Can't help wondering why

This is a transitional time in my life, I feel like I should breathe in every last second of this summer, which is already drawing to a close - this time and place will not come again. We are preparing to move to our new house, we'll never live here again. This is the place where I lived for a time and was lost, and I found myself when I met my wife, and we lived here together and were very happy. And our baby was born and we loved her and were happy together here. But N. is growing up fast, soon she will be a little girl and this place will be too small for us. I don't think I would freeze time so that she'd stay this age forever, but there are worse things that could happen.

I'll just let time run its course, floating along as it drags me in its wake. Now that my dad's passed away I feel like we are entering a new phase of life anyway. Mom's actually handling it better than I thought - we're all sort of taking turns checking in with her and making sure that someone's always visiting her. My aunt and uncle are staying with her for the next week, before they have to fly back to the Philippines and Kuwait. I have to make sure N. visits her grandma as much as possible, I know N. is the person in this world that makes her the most happy. Mom's had a very difficult time for the past several years, we have to help her out as much as we can and let her know we love her. A good thing to come out of all of this is that it's bringing us all closer together. I feel like I'll be analyzing the ways my dad's death has changed my life for a long time.

At the funeral all my relatives were commenting at how skinny I am these days. I still feel fat, but I'll take the compliments. I keep running, I run about 25 to 30 miles a week including the walking I do for cross training. I mainly run on the Lake Shore path. I'm going to miss running by the lake the most about living here. I'll probably drive up to Recreation Park to run my long runs down to Navy Pier even after we've moved, it's simply the nicest running path in the city. But I'll enjoy running around my new neighborhood and exploring new running paths in Lincoln Square.

K. is done with school and off of work. She spends her days preparing to move, packing a little, shopping for furniture for the new house. We have to paint the new house too before we move in. The movers are coming on the 17th so we have to have everything prepared before then. What else. Honestly I'm still a little out of control. I'm trying pretty hard at work, just trying to knock off as many open projects as I can, it distracts me. I haven't been paying much attention to my personal projects like getting my freelance business off the ground, or my certifications - I can't deal with that stuff right now but I know I have to get back to it soon. I mostly think about music, sports, politics - basically stuff in my RSS feed lol. I think about how I can lose weight and I think about how I dread running this race on Sunday. I have to remember to get my race registration stuff tomorrow at McCormick Place. The race is early - 6:30 am on Sunday. Oh yeah I've decided to do another half marathon after this in Madison, WI. God and we have two weddings and babby's first birthday party coming up too. September is going to be pretty busy, which is cool I guess.

I bought 1000 bucks worth of recording software - you read that correctly. I've decided to get serious about writing and recording some original music, and possibly performing. I will record an EP if it kills me, possibly an album. I've decided I want my album to be mainly acoustic, with some non obtrusive drum and keyboard programming. I'm listening to Jose Gonzalez and Nick Drake a lot these days, and Elliott Smith of course. The problem is I'm having a difficult time practicing with all of this stuff going on. I figure things will eventually die down after we move, and then I'll have an extra room to set up as my recording studio. The one thing is I suck at singing, and I really suck at playing and singing at the same time. I don't even know if I'm any good as a songwriter - the few riffs I've come up with so far are not bad though.

Eulogy

Thank you for helping us say goodbye to my dad.  We all loved him.  My dad was an irreplaceable person, things will simply never be the same now that he's gone.
My dad was a great man, a brilliant man,  who brought his family to America and gave us a life full of opportunities.  As a physician he helped countless people throughout the years, and saved many lives.
He taught us to value intellectualism, hard work, and achievement.  I was such a hard headed kid growing up, and caused so many problems for my parents.  I feel like I spent my life either rebelling against him or trying to make him proud of me, either way he was the most important relationship in my life.
A friend told me - Noone will be able to understand your loss, not even your siblings, because they remembered him and experienced him differently.  I remember him teaching me to swim in the pool in the backyard of our old house, going with my dad as he made his rounds at the hospital, going on long drives across the country on our vacation trips - while he quizzed us about geography and current events.  We had a difficult time talking to each other about certain things, my dad and I.  I remember when Nina was born last year, feeling happy that he hung on long enough to meet his granddaughter,  I guess one of the reasons I had Nina was to tell my dad that I loved him.  I remember a man who put all his hopes and dreams for the future into his sons, who wanted above all that we use our talents to do something great with our lives and not just be ordinary men.  I feel like I'm still chasing that dream, and i probably will for the rest of my life.

When the water is rough, the sailing is tough, I get drowned in your love

Back at work after two weeks off. My dad died a week and a half ago. We spent a week with him in the hospital hoping he'd recover, but he never did. I think it's better this way - he had nothing to look forward to but more chemo and more pain. The wake and the funeral were beautiful - people coming in from halfway around the world, people I haven't seen in 30 years. I had to give the eulogy. God that was tough. It feels like I turned a page in my life. Something profound has changed and I'll probably be sorting everything out for a while. We have to make sure my mom is ok now. Spent all day yesterday checking 2 weeks of email, trying to get back into the swing of things. August will be difficult - we sold our condo and are supposed to vacate by the end of the month. We're moving to a really nice place in Lincoln Square, but there's a lot to do right now. I'll write more later.

Another brilliant idea

This one is actually my wife's, what can I say, I married a very smart woman - investigate freelancing websites, bid on jobs that interest you, this may even eliminate the need to pursue professional certifications.

Album, or song?

Today on my run I got the bright idea to start recording an album of original music. I guess I'm tired of playing covers, it just seems pointless after a while. Let's take stock of how far I have to go: I'm a decent guitar player, but I'm not as good as I want to be. I know some stuff about digital recording and sequencing, but I'm far from being an expert producer. I've never written a full song that I was happy with, and lyrically I feel as if I have nothing to say.

First things first I guess. Garageband is very much a toy, for one thing if I'm going to record original music I need to be able to sequence my own drum tracks - so I'm looking into this step sequencer plugin for GB callediDrum. Been looking into upgrading from GB to Logic Studio, but GB is free and Logic Studio is like $1000, maybe I should try making songs on GB first.

Even if you're never awake

We found out two days ago that my dad's chemo is not working and that he has less than a year to live.  My mom is really upset, I feel like we need to support her as much as possible at this time.  My dad has been in and out of the hospital ever since his chemo started about3-4 months ago, he's just getting worse and worse.  The pain medications don't really help,he's always suffering from abdominal pains.  So the cancer that was in his colon has spreadto his lungs and will probably rapidly take over his internal organs.  My mom and dad told me the term for this type of cancer, I can't remember what it is right now, but it's very dangerous.  It was such a shock to hear this, especially since we've been dealing with my dad's illness for so long, trying new treatments and such.  
I haven't even talked to my dad.  I've talked to my brothers and mom, but not my dad.  For the first day I was surprisingly calm, which turned out to be a delayed reaction.  Now I freak out about it pretty much all day long.  I have to keep myself busy with other things, if I slow down enough to think about it I have to catch my breath.  Yesterday at work was really tough - I had some pretty hardcore meetings that I had to go to, it was difficult to keep myself focused.  I couldn't go to the hospital last night because I had to take care of N. and she can't be at the hospital around all those sick people.  I'm going to go today probably.  Last night I tried went out for dinner with K. and N., went home and put N. to bed, then I tried to play guitar but I gave up after an hour and laid on the couch with my head in K's lap and we watched The Pink Panther 2 until we fell asleep.