5/31/19 Impromptu Visit To Crockett High School?

    Yesterday was a fun-ish day after another frustrating week at work.  I think I really need a change, whether a change of shift or maybe just a nice long vacation, I want to go in and choke myself at work.  But this was a short week, so they tend to go by a lot faster than the long ones.  Wife had already warned me that on Thursday we were going to have this meeting at school to go through the process of registering for the classes they will be taking at ACC.  I can't wrap my head around my baby is already at a point of taking college classes.  We still occasionally step on his Legos from when he was a little kid, maybe that just speaks to my lax cleaning efforts.
    We had a choice of going either at 1:30pm or at 6:00pm.  I had told Javalina that 6:00pm would be better since I worked the night before and he agreed but for whatever reason he came and woke me at 11:30am to see if I maybe wanted to go to the earlier one.  I didn't want to but since he woke me and I had been thinking at work that the whole day was going to be eaten up by this evening meeting I said sure to try and salvage the evening.  I got up and jumped in the shower and then Javalina comes in the bathroom to ask if 6:00pm was better.  I just looked at him with shampoo on my head and said "No, Dick, you woke me, you know I worked last night.  Go get dressed."  We then left the house at 12:45, enough time to stop for a soda and get there on time.  It worked out because I was almost out of fuel, the gas light had even come on, so we drove until I found an acceptable gas station and filled up.
    We still got to campus on time and found the auditorium fairly easy.  It was very light with people, maybe 60-70 total people in there.  Interestingly, an old coworker of Wife came up to me and gave me a stare like "do you know me?"  I was half expecting her to get after me for having a soda in their facility.  Then she smiled and said "hi, remember me?"  I never spent a lot of time with her or any of Wife's coworkers, but because of pictures and the stories we tell each other sometimes it feels like these other people are like characters in my own life.  She marveled at Javalina for a second on how he had grown up so fast.
    The meeting itself went fast enough.  We got a folder with instructions on how to register for ACC and what we are expecting, such as the first semester all incoming freshman participating in the dual credit program will be in the same class on the Crockett High School campus.  They mentioned that if you are in band, theater or sports, college classes will have to be more important.  At this I thought it would be a good idea to go meet the coach since Javalina is heavily invested in the idea of playing football.  We stopped in the front office and were given permission to go walking around.  The campus doesn't appear big looking from the outside, but it is huge and has the feeling of the backside and parts being buried underground.  Although there are a lot of open atrium areas, the air conditioning was working at top notch conditions.  We did not find the coach but I did leave with a favorable feeling for the campus.  It seems old, a relic of the 70's, but it seems cared for and kind of cool.
    We ended the tour by having lunch at Culver's, Javalina's choice.  I did end up losing most of the afternoon, the body needs sleep, after all.  I sat and slept in the kitchen in front of the computer until Boy showed up later in the evening.  The evening was nice, sitting in the kitchen Boy and GF were making bread which kept him there and I got a chance to get some conversation time with him.  I only see him for a minute or two during the week.

5/30/19 It's Bruno!? (Netflix series)

    I totally believe the future of "shows" is in the hands of providers like Hulu and Netflix and maybe this is a sign of things to come.  I totally loved the idea of a ten minute show.  It allowed just enough time to start liking the characters and know what they are about, but there is also no time to waste.  For a while now, I have had trouble staying with even an hour long show, because shows don't have to be that long.  I used to love watching Bones with Wife, but the truth is that they needed two or three story lines to fill the hour time slot.  This is the same in most shows, but if we tune in to watch a show, it should be about the main characters.  If some other characters are interesting, give them a spin-off show and see what happens.
    This is what they did with the hot daughter on Black-ish and I guess Grown-ish has been doing ok as a show, but the daughter has been exposed as being kind of a piece of shit who can't keep herself composed and was caught cheating.  Not the point, but I do like that occasionally they do spin-off shows off of certain characters.
    "It's Bruno!" will probably just be called stupid by Wife and most other people, but I get it.  It is a very focused look into this one guy's life and his interaction with his dog, Bruno.  The first episodes sole intention was to introduce us to his neighborhood, and show what he will do to get his dog the food he eats.  It was almost pointless, but also the most important thing for the character to accomplish.  He thinks of Bruno as his equal and they show this when an old lady starts petting Bruno, he asks her to stop, and then he goes and pets her granddaughter on the head and asks her if she likes that.  The old lady is taken aback, saying no in the process.
    I don't know if the series will get a second season, but why not?  Why do shows have to be an hour or thirty minutes long?  The only reason is so they fit on a schedule for regular TV stations where they only offer new programming from 7-10pm.  This is very limited thinking and planning on a TV station or cable provider.  They already have stations dedicated to everything else, why not shows that are as long as our attention spans?

5/29/19 Feeling A Bit Like Winter?

    I know it is just the adjustment I have to make because Javalina is off for the summer, but with Wife living in Crystal City during the week, Boy spending more and more time with his GF, and now Javalina not being awake in the morning, I almost went all day without interacting with any of them.  At least with school, I know I am taking the one who doesn't drive to school, which gives me a good 15-20 minutes to talk in the morning.  Yesterday, I got home and I thought he had band practice but he was asleep.  When I tried waking him, he simply said no and turned over and fell back to sleep.  I stayed up for a few minutes, ate some cereal with milk labeled 5/28/19 and then just went to bed.  I couldn't sleep, I tossed and turned all day long.
    Most of the year, we got lucky in that Wife found a reason to come up during the week, but now that it is the end of the year, it is a lot harder for her to jettison her way over here.  In a couple more weeks, they will start their ten hour days and then at least she will be here on Thursday nights, so that will help.  Actually, she was here three night's this weekend and for a little while, it felt normal.
    I should be happy Boy has someone he is as interested as he is in, but I still have hesitations about him getting too serious.  I won't be happy until both of them complete at least their bachelor degrees which they are both supposed to be less than a year away.  The other side of the coin in him being happy with his partner, is that he is spending more time at her house.  We still kind of prefer them hanging around our house, just so we know the Boy is ok.
    The hardest one right now and I will get used to it, is that Javalina is off for the summer.  I can take it easy, sleep late, and just let him do his thing.  He has even started working out with Girlie's BF, so right now he doesn't even seem to need me for that.  I was awoken around noon and it sounded like there were strange men in the house.  I come out of the room and both Javalina and his new trainer were all sweaty and talking about going for a run.  I like that this dude has taken an interest in getting my footballer in shape.  I can lift weights with him, but I did not have real intentions of running with him.  The consequence to this is that I only saw him while we ate, which took about ten minutes, and then he ran off to his room.  The last thing I heard, he was gathering high school buddies for a campaign on some video game.

5/28/19 Pokemon Detective Pikachu? (Movie)

    Maybe because it is fairly inexpensive at EVO, maybe it's because Wife was home an extra night, or maybe everything is starting to fill normal like it was four years ago.  Either way, we went to the movies on Friday to watch John Wick and then we went back to watch the Pikachu movie.  I was blown away by the John Wick movie.  Pikachu is a better memory than a movie star.
    I have always liked Pikachu, he is fearless, fights for right and is a tough little guy that refuses to morph into a bigger and "better" version, at least in the cartoons of ten years ago.  This Pikachu had amnesia, couldn't strike up his lightning weapons, and was kind of a whiner.
    The story starts with a kid who is estranged from his dad and his mom has passed away, so he is kind of a loner/weirdo.  Most everyone in this world has a Pokémon as a partner, from kids to adults.  A city has been created where that doesn't have to be the case and Pokémon and man can coexist in the same space without ownership and more importantly, no fighting.  The kid gets a call that his father is presumed dead, he has gone missing after his car was struck off the road by a lightning blast.  After getting to the dad's apartment, he encounters the Pikachu who knows he is his father's Pokémon because the hat he wears says so.  He remembers he is a detective, so he starts doing detective work to figure out what happened.
    Of course, there is a bad guy.  This one is trying to use the Pokémon to live forever.  I have to admit I started feeling sleepy in this one right away.  I hadn't thought it would be a kid's movie, I don't know why, but there were too many kids in the audience for me.  Javalina was seated next to me and every time I closed my eyes, maybe I started snoring and it was pissing him off to the point of elbowing me every five minutes which annoyed the crap out of me.  I then stood by the entrance to fight off the sleepiness and the movie never got much better than that.  In the end, the kid learns to appreciate the Pokémon, they save the world, and the kid gets the girl.
    It was a little cliché, but again, it was for kids.

5/27/19 Busy Start To The Summer?

