So, it's been 16 months since I posted last.  A whole lot has happened, and I'm not sure I could remember everything if I tried.  Katelyn is 4 1/2 now, Ember just turned 3 a couple weeks ago, and Evelyn has been born and is 7 months old on Tuesday.  Gosh, hard to believe they can grow up so fast. You always hear it said about children, but it really sinks it when it's referring to *your* children.

Still working for the police department and loving it.  I can't imagine a better job.  I can imagine a few better paying jobs, but overall, this job rocks. I'm hoping to do another rotation with a specialized division next month, but I'm still not sure which one.  My former partner and i made it a goal to be out of patrol by the end of this year.  He accomplished that goal at the start of August. I'm still working on it...

Melissa still isn't working. JUST KIDDING she works harder than I do most of the time.  I couldn't survive as much time with the monst- kids as she spends with them.  She is seriously amazing.

Biggest news right now is our house. We have been wanting a house, well, forever.  It hasn't worked out until last month. We kept getting fliers from this one new neighborhood in Hockley.  Melissa asked if we could check it out, so we did.  They had a really nice house with double the square footage of our apartment.   It comes with a two-car garage, a *yard*, and a few appliances to boot!  There are a few things I'll need to change/add, but I love the house.  I'm looking forward to the first day I can park in the garage and walk into MY house and know my money isn't being thrown down the drain on rent.

All this aside, we don't actually own the house yet.  We were given a closing date of 9-12, but that was four days ago.  We're hoping to hear some great news in the morning.

Melissa and I started teaching Bible study in the youth group at the MET.  She and Lynne are teaching a 6th grade girls class during the 9:30 service, and James and I are teaching 7th grade boys.  It's only been three weeks, but I think this is going to be a great experience.  It's been a little difficult to keep the kids on track, but I think with that that will get easier.  I'm trying to find a different curriculum that will keep them entertained and interested.  We'll see.

Somehow I ended up getting all but 5 days off this month.  I was taking a few days here and there, and I didn't realize until the 1st just how many days I had acquired.  It's been nice, but I've still worked a few extra jobs on my days off, so I haven't and won't have a complete week with no work.  That said, this is still very relaxing and I'll miss it.

Think that's all for now.

Later,

$

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

Ok, so it's been like 16 months since I wrote a post. Embarrassing? Yeah a little. Tons of things have changed. Work is still going great, loving the job. Melissa is still heavily involved with MOPS and bible study. Katelyn is 3 and Ember will be 2 this September. We're still in an apartment, but we moved one building down to get a better floor plan. Moving is so much easier when you can just carry half of your crap over instead of loading everything in a grossly overpriced van that's been driven by half the people in your zip code. That being said, the move was not completely pain free, but we do have some awesome friends that were willing to spend (waste?) their evenings assisting us. I still have a couple boxes to empty. Yuck. On the bright side, if I never empty the boxes, I can always know where those certain items are.

So Osama Bin Laden got killed by US forces the other day. That was crazy. I was sitting in Chili's with a friend from small group when CNN made a special report, and Twitter exploded. Amazing and sad how few people quote Scripture on a daily basis, and how many people are suddenly able to recall tons of verses when it fits with their opinion on the matter of death. Am I glad he's dead? You bet. Am I celebrating his eternal torment and damnation? Absolutely not. He is not receiving any worse than you or I deserve, save for God's grace. I am thrilled that no one else can be hurt by such an evil man. Certainly another or ten will rise up in his place, but I believe the world is a better place without the man.

Anywho, so Ember is looking like such a toddler. She is still a shrimp, but look at her parents. I think Melissa was under 5 foot until she turned 24 :). Ok not that bad. Ember is becoming her own person more and more each day, but still so affected by her big sister. If Katelyn can do it, or can get away with it, Ember must try. That gets her in trouble more than she appreciates, but it's kinda cute, too. Katelyn is getting bigger each day as well. We were talking the girls through their ages and birthdays before dinner, and just saying that Katelyn's next birthday would be her fourth just blew me away. It goes way too fast. I still remember very vividly the day we brought her home from the hospital. Crazy.

