leaving wet marks on the desk chair.

Once my fear lessened, I immediately got on the phone and started calling my family and friends for ideas. Many of my friends, and of course my parents, were aware of what was about to happen. Hell, most of those that knew were actually going to be in on it. After an hour of phone calls and no solution in sight, I settled on a location that was both secluded, quite, romantic and deeply connected to both myself and Pandia. It wasn’t perfect, but as perfect goes in a story like this, maybe it didn’t even matter. At that point, what really matters isn’t a question that comes up. Emotions run high. The heart races. Tears flow. It’s just that good of a feeling.

My plan was coming together now that my final location was set. I hoped into the ole Jetta and headed towards Carey Limousine of Kansas City. I met with Heidi, the daughter of the man I had hired for the next evening. Heidi assured me that my plan was very romantic, which was reassuring coming from a woman who barely knew me and didn’t know my girlfriend. I dropped off a letter for Ben, the driver, detailing the locations and the plan for the evening. Also, I dropped off the first clue for this city-wide scavenger hunt I had planned for the woman of my dreams.

Everytime I wanted to give something big or something special to Pandia, I always wanted to make the giving of the gift just as big. And why not? It makes the whole thing seem even more fun. When I bought her all the Friends DVDs and when I bought her an iPod, I planned a scavenger hunt around the house. She loved every minute of it. So I thought, If I’m going to give my girlfriend the biggest gift of her life thus far, why not make it on the heels of the grandest scavenger hunt I could think of – a scavenger hunt around the city!

So that’s what I did. I planned Thursday night to the smallest detail. I even convinced Pandia we were just going to get dressed up a little bit and have dinner on the Plaza at Kona Grill. She convinced me that she wanted to wear the new black dress she bought at BCBG (which she looks amazing in) and that the night should be just a bit nicer than I was thinking. Little did she know that getting that dressed up was exactly what I wanted. So once we schedule the night’s events at Kona, I immediately hop in the ole Jetta again and start out with my duct tape, clues and waterproof bags to place all the clues at the designated locations.

Once 7:00pm rolls around, the buzzer in her apartment goes off, and she knows that I’m downstairs waiting to pick her up. Once she gets down to the ground floor and looks outside she sees something she didn’t quite expect. Instead of the adoring boyfriend, she sees a small chauffer in a black suit and black cap waiting to escort her to the black sedan waiting outside.

At this point, Pandia figures I’m inside and we’re off to a romantic evening of some kind, but when the door opens all she sees is a red envelope with “#1” printed on it. She opens the envelope and the game begins. Each red envelope contains a clue and a 2nd smaller white envelope with a phone number inside which she can call and get help if she needs. Each envelope has a different clue and a different number.

She starts off heading to her best friend’s house, where on the front door she finds the envelope with “#2” printed on the front. As she is escorted by the chauffer back to the car, her best friend, Emily, pops out the front door and snaps a quick photo, which she messages to me to let me know the game is on! From there she heads to her good friends’, Angie and Alan’s, house where on their front door there is another clue with “#3” printed on the front. With that, her clue directs her to a house simply know as “The Boys’”. A place full of testosterone, as 4 guys live there. Once there, she received the clue with “#4” on it, and heads to the final location – my apartment.

Ben, the driver, attempts to discreetly call me to let me know how close they are to my place.

Once she arrives at my place, Pandia is buzzed up without so much as a word from me. When she reaches the front door to my apartment, there is a final red envelope with a card inside instructing her to come in and stop by the coat rack.

The moment she enters the door, “Fields of Gold” by Sting begins to play ambiently. She stops by the coat rack and sees the final card asking her to take off her coat and stay a while. From that point there was a trail of rose petals leading from the front door of the apartment, down the hall, and into the main area where I was surrounded by candelight, a single rose, a bottle of champagne, and I myself was in a suit awaiting her arrival.

When she got to me, I began to tell her the few words I had scribbled down earlier:

“There is something I want to ask you, Pandia. And it’s been a long time coming.

I want you to know how much I love you. Sometimes it’s tough and sometimes it is exactly what I need.

There has been this place in my heart and in my soul that is longing to be filled.
I want to fill it with someone who is kind and gentle and intense and devoted all at once.

