Jesse and Melissa

2010-07-07T13:04:00.001-07:00

Testing.

Our Little Family

2010-01-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

This Friday, our little boy will be one month old. It seems that time has passed by so quickly and slow at the same time. I’m finally getting used to certain things about our new life and other things not quite yet. I like to categorize things in my life so this is how I will write about the past month:

Labor & Birth: Not quite what I expected both good and bad. I was in very early labor for about a week, which was really annoying. Felt like my body was getting ready for birth but I didn’t know when. On Friday, December 11, 2009 at 2:30 a.m., I woke up was some back pain and pretty regular contractions. Not painful, but just strong and long and hitting the magical 3-5 minutes to go to the hospital. We got the dogs ready and ourselves too to go to the hospital. I finally called the hospital at 4:30 a.m. and they told me to come in and eventually got to the hospital at 5:00 a.m.

The nurse wasn’t too sure if I was going to be admitted because I wasn’t too far along but my contractions were strong and long even though I wasn’t in pain. They made me walk around; both of our moms visited us. Apparently, I was leaning on my right side too much and the baby’s heart rate dropped a little bit so they automatically admitted me. My doctor finally came and we talked about all our options with labor and birth and we decided to break my water at 10:30 a.m.

I was excited because things were going to move along now. Almost immediately I started having painful contractions, so to things even further along I decided to walk around. I think I made twice around Labor and Delivery floor before I couldn’t walk anymore. I jumped in a hot shower to see if it could relieve the pain and it did a little. I think I was in the shower for an hour. Contractions are weird they are not always in the same spot. I could handle the horrible back pain but I could not handle the lower abdominal contractions. I felt like I was going to faint, I couldn’t open my eyes and I was uncontrollably shaking after the lower abdominal contractions. After two hours of bad contractions, I was done with dealing with pain and I got the epidural, I’d rather save my energy for pushing my cute watermelon out.

I took naps, listened to music, talked with Jesse for the next 5 hours or so. I was finally ready to push at 5:45 p.m. I did a few trial pushes and the nurse was amazed because he was coming so quickly. Now I was told that it was still painful to push even with an epidural, so I was expecting to feel pain, but thank God I did not feel an ounce of pain during pushing. I pushed for about 30 minutes and little (big head) David was out. David was 8 lbs 4 oz, 20 inches long. My doctor was estimating David to be 6 or 7 lbs, ha!

Coming Home: Two days later we were release from the hospital and were glad to be coming home. Adapting to a little person who can’t talk, move or do anything other than pee, poop and cry is not difficult but just different. It’s was physically difficult for me the first and second week because of the pain and because I knew what I needed to do to take care of my baby and household but I couldn’t move. My afterbirth pains were more painful than actual birth.

I’m finally starting to be able to move around with hardly any pain so household chores are getting easier and taking care of David it easier too, since I don’t have to rely on Jesse helping me move.

Rocky and Apollo: They have adapted to David well. They were intrigued by the squeaky thing on the couch that they weren’t allowed to touch. Apollo had a hard time hearing the baby cry at night; he would whine and cry when he heard David crying but only at night. Weird dog. I’m finally starting my walks again with the baby and hopefully we can all go for a walk together in the meanwhile, Kevin, my brother who is home from college has been taking them out on walks. Soon I’ll be running with my baby and two doggies by my side.

Jesse and Melissa: Jesse turned 30 years old on the 20th of December!!! We were both awfully tired so we didn’t do anything on his birthday. We had pizza at his parent’s house the day before and went to church on his birthday and came home and probably tried to sleep. I enjoy being a mommy, I think it’s so funny how sometimes I’m the only one that can make David stop crying. I always wondered how moms do that since I could never do that with other people’s baby or my own nephews or little brothers. I guess you just have to be a mom. We had David’s baby dedication yesterday at church, which is more for Jesse and me, that we promise to raise David in the Lord’s way and teach him about God and his son Jesus Christ. It was really nice.

Well, that’s it for now. David gave me a few minutes to write this so this was a treat!!

Mid-November, Already?!!

2009-11-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

Moving: It's been a month and a half since we first moved into our new house and it seems like we are 95% moved in. Moving in seems to take longer than moving out!! We just need to put up a few decorations and rearrange a few more items and we should be done. It's been difficult since I can move around too much and I get easily tired being 8 months pregnant and all.

Dogs: Rocky and Apollo love their new place. They have an enormous backyard compared to their cement patio in our old town house. Lots of new smells and they (primarily Rocky) have learned how to dig...something I do NOT like, especially on a white dog. So now they have supervised visits to the back yard everyday, and they go for long walks around the neighborhood. Rocky has become an escape artist from the backyard too, so another reason why they have supervised backyard visits.

Jesse: Is having an great time at his new job. I don't ask for too much detail on what he does. Even though it's super exciting for him doing electrical engineering, I don't really understand it.

Jesse was diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea (not breathing while sleeping) a few weeks ago. His oxygen levels would drop down to dangerous levels so now (for the past 2 nights) he has been sleeping with a CPAP. A CPAP is pretty much a air mask that forces air down your throat so the oxygen level stays normal and your body can rest. So far so good, Jesse feels more rested than usual and I can sleep without worrying about him not gasping for air in the middle of the night. He kind of sounds like Darth Vader if he tries to talk with the mask on.

Melissa: As for me, I will be 36 weeks pregnant on Monday, technically I will have a full-term baby and I'm good to go at any time. My hip pain has improved, meaning less pain but pain none the less. The baby is still moving around like crazy even though the books and doctors say the baby is supposed to start slowing down since there isn't enough room anymore. My baby doesn't want to obey and keeps on making himself at home causing me more stretch marks that I've ever imagined.

His nursery is almost done and I've been cleaning/arranging the house everyday until I have it to my standards. My hospital bag is mostly packed just need a few more items and the baby bag is 99% done. I'm also excited that Jesse will be able to take 3 weeks off when we have baby David and it will overlap with Christmas so I'm awfully excited to have him home for that long. By the way we are naming our baby David Aaron. "David" because in the Bible King David is the son of Jesse and "Aaron" because he was the brother of Moses and also because those names are easy to say in English and in Spanish.

As for being pregnant, it sucks. There's nothing much more to say than that, but I'd do it a few more times. The one thing I miss the most is exercising, real exercising, running, weightlifting, hiking just being able to work up a sweat. Hopefully in a month or two I can start doing a few of those again.

Melissa

Update

2009-10-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

Jesse and I have been slowly unpacking our boxes and I mean really slowly. Jesse's been working a lot and was preparing for his first sermon completely in Spanish which he did last Sunday. =) I can hardly move around so moving and unpacking boxes is very painful. I have major round ligament pain in my hip ligaments, apparently if you are pretty flexible while not being pregnant sometimes you become so flexible during pregnancy it's painful. That's me, of course. I've been feeling better with that pain the last two days, but I've been coming down with a cold. Whatever, 8 weeks to go.

We are half way through October and soon the year will be over. Man time flies by fast. Next thing you know it we will be going down to Mexico again for our annual mission trip, with our new little baby boy. He's already been once, in my belly. =)

Melissa

Moving...

2009-10-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

We are finally done moving out of our old house. We finished yesterday...it was awfully tiring. Jesse couldn't take time off to move during the day so we asked our family and friends to help us move during the day. Thank you to all of you who helped, Kara, Nate, Adam, Mikey G., Danny, Franz, Daniel, and my family.

Now we have to move in and get ready for our baby boy!

Melissa

New Puppy

2009-09-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago, Jesse and I got a new puppy. Many think it was my idea but it was Jesse. We visited some friends in Seattle and saw how great their two dogs played with each other and Jesse thought it would be great for Rocky to have a little doggie brother. We wanted another Shih Tzu so we got an 8 week old male Shih Tzu. They are really cute together. His name is Apollo, yup it's Rocky and Apollo, or better "Rocky vs. Apollo". By the way we don't have a Rocky movie fascination.

Melissa

Moving

2009-09-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

We are moving to an actual single story family house, in about two weeks. 3 bedrooms 2 baths and a HUGE backyard. The house is remodeled and recently landscaped so the house is nice. Rent is cheaper that what we are paying for our current townhouse, but we have to pay for water and trash. It will even out. Now we have to actually pack and move, which is always a hassle especially when one of us is 27 weeks pregnant.

If anyone wants our China hutch, we are selling it for $75.00.

Melissa

It's Been a While...

2009-08-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Jesse and I haven't posted anything in a little while. We've had a couple of busy weekends lately, two weddings one in Santa Rosa and another in Seattle, picnics, and church camping. We've had fun. Last weekend we went to Seattle and saw some of my old work friends and new friends that we made this year in Ensenada while on our mission trip.

