A New Beginning...

I know I've said this many times before, but this time will be different. How do I know this? Well, I really don't, but I really think it will be.

I'll just start with the highlights of what's going on in my life right now.

Married Life:
Things have been great. I think my wife and I have really struck our balance in terms of living together. We make a great team and I completely adore her.

The Family:
Exciting times for the family. My sister is due to give birth within the next week!!! Anyday now, we'll have a new addition to the clan.

The House:
The house has being great, aside of this recurring leak we've been having. The builders are working on it right now, actually. This is the 4th time they've tried to fix it. With any luck, we'll finally get it today.

Running:
So the last time I posted was way back in January right after my second successful Half Marathon. Coincidentally, I just registered for the 2008 Chevron Marathon last night. I'm stepping it up this year by trying the Full Marathon (that's 26.2 miles). I'm pretty excited about it and intend on taking my training much more seriously this season. I'm also planning on running in the Texas Independence Relay race next March (www.texasindependencerelay.com). A team of us will be running the 200 miles that from Gonzalez, Texas to San Jacinto, Texas.

Basketball:
Things are pretty much status quo. I still list it as one of my pure loves. I've been having a nagging injury on my left index finger that has been a real pain, but I try to play through it. I'm planning on playing in a tournament in August.

Gaming:
Gaming has been decent lately. It's a luxury that my wife is really into gaming as well. And not only is she into it, she's just about as competitive as I am about it. So there's always someone to play against. I've won our 2k5 Football offline league this past weekend, which was a treat. My SPM in Battlefield 2142 keeps going up, which is what I like to see. I only play about once a week, but at least it's productive. I just ordered Mario Strikers Charged yesterday. I'm really anxious to play online with the Wii. A lot of good games are coming out this year, so it should make for a pretty interesting holiday season (Call of Duty 4 anybody?). Let's not forget Metroid, Mario Galaxy, and Smash Brothers Brawl. And that's just on the Wii.

Work:
I don't want to dedicate too much space on work so I'll keep it brief. Work is better now that we're not working 60+ hours a week.

Well, that's it for now.

Round 2

So I've been slacking off pretty badly with this blog these last few months. I've kind of lost touch ever since I moved. It's surely not due to the lack of things happening in my life. The most recent notable thing is that I finished my second half marathon this past week. I've been looking forward to it for the last 12 months and it had finally come around. My goal was to better my time from last year. I can happily say that i accomplished that. Last year I finished the 13.1 mile run in 2 hours and 13 minutes at an average pass of 10 minutes 12 seconds per mile. I felt that this was a fairly strong pace and was concerned that I wouldn't be able to improve it. As the race day approached my training intensified. I suddenly devoloped knee problems in my right leg. I feared that this would dampen my performance in my second try at the half and my goal shifted towards finishing in one piece. Fortunately, I was able to hold it together to finish the race in strong time of 2 hours and 7 minutes at an average pace of 9 minutes 42 seconds per mile.

Meanwhile...

Well, another three months have past and I'm now living with my wife in our very own home. Things have been going very well for us lately. We're really starting to settle down in our new home. Life is good.

SpaceMonkey Update!

Geez! I haven't posted anything since April! I know I've really dropped the ball on this. So much has been going on in the last few months. Oh, how time flies when you get a little older.

I can confidently say as of this moment, things are going swell on all fronts. That's nothing to take for granted. The last 12 months have quite a rollercoaster ride. Life has really settled down. It's just the calm before the storm though I suppose. Things are about to change pretty dramatically for me pretty soon. I'll be moving into our new house in a week. Talk about big changes. Moving away from the family I love so dearly won't be an easy thing. Fortunately for me, I've always been good at seeing things from a wider perspective. In the grand scheme of things, life is just as it should be. My wife and I are about to start the next big chapter in our lives and we look forward to all it has in store for us.

Wish us luck!

Smash Makes it Better

The day started pretty rough for me. I woke up 30 minutes late. I barely got any sleep. Then on my way to work, I get rear-ended while sitting at a stop light. Fortunately, it was just a minor fender-bender and there was no new noticeable damage. I get to work, and I'm inundated with a ton of new work issues. On top of that, a stored procedure I had written was giving me some problems. I felt like I was at a melting point, and it was only 11:00 A.M.

I get an IM from Dan and Jackie asking if I felt up for a Smash lunch. I regretfully declined, concluding that I just didn't have the time. A half an hour later and I decided I just needed some fresh air (in the form of a session of Smash Brothers). I'm telling you, there's no medicine like Smash. Everyone was at the top of their games. Jackie was throwing down some combos I have never seen her try before. Dan's knees were particularly electric. And I was trying some new stuff out as Fox with a decent amount of success (I got some nice shine-blinds in). A quick hour lunch filled with knuckle sandwiches and I was good to go.

...Sigh...I love Smash.

Construction Begins!!

Big news! Construction our our house is finally starting! After about a month of sitting idle, our house will be more than just a plot of dirt!

