Change is Gonna Come

My blogs are getting boring. I am feeling the same things from day to day. I am tired of writing about them. I wrote a new song today, and I feel the giddiness, the sheer exhilirating delight that I have felt many times, but never EVER get tired of feeling. I have already tried to put it into words here, but words always fail me. As important and powerful as I know words to be, I know that they are inadequate in all too many situations. As far as what I'm feeling, words cannot express. So I may have to take a break from blogging my personal life for a hot minute. I think I will focus on my Christianity blog.

I'm listening to my new baby (I have named her, "Sexy") as I've been typing, and I...

see what I mean.

Life is Good.

In a nutshell...

pith·y (pth)
adj. pith·i·er, pith·i·est
1. Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief: a pithy comment.
2. Consisting of or resembling pith.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pithy

"A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."
~William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style, 1918

"Good things, when short, are twice as good."
~Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom


The muse was upon me. I got the idea for a poem. I sat, grabbed a pen and parchment, and proceeded to write. I regard my concoction with affection and scorn. It was too long. What was I really trying to say? So I whittled it away, and this is what I came up with.

You try
You fail.

I try
I prevail.

You try
You fail
You moan
and wail.

I try
I fail
I regroup
And travail
I assail
until
I
prevail.

No Doubt, Love

Finals are over. I don't resume until Jan. 9th. What this means is not rest, but merely diverting my effort into different areas. I have agree to do a website for a lady in Texas, and I need to get that done. I need to paint some rooms in this house, so it feels more like a home. I need to stay on my children's behinds, because they are all getting a little too obstreperous for my tastes, and a father, a real, involved, renaissance man type of father is supposed to make sure kids understand that law and order ain't just a TV show. A father, a daddy, whatever you want to call him, is supposed to hug you and kiss you cause you're his child, but also raise his _________

A: voice
B: eyebrow
C: hand
D: wooden spoon
E: switch off the tree outside
F: any and or all of the above

when the situation calls for it. I'm 'the meanest old Daddy in the world' (to borrow a recent phrase from my 4 year old) when I have to be, and by the looks of things, I have to be.

As I was saying, the quarter is over, and I have amazed even myself. I took four courses, and in two of them I pulled off a feat I have never even considered theoretically possible. I scored 100% on every test, quiz assignment, paper -you name it- for the entire quarter. Final grades of 100% with no extra credit in not one, but two classes. I've never heard of anyone doing that. I can harldy believe it. Last quarter, in Object Oriented Programming, I got like a 103%, because I was in the zone and went the extra mile for all the extra points. However, this is unprecedented, and I must say I am very pleased with myself. Maybe I'm not such a screwup after all. In my other two classes, I got A's as well, nothing lower than a 96%. This should give hope to all the parents of underachieving children. I never made straight A's once I got out of 4th grade. In fact, I bought home quite a few C's, D's and even F's. But now, I am actually living up to my potential. For someone who is traditionally skeptical and very hard on himself... man! I'm not going to dwell on it though.

My in-laws are coming down tomorrow and will be here until after New Year's. We'll see how this goes. I don't know what to expect. I will try and manifest the fruit of the Spirit in season and out of season, as always. It's all good. I should probably be cleaning right now. Yeah, that's a good idea. Go clean, fat boy! I can throw on Harlem Nights while cleaning downstairs and remember the late, great, dearly departed Richard Pryor. He was the man. For all you trivia buffs, he was born in Illinois, just like yours truly.

Teetering on the Edge of Madness and/or Glory

It's late, or early, however you want to look at it. I took my CIS 276, Introduction to Oracle final. Four and a half hours. I have a 97% in the class up to this point, but the final is weighted so that by my calculations, I need a 75 to escape with my A. Anyway less and I pull a B. A freaking B?!?!?!!?!?!!!? I struggled mightily in this class early on, but rallied heroically from that point onward. Now I wonder if it was all in vain. So why am I so worried?

Because that test was harder than my moms on report card day. I know I should just relax, but until that guys grades the exams and posts the results, I'm going to be producing enough gastric acid to dissolve a bucket of stainless steel rivets. At least I've got this funky new mix to abide with me. I took "Leaving the World Behind" and FREAKED it. It's almost enough of a consolation should I earn a B in this stupid course.

