The 30 [Week] challenge. Week 4: My Parents.

Back on track with my blog! It's been a few weeks - I was at a conference and then it was spring break and then another excuse.

This week is about my folks. Who they are and what they mean to me.

As per usual, I've posted an image that I've drawn recently up here at the top of the page. Putting something at the top of the post is great because it means I don't have to move it around; I can just start typing next to it and all is well. On the other hand, I have to think of great filler to write down the side of it so I can carry on with the blog and post the pictures of my parents... It's going ok.

So now, without further ado, I present to you my parents; Mr and Mrs Fairweather.

I've been so blessed in that my folks are the best I could have asked for. They have been - and continue to be - incredible examples of love, generosity, kindness, hospitality, patience, understanding and wisdom. Among other things.

This is my mum. When she was little. She's taller now. I've been told I look like her by some friends and that I look like my dad from others. My mum says I remind her of her dad.

The other day I was honoured to be able to share a bit of my life while I was talking at church. One of the things that I wanted to share was my mum's sacrifice for our family. Especially my youngest brother. My family fostered for about 13 years and as a stay at home mum, my mum spent the most time looking after the kids that came our way. As our time of fostering came to a close, we looked to adopt someone. Mum had been praying and hoping for a little girl - a daughter to raise up ('my siblings' is next week's title, but for now I can say that with three boys and my dad, my mum was somewhat outnumbered). One night, we got a call from another friend who fosters - she was having a really hard time with a kid she was looking after - he had been horrible to another one of her foster kids all night and she needed us to look after him for a few days while something was sorted out and another home was found for him. At this time, he was 2 years old. I never go into much detail about my youngest brother because after 13 years of fostering, which also includes a ridiculous social service system, threats from angered parents (setting an example of why their kids are being looked after by someone else, thanks, angered parents), harboured feelings of resentment, anger, bitterness and everything else that would come with the feeling of entitlement to a child - regardless of how you treat them - has just led me to be more cautious when describing and naming my brother.

Needless to say, though, he was a terror! Kicking and spitting and punching and biting. Headbutting and pinching and screaming and kicking some more. It was sad to see him lashing out at only 2, but we felt it right that we looked after him instead of putting him in another home. After a couple of years, we felt God tell us that it was right for us to adopt him.

Now this is wonderful news, as I'm sure you'll agree. But for me it was one of the biggest and best examples of love that my parents showed - aside from the obvious show of love through adoption, my mum had wanted a girl and my dad, too - he wants the best for my mum and if my mum had her heart set on adopting a little girl, that's what my dad would have wanted, too. They put that to one side when they heard God's call to adopt and love on this little boy.

Now, however many years later, he's walking and talking and living a life that he would never have had if we were to send him somewhere else. The 13 years of fostering experience and the 10 plus years of pouring into this lad have paid off in an amazing way. And it's all thanks to my parents.

My mum was a music teacher before she became pregnant with me. Probably during a bit of that time, too, but I was the reason she stopped teaching. For years after, she taught piano and violin privately at our house which was lovely to go to sleep to! When she wasn't teaching, she'd tinker on the piano and play classical pieces in the evenings. I loved going to sleep hearing that creeping up through the floorboards. Even her students were soothing with their not-so-smooth violin sounds at night! Looking back, although I know it wasn't every night, I can only remember going to sleep to those sounds every night of the week!

My mum is an encourager. Everything we do we know we can do it because mum knows we can! She's been so uplifting and enabling that we're able to do the things we're doing. Again, it's another point in next week's post, but the things me and my brothers are doing are things that probably won't have been encouraged to the extent that they have been if it were another house.

She's so hospitable and she and my dad have both made the house such a warm, caring, inviting and safe place to come. Even after fostering, our house is always open to people. There's always food for one more. There's always a bed for someone who needs it.

One of the coolest things about my mum is that she loves the outdoors. I get my love of nature from her, I'd say. Walking in the lakes, seeing the sights of nature. Amazing. She's creative, too. Making jewelry, making jams and chutneys. She also turns old jeans into incredible little handbags. They're wonderful! And then there's the allotment - she got a plot of land a few weeks ago and already she tells me how much she's done there. It's pretty sweet to hear. I can't wait to see it!

