Nico’s

Last week, browsing through Reno Baby! (a ning site), I found out about the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey. I read a bit about it, sounded like fun, and expressed my interest.
Yesterday, this guy Jason posted there to say that they were looking for a runner. I replied, excited, saying that I was up for it.
But then I was afraid someone would get a hold of him before I did, so I asked my friend and roomate Cory if he knew him. After all, Cory is a pretty networked guy. And it turns out that he does know him!
So, Cory “twittered” him, and a connection was made.
Hours ago, I got an email from “the team”, and I’m in!

And shit. I didn’t know the race started on Friday and doesn’t stop until you get to the finish line, a whole 178 miles later. Enter panic mode!
Just kidding. It’s sort of a relay race, and it’s divided in 36 legs. Each team has 12 members, so I only have to run 3 legs, so I should be able to survive without any internal bleeding.

I’m heading out to REI to arm myself with a headlamp and some sort of reflective vest… and maybe some bear spray. Holy shit.

It’s been a week since I’ve been living at a new place. I have decided to move to the Old Southwest of Reno, with my friends Cory Jones and Jason Wickum.

It should be a fun experience, sharing a house with people who are a bit closer to my age and I already know. There’s also a lot of common room that I can share, instead of just being able to access. For example, the living room, kitchen and living room: it’s quite bare, so we’ll all have to build up to furnish it, and I think a shared feeling of ownership will come from that, which will make each one of us feel at home.
One of the things I’ve “pitched in” is my basketball hoop. Stef had kept it at the house after the divorce, but I called her and pleasantly found out that she was more than willing to let me have it! :neckbeard: So, I recruited Dani and her trusty truck, and we moved the damn thing.
It was quite an effort, to get it to not fall, and after a long and slow drive, we got it home:

And now it sits on the driveway. I’m sure videos and pictures of the many upcoming tournaments will pop-up here, so stay tuned for that!

So here it is. After much suspense, the resolution that I will be trying to hold true for 2008:

I am fully intending to let go of my failure at marriage with Stephanie, and stop wondering what would have happened if I had done this or that, and by letting go allow myself to love those that love me with the fullness that they deserve. This, of course, relates more than anything to Dani, my lovely girlfriend.

The reason why I’ve resolved to such a thing is that I feel like I’ve been holding on to doubt, wonder and guilt for a while. What if she came back, what would I do? What if she never did? How should I tell her the things that I think, that I thought, that I felt and that I feel? And what do I have to win from any of this? The answer to that last question is very little, and from that, the other questions are answered with something pretty similar to "who cares?". I shouldn’t, and I won’t. I don’t need to, and the tree is not letting me see the forest.

At any rate, being the manly man that I am, I don’t feel entirely comfortable posting on the internet so often about feelings and fluffy stuff, so here are a few more resolutions of lesser importance:

• Beat my time at the Great Ski Race.
• Pay off my credit card.
• Maintain my relationship with my old host family, the Aikins, and make myself more available and helpful to them. (Hi Kathy, whenever you read this!)
• Continue my studies, and take a few classes that will actually count towards a 4-year degree.
• Play in every volleyball tournament that is within 100 miles of Reno during the summer.
• Greatly decrease the ammount of stuff I download from dubious sources. As such, I’ve just bought Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 from Amazon’s online MP3 downloads section. Guilt-free!
• Post in this here blog at least once a week!

So here I am, hours before my departure back to Reno. I sit in the living room of the house I grew up in, while my parents take their almost holy siesta.

It’s been a very long two weeks vacation. I’ve eaten as if there was no tomorrow, and I have not excercised at all. The chubby comments will now come from the people who see me come back to Reno. Oh well.
The break has been quite nice, since I’m absolutely stress-free, and it sure was nice to spend time with my family. In case you haven’t gotten the point yet, I’ve had a great time here, despite not having done a whole lot if you see a vacation as an opportunity to go to fancy places and try new things.

When I get back home, I’ll be spending a lot of time with Dani, whom I’ve missed a lot. I’m very excited to see her. I also hear that there’s a blizzard going through the area as of right now, which will not only make my landing quite adventurous, but should give me plenty of snow to get ready for the Great Ski Race.
Also, after my landing in Reno, I will post another blog with my New Year’s Resolution, since it seems to be the cool thing to do in the blogosphere nowadays. I would post it now, but it has to do with Dani, and I don’t want to her to find out through here, you know?

Things down here are still going well. I´ve been eating a LOT of food, and everyone I meet gives me compliments on my chubby belly. I guess I`ll fall part of everyone who does a New Year`s resolution saying they`ll get in shape.

