December 2016

I started the month with getting the first Friday of the month off. I took advantage of this day by going to Standing Rock Sioux Native Reservation in the Dakotas. I was doubting first of going, but after doing this blog (Neutral Perspective: Dakota Access pipeline project’s Pros & Cons goodnewseverybodycom.wordpress.com ) from a neutral perspective and getting a lot of "hits'. I wanted to see this whole movement with my own eyes after getting frustrated with the "violence" going on between law enforcement and the "water protectors" (a.k.a. protestors) via social media (many friends on facebook sharing posts on this issue)...

(Picture taken right before leaving Rosebud Camp after three days with showering...lol)

If interested in reading my personal ventures, here is the 1st of 3-> My Personal Adventure Visit to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Reservation: Day #1 -Friday, December 2nd 2016

I had the 2nd Friday off from work again, which I took this time to install my new "water saver" toilet in the main floor of my rental house I live in. It went pretty well, which I wrote a blog on being "green" and eco friendly as part of my post-Standing Rock action (e.g. Living more of a "green energy saving life" by decreasing the dependency on fossil fuels). I even rode my bike first day going back to work in the mist or light rain.

I had more days off in December as I was trying to use all my vacation days that I didn't use since I like to save them towards the end of the year for "unexpected life" stuff (e.g. vacation to Hawaii 2 years ago). December is a month of many holiday celebrations, so I had a pretty "easy" month work-wise. I'm very blessed and thankful for my job!

On Friday (16th), my friends-co-workers and I went to see the highly anticipated Star Wars Movie: Episode 8-"Rogue 1". I ended up walking there in the cold wintry Friday evening and came early. There wasn't as many people as last year's "Force Awakens". I liked the movie so much that I had to go back on watching the 1st ever made -Episode IV: Star Wars-"New Hope" . I found so many parallels to these movies that I ended up writing a blog-> Movie: Star Wars Series Reflections goodnewseverybodycom.wordpress.com

My last day at work (full-time job) was on the 22nd as we had the Friday before Christmas Eve off, which was the start of a long 1 1/2 week vacation for both my ft and pt jobs! I used my vacation time for my part-time job, so I can spend a longer time in St. Paul with my my immediate family. I spent some quality time with them and did a lot of fun winter activities:

Went to the Mall of America with my sister and her friend, which we just went "window shopping" and walked the entire 3 1/2 floor (equates to 3 1/2 miles). Then 2 days later, my sister and I took our niece and nephew ice skating at the John Oval Roseville Skating Center...

Fitness: How to teach kids ice skating? goodnewshealthandfitness.wordpress.com
Sal teaching Nephew How to Ice Skate

I bought 4 tickets to see "White Christmas" the musical at the Ordway Theatre in downtown St. Paul. I took my parents and nephew with me, which was a great performance....

..it's based on one of my favorite Christmas holiday movies, which I loved watching since I was a kid. I ended up recording some songs (karaoke version) from it prior (Music: Karaoke-“White Christmas” by Crazy lil’ Sal ) and after (Music: Karaoke-“Count Your Blessings” by “Crazy lil’ Sal” creativemusicartsy.wordpress.com .

I then went back to Morris early Friday morning as I had to deliver newspapers with clients from my ft-job . I did some errands before going back to St. Paul the next day to bring a friend (Luciano from Brazil) to the airport that same day. When we arrived, we flew his drone behind my parents' home by Battle Creek Middle School. He shared a "live feed" of our time on facebook. My parents were awe about watching the footage as we saw a 360 view up in the air of our neighborhood. My brother took his son and nephew with us to go ice skating at Edina's Centennial Lakes Park ....

December 2015

The last month of 2015 started with a presentation (Sal's Presentation on the Philippines: Spanish Connection) I was invited to do at the Jane Addams Project, which I have been attending since it started 3-4+ years ago at the local university..

It was an interactive presentation I wanted to do to bridge the diverse attendees. The karaoke idea would ended up being part of the end of the semester's party too (Friday, December 4th). I bought this microphone at the local Radio Shack and just attached it to my electric guitar speakers, which made an easy "homemade" karaoke machine that I can use for the future.

