File #:30 Subject: Christmas

Another Christmas has come and passed.  It has officially passed because I actually took the lights down already (compared to last year, I took them down on Thanksgiving of this year). 

We drove down to Angelina's Mamaw's house Christmas Eve morning.  Of course the first thing she did was take us out to eat for lunch.  We hit up the local Dairy Queen, ate and talked for about an hour.  Once we got back to Mamaw's house all the cousins played cards.  We taught the cousins from out of state the game "spoons".  Thanks to my tech ed class in highschool, I still had all the skills needed to rock the spoons games.  Angelina's youngest brother finally got the best of me in the finals of the second tournament.  After a few hours of cards I went back to the room to grab a quick nap.  We went over to Angelina's great aunts house for the family dinner around 5.  Family dinners in the mountains of Kentucky are crazy!  Food was piled high in the kitchen, family was packed in every room of the house and everyone was talking at once.  After dinner we played a trivia game and whoever answered the question correctly came up and picked a gift from a mix of wrapped small packages.  I answered the question "where were ginger bread houses invented?" with "Germany".  I quickly grabbed the box of cherry cordials!

Once that was over and we got back to Mamaw's house, we opened the gifts from each other.  I got an umbrella and all kinds of great clothes (Did I just say "great clothes"? Holy crap I'm an adult!).  I love watching how Christmas works with Angelina's family, Mamaw always loves going all out, and her dad always gives the most useful, unique gifts.  We went to bed around 9 o'clock, I didn't fall asleep until about minight though.  No, I wasn't waiting for Santa. The Fifth Element was on TV, Jaws being on another channel didn't help either.

After about 6 hours of sleep, we had a knock on our door.  It was Angelina's dad, Christmas morning started at 6 in the morning.  SANTA CAME!!!! He brought me some more clothes and some gift cards.  I'm still deciding what kind of things I want to buy with my gift cards, I'm thinking some colorful work socks.

We cleaned up everything in the house, packed the cars and headed back home.

After unpacking, and cleaning up at home, we got dressed and headed over to my family's house.  My sister was in town from NYC with her boyfriend.  It was good seeing them again, because it had been awhile since we've seen them.  My other sister's fiance wasn't there yet, so we sat around and talked and caught up.  We got updates on how NYC was treating my sister and how her school was going.  And of course updates on my younger sister's wedding plans.  When her fiance arrived, we all sat down for our gift exchange.  This year the six of the "kids" picked names out of a hat and we got each other a small goofy gift and a nice gift.  My younger sister pulled my name an got a me a Ryan Miller shirt (which of course is AWESOME!) and she found a packet of pogs!  It kind of made me miss my oversized collection of pogs from middle school.  Angelina got a lady bug container, it's not supposed to hold lady bugs, it's shaped like one, and a purple scarf.  We also got stockings full of candy, cat toys and a dog treat.  Bruno actually loved the treat too! He usually doesn't care for dog treats.  Mom and Papa gave us a WalMart gift card.  We love getting WalMart gift cards because it helps keep food in our house.  After gifts we carried on our tradition of oplatki, then sat down to dinner.  Dinner was excellent! Pork, Salmon, cheesy potatoes with vegetables, brussel sprouts and of course, mushroom soup.  After eating and talking for a long time, Angelina and I said our goodbyes and headed home.

Monday was a day off for both of us, so we stayed home, cleaned up the Christmas decorations, took down the lights outside (Did that without even having to get on the roof!), and reorganized the shed.  I purchased a set of shelves to put up in the shed with the WalMart gift card! Thanks Mom and Papa!

Overall it was a fun and amazing Christmas, BRING ON NEW YEARS EVE!!!!

File #:29 Subject: Who Needs A Monitor

So, the back light on my laptop broke.  For the past week I have been panicking, what am I gong to do with out my laptop?!?! All my music, all my pictures, videos, everything is on this laptop and nothing is backed up!  What am I going to do?  I decided that I would ask the IT Director at work if he had any extra monitor cables that I could just hook the lapop to my TV.  Luckily he did, and he gave it to me at no charge.  I got home plugged it in and powered up the laptop and.... nothing.  It wasn't getting the information to the TV.  Crap.  Panic sets in again.  While visiting family for Christmas, I ask my Stepdad (who is good with computers) what he thnks is wrong.  He shows me that there is actually a button to hit to make the monitor feed go to the TV instead of the built in laptop monitor.  So today, a little afraid to try it, I finally get the laptop out, and find the button.  I hook the cable up, power up the laptop and hit the button.  After a few tense moments the picture comes up on the TV! WOO HOO!!! Now I am sitting probably unreasonably close to the TV because the monitor cable is kind of short, but typing on my laptop with a 27" TV as a monitor! SWEET!  I can't wait to watch the Sabres game tonight on it!

