I think a lot of what I love about Saturday mornings really just applies to mornings in general. Everything about the morning seems different, somehow. The light seems newer (even if you wake up after sunrise). More so than that, the air smells fresher. After a hot shower and a couple cups of coffee, I don’t think there is a better way to wake yourself up than to go outside and take a good deep breath of morning air.

It seems there’s a psychological boost you get from being up in the morning, especially after having a good night’s sleep. At least for myself, I’ve noticed that I feel more energetic, happier, and more productive when I get up early. I think I actually feel less stressed in general.

Of course, this doesn’t seem to apply when I have to wake up early. If I’m up early because I have to work, for example, then I don’t feel like I get that boost. I think a big part of that, though, is that I feel rushed. Even if I wake up plenty early, it’s still in the back of my mind that I have to be ready to go by a certain time.

I think that’s why I enjoy Saturday mornings more than any other; I don’t usually have anywhere to be. I can wake up at my own pace. I can go sit on my front porch and enjoy drinking my coffee. I can take my time saying morning prayers. I can write on my blog (if I can think of anything to write about). I can listen to the birds sing, neighbors mowing their grass, and dogs barking. I can watch birds fly around in the trees nearby. And if I don’t get up from the porch swing until noon, that’s okay.

Well, except for this particular Saturday morning. It rained yesterday, so it’s nice and cool out, despite being a sunny, mid-July day, and my wife thinks it would be a great time to go for a walk. I agree.

As usual, a lot has happened and little seems to have happened since my last post. Obviously, the biggest event to occur was Easter. My last post was just at the beginning of Lent, expressing my hope that I would manage to keep my focus on Christ and the real reason for fasting and so on. Well, “the best laid plans of mice and men,” I suppose. But, isn’t that, to some degree, a part of Lent. For me, at least, it always serves as a reminder of my own weakness; it always seems to be a magnifying glass on my own shortcomings. And I am reminded of Christ, and His mercy and grace.

Anyway, of course, Spring has come, which brings me back out onto my front porch to enjoy this Saturday morning with a cup of coffee. The trees are all already full of leaves, the weather is warm, if a bit humid, the birds are singing, and the dog has more to do during the day than destroy our house from the outside. On the downside, it seems to rain almost every day lately.

I have also decided to start doing my own mainenance on our cars. Both of them are around 10 years old, and are starting to require more frequent trips to the shop. After an unexpected visit to the shop (and coming out almost $1000 poorer) for my car, a friend of mine put a bug in my ear about doing the work myself. And, so, when the rotors on my wife’s car seemed to be warped (again), he helped me change them and the brakes out. After that, I went out and bought the basic tools I’ll need, and started cleaning up some in the garage (it’s still largely full of cardboard boxes from when we moved in). My next project was changing the oil on my wife’s car, which went pretty well.

Then I decided to tackle the brakes on my car. I’m going to be replacing all four, but to be safe, I’m just going to do the front together, then the rear together. However, when I went to follow the instructions in the Chilton manual I bought to life the car, I ended up denting the crossmember with the jack. So far, it doesn’t look like I’ve done any serious damage to the car, and now I know (after doing more research) that this car is not built to be jacked up by the cross member. However, I’ve been a little hesitant to try working on it again.

If it weren’t for the fact that I have already both both sets of brake pads, I would actually be inclined to giving up for now and taking it into a shop to get the brakes done. However, I’ve spent the money on the pads; I’m going to try again. If I have to, I’ll just lift one wheel of the car at a time.

This was my original plan for this morning, but I ended up sleeping in instead. Also, considering that it’s actually nice out (not raining) right now, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to sit out here and enjoy the morning. I’m debating on whether I’ll have time to do the brakes this afternoon (when it is supposed to be raining) before going to church for Vespers. I’ve missed the past couple weeks, and would hate to miss 3 weeks of Vespers in a row.

Well, I suppose that’s enough for now. The battery is almost dead on the lappy, and it’s getting near lunchtime.

Now, we know that we eat there a lot. It seems like that is our default if we can’t think of where to go. I can always find something I like at Ruby Tuesday. However, until the other night, we had not realized quite how often that was.

As we were leaving the restuarant, we began talking about the role that Ruby Tuesday has played in our relationship. We met there, we celebrated our engagement there, and we even had our rehearsal dinner there.

Back when I was in college, the church I had grown up in (Southern Baptist) was outgrowing it’s facilities. Plans had been made to build a new, larger building, but, until then, there wasn’t enough room for all the Sunday School classes to meet. To handle this, the church had gotten permission from various businesses in the area to let us hold our classes in their buildings. My class ended up meeting in the Ruby Tuesday down the street. It was a pretty decent arrangement; the only issue was that we had to be out in time for them to open for business. Another class met at a Buffalo’s restaurant, but eventually they combined with our class at the Ruby Tuesday.

