I don’t know why, but early in December while praying and thinking about where I was in life and where I was heading I got an overwhelming feeling that the coming year was going to be a defining year that will mark a change in my life. I’m not talking about something small like moving to a new home or buying a new car, though both are potential events. What I am seeing is a year that will be hard and monumental like building the Hoover Dam. Staples in my life that compose the daily ritual of my life will be redirected. Long term projects in my life will be coming to an end and new ones will take their place. My whole essence is being challenged.

What am I babbling about? Well, for starters, I defined both a one and a five year plan. It was something that I felt strongly about. A multi-decade study published last December stated the least happy people in society were those who, like me, just drifted through life. I remember reading that truly successful people always have a vision, clearly defined goals, and a plan to get there. For the first time in my life, I have defined my vision, built a list of goals, and devised a rough plan to accomplish them. Little did I know that my wife would react so positively. Apparently, she’s been looking for some direction from me. The plan keeps revising and defining and is already starting to action.

Next, a project that I began in 1996 will finally draw to a close this year. I am, of course, talking about my undergraduate college career. After fourteen years I am ready to hang that degree up! I have only have eight more classes over the next 40 more weeks before it will all be over. I am also starting to seriously look as at an EMBA program.

There are a number of other things to add to this, but some I am not ready to divulge and others will be saved for another post as the plan takes more shape.

Well, Christie’s partial hysterectomy went well and she has recovered nicely. It turns out that she was plagued by the onset of a genetic condition called Adenomyosis. We happy we made the right call and thank God for his wisdom and guidance in this difficult decision. We are also thankful for the clean surgery and rapid recovery. The day after surgery, Christie was already feeling much better than the entire couple months leading up to the surgery.

While Christie was down with pain before and recovery needs after the surgery, I got to play nurse, single-parent, cleaner, launder, chef, chauffeur, and referee. Thankfully, I had four days of help in the middle from my mother-in-law who flew down from Tulsa. She helped keep me sane during the hardest part of the last three weeks.

As it turned out, just after Christie gets home from surgery, James, our two year old took an ant bite to the bottom. I treated it as a normal bite would be, however, is became infected. The swelling grew to cover his entire butt cheek and he began to fever. We knew the moment he fired up a fever that our conventional efforts were for naught and so I took him to the doctor.

That is where the complexity of the week jumped about 3 levels. Our doctor took one look and then told me to go across the street to a surgeon’s office. He looked at it for about 10 seconds and inquired about when the last time James ate happened to be. He frowned when I told him that we ate lunch before going to the doctor. That meant James had to wait until the morning to have the abscess on his rump cut out.

Now, I have James check into the hospital for the next 3 days and Christie at home in bed dopped up on pain meds, and I have 2 very confused young toddlers, and I have my own personal worries, stresses, and fears all bearing down on me at once. If it was not for my mother-in-law making herself available to help during those few days, I would have succumb to a personal breakdown. Thank you to Sherry’s boss for letting her leave to come help.

Now, another week and a half later everything is starting to return to normal. Christie is off her pain killers after a few days of withdrawal symptoms. The crater on Jame’s butt cheek is smaller each day and now he does not even flinch when it is cleaned off. The other two toddlers survived my care somehow. As for me, I am happily back at work. While I did not intend to do it all in a single week, we have met this years maximum family deductible on our health insurance. Sadly, the credit card that was fully paid off a few months ago is now maxed out again. And I am looking forward to vacation, except I’ve used all my vacation for this year, so I need to plan for something early next year; maybe a ski trip or something. Any suggestions?

Today my wife had surgery for a partial hysterectomy. Though she has a few weeks of recovery to go, she is now free of many of those annoyances that she’s dealt with every 4 weeks. More than that, though, she is free from the pain that plagued her every month and has been growing more intense and lasting longer and longer until it just never went away. Upon opening her up, the doctor discovered that she had some condition inside her uterine wall that was the source of all the problems. So, cheers to Christie’s independence and sayonara to that pesky ball of pain.