Almost.

The Outcome is the Same

When you don't know where to begin, any old place will do. I got a 95 on my paper, the one I started on its due date. I'm pleased and disgusted with myself. I've got to get out of that habit. One day it is really going to bite me in the behind. Oh well. After we turned in our papers and did a quick finals review, Prof. Clark turned over the class to me and I lectured/conducted a lab in web design and HTML for my classmates, who are all business majors, not IT majors. It went pretty well, although there are definitely some things I will change the next time I am at the podium. I got positive feedback from everyone, but I am so critical of myself that I couldn't get overly excited. Still, how many students get to teach their classmates and professor? That was pretty special.

This is finals week, and out of four, I have taken one so far. I will take a second later today (in my Oracle course), and do my Sociology one this weekend. The only one then remaining will be on Tuesday. I need to focus just for a few more days, then maybe I can vegetate. Next quarter doesn't start until January 9th. I need to put up a tree, and maybe decorate the exterior with Christmas lights. I dunno though. I wonder if we can afford it. Things are getting a little tight around here. I know that is a relative term, but for this household, it is just a cold fact. Do I need to jack up my electric bill for artifice? To participate in something I don't even believe in? Getting a tree was a major concession for me. I didn't want to perpetuate the soup sandwich mythology of Christmas, but I allowed a tree for my children's sake. I still don't go all overboard, and there's no way in hell I'm going into debt buying gifts for people (like I see so many people doing). I don't know. We bought a bunch of stuff last year after Christmas when it was dirt cheap, and know, I need to evaluate whether we can afford to actually take them out of their pretty packages and use them. This house costs a lot to heat. Homeowners associate fees are due the first week of Jan., which means 400 bones gone. Both the car and the van have been in the shop recently for significant work, and the kids have been sick. The doctor's visits and medicine are not cheap. To top it off, my wonderful school is hassling me for more money, like they don't charge enough already. Turns out, a Pell Grant I thought I was getting is not coming, so the amount I have to come up with has increased. Great.

Still, I am not depressed, not in a funk. Just looking and analyzing. Can't bury my head in the sand and ignore it. I am the head of this household, I need to be prepared for whatever may come. If lack comes, let it come. If prosperity comes, let it come.

Here We Go Again!

...the same old stuff again!
Marching down the avenue!
8 more weeks and we'll be through!
Sound off! 1...2...
Sound it off! 3...4...
Break it on down!
1 2 3 4
1 2
3 4!
-Old Navy and Marine Corps marching cadence

It's 11:16, and I have a research paper due at 6PM this evening. I have yet to start. I swear, I must be like that guy in Mike Tyson's PunchOut, Mr. Sandman. He would throw lazy jabs at you and if you were good, you could tear him up for a little while. But once you got two knockdowns on him (and thus only needed one more for a TKO), he would shake off the cobwebs, say "Showtime!" and proceed to unleash flurry after flurry until you were on your back, dazed and confused. I've got to stop this. I'm still not writing the paper, I'm blogging! Now I'm Googling for a pic of old Sandman. Madness. Hey, I found one! See y'all later after I score this A!!

The NBA...It's Fannnnntastic!

This is my first year playing fantasy hoops, and after a rough start, I'm starting to get the hang of it. My team has taken over the #1 position in the league for the first time. You can't imagine how happy I am. You've got to learn to derive joy from the little things in life, because the big things are often few and far between. So today, I'm happy because I'm #1, if only in my fantasy basketball world. I'll take it.

My team consists of Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Ray Allen,Michael Redd, Vince Carter, Lamar Odom, Shane Battier, Stromile Swift, Damon Stoudamire, Eric Dampier, Zach Pachulia, Bonzi Wells, and I just added Charlie Villanueva, a rookie from U Conn who is playing well up in Toronto. Woohoo!!!!

Do the Thing

You can't show yo' stuff
If you don't know yo' stuff
If you don't know yo' stuff
You can't hold yo' stuff

If you don't learn yo' stuff
You can't earn yo' stuff
And if you can't turn yo' stuff
Into mo stuff
Then you'll find yo' stuff
Sho' nuff
ain't enough.