I love my mum.

This is my dad. I've been told I look like him by some friends and that I look like my mum from others. In this picture, he looks like my brother Nathan. Not as much as some photos I've seen - there was one photo of him and my mum on either a honeymoon or an earlier-year anniversary trip somewhere. We could have photoshopped Nathan into it in his place and no-one would have noticed.

My dad has been the biggest inspiration and example of what a privilege and responsibility it is to work to provide for your family. He worked a job at a bank that he didn't particularly like for nearly 30 years so that he could provide for us and make sure that we were comfortable. To everyone's delight - and also fast forwarding a few years - he is now a Sports Masseur and Reflexologist. And he loves it. It gives him the flexibility to help my mum with the allotment - which he also loves - and to spend a bit more time with my brothers back home.

He is so encouraging and supporting of my mum's dreams. It's where I get it from. At least I hope I get it! I try. But anyway - he is so behind my mum in all she does and all her ideas. It's just so inspiring. The love he has for her is not only incredible and strong but correct! He loves her more than he loves us kids. You couldn't tell, but you'd know. This is an important template to follow. Kids are designed to leave. They are meant to grow up and leave. Your spouse isn't. Although he has shown us kids so, so much love and support I know that his love and support for my mum exceeds that and that is wonderful! He plays more video games than me and if he's not doing that, he's playing on his guitar, writing songs. To put those two things off when he's free and instead go to the allotment with my mum is something that he's more than happy to do. I love that.

My dad has taught me to respond and not react. This is one of the most important things I have ever learnt. Not to just act out on the feelings we have when we're met with some news or other. Not to fly off the handle when things are going wrong or when someone does something hurtful. But to take it in and to process it fully. To balance everything that's going on and to get a better understanding of why something happened. It's helped me a whole lot. Using this process both depends on and strengthens patience. Which we all need.

He's funny, too. I get my humour from him. My mum and my wifey both agree that it's probably not the best thing. Or that we don't have a sense of humour yet.

I learnt how to juggle after finding his huge sack of bean bags and clubs and balls and hoops.

He leads worship with one of the teams at the church and since I started playing the drums as a young lad, I have drummed for him. It's such a blessing to be able to do that and I don't take it for granted. A lot of people would do anything to be able to lead worship with their dad. I love it! He writes a lot of songs, too. He's really talented like that. He got a short radio sketch played on national radio years ago. He's a really creative guy and I think that I get a lot of my creativity from him, too. I've been blessed in that I can see creativity from my mum and my dad in the creativity I have!

And he's also in the Street Pastors, which is a team of people from surrounding churches that go out and patrol the streets at the weekend to make sure everyone is safe. It's an amazing ministry and I'm so proud of my dad.

I love my dad.

I love my parents. I am truly blessed and they live an amazing example of Godly parents. What little I've written here is not enough to describe how much they mean to me.

Peace.

The 30 [Week] challenge. Week 3: My First Love.

My first love?

The Bible talks about how we fall away from our first love - that our first love is Christ whether we knew it or not.

I have been blessed in that I knew this before I started dating. I gave my life to Christ at the age of six. I didn't start living in a way that showed it fully until the later years of high school, when my friends and classmates treated my as their go-to guy in Religious Education classes for thoughts and reasons on and for different things people experience and how it was all related to God. I was the only known Christian in my year - a year group of about 200 or so people - so this made me want to do the best I could to answer these questions. It pushed me to read about questions I might get next week or to look for an answer that I couldn't give this week. I grew a lot in that time and it was because I was preparing to defend my faith and give an account of what I believe and why. It was a great time!

But before that I lived a semi-regular pre-teen and early-teen life. I wasn't drawn to drinking or sleeping around as most of my friends seemed to be. I guess that was God protecting me. I never saw the attraction. Of drinking, anyway. Anybody who is anybody can attest to not having sex being a difficult thing to do. Or not do. These two things I held onto - sometimes as the things themselves, rather than the reasons behind not doing them. But I did hold onto them. I could never quite let them go and I think that it helped me a lot in my faith. When there were times I wanted to forget everything or whatever, I didn't want to break this record, if you will. But God uses that. I look up to my dad who is an incredible man and has never been drunk. It's something that most of my friends can't claim, yet he is twice their age. He's an amazing guy and it's something that I want to emulate. As for sex, the first time I did that was June 4th, 2010. The night of my marriage. I can safely say it was more than worth it. I can't quite describe how much more than worth it it is, but let me make it known that God honours those who honour Him. With their finance, with their minds, with their actions, with their bodies. With their lives.

