Looking Back on 2009

I was thinking about not doing a "Looking Back..." blog this year, but then I talked to my friend David (in Taiwan). I hadn't talked to David (on the phone) for nearly a year, so we talked for around 3 hours about pretty much everything. He told me I should do a "year end" blog. By his logic, everyone does a year-end blog, so why shouldn't I? I told him that a year end blog is basically just a re-cap of everything I've already talked about over the last year, so why repeat myself? So...I'll try to do one with as little repetition as possible.

Both 2008 and 2009 were years of big changes for Christy and I. We left Taiwan in 2008, and we bought a house in 2009. So what happens next? Where do we go from here? Do we just fall into a routine, normal life for the next 20 years? Do we just settle down and raise the kids until they're ready to move out?

I started reading up on the city of Manor recently. Since this is the place I'm going to be living for awhile, I wanted to know what I'm getting myself into. Manor is a city that is trying to be more modern and hip, but it will take a lot of work. The city has a website (http://www.manorlabs.org/) that welcomes suggestions from residents. My biggest suggestion right now is trying to lure a major grocery store to open there. As of now, I have to drive about 10 miles to get to the nearest HEB. Manor has a nice golf course....but...how about a freakin' grocery store! Well, at least with the website, it shows they're trying. The population of the city is up to 5800 now, so getting a decent grocery store shouldn't be that hard.

In 2010, I'd like to become a little more actively involved in the community I live in. I really don't want to be writing about how much Manor sucks over the next year.

I've surprised myself that I've kept this blog going for so long. I wrote my first blog entry in March of 2008. Nearly 2 years of blogging! Can I keep it up for another year? I don't know. Maybe. As long as I have something to talk about. If I find myself blogging about the next door neighbors dog barking too much, it's time to throw in the towel.

Christmas 2009

Another Christmas goes by. Thankfully, this will be our last one living in a cramped apartment. Next year should be even better.

Sara came into our bedroom around 7:30 this morning shouting, "Can we open presents now??" So much for sleeping in. Oh well, I used to do the exact same thing to my parents when I was a kid too. Payback, I guess. hehe

Kyle is obsessed with Thomas the train, so most of his gifts were Thomas related. He got a small Thomas train, a large one that moves an talks and sings, and a Thomas book. Sara is into princess toys, so she got another princess doll, as well as a couple of "Leap Frog" books. She just points her special pen to the Leap Frog book and the book will read itself to her. Pretty cool.

Getting Ready For Christmas

This past weekend we went to the annual "Festival of Lights" at Zilker Park (in Downtown Austin). This year, due to the economy, the festival was free. After going to the Christmas light show at Schlitterbahn last year, this one wasn't that impressive. But then again, Schlitterbahn was $15 to get in, and this was free, so you can't really complain.

For the first time ever, Sara didn't run away in fear of Santa Claus. This time she ran to Santa and hugged him as if he were Mickey Mouse.

This year I'm not working on the holidays. I have a week off from work so it will be nice to spend some time with the family. I'm not travelling back to California this year, having spent an enormous chunk of our savings on a down-payment for our new house (and it's not like my brother is inviting me to visit, anyway). Our home loan was finally approved last week, so now our finances are pretty tight. We might go back to visit next year, though. I'm happy that this will be our final Christmas in an apartment.

(Pictures: 1. Sara and Kyle at the Christmas party in San Marcos. 2. Meeting Santa in Zilker Park. 3 Santa's House. 4. Humpty Dumpty at the Festival of Lights. 5. Christmas bears)

KTV

KTV (a place where you sing karaoke, for those unfamiliar) is very popular in Taiwan. I don't think I ever wrote about KTV's on my Taiwan blog because I rarely went to them. KTV's are everywhere in Taiwan, even in the small, farm towns where my in-laws live. The Taiwanese love, love, love to sing!

I remember going to a KTV once when I lived in Taiwan. Christy's friends paid for it. It was at this very lavish building that looked like a hotel. We had our own room for about an hour or so. Everyone would take turns singing some Chinese song while all the lyrics were displayed on a giant TV screen. I didn't sing because I didn't know any of the songs they were playing, and the lyrics were all in Chinese anyway. It did look fun, though.

That was an example of expensive KTV. In the smaller towns, you'll just see someone sitting on a small stool, singing into an amplifier that's turned up WAY too loud, looking at a small screen TV in a small garage. It's usually so loud that the song, and the person singing, sounds so distorted that it's painful to listen to.

I never really thought that karaoke was that popular in the states, but it seems to have been reborn with the new video game franchise called "Rock Band." As an early Christmas present, I was given "Rock Band 2" and it's actually pretty fun. Not only can you sing, karaoke style, to your favorite rock songs, you can also play along with drums and a (fake) guitar.

