9/30/20 Why Does Trump Get No Love?

     I can't understand why Trump gets no love from the media.  He has been in the public eye since I can remember, popping in cameo roles all over the place, usually as himself.  Do people hate confidant people who speak their mind?  Isn't that what we all strive to be?  Who wants to be a freaking soy boy, unemployed and living in mama's basement, strive to be like this guy.  Say what you want, but the man loves this country and everything red, white and blue.

    I have noticed lately that gas prices have stabilized around $1.60 a gallon.  It wasn't that long ago, that fucking Bush had us in a war in the middle east and we were headed to and in some places going over $4.00 a gallon.  To fill my 44 gallon tank, at $4.00, that was near $180.  At $1.60, that is barely $70.  A savings of $100 every time I fill up, that is reason enough to be happy, for me.  Add to that the fact that we don't even talk about the possibility of a holy war with the Muslim population and for that matter, we haven't gotten involved in other needless wars, we seem to be minding our own business, I say good, for a change.

    I saw a story where if Biden wins, he is going to get us involved in the war against Syria.  Why?  It must suck for them, but why do we have to get our military involved where it does not concern us?  I like the president's push to make us isolationist in principle.  I don't understand why we are always overstepping, it's not like other countries appreciate what we do for them.  I say fuck them, let them fend for themselves for once.

    Shit, he has been nominated twice now, in the last couple of weeks for a Nobel Peace Prize.  The first one is for brokering a peace deal between the Israelis and the United Arab Emirates, who thought these two groups of knuckleheads could get along without fighting?  The second nomination is for brokering peace between Serbia and Kosovo.  I don't even pretend to understand what they are fighting for, and it seems their daddy should be Russia, they are over in that area, no?  Putin should be spanking whoever needs it in that part of the world, but no, there we are again, trying to bring peace into another group of idiots that can't get along.

    Yet, the media can't do any better than spread lies.  I can't believe how they have spun the Breonna Taylor story, making it seem like she was an innocent tucked in bed with a teddy bear in her footie pajamas while the truth is that she liked that gangster lifestyle, according to the report I read (the Tatum Report), continuously  getting her idiot boyfriend out of jail, renting cars for these drug dealers under her name, yet in the eyes of the media, she was a sweetheart.

9/29/20 Brisket Lessons?

     I have no shame in saying before I got this new grill, I never considered myself any kind of cook.  I could always get a fire set up and burning with my charcoal grills, we have even had propane grills and they were okay.  Now, I was given a pellet grill which I had been thinking of buying and it has opened up a world I didn't think I even cared about in making me want to smoke a perfect brisket.  I have always known that brisket is king here in Texas, but to me, it was more of a white guy's thing.   I always thought as long as I can grill some fajitas, I am alright for a Hispanic dude.  Now, with this grill that will maintain an exact temperature, I guess anyone can grill a near perfect brisket.

    Although I am talking about the perfect brisket, I am far from it and still trying to understand them.  At this point, I have smoked three by myself in the last month.  Last nights was possibly the worst of the three, the meat just didn't cooperate.  The first one, without doing anything too crazy, was smoked for 8 hours and when I cut it, it had a certain direction to the meat and as even Boy was telling me the brisket is made up of two muscles, the flat and the point, I could see where the strands of muscle changed direction and I cut it perpendicular and it worked out great.  The one I smoked last week was all in the same direction, the muscle never seemed to change direction, so I cut it all the same way.  The one this week, was closer to twelve pounds, the first two were more like ten pounds.  Maybe the toughness was because it was bigger, it needed more time.  Maybe it was just a different breed of cow, I don't know.

    Don't get me wrong, even if the meat was a little tough, it was still delicious, it just wasn't fall apart tender like the first one.  I was trying wrapping it in the pink butcher paper instead of foil as many cooks suggest on Youtube, so I am not sure if that had a negative effect on the result.  I also tend to let them sit only for about thirty minutes after.  It is so hard, after putting it in the grill early in the day and having to wait over eight hours, at the end I just want to eat, not put it in another holding place like it is suggested, for a couple hours.

    I am not dissuaded, I asked Wife if she was getting tired of eating briskets on Saturday and she says no.  I am like a machine, I will keep doing it until I feel like I have perfected the technique, so I will just try again next week.  My plan is to get up even earlier than 9:00am so that I can go longer than 8 hours if that is what I have to do.  I will give the butcher paper one more chance, but if it comes out tough next time, I will be going back to aluminum foil, I don't care what the experts suggest.

9/28/20 Boy Got Himself Another Job?

     Man, talk about bad timing.  First off, Boy got furloughed at the start of the year from a company he spent almost three years developing and growing with.  He started as an intern and they liked him, promoted him and just as they made him a full time employee with benefits and a $70k plus salary at the end of last year, they lost their funding and he lost his job.  He managed to get one or two checks at that salary before being kicked to the curb.  It probably would not have been that bad, if not for Covid-19 which pretty much shut down the country come March, but it took until last week, almost the end of September, for my older boy to find another company and a job that fits him.

    Since he was laid off, he started applying everywhere in the area, some weeks he said he put out as many as twenty five applications but still, he sat there waiting.  He did get taken for that weird ride by the lab affiliated with Toshiba that interviewed him, the interviewer offered him a job then HR called back and took the offer off the table.  It almost felt like we should get someone involved as they mentioned his dyslexia as the reason for not wanting to hire him, but we told him "do you really want to start your young career suing potential employees?"  That is not our way, if they don't want you, you shouldn't want them, it is their loss.  After a few more months of waiting, it seems like companies are starting to go back to normal again.  He has gotten a few cold calls from companies, including Samsung, and Intel, among others for interviews.  The only thing that sucks about the interview process is that it has gotten to be so much more.  Samsung, I believe has a seven round process before they will hire you, he found out from two friends who got 3 and 5 rounds in before the company decided not to hire either of them.

    Applied Materials, who is a big producer of semiconductor tools here in the area, had several positions which he had applied for months ago, and suddenly they called him just on a random weekday.  They told him he would be interviewed once and if they liked him, he would be offered a job.  He said his thirty minute interview went almost an hour so he was pretty positive about the encounter, but he said he was the first one interviewed, although there would be several kids hired at the same time.  He was supposed to be called by the end of the week, and he wasn't, but when he called to find out what he could have done better or what not, he found out they were still deliberating, and after another few days, he was called this past Thursday and told he got the job.  He said it felt like a mountain of stress had been removed off his back and he seemed genuinely excited.

    He is supposed to be called by the HR people this coming week, I asked him if it was possible the same thing happen again as with the last company, and he says no, it shouldn't.  He went on a vacation trip which I wasn't even aware of with Sweetie's family to the coast, and hopefully, he gets to work here in the next couple of weeks.

9/27/20 Javalina Being Challenged By Varsity Boys?

     Mijo has always been a very confidant boy, Sometimes I even think his ego might be bigger than mine.  After coming home from practice and being told he was on the varsity squad for football, he was pretty excited, mostly because he got the fancier helmet he had been longing for since the previous year when he was given an old helmet his freshman year.  He still managed to complain because he knew he wouldn't be a starter and suddenly he started realizing he isn't the big bruiser he had thought he was.

    Poor guy was given a glimpse of the real world, first off, he was not able to play peewee football because he was such a husky boy, there was a while there when we were really worried he might become too obese even, but then he started playing football and he grew into his body just right.  While he played football in 7th through 9th grade, he became a team leader and hardly a day didn't come when he didn't have a story of pushing this guy or that guy around.  They even manage to go at it in the lockers and even so far as to tell me stories of getting into it like rams in science class, where the teacher seemed to encourage them, she is a big fan, we saw her at a few games.  

    This year, he was promoted to the varsity and with that he is having to go against bigger, faster, and stronger boys and as he says, he keeps getting his ass handed to him.  He is being double and triple teamed in drills, I guess so the coaches can evaluate him properly, but his only story line daily seems to be "I got my ass kicked around, but it was fun."  His only concern is when the coaches threaten him with "you are going to go back down to the JV squad, if you keep making mistakes like that."  I don't know if they mean it, or of that is their way of scaring him into working harder, but it is keeping him on his toes.  We tell him we are proud of him either way, he is getting experience with the older boys now, but if he goes to JV, then he is going to go back to starting and probably playing on both sides like he was doing last year, so no worries, as far as I see it.

    He made us laugh this weekend when he said that was the perfect example of how his life feels right now.  Wife was scanning through the channels and came up on Happy Feet 2, the cartoon movie with the penguins and he said he felt like the krill that decides to take on a meat eater and gets taken for ride on the back of a seal.  After the krill fall off and having had zero effect on the meat eater, the krill decides he won the encounter and starts singing "we are the champions" in full glory.  This, after they were going through the game tape of their first scrimmage, the QB was complaining that Javalina was not doing his job of stopping the defender in front of him and the coach defended him saying look at him, he is about 200 pounds (really 235) and trying to stop a 300 pounder with more experience.  I am sure my son will grow into his role, but it has to be rough on him before it gets better.