I want you. And I will have you in the rest of my life, if you will

So my question is this: What do you?
Will you spend the rest of your life with me as my wife?”

And with that, I got down on one knee, pulled out the white box from my pocket, opened it and asked very gently, “Will you marry me?”

And wouldn’t you know it, with tears in her eyes and an excitement not even the sports world could rival, she got down on her knees, kissed me and said “Yes!”
________________________________________

And that is the story of how I asked this beautiful creature to spend our lives together.
Oh, and she freaked about the ring. You’ll have to ask her why her ring is so special beyond that it is an engagement ring.

Coffee.....the breakfast of champions

"[He] has chronic persistent hepatitis, which is a non-progressive form of liver inflammation. If he'd had enough to drink to blow point one on the blood-alcohol, he'd be dead right now....This is good coffee."
-Sam Seaborn

Right now, as I sit at Scooter's Coffeehouse on the Plaza, a blaze of thoughts speed through my mind. I've been thinking about the idea of accomplishments lately. As some of you may know, I am definitely a man who seeks accomplishments. By that, I mean that I'm usually looking towards the end of something, be it a task at work, the end of the day, the end of cleaning my apartment, or the end of an abrupt conversation with someone. I'm usually thinking about my endgame and exit strategies before I even walk into the room.

Now, you tell me, is that healthy? A good friend of mine quite aptly put her answer as "if you're in business, it's fantastic." And I have to agree.

But I still feel thwarting in my pursuit of accmoplishment. Take my theatrical endeavors. Ever time I get on stage or every time I'm behing the curtain, I've got my goal: the end of the show. But what fun is it being in a show or a part of a show if I'm not interested in reveling in the intensity of being in theatre? The main focus of performing arts is exactly that. It's performing. It seems like I'm shooting myself in the foot here. Let's move on.

Let's look at accomplishment in business. I'm a web designer be trade and I try my hardest to create a solid, visually impressive, realistically achieved end product. I try to do it as fast as I can for the price I'm worth, and I try to meet the client's goal of their site actually enhancing their business. So my drive to finish a project is then inherently coupled with self-determination, time-management, problem solving and the ability to buy groceries at the end of the day. (I'm kidding. I actually steal my food form beggars underneath HWY 9 by my building. Just keeping the ecological food chain goin'.)

But I think about how my drive to finish something, even in theatrical settings, helps me to make my project to be the best it can be. When I'm working backstage, or creating a slideshow, building a website, or directing a skit, it all has this drive behind it to not only finish it but finish it beyond expectations.

So, right now, as I sit at Scooter's Coffeehouse on the Plaza, my blaze of thoughts is suddenly replaced with this feeling that I've typed a lot of words in 10 minutes and I think a shot and beer would be in order. But I'm in a coffeehouse. They server coffee. Coffee at 9pm would be the death of me for the next 6 hours.

I've learned that as I get older and have more of me to cover from the elements, caffeine gets to me.

Sigh.......I'm getting old. I'm going to put my Oops I Crapped My Pants on, and I'm going to bed.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

Wow, has it been this long since my last blog post? I know not many people read my blog, but that's ok. I always feel like there's a ground swell somewhere of my avid readers, sipping coffee before their morning jaunt into work, or perhaps after a hard day at work, they pop into the local coffee shop for a quick peek at my thoughts and rantings.
Kudos to you, my loyal subjects in Uzbekistan. I've never felt closer to you.

But I digress.

Right now it's pouring rain all over Kansas City. It's the kind of rain that warranty hot coffee and tea. The kind of day that whispers, "Stop what you're doing and listen to me." I love days like this. I love working in the midst of an atmosphere that feels slower than normal. Makes me feel productive, I think.

So, what's new with me, you ask? Well, my fun news is that I got a glorious new Anodized Titanium 20' iMac. It's really incredible how much more productive one can be when there is so much desktop space. And it's really been a blessing to become much more current in technology. I can do more and do it faster, so clients are happy. In turn, that makes me happy.

