2/1/21 Don't California Our Texas?

     I absolutely love this new slogan, and I hope it gets through the knuckleheads leaving that former nirvana known as California and making a fresh start in our beloved Texas.  I don't have a huge problem with the people moving, if I lived there and saw my state falling apart and the cost of living gradually get out of control, I think at a certain point, I would be thinking of doing the same.

    I did think it was ridiculous a recent article came out about some dude trying to make the move and improving his lot in life at the same time.  As I heard about it last week, this guy was whining that Texas was not all that, in fact, it wasn't that cheap and some of the other factors were not worth his time.  I just heard another news story about this "Bro" and he moved back, I say good riddance to bad rubbish.  In the story he talks about moving from a 2000 square feet house in California to one of over 4000 square feet on one floor in Bee Cave, here outside Austin.  First off, that is where I have wanted to move to, but it always just seems out of the range of affordability, house prices are in the median range of $650,000.  That is about $200,000 more than the median in Austin proper.  He is not being honest in comparing houses if he doubled his square footage either, come on, Man!  Doubling is of course going to double your consumption of electricity, and I heard he had something like 6 kids, stop fucking you're not a blue ribbon bull that we need so many of you around.  I am sure your growing family adds to the cost as they continually grow bigger and more demanding, Numbnuts.  He also complained of the heat, the property taxes, the people not being as friendly, and even the fact that he had scorpions on his property.  Fool, you moved to a house in the hill country, probably to a new property, think of what had been on that land before, sorry for the inconvenience.

   I wish the best for people who come here and look to ass tot he value of the community, but remember why you left your shithole of a state.  We don't need more liberal thoughts flowing out here, drive around town, it's the liberals making the city look shitty, with all the homeless people under the bridges and road intersections.  It is the liberal thinking that is going to increase our property taxes yet again to pay for a railroad system that as far as I can see, runs empty 95% of the time.  I have ran into the little train that runs people up north crossing the road in front of us, and there will be a handful of people sitting in them, awesome use of a billion dollars, geniuses.  That same mentality will now be spread down tot he south of Austin, so in twenty years, we'll see empty trains running around town, wasting tax resources, but whatever keep them liberals happy.

1/31/21 Revisit Gremlins On TV With Baby A?

     We have been occasionally watching old movies that we consider important or that were big hits with Baby A if not for their entertainment value but to fill in the holes when we make some obscure reference or quote from said movies.  This has been almost more fun for Wife and I because Mijo is not like Boy, this one tells you exactly what is going through his mind as the thought comes.  Boy could be on fire and it would take him a few minutes to eventually say "maybe I need some water, if you don't mind."  I love my boys but they are very different.

    Last night we finally watched Gremlins which Wife had recorded sometime around Thanksgiving.  First, it was weird with all the Christmas commercials, we hardly even watch regular TV anymore, it seems quaint that the movie stops to go to commercial every ten minutes, I guess it's what Youtube does on its longer videos.  We did enjoy the breaks since we were eating our dinner, then washing the dishes, I even made a low carb chocolate brownie to eat with some low carb ice cream towards the end of the movie, the commercials worked for me.

    The movie does not really hold up, and our son let us know from the beginning.  The father going down into the basement shop in Chinatown, Mijo was already "No! No! No! You don't go down some weird hiding place with some kid that is dragging you off the street, what the hell!"  He was then not impressed with Billy, the protagonist kid.  He already seems overwhelmed with life, with going to school and working to help support the family.  Taking the dog to work and hiding it under his teller's booth seems far fetched too.  Wife was trying to say how cute Gizmo, the mogwai creature at the center of this story, is, but Mijo was not having any of that.  He never liked Furbies or any little furry creature toys and he certainly found no charm in Gizmo.  I have to admit he looked very mechanical, the whole nose and mouth section looked plastic, in today's high production value animatronics.  Our son was then yelling at the TV about the three simple rules and why would the idiot kid eat on the bed so close to the mogwai if he can't get wet, why allow the other kid so close with his glass of juice and he certainly didn't like Striper even before he turned into a gremlin.  The idea that the scientist would be in the lab, in a high school, at 2:30am was also ridiculous and after seeing it appear out of thin air, why wasn't he calling other scientists?  Why were there classes on Christmas Eve?  All this before the gremlins even started their mayhem.

    I think towards the end it just gets ridiculous and we just stopped judging the things that wouldn't or couldn't happen and we enjoyed what the movie was trying to do, somehow showing that gremlins are real and not just something "crazy people", like Billy's neighbor, talk about to explain when things go wrong.  It is absurd that the gremlins understand electric circuits for city streets, know what guns do, learn how to pronounce words as they go along, but there we were along for the ride.  Baby A took a little pleasure in watching the gremlins all die, but he didn't really think Gizmo should be so protected as he was the cause of all the trouble, he should probably have been exterminated too.

1/30/21 We Be Composting?

     Wife started talking about how we were going to get a composting bin a couple weeks ago.  I tend to ignore stuff like this because it ends up being work for me.  Well, it arrived last night and as I see it, now we have three trash cans to worry about.  I thought it was bad enough to separate the paper/cardboard boxes and gradual things that have been added to the list over the years.  But, we all love Earth, so we do as we're told.  Now, they have instituted a composting component to our trash, I had heard that the goal is by 2030 or something like that, we will be sending 0% of our trash to the dump.