One Sunday morning, Kristen tried to go to the Buffalo’s class, only to discover that the Buffalo’s class was no more. Instead, she ended up at the Ruby Tuesday class. It just so happened that I had been called upon to share my testimony (for those unfamiliar with the lingo, that means sharing my story of how I came to be a Christian), and, apparently, Kristen was immediately impressed with me. She tells me that she spoke to me after the class, although I don’t remember that. My first recollection of meeting her was the following Wednesday.

At that time, the college/young singles ministry had a “Bible study” on Wednesday nights. I put Bible study in quotes because it was really more of a small-scale worship service. Generally, the service started with a praise band leading the group in song, and then the C/YS minister would give a sermon, followed by an invitation (i.e., come forward to be saved). Among the group of friends I hung out with, we had a tradition of going to Ruby Tuesday every Wednesday afterwards. It also just so happened that the Wednesday after Kristen first saw me at Sunday School was my 21st Birthday.

One of my friends met Kristen at church that night, and invited her to join us for dinner. She sat across from me at the table and worked her way into conversation with me. I have since said that she was the best birthday present I received that year.

We continued to hang out with friends at Ruby Tuesday for a while, until people began to get tired of eating there every week, and started going other places.

As time went on, many things changed. We began dating, eventually left the Baptist church, and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Kristen spent most of her time downtown at school, and I graduated from my college, moved out of my parents’ house and in with a friend, and got a job. Three years to the day after we met, I proposed. To do so, I took her on a date that recreated the closest thing to a “first date” we’d had. We went to Waffle House for lunch, and then to a nearby state park we had often hiked at. It was at the park that I proposed. Then, to celebrate our new engagement, we had dinner at Ruby Tuesday. I had forgotten about this, actually, but Kristen reminded me of it the other evening.

A little over 8 months later, we were about to get married. We decided to have our rehearsal dinner somewhere that had been significant to our relationship, and that meant Ruby Tuesday. Unfortunately, because our church was downtown, we couldn’t work it out to have lunch at the restaurant we had met and celebrated our engagement at, so we had to find one closer to the church, but it was still a Ruby Tuesday.

Perhaps this may be part of why we like eating there so often. Perhaps, every time we eat at Ruby Tuesday, we are reminded of these connections the restaurant has with our relationship. Perhaps I’m looking way too much into it. Whatever the reason, I’m sure we’ll continue visiting that restaurant for a long time.

As I said in that post, there have been a lot of new beginnings this year.

To start the year off well, I got married. Kristen and I had been dating for 3 years when I proposed to her in May of 2007 (the link is to my old blog; I haven’t yet figured out how to—or if I can—copy those entries over here). In January of this year, we finally “tied the knot.” I don’t know what I was really expecting marriage to be like, but I’m pretty sure it beats whatever expectations I had.

While being a newlywed has rocked, it’s also made this a challenging year. We have had to learn to live together, and to live on a more limited budget than I’d been used to. Of course, the challenges are definately worth it.

Not too long after we got used to living in our apartment together, though, we took a huge step and bought a house. This had been our plan from the beginning (when I moved into the apartment in November 2007, I only signed a 6-month lease), but we could have planned it a bit better. We had decided to take advantage of a 0%-down loan, and, as it happened, timed our buying a house right around the time that banks stopped giving those loans.

For our real estate agent, I looked up a guy I had played with in the orchestra at our former church. He was able to help us out immensely, from finding a good house in our price range to navigating the process of buying it. Between him and advice from some of our other friends and family, I think we ended up with a pretty good house; especially considering we bought it as a foreclosure!

Thanks to a little mix-up with our lender, I had a very stressful weekend a week or two before we were due to close on the house where I was afraid we were going to have to a) come up with 3% down in a few days (which was all our savings, and, at the moment, was tied up in CDs), or b) walk on the house, lose the security deposit we had put down, and figure out where we were going to live, since I had already notified the apartment complex that I would not be renewing my lease. However, our lender worked things out in the end, and we were able to get the loan after-all.

So, long story short, in April we closed on our first house.

I learned a few things in the whole process: while I think I could do well in business, I just don’t have the energy for it. I think if I were ambitious enough, I could make my way through all the stuff involved, but I’d honestly rather just sit at my desk and write programs. At the same time, I’ve also learned that I cannot afford to be ignorant. I need to start learning more about how money works, and how all these things connected to it work. Finally, buying a house is stressful, and I don’t think I ever want to do it again; at least, not until I have to.

