What's in a name?

Hmmmm. It appears that my first attempt at blogging was a success! Now I'll need to go through the boxes in my garage and see if I can't find my digital camera...

So, what's in a name? (I dunno. A couple proper nouns?)
Whatever. It's the best I could do for the title today. :)

(Stick with me and I'll eventually get to the point.)

My name is Chad.

It's maybe not the name I would have picked for myself if given the opportunity to pick my own name, but it's as good as any other.

My college degree is in Speech Communication: Radio/T.V. (Notice that it's "SPEECH COMMUNICATION" and not "WRITTEN COMMUNICATION WITH GOOD SPELLING AND THE CORRECT USE OF GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION!")

One would think that with a speech degree, along with having worked at a call center for just over a year during my younger days, that when I say my name the person on the other end of the phone wouldn't hear "Josh" or "John" or "Jeff" or "Chet" or "Jed" or any of the other names they repeat back to me.

I don't correct them for I know I'll take whatever info they wish me to pass along as accurately as they give it to me. However, I admit that every so often I do have the urge to say, "No. It's Chad. Ch-Chad-duh!" (like I have both a stutter and Tourett's - although I probably spelled that wrong) just so they get the name right the next time they call!

My last name is of Polish origin. I've worked with people for several YEARS that still don't know how to say it. I'm easily amused, so I let them slaughter it to whatever extent their interpretation of the name is. (After all, the twin has adopted the Polish pronunciation of it, where the "v" and "t" sounds often find themselves being substituted for the letters actually used in Polish last names. My immediate family doesn't even all say it the same!)

* Yes, I'm still working toward the point.

I think of myself as being a positive person. I'm honest with myself just as I'm honest with those I work with. I've worked for what I have and I take care of what I've worked for. I appreciate nature and the simple things, and I appreciate the fact that smarter people than I have developed the technologies that make my life easier. I'm patriotic. I believe in a higher power. I'm thankful for my health, my friends, and my family.

I'm thankful for my kids.

I do my best to be a good person and hope they follow in my footsteps in the parts of parenting and adulthood where I've been a good example. I do my best to prepare them for whatever part they play and hope they're better at it than I've been.

I keep my name blemish free. I do so as a gift to my parents and so that it's a name my own children can be proud of, no matter how oddly it's pronounced. :)

Seriously, it's ironic that the income of a job is hardly worth the cost of the time you miss with your children when they are still with you. It's so true how fast the time goes by.

I've put off getting a computer at home as I've heard on the news that the average grade of a student who's on facebook will drop 1 full letter grade. Bummer. I've heard about a couple of murders of females who were lured to their deaths by some not-quite-mentally-stable person's add on Craigslist. I've read the story about the psycho bitch that pretended to be a boy online and was the cause for her neighbors' daughter committing suicide. I fully expect that the creepy people of the world think of themselves as being normal. I think the gate from sanity to insanity is on well lubed hinges and it only swings in one direction.

I know that I live in a small town, and that as I add personal info about my life and my kids that it can be viewed by anyone who comes across it, and that it really wouldn't be that hard to pinpoint the actual location of where I reside - if one was inclined to do so.

Which finally brings me to my point.

I'm good at seeing any given situation from several different angles. Please see this from mine.

It's my guess that an online sexual predator will research the info available to them. If you are the type of person who is attracted to boys, (minor boys - for clarification) and doesn't have the self control to stay your creepy @$$ away from them, you are not welcome here. Like I've stated earlier, I've done all I can to prepare my children for life. Naturally, I've filled them in on some of the darker sides of it. They know that no adult will ask to enter my residence if I'm not there and they've been provided with phones with which to reach me for EVERY INSTANCE where someone they don't know comes to the door.

So...If you have trouble understanding the "not welcome" part of that - please position yourself in such a way that they also take out the refrigerator and the door going to the garage - as both are getting replaced this this year, anyway.

To everyone else, Welcome! :)