Greetings once again, friends and fellow bloggers. Let me say this. I am a sports fan. This is especially true of college sports. And, next to Bowl Week, March Madness is the greatest sporting event on the college venue. Since I started working at my current job just over six years ago, we have participated in the ambient enphusiasm by having our own little bracket tourny. The winner doesn't pay for the first round the next time we all get together.

After the first round, I became disheartened. First off, I had Wake Forest in my Final Four. Ouch. I know that Wake Forest was not a popular pick for the Final Four, but it wasn't an unreasonible pick. I thought that Wake Forest matched up well againt all the 1 seats. Anyways...BAM...my bracket seemed like it needed triage after week one. Aside from Wake Forest, I lost 7 other 1st round picks: Ohio State, Utah, West Virginia, Florida State, Illinois, and Clemson. The Utah and Illinois losses hurt. The second round was a little more kind to me as I lost only one pick, Arizona State. This loss hurt on two levels. One, I am a Sund Devil. It's in my blood. My mom went to ASU, my dad went to ASU, and even my trashy mercenary ex-wife went to ASU. On a second level, I had ASU in my Elite Eight. Now, the 3rd round, was pretty kind to me and as I look at my friends' and coworkers' brackets, it looks like I am starting to stage a bit of a come back. I didn't lose a single one of my existing picks. For the Elite Eight match-ups, I am looking good; I had six of the eight times right, only Wake Forest and Arizona State were missing. I got the Villinova (both against Duke and Pitt) and Missouri upsets correct. If UNC wins tomorrow, then I'll have 3 of the final four teams, with UNC wining it all. So, we'll see how it goes tomorrow and when the final four play. With any luck, I'm back in this thing and there'll be a beer on my table.

Greetings once again, friends and fellow bloggers. I just read a post by Torferleon248 on the Bleach forum, Ask Aizen thread. And I laughed so hard that I nearly got a nose blead...and not the kind of nose bleed I get when I repeatedly watch the Shinigami notebook where Rangiku partially disrobes Isane. I mean the kind of nose bleed when I laugh so hard that 82.6% of the blood in my body rushed up into my head. I was reminded of perhaps the strangest restaurant I had ever been in. It was in a small town in northern Arizona, Willimans if I remember correctly. The restaurant is called Pablo McGilicutty's, an Irish-Mexican food joint. Wow...what an eclectic mix. Add in some spiciness and lots of beer and buritos, and it was a hell-of-a-good-time.

While I am thinking on my balls of my feet...I stopped thinking on my toes some time in the spring of 1995...how about this for a weekly question, what is the strangest or most unusal restaurant you have ever been to?

Greetings once again, friends and fellow bloggers. As crazy as the winter has been in the great North West, spring seems to be peeking over the forested foot hills to the east of Seattle. Just last week it was snowing again. Now, I haven't worn a jacket for, say, three days. Instead of temps in the 30s, it's in the high 50s now. And today, for the first time, I heard the sounds of spring. My bedroom window faces a small hilly green belt; the view is fairly nice for an urban area. And when I got up at 8pm this evening, I opened my window to the sounds of a cocaphony of frogs. I was momentarily reminded of the sounds of spring when I first moved to Seattle in May of 96. I found myself unexplicably pleased by the frogs' sounds.

BTW, frogs are pretty tasty too...with a nice Sichuan sauce.

Greetings once again, friends and fellow bloggers. Perhaps there is something to this whole climate change thing...perhaps it's just a delusions. You be the judge...

I woke up today, like I do every Sunday afternoon, at about 3:30pm. Every Sunday morning, I come off a 16 hour shift. I sleep maybe a handful of hours and then head back to work. So, this is why I was confused when I woke up. It was sunny. It was 41 degrees Fahrenheit. And it was snowing.

Weird.

Greetings once again, friends and fellow bloggers. Lent is upon us and while that, I expect, means very little to most people out there, it is one of the few religious holidays/rituals/celebrations that holds a great deal of meaning to me.