Going back, I would attend the local college campus IVCF service as a friend came back to lead a "healing service", which was just a faith builder for all. He would lead a bunch of other college students to do a "Treasure Hunt" the following day, but I wouldn't be able to come since our local church had our once a month group worship practice.

On Saturday, December 5th-I went snowboarding (my friend Chris came along, but he skied) for the first time in 2 years. I wasn't able to go to Andes Tower Hills earlier this year because it was just too cold. When it warmed up in March, all the snow melted quickly :( I had to warm my self up, so I went on the bunny hill first. After awhile, I would end up going on all the hills that were open and ended-up in the biggest hill! :)

I would spend most of the 2nd week by working on the videos for the recent musical I videotaped for the local high school-> The Addams Family Musical .

During the 2nd weekend, some long-time friends that moved out of Morris came back to visit. We would hangout at the newest Mexican restaurant in town..

It was good to catch-up and to know my friend Eric is doing a lot better since his surgery. The following day (Sunday 13th), I played a video (Spoken Word: “Who Am I….”...

... I previously recorded with a short -testimony at church during the annual "Christmas Program".

The month of December has many great holiday parties and one of them is the annual "Tea Party" at my workplace. On Wednesday (16th), the weather was "horrible". In fact, many schools around the area cut out early, but we kept going. We thought the numbers were going to be really down, but we had a better turn out than expected with the weather. The next day, I would play some indoor soccer with a couple of friends (Michael & Chris), which was my cardio workout for the week! :)

On the 18th (Friday), some co-workers (Paul, Oray, and Olga) and I went to see the highly anticipated movie "Star Wars: . I was so pumped up after the movie that I ended up making a whistling video of the theme afterwards-> Music: “Star Wars” movie theme (whistling). The next day, I went to Andes Tower Hills again and took a friend/co-worker (Oray) and "tried" to teach him to snowboard..

It was a little colder than 2 weekends ago, so I actually wore my heavy winter jacket instead of my fall one.

The day before Christmas Eve, I was invited to videotape the Christmas program of St. Mary's School at the Assumption Church. Prior to videotaping, I went to a co-worker's party she hosted for us. Unfortunately, I parked on the side of the road and got stuck. This caused me to be late and ended up having some technical problems with my camcorder. Fortunately (thank God), I was able to correct it in-time, but missed several performers (kids playing piano) :( .

My work (pt-job) called me the day before Christmas Eve that I didn't have to work the over night, but I ended up staying in Morris (instead of going to St. Paul early) to work on the recent Christmas Program video and other "catching-up" projects (e.g. cleaning my house). It was actually a great start of my 1 1/2 week vacation. I would end up going "home" (St. Paul) to visit family during Christmas vacation-weekend. It was good to see family and help my aging parents out.

I ended up coming back to Morris to deal with some home appliance issues (water heater got old and was done) after my housemate/renter emailed me the problem. I came home to find a "leak" around the water heater, which was sign it was definitely finished and "NOT" fixable. Prior, I stopped at Menards to scout out the available water heaters, but didn't pick one yet as I didn't have the dimensions. I look back and wished I just took the chance and got one, IF a friend/Morris resident (I saw there) that happened to be there could've been able to load it back to Morris. Anyways, I ended up paying this plumber (Chris from Elbow Lake) to do the job after a couple of friends weren't able to.

I was thankful to God that I got it fixed and replaced as soon as possible (within 3-days). Couldn't find a perfect time for this to happen. I would have to work my pt-job (overnight) once this last week of the month before I went back to the cities to watch a theatrical performance at St. Paul's Ordway Center -> Sound of Music. I've been anticipating in seeing this since I first heard about it coming to St. Paul back in August/early September. It was all God's provision as I tried to buy these tickets for last week's performance, but couldn't find any "good seats". I even was about to purchase some "bad seats", but the computer wouldn't let me charge it to my credit card. I look back at this and feel it was definitely ad "Divine" work of God as it's rare that my credit card payment didn't go through when purchasing online. I happened to be playing on the computer to check out other performance days later and found a date (31st) of an "added show" that was "last minute" added...Praise the Lord! I ended up inviting my parents and nephew. My sister ended up tagging along with her fiance (James), but couldn't get closer seats because they bought it later even though I emailed my sister the "last minute show added" the day I purchased it, but she didn't want to take the chance with the weather. I ended up taking a risk as I saw this as an opportunity that might not be open again!