Once I get used to typing at this new angle (the laptop is actually in my lap for once) I while update everyone about how awesome Christmas was!

File #:28 Subject: Hockey Season

There are only a few things that I absolutely cannot live without.  My God, Angelina, Angelina's cooking, internet, and now... ice hockey!

This year I was blessed enough to be able to start playing ice hockey.  I started in a skills and drills league and was coached by the EKU goalie coach.  I really needed those four, one hour sessions, the transition from street hockey to ice was very different and I had never had any type of instruction.  Below is one of the drills that we did to practice angles, finding the puck, making the save, and following the rebound.

The season started, I had my ups and downs, but most off all I had a BLAST!  I slowly improved with the more ice time I had.  I got better at following the puck, and got more aggressive playing outside of the crease and challenging shooters.

The thing I enjoy the most about playing hockey (beside the fact that I'm playing the worlds greatest sport) is for that hour that I'm on the ice, the only thing that matters is the opposing player trying to find the back of the net and me trying to block the back of the net.  Especially the rush of a breakaway.  It's just the opposing player, the puck, me, and the back of the net.  So many things going through my head when I see the breakaway start. Okay, deep breathe. What's his speed? Will he come at me straight on or cut across the crease? Will he shoot or deke?  Is my angle good? Is my glove in the right spot? Is my stick on the ice?  Match his speed. Don't make the first move. Stand tall. Deep breathe...

I still have a ton of learning to do, but I had another skills and drills league these past few weeks and my last three games I only had a 2.33 goals against average.  That was a pretty good ending to the first half of the season considering my season GAA (goals against average) is 4.45.

Here's my stats from the first half of the season.  I plan on continuing to drop the GAA, improve my game as a whole, and continue to have a blast!

Versus	GF	GA
Sharks	3	10
Stars	4	1
Pens	4	4
Caps	7	3
Red Wings	2	7
Caps	1	5
Red Wings	1	8
Pens	2	2
Stars	4	3
Stars	2	3
Sharks	5	6
Caps	7	2
Stars	5	1
Red Wings	7	4
Sharks	7	11
Pens	2	3
Sharks	3	6
Caps	7	3
Pens	0	2
Red Wings	7	2
Totals	80	86
Season Totals
GP	20
W	6
L	7
T	2
GA	86
GF	80
GAA	4.45
GFA	4.00

Again, thanks for reading! I'll post another video soon to show off my improvements!

File #:27 Subject: New Job

*Wipes dust off of blog*

Hello? Anybody still out there?

So obviously I haven't been updating my blog recently.  I looked back at File #:25 and I'm probably not going to follow up on those planned posts.  The post I had for Angelina's mom  was started, but I had written over 10 pages in a spiral notebook throughout the trip and just have not typed it all up.  I still have the notebook, so maybe I'll make the time to type it up.

Anyway, to todays subject...

NEW JOB!!! After five years as the internal auditor at the credit union I work at, I finally got a promotion!  Earlier this year a second indirect loan processor position was created.  I thought about applying for it, but I didn't feel it was the right time and it was eventually filled.  We were preparing to add a second auditor and I wanted to stick around and help with that addition.  Once that had happened, I was once again ready to move to a different position.  I or the most part enjoyed the position I was in, but it was more of a job than a career and with Angelina talking about a bigger house and a b... b... baby (Phew, I am still getting used to saying that last part), I needed to find a job with more of a future.  Then the indirect loan processor position opened back up, I decided that the postiton opening back up was a sign to try for it.  I applied, and waited, and waited.  About a month and a half later the loan ops supervisor contacted me and set up an interview with me.  I had interviewed with this supervisor once before, so I knew her style and felt very confident.  It was taking awhile to hear about the decision of who got the job.  I started to get worried and anxious about what I was going to do if I didn't get the job.  During all my complaining and whining, Angelina sent my resume out to all kinds of job postings on the internet.  I was having a hard time dealing with the fact that I might have to leave the credit union to find a better career.  One evening at the gym, I was thinking about possibly leaving the credit union, I prayed about it, and realized that I could leave if I needed to.  That evening with that peace in my heart, I slept the best I had in awhile.  That morning when I got to work, I had an email fom the loan ops supervisor asking to meet with me.  This was the moment, I was either going to have the job, or have to keep looking.  We met in the breakroom, and she told me that she wanted to offer me the position.  I had the BIGGEST grin on my face and I couldn't make it go away.  She told me that if I needed time to think about if I wanted to accept the position I had a few days.  I told her that I had been thinking about it since before the interview and I would love to take the job.  I finished up the three weeks until I officially switched jobs by training the other auditor.  I started last Monday and I absolutely love it!  I'll do more updates later, I have to get to bed so I can make sure I'm not late on my second Tuesday.