9/26/20 First Time The Pellet Grill Failed Me?

     I am feeling pretty confidant cooking on the pellet grill my boys got me for my birthday.  Sweetie gave me the best compliment saying the latest brisket tasted like it came from a restaurant, it was so good.  The grill does all the work, all I do is make sure it doesn't run out of pellets.  I may have overdone it this morning (writing this Sunday).  Instead of staying on top of the pellet bin, knowing I was in for another 8 hour smoke, I overfilled the pellet hopper figuring I only had to leave the top door open and build a pyramid of pellets up.  I think this caused the hopper to be too full and heavy and maybe got the pellets to block up the turning mechanism.  I had turned the grill on and figured all was good.  I even came back in and got the pork butt ready by covering it with spices, mostly salt and pepper, but also a little mustard.  I went out and put the hunk of meat in the grill even though it still said Pre, meaning it was still heating up.  I didn't think much of this, specially since I hadn't had any problems with the grill.  I went back in and we sat and ate the leftover brisket and sausages in tacos.  After I finished, we were going to go to the store, so I went out to check the grill and that is when I saw it had an error, ER5 and the grill wasn't even warm.

    I came inside to look up on the computer what that might mean and found it was the error code for a jammed turning device, the one that feeds the pellets to the burning apparatus.  I dumped out the hopper, which is what is recommended.  I then observed that the turning mechanism was working properly and I could hear pellets moving and getting dumped into the area where they are burned.  After seeing that the pellets were moving and hearing the tink tink of the pellets inside the grill, I loaded the pellets back into the hopper and went inside.  I had to go potty, and when I came back out, I found the problem there again, ER5.  It didn't make sense, so again I dumped out the pellets, it hadn't had any problems before.  I was just staring at it thinking what else I should take apart.

    Javalina came outside, to check on me and he said I should look where the fire is (there is a heavy "cap" that keeps the fire away from the grill and the grate that have to be removed to get under there.  I rolled my eyes, but did this.  It is a sure way to get all greasy and oily because the grill was dirty from the brisket the day before and it hadn't gotten hot to burn up the residue.  Sure enough, when I removed the cap and was able to see, it was overloaded with unburnt pellets.  I don't know how they kept coming and coming, but the ignitor did not burn them up.  It took a minute but we got the shop vac and I vacuumed all those pesky pellets up and retried the grill from step one.  After a few minutes and me thinking it wasn't going to work, it started smoking and within about five minutes, the thermometer read 480 degrees.  I let it run by itself to make sure and burn off all the residue from the brisket and then turned it off.

    I guess I will be mindful about overfilling it in the future.  It is really a great grill and so far I have enjoyed being responsible for cooking our family weekend meals on it.

9/25/20 Fixing Another Problem In Our Beloved House?

    Sometimes it just feels like a pain in the ass to be a homeowner.  It is bad enough I am still trying to get over the cost of the new water heater, but Friday Boy mentioned that there was hardly any water flow in his bathroom.  He had mentioned this before but then I would go in there and see the water looking decent.  Friday, he went to Mama, she had just arrived and she was headed upstairs to change.  She called me in and made a stink about it.  I just said "fine, I'll get to it as soon as I can.  Saturday was brisket day, I spent the day smoking another big hunk of meat and the payoff was oh so good.  Sunday was a weird-ish kind of day.

    I got up at 8:00am, came downstairs, wrote a blog, looked up on Youtube for any new news stories.  I guess we went to bed around 3:00am, so after awhile I just felt sleepy and Wife sleeps at least until noon if we don't have anything to do.  I came back up to bed at 10:00am, played with my phone for a bit, my mom got all pissy because we have a group text going and she doesn't like how we will argue with each other at times.  I said some stuff, my sister said I was wrong, then I nudged a correction, she continued, I pushed again and Mama got nervous because we are all supposed to be like 3 year olds who just need hugs.  We weren't even arguing ugly, just disagreeing with each other, not a big deal.  Anyways, I fell asleep and really didn't wake until around 1:30pm.  As soon as I stirred, Wife asked if I wanted to go get some groceries for her week down in La Pryor.  I showered and we headed out to Target.

    When we got back, I didn't have much else going on.  I tried running the grill, but it gave me my first problem and I had to do a lot of work to get it back to working.  After this, I thought of the shower and it was nearing 4:30pm.  We went to Lowe's and got the part, which cost a decent $38.00 for a new cartridge.  When we got back I announced I was shutting the water off and Wife told me to give her time to go take a quick shower, you never know how long things like this will take.  I told Javalina to help me, it would be good to learn a thing or two.

    We went out and turned off the water, I had him turn the valve, so he knows how to do it later if I ever need him to.  We then opened the faucet to check it was off and he had to go back out there and squeeze it shut a bit more.  We then headed to the bathroom and I removed the old water splitter/cartridge thing in the wall.  It was a little stuck, and I let Javalina pull on it for awhile before I got it out by giving it some uncomfortable twists.  I noticed the Hot water inlet was thick with calcium deposits, so I scraped them off as best as I could.  It was a pain in the butt, Javalina insisted the pipe was bent, but eventually we got the new part in and I screwed it all up nice and tight.  I sent Javalina out to turn on the water and for some reason he couldn't get it to turn.  I went out there and turned it after I laid on the wet grass (it was drizzling) on a towel.  He said "no fair, you laid down and got all your body weight into it."  I just said "whatever it takes, I am still the strong one in this house."  We went in, happy that the water came out as it is supposed to and I didn't see any leaks.

9/24/20 The Beach Bum?

     It had been a long time since we endured a movie this crappy all the way to the end.  I think it is mostly because we were smoking a brisket and the idea was that when the movie finished, the brisket would be ready.  Wife kept asking me "when is something going to start, like a purpose or a plot?"  I wanted to stick through it because I thought the cast was great, along with the location and imagery on screen.

    I really think the idea was taken straight out of someone reading a bit too much Charles Bukowski and applying his life into a setting straight out of Ernest Hemingway's life.  The movie is set in the Florida Keys and Miami.  The main character, Moondog, played by Matthew McConaughey, is a famed writer who seems to spend his days drunk partying with the "low life people" down in the keys.  He slowly wastes his days away drinking and sleeping with anything that moves.  After a few minutes of watching his debaucherous life and wondering where the movie is taking us, we find out he is married to a way too good looking for his dirty ass Minnie, played by Isla Fisher.  She is crazy rich living in a mansion along the Miami waterfront and summons him home because their daughter is marrying some nothing looking guy for no reason.  The young couple do not even look like they belong together, and Moondog quickly calls the guy out, indicating he should come out of the closet during the wedding.  Other than him showing up for the wedding, nothing is really going on, but Snoopdog is there, and he plays a family friend getting ordained to marry the young ones and then going on a long dead end conversation with Moondog about some special strain of Marijuana.  I really do like Snoopdog, he always plays these super cool laid back guys but the weed and that lifestyle seems like an old gimmick in today's modern world.  Kind of seeing Cheech and Chong pop up in a movie today, I mean it seems everyone smokes a little bit, great, go ahead and move along.

    I don't want to give away the rest of the movie plot, but I do really love the cast.  Other than these three, Martin Lawrence shows up for awhile, Jimmy Buffet is in there as himself for a couple scenes, Jonah Hill pops in as his manager or lawyer or something although he is way too skinny.  Zac Effron shows up playing an asshole character that hangs out with Moondog for a scene and excuses his shitty behavior by talking too much about Jesus Christ.

    This cast could have made a special movie that either made a ton of money or could have become another cult favorite to watch over and over, but even the end left a bad taste in my mouth.  Talking the other day about excess when watching Entourage and the boys spending tons of money enjoying life is very different than watching this idiot gain 50 million dollars in one day, putting it all in a sailboat and then burning it all in some ritual that only made sense to the character.  Pretty much everyone that showed up for his fine moment of a fireworks show would have benefitted from receiving say one million dollars and taking it rather than what this idiot decided to do.  Maybe it is just the capitalist money lover in me, but I never wanted to kick a character in the balls more at the end of the movie than this one.

9/23/20 Cable Is Done? (Part 2 of 2)

     Saying everything I said yesterday about how great Youtube and TikTok are, why should I continue paying U-verse $245.45 a month?  Google fiber is advertising their 1 gigabit internet service for $70 a month and that is a great savings of more than $150 a month.  The U-verse price includes cable, internet and our local landline, which I haven't had a phone even plugged in the house in a couple of years, I got tired of telemarketers calling.  I am just hesitating because I don't want to find out I loose something by changing.  It seems that we have Netflix and Hulu for our movies and some shows.  We get HBO max through an online account, and I don't know if we loose this if we get rid of cable, this is what makes me hesitate.  I hadn't paid much attention to HBO lately, but my brother did just get me to re-watch Entourage and I am still enjoying it.

