Also… I am for the legalization of drugs. Not because I am a druggie of some sort, as I said, this was my party YEAR. No more than a year, and this year was 10 years ago. I believe that drugs cause more harm being illegal than they would if they were legalized. As a 20-something who should have known better, I did things without regard to ALL the consequences. Particularly, consequences to a question that was hardly regarded was “just how much trust should I have in chemicals bought off a black market?” And then there are legal consequences to breaking serious laws.

So, even though I am for the legalization of drugs, I in no way endorse using illegal drugs. Even though some may be “more safe” than currently legalized drugs, that doesn’t mean illegally gained said drugs are safer than legally obtained drugs.

Summer of 1998-1999

I went back to work for Oakland Schools every summer that I came back. They’d always find a spot for me, but always insisted that I move on to better things after college. Anyway, some of my new co-workers were really in to throwing small LAN parties. Where you all haul your computers to one guys house, hook them up on the local network, and then kill each other in various video games until the sun comes up.

These were great fun for a geek like me… Then one of them brought booze to a party. My first time drinking, and boy did we drink. Screwdrivers were my booze of choice. We also listened to lots of techno music. One night, instead of a LAN party, we all just hung out at someone’s girlfriend’s house. And out came the marijuana.

Yeah, I was curious as to what all the fuss was over pot. I knew it was safe, physically that is. I don’t think I gave the legal ramifications much thought. So I tried it and, holy shit, it was one of the worst nights of my life. I don’t believe my experience was what most people feel on pot. I don’t see how it could be and be as popular of a recreational drug as it is. I remember the feeling so well… even now, 11 years later. Everything I tried to do took an extra 10 seconds or so before I could do it. Everything I heard had to have been delayed the same long 10 seconds before it got to me. I was incapable of doing anything but stare straight ahead with my mouth hung open. Just wishing it would all end soon. I felt detached from my body, like I was floating above it, held to it by a thin piece of thread that could snap at any moment. I retreated in to a dark bedroom and closed my eyes. I concentrated on staying IN me and waited for it all to end.

That experience really disturbed me. I wasn’t quite the same after it… I had never felt so disconnected from myself. I had a strong desire to leave everything. I wanted out of Waterford, I wanted out of Great Lakes Christian College and out of Lansing. I wanted something new, an adventure. About a month before I was to head back to college my work friends invited me to my first rave. At that rave I took ecstasy.

It was the complete opposite of the night I smoked pot. In every way. I felt more connected to myself than I ever had before. I was able to see myself more clearer than I had ever done. My thoughts were quicker, not slower. I wanted to socialize, not hide. And it was a lot of fun.

So off to college I went, having the most messed up summer of my life. I remembered that Jason really liked techno music, and had talked about raves before. And I could tell Jason anything. So I emailed him and told him everything. From the drinking, to the pot, the rave and the ecstasy. I swear, in about 30 minutes I got a response back from him… I wish I still had it, but hotmail deleted my account data a long time ago. It was something along the lines of “I’m coming to get you, we’ll be there to pick you up in about 2 hours.”

He wasn’t joking. He got a ride from Grand Rapids to Lansing at the last moment, found a “house party” (kind of like a mini-rave in someone’s house) and picked me up. I had entered a somewhat hidden part of Jason’s life. So there we were, at a random house in downtown Lansing, music thumping, lights flashing… He was introducing me to many new people, showing me a lot of the rave culture. It was great fun.

At that house party Jason took me outside, away from most people. We were sitting on the lawn on a beautiful night. It had to have been 3 am at least. We joked and laughed for a bit and then he got serious. He looked directly in to my eyes and said “there’s something you want ask me.” He was right too… And I felt stupid. Here he was being so amazingly courageous and brave… but I couldn’t do it. He must’ve been waiting all night for me to bring it up. Finally he gave up and started the conversation. And yet I still stumbled on it! I eventually got it out and did ask him. And it was an amazing feeling. I was wrong a bit and he cleared up a lot. But, I knew then that an already great friend had just become unimaginably greater. We no longer had any giant secrets that we had to always hide.

