Dec 30th - 4.40PM

Well, back into the swing of things... kinda. The week in Arizona went by pretty quickly. It was fun, though it felt like we were always eating haha. I guess vacations always kind of feel like that. Got to get in one round of golf. Yikes.... I'm pretty rusty. Well I was never that great to begin with, but needless to say I did not play very well. Next year will be a different story!

The engagement party was well put together and we had a lot of fun. It's a bit weird to have people congratulating us on our engagement a couple months after the fact though :)

Christmas was great. Spent in Arizona this year to visit Connie's family. I still find it weird to spend Christmas in a warm climate, but it's nice none-the-less because of the people. It was the first year I've ever spent Christmas away from my family though :*(

Plenty of pictures from the trip. I guess I'll work on getting some of them posted for the next month since it's already the 30th.

So far I guess there are 28,000 deaths in Iran as a result of last week's earthquake. That's so crazy... out of a town of 80,000 people that 28,000 are dead and it'll probably be upwards to 30,000. I can't even begin to fathom waking up one morning to find that almost 38% of the population in my city had died.

Wilson Wilson died yesterday

Mariners may sign Aurilia huh? Blah! Another right handed fly ball hitter who's gonna get eaten alive by Safeco. Great... oh well, at least the Seahawks are in the playoffs and Ray Ray is back on the court for the Sonics.

Bunch of peeps went up to Whistler today. Hmm... well it's supposed to snow a couple times this week so maybe the hill by my house will be my ski run this week haha.

Dec 16th - 4.22PM

Ok, so the desktop clock on this computer is starting to lag big time. It was over a day too slow when I turned the computer on today. It's starting to get annoying :P Any ideas as to what's wrong with it?

Headlines since I last blogged -

Saddam is captured   (doesn't he look a little like the unibomber which the scruffy beard?)
Michael Jackson to be charged   (freaky looking picture)
Madonna endorses Clark for President  (uh oh... kiss of death. who's gonna vote for who madonna says should be president?)

Last weekend I was a bit excited about the Mariners offseason as I was cautiously optimistic that we had a good shot at signing Tejada... haha of course I was proved wrong again. So what do we do to offset this? We trade for McCraken, sign Spiezio and then trade for Vizquel. Argg!!!! We're worse than we were last year. Our current lineup is -

RF - Ichiro
SS - Vizquel
2B - Boone
DH - Martinez
1B - Olerud
LF - Ibanez
3B - Spiezio
CF - Winn
C - Wilson

And we thought last seasons offense sucked... hopefully we'll get something done between now and when the season starts.... sniff sniff.

<4.35PM - This just in... the deal for Vizquel apparantly may not go through. YES! Hopefully this is the case>

Connie and I decided to pass on the house that we were looking at. There was just too many things that we didn't like about it to warrant investing that amount of money into it. We're still looking so if anyone knows of anything good in the Eastside area let us know. :)

We'll be spending Christmas in Arizona this year. This will be my first Christmas away from Seattle I think, and definitely my first Christmas somewhere warm. It'll be kind of weird. I don't know how you can have it "feel" like Christmas (at least by the worlds standards) without it at least cold temperature wise. I remember back in the day when there would actually be snow on the ground and a log on the fire. Ahh... good ol days. Well, time to make new traditions... like golf haha.

Currently listening to - Take My Hand // The Kry

Dec 10 err... 11th, 2003 - 12.10AM

So we went out for dinner for Debbie's birthday today where Connie and I met one of her friends who will probably be buying a home in the same division that we are. Funny thing is that she is also the one who has the backup on our house that we have a hold on right now. Haha, small world.

Watched 48 hours today. They were running a piece titled "Homecoming" covering the lives of 3 soldiers who were wounded in the Middle East and the difficulties they had to go through just to get home. It's always quite humbling when we can step aside from the trivial things of life and focus on what's really happening. It definitely gives me more appreciation for what our soldiers are doing to protect us... not that I didn't appreciate them, it's just a stronger emotion now I guess.

I think watching that piece just solidified what I already knew... I have a soft spot for family situations. Not sure if I can really explain it but when they were talking about the soldiers and their various injuries and such and even deaths it was sad but didn't draw any tears. What ended up drawing some tears is when I saw the father's reaction to seeing his son home again after such a long period away. I guess it's that bond between a parent and child that causes the most emotion in me. I guess I'm gonna be a wreck when I'm a dad. Ha!

Haven't been reading the Bible as much as I should lately. I've been reading "devotionals", but I really need to get back to reading the Bible every day. I started reading Philippians again last night. Good stuff of course. It's just so great that no matter how many times you can read through a certain book / chapter / verse in the Bible, the Lord can continue to use it to refresh , revive and quicken our spirit.

Dec 09, 2003 - 8.46PM

I used to think that I could pretty much remember where I needed to be and what I needed to do without a list or planner or such... but I guess that's wrong :P I think it's just cause of all the stuff that's been going on and all the things that need to be planned right now... it's like I plan something but there's always that feeling of it conflicting with something else.

Connie and I signed the contract to lock in our wedding reception location and date last night. Talk over a bunch of stuff with the guy and now have a clearer picture as to the timeline. The guy owned the restaurant downstairs too so I got a glass of wine on the house haha.

We're still working on the house front though. It's a lot harder than I thought it would have been... I think just because I want to be careful about it. We've had a couple of options that probably would have worked out ok, but it's a huge investment and you don't really want to have huge regrets after you get the place. So... that's still a work in progress.

Praying that she's found safe - http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/09/missing.student/index.html