I did a thing . . . a year ago.

I just wrote about a 1,000 word post telling you all about how I started out as a sturdy kid and eventually became a fat and sick adult.

I decided to delete that post however, because . . . well . . . we all know that story, amirite? We get told every day about the obesity epidemic that is crushing the world, so if that’s the case, the odds are that if you’re reading this post you have lived it yourself.

Instead I’ll tell you that when I found out that Kendra was pregnant with Georgia, I realized that I probably wouldn’t get to see her graduate. Hell, she might not even really know who I was if I wasn’t careful. So I decided to do something about it.

One year ago today, I had a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

I find myself . . . humbled.

Much of this will not be news to many of you (since we did not exactly hide what was going on when it happened), but last week our youngest, Georgia, got sick.

Quite sick.

We were on our way back from Kendra’s Birthday Extravaganza in Barcelona, Spain, when we got a call from my mom and dad, who had been babysitting the kids. She wanted us to know that little Jordi was running a fever. It wasn’t too bad, but she felt we should know. “No big deal,” we said . . . we were on hour 31 or so of a 39 hour trip home, and so our give-a-fuck about anything was pretty low. “Just keep an eye on her and if it gets BAD let us know.”

Flip a coin, what shall we talk about?

Last night Kendra and I kicked off her Amazing Birthday Adventure (she will be turning *ahem* years old next week, and we’re going on a trip to celebrate . . . in fact I’m writing this post from the airport. Look! The future!) with a concert.

My longest-standing favourite band ever ever is Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers (previously known as The Refreshments of “Banditos” fame). They’re a band local to Arizona and despite getting brief national/international fame, they’ve stayed true to their Southwestern roots. I’ve seen them in concert more times than I could possibly count.

Meet Bessie. Two.

I have a new special someone in my life. She’s wonderful. Amazing. She’s just absolutely gorgeous.

I think I love her.

Deeply, though of course cautiously.

(I have been burned before, after all!)

But there is a passion here. A passion that only a photographer can feel for his ridiculously expensive new camera . . . that happened to arrive just in time for a trip to one of his favourite cities, no less.

Internet, I’d like you to meet Bessie II, or B2 for short.

Household Horrors

This post is a bit long, and may sound a bit down, but I promise we’re all doing great. This is all a bit of a PITA, but it is no worse than many of the things that we faced while on Wanderlust and I can still say categorically that was the best months of my life. 🙂

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Remember that time I told you that Kendra and I had bought a new house, and everyone was so happy for us?

Yeah.

Me too.

Those were good days, back before things had all gone so sideways so incredibly fast.

What has gone wrong, you ask? Well pull up a chair and I will tell you!

Reasons

It’s one of the more “hippy” things that I buy in to, but I have a pretty strong belief that everything happens for a reason.

I hold on to it for dear life sometimes . . . because it’s the only life raft I have.

When absolutely everything that can go wrong is going wrong, it’s not because God or the Fates or whoever is toying with you, it’s because you need to not be right there despite everything you might think . . . you need to be right HERE.

Agincourt600 – The Trip!

Back in September I subjected regaled you all with a short history lesson about the Battle of Agincourt and why I thought it was awesome (hint for those who didn’t read it don’t remember: A) because it was historically important [duh], B) because I studied it in grad school, and C) because I was going to the battle site for it’s 600th anniversary!).

Well it’s now been a couple of months since that 600th anniversary trip and I have finally taken the time to process and upload the photos from that trip, so I thought I would tell you all about it . . .

Announcement!

Mean ol’ Kendra has made me hold back from telling everyone this for weeks at this point . . . blah blah, wait until it’s real . . . blah blah, you don’t want to jinx things . . . blah blah, stop making fun of me I don’t sound like that.

But today we got the final confirmation that we needed, in this whole crazy process and can announce that we have bought a house here in Mesa! 

A story about The Scottish Play.

Almost a year and a half ago I was sweating myself to death in London, just two months in to the epic Project Wanderlust. Kendra, Mal, and I were living in a fairly small one-room studio for the month, and we were about to be joined by our friend Kylie who would be staying for a fortnight (I know, what were we thinking? Things got . . . cozy. Not like that, pervs).

Agincourt600

As you may or may not know, I have not always been the captain of industry and king of all things technological that you see before you. In fact, once upon a time, I was a fish in an entirely different pond . . . the vast ocean of academia.

Whilst I was such a gill-bearing aquatic creature, I had vague visions of some day being a college professor in my own right; so the fact that I specialized in Medieval and Renaissance Warfare was . . . well, it wasn’t quite as ridiculous at the time as it sounds now.

OK, yes it was. But there were knights and they hit each other with swords!! That shit is just cool.

For my Master’s thesis (yes, you may call me The Master . . . no relation) I wrote fairly extensively on the topic of propaganda. Specifically, I compared two incredibly bloody battles and how they were perceived not just at the time but since then.