8/31/17 Hurricane Harvey Still Being A Pain In The Ass?

    I was expecting rain all week after what they were saying on the news this weekend, but by Monday afternoon, we could sense that the rain was about gone.  I had been thinking the usual, that they hype anything to make it greater than it is.  Adding to that, Wife said that west Texas didn't really appear to have gotten much rain at all.  From my eyes just doing my daily routine, Chubs has started his football playing days in very mild August weather.  It has been in the 80's and barely 90's this week at 4:00-5:00pm, so he is not feeling the true feeling of playing football in Texas.  On top of that, Mr. Big Head does not have a helmet, so his head is not sweating encapsulated in hard plastic.  We will have to go shopping for a helmet which the school will reimburse us for the purchase.
    So I was sitting with one of my coworkers complaining in the morning as I usually do.  One of my older coworkers showed up and mentioned her experience over the weekend.  She said that she got something like 24 inches of rain over in Lockhart, which is pretty close to Austin.  Judging by how much the pool water came up I would say we got about 8-9 inches of rain at our house.  We do not live that far apart from each other, but she was stuck in her house for two days because creeks on either side of her rose and flooded the streets.  We must be some sort of lucky.  Worst problem for us was getting wet while going out shopping for football cleats and eating dinner.  I headed out not thinking the lights and power could be out in parts of the city, or we might get in an accident, but hardly anyone was out.
    The incredible part is that Harvey is not done yet.  It managed to get back out in the gulf and came back on land further East of Houston.  Beaumont got over two feet of rain before Harvey downgraded to a tropical depression and moved on into Louisiana.  When it first made landfall, there was one reported death, tragic, but a very low headcount for such a big storm.  Now, after going through and flooding Houston with 50 inches of rain, there are at least 37 dead, and many more missing.  It is projected to take many years to recover for the Houston area, probably for most of the coastal city's affected, but if one looks at the weather, they are already tracking another center that could become another Hurricane in a couple days.  It is too early to say where it is going, but it is kind of low in the Caribbean, where they seem to line up to make it into the Gulf.  It is scary to think another wave from another big mass of rain could come if that Hurricane lines up as well, but it could happen.

8/30/17 Year On The Run?

    I said summer was over a week or two, but now it feels like school is in session, finally.  Boy finally went to classes and because of that, came home and was asleep by the time I came home for lunch.  It sounds weird but I love that feeling.  The quiet house is what I consider normal and the summer is never quiet, with both boys staying up usually until 4-5am, and the renters running around at all hours.  Even Girlie started classes this week, so she was hard asleep last night when I got home.  The house felt abandoned, compared to the night before.  Only Dirty Dog is left to run amok at night.  He has had a new friend who refuses to call herself his girl, but she's been staying over more often than not.  This has at least slowed him down from being out on the hunt.
    In anticipation of the cooler weather and my leg finally healed, I started getting the hot tub cleaned.  I miss just sitting out there, even if we are just talking and enjoying the cool night air.  It is still a bit muggy, but it can't last much longer.  Or maybe this hurricane just has me believing stuff I shouldn't be thinking.  Because of it, we don't have any scheduled 100 degree days, so that is awesome.
    I titled this year on the run because it is almost September and that means Halloween is around the corner.  We usually start decorating in September since we do such a big effort for the holiday.  I don't know what to think about Chub's fall semester yet.  He has been busier than ever with after school football and now they announced band practice in the mornings and after school as well.  He dressed out in shoulder pads yesterday and I knew he would look different, but damn it.  I was about 5 yards from him before I identified him as Mijo.  He looks about 6 feet tall and as thick as a Mack Truck.  If he has an engine, he is going to be scary coming at you full speed, all 235 pounds of beef.
    Since my folks are done hanging out on the coast, they will be making their first trip up to Austin since the Spring.  My sister is supposed to be coming with her family as well.  It should be interesting, just hoping everyone gets along.  Boy will not be here though as this weekend is San Japan or something like that.  He has a comic conference in San Antonio that they've been planning since the start of the year.  I just double checked, the Longhorns start football this weekend, if anything, they better be on that shitty Longhorn Network, it isn't good for much else.  I hope the new coach is able to bring back some magic.  I liked Coach Strong, but he could not make them win the big games.

8/29/17 Crazyness For Awhile?

    I thought it was going to be rough picking up Chubs after football practice and getting him home along with watching his games when they actually start playing in a couple of weeks.  Yesterday, we got an e-mail from the band that they will not only be having practice in the morning before school starts but also after school.  I still work a twelve hour schedule, I am supposed to get to work around 6:00pm, and leave by 6:30am.  There's some crap about our lunch hour that we have to stay an extra half hour or some crap that never made sense, but those are my parameters.  Football practice has been ending around 6:50pm, and then I have to take him home, talk for a little bit about his day, did he get hit or is he sore.  So far, he has just been thirsty, nothing a Gatorade can't fix.
    This means I leave the house after 6:00pm, hopefully I get to work by 6:30pm, so I can leave by 7:00am.  The band is even more demanding than the football team.  They want the kids there at 7:15am to practice an hour before classes start, and then they want them there different days after school as well.  I feel bad for Chubs since he is going to stretch his day from now 7:00am to almost 6:00pm.  He should be a skinnier, stronger, tougher kid by November, if anything.  If that isn't enough, the band expects the parents to show up tonight for a meeting at 6:00pm.  With Wife three hours away, I am left trying to fit all this in along with getting to work on time, somehow.
    I asked Boy to man up and figure out how he is going to help me, and he said umm, can't you do it in the morning.  I don't have class until 11:00am, I'm supposed to be asleep.  HA HA HA!  I swear this Boy does not think before he opens his mouth.  I am running around non-stop and he is trying to sleep the morning away.  I told him sorry, but since we pay for your vehicle you will be more useful.  It is just through the football season, it won't kill you to help me out a bit.  I got a lot of sighs and deep breaths and "why me?"  I just walked past him and made me a sandwich in my lunch break.
    I still need to talk with my supervisor, I am thinking I want to be off on the nights he has football games, so we can go eat after, celebrate a little.  Every other week I work a three day shift, so that will be easy enough to move around, but the other week will require more finesse.  Oh well, football comes and goes, before we know it, we will be planning on Thanksgiving and football will be over.  Tomorrow though, is his first day in full pads, I am excited to see what the Big Boy will look like.  I thought he was a giant, but shit, there's other boys on that offensive line making him look small, and there are some receivers making him look like a giant.  Such diversity.

8/28/17 Dry? Drive West Young Wife?

    We have been in a constant rain since Friday late night.  It has almost been annoying because most of the time it has been a constant light rain, so it can't even be heard inside the house.  It is only when one decides to go outside that you the realize that it is raining at different speeds.
    We don't usually like to stay in, and this weekend was no exception.  Chubs needed cleats now that he is a football talent.  I told him to wait until the weekend so we could go.  He waited diligently, then Saturday, it was shoe time.  He kept asking until we went.  He had no interest in going and was trying to get us to get some shoes for him and just bring them home, but we said it doesn't work that way.  This is something he needs to try them on to make sure they fit.  It did not help that I wanted a pit stop at Lowe's.  We've been talking about getting the hot tub going, so for that to happen, I needed to go buy some chemicals to treat the water.  I am planning on getting pool and backyard looking presentable again.  As we head into the fall, we can look to hanging outside again.
    We got drenched at Academy going in and out.  Lowe's was a little better as they have a roofed entry and I was able to park right next to it.  Once we got our stuff, which included Cleats, long socks for Chubs, some forearm pads, and even a cup to protect the family jewels, we went looking for dinner.  Our plan was to get a box of chicken and head home, but Popeye's was closed, so we drove confused towards the house and ended up at Rosa's Taco Factory as it is by our house and fairly cheap.  I am more of a KFC guy, but Chubs saw a commercial for Popeye's and decided he needed to try it.  The restaurant sits high on William Cannon, so we didn't understand why it was closed.
    Anyways, we made it home after this, and the rest of the evening was spent keeping an eye on the news channels looking at the destruction done by the hurricane.  Wife had to leave Sunday early and even though she was hoping for maybe a school closure or even a late start, three hours to the west of us, it barely rained a little Friday night.  I double checked with my Mom and she said the same thing.  It was scary dark all day Saturday, but hardly any precipitation fell Saturday, it all stayed to the East of San Antonio.  Wife said it was a weird feeling to leave Austin in rain and 70 degrees, pass San Antonio which just looked dry and a calm 78 degrees, to get back to Crystal City and temps in the 90s.
    It looks like Wife is back to normal over there, the hurricane did not do much west of SA.  Meanwhile, Chubs has a late start Monday morning, Boy has classes canceled on the first day of classes.  I don't think we have anything to worry about at my work.  We sit on flat ground, but I can't recall ever having had any trouble from flooding, other than a little rainwater always leaks into the building.  Dirty Dog does manual labor installing windows and doors and is currently expecting to not work all week.  Girlie should be fine as far as work, she drives on Ben White and MOPAC which are both highways and elevated, but ACC does have a late start, so she was also hoping for a possible class cancellation for the first day of classes.
    I am just hoping that after almost a foot of rain, they aren't still bitching about droughts next week.  Give us a break from the usual rhetoric.