Thanks for tuning back in, and I'll be trying to keep the Fleming Files updated better.

Special Thanks to the people at Mind the Net Goaltending!  A very encouraging message from them in a post at goaliecrease.net has me motivated to write more here.

File #:26 Subject: New Tattoo Design

I started working on a new tattoo design shortly after I got my last tattoo.  It's of the year of the ox symbol of the chinese zodiac.  I don't have any spiritual attachment to it, but of all the zodiac signs that are attached to my birthday, it is the one that actually seems to describe me.  I wanted to find a cool way to put it on my right lower leg.  The idea started out as just the symbol on the back of my right calf.  After two or three weeks of thinking about that, I wasn't too crazy about it.  I was thinking bigger, something that would cover a lot of my lower leg.  After trying a few tribal designs incorporated in and around the ox symbol, I finally found a tribal ox and was able to put the symbol in that design.

I love this design! My plan is to have it on my lower right leg, the symbol and "face" on the outside of my leg facing to my right with the horns about an inch apart on the inside of my leg.  I spent a ton of time finding the right design, and spent the whole time, plus some, weighing the pros and cons of this tattoo.  Would I regret it?  What would make me regret it?  Could this tattoo hurt my professional life?  How would it look in 20 years?  Would my leg hair grow back, or would I have an awkward bald spot on my leg?  So far, none of the answers to these questions has detered me from wanting this tattoo.

What will deter me from getting it? Angelina watching a documentary on the "body art/self mutilation" arguement.  She likes my current tattoos, but is not crazy about this one because it doesn't have a meaning like my first two do.  Maybe she's right, but that doesn't mean I still don't get the itch.  I will be getting my kids' names tattooed on me whenever we have kids.  So maybe I can wait until then to scratch the itch.  In case I can't wait, I still like to have options.  Maybe I'll put this design on the back burner and start on another one.  I will probably use hockey as the theme for a new design, but I don't want to over hockey myself (HA, like that's possible, hockey's not a sport, it's a way of life!), because I already plan on a tattoo of the Sabres logo and a Stanley Cup if/when they win it.

I would like to hear what you think of the above design, and if you have any good ideas for new designs, lets hear those too!

Speaking of hockey, I have to go get ready to go to the UK hockey game, starts at midnight!  Thanks for stopping by everyone!

File #:25 Subject: Busy is an understatement

Life has been crazy recently! Here's a brief overview:

1) Angelina's mom died in a motorcycle accident
2) Ice hockey started
3) We got a kitten
4) We had a yard sale
5) I worked on a new tattoo design

For those of you who read this blog that know Angelina and I know about everything going on the past couple of weeks with the loss of her Mom.  I am not going to go into too much detail yet because I want o have Angelina give the okay on anything I post here about this subject.

The other subjects I will work on and try to get out by next weekend.  We are heading to California this weekend, and I will try to focus and draft up some of these while on the plane.  Please don't lose hope in this blog, I promise that once things calm down I will try to at least do one a week.

Thank you all for coming back after such a long wait, and please don't be disappointed with just a teaser post.

File #:24 Subject: New Workout Method

I have started a new approach to my workouts recently.  I have cut out most of the free weights and weight machines from my routines.  I still do dumbbell curls ('cause it's good to have big guns) and benchpress sometimes, but now I mostly do plyometrics.  My strength workouts now consist of push-ups, pull-ups and other similar exercises.  The most recent activity I have added (courtesy of Becky's birthday present to me) is the punching bag.  I purchaced a pair of MMA gloves and gave the heavy bag a good beating today.  It felt great!  Beating the crap out of that bag, working up a sweat and getting any frustration out was amazing.  I'm hoping it also helps with some eye/hand coordination and speads up my hand reaction times also.  I'll let everyone know how this all goes soon. I will be updating my "Getting Fit" file soon, if I can swallow my pride and admit I haven't done too well this past month.