Month: July 2020

Journals

My sister in-law (SIL) passed away several years ago quite suddenly and unexpectedly (NOTE: Not by her own hands). It was pretty rough on the family. She loved her family, movies, her clients, and her students. A beautician by trade and very good one at that. she also taught at a beauty college in her city. When she would come into town, she would cut the families hair. This was a big sacrifice and very much appreciated.

My mother in-law (MIL) recently came across her daughters journals and she tossed them in the garbage, because from what she read, my SIL was very angry and unhappy with her life and where she was in this life. This whole thing sparked a few questions for me.

These are all my opinions and thoughts sparked by this situation. I’m a huge fan of journals and true stories about people.

What story?

Looking at my own life and my personal Journals, I probably write in mine when I have problems and things I want to get off my chest. If you were to read mine, you might think I am an angry or unhappy person. Just like Facebook, you won’t get a full picture of who I am or what I’m about. With Facebook, you get the good/happy things that are going on in life. Journals gives you the bad things in life or the hard ships. Photos on Facebook are probably only the good moment. Photos captured from family members and “moments” may capture how you really are or look? (You may not have time to prep? ) I wonder how you can get the complete pictures of someones life? If we could only merge all this information into one. People have many demons they are fighting and a journal is where they keep them.

Who is mentioned?

I think one of the things that people worry about when reading a journal is if they come across an entry where they mention their name? It is going to be either a good thing or a bad thing they mention about you. Do you want to read something negative written about you? I personally feel that it would be hard to read how someone truly feels about you, especially if they have negative feelings toward me. Unfortunately, there are many people in this world that have negative feelings toward me. I can try and change that, but it is the fact of life. I probably should work on that. 🙂

Unlocking the secrets.

I’ve found Journals, note books with a date and a bit of a story about what i was feeling, that go back to 1993. A few months before I would spend 25 days of my life in a hospital trying to recover from Spinal Meningitis, which is also a point where I wrote a journal of my experience. I was also given a journal in 1995 from a few friends I hung out with. It was a gift from 3 girls and most of the entries in this period of time are about how much I liked these girls, my weight, etc. Not a lot of deep dark secrets. I’ve probably mentioned things I don’t want them to ever read. I might have some secrets in there. Who knows.

What if you come across others secrets? You can’t change anything about them? It may change the way you look at them, but personally I feel like, I would still remember the good things about them. Who knows what you would find out though, it may cast a dark shadow on your memories!

The missing pieces

With all this said, I feel like having these journals with either negative or positive memories, it still gives you a look at their life. You know a little more about them and what they were thinking. I would love to find a journal my parents kept. My father was killed when I was 15 (work place accident) and my mother passed when I was 34 years old (from cancer) and I feel like I don’t know enough about them!

Several years ago, I found some old cleared checks that where my fathers. Unfortunately, having this kind of information doesn’t tell me much about him or what he spent those on, but I remember some of his habits and such, so looking at these I could infer some information. If I wanted to get crazy, I could map out a timeline of where he was? That could be interesting…..I digress…

Conclusion

I know I could go on and on about this, but it’s a very interesting question to ask yourself. Do you want to read a family members journals to find out who they were and what they were about, even if it could cloud your memories? I love looking back at my journals and reading my thoughts. I would be horrified if my wife read them, but when I’m gone it may be useful for her or my boy. Even though, for the last 8 years of his life, he is probably the one I focused on the most 🙂

Homelessness

YouTube

I follow a channel on YouTube called “Invisible People“, it is a channel about homeless people. The guy interviews random homeless people throughout the world. It’s pretty raw and you hear all kinds of stories. This channel is great, because everything I have wanted to ask, he asks! I’ve mentioned this in the past, but everyone has a story and most people want to tell their story to anyone who will listen. I find everyone interesting and want to hear their story.

Adoption

We received our son through the gift of adoption. A very kind girl chose to place her baby with us and we are so thankful to her and her family for making this decision. It has been a very interesting roller-coaster. There is a whole new dynamic to your relationship. Our son has an extra set of grandparents and may have to deal with some things that most kids don’t have to deal with.