    This was an especially busy weekend mostly focused on Javalina and his transferring from middle to high school.  It started on Thursday when he had a ceremony at their gymnasium.  My folks came into town to be a part of the festivities, even though we were unsure what would transpire.  Javalina did not want to stay afterward and enjoy cake and soda, so we took a couple of pictures and vamoosed over to Cheddar's.  For some reason, there weren't many people, yet we ended up waiting almost a half hour before we sat.  We got home around 8:00pm, I took an almost hour long nap and went to work.
    Friday was just as hectic.  I took Javalina to school around 8:00am, and then stayed up with my folks until around 10:30am-11:00am.  I figured I didn't need a full 6+ hours sleep since I was off at night, I could go to sleep early, but 4:00pm came fast and before I knew it, we were picking him up and going to Bill Miller's for our last after school meal.  I figured it was the proper meal as we had eaten there most every week for the last three years, sometimes twice a week.  Wife wasn't in town at this point, but my mom joined us.  we discussed about going to the movies at night to see John Wick, which my mom wanted to see too.  Wife showed up, ordered the tickets online and we waited, I think I even took an hour ow two long nap.  The movie didn't start until 10:10pm.  As I said before, it was a great movie, it did not disappoint.
    Saturday morning found Javalina going to band practice at 8:00am.  We had decided to get up that early to take him and then eat with my folks at the Luby's all you can eat breakfast buffet.  My parent's enjoyed the meal, even paid for the breakfast which was very nice of them.  After the big breakfast, we came home and they took off back to Crystal.  I had fired up the pool pumps as he was supposed to have a get together with his buddies, but after picking him up, he looked beat.  His friends also must have been busy with family, as most of them said it would be hard to come sleep over.  It worked out for the best.  We were beat and I pretty much slept the rest of the day.  Javalina did the same thing once he got home from the band camp. He looked drained and Wife told him to go take a nap.
    Sunday was kind of  a lazy day until the afternoon when I decided it was time to go get the squat rack I have been promising Javalina.  We went to Dick's Sporting Goods and got the rack, a weight holder and a new set of weights for the rack.  The night ended with another trip to the movies, this time we saw Pokémon Detective Pikachu back at EVO.  The movie was not great, but I did enjoy watching the different Pokémon come to life.
   I did get up early today to set up the squat rack so it wouldn't sit in a box all week.  All we need now is some free time so Javalina can get on the weights.

5/26/19 John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum

    Our greasy, stinky hero continues amassing the body count.  I don't think anyone else has killed as many people with their hands as John Wick has.  This movie was a lot of the same, choreographed dancing down hallways and corridors with kill shots to the head and mists of blood.  I did enjoy the whole new way of killing in the first bloody challenge in a museum full of old guns and knives.  The guns seemed useless as they all kept jamming when he tried to use them, but a good old knife is a good old useful weapon.  By the time he was done, the handful of challengers were laying on the floor with a six pack of blades coming out of them from all over.  Almost comically, as the last one alive sits up and pulls one of the many knives out of his torso, John Wick delivers a sharp axe to the head, splitting his head in two from across the room.  There is so much violence, but it doesn't register as bad because the bad guys are all one dimensional.  We don't know them,  they don't even talk.  The one that does talk, Zero (bald headed Master of Kung Fu) becomes instantly likable.  He is a huge fan of John Wick and almost talks like he would rather be his friend.  We walked out hoping he would come back as an ally in the next movie, as he fell over with a knife in his chest.
    The first kill scene was actually in the library.  Some dark humor has been added to the movies, I noticed.  The guy trying to kill him seems like an old friend and John doesn't necessarily want to kill him, but he has no choice.  His only weapon at this point is a book and he uses it to break this giant of a man.  First he asks the big guy if he is sure if he wants to do this.  The big guy says I kind of have to, it's $14 million (the bounty on Wick's head).  He says ok, and they proceed to fight.  When Wick starts grunting, the big guy "shushes" him because they are in a library.  Eventually, Wick breaks his jaw by shoving the book in his mouth and then breaks his neck, using the book as a lever.
    After awhile, he negotiates for safe passage from a gypsy lady, saying he is one of them and they are brothers while holding a heavy cross to her face.  This leads him across the world to maybe India or one of those dark places.  He meets the Halle Berry character who after shooting him once or twice decides to help get him close enough to an important character.  He wants to talk to the head of the group that wants him dead.  By this point he has probably killed another hundred guys or so.  The Halle Berry character has two dogs who work in unison with her guns.  She seems to shoot high and they attack low to move forward under heavy cover.  The dogs were kind of amazing.  In one scene there is a guy on the roof and she does a whistle, bends over a little and the dog bounces off her back up onto the roof to attack the gun yielder.
    Funny enough, they end up back in New York at the Continental.  The Adjudicator (not likable in any way) has deemed the hotel "Deconsecrated", so I guess it means no one is safe there anymore.  This in turn makes Winston back to Wick's best supporter, to help keep him alive.  In a scene which doesn't seem related, the Adjudicator also does a similar thing to the Laurence Fishburne character as she attempts to strip him of his power.  This only emboldens Fishburne's The Bowery King who in the very end finds Wick at his hands and he gives him safe harbor at the end of the movie as they prepare for war (definition of parabellum) against those who sit at the top.  I personally loved Keanu and Laurence together as a nod to The Matrix.

5/25/19 Pumping Iron? Nope, Come Out And March?

    The school is dead, long live the school.  Something like that.  Javalina hasn't even changed out his underwear he wore on the last day of school from Bedichek Middle School, he still wants to sit and reflect with his buddies tonight, but the high school sounds like it will be a harsh mistress with a volatile temper.  They start band practice in less than two hours (I am writing this at 7:30am), Wife got an email yesterday afternoon.  He has already been on the campus twice for testing, which knowing the ego on the boy, he managed to squeeze this intel "dad, I walked around the campus while testing and I didn't see any boys bigger than me, so I will probably be on the varsity team this year."  The boy's ego appears to be bigger than mine.  Last night we saw the third installment of John Wick, who is a total bad ass character for Keanu Reeves.  The first thing our Dumb-Dumb says coming out of the theater is "I could beat him."
    I love the confidence on him, but I do worry it is going to get his husky ass in trouble with the older peeps in high school.  But, back to band, the email says they will be learning how to march and spending a good part of the day there, from 9:00am to around 4:00pm.  Football is more intense and physical, but nobody puts in more hours than band kids for their output.  He is supposed to take a half gallon of water, and some money to go eat there at the Dairy Queen or Conan's Pizza which are a half block off campus.  I guess if he gets friendly with someone with a car, they could go a tad farther, but it would be a lot to expect on the first day.
    He will also be assigned his instrument today, so he might even be bringing a new (to him) bari sax to the house.  I think it is awesome that he is still playing it, of course he has to bring in new reeds, but luckily for that, I had bought him a box of quality reeds which just sat in the kitchen drawer all year.  I used one to show him I could still play the saxophone better than him, and he did not like that.
    I am actually a little excited for this early start into high school life.  I am hoping it leads to new and cool relationships with all sorts of new people which should lead for an easier transition to a new environment.  By August, he will know a good handful of kids which should have his back in case his mouth gets him in trouble. although he tends to be very smooth and usually he seems to be playing moderator between his buddies.  Once we start adding in the boys from football practice, his plate should be full as far as meeting new people, and making new friends.
    He also has all these kids which are coming over today which are the main reason he chose Crockett over Akins High School.  Wife was also talking about him having a summer book reading list and if he didn't bother reading all of it, he won't be kept on the advanced track he has been placed into.  It is all on him and his attitude.  This could be the most exciting time of his life or he could be miserable over the next four years as it does appear a lot will be expected from our young hero.

5/24/19 A Touching Farewell Ruined By Balloons?

    This afternoon Javalina had a ceremony at his school to commemorate finishing his middle school studies and thereby signaling he has matriculated to the next step of life, high school.  It was almost touching, the assistant Principal sure was trying to pull a tear or two from the crowd with her box of tissues and bag o' quotes about success and perseverance from important people like Gandhi "Be the change that you want to see in the world." (very good), to pop stars Beyoncé "Be healthy and take care of yourself.  But be happy with the beautiful things that make you you." (meh).  It was all good, for the first time in the three years I showed up for events at that gymnasium, they even fired up the air conditioners, so it was even comfortable temperature wise, even with close to 1000 Mexicans up in that big cube.
    My only problem was the amount of hollow headed women holding balloons in the crowd.  How hard is it to realize that while you hold a wad of balloons above your head, possibly, just possibly, you are ruining the line of sight of the people behind you.  But in this modern world where Me is the only person that matters, it must be easy to walk into a crowded stadium full of people with your three dollars of helium and take up the space that 4-5 people would take.  Wife and I promptly told the bimbo who sat in front of us "nope, you need to move those balloons down."  She then held those strings at the neck of the balloons, I hope she was as uncomfortable as she expected us to be.  There was another moron sitting right behind my mom who Wife told her to move her floating shit out of the way, and she did, only to push them against my mom's back.  It took a second before she turned and told her "nope, I don't want your balloons on my back."  Again, who needs fucking balloons at a graduation?
    I was bothered by the fact that Javalina has been busy with being a member in the band, played football, track and field, part of AVID, a member of the very select Einstein Jr. program and all of that didn't equal Joe Blow who volunteered to wash dogs or whatever you do when you do shit for free.  Instead, while some kids were mentioned with the principal on his knees to blow the kids that volunteered, while my son who did a lot barely managed to get his name called and then on to the next random beaner.  I would have liked to have a couple words mentioned of for example all the coaches pulled me aside throughout the year to tell me how much of a leader my son had turned into on and off the field.  I know how great my boy is, I want the world around us to know.  Ehh, asking too much, I know.

5/23/19 Motorcyclists Have All The Fun?

