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was blind, but now i see

November 8, 2004 — Leave a comment

well i have new glasses, at least.

my spectacle wearing has always been cyclical; pretty much two years on and two years off and never a prescription strong enough to make contacts practical.

i am farsighted; figuratively and literally; or so i would like to believe. and for the first time in almost five years, i took advantage of an opportunity to get my eyes tested and get a new pair of glasses. my health insurance covers my eye test with a small co-pay and some coverage on lenses and frames.

the eye test was very thorough, but i got the sense that i was getting screw on the frames and lenses; especially the lenses. my prescription in relative terms is fairly weak; +.5; in one eye and +.75 in the other; yet the optician`s office was willing to take everything that was covered by my health insurance and then tacking on another $95 for anti-glare coating. i would have had to pay $200 out of pocket, outside my health insurance coverage, so i got my prescription and took it elsewhere; Lenscrafters to be specific. i paid $43 out of pocket and that included Transitions lenses and frames.

so here i sit, clearer vision, less headaches; well i`m hoping there will be less headaches.

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more harm than good

November 1, 2004 — Leave a comment

because of our neighbourhood and its proximity to the university, i see a lot of people running and it`s appalling.

long ago, when i was half as young and half as heavy, i used to run; 5 and 10K races. i was pretty good; i was in a road runners club, i trained regularly, i chose my shoes carefully, i was dedicated.

it distresses me to see all these people running badly and doing themselves a tremendous amount of harm.  just watching them run, is painful, most of them have incredibly bad form; arms and legs flailing and the worst foot placement. i don`t even want to get into the ill equipped people but i do have one word to the wise, always invest in a good sports bra if you`re going running.

my knees are almost completely shot, through a combination of factors; road running, basketball and weight gain. but of the three the strain put on my knees by weight gain only serve to exaggerate the trauma i put them through running on high impact surfaces and too some extent i knew what i was doing.

road running is high stressful on the knees and ankles particularly without a good cushioned shoe and worse when you don`t run properly.

learn to run smoothly, in an almost fluid motion, the power of your stride should come from your back and not by landing hard on your feet. pounding pavement is not good for your knees. and for goodness sake don`t continue running if you`re injured.

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celebrations

October 31, 2004 — Leave a comment

earlier this month we had a celebration of our almost three year old marriage, we just got most of the pictures

here are a couple of the pictures and the rest of the gallery can be found here:

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greying

October 21, 2004 — Leave a comment

there are a lot of genetic traits i`ve inherited from both sides of my family including left-handedness; there was no escaping that one — mother, father, paternal grandmother, maternal grandfather.

now i seem to picking up early greying from my mother. although on end i`m not sure how much of it was completely genetic. when she was 7, she got malaria and they gave her bay rum to drink which turned her hair completely white. before you launch into how barbaric that was, bear in mind this was pre-WWII, there are still no vaccines for malaria, so at that point that old Caribbean adage; “what don`t kill, will fatten” seemed like the most prudent course of action.

as long as i can remember my mother has been grey and for a time she dyed her hair and did the rinses until she realised how attractive she looked with her grey hair. i have just discovered two more  in the front of my dreads to add to small number that`s somewhere in the middle. i`m of the school of `if you pull them, they will call for reinforcements.` i`m curious to see how many more start showing up and with what frequency.

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a celebration

October 13, 2004 — Leave a comment

i`d written a lovely homage to this weekends celebrations when my machine came to a grinding halt and under OS X there are very few things that can precipitate a system wide freeze and in this case it was the Microsoft Office update. i loath M$ and their crappy products, hopefully i can pick up the threads of my original post and sally forth.

on Sunday, we had a celebration of our marriage. we`ll be married three years next January but thought that should be a celebration for friends and family because when got married it was just us, the hired minister, the travel agent who arranged it and ndelamiko who put us on the the travel agent and who i was meeting in person for the first time. we`re not counting the hotel guests who were gawking nearby or the leathery German guy in the electric blue speedo, who thought it would be a good idea to get a closer look.

this is weekend we invited family and close friends to celebrate the wedding that had already happened. to sum it up in a word; perfect. the weather was more than co-operative, cool and sunny all day, the food was magnificent and the people was wonderful. most of my people couldn`t make it, but vic is blessed with the most amazing family and friends and everyone, has done their best to make me feel welcome.

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the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience

October 6, 2004 — Leave a comment

the weather has started to get nippier and i`m liking it. i`m really looking forward to holidays, which is a kind of unfamiliar feeling for me as an adult. part of it, is how welcome vic`s family has made me feel. i`ve been to at least four gatherings since i`ve been here and that still hasn`t been one where all her siblings and their children have been there. just to help you conceptualise how big a family this is, vic is the second to last of eight and there is a niece or nephew graduating high school every year from now until 2018.

we`re having a small reception to celebrate our marriage this weekend and two of the siblings and their children wont be able to make it and it`s still close to 50 people including a handful of close friends.

growing up in a two person household makes me much more appreciative of large family gatherings and there are at least two more before the year is out. i`m looking forward to thanksgiving and christmas, the company is sure to be good and the food should be magnificent. vic`s mother spoils us, every weekend we go to visit we`re fed like kings particularly on sunday mornings when she gets up and makes waffles, from scratch. it`s a wonder i haven`t been putting on weight.

in other news, my probationary period at my job is now over, i`m a permanent staff member now and i have health insurance, what i`m paying to have vic and the boychick covered is a little steep but worth the peace of mind. it`s comforting to know we`re all covered. coming from socialised healthcare to PPOs and HMOs takes some adjustment.

