pankeyman's hammer

wow. i can't believe it was a month ago that i went to seattle to interview. let me share my trip...

 

my trip was planned about 3 weeks before I actually went to seattle. a few days before i actually went, i got online and researched some places to go to while in seattle. since my fiancee does not like seafood or sushi, i always get it when i can. i found a sushi place in seattle next to safeco field called bites, so i planned to go there after i landed, about 6:30ish. i also planned to go to the original starbucks location in downtown seattle after dinner. i even got online and found all of the radio stations i would like.

 

so the trip to seattle finally got here. i am so glad maria (boss lady) let me wear jeans to work that tuesday 'cause i hate dressing up for flights. the flight up to seattle went well, no delays or anything. i got my luggage, picked up my rental car (a new 2-door chevy monte carlo, i really liked it), and drove out into seattle. the first thing i noticed when i got on the freeway was that no one, and i really mean no one, was speeding. everything was just driving along at 60 mph. it was so relaxing. and the green! i miss green! vegas is so beige and ugly. i followed my google maps to bites, got lost along the way but i didn't mind. i was having so much fun driving around seattle. i finally found bites and parked. there were only 4 other customers in bites when i walked (everyone else was at a seattle mariners game next door). i sat at the bar, and started talking with the bartender, who was surprised that i came straight from the airport to the restaurant and even more surprised that i found bites online. i told her that i was in town for an interview, so she immediately asked microsoft? no. google? no. i told her i was in town for an interview for a position in orlando. i ordered the spyder roll, which comes with softshell crab, cucumber, avocado and smelt eggs. absolutely delicious! first i had ever had softshell crab. i also ordered the salmon cheese wontons, made with (what else?) salmon, cream cheese and spinach. excellent! i also had some type of spicy tuna roll, that spiced perfectly. not to hot, not to potently spicy, but perfect. after dinner, i headed to downtown seattle. i miss having an actual downtown with skyscrapers, 1 way streets, and everything that comes with it. i couldn't find the starbucks on pikes place, which was ok since i was still full from dinner, so i drove around (ok, i got lost) in downtown seattle. i would love to go back to seattle and explore downtown on foot sometime. i finally found my way back to the highway and headed for bellevue, where my hotel was. i get to the marriott courtyard, check in, call joz, and settle in for bed. the only complaint i have against the hotel was that i heard every single car that passed the hotel. other than that, everything was perfect. the room was great, the food at the cafe was delicious.

 

wednesay morning, i woke up, got dressed and had breakfast in the cafe (my made to order tomato, sausage and cheese omelet was great). after breakfast, i went back to my room to get ready. i am so glad, thought, that i had packed 2 shirts just in case. the collar on the shirt that i had wanted to wear to the interview was dirty; i have no clue how it got dirty but it was. other than that, everything for the interview went very good. i got to the office early, talked with one of the managers i would be working for, i got along with both of the interviewers, and answered all the questions with poise and intelligence. after the interview, jackie (the executive assistant in the seattle office) and i went to lunch at olive garden, talked and got to know each other better. hopefully and god willing, jackie will be moving to vegas later this year to take my place when i move to orlando. after lunch, i dropped jackie off at the office, changed into comfortable clothes for the flight home, fueled the car, went to the airport. after checking in and waiting to get through security, i called joz and told her that while i don't want to jinks everything, i thought the interview went really well and that we would be moving to orlando! yay for us!

 

it wasn't until the next week, when i talked to clarice (the vice president i would be working for), that i found out that they had interviewed me before the job had been officially posted and that they had to finalize everything before they could tell me yay or nay. so i've been waiting for 3 weeks, but from all indications, we are moving to orlando. so i'm basically back at the "it's unofficially officialy" stage. hopefully i'll know more soon.

 

cj

i've been a bad blogger. it's been like 3 weeks since i've blogged. my apologies. a lot has happened in the last 3 weeks. i interviewed in seattle for the position in orlando. joz and i went to portland so i could meet the in-laws. i promise i will blog about over the next week about each trip and get back the habit of blogging about whatever comes across my mind, whether its about christianity and spirituality, sentimental morons, politics, planning a wedding, or whatever.