    I think I finally figured out how the old guard running the government works.  Bikers think they are the coolest people on the streets with their leather jackets and tiny license plates, but they are just a nice pool of future organ donors for the rest of us.  The old people in charge know they will need kidneys and livers and hearts and anything else inside a normal abdomen, but where can they harvest them without looking like grave robbers?  Enter all those cool bikers who fought to ride without their helmets.  That is one rule that has to be doubling the death rate of bikers but I think this lane splitting which I heard was coming to Texas is possibly the answer to the hospitals' needs for so many organs.  Why else would they approve something that just does not make sense?  Since when did the government decide they give a shit about anybody else but themselves?  Why would they care about motorcyclists running late to the point of letting them take a shortcut between our cars and trucks?
    The answer has to be that they are doing it to keep us stocked with plenty of biker organs.  These guys live free, die young, hopefully sign organ donor cards so when they do meet their untimely death, we all benefit.  They benefit because they were allowed to ride without a helmet which I have always heard is the best.  Now it seems like they are going to benefit by being able to cut between cars at any slow down point in rush hour or any time of day, here in Austin.  When their young time is up, society benefits from a fresh batch of organs daily, I mean their brains and limbs may be erased onto the asphalt, but the tub of organs is usually protected by the rib cage and everything else.
    I think cars and trucks are becoming too safe with their warning beeps to approaching cars or lane departures or automatic adjusting of cruise control to match traffic patterns, I mean we're not far from self driving cars, yet motorcyclists still want to be their own man.  Bless them for their kindred spirit, it helps everyone, in a morbid way.
    I saw two twenty somethings on a couple of Ruckus motorcycles (they are almost scooters) and neither had a helmet on or much clothing for that matter, the girl was in typical short shorts and a small tee.  I just got the heebee jeebees that if they cut in front of me coming at them in the Excursion, they would have just become a red streak on the road, there just wasn't anything to protect them, other than them not going at the wrong time.  I still hear about the lane splitting law which allows bikers to drive between cars when cars are at a standstill and that just screams stupid because people get bored and stupid fast.  If we are idling, it isn't long before someone opens door to spill a drink or spit or vomit.  We don't need bikers coming at us at 30-40miles per hour when we decide to open a door and take one out.

5/22/19 We Can Feel Summer Upon Us?

    Boy got done last week with his spring classes, which meant it is only a matter of time before Javalina joins him.  It started feeling like summer with him wanting to stay up later and later recently.  He has three more days before he is done.  He is getting done with all the last minute mumbo jumbo, like on Monday he went and tested at Crockett High School and we found out he passed the TSI test.  I am honestly not sure what this test does, but the boy is doing good, considering he is one of the laziest bag of bones I know when it comes to schoolwork.

    I just got his graduation gift, a nice black watch which I pretty much had let him choose.  I like giving a nice watch as a gift because they last a long time, and people that wear them just seem to have that touch of respect to the old school way of being.  I know everyone can and does look at their phones for the time, but I still maintain a nice watch is a great accessory on a man.  I was a little nervous ordering it online through Amazon, but I looked at it last night and it appears to be new in its proper box with the instruction manual and I saved over a hundred bucks if I had bought it at the mall.  I ended up getting it for $311, when I had put it on layaway the day before for $422.  There was a cheaper dealer in the Amazon page, but I didn't like one of the comments that they had received their watch unboxed and the place sounded like a sports store.  The store I chose had a 99% approval with over 10,000 customers.

    Probably this weekend, we need to go get that squat rack I have been talking about all spring.  Javalina is chomping at the bit to get into some training and If there is any way I could help him transform into a linebacker, I think that would be cool.  He keeps losing weight even though we are not dieting, he is down to 205 from around 220 without trying.  I don't think he can be an effective lineman if he gets under 200 pounds.  Either way, we got plans to work on his speed and strength and then we'll see where he lands.

    Boy is down to a government class he needs to take, possibly at ACC because he took the first one there, and about four more classes in his field and then hopefully he is graduating in the fall.  I just want him to finish. apparently he can continue with his current company but a few others have reached out too.  He is exploring to see who will pay him more, including Holt, the big road equipment company and one in New Braunfels.  It is looking pretty good on our end, if we could get big Mama home.

5/21/19 Creative Criminals?

    I am always amazed at what humans will go through to communicate and reach out to other people.  I started watching Jailbirds tonight and it kind of has me with my mouth open a bit saying "wow" at the extent to which people go to reach people of the opposite sex.
    I remember watching Orange Is The New Black and the girls there would pass notes under the doors from one to the other until they got to the cell they needed to reach, or they would use the library system and highlight letters on pages and that would be some sort of morse code.  I even remember roaches being trained to carry notes on their backs from one cell to another.  All this I thought was pretty clever.
    In this show, and I believe it is a documentary, so this is like real shit, ladies are the main people being interviewed, but the facility is like 90% men.  The way they communicate from floor to floor is via toilet.  The toilets being made of metal conduct the voice pretty clearly and the ladies talking say that although they are on the 8th floor, they can talk with people in the cells below them all the way down to the 4th floor.  The one thing they say is that they have to remove the water to make the voices be clear.
    If that isn't amazing enough, they then fashion rope out of their white shirts and by attaching spoons at the end, they ensure that the rope from above and below get tangled together.  Once they are entangled, they can be pulled onto either of the floors and bags of contraband can be sent this way.  One of the girls was talking about getting a bag of chips from some sweet suitor up above.  All I can think of is "gross" as they showed a girl eating a bag of Doritos, and I am left thinking that went through the same pipes the poop travels on.
    The guards are aware of this and they say that is the number 1 way people get weapons and drugs on isolated floors like the women's floor, so they try to put controls like they can only flush four times an hour, but it is still hard to keep up with people that have nothing but time on their hands.  I thought all this was amazing and disgusting at the same time.  Here we are, teaching our kids to cough into our elbows and using hand sanitizer when we shake hands and these peeps are eating food transferred through literal toilets.

5/20/19 I'm Not A Drinker?

    Man, I paid for those few drinks the rest of the night on Saturday.  As I had said, after the graduation, we had about an hour to sit and kill which my brother quickly filled with some drinks.  I enjoyed sitting there with him talking shit and tasting different drinks, but the alcohol doesn't go away just because you stop drinking.
    When they finally called us to go sit at the table, I was feeling good, as they say.  I can understand why people end up fighting when they get drunk.  As I was walking to the table I felt ten feet tall and lit up.  I bumped into somebody and it may have been a little old lady but she bounced right off me like an oil droplet on a hot skillet "I thought yeah, that's what you get when you come at Big Mando, now sit yo ass before you hurt yourself."  I found my peeps sitting in the wrong part of the table, I usually sit at the important section at the center of good conversation, but because I took too long at the bar, we were sat at the opposite end of the table, away from my folks and aunt.  I only had my peeps to argue with and Javalina kept whispering at me saying I was being loud to which I kept yelling at him to stop fucking with me and talk in a normal tone and I won't yell.  Wife kept shushing me and I kept telling her not to boss me around, she knows I am the Paterfamilias!
    My brother had ordered some nachos at the bar and they were great with all that melted cheese and fajita meat on top, so I ordered a plate of those for lunch and they were kick ass.  The only problem was that we were split by two waiters and I went with the side of my boys and Wife went with the other side of the table.  We got our food and I pretty much finished eating everything before Wife got her plate.  I was then expected to sit there quietly and act like a human, yet every two minutes a waittress was shoving me over trying to get through with a giant tray of food.  I was just thinking "slide that ass along my back, it's all good."  But ehh, life don't work that way.  Eventually, I tried shutting down and going to sleep, but Wife wouldn't let me, so I got up and walked around like a shark trying to start conversation elsewhere.  My uncle and brother were having a good laugh at me being a little drunk, so I stayed with them and ate cake.
    The graduate seemed to like my gift, he was surprised to see on my note that although I was atheist, I still considered the bible to be a book of worthwhile value to society, not as a set of rules to live by, but as a literary source.  We hugged it out, all was great, then we left.  It was so awesome to sit in the car and get that A/C going.  I was sort of pinching a groundhog (if you know what I mean after all that meat and cheese) and the traffic looked horrible on 1604.  Magically, when you fall asleep you awaken at your destination and that is exactly what happened.  I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.  I don't know that I was hungover, I didn't get a headache or even much cottonmouth, but I was tired and that could have just been from getting up at 7:30am, but heck, we showed up for family and that is always the right thing to do.

5/19/19 ToThe Bar?

    Saturday was a blur, thanks very much to my brother.  By the time we got to the graduation ceremony and found my family in the mezzanine section, my brother already had a tall beer and was looking for more.  It took me a second to realize my brother was looking for a drinking buddy and I was going to have to rally.  First off, I tried being the good little husband and sitting next to Wife, but my ass was too wide for their shitty excuse of a seat.  Both ass cheeks were hitting either hand rest on both sides.  My brother was standing in the last row and I figured he had the same problem as me fitting in the seats.  We were paying attention to the graduating ceremony, but barely.  Eventually, my brother wanted a beer, so we stepped out to the hallways and went back downstairs, bringing my dad along.
    My dad was complaining about the seats and the handful of stairs he had to climb as we took the elevator down to the 2nd floor.  We then came back up and never really got back into the viewing area.  My brother and I decided we've seen enough graduations that we know what happens.  We hung out in the backside where people walk and we were talking about what's been going on.  He is planning a nice trip to New York for summer vacation, catching baseball games along the way.  While we were trying to chill, a nosey worker kept coming up and being a pain in the ass.  She did not want us sitting at the little guard checkpoint because we would confuse the other patrons who might ask us questions.  Then she didn't want us in the hallway, so we went towards the inside where the people sat, but stayed at the very top and the bitch called a cop on us who came and told us to sit down because we were creating a fire hazard by blocking the escape area.  At this we walked out and remembered the nosey bitch had mentioned a handicap area and as we walked we found an open area with sofas and a TV to see the ceremony, that was the best thing ever.  We sat there like fat kings, my dad and Javalina joined us and we were comfortable for about an hour.  Eventually, Boy came out with his GF and then Wife made it out.  We then went outside to greet the graduates and then we headed off to eat.  We got real lucky with parking finding a spot only about hundred yards from the door.
    We got to Chili's way too early, by like an hour and my brother came in and opened a tab.  He asked everyone if they wanted a drink and none of us really drink, well my sister didn't go, but I said I'd go sit at the bar with him.  Wife yelled order a fruity drink, don't be trying to fool yourself ordering beer, just being an ass as we left her behind.  I did order a frozen strawberry margarita drink that was good, then a scotch (cause that looks like what men drink), and just as I finished that, the barkeep gave us a small glass of pina colada, which was so yummy, I wanted a second glass of it, but by then I was getting cloudy.  I went through the meal as they finally called us to sit down drunk I guess.  Javalina kept saying I was yelling, but I think he was fucking with me by whispering so softly.  I just ordered nachos for lunch as my brother had ordered some at the bar and they were so good.  I was kind of uncomfortable in that chair, Wife wouldn't let me fall asleep in my chair, so I eventually got up and chatted with my uncle and other family members.  Oh yeah, my cousin liked the idea of the Bible and thanked me for the words of encouragement I added.  Overall, the day was very good, we were back home by 5:30pm or so, but I was a drunk mess and mostly slept the afternoon away.

5/18/19 Upon Your Graduation, Cousin?

    Today is a good day.  Today is a day to sit back and reflect on what you have accomplished in such a short time.  You are on your way to what I believe will be an interesting and unique life.  Don't think for a minute that just because you are degreed that you are now special or above the law or entitled to anything more than the next person.  What you have is hopefully a little more knowledge in something you find fascinating or at least interesting.  This in turn can possibly help move you forward towards a life that can make you happy because you chose this path.
    To help you in your path, we give you the Holy Bible.  It is not meant as the solution for all of life's problems.  Honestly, I am atheist as you probably already know, but I still think it is an important literary source.  There are many interesting stories to reflect from and just think about.  I think it can be appreciated as a good set of stories from the eyes of a scholar, which I take you to be, specially with your degree.  At worst, if you claim to hate it, and you are already a true atheist, read into it.  We should never hate something without having knowledge of it.  There is no worse crime than ignorance on this planet.  Too many people are easily influenced one way or another because they insist on being void of knowledge and that to me is a sad position to fight from.  Your best version will always be the one that loads up on as much learning as you can from as many sources as you can, then what comes from you can only be the truth as you see it.  On the other hand, if you are a believer, well this is a beautiful version, wrapped in leather and small enough to take anywhere.
    I heard you were thinking or wanting to teach as a professor.  That is a noble and very reachable goal.  Right now that you are young, stay in school, one day you will realize these are the greatest days you ever lived.  I always thought it was a magical time being in my early 20's, living away from home.  I never even thought about the fact that I was always broke, it wasn't as important as being in that community of like minded people sharing ideas and growing together into adults.
    I can't think of anything else to say other than as a representative of your family in Austin, I want to say we are all proud of you and we love you.  We went ahead and added a $50 Mastercard gift card in case the Bible is too much sermon, not enough fun at this stage of your life.  Keep the bible though, it is a nice one wrapped in leather and meant for a young man, according to the cover.  It somehow explores thoughts and ideas men have and answers them through scripture.

5/17/19 Another Graduate In The Family?

    I usually don't talk about the extended family, shoot, my family doesn't always like me talking about them, to which I say don't do idiot things if you don't want to be known for doing idiot things.  But I digress, a cousin of mine is graduating and I think that is pretty cool.  We are not your typical large Hispanic family.  My mom has four kids, that aunt with the graduating kid has two, my mom's older sister has three kids, my other aunt never had kids, neither did my older uncle and the younger uncle has one.
   I grew up close to my older aunt's kids but then she moved after a divorce and it was never really the same after.  My younger aunt with the two kids had them later.  I was already in Austin and thus have never really been close to them.  I see them about once a year which makes it that much harder to have a relationship with them, but what are you going to do?  This kid graduating is from my aunt who is the youngest of my mom's siblings, but then he is younger than Boy by a year, I think.  Boy just loves college so much, he is taking longer than normal.  I kid, but he is taking a while now, oh well, he should finish in the fall.
    My cousin is getting a degree in English and I guess that has proven to be a versatile degree.  I put my foot in my mouth a couple years ago by saying an English degree or any liberal arts degree like that has nothing on a natural sciences degrees, trying to start a fun little discussion but my sister has an english degree so my mom attacked like I had stepped on a bee hive.  I maintain that it is harder to get a science degree as it might be harder to get an engineering degree, which Boy is doing, but an English degree can be turned into a couple of things more than a teacher.  My sister is now a principal, and that is pretty cool.  My cousin has mentioned he is going to continue to study so he can teach at University level, which sounds like he may need a Master's degree and possibly a PhD.  I don't think he has a life sucking girlfriend, so he should be able to do much yet to improve himself.
    You never know where you will end up, my brother got a boring ass History degree which he then turned into a law degree, so the important thing is to just keep plugging away.  I knew nothing about chemistry (it wasn't even taught in high school in my day) and only focused on it because I thought it would be good to be strong in this field for a career in medicine but since I hate condoms, I didn't get that far.  It has been a good fit for me.

5/16/19 The Transition To Crockett Starts?

    It pains me but I am leaving the choice to Javalina.  He is choosing to go to Crockett High School because that is where the bulk of his friends are going and he has been invited to continue the Einstein program over there.  I was hoping he would go to Akins as it is almost across the street from our neighborhood and that is where Boy and his friends went.
    I had to take him to the campus yesterday and it gave me a chance to look at it quickly from eye level, not just driving by.  I am seeing a pattern, Bedichek is designed in the same way, with an open atrium inside the classrooms.  I am guessing that in the 70s, this campus was very nice and maybe even beautiful with flowers and plants on the inside atrium area.  I have nothing negative to say about either school.  Javalina has been comfortable at Bedichek, probably because it is 90% beaners.
    I took him to campus to take some sort of test for reading and writing.  It was scheduled for 4:10pm, and he gets out of school at 3:45, so there was no time to screw around.  I got up at 2:00pm, took a shower then texted Girlie to see if she wanted a ride.  Her mom was going to pick her up, but I needed the company or I am sure I would have fallen asleep either at Dairy Queen, which is less than a block from campus or in the Excursion.  He had two hours and I told him he better use the time, otherwise don't even bother taking the test.  He actually stayed longer, but he missed the writing by one point.  We can do it again next week, so yeaih!  I am not sure if this gives him credit for the high school version of English or what, but he is being given a lot of chances to pass.  At least he passed the reading portion, so hopefully he can get through the writing next week.
    He said it was tough.  We usually eat when I pick him up, so his stomach was growling and making loud noises, so he was a little embarrassed.  It helped that another kid was also having the same problem.  I think after school is a tough time to ask kids to focus and sit still for two hours, but I guess.
    I hadn't had a burger from Dairy Queen in a while.  It was alright, the fries were good.  It was nice to sit and chat and not be on the run like I always seem to be during the week.  After sitting there for an hour, we headed to the campus, but surprisingly, we had to wait another full hour.  Sitting here at work almost at the end of my shift, I do notice that I went to sleep as soon as I came back from dropping him off in the morning and I was really not drowsy like I usually am.  Maybe my BS is caused by me not going to bed when I should.  I just hate feeling like I am sleeping my life away for work all the time.

5/15/19 Stomach Surgery Can Work?

    I came in as usual lately, hoping for a distraction.  I have not been enjoying work as much as I used to.  While coming back from the bathroom, I ran into a lady who needed help with some bottles to bring some water samples from the fab.  Knowing the little that I know, I told her I am not sure which would be the right bottles to give you, but I do know that normally the bottles we use for samples go through a ton of cleaning.  We have to rinse them 10 times with ultra pure water, then fill them with 10%HNO3 acid to break anything down that might still have remained in the bottles.  Then we rinse them an additional 10 times before using them for anything.  I called my boss and he figured out some bottles we could spare that have been put away in the 10%HNO3 solution.  I rinsed them for her and placed them in a plastic bag to keep them as clean as possible.
    She was only in the lab with me for about ten minutes but she opened up rather quickly and started talking about getting surgery in her stomach and that she used to weigh almost 400 pounds.  She had the surgery back in 2014 and has managed to keep the weight off.  The thing that surprised me a bit was when she asked if I wanted to see the extra skin.  She looks slim, but still has the extra skin of being a much bigger person on her stomach and her arms.  I have heard and seen this on YouTube, so I wasn't surprised but I guess it is a small problem to deal with if it means you can walk around at a much smaller weight.
    I think I will stick to doing it my way.  We kind of started our Atkins dieting this week, there just happens to be too much crap at the house, currently.  Wife bought some ready to heat pizzas from Little Caesar's and I hate to say it, but we need to plow through them before we can commit to a diet.  There was also chicken which I finished Monday night from Chicken Express and a whole bunch of brisket that I am sorry, but it needs to go in some tortillas to get eaten, but after all that, yes, we will probably be doing another stretch of a month or so.  I would love to lose another forty, even if I gain half of it back by eating the crap I shouldn't.
    The lady said she was down under 200 pounds, I would be glad to get in the 250-300 weight area.  I have always been big, but 400 has been a bit much.  I feel it on the knees and other joints, and I don't see it getting better as I age, so I know what I have to do.

5/14/19 Paying The Price For All That Work?

    I never sleep well on Sunday nights.  There is something about Wife having to get up and drive at 4:30am that makes me stay away from bed.  I usually try to stay in the kitchen writing on the computer and watching HGTV, I love all the episodes about buying houses on the beach or near a water source.  Adding to the normal load of a weekend, I got Javalina to help me cut the grass on Friday while I was washing clothes and cleaning the inside of the house.  All this so Wife would have a stress free weekend for Mother's Day.  I then got it in my head to replace the pumps since we get the city on our butts about once a year to clean the pool or we will be fined.
    We haven't seen the city guys yet but I know if I keep ignoring the problem they will come by.  So I spent a pretty penny buying two new pumps but being bent over and moving them and adjusting them left me sore and tired as hell.  I did not realize I was this tired until I got to work.  Monday is also when I go to the store if we need food and we are doing alright, except my young pain in the ass insists we need to start dieting again, so I went and got some salads and meat to get back on our Atkins style eating after I dropped him off at school.  I slept maybe 5 hours Monday and that did not feel like enough.  I sat here like a zombie when I got to work for about two hours not really doing much of anything.  I wish I had started just a little earlier, I am going to have to leave this one job halfway done.  It's not the worst thing in the world, it happens, I just am usually pretty good at completing everything I start.
    Right now, I feel like my knees are broke, I spent too much time on them messing around.  The payoff is starting to come around.  I have been running the swimming pool pump since I wired it in and the water is starting to lose its nasty dark green color.  By last night it was just kind of a green color.  I still have a ways to go, shocking and pumping and letting the water out into the yard to clean out the sand filter thing.  I just hope that once I do all the work I can relax the rest of the summer and focus on simpler things like maybe planting a tree or two.

5/13/19 Getting The Pumps Running?

    I know it was Mother's Day yesterday, but my OCD got the best of me and all I could  do was focus on getting the pool and hot tub pumps connected and breathing new life.  I am glad we went to eat a nice meal Saturday night because even talking to my mom and her jokingly poking at me not to be an "ass" and remember your mother still wasn't enough incentive to get me off my focused deal.  I got up near 7:00am yesterday and after writing that blog, I went outside to look at the pumps and wonder what it would take to run the new pumps before starting.
    It is a big monumental task but also not really.  There are three electric wires to run in the protective conduit, so once you pull that off the old pump, open the back of the new pump and there will be a similar layout to connect to.  I connected the three wires for the hot tub, flipped it over and for some reason it didn't light up like it should have.  Well, it did but there must have been a problem with the way it lined up as it leaked from all the connections.  At this point, I was get getting tired and frustrated.  I go inside to go pee and Wife and the boys are all still asleep and cozy in bed.  I'm the only idiot outside trying to impress my peeps that I can do it all.  I say it's hard but not really because it is a ground green wire, a live black wire and a neutral white wire.  As easy as wiring a light bulb, but the hard part is getting those ling of thick wires to bend where you want them to.  They have to be in that conduit, so you can't just pull them individually, but then once they come into the motor part, they must each be pulled individually to the right place to connect.
    After doing all this to the hot tub pump, it started but it leaked everywhere.  I got tired of being on my knees, out in the sun, I felt I had to poop that awesome dinner from the night before, I was tired and cranky after not getting it done in less than an hour like I had hoped.  I was expecting the same shitty results from the pool pump, so I left it with two more wires to attach and finish.  I went inside, took a shower, called my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day, and after going all out Saturday night to Pappadeaux, on Sunday we just managed to go to Mod Pizza which is nice, but hardly a place to go celebrate for Mother's Day, but Wife said that was fine.  I wanted to eat and get back to finishing my job.  After finishing my food, I felt a nap overtaking me.  All I wanted was to lay down for awhile.  I got home and slept until almost 8:00pm.  Wife woke me and I didn't know if it was 8:00am or 8:00pm.  She said we needed t eat dinner and I told her to go get something, I had just enough light to try and finish connecting the pool pump.  She went and got Golden Chick and I stayed behind to get bit by mosquitos and finish connecting the pool pump.  I was surprised and excited to finish the electrical and connect the inlet and outlet water connections and like a champ, it started on the first try.  I stayed outside until midnight with the leaf catcher trying to get as much of the debris out as I could.  I am glad I have gotten ahead of the city  and the rat bastards here in the neighborhood who like to rat me out for having a "dirty" pool.  It should be clean by the end of the week as I will try to run it non-stop and keep shocking it daily.
    Mom, I love you and I will get you a little something for this weekend when I see you at the graduation, I just never got going anywhere.  Wife, I know I wasted "your" day away but you know how I obsess once I feel like I have to do something.  We should be cool for the summer now with our Javalina to help run the mower, and the pool looking good, we might even be able to have a little party back there.

5/12/19 Early Mother's Day Dinner?

    Since Wife has to go to bed early on Sundays, I suggested we go eat somewhere nice on Saturday.  The boys got excited and I suggested to Javalina this was a chance to wear pants and even his nice red jacket.  He got all excited at the idea and at home he started that he wanted to pay for Mama's dinner or share in the expense.  Boy was on board too.  Girlie said they would go and pay for her dessert, so it sounded pretty good.  I said we would go around 8:00-9:00pm and thus everyone could do what they normally did, until then.  Boy studied for his finals this coming week, Javalina played a new video game we ran to Best Buy and he got before we ran off to do our chores.
    I had tried to run the pumps on the pool the previous weekend, but both the pool and hot tub refused to even turn on.  It was a pain and I could see the mounds of fire ants built up behind both pumps.  I've been told to keep an eye on this.  Some of the electronic parts are considered to be sweet and the ants will tear them apart.  Because of my leg injury, we had not really been worried about running the pool or hot tub much in the past almost two years.  Now that I am healed I want to start using them again, but apparently, I was going to have to invest money here.  Lowe's showed the pumps on their website but I could not talk to one knowledgeable person at the store.  I'm sorry, but an 18-year old girl will rarely know anything useful as both I had to deal with one at the pool store and then at Lowe's.  Their eyes both lit up like "what!?"  when I asked if they had pool pumps and one of them was standing five feet from them.  She then managed to quote me $800 and I said nope, try again.  They should be between $350 and maybe $700.  She stood her ground which made me leave.  I ended up at the other side of town at Lestlie's Pool Supply with a proper 35 year old hippy who at least knew what I was talking about.  I didn't like when he explained that because I have an in-ground pool, I should be buying the $500-$650 pumps, depending on horsepower because they are intended to suck water once you form a vacuum, this to get the water from underground up and to the pump.  This was more than I was prepared to spend, but then I noticed they have a store card and I decided to apply for the card.  Ten minutes later, I was walking around looking for extra stuff to get with my new $8000 credit limit.  I got both pumps, a barrel of chlorine, shock, new leaf catchers, and scrapers and even new poles to work from above.
    Getting back home, everyone was kind of ready and waiting for us to go eat.  We had been told it was going to possibly be a 2-3 hours wait when Wife tried getting a reservation, which I kept saying not if we get there at 9:00pm, it never is that bad if you wait until later.  Sure enough, by the time I farted and took a quick shower, we were headed out there around 9:00pm and there was maybe one other group waiting to sit.  I scanned the restaurant and saw a handful of empty tables.  It took maybe ten minutes before we were taken to our table.  I love the food there.  My thought is if we can't eat at the Brazilian Steakhouse place, then this is the 2nd nicest place to eat, for me.  Everything was perfect, from the one mixed drink that I ordered while standing outside to the fudge brownie desert with vanilla ice cream at the end.  I ordered the Texas redfish because I plan on catching one of those one day and I want to be familiar with how it tastes.

5/11/19 Cutting The Grass With My Wild Animal?

