Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts

18 July 2012

My (Continuous) Journey Through Orthodoxy

The last time I blogged about my journey through Orthodoxy I ended with, "However it all works out, in truth, both parishes are equally spiritual homes for my family and I that we love very much."

Since then, there has come updates. Let me link the first 2 parts of my story, first.
  1. My Journey Through Orthodoxy
  2. My (Continuing) Journey Through Orthodoxy
Well now, come October 1st, due to a change in what office I work at for Bank of America, we will be moving from Haltom City to Euless. Living in Euless, we will no longer be roughly equidistant from Saint Barbara Orthodox Church in Fort Worth and Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Euless. As such, effective October 1, 2012, we will be calling Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Euless our church home. Saint Barbara Orthodox Church in Fort Worth will now be almost an hour away from our new home.

I guess it makes sense since The Very Reverend Protopresbyter Vasile Tudora is my spiritual father and confessor, that his church becomes our family church, but I will miss The Very Reverend Archpriest Basil Zebrun and all of our church family at Saint Barbara Orthodox Church in Fort Worth when we move too. Of course I will be sure to attend during their festivals and special events, so it will not be goodbye forever come October 1st, 2012.

UPDATE: Later, a job took me to Dallas, and so we began to attend the nearest parish, Saints Constantine and Helen Antiochian Orthodox Church in Carrollton, and during the COVD-19 Novel Coronavirus Global Pandemic, we either watched the divine services from Saint Barbara Orthodox Christian Church in Forth Worth or Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in East Meadow, New York.

 

20 May 2010

My problem with the Arizona Immigration Law

My problem is not with it limiting illegal immigration. I think that is great. What is not great is what it does to LEGAL Immigrants and LEGAL visitors to America. Currently, my wife does not have to carry her Passport & Visa with her everywhere, as she is technically a non-immigrant spouse. Once she has a green card and is an immigrant spouse, she will. So if we visit Arizona, she has to take her passport. I can live with that. But do these Arizona police, who are racially and accent profiling even know what the visa stamps and hand written information mean? I will guess that many do not.

But here is where it gets hard. When my wife applies for immigrant status and a green card, known as "Adjustment of Status" or AOS, she has to send her passport and visa in to the government where they may have it for many months. So if we live in Arizona, does that mean she has to be like a prisoner on house arrest? Yes. And that is where this very flawed law hurts legal immigrants, who we should be applauding and helping while stopping illegal immigration.

Obviously this law was written by politicians who know nothing about immigration law, which is why it is best to have such laws written by a federal immigration committee that does.


14 August 2009

Busy Days!

Yesterday I deleted http://orthodox.blogspot.com - the original address of this blog (Orthodox Ecclesiology... and Insane Ramblings) that I had received from Justin Kissel after he abandoned the domain. It became my blog on Ubuntu and Yellow Dog Linux on Apple eMacs, iBooks, PowerBook G4s, etc. But now my Macs are all dead (save for an old G1 PowerBook that runs Mac OS 9 & YDL 3) and I exclusively use a Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 netbook. So now it is time for someone else to claim this domain for their own.

My wife comes to America in just 9 more days. So today I am doing a thorough cleaning of my house. Today is also laundry day, so busy, busy, busy!
Speaking of my wife, today I video chatted with her and her elder and twin sister on QQ. Then I cleaned the kitchen wall watching Star Trek: Generations. I m taking a break right now, I will post this then move on to my room and the bathroom. FUN!



24 February 2009

Insane Ramblings...

For those who are Google translator challenged, "Insane Ramblings..." is part of this blog's name. It is, and always has been, called "Insane Ramblings... and Orthodox Ecclesiology". I excel at the former (but not THIS good!), and I leave to your judgment how well I do at the later. Anyway, here are some insane ramblings for today.