8/27/17 Hurricane Harvey?

    Hurricane Harvey totally caught me by surprise.  I am just thankful I didn't have anything to worry about, such as our RV is not in Corpus Christi.  My poor brother-in-law was unable to go pick up his RV from Rockport where the hurricane made landfall.  According to Wife, his SUV got rear ended a couple weeks ago and he was unable to find a rental truck to tow the RV.  On top of that, he works in the medical field and has been working non-stop the last few days, so he just said thanks for having insurance and we shall see how it goes.  Last night, Copano Bay Resort, the RV park where they and my in-laws had stayed at posted that most everyone had pulled out of the park, except for about 22 units.  Of those, one RV was already on its side at 9:00pm, and most of the others had fallen off their concrete pads.  A boat had taken off on its trailer and smashed into a truck, so it was mayhem aplenty.  He tried calling, but was having trouble getting a hold of anyone, but they put another story that none of the units survived the night.
    I had not even heard of this hurricane until Wife said it would be raining towards the end of the week.  I went and looked on Tuesday or Wednesday and at best, the eye was still low in the Gulf Of Mexico and only a tropical depression.  By the time it made landfall, it had made it to a category 4, meaning winds were over 130mph.  In all this, we should really thank the inventors of all sorts of technology to track hurricanes which used to catch people by surprise.  Nowadays, we can pinpoint where a hurricane is and where it is going.  The hurricane Galveston in 1900 managed to take out 8,000 to 12,000 people because there were no warnings like we have today.
    The funniest, stupidest line today was from Boy who managed to tell us in the same sentence "San Marcos has closed classes for Monday because of flooding all over and then proceeds to say well I am going over there for my friend's birthday party.  Wife of course was on that quick.  "uhh, no dumbass, what part of flooding do you not understand?!?!"  He has kind of gotten used to not having mama around during the week, I leave most things at his discretion since he is 23 at this point.  To mama, he is still a baby who needs his colita wiped every now and then,  He has been laying under his blankets all afternoon/evening watching TV on his phone because he is mad at us.  I say good, save us some electricity by not running his jumbo TV and all his other crap.  There is no good reason to run around in this nasty weather.
    Best case scenario is it keeps raining hard enough to keep Wife home an extra day.  Worst case, more stupid people die because they decide they need to venture out instead of staying safe.  I did get a chill when the mayor of Rockport told those people choosing to stay to label their arms with a Sharpie marker with their social security number and name to make it easier to identify the bodies.  At this point, thankfully, there was only 1 fatality and about 30 people missing.  Sounds bad, but compare it to the Galveston tragedy and this is nothing.

8/26/17 Black People Owned Slaves, So It Was OK?

    While discussing with my coworker about the nutjob that is Trump, we touched on the south and I don't think they deserve any statues of Robert E. Lee or any of those guys that came in second place in the Civil War.  This of course because Trump basically defended the whites that led to the death of that lady run over by not a Nazi, but a schizophrenic.  Don't blame the white hate group, let's make sure and keep their hands clean, blame the mental patient who was hanging out with the white hate group, wearing their colors, acting like them, but of course, he was the only one with a mental disorder (where is the sarcasm font?).
    My buddy not only apologized, but also said he went online to get him some more education and found out that black people also owned slaves.  What?!  We were both surprised and broke out the champagne because if black people did it, then it removes the ugliness of it and it should be alright.  Sometimes, when you are losing an argument, just fall on the fucking sword and die.  Why also dig your own grave?  I was on a different day and thinking I had to be more productive than I have been the last two days, I did not want to get into it again.  He seemed all proud of himself, did you know South Carolina's first slave owner was black? He asked me.  I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea of black people owning slaves, specially in the south.
    I always thought the free black people had to scoot on up to the North because all that kept them free was a piece of paper that any crooked police officer or person in power could take and label any black person a slave.  I don't think white people can understand being a minority, but of course if you are a know it all, you'll find a way.
    I had to look it up and yes, there were black people who did buy slaves, but almost fifty percent of those were buying their spouses or children, so it looks great (for people trying to justify slavery as ok), but there was a reason.  In 1830, a Carter G. Woodson did a study, about 13.7% of the black population was free (319,599).  Of these, 3776 free black people, owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States.  This amounted to less than 1% of the total.  Of that, it was found that 94% of black slave owners owned between 1 and 9 slaves, and that was skewed because many times a free spouse would buy his slave spouse and children.
    I don't know what to say to my buddy.  On the one hand, he went online and learned something he will be repeating ad nauseam because it makes whites and blacks equals if "everyone" owned slaves.  On the other, if he just got off the Trump bandwagon, he could go back to a peaceful life and stop defending a fucking spoiled monster.  At this point, we are eight months into his tenure as President, I swear if I hear Hillary's e-mails or Benghazi again, I will just suggest it easier to get a little swastika on your forehead so we know you aren't worth arguing with.

8/25/17 Trump Knows Division?

    I don't know about The Art Of The Deal, but our president is really good at division.  It seems that every time he opens his mouth, he pisses off someone else.  Is that good or healthy for the country?  The few people he still counts as supporters still say it is because he is an outsider and he is shaking the Establishment to its core.  I still think he is an idiot who might have a little dementia.
    Anyway, I was doing a little of some old work because that group now seems to have a lot of work and chemistry has been woefully slow.  I heard ole Monster Energy Drink and his associate discussing Trump sarcastically like is he racist?  But laughing, like they were making fun of some liberals.  Even though it was time for me to leave and I knew getting into it would mean I'd be running late, I couldn't help myself but say "of course, the mother fucker is racist!"  He's a peace of shit who could have made everything go away by doing the right thing and condemning the stupid neo-nazis, fascists, whatever the white on the right want to call themselves.
    This had the same effect as fucking with a beehive, except it was one queen bee coming at me in the form of Monster Energy Drink. He said I was out of my mind that Trump is racist, both sides had as much to do with the tragedy that happened that day.  I said really?  If that idiot hadn't run over anybody, would we have given a shit about what happened that day?  Nobody cares about what happens until someone dies.  To no ones surprise he had a comeback, the guy was a schizophrenic, not a Nazi.  Really, "you the reader tell me what is the difference between a schizophrenic and a Nazi?"  Usually, I entertain myself by poking his buttons, but I was already running late, so I kept it short.  I said you are actually running after me to defend the Nazi position, awesome for you.  He said they had a permit and they had a right to peaceably assemble.  What he is missing there that this hate party does not PEACEABLY do anything.  They are assholes who celebrate getting shit started.  Really, the other side is stupid for biting on the bait, but these angry white a-holes shouldn't be allowed to yammer on spreading their hate.
    He kept on, something about the south has rights and the people were expressing their beliefs.  I always hate this because the south lost.  Why do they still get or deserve a vote or even a minute to be heard?  History is written by the victors in a war.  But again "I tried common sense and asked him, "so if the south had won, would we still have slavery?"  He laughed at me like he owned the book of facts on everything and I am a simple brown man who doesn't read very well.  The last time we discussed this, he pulled out of his sleeve ye olde banter of "the civil war was never about slavery, it was about states' rights."  Great, except the only right they wanted was to keep owning slaves for the cotton crops, which was our chief export and a great moneymaker, specially for the southern states.
    He yelled at me THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, oh you don't know the federalist papers, well, we can't discuss anything because this country was founded on the federalist papers.  This is what was used by the north to convince the south to join and form the United States.  I don't recall reading these, I looked them up because I hate people implying I don't know shit.  It seemed to me that they were a series of 85 newspaper articles put out over a few years by chiefly three people Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison.  All they seem to do is bring to light the proposal of ratification of the United States.  The biggest thing about the Federalist Papers is they deny we needed a Bill of Rights because they implied if the Constitution did not mention a right, it meant you had it.  Others did not feel the same way and thought it needed to be written in paper what rights we were to have under a new government.
    This all took 10-15 minutes in the morning, and once I left I didn't think much of it, my buddy is a little nuts, but I don't really think he is racist, but really, why expend that much energy to say the Nazis have the same rights as others?  Surprisingly, he came and looked for me to apologize saying that after I left he thought I was nuts in my position, but then reflected that he was the one yelling and forcing his beliefs on me, as I kept telling him and he accepted he was wrong.  It almost brought a tear to my eye, my lil Monster Energy Drink, bred of piss and vinegar is perhaps becoming human in his golden age?  I told him it was fine, that is why I love arguing with you, you tend to be interesting, I won't say right, but I will say interesting.

8/24/17 Wife, Where Art Thou?