"The Beatles: Rock Band" has become a new favorite in our house. Here's a video I just took, with Kyle (on vocals), Sara (on guitar), and Christy (on drums) playing "Here Comes the Sun."

The Decade From Hell

I just finished reading an article in Time that said the 2000's was the "Decade From Hell." It listed a lot of events to back up its claim: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan, Iraq, the economic meltdown. Of course, I can sum up my displeasure for the decade with a single letter...."W." Referring, of course, to George W. Bush. (my conservative Republican readers might want to skip the next few paragraphs, but I promise it won't be a long rant.)

I remember very vividly when Bush "won" the election in 2000. I was married to my first wife, Amber, at the time. I remember she cried and cried and cried for what seemed like hours when she heard the news that Al Gore had conceded the race. Although I didn't cry, I felt a sense of dread. I knew Bush was going to be a dimwitted, "cowboy" president who would probably lead the country into a war. I thought it might be a nuclear war, but luckily I was wrong in that regard.

It was primarily because of Bush that I wanted to leave America and live in Taiwan. Bush had turned the country into something I could no longer respect. After 9/11 and Bush's invasion of Iraq, we were hated by almost the entire world. To be an American in a foreign country meant to live with a target attached to your forehead. When I traveled abroad, I rarely revealed where I was from, and when I did, I would often tell them I was from Canada. Thankfully, Taiwanese people still loved Americans.

When Bush was re-elected in 2004, I vowed not to come back to the United States until a democrat was back in office. For the most part, I kept my vow. By the time I returned in 2008, I was pretty confident that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be the next president. The American people had finally come around to their senses and realized what a disaster the previous administration had caused to this country.

Since I spent half the decade in another country, I don't really consider this the "Decade From Hell" for me personally. It didn't start off well, since I got divorced from my first wife in 2003, but things started to improve dramatically once I left for Taiwan.

I met my wife Christy in April of 2004, and by November of that same year we were married. Sara was born in March of 2005, and then Kyle in April of 2007. I don't really know why everything happened so fast. It just did. I have no regrets, though. Although these kids can be monsters sometimes, I really adore them. They've definitely made my life a lot more richer and meaningful. For me, they're the highlights of this decade.

Once we came back to America in May of 2008, we had a few setbacks. The great job that was promised Christy did not turn out the way it was supposed to. We lived in hotels while we looked for work, wondering if we'd have to just turn around and go back to Taiwan. Thankfully, when we were just days away from driving back to California, Christy found a job. Then, a month later, I found a job too. We were saved from the brink of failure.

Now as we end the decade, we are getting ready to move into our own house. It feels great to know that we arrived here with virtually nothing, with our few possessions in the trunk of my mom's old car, to having a house, a new car, and some semblance of the "American Dream." Who knows what will happen in the next decade. Maybe we'll lose it all and I'll have to move in with my in-laws in Taiwan and teach English in Nantou. Maybe things will get even better. Who knows? Although I'm hoping for the latter...

Obama and Afghanistan

There's a new show on TV right now called "Hoarders." It's about people who collect a lot of crap in their house and never throw anything away. In one episode, the adult children of one "hoarder" come to the house with a group of people to clean up the mess. Everyone but the hoarder is wearing a surgical mask. The hoarder wonders what all the fuss is about and thinks she didn't do anything wrong.

I kind of see that disgusting house as America, with George W. Bush as the "hoarder", and Obama as the cleaner with the surgical mask. Obama has quite a mess on his hands to clean up. He's got the unenviable task of having to clean up Iraq, Afghanistan, and the decimated economy of the United States.

Obama is asking for 30,000 more troops and over 30 billion dollars to continue the Afghanistan war. Although I support Obama and most of what he has stood for over the last year, I don't support continuing the war in Afghanistan. I don't think it will make the US any safer, and it's just going to kill more US trips, and lots more Afghanistan civilians.

If the economy were strong right now, and we weren't in a recession, maybe that would make a difference, but I see far too many people struggling here in this country right now. 30 billion dollars (at least) is a lot of money. That money should go right here, to the people who need it. Create new jobs. Improve the roads. Build more light-rail trains. Extend the unemployment benefits for those who need it. Help people who are facing foreclosure on their houses. Give more tax breaks to the middle class. Implement universal healthcare for everyone. Get the picture? My point in all of this is....spend that money here in the US.

Afghanistan is not our concern. We can't continue to be the police of the entire world when we can't even take care of our own people. I know that Obama would like to be seen as a "tough" president who is fighting the terrorists, but the majority of Americans want to see the war end, and I agree. Ten years of war is just too much, and it's taking too big a toll on our economy. It needs to end.