Category: my life

9/11, mother, my dad, my life, New York

Prepping for New York

I am ready to just get out of here. I was in NYC in March for the Big East Tournament and I had a very good time. Since then, it has been a bumpy ride. Stresses of work and personal life had lead me to this point.

As usual, I have so much to do in such little time. I am spending 9 days in the city. While that sounds like a lot, it really isn’t. With all the friends who want to hang out and all the family I need to see, those 9 days will probably fly by. So, I have some highlights of things I would like to do. I would like to get all things done, but we will see.

  • I would love to go to Citifield to catch a Met game. They are playing 6 times within the time I am there. I would like to go to one game. I am not sure how much it will cost me yet and I am afraid to look right now.
  • I wanted so see a movie in IMAX, but I just found out that Star Trek will not be playing when I get down there. I guess I could try Terminator: Salvation.
  • I have not been to the South Street Seaport since 9/11. I would like to see how it looks. I have always liked the view from there.
  • I was invited to lunch at Chinatown! Here is another place I have not been too since that long walk on 9/11. I have never eaten there either. So I think I will have fun doing that.
  • Every Year around Memorial day there is Stickball Tournament in the Bronx. This year they are recognizing my father for being one of the founders of the league. I cannot wait to see how it is they will recognize him.
  • I will actually go see my mother. She kind of convinced me to see her in our last conversation, so we will see how that goes.

I am pretty excited about coming down. I know that list is a short one and I plan on expanding it the more I think about it.

coffee, health, my life, Prostate Cancer

Too much Coffee???

Let me talk about the last few days. Tuesday I woke up to the same feeling I always wake up to, the need to go to the bathroom. After taking care of my normal morning routine. I head out to work. Park the car. Go to Starbucks and order a Venti Cinnamon Dulce Latte with no whip cream. After this, I am ready to face my day.

Then a feeling comes over me. I have to use the bathroom again. But the feeling is more of my bladder being full already. So, like a typical man I ignore it. Eventually I go to the men’s room and (sorry if this is TMI) not as much comes out as I thought would. Of course, I am like…WTF?

Ok, fine I go back to my desk and then the feeling returns. Now, I am no fool. I starting thinking many things. My first thought is, frequent urination is a sign of prostate cancer. So, I almost freak out and look up WebMD. I come up with some ideas of what I could have. I am leading toward an infection like UTI or possibly a bladder infection. In either case, I know something is wrong.

The good thing is that I do not have any pain. However, the feeling is still uncomfortable. I go through the whole day feeling like this. I tell myself that if I continue to feel this way tomorrow then I have to call the doctor. I am not one of those guys that will ignore something that is going on in my body. Although, I do have the urge to do that. The fear, or maybe not a fear but rather a concern, is that I may get poked and prodded. More specifically poked. I am not ready for a tube up my ass.

I do feel better toward the end of the night. When I lay down, I feel nothing. So, again like a typical man, I am thinking that I am good right? Wrong.

The next day(yesterday) is the same thing. So, now I am thinking I am just done. I have some kind of tumor in my bladder and I wont live to see 40. I need to come up with a bucket list. I take a deep breath and realize I just need to call the doc…but first…Starbucks!!!

I call the doctor’s office after I get to work and explain the situation. She sets an appointment right then and there for me. The time is set for 2:30 so I have the rest of the day to think about what is going on in my body. I come up with reasons why I might have this. I think back to Sunday and how I woke up with such a full bladder, because I held it all night. I know that I have this habit, particularly at work, to hold it because I am too busy to go to the men’s room.

2:30 comes and I get to the office. I give them a nice sample as they requested. They take my blood pressure and it is high. Wonderful. I never have high blood pressure. I am so gonna make that bucket list when I get home! I think about what I am going to say on Twitter

He comes in and asks me what is going on. My doctor is very good. I totally trust him. He tells me I have no infection what so ever. He is concerned by the color so he interrogates me about my diet and what I consume. Has there been any changes. My eyes widen and I tell him that I have increased the amount of coffee. For those who do not know, I stopped going to Dunkin Donuts because there coffee is watered down. I needed something stronger. Thus I want to Starbucks. Not only did I get better coffee, I actually changed the amount. I used to order a medium, now I am at a large.

The Doc looks at me and says…”I will bet that your issues is linked to your consumption of too much coffee”. I was stunned. We then had a discussion on how I am not drinking enough water either. He mentioned to me that I need to cut my consumption by half, meaning a small. I was ready to get rid of coffee entirely, but he told me that would be bad. He explained that I will get headaches due to lack of coffee. Here again, my eyes widen. I do tend to get headaches on days I do not drink coffee…WTF! He further explained that he has seen this before and is pretty sure that if I decrease my coffee intake and drink more water then I will be fine. However, if it does not change in 2 weeks. He will check the prostate.

