So my daughter Alivia is now almost 19 months old and is really starting to learn a lot of new stuff about life.  It’s fun to watch little kids learn and experiment with new things, and you have to wonder what they are thinking sometimes.  For example Alivia has learned that pinching someone or herself hurts.  So you would think that she would not intentionally do something that causes pain…especially to herself.  Not my crazy kid.  She now likes to run around the house pinching herself  screaming OOOUUCHHH with a crazy angry look on her face.  I think she might be into self mutilation or something.  Either way its funny to watch, but a little disturbing too.  This is also her new way to tell Brooke and I that she is upset at us along with slapping her face and pulling her hair. She will also try to scratch or pinch our faces if she can get ahold of us.  But were gonna put a stop to that real quick.  Fun times are coming for sure.  She’s got some of mommas additude.

I have found that a great place for kids to learn the ropes about life is at the playground.  Today we went to Clifton Commons  and she wanted to push the baby swing. After the first big push the swing came back and smacked her in the face.  Looking at me with a puzzled face she pushed the swing again and the same result happened. This made her angry and she grabbed the swing by both hands and threw it as hard as she could…well you can figure out what happened next.   Smack…no actually she’s already lost one tooth so I stepped in and grabbed the swing this time, but she still didn’t understand what was happening.   She then she wanted to go play with the snow they leave outside the skating rink. It was all good until her hands started to get really cold and she started crying. I didnt bring gloves so I would warm them up with my shirt and she would grab another piece of snow, start to cry after a few seconds and run back to me again. This happened about three or four times until she finally gave up and wanted to go home. I would guess she learned a little bit about cause and effect today, but we’ll see what happens next time we go to the park.

Oh and on a side note Brooke slammed me pretty good today.  I was holding a page from Men’s Health that had a workout on it and commented to Brooke that I wondered if I would look like the guy in the pictures if I just did this workout.  She looked at me straight faced and said “you already do” paused for a second and then started to crack up. I didn’t find it funny and she said “no, you really do…almost…except for the big muscles” and started to crack up again.  Don’t worry Brooke  yours is coming just wait.

So Brooke and I took a tour of the State Police Academy down in Albany this past Thursday.  A trooper who we know was nice enough to take time out of his day to show us around.   It was very interesting to see how everything is done, but definitely made me a little nervous as well as excited.  It is run just like a military boot camp and everything is extremely strict. You must walk in straight lines everywhere and salute all officers. Your room must be perfect all the time with things like your shoes all pointing out on the shelves, your closet door has to be exactly 3 inches open, soap has to be standing on end on the sink. Oh and you can’t close your door until after 10pm, so no privacy at all, not that you’d have any with up to 3 roommates anyway. So that would be a HUGE adjustment from life as it know it now.  No relaxing on the couch at night with a beer playing video games and wrestling with Alivia.  No sleeping in my nice big bed with Brooke next to me, just 3 other guys in separate bunk beds.  Plus I will most likely be one of the oldest recruits since the cutoff date is 30.  I’ll be trying to keep up with guys in thier early to mid twenties who still haven’t started feeling the effects of aging on thier joints. LOL  So for those of you who don’t know yet, once you hit about 28 everything is a little stiffer and cracks a little more.  I’m sure I’ll be dubbed the “old man” of the class and have something to prove from the get go.

Oh yeah, the biggest shock was that they have computers in the rooms with internet connection, but they aren’t allowed to use it! You can’t even call anyone during the week. So for six months its weekends only with the family.  I guess that would be better though since you want to focus completely on academy.

One thing that was a bad idea to do was check out the memorial wall when we first got there.  They have this room with pictures of all the fallen troopers and a book with the stories of how they died.  Not a good idea to have let Brooke read through it.  It was interesting though that about two thirds of the deaths happened because of automobile accidents or freak accidents, not violent deaths at the hands of a criminal. Either way I hope it doesn’t happen to me.

So if this whole thing pans out I will hopefully be called to take a Physical Fitness and Psyc Test around December/January.  Then if I make it through the whole process and get selected the next class will start in August of 2009.  Kinda a long way off, but atleast I will have plenty of time to get in better shape.  And after taking Brookes bootcamp class this morning I definitly am not in as good shape as I thought. So for the next several months it’s gonna be pushups and situps until I can do them in my sleep. That way I will be ready for the Testing and not blow it like so many people do cause of nerves.

