field marshall hrádek

I am back at work. It was a somber experience getting up this morning, getting ready, and then leaving the family for the day. I've spent a lot of time with them these last few weeks and have grown closer with all of them. I bonded more with Helen. Her cute smiles and giggles have brought me to feel great joy about having such a small baby in the house. Henry has been growing too; slowly exploring his boundaries and developing his own will. It was trying at first. Initially I was ready to go back to work but as time went on I realized how backwards my selfish priorities were.

Of course I need to work. I need to provide so that my family has a place to stay, live, and grow. I humbly accepted this responsibility but after almost three weeks of spending time with them I feel this has all taken on a new meaning for me. It saddens me to see how broken things are in this world when people decide to have children and then abandon them. Selfishness is a very sad trait I see a lot of and even combat myself. Honestly, though, I wonder if our society is any more selfish than one a few hundred years ago. Perhaps its not selfishness, but entitlement that is worse than anything. And thus my thoughts wander.

I also had the honor of recording and photographing my pastor's wedding which was a very simple, private event which also touched me. It was wonderful to see love and application of biblical servitude they reflected at one another. I saw that and reflected on my relationship with Crystal over the years and admit I fell quite short to my vows I had made those years ago. Everyone has their own struggles, demons, and habits they attempt to conquer. I am very thankful Crystal has stuck with me for as long as she has. It is easy to take things like marriage for granted. Really, any long term commitment.

So here I start another new year. Tomorrow is Saturday. My parents need some help picking out a computer for my sister. I have akin this Friday to ripping off a band aid. Saturday and Sunday I will let the wound heal and Monday will be the beginning of the first 5 day marathon of 2009.

Happy New Year to everyone. Right now I am finishing up burning some DVDs for my parents and my pastor; My parents' trip to Africa and my pastor's wedding.

Helen is all smiles. She is starting to crawl. My goodness do they grow quickly. Henry and I played catch today and it was fun to see him learn to try again and persevere even though he has a hard time catching. I love my family. Gah, I go back to work tomorrow.

Poo I am tired. Good night.

I decided to sell my Kindle last night at midnight. It was pretty spontaneous for me. Here I have this device that's going for over $400 on eBay and for some reason I have been hanging onto it adding yet another thing to pile onto my golden alter of gadgetry. It was an interesting thing to have and I think I'd appreciate it more if I was riding public transportation for 2 hours each way.

Anyway, I used Craigslist and everything went really smoothly. I have replaced it with a Faderport, a tasty fried chicken lunch at Popeye's, and have a bit left over to perhaps save or send to my folks whom I still owe.

I go back to work soon. I dread it even if I like my job a lot. I have gotten to spend a lot of good time with the family and that's something I will miss.

So I was recently cleaning up my computer inspired by the recent acquisition of an external terabyte drive when I selected the wrong partition to delete.

*pause for mourning*

Fortunately I backed up the important stuff like family photos and movies but things like the last twelve year's worth of MP3s, software, and other things... well, unrecoverable. How does one recover almost 300 GB of stuff?

Anyway, it was kind of like a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders actually. Here I had almost 300 GB of stuff I didn't have the time to go through and prune and in one fell swoop that chore is done. So anyway, I've reinstalled Windows and have been meticulously reinstalling various software to suit my needs. And now for this month's ridiculous guilty pleasure song Lady Gaga's song Poker Face:

I guess it's about time to see the 80's creeping back into fashion from what little I know about the subject.

Until my computer rebuild, I've been having a lot of fun putting together some music. I am really learning a bit about recording and mixing. I have recently thought about improving the acoustics in my room as well as getting a pop screen for the microphone.

Christmas was a fun filled gathering of family which I really enjoyed. It was quite liberating to not participate in the usual avarice that we seem to succumb to but I suppose it was bound to happen with children. Now we just spoil them.

As I previously mentioned, I made Czech dumplings and they are now consistently turning out fabulously. I am really happy I have learned how to make that but now I want to learn how to make my mom's borscht and pirogi. That, my friends, is some freaking good stuff.

Merry Christmas to everyone. May all your family and friends prosper another year. May the next year bring you more joy and happiness (and all the other cursory well wishing).

I give you a gift in the form of an MP3 file titled "Henry's Christmas Special 2008".