    Along with the composting bin, really a small green trash can, looks like the brown and blue ones, we got a booklet which explains what goes in this can.  Mostly, we are to put anything that was at one point alive in it, whether it is leftover food, grass clippings, small brush, spoiled foods, and the like, even say pizza boxes will be able to be mixed with the compost, oh yeah, and for the 2-3 people that still get a newspaper, that can go in there as well.  I thought it odd that the notes said that an animal carcass did not belong in this compost bins, I guess if somebody kills a dog accidentally, it is not to be placed in these bins.  I guess that makes sense, but what if we cook a pig and we have a lot of leftovers, this should be ok, right?

    So what does this extra work going to save us?  Nothing really, we will already be charged $2.50 more, but all they have to do is say it's for the children... and Earth.  Supposedly, if we transfer over enough of the trash from our regular bins, we can reduce from the bigger brown trash cans to the medium or small ones and save an impressive $300, yearly.  I'll believe this when I see it.  Same with the recycling efforts, we get charged a little bit, someone is making money off that trash, does the city benefit somehow?  According to the pamphlet, the compost will be then sold back to us, double dipping in our pockets, the American way.

    I guess it is a good idea to reduce the trash we produce, but they can also get the food manufacturers involved.  Stop using stupid containers, like styrofoam which does not decompose, or multi material containers, like when we would buy toys in a cardboard box, with a big plastic see thru panel.  The plastic wasn't supposed to go in the recycle bin, so we either had to go through the trouble of tearing the two apart or just saying F it and throw it all in the regular trash.  I guess progress comes slowly.

1/29/21 Huge Stock Market Scandal Being Handled Quietly?

     I almost hesitate to write about this mostly because I have yet to fully understand the stock market, but the drama and ramifications are too good not to discuss.  In the last week or so, it seems a bunch of underground "little guys" got together via Reddit and took a stand against the big money hedge fund managers who normally use the stock market to make themselves rich and richer.  These are the sons-of bitches that quietly make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, yet don't add any value to society by creating anything new.

    The game, as I barely understand it, was that the hedge funders decided to "short" the stock for Gamestop, the video game store, when they saw its price hovering around under $20.  As it was mentioned in one of the many stories I saw yesterday, once these piranhas pick a stock, they then put out an article talking about how bad that stock is doing and how it is a dead player in the market.  This usually prompts others to then react and sell their shares, so it drives the price down even more.  The complicated part was explained on Ben Shapiro's show last night.  Let's say stock company A holds the shares, well the hedge fund managers decide to "rent" the shares for a short time, I reason it is called a short because it only lasts a month or so.  To rent, they might pay the company $10, as Shapiro said, to make the math easy to follow.  Now that they "own" the shares, they start hoping the price goes down.  People buying or owning shares at the start of the month might have been at $50 a share, and if the price goes down to say $20 a share, the hedge fund people make $30, minus the $10 they pay to company A who really holds the stock, and the hedge fund people walk away with $20.  Well, when Reddit got involved and started buying shares, instead of the price going down, they drove the price up.  Now, instead of the hedge fund people making a little money in the loss, now they are holding something that is worth up to $400 a share.  This is legal, but the hedge fund people are on the hook to company A for the difference the stock has risen plus that $10 fee.  This was a beautiful explanation because I did not understand how or what "short" meant.

    The result, I guess as the month is ending is that some of these hedge fund managers owe billions of dollars which they have to pay.  The stinky part in all of this is that yesterday Redhand, an ap on people's phones which people can use to buy and sell stocks as well as e-trade and the other access points to the stock market online all decided to "freeze" buying of these (Gamestop, Nokia, and a 3rd stock were all being played this way) stocks, but they were nice enough to still allow people to sell their shares.  Who benefits in this manipulation, the hedge fund people, of course.  It was actually amazing that both republicans, such as Ted Cruz and democrats like AOC both got together and condemned this vile activity.  On the surface it sounds illegal as hell, I mean this is outright wrong and there is no way to paint a pretty picture on it.  Of course, there is already notification that Janet Yellen, the new Biden Secretary of the Treasury was gifted $800,000 by one of this wall street groups, so you know how this will play out.  Biden himself has yet to address the issue, but the poor guy doesn't know where he is at most of the time, I believe.

    This is literally a modern day David and Goliath story and although we are all supposed to be pre-disposed to root for the little guy, in today's fucked up world, there are already whispers I see in some tiktoks and short videos protecting and siding with the wall street people.  The Reddit people did nothing wrong, they got information of activity in the stock market and played to it much like people are supposed to.  The stock market does not belong to the upper class billionaires and rich fucks that "play with money" daily.  According to the stories, many Reddit people got rich yesterday doing this, and if the stock was bought at a lot of $4, where it was, and sold at near $400, all I can say is wow, congratulations.

1/28/21 Allergy Pills Work?

     Apart from being a fat guy and all that, I think I am pretty robust, hardly ever get sick, I have some body aches, but I think all people do as they age.  The one thing I have never liked about my state is my sinuses, which either show as a runny nose or snot collecting in my throat.  I'm not sure what could be done about it to fix it, but I have tried some simple things and they don't do much.  

