I know. I know. I never update my blog any more. It's hard for me to do so since my brother's laptop broke. School's out though, so I can make more time for everything else I've been neglecting. I can get more work done and get things crossed off the to-do list!
I'm currently typing this on my iPhone. It sucks that blogger doesn't have a mobile site or an app like Tumblr. Oh well. Speaking of Tumblr.. I have one now. It's a culmination of photos I've saved to my phone ever since I got it, which has exceeded a thousand pictures numberous times even though I delete them to try and preserve what memory I have left.
Here's the address:
www.mattitudeuncensored.tumblr.com
You guys should check it out. Maybe you'll somewhat understand what goes through my mind on a daily basis. :)
I'll type a big blog update at some point this Christmas break, I promise! I'm sorry I've neglected my blog. :/
Thank you guys!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Life has its Ups and Downs
I'm having a hard time adopting the habit of blogging oftentimes. I'm still getting used to trying to capture all of the thoughts and ideas that go through my head with a keyboard and putting something together from that. It does take a lot of thought.. But I think I may have one down tonight.
Oh, and to emphasize how much of a risk it was to take this Nissan to Arlington, here's a photo..
It doesn't look all that bad in that picture, but when you see it in person and witness the smaller details around it, you realize it really is a risk. Okay, I need to stop. I told myself like a million times to not exaggerate.
Last year, I had plenty of "downs" as normal people do, but then near the end of the year, I had one huge "down" where my dad died as a result of some other idiot who should have never been on the road, or even a free man to walk, to begin with. Luckily, this person is currently awaiting trial for his crime. (I would elaborate, but I'm trying to keep this post as positive as I can.) I think this has driven me to make many choices in my life since then and many more choices to come. I've gotten to the point of where I'm just tired of trying to satisfy other people's expections and try to meet my own.
So, this year alone, I've been doing a lot of stuff. They've almost been the "ups" of my life right now. This past July, Andrew and I decided on a whim (notice a trend here?), a week prior, to head to the Southern Baptist Conference for the Deaf in Pennsylvania. Don't worry, it wasn't our doing, it was our friend, Tori, who had convinced us that this trip was not worth missing! Oh, we had to buy a whole bunch of plane tickets as well.. We should have took the Nissan. Our first flight was out of Oklahoma City to Chicago, then another one shortly after to Philadelphia. Upon arriving there, our friend Steve, who was already there would pick us up and drive us to SBCD in Lancaster, PA. This was on a Friday. At the end of the event (Thursday or Friday) we would fly from Lancaster to Baltimore, then from Baltimore to Philadelphia, before finally flying to Dallas, TX.
The very first spur-of-the-moment didn't take place in Philadelphia. We weren't even where we were supposed to be and we had already taken a detour off the main goal. It all started when our flight from Chicago to Philadelphia, which was to leave 30 minutes after we landed, got cancelled and we were put on the next flight which left 6 hours after our first landing.
So, all this free time to burn before our next flight. What to do?
Go see the Wrigley field! Yeah! That's what I'm talking about! We had tried and unsuccessfully negotiated getting put on an earlier flight, because the earliest flight was 6 hours away. Oh, the irony. Our friends, Tori and Angie, had already gotten tickets a long time before, which put them on a different flight which got them to Philadelphia earlier than us. So, we hopped onto a tram or bus or whatever you'd consider it, which brought us to a rent-a-car place. We tried to sweet-talk our way into a nice car. They were willing to look past me being 22, 3 years shy of the 25-year requirement, but negotiations got too complicated. We just stopped negotiating and told them to call us a cab. So, we took our first taxi cab ride in Chicago, Illinois, of all the places in the world. It looked like an unmarked police car, minus the shotgun rack, swerving laptop, and demoralizing cage in the backseat. We met with the man who introduced us to our driver. Our driver was a young but smooth looking cat, which reminded me of Josh from Real World: D.C. which in turn, reminded me of a young Michael Jackson. (Did I actually just make a positive comment related to Michael Jackson?)