Jesse is having a great time in his new job. He was hired on permanently a few weeks ago, so that was a great relief and blessing. He works in the most touristy part of San Francisco so it's fun for me to have lunch with him on occasion. My most favorite thing about him working there is that he can find out all the yummy restaurants that you would never know about unless you lived worked there.

I'm now 24 weeks along or around 6 months pregnant and feeling more and more pregnant every day. Back pain is a daily thing, non-stop belly movement too. I spend my days working on stuff for church, "nesting", playing my piano, and sometimes just lying on couch because I had a bad night/day. I really do love not having to work it's so relaxing especially during my pregnancy.

Since Jesse switched jobs we also switch health insurance so now Jesse and I will be going to Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Fremont. Which means I can give birth one block from my house at Washington Hospital rather than Kaiser in Hayward. Now I won't die at Kaiser. I used to work for PAMF and I just loved their service, I don't have to lie to them to get an appointment like I had to do with Kaiser. Though Kaiser had great emergency departments, sadly I would know, they saved my life twice. It's pretty sad that I'm 27 years old and I've been to the emergency room five times in my life since I was 22 years old. Sadly three of those times I've actually could have died. Anyways, I'm glad to be a PAMF.

Rocky is Rocky just happy as a little dog can be. He was having some eye issues, but the vet said not to worry he should be ok, but to keep and eye on his eye! Haha!

Jesse and I love working with the youth even though it's hard sometimes, we love them all and it's hard to see when they make bad decisions but all we can do is teach them. But we also rejoice when we see them make good decisions too. Just scares us for when our kids become teenagers. At least we will always have Rocky, he will never hate us.

Don't have anymore to say.

Melissa

It's a Boy!!!

2009-07-27T20:43:00.001-07:00

This is our baby boy and I am 20 weeks along. My mom and Jesse's mom think it looks like Jesse. The radiologist said our baby was very active and "wiggly". I agree. We are overjoyed!!

Melissa

The Newest Professional Electrical Engineer!!

2009-07-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Jesse passed his State of California Professional Electrical Engineering License Exam, on the first try, which is very, very hard to do!!! He's so wonderful and smart.

Melissa

In a Week or So

2009-07-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

Two exciting things are happening in a little over a week.

1) Jesse finds out if he passed his California Professional Engineering test. We really hope he did.

2) We find out the sex of our baby and I'll be half way through my pregnancy.

Patience....

Melissa

Thinking back to the Jungle....

2009-07-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, we were swinging on jungle vines like Tarzan. The only time we weren't surrounded by disease carrying mosquitoes. Awesome!

Melissa

Back from Mexico

2009-07-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Our missionary group came back from Ensenada, Mexico about a week ago. Our time down there was more than awesome.

Construction wise we... (Team A: Jesse, Kara, Danny and James) framed a bathroom/showers on the first floor, since the church currently has only one bathroom. They worked really hard!!

We had two painting teams - Team "I like boys" (Alicia C., Mel, Alicia S., Daniel, and Josue) and Team Sloth( Kevin and Marce). Team "I like boys" did a great job painting two bible murals, Daniel and the Lions Den and Moses and the Read Sea. Team Sloth, as you can see, worked very "hard" and painted the white sanctuary white. We explained to them the the sanctuary wasn't actually painted white it was the texture and if it didn't have paint on it the texture could come off very easily.

Our last team and most dirtiest team - Team Holes (Nate and Franz, sometimes Kevin and Marce). The church building had structural problems such as the second story was not properly supported so it could fall down, keep this in mind... Team Holes worked on digging 3 X 3 X holes in the ground, bending rebar, and pouring concrete for the beams that the workers were going to put up after we left.

I really didn't have a job, other than taking pictures, running errands at the stores and being pregnant. I would spend part of the day laying down in the van napping, buying tacos, taking pictures, hanging out with our kids and talking to the people from the local church.

Overall, we had a wonderful time serving the local church, La Escalera de Jacob. On Tuesday night we had a Battle of The Bands between seven churches. The worship service was great except the fact there was over 100 people in the sanctuary on the second floor that was not properly supported, with a lot of people jumping around. Let's just say a few people of from our group including myself, were praying really, really hard that the Lord would send some angels to support the building. Later the local Pastor told us he praying the entire service so the floor wouldn't collapse. We could feel the floor sway. Either way the service went well.

On our last day at the church site, the Pastor and his wife, Veronica told us that our church was a great blessing to them because now they can continue being Pastors of the church. They did not want to burden us with the fact that they were facing having to close down the church because the building was unsafe to support the amount of people in their congregation. The Pastor didn't want us to feel obligated to spend a whole lot of money to fix their church. Of course we didn't know this when we started to buy construction materials but thankfully we were able to find beams to support the second floor that weren't expensive and were approved by the local structural engineer to fix the problem.

Many, many other great things happened on this trip just ask anyone who went. Personally, for me I felt that no matter what life situation I am in I will serve the Lord wherever he calls Jesse and I to go. One our new leaders this year Alicia C. told us statement that I thought was very interesting, "Go, until you are called to stay," rather than "Stay, until you are called to go."

Melissa

Mexico, Here We Come!!

2009-06-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Today, Jesse and I are taking 14 people, mostly college and high school students to Ensenada, Mexico for our yearly mission trip. We are really excited to be going back to the Ranch and La Escalera de Jacob. This year we'll be working on constructing a church bathroom, possibly helping reinforce the 2nd floor, have a Battle of The Bands this Tuesday night with 4 or 5 other local churches and a soccer game.

The group has been training for weeks, for the music, soccer and learning more about christian life and being a missionary, so the group is really excited. Plus we found this awesome taco stand that won't make us sick, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

If you are the praying type, please pray that everything goes well, no one gets sick and that we can build great relationships with the Mexican churches. See you all in a little over a week!

Melissa

The Baby

2009-06-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a 12 week ultrasound of our child. Enjoy.

First Job

2009-04-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

I got my first full design job in 2006, three residential buildings in Emeryville. They're finished as of today and they look real nice. Here are some pictures from a couple of weeks ago.

Articles

2009-03-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

I don't usually post articles, but I read a couple of good ones over the last few days and wanted to pass them along.

First up is from Dr. Lonnie Lowery at t-nation in response to those ridiculous corn syrup commercials. The article is here.

Now I don't know if this is cool or not, but it seems that at some point in the future (like 2012) our whole modern society could come crashing down as the sun hits the world with a big plasma burst. This would melt active transformers and leave the world without electricity for between four and ten years. NASA has a probe orbiting the sun that's supposed to warn us when there's solar activity that would be dangerous in this way, but evidently it's not going to last much longer, and last time it warned us about something there wasn't enough time to do anything about it. So... yeah, the article is interesting, it's here, hopefully it will continue to be, sometimes NewScientist will only give you a paragraph preview of an article if you're not a subscriber.

And finally, back to fitness, this is for you treadmill junkies and others who have to get your 'cardio' in. Go lift weights instead. Article here.

PE Exam

2009-03-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

I got accepted today to test for my Professional Engineers License. Better hit the books again.

Also, went disc golfing in Santa Cruz last Saturday and it was very very nice. The parking lot was paved, it was a nice day and no one was there so we weren't waiting on anyone and no one was waiting on us. Plus I didn't suck, which was nice too.

That's all the updates for now.

Seriously

2009-02-19T08:13:00.000-08:00

This is a standard Little Red Riding Hood Cover:

This is a Little Red Riding Hood Barbi available for children to play with:

Seriously?

Angry Guy

2009-02-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

A guy in the locker room today unleashed a string of expletives when he tried to use a soup dispenser that was out, forcing him to move to the other one three feet away. Normally I'd shrug that off as 'a lot of other stuff must be going on in his life,' but it was so out of proportion I'm still thinking about it. There's no point to my story, it was just interesting, and we haven't put anything up here in a week.

Note: It's possible he was angry because Hoobastank had just come on the radio, because that made me angry too, but the soap seemed a more likely culprit.

Pictures

2009-02-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

Pictures from the trip are up on Photobucket, link under 'Pictures' to the right, or here.

Bacon

2009-02-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Melissa bought me some thick bacon yesterday, now most bacon is better than fifty percent fat, whereas this bacon was nearly seventy percent meat. It was so meaty in fact that it tasted like a particularly juicy pork chop.

In other bacon news, Melissa, Nate and I enjoyed bacon in Iquitos that was almost a quarter inch thick. Now that's some bacon.