 

cj

here's what went down saturday night...

 

friday night on our way to dinner, i told joscelyn that it had been a while since we'd been out (we had been spending most evenings in planning the wedding) and that we should go down to the aladdin and bellagio saturday night and, of course, she agreed. after a delicious pork and sauerkraut dinner made be grinny, we headed down the strip. we parked at the bellagio and headed over to the (soon-to-be-former) desert passage shoppes at the (soon-to-be-former) aladdin. one of the first stores you come to is sephora, so i asked if she had thought about what kind of make-up she was going to wear for the wedding and that, if she wanted, we should go look around and, of course, she wanted to (i know, i'm a good boyfriend). we spent about 20 minutes browsing around and then continued our walk through the shoppes. at some point during our walk, joscelyn had noticed that my left pocket was full (she knew my phone and keys were in the right) so she started freaking out (does he have the ring? is he going to propose? has he talked my dad? is he going to propose?!). while i stopped to use the restroom, joscelyn tried to call alisha to tell her but couldn't get ahold of her. on our way back to the bellagio, i pulled a box of breath mints out of my left pocket and offered her one. joscelyn was mentally kicking herself and calmed down. as we were walking to our usual spot to watch the fountains, i saw pastor brian and edith in the turn lane waiting to pull into the bellagio so i immediately drew joscelyn's attention to the show that had just started. that was close! there was a woman standing on the sidewalk selling roses and, of course, i bought one. awww. in between shows, i started asking joscelyn where she sees us down the road. 10 years. 20 years. 30 years. 40 years. she thought i was just being adorable (i can't help it).

 

i had emailed all our vegas friends and my family (since her's live in portland) to be at the bellagio to watch the proposal at 8:45; my plan was to propose after the 8:45 show unless it was celine dion's "my heart will go on." we both hate that song. i was steadily getting more nervous as 8:45 drew closer. 8:45, the show started. fog began to lift out of the lake just like "my heart will go on." i raised my hand to god and said "if there's a god in heaven, this will not be 'my heart will go on!'" the music started. it wasn't! praise the ever-living god! it was "fly me to the moon" by frank sinatra. i could not have picked a better time to propose. why? "fly me to the moon" was the fountain show that we had our first kiss after. yes! during the show, i turned around to make sure everyone was in place. they were. my heart immediately jumped into hyperdrive and felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. after we kissed at the end of the show, i turned to look over my shoulder and said "hey babe. look who's here!" joscelyn turned around, saw everyone and just started screaming. loudly. i was trying to get the ring out my pocket but it felt like it was stuck there and was not going to budge. after what felt like an eternity, i finally got the ring box out of my pocket and went down on one knee. my uncle later told me that the crowds behind us immediatly parted once they saw what was happening. after joscelyn calmed down enough where i could speak to her, i opened the ring box, caught her hand and said, "babe, i love you. if you will allow me to quote scripture (she nodded), 'you captured my heart, my love. you looked at me and i fell in love.'* joscelyn, will you marry me?" to which she replied "yes." i placed the ring on her finger, got up and kissed her. the kiss was really brief (it seemed) because she immediately started laughing as only joscelyn can. all our friends and family came over to get hugs and congratulate us. joscelyn called her parents and told them. they already knew; i had told them i was going to propose saturday night when they called to give me their permission thursday night. after that, we all went in to the bellagio to get gelato to celebrate.

 

and that's how i proposed to my love, joscelyn.

 

cj

 

* - song of solomon 4:9 from the message.

joscelyn and i are finally, officially engaged! i pulled off the perfect surprise proposal saturday night at the bellagio. here's how it began.