Andrew and I slid into the backseat of his unmarked-police-car-taxi-cab and promptly told them Wrigley Field! The man and his driver started trying to figure out what the address was, knowing it was somewhere near the lake, then finally I wrote down "1060 West Addison St, Chicago, IL" on the notebook. They both looked at me perplexed. I wondered to myself how I knew the address as well, and remembered where I had learned of the address to the Wrigley Field where the Chicago Cubs play. It was from the classic 1980 film; "Blues Brothers."
So, off to Wrigley Field we went! We eventually got to the field after traveling over 15 miles in a hour, bought a couple t-shirts as evidence we had been there, and got back into the taxi cab and headed back to the airport. Once again, the 15 mile ride took us a brisk hour, maybe even a hour and half. We got back to the airport with time to eat before flying to Philadelphia, and eventually SBCD in Lancaster. We enjoyed SBCD so much we're even considering coming back to it! Guess where it'll be located.. Atlanta, GA!
Now.. The question is whether to take the Nissan or fly. I'm leaning towards driving since we had a couple bad experiences with the airport, but nothing like our friend, Tori, who had her luggage shredded!
Another "up" recently was going on a fishing trip in Galveston with a group of men from the deaf church, New Life Deaf Fellowship in Fort Worth. Don't worry, we didn't fly. Nor did we drive the Nissan. We swallowed our manly pride and rode in a (Censored by Blogspot). Yep. We rode in a (Censored by Blogspot)!! Can you imagine riding in a (Censored by Blogspot) for a total of 24 hours? Such a chick car. (There I go again, exaggerating.. It wasn't as bad as I make it sound). Overall, it was worth it because I caught my first shark, as did many others.
The trophy catch of the day though, would have to go to Alex for catching a Ling! Steve (yes, same Steve from the SBCD story) had emphasized catching a Ling for their famous tasty meat! I distinctly remember Alex wrestling his fishing pole, struggling with surfacing the fish, and finally bringing it aboard. At one point during the struggling, Aric turned to me and said "Alex's exaggerating." But pulling that huge Ling onboard justified Alex's "exaggerating" and showed everyone how much of a fight a Ling could put up! It was so worth the trip in a (Censored by Blogspot) to spend some good quality fellowship time with other deaf men, as well as the fishing!
It's the trips like these that make up so much for the numberous "downs" in my life particularly last year. But "ups" don't have to be as big as these were.. They do come in small packages as well. I've been focusing on changing what needs to be changed in my life to reduce stress and make for less things to worry over.
P.S. this Blog is just making me even more aware of how technologically challenged I am. Thanks go to all those who helped me out (or are currently helping me out). I guess I'm just traditional or old school..
Oh, and to emphasize how much of a risk it was to take this Nissan to Arlington, here's a photo..
It doesn't look all that bad in that picture, but when you see it in person and witness the smaller details around it, you realize it really is a risk. Okay, I need to stop. I told myself like a million times to not exaggerate.
Last year, I had plenty of "downs" as normal people do, but then near the end of the year, I had one huge "down" where my dad died as a result of some other idiot who should have never been on the road, or even a free man to walk, to begin with. Luckily, this person is currently awaiting trial for his crime. (I would elaborate, but I'm trying to keep this post as positive as I can.) I think this has driven me to make many choices in my life since then and many more choices to come. I've gotten to the point of where I'm just tired of trying to satisfy other people's expections and try to meet my own.
So, this year alone, I've been doing a lot of stuff. They've almost been the "ups" of my life right now. This past July, Andrew and I decided on a whim (notice a trend here?), a week prior, to head to the Southern Baptist Conference for the Deaf in Pennsylvania. Don't worry, it wasn't our doing, it was our friend, Tori, who had convinced us that this trip was not worth missing! Oh, we had to buy a whole bunch of plane tickets as well.. We should have took the Nissan. Our first flight was out of Oklahoma City to Chicago, then another one shortly after to Philadelphia. Upon arriving there, our friend Steve, who was already there would pick us up and drive us to SBCD in Lancaster, PA. This was on a Friday. At the end of the event (Thursday or Friday) we would fly from Lancaster to Baltimore, then from Baltimore to Philadelphia, before finally flying to Dallas, TX.
The very first spur-of-the-moment didn't take place in Philadelphia. We weren't even where we were supposed to be and we had already taken a detour off the main goal. It all started when our flight from Chicago to Philadelphia, which was to leave 30 minutes after we landed, got cancelled and we were put on the next flight which left 6 hours after our first landing.