I did a lot more partying after that. There were some weekend when we’d start partying on Thursday in Lansing, party all the way to Chicago, and then party back to Grand Rapids. And I’d get back to Lansing just in time for Monday morning classes. We ended up with quite a fun group… And it’s how I met Jillian. I needed a ride one night to a gay bar downtown. The gay bar threw a really fun “rave night” on Thursdays and Jason would always drive to Lansing for it. Jillian stuck around and kept coming with us to different parties… and well, we became close friends.

I could go on and on with the partying stories. I will admit this, I mostly never, knowingly, did anything besides pot, ecstasy, acid and shrooms. And the only two I enjoyed were ecstasy and acid. I have stories involving these things… Getting split up in Lansing and having to go back to campus while tripping balls. Getting my parent’s car towed in downtown Chicago. Getting lost in Grand Rapids because they closed the party down before anyone had stopped tripping. Or taking one pill and not feeling it’s effects, so of course you should find another dealer and take a 2nd pill, right? I think the first was mescaline… we’re still not sure, but it definitely had some effects! Anyway, don’t do drugs. They’re illegal and that is enough reason to consider them unsafe! The black market is not trustworthy and no matter how much you “trust” the dealer, it’s still not guaranteed to be what you’re expecting. Which means it’s never safe and the legal consequences are high.

Spiritually I was drifting further and further from Christianity. The people at these parties, the ravers, they showed me what it meant to be like Christ more than a Christian ever had. They were seriously the most loving, most accepting and most caring strangers I had ever met. And you can’t say it was the drugs… I spent a lot of time with sober ravers too. So here were all these wonderful and kind people from all sorts of religions. Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, etc etc etc. All of them were genuine. All of them were moral.

I ended up realizing that I didn’t like God.

So there I was… a Christian, at a Bible college, who didn’t like God. The Christian God of the Bible, that is. No, it was more than dislike. I hated God. I completely disagreed with many of the things he did in the Bible and I did not think of him as worthy of my praise.

Towards the end of my 3rd year at GLCC my friend Patrick (read about him in parts 1-3) asked me to move in with him in Ann Arbor. He was in need of a new roommate and he said he “could find me a job.” Since I was definitely not going to continue in my Christian education, I agreed. I left mid semester.

Well, not completely, Jillian would drive to pick me up and take me to some George Brown classes. Christian or not, his classes were great. And… it wasn’t a short drive. We spent more and more time together in Ann Arbor. And one day we kissed. It was a shock to both of us.

So Ann Arbor was pretty much the end of the party days. It dwindled out… Jason and I both realized that we had more fun sober. Sitting around and chatting about things all night long. He was always a strong Christian and would often want to discuss theological things. A favorite of his was “if God knows everything then why would he have created humans knowing what we’d do? Knowing what would come of it all?” His answer to that one was always that God had the ability to know everything, but didn’t let himself. You can’t have a true and loving relationship without free will. And if you know the entire outcome of the creation, is it really free will? I miss those conversations… But I went from a Christian who hates God to an agnostic that year.

So I said goodbye to Jesus and never looked back.

1997-1998

Given that I had an awesome early start to my career in IT at Oakland Schools, you’d think I’d head off to college for a computer related degree. Most people were shocked when I told them I was going to go to Great Lakes Christian College to study psychology. I had a huge thirst for apologetics and always greatly enjoyed helping friends through hard times. So it made sense to me.

In high school I was a part of two churches, one being the home church of Denny (he’s the one who first told me about Jesus) and the other being Mike’s. Because he was my best friend. I had a blast with both groups. I participated in the youth group of both (with Brandon Caroland being my youth minister at Mike’s church). One of the kids in the youth group at Denny’s church put together this massive binder of information on evolution. Specifically on how wrong it was and how the earth is young. Yep! A young earth creationist! I loved that binder and soaked up all the info I could out of it… and then I went to the internet. On the internet I discovered that 100% of that binder was easily dismissed by pesky things like facts and science. So I was excited when I was heading to GLCC to check out the college, there was a special event on evolution that day… I think by someone named Nathan? So awesome! I can go and here an educated college students findings on this stuff. Answers!

