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..

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