We had about a month to relax and settle into our house when, in May, a big storm hit. Last I heard, we had a microburst, but the damage seemed too linear for that. Anyway, I have never been more grateful to have a basement than I was that evening. A couple people I know ended up with trees on their houses. One neighborhood got it really bad. Our Governer declared us a disaster area.

By the grace of God, however, we were spared much damage. In fact, the storm actually worked out well for us, because there were a number of small repair jobs that needed to be done around the exterior of the house. Thanks to the storm, however, most of those ended up being paid for by our insurance company. Most notably, we ended up just getting a whole new roof!

I guess you could say I have had a crash course in home ownership.

A couple months later, we welcomed a new addition to the family: our puppy, Luna. We picked her out from her sisters at an animal rescue shelter that had come to a local PetsMart. We’ve had her since July, and we’re still not sure what she is. The shelter said she was a Lab mix, and Kristen thinks there must be some sighthound and some terrier in her. She has been a ball of energy ever since she got used to us, and, while she is sometimes hard to handle and frustrates us, she gives a lot of life to our home. I can’t imagine our house without her, now.

During all of this, I was slowly coming to realize something: I didn’t want to write software in MUMPS for the rest of my life. As much as I loved the company I was working for, and the people I was working with, I began to realize that it may be time for me to move on, and get a job using a more widely-marketable language. No sooner did I mention to some friends that I was thinking about moving on than two of them told me their companies were hiring. I decided to send my resume to them and see what happened. Within a couple weeks, I found myself accepting a new job, and having to turn in my resignation.

While I was excited about the new prospect, I was very sad to leave my old company. I will always be grateful for my time there, the people I worked with, and all the growing I was able to do there. I live near enough to some of my former coworkers, I could hang out with them from time to time. I really should; they’re cool people.

I’m really enjoying my new job. I get to work in C++, which, while definately not at the edge of the curve, is still a widely-used language and will certainly make me marketable in the future. I’ve also gotten a little bit of experience working with ASP .NET and C#, and hope to expand my knowledge of those languages in the future. I like the people I work with here, too, both at the office and at the client site.

At the same time I started my new job, Kristen also started a new job. Because she works farther away, she has to leave before I would normally think to get up. This also means we definately have to go to bed earlier, which has been difficult for me to get used to. I prefer staying up late at nights, and sleeping in in the mornings. In addition, I had to install a doggie door after a particular incident where our dog ran wild in the house while we were gone. Now, she can come in to get out of the weather, but she runs wild in the yard.

Of course, there was the election and the economy, and, depressing as they were, I can’t just ignore them. I’m just afraid of what they’re going to mean for this coming year. I’m curious if, in the future, it will be 2008 or 2009 that people will pinpoint as the year the fecal matter, as they say, hit the oscillating rotary blade device.

So, going into this year, I remind myself that God is good. I thank him for all the blessings, and for the few sufferings, I’ve received in the past year, and I pray for grace to trust that whatever happens in the year to come is for our salvation.

This is also the day where the rest of us clean up in the aftermath of Thanksgiving festivities. As I write this, our kitchen counter is a mess. Kristen made an apple pie and green beans(which, were great, by the way) to bring down to her parents’ Thanksgiving dinner last night, and the dishes are waiting for me to start washing. As for me, my arms and shoulders are sore from playing Wii Boxing last night. It’s a good sore, though, since I stood undefeated in the end. I guess it wasn’t entirely fair, since I’m the only one that played boxing who owns a Wii. Oh, I did come in 2nd place in Mario Kart; Kristen’s sister snatched the first place spot with the last race.

Our puppy, Luna, got to wear herself out as well, playing with another puppy Kristen’s aunt and uncle brought down. That was increadibly cute, although poor Luna got pwned several times. She did get the upper hand once, though.

Well, I suppose I should go wash the dishes. Or, maybe, I’ll go get lunch, first…

That said, Happy Thanksgiving! I’d like to post about all the things I’m thankful for, but I don’t really have the time. Right now I have to go walk the dog, then we’re off to Kristen’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner!

Also, on a sadder note, remember the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. I stayed up way to late last night watching the Twitter feeds. Lord, have mercy.

I think my main problem is that I don’t treat writing as a discipline. I do it whenever I get around to it, which means whenever other stuff is going on, I don’t do it. I may intend to write one entry a week or something, but then I get busy with other things, and the week goes by and I haven’t written anything. Then, the next week, I get busy again, or I end up playing video games or watching DVD’s or something, and another week goes by without an entry. When I finally do sit down to write something, I may get it half-written, and then get distracted by other things, and never come back to it.