Well… that went about as good as you’d think. He spouted off the same exact misinformation the young kid in youth group compiled. I tried asking some questions… Bringing up counterpoints to things he said, but got dismissed and ignored. So that ended my spree of being a young earth creationist. But, I was pretty comfortable being a Christian who didn’t believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Off to college I went. One of my strongest memories of starting college is about toilet paper. I was moving in to my new room (with my mystery roommate- who turned out to be a great guy- Benji) and I was hauling a huge cube of toilet paper in to my room. I grabbed it out of the car and ran fast… feeling embarrassed for some reason that I was bringing my own TP.

And one of my favorite memories is from just before the freshman orientation. We were told to dress nice for it, but I didn’t really have much nice clothes to wear. But, I had a huge bank account from having a nice nearly 100% disposable income for the past 3 years. I knew Jason Caroland from having Brandon as my youth minister, and Jason just happened to be back at GLCC that year. He was at Grand Valley State University for a bit, but thankfully he came back to GLCC in 1997. Jason and I had a very similar sense of humor and so we got along well from the start. We headed out to the East Lansing mall to get me some clothes for orientation… and I let Jason decide everything. I ended up leaving in khaki phat pants (you know, the kind all the ravers wear? They’re like cartoonishly exaggerated bell bottoms), a skin tight olive green stretchy shirt and a button down shirt over top of that, left unbuttoned.

Other strong memories of my first year at GLCC involves random theological debates you’d stumble upon walking around the boys dorm. People would argue over the most ridiculous things… like “If someone is on their deathbed and then accepts Jesus Christ but they die before they have a chance to be baptize, are they in Heaven or Hell?” I didn’t get it… I was of the opinion that the bible clearly tells you what to do and you should try to do what it says with all your ability. If you can’t, because you happen to die just minutes after accepting Jesus, well, that was really out of your control. It’s up to God now. But if it is in your control, don’t argue about whether or not it’s “needed”. Just do what it says to do.

The origin of my nickname: ThePet. Although my roommate was extremely nice and an overall great guy, I didn’t have much in common with him. Jason Caroland and I however got along great. I actually moved most of my stuff over to Jason’s room. Which was really just my computer and Playstation. So I spent all my time in Jason’s room and slept in my room. We talked about many things, philosophical things, silly things, theological things, music, etc… He introduced me to some great bands, like: Tears for Fears, The Cars, The Pogues and Michael Knott. It was actually a song by Michael Knott that made him decide to come back to GLCC that year: Double. So anyway, I spent all my time in his room, had all my stuff in his room, but didn’t live there. So I was always there and didn’t live there… One day Jason was introducing me to someone he had over and said something like, “This is Ryan… he… well… he doesn’t live here but he’s always here. I guess he’s our pet.” And so there it was, my nickname, The Pet.

My second year at GLCC went much like the first. Jason wasn’t there, he went back to GVSU, but Mike was. We had a room together and it was a great year of video games and music. Oh, and smoking. Come to find out that Mike really enjoyed cloves. And hey, they were nice. So we ended up smoking that year, and I ended up moving on to Marlboros even. Of course, at GLCC smoking was strictly prohibited on and off campus. As was watching rated R movies and being in the same room with a girl! So there was a small group of smokers that went for “walks”, or “drives”, or just walked down to the baseball field and smoked in the dug out.

Throughout all this time I was studying the Bible like I never studied it before. Since I was pretty new to Christianity, most of the old testament was new to me. So going through the old testament was very new to me. After my sophomore year of college I had a lot of new questions, much like the questions I had for the young earth creationists. During the summer I started hanging out a lot with a co-worker of mine and went to my very first rave… More to come in part 4.