Humanly speaking, my first love was a girl called Samantha. We were primary school girlfriend and boyfriend. Even when girls were gross and boys were smelly. We would have dated forever if we hadn't gone to different high schools. Fortunately, that mindset changed for me later on in life as my wifey is from Arkansas; 5,000 miles from where I grew up. That's a God thing. If there's no week for that, I'll tell you the story anyway.

Samantha and I got married several times in the schoolyard, played Tig nearly every day (Tig is the same as Tag for you, American) and spent a whole lot of time at each others' houses having lunch and playing with Mighty Max and Polly Pocket. I think we played Yahtzee once. She rolled all sixes on her first go when I wasn't there. I never got the lead; not for the whole game.

We grew up and went our separate ways. The relationship is now what any relationship is like 14 years after it stops. Nice memories, though.

My wifey is incredible. I will love her for the rest of my days. She completes me and complements me. Sometimes compliments me. Zing. My love for her is overflowy. But I love God so much more. And so does she. This is why we work. This is what keeps us together and holds us tight.

My first love is my last love. That's how I'm made. That's how we're made. Sometimes we forget and sometimes we just need showing in the first place. Your first love is God whether you know it, whether you've said it, whether you've been told yet. Until you have it, it's that feeling of something missing. It's that pull for something more. It's that still, small voice that calls out your name in that direction you're unsure of. Until you follow it, you won't realise that God's been there with you from the beginning. That's a dangerous thing, because a lot of people want to try and tell you that that feeling is something different; that it can be made quiet by living a certain way or that it can be satisfied by doing certain things. Whether that's taking something, looking at something, doing something, listening to someone or something or even refusing to listen to someone or something. There's a lot of stuff out there that tries to fill the hole in our lives that only God can fill. Just be wary. He wants the best for you.

So that's it. My first girlfriend was from Churchtown - same village as me. We grew up a bike ride away from each other. We were in the same class (RH, 1H, 2E, 3H, 4K, 5M and 6B), parting ways after that. She went to Stanley High School and I to Tarleton High School. She had a tamagotchi for a while but it kept dying; I had mice.

That's what I can remember at the moment, anyway.

Peace.

The 30 [Week] challenge. Week 2: My Blog name.

So it's the second week of this challenge. I'm enjoying taking my time - over at danfairweather.blogspot.com I'm posting once a day so the change of pace here is refreshing... Even though I'm posting twice today.

The reason behind my blog title is pretty simple, so this post isn't going to be huge.

"Dreaming dreams, chasing chickens". It's simple, so I feel the need to draw it out somewhat.

Dreaming is important. Dreams give us drive and they push us to achieve more than we thought we could, even if only slightly more. Other peoples' dreams inspire us and challenge us. To dream dreams is to think bigger than you currently are and to look towards doing something greater in the future. I love dreaming. Whether it's looking forward to an event three weeks from now; imagining what it'll be like and what you want to do - to thinking years in advance and picturing where you'll be, who you'll know, what you will have done. And the great thing is that it's limitless. In two ways - one, the only thing capping your dreams is your own imagination and two, it doesn't just have to be about what you're wanting to do; it could be about where you want to go, what you want to have, etc.

Two of my dreams - I want to have an action figure of a character I've created. Not the cheap, Dollar store/Poundland figures that look like they've been carved out of a bar of soap by a guy with three fingers. In the dark. On a boat. In a storm. Not that type; but the type that I avoid looking at for long periods of time because I don't want people to think I'm a geek. Even though I am. The sort that look like they've been pulled straight out of whatever game or TV series they're from, you know? I really dig that sort of action figure and if ever I buy one, I'm going to take it out of the box right away. I don't care. And yes, I said dig.

