Feliz navidad y otras ideas

Este post era inspirada por un mensaje de la navidad que envié a mis amigos y parientes, pero no he incluido todas las mismas fotos.

Este año pasado era un año bueno. Era el primer año que me puse un árbol de navidad.

De empezar, me parece que estoy disfrutando mi nuevo trabajo. Yo todavía trabajo por la misma empresa, pero me mudé desde seguridad general a seguridad de radiación. Ha sido muy agradable tener un énfasis más pequeño.

Tenía varias vacaciones buenos este año. Amo absolutamente el sur de Utah, y trato de viajar esa dirección frecuentemente. Esta primavera, la destinación fue el parque nacional de Canyonlands, donde fue a excursión de pie a la confluencia de los ríos Green y Colorado. Era doce millas de terreno muy difícil, y tunía las ampollas de pie por casi un mes, pero vale la pena hacerlo.

En Junio, volé por avión a Kansas City para visitar a mi hermana y su familia antes de se mudarán a Alemania. Me sorprendió que esta parte de los Estados Unidos era tan verde ye hermosa. Me divertí pasar tiempo con mi pequeña hermana bella. También tuve mi primera prueba de BBQ auténtica.

En Julio, viajamos a Idaho para assistir a la boda de mi prima Jennifer. Fue muy agradable pasar tiempo con mi familia del norte, y los Tetons eran magníficos. ¡Felicitaciones a Jenny otra vez!

El resto de mi verano (y casi todo el resto del año) fue pasado en el proyecto. Me compré mi primera casa el año pasado, y este año, decidí que necesito pintarlo. Tenía que arreglar muchas partes del apartadero. Pinté toda la casa yo mismo. Era un proyecto más grande que me anticipé, pero también uno de mucha alegría. Siendo afuera las noches de verano, donde era solo yo, la pintura, y la casa, me alegré que tuve esa experiencia.

Otra cosa genial de ser un dueño de una casa, es que ahora vivo muy cerca de mi familia, que continúe creciendo y creciendo. Este octubre, mi hermano y su esposa dan a la luz un niño bebé hermoso. Es difícil creerlo, pero ahora tengo una sobrina adulta y diez sobrinos.

La versión inglés:

This past year has been a pretty good one. It’s also the first year I put up my own Xmas tree!

To start off, I seem to be enjoying my new job. I still work for the same company but made the transition from general safety to radiation safety. It’s been nice to have my focus narrowed a bit, and not have quite so much on my plate.

I had a few good vacations this year. I absolutely love southern Utah and try to head that direction pretty often. This spring the destination was Canyonlands National Park, where I hiked to the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers. It was twelve miles of very rough terrain, and I had blisters for about a month, but it was well worth the trip.

In June, I flew to Kansas City to visit my sister and her family before they headed back to Germany. I was surprised just how green and beautiful that part of the U.S. can be, and it was awesome to spend time with my beautiful little sister. I also got my first taste of authentic BBQ!

In July, we made it up to Idaho for cousin Jennifer’s wedding. It was awesome to spend some time with my northern family, and the Tetons were magnificent. Congrats again Jenny!

The rest of my summer (and just about the rest of the year) was spent on The Project. I bought my first house last year, and this year I decided it was time to paint. I had to repair many parts of the siding so I actually painted the whole thing myself! Looking back on it, it was a larger project than I had anticipated, but as goofy as it may sound it was also one of the most joyous. Being outside on those late summer nights where it was just me, the paint and the house, I’m glad I had that experience.

Another nice thing about being a homeowner is that I now live a lot closer to much of my family which seems to just keep growing and growing. This October, my brother and his wife Jenna had a beautiful baby boy. Seems hard to believe, but I now have 1 (adult) niece and 10 nephews!

Nueva York-cool pics

I bought a new scanner this past week and am finally getting around to scanning in some of the numerous slides and photos I inherited when Dad passed away. Hopefully I'll get something cool put together for everybody by Christmas time, though I'll be the first to confess this project is not my highest priority. However, I did come across some photos I think are kind of neat. Grandpa took these slides when he went to New York City in 1959. You can get on the internet and see lots of photos of New York, but a panorama view of New York City over 50 years ago is a bit tough to find.

Enjoy.

El Baño

Well, I'm finally writing again. These photos are from my most recent home improvement project, fixin' up the master bath. Seems like every time I plan to write, I find myself doing something I enjoy better (playing the piano, reading, watching tv, etc.). Ah well.

