It's been a month since I last posted an update. That's difficult to believe because it doesn't feel like it. Life has been busy lately. We've both been crazy-busy at work and we've been spending a lot of time with family and friends on the weekends. That's been awesome.

The economy is in the toilet, presidential candidates are jabbing at each other via the media and we still have troops in the mid-east, but life is still good. I have faith that these situations will be resolved, though who knows how and when. Jake and I both seem to have good job security at this point, so we're trying to pay off debt as quickly as possible, but other than that we're just trying to enjoy life.

I just can't think of anything terribly new or earth-shattering about which to post. The dogs are well, we are well, work is busy and we're looking forward to our first anniversary in exactly three months. :-) The plan is to go to Savannah for a few days and stay in the room where we stayed after the wedding on our anniversary (we can't afford it for the whole time). We will spend the majority of the time with friends we miss, but our anniversary will be just for us (at least the evening).

Just thinking of all the friends we'll see and places we'll visit make me homesick. We would both go back to Savannah in a heartbeat if we could find jobs that would support us and grow our careers there, but I think we are doomed to be away until retirement. However, we will enjoy seeing everything that has changed and everything that has remained the same since we were there last. My agenda includes The Davenport House, Sushi Zen, The Rail Pub, Kevin Barry's (probably more than once), Mercury Lounge, Belford's, River Street, Tybee and so many more. Jake, I'm sure, has a couple of places to add. :-) We'll both think of more before we arrive, but I doubt we can do all of it in four days. That just gives us an excuse to go back as soon as possible. :-)

Well, Jake needs to hop on the computer to make hotel reservations for a business trip, so I am going to get out of his way. Hope you are all doing well!!

HAPPY WEDDING DAY!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations! I know that your wedding will be beautiful and I hope that you are able to truly enjoy it. It's a day that goes so quickly, but that's why you have pictures! Congrats again to the VERY soon to be pronounced husband and wife!!!!!!

I am outraged at the moment. A death row inmate sentenced to death in Tennessee requested that his final meal be a pizza and that it be given to a homeless person - the state DENIED his request!!!!!!!!! WTF?!?!? This man may be a convicted killer, but that was an honorable last request and I can not believe that the state denied such a gesture. The guy had been in prison since 1982 and claimed that he was a junkie at the time he supposedly killed a police officer in a robbery; he claimed to be a born-again Christian and to have reformed himself in prsion. While I don't think that this is a reason for him to be released from prison or even pardoned from his execution, I DO think that his last request should be honored.

What was Tennessee's excuse you might ask? A state representative said that while taxpayers would give the state government permission to spend up to $20 on a last meal, they would not give them permission to make donations to charity. Did they ask? NO. I would guess that Tennessee taxpayers would RATHER their money go to purchase a pizza for a homeless person than to feed a convicted murderer on the eve of their execution.

I am almost speechless.

I realized that it's once again been a while since I updated. Life has been extremely busy and I really haven't had much about which to write. One odd trend that I have noticed lately is that people from my past are coming out of the woodwork in decent numbers. Some of these people are welcome renewals of contact and others are unwelcome intrusions by people with whom I have no desire to ever have contact with again.

What possesses people to think that when you parted on bad terms many years ago that they can just waltz back into your life like nothing happened? One person who contacted me started the message with "This is an old friend..." when they had not been a friend in over a decade. That was a "friendship" that ended very badly and I told them to forget I existed. Mind you, this person always had a tendency to stretch the truth to the breaking point so I shouldn't really be surprised. He was not of the caliber of the friends that I have kept company with in my post-divorce years.

I suppose that I must comment on the Virginia Tech tragedy. I have my opinions, but I will only share one aspect of them. I think that it is sick that the news is displaying all of the information, pictures and video from the killer's manifesto. He is a coward and should get no publicity/fame/infamy for his actions. Only one news web site has profiles of the victims. Fox News has an article that tells about the victims and this is the kind of publicity that I feel should be spread. Tell us about the innocent people who died and shed light on the talent, skills and personalities that the world lost on Monday. Honor their memory by celebrating their life and mourning their death. I understand, having taken multiple journalism classes in college, that the media is responsible or reporting the news and the facts, but that could be done without the kind of sensationalism that is occurring. There is no need to release the video for the families of the victims to be tortured by it regardless of to which channel they turn. There are people truly mourning not only for those lost, but for the countless others affected both directly and remotely and it is disrespectful to them and the victims to bombard them with video of the person who caused that pain and grief.