So at first the experience was kinda sureal and like I was visiting a sort of hardcore college, but once I saw the recruits walking down the halls it had a different feeling.  This is one of the toughest police academies in the nation and only a small percentage of people make it in, and even a smaller percentage actually graduate.  That was a reality check for me and made me really think “wow,  could I really make it through this?”  But that’s what intreages me to the position.  It’s a challenge and is something that will push me to my limits both physically and mentally.  Probably more mentally than physically this will challenge me because, my nature is to be very laid back and passive. I have always tried to avoid conflict if possible and that is something that has always bugged me and I have struggled with to fix my entire life. Being a trooper  will definately force me to change that personality characteristic, which is a big reason I am looking to do this. In a way it will be my right of passage into a meaningful career and will establish an important part of who I am as an adult.  Since gratuating from college I have been working in sales and have always felt that I have not been working at my real calling. I have never gained any real satisfaction from my work, and felt like I was wasting time and my real purpose was to do something different.  There has always been a burning desire to do something  that really matters, to be someone whom people looked up to and appreaciated. And to have a career that was both fulfilling and exciting.  Work has been the one major void or empty spot in my life.  I know having a relationship with Christ is what your suppossed to fill your void with, but this is different. If you have read Wild at Heart you will know what I am talking about. This will be the beginning of  my life  adventure that every guy has  that burning desire for that never fades or dies out until you act upon it.  So I’m sure that this will be the most difficult and proudest accomplishment of my life (outside of being a father that is.)

Well since last weekend was Brooke and my 4 year anniversary I figured I would let everyone know why she is so great.  I actually came up with an  word  or words for every letter of her name.  I know there’s a name for that, but I can’t remember what it is. So here goes, probably not the best words or sentences but oh well.

B eautiful bodacious babe

R idiculously hot

O utstanding mother

O MG- how did I land her

K icks all other wifes butts

E verything I ever wanted.

So basically what I was trying to get across is that I got the best wife ever so you should all be jealous, unless your a girl. Then you should be jealous that you don’t have as good a husband as me. Ha just kidding, I suck at being a husband most of the time.

Oh by the way if your looking for a nice little place to go on a date theres a new bar/restraraunt call “It’s Confidential” off Caroline St in Saratoga is pretty decent.  Chill live music and not really crowded or loud if you go before 10. Pretty low priced too.

So since we’ve upgraded to windows vista it’s screwed up pretty much every program I have and I can no longer download videos off my video camera directly into movie maker, because I have to use the windows XP verson and not the Vista updated version since i dont have a good enough video card.  Since I can’t do that I cannot change the quality of the video to make the file small enough to fit on YouTube…Jon Wise maybe you can help me out because I’m about to pull my hair out trying to figure out why it won’t let me do.  So anyway I have another video I uploaded about a year ago that will work…enjoy the knowledge that I have gained from marriage.

So I had to switch to wordpress and give up my blogger.com site because apparently they think I am a spammer and blocked the account.  The good news is I figured out that the reason I kept getting my blog name rejected with wordpress is that you cannot have any spaces in the heading.  Would have been nice if they told me that, but oh well.

Anyway, as promised before I will put up the very first marriage documentary video from nearly 4 years ago. As you will see I was still young and handsome, not the weathered 30 year old I am now. I am also going to repost the first blog from my other site for those of you who didn’t get to read it.

Here is my first blog from the other page:

So after a year or so of blogging being the newest rage I decided to catch up with the rest of society and start a blog. It is something I wouldn’t have done on my own, but since my wife Brooke kept asking me to read hers and saying I should start my own as a new media for my marriage documentary I figured what the heck.
Anyway, I gotta say so far I am not thrilled with this blogging stuff as I had some trouble even getting this whole thing set up. I originally tried setting this up through “wordpress.com” which is what everyone else seems to use, but I think it rejected me. I was literally about 2 seconds from sticking my fist through the screen and kicking the crap out of my computer because it kept saying “you must use all lower case letters and no numbers for your blog name”. The thing is I WAS USING ALL LOWER CASE LETTERS. Meanwhile Brooke is making matters worse by repeatedly saying “maybe you just need to refresh the page” which I did like 8 times. Also, my daughter Alivia who is up two hours past her bed time is hanging on my arm whining/screaming “mommy- bite, mommy, mommy, biiitte” as she is trying to shove apple wedges in my mouth. Mommy is what she now calls me when she wants something. I’m extremely thrilled about that one. So, anyway I decided I hated wordpress and would take my blogging elsewere, which brings me here.

For those of you who don’t know about my marriage documentary I will fill you in later and post some video, since that’s what it originally started as. Hopefully most of you will find it humorous and even helpfull. I’m sure some of you will find some of them slightly offensive, but I really don’t care, just don’t watch them then.

So until next time here’s some advice make sure to say “bye bye pee pee” as you flush. That’s what Alivia does when brooke or I use the bathroom and its way funner that way.

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