    Last night, for the first time in a long time, I went through the night without having to blow my nose or deal with phlegm and I have to think that taking two generic Claritin pills helped.  I had tried taking one in the past here and there when allergy season starts, but they never seemed to do much.  The last time I went to a doctor, I rarely go, I know that isn't good either, she told me to try and take two allergy pills to see if it helped since I am so big.  I might have done it and not noticed much or maybe it was a different allergy pill, we always buy the generic knockoffs because they are all made the same, fuck paying for name brand.  Last night I got tired of my constant runny nose and decided to buy some new generic Claritin.  I know if Wife had been by my side she would have said "Don't!  We have some in the cupboard, meee meeee meee...." you know how women go on and on because they know everything. 😁  For some reason, I wanted new medicine and since I was not being babysat, I got it.  My allergies are so bad, even in my dreams, I am dealing with a runny nose.  I've been in the middle of orgies, probably because I fall asleep with the computer on Pornhub, and even in those dreams I am having to deal with a runny nose, I know, first world problems.

    I won't get into the specifics, it is rather gross, but after I took the two allergy pills last night, I deliberated between sleeping on the bed, I have been having a lot of lower back pain, or sleeping on the big chair in our bedroom.  It was only midnight, early for me, so I decided I'd sit and look at Tiktok videos until I got sleepy.  I fell asleep and didn't wake until 5:45am, the longest I have slept consecutively in about a year.  I am constantly waking to go pee and blow my nose.  I also wore socks because I can sleep uncovered but my feet do get cold and the socks were awesome.  I need to try this combo again because it was pretty awesome to sleep solid like that.  I know, I'm a fat fuck, I know that losing weight will also help in all of this.  I am back on the diet and have already shed 10 pounds from Sunday night to this morning.  It might be all water retention blah blah blah, but I need to see some gains to inspire me to get on it.  Like I said, I know what I am doing, cutting out the carbs can't be too bad for me, other than diet soda, everything else I eat is healthy food.  I refuse to take diet pills, that is a scam, the only downside to this diet is that protein is expensive, but as the biotches on Facebook constantly say, "I deserve it".

1/27/21 Baby A Earned His Letterman Jacket?

     Our son got a notification from his coach on Monday that he qualified for a letterman jacket.  I think this is cool and a great motivator for the time and energy he put into the game.  As far as I understand and what I have read, letterman jackets are given for participating in varsity level activities and our son did manage to play on the varsity team of his school this past year.  It was a tumultuous season, to say the least.  First off, he didn't do much preparation all summer because we had been saying he wasn't going to go to school in person, due to Covid-19.  Then the coach put out the message and of course he got all excited and I guess we fell into it because we like seeing Mijo happy.  It was a weird about face on all our parts, even my folks had been lecturing us to not let him play, it was too dangerous, only to have him go out, along with his younger nephew in 7th grade and even my niece go out and support as a cheerleader.  For all my parent's fears and consultation, they were out there watching the games, as best they could.  It might just be a football thing here in Texas, I don't know, but it is an awesome feeling to see your kid run out on that field and fight for school honor, and a jacket.

    I said tumultuous because not only did he not know that he was going to play and didn't do much training in the off season, but he was put on the varsity squad but barely got into any practices.  He was very much a back-up role in the beginning of the season and kept wondering if he would get kicked off the team and sent back to the JV squad where most of his classmates were.  He took some harsh criticism from the coaches who did not hesitate to bust his ass to play harder, but that him a better player and we saw that from the first game where he got on the field for two plays to the end of the season where he was starting on both sides of the line, playing offense and defense culminating in him being chosen for 2nd Team all-district honors at the end of the season.  To think he got recognized here in central Texas, on a 5A team where a lot of big schools play, I think is a high honor.

    I just wish the little knucklehead would listen better.  He said the coach told him he could go pick up his jacket today, so naturally I got all excited at the idea of going to pick up some gold colored jacket with a cool ass Cougar showing on the upper right breast and maybe even his name, figuring the coaches would order him a 2XL jacket, but no.  We went to campus and they had the order form on which to order said jacket.  There are so many nuances to make that it almost seems too confusing to do it at home.  He can choose about 6 different fonts for his name to be written on the back, being Hispanic, for some reason, he already chose the classic Old English lettering, and it goes from there, such as what other sports to add, he can upgrade to leather sleeves for an additional $75 and so forth.  I guess we will sit with Wife this weekend and figure it all out.  Either way, congratulations to my husky boy, he sure works hard for his team.

1/26/21 Getting Back On My Diet?

     I kind of had the discussion with my mom and brother about "dieting", he doesn't like the word, per say.  I know it's not the best way to describe what we are doing, but "eating better" sounds kind of douche-y to me.  I put on so much weight over the last month, I don't even want to say, but I am going to say it's not all my fault.  I fully intended to take the two weeks of Christmas off and just enjoy whatever came in front of me, as far as food goes.  I hate going to my folks and in-laws and have them worry about what we can and can't eat, I don't like being a nuisance that way, but the reality is that we are home most of the time.  Then right as I was going to get back on track, I got the 'rona and that had me locked up in my room for another two weeks, so I have been off the diet over a month and probably put on 25 pounds, but I was really bad the last two weeks.  I couldn't leave the room and I found myself waking up to coffee and some cake or cookies, then some plate of breakfast, usually three tacos with egg and something, then later in the day a lunch or dinner and throughout the day chips, nuts, and whatever else they brought into my room.  I knew all of this was bad, but when you are stuck in a prison cell, it seems like the only thing to do is eat and sleep.