It's 5:08 AM while I write this. Super early in the morning, or super late to be staying awake. The latter is my case today. Extra job from midnight to 6 AM once a week. Stinks the worst in the last hour (now), but then I head to the station while trying not to crash from exhaustion, and sleep for a few hours. Not even sure why I felt compelled to compose...curious :)

Have you ever watched anyone compete in the Ironman? I worked security for the event this past weekend in the Woodlands. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen. These people have to train for at least a year prior to the event, and at least twenty hours per week. Granted, first prize wins $100K, but that's a lot of effort for a 1/2500 chance at a chunk of cash. The swimming portion commenced around 6:50 AM, and the last runner passed my post at 1100 PM. Can you imagine swimming 2.4 miles and then hopping on a bicycle to Huntsville and back? Oh yeah, and then why don't you run a 26.2 mile marathon before catching your breath. These people are crazy. It must be such an amazing feeling to cross the finish line after a a day like that. Personally I don't think I could give up cheese burgers just to swim/bike/run that much.

I killed a Copperhead snake while working at the Ironman! Two different runners alerted us to a snake relaxing on the pathway, but on the first search we couldn't locate anything. The second look a few minutes later was more productive. I was just going to move the snake to a safer place across the street, but he tried to bite me. Two strikes from the expandable baton later, the snake hissed his last. Wasn't that big for a copperhead, but certainly big enough to cause a problem.

So this typing isn't helping me stay awake like I hoped it would. I'm getting worried about typing gibberish, so I'm going. Write more later.

$

Been a while huh?

Good grief...I can't even remember the last time I posted anything on this site.  Time has been flying by the last few months.  Ember was born in September and She's already 4 months old.  I can't believe it sometimes.  The children grow up so fast.  Katelyn is 21 months - 2 years old in April.  She's already acting like a two year-old... having to pick a few battles.  Melissa is starting up MOPS again this week.  She's a DGL I think - Discussion Group Leader.  She's really excited about that.  They do a lot of crafts and have some really good talks.  Plus it's a great chance for her to have some interaction with people other than me.

We celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary last month.  Talk about time flying by.  I met melissa in August of 2001.  We will have known each other for nine years this summer.  That's just crazy.  On one hand it feels like we just met and have barely spent any amount of time together.  On the other hand, I have to work to remember a time without her.  Childhood wasn't that exciting I guess. :)

Work has been going well.  Been working a lot this past month.  I have set a personal goal for my self in January: see how many people I can arrest in 30 days.  Ridiculous right?  Hey, gotta have some goals.  You could also see it as me trying to stop/prevent as many crimes as possible (and hey, I am!).  Still haven't found any more permanent extra jobs, but I'm sure something will come along when the time is right.

Just felt like posting something.  Hope things are going well for you.

Later,

$

Why does every post need a title??

Sup people.  I haven't posted since November 1 of last year.  that's really sad.  oh well.  It's currently 6:45 am on January 11, 2009.  I've been up since 4pm yesterday.  I know, 4pm.  Weird time to wake up.  Especially since I went to bed early yesterday.  I got off work early, so i was able to go to be at like 5am.  that's really early.  so yeah, i slept for 11 hours.  that's the longest i've slept in a very long time.

To explain the bizarre sleeping times, I've been working night shift for the past two weeks now, and I have one more week to go before I can switch over to Evening Shift.  That will either be 2pm - 10pm or 3pm - 11pm.  Again, not entirely normal shifts, but whatever.