Back from the Land of Peru! Part 1

2009-02-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

Jesse and I are back home. We are happy to be back and sad at the same time. We love the comforts of our home but we love so many things about Peru. Here are a few excerpts from our travel journal along with some pictures. If you are ever in my house and want to read in detail about our travel feel free to pick up our travel journal. Here it goes:

Day 1: Thursday, January 15, 2009

Kara Cornelio picks up at at 3:00 a.m. and off we go to SFO. In Atlanta, we had our last hamburger and I lost my travel pillow. Seven hours later we arrive in Lima at midnight. We saw lighting storms in the far off Amazons.

Day 2: Friday, January 16, 2009

We had to stand in the hot immigration line for one hour. We picked up our luggage and met up with the Harding's and my cousin Janette. Our group was a total of 10 people, Jesse, Nate, Wendy, Kelly, Kevin, Janette, Maggie, Buff, Donivan and myself. We check into our domestic flight and then wait another four hours for our flight to Cuzco. We tried to sleep but ended up talking and playing cards. We finally arrive in Cuzco at 7:00 a.m., head to our hotel, drink some coca and finally fall asleep at 11:00 a.m. We woke up couple hours later had lunch/dinner, paid our treking fees, ran some errands and went to bed.

Day 3: Saturday, January 17, 2009

We went to the local artisan market, bought some trinkets, walked down to the "local" mall to buy Janette hiking gear. Jesse was cursed by a little boy who wanted to shine his shoes and then told him he would be here the next day. We went back to the hotel and rested (the high altitude really takes it out of you). Later that evening we had our hiking briefing and met our guides, Marco and Franco. Had a delicious dinner and went to bed.

Day 4: Sunday, January 18, 2009

After breakfast, which consisted of bread, jam, mate de coca, fruits and coffee, we headed down to the Plaza the Armas and saw a cool parade, then went to a Maranatha church. Church service was very nice, but REALLY long even for me. After church we had lunch and took a taxi back down to the local mall to buy Janette socks. Headed back to the hotel, played cards, took a nap, packed for the next four days of hiking, had dinner and went to bed.

Day 5: Monday, January 19, 2009

At 6:00 a.m. we took our last "real" shower for the next week, had breakfast and headed to our bus that was going to take us to Kilometer 82, the beginning of the Inca Trail. A couple hours we arrive in a little town called Ollaytantambo, purchased walking sticks and then back on the bus to K82. At K82 the porters packed our gear (food, tents, etc.) for the next 5 days and off we started on our hike. Saw our first Inca site called Q'anabamba, then Patallaqta. We couldn't walk around in these but they were really cool. Hike was nice, rolling hills, llama sacrifial mounds, mummy tomb and not too strenuous. Arrived at our first campsite, had dinner and feel asleep.

Day 6: Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Didn't sleep that well day before. Today was a short 4 hour hike but a hard one, started at 9,842 feet and ended at 12,460 ft. People were really feeling the altitude, thankfully Jesse and I didn't. It was a beautiful hike, jungle, river, giant mountains. Words can't explain. Camp was at over 12K feet high, I felt a little dizzy and had a tiny headache. Jesse and I guzzled coca tea and took a nap after lunch. We could see Dead Women's pass or Warmiwañuska or at least her boob. Before dinner we play a new card game, Chilean head, let's just say our guide Marco didn't like Chileans. After dinner we saw the beautiful Milky way, I sniff some special liquid and went to bed. I kept on having nightmares of Jesse choking me, but it was actually my body reacting to the low levels of oxygen not an Incan spirit. Once again didn't sleep that much.

Day 7: Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Long, hard but very cool hike day. Made it up to Dead Women's pass, but just before we inhaled some even more "special" black liquid. Let's just say, Jesse and I were the first ones to make it to the top! Very beautiful sites at the pass at 13,828 feet. We made it up in 1.5 hours. For the rest of the day it was all down hill on the real Inca steps. We didn't have lunch for another 7 hours later so we were pretty tired. We saw two other really cool Inca steps especially one that we had to climb up some really steep steps. We finally had lunch and after another 1 or 2 hour hike we made to our 3rd campsite, Phuyapatamarca. It was really cold here, but an awesome site we were surround by glaciers, jungle mountains, and Inca sites. Had dinner, filled up our hot water bottles to put in our sleeping bags and went to bed.

Day 8: Thursday, January 22, 2009

Nature called at 6:00 a.m. so we found nature's toilet and then Jesse and I waited for the fog to disappear and it did and we saw the most beautiful site ever, I seriously wanted to cry, once again words cannot explain. Had breakfast, and started our last hiking day. We saw Phuyapatamarca which was and astrological Inca site. Learned about Inca's sacred foods, potato, corn and coca. First half of day was really slippery, steep downhill stairs. After lunch we saw our second Inca site of the day, Wiñaywayna - Forever Young, my FAVORITE site. Took pictures and video, and then started off on the trail again to the Sun Gate. The second part of the day was much flatter, but when it had it's uphills it was steep. One part of the stair was named "Gringo Killer Stairs" which had men on all fours crawling up some very vertical stairs. You would think after that there would be the Sun Gate at the top, but no, only more flatter stairs. Finally we made it to the Sun Gate, took pictures with Machu Picchu in the back ground.

We made it to Machu Picchu in the afternoon, but we couldn't go in until the next day. Took pictures again and then rode a bus down to Aguas Calientes, found the restaurant where we were going to spend the night, had dinner, checked emails and then went to bed.

Day 9: Friday, January 23, 2009

Did not sleep again, woke up at 4:30 a.m., made it to the bus at 5:30 a.m. and back to Machu Picchu. Our tour guide Marco, gave us a very good and different tour for 2 hours and then we could explore on our own. Lots a pictures and lots of fun, but a couple hours later we were very tired. Head back down to the town for lunch, surveys, and then to catch our train back to Ollaytantambo. Train ride was relaxing and then we met our bus driver to Cuzco. Made it to our hotel, took a wonderful shower and then had dinner, ran some more errands around the city, and then went to bed.

The next days will be describe as the second part of our trip to the Amazon Basin. Hope you liked reading.

One Last Update

2009-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

We're going to Peru tomorrow, so probably we won't be updating during the next two weeks. Maybe that won't be too different from normal, but yeah, we'll be in Peru.

People have known for a while now that I'm going, but they're all asking about it now and they always ask the same kind of thing: Are you going to build a church? An orphanage? Homes? Even a guy in Krav, who I've never talked to about mission work or any kind of spiritual thing, asked if I was going to build a church. Now I'm somewhat happy to have this reputation, but I do feel a little guilty telling everyone I'm just going on vacation to have some fun. I almost feel like I need to make some kind of excuse for it... anyway, that's my thought for the day.

New Years

2009-01-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of months since any update here, sorry about that. There's not much to report, Melissa and I are going to Peru next week, we'll hike the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu and spend a week in the jungle.

Yesterday I applied to take what's hopefully the last test I'll ever have to take. Assuming 'The Board' accepts me I'll be taking the Professional Engineer exam in April.

Yes!

2008-11-17T12:45:00.001-08:00

Only 4 more days of working for the Man!

Melissa

The Christian Book Store

2008-11-13T19:25:00.001-08:00

I have had little use for the Christian Book Store, their selection of Bibles is small, they have way too much Thomas Kinkaid stuff, to many wierd home stuff, a crappy music selection, and don't get me started on 'christian living.' Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a negative post, Melissa and I sifted through the used book section last week and *that* place is a gold mine. They have real Bible studies, books of J. Vernon McGee's 'Through the Bible,' books on practical discipleship, and all sorts of good stuff for between 25 cents and 2 dollars. We loaded up and it's been good reading so far, I highly recommend you check it out.

My New Job

2008-11-05T10:19:00.001-08:00

I have a new job! I start December 1st. I will work at a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) Firm called Friedman and Perry here in Fremont. I will give more details later but I'm so glad that I will be leaving the government soon. Once I have left the government I will give my opinion about what it meant for me to be working for the government and describe some truths and non-truths about the government. Overall, I'm glad and sad to be leaving, but I am mostly glad. Only 13 more working days here!

Melissa

Sad

2008-10-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's sad that a month has passed with nothing new going up here, so here you go. Melissa got a new job, right down the street. Hooray Melissa.

In bigger, better news, we spent a week down in Mexico from October 11th to the 20th in some training for doing mission work. That was outstanding. I doubt I'll be able to convey all that was impressed on us during the week, but I'll try.

The speakers we had were professors or staff from Azusa Pacific University, which got me thinking, if you can go to a christian university, do it. I never thought it mattered, education is education. The thing is Melissa had teachers in college who would spend their time telling her about how fruitflys have the gay gene, I had plenty of instructors who would go out of their way to bash Christ, how much better would it have been to have professors who loved the Lord and brought that to the lecture.

