Great Weekend Fun (Update)

Sorry for the lack of updates of late, being out of town for work tends to exhaust me, leaving me little time for updates. That said, I leave again to be out of town all week on Monday, so prepare yourselves for another week with scant contact from me.

In the meantime, though, I was home this weekend, and what a wonderful weekend it was! I simply cannot fully express how much I enjoyed this weekend. I only wish I could say what made it so great; really I didn't do anything but hang out with the new girlfriend Brandy. But that was really (really) fun. I did take my first trip to a Dave & Buster's restaurant. Now, I had seen commercials for this place, but had never been and I must say, I really really want to like it there. I mean, where else could I sit, drink beer and play video games all at the same time? Without looking like a hermit by sitting at home? But the choices of video games was... subpar at best. No good fighting games, no good "classic" games. Anyone remember that old, 80s X-Men game? Man, if that were there, I would be in heaven. So, I guess the best way to sum it up would be that I like the concept, if not the execution.

So two things need to occur for this weekend to slide into my Best-Weekend-Ever spot: First, my parents (and dogs!) need to like Brandy, whom they are meeting this evening for dinner; Second, the Lakers need to beat the Suns. If these things happen, this will definitely be solidified as Best-Weekend-Ever. I wouldn't bet on it, though. I have high hopes for the first criteria, the second, not so much.

UPDATE: As expected, dinner with the family was good, the Lakers less so. So Labor Day maintains its spot as Best-Weekend-Ever, with this past one coming in a damn close second. How close? Well, my German Shepard didn't even bark at Brandy. That's how good.

Out of Towning

Sorry for the lack of updates this week folks, but I was in the field all week, and even now am out of town for work. I'm up in Goleta, near Santa Barbara. It's really (really) pretty, but there's nothing around. It's gonna be a long trip, and I can't wait to get home.

Soooo... in other news, I suppose I might as well share my wonderful news of the week: I met someone last weekend (Holy Saturday, actually) and am just crazy about her. Her name is Brandy, and while we met online, she is most definately not one of those crazy ones that you can meet. She is wonderful, and my heart is filled to overflowing with happiness every time I see her, which hasn't been much I regret to say, having been in the field and out of town all week. She hasn't met my parents yet (or the dogs, for that matter) so wish us luck on that, as she will be just as soon as I get back into town.

Oh yeah: our first date was bowling. Of course I lost, but I had a great time. Of course I had dinner in Perris (not to be confused with dinner in Paris) with her and had a great time as well, so I wonder if it's possible to go out and not have a great time with her.

I'm sore and tired from work, but I will try to keep everyone updated on life. Someone let me know if the world ends while I'm away, God knows I won't notice.

God, Love & Relationships (UPDATED)

I debated quite a lot about posting this; I didn't know if it was appropriate. And then I thought: "Well, if I can't write about this stuff on my blog, where the hell can I?" And, Easter's a pretty good time to do this. So, here goes:

For a long time I’ve felt that in a relationship Love is all that you need to make it work (yes yes, a cliché to be certain, but one I strongly believe in). I of course have had arguments about this with friends of mine who just as strongly disagree. So me, being me, have been thinking about the “why” behind my belief. After weeks of thinking, I believe I have come up with a response, or at least the beginning of one.

It begins with God. Christian theology teaches that God is pure Love. Everything that God does and plans are acts of Love. Our relationship with Him is based on us loving him. When we stop loving Him, our relationship with Him weakens. God’s Love is perfect.

So if Love was able, through God, to create the world and perform all the miracles, then why couldn’t it make a relationship work? If God is Love, and through God all things are possible, why isn’t Love all you need to make a relationship work? Although I had this discussion originally in terms of a romantic relationship, I believe that all relationships, be they familial, platonic or romantic are based on Love, though different types of love. Take an example of mine: My best friend Micah and I shouldn’t like each other. We are so different, in every aspect, that we shouldn’t be able to stand each other. I’m the guy he would beat up in high school; he’s the guy I looked down at. But because we met so early in childhood we developed a close bond and our love for each other makes us friends in spite of all our differences. We’ve both done things that would normally make us stop talking to each other, but we don’t, because we love each other too much to just write off our friendship.

So I don’t’ think you can say: “I love you but that’s not enough to stay in the relationship.” If you love someone enough, then that is all you need. A more accurate statement might be: “I don’t love you enough to make the relationship work.” Or again: “I don’t believe you love me enough to make this work.” Or what I would guess would be the most accurate: “I don’t have enough faith in our Love that we can make this work.”

Perhaps most people just feel this way and don’t express it correctly. I’m not sure. It’s possible that when someone says “love isn’t enough” what they mean is “I don’t love you enough” and just don’t know. But this is what I’ve come up with thus far. Obviously, this may stir up some feelings in people; this is one of those subjects that I really want to have a discussion about. I welcome your comments and opinions about this, because this is a hypothesis that is still forming in my head, and I think it needs to be challenged and tested (do I sound like a scientist or what?).

Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter (or Passover!).

UPDATE: I respond to Mike's comments below. Now that I think on it, I should've done it here. He raises an interesting point, but one that I dont' feel diminishes from my own point of view.

Gas Guzzling, Beer Brewing, and Soul Searching...

Well, I wish I could say I've been busy this week... but then I'd be lying. In reality I've been working at the office, which is code for "doing not a whole lot and getting paid decent money," but whatever. I spent last Sunday making some beer with my buddy and his dad. That was a pretty neat experience. I think everyone should be forced to make some beer on their own, just to say you've done it. It's still fermenting, I'll let you know how it turns out in a few weeks though.

In other news, some of you may have heard that the EPA changed the way they formulated how much gas mileage your car gets. I was so busy at work, I looked mine up! Turns out my mileage went down from an average of 31mpg to 27mpg. Disappointing, but not terrible.

Actually, it reminds me of a West Wing episode. Some agency came up with a new way to calculate the number of people living in poverty and it, of course, went up. The best spin that they could put on it was that there aren't more poor people, we're just noticing more of them. I don't have worse gas mileage, I'm just noticing how poor the mileage is.

Moving on....

It's decision time here at Romano central: What to do, what to do... Some decisions are made for me, some I gotta make on my own. I got no clue what I'm gonna do, NC or CA? Corona or Temecula? *sigh*

I know, I know: Leif's a bitch, right?

Warning: D&D Reference Ahead:

So I saw this post on NRO where someone (half-jokingly) argued that having a "conservative political outlook" makes you more able and likely to defend yourself and I couldn't help but ask:

"So if one of my D&D players espouses conservative political thoughts in-game, that gives... what, a +2 Competency bonus on their AC?"

One day I'm going to stop having thoughts like this, and I'm not sure if that will be a good day or a bad day...