In case you haven’t heard of the woman that murdered a young pregnant woman to steal her unborn baby last week in Oregon, then check out the 1300 news articles from around the world here. Now, to my best friend and former roommate, your family is in our prayers. I appreciated hearing your niece’s story of the tranformation power of God’s saving grace. I look forward to seeing Oregon catching up legally with the rest of the nation in charging for the murder of the unborn baby when a pregnant woman is killed. May the comfort of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

dailymail.co.uk article

WOOT! I’m going to miss David Tennant who I found to be the best television personality to grace my television ever. I hope BBC America doesn’t dilly-dally with the Hamlet film that he is doing along with Patrick Stewart.

Here’s hoping the next Doctor is good. If not, at least that new actress they cast is freakin’ hot!

Welcome to the new digital media age. Now, more than ever, it is amazingly easy to follow me around the web. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and a number of instant messengers link people strait to me nearly every moment of every day. I’ve added links to my profiles on each of the social networking sites. Just scroll down the menus on the right and you’ll see the links listed under Ambianceforce Links. Also, on top of the Meebo instant messenger module on this very page, you can find me on every major IM. Just search for ambianceforce. Trust me, my online name is pretty unique so it isn’t hard to find me.

…was a blast. We we there all day yesterday and it was a blast. We didn’t even get to do half the stuff there. It will definitely be a return experience next year and we’ll probably have to spend more than a couple days there in order to really experience it. It did prove to be one of the most relaxing days I’ve had in recent memory. The fresh country air, the gorgeous scenery, the friendly people, and the ambiance of the entire 16th century setting was great. I need more days like that!

The new Star Trek movie is awesome. It is definitely worth the ticket price. Its one of the most engrossing and enjoyable movies I’m seen in a while. With a play time of just over 2 hours, I was so absorbed that I could have sworn 15 minutes before the end of the movie I thought we were only half way through. Imagine my surprise when I scoped out my watch.

For the purists that say JJ Abrams is ruining the original Trek “canon”; well, the changes are readily explained in the movie. (This is the only spoiler I will discuss at this time, and only because of its essential meaning to the history of Trek.) While time paradoxes and diverging timelines resulting from changes to the time stream are not new plot elements to Trek, the story usually finds a way to fix or reverse the damage to the timeline. Not in this movie.

JJ Abrams uses a brilliant plot element to essentially create his own personal split-off Trek universe where he is free of the 40 years of Trek canon that many fans have strong-armed the Trek franchise into following. Free of this heavy burden, Abrams can embrace the spirit, glory, and characters of Star Trek while writing his own canon. Kudos to Abrams on a job well done.

In keeping with my above promise, I will stop here and reveal no more. Suffice it to say, this movie gets my full recommendation. Enjoy!

by they didn’t flu into our house. The kids have a virus, but not the swine flu… err… the H1N1 influenza virus. Yes, gotta love the government PR machine. Swine flu apparently sounds scary while H1N1 is just confusing. Oh well.

Well, sitting here in the fine city of Plano on the north side of Dallas I find myself in an awkward moment in time. For all the times I said “When pigs fly,” I now have to eat those promises. Why? You see, pig flu has invaded Texas by way of Mexico. With fluing pigs everywhere, I don’t know what to do. We’re going to try and take Timothy into the doctor tomorrow as he has been sick for a couple days. At first, it didn’t seem too important, but now he is starting to act like the symptoms described on the news, so we’re a little worried. At least it is easily treated. Several schools have already closed down around here and more are announced each day. May-fest was canceled the day before it was to open leaving all the vendors packing up and heading home. And I am going to brave the 10 mile line at the doctor’s office with my son in my arms hoping that flying pigs haven’t invaded his body as well. If it has, we all get to enjoy a week of in-home quarantine. Wish us luck that the pigs didn’t fly down our chimney…