    It is now Tuesday and I just finished eating lunch with Mijo here at home.  I love the notion that I can fire up that pellet grill, and thirty minutes later be eating a grilled steak.  Part of the reason the grocery bill is consistently over $300 is because I usually get a pair of NY strips, ribeyes, sirloins, some burger patties and then maybe some chicken or pork for the two of us, apart from what we eat as a family on the weekends.  I love having my son home, it helps that he is a homebody and doesn't really miss the school atmosphere, he has gotten used to online learning.  I don't know that grilling for me alone will be as satisfying when we go back to normal and he returns to school.

    But for now, I ate my lunch yesterday and then just the routine of work and stuff kept me busy the rest of the day.  I showered, ran to the bank, took him to school to pick up some paperwork, stopped to get him Bill Miller at 5:00pm, then headed to work.  Before I knew it, it was 2:30am and I came home, ate some winnies with some cheese and went to bed.  Staying busy definitely helps in the not eating process.  My brother worries that the weight will come back once I get off the "diet", but I don't really want to change back to eating all the carbs, it is just easier while I was sick and you have to enjoy egg nog and all the Christmas goodies while it's the holidays..  The only thing I do miss is pizza, but we have a low carb version we eat at Mod Pizza and that works for me.  I don't think we will be getting off the routine of how we eat for a few months, maybe in the summer when and if we go to Florida for the Disney parks, if Covid will just go away.

    Maybe it will take me a month, but I'll get back to the 350s and continue working on myself, this was not a setback, it was me being sick.  I felt so much better at the lower weight, that in itself is motivation enough to get back on it. I want to approach 300 by the summer, so I have my goals set, now to just shut up and do it.

1/25/21 Slowly Rejoining My herd?

     One does not realize how important it is to interact with loved ones until the ability to do it is taken away.  I felt a little better today to come out of my room and be a part of the family.  I did get up and take my coffee and then breakfast in my bedroom.  We finished with this around 1:00pm, then I got dressed to go to the store to get some groceries since tomorrow we start living normal again and that means getting back on my low carb diet.  I am honestly scared to weigh myself after being obsessed to the point I could tell if I was going to be up or down on the scale depending on what I had eaten all the way up until the week of Christmas.  I had told Wife I would get off the diet and just enjoy all the goodies of the holidays, before New Year's I knew I was up a good 10-15 pounds looking at the scale and I wasn't worried figuring it would take a couple weeks to get back to where I was and then keep working down.  I will wait until tomorrow or Tuesday to weigh myself, I know after 4-5 weeks of a bad diet, it won't be good.  Still, it is what it is, no reason to cry over what was, just focus on doing better now.

    We went to HEB and got groceries, making an effort to not load any junk food in the basket and only sticking to what I consider safe foods.  I love and hate doing this now, when we go to HEB.  I love knowing we will be eating all these yummy steaks and veggies as the focus of our meals, I know no real junk food goes home, so there is nothing to ruin my plans, but I really hate that it takes almost two hours to go, it takes so much effort to bag all the stuff to get it in the back of the SUV only to repeat and unload everything in the house and find a place in the fridge.  The worst part of it is the sticker shock.  We were pretty conservative today, no extra briskets for the weekend or toilet paper to hoard, and still our bill was almost $300.

    I was planning on going right back to my room, but I noticed Boy and Sweetie were gone, so I stayed downstairs and evaluated what has been going on in my absence.  I gave my grill a good cleaning, DD has used it a couple times to make ribs and a brisket, but he didn't follow up and clean it as well as I would have.  It also needed a good vacuuming, a lot of ashy residue collects inside around the burn box, which I did.  Wife had left a beef stroganoff she bought Saturday afternoon cooking in the oven, so we ate that kind of early, around 6:00pm.  Although it was good, it ruined my time to shine as I love grilling meat on the weekends to eat, but I guess I can start with tomorrow's lunch.

    It was nice to sit at the table and hear Baby A going on about nothing in particular and talking with Wife.  DD was actually busy cleaning his room, for once, we decided to get rid of the old loveseat that had been in that room, tomorrow is bulk city pick up, so we put it out on the curb to get taken away.  It actually opened up his room, he then went and got a table to put in its place and he is moving stuff around to be able to access the closet figuring he is going to stay awhile, might as well pick up his clothes all around the bed and make it look nice.  It was an all around very nice Sunday afternoon, which we finished by watching most of The Greatest Showman while eating a little ice cream.  Boy came home, filled us in on his day and now we are here, starting a new week.

1/24/21 Having A Hard Time Rejoining Society?

     Saturday was the 10th or 11th day since I got Covid-19, so I should be safe to come out of the room per all the CDC papers, my worksite nurse, and even Wife's rules which she mostly wrote and follow the protocols set by TEA or whoever is in charge of schools, but it wasn't good enough for Boy or Sweetie.  Not wanting to be the infection point for my kids, even when all of science says I should be fine, I avoided hanging outside of my room in the rest of the house.  Wife, however, got the good idea that getting out of the house would be good for me.  I got up around 10:30am, drank my coffee, Wife made breakfast tacos which we ate in our bedroom.  Afterwards, we got dressed and went out for a cruise around town.