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keifel & vic vs USCIS, condensed version

September 28, 2004 — Leave a comment

vic and i have been going through a process since January 2002 to begin our lives together.

we had two applications in the works, an I-130 which is an application for an immigrant spouse and a K-3 which is an application for the same spouse to enter the US while waiting for the I-130 to process.

after much back and forth; my application initially got sent to the wrong office; in Monterey when it was supposed to be sent to Santo Domingo; had to be sent back to Barbados, that process alone took 12 weeks; mail to and from embassies travels via APO, which goes to DC to process first before being sent on. my K-3 got approved in January 2004 and i finally arrived in the US in March, i was given a packet from the embassy in Barbados that issued my visa to give to the immigration officer when i landed, this contained all the paperwork processed by the Barbados office. About a week after i arrived, we got a letter from the USCIS office in TX, which was processing our I-130 that we need to submit more information, including proof that we had been living together since we`d been married; at that point a week; we had joint bank accounts; impossible since i had no social security either; copies of our wedding and divorce decrees; which they already had at least three copies of; and letters from friends and landlords etc. we prepared a packet after we found and apartment , signed a lease together and submitted that an all the other info they asked for back the TX office.

In August we got a letter from the National Visa Centre and the USCIS office in TX that my application had been approved and they were forwarding my paperwork to the Trinidad office to allow me to enter the country. bearing in mind i had entered the country legally 5 months before, been in contact with them on more than one occasion by mail; because i had to notify them when we moved into our new apartment, required by law and when i applied for my work authorisation, also required by law. they didn`t know i was in the country.

the saga isn`t over yet, we now have to apply to change my status, which requires that i take another medical; i took one in late February which is supposed to be valid for a year, i have to get fingerprinted; again — i got fingerprinted in February when my application was approved, i got fingerprinted when i entered the country, i got fingerprinted when i applied for my work authorisation.

and because a change of status application currently has a two year processing time in TN, i will have to take another medical if my application is to be processed, plus i`ll have to pay to apply to renew my K-3 visa and work authorisation if my status change is not processed in time.

to date we`ve spent over $3000, not including airfare and we don`t even have a lawyer and can probably look forward to at least another $1000 before we`re done.

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having a social conscience bites sometimes

September 22, 2004 — Leave a comment

metallica; i know, i know, i shouldn`t be giving them my money anyway; is playing Nashville in November at the Gaylord. i figured i could swallow my pride and go see metallica, i mean, when am i going to get to see them live again and assholes or not, they kick much ass. the tickets are expensive but not quite out of the realm of possibility and it is just me; whoever i can convince/coerce to go with me would be responsible for their own tickets, i have vic`s blessing and finally the show is at Gaylord, no money for the evil Clear Channel. all paths are clear for me to go see metallica.

not so fast. the show is a Clear Channel Entertainment event. which in one fell swoop puts paid to my ability to go. i`m willing to turn a blind metallica`s greed, exorbitant prices and the household budget for the month of November, but at the end of the day i wont give up my tiny moral anthill.

i don`t support Clear Channel and their business practices and i`m not going to give them any of my money, even if i`m going to miss out on an opportunity of a lifetime.

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the ever changing seasons

September 22, 2004 — Leave a comment

time flies when you`re having fun. it`s hard to imagine that at this point last year, i had just resigned from a job i loathed and an employer i had no respect for and was having panic attacks.

i`ve been here, coming up on seven months, i`ve watched what passes for winter here, transition into spring, spring into summer and now summer into autumn. one stage of paperwork is done, i have a job, i`m supporting vic as she goes back to school and i am happy. not just content with where my life is, ecstatic. this is the happiest i`ve been in all my life. ever.

i think i`ve been afraid to voice it, because the gods are going to look at me at go, “hmmm, he`s too happy let`s make his life more difficult.”

we`re going to be struggling financially for some time to come, but i have a great deal of faith in vic`s talent and i`m willing to continue to struggle until she finishes school. there are people in worst circumstances than ourselves, we`re making enough money to keep ourselves housed and fed and make a stab at paying off our debt, besides it`s just money, right? but vic and i are in this together and that fact alone makes everything better.

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if i had a million dollars

September 20, 2004

well if i had enough money to not have to work another day in my life there are two things i would do; i would paint houses and pump gas.

for the first i`d probably join habitat for humanity just so i could paint and make a difference. i like painting, even ceilings, it`s a relaxing and calming occupation for me. a roller or a good brush, a container full of paint and a blank surface and i can find many hours of calm and comfort and no it`s not the fumes.

although the pumping gas might be about the fumes. gasoline is one of those smells that i like along with rain on hot asphalt and freshly printed material. those are the artificial smells that i can stand. i don`t most other manmade scents very well, even the thought of walking through the perfume section of a department store is enough to give me a headache, much less for the duty free section of the airport.

i can deal with some scents on people although i think most people tend buy stuff that they can smell on themselves and i think the reverse should be true. if you`re buying a scent for yourself, it should blend with your natural scent, it should be subtle, a gentle highlight; not an overwhelming assault.

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