Calvin - Bye-Bye Bee Buddies

For those who don't know I've been trying my hand at keeping bees.

 Last year, they all died during the winter, this year I just checked on them again and they just decided to leave. No corpses this time just no bees! Maybe next year will be better. Third times the charm!

Let's Catch Up!

 A Max mentioned, I'm an editor at heart, not an author, so I'll leave the eloquent storytelling to others.

Aside from feeling old after rereading some of the original blog posts, I'm doing alright for myself! I'm still hangin' out in (and loving) Columbus, OH. I have an amazing gorgeous fiancé, as well as a mostly-toothless, incredibly spoiled, secretly adorable cat named Jack. (They were a package deal.)  Matt and I both work from home full-time in a townhouse we rent downtown. He does whatever 'data analysts' do for PNC, and I work for Safelite smoothing out concerns brought up by any insurance company that has a standing contract with us. 

'Fun' fact: if you call about a glass-only claim for your car, you're probably talking to someone who works for Safelite. Apparently none of the major car insurance companies want to handle their own glass claims. It seems like a strange business structure to me, but I enjoy the daily problem-solving adventures of my job... and the working from home!  

Matt and I took a couple trips recently to visit his mom (TN) and dad (CA), so we're enjoying being home this week before lots of fun upcoming plans and wedding planning fun this summer. 

In all honesty, every diary I've ever tried to start lasted about 2 whole entries, but I'll do my best to pop in here with pics and updates whenever the brothers remind me! 😋

Sentimental Columbus spot where Matt proposed ❤️

Flying over the mountains to get to CA 

Getting on the boat for whale watching in CA. 

We saw whales too, but I got much better pictures of the dolphins. 

Found the best saltwater taffy of my LIFE (also in CA). www.balboacandy.com

Matt and Jack! (and my overflowing board-game bookshelf)

Us ate Easter a couple years ago, but I love this picture! 🥰

Jack enjoying the sunshine the other day, being his usual adorable self! 

Just me petting Jack! Nothin special goin on here! Oh, oops! How did that ring get there!? 

Winding down the week

Thursday at Pirate’s Club

Mom and I had a busy week so we walked to dinner in downtown, then enjoyed a lazy evening!

Max - Asheville, N.C.

The Drive

    The road twists and turns, slithering as an unassuming snake, gliding through the underbrush of the dense forest. Under the crushing weight of the pavement and the endless parade of travelers, the mountains stand tall and resolute. We can pave over them, find ways around them, through them, but they will always be there, unmoved.

    The mountains are ancient. The air here is lighter but there is a certain density to it, an oppressing force. The higher we ascend, the more the heavens seem to push back. I can't help but get the feeling that this is a place not meant for man. Far away in the dense cities of the world it is easy to think that we have triumphed over nature, beat it into submission with our titanic powers of industry, but out here, it is different. The roads are cracked and splintered, roots and weather have caused destruction at an uncombatable rate. The buildings are worn and overgrown. I can feel my car whine in protest, it yearns for the planar country. 

    I felt inflated like a balloon, drifting along guided by the subtle, unseen winds. It is a complex swirling of emotions inside me, not just happiness, but trepidation and anxiety, elation and excitement; I feel full. The uncertainty of the unfamiliar is a terrifying lake to jump into, but there is something strangely addictive under the mirrored surface.

    I had intended to spend my first night at a campground, tucked away in one of the many national forests along my path. Things never go to plan. I am adapting to this new lifestyle cast upon me by what is commonly referred to as, the real world. Gone are the days of summer break and stress free vacations. This previous illusion so shattered, that I had forgotten summer break was ever really even a thing. Let me be the first to tell you, claiming a campsite, late in the evening on one of the first weekends of summer, is no easy feat. I had seen that there were four campsites available on a first come first serve basis, but I was neither the first to come nor the first served. The campground was overflowing with summer people, some sites had 10 or 15 people sitting around their picnic tables.

    Though some of my air had been released, I would not allow myself to be deflated. This was part of the excitement, if everything were to work out exactly the way you wanted it to, life would be boring.