So yeah, I did graduate from the Houston Police Academy, and yes, I am a police officer now.  It's been what, a month and a half since graduation?  It's awesome, let me just say that right now.  I love putting on the uniform, I LOVE getting to wear a gun to work, that's just plain cool.  It's an amazing job.  I never understood the amount of power that cops have.  It's crazy, we have the only job in the world where we can take away a person's freedom of movement.  That is a ridiculous amount of power. I'm not saying the job shouldn't be there, it's just a responsibility that cannot be taken lightly.  My first couple weeks I had a really hard time stepping into that role, because it's not normal for me to walk into a stranger's house and start asking very personal pointed questions.  And it's also not normal to walk into a building and have everybody start staring at you just because of what you're wearing.  People are intimidated by the uniform and the position the badge represents.  It's... pick a word, bizarre, strange, freaky, weird, abnormal, unsettling.  But it's still a good job.  those are just some of the things that i thought about a lot my first couple weeks on the job.

If you don't mind, I'm just gonna fill you in on a few things that happened over the past few weeks since it's been such a long time since i last posted.

Day shift was really fun.  you work either 6am - 2pm or 7am - 3pm.  that second shift is the one i had and it's awesome.  lots of stuff to do all shift; never a dull moment.  we covered a lot of accidents for some reason, and day shift gets a lot of burglary calls.  people show up to work and find the place has been burglarized.  not a great start to their morning.  that's another thing i forgot to mention in my last mini-soapbox.  people are NEVER happy to see you.  that's something i had to get used to.  people don't want to have to call the cops, and that's understandable, because having to call the cops usually mean something bad has happened.  i've been to burglaries, assaults, robbery's, thefts, accidents, deaths (those suck), stabbings, forgeries, and i have pulled over countless people for traffic violations.  in all those scenes, not one person has said "boy am i happy to see you."  NOTE: I'm not surprised at this, I'm just saying.

Night shift has been good, but there are a lot of slow times.  for example, it seems that even the criminals go to sleep around 3 am.  this means, there's noooooothing going on.  it also means if you're driving around at 3 am, i'm gonna figure out why.  who the heck is driving around at 3 am??  OK, other than the cops.  

So Katelyn is, gosh, 9 months old.  she is crawling everywhere, and pulling herself up on everything she can reach.  she'll be walking before we know it.  she has three teeth now, and three more working their way in.  she's so amazing.  i can't believe how wonderful parenthood is.  there are few better feelings in the world that coming home after a hard day and seeing your child smile at you.  her face lights up so bright every time i come home.  i love it.  to make it even better, Melissa is pregnant, so we have another baby on the way.  YAY!!  another wonderful bundle of joy.  I love kids.

Melissa and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary last month, that was really cool.  we went on a double date with James and Lynne. we went to dinner at Vic & Anthony's Steak House.  NOTE: don't go there without a LOT of money.  But hey, it was reeeaaally good steak.  best I've ever had.  Then we went to see the Nutcracker ballet.  that was pretty cool.  we had orchestra-ish seats that were really really close to the stage, so that was neat also.  we then spent the evening at the Hilton Americas hotel downtown.  that's another place to go only with a lot of money.  it was money well spent, but probably won't be happening for a while.  That was a great evening.

what's new with you??  seriously, leave a comment and tell me something that's new with you.  doesn't have to be completely exciting, just something.  i gotta go get ready for church.

Later,

$

Hello you happy peoples...

My long lost (or not) friends! How are you all doing? It's been some time since I last blogged. I do apologize for leaving such a crucial part of your life empty for so long. Truly, I should not have waited so long. What's happened since I last got on here? Let's see...

It's been six weeks since my last post. Ike had just gone away and the city looked like crap. Sadly, there are still a whole bunch of places even around here that still look like crap. There are people on Eldridge Pkwy just today getting their fences replaced. Probably just cuz their insurance companies are overloaded. I dunno...

So, what else? Katelyn can almost crawl now. It's crazy, she's seven months old tomorrow, and all the sudden she's scooting all around everywhere. She has two little teeth we like to call "teefers" for some reason. It sounds cuter when you say it out loud.

Have you voted yet? We did early voting. I didn't want to at the time, just because it ended up with me being a little rushed for work, but it worked out a lot better than it would have if we had gone later. I heard that some people have had to wait like three hours to vote. That's nuts. But at least people are voting.

