A Long Overdue Update

Man, I really need to update this page a bit more often! The main problem, of course, is that when I first started this page I honestly felt my life was pretty much over. Not that I felt like I was dying, mind you, simply that I was single, had a steady job, and really didn't see any prospects for getting married, having children, changing careers, etc. Life does have a way of surprising us, though....

Anyway, Jun and I got married on April 26, 2003 and had a wonderful honeymoon in Vegas. We wanted to travel to Europe, but she was still on an H1B visa and didn't want to risk traveling outside the U.S. for fear they wouldn't let her back in. So, we went to Vegas and stayed at the Venetian and visited the Paris, the Luxor, and all the other themed casino/hotels, and it was like a poor man's hallucinogenic tour of Europe. Kinda, sorta.

Right after the honeymoon, we moved into our very own home in Malden, Massachusetts. Jun was actually living in Malden when I first met her, so she knew the area pretty well and felt comfortable about it. Plus, it wasn't very far away from where I was living before (meaning my commute to work wouldn't dramatically increase) and it was on the subway line (meaning Jun could get to work easily as well). The house is definitely a starter home (it's actually a townhouse/condo, one of three units joined together), but it suits our needs. For now.

Not much changed for awhile until, of course, Jun got pregnant. I won't go into all the details of the pregnancy. Suffice to say we all survived more or less in one piece. And the end result was an absolutely adorable little boy named Joshua Jinlong Goldberg who officially joined the human race, kicking and screaming, on January 31, 2005.

At the same time, Jun's parents moved in with us for an extended year-long stay. Again, no details, but suffice to say we all survived more or less intact, and they're gone now.

Right after Joshua was born, I ceased getting much sleep. Which is, of course, to be expected. For many months I felt like I was a member of the living dead zombie club -- always tired (especially in the evenings), no energy whatsoever, headaches, you name it. I tried to compensate by increasing my daily intake of Mountain Dew, but it didn't help. Finally, around July or August of 2005 I went to see the doctor to have my blood pressure checked because my headaches were getting worse and weren't going away. As it turned out, my blood pressure was a bit high, although not horribly so. Unfortunately, the doctor also told me that I was a bona fide diabetic, just like my father and older brother. No big shock there, I guess, but still not the news I wanted to hear. To make a long story short, I immediately stopped drinking Mountain Dew and went on a reduced carb diet. After 5 or 6 months of this, along with a daily regimen of a drug called Metformin (a.k.a. Glucophage), I managed to drop close to 30 pounds. When I went to the doctor, she informed me that my blood sugar was back to normal (as was my blood pressure and cholesterol) and that technically I was no longer a diabetic. Of course, since I was still taking the medication and reducing the sugar in my diet, I knew that I was only one Mountain Dew away from becoming a diabetic again, but it was nice to hear. Since then I've tried and failed to lose any more weight (mostly for vanity's sake, but I'm sure it would also be healthy to do so), but at least I've managed to keep the weight I've lost from coming back. A big part of that is simply the fact that I've never gone back on the Mountain Dew. I was drinking 30-40 ounces of the stuff per day for many, many years, and I'm convinced that it single-handedly caused my diabetes. It is pretty much pure sugar water, after all.

Anyway, that's about it for me. Jun has her own issues, of course, but they're not for me to discuss in an open forum such as this. Joshua is now 15 months old and he's running all over the place and keeping us busy. He babbles a lot, but isn't really saying much intelligible yet. And he's still completely adorable. I'm still at the same job, and my responsibilities have expanded so that I'm now managing a department consisting of two other writers. After getting married I stopped buying any more pocket watches, since we're trying to save money toward a larger house in the next couple of years. Instead, I picked up a new hobby involving photo manipulation (a.k.a. "Photoshopping") which is a lot of fun and doesn't cost nearly as much as collecting antique clocks and watches. And, just recently, I officially opened Barry's World, my on-line store at Cafepress.com. There you can find all sorts of merchandise, including t-shirts, hats, mugs, posters, etc., emblazoned with my original designs. Cool, huh?