    It's the little things that really make me miss my better half.  I hate dancing with all the little bullshit required to start school.  Chubs needed a physical for football, fine.  He brought a package of paper from school for us to sign, fine.  Then band sent a packet of paper to sign, then football sent a packet to sign.  I've signed my name more times the last two days then I had over the last five years.  Where I see all this paperwork as slowly sucking my soul, Wife would sit with a bag of popcorn and actually read each page.  I was like flip it, I don't have time to read it, just don't do stupid shit and you'll be alright.
    On top of this, I wanted to make sure and return the alto saxophone to Strait Music, since we were renting it and he will now be playing the Bari Sax, a much bigger and heavier and expensiver musical instrument.  Where the alto was going to cost me $2400 or so.  A bari sax of equivalent value, say a Yamaha or Selmer would run around $5,500.  Luckily, the school supplies these, but it is not a new one.  I returned the Alto after much debate because I was going to use it to trade the student version for a professional one for myself, but honestly after having it in the house for a year and spending an additional $300 on an extra mouthpiece, I used it about two times.  I still remember the notes and scales and stuff, I just feel like I'm a grown ass man.  I don't have time to be toot tooting around like a high school kid.  I wish life was slower.
    On top of that, I stupidly left my medicine at the doctor yesterday.  I put it on the ground as Chubs was getting his physical, we were waiting in there about a half hour, so I sat on the companion chair and put my stuff down on the floor.  Chubs was kind enough to give me his sweater, everything in his pockets, so as we walked out, I was worried about not dropping his phone, I forgot about my own stuff.
    Just as I was going to pick him up early, for once, and I was already in the parking lot, he calls me that he will be in football practice, so pick him up at 5:30, instead of 3:50pm.  I went home, ate some shitty food, showered, then headed back to get him, and I had to fit in filling up the Excursion as I had the stupid low gas light on for awhile.  This is now the second day that I am "late" to work.  Nobody notices, but I also can't stay late in the morning because I have to go wake Chubs, feed him, and get him to school, as he forgets shit left and right.
    We'll see if it gets better next week with Boy starting his classes.  He is still having issues with freaking Financial Aid, so I hope that gets resolved.  Mama would make all this go away, at least from my field of view.  I hate being the responsible parent.

8/23/17 Grrr To The Start Of School?

    I love the summer in that I don't have to rush or get up in the morning to take Chubs anywhere.  Well, we started with a bang this week.  It sucks that the start of school lined up with Boy's first day.  We grilled the night before and because my house is infested with twenty somethings, they suggested drinks.  I never say no to a good time, so drinks and BBQ were enjoyed, but it was hard to get up and be responsible dad in the morning.  I managed alright Monday morning, got him to school on time and everything.  Tuesday morning I was still raw from staying up too late writing the blog when I don't have a good idea to write about.
    To top it off, we left the house and Chubs says, "oops, I forgot my saxophone, can we go back home?"  It's not that I mind, we had plenty of time, it's making that left turn against heavy traffic.  There is a high school less than a block that holds like 3500 students, traffic can be a pain.  Either way, life is hard without Wife during the week.  Waah!
    Because I was screwing around yesterday, I forgot to go get my testosterone shot, so I went today after I picked up Chubs.  He had mentioned he needed a physical for football.  I told him,"well guess what?  We can do it at the same place I will be going to."  He fought like a fish on a hook.  He did not want to sit in the clinic with me.  His plan was to get home and be a lazy brown turd on his bed.  I told him summer is over, time to be productive.
    Eventually, he was seen, after we filled out half an hours worth of forms and BS.  The physical consisted of checking his eyes, his leg strength, getting tickled in his stomach (it seemed that way).  Between the PA and the nurse, they asked him 100 questions, but I didn't see either check his gonads.  Wife asked if they checked his blood, I said no.  Did they do this?  No.  Did they do that?  No.  Woman!, they did a physical, I don't know!  I know they didn't jingle jangle his balls.  He got paperwork and he's supposed to be good to go.
    I was there until after 6:00pm and didn't get home until almost 7:00pm.  It is usually no big deal about when I get to work, but I don't like being late.  I guess the gist of my complaining is that the kids are back to being the center of my universe without Wife here to absorb the BS.  Now if it would at least cool down a bit, get rid of this heat now that we are approaching the fall.

8/22/17 1000 Posts, And Counting?

    Slowly chugging along, I have now reached 1000 blog posts.  I am not sure if it actually means anything, as my dad keeps telling me, why are you wasting your time still writing those things?  I started writing them as a way of leaving the boys something they could read so they could see how and why I thought how I did.  Over time, I am not sure I was writing for the boys as my audience since I am naturally a pervert and kind of dirty minded.  I figured it is what it is, why pretend I'm something else.
    Getting to 1000 is just a number, but if I am writing one a day, it also means I have been at it over three years.  I started in November of 2014 and have not stopped.  I had thoughts of switching it up or taking a break on the weekends, but I am very robotic in that once I start, I don't want to quit.  I worry that if I were to stop I would just say fuck it, I am done.  I don't want to stop now, because I want to have years of blogs that I can group together into sets of once a year or maybe even 500 or 600 days together and print it out into books, again for the Boys, so they can have my thought process on a shelf, nearby.
    I have started a few book ideas as blogs, but then I get scared that my idea for a story might not be good enough, so I chicken out.  I am also not sure I can stretch an idea out for 200 or 300 pages and wrap it all neatly with a bow, but I do want to try.  My sister also likes to say that she is the writer and that it will be her who writes the great novel, so I can take this as fuel to kick some ass.  It is a weird feeling to write something and put it out for anyone to see.
    In the beginning, I had comments and suggestions that my sentences had run-ons and other shit but it was only one person.  I think it was only a matter of fucking with me, but these are some of the situations you run into when you expose yourself.  Like most people, we don't like criticism, it just reminds us we are not perfect.  I have gotten over this a bit.  I accept that I may the occasional run-on or I might even use the wrong expression to convey a message, but this is just my style of writing.  A lot of times I am writing as a character and who's to say he/she doesn't talk with a little color and personality?  Maybe I am deeper than you can realize?
    Sometimes this has been hard to keep up, like the last two nights, which were my birthday and I have all sorts of activities going on during the day, I couldn't sit down to write, even if I wanted to.  I have lost all sorts of sleep keeping up with my one a day personal commitment.  Other days it is just the salve I need, when something is under my skin and pissing me off, I can write about it to make me feel better.  Maybe I stop next week, maybe I am still writing these in ten years, either way, I hope y'all few people that read my blog find enjoyment or help from Daddy's Daily Thought.

8/21/17 My Birthday Celebration Started Saturday? (Poem)

Celebrating My Birthday For A Few Days

Wife was here on the weekend and took me out Saturday night

Who in their right mind can complain when the steak is cooked right?

It was a small party, Wife, my boys and Dirty Dog

DD is our roommate who ate, paid, and ran off to a date in a jog.

We were so full we barely made it home

I fell asleep so content I forgot to bone.

Sunday morning we got up at the crack of noon

Wife said "let's go to Sam's but I have to leave soon."

I was hesitant, I just wanted to chill

but it's good that I went, for she bought me a new grill.

I would have to test it, and that is just what I did

I made fajitas, chicken breasts and sausage, of food I never kid.

Wife left around four and I was sad

but the boys, DD and one of his girlfriends was hanging in my pad.

DD helped assemble the grill

his girlfriend tried on sexy costumes which gave us both a thrill.

Girlie and her friend got home from out of town between seven or eight

the grill was cooking there wasn't very long to wait.

they both thought I had been drinking because I was being funny

I said nah, but go get some bottles an I'll show you how it's done, Bunny.

I took shots of Absinthe straight, vodka with juice, and tequila with some cola

they said slow down you're getting drunk I said y'all need to get on the "bola."

Chubs made rice, Girlie's friend mashed potatoes in separate pans

we all sat and ate the meat in tacos and with our hands.

I was accused of being drunk but I am the last one to go to sleep

all them other fools went to bed earlier I don't even hear a peep

It is now about 3:30am, I am only sad I haven't seen a cake

tomorrow is my actual bday Central Market do not of me forsake.

I shan't complain I'm off Monday night

the hardest part is dropping off Chubs when I see the morning light.

And also the solar eclipse has made me think and worry

it happens today and my vision has also been a little blurry.

I just wish Wife was here now that with those shots I'm feeling extra good

it's my special day and here I am celebrating alone with my wood!

8/20/17 Saturday Was A Beautiful Day With Wife?