I really enjoy projects around the house (at least every now and then), though they can be a lot of work, and this one had its share of effort. The old paint wasn't so bad color-wise, but it was a pretty half ass cover-up of what went before (and unfortunately showed through here and there)... and that was pretty hideous. The lady who lived here a few years back had painted the bathroom pink and bordered it with pine green plaid wallpaper (really!).

So, after putting up the blue tape and the plastic tarps I sanded everything down.

It was the first time I painted a room with vaulted ceilings. Fortunatley I bought one of those little giant knock off ladders about a year ago, and it worked out pretty well.

I also bought one of those slick adjustable paint roller extender poles which came in handy too.

After finishing the paint job, I replaced the sink. The old one had a really bad rust spot and looked pretty nasty, so I went for porcelain this time. I also replaced all the corroded brass fixtures with brushed nickel, and installed a new light. I also painted the mirror white. Not huge changes, but enough to make things look a little more classy, and I really like my "new" bathroom.

Been a while...

Well, I've decided I will continue blogging, at least every now and then. It has definitely been some time since I put anything up here.

My life is a bit different these days. I had dinner with a friend the other night, and commented to him that while overall my life is good, I still feel a little lost. He reassured me that feeling that way is pretty normal when you've experienced major change...and I have. Six months ago (yes, it's been about that long) I never would have guessed that I would have traded the most stressful job on the planet (okay, maybe it just seemed like that, certainly don't envy Obama) for one of the least stressful...and that I would be very pleased with the change.

But the the truth is, I am. I feel like I'm living life more the way I want to live it, and I don't need to feel guilty for not being the person who constantly gives of himself in trying to solve other people's problems.

I guess that's all I have to say for now. To my friends and family, as I haven't been blogging myself, I haven't been reading any of your blogs either...so I guess I have a fair amount of catching up to do:)

Hasta luego.

very cute

These photos made me smile so I thought I'd share

Hungry little guy.

Do the baby's have the butt problem too?

Who would have thought a rhinceros could be so cute?

Kind of proud of myself

I was getting a little down today, because I didn't feel like I was doing quite as well I could in the bravery department.

Well, this afternoon I did a good job in facing up to something that had been bothering me for a while. There's this project I have going on at work that honestly has scared me, and I've kind of avoided it because it seemed really hard. I would write more about it, but as my company is fairly high profile that's probably all I should say.

The cool thing is, tonight, I just went for it on this project, brainstorming as best I could possible solutions to a really challenging problem. At first, it was stressful, and it was as hard as I'd imagined. But then, it got pretty exciting. Still have more work to do, but sometimes just going for it...really helps. I now have a fairly clear path forward whereas before I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Kind of sucks I ended up stuck at work this late, but I know this next week is going to be better, and I don't need to beat myself up for wimping out. Oh, and on the way home...I get to listen to this album:

Por dios...me encanta MUCHO este hombre...

To all those who suffer from headaches…

You would think that with all of the “opportunities” my job presents me, headaches would be a frequent occurrence for Zekers. But the truth is, for all the “headaches” I have to deal with, I very rarely suffer from actual headaches, and when I do they are usually pretty mild.

Such was not the case last night. I had the worst headache I’ve had in years. One of those headaches where you feel weak and nauseas in addition to dealing with the throbbing pain in your head. Not sure what triggered it, as I had a rather good day at work. But, around 1:00 p.m., I started feeling really tired. Driving home, my head was hurting a bit, and even though the gym wasn't sounding too appealing, I thought I felt up to at least getting the lawn mowed, but after running a couple of errands I realized that just wasn’t going to happen.

As I normally don’t go to bed at 6:00 p.m., I was lying there a long time hoping for sleep to take away the pain. It was fairly torturous, but at the same time not so bad. As I was prostrated focusing on my breathing, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that overall…I’m a pretty happy guy. Other than a recent experience of worrying a bit much about worrying, life has been good to Zekers. My life’s not perfect, but a lot of things I’ve wanted to change, have been changed…and it’s good. I also feel pretty good about getting to understand better about why I worry, and how to avoid it…and, I seem to be succeeding in the battle.

To anyone who suffers headaches on a regular basis, my heart goes out to you. Notwithstanding the episode of personal insight the experience provided, the truth is, the headache really did suck, and I doubt what I experienced was even a true migraine.

Fortunately, rest seems to have helped. I still had a bit of a headache when I got up at 3:00 a.m. for “dinner” but a couple hours of sleep later I was just fine, I am having a good day at work, and it looks like I will be healthy enough to go camping this weekend too:)