    Plus, what is better than getting some interesting and new ideas when dealing with every day issues?  I like when they take a played out meme and give it a little twist, just to keep you on your toes.  I saw one which was pissing me off, this really popular girl does nothing but smile to the camera and barely even dances to the music and gets millions of views.  100 girls copy this, but I saw one yesterday where she is going along doing the little dance but she has a clock over her head reading 4:19.  Before the song ends, it clicks over to 4:20 and suddenly her eyes are bloodshot and she looks guilty of getting high.  It was pretty funny, I thought.  Stuff like this, you would never get a chance to see on cable, it is just too washed over.

    That is the other thing.  The FCC has too much control over programming and all I can say is fuck them.  They are perfectly okay with someone's head getting severed off or a classroom full of kids getting blasted away, but God forbid someone show a titty and they go out of their minds.  What kind of stupid shit is that?  As I understand it, in Europe, nudity is a natural thing and nobody is covering people up.  How fake is it to show a couple making love, but the woman somehow has a shirt and panties on?  Come on.  When Breaking Bad was going at its best, it was glorifying meth, killing cops, and showing criminals getting rich, all ok per the FCC, but had the Wife shown a little bush in a shower scene, that wouldn't even be thought of in the writer's mind because it is impossible.

    Nah, I think I will be flying free by the end of the year.  I have Youporn on the laptop by my bed, TikTok on my phone to kill time, Youtube on the kitchen laptop when I am sitting around, Netflix and Hulu on the projector for sitting back and watching movies and shows with Wife on the weekends.  Where does cable programming fit.  Add in the social justice warriors ruining sports and I don't even need to watch the NFL or NBA anymore.

9/22/20 Cable Is Done? (Part 1 of 2)

     I was in the shower just awhile ago and two thoughts converged in my mind at the same time.  Wife and I have been talking about "do we need cable?", we don't really watch it anymore during the week.  I don't even think of turning on the TV.  Last thing I enjoyed watching was HGTV to see all the waterfront properties and swoon, but then they started going more towards remodeling and Property Brothers and shows with personalities.  I don't care enough to watch that.  I am even surprised when Wife gets here on Friday evenings and the first thing she does is turn on the TV in the kitchen, right next to the table.  Last week I even snapped with a "what the fuck are you doing that for, you're not even watching it and it adds noise to the room (she got on her laptop next to me, I was on mine)??  The other thought coming into focus after spending my lunch sitting and watching TikTok videos of a comedian who does these little scenarios with different members of the family, @changthagame.  He busts on his son for being stupid with his little girlfriends, and the brother for letting himself get controlled by his bossy girlfriend, and stuff like that.

    It occurs to me that this is what the comedy shows I have grown up watching do, but since they have to fill a time slot, sometimes the funny gets drug out.  All good comedy shows, like 70's Show or Big Bang Theory are situational in that the characters have to deal with some uncomfortable issue and somehow they draw comedy from it.  This is what the good content providers are doing on Youtube, TikTok, and maybe some of the others.  The difference is that with these sources, a studio isn't deciding who is good enough and who isn't to be on screen.  Anyone with enough confidence and a modern phone can make a video and let the world decide what is good.

    Technology has come so far, that these videos are amazing looking.  I sit in front of my 100inch projector and turn on Youtube to watch some of these videos when I get bored of sitting at the table, it is the era of Covid-19, we can't do much outside the home.  Specifically, I like watching @ThresherFishing who does videos of himself fishing around Corpus Christi.  He uses a drone to capture video from above that looks like it belongs on TV and then his fishing is also top level.  The other one I always watch too is Fresco Channel, they are a family who are obsessed with being on the water.  They go fishing and spend the night on their boat most every weekend in different places around Miami and the Florida Keys.  He also uses a drone to catch some awesome video of the water and landscape.

9/21/20 Why Do We Listen To Jocks?

     I wanted to write this last week when Wife was talking about her last pep rally and then seeing what was going on in the pro sports world but I didn't want to sound like I am now a blind conservative spreading the message.  This again relates to the narrative that keeps being spread by the left, of which I used to belong to not very long ago.  I despise this message of police overwhelmingly abusing their powers, it is a disgusting idea.  Yes, there have been instances I won't deny it, but time and again, the examples that keep being proposed to us as unjust and unfair can be reviewed by our own eyes and found to not be exactly as the radical left cry.

    I have already mentioned George Floyd being on drugs, had held a pregnant woman at gunpoint , unfortunate how he died, but he was resisting the whole way.  Same goes for Jacob Blake, allegedly raped a minor, was fighting with cops to get a knife, Rayshard Brooks, again, stole a cop's tazer after fighting with two cops on the ground, and on and on.  If the truth to these cases as we see were shown, would the riots continue?  How do you justify destroying a downtown area for a criminal caught doing criminal shit?

    Anyways, my point is why do we listen to jocks, no offense, but when we are in high school nobody thinks of jocks as the "smart ones".  This is where Wife was saying she hates going to her pep rallies.  It is not the fault of the kids, but she says it is always the same thing "mumble mumble mumble... go Bulldogs!!!"  The poor football players given the microphone never have anything groundbreaking to say.  Yet, we fast forward and expect that the most gifted physically who make it to the top levels somehow will also be gifted with brains to think about issues?  There may be a few, but the trope "dumb jocks" exists for a reason, no offense to the few that can actually read and think logically.

    Look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, a fine program historically, have won many super bowls and produced many hall of fame players, but they absolutely look like jackasses with the name of a guy who had no problem being the gunman in a drive-by situation.  If this part is true, why give any support to an animal of this caliber?  Slowly, at least some of the players are coming around and realizing what they are doing.  Kudos to Alejandro Villanueva who taped over the name of the criminal and instead wrote in an actual hero using the name of a fallen soldier.  That is the  type of person we should be recognizing, not these assholes who decide to fight with cops and make America look bad.

9/20/20 Small Problem With Excursion, Big Solution Parked Next To It?

   I know I am always talking about my Excursion, I love the thing, but lately it has been giving me a bit of a problem.  The right turn signal light in the front has a short or loose bulb assembly.  I have opened it up three times now, twice to change the bulb and once to try and tighten the metal clips that "grab" the bulb. At first, the bulb went out, fine, they are sixteen plus years old.  I replaced it and it quickly went out.  I thought "great, it was a dud."  So, the next day I replaced it with another bulb from a different pack of bulbs I had bought for the rear signal light awhile back.  This too went out after a drive.  It does this irritating blinking sound like 2-3 times faster than normal, so you can tell when it isn't right.  At this point, I decided to go back to Advance Auto Parts and see if they had a better solution or better bulbs.

    The guy told me to check the bulbs, they are probably still good and it is the light assembly that over time opens up and gets loose which in turn leads to the metal clips not having good contact so it seems that the bulb is burned out.  I took this advice, opened it up and noticed the filament wasn't frayed like they get when a bulb burns out.  I then took a flathead screwdriver and went at the metal clips that make contact with the metal on the bulb.  This worked for about 4-5 days, but today the problem came back, again.  It is intermittent, sometimes it works fine, sometimes it doesn't which just makes it more annoying.  What to do?

    The easiest solution by far is to just say fuck it and start driving Wife's Telluride, it looks so delicious sitting there all shiny and new in the driveway not getting used while Wife drives around in the Ecosport, our tiny back-up SUV which we got so she wouldn't put 30,000 miles a year on our new family vehicle.  It just doesn't seem fair, it is her "baby", the Telluride.  I am kind of waiting for Boy to get a job so I can stop paying for his Edge and maybe get me a new F-250, although Wife is already balking at the idea.  I just keep saying "hey, I was cool with letting you get the nicest Telluride you wanted, I didn't flinch or say no."  It seems fair she should return the favor, it's all I am saying.

    I will probably just fix the Excursion by replacing the lamp assembly if I can't figure out how to tighten the metal clamps, it is such a perfect vehicle, I am even thinking of repainting the roof where it is faded and starting to look rusty, like an old balding man.  With the leather in the front seats replaced, it still looks great, it has some scratches from door dings, but for 16 years I think it has held up just great.

9/19/20 Entourage? (HBO Show)

     I had a quick conversation with my brother yesterday and he mentioned he was in the middle of re-watching Entourage on HBO.  This got me thinking about the show and I ended up watching the first seven episodes last night.  The show first came out in 2004, according to IMDB.com and the premise is really simple.  It follows the life of (I heard Mark Wahlberg) Vincent Chase and his assorted childhood buddies who have followed him to Hollywood from New York.  They get to live in that world of excess and give us a glimpse into something that seems at certain times the American dream and at others, what happens when you get too much of a good thing.

    I don't really want to review the show, I saw it years ago and I love the Ari Gold character, he is over the top and a real go-getter.  He defines what a type A personality is and it is funny to see him juggling that very thin line of wanting to rule the world but still being under his wife's control.  Vincent is just an empty headed pretty bobble head that can play the actor role well, but I think it is Eric that keeps him in line.  Rounding out the cast are his older brother Johnny Drama who is hilarious in his role as been there, done that but never really had the true success that little brother is having and then Turtle who is really the "leach" hanging on, but he is fiercely loyal and does all the dirty work for the group such as driving, getting girls to party with, and "party favors" when necessary.

    My observation is that times have changed so much in the last few years that I am not sure a show like this could be made today.  There is so much great excess, such as the boys going and leasing a Rolls Royce because they are bored, or jumping on a jet to go to Vegas for the night, or looking at mansions because they decide they want an outdoor pool, not an indoor one.  They drive around in so many different cars, Turtle has a yellow Hummer in most scenes and that thing just screams 'Merica, Fuck Yeah!  Today's soy boys in Hollywood would be doing the same scenes in a hybrid of some kind to show how much they care for the environment and living in micro houses made of recycled plastic, ugh!  What is the point of making millions of dollars if you are going to drive a goddammed Toyota??

    I don't know what happened to our world but I grew up in a world where "he with the most toys in the end wins!"  Now, all of a sudden the chant seem to be "Kumbaya, but don't preach to me about God, but all of god's creatures are equal."  Fuck that, we are not all equal, take that shit back to Venezuela or Cuba.  We are supposed to strike out and get some, That! is the American way.

9/18/20 Diet Update II?

     I am surprised to say that we are still going strong on the dieting front.  Wife has been amazing at keeping me motivated and even making me say no, even if she is the one teasing the "falls off the wagon."  I am happy to say I am now at 382 and have now lost a solid 50 pounds from my high point, and my high was when I dared look after I had started dieting, I was afraid to look at a certain point, so it is possible that I was closer to 440, but I digress.  Wife said as of yesterday she too is down almost 40 pounds, so what we are doing is working.  I am a little disappointed that since August 13, the last time I wrote about my diet, I was at 392, so it has only been 10 pounds in the past month, but there have been so many roadblocks.

    First of all, it was my birthday and that meant some sort of cake.  It turns out we went to Crystal and spent my birthday with my folks.  That was great, I love sitting with them and just hearing them talk about their days, and Mom is still mom, making breakfast for all in the house, which is real nice.  We had cake, and then pizza and even chicken from the Golden Chick or whatever chicken place they got oh yeah and tacos from a restaurant.  We all left with a Queer (ice cream treat made of icee and ice cream) from that dairy on our way out.  Although it was a great weekend, it took a week just to get back to where I was before going.  Then my mom had her fall and that took me off my routine again.  Add to that, the boys and Wife bought me a new grill and we have been making large smorgasbords of smoky meats and then eating all of it.  Last week was also another fall from the wagon as we went to a birthday party at my in-laws and the food was just amazing.

    But anyways, Wife said she pretty much cut out her dinner meal and only eats a light breakfast and lunch.  I did not want to do that, but after not making any losses I tried it and it got the diet moving again.  I come home after work, usually after midnight and have a yogurt and maybe a little low carb ice cream and that usually satiates me to get me through the night.  I wish I could say I have been exercising more, but honestly I have not.  I am walking better because of the lost weight, I notice I don't huff and puff as much as I used to walking back and forth to my Excursion at work.  Even at this reduced weight loss speed, I could still hit my goal to get to 350 by the end of the year.  That is only 32 pounds away, I think I can manage to lose about 10 pounds a month.

    I was really excited when I tried on an older 3X shirt and it fit well enough.  I couldn't even get the buttons to touch a few months ago.  Same with the pants, I am embarrassed (more scared about the impending heart attack) that I was pretty much up to a 60 waist on my pants, but I tried on older clothes and even some size 54 pants closed, although I am not ready to sport those in public.  What I really want and one of my goals is to get small enough to fit in a Dodge Challenger or a Ford Mustang.  Wife says I am too fat for those sport cars, but maybe if I loose 100 pounds I can make it work.  The real dream would be fitting in those tiny convertible sport cars, like a BMW Z4 or even a Mazda Miata type.  We'll see.

9/17/20 Call For Javalina?

     Yesterday, I was awoken by a strange call.  I honestly don't know why I pick up the phone when I have been ignoring it for years.  Anyways, I was half in and out of sleep and my phone rang, I looked at it and it even showed a name, like it was someone in my contacts list.  This made me answer it thinking it was an old acquaintance or friend I had forgotten.  The guy on the phone said he was a representative for NCSA, which is the Next College Student Athlete.  He quickly mentioned he worked for a recruiting firm and they were interested in helping my son get to the next level to play football in college.  My "spidey" senses quickly felt like "this jackass is going to ask me for money in the next 5 minutes."  He did not, even when I asked him if he was fucking with me to try and scam some money.  He kind of laughed and said no, he was real.  We talked for maybe 15-20 minutes about Javalina, what he has done, his dimensions, his scholastic achievements, and just to get to know him, at least on paper.  He said everything sounded good and he didn't see any red flags to stop the process at this point.  He wanted to schedule a zoom session with both parents and the athlete, which I told him was only possible on the weekend when Wife is in town.  At this point, we have a tentative meeting for Saturday at 1:00pm.

    At this point, I know nothing about this outfit, so my first thing after telling Javalina, Wife and my mom was to get on Google and look them up.  They are tricky in using NCSA, which I thought was like NCAA, standing for National Collegiate blah blah, but when I looked them up it was Next College blah blah... I guess I get it, it makes it seem like they belong together in an official capacity.  It is a real organization, the guy on the phone did send me an e-mail and it lead me to a website where I started a new account to upload all sorts of information that supposedly, in the future, college coaches can look through to consider him, including game tape, grades, stats and anything else that might be relevant.  Of course the catch is that it does cost money which I find a little annoying, I mean not to be disrespectful, but how do all the "poor" kids without parents with extra money manage to get on college teams do it?  I guess when you are on that next level, they come looking for you.  I still don't know if Javalina will be anything special on the field, as a lineman, it is hard to gauge, it's not like he has so many touchdowns or yards run per game.

    Then I talked to my brother and he gave me a little perspective.  Like he said "if your kid really is into football and he wants to play, you do whatever you can.  I spend over $2500 a year on cheerleader outfits for Mija and I won't get that back, but it is for your kid plus it is only money.  $500-$2000 is nothing if it means a scholarship."  I get what he was saying and I mostly agree, but getting Wife to part with that kind of money is not going to be easy right now that we have been trying to eliminate all of our credit card debts.  We will at least listen, my boy does have three more years before he goes off to college, so there is no immediate rush, but we can't wait forever either.

9/16/20 Alcohol, Fun Or A Nuisance?

     I had a weird-ish conversation with Wife's nephew this past weekend.  I honestly don't know who is right or if there is a right and a wrong.  He was walking around almost giddy with a drink.  I figured by how his mom asked him about it and then someone else made a comment that there was alcohol in it.  I looked at him puzzled and asked if he was drinking.  After he said yes, I asked him why.  He actually seemed to take a little offense to it and I wasn't really trying to bust his balls, I was really surprised at seeing him do this in the afternoon there in the house with all the family there.  The weirdness comes because nobody really drinks over there, maybe his mom, Wife's younger sister, but the rest of the people are pretty dry.

    He then started naming his friends and said when he gets together with them he can put some beers down.  This is done by "men" usually to brag about how tough they are around alcohol.  I took the opposite direction and told him that the only reason I ever drink is to play grab-ass to lighten the mood.  I don't get anything out of drinking with guys, unless I was trying to get one of them drunk to poke him in the culi, I joked.  I then back tracked a bit, figuring this kid is into it, he is not going to stop because I don't approve.  I told him it is fine to drink at home, his mom was explaining that most of the time his friends get together in the backyard and that is where they do their drinking.  I told him if you are going to drink, try to do it at home, you are a big boy and if you get out of control and cops show up, it is not going to be pretty.  Honestly, I said you are the kind of dude that might end up getting shot, as big as you are and if you loose control I don't know that 2-3 cops could contain the kid.  This is a very sweet and mild mannered dude, but he is like 6ft 3in and naturally a strong kid.

    He assured me that he is not trying to drink to get into trouble.  He already experienced a horrible scene with alcohol a few weeks ago, they were driving back home from another friend's house and they noticed a car or truck swerving in front of them, they gave the driver plenty of space, but as they approached the intersection around loop1604 and IH-10 the car did not stay on the road and it went over the rail and fell from a high distance.  He said he saw a decapitated body and another survivor in shock being incoherent and just wanting to leave.  

