Below is the video of my son’s first hair cut. He had a big curly fro. Yendis wanted him to keep it because she was afraid it would make him look too grown up but I really felt we had to do it. She wants to get his ear pierced now too. So, I’m sure we’ll be doing that soon. He was really good though and sat still the whole ten minutes. A great video!
This morning I woke up and my son was half awake. He was staring at me. It was strangely familiar looking in to his eyes. Almost like looking in to my own eyes as if I were grown looking at myself as a baby. As I stared back it seemed I could see his entire future and all the successes, challenges, and failures he may have in the blink of his eyes. It was almost as if we could both see these things for a split second. He just didn't understand it. He had a look that suggested he would need my help in the years to come. Through his eyes I could see flashes of my own future almost like a mirror reflecting a dream.
We both agreed in spirit to assist each other almost like an unknowing pact between father and son. There was a state of compliance and contentment in our mutual stare at the end of it and a new bond was made. He knows who I am now and I know who he is and we both know the long path we have to walk together. We've agreed that sometimes I will carry him and sometimes he can cary me and other times we will walk together but not speak because of temporary angst. But we've shown our silent appriciation, love and our respect for each other in only a glance and that will keep us hand in hand through the ease of life and the stress of life. We are father and son and that means more to me than it ever did.
I love you Juhlyun.
Below is the video of my son’s first cake. As you can see he really didn’t know the cake was for him and I wasn’t sure if he figured out the party was for him till I stuck his hand in the cake. He really enjoyed the party and I will post the pics on flickr when I get back to TN either tomorrow or Wednesday morning.
Hey, I'm back home. I'm writing this now from my father's house in Front Royal, VA. I got in to town last night at about 1am Eastern Time from my 11 hour journey. It's really cool to see my family and for my family to see my son. They haven't seen him in about 3 months and he's doing all kinds of new stuff now that he's a year old (really not a year old till next Tuesday but you get the picture). I'm sitting here now contemplating his birthday party we are throwing today. I'm wondering if my girlfriend's dad is going to show up (they don't really have a relationship). I'd really like him to be involved in my son's life because it'd be great if he understood all parts of where he comes from and his family. But, you know, you just can't get everybody to act right I guess. He seems like he wants to be involved in my girlfriend's life but then again he doesn't make much effort. It's hard to tell.
So, I have mixed feelings about being back here. On one hand this place nearly dragged me down to a really negative place a few times. On the other it still feels like home to a certain degree. But, it feels like an old friend I've grown out of at this point. I think I've matured beyond what this place has to offer. Sometimes I think of Nashville as my home. I really love it there (with the exception of the heat). I've been a big fan of Nashville and I've promoted it to other people. Nashville helped me give birth to my first son and my business has prospered in Nashville. However, I never really stay in one place beyond 2 or 3 years and that third year is next year. So, it's difficult to know whether I will stay. But, that should be a for a later post.
As I was saying, home is a spendid thing to visit and I can't wait to celebrate my son's first birthday with family and friends. But, I just can't say goodbye to this place quick enough. There's always a part of this place in my heart and if I didn't have a memory of all the things it means to me it may be a half decent place.
Video of my son walking below. Yendis was taking the video. Pretty cool.
I’ve been so extremely busy lately I haven’t talked to my good friend, the blog. Sorry to all the people who are interested in my life and ramblings. I just have been very busy.
Anyways, what’s been happening? Derek, the new CTO for Bluepaw Enterprises has been working hard. He is having some difficulty balancing managing and programming. But, since he is new to the position I figured it would take him some adjustment. However, he is doing an excellent job of understanding the business of web development contracting.
My son, Juhlyun is almost 7 months old. He has to be sat up but he can stay sitting once you put him on his butt. So, he’s getting to the point where he can sit on his own, soon. We started him on stage 2 foods, which I thought was pretty cool. I went crazy yesterday and bought like $100 worth of food and such. He’s eating meats, vegetables, and fruits. Some of the food sounds pretty tasty but I haven’t ventured to tasting any of his food yet.
We got a large new contract with a medical transcription software development firm here in Nashville, Base Systems Inc. We will be helping them finish the development of their product over the next 3-6 months. We are pretty excited about it.
I’m going to Atlanta this weekend to celebrate a long time friend’s birthday. That should be very interesting. She rented out a club and Yendis and I got a hotel room right across the street from the club. I’m supposed to be really busy working this weekend but I couldn’t pass up going to her 25th birthday party. She’s actually Yendis’s cousin as well so Yendis really wanted to go too. I haven’t been to Atlanta in a couple years but I always had a pretty good time in Atlanta.
Oh yeah, after months of being in business I think we are finally going to get health insurance at the end of the month. With Derek coming on board we have been able to near completion on several contracts, accepted some new contracts and have a good influx of money coming in. We will be getting the best available because I consider health insurance pretty important.
On another note of finances this month I will finally finish building my computer. This is no average computer. It’s a beast of a computer. I will detail the specs in another post at the end of the month. But, I tell you it’s beautiful. Brings a tear to my eye.
My best friend moved his wedding back to the fall so looks like I won’t be putting together a bachelor party till the end of the year. I was so looking forward to it but it looks like that will give me some more time to save money for it. I want it to be an enormous bash. The kind I want to have when it comes to my bachelor party.
That’s all I have now. I’ll post again next week. I swear. No, for real this time…
Oh yes. It’s that time of year again. The sound of birds and the smell of freshly blooming flowers. Also, the time where we clean all the crap up we’ve been huddled inside with all winter. I’m finally going to move in to a new house that I’ve been waiting for my land lord to get done with. Further, I just hired on Derek, our new Chief of Technical Operations. Boy, do we have a lot of projects to finish over the next 6 weeks and I still have to fit in time for sleep, eating, and … oh yeah, breathing. But, once we come clear of all these projects that need to be finished yesterday we should be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. That light is the reputation in these projects and the clients we can attract based off that reputation. By myself (before the incorporation) I was in business for 8 years. I earned a great reputation helping people make lots of money and come up with incredible ideas and I also earned a reputation as being late on delivering almost every time.But, I feel with a person to help manage that shortcoming we will be a very successful corporation.