My second dream is to own a Jeep Wrangler. A short-wheel-base yellow one with a fabric roof; floodlights; a winch; a big ol' guard on the front; big, fat wheels on an improved suspension, a snorkel and a license plate reading "THE BRIT". Nothing specific, like...

But that's the beauty of dreams. They can take you to where you want to be so that you can imagine looking back and seeing how you got there. I can't wait.

And chasing chickens? Well, when I was creating my blog my mum had just got chickens. They didn't care when she was around, so she could just grab them and hold then with no trouble. Everyone else had to chase them round the pen. Like headless chickens.

Dreaming dreams, chasing chickens.

As for my URL - obsessivedrawingdisorder.blogspot.com - the idea behind that is on the right side of my other blog posts. When I was two years old, the only way my mum could get me to come to the table to eat was to have a pen and paper next to my plate. I haven't really stopped.

I've enjoyed this. I wrote more than I thought and it didn't feel like it took a long time. I like it when that happens. For now, though, I'm off to tidy the house.

Peace.

The 30 [Week] challenge. Week 1: Introduction and 15 facts.

It's meant to be the 30-day challenge, but I thought I'd modify it somewhat and enjoy a leisurely challenge with my wifey. Over the next 30 weeks, we will be updating our blogs with different topics and telling you things about different aspects of our lives. This blog contains my aspects and thoughts, my wifey's contains hers.

So I present to you Week 1: Introducing myself and 15 interesting facts.

I am Dan. I'm 25 at present and I am living in America. I graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in June 2011 with a Bachelor's in Games Design and was fortunate enough to be granted a scholarship for my Masters, which I will be starting in September 2012. My wifey and I are as involved with church here as we can be at the moment, after doing the same back home in England last year and as we're looking forward to doing again when we move back later this year. I have drawn for as long as I remember - my mother telling me that the only way she could get me to come to the table to eat was to put a pen and paper beside my plate. It's what I have always enjoyed doing and it's what I dream of doing for a living. I'm not sure how much of what I could tell you about myself here would qualify as facts about myself, so without further ado; here are my top 15:

1. I am a Christian. Not the religious, hymn-singing, hypocritical, unbeliever-hating, more-lofty-than-thou Christian. At least I hope I don't come across that way. I'm a live-it-out, singing at the top of my lungs, broken, fallen, struggling, people-loving man who is doing his best to honour his Lord and Saviour. I struggle as much as the next Christian and I fail to live up to this calling just as frequently. It's not that I'm a hypocrite and tell people that they should live like me when I'm not living right; it's that I have a set of morals and principals that are unaffected by politics, that are above change, that are earless to governments and I strive to change the way I live in order to bring my life in line with them, fully knowing that they are easily overlooked and sometimes hard to live by.

2. My best friend is my wifey, Melissa. We've been married for 20 months, one week and two days at present. Third best decision I've made in my life. The first being to follow Christ, the second being to ask Melissa to marry me. She's incredible. I would need to learn a whole vocabulary's worth of words to even get close to describing how much she means to me. She's my Honeybee, my Queen, my Fluffyhead Pumpkinsnuggle. I love her.

3. I was born in Southport, England. A small town that's been around for about 220 years.

4. I went to a fairly big primary school (elementary school) called Churchtown Primary School and for most of my junior years, I was in the Yellow House. It was pretty much a point system based on what tables we sat on, and I just happened to find myself in the Yellow group for three or four years.

5. I am named after two friends of my parents. Daniel and Guy. I don't know much about either - even less about Guy. Daniel is the son of the family doctor and was a soldier.

6. I have four siblings. One older sister and three younger brothers.

7. The states I have been to at present are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Pennsylvania. Although some of those I counted because I had a layover there...

8. I had an eyebrow piercing for three months before it grew out. I got it caught on my T-shirt once while I was getting dressed in a hurry and can't quite describe the shock of that feeling.

9. When I was little I started to choke on a boiled sweet. This was remedied by my dad picking me up by my feet and shaking me up and down.

10. My best male friend is a man named Tim. We've grown up together and we've never had a falling out. Some people say you're not good friends if you've never fallen out, but I can say after 21 years of growing up along side each other that that's poop. He was my best man at my wedding and I love him a whole lot.