    I hate being reminded how much I hate people, at one intersection we very much had the green light, but some idiot Mexican in his shitty $100 car about spun out trying to turn onto out street where we were going a solid 30 or so, he turned and almost came over into our lane and then proceeded to speed, Wife honked at him, because she's kind of an idiot hot head too.  The guy honked back and then slowed down, I thought great, I finally get out of the house and now I'm gonna get shot for no reason.  I saw him roll his window down and turn to face us as we came up on the light, sucked that I already had my window down because I thought it would be good to breath fresh air and not have Wife breath my air with the windows up.  Luckily, the cars never really lined up, as I passed him, I stared at him and just waved like "sorry Bro."  He stared back, tiny guy, and maybe just decided to forget what his bad idea was going to be.  Wife is kind of like a chihuahua, she barks and honks and you know, like the short friend that drinks beer and wants to start shit.  She has always been like that, I hate it because if it ever goes sour, I will be the one facing her consequences, guys don't normally hit women, even loudmouthed ones.  The guy saw a hole in the traffic and just sped off, I was annoyed with Wife, but it's not like it's the first time.

    After this, I told her to just drive like it's a Sunday drive and chill out, we drove around Austin and then headed to the outlet mall.  Wife was obsessed with the idea of getting my niece a gift because my brother is always good about getting our boys a nice gift.  We went to the Coach outlet and I guess I am not used to shopping anymore.  All these tiny little purses and wristlets she was looking at I wouldn't pay more than $50 for were all priced over $200 and even more.  I guess it is by design because most everything was 60% off but I still didn't enjoy looking at the prices.  It was even worse at Burberry where the smallest of wallets for females were over $200.  Once Wife chose a gift she asked if I wanted to look around in some of the other name brand stores and I said no.  It used to be fun to shop for Boy, but he is buying his own stuff now and depressingly, he seems to prefer shopping at thrift stores.  Baby A has never cared for nice clothes, so it is really hard to try to shop for him, plus he keeps growing.  I told him today he looked a lot bigger and he jumped on the scale and he is up in the 255 pound range.  He was at 230 or so a couple months ago, I am hoping it is a growth spurt.

    I couldn't wait to get back home, but we stopped to get some pies at a little pie shop in Buda, the vibe of the downtown area felt perfect, I liked that there weren't 1000 people walking around.  Maybe being home so much is making more of a recluse, I was really happy to just get home and back in my prison cell.  I may actually get serious about moving farther west, I am not a fan of shitty looking beaners eyeballing me because they think they own the road.  If the liberals are going to let the city fall to reckless assholes, we will move our asses where they can't afford to be, fuck 'em.

1/23/21 Tenth Day Check In With Covid-19?

     I am not totally sure how we count the days, but it is now Saturday and according to Wife I am past ten days of quarantine so I should be able to come out of my room.  Last night I stood one foot outside the door of my bedroom, I like leaning against the stair rails there to see what is going on in the house.  It was technically after midnight so I was technically according to Wife, free to roam, as long as I wear my mask.  I was attacked within a minute, every time I have opened the door to ask for water or food, I get yelled back in the room by everyone.  At first I was a little pissed and upset because if the science says it is ok then shut up and let me be, but then I thought "it doesn't hurt me to wait a couple more days and the only ones I could be hurting are my own boys.  Sweetie got in a panic too, but she already had it in the summer, I know people have gotten it more than once, but to me she should have some antibodies in her body already.  She does say that she is still suffering from the effects, so I guess I see where she is coming from.

    I guess I was either lucky or I planned and prepared just right.  When the virus first came out, I literally cried on one of the days back in March.  I thought I was going to die, the news was pretty stern and confident that it kills the old and the fat, and I was carelessly walking around at over 430 pounds.  Once I got my shit together, Wife and I both got on a diet and since we weren't eating out, we did good and lost a bunch of weight. By Christmas, I was down to around 350 and feeling much better about everything, I have even been feeling like I don't get sleepy all the time like I was before all this.  Along with eating better and losing weight, Baby A and I started regularly taking a vitamin pill perfect for the day.  I got the pills because I want him to have as much calcium as possible since he doesn't like being short, for a lineman, but the pills also have zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin D, all have shown to be helpful in reducing the effects of Covid.  I also tried my hardest to either work out, get on the treadmill, or go outside and do something physical for a bit every day.

    I am not saying anything I did saved my life, but I do think I went forward with a positive attitude and did what I could to strengthen myself for the day I got it.  I was sure it would happen because I think everyone is going to get it, unless the vaccine can pick up speed and move through the population faster than the virus.  Lucky or well prepared, I have had the mildest symptoms, basically congestion, loss of smell and loss of taste.  If not for this being a pandemic, I would have thought it curious that I couldn't smell and I wouldn't have even missed work.  I should be able to go back next week and it will be good to get back to my routine.  There are little periods that I like being home in bed stretched out and being lazy, but for the most part I just feel like I am going to rot, my back hurts if I lay in bed too long, my legs hurt of I sit on the chairs too long, my neck hurts because I am on the computer all day.  I just wish everyone experienced Covid like I did, it didn't seem like much, I know that a lot of people have died and probably more than that have been through horrible ordeals in hospitals.  I am a little scared of the vaccine but I also have hope that it will put this chapter to rest.

1/22/21 $15 Minimum Wage?

     Another big initiative by Biden is the push to force $15 as a minimum wage to help Americans get off of the poverty line.  I know it sounds good in theory, but I think it will just lead to a reduction in jobs, when companies are pushed or there is any kind of downturn in the economy.  Jobs like this are, to me, jobs high school and college kids take for a little spending money, such as at Target, fast food places, like McDonald's, even Taco Bell.  Well, I have seen the future and their replacements are already being installed, am I the only one that sees it?  If you force these fast food places to pay more equitable salaries, they can now just reduce the headcount and maybe pay more to fewer employees.