Up until a couple years ago, we kept in touch with the Birth-mother (BM). We had a great relationship with her, her husband, and second son. We were invited to birthday parties. She was invited to birthday parties for our son J. It’s been great. A couple years ago, the BM made a poor decision and feel in love with a another person while she was still married and raising a 2 year old boy.

Your choice

Her and her lover ended up being homeless and making very poor decisions. We started getting calls to lend her money, for hotel rooms. Our love for her made us want to give, but we were very hesitant to lend her the money. We told her this was a one shot deal and it had to be used for what the intended purpose was (a room) and nothing else. Come to find out, it wasn’t going to be used for a room for the night, but to help her lover with hormone injections. She tried calling one other time, but we had to remind her about the stipulation. We haven’t heard from her since.

We haven’t had much contact with our BM, but she still posts on FB, so we are able to follow her journey. She has had several family members trying to help her out and give her a hand-up in life. Unfortunately, she has chosen to live a life of homelessness. I wish we could help more, but there isn’t much you can do when they have made this choice.

I know we can’t help much, but it is sad to see the damages she is doing to her life. Explaining all of this to our boy when he grows up is going to be quite interesting. We know they are based up in SLC, so I try and look for them when I’m in the area. I pray for her and her family often! Covid-19 has probably made it harder for them and put them in more danger.

How do we help?

This is the ultimate question. I’m not sure what the answer is, but there are a lot of sites out there and local opportunities to help. Treat them with respect and try and help them out where you can. I’m not sure about you, but I want to make sure my $ goes for good and not something else.

Week Activities

Fourth of July

The Fourth of July weekend was pretty uneventful with the whole COVID-19. We went and visited my old neighborhood, My boss lives there, and they throw a party called “Cul-de-Sac of Fire” where they have a HUGE BBQ, Bounce Houses, Food Trucks, and Fireworks. There was a bit of a change this year, and they had Fireworks, 1 Food Truck, and Sno-Cone Shack..

We were a little nervous about going, so we picked up some food and ate it in the car and showed up for the Fireworks. We were very nervous about being there, but didn’t talk to hardly anyone. *crossing fingers*

The show was amazing! They had about $5k worth of Fireworks and they went off for almost 45 minutes. It was amazing! (See featured image)

Broken Phone

It’s been a very boring week, except for my phone. I try and go into work once a week to water the plants and check on the servers. This week, we had to do a bid for a new software product we are trying to get, so a few of us were meeting there for that. The lease of our building is almost up and we have a huge space for 6 guys. We are in the process of trying to clean up and find a new place. The fridge is full of food, which half of it is probably left over from people who have quit.

I wanted to take a picture of the food in the fridge, so people could claim their food. If they don’t we are going to dump it. I started taking a picture of the freezer and dropped my phone! It was totally slow motion…..I watched it fall and probably said a couple foul words! After picking up the phone and inspecting it, it looked like I got lucky. Unfortunately, the screen wouldn’t turn on! This is the time I realize, “I am addicted to my phone”.. Wait. I internally admit to the fact that I am addicted to my phone. The whole drive home, I mentally noted how I would miss my phone and the things I provides me. #addiction

Customer Support

I purchased the extended warranty on my phone, which states that It will cover accidental damages. Perfect right? Well.. Of course they need to trouble shoot the phone, because they DO NOT want to pay for it. After spending 30 minutes on the phone with someone she sent me to the claims department, with a claim ID. I thought I was golden. On my way to ordering a fixed phone…. “How would you like to pay for the Deductible?”.. I was sooo annoyed. Not once did the lady ask me for a “Claim ID!” I questioned her and she said I’d have to pay for the deductible. We ended the call, and another chat conversation was started with Google to try and resolve this confusion.

Second try

I was able to contact Google again and clarify that, I did not break the screen and there are no physical damage to the phone. They finally gave me approval to take the phone to the certified repair place (UBreakIFix, which I HIGHLY recommend. They are amazing!) — I dropped the phone off on Wednesday night, and went back in on Thursday at lunch and picked up my fixed phone for $0! The phone works great, but I’m super paranoid about dropping it again.

