Intial blog entry, and what's on my mind right now.

  I have been thinking about blogging for the last few weeks.  My fiancee, Charlene, has a few blogs and has been posting a lot over the last week or so.  So a bit about me.  I am 36 years old.  Born in Rochester, New York, raised in Portage Michigan and the Milwaukee area (Elm Grove, Brookfield), in Wisconsin.

So what's going on in my life right now?  Well for starters I am getting married in 11 days to the love of my life, Charlene Grommesh (Charlie to me and our friends).  Perhaps if I keep up with this on a regular basis at a later time I will tell the story of how we met and how we ended up together.  For now, let me say I am full of joy and fear.  Joy that in 11 days I will get to spend the rest of my life with a woman who has become my best friend, and my better half.  She pushes me to be a better person.  I feel blessed by God to have found her.

But like any groom to be I am scared.  Not cold feet.  Just thinking to myself "can I be the kind of Husband that she deserves."  You know stuff like that.  I have a history of low self esteem and anxiety so that plays into this.  I wouldn't be here wanting to move ahead with our life together if deep down I didn't think the answer was yes.  Not sure if that makes sense to anyone but it does to me.

I am also a huge University of Michigan football fan.  I am stoked because, I will be going to the Illinois/UM football game this Saturday in Ann Arbor.  I will be going with my cousin/best man Eric and my Uncle Kip and Aunt Deb.  I haven't been to a game since 2004 so this will be a lot of fun.

Finally, I am an election junkie and Obama supporter.  I am not feeling good about his chances at being re-elected at this moment.  He came into last week's debate with a 5 point national lead and solid leads in the swing states.  As of this morning he is at best a point ahead and losing ground in the states.  All because he couldn't put together a solid showing at that debate last week.

He let Romney get away with repackaging his conservative positions in moderate rhetoric.  If Obama loses this election it will be on him.  Not on hanging chads in Florida.  (Ask me in a day or two and my assessment of his chances may be brighter.)  So you can expect blog entries about sports, politics, my faith and life in general.  One final note:  In the tone of my blog entries, I am going to try to not cut down or make fun of people but try to stay generally positive and hopefully lifting people up.  Hopefully blogging will stoke a creative fire within me, and this will be the first of many pieces to come.  In the mean time here is a picture of my beloved as I call her, isn't she beautiful? (see above.)