Plus, my good friend, and fellow designer-in-crime, Thomas Rye, just got a rockin' new laptop that smokes the competition as well. So we have many things to chat about. He just got a gig doing design for a group here in KC, so we seem to be passing stuff along to one another alot. He's one of those guys that always has some really creative work coming out of the ole' noggin. It's really great to see him get to do that for a group that can provide much larger projects than as a freelance designer.

The rain now calls to me. It whispers that I have deadlines. So, thus, I am off to the deadlines.
~cheers~

You can't take the sky from me...

I love to walk out of the main doors of my building. I just do. It faces south, and I get a spectacular view of downtown as I come out. Tall skyscrapers have always made me happy, and this morning, looking at that bustling city scene as the cool morning washed over me, I felt pretty dang good.

It made me feel like my day was gonna be worthwhile.

Right now I'm braving the UCI. Always a blast. Then I imagine I'll be meeting up with Tyler Lasche for a tasty brew and some good conversation. And to finish off the evening.......Firefly!

Yes, people, I am a fan of the ill-fated tv show by Joss Whedon. I found it on DVD for $19.99, which never happens. It's always like $49.99 or something crazy. Anyway, the rest of the day seems quite promising, if I do say so.

~cheers, people~

Jerry Falwell, at 73...I don't know what to think about you.

So I checked my KC Star RSS Feed this morning, and I guess last night an article was released telling of the death of Rev. Jerry Falwell, at age 73, of heart complications.

I was immediately torn in my heart. Here is a man that has done some great great things in the past to further the Kingdom of God, yet in recent years it seems he's done a great deal to give much of the rest of society a reason to hate Christians and the God we follow.
And I think that blows.

I do grow tired of feeling like at every corner Christians are playing catchup with everyone else. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 tells us as Christians we shouldn't suck at what we do. We should be the best. That doesn't mean a better person, but that we should be able to be able to reach a pinnacle of greatness in our own journeys and workings. I question how often Christians do their (our) best at what we put our hands to.

Jerry Falwell made villains out of the gay community at every turn, and made not amends for his harsh words. And though I feel homosexuality is a sin and is painful to the eyes of God, that doesn't give way to verbal, emotional and spiritual abuse of anyone. I doubt Jesus, were He on the earth doing His goodness in person, would look at a homosexual man or woman and call them a "brood of vipers". That claim was, and is, left to those long bereft of a heart open to the whisper of God. I imagine He'd sit down with them at the bar and talk the night away, like old friends. I imagine He'd show them that, though the stereotype of His followers is sadly perpetuated by many, it is a veil that hides the truth and goodness that can come from responding to His whisper.

I suppose I feel such a strong wretch in my stomach on this issue because recently a co-worker of mine and fellow believer in God decided to warn me and admonish me on the dangers of having a friend who was gay. His overall argument, due to past hurts and lifestyle choices, was that if a gay man is my friend that there is no misunderstood message: He's interested in me, and that's why he's my friend.

I say that's bull. I say that he's not trying to get with me, and I have a mountain of evidence to prove as such.

But I digress.

Jerry Falwell has done so much to make what I know of the homosexual community despise Christians for being spiteful and critical. Take his tirade on the Teletubbies. Apparently one was gay. And though these cartoon characters weren't even promoting moral or ethical values, he seemed so sure that TinkyWinky's antics were pushing a gay agenda.

I hope we can move forward as a Faith. I hope that we can more so than ever prove that being a Christian doesn't mean carrying a soapbox waiting to force the Bible down someone's throat in an effort to get them to see how wrong they are. It's not about that at all, but I'm el fin for the moment.
I leave you with this lovely quote from Casey McCall:

"...Who takes Jerry Falwell seriously? Charo's got a bigger fan base...I know I'm alone on this. I know the vast majority of people consider Jerry Falwell a spiritual pillar of great and gentle wisdom. I know that most people consider him a scholarly and tolerant man who would never judge others harshly just because they were different. I know that most people find his calm leadership to be a gentle soothing beacon at a time of great social chaos. His guidance, for instance, on the great purple Teletubby matter was fraught with the kind of theological sophistication that only Jerry Falwell and a cafeteria full of sixth graders could devise. I know, I'm going way out on a limb, but I think Jerry Falwell's a fat-ass. Who did I just offend? I'm eager to talk to them."