*********

So yeah, I started that post two days ago and am now finishing it.  I took the TCLEOSE exam today.  It's the test you take if you want to become a police officer.  That is a stinkin' hard test.  Glad it's over.

In other news, Daylight Savings being over was wonderful.  That extra hour of sleep was terrific.  Did you wake up/go anywhere early?  I did.  I woke up at 6:30 instead of 7:30.  For a weekend, that's way too early.

This is a bunch of random thoughts put together, so I'm going to go for now.  When I think of something better to say, I'll try to post again.   Later,

$

Been a While...

My friends and readers, I am back.  It's been some time since I last spoke to you, and of course, much has happened.  I'm sure by now you all know about hurricane Ike.  I worked quite a bit of overtime during the storm, so I'm not complaining, but I'd like to talk about this last week if I might.

Melissa and Katelyn have been gone since Thursday.  It's the longest I've ever been away from Melissa and the first time I've ever been away from Katelyn.  I miss them both so much.  I just found out they're coming home tomorrow, so at least it will be better soon.  It's been weird being all alone for so long - it'll end up being 11 days total.  That's a long time.  I've been surviving, so don't freak out (thanks very much).  Many friends and family members have been watching out for me, and for the hospitality, I thank you.

We got power back here on Sunday afternoon, so we haven't really been hurting over here.  I did have to throw away everything in my refrigerator; that wasn't fun.  It's a pretty depressing sight.  A lot of people in my Academy class still don't have power.

So yeah, I went and saw Traitor.  It's a pretty good movie.  It's a little strange because it's coming from the viewpoint of Islamic terrorists, and they're not usually portrayed as the "good guys."  NOTE: I'm not putting personal feelings about this, because I don't want to start a discussion.  I'm just saying it was strange to see it from that viewpoint.  Pretty good movie overall.  I'm excited to watch "Righteous Kill" when I get a chance.  It's a Robert DeNiro/ Al Pacino movie about some cops.  Can't go wrong there, huh? :)

Well, only have 9 weeks left in the academy - very excited about that.  Means we've got a total of 44 working days left.  I know, you're thinking, "isn't 9 weeks of 5 days equal 45?"  Yes, it does, but we have Veteran's Day off.

OK, going to bed now.  I had thought about making a nice long post, but I'm just too tired.  Later,

$

Can You Believe It?

Surprise!!  I'm not dead!!  It has truly been forever since my last post.  I don't even remember the last time I posted.  Yes, I could have checked, but I didn't feel like it.  So how have you been?  If you're reading this, then yes, I mean you.  Please, leave a response involving my question.  Don't leave me feeling alone and unwanted.

So gosh, what all has happened since I last posted??  I am in the police academy right now.  We're in week 15, and good grief it's hard!  I can't go into detail as to what we're doing, but believe me it IS hard.  I'm learning so much I can hardly process all of it.  I'm not allowed to post pictures yet, or I'd do that, so just imagine me in a very professional uniform.

Here's weird for you:  I am listening to (and of course singing with) John Mayer.  Yeah, I used to think he looked like a crazy strung-out druggie, but since he cut his hair and started dating Jennifer Aniston, I figured he seems pretty normal, and he really has some pretty good music.

Have you ever watched an episode of FRIENDS?  It's my favorite TV show ever, and I only got to watch it for the last couple seasons.  Yeah, we weren't allowed to watch it when we were younger.  I understand why, because it's not exactly a show about role models, but it's funny and I connect with the characters.

So Katelyn is Four and a half Months old now!  She's getting so big now.  I don't have any pictures with me right now, but I'm sure there are plenty on Melissa's blog (check my LINKS list on the right).  She found her toes last week and figured out how to roll over.  It's so stinkin' cute.  I can't believe how fast it's going.

