Resolutions

You know what sucks is great about blogging your resolutions? You don't forget them. They are there on the internet just waiting for you to be foolish enough to look at them and remember what a wretched failure at life you are.

That cloud got more done than me!

So let's review Jeremy's horrid, pathetic, and ultimately doomed attempt at not sucking it up in 2012. Last year, my goals were:

1. Read three Books.

I nailed this one to the friggin wall. Not the way I intended though. I intended to read the Pirates of Venus and a few other pulp novels. Instead I read 3 books (and a few billion articles) for my graduate class. I'm going count that as a win.

2. Post a picture or video or Josiah every week.

Yeah, not even close. I did 29 Son-day posts, that's 23 short of the 52 I'd have had to do. So, I can call this one just under half-failed. I'll blame grad school for this. Maybe if I counted FB stuff I might be closer.

3. Attain a blue belt.

Hahahahahahahhahahhahahahahahhahahahhaha. No. Not even close. Between doing 'dad-stuff', backing up Mo in her grad work, dealing with a demanding semester at work, and my own grad work, my attendance to martial arts classes dwindled to basically doing the fitness classes once a week.

4. Lose 30 pounds.

See the above, it parallels closely to this one. I lost 3 pounds. I lost a bunch in the first 6 months or so, then gained it all back in the last 6.

5. Learn sign languages.

Didn't figure I would. Totally didn't.

6. Reduce Posssessions.

This one is weird. I did take several loads to Goodwill, and that was good. I also gained a few things that are hard to itemize. Honestly, this whole minimalism thing is kinda tricky. It also wasn't a firm goal. I have no idea if the things I got rid of are more than the things I gained. It was vague when I wrote it a year ago and it is unmeasurable now. So...maybe? I don't know.

It's a good thing Santa doesn't deliver gifts based on completion of resolutions.

So....
In a grand display of hope vs. futility I give you my 2013 resolutions:

1. Get through the MBA program. 

I don't wanna be taking 1 class a semester for the next two years. By this time next year I want to have one class left to be done with it. That means two 8-week-courses per semester. It's going to suck a little.

2. Continue doing Son-day blog posts every other week. 

Same thing, but more reasonable to what I can apparently do.

3. Attend either a martial arts or fitness class once a week. 

At least. I'm not going to progress in belts or get much lasting fitness out of that, but it should keep my depression under control and help me actually achieve the other goals. If I belt up once this year, fantastic. Bonus points for me.

4. Reduce my books by half. 

I have a ton of books. I'm not really sure how many, the shelf by my desk has about 120 plus magazines. I have another shelf in the bed room and another at work. If I can reduce it down to one shelf, I'd be happy with with that. Especially with all the business books coming in from my courses. It's probably the biggest factor in going toward more minimalism.

5. Save 30k toward the house down payment. 

Mo and I are saving up for a down payment on a house. For our plans, we need between 50k and 60k. So far we have just over 20k. It's a good start. Based on the 2012 budget, we should be able to save another 13 to 15 in 2013. There's a few goofy wildcards coming up though, so I'm shooting for a pretty achievable 10k in savings this year.

Holiday Son-day

Whew! It feels like I haven't done a Son-day post since November 11th. What? it's a totally common feeling I get. You don't attach specific dates to your feelings? No, I don't think that's odd, you're odd.

The reason I haven't posted anything about Jojo lately is that there is nothing to report. Smooth sailing the whole way. Nothing new.

Ack, not the stare. Damn it, I'll talk!

Seriously, if you can look at Tim Roth's stare and not tell the truth, you are some kind of crazy. I swear, his whole face just burns into your soul or something.

I got through that horrid MBA class. I got an A. However, it was REALLY hard. My group really was not doing what they needed to do when they needed to do it. One guy was out of town the whole weekend, two guys hadn't done their portions, the French kid was just dead weight, it was a mess. I was at the clinic working with one or more of them every night until into the wee hours of the dawn for like 5 days straight. That's on top of doing my job which was not an easy week and included a few goofy meetings and clients.

Also, jojo got sick.