The Chinese Restaurant Review Blog that never was...
I have long talked about reviewing Chinese Restaurants, as there are both good and bad ones in every city. In the last week I have experienced the über-disappointing "China Lantern" and the surprisingly excellent "Chong's Cafe Express" in Pueblo, Colorado, U.S.A..

Broken Glasses, Hidden Contacts...
This week my glasses broke while I was reading at home. So after a long time of not wearing them, I am back to wearing contacts every day. I had to find the first, as I am still not completely unpacked at our new home. But this super innovative cointact case that I got in ChangSha, HuNan, P.R.C. makes it much more tolerable IMO!

Wagons East...
Yes, for those who did not notice, we are now living in downtown Pueblo. Pueblo West was too expensive (and windy!). We actually love living downtown and it really feels like home. A nice feeling to have until we move again next year.

I am no Longer a Libertarian and am now a Communist...
Well, according to Juvenaly Martinka I am anyway. I think that is meant as a compliment as he is a big fan of KGB Agents Drozdov & Mikhailov. :-P Speaking of Facebook, I just was found by 2 friends that I have not seen or heard from in about 15 years! Since 1993 when my 16-year old daughter was only 1-year old! I wonder how different of a dad I will be with my next 1-year old child?

Free Pancakes at iHOP tomorrow...
Happy Shrove Tuesday!

Learn Mandarin, Cantonese, or any other dialect of Chinese for FREE!

16 December 2008

Whiny LaoWai ExPats

Recently at Hao Hao Report, (A site like Digg and Mixx for English language China stories) a story was mercifully buried where a foreigner in China was complaining that the average foreigner wage for someone with a degree and experience was "only" 131,000.00 RMB (Chinese Yuan Renminbi). Currently, that equates to over $19,000.00 USD (United States Dollars). Now, that very well may be low for an Americans working and living in the United States of America, but this is for people living in the People's Republic of China where EVERYTHING is cheaper! Keep in mind, that the average Chinese citizen earns only 10,000.00 RMB a year. I mean, even university graduates are only asking for 18,000.00 RMB a year!

Now at Lost LaoWai's community blog, a site I respect and enjoy a lot, one of the great authors is complaining about having to work 6 Sundays a year, meaning there are 6 6-day weeks to allow for some week-long holidays! I would love to work a 6 day week to get a week-long holiday! Wouldn't you?

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that Christianity gave us the popular 5 day work week (Saturday off for the Sabbath and Sunday off for the Lord's Day, the day of Jesus' Resurrection), and I am glad that Henry Ford started the standard 40 hour workweek of 5 8-hour days, with 2 days of rest, but occasionally working 6 to get 3-7 days off is not a bad trade-off either!

Seriously, anyone who goes to China should know what they are getting in to, but this complaining about making "only" 10 times as much as the average Chinese person, or occasionally having to work a 6-day work week, because you have a week-long vacation strikes me as whiny and petty. Am I alone in this opinion?

For the record, I work every Sunday and Saturday and work 5 days a week. 4 of those days are 12 hour days, and 1 day (Sunday) is a 7 hour day. My wife works 7 days a week. She works 12 hours a day, from 9:00-21:00 like me, but she gets the standard 2-hour Chinese lunch/siesta time in the middle of that day (like these complaining expats most likely have) too. For this, she earns 12,000.00 RMB annually and 2 vacation days per month that can be accrued and used all at once. Maybe that is why I have no patience for this seemingly petty whining?

Learn Mandarin, Cantonese, or any other dialect of Chinese for FREE!

21 June 2008

Hand Painted and Metal Greek, Russian, and Ukrainian Orthodox Icons for sale CHEAP! Moving Sale!


I am getting ready to move due to a new job, and besides needing cash, I found that I have a BUNCH of duplicate icons that I had put away and forgotten about! I am even selling some hand painted icons from Russia! These are some very beautiful icons, but with close of my mission and with my hundreds of icons that I own, I have no space to display them. My loss is your gain! All icon auctions are starting at only 99 cents American. See all my auctions on eBay at http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZfeisnik