5/26 5ish weekly grateful things.

This week was tough so let me see if I can even get 5 things I'm grateful for.

1. I'm grateful that I got to take my friend to the airport on Monday. We tried hanging out Sunday and early Monday but it just didn't work out. Taking her to airport Monday afternoon gave us a little but more time to hang out. Plus afterword we (wife and I) went to her house for dinner and got to spend quality time with the rest of the family and bond with her mom, sis, and brother.

2. I'm thankful for going to the Stockton Thunder game on Friday. I took my nephew and a friend and we had a great time. Thunder ended up not winning the Kelly Cup but won that night and ended up with the Bruce Taylor Trophy. It was a fun season and a lot of great memories. Cant wait til October for the next season to start!

3. I'm grateful for long weekends! Had a rough week at work so its nice to just relax and stay home and chill.

4. I'm grateful for the show Arrested Development. It's probably one of the most well written shows ever. One of my favorites and worth rewatching over and over again. It has given me plenty of laughs today so far.

5. I'm grateful for my loving wife. She can tell my moods when I'm not open about them. She knows when I'm down, hurt, happy and hungry. Yes hungry is definitely a mood! Not only does she know my mood just by seeing me or hearing my voice but she knows how to handle each one and always puts a smile on my face. I would be a mess without her.

My Amazing Nephew

Earlier today at work I ran into a coworker. We have a mutual friend who is also the mom of my nephew and Godson. My coworker was on the phone with her and when she found out she wanted to talk to me. As soon as she got on the phone she told me that my nephew was AMAZING! I kinda laughed and asked what happened and she was confused about my reaction. She asked if I heard what he did. I honestly hadn't and I told her that.

She proceeded to tell me that yesterday her son, another boy, and my nephew were playing hacky sack by the school that's across the street. One of them kicked the ball on the other side of a wrought iron fence surrounding the playground. The wrought iron fence is one of those that has the straight poles with the points at the tips. So the other kid climbed over, tossed the hacky sack back to the boys, then started to climb back over. His foot slipped and from what she said is that his leg got impaled by one of the poles and that it went clean through. She said her son and the impaled kid started freaking out and panicking, but not my nephew. He immediately made sure the boy was ok, lifted him off the pole although she's not sure how he managed to do that by himself since her son was panicking and not helping. Then when he freed the boy of the pole, he laid him down, applied pressure on the wound and called 911 on his cell. An ambulance ride, and emergency room visit later the doc said pole was centimeters from an artery but that the kid was ok.

I was completely stunned and amazed. Not only did my nephew not freak out and panic but he reacted and sprung to action to help someone in need. He assessed the situation and weighed out his options to help his friend. Then he knew to put pressure and call 911 to get him the quickest medical help possible. I think this is amazing and very commendable. I am proud and happy to hear how he reacted and that he helped someone. His dream job is to become a paratrooper medic for the Army. If I had any doubts in how he would handle that job then they have been settled. I'm so proud of him and his accomplishments that he's done and that he's so modest about it all. If he does pursue the career he wants I would be honored to know that such a young man is helping to protect and serve our country.

change.

I noticed during a conversation with a friend today that I found myself complaining. It got me to thinking, when the hell did I become so negative and such a complainer?? I NEVER used to be like that. I used to be so positive and have a positive outlook at life.

I'd like to think that I'm not negative just a Realist. I know everything isn't always going to be ok. I know good things happen to good people and positive things happen to positive people, but I also know bad things happen despite how much hope and positivity there is. I just try to keep it real and not have my head in the clouds. A life philosophy of mine has always been "hope for the best but expect the worse". That seems to cover the positivity and still keep it real in case things go wrong.

However somewhere along the way I've started teetering on the edge of realism and negativity. I don't like. Other people don't like that. No one likes being around a person that's so negative. I want to try and find a way to change my attitude back to teetering between positive and realism.

Life is a...

Today I discovered the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. He has a few good quotes, very relevant to my life, but I like these two alot. They are they ones that stuck out the most to me.


Life is a pendulum that swings between suffering and boredom.


To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

I'm sure what they mean to me might be completely different for someone else and although they might have a melancholy tone I don't think either quote is necessarily sad. It's truth. Harsh and blunt but truth in all of its (looked over) glory. 

5/18 Gratefuls, a friendly event

This week's 5 Gratefuls will be very friend heavy. What can I say, I love my friends!

1. I'm grateful to have two best friends. My loving wife, Andrea, who is always there for me no matter what. We've had 7 great years of marriage and a few before that of being together, and caring for one another and always having each other's best interest in mind. My other is a relatively new bestie, my friend Ayesha. It's been kismet to have become such good friends so fast and to just have so much to relate to. From the beginning of our friendship it was like we picked up from having known each other forever. I am so ever grateful to have both these extraordinary women in my life. 
2. My great friend and little sister, Sabah. Always so fun to hang out with! She graduated with a bachelor's yesterday and I'm so proud of her. I'm very thankful and lucky to have gotten to know her and be there for her her last part of her journey through college and so glad I get to be there for her new journeys. 
3. I'm very grateful that bf mentioned above got to come back home for the weekend. It's been a busy weekend but we've had the chance to hang out and create another bond in our friendship. It's continues to amaze me how much our friendship grows and grows. She's truly appreciated. 
4. I appreciate my new found family. I'm lucky to have my own, my wife's family and now a third. Mom treats us amazing and is an amazing woman herself. Little brother is super cool. Tough shell exterior but now that, that has been cracked he's all convo and smiles. Then there's my two great friends. I count my blessing to have them and hard to imagine life without them now. 
5. Lastly for this week, I just have a general appreciation for friends and family. Today is the first day I haven't hung out with anyone in a long time. Wife worked a full closing shift which is something she hasn't done in a long time. Bestie was busy so she couldn't hang out. Then the last few days was full of family and friends. To all of a sudden have no one to hang out with and be home with nothing to do just felt so...alone. I got that, "you never know what you have until you lose it" kinda feeling. Days like these definitely let me appreciate being around, not just people, but people I truly like.  

Back in the Day

Who remembers Back in the Day?

Back in the day when I was young
 I'm not a kid anymore
but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again

I remember way back when
When?
Back in the day.

Hockey Kings of the West

What amazingness!!

One of my earlier blog posts was about how much I have gotten into hockey. The experience of the game, the cool from the ice, the roar of the crowd, the jumping up and yelling either from a goal or telling the ref that he's blind, its all very much apart of the game.

I learned another part of the game when I started going to the ECHL's Stockton Thunder games. I knew the fellas (as I like to refer to whatever season's current roster of the team) had skill and passion. Our city is kinda always down in the dumps so we make up for our depression by cheering on our local hockey team. What we lack as a city the team shows on ice.

The thing is sometimes its interesting to be a fan because as our roster changes constantly and so does the unity of the team. Thunder are apart of the ECHL which is a semi pro team. We have players come down to play for us and have players get called up to the next higher up league. We've even had quite a few players make it to the NHL.

With all the changes that happen throughout the season you always see the team grow. Even the vets grow on their own but you also see them taking on the rookies. By the end of the season what might've started off as a clunky team has now been fine tuned to perform optimally on the ice.

As any fan from any team would understand, I always hope that my team gets a shot at the championship, but I know its not always possible. When this season started off I had no doubt that the team would make the playoffs. They have the past few years and have become that high standard club that plays the hardest to at the very least make the playoffs. What amazed me was what happened during the playoffs. Game by game they picked up a Win. They lost a few but during each round of the playoffs the Wins became more and the Losses became less. They beat teams during away games and they beat teams on home ice. The more they won the more it unified them as a team, us as a city of fans, and boosted the confidence of all involved to the point that we the fans knew in our hearts that the Western Conference would be taken by the Thunder.

As I sat in section 107, right behind the goalie, the score board screen showed the team in the locker room and starting to walk out to come to the ice. The team has a phrase written on the wall to the entrance/exit of the locker room that I've seen before but it never really impacted me as much as it did the very last game they played. Written in that western "outlaw" font it says, not so simply:

Our Club

Our House

Our Way
...

All Night 

How true that phrase was that night. They were up in the series 3-1 and this was the last game in Stockton. They had to win at home in front of the nearly 5,000 fans that were cheering them on.
And. They. Did. It.

It was a great game. They played with heart and didn't let the extra roughing and hard checks of the other team phase them. They kept their head in the game and gave the fans what they wanted. How nice it'll be to walk into the arena now with a banner hanging high to show the achievements of such an amazing group of fellas.

5 Grateful things, 5/12

My second weekly 5 grateful things that I was thankful for this past week:

1. My mom. Without her I wouldn't be the person I am today. I have a deep admiration and respect for women because of her. 
2. My friends' mom for feeding me! She invites me over for dinner and welcomes me into her house as if I was one of her own. 
3. My wife and Ayesha, for putting up with my moods on a daily basis. They deal with me and diffuse my moods in a way that no others can. They both have a way to lift my spirits without knowing it or without even knowing I need it. 
4. For seeing and being able to hang out with my niece who has served a few tours in the Air Force over seas, and has now retired from serving our country. 
5. To the Stockton Thunder ECHL West Coast Champs!! For the past 5 years I've cheered them on at games and last night they won the Western Conference Championship for the very first time. It was an emotional moment to countdown last few seconds of the game and see what hardwork and a great team can do when they work together. 

We Real Cool

Theres a poem that I LOVE that gets stuck in my head from time to time. It is by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks.

We Real Cool

The Pool Players. 
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon. 

Grateful for 5 things this week.

I want to start weekly Sunday night blog. It'll be simple, just 5 things that I'm grateful for that happened in the past week, or just moments that I appreciated. This will be in no particular order. Here's the 1st entry...

1. I attended the Multicultural Graduation of my dear friend, Sabah, then had dinner with her and her family. 
2. I got to hold and play with my niece's 1yr old son, even though he peed on me! 
3. That my cousin Danny got into a major horrible motorcycle accident and that he survived, is doing well, and still has his awesome sense of humor. 
4. I had a rough work week. This past week was hell week at work and despite everything that could've gone wrong, nothing did. I worked hard and was told by both my supervisor and manager that I was doing an awesome job and going above and beyond. 
5. Through technology I was able to watch a documentary and tv shows at the same exact time with a friend that's far away and through texting it seemed like we were hanging out together. 

That's my 5 for the week! Again in no particular order. Wonder what I'll be grateful next week?