1995-1997

This is the year I met my good friend Mike Hodgman. We met at band camp and well… I can’t really remember the details. We just became instant best friends. It is also the first year I met my other good friend Christina Barberi. I remember seeing her at marching band practices and thinking “who is that cute girl?”

Now… choosing memories from High School is really difficult. I had so many strange things happen, at times I felt like I was in a sitcom. So this is be no means comprehensive. Plus, it’s hard remembering which year everything happened. Four years seems way too short of a time for all that went on.

A few months in to my job at Oakland Schools, I got a raise. It was awesome. I showed up to work and my boss called me in to her office. Technically, I worked for the student co-op. So she asked me, “Would it be OK if I asked for a raise for you?” Uhh… yeah. “Good, because I did. And it was a $3.00 raise.” I believe I was speechless here. This was about a 55% raise. “And…” More!? “… I had them make it retroactive to the day you started.” Wait, retroactive? “So for all the hours you worked here, you will be paid the additional $3.00 for those hours. And going forward it will be at your new rate.” She says it was because I “knew more than they were led to believe” when I was hired. Which… wasn’t really true. I picked up most of what I needed on the job, I’m just a quick learner. I will never forget that conversation though, or that awesome pay check! I miss 100% disposable income.

At one point in the middle of High School I joined a rock band. Ha! We called ourselves Latin Surprise Party, or LSP for short. Patrick was the drummer, Brook Pridemore was the lead guitarist/singer, Paul Phipps played bass and I was the backup guitarist. I remember Brook organizing it all… and it didn’t matter that I had no idea how to play guitar. I got private lessons though, and ended up joining jazz band at school.

So LSP’s early days were filled with music written by Brook. I really only remember one. Fascist Lifeguard. It consisted of 5 chords and a lot of strumming. The lyrics went something like: “Fascist lifeguard has got you now! In his pool of gelatinous drool!” We did a few cover songs too, like Weezer’s The Sweater Song (Sorry Rivers! We were just kids…). I think Patrick’s mom still has our one and only album. She could use it for blackmail, fortunately she’s pretty nice.

We actually ended up kicking Brook and Paul out of the band, and Mike Hodgman came in as guitarist/singer. Maybe they weren’t kicked out… I’m not sure, my memory is fuzzy. But the band became a strictly cover band with just Me, Mike and Patrick. Then it died.

I had another girl show interest in me during my rock star time too. Jenny, another friend from band. Again, I was way new to this dating thing. I knew she liked me, she knew I liked her. It was different from my first girlfriend… and well, I went weird and didn’t know what to do. In the end we just stayed friends and I have no regrets about that. Jenny was a great friend all throughout high school. I have great memories of drinking slurpees with her outside 7-11 after band practice. And she’s the one who introduced me to Smashing Pumpkin’s album Gish, particularly the kick ass song “Girl Named Sandoz.”

So then another girl showed interest in me, Sarah, and she was way more aggressive than the other girls. I had a lot of fun with Sarah. She was my first real girlfriend, in that she was my first real kiss. Lots of make out sessions. When she broke up with me it seriously broke my heart. My first ever true girlfriend and my first ever true breakup. I very clearly remember feeling like I had a huge part of me missing. Nothing to fill the big hole. WAY over reacted. But I learned a lot and experienced even more.

Continuing the theme of girls now, I must bring up Melody Joy Alexander! Being a big fan of Christian rock band Starflyer 59 and exploring this new Internet thing that Al Gore invented… I stumbled upon a Starflyer fan page with a big guestbook to sign (haha! Remember those guestbook cgi apps?). So I, of course, signed it. Then I scrolled through the many many many other signatures. And there was one that jumped out, her name was “Melody Joy Alexander”, and I just thought “what an awesome name!”. So I clicked on her email and told her. I think it was something like, “Starflyer ROCKS \m/, your name ROCKS \m/! Sorry- I’m kinda weird and dorky- Ryan.” And she emailed me back. And I emailed her back. And so on and so on… And I ended up making friends with one of the awesomest people ever. We emailed constantly throughout the rest of high school and most of college.