    I was up Friday night pretty much all night trying to write blog for that day.  Wife fell asleep on the big leather chairs we have in our room.  I finally found an angle to write about and then finished right around 6:30am.  Wife woke up about that time and came to bed.  This worked out perfectly, as I was then able to shift my attention to her and get me some at that time.  It sounds weird to y'all, but I am a night shifter, so early morning I am usually pretty good at being awake.  After finishing our business, I was hungry, so I suggested to Wife that I wanted pancakes and she said IHOP?  I said no because it is always too full.  She then said Bill Miller also has pancakes for breakfast.  We went and tried waking up Chubs but he had been up until about 5:00am, he wanted no part of breakfast.  It is rare but I love when it is just Wife and I and we can talk without arguing with the two knuckleheads.  We hung there a bit after finishing our breakfast and then headed back home.  By this time it was 9:30am and we finally went to sleep.  I woke up at 12:30pm and headed to the kitchen to look over our bills.  Wife yelled about an hour later if I wanted to go to the mall.  I said "hell yeah!", she then wanted me to come up and shower and change.
    The idea was to go give Chubs a quick haircut at JCPenney at Southpark Meadows and get his school supplies at Target then head to the mall afterwards.  This idea didn't work because time got away from us.  We were at Target way tooooo lonnngggg, as usual.  Since I care about how the boys look, and my mom bought him some Under Armour Kevin Durant shoes.  He needed the Under Armour socks I knew would be at Academy.  We walked around, I was hoping to find the grills on sale for the end of summer, but I really didn't see anything worth buying, not that it would fit in Wife;s tiny Kia Soul.  I keep saying I don't want to like it, but it is really a cool little car, perfect for her, and just awesome in a parking lot, compared to my Excursion.
    By the time we left, it was already about 9:00pm, we told Boy's friend we were going to eat at Longhorn Steakhouse if he wanted to join us and he did.  We fumbled around between all our usual expensive places, but in the end, Chubs said he wouldn't mind there because he likes the spicy chicken bites they have as an appetizer.  I thought it would be cheaper than the other places, and Salt Lick was too far and the wait always too long to bother in this heat.  We had the chicken bites, calamari, and Boy wanted the loaded fries with chili and cheese as appetizers, and we all had steaks as entrees.  It was SO DELICIOUS, maybe it had just been awhile since we ate a salty steak, but the flavor and the seasonings just made me enjoy every bite.  To top it off, Chubs gave me $20 to either help with the meal or as my birthday gift, and Boy's friend, let's call him Dirty Dog since he keeps popping up because he lives with us, also gave me $40 since he ordered the priciest cut of meat helped bring the ticket down to a reasonable $110.
    We were home by 11:00pm or so, full as could be and I intended to write this and finish before midnight to watch Midnight, Texas with Wife, here I am, finishing this at 4:13am.  Again, I'm a night shifter so the time does not bother me, but I missed my opportunity for a little nookie-nookie.  Oh yeah, testosterone shots got me horny all the time again, woo-hoo!!!  Happy birthday to me.

8/19/17 Do Men Do Facials?

    This is a weird one and it is one I honestly don't know the answer to automatically.  Is it ok for men to sit huddled together doing facials or is this still a woman's domain?  My first thought on this is I am sure my dad never even heard of this, for men.  It used to be men didn't really participate inside the house.  I say this from my own experiences growing up.  If we went with my dad to visit his brothers on any given day, they would be outside and probably drinking.  All the men on my dad's side probably had a form of ADD because they couldn't sit still for even a football game.  The one thing they would come inside for was a good boxing match, oh and in the 70's, a lot of wrestling, such as the Von Erichs or the Junkyard Dog, or even Hulk Hogan.
    I am no expert in traditional men activities, but as you can see, I didn't grow up in an era where men took care of their skin via fancy chemical peels.  we were told wash your face once or twice a day, depending on how dirty you got.  It was the same on my mom's side of the family.  I don't recall men folk worried about pimples or even hairy eyebrows.
    Does it hurt anyone, if men decide they are going to get a facial?  I don't know the answer but what you have is then a population full of androgynous faces where you aren't 100% sure if you are talking to men or women sometimes.  I guess that doesn't matter, but I am not into spending time on my looks.  There are better things to do than become obsessed about my pore size on my forehead, or I have a black head forming on my nose, or maybe I'll dab a little foundation to hide that oncoming pimple.  I love the effort women can put into their looks, but ultimately it's a whole package we are looking at, believe me, if the ass is fine, we don't even notice your face.  Who gives a shit about a perfect looking face on a 400 pound hunk of married man anyway?
    This is a thought after Boy's friends were kind of fucking with me about I should hang out more with them.  I was like why?  You all are Boy's friends, I don't want to step into that.  He wouldn't like it if you showed up and I was like "nah, they're here for me, not you."  I know how Boy thinks, he is as territorial as me.  Those are his friends, he doesn't want to share them.  The girl was insistent with "come on, we could get facials..." I was like whoa, but that shit is for chicks."  To which I was then on trial with "is your masculinity so delicate that a facial will redefine what you stand for?" (or something like that).  I wasn't expecting this much attention coming my way, I just saw they had some different cookies and they were in the kitchen, so I had to see what those cookies were about.
    A facial does not define me or whatever, I am just not into that kind of stuff for me.  Wife doesn't take the time to spoil herself with shit like that, why am I?  And I love these kids as friends for Boy, they have the same interests and Boy clearly has a good time with them.  I don't do anything to get in their way of the fun they have.  They can get together at our house every weekend, we can help him pay for hotels when they go out of town to whatever comic conventions or whatever.  But, let's be clear, I am not Boy, I don't enjoy Japanese cartoons, hanging out with more guys than girls, I could care less about video games (even though I have spent a fortune on them, for my boys), or even playing board games. 
    Seriously, if you want to be my buddy, eventually I'm gonna want to sit you on my lap, so you can tell Santa what you want, and Santa can get excited about eating your cookie.  I was minding my own business, much like the snake out in the desert, you drove out of your way in your fancy Jeep, got off and looked for me hiding under a rock, took off your boots to get comfortable, found a stick and decided to come poke at the snake, don't cry now that you got venom all on your pretty thighs.  What did you expect, the snake would just hug you?  Life is not a cartoon (I'm sorry, anime), now run and play.  Shoo!

8/18/17 Hello Darkness My Old Friend?

    Some of my coworkers read this, but I write this one in jest.  It seems everywhere they put me, we run out of work.  I have been in chemistry since about the start of the year and the reason I moved is because the guys over there couldn't stop chanting "there is so much work and overtime, nobody wants it anymore.  Like a fat boy who just smelled fresh cake from down the hall, I dropped my old skills and promptly got trained in the ways of the chemist.
    I don't want to say I am the kicking-est ass that ever walked these halls, but shit, as soon as I start working on a backlog of work, it gets done, Son!  When I joined the group almost twenty years ago, they used to cry about a backlog of almost three years in SEM, which was the first technique I learned.  After a couple months, I kind of asked if there was OT since there always seemed to be so much work.  I was told sure, not many people liked working it, so go ahead.  Before long, I, almost singlehandedly had the backlog eliminated and we finally became a group that would do the work in the same week, sometimes in the same day that the work was submitted.  This also had to do with bringing in more quality people and getting rid of some of the bubble heads that were floating around in the group.
    About ten years ago I was then introduced to TEM, still in imaging, but totally different.  They too were overwhelmed with work.  They had a I'm going to say kind of racist manager who kept the group pretty white, and the work ethic wasn't there throughout the group.  The lady that was on my shift was a beast, I could not keep up with her, but she overworked herself on out of here.  The rest of them, I would call duds or half-asses who wouldn't put in their fair share.  After they got rid of that manager, all of a sudden, the brown people started working in that specialized field and again, the work went down to where we would work on whatever came in that day, from a backlog of months.
    I now find myself in chemistry, another branch of our company, and I hate to say it, but as of the last three weeks, we have been able to keep on top of everything that comes in.  They were struggling to keep up last year, now with the help of your truly, I am actually sitting back at the TEM prep tool doing work for them because there is nothing to do in chemistry.  There was word, back when I decided to jump ahead of the work to get myself trained, that we were going to get a huge contract that was going to double their workload and I was giddy with anticipation.  I even tried getting involved with this work, even though I was brand new to the group and didn't even understand the purpose of what we were doing.
    We may still get this magical contract sometime this year, we supposedly qualified ourselves, they have just been dragging their feet.  Maybe they just used us to get a cheaper price from their old lab, maybe the work is coming, who knows.  Another excuse I heard for the slow work was that our biggest customer had a summer shutdown, so most of the engineers went on vacation the last two weeks.  I guess we'll see if work picks up next week.

8/17/17 Trump, Descending To Greatness?