    I am not sure how much partying we will fit into the weekend, but knowing that we always have the eyes of the neighborhood upon us I figured a good start tot he weekend was to go ahead and cut the grass.  We have been getting a ton of rain lately and as usual, we got a nice letter from the HOA reminding us to cut the grass.  This one was like two weeks ago and we just had.  I don't go around trying to be the representative Mexican with the shitty yard, but we can only cut the grass on maybe the weekend, if we are here.  That letter was from the weekends when we were out of twn on back to back weekends for my in-law's surprise anniversary, visiting for my mom's/Easter weekend, and just some generally shitty weather.  I wish these HOA fuckers could understand we are not all old Shits sitting around the house waiting to die and looking out the windows judging my neighbors.  We work hard for what we have and we try our best to balance work life, home life and a little relaxation.
    Anyways (rant over), the weather was beautiful when we got home and I told Javalina that we should cut the grass, at least in the front so it would look nice for Mama since we're going to be here this weekend and so the HOA could suck it.  Javalina, being full of testosterone and muscle just needs to be pissed in the right way and then he will take off.  He said "fuck it, I will cut all of it before Mama gets here since brother is useless and I have to do everything around here."  Boy was busy playing grab-ass with his GF and buddy, he can't be bothered unless I schedule ahead.  I like working with Javalina, he has no quit in him unless he gets scared or just can't figure something out if it comes to him using brute force.  Last time we were cutting the grass, it got dark and he was sure there was a "snake hole" in the ground and a snake was going to get him, so he stopped.  That made the grass super thick yesterday, and the mower kept shutting off on him.  We both had our earphones on, these newest BOSE ones are actually pretty great for stuff like this, they stay in place and the sound is good even while I mowed for a bit.  He did not seem to want to understand that if you go fast on tall grass it will clump up and stop the blade which kept happening to him.  I couldn't help but laugh at how he gets mad and goes back and forth trying to figure shit out, but refuses to slow down.  His mannerisms are all like my younger brother, we've called him the "little Ponch" since he was way young but now that he is developing I hear my other brother coming out of his mouth.  He just constantly talks shit about anything and everything.  My brother always entertained me growing up with his constant talking and I find that it is the same with Javalina.  He can make a story out of the smallest things that happen at school.
    We finished cutting the grass when he said he was done.  I was following along with the trimmer which gives me a chance to try and clean up where he leaves whole lines of grass that he misses because he is in a hurry all the time.  I just hope it is next weekend that we get back outside to cut the grass again, because at best it was a shitty job out back where it was really tall.  It was the first time I lifted the mower as tall as it would go to help him finish, but it just made the whole area look like it was half-assed.  I mean it still looks way better than it did, but he has a long way to go before I let him do the yard alone.

5/10/19 Innocence Skipping Away?

    Speaking of growing up on yesterday's blog, Javalina got in the car and started talking about how he thought it was weird to see a 6th grader skipping, like a little kid down the sidewalk.  He said it reminded him of when he was at Williams Elementary and being younger.  Of course, he mentioned it to one of his buddies and the little Shit just said the 6th grader was a "fag".  When he mentioned it to one of the girls he knows at least he got an "aww, how cute."
    I told him this is what we were just talking about.  Boys your age don't have a fully developed brain, so your buddy sees a younger kid having fun doing something "different," and he must be a fag.  You at least have a better understanding of things and you know that hopping along in that skip way does not make one a fag, and he says no, the kid was having fun and enjoying himself.
    In fact, as we saw, you will be skipping when we start football training once school ends because I found a tutorial that says that skipping is one way of making one faster at running, and that is one of his weaknesses catching people from behind, on the football field.
    I have to say that the last three years happened almost too fast.  I don't know if it was because he was color coded or because Wife is working out of town, but the last three years went poof and done.  I spent most Sunday nights when he was in 6th grade ironing his green polo shirts.  We got a little better for 7th grade and about half the shirts were made of non-ironing material, so I didn't have to iron as much, followed by 8th grade where all his shirts were made of rayon or polyester or whatever that never needs ironing and that has been a timesaver.
    Nowadays, Javalina is ever vigilant, looking for weaknesses.  He is that young lion that wants to become the leader of the pack.  Knowing that I am sick, he persisted I challenge him at arm wrestling.  He came the closest he has come to beating me.  I know it's coming, but at least for now, I am still the strong guy at the house.

5/9/19 Growing Up Fast?

    It was just on Sunday when we were sitting in Chicken Express, enjoying a nice lunch, courtesy of Javalina.  His wallet was feeling a little too fat and he wanted to treat us.  We were sitting there and the thought of him going to high school in like four months occurred to me.  I asked him if he had enjoyed his junior high years and we talked about it for a little while.  He did begin 6th grade in Crystal City, which he went down with Wife who had just gotten a job in La Pryor.  The plan was that he would mix in and travel with his cousins and be there with mama at night.  It seemed like the right thing for about a week.  As much as I cry for my independence, all of a sudden I had 0 responsibilities since Boy drives himself and pretty much eats on his schedule, so I was on my own.
    Javalina was not happy in a new environment and within two weeks was pleading to come back and he would do whatever to go to school with his friends and up here where he felt he belonged.  I don't know how real the "behind" they are, but Wife and he were sure that school down there would not be a challenge, I was just glad it worked out to where he came back and gave me structure and a reason to get out of bed other than work.  To top it off, one of the coaches was his teacher for PE and he was originally from Carrizo Springs, which is next to Crystal City, so he naturally started calling our boy Javalina and it stuck when he joined football.  It is funny to hear the other random kids call him Javalina and even on the Shotput and discus events, he would list his name as Javalina.
    His conclusion is that he is happy everything happened like it did.  Going to Crystal for those few weeks got him a chance to see how the cousins lived, and maybe because they are younger said they are Weenies that whine a lot.  I don't know if so much independence is that good for him, but whereas I am unsure if Boy knows how to wash clothes, Javalina normally loads the washer to wash clothes, such as his PE shirts that he wears as undershirts and he manages to wake up at 6:00-6:20am every day with an alarm clock.  Boy still has a hard time with that one and I'll tell Javalina to wake his brother when he has to get up early.
    He manages himself so well, that it is kind of a problem when Wife is here on an occasional weekday and she is expecting him to go to bed at 9:30pm or at least before 10:00pm.  He is always caught off guard, like "umm, I know what I am doing over here.  I got this, you worry about you."  I keep telling Wife it doesn't always have to be a battle, if he gets up early enough to shower in the morning and hang out, why are you messing with him?  This is one of those where she wants to control just because she always has, but I think Javalina does a great job on his own.

5/7/19 Some Problems I Had With The Whole Avengers Politically Correctness?

    Why does it seem like all the heroes going forward are either going to be women and or black men?  I know this is a stretch and it's not that I feel like they couldn't do a great job at it, but when do we get a taco eating cool hero in a big sombrero who saves the day with piñata bombs and maybe a flying chancla?
    Kind of a spoiler, everybody has had two weeks to see Avengers by now.  Captain America does what he does in the end and then he is "gifting" his shield to Falcon.  Why?  Why can't Falcon just be cool on his own?  He has powers Capt. America didn't have, like flying around.  I never saw a scene in this last movie where the two of them were that close for the Capt. to just say, yes, you are worthy.  Plus Thanos pretty much destroyed the shield, it was pretty beat up after the big battle.
    Thor is a god and the son of the king and queen of Asgard, yet after their planet is destroyed, he just hands over his rightful place as king of his people to Valkyrie, who until the last Thor movie, no one knew was still alive as she had been in hiding on the edges of the galaxy or whatever that place was called.  I like Valkyrie and she looked awesome riding on a Pegasus, but a leader would not have run away for a millennia, or however much time it was when the Valkyrie were all but destroyed.
    Iron-Man does what he does and I don't know about going forward.  Boy mentioned last night that there was maybe an Iron-Heart or something.  All I knew was that War-Machine survived and he is pretty good at running around in an Iron Man suit, so to me it makes sense that he would be replaced by him.
    The Hulk is indestructible as he describes himself, so he ain't going away for awhile.  Technically, the only white guy left to save the world is Hawkeye, which finally had some juicy scenes in this last movie.  I did not like that Black Widow did what she did, but between the two, the other did have a family to go to, if everything worked out right.
    Plus all the women to save us.  I get why my brother says Hollywood is trying to turn us into a bunch of cucks.  Captain Marvel shows up like a literal star and rips through tons of metal to cut up the ship Thanos was in, yet when she confronts him, she gets thrown around like a rag, what the heck?  It made for an awesome poster, for sure, when all the females got in tight formation to protect the glove, but they still failed and ultimately required the sacrifice of our favorite man in red to save us all.
    So if us Hispanics can get a hero, I would gladly take Michael Pena in an ant man costume.  He doesn't seem like much of a hero, but he is snarky and funny.  I still don't think Ant Man got his due.  He had the idea for the plan that brought back half the people back and allowed for the good guys to win and even in the end, Capt. America goes off in his costume to jump through time, but still.

5/8/19 Sunday Was Better Than Saturday?

    I started my Sunday at 6:00am, which is nothing new.  I managed to write 3 blogs, so it felt good to get ahead for a couple days.  After that, I watch what I consider informational videos on YouTube.  I was just getting sleepy at 10:00am when Girlie came down.  She said good morning and made a cup of coffee.  We talked about our plans for the day, she said to invite her if her plans fell through, she would join us.  Her BF works Sunday through Thursday, so he is gone all day.  She headed back to her room and within minutes, I went back to bed too.  I talked with Wife as I woke her a bit.  I told her what my plans for the day were, she just said sure.