So there it is. “Check the prostate”. It looms over me like the death star. I drank so much water yesterday, you can call me Aquaman.

Today I ordered a small coffee and I do feel better. We will see how this goes…
my life

The Light

It is that time of year for me that gets me nervous. It is the last weekend of the school year and all the commencement activities are coming together. All seems to be well. What makes me generally uneasy is life after the graduation festivities end. What am I am supposed to do after I get to the light at the end of the tunnel?

For the most part, my career is my life. Those months spent between August to May become very much about the students. So technically any real life I have begins after Mother’s day and lasts until the middle of August.

I think the unease comes from the shift in the patterns of my life. I will be at work less so I need to figure out what exactly I am going to do day to day. I know that I need to take care of my body and that is becoming a fast priority for me. I am turning 35 in about a month and I know that I am going through changes. I can feel it.

The problem for me becomes that I can spend most of the summer exercising and playing the sports. I can lose 5-8 pounds in a relatively short period. But, when school starts up again, all that work does not translate over because I become too busy for my life. Which, is no excuse.

This summer will be different indeed. I have things that I need to care of. I am going down to New York at the end of the month and then again in June. I will be going to Florida in July on a road trip, which should be interesting to say the least.

For now I just have to power through these last few days in hopes I can survive them…

Blogging, My Goal, my life

New Direction

After 101 consecutive posts, I took some time off from blogging. At first, I had no choice in the matter. My Internet was down for a large part of Saturday that lead into Sunday. While I could have blogged from my phone, but I decided not to. I took some time away from writing to refocus on what was me and where I want all this to go.

I want to focus on quality and quantity. I think that I have done my best to get post out no matter where I am. I have always made my personal deadline (sometimes barely) and I have tried to talk about a variety of topics. The only thing that has bothered me is that I feel that perhaps I am losing the quality of my writing but just post so much. However, once I started down the path of posting every day, I did not want to stop because I wanted to prove to myself that I can commit to something and stick to it. After over 100 posts consecutively, I think I have done that.

So what does this mean? Well, I will not be posting everyday anymore. Which means I will take weekends off as I see fit. I will concentrate all my efforts on Monday through Friday. I will only post on the weekends if something is burning me up, which is completely possible. I am giving myself personal freedom to do more creative things with myself.

There are many personal things that I am going through right now that I do not wish to share at this moment. However, I will do that in the near future and when I do that will change how the Blog will be. Which, is ok, actually. So, I am still very excited about my writing and I am planning so many things.

I will try different formats. I notice that fellow bloggers my have themes to certain days like “Wordless Wednesday” or “Random Thoughts Thursday“. I am trying to be as dynamic with this blog myself. However, they have more followers than I do, so much of the themes can work with participation.

One things that really worked for me last week was planning out posts. I had come up with 3 subjects last weekend and spread them out over 3 days. This has made me re-think about blogging on this site. I have always been a day to day blogger. I write for the moment. In the case of last week, I had 3 things I could write about and planned them accordingly. This made it feel as if I could really be more than just a blogger.

Which brings me to my goal. I have a goal to write a book. I know that in order to do that, one needs tremendous about of discipline. What I plan in a book is far reaching and collaborative. I think that I can make a difference in the lives of underrepresented groups.

birthday, my life, work

Light at The End of The Tunnel

The school year is almost over. This is always interesting time because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but to get to that light I have to go through a shit load of work. This weekend is called Greek Unity Fest (even though there is unification of anything). Which is includes a concert, step show, and dance party. Which is all good for the students. For me, this is the last student event I have to deal with until August.

But then there is graduation. Which is just a series of long days before the summer starts. Commencement is always a bittersweet time. I get to say good boy to students that I have know for 4 years. Some which I have grown close to. While I am happy they are graduating, there is the feeling of loss at some point because I am not sure when I will see the again. I do consider one person in particular to be a little brother I never had.

Once class ends and the summer begins there is always this feeling like…ok what do I do now? While I do have plans in some parts of the summer. I have no idea what I am doing for my birthday. I have had some ideas, which will require me taking some vacation time. But, right now it is all thoughts. Nothing concrete.

I am turning 35 this year and I feel like I can do more with my life. Work takes up a lot of my time and I find that I do not have as much time for myself as I should. I am trying my best to save money for things I want to do. The thought of getting a second job has entered my mind frequently. The problem for me is that I value my time way to much to be working 2 jobs.

Regardless…I am focused to get past these last few weeks so I can start enjoying my summer….

cars, mail, my life, my wife

Too Good To Be True…

In this day and age mail has become useless. Physical mail that you can open and read; the same mail that take 3 days to get to your house and is delivered to your mailbox that we all end of shredding because it is pure junk. To me, it is pointless since we can do just about anything on our computers. I completely see why the cost of a stamp gets more expensive every year. The price of delivering mail is expensive considering that it is being used less and less.