I picked him up after work Saturday and my Mom was telling me to take him to the ER. I got Mo, she checked him out and we went to the FirstMed urgent care. The guy there said it was an ear infection. The next day (Sunday) I was supposed to just work on the MBA project hard core and get it done (due Tuesday btw). Instead, Jojo was just a mess and had a high fever (102ish) so we went to the ER. That ate up the rest of the morning and early afternoon. I was keeping in touch with the group, keeping the French kid from messing anything up or pissing off the rest of the group, communicating what people needed between people, and otherwise trying to keep them moving in a productive direction while sitting in an ER and trying to keep my son from being too miserable. He finally passed out on top of me.

black and white communicates the bleakness of the situation. Look how pensive Mo looks.

Looooooooong story short: two ear infections and an upper respiratory infection. We spent the next few days giving him meds to reduce the fever and some antibiotics he probably didn't need. We also did some baths to help fight the fever. In a few days he was back to good.

We did (finally) get the group project done. It was hell on earth and one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever put my name on. I only needed like a 60 on the cursed thing to get a B in the course. My group mates needed closer to a 90 to do the same.

That water bottle is for scale.

Part of the assignment was a professional dress presentation (that means a suit is required). My group showed up in suits...except the French kid. his suit was in France, he was going back home in a week, he didn't feel getting a new suit was worthwhile. We were assigned the project 6 weeks ago, professional dress was mentioned 16 weeks ago, he could had it shipped, or told us and we could lend him a suit. Did I mention he was dead weight?

Dude. When you go home next week, think about just staying there.

But, we did well enough and at least the other guys passed the course. I don't know if the French kid did or not. I doubt it. I don't really care.

Jojo recovered just fine in a few days and went back to being his normal crazy-as-hell self. He's completely sick of using his little walking jeep and tried to turn everything into a pushing toy. He stands for long periods of time without support and yesterday stood next to me at my desk clapping. I figured he was applauding my awesome farmville-2 skills.

We had his birthday party on the 16th. It was fun and nice to see everyone. Then we did christmas presents at my place. While there, this happened:

He is all kinda of mobile now. Live in fear folks.

Christmas Rant...sorry

Okay. Seriously guys, you've just gotta let this go. It's just so pointless. I wasn't going to say anything but I just can't listen to it anymore. I want to. I want to just ignore the whining and the drama and the anger and the ignorance and the denial and the intolerance. I really, really, really, do.

I just can't.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Not everyone who celebrates Christmas celebrates Christmas for the same reasons or the same way. That is called diversity. It's a good thing. Nobody has a patent and exclusive rights to the variety of holidays and rituals observed in the month of December. When someone says something other than "Merry Christmas" during December it is not an insult to you, it does not ruin Christmas, and it in no way takes away from the value of your faith or religion. It's just a greeting.

Apparently, this is somehow an insult? Seriously?

Why do people have to say exactly what you say when they greet someone in December? Why is that so important to you? Why do you get so sad/angry/upset when an otherwise nice person tries to say "hello" to you with a fairly traditional and inclusive greeting? They don't know your faith. They don't know anything about you, so they err on the side of something open and inclusive that respects that you may not celebrate Christmas. They don't know. Why is that a bad thing?

Nobody is upset about this though. Why? Why is this okay?

I mean come on!

Are you really so well-off, so incredibly blessed, so amazingly disconnected from real hardship, real pain, REAL problems that this simple greeting is so insulting? There are people who do not know where there next meal is coming from. There are people who are being shot at right now. There are people who are trying to drink themselves up to the courage to kill themselves. There are people who should be studying for a final rather than rant-blogging.

"We haven't eaten in 3 days"

Do you have people in your life that love you? Have you eaten recently and do you know where your next meal is coming from? Do you have a roof over your head and three or more walls around you? Are you allowed to worship what you want with little or no chance of being killed/maimed/raped/beaten when you walk out of church?

If not, email me. I know people who can help. Many of them are local churches, charity groups, therapists, and outreach programs who may or may not greet you with "Happy Holidays". They can help. I hope the greeting thing isn't a deal-breaker to be nice to you.

If you do, then please, dear God, please, let it go. It's not important. We just celebrated a holiday dedicated to being thankful. Be thankful you can celebrate at all, do so in whatever way it is you want and let people greet you however they want. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't take anything away from you. You don't have to like it and you can say whatever greeting you want right back.

And anyone who is insulted when you say this is a butt-head anyway.