    I fell asleep hard and didn't wake until after 2:00pm, which pissed me a bit because we were now going to be running late if I wanted to go to the lake to see the boats and cut the grass and BBQ.  I made the decision to forget the boat show, nobody enjoys it but me.  Before I said any of this though, Javalina said he wanted to pay for lunch, just not anything expensive, specially no Salt Lick.  He then suggested Chicken Express which I must say is growing on me.  Their chicken usually tastes mostly fresh along with the fries.  We didn't need him to pay, but it is quite cool when the little guy says he wants to pay for lunch, shows us his wallet and says he has over $150 bucks.
    Speaking of saving money, I actually went back to the mall and Helzberg Diamonds where we had just put his watch on lay away.  I explained that I felt real shitty, but I had found it cheaper in a bunch of other places on Amazon.  There were like 7 vendors selling it for a lot less, all the way down to $259 when I first looked.  At the mall, I was going to buy it for $401.  How am I not supposed to be smart and save myself the almost $150?  The same sales lady was there and I did say if y'all will match the price point or at least take something off, I might just get it here.  She said Helzberg does not do that kind of thing, they were already giving me their best price.  The lady that did the return was much more understanding and said not to worry about it.  There were no hard feelings and she said she would do the same thing too.  I said thank you after I counted my money and then walked right into a Cadillac test drive where if we took a test drive, we each got a $25 gift card.  Wife was already doing it, so I signed up, and ten minutes later, we had an additional $50 in our pockets.  The guy I drove in a midsize SUV said it was priced at about $50,000 as it was the size of a Ford Explorer without the third row seats.   A fully loaded Ford Explorer is less than that and he mentioned their Escallade starts at $100,000.  Yikes!!!  I thought the Expedition was expensive at $65,000-$70,000.
    We then got meat to BBQ and the last few hours of the day were spent just grilling and chilling in the kitchen and out in the patio.  This was nice, Wife even let me take a 30 minute nap before we headed downstairs to grill.  I always feel much better after a nap.

5/6/19 Rounding Out The Weekend?

    This is the dilemma I find myself in now.  I had told Javalina I wanted to get him a watch for graduation, something nicer than a G-Shock, but nothing from Ben Bridge, those are all too expensive.  We settled on the very nice and cost conscious Citizen watches.  We went to this store at the mall and the staff were nice enough, but yet I was hesitating dropping my money, mostly because the first time we saw the watch it had a 20% discount.  Every time after that it was no longer on sale.  Last night, we were headed to that store but there is another that sells used Rolexes and I like to look through those, you never know what might show up.  Next to the handful of Rolexes, they had a display full of Citizen watches and they had the one Javalina liked.  This place had a 25% sale on all Citizen watches, so we kept talking.  I felt guilty and Wife said "you don't owe the people at the other store anything. It's not like you walk in there and they recognize you."  This seemed reasonable and since I was saving about $100, I said "let's get it here."  This morning, out of curiosity I looked at Amazon and I found the watch anywhere between $257 and $450.  It only seems fair that like Wife said of the other place that "it's not like they recognize you...", I can also say of this place.  I would now be saving myself another $150 or so if I order from the Amazon location.  I also feel that this is what is slowly killing the mall shopping experience, but it is too much of a savings to ignore.
    We walked out and over to Ben Bridge after seeing the lady who sold me my last Rolex and we went and talked awhile.  I like that she knows our names and always offers us waters.  I don't usually take anything but I do like hearing about the watches.  She mentioned that Rolex is on such a high demand, they haven't been able to fully stock their cabinet.  She said all last year, they only got 6 stainless steel Submariners which is crazy.  She says she sees them selling in the used market for more than what they sell new.  I have seen that too and didn't understand why, but I guess if the stores are having a hard time getting new product.  She says it is because it takes a year to make a watch.  I told her I would be needing one for my son's graduation from college, probably in December and she said to just give her a couple months lead time and she'll find one for me.  The Milgauss that I like is not crazy expensive but it will still be a pretty penny, but that just seems like the perfect gift, as it is a scientist's watch.
    On our way out, we stopped and they were having test drives for the Can-Am 3 wheel bikes which seemed like fun, but you needed to have reserved an opportunity.  We looked through the different displays of the bikes which is the only motorcycle Wife has said I could maybe drive.  They look hella cool, as the kids would say, but I might be clouding my thinking when they cost the same as a jetski, I have to think about what I really want.
    We then left and I was feeling adventurous so instead of just eating at one of our regular places, I told Wife to drive towards downtown and let's find something new to eat.  We ended up at a Korean place, and I really wanted to like it, but ughh, I did not enjoy the whole experience.  First off, the restaurant was next to a bar and you could hear the boom boom of the shitty music coming through the wall.  The place was filled with nothing but hipsters and lame ones at that.  One beta male was in pajamas, which made me think why would you make yourself look stupid.  There was the usual random white girls in multi colored bleached too often hair, the men with too much facial hair and super cool hats, where the hat has more personality than the dude wearing it.  If the food had been good I would have forgiven all of this, but it really wasn't.  They advertised "kimchee fries" as this great thing.  It was a boat of fries with cabbage in some sort of sauce with pork chunks, cheese, and sriracha sauce.  The flavors were just too much for me.  My burger, if it had just been the ribeye meat, cheese and bun would probably have been terrific, but then there was salad making it twice as thick, a glob of yellow egg or yellow cheese, still unsure, sauces I was not expecting, and then the chicken wings that tasted like they were dunked in Windex or some sort of cleaner with a very weird pre-taste.  It didn't make me sick, so I guess overall, it was fine, but ehh, not for me.
    We got home and now that everyone in the house had seen Avengers, we were finally able to sit and discuss it, which we did for about an hour.  I am always in amazement when Boy can take charge of a room with his knowledge, this is his shit, and he knows a lot from reading comics, I guess.  THey were talking about who could replace who and who should have died and what will happen now, will Thor be with the Guardians of the Galaxy, which Boy says yes, but I wasn't sure if he was joking.  I am sorry but I grew up reading Archie and Jughead.  I never really got into all the hero comics as a kid.  I too have knowledge, but no one cares about Richie Rich and how he was the richest kid (another cartoon that would be intertwined in the Archie Digests, nevermind…).

5/5/19 Saturday Was Nice?

    I guess these are the benefits of a long weekend.  I was off Thursday night, and we went to my son's last concert of the year.  Friday would have been a perfect day, but we had tickets to Avengers;Endgame and until we got that monkey off our backs, it is all Friday was about.  I guess it was good that Wife got the tickets for Friday night.  Javalina was at school most of the day.  I got up like I do on my days off, at 6:00am, drank some coffee, ate some sweet breads (pan dulce), took him to school and enjoyed the morning.  I would have liked Wife to have gotten up to go have breakfast early and ran around town, but we haven't had anything to shop for lately.  I then napped with Wife until 1:00pm, and we got up and she made breakfast and we cleaned up the house as she had said we would be doing.  Girlie and the BF moved out quite a few things from the guest room upstairs and I found new places to put them, mostly taking everything down to the other guest room, which is now pretty crowded but still ok.
    We picked up Javalina, ate at Culver's, and then everyone sent me to bed at 7:00pm.  They all wanted to make sure I didn't fall asleep during the movie which we scheduled to watch at 10:30pm.  We got back home sometime after 2:00am, then we stayed up another hour or so watching a couple more shows.  At 10:00am, Wife got us up to go with her to pick up more of those small blankets that she gets about once a quarter.  We went to eat breakfast after this and came back home.  I wanted to go to the boat show on the water, but my peeps suck.  I am still holding out hope that maybe today is the day (Sunday).  We then napped from about 2:00pm until 5:30pm.  I actually got up at 4:00pm, but Wife got snippy that she had just laid down, which I got mad because she should have not sat there like a mook watching stupid shows if she wanted to nap, but whatev'sss!
    We finally got going, not that we had an agenda, but we did head to the Kia dealership because as much as I am saying no to driving a Telluride, they are interesting and they supposedly had one on the lot.  The idiot unloading it from the truck crashed it onto something in the back, so they couldn't sell it or let us test drive it, but we were able to see it in person and even sit and play with the electronics.  It feels like a winner.  It is the first time I sit in the driver's seat and I feel small.  I also did not bump my head or have to bend my neck all the way to get in, it just took a bit of a shrug.  I might be able to be convinced to walk out driving one if I can get one fully loaded, they are supposedly with all options going for around $47,000.  Try a fully loaded Ford Expedition which is what I am considering to replace my Excursion and that is sitting more around $70,000.  The Telluride is a smaller vehicle and I should be comparing it to a Ford Explorer, but since it sits 7-8 people, I am being a bit unfair.  I tell Wife I may just keep on driving my Excursion if it means I can buy some toys for myself, but we'll see.  We then headed to the mall, which we hadn't done in a while.