Wanna hear something weird?  I can't think of a whole lot to talk about!  Yeah, well I used to catch my inspiration from my job and things I read online while I was "working."  I can't really talk about what's going on at my job now, so it's kinda hard to think of stuff to talk about.

...

...

...

OK, someone leave a comment and give me a topic to talk about.  If I'm gonna keep this blog going, I'm gonna need a topic to work with.  Help me out people!!!

Later,

$

No, I'm not dead...

Dear Friends and Family,

Yes, I know it's been forever and you probably can't believe that I'm actually posting. Before you get your hopes up, I don't have that terrible much to talk about. The Academy is going well, but I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about on the internet. I'll find out later and tell you all about it. I can tell you that getting up at 4 AM every day is getting a little old. I get about four hours of sleep each night and if you've ever been a parent, you know that's pretty decent sleep, but I'd prefer at least two more hours than that. Melissa can testify that I'm doing my PT (Physical Training) because I am (finally) developing some nice muscles (Pictures to come later...maybe). :) We start our Skills training in about two weeks. Skills consist of Driving, Shooting, and Defensive Tactics. We are all very excited to get a break from the classroom and endless lectures. I have missed being able to update you all on totally random crap from my head all the time, but please know it's either take time to blog or spend time with my wife and daughter and they will always be more important.

So if you read melissa's blog (ordinaryexultations.blogspot.com) you'll see that katelyn is growing big and strong. She has recently discovered how to use her voice so sometime's we're blessed with some very cute cooing and other times with totally random screeching. she's not usually upset, just experimenting with her abilities I suppose.

Anyway, I'm going to go for now. Maybe once we start skills I'll put up a picture of me in my uniform. Hey, at least it would be something. Later,

$

For those of you that don't read other people's comments, James was "friendly" enough to update all of you on my life.  Thank you James.  Anyway, it inspired me to finally post.  I have been wanting to.  Don't think I've enjoyed torturing all of you by not posting.  I am so sorry my public.  I decided I would give you some pictures, and then I'll talk about how things have been going.

Here is a picture of some baby I saw in my car today.  She's pretty cute.  Ok so maybe she's mine.  That's right, who would have thought that half of me and half of Melissa could look so cute.  What's that, you all expected this?  Ok, well fine.  (Sigh) she's growing so big so fast.  It's speeding by.  Slow down child!  Parenting is awesome, but I don't think anyone can warn you enough.  They need to write  book about parenting called Everything they Forgot to Tell You.  Only problem with this book being that they would have to update it every six months.  They should make one of those for Marriage, too.  Again, the update rate would be a little much to keep up with.  In all seriousness though, life is awesome with my ladies.  I couldn't ask for a better home life.  My wife is the most incredible, beautiful, graceful, and patient woman in the entire world, and I love and appreciate her so much.  I'm so thrilled that Katelyn was born in time for Mother's Day.  I got her some nice stuff for tomorrow.  Ok, well I hope she thinks it's nice stuff.

I haven't talked about my motorcycle in a while, but I have added a new part, so I thought I'd mention in.  As you can see in the blurry picture (stupid cell phone), I have added a windshield to my Honda Rebel.  I think it makes the little bike look a little bigger.  It makes a huge difference on the highway, and I'm pretty sure it increases my gas mileage too.  Of course at 75 mpg, I'm sure not hurting.  I'm going to be using this bike a whole lot more in the future since I'll be driving to the Police Academy every day.  It's not that much longer of a morning commute - probably about 35 minutes now instead of 7.  Compared to some people I know that's a pretty short drive time, so I'm not complaining.  I've been so blessed by other people that this windshield is the first upgrade I've actually had to pay for.