I have to pay some people off for work they have done in the past this month as well so I can go in to spring with a ‘clean house’. But, I have a nice amount of money coming in near the end of the month that should pay those people off and sustain Derek and I as well with some profit left over. So, everyone will get paid. I cleaned up my books and visited an accountant to make sure everything I wanted to do tax-wise was a good idea. She said I knew a lot about it and decided I didn’t need much in the way of her services at this time because I kept so good care of my books.
Let’s see, anything else I need to clean out for spring? Oh yes, now that I have time to focus on the business end of my company I have come up with an incredible plan to quadruple our income by the end of the year. So far the plan has been working pretty well.
Then there is my health. I got back to the gym, finally. This time, my girlfriend comes with me just about every other day. Golds Gym has a daycare in it so we just drop off our son and get to working out together. Now, if only our neighbor would stop bringing over cake and bullshit like that.
Finally, I know this is kiddish but I’m getting a Playstation 2. Yeah, I know I’m a bit late but I play computer games when I get a chance to play any games. So, I never really saw a need. But, it is fun to have around and sometimes you just want to sit in front of the TV and play. I have a 52 inch high def widescreen tv so it’s a waste to not have a game system. I figured it’s only like $100. Then, in about 5 months or so if I use it a lot I will get a Playstation 3. I’ve heard the games are mostly backwards compatible. I just like the fact there are a lot of the games I like already out on PS2 and I don’t feel like spending the $600, yet.
Yendis and I had a great time at this little retreat in Smithville, TN called Evins Mill. It was great. The food was gormet and the people were wonderful. Let me describe the experience a bit.
First, we drove about an hour from Nashville to Smithville. It’s small and kinda in the middle of what appears to be nowhere. We drove up this large hill that reveals a mill and a very old log built structure that houses the main office, the kitchen and the central hub for the retreat. We were greeted by the cook, who quicly took his apron off and asked if we needed any luggage taken to the room. We didn’t because we brought very little in the way of stuff to the retreat. It was a couple hours after lunch but they had our lunches prepared so we grabbed our lunches and the cook/bellboy showed us to our room which was quite nice for the middle of nowhere. It didn’t have a phone but we didn’t need one because I got cell reception (thanks Cingular). The room had a large vaulted ceiling, a view of the water pouring over the mill’s dam and a large and comfortable king sized bed. We ate our lunches and got ready for that evening’s four course dinner. Lunch was okaybut it was a boxed lunch so you could tell it had been in the fridge a while. We were told about the Carmac Falls (a 90 foot waterfall) which was about a 30 minute walk from the main lodge but we didn’t want to attempt it because of the rain and cold.
Anyways, we finally got ready for dinner and went to the main lodge. The dinner started with a Mushroom Strudel as a small appatizer. I nibbled on that for a while and they brought out some rolls for Yendis (she doesn’t eat mushrooms, her loss!). We chatted for a while amoungst the candle light and the wood/gas open fireplace. It was a very romantic scene. Only three couples were there for dinner. We chatted with one of the other couples while we relaxed. Then a soup came out that was ‘Ginger Carrot and Cocconut Milk’. Yes, it sounds strange but it was very delicious. After the soup came a wonderful fresh salad with bits of blue cheese and rasberry vingarette dressing. Then, finally the main course. They offered a choice of Hawiian Sea Bass, Ethiopian Coffee cooked Beef Tenderloin. Yendis had the tenderloin and I had the sea bass. Both were delicious. After dinner we had some fudge brownie cake of some kind that was very good. This was all included in the stay. They even gave Yendis an extra piece of cake!
The portions were just good enough to fill and not to overfill. So, after eating we talked with the waitress a while and drank a couple beers on the couch in front of the fireplace. After a couple hours we decided to go to the mill (which they turned in to a game room and conference center). We played pool, ping pong and listened to the radio till late in to the night. We then went back to the room and…. hung out… (that’s all you need to know) till much later in the night. We watched a movie (they had movies in the main lodge you could take to your room) and went to sleep. In the morning (kinda, 11am) we woke up and got dressed to go to the main lodge. We missed breakfast, but no worries, the cook still made us a fresh breakfast at 11:30am! We talked over breakfast (which was delicious) and then went back to the mill to play some more games. Yendis is much better than me at ping pong but I beat her a lot at pool so it kinda makes up for it. Anyways, we didn’t leave till about 3pm and nobody hastled us to hurry up and go. It was great! Will definately return. The price was about $250 a night with everything included.
It’s important that after Yendis had our son I don’t get caught up my work too much to let her know how I feel about her. So, I think I’ve planned something really nice for V-Day. It involves a secluded spot about an hour or so from Nashville. She’s not big on the wilderness and it’s supposed to storm but I think it will still turn out to be great. It’s not like we are going to be roughing it at all. We have to celebrate tomorrow night because it’s the only time we can find someone to watch Juhlyun for the night. So, tomorrow will be our V-Day. Yendis doesn’t really like the holiday but I’ve been trying for the past couple years to get her to accept it as a great holiday. I know it’s been over-commercialized but that doesn’t stop us from celbrating Christmas. Anyways, I’ll post more about it when we get back. I don’t want to say to much in case she sees my post.
Will Bridges is the author of this blog, the CEO of BluePaw Software, a father, a programmer of over 9 years and the poet behind Evolution Of A Poet.
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