11. I am fairly good at picking things up by watching them being done and I remember things better when I write them down. A bit of a Jack-of-all-trades.

12. I have blue eyes. They've been described as sea-blue, shining blue, sky-blue and bright blue, among other things.

13. I love fishing; especially over here in the States. Fishing in England is now very expensive indeed and I got fed up with the amount I had to spend to even fish on a water, let alone buy everything I needed for a day on the side of a pond or lake or whatever. Here, I buy my license, buy my rod/reel combo and a few lures and then I'm good to fish any public water I can get to! I love it.

14. I have never been hunting and it's something that I want to do so much. My to do list with hunting is as follows (still counted as this fourteenth point):

- Bow hunt deer.

- Black powder hunt deer.

- Modern gun hunt deer.

- Bow fish (probably Alligator Gar).

- Bow hunt frogs.

- Blowgun/blowpipe hunt squirrel.

- Rifle hunt squirrel.

- Noodle.

- Hand-catch frogs.

I think that's about it. It's not that I'm cruel and like killing things for sport. Everything I hunt I will prepare and eat. It confuses me how people hunt for sport and it confuses me how people like eating meat but don't want to think of it as having being killed at some point.

15. I'm right-handed, but I chop wood left-handed.

That was easier than I thought. And very enjoyable.

I hope there's something interesting there for you to read. It was good fun thinking of them and writing them down. Next week won't be as big a post, but still fun.

Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it.

Peace.

Something to Oversea.

My brother's getting ready to go on a cruise at the moment. I'm pretty excited for him because the cruise sets off from Miami, so to get here it's his first long-haul flight. His first flight ever was Christmas Eve' just gone. It's also going to be his first time in America, which I'm excited about. Until tomorrow, I'm going to have been the only one of our family to have been Stateside. I'm so stoked that he's coming over and that he's going to be able to experience something of the culture here.

Here's his band's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Brontidetheband

Also, search for them on iTunes and get their album, 'Sans Souci'. It's incredible.

Also also, their new single 'Coloured Tongues' comes out pretty soon.

We have a new puppy! It's a 'PikaPoo', but it's only really mostly Poodle. Pooping everywhere and peeing in all the corners. It's a joy.

I was walking through Wal*mart the other day. I make no apologies.

I came across an Angry Birds Valentine's Day card set.

Angry. Birds. Valentine's. Day. Card. Set.

Now, I'm all for capitalising on a good idea, but really? I've seen a whole lot of Angry Bird products. Dog toys, stuffed toys, phone covers, T-shirts, keyrings, beanies, paperclips, tiny toy sets that are just non-phone versions of the game... the list goes on. For an essential re-skinning of a pre-existing game/idea, they've done pretty well for themselves.

As a game design course graduate, it's both good and bad to see. It's really good because it shows a couple of things (albeit obvious) - a simple idea done well goes a long way. All we're doing is firing an object into a series of other objects. Add a squawk here and there, a few feathers and some oinks and you have the app. equivalent of Charlie biting his brother's finger.

The other thing is that in-game sales make much more money than the game itself. For the same amount as the app., you can buy a bird that will complete a level for you. I stopped looking through the extra items after that. Eh.

On the other hand, I have a friend who has been working for six years with a small team he got together after graduating and only now have they got to the point where companies are hiring them and giving them contracts and things.

I guess it's luck and timing. I'm a Tiny Wings fan, myself.

I'm needing blog ideas. It's probably safe to say, seeing as though my last post was in August last year. I guess I'll work on it. I've been updating my other blog regularly - danfairweather.blogspot.com - so check that out for smaller, daily updates that don't say a whole lot. For more though out things, I think I need to reak out my Blog Ideas notebook again. It's a small Moleskine that I carry round and jot down ideas. It helps me remember points I want to make but it also makes me feel somewhat pretentious.

I've also tried a newer layout with my paragraphs. If it's not that clear, I've just started to bold and enlarge the first three words of a new topic.

I'm off to bed.

Peace.

Open-MindDead.

I love people telling me I'm closed-minded. Thankfully it hasn't happened too recently.

