Pin the Star on the Pig

UPDATE: I have uploaded photos... You can view the Pinning Ceremony Photos here...

This is not directly about the Hay family, but it is about my wife Cresencia's brother (and she is a Hay, ha-ha!)...

On Friday, my brother-in-law Jeff had his 'Pinning Ceremony', and took his oath to become a Chicago Police Officer. It has been a life-long dream of his to become a police officer, and he signed up right after he moved here from the Philippines two years ago. After waiting for a long time to get called in, he's been in the Police Academy (near the University Village neighborhood in Chicago) training and working very hard, becoming one of the top cadets. I was very honored that he asked me to be the one to pin his badge (the 'star') on him.
He is now Officer #16437!

Jeff has made many sacrifices to move from Manila to Chicago, to give his wife and children better opportunities than the Philippines could offer (don't get me wrong, the Philippines is a great and beautiful country and fairly modern, but if you think WE have corruption problems in the states... well...), and I deeply admire his resolve to start a brand-new career when most of us would be afraid to... not to mention a career that many of us would be afraid to do period.

His official graduation is April 1 (the same day his sister and I got engaged!) at Navy Pier, and then after that, beware Chicagoans! ;-) My sincere congrats to Jeff [if you wish to email him, click here]! We'll make sure to take him out to Dunkin' Donuts for a celebratory dinner. =;-p

Greg

- posted by haydesigner in SD @ 3/13/2004 08:25:00 PM