Great/Good/New Birthday Weekend

This past birthday weekend has been a mix of great news, good times, and new experiences.

The Great News:  This weekend I found out that I passed the FE, The Fundamentals of Engineering Exam.  This was a long, strenuous, and tough test that I took earlier in the spring.  It was an 8 hour exam from 8 to noon in the morning and 1 to 5 in the afternoon.  This test also took place during one of the toughest emotional weeks of my life and coming up to it I thought I was not prepared at all, even though walking out of it I felt very good, I was still nervous about my results.  But the results were good and now I can look forward to getting my Professional Engineers License in the future.

The Good Times:  This weekend was also a great time to get away from Auburn with a couple of my friends, Carlos and Hanson, and go up to the lake with my family.  The lake has been a sort of heaven on earth for me during my lifetime.  It has been one of the few places on earth that I have been able to find peace and really relax and enjoy life for a while.  This weekend was great to see family and enjoy boating, tubing, drinking, and just relaxing with great family and friends.  I could not ask for a greater family to be a part of and am so blessed to have the friends that i have and many thanks for all the birthday wishes.

The New Experiences:  This weekend was also filled with a couple of new experiences.  The first of which was that this year was the first year EVER that my twin sister, Megan, and I did not celebrate, blow out candles/open presents, our birthday together and it was a weird feeling and I missed her not being there more than she probably knows.  Also, this was the first birthday that I did not get to enjoy in the presence of Doc.  You know we miss him and you know we love him and I know that all day he was looking down on me and Megan and watching over and praying for us right there beside Uncle Mike and G.G..

Overall is was a good Birthday and 23 years of life has taught me that there will be good times and there will be bad times, tough at times it might feel like the bad outweighs the good.....

"Life is an Adventure, Live It and Love It"

[ John 16:33 ]

My Cake of Choice: Angel Food with Chocolate Icing, made every year by Grammie

Ronald W. "DOC" Dunbar: 1935-2012

Doc and Me at the Grand Canyon

From the Obituary: (Ron Dunbar Obituary AJC)

Doc was my Mother's Father.  He was a gentle and loving man who filled his life fully with his Faith, Family, Friends, and Fun.  He and I enjoyed going shooting anytime that I was in town from college and even had a chance to go the Saturday before Easter this year, less than 3 weeks before he died.

I also got a chance to come home last Saturday and see him, within a week of his passing.  I got a chance to talk to him for a good 20 minutes about random life things.  It was amazing and such a blessing to know that even up to the moment of his death his mind was one hundred percent there and he could talk to and hold a conversation with anyone and everyone.  When it was time to leave I said goodbye to him and shook his hand.  I did not know that that would be the last time I would see or speak to him, but I think somehow he knew because the handshake that he gave me was the strongest handshake that I think I have ever gotten from him.

It was an honor to be his grandson.  He was a man among men and epitomized what a true Catholic Man, Husband, Father, and Grandfather should be.  I hope that I can live up to be a close to the same great man that he was and he will be missed, but always loved and remembered.

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”   ― Ralph Waldo Emerson