Well, ladies and gentlemen, it finally happened. Friday I became a real, bonified Perot Systems employee. No more independent contractor type work for this boy. A few things will be changing. Instead of getting paid hourly and once a week I will be pulling a salary and get paid twice a month. Instead of not having anything taken out of my paycheck I will now have all the normal taxes taken out that one would normally associate with being a company employee (aka I don’t have to worry about figuring out what my taxes will be at the end of the year, long boring story I will save you all from). I will now be supporting the actual Covenant Hospital computer systems, so everyone that had been wondering why they haven’t seen me if you work at the Covenant Hospital, chances are we will cross paths now. I also get a small change of scenery, moving from the Covenant Plaza building on 22nd Pl./Memphis to the real deal Covenant Hospital that faces 19th St. Another great thing is benefits, I will no longer have to worry if me still being on my parents health and dental insurance plans is ethical, I will now have my own. I’ll finally be able to start setting out and finding myself a doctor and a dentist here in Lubbock that I can loosely call “mine” like back where my parents live in Highland Village. This also will help to contribute to my changing of scenery, living situation-wise, in the next few months that I have been looking forward to now for quite a while. I think now that I can confidently, and within reason, call myself a man, an adult. I am now completely self-sufficient, monetarily, which to me is a huge thing that I have been desiring for a very long time. That also ties into what I feel has been my life long desire to create and be a part of a family. One day several weeks ago a friend and I were discussing that we felt we had reached a point in our lives where we felt the urge to take on the added responsibility of care-giver, provider, protector, husband, father, and spiritual leader (which as Christian men we are called to). We both noticed how last semester it clicked with both of us, and things became alot clearer as to why during one of Marcel’s Catholicism: 101 classes on relationships and Theology of the Body. He remarked that his goal in life is to get his wife and children into Heaven. That just really hit home with both of us as something we really wanted to do and something we felt we were ready for. So, I guess we could say we are beginning a different spot in our lives where there is no more “going out on the town on the prowl” for a lady as Mississippi Chris so eloquently put it last semester but, this urge to take on that amazing responsibility so ladies and gentlemen “here’s to the next step.”