Okay, I think I'm finished with that. Now it's time to move on to happier things. The wedding plans are going nicely. The save-the-date announcements are in the mail, or at least will be by tomorrow as I am sending them from work. I ordered the cake stand for the wedding cake this week and it should arrive soon. We are going to Savannah in June to finalize the reception decorations and then finalize the floral plans as a result. That's about all that's going on there, I think. The plans are well ahead of schedule and I'm thrilled about that. I have ordered my dress and it will be here in a few months - Yay!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DWEEZIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so the deal is that Michael J. Fox is campaigning for candidates who support stem cell research this election. The reason is that stem cell research is one of the best possible avenues to find a cure for Parkinson's. Now, I applied for a position with the Michael J. Fox Foundation when I was planning to move to Boston, so I actually have some fairly fresh information on all of this, as I did my research. I also looked into even more recent research because I thought someone I know may have Parkinson's - it doesn't appear that's the case, but researching the disease is how I came to that conclusion.

Anyway, back to Fox. He's filmed ads that are running in some states in which he did not take his medication and therefore exhibits severe Parkinson's symptoms. Many of you may remember that Fox went before Congress a couple of years ago and did not take his medication in order to illustrate how devastatingly this disease affects individuals who have it. No one questioned his motives or attacked him for that, he was actually praised for letting Congress and the public see what the disease has done to him and what it does to others. The second that he takes the same action to campaign for candidates that support stem cell research, Rush Limbaugh has to step up to the plate and be an idiot. Here's what he said:



"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told his listeners during Tuesday's program. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

Amendment 2 would provide state constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research. The amendment also would ban cloning and egg harvesting for stem cell research.

Limbaugh asserts, however, that language in the bill — a reference to somatic cell nuclear transfer — is just another term for cloning.

"Ludicrous," is how John Boockvar, a neurosurgeon and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical Center at New York's Presbyterian Hospital, described Limbaugh's claim.



The above text is from an article on Foxnews.com. Here's the link in case you want to read it in its entirety: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,224738,00.html

I just can't believe that Rush Limbaugh would DARE accuse Michael J. Fox of acting as if his symptoms are worse than they are!!!!!!!!!! If he knew anything about Parkinson's, he would know that it affects the central nervous system and that no un-medicated Parkinson's patient has control over their movements, much less the ability to purposely exaggerate them.

Okay, I just had to get that off my chest. I try not to get into politics, but this was more about the audacity of this man to make such an uneducated and uninformed attack on someone who is trying to find a cure for this debilitating disease.

Well, I arrived in my new home city yesterday. So far, things are going well. I got to Matt's apartment yesterday and he went to lunch with me and Mama. Mama left after lunch and Matt and I went over to his friend David's place to hang out with some friends of Matt's for a while. They were nice guys, so I've already met a couple of new people.

Later, Matt showed me around our area of Norcross and we went to Publix (Yay for a good grocery store close to the house!). After that, we came home and I put my stuff away and got settled. Matt went out and I just chilled at the new casa. My friend Janna had a work thing, so we weren't able to go to dinner as planned, but now that I live here we'll have plenty of chances.

Today, I got up and went to church with Matt. It was an interesting experience because the church was a satellite location, so the music was live, but the sermon was remote-broadcast. It was different, but I actually really liked it. The pastor is an excellent speaker and he incorporated history into his sermon. I will only go to a church if I find the sermons interesting and, for me that means incorporating one of my interests outside of spirituality; for example, one pastor in college incorporated baseball into his sermons and it worked well. I enjoyed his preaching and went every Sunday until he retired. Anyway, I do plan to go to this church again, but I'll visit others as well. I had planned to find a church in Boston and I am going to follow that plan, just in Atlanta. I'm finally in a place in my life where I want a home church - I don't have to go every Sunday, but I want a place I can go and feel at home.

Matt went out hiking with a friend after church, so here I am alone again. He left me the car, so I plan to go to Publix later and probably Best Buy as well. I have decided to invest in a GPS device to help me learn my way around Atlanta. That and it will be nice to have later if I need to go to a part of town that I don't know well. I called a friend to come help me navigate, but have not heard back from him yet. No big deal, I'll strike out on my own shortly if he doesn't call.

Tomorrow is when I hope to stop by a couple of places and put in applications. I need to get a job as soon as I can to start making money and the professional position will have to come when it comes. So far, I'm not seeing a lot of positions available in my field, but the job market sucks everywhere right now. I'm actually considering selling jewelry, but am worried about deviating that much from my chosen field. I have to face the fact that I need to pay the bills and make a little extra and I may not be able to find a job in my field that will do that right now. We'll see what happens.