    It seems every week brings a new low for this president, I can't see how he can lower the bar anymore, but it seems that every week he manages to do it.  From arguing, publicly, about the Attorney General he chose because he recused himself from the Russia mess, to fighting with the Muslims to keep them out, to almost starting a nuclear war with North Korea.  Can it get any worse than that?  Apparently, supporting Neo-Nazis and other white hate groups is seen as about the latest lowest thing this President will do.  We were even informed that the President had a Script to read but chose to get real and just ad lib.
    Some of his assistants claim he went rogue.  Whether he did or didn't, he should have more sense, but dammit, just like a spoiled brat, he does for himself.  The only conclusion I can give of him is that he is part of the neo-nazis, or the KKK, or even the alternative right.  What was so hard about condemning the truly bad guys in this situation?  Their actions directly caused the death of the woman, specifically the 20 year old.  To hear Trump, would make it seem like the liberals out there protesting and asking for it.  This is akin to a girl getting raped and the judge coming out and blaming everybody for the horrific act.  I'm sorry, but this time it would have been very easy to say "White People, you done fucked up."  But no, that will never happen.
    I have nothing against the South, even if you're white and proud, nothing wrong with that, we should all appreciate where we come from and admire the hardships our forefathers had to go through to get where we are.  My problem is when Bubba says the South will rise again.  What does that mean?  Are y'all going to try and enslave certain people?  When Germany lost, all the Hitler paraphernalia was taken down.  When Saddam Hussein was captured and Iraq taken away from him, all his statues were removed.  Why are we still letting the south celebrate its heroes.  When you lose a war, your heroes get replaced by the winners.  This is why names like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill are celebrated and names like Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito are not.  How crazy would it be to go to Italy and see them celebrating Mussolini day?  Or somebody trying to name a city Hirohito and celebrating him in Japan.  No, those fuckers lost, same as the south, statues of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson should have never been erected.
    Surely, our modern day President who grew up rich in the north would not want to encourage pockets of morons to uprise and wave silly flags that do not represent the United States of America.  Idiot!!!!!
    Just watch, next week he'll do something else to make you shake your head in disbelief.

8/16/17 Why Am I Sabotaging My Own Diet?

    I am supposed to be on a diet now that I started getting the testosterone shots and thyroid medicine.  The first week it seemed ridiculously easy, I started walking and eating less than I had been and in one week I lost 11 pounds.  I thought I'll be down in the 290s by the end of the year (from a high of 416 pounds).  The next week I was cocky and lost a decent 3 pounds.  That was followed by two pounds and this past week I didn't lose any weight.  I would be pissed, but at least I was able to go in one more hole on my belt, so that must mean something.
    I am pissed about my forearm on my right arm.  I am not sure what is going on, but suddenly it hurts whenever I do a rotation of the arm.  If I slow down, I can use the arm, Saturday at Lowe's I was able to get a toilet from the shelves and lift it by myself onto the cart and then onto the back of the Excursion and even upstairs to the second floor.  The arm is not broken and a friend was telling me about another guy who ripped his bicep at the elbow.  That sounds horrible, but I don't think I did something that bad.  I was going light on the weights, so I can't say what hurt me, but even if I could bench press, I don't want to get under some weight and then get stuck with a gimpy arm.
    It sucks, but at this point, I am only walking on the days that I work, unless you count walking at the mall on my days off as exercise, I guess old people count it, but dammit, I am not old!!  The testosterone is helping, I feel like a new man.  I honestly was having trouble getting in the mood even, now I am back to normal where I am constantly thinking about some scenario in which I could accidentally have sex wherever I am at, so I feel like a twenty something again.
    I have been tempted to walk the neighborhood on my days off, but it is so freaking hot, that I can't manage actually leaving the A/C.  I see all these dedicated folks out there on 1st Street running back and forth and I wish I had that drive, but I can't yet.  I really hope one day I can be one of them.  Another idea would be biking, I used to do a bunch of it, but my only time to do it would be on the weekends and Wife doesn't want to, specially now that she started driving back and forth for work.  Maybe it is something I am going to have to learn to enjoy by myself, like I used to when I was off on Mondays and Tuesdays, twenty years ago.  I'd like a new bike, but maybe I should start with what I got and not spend money.  I have so many ideas on the right things to do, I really just need to buckle down and start doing it.

8/15/17 They Still Make Excuses for The KKK?

    What the hell happened this weekend in North Carolina?  Why are mobs of people still getting together to clash?  That seems like actions of primitive people.  And just what exactly was that poor lady killed for?  A fucking statue of Robert E. Lee?  Come on, the civil war was fought between 1861 and 1865.  Lee was a general for the south, it has to be recognized that if you lose, you don't really deserve to be commemorated in bronze statues all over the place.
    The ignorant masses that still support the idea that the south should have won are a scary backward thinking bunch.  What if they had won?  We would possibly still have slavery, the United States would not be the land of the free, they wouldn't have to worry about Mexicans coming over and taking the shit jobs, slaves would be doing them.  It is possible that the United States would have been broken into three or four countries by now.  Texas might be its own country, it was for a time.  Had this happened, Germany might have won World War II and maybe us brown people wouldn't even be here.  Possibly, Hitler would have gotten his dream of a white world.  Would that have brought peace to the south?  No, stupid, ignorant people like to fight.  Much like the ignorant bearded idiots in the desert, they would find a difference between pure white and pure whiter.
    I'm sorry, but you idiots that voted for Trump can carry this on your backs, these roaches feel like it is ok to come out and declare it is the white people's turn to get a break.  Really?  UT is 43% white, the next groups are 20% Hispanic, and 17.8% Asian, Blacks come in at 3.9%. with 51,331 students total.  22,072 are white, 2,002 are black.  You still have a great advantage, Johnny.  At A&M, it is a much more comfortable 58% white, 20% Hispanic, and again 3.78% Black.  These are the two flagships for the state, who has the advantage?
    Congress is 80% white and 80% men, and we can proudly say it is THE most diverse congress yet.  The 45th President is white, as have all others but one.  Why are grown white men crying in the streets about needing it to be their turn?  Seriously, I understand why black people are uniting and chanting black lives matter, specially when they are represented by less than 5% in post high school education.  It is not the end all, be all, but it is a start.  Don't worry, Jeff Sessions is pushing to remove any advantages for minorities, white people need an equal opportunity at the University level, after all.

8/14/17 Just Like That, Summer's Over

    There are still a couple weeks left in August and probably two months of shitty hot weather, but summer ended early for me.  Wife goes back to the regular routine of working Monday through Friday tomorrow, so she had to finally go back to Crystal City tonight so she can be in La Pryor in the morning.  At the start of summer she said she would be able to be up here maybe two full weeks, but it felt like she was here most of July and the first two weeks of August.  Maybe during the week she would attend a conference or some thing out at region 20 in San Antonio, but I do work during the week, so I don't need her by my side every minute.  Overall though, she has been here and we were able to live our life like we normally do, driving around, watching movies and just generally hanging our together.  Plus, the testosterone has really been working and I am on my way to my horny self of the past, so it was good that she was here.
    My leg gash took its sweet time, but it is finally healed up, I stopped wearing a dressing and bandages.  It is such a nice feeling that I don't have to unwrap my leg every time I poop and have to jump in the shower (I know I don't have to, but I do like it).  The doctor said that although it is closed to not go get in the ocean or rivers, I say good idea since we have had a few cases of flesh eating bacteria and other stuff that can attack human skin, have y'all seen sea ticks?  I didn't know they existed before this week, now they are attacking everybody.  The coast will have to wait until next year, just to be sure about the leg.  I would love to go to a lake but it is not much better, with a form of meningoencephalitis, where the amoeba enters the nose and attacks the brain.  We have heard of this happening around here a couple times, recently.
    I have no ill feelings about the summer.  We didn't do stuff like Schlitterbahn or Disney, but there's always next year.  I'm not sure my folks would bite, but we've also talked about going on a cruise.  Wife wants to do a cruise in the summer, and Disney next Thanksgiving.  I think I would rather be home for the turkey, but we shall see what happens.
    Chubs has one more week off before starting 7th grade.  He had a full week last week of band camp, and has been moved up to play the baritone saxophone which I played through junior high and high school.  I think it is kind of cool, but I don't want to push him too much.  He is also supposed to play football, but at this point, he has a super tight schedule, as he is still with the Junior Einstein Program.  He is in San Antonio with Wife's side of the family this week.
    Boy has two more weeks before starting at Texas State.  He has stayed busy all summer working at Alamo Drafthouse.  Once the boys are both in school, there is nothing left but to look ahead and wait for Halloween.

8/13/17 Credit Card Power?

    I woke up with no agenda today, Wife wanted to make breakfast and nap.  Since we got up at 3:00pm, napping was out of the question or the day would be gone.  We had breakfast or I guess lunch, with Chubs and Girlie joining us.  After eating, Girlie remembered to tell me that the toilet in the 2nd upstairs bathroom was leaking a little bit.  I got worried and went and saw what she meant.  I've been wanting to replace it since we moved in ten years ago because it is one of those round smaller toilets.  I have never used it, so I've put it off, but now that Chubs is getting bigger, it might be the reason he insists on using the one downstairs.  Luckily, we have three bathrooms, and the other two have the bigger elongated toilets.
    We've been battling our credit cards and not wanting to use them, but my pay cut kind of messed up my plans.  I had gotten rid of Home Depot and Lowe's, but I figured I'd try to open a new account and see what happens.  They gave us credit like we just started our married life, with a line of $500.  I'm used to having credit cards with $20,000 or more, but I guess.
    I love walking around and discovering new things for the house.  I am especially impressed with the new flooring that looks like wood but is really ceramic tiles.  If real wood or even laminate wood is a bad idea for the kitchen but that is the look you want, then these ceramic tiles are the perfect solution.  I like the Dewalt line of tools and now they have a much smaller screwdriver that runs on a much smaller battery.  I was also interested in buying more bulbs that don't produce heat, I love those.  That means that having the lights on is not heating up your house and at the same time they run on less heat.  I did have a limited budget, but these are the type of things I shall be trying to buy in the near future.
    I bought a new toilet and if it was as easy as plugging in a new lamp, I would install this toilet in our bathroom.  It is a Kohler and way heavier than it looks.  I got it out of the box at the house to look at it closer since they were all at eye height and even the base seems wider than the one in our bedroom.  It feels stout, like this is the toilet a king should be pooping in, yet it was a very reasonable $169.99.  Some of them went up to $350.  I was not going to buy the most expensive for a secondary bathroom that I'll probably never use, but it should still be good since I am sure Chubs will be taller and bigger than me in a couple more years.
    I shall attempt to install the toilet tomorrow and see what happens.  My hope is it all goes well and I have no problems, but you never know until you do it.  I switched out a toilet in our old house, so it isn't the first time I've done this.  I think I just got an idea for a gift for my parents... I've been telling them to install a larger elongated taller toilet for years, maybe I 'll get them one of these.  I am sorry, but I am a big boy with a big ass, those little toilets were made for people from the last century when humans were smaller or something.