Because here's the thing - I believe that there is something more than just this life. I believe that there is a life beyond what we are experiencing now. That this is the first step in an eternal existence for us. That there is a spiritual life that runs concurrently yet at the same time consecutively. As well as what is going on now, there is a behind the scenes spiritual walk that is in the everlasting, which carries on after we leave this earthly life. I believe that the God who has created all of this is so vast I cannot comprehend it. That as soon as I put a face to the One who created me, I limit Him to a being who is no more defined as the person next to me. That He is truly without limits and that that means He has no boundaries. Nothing to stop or contain or dictate what He can and cannot do. I accept that His judgement is out of my control. I accept that His decisions are beyond my capabilities to even understand, let alone make. I know that the Bible throws up more questions than it throws up answers, yet I keep pawing through it to hopefully delve deeper into what it holds. I know that I'll never fully understand what it contains, yet that doesn't stop me from searching. I know that only God has a full understanding of everything. I know that the most learned scholar in any field has only a glimpse of insight into what they study and research compared to the full understanding that God holds over everything. I know that the Bible is a living text. That reading it will change me. That every time I read it, there is the possibility - no - the expectation that something new will come to light. That something new will be learned. That my life and the way I live can, will and should change on a daily basis all because of the words that I read and re-read. I realise that there is an unchanging plan for my life, yet to get there I need to change constantly - that God knows where I will end up, what I will end up doing and where I will be and my life revolves around getting in line with that. That the unchanging requires change to fulfill. I see the stars and I know that they are there for us to simply enjoy. I see the power and the majesty of these bodies in space yet I know that there is power and majesty still to be found beyond them. That they are not all that. That as magnificent as they are - each and every one; still One more magnificent than they is waiting to be seen in full. I know that the closest we will get here on earth to the Living God is but a glimpse compared to what we will experience upon death. I know that when I wake in Heaven I will fully understand that death has no sting - that I will look back at my death and realise it was like walking through a door to my home. This I realise and know yet strive to understand while I am still here on earth and while I have still not seen it with my own eyes. I know that this God of holiness will one day welcome a wretch like me into His house and that I will dwell in His presence for the rest of time. I accept that I can't put a face to God, that I can't put a shape to God. That in my wildest imaginations, God far exceeds what I can conjure up. That the only limit to His power is the faith I have. I know that there is more to life than what we can see, taste, touch, measure, watch or hear. I know that God promised us things before the earth was even made - no matter how we think it was made. That spiritually, we walk alongside those who paved the way for us to do so. That we are walking side-by-side with Elijah, with Moses, with Stephen, with Paul. With. Jesus. That through Jesus we live forever. That through that same Jesus the world was formed. That the One who made us would take on flesh and bone in order to reach down and effect our lives. That the limitless, the shapeless, the eternal would walk the earth for a short time in order to create a bridge between the physical and the spiritual. That the same power that destroyed nations fights for our very souls. Every day. That the incomparable, the flawless, the perfect, the ever-present, ever-loving, ever-powerful, everlasting would lay down His life for every one of us so that we can spend time with Him that, right now, we can't even fathom. That He did this so that we can live a life outside and above our own and that He did this so that we can live forever.

And, what, you believe that all there is is the here and now? That we are limited to what we can see, hear, touch, measure and observe?

And I'm closed-minded?

Please.

Pizza Doe.

Hey, friend.

My wife and I made it to America ok. It was a nice little 95 hour trip.

Things I'll chat about now: The trip, visas, Google, Brontide, the unrelenting heat, a first.

The Trip.

Getting here was an experience. We were staying at my folks' place for a week before flying out which was nice. After packing up our house for a few weeks and getting everything sorted out there, it was nice to be able to relax a bit.

We set off on the journey back to America on Saturday morning. The 16th. We got to the train station for our 1055 train to London. I was already a little stressed by the car ride to the station - I obviously didn't know there was another 94 hours to go. When we were actually traveling, I was fine - it was in the down time between trains and the underground that I started to freak out about the traveling we had left.

We stayed the first night in a little hotel in London before going to the airport to meet my brother for a bit and then to check in for the flight. After a lovely aside that I'll talk about in a bit, we were finally on our way.

