Will Bridges

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.

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So, I'm headed to Front Royal, VA today. Just an hour southwest of Washington DC. That's my home town. I'm really not interested in going except the fact my son's birthday is Tuesday and we are throwing him a big party on Sunday for his brithday. I'm also going to do an in-person training session with one of our Employees in Virginia who is a trainee learning Ruby on Rails. I have a couple clients in the area I want to visit as well. So, I have plenty of reasons to make this wonderful 11 hour journey. The worst thing is my air conditioner is leaking so that won't work on the way up there. I hope it stays somewhat cool.

I am looking forward to seeing some old friends. But every time I stay in Virginia for any more than 3 or 4 days I start to lose my mind, get extremely bored and get depressed from my surroundings. My friends that stayed there really are doing mostly the same shit and not really advancing much. Sometimes that's the most difficult thing to see. I always try to convince them to leave when I see them. Try to motivate them to do more. But they rarely can see beyond their little boring town in northern VA. Viva la Front Royal. 

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We went to Atlanta this past Easter weekend for an old friend’s birthday (Yendis’s cousin as well). Anyways, we left Juhlyun here with my mother in Nashville. So, we got a nice hotel room which was across from the club that our friend rented out for her birthday party. The club was seriously only a few yards from the hotel. So, we could drink as much as we wanted and stumble back to the room. That’s what we did too. We drank, took pictures, hung out with people we didn’t really know that well and just partied till we had to leave and then passed out at about 4:30am. Then, we woke up the next morning (late morning) and went to Breakfast with the birthday girl and her husband (who were in the hotel across from ours) and hung out at the restaurant for about 2 and a half hours telling stories and just bullshitting. We had a great time and can’t wait to go back to Atlanta and hang out again. ATL, I wouldn’t wana live there, but I love hanging out there. I’ll post pics at some point in the next couple days.

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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.

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I haven’t been writing in my blog much because I have been trying to finish up this never ending conversion from PERL to Ruby on Rails for my client. Though I am leaving tomorrow anyway and plan on launching the site this weekend. I can’t wait to get back to Nashville. I’m from Front Royal, Virginia but I can’t stay here for more than a couple weeks without realizing why I left and the strong desire to leave hits me. So, I’m getting ready for my 10 hour trip back to Nashville tomorrow, finally.

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So, I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles while I was here in Virginia. It was great… well a great waste of time anyway. They suspended my license by mistake. I was supposed to take a class in Virginia because I had so many tickets before I left but after I paid my fines and reinstatement fee Virginia told me all I needed to do was get my Tennessee license within a certain amount of days and I wouldn’t have any problems. The people at the DMV treated me like I was an liar when I told them this story. I finally convinced them to call the Virginia DMV headquarters and they told them my story was correct and they had mistakenly suspended my license since November of 2005. That’s over a year! And I drive to Virginia all the time. I could have got pulled over at any time and been stuck! I did get pulled over and harassed because I and my car were searched for no apparent reason. Further the police pulled me over because ‘my license plate lights were too dim?’. That’s absurd. Not only that but I couldn’t drive over the New Years holiday so I had to spend it in a local bar doing bullshit. Though I still had a pretty good time. I lost out on work because I couldn’t travel to my client’s office.

I’ve decided I’m going to send the Virginia DMV a bill for the hours of time they wasted and the work lost due to their mistake. I’m going to bill them the same rate as I would bill my clients. I’ll report back what they say when I send the bill. I’m just annoyed with the waste of time and resources they cost me for a mistake that was their own and not mine.

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Okay, so I’m kinda stuck here in Virginia till the 12th of January at least. Why? Because my driving license is suspended in Virginia. That really doesn’t make any sense because I would have never been able to get my Tennessee license if that were the case. I paid over $500 in fines and a reinstatement fee to Virginia when I moved to Tennessee so I could get my Tennessee license. So, now I find out my license is suspended here in Virginia. I could get Yendis to drive but this time I want to make sure in person that I can verify it is not suspended and I can drive in Virginia. I can do my work from here or anywhere so I am no worried about that. I’m just not as comfortable doing my work from here because I don’t have my own office or all of the creature comforts I would have at home. But, I guess I can ‘tough’ it a few days here. I have a couple clients I can make money from while I am here as well. So, it might be to my advantage to be here a few more days that I expected. It’s just annoying because of the fun stuff about the govt.

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Uhg… I just now somewhat recovered from a very special Christmas gift of the Stomach Flu. It was absolutely terrible. I could barely sit down to do anything. I’m still here in Virginia. Right now I’m doing some work from one my Client’s office. It’s pretty cool except everybody in his office seems to smoke in the office. I might have to limit my trips here because of that. unfortunate fact. I used to smoke but can’t really tolerate it too well any more. It gives me a headache. My son has managed to stay on his sleeping schedule despite the fact we have had him all over the place. He sleeps pretty much all night. Well, I’ll post again later.

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I’ve found I don’t have much money to buy Christmas presents, once again. I have enough to get back home for Christmas and come back. But, all my money comes in after the holiday. So, I’m going to have to be very frugal this holiday season. Money isn’t coming in until Jan. 1. But, I guess getting home for the holidays is enough for most of my family. I just wanted to be able to do more this Christmas. Anyways, I hope everybody’s holiday is fruitful.

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Okay, Spanish Lessons have been coming slow. I took 3 years of Spanish One when I was in high school. I failed every year because I wasn’t the type of student to turn in my homework or show up very often. I was too worried about learning programming. However, completely by accident, I learned the basics of Spanish syntax, pronunciation, and just little things that are very helpful in my mission to learn Spanish now. Plus, I have a decent vocabulary in Spanish for being as much of a beginner as I am. So, I’m ahead of Yendis (my girlfriend), a bit. But, I have been so busy with work I have only had time for two lessons. So, I don’t feel I’m moving fast enough. I do have a little over a year before I move to Uruguay so I feel I can come up to speed enough to not be fluent but to be able to converse in a decent fashion. Plus, once I get there I plan on getting a tutor to help me learn the native dialect and I’m sure that being there will improve our Spanish dramatically or at least I hope so. I’ll tell you all what, one month after I get there I will write a blog post completely in Spanish! That will gage how far I’ve come.

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