    I ended up spending that night in a cheap motel. It was delicately placed on the side of a mountain, the driveway was steep and intimidating. There were three cars in the parking lot. I walked into the lobby to be greeted by only the sounds of my own footsteps. The lobby was dilapidated and abandoned, upon the counter there stood a yellowed sign that read, "Back in five minutes."

    It was not five minutes.

    The front desk attend was polite, if a little abrasive, but the room was very clean. The sheets were white and the carpet was free of stains, despite my best efforts, I couldn't find a single bedbug or roach, a step up from my the garage I now called home.

    The motel was situated no further than twenty feet from an active railroad track. Every thirty or so minutes another engine would go screaming by, blaring its horn with all its heart. I could have been bothered by it, I could have spent my night, twisting and turning, pillows stacked high on my head in some feeble attempt to muffle the sound. I could spend my whole night, waiting for a quiet that was never going to come. I did not want to do that.

    I stepped out onto the balcony, I had a perfect view of the tracks. I stood there and waited. A train came along. I could smell the engine, the metal and the oil, I could feel the ground shutter beneath my feet, the way the air shifted to accommodate this unstoppable force. 

    I was reminded of late summer nights in Batesville. We lived near to the tracks and I often found myself comforted by their etherial whistle, calling out to me while the rest of the world lay silent. That night was no different, the wave off nostalgia and the warm summer breeze was comfortable. I slept better than I had in a while.

Train-side Motel

Calvin is 25! cont. and Calvin Current Life Summary

 My birthday was fairly uneventful, which is how I like it. Mainly just an excuse to eat cake (Chocolate Bumpity Cake from my local Italian Bakery):

 

But also a sincere thanks for all the gifts and well wishes!

Current Life Summary

This may be duplicate info for some but I'm going a little ways back: To catch anyone up I graduated from the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities in 2016. Then I moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan where I graduated in 2020 with a B.S. in Computer Science and rolled over an internship with Michigan Medicine into a full-time job where I have been working since. In 2021, a friend of mine's dogs had a litter of puppies, and I adopted one and named her Petra.

 

 At the beginning of 2022 I bought a house and moved out of crazy expensive Ann Arbor to Garden City a much cheaper place to live and a half acre of fenced yard for Petra.

Then mid-late 2022, my life kinda hit the fan when I had a massive seizure in my sleep thankfully my girlfriend at the time was there and called 911 so I woke up in the ER instead of just with a bloody nose on the floor. They did some scans and found a mass in my brain. Then came the biopsy and cancer diagnosis: grade 3 glioma, anaplastic astrocytoma. I was referred to a neuro-oncologist and neurosurgeon. Fairly soon after I had an awake craniotomy where they managed to get about 90% of it removed in spite of the fact that it was large and diffuse. After surgery came radiation and chemo which was miserable as to be expected, and of course more seizures during this time. Finally as things were getting into a bit of a routine mid-2023, my mom received a call from the hospital that I "had a change in status", which turned out to be a full code cardiac arrest. Eventually i.e. after 6 months of no explanation or idea if it was gonna happen again I finally had a cardiac functionality test/surgery and they found it "surprisingly easy" to put me back in an abnormal heart rhythm that could result in a cardiac arrest again so they implanted a defibrillator while they were in there, into my side that monitors my heart rhythm and will shock it back to normal if needed. Since then I've recovered from that surgery, we think we finally have my seizure meds under control (knock on wood), and my best-friend now fairly serious boyfriend, Ethan, has moved in with me.

 

 I know that's a bit of a novel but now I'm still working full-time remotely as a developer at U of M but recently started consulting/getting in on the ground floor of two of my coworkers' startup as a project manager and web-dev subject matter expert with the goal of being more, as well as studying Veterinary Nursing remotely through Purdue.

Day One of our New Blog - Calvin is 25!

We have decided to transition to a family blog so the burden doesn't all fall on mom I figured I'd start because it's my birthday and the very first post of the very first blog was also my birthday:  Original Post. I'll post a longer one later today or this week sometime, but welcome back to 3boys1girl:Empty Nest Version!

- Calvin