My Life Since May 2012

This is now updated to include things that have happened in the past year.  It was originally posted in March 2013.

A lot has happened since I posted my last blog entry, in May 2012.  I pursued graduate studies at the University of Colorado, in the department of religious studies, in the fall semester.  However, I discovered that I do not have the stamina to make it through another graduate program after completing law school, especially with the very poor job market in academia, so I decided to take the bar exam yet again.

I have since moved to Washington State, passed the California bar exam (I didn't know we were moving to Washington until after I signed up for the CA exam), and I took the Washington State bar exam last month (I have not yet received the results).  I am now a licensed attorney in the state of California living in the Seattle area.  Even though almost all of my family and friends are in Colorado, Timsy and I could use a change of scenery for awhile, having lived in Colorado since we were both small children.  I also do not like snow at all, and I do not miss it (it snowed twice our first winter in Seattle, and melted within a day or two both times, which compared to Colorado and its seven to eight months of off-and-on snowfall, felt like nothing).  After spending nine months here, I can safely say that I would take Seattle's fall-winter-spring mix of dampness, cloudiness, and drizzle over Denver's fall-winter-spring mix of dryness, sunshine, and snow any day.

In 2013, my friend Chris B. and I recorded, mixed, and mastered an album of rock music that we began working on in 2009.  We had a band at one point, but that sort of fizzled out, so I played all the instruments on the tracks we recorded last year.  I never thought I would be able to learn the drums, but I have learned them at least well enough to play for my songs.  Our music is first and foremost hard rock, but it has influences from Celtic rock, folk rock, psychedelic rock, and heavy metal as well.  The single biggest influence on it is without a doubt Led Zeppelin, but there is also noticeable influence from Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Doors, and The Beatles.  Still, I think our sound is quite unique.  Our band is known as New Sages.  Our album is available at http://newsagesband.com.

In addition, I have written my first book.  It contains both an autobiographical account of my (mostly negative) experiences with Christianity and a series of arguments against Christianity.  For a variety of reasons, I have concluded that the basic narrative that would have to be true in order for Christianity to have any real persuasive power is not in fact true.  As a result, I have renounced any belief in or affiliation with Christianity, and I could not be happier about it.  (I will provide a link to my book once I put it online, but I am still editing and revising it.)  I now self-identify as a philosophical Daoist (or Taoist), and I also practice Buddhist mindfulness and Hindu raja yoga.  Where Daoism and another tradition conflict, I generally agree with the Daoist view, but not always.  Sometimes I agree with no major tradition.

My wife is doing well.  She left Qualcomm's Boulder office, and now works for Microsoft, which is why we moved to Seattle (we are in Bellevue, since it is closer to the Microsoft campus than Seattle proper, which is separated from Bellevue and Redmond by a massive lake that can be kind of a pain to cross during times of high traffic, since there are only two bridges that cross it, and it takes a really long time to drive around it).  We enjoy spending our evenings together, including hanging out with our stuffed llama.  He has become like a pet for us, only much lower maintenance than a dog, cat, hamster, or even a fish.  Every time we feel a little down, our llama is there to cheer us up.

My little sister got married in November 2012, and will graduate from her physicians assistant program this summer, which is exciting.

Overall, life has been good lately, and I have worked harder than ever before to achieve my goals and dreams for my life in the last year, and have become more committed than ever to both my own freedom and the welfare of those I love.