    Yes, alcohol can be fun, but it can turn deadly quick.  I try to only drink at home, if I do at all.  I bought some of those alcoholic seltzers about a month ago since they were bragging about being low carb, but even then, I just don't get much out of getting drunk.  It seems like such a hassle to drink away from home with all the laws and possibilities to offend someone that I don't think it is worth it.

9/15/20 Party At The In-Laws?

     I know we shouldn't be getting together right now because of Covid-19, but this past Saturday we went to my in-law's house for a birthday get together.  We hadn't been over there in a few months, but when we go they do like to put out a spread.  They even teased us that the menu would be favorable for us on Atkins or Keto or whatever you want to call a low carb diet.  The birthday was for the younger sister and her younger son, who are days apart as far as their actual birthday.

    Saturday was kind of a long day.  We got up at 8:00am because Javalina had football practice, which lasted I think 3-4 hours.  They did spend some of that time getting their equipment, which he was happy to get the prostyle helmet this year.  While we waited for him, Wife and I went and got her SUV washed, which I got a yearly subscription at the wash place by the house.  This is the 3rd time we go super early, and they are usually done in about 10 minutes.  We then ran over to Maxwell Ford to pick up the plates for the other smaller SUV we got a month ago.  Even after all this, we still had time to go home and eat breakfast.

    As it got closer to noon, we went and picked him up, waking up Boy and Sweetie so they would take a shower and be ready.  Eventually, we got going, maybe closer to 2:00pm and got over there before 4:00pm, I think.  They were about ready with all the food, which was brisket, ribs, and sausage.  There was a lot of brisket, but not ribs.  The table was loaded with snacks of veggies for dipping and two trays with all sorts of fruit.  I was not planning on breaking my diet, but the mango looked too good.  The tray also had big green grapes, melon, pineapple, blueberries, oranges, watermelon, purple grapes and other fruit.  I about overdosed on the mango, it was perfect and cut into little squares.

    Once I was off the diet, I feasted like a hog.  I was eating strips of brisket like they were grapes, it was really good, and then we finished the meal with a chocolate birthday cake and an ice cream cake.  I hadn't eaten like that in a while, so as soon as we got in the car to head back, I was out.  The trip was actually pretty good.  Usually, I eat and go take a nap, but for some reason, we were all just having a pretty good time talking and catching up.  The younger sister's older son showed me his setup where he makes fishing worms which he has been selling and then I saw his kayak in the garage.  It made me really want to get one, then Boy said he wants one too, so maybe we will all be getting into some kayaking adventures soon.  We left fairly early, as we were home by 10:00pm or so.

9/14/20 Burdened With Anxiety? (part 2 of 2)

     As I initiated yesterday, there is a slight difference between control and supervision of the young and impressionable, if that is what my boys and their menagerie of friends are.  Sweetie asked if I carried a burden of anxiety because I tended to place the worry of others on my shoulders?  I say no.  I do notice a lot of things that need improving, and I can suggest better ways to go through life, but ultimately, everyone does what they want.  I told her, I can suggest it is a bad idea for you to go jogging at night, but if you insist in doing it, and you get assaulted or worse, it is on you.  I won't feel anxiety or guilt if I have spoken my mind, I have done what I can.  

    This is the same with the dog, if DD wants to keep it penned up 20 hours a day, don't be surprised when your dog only lives 4-5 years instead of 13-15 years, it is on you, the owner.  I don't feel I carry anxiety, it has never been a thing for me as far as parenting.  I do the best that I can, same when Girlie was here, and because she was a girl, I worried about her going out and partying late.  I could give counsel, but it's not like people listen, so I would say my two cents and then if anything ever happened, well, I tried, sorry.  

    I then replayed the conversation with Wife and we both agreed this is not about control, it is about parenting.  Most parents don't step into outsider's lives like we do because we keep letting people live with us.  If mom had an extra room and had taken in my friends growing up, she would have given counsel and her two cents on things as they came up, it's what good parents do.  Some like to say don't get involved and that is easy and since most people never let other people into their lives, it is easy to do, but when we bought a 5 bedroom house with only two kids, I kind of expected to be the kind of people that would always have other people coming in and out of our lives.

    We have had all sorts of people live with us for periods of time.  From my brothers to Wife's sister and best friend to several of Boy's friends and we have always stepped into their lives, it is just what we do.  I never even thought of anxiety being a part of life.  I do what I do and I move along.  Being as busy as we usually are, I think we settle into accepting that we do the best that we can.  I try and do the best I can for all these other people that come into my life, but I am not responsible for them, now if Boy or Javalina turn into shitheads and a waste of oxygen, then I might get anxiety realizing that all my energy put into them was a waste of time, but so far, I am proud of what my boys are becoming so I hold my head up high.

9/13/20 Burdened With Anxiety? (part 1 of 2)

     I had a pretty great discussion with Sweetie yesterday (Wednesday) just by chance.  I was fixing to go into work early, it was maybe 2:30pm, so it seemed a little too early so I sat down to check a couple things on my laptop in the kitchen.  She came down to make some tea or whatever she was drinking that required hot water on the stove.  We were discussing just general topics and I went on about DD and the fact that he doesn't do much for his dog, which is identical to the crappy behavior Girlie's BF had with their dog.  Both of these dogs coming into the house, the owners swore "no, I walk him every day, he really likes to go for a run."  I have yet to see DD take this poor dog for 1 walk or to a dog park.  Girlie's dude was the same, I think in the 6 months they lived here, maybe he took him for 1 walk, that I observed.

    After another instance of me going off about another topic in the same vein, Sweetie asked me if I carried the burden of anxiety from situations that weren't mine?  Honestly, I might be phrasing it wrong and it was the first time I have ever been asked something like that.  I wasn't sure if she was trying to insult me or imply to mind my own business, so I had her clarify what she meant, that I had no idea what she was talking about.  Then she said that she was reading a book about anxiety and that a lot of people have anxiety and it comes from wanting to be in control of too many aspects of their lives, if I understood what she said.  I told her no, I am not trying to control anyone but as the adult in the house, I do feel an obligation to speak up when I see something I don't like that could be improved.  

    For example, I don't like dogs, but if you bring one into my life, I don't want to see it ignored or treated improperly.  The dog, being in its pen for what seems like 20 hours a day is not living its best life.  I have to ask "why do you have a dog if it spends most of its time locked up?"  Believe me, we have taken to trying to take him outside because DD works long hours, but then the freaking dog escapes out of the fence.  I don't think it will go and bite anyone, but that is the last thing I need to worry about.  After the 4th time of the dog escaping out of the backyard and I keep screwing the fence where slats fall off, I give up.  The stupid dog doesn't appreciate the effort we try, so he can wait for his owner.  So yes, I worry about DD's behavior, he is a good guy, he just works long hours out in the heat doing manual labor, I am sure when he gets home he just wants to chill inside in the AC.

    Like I told Sweetie though, it is a fine line between me suggesting he walk the dog more to burn off that extra energy he has as his friend/landlord versus if he was my kid I wouldn't hesitate to tell Boy or Javalina "hey, fucking idiot, you wanted a dog, get your ass outside and walk the poor thing, it needs exercise and it is your responsibility."  These are just things I notice and try to speak up to make the people around me better.  Then I had to say it is the same when we went round and round about a woman can't be out jogging at night, she risks being assaulted in a much greater percentage, not to drag up that conversation.

Con't tomorrow...

9/12/20 Where Were You?

     Last night, as I was falling asleep in bed, I saw a TikTok mention the "where were you when 9/11 happened?"  It is hard to believe that it has been 19 years since that event.  I woke up this morning wanting to recollect it and had a discussion with Wife about it.  Wife said that as she recalls, she was driving in to work listening to 101x, which is the alternative music station here and when we listen to music it is the station we still listen to.  She then said that as she got to work, everyone was in shock on the first floor looking at the events on 6 TVs they had in the lobby.  After a while, they were told to go to their offices to be accounted for.  This is the stupid thing now that we have learned a thing or two.  Why in the fuck would you tell your people to go up a building to the 6th floor to get a headcount when their is a fear that a plane might be coming to knock your building down.  Wife said they did have little metal ladders to throw out the windows (two of which had the ability to open if they needed to rappel down the outside of a building.  Wow, geniuses, how about you don't meet up at the top floor.  30-50 year old women or men, for that matter aren't going to do well on a dinky chain link ladder thrown out a window of an office building.  Times were different then, these tragedies made us grow up and be more aware and responsible to think differently.