    I have now seen kiosks at McDonald's where we can line up and order our food and pay with our cards, so we don't need a cashier to take our order.  We can order food online, so there is another way to get our order in without involving people.  Pretty much the same idea is already in place at Taco Bell, they have these wall computers and you can place your order and even be a pain in the ass and change things to make your order perfect.  This way might even lead to better orders being submitted since the distracted teen is taken out of the equation.  We have now been trained at Wal-Mart, HEB, and Target to check our own groceries and bag them, so I don't know why those stores need so many kids running around as employees.  Shoot, there used to be gas jockeys back in the day who would be responsible for gassing your car, and maybe check your oil while you were at it.  Those positions are long gone, and I feel soon the local teens will be gone from stores that will need to go from paying them $7 something currently to over $15.  I don't wish them ill will, but this just makes sense from a business standpoint to me.  Computers don't get sick, make excuses, steal, ask for holidays off, they are just better, from an employers perspective.

    Those goofy stores that sell yogurt at ridiculous prices already have us used to getting our own yogurt and paying by the pound, feel free to add any goodies on top, of course, they sell by the pound.  It seems that this is happening everywhere, we could get our movie tickets at home and just show a receipt on our phones a year ago when we still went to the movies.  Add to this that we have gotten comfortable ordering our clothes and stuff online and the malls may start dying out.  I can't see where too many minimum wage jobs will be left.

    I am not trying to be insensitive, but full on adults shouldn't be in a position of trying to support a household on a minimum wage.  This is why you were supposed to pay attention in school or gotten your shit together and learnt a trade as quickly as possible.  There will always be jobs, for those that want to work, but I don't see why the unskilled must be lifted up artificially.  Does this mean everyone's salary will be raised about $7, or the person making a legitimate $15 after working themselves up to that just going to keep making basically minimum wage after putting in the time to climb from $7 to wherever they are at while the new guy who doesn't know anything suddenly finds their salary doubled?  I haven't seen a raise in over ten years, I wouldn't mind a $7 raise, everything else has gone up.

1/21/21 New Changes Per New President?

     I really wanted Trump to get another four years, but I am also a realist and that did not happen, so here we are.  We must move forward and look ahead at life as it is happening.  Biden is already going on a writing spree changing many and eventually most of Trump's executive orders.  The first one was to stop some oil pipeline to Alaska.  From the left, I guess that may sound good, let's protect the moose and wolves, but on the other, if it is in process and now you've cut 10,000 jobs and lost the American people over two billion dollars in salaries, while we are still in a pandemic, you are already looking foolish.  This is very harmful for the men and families who have headed to the north to do this kind of work, which in freezing weather is going to be brutal at best, but to just stop work and find yourself suddenly unemployed after taking a risk and making the move to hostile lands (yes, Alaska in winter is hostile to me) is the worst way to handle this.  It is bad enough that Congress keeps dragging its feet to hand out money to people that can't work, add these 10,000 workers to the unemployed list.

    My brother was just telling me about Biden overturning the rule allowing boys who identify as girls to play in girls sports.  This means that girls will now routinely be playing against "girls with a penis" and trying to act like they are equal.  No offense, girls and women can be great and I have a whole crew of women I work that I consider my equals but when it comes to doing physical activity or sacrificing of ones own body, men or boys will do some completely risky behaviors once testosterone takes over and that is an advantage women cannot overcome.  If played out to its conclusion and by law, outside forces cannot be involved, any trans competitor is going to get whatever scholarship would have gone to said girl.  Consider sports like track, basketball, volleyball, swimming, and any other where strength and/or stamina are compared and the trans athlete will be at a huge advantage, so they are in danger of that sport becoming a boys-lite version.  I don't think it is being dramatic to say that girls sports were basically just destroyed.  In a normal world you could argue that trans people are still very rare, but just like it used to be rare to see people all tattooed or girls with jello colored hair, once something is found to make you special, a lot of attention deficit people flock to these things as a form of creating a personality or using it to make them feel special.

    Not trying to be an asshole, but both these changes don't affect me directly, if this is what the geniuses on the left think is best for America, we kind of have to go along with it.  I won't be surprised if we are back to paying $3 and $4 a gallon for gas within the year.  Again, this sucks and hurts the poor the most, but that is what the majority of America wanted, so be it.

1/20/21 What Happens Now?

     This is the day we had been fearing, I hope the concern is all just made up hyperbole and we just ride a centrist line in the real world.  I had never cared about getting involved in politics and the minute I did, it turned into a wild and crazy ride.  I went from identifying as a liberal to the conservative side pretty quickly, I found the whole year of 2020 a disgusting example of what not to do.  When children throw a tantrum (the rioters all summer), somebody should have spanked their asses.  Instead, the democrats openly encouraged it, vice president Kamala set up a fund to bail out the idiots.  This is to become the new normal, we give in to crowd demands, I thought we didn't negotiate with terrorists.  All this was done to undermine the presidency, including the horrible way Dr. Fauci, our brave leader in fighting Covid-19, pretending like he didn't know anything about the whereabouts of the vaccine days before the election, only to be at the front and ready with the announcement post Biden "winning."

