Where to start?

Yes, we're almost 10 days into 2010 and I'm just now sitting down to post for the first time in almost three weeks. Been busy, what can I say?

Work continues. My contract has been extended out to the end of April and I suspect will be extended again after that. I'm no where near done with what needs to be done for Project and Visio, let alone having Acrobat and Visual Studio also added to the pile. I suspect my blogging time may get shorter as the prospect of overtime soon approaches. I'm almost at max capacity now with 40 hours, adding more to the pot means more hours. My boss is aware of it and may be able to leverage that into adding another person.

The holidays were ok. Got to spend Christmas day with Dominik clan, then went out to Jones clan for New Year's. I did take the second oldest niece's boyfriend out with me. Good boy, kept his mouth shut on the way out and back.

The weekend was a great reminder as to why I don't have kids. There were 7 of them between 7 and 17, and all of them had some type of drama going on.

Unwittingly, I got myself in the middle of one of them by bringing the boyfriend out. The oldest has a boyfriend out in Massachusetts, so her younger sister having her boyfriend in the house hurt, a lot. I sat down with her before I left to find out what's going on. Once I got her to open up, the dam burst and it all came out.

Looks like I'll be taking a trip to Boston and Cape Cod, either in April or June. I suspect it will now be June, since their school was closed both Thursday and Friday this week, so they will lose their Easter break days off. That's OK, it gives both of us more time to save the money for plane tickets, hotel and transportation.

That also meant sitting down with the parents to explain to them what I was hearing. The oldest doesn't feel like they are listening to her, cutting her off in the middle of a thought, she loses her train of thought, gets angry and stomps off. So Aunt Beth steps in, clears the air. Now we need to hammer out some rules about how this trip is going to come together.

I can sympathize with her. She can talk to, email and text her boyfriend. The one that I care about, I can't let him know I care. He's married, his daughter is pregnant and due in March, and he doesn't yet know I know. I walk on eggshells, trying to be helpful without giving away how I feel about him.

I may not have a choice about it. I had a couple of meetings with him that left me energetically drained dry, even though I was sending him as much energy as I could. I finally called him on it, asking what he knows about energy flows. Turns out his father teaches tae kwon do, hapkido, tai chi and Qigong, and he's a tae kwon do instructor himself.

The sticking issue is the energy flows he knows are all internal - he doesn't yet know how to tap into the Universal energy source. Instead, he becomes an energy vampire and tries to suck people dry. I've had a couple people come to me and ask how I deal with him because he intimidates people with his intensity. I told him that, and he's a bit baffled.

Now I need to teach him how to tap into that Universal energy source. In telling him the story of how I know what I know, he may figure it out. Then again, he may not.

Meanwhile, he's given me a key to helping me let go of the weight. After I learned about his martial arts training, something in me clicked. I was emailing back and forth with P Monday morning, and about the same time we came up with the same conclusion. My body will let go of the weight as I learn how to defend and protect myself. That means going back to the martial arts, specifically kung fu.

Why kung fu? It's what calls to me. Blame it in part to Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and my lusting after Chris Potter. I did learn a few things from the show, and it brought into my life some books and tapes that I'm now digging out because I need them.

I'm also signing up for classes. This place follows the old traditions of not having belts and degrees, much like the Shaolin temple does things. You progress at your own pace and get what you need. I went to class today and was the only one there, so I got Sifu Naylor all to myself. We worked on basic footwork, basic handwork, a bit of self defense. There are three others in the class, two of which will be out for the next month or so. Looks like I started at a good time.