To me, Lent is giving god props. It is a recognition of god's grace and generosity. In abstaining form a loved activity, one does not does not 'pay back' - how possibly could one? - but one recognizes what has been given to us - and in that recognition, one renews and re-enforces one's belief and faith and one honors the truism that: in giving we receive. And for me, that holds meaning, not only for my spiritual identity, but for my personal identity. I know that I am not a good man. Rather, I am an average man striving to be better. Peace and grace and forgivness and acceptance do not come easily for me. Even faith does not flow without obstruction and diversion. Of all the virtues, only honesty come easily for me - how could it not when I must look in the mirror each day and call myself a man. And while the other virtues I strive for - virtues which I do hold in both spiritual and eclectic value - are not forced or disengenuine, they do come for me only with effort, mindfulness, and persistance. So with the very minor sacrafice of something that I love, I find it easier to let go of something that I hate. When I find that I miss Beer, or coffee, or beef, in that moment I find that I do not miss the anger I feel, or the hurt, or the worry, or the blame, or the greed. And the truism is re-enforced for me, for in giving, I do receive. Maybe not what I always want or what I need, but I receive a moment of peace and forgiveness, and in that, the touch of god's grace.

And in this moment, my friends and fellow bloggers, I find that same moment of peace as I share my thoughts and feelings with you. Yes, this moment will pass and I will once again be consumed with anger and grief and hurt. But I know that the peace and stillness of my turbulent heart is but a thought away and when I turn my heart and mind to what is really important to me, peace and forgivenss once again is to be found, waiting for me.

No matter your belief, no matter your faith, may you find some peace each day.

BTW, this year, I am giving up the F word.

Greetings, friends and fellow bloggers. In a post on the Bleach forum I wrote:

There is, of course, my own personal zanpaktou. It looks suspiciously like a work station. The release is: "Do your homework"

Shikai is individual and group therapy, utilizing a multisystemic Cognative-Behavioral Therapy.

Bankai is an oppressive social service bureacracy that suppresses any sesne of individual expression and inovation, a bureacracy where people with half of your education and experience tell you how to do your job, eventhough they don't have an effing clue what the job is or what is required of it or even understand therapy from any angle other than risk-management...a bureacracy that has long forgotten that it is suppose to provide service for people rather than just to process numbers.

In my experience, this bankai is undefeatible.

I have just been defeated. As of today, all the therapists themselves are now required as part of the job to attend their own group thearapy sessions. This isn't a service offered for the well being of the thearapists and counselors and support staff, it is rather a demand placed on us. I don't get a say in this. I wasn't asked if this service was wanted or needed. I handle my own dysthymia quite well with alcohol and sleeping pills. I am enough of an anarcho-syndicalist to be resentful of being forced to do something. If I had done something wrong, broken a law, failed at my job, or something egregeous, then fine, I'll pay the piper. But, I can't help but feel more than a little resentment on this one.

Greetings, friends and fellow bloggers. There is a little get-to-know-you excersise I employ with younger or less-mature clients, it goes something like this: I say to a kid, if you can have any ability of an animal - not to be the animal - but to have the ability, what would you want? I usually get some standar results such as 'I would want wings', 'I want to run like a cheeta', 'I want to breath under water', and stuff like that. A kid today said 'I want the junk [he used a different word] of an elephant', yeah, guess what his issues are. But I was thinking that this sounds an awful lot like a blog topic. So, I pose the question to you...If you could have any ability of an animal, what would you want?

Me, I would want antlers. That, or maybe to have the ability of an electric eel. That would be awsome. Especially at work. Oh, you want to whine again...ZAP!!! Of course, I would probably say bankai before I did that.

Greetings and Happy Superbowl, friends and fellow bloggers. Here I sit at work, half time just started. It is both simultaneously energenic and mellow. The kids are pretty excited about the superbowl, except for the few who just aren't interested and are a little upset that attention isn't being paid to them. There is a cubic butt-load of food. Some of the families brought in food and our facility splurged just a little. All-in-all, the food was pretty good, given the simple fair. This brings me to the topic of this blog.

Once or twice a year, I break out my culinary big guns, so to speak. One of my big guns is Chili Colorado. The other - the one I broke out for dinner tonight - is...drum roll...hot-n-spicy nacho cheese buffalo wings. Bam. There is a party in my mouth and we are bombing the fascists. I had two mild heart attacks and a ruptured duodenum by the time I finished my plate. All I need is a beer IV. Of course, I'll have to wait for midnight for that.