    Maybe us conservatives got taken for a ride, maybe it won't be so bad.  Maybe letting in 11,000 new Hondurans and Guatemalans is what the country needs.  I have a narrow minded way of looking at things, maybe they are bringing jobs with them.  Apparently, all the homeless living on our streets is not a problem, these new people can just spread out and ruin more parks and green spaces while they figure out a plan for their future.  I say ruin because I am a taxpayer who expects to get something out of my taxes for myself, I guess providing beautiful parks for junkies to destroy is part of my social contract I somehow agreed to when I moved to Austin.

    Even though I have personally been the most excited that Trump didn't get us into a new conflict in the middle east, maybe that isn't good for the industrial military complex.  I am sure the democrats know better and we will soon start killing more brown people to liberate them, like King George said in Hamilton "I will send a fully armed battalion to kill your friends and family to remind you of my love."  When it is a democrat doing it, looking at you Iran, it will not be warmongering, but spreading democracy. 

    Don't worry, they are working hard to shut every conservative up, that is a great plan, kind of like dictators of the past, if you only hear one side of the argument, that must be the only side and the right side.  Maybe it will be better to just line up behind the left and maybe socialism will be the best way to go.  We have so much because both Wife and I went to college, started from nothing, sacrificed to get a small home, then slowly moved up to a larger home, but I guess the high school dropouts who work 2-3 days a week deserve a house just like mine, why not?  That is how socialism works, it makes us all the same.  Maybe I have pushed too hard for too much, maybe I should have settled for less a long time ago.  We'll see what transpires, wither way, we deserve it, as the Facebook idiots always say.

1/19/21 Criminals Are The Worst?

     I have been stuck in my room for a week now, thanks to Covid-19.  Today, I got on a string of Bait Car videos, which are cars set up by police in shady neighborhoods which promptly get stolen by mental midgets and then they get caught and arrested.  The idea is so simple you wouldn't think it would work, but dammit, never underestimate the stupidity of people.  I saw probably 10-15 videos and in only one of them did one of the guys convince the robber to return the stuff and not take anything.  This only because the good guy had just been preyed upon recently and he kept telling his friend it wasn't cool to come out and have your stuff missing.  The friend kept saying "but it's his fault, he left the car unlocked, someone should take his stuff."  What a shitty way to go through life.

    I couldn't help but sit back and hate on all the fucking cretins which are basically the same person, when Bill Burr (comedian) says we have too many of you, he means this type of person, zero value adding to the whole of society.  In all the scenarios, it is the same thing, a pair of people, in most it was a couple, take control of a car on the street and proclaim this is the height of existence ("this is the best thing I've ever done", "This is awesome.").  Really, taking something you never worked for is the best thing you've ever done?  Wow.  In all the videos, the secondary thing is to whoop and holler about the loose change in the car, like $5 is a big deal and a laptop which will be sold promptly is just the cherry on top.  It must be a way of life for these assholes, as soon as they break in a car, they are on the phone trying to sell laptops or anything else of value, I guess these must be junkies needing to make money for their drug habit.

    To these people, that run down car might mean a night of fun, fuck it if they crash it, to the person it was taken from, it can be devastating if they are trying to be responsible and this car is the means by which they get to work, fuck the criminals, they should loose a finger if not a whole hand for doing this.  I hate the jerks who took the car, say "be cool man" and then they are doing donuts out in a field.  You are fucking up a car that isn't yours, possible crops for a farmer, and then when you get caught, you're going to cry like it was all a mistake, fuck you!  

    We had Wife's car broken into when we first got married living in a shittier part of town and it sucked.  We lost a glass window, and the whole dashboard was messed up so they could take the stereo which was a shitty Toyota radio with a cassette deck, not even CD player.  That 4Runner (it was old, not a new fancy one) was never the same and we got rid of it shortly after.  When you are starting life as a young and poor couple this can be devastating, fine take the radio, but it still cost us money and time to repair the glass and the dashboard, not that these fucking animals ever think of the trail of devastation they leave behind.  I have no fucks to give for these assholes, I wish they would get shot on site.

1/18/21 Quarantine Feels Like Being In Prison?

     First off, I know I have been lucky to have gotten a mild case of Covid-19, so far, almost a week into my finding out I'm positive, I have only had some chest congestion, the loss of smell and the loss of taste.  I still want to think the congestion is from allergies because I was battling a runny nose for weeks before I loss my sense of smell and taste.  Still, it is what it is, I tested last Tuesday and the results were positive on Wednesday, so here I am.  The first day I was acting like it wasn't a big deal, I knew I should get upstairs and into my room, I was just being stubborn about not following the rules.  Slowly, I had to accept this had real effects on everybody in the house.  Boy stayed home for the week, Sweetie missed the rest of the week, Wife came home and will be home until Thursday, which is somehow ten days since I was found positive.  DD had by chance taken the week off, but found himself kind of quarantining with his GF downstairs, although he kept leaving the house to go get food and stuff.  Baby A is doing remote learning so he wasn't affected too much.

    Still, by the time Wife came home Wednesday night, I had moved my laptop and Boy got me an extra snack table to set it up on, so I was more or less set.  As far as prison cells go, I am doing pretty good.  The bedroom and bath are the length of the house upstairs, I have a view of the greenbelt out the back windows, I have a 55" TV, the laptop, a case of waters and Gatorade, constant snacks and food coming from Wife, our kingsize bed, a full bath, and the bathroom even has a door to the balcony up in the front that no one ever goes out to, so I feel comfortable stepping out there whenever I want.  It is weird to think that I have now been upstairs for almost a full week without going downstairs.  I am reliant on Wife, but she is pretty good at taking care of the big baby.  She has extra cookies and junk food downstairs at the ready.  She is bringing me about two meals a day and assorted snacks, like the plate of fruit the other day.