So after meeting Melody and being fully recovered from my first heartbreak ever, I did some serious thinking about dating. See… I’m quite the hopeless romantic. I thought about love all the time. I think I was in love with love. I realized that what I wanted to find wasn’t something I could search for. I decided that if you go out in search of love that you’ll find it in spots where it’s not. You’ll stretch things and twist things to try and take something that isn’t love and make it love. So I decided that I was done with dating. Yes, one real girlfriend and I was over it. I wasn’t going to look for love, I was going to look for friendship and if love found me I would know it.

So back to Christina. We ended up hitting it off really well. We were always on the phone chatting about things. Hanging out and watching movies. High school stuff. We became really good friends. In fact, we went to home coming together. Our friendship started to turn in to something more than friendship. I was nervous though… It was weird going from just friends to dating. I wasn’t really sure how fast to move. And… then there was that whole “I’m done with dating” thing. We held hands a bit and that was about it. Then we went back to just being friends. I still had feelings for her for quite a while after that. I don’t think I ever stopped until sophomore year of college. It was all really confusing and Melody probably got an email about every second of it. The only thing I regret is not taking her to Senior Prom. It was obvious she wanted me to ask her… But I didn’t want to go as just friends. I was stupid to not ask her, we would have had fun and it would have been some great memories. I still have lots of great memories with her though, definitely no shortage. For some reason the strongest memory I have of her is from going to watch the marching band at a competition. It was pouring rain and we had one umbrella. So there we were huddled together under one small umbrella, just chatting and having a fun time watching the competition.

Well that covers a lot of high school, especially the girls part. I guess I need a part 3, things get crazy after high school though. I start hanging out with Ryan Hunt and Jason Caroland. And my world gets turned upside down.

July 2nd, 1979

Born. Came out butt first, sorry Mom. OK, I don’t remember this, but the timeline should start here.

Kindergarten

I remember getting in trouble for playing with the toy kitchen. I was told that I was a boy and should play with the boy toys, like all the other boys. Once my Dad found out, I was allowed to play with whatever toy I wanted. Yay Dad.

1st grade… I think?

My first timed math test! So there we are, sitting at our desks, and the teacher announces that we are NOT allowed to turn our papers over until she says so. She then passes out a multiplication test face down on all our desks. Once they’re passed out, she watches the clock and shouts something like, “Begin!”. Not really sure the exact words but I know for certain her words were not, “Turn over the test and begin!” So… yep, I did the test without turning the paper over. It was hard, but you could see faint lines fading through to the back.

While I did end up growing up to be a sarcastic asshole, this was not my motive. I was determined to follow the rules at school. I was terrified to do something wrong.

Oh, and I passed the test. I didn’t finish all the problems, but the ones I did finish I got correct.

Probably around 2nd or 3rd grade

I remember my two first good friends. Katy Dolly and Nathan Fredrickson.

Katy and I were good friends until things got weird.. She’d have me over to her house and we’d play in her room. I loved making her laugh. But then one day she asked me to kiss her and I didn’t want to. We didn’t really talk much after that. I still remember being a goof though, doing anything to make her smile. It was good innocent fun until she “put the moves on”.

Nathan and I were like brothers. We did everything together. At the time I thought I’d never have a better friend and we’d always be that close. We barely talked after 5th grade.

I’m not sure if this is the right year or not… but around here we got a NES. I have great memories of playing it with my Dad. He was so much better at Super Mario Brothers than anyone I knew. I still remember the day he got to level 1-4. There he was, up against Bowser. Bowser was, of course, protecting the princess. He fought and fought and fought and finally got past him. We were so excited, finally, the princess! But nooooooo it was toad, “Our princess is in another castle.” We couldn’t believe there was more to the game.