We learned about the global situation of the gospel, you can see for yourself at the Joshua Project. Namely where it isn't. This was the part of the week where we learned about different missionary movements in the past several hundred years and how we're stuck on the last one. Basically meaning that there aren't very many missionaries going out, and the ones that are going out are heading to places that have already been reached.

This fed into the discussion about Mexico in particular. Ensenada, where APU has been sending short term missions groups for some twenty years, has been reached, the gospel won there, the need for American Missionaries to go down and do VBS and do outreach events for kids, teenagers, and adults, is almost non-existant, the Mexican churches there can do that themselves, and are, without our help. Central Mexico on the other had is very Mexican Catholic, not to be confused with Roman Catholic, they're heavily into witchcraft, they burn books (Bibles), and see evangelical christians as cultists. The same situation they had in Baja not twenty years ago. So the need is not for Baja, but deeper, and the people who are best equipped to go in and set up beach heads down there aren't well meaning American Churches, but well equipped Mexican churches from esablished congregations in Baja, Mexicali, and other gospel saturated places. The need those Mexican churches have isn't for VBS, or for Americans to show them how it's done, but for partnership and help equipping their own missionary teams to go to those hostile locations, devolop contacts and then start funnelling down Americans (or more evangelical Mexicans).

That said, Melissa and I are starting to collect translators from across the great state of California. We're going to try to send them down with other teams that go to Ensenada and Mexicali to start building those partnerships with the Mexican churches and do a little more fellowship and help them understand the big picture.

Read this parable, I wouldn't exactly call it subtle, but I hope it helps you understand what we're talking about. If you are at all interested in coming with us on a mission trip to Ensensada we can take you (if you're a leader in church) for free. Let us know, your eyes will be opened to what God's doing out there.

Bailouts

2008-09-30T10:35:00.001-07:00

In the bailouts the government's given so far to Bear Stearns, AIG and Freddie and Fannie they've pretty much just given money to these companies. Why can't the government work a deal like this out for the taxpayers?

Tired

2008-09-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

I'm tired, had a rough day with traffic. At least my chiropractor made my back feel better.

121 Days

2008-09-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

We bought our tickets last week so we are going to Peru in 121 days!

Barack Obama

2008-09-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

*Warning* Political Post Ahead *Warning*

I like John McCain, I've liked John McCain ever since 2000, I'm going to vote for John McCain. That said, I feel bad for Barack Obama. Barack might have questionable associations (Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko), his shameless backers in the media may have behaved poorly thus far in the campaign (Kieth Olbermann, the attempted hit on Palin's daughter, the coverage of his trip to the Middle East and then Europe), you may strongly disagree with his policy preferences (tax and spend, pull out of Iraq, redistribute wealth, increase the size of the government), but Barack himself seems like a real stand up guy.

He's been beat up by the RNC, by John McCain's campaign, and particularly on right wing outlets for his 'lipstick on a pig' comment and his 'guns and religion' comment, among other things, which are all really stupid things to go after a guy on. I've never seen Barack do this on the other hand, he readily defended Palin's pregnant daughter, he put distance between himself and Rev. Wright, and I've never heard him sieze on something stupid another politician has said. He seems to have a genuine love for the USA, he seems legitimately interested in building bridges with his political opponents, he seems interested in repairing the image of the US abroad, he's fully behind the war on terror, even if not the current occupation in Iraq. With few exceptions in his campaign he's stayed on point with with his plans, and very seldom used pointless negativity when he speaks. So, yeah, Barack seems like an OK guy to me and here's hoping for a productive discussion of the issues that face America over the next couple of months.

Deads

2008-09-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

I got really excited when I came to the gym today because there was a kid at the rack next to me who had the bar loaded up to 450lbs and looked ready to pick it up. I've never seen anyone in real life lift that much weight, so I was pretty happy I'd get to see that kind of pull. So he bent down and grabbed the bar, then went and took a drink of water, then sat on the calf raise machine, then stretched his back, then took 45lbs off the bar, the stretched his back again, then took another drink of water, and then he looked at the bar again. Twenty minutes later he went and got a friend to unload the bar for him, I was kind of disappointed but he was acting like he might have hurt his back on a previous pull, so I'll try not to be too upset. Maybe next time.

Same As It Always Was

2008-09-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

From Volume II, Book II, Chapter III of Les Miserables:

"Towards the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the inhabitants of Toulon beheld the entry into their port, after heavy weather, and for the purpose of repairing some damages, of the ship Orion, which was employed later at Brest as a school-ship, and which then formed a part of the Mediterranean squadron.

This vessel, battered as it was,--for the sea had handled it roughly,-- produced a fine effect as it entered the roads. It flew some colors which procured for it the regulation salute of eleven guns, which it returned, shot for shot; total, twenty-two. It has been calculated that what with salvos, royal and military politenesses, courteous exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of four and twenty hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots. At six francs the shot, that comes to nine hundred thousand francs a day, three hundred millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere detail. All this time the poor were dying of hunger."

I thought that was interesting. So much of what Hugo editorializes in this book are the same kinds of things people complain about now regarding the government.

Fractured Ribs??!!

2008-08-26T22:15:00.001-07:00

I went to the chiropractor today because of my constant back pain. It's not confirmed yet but my chiropractor thinks that my upper back ribs might have been fractured from my car accident from a year and a half ago. She has to take a closer look at my x-rays to make sure if they were fractured, but either way my spine is all out of wack from my accident. Of course Kaiser refused to take an x-ray of my back went it happened since "it's all muscular." Let just say I'm slightly pissed off and if my chiropractor tells me that in fact my ribs were fractured, someone is going to be writing a lot of angry letters and making angry phone calls to Kaiser. I hate Kaiser.

Melissa

Mexico Pictures

2008-08-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten to post pictures from our Mexico Mission Trip from June. Hopefully Jesse and I are planning to go down to Mexico in October for some leaders training. Here you go!

Hand

2008-08-11T15:56:00.001-07:00

I knew this would happen sooner or later - finishing my last set of deads today and one of my callus(es?) catches and rips a dime size chunk of skin off my hand:

I wasn't sure what gym protocol was for skin disposal, so I put it in my pocket. It hurt a little so I'll try this removal method from Jim over at Beast Skills before next time.

Paranormal State

2008-07-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

While getting ready for a wedding on saturday Melissa and I watched a show on A&E called Paranormal State. It's a reality show about paranormal investigators from Penn State. It was interesting, so we watched it. The episode we watched focused on a mom and daughter in Maine who were being haunted / harassed, by some animal-human spirit. They brought in some native american shamans and a psychic medium named Chip Coffee. Anyway, apparently some tree had been cut down on the property and a spiritual vortex was opened and that's where this thing was coming from (according to the shaman and his tribal elder). So they burned an eagle feather and did some chants to fix the problem, but it didn't work.

The episode ended when the psychic guy told the mom: "Here's what you have to do - say 'In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, get out of my house.'"

That's what the mom did and everything was made right, there was no more 'presence' felt by the psychic or the residents of the house.

I'll have to watch some more and see if Jesus is the answer to every problem or just some of them.

My Doggie's Haircut and His New Couch

2008-07-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

It's Been a Couple of Weeks....

2008-07-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for no update in a long time. Here are a few things that have happened in the last couple of weeks:

1. Jesse and I took our church’s youth group down to Ensenada, Mexico the last week of June. We framed and put up drywall on the second story of a church (La Escalera de Jacob-Jacob’s Ladder), sanded and painted window bars and doors. We had a great time serving the people of Mexico. I’ll post some pictures up soon.

2. No updates on my crazy allergic reaction. The last time I got tested nothing happened. I have to setup another appointment and take stronger drugs to see if it causes anything.

3. Jesse and I are still house hunting, which is always fun.

4. We are going to my cousin’s wedding in about two weeks in Los Angeles. While we are down there we are going to go to Disneyland, which is always exciting but Jesse has never been there so that will be extra fun.

5. Our plans for Peru trip are on track, so the next step is to buy our plane tickets. If you want to come let us know!

6. Rocky got a haircut by a professional groomer so he looks funny and cute. I bought him a doggie couch which he looks really cute on. I post some pictures too.

Melissa

Once Again!!

2008-06-14T13:54:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we put our deposits down for our trip to Peru in January 2009! We are actually going on the true Inca Trail and we are going to see more Inca sites. This year a couple of our friends and co-workers are going with us so it should be a fun group. We are really excited!!

Melissa

Luck

2008-06-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

I read this article over a year ago, and I read it again a couple of months ago, and I read it again today. It's still great.