8/12/17 The Dark Tower? (Movie)

    We went and saw The Dark Tower Friday night and it was the kind of movie I like, but it felt like it needed a little more.  The movie is based around a kid who has the power to see things.  He sees a dark tower which he doesn't understand but draws it anyway.  He is drawing everything and creeping his folks out to the point they are about to send him to a "psycho camp".  He finally starts making sense of all his dreams when he sees a gunslinger in his dream and a house that looks like it might be close by.  He puts his drawing on the net and somebody gives him the location of the house in his dream, so he knows where to go.
    His parents are worried about him and they decide to involve the "psycho camp", so they call the director and she comes with a guy to pick the kid up.  He recognizes them as the creepy things with "loose" skin on their faces and starts spazzing out and the step-dad says go or I will personally throw you in their car.  He manages to escape and heads to the address of the house in his dreams.  The house has a magical portal and a demon of some kind.  It is really unclear how, but the monster attacks the kid for a minute or two but somehow the kid defeats it.  The portal sensed someone in the house and became active, the kid typed some numbers from his dream and just like that, he was transported to another world where the gunslinger lives.  He jumps and he realized his dreams all made sense.
    The gunslinger was played by Idris Elba, who without me knowing anything about the movie, I was sure it was Denzel Washington playing part two of Book of Eli.  The movie had that feeling.  I won't give away the ending, but the gunslinger and the kid join forces against a sorcerer, played by Mathew McConaughy.  The sorcerer has spent his life which I took him as the devil trying to destroy our way of life.  There is a dark tower and the sorcerer wants it knocked down, it is the job of the gunslinger to protect it, he is the last of his kind, the sorcerer has been slowly killing all the other gunslingers.  He can whisper in their ears and if he tells someone to stop breathing, they die instantly.  For some reason, the gunslinger is immune to this, he can face the sorcerer and not fear dying.  It is then a race to the end as the sorcerer wants the kid to use for his evil plans and the gunslinger is in charge of protecting him.
    If I thought it lacked something, there was no female heroine, movies like this always seem to have an interesting chick, but this movie lacked the love storyline.  Another factor to consider was that there were no other big name stars, so it was hard to see a movie without familiar faces.  Other than these two things, the movie was a pretty good summer movie.  They left it open in the end for a part 2, so there could be a sequel.

8/11/17 STEM Knowledge Being Given Away To Other Countries?

    This is yet another reason that although I hate the ideas of being a conservative, the idea that democrats in Congress think it is a good idea to allow students from foreign countries to study here and then take the knowledge back home is a horrible mistake.  I have nothing against Chinese or Indian people studying in America IF they are somehow or other vowing to stay here and be good American citizens.  It is a big world and we are a melting pot, it is quite normal to work with a Lee, a Bill, Maria, and Abdul all at the same time, I believe it might even make us better at our jobs.
   STEM is an acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.  I first heard the term when Boy was at Akins High School which got like a 25 million dollar grant to push more students into the sciences.  Boy spent his years working on robots that would compete against other robots, then he got hooked on the rockets program.  This started with building the little ones you can buy at a hobby store with the Estes engines to some humongous eight foot tall monsters that could break the sound barrier (going faster than 767miles per hour), or travel to 1 or 2 miles up.  Fast forward to college life and boy is still interested in engineering, which we would always encourage the sciences, being that I have a chemistry degree, and other than recently, has led to us having a very nice life.  That is what I want for both boys to study something that will compensate them accordingly.
    So Wife said she was in a conference this week and someone was talking about STEM, and that there are not enough kids in the programs.  So congress decides to get involved and as a consequence, they are considering more kids from other countries to come and study starting from 7th grade and up.  How about instead of spending all that money to bring a ton of outsiders, maybe pay the teachers salaries comparable to what they could make in the private sector.  I have had this argument with people before, and I truly believe that someone studying in STEM will work harder than someone getting a degree in liberal arts.
    Funny how they were letting in students from China and India in the 80's, guess who has managed to get decent nuclear programs off the ground?  These countries are also a possible threat because they make their own rockets, jets, and other real vehicles that could be militarized.  I know other countries like Russia have nuclear capability and good for them, they worked on it at the same time we did, but even with them, it is said they had spies in our camps, back around WWII to steal our knowledge.  It is one thing for us to sell them this technology, it is quite another when we patiently teach their future engineers and scientists how to create the very weapons we fear.  Then these same assholes sit up there in Congress wondering what we should do about the growing threat coming from these countries who forty years ago could barely feed themselves.  Look at India, people still shit in the streets, how advanced are they on their own?  Send some of those fucks to study plumbing, the Greeks figured that shit out over 2000 years ago.

8/10/17 The Domain?

    We went out for a walk at The Domain, which is an area in north Austin filled with shops and restaurants.  This is about the third time we go down there and I honestly had no idea it was as big as it is.  In my head, it was a street with shops on both sides, I was thinking like La Cantera in San Antonio where basically it is a mall with no air conditioning.  The reality is that this place goes on for several blocks, and there must be at least twenty different places to eat.  Some looked really cool with sitting up on the roof, a lot of them had a second story balcony to hang out on.
    The biggest problem we experienced was the heat, and a lack of money.  We got there around 7:30pm, which was a little helpful to avoid the heat of the day, but since everything closes at 9:00pm, we didn't get to see it all.  The last time we were there with my folks we parked near the Dick's Sporting Goods store and made our way to Dillard's.  It was nice, but it didn't impress me too much.  This time, we were closer to Neiman Marcus and everything seemed different.  Upon looking at the map of the area, I get it now.  We were on the opposite side of where the Dillard's is at.  The only other problem of course once you get past the heat is you need money to hang out here.  This place is full of high dollar stores.  I personally went to look at Ben Bridge, the store there is bigger than the store at the mall and thus, they carry a lot more in selection of fancy watches.  I might not be able to buy right now, but I love looking at fancy stuff like that.
    We couldn't decide where to eat, most of the places seemed to be bars, people were drinking everywhere, and that is fine, but we really don't drink and we had Chubs with us, I don't think a bar is a good place for him.  We did get cupcakes to go from a specialty store.  It was cute, it even had an ATM type of machine you could get cupcakes from on the wall without talking to people.  I guess for after hours.  The cupcakes were something like $3.75, which is almost expensive for the treat, but it was a cute idea and they tasted pretty good, I had a s'mores cupcake.
    After all our walking around and deciding where to eat, we both said Pappadeaux at almost the same time.  That place does not disappoint if you like fish and a touch of fancy.  It is pricey, but man, I still say it is worth it, although in reality we can't be doing this type of eating every weekend.  Oh well, we were celebrating Wife being here for the last full week before starting another year down in La Pryor and running back and forth.

8/9/17 Texas State Loan Office Is Sucking Balls?

    We are stuck in a weird catch-22 position with Boy's school right now and I don't get it.  These geniuses are supposed to be smart.  Since I got a pretty substantial pay cut, Wife thought it would be a good idea to see if Boy might qualify for better loans or at least a bigger amount.  Up until the last spring semester, he had been qualifying for approximately $7500 a year.  Divided between fall and spring and the amount goes down to $3750.  This seems great except his tuition is always about $500-700 more, so guess who has been carrying the extra load?  The problem with them looking at our finances now is that school is fixing to start in two weeks and Boy now has a freeze on his loans, so the school expects us to somehow have like a third of the money to put down.  There was a time when we were young and naïve and yes, I would have just put it on a credit card, but I can't do that anymore, we are down to one credit card and it is about maxed out with my leg costs.
    I say catch-22 because if we had money, we would just pay for the classes and not bother borrowing from the school loans.  We don't have money, so the school must decide if we are worthy of being lent money.  We had just barely enough to keep him going when I was making a bunch of money, now that we are making less, I guess there is a chance that the school doesn't want to lend us money because we could default on his loans.  The part that sucks though is that he has already done it for the bulk of his degree.  He needs about one more year, so he is already up to his eyeballs in debt (about $30,000), if he doesn't finish how do they expect him to pay back his obligations?  Plus, these are loans under his name, why are they looking at our credit?
    I was talking to a friend of Girlie's just last night and whether she had any luck finding a job in her field, she graduated in December.  She said she could not, because she owed the school for the last semester, about $6000.  The school was withholding her degree and official transcripts.  Again, why doesn't the office just grant her some sort of loan which she might repay easier if she could start earning real money instead of continuing to do the same shitty jobs she was doing before while being a "poor" student.  The school should embrace its student population, especially once they become seniors and they stand a very good chance of finishing a program.  Help your own students stand on their own two feet, as a university, you are getting richer and richer every year.  We can tell because of the crazy growth on campus.  Remember assholes, that only happens because you have good students going there.  You were once considered a shitty party school.  You've grown up a lot in the last twenty years, don't turn your back on the little people that are making you great.

