December 17, 2000 - 3:52 p.m.

December 17, 2000 - 3:52 p.m.

So it's been just over 9 years since I've kept a journal. Since I last wrote, I went to
college, graduated college, moved to California, helped start an internet startup, worked at Blockbuster as a second job to make more money, got fired from Blockbuster and then got fired from the internet startup. Got a cat, got a new car, on my third cell phone, lost touch with a lot of my friends, made some new friends. Then I got hired to work for a studio, got married and here I am today.

It's probably 75 degrees outside and we're sitting in here with the air conditioning on.
We're talking to Lori's mom on the phone and the stereo is playing country music. My neck is really sore. We've been on the phone for 40 minutes.

It's just days before Christmas. It'll be our second Christmas as a married couple and
probably the last year we don't establish set limits on how much we should spend. I got Lori a lot of presents... the biggest one is a water-jet that's supposed to give a jacuzi-like feeling in a regular bathtub. I've seen good and bad reviews on the internet for the product, so we'll see if she likes it. The other big one is a foot-bath thing. You can use it with water or without water. It does all kinds of stuff. I think she'll like it. She's been soaking her feet more later. (She has plantar-facisitis -- an injured muscle in her right foot. I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong.) Mom and Dad are sending bath salts and stuff that will go with the bath. I also got her gift certificates for Bath and Body Works and Bed, Bath and Beyond and a couple of other presents that I'll talk about later.

I'm tempted to bring everything up to date all at once, but we have a Christmas party to go to in Torrance in an hour. We're going to be late because it will take at least an hour to drive there and neither of us are ready to go.

I have several reasons for starting to write again. One, I am unhappy with my weight. I think if I'm writing about it, I might be more mindful about taking care of the problem. Two, I'm worried about my job. On Thursday, the FTC approved AOL's plans to take over Time-Warner. I work for Warner Bros. Online and I think as part of AOL, we will be incredibly insignificant. I work for Advertising Services. We handle the ads on all of the websites, and we use software that we bought from an external company. AOL has its own software, only it's several years behind what we use. But we've been told that we will be switching to AOL's software in the middle of next year. CNN also protested and was told the same thing. And if CNN is being bossed around, we're incredibly insignificant. I have a contract with Warner Bros. through next September, but it's likely that they could try to get rid of us earlier. I am trying to set money aside, but with all the bills we have to pay, I can't get nearly as much as I'd like set aside. And my third reason for writing is that I would like others to know how I've felt throughout time. I don't know if this means Lori at some future time, should I die, or maybe future children trying to understand where their dad is coming from. I'll admit it right now. I don't know everything. Sometimes it seems like parents do, but I'll spoil the secret and admit right now that I don't.

I hope that the focus of my emails won't devolve into "I'm fat and broke.", I will try to touch on other things as time goes on. My increased interest in my own spirituality is a big deal to me.

I didn't attend church much during college because I wasn't that interested. The on-campus church was too weird and the real church right next to the campus was just a bunch of old people. My girlfriend at the time dragged me a few times, but I just wasn't excited to go to church. Then my friend Allison took me to a huge non-denominal Christian church down the road. We sat in a large auditorium with fold-up basketball hoops and peel-back carpet and folding chairs. Every Sunday we would sing songs, really celebrate God and His gifts to us. And then at the end we'd stack up all the chairs.

Lori's dad attends a similar church in Sacramento and we've found a church kind of like that in Pasadena, except that it's so large that they don't have to have their sanctuary double as a gym. I'll write more about the church later and the previous church we attended in future emails. We've also met a lot of young Christian married couples because of this church. We had an opportunity to go to a party last night. But it had been a long day and Lori was really tired and didn't want to go. I did and I lied and said I didn't because I wanted her not to feel guilty. It was more important to me that she not be stressed. Because of our party and because of all the hectic-ness of the season, she'd been up late every night all week and was really tired (both of us
fell asleep last night during the sermon at different points) and because of her foot (we had been at the Warner Bros. Holiday Fair all day and that was a lot of walking) I didn't want to drag her to it. We ended up staying up late anyhow and so we didn't go to the bible study this morning. I was a little disappointed when I realized that there probably won't be one next week and then the following week we'll be going to the old church so we won't see everyone again until next year. But I really wanted to sleep in. But then I didn't get to because the stupid neighbors next door had their stereo up too late. Is it too much to ask that people in apartment complexes be respectful of their neighbors? I guess so.

This is really long. And I have 9 years to recap. I will try not to be really long in future entries, but I can't promise anything.