Tuesday, April 28, 2009

its almost official

I now have 3 things in North Carolina:
  1. a job
  2. an NC driver's license
  3. a car that is registered in NC
Soon we'll have a 4th - a place to live. I'm living here in Chapel Hill because I'm already working, but in 2 weeks, we'll all be living here as a family. Crazy stuff! The reason I say its crazy is because this has been a long time coming and there were times when we never thought we'd see the end. We've been planning this move for almost 9 months and 5 of those months have been spent living in Jo's parents basement.

If anybody's interested, here's a really brief sketch of the past 3/4 year:
In early-August of last year we visited Chapel Hill as a family then a couple of weeks later made the decision to move here. I also started looking for jobs then. In October we put our house in Drexel Hill, PA on the market and in early December it sold. Since I had no job, we moved to Roanoke, VA, not our destination, but a nice enough place to bide our time. I got really serious about the job hunt in early January. With some great encouragement from my wonderful wife, I decided in late January to pursue certification as a personal trainer. After much preparation, I was certified in early March. Then a week and a half ago, a friend offered to let us stay in his house for most of the summer AND I was hired as a personal trainer, all within like 2 days. And now, after having lived in my in-laws basement for almost 5 months, we are seeing our plans come to fruition.

In retrospect, things certainly didn't happen like we thought they would. They didn't happen according to our timetable either. But they happened just the same. What I mean is that regardless of what has happened since August of last year, we have almost achieved our goal of moving to Chapel Hill. And seeing the way things have happened, the scenario is definitely better than what I could have come up with. As cliche as it may sound, God is good and He is in control. I've learned over the last 9 months how true these things are and that I really believe them. Now its time to settle in and start yet another new phase of life.

Friday, April 17, 2009

words of the day

Job
Sample sentence: "I now have a job."

Move

Sample sentence: "In a couple of weeks we will move to Chapel Hill."

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Imperial Stormtroopers

Some people are really into Stormtroopers. Here are a couple of Stormtrooper photos I've come across lately:

But for my money, nothing could be more fun than a dancing Stormtrooper:


Click here for Stormtroopers in everyday life.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Låt den rätte komma in

My love affair with Scandanavia continues with my watching last night of Let The Right One In, a Swedish film. Its a vampire film, but it exceeds most vampire films by leaps and bounds. It will forever be one of those movies against which I judge all others. The two young actors who play the leads are phenomenal. Their relationship is the focus, not just vampires and killing and gore, which is often the case in vampire films. It is beautifully shot with the snowy Swedish winter as its backdrop. It is a beautiful story with great visuals. It is simple and touching. I would use two words to describe it: amazingly enjoyable. Oh yeah, and it got a 97% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Your Water Footprint

If you're at all concerned with the impact your life makes on the environment, this will interest you. Click through to get the full version of Walk This Way: Making the right choices to reduce your water footprint. I got this from Good Magazine's site by way of Neatorama.


Sunday, April 5, 2009

rap songs and rock songs

I found this list a while back, but it came up recently in a converstation with my wife and some friends so I here it is: The Top 10 Rap Songs White People Love. This is one of the funniest, and most true, things I've ever seen.

And as an added bonus, there's also a related list called The Top 10 Rock Songs Black People Love, A Post Written By A Black Person.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

book & movie

I just finished a book and just watched a movie. By 'just' I actually mean yesterday. The book is called Stone of Tears and is the 2nd in a 12 book fantasy series by Terry Goodkind. All I've got to say is this: Awesome! This guy is such an amazing writer. I judge the worth of a book by how much I want to keep reading it. In other words, is the book a page turner that I would stay up to 2 AM reading? For Goodkind's books, the answer is yes. I can easily get engrossed in his books and read for hours. This one, as well as the first book in the series, Wizard's First Rule, are both page turners.


Them (Ils is the French title) is a French thriller/ horror film. Its not horror in the same vein as Saw or Hostel, but more in the vein of Blair Witch Project. Its very well shot and very well acted and is very tense and thrilling. I would give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Friday, April 3, 2009

PETA kills

Apparently PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) feels that killing animals is a good way to treat them ethically. This smells a little bit like hypocrisy.

Newsweek Article
Center for Consumer Freedom article
Another article