Welcome To My World!

I'm Matt, and this is my blog. I have attempted to be a consistent blogger in the past with varying levels of success. I tend to start off strong and then slowly fade as other things get in the way. My wife Julia is a much more diligent and successful blogger than I am, but this is my attempt to get better and stick with it. I have a lot of varied interests, including reading, writing, dogs, fitness, technology, politics/world affairs, ice hockey, cooking (particularly grilling and smoking), hiking/geocaching, fire/rescue, and mixed martial arts. All of these topics (and more) are likely to come up in this blog at various times.

I have two additional interests, however, that are passions. The convergence of them has created the title of this blog. I am an enthusiastic student of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (thus the grappling portion of the title), and I am about to embark upon the most life-changing adventure of my life. Yes, fatherhood is on the immediate horizon!

Julia and I are in the late stages of adopting a boy from China. We are estimating we will be traveling to China to pick him up around May. He is 17 months old and, according to all reports he is very healthy and very much on track developmentally. He is presently living in an orphanage in Beijing and his orphanage name is Yu Jian Dong (which apparently roughly translates to "Winter 2009" which is when he was found), but we are going to name him Zachary Clark Miller. A picture of our son Zach is below:



Needless to say, we are very happy and very excited to finally be parents. Our preparation and travel to China will all be chronicled in this blog as well as our family blog, which can be viewed here