Here are some of the highlights of my visit back to Ohio last week:

-Eating Skyline Chili in Cincinatti
-Being asked if I was an Elvis impersonator by a weird looking old lady who worked at a Walgreens near Tracey’s parent’s house
-Watching Tracey’s brother Ryan kick 50 yard fields goals
-Playing bball with Ryan and his cousin Jonathon in Cinci
-Eating Skyline dip that Tracey’s mom made
-Playing ? with Ryan and Michele and Tracey till 3 in the morning
-Watching movies with Tracey’s family
-Stealing a full pineapple from a Chinese buffet in Cinci (Ryan made me do it)
-Had a fun lunch get together with Tracey and I’s parents in Piqua, the waiter looked like El Brundage
-Seeing Gramps and going bowling
-Chillin with Lars, Wolf, and Justin at BW3s the night before Lars left for SF
-Going to Trotters, nuff said
-Watching Brotherhood of the Wolf late at night
-Eating like 4 blizzards in 2 days
-Breadsticks from Poleyees, wow, I think I’m still crapping out those, so good
-Going sledding on Bills Hill
-Getting a Frape from Jay
-Jays dinner on New Years Eve, very good
-Seeing Heidi
-Going to Waffle House 45 minutes before I had to leave for the airport with Jay and Pervert
-Playing games with my family
-Getting more great presents from my family
-Playing bball in BG with old friends and family (my dad even lit it up for one game and beat my team)
-Seeing Justin’s dedication and excitement about the youth group
-My mom’s enchiladas on new years day, wow, that is why I am fat now
-Playing pool at Brewsters in BG with Dustin
-Seeing Connie at BGSU, even if it was for only 2 minutes, felt like I never left that place
-Seeing Gangs of New York and the Two Towers
-Having my parents tell me they are proud of me
-Grabbing Jeb’s butt, and enjoying his sangria, nice job
-Playing Contra on a projection screen with Mike, brought back the memories

Here are some low lights of the trip
-Not seeing Marshall
-Casey and Mike getting sick
-Cold
-Not seeing the sun for days on end
-Cold
-Not going to Rustys or Port Royal or Ann Arbor
-Kevin’s fiancé Emily breaking her arm in a car accident
- Not getting to see Kevin, Tracey’s brother more because he had to leave and take care of Emily, understandable, but I missed him
-not having enough time to see everyone we wanted to
-flying, it sucks
-did I mention that it was cold
-Justin hitting a parked car
-not getting any free cigars from Kevin
-not getting to see Ron Hines
-and most of all, being away from the ocean

Today is my 28th birthday, if you forgot or didn’t know, now you do. Thanks to my family for their nice mentions of blogs and email cards. I don’t have any huge plans tonight. Tracey and I will probably go out to eat and go see a movie, probably Catch Me if you Can. When I came into my office today (a little late, I thought I deserved to sleep in on my birthday), some of my pseudo work friends killed my cubicle with balloons and embarrassed me. I always feel weird on my birthday for some reason. I guess it’s the celebration of another year under your belt, but also another year of getting older. Like most people, I don’t want to get any older. Well, maturity wise I haven’t really left the age of 18, so I plan to keep that up, err, bizarro up I mean. I think besides my honeymoon, I have never been away from my family on my birthday, so that is weird. I wish I was going to Trotthers tonight in BG. Luckily I have a wonderful friend and wife to go out with. We really don’t have any real close friends out here yet that I would want to go out with on my birthday. I’m trying to decide between Hodads or Fred’s Mexican for dinner tonight. This weekend I’m going to pick out a surf board. Tracey got me one for our anniversary present. By the way, I have been married for 5 years now, what do you think about that? Pretty weird huh? Never thought I was capable of getting married in the first place, let alone have 5 great years already. Marriage is truly a gift from God when you find the right person, which I have. Tracey is my best friend and all a man could ever ask for in a wife. I am truly blessed on my 28th birthday to have a great wife, caring family and I live in the big SD. How bizzarro.