    I was home, it was one of my days off, as I recall, a Tuesday, I was still fast asleep recuperating from going to the lake with friends the day before on my boat.  Wife called and woke me to go pick up Boy from school, there was concern that they were going to use hundreds of planes to crash all over the country in that moment.  I remember calling my mom right after, we hadn't talked in a couple of weeks we had gotten in a fight/disagreement, probably the only time I got mad enough that we stopped talking for an extended amount of time.  This was a shocking event that brought most of the world together.  I remember being scared, running to the school to get my son who was in 2nd grade, he was around 7 and their school was next to the Texas Wildlife Parks and Game Head Office, so why wouldn't that be a good target to attack I thought in my confused delusional state.  Fortunately, they were wrong about them using hundreds of planes for targets all over the US, but tragically, four planes were used as weapons.  Two were used to take down the twin towers in New York, one crashed into the Pentagon, and another was bravely taken down by passengers internally and crash landed into an open field which was surmised to be headed to crash into the White House.

    This directly lead us into two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq and though it is now almost twenty years since, we still have a formidable military presence in both countries.  Osama Bin Laden, the "mastermind" was eventually killed, though it did take a lot longer than I imagined, and we, the US, are still in his beloved land, so I don't think he thought his shit through.  

9/11/20 Some Kids Have Dumb Parents?

     I know this just sounds mean, but if we "keep it real" as the kids say, not all kids have parents who can help them out with algebra or even spelling for that matter.  I just had a quick conversation with my mom, she dialed me instead of my sister accidentally, but said she was in the middle of "teaching" my sister's kids at home.  She seemed a little stressed and was quick to say she was worried about the younger boy who does not have a strict regiment to follow compared to the older boy who has his online classes and has to sit there all day going from class to class.

    Learning is not just the teacher spitting out facts, kids have to repeat it and incorporate it into their lives somehow to try and make it stick.  Luckily for my kids, both Wife and I can tackle almost any subject together.  I tutored Algebra for 3 semesters and a couple of summer sessions and took four calculus classes, so I can handle math and most sciences.  Wife pretty much writes for her job, so writing an essay or anything for any other class is no big deal.  I write these blogs daily too, so I can help with that as well.  What about the homes where that is not the case?  Wife is pretty smart, but put her in front of math problems and she reverts right back to junior high and pushes back.  She wants nothing to do with A train is going this fast and B train is going this fast, where do they meet?  How are the millions of parents who barely finish high school going to help their kids flourish?  There are also the naive deniers, say in history class when discussing Christopher Columbus, are the idiot parents that think he came and stole the land and is a "fill in the negative blank" going to foster a good impression of this great man that got us started as a country.  There is already so much negativism about the US, all those parents on the left can't be providing good background history about men like George Washington and those men that forged this country.

    I know that Covid-19 is real and still killing every day, but maybe school should just be on hiatus until a better solution presents itself.  I am still hopeful for a vaccine, a couple of companies are in stage 3, so hopefully we can start seeing the end of this in a couple of months.  I just read that something like 500,000 kids are currently infected with Covid-19, as long as it doesn't kill them that fact is not the worst thing in the world.  It is almost like having influenza, most of us get a version of it yearly and we survive it.  I am not necessarily on the side of "just let them go back to school", a big 20 year old defensive lineman did just die from a college today, and no disrespect to him, but he was about as big as me, he had to be over 350 pounds even if he was a jock.

    I agree with my mom, I don't see much learning getting done while the kids are home.  It is a bold effort and I guess at least it justifies the teachers getting paid, I don't know what we would do if Wife's check stopped all of a sudden, but in the end, until the kiddos get back to school, learning will be very minimal.  I guess in some weird way, it can be fun to see some grandparents who watch their young grandchildren getting their brains working to help their little kin folk out.  Maybe the kids aren't learning, but maybe the old people can dust off their brains a little bit.

9/10/20 Ron Jeremy, Another Hero Destroyed?

     This might not seem popular now, but I hate that Ron Jeremy has been made out to be this monster that needs to be locked up and forgotten.  He is the face of porn as I grew up, he managed to get in the face of cameras and do interviews and he managed to be funny and a little more than an enlarged penis.  I remember he even did Loveline, making Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew groan with his handful of wordplay jokes.  I don't doubt that perhaps he grabbed a boob or crotch without having express consent, but then again to party with him is to party with a pornstar, what do you expect?  If you partied with a jock, he would talk about sports, if you partied with a rockstart, you would talk about music, and both would give you a groping and possibly a raping too.

    I hate this new culture that feels it is okay to come back twenty years later and decide that instead of that one night hanging out with a porn legend, they were attacked by an old out of shape greasy looking man, since his best days are behind him.  I remember one of the last porn movies I rented, had Jeremy working as a sort of host introducing a young couple and eventually letting them go do their thing in the back of a limo.  While talking to them, he would manage to grab a bit of a breast.  It was more as a joke, it wasn't meant to be erotic, but I figured if I ever met Ron say walking downtown (we used to go out walking along 6th Street when we were younger) and he reached for Wife's boob, that would kind of be the price of meeting a famous porn star, it wouldn't be a reason to get upset.  Even discussing it with Wife just now, she says she agrees and would even be a little insulted if the biggest pervert of our time didn't reach out and squeeze one of her titties.  Ron Jeremy was THE ambassador of porn, he should be honored thusly.

    Who is he going to hurt at his age, the man is now 67, to punish him for something he did twenty years ago is the popular thing to do nowadays, but really, how stupid were you to party with the face of the porn industry and not expect some shenanigans?  He supposedly had some nefarious activity with a minor but why was the minor allowed to be alone with such a character?  It's like going in the pen with a tiger and then having to put down the tiger because he bit you, some of that fault is on you, Dummy.  This feels very similar to back in the days when we went to strip clubs all the time with my coworkers.  The rule is that you are not supposed to touch the girls, but I always managed to get a boob in my face, it was all part of the exchange of money, those girls can't or I say shouldn't be trying to come back today or next week crying "woe is me, he grabbed my boobs."

9/9/20 Ring, Doorbell Of The Future?

     I wasn't planning on it, but I bought a new doorbell and it just reminds me of the Black Eyed Peas phrase in a song loosely paraphrased "you are living in 2008, I am over here being 2000 and great."  Things are just starting to take a turn to a very close future as we envisioned in our youth.  The doorbell not only rings if someone actually presses the button, but even before one touches it, it has already reacted to the motion, taking a video or a picture and then is even able to communicate with others having similar devices online to show nefarious activity in the middle of the night.  I was almost worried seeing so much activity within a 3 mile radius, and this is in what I call a fairly safe part of town on the first night of setting the device up.  A few miles away, a succulent bandit struck again, and there is video of a creeper coming up quietly to a random house, he lightly touches a plant, caressing it, then takes it with him.  Another shows a homeless looking guy ringing a doorbell at 4:30am and he waits patiently for the homeowner to open.  He doesn't after seeing the large man standing outside and he leaves after awhile.  Another had a junky meth looking woman going seemingly from apartment to apartment jiggling the door to see if one will open, I can only assume so she can steal or maybe as some liberal commented "maybe she was disoriented and lost."  Either way, there were like 12-13 incidents like this on the first night in the area, I can only imagine this is normal for the night.

    The reason I got this was because Boy was taking snipes at me that he missed a package being delivered because the delivery guy rang the doorbell and it didn't ring (for some reason, our doorbell has to be held down for it to actually ring inside).  I don't mind it this way because this way only people we invite ring the doorbell, I tell them to hold it down, I don't care for strangers bothering me and waking me up in the middle of the day.  I am still unsure what the etiquette here should be.  Boy complains about this, it is my house, but he is my kid, but if it bothers him, should he be buying this for the house?  These things go for as much as $250.  I bought the most basic one at $79.99, but it still has 1080p imaging and even a battery so I didn't have to hardwire it, which I might do later.

    It took awhile to set up.  you have to download the Ring app for your phone, create a new account, load software, connect the device to a charger to charge the battery and update the software.  It is kind of a pain in the ass in the beginning, not to mention having to drill the bricks up front to mount it on the wall, but it all seems to have worked out.  I like having this on my phone, it will notify me even if I am not home, and I can talk to whoever is outside, even if I am away from home.

9/8/20 Dora And The Lost City Of Gold? (Hulu movie)

     I read some of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes because it felt weird to think this and I wanted to see if I was alone, but apparently most reviewers I saw seem to say the same thing.  This little gem of a comedy is way better than it is supposed to be.  Dora, as we all know even if we never actually sat and watched an episode, is a little "explorer" in the cartoon world.  Her biggest foe is a fox, Swiper, who tries to swipe her stuff but always fails, and then she has her trusty backpack which seems to have a never ending supply of necessities, including even a Bowie knife, and a shovel to bury her poop in the jungle.