So, all this free time to burn before our next flight. What to do?
Go see the Wrigley field! Yeah! That's what I'm talking about! We had tried and unsuccessfully negotiated getting put on an earlier flight, because the earliest flight was 6 hours away. Oh, the irony. Our friends, Tori and Angie, had already gotten tickets a long time before, which put them on a different flight which got them to Philadelphia earlier than us. So, we hopped onto a tram or bus or whatever you'd consider it, which brought us to a rent-a-car place. We tried to sweet-talk our way into a nice car. They were willing to look past me being 22, 3 years shy of the 25-year requirement, but negotiations got too complicated. We just stopped negotiating and told them to call us a cab. So, we took our first taxi cab ride in Chicago, Illinois, of all the places in the world. It looked like an unmarked police car, minus the shotgun rack, swerving laptop, and demoralizing cage in the backseat. We met with the man who introduced us to our driver. Our driver was a young but smooth looking cat, which reminded me of Josh from Real World: D.C. which in turn, reminded me of a young Michael Jackson. (Did I actually just make a positive comment related to Michael Jackson?)
Andrew and I slid into the backseat of his unmarked-police-car-taxi-cab and promptly told them Wrigley Field! The man and his driver started trying to figure out what the address was, knowing it was somewhere near the lake, then finally I wrote down "1060 West Addison St, Chicago, IL" on the notebook. They both looked at me perplexed. I wondered to myself how I knew the address as well, and remembered where I had learned of the address to the Wrigley Field where the Chicago Cubs play. It was from the classic 1980 film; "Blues Brothers."
So, off to Wrigley Field we went! We eventually got to the field after traveling over 15 miles in a hour, bought a couple t-shirts as evidence we had been there, and got back into the taxi cab and headed back to the airport. Once again, the 15 mile ride took us a brisk hour, maybe even a hour and half. We got back to the airport with time to eat before flying to Philadelphia, and eventually SBCD in Lancaster. We enjoyed SBCD so much we're even considering coming back to it! Guess where it'll be located.. Atlanta, GA!
Now.. The question is whether to take the Nissan or fly. I'm leaning towards driving since we had a couple bad experiences with the airport, but nothing like our friend, Tori, who had her luggage shredded!
Another "up" recently was going on a fishing trip in Galveston with a group of men from the deaf church, New Life Deaf Fellowship in Fort Worth. Don't worry, we didn't fly. Nor did we drive the Nissan. We swallowed our manly pride and rode in a (Censored by Blogspot). Yep. We rode in a (Censored by Blogspot)!! Can you imagine riding in a (Censored by Blogspot) for a total of 24 hours? Such a chick car. (There I go again, exaggerating.. It wasn't as bad as I make it sound). Overall, it was worth it because I caught my first shark, as did many others.
The trophy catch of the day though, would have to go to Alex for catching a Ling! Steve (yes, same Steve from the SBCD story) had emphasized catching a Ling for their famous tasty meat! I distinctly remember Alex wrestling his fishing pole, struggling with surfacing the fish, and finally bringing it aboard. At one point during the struggling, Aric turned to me and said "Alex's exaggerating." But pulling that huge Ling onboard justified Alex's "exaggerating" and showed everyone how much of a fight a Ling could put up! It was so worth the trip in a (Censored by Blogspot) to spend some good quality fellowship time with other deaf men, as well as the fishing!
It's the trips like these that make up so much for the numberous "downs" in my life particularly last year. But "ups" don't have to be as big as these were.. They do come in small packages as well. I've been focusing on changing what needs to be changed in my life to reduce stress and make for less things to worry over.
P.S. this Blog is just making me even more aware of how technologically challenged I am. Thanks go to all those who helped me out (or are currently helping me out). I guess I'm just traditional or old school..
Friday, September 24, 2010
In the Red Corner..
Standing at 6'2'', weighting 240 pounds, coming out of Amarillo, TX, we have Matthew Bridges!
