Sandy, you jerk.

It's November the 1st and a few days ago, the worst natural disaster to ever hit the eastern seaboard of the U.S. rampaged it's way through the coastal cities like nobody's business in the form of hurricane Sandy.

Some inland states were affected as well, I'll be candid here and confess I do not know the extent of the damage for I'm a New Yorker and my first priority is keeping abreast of local news.

Sandy, was responsible for approximately 111 homes in the Breezy Point section of Queens burning down. More accurately, her waves and rains prevented firefighters from putting out 4 houses that were ablaze and had to stand and watch as the fire spread to just about the entirety of Breezy Point.

Some other neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs also felt Sandy's effects but were not nearly as devastated. At this point in the recovery efforts you got off lucky if all you lost was power.

You know, when I started to write this post I swore I had something sage or poignant to write down, something that would cement my belief that I am capable of thinking outside of myself and my menial needs to explain the goings on around me in a more 'meta-physical, it's all connected brah!' Than the usual "The things in front of my face are the most important because that's where my nose ends" method so many of us in the world's fastest paced city are forced to operate, but ; I've got nothing, nada...the best I can do is be thankful, grateful that my family was untouched by the calamities that others were forced to suffer through, eternally grateful.

This event drove home the point that I am just a man, trying my best to protect his family, to do right by my fellow human beings and in the end, am quite insignificant in the grand scheme that Mother Nature refuses to let us in on.

My thoughts are with those who have suffered losing power, water, cars, homes and, in the worst cases..loved ones.

My heart is full of gratitude.

This is horrible, that's it.

What's in a Name? Why be King when you're an Ace?

  After the initial wave of joy and jubilation at finding out we were expecting a baby had washed over us, my wife and I got down to the brass tacks of expectant parenting...topics like Hospitals, Pediatricians, Childcare all came up and were addressed.Amongst all the "I want/don't want" conversations we had with one another, one thing came up -  a question we admittedly had no answer for :

                                           "What are we going to name the baby?"

  A confused Shawn and Gus face is appropriate here, because honestly we had no idea.
The only thing my wife and I had agreed on previously was that he'd have an English Language name, a name that would enable our son to define his own life; not have his life experiences be defined by his name.

  We wanted something off the beaten path but not so outlandish that the name translates to "My parents hate me."

  Cut to the Christmas Holiday season of 2011. This Holiday was especially dear to us for obvious reasons, the pregnancy was progressing nicely and the baby was doing really well as was Mommy.
Relatives and friends we hadn't seen and/or heard from in years came from all over the country came to see my wife and specifically - her Baby Bump. This was great for my wife who has always been a big Family person, and relishes any function or reason to hang out with he family.

  During the festivities it was pointed out to us that the baby had already done something we couldn't, he had united our families for the first time in a long time. No amount of invitations or dropped hints had brought family to our doorstep the way our baby had.

  We decided to go with that, his uniting our family, as the basis for his name.

  Firing up the ol' web browser and typing in "Unity, Unifier, Uniter" to it. resulted in a few names and while perusing the list, my eyes paused on "Ace"......there it was, our minds were made up. DONE.
WIN.

  Cue the months of "Are you sure?", "I don't like that.", "That's a big nam ego live up to, you're setting him up for failure." and even "He's going to be a gangster and have a gambling problem." that we had to endure. We also learned and had to come to terms with this simple fact -

  Everyone wants to believe they are a unique force in the world, one that thinks beyond the parameters of the norm, until it's time to prove it, at which point they recede into the comfortable confines of being just like everyone else.


  Did we have our doubts about his name? Sure we did, we weren't oblivious to the fact that his name would be different than most, that was the whole point, we wanted his generation of our families to have a different experience than we did. We stuck to our guns and if you ask us we made the right choice, for us.

   He's an amazing baby and if we raise a decent human being, then I think we've all Aced it.

With great joy I present....

World meet Ace, Ace meet World.

Here he is, my raison d'être, my heart, my purpose.

Ace Christopher

At the time of this writing, he's six weeks old.

By God's Grace, he's happy and healthy, ten little fingers and ten little toes. He's stubborn just like his Mother and is temperamental just like his Father. Pray for us.

Also, his nickname is "The Commish" he hands out orders and, we follow them. The End.