    The movie starts off ten years earlier and we see a young Dora and Diego (her cousin) playing in adventures in a jungle setting.  We learn the parents are professors and explorers played by Michael Pena and Eva Longoria.  I am a big fan of his, he tends to play smart aleck roles which fit him nicely.  We quickly get to see that Diego and his family are headed to the United States so he can go to school and be "normal."  Dora stays behind growing up alone for another ten years with only Boots, a loyal and cute-ish monkey sidekick, for entertainment.  There is an incident which scares her parents and she is suddenly cast as the fish out of water as she too is sent to the US to live with Diego's family.  At this point, she is in high school, and maybe 15-16, she is still sporting the "Dora" look with the bangs and her trusty backpack.  She does her best to fit in and be liked, but of course, with shitty high school kids, that is never the right way to approach things as one is supposed to be "cool" in high school.

    I don't want to give away any of the plot, yes there are some twists and turns, even if they are predictable, it is still a fun jaunt.  The parents have been in search of the lost city of Parapata, which is supposedly filled with more gold than the rest of the world, combined.  This is why the parents have been in the jungle all these years and of course there will be bad guys to try and get at that gold.

    The movie is carried pretty much on the shoulders of the young actress, Isabela Merced, who provides just the right amount of energy (over the top), and lack of insecurity.  She attacks every problem with confidence and carries her and her friends to safety and eventually helps save everyone, but it is based on a cartoon, so you already knew that.  The movie pokes fun at itself, mostly in the beginning when Dora sits to have lunch and attempts to break the fourth wall by telling us to repeat whatever word she just said.  The dad quietly asks the wife "who is she talking to?" and "she'll outgrow this, right?"  It was a totally fun and cute movie that never takes itself too seriously.

9/7/20 Jealous Boy, Who Knew? (part 2 of 2)

     One incident alone wouldn't make me think Javalina was a jealous kid, but just the previous week we were driving around and Wife and I were discussing some friends or maybe it was the latest guy that passed away in Crystal City who happened to have been Wife's sister's BF in high school.  I was then poking at the boy about what if I kept in contact with my exes and I was all in a rush to go to Crystal for their funerals and stuff.  Ooh, he did not like that.  The little shitter started telling me "No Dad, I wouldn't be cool with that shit!"  "You're a married man, cut it out."  He concluded with a little threat of "if you wronged mom, I would have to kick your ass."  At this point, I was having fun with him and adding to it, like "come on, Dude, I can't have a little side piece?  All the cool men have a little something on the side..."  He was not smiling at all, which made it funnier to us.

    Wife is really one of a kind in that she does not have a jealous bone in her body.  Even the women in my family would all get exasperated with her, specially a few years ago when we had get togethers and all sorts of women (well, the moms of Boy's friends) came over to the house.  My mom was sure we would end up divorced and I would "poke the bear even more by adding salacious details which would enrage my sister too."  Wife would just laugh along with me, I mean Wife was always around, it's not like these ladies came to see me.

    Boy is like his mom, apparently.  Even Sweetie was saying this as we were telling her about Javalina's fit in the car at Taco Bell.  She said the Boy does not react like normal at all.  She says that when she tells him about guys offering to take her lunch Boy is all like "that is good Sweetie, that saves you money."  Even that makes me want to hit him upside the head, but that is his way.  He trusts and I guess it works for him.  I would be threatening her, if I had the energy I had back in high school when I was more of a mess and full of testosterone.

    Nowadays, I am more like him.  "Ehh, do what you want, just leave me alone..." is how I feel most of the time.  I love Wife of course, but I am not going to be chasing after anyone, who has that energy in their late forties?  Good thing Wife is not interested in any of that, I mean she did hit the lottery when she got me, why would she look elsewhere?  I kid, but not really.  It'll be interesting to see Javalina when he starts actually dating which is weird because neither his friends or him seem interested in taking girls out.  I don't know if that is a new trend or what.  He is a good looking kid, I know it's just a matter of time before all that starts.

9/6/20 Jealous Boy, Who Knew? (part 1 of 2)

     It is weird to find a new characteristic in one of your sons suddenly out of the blue.  Friday night, when Wife got home, we headed out to get some Halloween decorations and then pick up dinner for Javalina.  It was nice to get out of the house, I spent all day Friday putting up Halloween decorations and it was nice to change it up.  While driving, Wife started telling me about her new Instagram account which she had to create because we got new phones and she couldn't figure out her old password or something.  She likes to follow celebrities, not hot chicks with big boobs like me, so she loaded up with guys like Jason Momoa, The Rock, and others along those lines as well as some people she has worked before and of course family members.

    She was telling me that it was odd that guys like Jason Momoa, Aquaman, started sending her messages like "how are you doing?" and some of the other celebrities were doing similar and even more to the point like "send me a recent pic?"  I am just laughing and going along with it like "Don't ignore fucking Aquaman, he's a good guy!"  I know it has to be some sort of scam and Wife was just smiling along saying she was not going to respond to any of them.  The funny part at this point is that Javalina decided he wanted Taco Bell, we haven't been eating hardly any takeout so he was enjoying crappy food on purpose, and this conversation was while we were in a long line.  Then Wife asked me how do you even respond and delete these messages?

    Well, sitting in the back seat was a little powder keg of energy not liking this one bit.  I was like yeah, swipe it sideways and the conversations will appear... and Javalina is all "let me see your phone..."  Wife knows the kids are going to be better at this, so she hands her phone back and the little shit stsrts going to work.  Under his breath he is saying "fuck this asshole, nobody is going to be doing this bullshit to my mom.  Who the fuck does he think he is?  He is typing away furiously and saying like NO!, fuck this guy, he isn't going to talk shit, I am going to tell him to fuck off."  I reached back and told him to stop and give me the phone.  He was in full pitbull mode, like he couldn't stop himself, he was activated and pissed.

    Wife was all "shit, he is like you back in high school, that is so funny."  The boy was not having it, it took a couple minutes for him to come down from this.  This is in total contrast to Boy, who does not react to anything.  I sometimes think you could light him on fire and he would calmly look down and say "hey look, fire." and eventually maybe turn himself off, nothing gets him excited.  Boy is very much like his mama, Javalina I guess is more like me.

9/5/20 Where's My Pumpkin Spiced Latte?

     Just like that, I guess, summer is over.  Wow, I know it probably is not the case, but for the last two or three days it has been raining and drizzly here in Austin and we finally stopped topping out in the 100's.  This summer, not only has sucked because of Covid-19, but it was the first or 2nd most 100 degree days in a row too.  Unfortunately for my folks, I kept checking in with my mom and south Texas has not had our luck, they are still in the heat.  Oh well, I am enjoying the nicer weather.  To add tot he fun, mid week should have our first strong cold front of the season and it should drop temperatures possibly into the 50's, which would be awesome and allow me to open the windows to air out the house.

    Wife had been putting a light amount of pressure the last few weekends to start decorating the house for Halloween.  It is our favorite holiday, and generally, I like to cover the house in Halloween themed stuff.  We don't really have parties anymore like we used to, but I enjoy decorating as it indicates the change of seasons and to me, it tells me I can save some money by turning off that air conditioner and its huge bill.  Today finally felt right.  I took out about 6-7 bins from the closet in the upstairs guest room and went to town.  I hung up lights and all sorts of posters and signs on the walls and a bunch of scary creatures, like witches and Frankenstein looking characters.  I couldn't find all my light strings, and I just bought new LED ones two years ago.  Well, Wife showed up and was so excited seeing what I was doing, she was all "let's go to the store and get some new ones."  I hate looking and looking, so I just agreed to go and get some.

    Now I can say that the house matches the weather, it is mostly ready for Halloween, whether we get to celebrate it or not, and I can sit back and enjoy the decorations for about two months.  It is also Labor Day weekend and since we can't really go anywhere, I already went and got more pellets to spend the weekend smoking things in my grill.  I think we will be doing some ribs tomorrow, and maybe some shish kabobs on Sunday, we will see.  Our only other plans are to sit back and watch the rest of the Cobra Kai series which we got into the 2nd season last weekend.

    Knowing how much of a jerk 2020 has been, it wouldn't surprise me if this is the year we finally get two or three feet of snow here, just to add to the craziness.  Shit, there are three more months plus the rest of September, I think there is still time for another couple crazy stories.  Shit, Air Force pilots saw what can only be identified as a UFO and it didn't even make headlines, just to show how crazy this year has been.

9/4/20 What Is The Gain In Acting Stupid, Dr. Fauci?

     Talk about a fall from grace, I liked this dude, 4-5 months ago.  Dr. Fauci seemed to be the voice of reason when the pandemic started and we knew nothing about what it was going to do.  He has been the head of the NIAID, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, since 1984, and has advised six sitting presidents in this capacity.  I don't question his intelligence, he is obviously qualified if he has been at the helm of a $5.9 billion dollar a year organization for this long.  The problem appears to be  in his politics and that is a goddamn shame.