8/8/17 Finally Think I Understand Solar Power In Our House?

    This has taken a long while, but we finally got a bill that put everything into understanding.  I don't see how the power company still manages to do their bullshit games, but whatever.  Ultimately, we are helping the environment, if just a tiny bit, so I won't feel too bad as I lube my own ass for the way Austin Electric does its customers.
    First off, we are in a large city, how come we have no competition between different electric companies?  My folks live in a shitty little town where the students share textbooks in school, yet they can choose from five power companies out there in the freaking desert.  There are more mesquite and Cacti than people, yet they get choices?  That makes Austin Electric a monopoly, and I wouldn't care, except that in the summer my light bills travel up and over the $600 mark and usually we see a $700 one for August.  This was one of the main reasons I signed up for the solar pitch, oh yeah, and I care for the planet.
    So the bill we just got is just electric, they have separated the water, wastewater, sewer, and trash to another bill.  The bill we saw for the rest of the services was $175 or so and I believe that is high, but we do have two extra people living with us.  Today, we got a bill for the light that was $163 and change.  We are already committed to paying the solar company an additional $315 for the solar panels.  If we add all those numbers, we get $653.  That is not what I wanted, but ehh, we are only locked into this for twelve years, then we'll get thirteen years of free solar power.  The things have a 25 year warranty, so some day, if I live that long, I may see a discount.
    The bill today said that for the month, the solar panels produced 2675KWh versus our house using a total of 3375KWh.  When we bought the panels we were told they would produce 85% of our power, the current calculation amounts to about 79%, which is close.  I wouldn't argue with anybody we are good about saving electricity, Boy has about 15 things plugged into the wall in his room, Chubs is about the same with all their game systems.
    I don't like that the electric company is still using the total power used at 3375, so we goal the way to tier 5 and every tier charges considerably more.  For example, if you used up to 500KWh, you would only be charged at like .012345, which is like 1 cent a KWh.  Going up to tier 2, gets you to 1000KWh, and that gets charged at .03345, or about 3 cents a KWh, and on and on.  After all that, then they take a solar power rebate, this month was $271 based on the 2675KWh produced and a cost of .10 a KWh.  Sounds good and I would have come out ahead, but then they have a summer additional charge of $94, and a good neighbor charge of $45 (does that help my neighbors?  Fuck that, nobody pays my light bill), and another one for $19.  If these additional charges weren't added, I would have come out zero on the power from Austin Energy.  I am hoping, that extra $94 goes away once summer ends, in September.
    I am not currently happy about getting involved with the solar company.  It took almost a year, last August is when we started talking to them.  If they would have just sent a dude, I would have told him to beat it, it's what I get for being more patient with the females, specially if they are cute.

8/7/17 Education Trying To Compete With Modern Gadgets?

    Wife was telling me about one of the conferences she went to last week.  There was a guy talking about educators and how can they reach out to today's students to get their attention in today's fast paced electronic world.  They admit they have lost the battle, kids are barely paying attention in any classroom.  Most interesting thing I thought was the realization that in today's digital world, everyone is working on their own path to stardom.  I have to admit that I started my blog partially to keep a diary for my boys but I was hoping it could become a popular destination to visit.  I have other plans, another being that since I write every day, at some point I would like to write a book or a series of short stories.
    With the modern applications on our phones, people are making money by making videos for YouTube, such as girls doing make-up tutorials, guys doing stupid shit, like the Jackass movies, not to mention the whole sex market that no one can really keep up with and way too many pretty young faces are participating, some have to be minors in high school.  Girls are selling pictures, videos, panties, all of which is easy enough to advertise on Snapchat, Instagram, Kik, Tumbler, Twitter, and so many more.
    With all these distractions and then the pseudo celebrities like the Kardashians who seem to get paid to exist and we celebrate them as modern day heroes.  They do nothing, other than look good on TV, yet in a poll conducted by the group's company more girls wanted to be like a Kardashian than anybody else, this is an indication the world is sick.
    It was bad enough when guys stopped trying to get an education because they were all going to be celebrity sports stars.  Any guy in a small town who played football I'm sure has dreams of doing it at the NFL level and he probably even believes he would, nay should be getting paid to play.  The reality is only the best of the best high school players get to play college ball and then only the best of these players get to attempt to play in the NFL, or NBA, or MLB, which itself insists on filling its teams with players from other countries, leaving even less positions for our dreamy high schoolers to profit at.
    The farther we get from education in the classroom, the less educated our society becomes.  We need to jump on this now.  My opinion is that knowing that only about 20-30 percent of the high school students are going to college, take the rest and offer them the chance to get vocational training which gets you trained and working in a faster path.  If the teachers are only teaching the top 30 percent of students, that should solve the attention problem since only "real" students would remain.  You can "threaten" to take these kids phones and they might react accordingly and pay attention instead of breaking out into a fight with the teacher as another idiot yells "WORLD STAR!!" and student and teacher end up in a brawl.  I hate to admit, but I do watch these type of videos all the time, thus my knowing about their existence.

8/6/17 Why Do We Argue Over Climate Warming?

    This is one of those baffling things that pisses me off a little bit.  I may have even wrote about this a while ago, but come on.  First of all, if you're generally stupid, continue as you have most of your life and keep quiet.  When the discussion of climate warming comes up, all of us plebeians should be united at best.  If you happen to work for Shell, BP, Texaco, or any other oil group, then sure, we expect you to defend the dark side.  In general, something like 97% of the scientists that study climate insist that we humans and our fossil burning ways are contributing to global warming.
    I was just sitting here bored skimming through Facebook and a Yale Environment 360 graph popped up showing the temperature warming since around 1929.  The graph shows the temperatures with a color code and slowly the colors go from a bluish brownish hue to a dark red by 2016.  I can't help but then go read the comments and sure enough, I swear these guys are getting paid to surface and spew their venom.  Best case scenario, you're an unemployed idiot with a computer and you want to troll people to piss them off.  Great, you are not only taking my money in government aid, you are also wasting my time by playing your games.  Get off the couch and spend your time looking for a job, fool.  Who else would dare take the side of being a climate denier?  Well, as a population, only about 1 in 8 adults even know or think that 97% of climate experts blame humans.
    Add to that we now live in an age where the president seems clinically insane, calling the media fake, throwing tantrums like a child.  Worse, he is on the side of not believing scientists which emboldens a bigger part of the population to side with him.  George Bush was at least a naïve, religious man who blamed God for mysterious things beyond his understanding.  Trump is only interested in money, and anything he does, I believe, serves his own pockets.  Him denying climate change allows his companies to operate more profitably, so as bad as that is, at least it makes sense, to me.
    But you stupid people who sit on the sidelines with nothing to gain and a planet to lose, why take their side?  You will not gain a penny if all the fish disappear, you will not gain a nickel if all the forests are stripped.  It may turn out that CO2 is not the evil monster warming the planet, as so many scientists say, but you want to risk it all?  I have had the discussions at work, and it's always the same thing, "how accurate were they keeping temp data 100 years ago?" "the earth is always warming or cooling..." "we are about to go into another ice age..." Oh yeah, don't forget "cows make more methane gas than us humans..."
    So for these deniers, we do nothing then?  We just keep on doing the same thing as chunks of ice the size of  Delaware break off around Antarctica?  I am not saying I have solutions, although our house is now 85% solar powered?  We need something to start to happen.  We have much cleaner air because we started doing something about pollution in the late 70's.  There used to be pictures of most of the big cities covered in smog and we don't hear about that anymore.  Pollutants like CFC's used as propellants in aerosol cans were removed from use.  Something similar needs to happen to reduce the CO2, maybe more electric cars, maybe they get subsidized by the government to push their sales over gas burning cars.  The government gives plenty of money to the big oil companies even with their billions in profits to continue exploration and discovering new locations and pockets of fuel, that money could be funneled to electric car companies/battery manufacturers to lead to the next generation of batteries that could make electric cars desirable.  The only loser long term in this idea is the oil companies, not that they are going away anytime soon.

8/5/17 Are Feminists Good Or Bad?

