Leo Downey

I can only hope I am half the man my father was. The amount of patience and love and patience and more love he showed me through out my life was amazing. My newborn son deserves that and more.

My son, the apple of my eye, the chip off this old block, my pride and joy, was born Tuesday 6 January 2009. 8lbs 9.6oz 21.25 inches bundle of joy. The feeling is the most joyous yet humbling experience you can ever have.

3 years ago I put this on my list. Today I am still a fricking chimney. But this past week my son was born. Mindset has changed. Enough with the excuses. Enough with the procrastination. Enough with the typical BS. This is the time. I have to do it. I have to prove to everyone else I can…but more importantly I have to prove it to myself. Wish me luck!

Some may think it too soon..but my heart knows no time table. Only time will tell for certain if what I feel in my heart and soul is correct but I am marking this as completed on my list. To think a fix-up meeting just under 5 months ago would lead to such a fabulous, fulfilling, and…grr words just escape me…but anyone who has ever accomplished this task knows what I mean.

Ok I am sitting here with my outlook open adding tasks. Of course I am doing laundry and picking up and organizing the place as I do this. It is becoming quite overwhelming.
So I have decided to do baby steps. Instead of adding tasks all at once and making myself feel quite daunted, I am spreading these tasks over three months. Each day I add a task while repeating the ones that are necessary daily or weekly.
:: Crosses fingers :: Hope it works :)

As a bartender you must be able to do this. I am not sure where it is written that you have to learn this perfectly useless piece of showing off…but it is mandatory. And practice makes perfect. But really has anyone ever really been impressed by this? The hint of amazing things done with the tongue and mouth is all well and good…but I don’t think it is ever taken serious.

I am not sure if I own the cats or vice versa. Usually I am pretty sure I am the leader but… every now and then it doesn’t seem like that.

It is amazing. I have been working on this goal and everday I find out a new story from someone. Many times it has been my Grandad who has done a ton of living. His adventures were/are amazing. But he is not the only one. Any time I take the time to sit a listen to someone I find out something new I didn’t know about them. This one has lived in Australia, that one has worked with on 21 movies as security, the one next to him once saved three people from dieing. So many times before I just looked at my friends and family and assume them into the roles that our relationship was about. I never really considered they had done amazing things in life that I could learn about and from. Sure I knew about everything we had done together but that view is very limited. Now that I am taking the time and listening more, it is almost as if they are characters in a novel being fleshed out with more development. Of course this novel is life.

I read a Calvin and Hobbs the other day. Calvin asked Hobbs if he could have one wish what would it be. Hobbs wanted a peanut butter sandwich. Calvin told him how absolutely crazy that is that he should have wished for a billion dollars or something. Next scene Hobbs eating a peanut butter sandwich and saying I got my wish how bout you. Made me think of these goals. These goals are great for living by but I may need to either set goals that are more achievable, less general, more concrete, less abstract, or atleast break them down into smaller easier goals that each work towards one of my major goals. I’ll probably work on it later. Oops that will break one of my other goals of “Stop Procrastinating”. Hehe.

The past couple days I have been telling myself I should cut down. Mostly because I have been coughing as if my lungs had to get out of my body and go to a car wash. I was watching some tv yesterday and saw something about a commit lozenge. Anyone know anything about this?

I think I finally got to my 8 glasses of water a day goal. I have only missed three days in the past month and I knew I was missing them and was ok with it. This was a pain to get myself accustomed to doing this but I have lost some pounds because of it and feel a bit better about myself. My blood pressure dropped amazingly and my cholesterol is even going down but not sure if its due to the water totally or just watching my diet in general.

I have thought I had before but it seems the phrase “desperately and totally in love with me” always seemed to be the catch. It is the “me” part. That is just in love with “me”. Non-conditionally in love with “me”. Not my money, not my friends, not my lifestyle, not the way I treat them, not the physical. Sure they can love all those things but they have to also love just “me”. “Me” in my entirety. I am not sure I have even found anybody who knew “me” or was willing and wanting to learn about “me” and who this “me” is.

If anybody ever gets something like this going… give me a call!!!

In middle school the teacher assigned us a project to ask one of our parents their goals in life. I asked my father. I expected financial goals, perhaps career goals (he was a major in the USArmy at the time), travel goals (of course we had seen much more of the world than most but their was always someplace left to see), mini goals (like run a 10k or read every book in a library etc). The answer I got was a simple “I want to go to Heaven”. After trying to question him more for other areas, he simply said, “I want to go to Heaven. That is my ultimate goal in this life. All the rest are trivial comparatively”. That conversation changed my life forever.

Instead of attending my first day of classes at UMBC in 1992, I attended my grandfather’s funeral. He was the reason I was going to college to become a mechanical engineer, not only financially, but motivationally. Well the wind in my sails kinda died after that. I spent two and a half years in college sorta mulling around, getting by, doing the fraternity thing, etc. I’d like to go back someday. It’s tough being out in the market as a computer programmer making good money, to find the time or the reason. But one day…

This is one of the best things I could try to do for my body. Water is a miracle cure. Of course this is an on going goal. I strive for this daily even going as far as to portion out the water the night before and putting reminders in my outlook and other organizers. Some days I do it, others I forget about it totally. I guess when it comes second nature than I will have completed this task…until then it remains on the list.

I have learned how to play chess. I am not a grandmaster or anything and doubt I’ll ever be one, but I can hold my own with some of the best. It can be quite frustrating at times. Play with people better than you to learn and read all you can read and re-play the grandmasters matches on your own many times and you will get up there. Again maybe not grandmaster level but definitely good enough to hold your own.