Honestly, I don't know why I decided to use that as the opening line for my intro, but I guess it got the job done. I also decided on using the Red corner because I love the Red Sox. Don't get me wrong, I love the Rangers as well, but I didn't want to use Blue because that's the color the Yankees abuse. I decided to start a blog because, basically, I didn't have one like pretty much everyone else does. And I particularly enjoy reading everyone else's blogs too, and thought.. "Why don't I have one?"
There may be a couple posts that touch on sensetive issues. There may be a couple posts that will offend a couple of readers. There will certainly be posts that will make you laugh. There will most certainly be posts about cars, because, face it, if you know me just a little, you know I love cars.
Now to give you some background on who I am. I'm Matthew Bridges, and yes, those are really my numbers. I'm a very traditional and conservative Christian who was raised to say "yes sir" and "yes ma'am" and to hold doors open for people. I'm not really your typical American college student. I may be college-aged, but I'm not your average partying, washboard-stomached, hearing, cool, douchebag college boy. If you missed that, I dropped "cool" in there. I can also be sarcastic as well.
Yes, I'm hearing imparied, but since I'm really politically incorrect, I'll stick with "deaf." I was born that way in 1988, but never at one point since then have I wished I was "hearing." Certain challenges arise from being a deaf person that I believe the average hearing person wouldn't be able to complete, which gives me all the more incentive to get through life as a deaf person. I love challenges, being pushed to do something, because of the motivation it gives me to finish something makes the feeling of achieving it in the end worth it. I'm also a very technical person, which means I like things very precise, organized, and I like to know the certain details about something. There are so many goals I have set for myself in the short time I'll spend on earth, although I know I won't complete them all, they do make life more interesting and challenging. A better description of my goals would be "a hundred lifetimes worth of goals with one lifetime to pull them off."
I also like to debate stuff with other people, I like to make arguments that will potentially lead to me learning something from the other person, or possibly change my opinions on a certain matter. There are a lot of pet peeves that I have which could explain why I react to some people, issues, or situations the way I do. Much like everyone else, I dislike discomfort, being annoyed, awkwardness, or basically just the unnecessary. As a result, there are certain kinds of people, events, or things that I avoid. There are times where I do step out of my comfort zone and do something stupid, scary, or even dangerous.
An example of that would have to be the night my brother, Andrew, and I decided at the last minute to take a drive to 6 Flags in Arlington, TX for Deaf Day at 6 Flags. Deaf Day, which took place on August 7, is an event whose objective is to try and draw in as many deaf people as possible for the purpose of deaf people socializing with other deaf people. I probably should mention that Deaf Day started at 10 am, and we decided 10 hours prior to come, and a drive from Amarillo, TX to Arlington, TX typically takes between 5 to 6 hours. Our mother had left town with her younger sister on Friday at 4-ish to go to her high school reunion and would be back on Sunday, which gave us more reason to make such a spontaneous decision. It started as a short but sweet conversation sitting on the couches in the living room at midnight.. I got Andrew's attention and said "You know what would be cool?" and he responded asking what. I then said "If we showed up at Deaf Day at 6 Flags." to which he inquired "But that starts in 10 hours?" and I confirmed that it did indeed start in 10 hours. He looked at me with a worried look and asked what we would do, and I said "We could go to a friend's and shower, then go to 6 Flags, and drive home right after." and he thought to himself.. and I finally closed the conversation with "Come on.. Why not?" and he agreed. We packed a backpack with a change of clothes, shampoo, soap, the usual bathroom stuff, and set off on our 6 hour long drive at one in the morning.
A concern was what we would drive, as seeing we doubted either of the trucks we had would make it, so we tried getting ahold of our sister, Ashley, but that turned out to be unsuccessful. So we decided to take my brother's '89 Nissan pick up. I should point out that this truck had a problem with the starter and flywheel but that was taken care of.. Then shortly after, we found out that the truck had been driving for a couple of months with nearly no transmission fluid and oil in the motor. Of course, that was taken care of, and no damage actually happened to it which made it a more logical choice. Still, there was a cloud of doubt as to whether the truck would actually make it to Arlington.
