Anyways here it is thrusday night in seattle. I am hanging out with my best buddy and we are playing the WoW TCG nerding it up. My wife met us for dinner tonight which was enjoyable at the old spaghetti factory. We start our day bright and early in the morning SCARY! Anyways will be fun times and i will be sure to add pictures and all! 
9/3/2010 715am
Well I am up and ready to go. Showered dressed and all. It is hard waking up in the morning when you stay up late but I will find me some Starbucks or something and get me going! We need to grab a quick continental breakfast and hope on a bus down to the convention center. Its going to be a busy with panels we have already decided to go see. Craziness!
9/3/2010 8pm
We called it a night early. OMG I think we are both pretty tired. We made it to a couple panels on game design and development. We saw a ton of stuff on the expo floor. Just a huge event! I have learned a little more about the industry I am going to try to break into which is great. Andrew got to meet his idol which is wonderful. I tried to live blog what was going on but for some reason my phone was having trouble connecting to my server socket. I am not going to worry about it. I am taking pictures with a real camera instead of my phone camera so I will add pics when I get home from work Monday. Otherwise tomorrow we need to get an early start as we need to get concert wrist bands for the concert tomorrow night. So we need to be one of the first 1000 in line to get a guaranteed spot. But they discourage lining up before 8am. We have been taking the bus to and from the convention center. Tomorrow it will be interesting getting home since the concert does not let out till 130am or something crazy so maybe a cab or just walk. I still have a bit of homework to do tonight so I am going to get that done. Wow I am beat. Until tomorrow.
I have two more years of school left I know and I can take the secure route in life and get my degree which I plan on doing and go work for a company the rest of my life. What would be great though if I could be the owner or part owner of my own business. This year at work even though we do not have cut hours has been our worst year yet. Its been steady and not that dead but the customers are getting cheaper by the day it seems. Since I make my living off the generosity of others this is not good at all. When I have a day where after my tips plus hourly is only $12 a hour or something it makes you wonder what the heck you are doing working at a job you really do not enjoy at all anymore.
Now I know I am taking steps to remedy this such as going to school working on my degree but maybe it is time to take a risk. To relocate to open a business. Now Andrew and I have a great idea. I mean its a really good idea and we are currently going through the daunting task of writing a business plan out. I have found free mentoring online and in person for entrepreneurs which will help you get everything together so you can start a business. We have an idea, a market that is growing at a good rate and a location that would put us back to living closer to our parents. So maybe this is a risk I will take. Everyday I go to work and just think about this and that is problem it is all thought and no action. Its time to take action and to take a risk. Yes I know we have children to worry about but what is the worst that happens? I end up with a ton of debt that I am paying off forever or go bankrupt or something. A majority of people take the safe route through life because that is what they want to do. I want to get out there and offer my service to other people and make profit on it.
Start up costs are going to be high but where there is a market there should be capital that can be raised, loans to be acquired, and grants available to help start you out. Just my thoughts for the day before I go back to the normal grind.
You know patrick is almost 8 months old and that boy still aint crawling. In fact this is my first post about him on our family blog! How wierd anyways I am trying to bring more family news and info to everyone so here is my latest video of Patrick trying to move around the livingroom.
Maybe he wont crawl at all and just start walking one day?!
My last thirty minutes were spent listening to this!
Well we have been letting katie bowl on the wii lately and she is rather good. We played three games today and check out the final scores.
So last week katie and I went on a hike. It was rather fun. Although half way through she was like are we almost at the car? LOL. Anyways her are some pics of our adventure that went through the woods, over the bridge, around the pond, and back to the blue car!
Warning this is a long video but here are the kids unwrapping gifts on our Christmas morning
All these years I have been hiding a secret from the family. Well it was not even really a secret you all know I did it and we just all never chose to discuss it. In reality it kind of made me feel a bit detached living that way. The truth must come out now as I am going through a life changing transition. With my third kid on the way and my birthday that just happened I started to feel really old. My shortness of breath was getting worse and when I got my mountain bike I was not able to ride it very long at all. I was getting way to winded way to fast. Yes I know I was out of shape and I know I don’t live the healthiest of lifestyles. I can also contribute this to the fact that I was up to about a pack and a half a day of cigarettes.
Now yes I have been smoking for what I would consider a long time… About 49% of my life so far. Don’t ask me why I started I do not know. I have tried to quit before but I just was not happy with myself. I switched into a depressed, angry, and irritable person. I would get very snappy and edgy which didn’t go well with the way I like to live life… Like a blade of grass just going with the flow.
On top of this I always felt the need to hide my habit because I felt as if I would no longer be accepted as one of the family. Smoking was shunned in our house which is understandable it is a horrible habit to have. I feel I was forced to hide things as you don’t want to get things taken away or no longer feel wanted within your own household.
Anyways all you guys knew I was a smoker I feel you just never knew how heavy of a smoker I was. When visiting for long periods of time I would switch to chewing packets to make sure I could maintain my cool. Nicotine controlled what I was doing and I accept that myself.
Now I am not a closet smoker per say as I smoke quite openly when I have living my life on a day to basis in my normal surroundings.
I got to thinking about when Nanny had her last quitting attempt and she said Katie wanted to hug her so much more when she was not so stinky. You know those long hugs you get from your kids. I thought about the hugs with my daughter and I know I smell so badly of smoke by time I get home from work due to my own habit and the habit of others.
Trisha was always frustrated that I hid my habit from you guys because when people came to visit I would go long hours without nicotine which would always kind of put me in one of those moods. I hid my irritability well I thought but she told me I would get very snappy with her. This was not intential of course it is just a side effect of not getting your fix.