So, now that I have made my point about how mail is useless, anyone can see why I don’t really open anything that I get that is mailed. Most of the business I do is online. Like paying bills and loans, so no, I do not need a statement mailed to me. That leaves magazines I do not read, coupons, credit card applications, election crap, and contests. Most are left on the table to be shredded at a later date.

One day this past week, the wife decides she is going to open a letter from Kia East Syracuse. It was an ad campaign to get us to come in (clearly). But they also sent us a scratch off game for us to play. The way it worked was that if you scratch off 3 of the same things…you win that thing you scratch off. Really simple.

So she plays this game and she scratches off 3 cars. Now, I am doing my Wednesday night blog and she shows me this. I look at all the paperwork and it seemed legit to me. She is the skeptical one. I know that she has read this thing backwards and forward, so if she is coming to me then she is needs confirmation that what she is reading is valid. I will say that as much it looked good, there was something that did not make sense to me. It was just too good to be true.

She ends up making an appointment for Friday (yesterday). We decide to leave work early and go pay a visit to Kia East Syracuse. On the drive there, I reminder her that this may be a fluke and that although they are giving cars away in this economy, we need to be prepared for a sales pitch. So, out goal is to leave with a free car…or leave with nothing at all.

We go in and we have an appointment with Lisa. She sits us down and the first question is, “What are you currently driving?” I just rolled my eyes and started checking email on my phone because I knew we got pulled in. My wife explains to her that we are here because of the mailer and the scratch off game. The woman looks at the card and says…” I will be right back to see what you won.” Right there, I knew where not getting any new car. If scratching off 3 cars did not warrant some time of…”Boss…we have a winner!”, then we got roped in.

Lisa comes back tells us that we won a 3 day/night vacation (valued at about $400 if you do the math). My wife just looks at her with this look that I had not seen since the days we lived in the Bronx. “So you mean to tell me…that scratching off 3 cars means…no cars?” Lisa, who was probably not trained to deal with intimidating Latinas, carefully showed us the poster that said that 3 cars or 3 palm trees meant vacation and had we scratched off 3 money bags we could have chosen the car or the money. The best way too describe our faces was… “blink…blink”

Then, this woman had the balls to ask…(because we told her what we drive) “If I could lower you payments by 3 dollars a month and you can walk out of here with a brand new car would you be interested?”

BITCH PLEASE!

Needless to say we walked out. My wife was upset, but she got over it. It just goes to show that if something is too good to be true…then that is exactly what it is…

Brackets, Employment, my life, NCAA Tournament

Too Busy for Brackets?

I just realized something. Have I been that busy that I have not filled out a NCAA Bracket? That is just crazy. Just last week I was all up in March Madness and the Big East Tournament. Now, I look up and it is almost Thursday and as of the writing of this post, I have yet to fill out a Bracket!

I mean, work has been nuts lately. All the work that I have seemed to miss over the last week has caught up to me. While, I have been getting more sleep than usual, I am still really tired when I get home. Not to mention that my average time of arrival at home this week has been 9:00pm. So, to be honest, the brackets are just not on my mind. Which is crazy because I do love College Basketball.

What has really made this week crazy is that our office coordinator is not longer with us. I wont go into any detail on this, but much of her work has been passed to me. The good thing is that my work day seems to go by so much faster now! However, I cannot seem to catch up on the small things I have to catch up on…like checking my voicemail…

I have been trying to take my work home with me to sort of make up the time, but that does not work. Between being tired and trying to unwind, I can spend the first hour at home just doing nothing. Of course, I have to write everyday, because this is my release. However, I will not complain. I refuse to make this situation negative.

I have a job! With the way this economy has been, being busy because of work is the last thing that I will complain about. I am very fortunate of where I am and the students I work with. Having a job right now is the only thing that seems to matter these days. So, I will find a way to get the work done at the expense of my brackets…

PS… Now that I think about it, no one has really invited me to join any pools or websites…hmmm

family, my life, nephew

My Nephew

I wanted to write something quick tonight. I am busy watching the Big East Championship with my brother. Hopefully SU will pull out more big win.

So yesterday and today I spend some time with my nephew and Godson, Justin. A very cute little boy that eats nothing healthy and plays video games all day long. So, I guess he is just a normal boy. He gets just about anything he wants. His grade warrant it, which is always good.

This boy is going to be 10 this year and I cannot believe how much times has past since I saw him the hospital. He will always be a reason why I come to NYC. I make sure that I see him as often as possible. Justin as finally gotten used to traveling to Syracuse every summer to visit. I laugh when he shows his amazement of all the trees and green grass.