I still have not recovered from the Browns losing, and I will not. I think I will give up on Cleveland teams. Anyway, here is my 2002 year in review:
This year will be known as the year that I moved to California, finally. This year is marked by that event and it overshadows all other events. Despite this fact, I will still try to remember everything else. After graduating from Grad School in December, I took part-time teaching positions at BGSU and Owens Community College. I taught freshman composition at both schools. I also tutored college freshman for Barb Toth and Academic Enhancement. At this time, early January, I was desperately seeking employment in San Diego. As most of you know, it has been Tracey and I’s dream for some time now. And since I now had a master’s degree, I was ready to leave Ohio behind forever. Unfortunately, the economy sucked, especially because of 9/11 and I could not find a job for the life of me, so that’s mainly why I took the teaching jobs in BG and Toledo. Even though I was not in Cali, I really liked teaching and it was cool to do for a while.

Life went on as it usually does in BG. I’d teach 1 or 2 classes a day, watch tv and go see Jay at Cosmos. I continued to look for a job in SD, sending out several resumes a week. I sent out over 120 resumes in 9 months and did not get one job offer, but God had a different plan, so it turned out all good in the end, which I will explain later. One of the sad parts of the first quarter of 2002 was six girls from BGSU died in a car accident during spring break. I had had 3 of the girls the year before as students in my English class. They were all great students and good people. I often think of them and I am sad.

Another fun part of the first half of the year was that I played intramural b-ball with some grad school friends. We had to play with a woman’s ball because it was a coed team so I was not as good as I should have been. This time of b-ballin was when I became friends with Dustin Parsons. He was a fellow teacher in BGSU. I had said what’s up to him many times in East Hall, but never really talked with him. He is a cool dude and I wish we had started hanging out sooner. I finished the semester of teaching and summer showed up.

I had a few more classes I taught this summer for Owens. I also did some freelance tech writing for Janet Womack and NISDM at BGSU. I still was looking for a job, but we got good news mid summer when Tracey applied for and received a speech therapist job in SD. Finally, it seemed that our dreams would come true. I still had doubt. I always felt like something was going to happen to prevent us from moving. We began to make our moving preparations. Brad Wulf put a softball team together for the summer. I mostly pitched, but our team sucked. It was fun getting excited every week to play, but not fun to go out and lose every week.

Mary got married this summer, and that was cool. It was an honor to be in her wedding and I was glad that the day turned out so nice for her and Casey. We also took a fun trip to Niagara Falls with my family before we moved. We went didn’t go to a nice mall there. Tracey and I also went to Hilton Head with her family. That was also nice to be on the beach for a week before moving to SD. Finally, August 10 came and we set out on our trek to San Diego, the best, most perfect city in the world. We had a fun trip out West. When we got to our new apartment in Ocean Beach, it was less than satisfactory. We ended up getting a better place. Also, within five days of moving to SD, I had a job interview and got a job doing technical writing for Scantron, Inc. It has been a dream come true out West. I love everything about it. My job is cool, the weather is great and we are not bored out of our minds. Tracey and I have done some hiking and hung out on the beach of course. Our new lives in SD have just begun. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. 2002 has been the year that my dream of living in California has come true. I know there are many other details missing, but my mind is not so good anymore, so I can’t remember everything. Mainly, moving out to SD is the highlight of my year.

Here are my top ten movies of 2002:
Frailty
Punch Drunk Love
Royal Tenenbaums
Signs
Count of Monte Cristo
Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
Ghost World
Red Dragon
Waking Life
Gangs of New York

Here are the top albums I listened to in 2002:
Get Up Kids-Bird on a Wire
Andrew WK-I Get Wet
Midtown-Living Well is the Best Revenge
Ben Folds Live
Pedro the Lion-Control
Koufax-Social Life
Weezer-Maladroit
J Mascis-Free So Free
Rocket From the Crypt-Live From Camp X-ray
Travoltas-Endless Summer
Convoy-Black Licorice
The Anniversary-Your Majesty
Weezer-Maladroit

Hello, I'm back is sunny SD. I had a great time back in Ohio, but glad to be back where I belong and off that stupid plane. I have lots to update on and a year in review to post as well. However, today's post is a post of mourning and depression. I can't even mention why, I'm too upset. I will not be able to be reached for several days while I get over my heart being ripped out by those idiots in the steel city. Have a good Monday, I know I won't.