Anyways I have found a replacement to my smoking. I am still a nicotine addict which really does not bug me that much. Nicotine in its pure form is just as bad as caffeine and it is a risk I am willing to take. I have switched over to using a personal vaporizer to get my nicotine intake. There is no bad smell, no 4000 chemicals you are taking in like a cigarette, and no tar what so ever. Pretty much what is happening is you have nicotine extracted from the tobacco plant then they are cutting it with glycerin and water. These gadget are powered by a lithon-ion battery which instantly heats an element to 255 degrees and vaporizes your juice.
You may have heard of the electronic cigarette and there are a lot of misconceptions about them. The FDA put out a scare to the media which has made a lot of people scared. What the FDA said was that when they examined the juice they found traces of three different chemicals and nicotine. Then they went on to say that the long term effects of these devices are unknown. Now I am willing to take the risks the FDA has warned me of because when I smoked a cigarette I was inhaling tar, nicotine and 4000 other chemicals.
The only real reason the FDA got involved with these gadgets is because of the way they were being marketed to their customers. These e-cigs were being marketed as a quit smoking device which really they are not… They do make you quit smoking I have experienced this over the last two days.
Yes two days ago I got my e-cig in the mail shipped right from California. I have not touched a cigarette since. Yes you still get the urge to smoke because you are addicted to those other chemicals but it is way easier to overcome with your e-cig. You get that hand to mouth sensation and your nicotine fix at the same time.
Now I could have very easily hid this from everyone in the same way I did smoking but I am tired of living that lie. I feel as though I can be accepted by the family since I have removed everything that is dirty from the smoking habit and I have cleaned it up into something that is no worse than drinking coffee, tea, or soda on a daily basis.
I am sharing all this with you because I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t want to make myself go through the stress of worrying about things. I am already losing my hair and I want to try to keep most of it at least for 5 more years. I hope I am not shunned the same way I feel I would have been as a smoker. If you choose not to accept me because of a nicotine addiction so be it. Nicotine is used in medications to treat a variety of different illnesses. The only con to nicotine is heart dieses which is the con to caffeine. I am not trying to justify this in any way. I am an addict and apparently I do not want to try giving up the drug at this time.
It feels so good to get this off my chest and I hope you guys take the news well… I am just looking for support. My wife is behind me 100% and she was skeptical at first but she has seen that I am still happy and my mood is not changing and she likes that I do not stink anymore! You are even able to vape in the house to make it smell a little better and second hand vape is harmless since its just water and glycerin vapor. I still will not vape around my children as it would just feel odd to do just like you never smoke around your kids.
I am going to attach a banner to this post that will show how long my progress is keeping up.
Nanny if you would like more info let me know and I will come up and give you a demonstration of how everything works and we can talk about start up cost and so forth. For Canadians you would save so much money you would be shocked.
If you would like to do more reading on this full thing since I know you guys are a bunch of worry warts then please follow this link.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com
This was so hard for me to type out and I hope it is well received.
Love James
Well as many of you know Andrew came into town last week and we went for a little camping trip. We got a nice long hike done and drank plenty of beer and just relaxed and talked around the camp fire. We took a drive around the mountain to check out some other sites and to get some better pictures. Anyways it was a good time and exactly what I needed before going back to the 7 day a week grind.
Anyways with my phone I was able to get lots of interesting info about our trip. Here is a spread sheet with info on the hike.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ajr8Z1xqMtkrdEZUTWxGeDFaSF83eHQ4NjhKUnFVWEE&hl=en
Now remember this is only one way… My battery power was not going to last the full way back so I just ended the track at the end of our hike so it would be easier for us to calculate total distance. Now from that spread sheet you can see a map of the hike. If you missed that link in the spread sheet here it is.
View James / Andrew Hike in a larger map
After looking at the map tiles given I have determined that is an old picture because the first mile of the hike is in the river bed as it washed away the trail a few years prior :O. That kinda gives you an idea of how bad those 2006 floods were!
If you didnt get to see any of the pictures from the trip you can check them out here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033146&id=1119547325
Anyways I go back to tossing newspapers tonight and will do it through may
Today I had a good time. T came over to the house to pick me up at 10am then we blasted over to a piece of property by the hospital to pick up a washer and dryer. We loaded the washer and dryer into the truck and drove them up to her place in blaine. After unloading the truck we drove down to birch bay to pick up some boxes and a big chair to drive back to her place in blaine. Now she has has all her stuff in one place and is so much happier. After a day of hard work she rewarded me with a good Mexican lunch and a beer from a restaurant in ferndale. We then arrived back at the house in the early afternoon and shot the breeze till she had to go to an appointment at 3.
Now I am at home thinking about how much I enjoyed getting out of the house. It feels really good to help someone out especially when they helped me out previously. T was one of the largest helps in our move from the third floor down to ground level. There was something about being out and about that felt kind of refreshing. The problem is I dont have many friends that need help moving stuff all the time and I do not have much money to spend on my days off if any. So being able to help someone move something is always nice.
This is driving me closer and closer to buying a mountain bike. That way I can take a ride around town and enjoy the weather or the trees or something and get a little bit of an excerise in the process. Sometimes being couped up at home 3 out of 7 days in a week is just a bit much. Sure I could go hiking or something with my friends but most of the time they are not awake during the day since they work all night long. I need to find a few more ways to entertain myself.
To getting out of the house every now and then. Another change in the lifestyle I am already slowly trying to change.