    When the pandemic started and we went into isolation, it was on his recommendation since he sits at the very top and has the president's ear.  I both loved and took in the idea to isolate and stay at home.  We did our preparations, bought a freezer to keep extra food and even an extra shotgun, just in case things got crazy.  Therein lies the hook of this thought, things did go crazy, but in an unexpected way.  At the start of the pandemic, I was feeling all sorts of burnt out and really just treading water trying to stay alive.  I wasn't in great general health, Wife was on the tail end of her fourth year working 3 hours away and all it seems the boys dis was go to school and sleep.  The quarantine allowed us to take a deep breath and reflect for a minute.  I felt like I could finally sit down and drink a cup of coffee without having to rush out the door to pick up my boy from school or do some last minute shopping for something we needed.  Wife was home for about 5 months, going to work maybe once or twice a week, but just going for the day.  I honestly never stopped working, but we were allowed to just work until the work got done and then come home, I guess the beauty of working for a tiny company.

    Anyways, if Dr. Fauci and the gang were being cautious in recommending us stay home, I don't fault him.  If he was wrong, I don't fault him.  His thoughts on closing non-essential businesses, although controversial and painful to those workers, fine.  The problem comes when he will scream from the mountain tops that we must avoid crowds and social distance along with closing shops and businesses, but he doesn't seem to have an opinion on the fucking rioters.  These guys are basically on top of each other every night fighting the police and trying to burn down their own cities in crowds of hundreds of unemployables and yet, the good doctor won't say that is an excellent way to spread the virus.  Either you believe isolation helps or you don't, but you can't have one set of rules for us people that respect the law and another set of rules for those that seem to want to burn down the establishment.  I wish these fucks would just get picked up in the middle of the night and taken to their favorite country, say Venezuela, or China, fucking socialists.  I can't stand assholes that hate this great country.  It isn't perfect, but it is about as good as it gets.

9/3/20 Can I Bum A Light?

     I got out early tonight from work (Wednesday), there wasn't hardly any work, so I took care of what was there and then headed home to start my weekend.  I have to walk about a half mile, I am sure I have complained about this a couple times already, but that is life with Covid-19 in the air.  Anyways, as I am rushing to get in my Excursion so I can get out of the humidity and turn on the A/C, a whiff of my dad circa my childhood hit me.  I had to look up and think "what the hell did I just smell?"  It is so rare nowadays that I had to look around and process what I was smelling, but amongst the SUV's parked in the handicapped spots, closest to the door, one if them had their windows down and I have to assume there was an old dinosaur still trying to hold on to the past by sucking on a cigarette.  That smell doesn't really offend me like it does Wife, oh she will loose her shit, I just attach it to my childhood because my dad was usually smoking if he was home chilling, at least mom made him do it outside.  Dad did eventually kick the habit about 3-4 years ago after he almost died with a bad case of pneumonia and was in the hospital for over a week.

    I can't even point and say how disgusting those people that smoke are, as it is just as easy for them to say how disgusting you are, you fat fuck, put the pizzas down.  But in this day and age of Covid-19, we should all be trying to make ourselves as strong as possible to survive it if we get it.  A new report just came out a few days ago, and it is being used politically, which is fucking stupid, but it basically says that Covid-19 by itself is not a devastating killer, it is when it works with other comorbidities that it really shines as a killer.  Some of those are diabetes, being obese, and smoking has to be on the list as anything that weakens the lungs falls on the list, but I can't say I have heard them targeted like fat people.

    We all have our addictions, but this one I don't understand.  A pack of cigarettes costs over $7 a pack and like my dad, he was smoking at least 2 packs a day.  $14 times 30 is $420 which could be the payment for a mid sized SUV, that seems like a lot to just burn in between your fingers to look cool.  Not to mention that this modern day offender was already parked in a handicap spot, I am sure he wasn't doing himself any favors, but again, what do I know?  I just had to write something because honestly, it had been a few years since I smelled that particular smell.  Maybe it's the virus keeping us isolated or the fact that we live here in Austin and/or smoking is just really down, but it seemed like a novelty to run into that smell out of the blue.

9/2/20 Javalina Just Does Not Buy Movie High School Life?

     Every time we watch an old movie from our youth, much like this Karate Kid thing, Javalina sits and gives rolling commentary which I love and he does make me laugh, reminding me of my brother who could talk shit through almost anything.  His biggest beef though is that high school life is always too fake.  He insists that there are no such things as cliques and/or bullies that run rampant and control the schools.  He had the same reaction to Revenge of the Nerds, when we sat and watched that awhile back.

    We keep joking with him that he doesn't see the bully thing maybe because he is the bully, joking with him.  He says no, he likes to mess around with his friends testing themselves on who is stronger and stuff like that, but he doesn't go after kids he doesn't know.  Like he says, the linemen like to knock each other over even in the classrooms when they would get some free time.  We met his science teacher and she was a huge fan of football and Javalina would say that most of the linemen were in his science class and they would do feats of strength in class, but like he says, if you aren't a jock, it isn't even fair for me to try and tackle you because you just can't even hold yourself.  Basically, he can only challenge another ram of equal strength otherwise, it is not even fun.

    Aside from his football buddies, which seem to like playing grab-ass and knocking each other over, he has his friends of "goofy" kids, the ones that aren't "athletes."  He protects these kids, which he has known since Kinder and first grade and he might tease them a little bit, but he is the first one that would protect them if anybody gives them a hard time.  

    Even the bullying that girls do, in the Cobra Kai series, there is a big girl and the "hot girls" tease her by taking pictures of her and putting a pig snout and making fat girl comments, he insists that it seems ridiculous that something like that would happen.  He doesn't see the benefit of wasting energy making fun of a person, I agree with him, but I think it can happen.  Maybe not blatantly like it happens in the movies, but I believe this does happen.

    Luckily, I grew up in a city with a shitty football team when I was in high school, how could they be bullies when they couldn't figure out how to win games?  Sure, I was a band nerd, but the band was a  good one so I chose to stick with the winning program.  I guess there is something to be said about all this progressive move against bullying in schools that my kid doesn't really get to experience it, but because it has been eliminated on the grand scale, delicate kids still invent it in their heads in the form of taking words out of context and being insulted, or blowing minor things out of proportion.  That is another blog for another day though.

9/1/20 Sweep The Leg, Johnny? (part 2 of 2)

     Like I was saying, we love an underdog, and Johnny, who was the bully, is now the one down on his luck.  At this point in the new series, his step dad pops in (btw, played by Ed Asner who still witty and sharp at 90+ years old), he has just bailed him out of jail for the umpteenth time and only does it because he promised his late wife he would take care of Johnny.  He declares that he can't do it anymore and is "buying him out" by writing him one more large sum of cash check.  Johnny is pissed at this and throws it away, but then after a motivation moment decides to try and open a Cobra Kai dojo to teach the new kid how to defend himself.

    This would normally be where the old bad guy starts redemption and maybe cleans up his act, but wait.  Daniel gets wind of this, their lives still seem very much intertwined somehow and Daniel starts doing everything in his power to stop the Cobra Kai message to come back into existence.  The city comes in telling him he needs insurance and the building needs to be up to code.  Daniel tries to buy the strip mall in a ploy mostly to raise the rent by manipulating the landlord.  When all else fails he comes into the dojo and demands he shut it down, that the evil cannot exist in his world.  As Javalina kept saying, how was Daniel the good guy in the original movies, he seems like an out of touch douchebag who wants to have everything his way or he is going to whine.  He thinks Daniel already won at life, live the poor guy alone to figure stuff out.  I have to agree with my kid, Daniel does seem petty considering he owns a huge dealership, has a happily married wife and kids (well, a shitty younger son, but the girl is ok), and the community seems to love him.

    Before long, the kid Johnny is training, and the training is vicious ( he is using a mechanical pitching machine to shoot the kid with baseballs so he can learn to take a hit, and basically kicking the shit out of him so he toughens up), but the kid, as most kids today, needs a good ass whooping.  He starts a training montage, which got Javalina jacked up and saying "Yes! Finally!"  Javalina noticed he too was a soft boy and noticed that working out has made him stronger and more confidant (little F'er is already benching 225 pounds and has left me behind), but I like that.  We see the kid in the movie getting more confidant too and he starts falling for the daughter of Daniel, who was being stupid and trying to date one of those empty headed douchebag guys that beat him up earlier.

    I didn't want to give a whole series synopsis, but every episode just gave you a little morsel of nostalgia and debate over who or what is good or bad, like unwrapping a gift within a gift.  I could not stop watching, each episode was 30 minutes long and we saw the whole first season in one sitting, about five hours worth.  Then Javalina and I watched the original Karate Kid so he could see that Daniel was originally the underdog that we cheered for because my son wasn't sure he bought into that.