    Chubs started this conversation Friday afternoon, he was trying to be funny saying that feminists have ruined America or something to that point, stating that he heard it from his uncle.  Luckily for him, his mom is a bit of a feminist, so he was corrected pretty quick.  I always like to joke with this topic because I have a mom and a wife both with plenty of energy from the feminist movement.  Mom has always been our family's matriarch, and Wife considered herself a bully until we met.  
Nothing gets Wife going faster than me cracking a few gender jokes, such as "shouldn't you be in the kitchen making tortillas barefoot?" 
    She won't admit it, but she is a bit of a feminist, believing the notion that anything men can do, women can also do.  I don't think it is about ability, to me it's more about why push into everything?  For example, women have been able to join the military for a long time, but they hadn't been allowed to fight on the front lines until 2015.  Did feminists do women a favor here or help the US military overall?  War is a horrible thing, unfortunately the powers that be seem to like us in perpetual war against someone, all the time.  That being said, expect plenty of women to end up like the male population, the same assholes that send our fine young men to war, also refuse to budget properly to take care of them when they are done and incorporated back into society.  There will be an increase in homeless women, women needing prosthetic legs, women needing VA care and complaining about that.  All this doesn't even get into the discussion of can they do the job properly?  When a man is down, can they help carry him out?  Can women go weeks in a hot zone without facilities?  It is a fact that fighting women are young so they will have their monthly cycle to deal with.
    I do support that they were needed in the beginning, we are all equal and we should all have the same opportunities and access to the same things.  If not for feminists, women might not be able to vote.  They also might not be able to go to school.  We know better now, women tend to do very good in school, I have seen studies, even better than males in the early years, so if they can handle the workload and the stress, let them be doctors and lawyers and such.
    This is what needs to happen in the middle east, women need to stand up and fight for their rights.  Those ignorant men are not going to give up their power on their own.  They are treated as men's things right now.  A man can have a couple wives if he can afford them over there.
    Sorry Chubs, but I cannot agree completely with my  brother.  He might have a point that lately, they seem as effective as Don Quixote fighting the windmills in the distance.  There was a time for which society as a whole should thank that type of woman that stands up and fights for what she believes in.  We are a better place because of them, if you don't believe that, look to the middle east where women have very little control
   

8/4/17 Whores Or Business Women?

    I've had Snapchat for at least two years and the best I can figure is it was created for advertising.  It is a horrible system to share pictures because they only last 24 hours and then disappear.  At best, you can write a quick 3-4 word statement on any individual picture, so it is not like Facebook that holds your "life" story.  I think I even wrote about this a year or so ago, but I still see the girls get into discussions and fights about whether they are whores or opportunists.
    My favorite girl to follow is from Florida, she is an open book, most days she comes on to tell us what is going on during the day, if she is at work, she might complain that the place is empty and she will try to invite her +50,000 fans to go eat and talk to her.  She'll post pics of her daughter doing what 2 year olds, most nights she sits in her bathtub and complains about this and that.  Occasionally, she'll be driving down a country road and pop a titty out, just to be funny.  She is 4-5 months pregnant, not denying that she's a little nuts, but that's her business.  From Snapchat, she will advertise about her other websites where she has stocked hundreds of videos and more pics, which we are able to purchase lifetime memberships, or monthly memberships.  She will occasionally say she needs a sugar daddy to buy her stuff, but not to expect anything in return, other than pics and thanks.
    Other girls are more gross about it in that they are constantly in advertising mode.  They don't really want to waste time talking, they want you to purchase their subscriptions.  These girls turn me off, the popular "models" have figured they can advertise other girls on their sites, so not only are they in constant commercial mode, but then they run pics of other girls also trying to sell their subscriptions.  Some are really pushy, I've gotten a few messages through Snapchat where you add the girl, then she sends a message with what am I interested in buying?  I tell them, "sorry, but I don't pay for nudity, there's too much free stuff online."  That makes them ignore me pretty quick.  Those type of girls I delete right away.
    These are the two types I see, so my question is "are they the equivalent of whores or prostitutes?  I don't believe they ever interact with any of their customers, maybe the one in Florida does, but the money is made through selling their images, which sounds more like a porn store which specializes in only one girl.  If I ever spend money on a subscription it would have to be on the Florida girl, I feel that she gives so much "entertainment" by making herself an open book like she does, plus she's been around since I started lurking, so she seems legitimate.

8/3/17 Do Adults Get A Visit From The Tooth Fairy?

    This is one of those situations where you just never know.  Wife bit something a couple weeks ago and had then been complaining of a loose molar in the very back of her mouth.  I told her she should go to the dentist, since she was obviously in some pain and/or discomfort.  You know how martyrs are, they would rather die and save a penny for the family than take care of themselves.  She kept insisting that she has crappy dentist insurance and she didn't know where to go with hers.  She was sure Austin would be "out of network" since she works three hours away.
    Last Friday she was off and at the house, I reminded her when she came down and sat down to watch another round of Buffy or whatever thing with vampires she watches nowadays that she should take care of that hurting tooth, and quit worrying about the cost.  She argued for a minute or two then I reminded her that once school starts it'll be a lot harder to deal with "shit" like this.  Miraculously, she agreed without too much arguing.  I suggested she call the place I go to but it was closed, it was Friday afternoon.  She then started looking online and somehow or other found a place that might take her insurance, thus saving us a lot of expense.  They actually e-mailed her back on Saturday and continued on Sunday, asking her to come in today, Wednesday.
    She had been at region 20 or something like that, officially working , but she showed up around 4:00pm and talked with me for a lil bit.  The appointment being at 5:00pm did not sound like I should go since I leave for work about 5:40pm to get to my work by 6:00pm.  She must have gotten to the dentist office by 4:30pm, because by 6:00pm, they had evaluated and even pulled a molar out of her skull.  It turns out that even thought the tooth was solid and in good shape, the gum was damaged and it would have fallen eventually, possibly given her problems with sepsis, or maybe the dentist has a boat payment, either way, there was no rescheduling or just taking x-rays and talking a lot.  This dentist got on it right away.
    For all her worries and putting up with pain and discomfort the last three weeks, the charge to her was only $37  dollars.  That actually sounds like pretty decent insurance, and then she was given an antibiotic which cost only $1.38, so all in all, why are you complaining?  She is supposed to go back in 3-4 weeks, once the hole where the tooth was heals so she can get a proper cleaning.

8/2/17 Am I Cheap?

    Chubs just spent a week and a half over at my mom's house, partially to visit and partially to indoctrinate to the "right" way of living.  All my immediate family lives within shouting distance of each other.  My folks live in the house we grew up in, my brother and his family bought the house next door, and eventually my sister and her family bought the property behind my folk's house, tore down the old mess, and built a new home.  Add to that my other brother went back home after not agreeing with the Austin lifestyle (the one that titled me The Liberal Faggot) and there is a concentrated smell of Gallegos essence where X marks the spot.  Walking in there is like walking into a beehive, as a member you will be accepted, but you better not think you can avoid a stinger or two, specially from Mr. Lawyer who loves getting under your skin.
    Chubs is not argumentative, for all his love of talking, and he normally doesn't shut up, he will not verbally combat somebody he is supposed to respect because he doesn't like to get in trouble.  The minute he got up here though, he was telling me about my sister telling him he should really be wearing Jordan's or some name brand shoes.  Then he told me how they kept telling him what he was wearing didn't match and to go back and change into something that looked better together.
    I want to agree with them, and if I was down there maybe, but Jordan's up here are for the cool black kids.  Boy would not wear them when he was in high school, the last thing I want is for Chubs to get "jumped" for some fucking shoes because of a label.  He has reasonably priced shoes, mostly like New Balance because he has a wide foot and until this past year, he hadn't really bothered figuring out how to tie his shoelaces, when you're a chubby guy, it's a long way down, I know the feeling.  I don't use this as an excuse to be cheap though, he wanted boots like his brother, so in the spring I bought him some Ecco boots that cost me like $250, then he proceeded to wear them 1-2 times, so that was awesome.
    As far as his clothes matching or not, just look to dad, I don't care if my shirts match too much.  I reach for the closest cleanest thing and put it on.  The beauty of living in a big city is no one knows you, so nobody cares.  Back in Crystal, you can't go to the HEB without saying hi to half the city, as a person who has a hard time with names, I always freaking hated this.  I am much happier being anonymous, when I see a familiar face once in a while, my first reaction is always "son of a bitch!!!, Wife what is his/her name, quick!"
    He had a good time, he enjoyed going to Corpus over the weekend and swimming and getting wet, but he says he likes his quiet time and his little cousins can be "annoying".  The youngest cousin insisted on watching the same cartoon over and over and when he moved from one room to another, the cousin would follow him and turn on the TV in that room and put the cartoon on, ahh, the miracles of those cable boxes. 
    I am just glad things worked out the way they did.  I am fine with Wife working out of town and only seeing her on the weekends.  Chubs almost went with her, I am glad he fought to come back and although it is more work for me to keep an eye on him and drop him off and pick him up from school, he is a cool kid who knows who he is and I am happy to see him every day.