For the future, I think I am going to try to start treating writing more like a discipline. Because I’ve been getting up at 5am every morning lately with my wife (who leaves early for work to beat the traffic), I’ve decided that I can start trying to get up early on Saturday mornings (not as early, but maybe early enough to see the sunrise) and sit down with a cup of coffee and set aside an hour to write something. In other words, I will try to post an entry here at least once a week. It may be a treatise on some philosophical topic (if so, it likely won’t be very good), or something more banal like what I had for breakfast this Thursday, but I will get something written.

At least, that’s my goal. We’ll see how well it works.

I haven’t used WordPress before, so this new blog will be as much an experiment in learning this blogging software as it will be in actually keeping up a blog. I think my goal will be to figure out a regular posting schedule that will work with everything else that’s going on in my life and try to stick to it. I’m not sure how well I’ll do at that, but maybe I’ll surprise myself.

Anyway, welcome to the new site! Like I said, it’s a bit rough around the edges, but it’s good enough to start using. While I kinda like the theme I’m using for the site right now, my ultimate goal is going to be to design my own theme. The more I’ve looked into it, the more involved it sounds, though, so it may be a while before I finally get around to that.

Well, that’s pretty much all for this post. For those who are curious what’s been going on in my life lately, you can read my first post here, New Beginnings, and, hopefully, I’ll have some more interesting content up in the near future!

When I first learned about this, I thought it was very appropriate. Perhaps this is because I spent the majority of my life so far on a school calendar, in which the new school year also occurs in autumn, but this season just seems to have a “new beginning” feeling, in a way that January 1 just doesn’t. Honestly, who decided that the “new year” should occur in the dead of winter, anyway?

It seems fitting, then, that there have been a number of new beginnings in my life lately. Most obviously, to those reading this, I am beginning a new blog. I had decided a while back that I would like to have my own domain name, but only just now got around to registering it. My plan was (and still is, ultimately) to host my personal site on a server at home that I maintain myself, but I still have some setup and configuration to do, and I got tired of waiting, so I decided to continue my account with DreamHost (the hosting provider I was using for Kristen and my wedding website) and host this site there for a while. I hope that, along with the new domain, I will be able to form a new blogging habit to actually keep this site interesting. As for what I plan to do with my old blog, I’m thinking I will see if I can import those posts here, but keep them in some sort of seperate archive. We’ll see what comes of that.

The next “new beginning” to mention is that I am starting a new job on Monday. For the past 3 years, I worked at a company called DSS, Inc. writing medical record software in an old language called MUMPS. It was my first job out of college, and I really enjoyed working there. However, as someone whose focus in college was Object Oriented Programming, I was starting to get bored with just doing MUMPS. I did have some Perl, PHP, and Javascript work on a different project, but there was very little activity going on with that. I also had begun considering the fact that I still have a full career ahead of me, and I really needed to be preparing myself to be more marketable as an employee in the future, and, from what I understand, there is not a very big market for MUMPS programmers.

At first, my plan was to start doing some extra contract work on the side, both to get professional experience in more marketable languages as well as to bring in a little extra income. After a while, however, I began considering whether it would be better to just get a new job. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, Stephen, who works at a company that develops software in C#. As it turned out, his company had just lost a developer, and was looking to replace him. I updated my resume and sent it to him. I later happened to mention this to another friend of mine, Brandy, who said she wished she had known I was looking, because her company had just hired someone. The next day, she came back and said that her company actually had another position open, and if I was interested to send my resume to her as well. Brandy’s boss contacted me the next day (if I remember correctly) for a phone interview. We then set up an appointment for me to come in for a face-to-face interview.

The next day after the interview, I was offered the job, and, after considering for a few hours, I decided to accept it. Fortunately, the day I turned in my resignation at DSS happened to be the same day that my boss was interviewing someone to replace another developer who had just left. He was hired and assigned to my project instead, and I had two weeks to help him become familiar with the code. My last day at DSS was the 11th, and I decided to take a week off between jobs to relax.

And so, next Monday, the 22nd, I will start my new job at Yye Software, a small software consulting company. I will be working with Visual Studio .NET languages, particularly Visual C++ and C#. I’m going to miss working at DSS, but at the same time, I am excited to start this new venture.

Kristen will also be starting a new job on Monday. She will be working at a company called AMEC transcribing designs into CAD software. She found this job through the sister of a family friend.

As you can probably tell, there is a lot that has been going on. Hopefully, with all of these changes happening, I will still have time to sit on our front porch and enjoy the cool autumn air and the colors of the leaves as they begin to turn, as the summer comes to an end, and a new season begins.