Life Before weddings

Ok, I know it's been a while. So much to catch up on. Where to even begin. Well let's go back to May, because that's when I last posted. Mother's Day Brunch was a success for 2009! I learned how to fold napkins really well. In fact, I folded every single one!

The place looked beautiful! Things ran very smoothly, and while we didn't get quite the attendance we were originally hoping for, it turned out to be a good thing since it gave us a chance to see how things went. I think we'll be back next year.

So after that we went to Pennsylvania to visit the cemetery and say hello to Trevor in honor of his birthday. I often wish he would have met Gnome because Trev was a dog lover. He would have loved Gnome. Gnome loves to lay around in the sun, and seems to really enjoy the nice weather at the cemetery. I hope its nice when we go back in September.

We stayed at the farm again. This time we brought Ashley, and she played the tomboy very well. Normally she's...well 13. She's girly now most of the time. Worried about her hair, her makeup, all the stuff. Just like any teenage girl. It was great to see her take to the country the way she did though. She hopped in that dirty pond without hesitation, all in the name of frog hunting.

Because I'm a boob I forgot to dial the ISO down to a nice level. I really don't like having to think about my ISO on top of my other exposure information, but I suppose once I get used it, I'll be all the better for it.

Trevor used to love to skateboard. He had this one deck, with a little anime nurse on the bottom. Loved the thing. My cousin Tim remembered that deck, and got that image tatooed on his leg. But it wasn't any old artist, he did it himself! He did a great job, and by the looks of his first work, he'll have a career out of it.

Tim and his girlfriend just got a new dog. They named the little guy Jaeger. Like the liquor. He's a pitbull pup, with a lot of character. Too bad pitbulls have such a bad rap, because they are just the best puppies in the world. Full of love, and eager to play.

Whew. So in a nutshell, that sums up May. Oh we did take Max to the park to play. He has this thing for his jammies and he seems to always be in them. I had a few outfits like that when I was a kid too. He's a real ham on that swing. He loves it, and it seems he can't get enough of it. Push me higher! Higher! He yells.

Other than work, which has been....interesting. We've fired 2 people, brought one back, and we'll be losing another soon due to resignation. I've been shooting weddings every free weekend with Kurtis and Julia, and I have been given the OK to post the first 3 weddings we've shot. The deal is, I can post them when the clients have released their photos. That works great for me, because with my schedule the way it has been, I haven't had time to post, edit pictures, or accomplish anything really! But things seem to be slowing down a touch, so I've gotten caught up. Evenings are much lighter now.

P90x is going well. I'm down to my last 3 weeks in the 90 day program. I can't believe how fast it's gone. I don't see a huge difference between 30 days and 60 days like I posted before, but everyone keeps telling me there is. I'm getting ready to either start the program all over again, or switch it up to a new program that is coming out called Insanity. Here's the website: http://www.beachbody.com/product/fitness_programs/insanity.do for the program, and here's another video of it: http://jasonarmbruster.blogspot.com/2009/05/super-new-insanity-preview.html. Looks crazy. But Plyometrics is one of my favorite workouts on P90X and this routine is very similar to that. Only worse, and more of it.

Hmm...what else is new...well I've been tossing the idea around of taking the civil service exam for the local or county police department. I've been back and forth with it for a while now, a couple years at least. My dad has a friend that was a Monroe County Sheriff, and I spoke to him about it several years ago. He just told me that I probably didn't have a chance because the competition was too high. Too many applicants to choose from. Of course, I've always said that the guy who says it can't be done, is usually interrupted by the guy who just did it. So I figure what the hell. Nothing to lose, so maybe I'll take the exam and see where it goes. I have a friend in the city police department and we're having dinner together soon, so I'm sure he'll have some input for me. Hey, the test isn't until November, and even then, I can always change my mind. But somehow I keep coming back here, and there's always some reason why I don't try. I'm tired of coming back here and not trying. Thanks to P90X, I could pass the physical peice as it stands right now, although I still need to improve on the 1.5 mile run to give myself a nice buffer.

I think the big question everyone asks me is why. Why would I want to do that. That's a tough one to answer. Maybe it's because I love helping people, and love the idea of being able to make a difference in the world. It somehow just feels like I should try. Kind of like most people fall into their careers because it lines up with some peice of their personality. That's the thing I loved about healthcare and going into medicine. Helping people, making a difference in someones life, and maybe having some impact on the world around me, no matter how small.

Anyway, that pretty much fills you in on May and the beginning of June minus the weddings which I already have drafted. I'm still doing P90X, still figuring out what I want to do with my life, still loving photography, still loving my wife, and still loving my life. I'm far less worried about losing my job now for some reason. Maybe it's the idea that there is something else I could do, or more to the point, something else I kinda want to do.