So, enjoy the game. And, if you ever dare, enjoy some hot-n-spicy nacho cheese buffalo wings. I accept no reasonsibility for your ensuent health problems.

Greetings, friends and fellow bloggers. I greet this new day's light with a mix of emotions. Like I felt on January 1st, I was totally releaved - even if only symbolicly - that 2008 was over. I have a similar sense of relief on this day, the first day of Spring Festival - known in the US as Chinese New Year. If I had a red lantern, I would put it up this evening. I would break one the the Ten Commandments, and pray at the small shrine of Guanyin that my fireplace has become. (Guanyin is the Buddhist deity of Mercy - her pic is on the top of this page)

However, this day marks another event for me. Today is my 3rd aniversery. I have mixed feelings about this. There is an irony, I find, in the cultural liguistics of the word marriage in Manderin. The word marriage translates directly into indoeuropean languages as Double Happiness. The character for marriage in Manderin is simply two conjoined characters for the word happiness. When I first learned that bit of information, I thought it endearing. What a magnificent concept. Three years later, I am left feeling alone and betrayed. And my mind turns back to the character of Double Happiness, and I wonder why that was so easy to believe then and so hard to believe now.

Perhaps this year will be better than the last...one can only hope, and act on that hope to improve one's self, and if one had courage, act to improve the world arround him. In any case, my prayers this evening are sincere...they usually are...and I pray that the Year of the Ox will bring some happiness to all.

ST'Q

Additional: Here is a good luck symbol for everybody. Health and Happiness in the new chinese year!

Greetings and happy new year, friends and fellow bloggers. It's 2009, and even if only symbolically, I can't tell you how satisifed I am that 2008 is over. I know that nothing really changes from 11:59pm to 12:00am. But we tend view and even understand our lives in time-incriments. For me, 2008 was a horrible year; in fact, I don't think that it is the slightest exageration to say that 2008 was the worst year of my life....and as the year went on, it just seemed to get worse. The year did not seem to start so bad, my wife and I were seperated at the time, but things seemed to be heading in the right direction. Work was going well; I was adjusting my theraputic demeanor and improving my group therapy skills; I had a lot of money in the bank; and - all in all - the futured seemed as bright as it every has for me.

Now, 12 months later, while my primary job continues to go well, everything else has fallen apart. Marriage, all but done; where there was once love, they is now only pain and resentment. My second job relocated me to a different population of sex offenders, younger, more deviant, more mentally ill. Yeah, loads of fun there. I lost a grandmother and a sister...my sister, just a few days after thanksgiving...and I am having some trouble recovering from her loss. Even just today, a month later, I shead tears while I finished cleaning out her appartment. At the beginning of the year, I had six figures in savings...now, I have less than a 1/3rd of that. My retirement found is down about 25% percent...and I wasn't that big to begin with.

I guess, on the bright side, I have reaffirmed how loyal and supportive my friends are, without their help and support...and often, their beer...I would be in worse shape than the jagged shambles I am now.

So, as 2008 fades into my recent memories, I find myeself suprisingly excited to face the trials and tribulations of 2009. I find myself thinking that there is no way 2009 could be any worse than 2008, but even as I think that, I know it's not true. Things can always be worse...and they usually are. But I take solace in some prayer. I meditate to sift through the painful memories to focus on those precious few of joy, happiness, and contentment. I work had at my job, knowing that even if I make only a little difference in child's life, that is still a worthy accomplishment, and I can take some satisifaction knowing that I bring much more to the world than I take from it. And I believe that god is watching. And so is my grandfather...and now my beloved sister. And I feel an internal drive to live the life of a good man.

So I pick myself up, dust myself off. And standing with an eclectic mixture of defiance, sorrow, and hope in my eyes, I rase my middle finger to 2008. You beat me down, but did not put me out. So, father time, go spelunk yourself. Give me 2009.

May you all have a happy and healthy 2009. "For all it's shame, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Strive to be happy" - Deserada, 1607.