March B-day Madness!

So it's that time of the year again. Spring, flowers, basketball, and a lot of birthdays. We're not even past mid-month yet!

Company Flag Football!

Just what the doctor ordered. The pressures of the past week had been building, and I was starting to really feel it. Luckily, I had the weekend to look forward to, which included a friendly flag football game with some co-workers. We had been planning the event for a couple of weeks and were hoping Mother Nature wouldn't ruin it all. Fortunately, the weather wasn't as bad as predicted and the festivities went on as planned. We had a good turn out which included many of our bosses and colleagues. It was great to get out of the work environment and just have fun.

As for the game, I had a couple of picks and a couple of TDs for the night, but my team came up short at the end. All in all, it was a blast.

Fortress of Solitude

Big news today. We officially signed the contract for our new home. (woohah!) After being delayed almost a week, we were finally able to make things official. I'm relieved that we were able to get it done before the price increase next week. Now we can look forward to all the cool things like picking out our interior options and watching our house grow like a Chia pet.

Race Day Pictures! (finally)

Running Happy

This past Sunday I had one of the coolest experiences of my life. I ran the annual Houston marathon. It was my very first marathon, and it exceeded all of my expectations. The race was incredible. Everything was just perfect--the weather, the people, the city. The day started for me at 4:00 AM. I hadn't slept much. All the pent up excitement and nerves didn't allow me to sleep until after 1 AM. Before I knew it, I was getting up to the sound of my alarm. I had breakfast and got all of my gear together. I had 5 other family members running that day, so we were all going to meet up and head downtown together. We got there just before 6 AM. As we fought our way through the crowd, our group was seperated. I ended up following my cousin Peter in the time prior to the start of the race. It was half past 6 when we started making our way out from the George R. Brown convention center and to our starting corals. We were starting in different places, so we were forced to part ways. We wished each other luck, and we went off on our own. The streets were packed full of runners and spectators. Just as the sun started to break, the starting gun fires. I was running for about a mile when I looked to my right and saw probably the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen in Houston. I couldn't help but smile. There was an odd peace about it all, despite the chaos of the all the runners around me. It was one of those rare moments when life just seemed right.

2 hours and 13 minutes later, I finished my race. I was pleased with my time, since my original goal was to finish the 13.1 miles in 2 1/2 hours or better. It was the longest I had ever run without stopping. The real fun came later, when I was reunited with my family. A couple of hours later, we went out to cheer on my cousin Peter and my aunt Elizabeth (both of them were running the full 26.2 mile). It was incredibly rewarding cheering on complete strangers. Having just run, I knew how much that meant and was more than happy to oblige.

Back to work

So this week was my first week back at work. It was a short week for me (3 days), but it couldn't have ended any sooner. Getting reacquainted with everything is a little disorienting. I'm slowly getting used to the daily grind again though. On a brighter note, it was nice to play Smash with everyone (John, Dan, and Jackie) again though.

Ah..Super Smash Brothers...sweet nectar of the gods. You see, I've been having a really tough time competing against one of my Smash buddies. So today, we played Smash for about an hour at lunch time, then for another 3 hours after work (pretty typical). I really felt I had played poorly all day, but I wanted more. So I make some calls and I find another game going on. It was with Zach and his buddies. Apparently, they have a reputation of being some hardcore Smashers, so I was extra anxious to see how I would stack up against them. I quickly found my grove, and commenced the pwnage. Don't get me wrong, they were good. I hear they compete in tournaments and such. So it was extra sweet when I got to play this one guy one-on-one. I beat him both times. The second time, I could really sense his frustration, which made it all the sweeter.

Oooh, new goodies!

A few days ago I was able to install my new motherboard, processor, and video card. And there was much dancing and rejoicing.

So here's the run-down for my most recent upgrade:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ -> AMD Opteron 146
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo Nforce 3 250 Gb -> eVGA Nforce 4 SLI
Vid. Card: PNY GeForce 6800 GT 256 MB -> eVGA GeForce 7800 GT 256 MB

It wasn't a completely necessary upgrade since my older parts are still incredibly potent, but having "bleeding edge" parts is nice...very nice. I'll be sure to post the overclocking results (*drool*).

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is doing well. I've been spending the last few days with my wife and her family. Although I'm used to spending time with my family during this time of you, it has been pleasant. Yesterday, we made gingerbread houses. Good times were had by all. I was inspired to create an homage to King Kong. I'll post the pictures soon.

Well, I'm off to help the wife prepare Christmas (late) lunch. Take care everyone.

Whoa, I'm married!

A lot can happen in just a few weeks. My schedule has been insane lately. With all of the wedding preparation and stuff going on, it has been extremely hard to keep this up. Even with my work schedule, I finally do have some time to update this blog. I'll try to keep this blog a little more current from now on.

Welcome to The Space Monkey Republic

This blog will be dedicated to the randomness that is me.