In the future, expect a good portion of my posts to revolve around him and my experiences raising him, or more like - his raising me - more on that subject on a future  blog entry.

For now, "ooh and ah" at how cute he is.

Was that last sentence vain and full of conceit? Yes, yes it was but I'm his pop, cut me some slack.

If Ace had the ability to speak I'm sure he'd say something along the lines of

"Hi World!! :)" "Do my bidding!!" >=]

But with a smile, so, you'd do it euphorically enveloped in his charm. Soak that up for a bit while I think on my next post.

G

Just turned 39, might become a journalist, blame my son.

This past Thursday I turned 39.

 Let's get this out of the way; YES, this is my las year in my thirties and, YES, next year I'll be turning forty - Insert obligatory "OMFG I'LL TURN FORTY YEARS OLD NEXT YEAR!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!! KILL ME NOW!" here - there,... moving on.

The odd thing about my turning 39 is, it doesn't bother me at all, not even a lil' bit. No, as a matter of fact it caused me to reflect, rejoice and, ask "Ok well, now what?" almost as if my life were on the verge of beginning this year and not; as popular opinion would have me believe, on it's way downhill to a close.

The world is my oyster, and it's up to me to crack it open.

There, that sentence right there the all around feeling I've had this past week. This is primarily because of two major factors in my life recently :

1. My Son was born.

2. On his arrival my wife and I decided I would take a Leave of Absence from work to take care of/raise him once my wife goes back to work from maternity leave.


Soon after the decision was made and some logistics were hammered out, something dawned on me.....other than raising my son, ( make no mistake, I fully understand  that this endeavor in and of itself is a full-time job ) I'd actually have some time, a few hour-long chunks, here and there to do with as I wish.

So? What do I do with this time?

The gears in my brain started turning, excited by the possibilities laying ahead of me , and before too long all my gear turning produced one thought, clear, concise and fullfilling -


                                                               WRITE .




It's always been a dream of mine to become a writer and or journalist. For some reason or another my life's twists and turns have led me away from that journalistic goal. This year however, I plan on actively pursuing  a career in journalism to some extent, I don't expect to win any pulitzers or anything, but just being in that business and filling this gap (giggidy) with actual written work would sate me. For now.


Now I won't be posting about my pursuit in the Journalistic Field exclusively, as I know it will be slow going at first, there are a few holes in my writing, grammar and punctuation that need to be filled with greater writing knowledge before I approach any one company with samples of my work.

Truth is, anything worth your while, will most likely take a while to progress with a number of long lulls  in between the high points.

Also, awesome things don't just happen to me everyday kids ( I know I know, unpossible) those double rainbows however?  All me.  You're Welcome.

Let's crack this oyster together and see if we can't find ourselves a pearl hmmm?

1st Father's Day

 This one will have to be a quick post, as I am currently enjoying my first Father's Day. Overall, it's been an awesome day, nothing but baby, wife and Sherlock Holmes, both the second season of BBC's Sherlock and the sequel to the 2010 movie starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.
 
  It's been a surreal and exhilirating week, this past thursday, was my 39th birthday, and today is Father's day.

  Many thoughts on both counts, but as I said, this is short and sweet. My thoughts, and feelings (uuugh, feelings) on both will be posted tomorrow.

It's Mah Birthday!!

SO, here I am , looking at a failed blog...again. In my defense, I've been pretty busy : Work, School, Tattoo Sessions, trying to create and keep a podcast going,  Marriage, and oh, yeah....a baby!

This Birthday is my first Birthday as a Dad and, come this Sunday it'll be my very first "Father's Day" as a Father.

There WILL be a post where I introduce my son (it's a boy!) to the world, but this is not that post. No, dear reader, this post is more of a promisary post. Who am I kidding? NO ONE is reading this, so it's more of a promissory post to myself.

From here on out, I promise to actually write and post things here on this little nook and cranny I've designated for myself on Teh Interwebs. As I wrote before, I've been hella busy (yes, "Hella" is a word , in my brain.) so I'm not being too hard on myself for skipping out on this blog for oooooh, I dunno , NINE months! If you do the math, that's about a pregnancy's time of absence, no?


See you soon blog, and I do mean SOON!

But for now, it's BIRTHDAY TIME!