So, we set out on our journey to Arlington in a beat up Nissan truck with no A/C or heater at one in the morning. We drove down the 287, finally arriving at our friend, Josh's apartment in Fort Worth to take a shower and change before setting out for 6 Flags. We had gotten to his apartment at around 8 to 8:30, and left at 9:30. His wife, Libby, was urging us that we stay and sleep a little, or even overnight so we wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel on the trip home. Of course, we were against the idea. We got to 6 Flags at around 9:45, parked, and proceeded to walk up to the front gate. I would like to give tremendous thank you's to Josh and Libby Bonjour for letting us take advantage of their guest shower.
We got in the park and saw a bunch of our friends who were all very shocked we made it there, and not just that, but in a beat up Nissan! A couple of our friends and we went and ate at Chili's at around 5:30 in the afternoon,we then left at 6:45-ish to see a couple of friends in Haltom City and another neighborhood of DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth for those of you who aren't native Texans) before setting off for home. We left at approximately 9 on Saturday night, then after a couple of negative discoveries involving not doing a couple certain tasks that Andrew was required to do that could have potentially aided our mother in discovering what we were doing. Now, folks, if you know my mother, you'll agree that she'd disapprove of this. We set off to drive all night and finally got home at around 2:30 in the morning. We woke up, got dressed, and headed to church here in Amarillo, TX.
No one knew of this journey except for us 2 and our friends in DFW. I knew at some point, our mother would find out, so I decided that it would be better I let the cat out of the bag than someone else did. So, mom got home at around 2 in the afternoon, walked in the house, and asked Andrew and I if we had fun. The looks on our face immediately made it obvious to mom that something had happened this weekend, but she wasn't sure as to if it was a positive or negative "happening," so she was trying to find out from either Andrew or me what happened. Then she turned to Ashley to find out, but she refused to let our mom know. I then sat my mom and her sister at the bar in the kitchen and explained to her what had happened between midnight on Saturday and 2:30 on Sunday morning. Needless to say, she was shocked at how much we had accomplished in 26 and a half hours, and then muttered "I'm never leaving you 2 alone in this house again."
You could say I do have my moments of instant spontaneity, and oftentimes, they're a considerable amount of sponateity. But after all, I do want my life to be interesting. Don't you?
Honestly, I don't know why I decided to use that as the opening line for my intro, but I guess it got the job done. I also decided on using the Red corner because I love the Red Sox. Don't get me wrong, I love the Rangers as well, but I didn't want to use Blue because that's the color the Yankees abuse. I decided to start a blog because, basically, I didn't have one like pretty much everyone else does. And I particularly enjoy reading everyone else's blogs too, and thought.. "Why don't I have one?"
There may be a couple posts that touch on sensetive issues. There may be a couple posts that will offend a couple of readers. There will certainly be posts that will make you laugh. There will most certainly be posts about cars, because, face it, if you know me just a little, you know I love cars.
Now to give you some background on who I am. I'm Matthew Bridges, and yes, those are really my numbers. I'm a very traditional and conservative Christian who was raised to say "yes sir" and "yes ma'am" and to hold doors open for people. I'm not really your typical American college student. I may be college-aged, but I'm not your average partying, washboard-stomached, hearing, cool, douchebag college boy. If you missed that, I dropped "cool" in there. I can also be sarcastic as well.
Yes, I'm hearing imparied, but since I'm really politically incorrect, I'll stick with "deaf." I was born that way in 1988, but never at one point since then have I wished I was "hearing." Certain challenges arise from being a deaf person that I believe the average hearing person wouldn't be able to complete, which gives me all the more incentive to get through life as a deaf person. I love challenges, being pushed to do something, because of the motivation it gives me to finish something makes the feeling of achieving it in the end worth it. I'm also a very technical person, which means I like things very precise, organized, and I like to know the certain details about something. There are so many goals I have set for myself in the short time I'll spend on earth, although I know I won't complete them all, they do make life more interesting and challenging. A better description of my goals would be "a hundred lifetimes worth of goals with one lifetime to pull them off."
I also like to debate stuff with other people, I like to make arguments that will potentially lead to me learning something from the other person, or possibly change my opinions on a certain matter. There are a lot of pet peeves that I have which could explain why I react to some people, issues, or situations the way I do. Much like everyone else, I dislike discomfort, being annoyed, awkwardness, or basically just the unnecessary. As a result, there are certain kinds of people, events, or things that I avoid. There are times where I do step out of my comfort zone and do something stupid, scary, or even dangerous.
