Some recent JU drama has brought to mind several topics for writing. One of those is the nature of young love. Can teenagers really fall in love? Do they have the capacity to see in one another a person worth sharing their life? These questions got me to thinking about my teen years, and my first love. Her name was Jennifer. I met her in the 7th grade and we would become extremely close over our junior and senior high school years. During that time she was the girlfriend of three of ...

A while back I was playing some on-line game... I think it was Planetside. I was using the name Gideon, as I often do. So here I am, running around blasting the fools who enter my sight, and I get a tell from some fellow. Other-dude: "Hey, great name! Are you a LDS?" Now, I have several mormon friends. I dated a mormon (but I wasn't mormon enough, or at all), my best friend's whole family is mormon, though he left the church as a teenager. So I knew what LDS meant. But I was in ...

Last October I bought a townhouse. It was the first property that I have owned. There was one problem, though. When the local cable monopoly was laying their lines, they forgot to connect my building. They had “plans” to correct this, but they estimated that it would take about 90 days. So that meant no cable for me for the first three months. I thought about getting a dish, but I knew that I would get cable eventually, if for no other reason than Internet access. So I decided to go ...

I’ve always had an inquisitive mind and a talent for understanding. I’m planning on writing about that later, but for now I wanted to share one of my mother’s favorite stories about me. My “undermind” plays a vital role in the tale. Back when I was about six or seven, I wanted to take a bike ride. So I went to fetch my bike only to find that it had a flat tire. I was pissed. Well, as pissed as a happy 6 or 7-year-old can be. See, I don’t like it when my plans are foiled, and this fla...

I Love You by the Climax Blues Band When I was younger man I hadn't a care Foolin' around, hitting the town, growing my hair You came along and stole my heart when you entered my life Ooh babe you got what it takes so I made you my wife Since then I never looked back It's almost like living a dream And ooh I love you You came along from far away and found me here I was playin' around, feeling down, hittin' the beer You picked me up from off the floor and gave me a smile Y...

I’m not sure what my earliest memory is, but I have it narrowed down to two candidates. Both occurred while I was around two years old. Candidate One At the time my family was living on base in Virginia Beach. My parents were going to some party, and I was left with my older brothers. They are six and eight years older than me, and loved a bit of the torture for their younger bro. It was a stormy night, and they had been telling me stories about the Boogey Man. I was in a nasty f...

Recently a fellow blogger wrote about her difficulty in realizing her potential. This has inspired me to write about my experience with that same difficulty, and what decisions I made. When I first went to college it was because I was expected to. In my family you had two choices: College or Military. Since I’m an obnoxious jerk who has little respect for authority, the second option was out. I first studied Aerospace Engineering (ASE) because my older brother told me to. He had ...

Back in college I was a deliverer for Domino's pizza in a small southern college town. This job provided many opportunities for entertainment. I would often get invites to parties, "Hey! Come back when you're off work! We got lots of beer!" I would sometimes, though not often enough, get other invitations from the young ladies, "You're closed? But we are soooo hungry! We would do anything if you would bring us a pizza!" These were certainly worthwhile experiences for a young coll...

A few years ago a co-worker came to me saying that she had found "The perfect girl" for me. This woman, let's call her Ann, came into my office one day after lunch to inform me about this soul-mate in the waiting. Ann had just returned from a trip to Schlotzsky's Deli. So Ann told me about this girl that works there whom she has seen on numerous occassions and talked to on some occassions. Ann tells me what an intelligent person this girl is, and how we are perfect matches for each ot...

I spent a year as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) while I was in graduate school, and three years as a faculty Lecturer afterwards. In that time I experienced many wonderful events, but also a couple of very concerning ones. I was always close to my students, especially as a GTA since I really wasn’t much older. Several of my students became close friends and I even dated one for a while (after she was my student). For most of my students, I never developed a personal relationship i...

The other day a friend, who knows a good deal about my back-story, asked me the question, “Do you regret the bad things in your life?” Back in the fall of 1991 my grandfather died. I had barely known him due to the insanities of his wife, my grandmother. She wanted nothing to do with her daughter’s family. I did have one tie to the old man, and that was through talent. My grandfather was a professional artist (drawing, paint, sculpture) in the San Diego area, and by his death had becom...

So I work for a rather large company that, among many other things, produces software for the U.S. Government. Today we have a code freeze for our next release. A code freeze is pretty much what it sounds like... no more coding after this point. The thing that is bothering me is that tomorrow the powers-that-be are going to meet to decide what should be done for this release of our software. Let me rephrase that. Tomorrow they are going to decide what work we should have done by today....