5/4/19 Avengers: Endgame? Movie

    This is all based on my opinions and maybe I got a couple things wrong.  First off, the movie does not give you much time to fall asleep, maybe in the first five minutes, but that is it.  The rest of it is a lot of ooh and aah as the movie is just cameos galore.  The first few minutes is a downer, Iron Man is on a ship with Nebula and the ship is pretty much dead, with no power and only a few more hours of oxygen.  They are saved at the last minute by our newest favorite heroine, it would be Superman in a DC world.
    Stark gets back to Earth and throws the biggest hissy fit because they didn't defeat Thanos and I guess he lost Spider-Boy in the battle.  Nothing happens for 5 years, Capt. America is running AA meetings across the US trying to make betas feel better for themselves.  Damn, if the Earth went through this, it would be terrifying and painful, but the people left would just have to ban together and make the planet work.  All these Nancies running around acting like they don't know what to do, five years down the road, tsk tsk.
    Then comes Ant Man, good ole Paul Rudd to save the day.  As we saw in the last movie, he goes into a quantum world and pops out what he thinks is five hours later, but he has been in there for 5 years.  He goes to the Avengers headquarters and suggests a plan to go back in time and get the stones before Thanos gets them and get everyone back.  Stark being the man who could do it, if it could be done says no, but then solves the problem and then they build it.  They all go back in time to get one of the six stones and they screw up, a lot, including letting Loki escape into what trouble he causes we will find out, maybe, although I like a world where Loki is still alive and not killed by freaking Thanos, ultimate Party Pooper.  That man has the biggest stick up his ass, trying to solve a problem nobody told him was his to solve.
    They say the movie was like three hours but I honestly didn't feel it.  I finally felt like it might be a good idea to take a piss when it got to the big battle scene at the end.  You couldn't leave the theater at that point.  I don't want to give anything away as to what happens but the movies never lets you go back and save people without taking its cost and we lose one of our favorites.  The whole theater was crying at that point, but it felt like the right ending, specially when the Ancient One starts some sort of soliloquy about how the hero must be the one that does the heavy sacrifice at the right time.
    I will say that I liked the ending when Thor decides Valkyrie is the right leader for their people, why not, women are taking over everywhere, but anyways.  Thor gets on the ship with the Guardians of the Galaxy and it is funny to see Quill argue about it being his ship and he is the captain.  Thor is like of course of course, but he starts messing with the plans on the screen.
    I hope the series continues somehow, it has gotten rather good.  I just read there is already a Thor 4, and a Guardians of the Galaxy 3 amongst others, so the ride is continuing.

5/3/19 FInal Junior High Concert For Javalina?

    Tonight was the last time we will probably assemble in that stinky warm gym to hear all the different bands that have grown from the class my son belongs to.  In 6th grade, Javalina and his classmates were brand new to their instruments and it was a little rough listening to their very basic songs.  Fast forward two more years and there has been a lot of growth, not only in the bands performing but in the styles they are playing.
    They have the basic 6th grade band, denoted by their green T-shirts and their very large size, and then the Concert and Symphonic bands, followed by the highest skilled group forming the Wind ensemble.  Javalina got stuck in the symphonic band because he wanted to be in a class with the athletes, which happened at the same time as the wind ensemble.  The most interesting new bands are actually the new jazz band and the calypso band.  The calypso band sounded very professional and started the festivities, playing while people were still moving around.  It consisted of one of the band directors playing the drums while a couple students played the different steel drums that make the unique sounds of the calypso band.
   As per usual, sitting there on the tiny bleachers surrounded by warm noisy Mexicans I couldn't help but get drowsy.  I kept insisting on getting into the music and closing my eyes to enjoy it, but I guess every time I did, I would snore a bit and Wife on my left and Boy on my right would both poke me.  This got old after awhile, it isn't my fault that I have been sick with a head cold all week and don't feel great, not that I ever really do.  I mean I missed work on Monday night, and I never do that, so I must be feeling bad.
    But anyway, while my son's band played, I was ordered to record the band on my phone, which I did.  There is no getting around that I was zoning in and out as the video shows Javalina and I slowly go down to his shoes, adjust back up, then slowly down to his shoes, over and over until they got done with their three songs.  At this point I told Wife I would listen to the last band from the hallway so I could stand.  I do much better standing and moving around as far as staying awake.
    I walked out into the hallway and noticed the door behind the bands open so I went over and I could see the crowd from the band's perspective and I missed that feeling, where you are behind the drums performing for a crowd.  After the three quick songs, we helped move all the instruments back over to the band hall, which is on the opposite side of the hallway which connects the gym to the res of the school, it seems.  I walked one of the drum sets over by myself piece by piece and about half the steel drums over.
    I liked the one band director "threatening" Javalina that he was going to talk to me about his behavior and Javalina kept saying "just let me teach one class, so they can all see what kind of a demi-god I am."  I told the director "If you want him to fly straight, talk to Mama, she is right over there."  He laughed and just talked louder towards her, but didn't really say anything.  I think Javalina is one of those kids people enjoy "arguing" with because he is overall a good student with just a bit of a smart mouth.
    I have loved that Javalina is playing the Bari Sax after I did and Wife has told him at this point he will be continuing into high school.  Adding tot hat, both band directors from Akins and Crockett have had conversations with him.  The Akins director pulled him aside this week and wanted to know what he was doing at Crockett when his house was in the Akins area.  Javalina explained about the Einstein program and the early college start thing.  The director said he was still putting him on the roster, so if things fell apart with his transfer, he would be waiting with open arms to accept him.

5/2/19 Differences In What We Eat?

    Recently, I found a string of videos all sort of linked together in the line of Koreans Trying BBQ or Irish Trying Different Alcohols.  I am really blown away by the little things the people have to say, sometimes they say things accidentally and it makes it more real/interesting, to me.  For example, there was a group of North Koreans who had defected to South Korea and one of the girls has been learning English and she was telling the guy serving her different pieces of BBQ how Americans were referred to as selfish bastards and how we were referred to as pigs.  She was having a bit of a hard time now having Americans live up to the "bastard" hype because she had met so many friendly Americans who were teaching her to talk English for free, as she talked she seemed to be realizing that all these people were helping her just because and maybe we weren't all bastards.  Another of the guys in the same group was not wanting to eat with a fork because it looked too much like the tool they used on the farm to move dirt and manure around, which he was also quick to say that the government also said that's how we shoveled our food in our mouths.
    The biggest wow for me is that most of these people had never eaten cow, everyone is just too poor, pork was the more common meat that made its way around the country and dog.  Dogs were not used as pets, but as a meat source.  They were then to send the fur of the dog or sheep or whatever other hide to the government so they could take the fur to line the jackets of the people serving in the army.  If you "chose" not to eat meat and didn't have a fur to send, then you had to pay a tax to cover your portion of fur your family didn't send.
    You don't realize how much pride us Texans have until they start talking about our BBQ and how we seem to specialize in BBQ-ing cow.  It seemed everyone who had never tasted brisket before just loved it, and what's not to love?  Other parts of the country prefer pork, but we go for the big one, I guess because we are Texas and everything in Texas is bigger, as we like to remind people.
    It was even funny I landed on one clip where it was a british couple and the girl looked like she pooped pink ribbons, but her eyes turned over like a shark when she had some of the brisket and proceeded to eat it with her hands.  The guy unfortunately, declared himself not a cow eater and only had chicken without the skin and some sausage, to which I say boo.

5/1/19 Parents Celebrate 48 Years Together Today?

    Wife suggested I write about this today, as she has always thought anniversaries were important dates to remember.  I honestly never thought about my parents having an anniversary date, they were always just married, to me.  Even my own marriage, I am unsure why I would want to celebrate each year, it is not impressive to make it another year, you're supposed to be content in the decision you made all those years ago or working on a solution to improve your situation.  I am not being pointed or snarky, but I guess other than in the very beginning when the shotgun imprint was still fresh on my back, I have never thought about my marriage ending, Wife and I have very similar ways of being in the important things and I think we are both happy.
    I say all this, because that is how I feel about my parents being married, I didn't think it was for us to make a big deal, it is something between the two of them and they should do what makes them happy.  I can say that I noticed about 5-10 years ago that suddenly Wife and her siblings would get together and do something for her folks.  That is great, but I guess it makes the rest of us look like assholes, so I would really like to say "cut it out!", but I will just be seen as a curmudgeon, so I smile and go along with it.  This year, we were all tested as a huge deal was made by the Delgado Knuckleheads for their parents.  They pulled off a "surprise" lunch/dinner complete with family from out of state and briskets as far as the nose could smell.
    This did prompt a discussion with my folks and they said that if we do anything, we should go somewhere and so tentatively, we are scheduled to go to Las Vegas here in two years for their 50th anniversary.  I don't really worry about my mom, she stays quite active, mostly chasing after the grandkids, but my dad needs to keep himself moving or we will be taking him in a wheelchair.  He has no real excuse why he is becoming a statue but he doesn't try to do more.
    In all honesty, I am glad they have stayed together, now that I realize we live in this shitty world where too many people give up too soon and split up.  I know that it is the better solution in many cases, but there are always repercussions and a few generations of fatherless children is starting to add up.  I feel like a fucking hero and a man simply because I am around my boys every day, which I must have picked up from my folks.  It should take more than that to get hero status, but it is so disjointed nowadays that any couple who still hangs around their kids is a winner.
    I know I came in sideways and almost sounding like I am complaining, but I am glad you two are still around and together Mom and Dad, if anything I think we just take it for granted.  I hope the two of you go out for a nice dinner today/tonight.