But, boy, does Justin love video games. I think he can actually get me tired of playing video games. He does this thing where he cannot sit down while playing a game. He needs to keep moving as if he has way too much sugar in his body…which he probably does (e.g. he had waffles with ice cream when we went to eat at the Cross Bronx Diner). So when he plays games like wrestling or even madden he is kicking and running in place! Thank good that my brother puts him in sports like Football and Baseball because this little kid can run.

The only bad part of me visiting here is leaving. He gets sad when I leave. but, hey he will see me again in May.

my life

My Issue…

I consider myself to be positive person. I do anything that I can to maintain a certain level of positive. But there are times when I can’t do it. I think I have an issue with trying to make others happy or rather maybe I do not want to disappoint people. More that just people, but rather people who are important to me. Sometimes I think I do a good job, but then there are times when I feel I cannot win.

I am being very ambiguous and I know that. But, these moods are brief and it is important for me to capture these moods because I am the type of person that gets over things quickly. The point really is that I hate to let people that I care for down. On a larger scale, I don’t care what people think about me in general. But to those that a close me like friends and family, then that is a different story.

I feel that there is some expectation of me to come through in any situation and you know, now that I think about it, I am successful most of the time. So, perhaps, this expectation come from within me, which makes disappointments hard to deal with at time. I will equate it to my competitive drive to always win in any game or sport I play. I absolutely hate to lose. I have always hated it. I feel that I need to win. So perhaps the disappointments are sorta like losing.

Well, as expected, I am already over my this. But, I know it will come up again for me. It always does.

my life, nintendo wii, video games

Video Games…

As I write today’s post, I am watching Josie play with the Wii Fit. I find myself amazed about how far technology has advanced that allow us to stay fit as we play a video game. I would consider myself a Video Gamer to a lesser degree. I don’t play video games as much as I used to because I am just so picky with what I buy. Not to mention that I barely have time to play as it is. But, when I did have time…

My first game system was the Atari 2600. I got it for Christmas and I was the happiest kid on the block. It came with this horrible game called Combat and these stiff ass joysticks that have contributed in the carpal tunnel I have now. I also got Pac-Man (which was nothing like the arcade and therefore WACK) and a bunch of other games. Over that span of my Atari craze I ended up getting Pitfall, Berserk, and E.T. (which I think ended up being the worse video game of all time). What I remember, was the connection the back of the TV. You had to turn you knob to channel 3 and connect this huge silver box that had hooks to the screws where the antennae was attached. The you would have to flick the switch on the silver box to go from video game to TV.

Several years later, after Atari died out, Nintendo came out with the NES: Nintendo Entertainment System. This fancy little console that, again I got for Christmas, was the top of line in terms of video gaming. It came with 2 games, which never happens now, and those were Duck Hunt and Gyromite. It also came with a gun and a little robot named R.O.B. Of course, Dunk Hunt you could play for hours, however you got really bored with it after awhile. The damn little robot was for Gyromite which was ok, but they only made one more other game for that thing. So, it just collected dust. NES was great though, until it got old and you had to blow into the game in order for it to work.
Super Nintendo came out when I was in High School and once again I got it for Christmas (see a pattern?). I think this came with a game called Pilot Wings. I am not sure about that but I remember playing that game a lot. Anyway, I began to realize in High School that this was my escape from the real world. I can play these games not think about how my parents got divorced or how I felt I was the only guy in school who was a virgin (not that video games help this). I sought refuge in 40-50 dollar games that I bought myself because I had a job at Pathmark. By the way that was the last video game system I got for Christmas. By the time I got to college Sega Genesis was out and I new a lot of people that had this. I wasn’t into it at all, but I would play it at my buddy house on South Campus.

Nintendo 64 came out and this happened to be the first console I bought myself. I think this came with Super Mario 64, a game I never finished. There were several other games that I was interested in games like Mario Kart and Shadows of the Empire which took up a lot of my time. At this time I was already out of college working as a temp in Syracuse and recovering from a bad break up. Once again, I find myself taking solace in a video game system. It here that I learn that Nintendo cannot fill a void that someone may have.

The Nintendo Gamecube came out and I am in a different world. I am now dating to a video game junkie who tends to play more than I do. Which forced me to go to PlayStation 2 (which, actually I got for Christmas years before…my bad!). What I find interesting that I have gone through 3 PlayStation due to shitty parts and all my Nintendo game consoles still work (yes i still have them all). Which leads me back to the Wii.

I am still amazed how video games have been so much a part of my life. I particularly like the fact that I can still beat little kids in certain games. However, the highlight is that I can play online with my friends. The reason I play video games is still very much for the same reason. It is an escape. This time from work and all the other things that life tends to bring down on me.