At any rate, I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We`re having a big dinner tonight, since it`s also my older brother`s birthday. We`ll be partying all night, and I hope that you`re having a nice one too.

I keep encroaching into this internet thing. My latest attempt is with Twitter, a "micro-blog". It took me about 5 minutes to sign up and get my cell phone and my IM* set up to be able to update my Twitter from anywhere

So what’s the need for yet another blog-ish site? Well, I’ll use Twitter to update stuff that no one really cares about, it’s just for fun. But just in case you, my loyal blog reader, are curious, I’ve added a widget to the sidebar on the right that will display a couple of my latest Twitter updates. It’s a win-win situation! 

*It took me a bit longer than usual because I use Miranda and I had to figure out a few plugins that I had disabled earlier.

I can’t believe I forgot to post the news! I’m going home for the holidays!

Home, just in case you didn’t pick up on it, is Mendoza. I haven’t been there in a couple of years, so it’ll be nice to be back home. I’ll be there from the 20th of December to the 3rd, so I’ll get to spend Christmas and New Years there.

One small detail: it’ll be summer! Oh yes, long days, warm nights, fun times. Although I don’t have too many plans other than hanging out with the family, I’m sure I’ll be enjoying being outside, checking out some wineries and the outdoors. There are quite a few things to do in Mendoza, and it’s always refreshing to go home and see things from an outsider’s point of view for the first couple of days.  Not to mention that now that I’m picking up my photography hobby, it’ll definitely be a cool subject to explore!

If you click on this fancy button down here, it’ll take you to my wishlist on Amazon. Feel free to gift me any or all of the things listed.

Come back soon!

Let’s start from the beginning here. It was the day after Easter Sunday that my life started changing unexpectedly. Stef wanted a divorce.
I moved out, thinking it’d be temporary, and that we could talk through it and figure out what was going on. My friend Cory hosted me in his living room for 2 long weeks, after which I saw that the resolution of the looming threat of divorce was nowhere near.
I found a small apartment, near UNR, with a month-to-month rent. I was starting to accept the idea that maybe we weren’t going to get back together, and that I better figure out how to be on my own.

During this time, Stef and I went to see a marriage counselor, a pretty cool guy by the name of Richard Cook. Now, I had never been to a marriage counselor, psychiatrist or anything similar, but I must say that this guy is really good. The first thing that he told us after a short introduction was something along these lines: "I am here to tell you that your relationship is over."
At this point, my heart skipped a beat. He continued: "What I do, is help you start your new relationship, because it is obvious that your current one is not working. This is why you’re here." Relief came in, and this answer appealed highly to my logic side, so he had me hooked. The last part of his speech was "Now, this new relationship… it can mean that you’re married, or that you’re not. And that’s what we’ll figure out after a few sessions."
With that mindset in mind, the counseling was very healing and a great learning experience. Guilt was appeased with the understandingn of how the dynamics of our relationship changed, and I went from wondering why Stef didn’t want to be with me annymore to wondering why she was so sure that we couldn’t work on the issues that we obviously had.
I answered that question when chance led me to read about the Walkaway Wife Syndrome. I know, I know, it’s over-simplifying the issue, but it’s pretty damn close to what I felt was going on.
After many talks, tears and days, I gave up on trying to convince Stef to love me again, and decided to stop the wound from bleeding. I agreed to the divorce, we worked out the legalities of it, and I’ve been officially and legally divorced for a few months now.

Life has changed quite a bit because of all this. I work for myself, I can enjoy doing whatever I want to do, without having to worry about fitting into someone else’s schedule or their mood.* I also have total control of my money, and I am living very comfortably. I can afford a few nice things here and there, and that’s how I got the nice digital camera I posted about a few months ago, and also partly on how I got my new car.
I’ve re-discovered friendships, activities, places and feelings, and I’ve moved on from the sadness to reach a state of being happy again. I’m more than content on where I am and what I’m doing, and I no longer feel like I need to grief. I’ve moved on, and things are looking up.

I had been slacking off on posting because of all this. It’s a "juicy" story, and I felt shallow by posting about all sorts of things without really letting my beloved fans know about what’s been going on. So, now that this is out of the way, I will go back to the usual schedule of rambles, rants and random things.

It’s good to be back.

*Editorial: Well, sort of. There’s this one person I’ve been seeing, but that’s for the next batch of "big news". I gotta make sure I have something to make you come back!

 I’m back! New design, new features, new ideas. Many things have changed in my life, and as such, it’s hard to know where to start. I’m thinking, and planning, so stay tuned! The best way to do that, by the way, is by subscribing to the RSS feed.