If you have not been following the saga please read up.

This Sunday I get to fly out to Seattle for business. My company has an office located in Seattle WA and by coincidence, my father is located in Vancouver WA. He is driving up with Jeremy to meet me that afternoon. Pretty excited, should be really interesting and will post more info regarding the whole trip.

This past weekend was an interesting one.  On Friday I decided to communicate to George and let him off the hook so to speak.  The conversation did not go as planned or how I thought it would have.
Here is my email to him.

After my Grandfathers funeral I decided to perform a test.  I wanted to see who would blink first.  Me or you.  Would you reach out and phone me or stop by or send a card or something.  I felt over the years I was the one initiating the call and wanted to see if "Dad" would. 
 
So almost 2 years later and still no communication.  That's cool.  No big deal.  People are busy.  But in the back of my mind for many years now I always wondered.  Why is there something weird between us?  Why dont you call?  Why dont you take an initiative in getting to know who I am or who I became?  I understood why you did not when I was young, you were young too.  Rebellious, searching and trying to find yourself.  I thought you changed when you met Ruth and her family.  Especially when you had 2 kids with her.  Wow.  There is my "Dad" finally getting a head on his shoulder and doing what he did not do with me with them.  Cool.  Good for you. 
 
But still, why not reconnect?  I am successful.  Wife.  3 kids.  I am your first born...ahhh...now I know.  I am not your first born. 
 
I finally asked mom what the deal is.  She told me.  Everything makes sense.  No more lying or pretending needs to happen anymore.  I really dont care what the reasons or thoughts were back when I was born.  Luckily I had my mom and grandparents that helped me throughout my life to shape me to become the man I am today.
 
I reached out to Bill (my biological father).  He is out in Vancouver WA.  We are going to try and connect and see what happens.  Get him up to speed on all that happened over 34 years. 
 
If I sounded harsh I apologize.  I am not mad at you.  You thought what you were doing was right back in '73. 
 
In any case, maybe we can have a beer one day and put this behind us. 
 
Your move.

The response back was a little too intense to share, but definitely not the relief I thought it was.  He through my mom under the bus.  He was mad at my insults toward him did not answer why not reaching out to me.
A few more emails exchanged.  My intensity level grew a bit since I am not mad at him and just want to know why he was never around.  I did not know he was NOT my dad.  I just assumed he as a lousy dad.  I guess he did not want to hear that.  I guess he is a good dad to his 2 kids + 3 step kids.  I guess he thought he was not needed.
We spoke on Saturday and nothing really was accomplished.  He had no answers.  Kept bringing up the past.  He could not answer my question of why have you not contacted me in 2 years.  I told him I am not mad at him just disappointed in how all of this turned out.  My mom came over and my only comment was I should have known a long time ago.  I kept being disappointed by George time and time again and there was a reason for it but it was not shared with me.
I told George that it is his move.  If he wants a relationship then fine.  If not, no love lost.  I am moving on.

Please read What's Your Story? to get up to date on the story.

I get an email back on Thursday October 25th coming back from the Bayer pitch in New Jersey.  It reads the following:

well well well, i was wondering if and when you would try to get in touch with me. i was quite shocked when i saw that you had made an entry on my homepage. at first i didn't recognize the name because i knew your mom as Stacie . but when i read your name i realized who it was. . how is your mom? i hope things are going well. tell her i think of the two of you and wondered what had happened through the years.   where do you live? and what type of work do you do.? we'll have to chat more and hopefully be able to meet again and learn about each other. my phone number is 360-xxx-xxxx, it's my cell phone so you can call it pretty much anytime.. you must have noticed the pictures on geocities, well i live in Vancouver, Washington, and some nice country around here. anyway , say hi to mom and hope to hear from you soon............................................Bill ( Dad )

WOW!  Pretty intense.  So I phoned him that night.  We spoke for about 45 minutes.  Little weird but cool.  Few interesting things I found out.  I am not Irish, Scottish and Italian like I thought I was for 34 years.  I am Austrian and Italian.  So I think I need to redo Mrs. Stevens’s second grade book reports.  Bill lives out in Vancouver WA.  Very weird, since I am headed out to our Seattle office mid November.  I have a ½ brother Jeremy who is 27 and lives out in Washington too.  I have 2 uncles, Steve, who is in Mass and Valentine who is out in Germany.  Overall the conversation went well and I will be meeting up with him in mid November.

Now, I need to speak with George.

On Thursday I asked my mom if my dad was my "dad".  She kept silent on the phone and they uttered the words "I always wanted to tell you but did not know how".  Why on earth would I ask that question you must be wondering?  Well let me give a little background.  You can skip ahead if you know this already.