 

a couple of weeks ago, when i interviewed with the company i am temping at asked if i would be interested in moving to orlando, joz and i decided we were going to get married. i told her, though, that i wanted to wait to propose until i had asked her parents permission first (yeah, i'm a traditionalist in this regard). we made plans to go to portland (where joz is from) the weekend after easter; joz was expecting me to talk to her parents when we go. i, of course, had to find some other way of doing it since that is what she was expecting. my plan was to create a video introducing myself to her parents and, at the end of the video, asking their permission to marry joz. i emailed me best man, derek, for help. he sent me to our friend scott, who's a wiz at video (editing, splicing, slicing, whatever). we set up a time to record the video that following saturday, april 10. i told joz that i had a secret project that i needed to work on and that there will be some times when she can't be at my place. scott and i completed recording the video that saturday; we were supposed to edit it the following tuesday night. that didn't work. so we decided to try wednesday night. that didn't work either. thursday night i skipped band practice and went to pastor brian and edith's along with scott to capture the video, which we did but, by the time we finally got all of the right parts to do it, it was pretty late. i finally had time to edit and complete the video sunday afternoon. during this time, joz had started looking around for engagement rings; she found a 5 stone white gold ring she really liked. i mailed the video to alisha, one of my co-conspirators and joz's best friend/maid of honor, and ordered her ring on monday, april 19. the ring arrived thursday. alisha received the video on thursday and took it over to joz' parents house for them to watch. after band practice, joz and i were watching 'reba' with my parents when i got the call from joz' parents. i went to my room, closed the door and talked her parents for 10 minutes or so, topics ranged from star wars, horror novels and egypt before it turned to the topic at hand and (obviously) they gave me permission to marry their daughter. they loved the bloopers i included in the video, especially the one were i can't get joz' mom's name right. it's ginny, not gina. it was so hard not to walk into the front room, drop to one knee and propose right then and there. earlier that day, i emailed all of our friends and family here in vegas to help me surprise her saturday night when i actually proposed. my mom had been trying to get joz to get friday morning off so she could go with her, grinny and my aunt pat to get their nails done but she had a last minute meeting friday morning; so i called joz' boss, april, filled her in on my plans, and asked her, if at all possible, to take joz to go get her nails done friday afternoon. about an hour later, she texted joz and told her to make an appointment to get their nails done friday afternoon. on friday, i took the ring to work to show it off and have everyone wish me luck. clarice, one of the vice presidents at work, almost started crying. friday afternoon, joz texted to tell me that april had forgot that she had a birthday party with her son to go to friday afternoon but gave her money to go get her nails done. yes! joz had told me that she really wanted to get her nails done before i proposed, so i would be in a lot of trouble if her nails weren't done so i made sure that was going to happen.

 

i'll post "the proposal" tomorrow night with all the juicy details.

 

cj

i've been rereading "searching for god knows what" by donald miller, getting ready to do a bible study guided by this book. as i reread it, i'm finding that i'm questioning alot of what the church does, but in a good way. let me explain...

 

one of the key points, if the not the key point, of the book is that christianity is not a formula, i.e. agree to this list of ideas, do x y and z, blah blah blah and get into heaven. this is precisely what the modern era has turned christianity into. why? science had begun to turn the world and all its beauty into a list of facts. how boring. so the church started doing the same thing. yuck. as humans, we like being in control of our own little world. lists and formulas offer us that control while simultaneously removing the beauty and mystery that lie at the very core of christianity - being in relationship with god (father, son and holy spirit) and one another. the modern church still falls into this trap. for example...i was the worship leader/music director of my church for a couple of years. we would have services (horrible name, i know) where everything and everyone would connect, you'd leave church knowing you had lived the scripture that says "god inhabits the praises of his people;" and then we would have services where nothing would connect, the music and sermon would float like a lead balloon. my natural instinct would be to blame the congregation for failing to connect - "it's not my fault they didn't worship." guess what? i was wrong. why? the modern church offers the same cut-and-paste service every week and expects the congregation to engage regardless. sure, the music, sermon and readings change each week (hopefully), but the services are still the same. what have we done? turned church into a formula. do x, y and z and encounter god. sing a song, greet everyone, sing some more, listen to the sermon and encounter god. week after week after week. if we truly believe that god is dynamic and alive, why are our worship services static? i think we've seen that these static services do not work. yes, they work once in a while, but not every week.

 

this is going to be an ongoing post as i continue to work out my thoughts on this topic. stay tuned!

cj