Sweetheart, you can skip this section if you want to, because you hear so much about these every day.  I have new guns.  I sold my Glock 23 and bought a Glock 22 and a Glock 27.  For those of you that don't know (most of you), all three of the guns I just listed are all .40 caliber pistols.  The 22 is the full size model, the 23 is the compact, and the 27 is the sub-compact.  To recap in English, I got rid of the medium size and got the big and little sizes.  I'm going to use them for my duty and back up weapons when I work for HPD.  I have taken them to the range and they are wonderful.  The Glock 27 is the smallest pistol Glock manufactures.  It is TINY.  I can hide it anywhere.  Something I didn't include in the pictures is that the Glock 22 came with night sights.  They look like regular sights in the daylight, but if you get them in dim lighting or no lighting, they glow a very nice green color.

Glock 27

Glock 22

Both.

So in other news, I have finally quit my job at Best Access Systems, and I couldn't be happier about it.  After one month, I have been accepted into the Houston Police Academy.  I'm so excited to finally be on the road to Law Enforcement.  It's going to be six months before I'm on the streets, and a year until I can start doing extra jobs and fun stuff like that, but I'm working on it now.  I was so tired of waiting.  I can hardly believe that it's really happening.  I will have more to post on the academy once it starts of course.  I will keep you all updated.

I'm going to pick up dinner now (KFC, yummm), so I'll talk to you later.

$

She's Encaptured!!

My dear friends, it has been a while since the last post. I would apologize, but I've been so busy with the HPD hiring process, a hungry baby, and a tired wife that I just haven't had the time or energy to post. On the bright side, I have LOTS to talk about!

Item One: Katelyn has her days and nights mixed up. The poor thing sleeps all day long and eats all night long. She's getting better, and oh my gosh she's so cute when she sleeps. We have taken many more pictures and a few videos. Someday we're gonna be watching those videos with her future husband and she's going to wonder what was wrong with us.

Item Two: we had a lot of fun last week - we found termites in our apartment. We didn't know that's what they were at first - we just knew bugs in apartment = bad. We went to the front office and asked for help and they told us they couldn't do anything. Then they threw us out of the office. If you are ever looking for an apartment, don't choose Stonegate Villas - they don't care about you. Tell your friends. Anyway, it's been an issue - we had someone come out in 30 minutes and tell us it was termites, so I told the office on Saturday. They called me on Tuesday so say "we don't think they're really termites." Obviously that didn't sit well, so I told them to try again. They called me back with, "ok, they are termites, but we don't have anyone available to fix the problem - we'll try to squeeze you in on Wednesday." I got a call today to say "ok, our bug guy says they were blown in with the wind, so we can't do anything about it." Wonderful isn't it? So the way I see it, if no more bugs show up, we're ok. If bugs show back up, I'm going to capture some and set them loose in the front office and THEN see if they care. At least that's what I'd like to do...

Item Three: Polygraph tests are freaky! They put all this crap on you and then drill you for like two hours about lying. I was so freaked out the whole time. It's like walking through a metal detector - I'm always afraid of setting it off even though I have nothing to hide. Either way, I passed the test. Assuming HPD doesn't find anything in my background that I don't know about, I should be good to go. I'll be so glad to get out of this current job. It's almost hard to believe that in less than a month I could have my dream job. Here's to hoping it goes well!

Item Four: You're probably still wondering about the title to this post. The first week home with Katelyn was not a week of much sleep for Melissa or myself. It led to more than a couple cases of gibberish talk. Melissa tried to wake me up one night and I replied with "She's encaptured!!" I have no idea what that means. It's a product of sleep deprivation.

Item Five: If you haven't seen the movie Dan In Real Life, let me warn you - it's depressing. I watched it with Melissa the other night, and it left me so depressed by the end that I wanted to find a dark closet and hide from humanity. His character echoes so many feelings I used to have as a kid it's not even funny. Strangely enough, my parents love the movie. I dunno. I didn't like it. I liked the bloopers and the special feature on the soundtrack better than the actual movie. The music is good on that movie. Look up the artist - Sondre Lerche. He looks a little funny, but he's really good with a guitar and has a pretty good voice, too. I think I'm gonna get the soundtrack cuz it's all his music. Check it out.

I probably should get back to work, so I'm going to go for now. Leave a comment if you have any interesting news. Later,

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