Gym

2008-05-30T14:05:00.001-07:00

I think that a popular magazine must have published a new workout routine recently because there were three or four groups of young men at the gym doing bizarre variations of a plate curl at the gym today. At least none of them were frat curling, they were all doing their curls *next* to my beloved squat rack.

Jesse

A Little Scared

2008-05-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a little scared that I'm actually going to try to go into anaphylaxis on Friday. It will be my fourth time that my body wants to die on me. Oh well, at least the doctors and nurses will be right there next to me to save me. It's not fun when you start losing your breathing ability and feel like your body is being burned.

Melissa

News

2008-05-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

Indiana Jones visits Cusco, Nazca, and Iquitos in the new 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.' We've been there! Awesome.

Melissa and I have also made offers on two houses we saw today, we'll see if either of the owners bite. Either one would be great, they're single family homes with lots of room to grow and plenty of yard space.

We have both been sick with some kind of stomach bug all week.

Speaking of sick, Melissa has another appointment with her allergist on Friday, where she's going to take some ibuprofen and run up and down stairs to see if that's what triggers her anaphylaxis. Good news is that if that what does it, she's in the clear, if not we get to keep try to get the reaction and staying away from activities and locations that previously caused said anaphylaxis.

That's all for now.

Let's Go Oakland!!!

2008-05-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Four days ago the Oakland A's were tied with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (lamest name ever, to go with that lame rally monkey...), so there was going to be this big four game showdown to close out April and all they can do is split, nothing solved. But for those who saw the first and last games, wasn't it great to see those no name A's beat the Angels that bad?

Also - for those who don't go to church sunday afternoon, the A's twenty hits yesterday means you can get plaza level seating for something like $5 on Sundays game v. the Rangers.

Here's hoping April wasn't the only good month for Oakland baseball.

Vegas and a Desert Run

2008-04-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Jesse and I went to Las Vegas. We stayed at the Monte Carlo and had a great time! Too many things to say so I'll just make some points.

1. Flying to Vegas is much easier than driving to Vegas.
2. It's really funny that in the morning there are only senior citizens roaming around in restaurants and the casinos. Everyone else is still sleeping.
3. People can walk around Vegas almost naked and it's ok.
4. Jesse and I took a Gondola ride inside the Venetian, which is something I've always wanted to do.
5. I love pigging out in Vegas. We went to the Bellagio buffet and had so much food. I loved their Lemon Merengue Pie, it was delicious. Jesse liked there little cheesecake.
6. On Sunday, I ran 5.9 miles in 57 minutes and 32 seconds from the outskirts of Vegas to almost downtown. I started running the in darkness of the morning around 5:15 a.m. and ran as the sun rose over some far off mountains. It was really pretty.
7. I usually run with an MP3 player but I couldn't during with it on this run so I was trying to sing in my mind or I had randomn thoughts to keep myself busy. I had been up since 4 am on Saturday morning so I was running on adrenalin and Mountain Dew.
8. Jesse got to ride in the follow van with the Chief of the IRS.
9. We saw Joakim Noah, from the Chicago Bulls surrounded by seven hot girls at the Palms. He was really, really tall.
10. Vegas is its own little world. I like it and so does my hubby.

Will post some pictures soon.

Melissa

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2008-04-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

WARNING: LONG AND SEMI-POLITICAL POST AHEAD!!

I'm about halfway through a book called the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen. I was going to post my general thoughts on it when I was done, but it turns out that the book is far too interesting to leave it at that. The book is about food, what we eat, why we eat it and some of the potential consequences. I'm going to try to distill what I've learned so far into short, easy to understand thoughts.

Some time in the first world war a German scientist (Haber) trying to build bombs without the need from nitrates from Chile developed a way to artificially fix nitrogen, and make explosives artificially. Fixing nitrogen is something that has to happen for the nitrogen to be useful to plants growing in the soil. Usually animal feces or some kinds of plants do this in nature, which is why crops get cycled in tradiational agriculture. Anyway, this was a process by which a farmer could continuously grow the same thing on the same land.

Some time either just pre or just post cold war there was a depression and subsequent rise in the price of corn. As the effects of this rippled through the economy the government stepped in and began to stabilize, and then subsidize corn prices. The results of this led to the production of corn and nothing but corn (and some soybeans) by most farms in America's breadbasket, because you were guarenteed money by corn. The variety of corn produced by these Iowa cornfields isn't edible, it's just really starchy and provides the most calorie per square foot of any other grain or grass, that's why the grow it as opposed to other things.

So there's a big corn surplus that the food industry needed to find something to do with, so they started breaking it down and making high fructose corn syrup, glucose, ethanol, xanthan gum, corn starch, and animal feed.

This is where it gets a little wierd and nasty in my estimation. A steer's lifespan is 1200 lbs, slaughter weight. The natural diet of cattle is grass, they're rumen's, which means they can break down and digest the sugars in grass, corn is actually poisonous to them. Corn, as mentioned above in unparalleled in it's calorie density, so cows are brought up to weight with a diet of mostly corn and antibiotics as well as feed additives (inculding other cow bits). The idea being to get the cow fat enough to slaughter before it get's too sick.

What's the point and who cares you may ask fairly enough, if it's got protein, carbohydrates and fat, the macronutrients, then you're set. The thing is: you are what you eat, and you are what you eat eats too. Our meat eats corn, our soda is 100% corn, most preservatives we use in food come from corn. This leaves our diets remarkably lacking in most everything but corn, there's little to no 'biodiversity' in our diets.

Organic farming helps a little bit in this, since organic meats eat organic food (food not fetilized by Haber-ized nitrates, or with pesticides used on them). Pesticides and other ways we 'help' plants make them weak and low on all the vitamins and minerals that make plants good for us. Anyway, when an organically raised steer eats his food, he's getting a better deal in terms of nutrients than standarly raised steer. There's a lot more to say on this, but I don't want to go on too long.

The next bit is something that Al Gore spoke to a little while ago and was roundly ridiculed for, which is that eating meat contributes more to global warming than driving. Even if you don't believe in man-made global warming a reasonable person would certainly cede that America needs to get off foreign oil, or at least help the sky to be less brown. The reason I bring this up is 20% or the fuel used in the US is used to get food from one place to another, that's a lot. Certainly it takes a lot of fuel to get corn from silos in Iowa to feed-lots in Kansas, and meat from Kansas to most of the midwest, or California, where some of it ends up.

I don't want to fault people for what they eat, if the food is available and it tastes good to them and that's what they want to eat then that's their right. I'm certainly not going to start a new People's Park and stick it to the man, but the half of this book I've read so far has put a number of stones in my shoes in regards to how I eat. I curious now about buying local foods, and buying organic foods, not to mention trying some grass-fed beef. Anyway, buy the book and read the book, it's facinating.

Two Years!

2008-04-12T09:23:00.001-07:00

Jesse and I celebrated our two year anniversary last week. I think we liked being married to each other. Nothing too exciting going on in our lives, just the daily surprises of our crazy dog Rocky. One thing I guess we both have learned about each other is that we are really violent when we are sleeping. Apparently Jesse can't stop elbowing me in my chest/back and head butting me in the night, and I can't stop punching him in the back and biting his shoulder. Violent dreamers...

Melissa

exercising

2008-04-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

I almost met pukie today, second time in the last year, I don't know if that means I'm working too hard, or not hard enough.

In other news, if you're not doing pullups you should definitely start.

Project 86

2008-04-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Project 86 is going to grace us with their presence again (or at least grace Sacramento), so we're driving up April 12th to Orangevale, Ca to see them. Let me know if you're interested.

Texas Gives Finger to the Hague!!

2008-03-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know why this makes me so happy, but man it does. I love Texas.

New

2008-03-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

For those who truly have time to kill I started a blog to track my hiking, biking, trekking and general travel data from my awesome new garmin 60CSx. Link Here.

War Protests

2008-03-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

I don't give war protesters too much thought, but they were on the news last night as they made a ruckus over the fifth year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. I was just struck by a couple of things:

- In Berekley about 100 people came out to see Cindy Sheehan speak and 80 more marched on the Marine recruiter there in Berekley. I assume there were a few more people than that in SF, given about 150 were arrested, but they all made the news. I've seen more than 100 people at Hometown Buffet. More than 100 people go to Crossroads Church on sunday. Oh well.

- Channel 2 interviewed a conciencious objector from Iraq Vererans Against the War, he was a pretty young guy who said that the events of 9-11-01 had moved him to act, so he'd joined the marines. Good for him. He had to leave the marines however when, during training, he'd discovered that the marines were training him to fight and kill people. So not only was he a dufus (doofus?), but he wasn't even in fact a veteran of the Iraq War. Oh well.