Background 
My mother and father were divorced when I was very young (10-12 months old).  In the early years my father, George, was around some at holidays and other times during the year.  As the years progressed the regularity of his visits dissipated.  He moved a little further away so the weekend drop-ins were substituted for week late birthday phone calls.  No big deal, I had my mom, grandparents and uncles that were always around and helped me out growing up.  I figured that is what divorced dads do.  They call every once in a while and stop by with some candy to make it up.
It wasn’t until I was in my later years of high school when George started to change.  He met his 3rd wife, Ruth, and started to settle down.  She had 3 kids of her own and brought some sense to an otherwise senseless man.  We started to communicate more, I would visit them for dinner and cookouts.  I was going on the assumption that he made a mistake early on and was trying to make up for it now.
When Gwen was born in 2002 I noticed a little change in the relationship with George.  I would be the one reaching out and making plans,  I would call him up on his birthday (Sept 18th and mine is Sept 19th).  He did not even know that Caroline was born in 2004.  At that time I decided I would see if he would initiate the call to me.  I saw him for the final time at my Grandfather’s funeral in February of 2005 and at that time I started my test.

Little more info

If you saw George you would say to yourself, Josh does not really look like him.  I never really questioned it or thought about it until my mom gave me a bunch of my old photos.  You know the ones when you were a kid, at a playground, school etc.  Well in there was a photo when I was about 8 months old in some guys arm.  I asked my mom who what was and it was always responded back as “a friend”.  My wife and I joked that he was my dad and one day I would ask my mom.  I never did because I never really cared to know.

Current Situation

Wednesday night I watch the Monday episode of Heroes.  In this episode Matt saw a photo of his father which he has not seen since he was 13.  He decided he must find his father.  I woke up that Thursday morning explaining to my wife that I think I need to do the same.  We spoke about this for about 10 minutes that morning and out of the blue the phone rings.  It is my mom.  So I ask her.  Is my dad my dad?  Silence overcame the phone conversation.  It was true.  George is not my dad.

Who is my dad?
Back in 1973 my mom was trying to divorce George so instead of paying for a lawyer at the time she moved to California.  She met a man named Bill Stulck.  She had a relationship with him and moved back to Connecticut some time later.  Back in Connecticut she informed George, who she was still married too, that she was pregnant and was going to have the baby and still divorce him.  George wanted to help raise the baby and told her to put his name of the birth certificate.  See above to see how that turned out.

The Contact
All of this info was processed in my head over a 30 minute phone conversation before work.  Pretty intense.  I spent the weekend trying to find him on Google and gather any info.  I ran across a photo gallery that seemed to point to him.  I found an email and sent the following to him:

Not sure if you’re at this email address but if this picture rings a bell please contact me.

Joshua Drew

I also left a comment on his gallery page stating:

Do you remember Rosemarie Anastasia?  1973?  If so contact me.

I will wait for a response.

There is something about an action movie.  The music, sound and explosions that are just cool.  Face/Off with John Travolta and Nic Cage was one of those.  Thinking back, I was jacked when I came out of that movie but I would never want to watch it again.  What about The Rock, same feeling, at least for me, but I would watch that movie in an instant. 
Listed below are my top 5 action movies listed in no particular order.  Just to be clear, my defintion of an action movie is cheesy plot or drama scenes and HEAVY action.  Braveheart would not fall under here which would be some other category since that was also a good movie.

•   Terminator 2 - I remember seeing this movie the Norwalk theaters on Issac St.  Waiting in line in the summer of 91 with a few friends.  The line was sooo long but the movie was worth it.  During the middle of the movie, it had to be stopped since someone tossed an M80 in the back hallway and scared everyone.  I picked this movie for a few reasons:  Schwarzenegger was at his peak, Guns N Roses had the theme song, big budget and special effects. 
• Spiderman - First off, I am a HUGE Spidey fan.  Comics fill my basement of Peter Parkers' adventures as the hero of Manhattan but with this movie I think the non-fan can accept that it was just plain cool.  I had my doubts at firsth, Toby Maguire as Peter?  Not sure about that one.  Other adaptions of comic to big screen have been a little over the top (ie Batman) or were corny (ie Superman 3).  How would they pull off his swinging from building to building?  Or his flexibility?  Well they did.  Computers and changing story line a bit worked out perfect.
• Independence Day – The world is going to end and the Fresh Prince will save us all.  With Wil Smith doing a good job of acting and selling his part and Jeff Goldblum giving the movie some credibility I can add this to the list without question.  This is a movie on a rainy Saturday you can put on and watch at any point in the movie.
• The Matrix – Talk about special effects, this one took the cake.  After looking at my list, the big thing in common was cinematography that was not performed before.  I think each of these movies broke new ground in one area or another and allowed it to be a totally kick ass movie.  Matrix totally does that.  It put Keanu Reeves back in center stage.  After Speed, he was kinda done.  This brought him back big time.  Much better than Johnny Mnemonic.
•  Transformers - See this. Wow.  Huge Transformers fan, loved the toys, comics, bedding and pajamas.  Running out tomorrow (10/16) to buy the DVD.