Shortly after Super Mario Brothers, we got The Legend of Zelda. Again, another one I have great memories of playing with my Dad. He got out graphing paper and we mapped out Hyrule. The overworld and every dungeon. Such great fun and such great memories.

Probably 4th grade

Remember that vice presidental fitness thing? I dreaded that. I remember our school making a huge deal out of it all. Running and other outdoor activities. One of them involved a hula hoop. There we were, the entire school, outside doing these things. We had to run to a hula hoop when we were up and hula it X number of times and run back. Everyone was watching, including my female teacher. I dreaded the moment, just knowing I was going to hula wrong and everyone was going to laugh. It was my turn and I ran to it, put it on and began to swing my hips. I felt like an idiot. I knew I was exagerating the hip swing or… just something wrong and awkward about it. And sure enough, there was my teacher, looking at me and laughing.

This was also, I believe, around the time of my introduction to computers. The computer lab at school were a bunch of old Apples. I have strong memories of playing Adventure and programming with Logo!

5th grade!

Square dancing! Oh how I hated it! Once a week our entire grade would meet in the gym and we were forced to learn how to square dance. The only part I really remember was a girl… her name was like, Marry Lou, or something like that. Definitley two names as her first name. I had a huge crush on her and would often get to actually touch her as we dosie-doed and whatnot.

Also, I started a Nintendo club with my friend Chris. We would meet once a week at his house and play rented NES games. This went well until he went PSYCHO. Seiriously… we were playing on the playground and something happened and my hand knocked his hat off. He went PSYCHO, grabbed my shoulders and tried to head butt me! I held him back with my arms straight and he just had this disgusting and hate filled look on his face as he kept trying to ram his forehead hard against mine. Finally when he calmed down I ran away sobbing. He never connected and didn’t hurt me in any way, but hey, I’m a wimp. This was my first and only fist fight I ever got in. No one connected with anything, no one was physically hurt, and I cried for a good 10 minutes.

I have one more memory with this friend, Chris. During one of our NES club meetings that turned in to a sleepover, we were up late watching t.v. in his living room. His Dad was single and had someone over that night. It had to have been like 2 am, his Dad obviously figured we were asleep. He comes strolling out of his bedroom in his birthday suit, on the way to the bathroom. I don’t think he ever realized we were awake. But there he was, stark naked, on his way to the bathroom. Eww.

6th grade.

This was the first year that they moved 6th grade to the Junior Highs. So instead of being a big kid at the elementary school, I was a tiny kid in Junior High. I started doing this new thing with my hair… it involved moose. I had it parted down the side and had this tidal wave molded in to my bangs. I started wearing jeans, now that tight fighting pants were no longer in style and I could find some comfy ones. (Up until this point I wore nothing but khakis and penny loafers, I also traded the penny loafers for some tennis shoes. Cheatah’s I believe.)

I often remember a night in 6th grade camp. Another kid, Ryan Alsup, was running past me in the dorm and somehow brushed the side of his face with my hand. This popped out his contact lens and he couldn’t find it anywhere. I felt horrible. After camp my parents told me not to worry, “his parents can EASILY afford new ones”. I guess they were known to be well off.

Also, I don’t think I ever stopped talking about computers at home. For my birthday I got my first PC! A Tandy 1000TL. Along with it I got a game, Space Quest III. I still remember sitting at the kitchen table all day long immersed into that adventure game.

7th grade-8th grade.

The rest of my junior high years. Sometime in Junior High I met Patrick. We became very good friends and still talk often today. Mostly about geeky things, like computer games and programming. I have many memories of Wing Commander games, Magic the Gathering, AD&D, and of course… Latin Surprise Party. More on LSP later.

The other strong memories I have of Junior High are kinda weird. Like… being made fun of by a girl I had a crush on because I didn’t know what a dildo was. Wearing green shorts overalls, with one strap on and one strap off. Reading over the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby all night long so I could recite it without the music from memory. Making a tape with Patrick that played bohemian rhapsody over and over and over and over again, both sides. Playing said tape until our ears bled.