TemperPi Project

The TemperPi project (“Little Break“) has been working great, but it is in some need of updates. I checked the temperature in the server room last weekend and my jaw hit the floor! The temperature was resting around 72, so I was a little alarmed. For some reason, I have neglected checking the temperature lately, because it usually hovers around 63 or so. We turn the heat up when we aren’t there and apparently the whole building shuts down over the weekend. Our little AC is pumping away over the weekend to keep that room chilly. The building we are in was recently sold. The new owners must be trying to cut costs.

Friday before everything shuts down for the weekend.
Saturday while everything is baking in the sun!
The office returning to normal operation.

Minecraft Fun

I have officially been slacking the last several weeks. We have discovered this game called Minecraft, that has probably heard of. My boy has been playing it a lot. He loves the game, because he can do pretty much anything that he wants. We love how creative it allows him to be.

I actually purchased the game, Java version, about 7 years ago when I heard about it. The first person nature of the view made me sick! I also spent like 5 hours trying to find diamonds one time, and after that it felt like a huge waste of time! It was a fun 5 hours, but what did I accomplish? Just an appreciation for the developer and the awesome game he created.

Discovery again..

As my boy started getting older and bored of the games he was playing, I thought it would be a good idea to introduce him into Minecraft. This is when I discovered you can’t just buy one version of the game. My computer had the Java version, but if you wanted to play it on the iPad, you have to make another purchase. I purchased another copy (ugh! I’m a cheapo) and he didn’t quite understand it. It sat there for several months with no one playing it.

Youtube

Somehow the Minecraft videos started showing up on his Kids YouTube and I think this sparked another interest. He watched this girl who would narrate her adventures. She has this voice that is hard to listen to for very long. Unfortunately, her voice didn’t bother him, just his parents! The boy has been playing everyday for about 2 months!

Funny thing has happened though, minecraft has replaced his Kids YouTube addiction. He hardly ever watches it anymore, so we don’t get the opportunity to listen/watch the girl anymore. (so sad)

Multiplayer

This is where I come into the picture! I thought it would be awesome if we could play together, but we didn’t know how to do it. How we figured this out escapes me, but I downloaded the game on our other iPad. When the game loaded his name showed up under the “Friends” tab. WOOHOO We were stoked to be able to play with each other. If you want to play with someone else, you have to be on the same network and it has to be a Pocket Edition.

We have found out that our wifi has some issues or one of the iPads has a problem with the WiFi, so we are disconnected from the network a lot. This is a huge point of anger in both of us!

Survival vs Creative

Another lesson we had to learn was what Creative and Survival mode was. We found that Creative allowed us to have everything, fly, do what we want, and the big plus: There were no Zombies trying to kill us. We loved this, because we could literally do anything and the boy had a ton of fun!

I made the mistake of trying Survival mode a couple weeks ago. It was super fun not having everything and trying to fight to keep your belongings. The boy wants to switch back to some of the old Creative maps we played in the past, and it isn’t fun anymore. He always wants me to play his little games and I try and comply it’s just not as fun anymore.

Bonding

This has become a crazy addiction and we have wasted a lot of time, but the bonding we have done has been worth it! The boy has had a blast and always wants me to play with him. We talk a lot about the game and discuss ideas we want to try. There have been many How to Videos watched on YouTube. We even spent one day creating a Gold Farm from a YouTube video we watched. This turned out to be a daunting task and an 8 year old isn’t as patient as he should be. We had a hard time creating said Farm.

I get a little frustrated with him breaking my stuff from time to time, but I’m learning to let it slide. The fun he is having and the time spent is more valuable than my digital creation 🙂

Downside

The one downside to this game that I don’t like is killing animals. In creative mode, you can create a bunch of animals and then torture them. The idea of survival is to kill those trying to kill you. You also kill animals to use them as resources, etc. My son likes to build cemeteries for his animals that are still alive. He likes to torture the animals. The last thing I want is my boy growing up to think that is fun :). Yes, I worry too much.

Good times

All in all it has been a great game and we have spent a lot of good time playing. I’m looking forward to play many more hours with him and discovering new mini-sections of the map we can explore.

Thanks for reading my boring post, hopefully more exciting posts will come.