Update

2008-03-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

I don't want my blog to get too dusty, so here's the updates:

- I've been with Fard for three years now, making it my longest employment engagement.
- Finally there's a good radio station again in the bay: KCNL 104.9 Sunnyvale.
- Lifelock, a provider of sevices I'm very intested in, doesn't really do anything you can't do yourself. We'll see how my efforts work out.
- It's almost summertime, which means that we have trips to Las Vegas, Yosemite, Monterey, and Mexico coming in the next three months.
- Melissa and I will be 90% debt free by 2009. Given how we started 2007 that makes me very very happy.
- Climbing Mission peak is a lot of fun this time of year. It's not too hot and it's actually green.

That's all the random information I can think of right now. Happy Easter everyone.

Squats

2008-03-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

When you do a squat you're supposed to go all the way down, then all the way back up. It's cool if you're squatting alone and you can't tell, I used to do that, but today I was on the rack right next to one of the personal trainers who was teaching a guy to squat. He loaded the guy up before the guy learned how to do the move so the squatter couldn't even go down past 45 degrees.

Personal training is kind of expensive, the guy should be be able to teach you how to squat. Even this kid knows how to do it. Perfect form.

Sick Girl

2008-02-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

Well I'm sick with strep throat. I've been sick since last Wednesday, but didn't really feel it until Friday. I suspected that I had strep because I went on WebMD and read all about it, but the doctor confirmed it on Monday and gave me some pain killers and antibiotics. Last night I finally slept since Saturday night and it was great. I would never wish this disease on anyone, because it has been SO painful on my throat and the rest of my body.

I have completely lost my voice, but when I try to speak I sound like the little black boy in the wheel chair from Malcolm in the Middle....Jesse laughs at me every time I talk. Oh well.

Melissa

pigs

2008-02-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

I heard the funniest story on NPR's California Report on Friday. They were doing a piece on the annual gathering of chefs at the Ahwanee Lodge in Yosemite. This year's theme was the Whole Hog, where the chefs made food out of all the different bits of a pig. Anyway, they interviewed a woman who said that she'd been a vegetarian for 22 years, then from the insistance of a friend, had a pork shoulder one night for dinner. Her life was changed by that pork shoulder, she renounced vegetarianism and loves eating pork, so much so that she got a tattoo of a pig on her arm. That's a great story. That's the power of pork.

I Wish

2008-01-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wish we could just leave and walk through nature's beauty again.

Ron Paul

2008-01-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul appears to be the only candidate campaigning in California - at least he's the only guy running radio spots. I like his latest:

- Ron Paul favors a strong nationtal defense.
- Ron Paul would not close any domestic military bases.
- Ron Paul supports stealth warriors to hunt down terrorists dead or alive.
- Ron Paul would secure borders.
- Ron Paul would ban student visa for terrorist nations.
- Ron Paul would end government spending that continues to put us in debt to China and Saudi Arabia.
- Ron Paul has the highest donations among all candidates from active military members.

I really like that part about 'stealth warriors.'

CNN Radio

2008-01-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

CNN does the news updates for the talk station I listen to in the morning, yesterday they capped off a two minute hourly update with:

"...and Pat Robertson has weighed in on the new year, saying that God told him 2008 will be filled with global conflict, and there will be a recession."

...what? That's not news. Why not just say: "...and Bill, from Washburn, North Dakota, has said that his dog told him that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west."

The Gym

2008-01-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

This is by far the worst time of year to go to the gym, everyone in the world made their resolutions to get healthy and fit, and that's great. The problem is that the gym is just packed with those people right now, and I hate going. I go to the gym at least three times a week, I've done it long enough now so it's just habit. If it wasn't though, if I was just trying to start again right now, I think I'd quickly stop too, it's hard to get equipment and hard to find space to do your work. So if your new years resolution is to get fit, go running, or walking, or bike riding until March, then go to the gym, it will be a much better experience.

Christmas Time

2007-12-28T18:09:00.000-08:00

We had a nice Christmas. Christmas Eve at the Bravo's until midnight and then Christmas Day at the Avery's. There was lots of delicious food wherever we went and lots of fun. This year my parents and two little brothers went to Peru so I was a little sad that they weren't here but I'm glad they got to spend it with my grandparents. Apparently, one of my little brothers almost blew off his hand with fireworks. My other little brother was taken to the hospital because they thought he might have malaria or dengue fever, but the results came back negative.

Jesse and I have had all week off from work, which has been great except sometimes we've been a little bored so we try to find things to do. At least we have been sleeping in all week long, it's been great. Hope you all have had a great Christmas!

Melissa

Happy Birthday!

2007-12-20T22:03:00.000-08:00

Today is Jesse's 28th birthday! Happy Birthday!!!! We had a nice family dinner at the Avery's house, ate ribs, pasta and chocolate cake. Good Times.

Couches and Best Husband

2007-12-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

Jesse and I finally got real couches, some black leather ones. We got them off of my mom's friend. They are really nice. I was scared that our IKEA couches were going to break when we sat on them one day.

Jesse is the best husband...he downloaded all my favorite boy band songs from the 90's. I like Jesse.

Missing Girl and My 3rd Near Death Experience

2007-12-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

If you are the praying type please pray for Veronica Ruiz and for the safety of my co-workers and rangers. She is the missing hiker from Mill Valley, who was hiking on Mount Tamalpais. She is my co-worker and this is a very sad situation. I can't explain everything, but it's a horrible thing that no one should go through. It is very heartwrenching for me because yesterday I was looking for Veronica in a beautiful place, on a mountain by the ocean, but all I could think about was my co-worker is out there, it's dangerous and we need to find here. In my line of work we will do anything to save our own. I can't even imagine what her parents are going through.

Yesterday, I was on the one of the rescue teams searching for Veronica on Mt. Tam. I was on a team of four people consisting of a Ranger, Jr. Ranger, one of my co-workers and myself. We separated in pairs and went two different directions but we were going to meetup eventually. I paired up with the Ranger. Every was going fine, other than not finding Veronica, covering as much ground as we could (3 or 4 miles).

I first notice my hands were itching but didn't think anything about it. I climed to the top of a hill and yelled for Veronica and I felt that my mouth was kind of tight. I felt my face and I started to have welts and bumps on my face. I ran to the Ranger, when I felt that my throat was starting to close up. Then my whole body started itching like if I had ants biting me all over my body. What scared my the most was the last time this happened to me my throat was almost closed up in less than 5 minutes after I found out something was wrong with me. We were far away about 1 hour hike back down to the fireman's station.

As the Ranger called for help I calmed my self down. The ability of being able to breathe was slowly being taken away from me so while the Ranger called for help I called Jesse. Jesse said I sounded calm but in my mind I was thinking, "I'm going to die, I'm going into respiratory arrest, please Lord help me, help me." I kneeled down to try to control my breath. Thank God I was trained to control my breathing when I was OC'ed (pepper sprayed) in my face, during my Georgia training. The faster I breathed, the faster the allergy would go through my body.

The Ranger didn't have Epinefrin and Benadryl, the medicine I needed. What felt like an eternity, was probably 15 minutes before the firemen came. The Ranger and the firemen felt like my angels. I was REALLY bad by the time they came to me. The firemen gave my oxygen, while they prepared the epinefrin, and benadryl. Epinefrin is pure adrenalin, which made me cold, somewhat disoriented and was very shaky. When I finally got to the ambulance, they stabalized me and took me to the Emergency Room.

My symptoms got better on the way to the hospital, but I felt and still feel like crap. When I arrived they hooked me up to some steroids to make sure my allergic reaction completely went away. The bad thing is that they don't know what I'm allergic too. I have to go see an allergist to see if he can determine the source of my severe allergic reation. So for the rest of my life I have to walk around with an Epi-Stick (self injection of epinefrin/adrenalin) in case I start feeling the same thing again.

I call it my 3rd near death experience because it was. The 1st time anything like this happened to was this same experience in Georgia, 2nd time my car accident, 3rd was yesterday. I really don't like almost dieing, I'm not scared of dieing because I know I'm going to heaven because Jesus lives in me, but the pain, and actual process and the realization of "If I don't get help I'm going to die" is not fun. But I'm still here, happy and alive.

Melissa

Funny!!

2007-11-29T14:59:00.000-08:00

This is an actual picture from the streets in Richmond, CA. Funny!!

Weight Gain Weight Loss!