An example of that would have to be the night my brother, Andrew, and I decided at the last minute to take a drive to 6 Flags in Arlington, TX for Deaf Day at 6 Flags. Deaf Day, which took place on August 7, is an event whose objective is to try and draw in as many deaf people as possible for the purpose of deaf people socializing with other deaf people. I probably should mention that Deaf Day started at 10 am, and we decided 10 hours prior to come, and a drive from Amarillo, TX to Arlington, TX typically takes between 5 to 6 hours. Our mother had left town with her younger sister on Friday at 4-ish to go to her high school reunion and would be back on Sunday, which gave us more reason to make such a spontaneous decision. It started as a short but sweet conversation sitting on the couches in the living room at midnight.. I got Andrew's attention and said "You know what would be cool?" and he responded asking what. I then said "If we showed up at Deaf Day at 6 Flags." to which he inquired "But that starts in 10 hours?" and I confirmed that it did indeed start in 10 hours. He looked at me with a worried look and asked what we would do, and I said "We could go to a friend's and shower, then go to 6 Flags, and drive home right after." and he thought to himself.. and I finally closed the conversation with "Come on.. Why not?" and he agreed. We packed a backpack with a change of clothes, shampoo, soap, the usual bathroom stuff, and set off on our 6 hour long drive at one in the morning.
A concern was what we would drive, as seeing we doubted either of the trucks we had would make it, so we tried getting ahold of our sister, Ashley, but that turned out to be unsuccessful. So we decided to take my brother's '89 Nissan pick up. I should point out that this truck had a problem with the starter and flywheel but that was taken care of.. Then shortly after, we found out that the truck had been driving for a couple of months with nearly no transmission fluid and oil in the motor. Of course, that was taken care of, and no damage actually happened to it which made it a more logical choice. Still, there was a cloud of doubt as to whether the truck would actually make it to Arlington.
So, we set out on our journey to Arlington in a beat up Nissan truck with no A/C or heater at one in the morning. We drove down the 287, finally arriving at our friend, Josh's apartment in Fort Worth to take a shower and change before setting out for 6 Flags. We had gotten to his apartment at around 8 to 8:30, and left at 9:30. His wife, Libby, was urging us that we stay and sleep a little, or even overnight so we wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel on the trip home. Of course, we were against the idea. We got to 6 Flags at around 9:45, parked, and proceeded to walk up to the front gate. I would like to give tremendous thank you's to Josh and Libby Bonjour for letting us take advantage of their guest shower.
We got in the park and saw a bunch of our friends who were all very shocked we made it there, and not just that, but in a beat up Nissan! A couple of our friends and we went and ate at Chili's at around 5:30 in the afternoon,we then left at 6:45-ish to see a couple of friends in Haltom City and another neighborhood of DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth for those of you who aren't native Texans) before setting off for home. We left at approximately 9 on Saturday night, then after a couple of negative discoveries involving not doing a couple certain tasks that Andrew was required to do that could have potentially aided our mother in discovering what we were doing. Now, folks, if you know my mother, you'll agree that she'd disapprove of this. We set off to drive all night and finally got home at around 2:30 in the morning. We woke up, got dressed, and headed to church here in Amarillo, TX.
No one knew of this journey except for us 2 and our friends in DFW. I knew at some point, our mother would find out, so I decided that it would be better I let the cat out of the bag than someone else did. So, mom got home at around 2 in the afternoon, walked in the house, and asked Andrew and I if we had fun. The looks on our face immediately made it obvious to mom that something had happened this weekend, but she wasn't sure as to if it was a positive or negative "happening," so she was trying to find out from either Andrew or me what happened. Then she turned to Ashley to find out, but she refused to let our mom know. I then sat my mom and her sister at the bar in the kitchen and explained to her what had happened between midnight on Saturday and 2:30 on Sunday morning. Needless to say, she was shocked at how much we had accomplished in 26 and a half hours, and then muttered "I'm never leaving you 2 alone in this house again."
You could say I do have my moments of instant spontaneity, and oftentimes, they're a considerable amount of sponateity. But after all, I do want my life to be interesting. Don't you?
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