Happy Anniversary Julie. I love you.

You know, they say that things will happen when they are supposed to happen and to try and force an issue knocks nature out of balance. In order to have Spring, you must have Winter. All things have to have a chance to mature, to grow and to evolve naturally in order for the balance to remain. You pick an apple too soon and yes, it's still an apple, but it's often bitter and bad for you to eat. Left to ripen and mature that same apple can come to be the best thing that you have ever eaten.

Relationships are the same way. In order to know love, you must have known heartache. And in order to find true love and happiness you have to allow yourself to open up and let someone else become more important to you than you are to yourself. When the time comes you don't feel it in your head or even your heart. You feel it in your soul.

Julie often asks me if I wished that we had met sooner than later, gotten married earlier, avoided all the heartache that we had suffered before? My answer is always NO. We met at the time in our life that God intended us to meet. If we had met sooner, out of sync if you will, then it would have thrown the balance of things off and all of those things that happened to us, that molded us into the people that we are, would have never happened and we would not have what we have today. Like high school sweethearts that break up and then come together again 30 years later. God had other plans for them and then brought them back around.

Most people don't know that while Julie and I were dating, I broke up with her because I wasn't ready to be married again. I didn't feel that it was right and I refused to fail again. I was afraid of that commitment. I refused to open my heart and soul and I couldn't see that the person I let go was the best thing in my life. It was during this time of reflection and self realization that I finally realized that I wasn't afraid of failure, I was afraid of SUCCESS. I was afraid because what I felt was, for the first time in my entire life, true, deep, passionate love and that her love for me was completely unconditional. No strings. No hidden agendas. Nothing. But. Love. I, like most people, thought that I had felt love before, but it had been a conditional, what's in it for me love. What Julie was offering me was a love that I had never felt before and it scared me. I ran because I kept waiting for something awful to happen. Once I overcame those fears, my life changed for the best.

11 years ago today I made the best decision I have ever made and I married my beautiful wife. If your interested in all the mushy details, you can read all about the here, Our wedding. Julie, I thank God every day that he brought us together when he did and that he opened my eyes and made me see what was right in front of me. The perfect woman for me. My soul mate. A lot of people use that term loosely; Soul mate. But I honestly feel that no matter what, we didn't meet by chance. We were joined by fate. Destined by God to meet. Our souls were brought together at the perfect time in our life's so that we could spent eternity walking beside each other, hand in hand. I couldn't ask for a better wife, friend, companion and lover. We have been through things that would and have destroyed most relationships. These hurdles, instead of driving us apart, have bonded us together.

Happy Anniversary Julie.

I will love you always.

Does this toga make my butt look nice?

Most of the time, being my size is really cool. Being tall has a lot of advantages Being very tall has a few more. But the disadvantages of my size are really bad. The worst of which is just the toll that it takes on my joints etc. But one of the biggest disadvantages is trying to find clothes. And the expense of said clothes. Take socks for example. It cost me about $15.00 a pair for my socks. 1 pair. Not a package of 12, 1 pair. My shoe's--17EEEE. Julie, bless her heart, got me a pair of slippers for Christmas. She thought they would be big enough, size 16, but they were to tight across the top of my foot and I couldn't even get them halfway on. So I took them back the day after Christmas and traded then for a pair of sweat pants. They had a sale on the sweats if you bought 2 pairs so I did. Of course they didn't have them in stock but promised to have them out in 3-5 days. Well they were back ordered. I got a call a couple of days later telling me that they would be here on the 8th. The 8th came and nothing. So I called and was told that they wouldn't get here until the 12th. Luckily they came in on Friday. Unfortunately they sent me the WRONG sweats. These things were lightweight workout pants that were see through. Yeah...Those of you that know me; Close your eyes and imagine THIS, all of me, in see through sweat pants. And no you can't send me the therapy bills. When I called the company they told me that what was supposed to have been ordered doesn't even come in my size. Pisses me off. I really wish I could just buy my clothes off the rack and not have to fight to find stuff to wear.

My biggest hurdle is jeans. They have always been hard to find and because of that I had to wear dress slacks to school as a kid. Quite the fashion statement. Now, I wear a size 54X40 pant. 54 waist, 40" inseam. Again, those that know me realize that for me, that's pretty proprtionate. A 54" waist on someone 7'4" is a lot different than one on someone 5'9". And that's the problem. The manufactures seem to feel that the bigger your waist, the shorter your legs. They will make jeans with a 75 inch waist but with only 30 inch inseams!!. It seems, according to the clothing manufacturers, that there is a mass population of very short, extremely fat people walking around the earth. These people would literally be round. Imagine the blueberry girl for Willy Wonka.

Over the years I would find a random pair of jeans that would fit. Not always the best fit, sometimes a little shorter than I preferred, a lot of times I had to get them unhemmed but I was actually able to have A single pair of jeans to wear occasionally. About 10 years ago I finally found a place that made jeans in my size. I . WAS. ESTATIC. I had jeans. Real jeans. They fit, they were long enough. They were comfortable. I felt, for once, like a normal person. I bought about 6 pairs. That's all I could afford. They have lasted me all this time but unfortunately they have all decided to fall apart at the same time. Every single pair has been patched and re-patched, sewed and re-sewed.  So I finally decided that it was time to buy new jeans. Therein lies the problem. The only place that I could get my jeans through decided to quit making my them. I had one place, literally, in the whole world that I could get them through and they decided to quit making them. And whats just too funny? There was an article in the Buyers Edge newspaper the other day where the columnist was complaining about a recent clothes buying trip. http://buyersedgeks.com/BuyersEdgeFlip/2013/January/index.php#/5/zoomed
She wrote that she went jeans shopping, tried on 9 pairs of jeans, got discouraged, and went home. She complained about the length, the waist, the hips, the color or that the pockets sag. She complained that the manufacturer's needed to realize that not all women are built alike. Oh BOO FREAKING HOO. Cry me a damn river. Do you need some cheese with that whine? At least you had over 9 pairs of jeans to look at. I'd shit golden Twinkies to be able to find ONE style let alone 9. At least you can go to ANY store and find something that fits. I know, I know, I've heard it before. "They make big clothes and shoes for the basketball players and football players. Shaq wore a size 22 and he got shoes." And they do. But if your not a celebrity and can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on clothes then your not important. Example. A couple of years ago Reebok came out with their Zig series of shoes. They were supposed to offer the best support of any tennis shoe and they had made a pair of shoes for the tallest man in the world. So I started calling. For 3 days I tried talking to Reebok, seeing what I needed to do to get a pair of these shoes. I finally talked to someone in the special promotions and corporate sales division. Their answer? Oh well we only make custom and special sizes for professional athletes, celebrities, etc. Basically anything that they can get some type of publicity from. But us average citizens? We're shit out of luck. I was just shocked. It didn't matter if I could afford the shoes, they just didn't make them available for the general public. Doesn't matter that they can and that they DO make those shoes in my size EVERY DAY, they just refuse to allow the general public to purchase them.

So while this woman complains about her pockets sagging, I need to find someone from Greece to teach me how to tie a toga.