Buckeye Mike

As I sit here in my office on Christmas Eve morning, I look forward to the next 24 hours. In just a few minutes I will walk out the door here and head home, ready to wrap gifts for the boys and help my sweetheart finish up the baking for what is sure to be a legendary Christmas feast tomorrow. I love the holiday season, even more this year than most. My boys, with the signing of the paperwork this past Tuesday, are truly home to stay. Tiffany and I have built a cozy home out of the house we moved in to during the spring. For its ups and downs, I have been at my new job for almost a year and am fortunate to be a part of this work family. As I drove in this morning, I turned on the Christmas music, sipped my coffee, and thanked God for the bounty of good fortune he has provided this year. Even at our best, we all have moments of weakness and failure. While enjoying the successes at my job, I have had a few nasty potholes jump up recently that have threatened to take the whole thing off

Two years, I was remembering my mother and reliving the last memories I have of her. It was a very emotional and cathartic time for me, and using this blog to recount that terrible time was very therapeutic. I would recommend going back and looking at those posts. I do often, and did last week on the advice of a friend. During that time, I wrote a blog entitled "The Pocketwatch". It is my favorite Christmas story, and has become an annual tradition on this blog. Please enjoy and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! As a kid growing up, Christmas Eve was always the most special day of the year. Aside from the Santa visit, the day was filled with so much tradition and family that is was more like an event than a holiday. Everyone would gather at my grandparents house for Christmas dinner. Cars would fill the drive way, be parked on the hill, and even in the front yard. It was always a feast, with us kids pushing everyone to finish their plates so we could get to the

Went to write a blog today. Half way through I realized it sucked. So I started over.  12-12-12. Cool, but not as cool as 11-11-11. Either way, we are all still breathing. At least for 9 days til the world ends.  Thats it. Loving life.  Day # 618 and still rocks to be me. Have a great day everyone.

I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. I am not a football star, a race car driver, a police officer, a teacher, a pilot, a garbage man, or the President of the United States. I am pretty good at my job, like to write and have thought about penning a book, and enjoy tinkering with my model trains and cars in my spare time. I have a mind for math but am so glad my career doesn't require Algebra. I can shoot a mean game of pool and throw darts with anyone. I like to think of myself as a great brother, good friend, wonderful boyfriend/fiancee, and the type of son that makes my father proud. But none of it has ever come as naturally as the one truth I know about myself. I was put on this Earth to be my boys Dad. There was once a time when I knew the best place for my three sons was with their mother. When we separated, I told everyone that I would leave them with her so she could get max child support and so their lives were not disrupted any more than they needed to be. And whi

For the last week or so, I have been thinking about the path and where it is leading. At work, the year is winding down and my boss is setting new goals in place. While I am on board with what he is trying to do, I also have to look at the bigger picture and what is best for Tiffany, the boys and myself. I do love my job, but there are times that it seems the minutia gets in the way of the bigger picture. The unfortunate part about that is those small details are the bread and butter of a company like ours. And while you are never going to please everyone, getting those around me to understand that the speed bumps don't negate the highway is another challenge entirely. Recently I have written about a number of topics that will feed into this one. I had a friend tell me I should write a book. And while that seems like an immense project that will require months if not years to accomplish, I look at the blog and think about the things I have written here. My posts are random, and d