I remember a college student from some nearby beauty school coming in and talking to our class. She asked “What do you all use to wash your face with?” And some kid snapped back, “soap and water.” And she repeated back, in a mocking dopey voice, “soooooap and water.” She said something like, “Well, you guys must have great water here in Waterford, because you all have such great complexions.” Of course… I had major acne problems and felt very embarrassed by this.

1993 – 1994

Freshman year of highschool! I became “Bob’s little brother” at this point. It all started off with band camp. There I was, no longer in to M.C. Hammer of Vanilla Ice, but diving head first in to grunge. Lots of great memories from band camp that year, meeting new friends, like Mickey.

Band camp of ‘93 was the first time in my entire life that anyone ever told me about Jesus Christ. Denny Early approached me and asked me if I knew who Jesus was. I honestly did not know. All my life my parents raised me without a religion. They always told me that there was a God and if you were good and nice you would go to Heaven. They never once mentioned Jesus or Hell. So this was all knew to me, but in line with what I was thinking. I love details and I’m a bit obsessive. So I ate up all Denny could tell me and shortly afterwards became born again.

My first girlfriend… I found out a girl liked me, which was a brand new thing for me. So I liked her back. We went on many group dates together, because her friends were dating my friends. The other two couples would sit and make out… we’d just cuddle. I knew she wanted to make out too, but I was too scared and too shy to make the first move. And she obviously wanted me to make the first move. We ended up dating for about 6 months. Turns out she also wanted me to be the one to break up with her. We both couldn’t initiate a kiss and we both couldn’t initiate the break up talk. So we dated uncomfortably for about 6 months. It felt SO good to break up with her. I was very proud of myself and remember just glowing that day when it was all finally over.

Summer of ‘94 I got my first job, and my first car. Started working the closing shift at Arby’s. My first car was a Blue Dodge Shadow Convertible. My Dad somehow got it for me. It was great. The job, not so much. It didn’t last long though.

I knew I could get a better job, so I started looking, with my Dad’s help, for an entry level computer related job. In the Fall of ‘94 I landed my first job in IT. I said goodbye to Arby’s and they all wished me well, saying they knew that I wasn’t going to be there long, and started my after school job at the Oakland Schools administration building.

Annnnd… Travis is asleep now. So this is the end of part 1.

So last night, I was backing out of the garage, on my way to Target with the whole family. We needed groceries to make our feast of appetizers for New Years. I back out of my driveway and **CRUNCH**.

There was a black Nissan parked illegally in the fire lane. How did I miss that? No idea… Jillian saw it, but had no idea I was going to hit it. I think it was a combo of things…

1. There has never been a fire here, hence no one has ever parked there.
2. It was dark. The Nissan was black.
3. Backing out of my driveway is so routine that it’s now an “automatic” muscle memory. Look left, no cars/people. Look right, no cars/people. Back up.

So I got out of the van and took a look. I crunched the corner of my bumper and scraped up the runner on their drivers side. Nothing big at all. So, I started looking around for signs of who this car could belong too. Most neighbors were gone, lights were all off, etc. I gave up trying to find someone, so I emailed myself their license plate number and decided to try to contact them tomorrow. Our apartment complex has a listing of all license plates numbers for all tenants, I figured that’d be a good place to start. Also, it’s fairly obvious from the damage that it was someone backing out of my driveway.

Fast forward to this morning.

*POUND POUND POUND*. A knock on the door. Is it the owners of the illegally parked car I hit? Nope. It’s a Colorado State Police Officer.

So I get written up for “improperly backing up” and “leaving the scene of an accident”. Court date, March 6th 2009.

The officer informs me that no, contacting the person after the accident is not OK. Even if you just bumped a tree while backing up, you have to call the police. I really swear it’s common practice to take a parked cars license plate number and contact them that way… Guess I was wrong. Now I have to go to court or “there will be a warrant out for your arrest”.

