It's been a while

Hey there,

I think the last time I posted anything here was on the last day of my trip to Japan.  Well, I suppose it's time to dust off the old blog and post a little more.  I have 2 important things happening these days.  The first thing is smaller (but still awesome!) than the first so I'll get that out of the way.  2 weeks from today I am flying to Seattle to meet up with my great friends Matt & Rachael along with their 2 kids, Ben & Josh.  We will all be boarding the Carnival "Miracle" and taking a cruise to Alaska.  I've always wanted to take a cruise and Alaska sounds like a beautiful place to visit.  While on this cruise, I plan on taking a helicopter to see a glacier and also getting a chance to ride a dogsled!  I will do my best to write down what happens daily.

Now I come to the real reason I wanted to post something on this blog.  I have recently taken the very first step towards something I have wanted to do for years now - become a father.  I signed up with the IAC (Independent Adoption Center) here in Los Angeles and am taking the beginning steps towards adopting a newborn boy or girl.  I spent the first few months of 2013 studying the various ways of becoming a single father before finally making my decision in late April.  I am going to be doing what is called an "open adoption".  This is where the birthparents stay in the life of the adoptee and adoptive parents.  This is done for the benefit of the child, so that they might have answers to any possible questions they may have while growing up.  It also means that the birthparents choose who will be adopting their child.  I do understand that being a single male means I might not be picked as fast as a couple might, and I am OK with that.  It has been and will continue to be my opinion that the child I get is the child I am meant to have.
On my birthday I officially signed up with the agency and 2 weeks after that I had my very own Home Study house visit.  It went smoothly and the only issue was not having poisons locked up in my garage. I went out that day and bought supplies to correct that issue, so I will have no problems passing the inspection on the second visit.  I hope to have all my paperwork in before I leave for the cruise, so I can focus on step 2 once I return - the "dear birthparent" letter. As there are not a lot of single men who sign up for adoption, there are not a lot of statistics out there to let me know how long this will take.   I anticipate the possibility of not adopting a child until late 2014 or even sometime in 2015.  I just have to be patient and see what happens.

This does not meant that I am not still watching and reviewing movies in the meantime.  Just this past weekend I finally saw "The Maltese Falcon" for the very first time.  This weekend I will see a movie in the theaters and write a full fledged review of it.  It will either be "Hangover 3", "Now You See Me" or the smaller film "Much Ado About Nothing".