2007-11-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

After my car accident I gain approximately 12 lbs, due to not exercising and not being able to cook as much as I did because I was in pain. Therefore, Jesse and I ate out more than we normally did. 12 pounds doesn’t sound like a lot but on a 5 foot petite woman like me it was a lot of weight.

Once I got my strength back and was physically able to exercise (primarily weight lifting and running) I really started to get back into the habit. After three months of working out and running like crazy, I actually had not lost a pound but actually gained weight from my muscle gain (or fat but I prefer to think it was muscle). It was ridiculous! I was lifting the most I had ever lifted and was running 6 miles 3 or 4 times a week and nothing was happening.

I decided that if exercising wasn’t helping me lose weight that I would have to change my eating habits. I was debating between starting the Nutrisystem or Weight Watchers, but I eventually chose Weight Watchers because it fit my lifestyle that I have.

First couple of weeks I was quite hungry but my appetite eventually changed. Slowly but gradually the weight starting coming off between 1-2 lbs a week since mid September of this year. Hiking Machu Picchu made not only me lose weight but Jesse too. Jesse lost like 10 lbs hiking in Peru and I lost like 5 lbs. Weight Watchers completely changed my point of view on eating; I’m eating and feeling SO much healthier. I have horrible migraines and ever since I starting eating better my migraines have drastically reduced to almost never happening.

All in all, I have lost 16 lbs with only a few more pounds to go just because we all want to lose those 5 extra pounds, eating and exercising better (though I haven’t exercised since Peru, but that’s somewhat understandable). I still eat my pizza, chocolate and other yummy bad food but now I know what junk food costs me. That doesn’t mean I’m staying away from them forever but only once in a blue moon.

Melissa

Tourist Visas

2007-11-21T11:10:00.001-08:00

Janette got denied her tourist visa on Monday, the reason given being that she didn't make enough money. Melissa and I filled out Affidavit's of Support, got them officially notarized and everything, declaring that the visiting alien would not become a drain on the system while she was up here and staying with us, specifically so that wouldn't be an issue.

Anyway, with a few exceptions (notably Europe) everyone who wants to come to the US on a tourist visa has to pass an interview and overcome an assumption that they will immigrate, just stay here once they get here. That's reasonable, given our situation as the most kick-ass nation on earth, but it's crazy that they'd keep visitors out specifically because they won't enforce their own rules. If it were more difficult for companies to hire illegals and harder for illegals to find work, then it would be easier to bring in visitors, legitimate visitors, without the fear that they'd stay. That makes sense all the way around, except that our salad might be more expensive.

I'd like to rant and rave, but I know that people have limited attention spans.

Excited

2007-11-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

Melissa is lying, she knows why she's excited. Her cousin Janette is interviewing with the US Consulate in Lima on monday at 7:30 in the morning to see if she gets a US tourist visa or not. Most are denied, but we hope she get's through. So if you're the praying type please pray for Janette (to get her tourist visa).

Random Thoughts

2007-11-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm excited and I don't know why. Maybe about Thanksgiving and Christmas, having great times with families and friends.

I'm glad it's fall almost winter. Jesse's birthday is next month, my work situation is better, I feel healthier. Rocky's not that much of a butthead. I had lunch today with Jesse so that is always a perk. We lost the BMW but now we don't have a car payment and our insurance is WAY cheaper, we only really need one car.

Life is good.

Melissa

Gym

2007-11-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

If you're a man and you go to the gym, don't ever do this:

Please.

Car

2007-10-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

I have lost another BMW. I got rear ended monday morning by a Chevy Tahoe, the backside of my car got all messed up, but not so much that I couldn't drive to work. The insurance claims it's a total loss, so there it goes.

Peru

2007-10-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Peru was awesome, I'd love to spend several thousand words describing it, but I know how hard long posts are to read and how boring I can get. Plus I'm not really sure how to describe two such diverse weeks, so I'll just post some entertaining bits:

- Iquitos, where Melissa's grandparents live and where we spent week #1, is the world's largest city which is inaccessible by road.

- The moto-rickshaws that serve as taxi's in Iquitos consistently charged Melissa, myself, and her cousin Janette 25% more than normal fare for a ride. Supposedly it's because they thought I was down there stealing their women and they were exacting their revenge.

- We had no running water the whole week we were in Iquitos, which is in the middle of the Amazon rain-forest. Hello bucket showers.

- In Iquitos there are no readily available sources of dairy.

- Lima, the capital of Peru, reminds me of a giant, dirty version of Oakland. It wasn't pretty.

- I am too big for Peru, I couldn't stand up on buses, I made motocarros list to whatever side I was on, and if I didn't duck I'd hit my head on almost every door frame in the country.

- Cusco is a really cool city. We stayed here. In the highest room, at the highest hotel, in the highest city in Peru. We got winded every time we walked back to our room.

- On the second day of our trek to Machu Picchu we crossed the Incachiriaska Pass, which is over 16,000ft. It was hard, I'd walk twenty feet, catch my breath, then repeat. The people who crossed the pass that afternoon and the next day had to do it in a foot of snow.

- If you walk for most of a day in a nice thick jacket and get a little wet and sweaty you'll smell bad later. Really bad.

- I'm no boy scout. I set my tent up poorly on the second night, when it rained pretty hard and Melissa and I spent the night on a small lake.

- Our tent and sleeping bags were great, despite the rain and the poor set up we were warm and dry every night, we were the only warm ones the first night.

- Machu Picchu is well deserving of every good thing you can say about it, it's awesome. Not only is the site cool enough alone, but it's sitting up at the top of incredibly steep and sheer mountains which are covered in thick, jungle vegetation. It's just amazing.

- The United States of America is the best country ever.

Peru Pictures

2007-10-24T06:31:00.001-07:00

If you want to see our Peru pictures just click on the "Pictures" link on the right side.

Back Home, California!!

2007-10-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

We are so happy to be home. After sweltering in the jungle for a week and then hiking close to 50 miles we are so happy to be home. Here's a quick picture, more to come later.

Melissa

AHHH!!

2007-10-02T06:04:00.000-07:00

We are going to Peru in three days!! We'll be staying the first week in Iquitos, Peru (on the Amazon River) which is the largest city in the world that can only be reached my plane, right in the middle of the Amazons. The second week, one of the new seven wonders of the world Cuzco/Machu Pichuu.

Dentist

2007-09-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist this morning because one of my teeth hurt when I bit down on it. My dentist told me that my tooth seemed like it was starting to die. Apparently I had a larger than normal nerve in my tooth which was very close to the surface of my tooth, that was nicked by a previous dentist when filling a previous cavity. It just takes years for the nerve to die, and apparently it wants to cause me pain before I go to Peru. My dentist said that if I wasn't going to Peru in a week that he wouldn't not suggest doing a root canal, but since I am he did a root canal. Pre-emptive strike, I like it.

Every I know has told me that a root canals are horrible, but I really didn't feel anything because 1) my tooth did not have a cavity in it, it was just dieing 2) My dentist shot me with Novocaine like 4 or 5 times AND gave me laughing gas which was a lot of fun. He finished the whole thing like in one hour. My jaw hurts more than tooth, but I still am taking some pain killers and anti-biotics. That was my morning. I just didn't want to have some Peruvian dentist pull my tooth out.

Melissa

Before the Sunrise.....

2007-09-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

No one is driving around in the streets at 3:30 a.m. in the morning unless:

1) You have my job
2) Are a truck driver
3) Have MAJOR, MAJOR problems.

I'm tired. =(

Melissa.

Update

2007-09-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

Rocky with his new hairstyle at the dog park, I know he looks like a girl but he looks funny with short hair so we let it grow out.

In other news, we are leaving for Peru in three weeks. It seems really close but the both of us have a TON of work to do (for our jobs) before we leave. I can't wait to see my grandparents and hike in the mountains.

My older brother, Ricky, had heart surgery today. They reached his left side of his heart through his femoral artery in his upper left leg. During the surgery they found more complications in the right side of his heart and had to do a second surgery, which they reach through the main vein in his neck. My brother is a trooper. He was awake during the whole surgery which took six hours. I'm glad he is still alive.

Funny Water

2007-08-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

I went running yesterday with Jesse and my dog Rocky (3 miles). I like to weigh myself before and after I run to see how much water my body loses and I lose an average 2 lbs of water loss. For some reason yesterday, I lost 8 lbs of water! I felt "fake skinny" for a little while, but I retained most of the water loss by the end of the night. It was nice to see a lower number on the scale though.

By the way, best work out song: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, and a crazy dog named Rocky to run with.

Shots, Shots and More Shots

2007-08-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

Since we are going to the jungles and mountains of Peru we have to get four specific shots/medicines.

Malaria medicine/pills: Which I hear make you sick anyways.