My highlights of 2015..

July 2014

The month of July started with "fall-like" (60's) weather as I recorded on my "praise book". On Thursday (3rd), we had worship practice. I had to work July 4th weekend, so on Friday I took advantage of our "day off" by cleaning my attic . I also did my blogs for both April and May as I've been so busy (just like right now on September 13th-I'm finally doing this and hope to do August too). On Saturday (5th), I attended the "Real Ministries" worship time (1st Saturdays of every month), which our (Morris Community Church) local church family hosted this. For this being a holiday weekend, it was a pretty good turnout. Most importantly, we were there for God! Please pray for this particular ministry led by college students as their hearts are to see God's family come together in unity (John 17).

I was grateful for a friend (Tony F.) paying my lunch at Pizza Ranch after church on Sunday (6th). We would later attend the Spanish service (Nueva Vida Iglesia) that evening together, which another friend (Pat) would bring his co-worker. It was awesome to see "others" join this Spanish church service that I've been attending now for the past 3-4 years.

On July 8th (Tuesday), I started a side landscaping job for some friends. They knew I dug a trench for drain pipes in my backyard years ago and they needed someone to do a house they plan to sell. It was an area between a nearby house, so they couldn't get a backhoe. I decided to take on the job as a great workout, which I finished within a week. However, he asked me to do remedial jobs (e.g. landscaping), which I would work several hours after my full-time job throughout the month of July. It was a great side-job and workout (instead of going to the local fitness center)! In the end, I calculated close to 23 (10 hours digging) hours!

During the second weekend of the month, I went to do my annual once a weekend visit to the Twin Cities. I took advantage of MLB (baseball) All-Star Weekend as Minneapolis hosted this year's national event. Prior to heading to the cities, I stopped over at Hometown Bakery as it was it's last days (closed the next day), which I had to get at least some items (pie for friends and cinnamon bread) for the "last time". On Saturday, I hung out with some friends at Square Lake (Stillwater, Minnesota) for a picnic. It wasn't the best weather as it was cloudy and sometimes they had to close the beach due to a forecast storm (never happened). It was a fun time hanging out with my buddy's family that I haven't seen for a long time. The next day (Sunday), I went to MLB Fan Fest 2014, which was a great time to see the different booths and activities all under one roof (Minneapolis Convention Center). On my way to this event from where I parked (next to the Target Center), I had the opportunity to share God's love with a homeless man. This made my time for this event more meaningful and worthwhile! I then walked back to the area by Target Field and had another interesting encounter. This time, I was eating my lunch at Barnes & Noble along Nicollet Avenue when a guy got arrested in front of me. He was taken by handcuff inside a squad car and would later be released. It appeared that he had some issue inside one of the MTC buses and the cops had to talk with each other before letting him go. I then walked around Target Field for some outdoor events before going in when the doors open for the Futures Game...

"I got a pic of the field during batting practice prior to the Futures Game

I found some great seats (behind homeplate), which cost only $37 at a retail price of $100. Following the game, I saw part of the MLB Celebrity Softball Game 2014 that was played 30 minutes or so after the game prior. I had to work the overnight, so I had to leave after the introduction of the "celebrities".

I would watch the rest of the All-Star week activities from home in Morris. It was nice to see our state in the "national" spot light during this annual baseball celebration event. I did a little organizing of my garage on Monday (14th) prior to coming down in my basement to watch the Home Run Derby via online (Satelite Direct).

On Friday (25th), I watched the last music concert (Word Will Spread (screamo rock genre music)by friends from church.

On Saturday (26th), I went to Moose Lake for my every other month visit of a friend that's sentence there for 7 years at the state prison. As I drove back to Morris, I stopped in Glenwood for their annual "Waterama Ski-Show". It was beautiful weather, as I wanted to soak the sun and enjoy the summer weather before I called it a day.

On Tuesday (29th), I attended my first and only softball game (Accelerated Chiopractic) of the season due to knee complications. I ended up scoring towards the end of the second game that night and I played catch with one of my teammate's kid. I wished I could've played :(!