Happy new year!

So, to be safe… here they are:

1. I believe that “the meaning of life” is different for everyone. For me, it’s being a Dad. Nothing else in my life is more important.
2. For the past 9 or so years, I’ve been paid to have fun. And yes, I do realize how lucky I am to enjoy my occupation so much.
3. After I graduated High School, I decided I wanted to be a family counselor. So I went to Great Lakes Christian College to study psychiatry. 2.5 years of that, I dropped out and jumped in to my career in IT.
4. My favorite movie is L.A. Story. This is because I think Steve Martin is hilarious and love comedies, and because I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic and love love stories.
5. I consider the biggest life changing event in my life to be when my best friend Jason died in a car accident in 2002.
6. I lost my faith while attending Great Lakes Christian College. I don’t think the college caused me to lose my faith, but I do think it sped it up. Mostly from an amazing professor who strongly encouraged thinking for yourself.
7. Besides computer related hobbies, my top hobby is probably cooking. But I require exact recipes and instructions. Phrases like: “until it’s done”, “add just enough”, “until it looks right”, drive me crazy.

Well, guess I have to tag now. I tag my brother and Regan. Since I know them and they have blogs. I’d tag Melody too, but her blog has a specific theme and should be read by all: my [sic] world.

Some things are super cheap, less than $10.

“First there’s Kindergarten, which is in elementary school. Then there’s Church, Middle School, High School and then College.”

I laughed. “Ummm… Church?”

“Yeah, church,” she replied.

So I asked, “What’s Church?”

“Oh, it’s just one of the schools.”

“Who told you about Church?”

“No one,” she sighed, “I just know about it.” I’m not certain, but I think she rolled her eyes here.

I was confused and had to pause a bit to think it over. “Oh, do you mean Sunday School?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s at Church.”

“Ohhh… Well Sunday School isn’t a normal School. It’s a special School. They only teach you about the Bible and Religion. It’s not part of the School you’re in.”

“What’s the Bible?”

“Uh… a book.” She looked like that was obviously not sufficient. “Umm… You know those songs at Christmas time about baby Jesus?”

“Yeah! The ones the Cowboys sing!” She yelled.

We try to listen to kid friendly and generic Christmas music. But almost always when a Country Christmas song comes on (hence the Cowboys) it mentions baby Jesus. She’s asked us about that before and we tried our best to dodge the question for now. Questions like, “Why is this song on the Christmas station? It’s not Christmas music.”, when “Silent Night” is on.

I laugh. “Yeah. The Bible is all about him.”

“Oh, OK.” She replied and then left to do something else.

*phew*

So now I’m concerned… She’s starting to ask questions that I’m not quite sure how to answer yet. I want my kids to have as much information in front of them as possible, and for them to be old enough to understand the information, before any information is in front of them at all. I know… that’s not possible.

But when is the right age to talk about Religion? Obviously not now, now she still believes us when we tell her about Santa and the Tooth Fairy. So obviously, to me, telling a six year old about Religion would be wrong. So do we wait until she’s old enough to recognize who/what/why Santa really is?

I guess, for now, those are my thoughts. When she’s old enough and wise enough to recognize that Santa isn’t real because we tell her Santa is real, then she’ll be old enough to be told what Religion is. What spirituality is. And at that point I’d want to go all out:

• Many different Religions in the world
• Similarities between them all
• History of Religions from the ancient Religions before Judaism to modern Christianity and beyond to modern creations like Scientology

And yeah, I’d expect it to be overwhelming. But I want my kids to understand, accept, and respect differences in the world. And I want them to make clear educated decisions in all areas of their lives.

I don’t hope that they’ll believe one thing and not another. I hope that they’ll believe what they truly believe, confidently, happily and proudly. It doesn’t matter if it’s different from what I believe, as long as they come to that decision on their own and with sufficient information.