When we got to Iceland - our half way point - we were told that our flight on to New York was overbooked. So instead of going on to NY and spending the night there, they offered us a free dinner that night, a free hotel for that night, a free breakfast for the morning, a free trip to the Blue Lagoon and a free lunch at the Blue Lagoon. And a free ticket to travel anywhere with Iceland Express. Terrible, right? There were some people who complained, but they're everywhere. My wifey and I loved it! Iceland is amazing. We had a great little break on our way over and a nice time to relax.

Heading NY way the day after, our flight had to do figure of eights in the air a few times before we landed because of the bad weather on the runway. A great experience for nervous air passengers...

New York was a really good experience and we got to go to Times Square for a couple of hours before heading over to Milwaukee and then on to Kansas City, where we met up with some good friends and stayed with them for a few days.

The trip was incredible and I wouldn't have done anything different - aside from maybe stressing less!

Visas.

Visas are ridiculous. As I was checking in in London, my boarding pass to Iceland was granted and printed but the pass from there to New York was denied. This was because I hadn't filled in a form online. This form was the I-94W and it put me in a catch 22 situation. The most catchiest, twenty-twoiest situation I've ever found myself in. First of all, this is a new way of doing things - introduced in April. Now, instead of it being a free three month visa that I fill in on the plane on the way over, I have to pay to fill it in. With it, I can't extend my stay in America (I wasn't planning on it, but I'm staying with my wife and her family, so I wanted that option) and without it, I wouldn't be allowed into America. Good stuff.

So I filled it in and went back down to check in again, but it didn't clear and at the time, we were going to have to travel to Iceland and hope that it cleared before we got there so that I could get the Iceland - America boarding pass printed. Which is why the overbooked flight and subsequent night in Iceland was such a blessing.

And now I'm here waiting for my I-130 - the visa that we thought would be done and dusted before we flew out.

But we're here. An that's all that matters at the moment.

Google.

I can't access my other email account. I'm not sure why. I created it in America and I use this laptop to access it, but Google in their wisdom have decided to deny me access to the account because it's a 'different location'... I'll be talking to them this afternoon.

Brontide.

As I mentioned in the last post, my little brother and his band have an album out. You can hear their single 'Matador' here: http://soundcloud.com/brontide and you can get more information on them as a whole here: http://www.myspace.com/brontidetheband

Their twitter link is here: http://twitter.com/#!/FUCKINGBRONTIDE

Twitter name aside, they're a great, family friendly sound, so be sure to check them out and buy their things.

Pizza doe.

It's been a while since I've seen roadkill bigger than a dog.

The unrelenting heat.

The heat here is insane. I'm sure I wrote about it last time I was over here. It's been over 100ºF here for nearly three weeks solid. That's about 35ºC. Constantly. Well, it dips to around 25ºC through the night. I like staying up late to pretend I'm home and that it's a normal temperature. It helps sometimes. The pool is great, though. Nice and cool.

The one thing that gets me down is that it's too hot for me to go outside. I was just stood outside the other day and I was sweating as I do when I run back home. It's weird. I'm pretty lethargic because my energy is at a low and because of that I'm not working out as I normally do. And so now I'm down because I haven't worked out and it's hot. But I guess it'll all be better in a few weeks. Then I'll be fishing and running and lifting again. Feeling better.

It's not the worst thing to be complaining about, though. Not a bad problem.

A First.

And finally. I got a First in my Games Design course! I worked my fingers off - sewed until there was no thread left. I drew until my pens ran out and I typed until the keys split in half. It was an intense year - especially the last couple of months when it was all coming together. It was exciting, too. My wifey was my best cheerleader. She supported me through this year more than I could have asked and I am truly grateful. I'm in the process of applying for my Masters Degree, so hopefully there'll be more drawing and writing and creating in the years to come. There will be whether I do the MA or not.

I didn't really get how big a first is until a load of people started enthusiastically congratulating me. I worked as hard as I could and I was really happy with it, but it's what I aimed for. Who wouldn't want to do their best?! I worked hard and prayed hard. As much as I have my wifey to thank, I have so much more thanks for God. He's been our rock through this year - He's been my rock for years, but with my wifey this year, He's been our solid foundation and I can't wait to pursue Him even more with her in the years to come.

Thanks again for reading. I really do appreciate it.

Peace.