Yellow Fever Shot

Typhoid shot

Altitude sickness meds: Make you sick too.

Oh well, I guess it worth it. Jesse might need more shots since he hasn't have all his immunizations. I think we'll be extremely sick even before we go to Peru. It's very sobering to know that Iquitos, Peru is the #2 malaria capital of the world. Lovely. I guess that is why we take all these shots and meds.

Chicago!!

2007-08-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

Jesse and I are going to Chicago the last week of August for my friend Jessica's wedding. I'm so excited to see her and to be in Chicago. Everyone one I speak to says Chicago is a great city, so if you know places to go let us know.

Melissa

Peru

2007-07-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

We just bought our tickets to Peru. Fun in the Andes then the jungle for two weeks. Machu Picchu, here we come!!

Most Favorite Picture

2007-07-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

I like this picture of my nephews and my little cousin.

Running

2007-07-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

I ran a little over 5 miles today in about 1 hour, so approximately 12 minute miles which is not all that great. I haven’t done that since my training times in Georgia, and I'm not in shape at this moment in time (partially due to my car accident and laziness). After about 2.5 miles, I can’t feel my body anymore and I can run forever but my laziness takes over and I stop. I’m just glad that I didn’t stop running.

Melissa

Research

2007-07-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

The people on the radio today have all taken the time to talk about this new study that finds muscular guys get more girls than non-muscular guys. It all reminds me of that Onion headline:
"Teen Sex Linked to Drugs and Alcohol Reports Center for Figuring Out Really Obvious Things."

Link.

Hot Days and New Car

2007-07-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

Boy it's really hot. Everyone was dieing during bible study today, so we made it short and sent the boys to the pool. I love it when it hot, I guess it the Peruvian Jungle blood in me.

So I finally finished a big report I've been working on for the past eight months and I'm sooo relieved. Hopefully it doesn't come back to haunt me. But on the good side in my work world, I got a brand new work car. Don't want to say what it is but I can turn the engine on with my remote key button thing, it can use ethanol (but there are no ethanol stations in California, go figure), and a MP3 hookup. It has other things but I don't know the car yet. It makes Jesse and I want to buy a new car.

I hope I can post Mexico pictures later.

Mexico Mission Trip

2007-07-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

We are back from Ensenada, Mexico. We arrived in Fremont, around 11:00 o’clock at night very tired and dirty. We’ll post more about our adventures in Ensenada but a quick overview.

Twelve people went with our group. We sent four of our people out to other groups as translators. Two others helped another group build a roof and the rest of us painted the clinic and poured concrete. No one was left in Mexico, but we did get stopped at the border for fruit smuggling. We’ll post pictures and more stories. Overall, we had a great time serving the Lord in different ways. Also, thank you Danny for making us laugh so much that our abs hurt.

By the way Ricky Borba, I wrote cemetery wrong because in Spanish it is spelled with an “n”.

Hmm.... Is there something in the water?

2007-06-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, two couples at our church are now pregnant literally within two weeks apart. One couple has been married for a couple years and the other not even a year. It seems like everyone that I know has the pregnant bug or already has babies. Per my Hispanic side, I should have three kids by now, but I don’t. All of my Hispanic friends are very surprised that I’m not pregnant yet. I’m just happy being married to Jesse and being with our annoying little dog.

By the way, we are building Rocky the coolest dog house ever; it even has a small deck and columns. We spent all weekend building it. Pictures will soon follow. Rocky doesn’t know how lucky he is.

Special Olympics Run

2007-06-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today I ran in the Law Enforcement Special Olympics Torch Run. A couple of my co-workers and I ran it with Colma Police Department. It was only 1.3ish miles not very far but it was fun because we had lots of motorcycle cops riding around us and a really old Pontiac Muscle Cop Car riding along us. We ran further than we were supposed to (up a slight hill). Oh well more exercise. I was just happy that I was not the last runner and that I carried the torch for about 1 minute. I got a free t-shirt. By the way if you've never been to Colma there a lot of dead people in that city, it's FULL of cementaries.

Melissa.

For those Interested

2007-06-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite authors, Dan Simmons, has just posted a fantastic article on his web site about Iraq. Go read it, you'll be smarter.

Mostly Moved In

2007-05-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

I like having a much bigger place. We actually have room for our stuff, plus I always love going to IKEA to buy things. Once everything is settled we'll have some type of get-together.

I don't know why ever since we moved to this house Rocky has become somewhat aggressive. Maybe it's the different dogs in the neighborhood or that there are cats around.

Melissa

Thoughts on My "Dia De Cumpleaños!"

2007-05-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday and I am turning 25 years old. I’ve always liked my becoming older. I don’t dread it and I don’t think I ever will, because I’ve been using anti-wrinkle cream since I was fifteen years old, hehe! I don’t know what to write on the day of my birth so her are some thoughts of mine:

I think I should celebrate my mom on my birthday because I didn’t do anything, she did.
My hairstylist, Sanjay, found a one white hair in my head the other day. He gasp and cut it, but not pulled it because he says seven more will come back. Sanjay makes my hair look beautiful!
I love my husband, Jesse. He is my best husband ever…
I love my doggie, Rocky.
I will have kids within the next five years, scary!
I can finally rent a car.
I’m still the youngest in my whole field office at work, I think.
I’ve played the piano for 18 years of my life.
I still feel like I am 16 years old.
I don’t ever want to be in another car accident again.
I have a REALLY BIG family.
I can’t wait to see my grandparents in Peru this year and hike Machu Pichu and see the glorious Andes Mountains and Amazon Jungle.
My mom was in labor for 30 mins when I was born. I was born in the Emergency Room at 2:40 a.m.
I will be 30 years old in 2012.
I love my family.

Melissa

The Answer

2007-05-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

We got Rocky's pedigree and it turns out that his maternal grandparents were brother and sister. I think that might explain in part why's he's slow in the head, even for a dog.

We're Moving

2007-05-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

We are moving in the next two-three weeks to a townhouse a half a mile away from our apartment. Yeah, more closet space!

Crazy Dog

2007-04-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

My dog is a crazy dog. I took him running this morning a little over 2 miles and when we finished he wasn't even panting, then he started darted back and forth in our apartment hallway. You would think that because he is a Shih Tzu, a supposed lap dog, he wouldn't like to run but apparently he doesn't want to be a lap dog, he has a little piece of a lab's heart.

Melissa

Vacation Pictures

2007-04-27T23:05:00.000-07:00

On the road to Vegas, Rocky loves Jesse.

View from MGM Grand.

I will write about the second part of our trip later.

Best Vacation Ever

2007-04-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

Melissa and I went to my cousins wedding in San Diego and the Las Vegas last weekend, and it was awesome. On thursday night (we left friday at 5:00AM) we discovered that my official wedding shirt we'd just purchased still had the RFID tag on it. I have a drill, but that's a big tool for a delicate job. Anyway - it took a while, but it came off after much stressing out by Melissa.

Friday morning when we left it was raining, and it kept raining and kept coming down harder as we headed down 101. Somewhere north of San Luis Obispo we stopped at a rest area, Melissa started driving and the car started shaking hard whenever we'd try to accelerate. In the middle of nowhere we tried a few times to get going, but it was really bad so I called the mechanics who had done my engine work back in January and they tried to help me troubleshoot the problem. We couldn't find anything but a loose wire on an air intake valve, so we tightened that and tried to get going again. The car was better, but still shaking.

We made it as far as Santa Maria when the car made a sound like something fell out, we got off the freeway with just as the car died. It started again and got us two hundred feet into an Office Depot parking lot. They let us use their internet there and we tracked down a mechanic who would work on BMWs, he was two miles away, which took about fifteen minutes with the slow and dying car that sounded like a lawnmower.

The good folks at Rizzoli's Auto Repair had a look at the car even though they were supposed to be going to lunch and determined within fifteen minutes that none of the spark plugs from back in January had been properly tightened, one had come loose, shattered the coil, stripped out its socket, and was making the noise that made the car sound like a lawnmower. We started stressing out about rental cars and local hotels and stuff because we had to get to the wedding, but within four hours they'd tracked down the parts they needed and fixed it, one of the guys even drove thirty miles to Santa Barbara and back to get the last piece they needed.

We were only four or five hours off schedule so we kept on down the coast, driving through Point Mugu, Malibu and Ventura, so it turns out that not all of Los Angeles is horrible - just 90% of it. We stayed in downtown San Diego, had lunch in La Jolla the next day and went to my cousins wedding at the Prado in Balboa park. This post has gone on long enough I think, I'll let Melissa fill you all in on the wedding and Las Vegas.