    This is not my preferred way of living, I like to interact with my boys a little more, they'll kind of get close enough to yell at me from out in the hall once or twice a day, but if I even try to poke my head out of the room, it's like hitting a bee's nest, they all come out of their rooms yelling "Back! Back! Get in your room!"  It's a little funny and it sucks a little.  Saturday and Sunday night I could hear them all gathered in the kitchen eating ribs and stuff, discussing contingency plans if I kick the bucket, what they would do to continue.  Wife tells me this, half joking, but let's face it, some truth in it.  I am just thankful I am about a week into it and so far I feel about the same as usual.  As I am drinking my coffee, I was even telling Wife to go easy on the coffee sweetener, she added hazelnut and I can tell she overdid it, so even if I can't taste sweet, I can still sense it and I can taste bitter.  Either my mouth is going off of memory or my taste buds might be coming back.

1/17/21 How Do We Become So Different?

     Sometimes, I end up on weird people's content on TikTok and I have a hard time understanding how they develop such a warped view of things.  Yesterday, I landed on one where this young lady described an event from her childhood in which her folks took her and her cousins to Sea World.  She described it as a thing that her dad would do on occasion, going on little trips, but since she didn't have money, she spent the day stealing all sorts of nick-knacks.  Her mom, who I didn't understand why she didn't go asked where she got all her stuff and she just said "I took it".  Her dad taught her a lesson the next day by taking her back, 10 hours round trip, to return everything.  Instead of leaving it at that, and that would have been good, she added that she learned her mom was a snitch and she would just not tell her anything in the future.  If this was a joke, then fine, it went over my head, but then she added that later she would go on to be involved in an armed robbery.

    As I am writing this, maybe it was all a joke, but in the comments section, some religious lady wrote and admonished her, but this girl had no shame and went after the lady in the comments section about "you don't know me, you don't know what I have been through."  She was all proud of herself because the lady had then deleted her account or something.  A lot of people then started coming to her rescue saying it is cool that she stole from Sea World, they mistreat their employees and the animals.  Because they steal the animals from nature and keep them in cages, it is alright if you feel compelled to steal from their stores, you are just doing to them what they have done to those animals.

    I felt dirty after, like stupid had rubbed off on me for being in that comment section.  If not for the Sea Worlds and different zoos, 95% of people would never see orcas, or elephants, or any of the other animals.  I know it isn't the same as being free, but these handful of orcas, Shamu, Mamu and the rest of them provide us with knowledge we wouldn't have for the ones out in the wild.  People donate to animal causes because they are introduced to so many of these wild animals by seeing them in zoos and aquariums.  I really hate stupid and ignorant people, they really make it hard to have intelligent conversations.  And no amount of excuses changes the fact that the girl telling the story was in the wrong, but if she has graduated up to armed robbery, she must be doing just great in life, keep cheering her on, geniuses.

1/16/21 Baby A Is A Good Lineman?

     It is hard to gauge these things sometimes, for a lineman, it is not like my nephew who we hear weekly it seems, that he scored a touchdown here or ran for 100 yards there.  A lineman only hears his name when he makes a mistake, so it is a position with not much glory and when the team doesn't win a lot of games, it can be even harder to find a way to shine.  Still, my boy loves being in the trenches, even when he lost weight and I was pushing for him to try and challenge to be a linebacker, they tend to be the studs on defense, he said no, he belongs with the big boys, even if he is the shortest in the group.

    Well, his dedication to his position paid off, he was selected for the all district 14-5A Division II B team as an offensive lineman.  I think that is a huge honor for a sophomore who played half the season telling me he had played so poorly he would get booted to junior varsity.  I was a little worried for him, when the linemen all line up, he is a good two inches shorter than the rest of them, but he keeps insisting he is stronger than most of them and I think his size makes him fight harder, he is constantly trying to prove he is bigger than his stature.  He is a strong kid, he is constantly like a ram trying to push on me and although I can hold my own, mostly because I weigh around 360 pounds, he makes the most of his 240 pound size.

    He went from hardly playing at the start of the season, which sucked because my mom was only able to attend the second game of the season and he only played like two plays that night, to becoming a starter on offense and playing on both sides of the ball after the first six weeks and about half the team failed.  The team at the end of the season was down to around 22 kids, so a lot of them were playing ironman style and going both ways, which my son really likes.

    The list was put out by their new head coach who presented the information in a zoom meeting which he was trying to involve us, the parents.  I was only able to glance at the presentation because my boys were yelling at me to go to my room and quarantine.  The coach has new ideas of restarting the booster club which this school seems to need.  We go to the games and it is a little sad that there are only a handful of parents present.  I really wish the whole school would rally and show up, they play on Friday nights, what else do kids got going on?  All I know is after, Baby A was proclaiming to the coaches that he was proud of being on the list and he would make them proud and get on the A team for next year, I hope so, he keeps saying he wants to play at the college level.

1/15/21 The 'Rona Got Me?

     Goddammit, is about all I can say.  Corona, Covid-19, Wuflu, whatever we are calling the pandemic virus finally mowed me down.  It is weird how I was able to stave it off for so long, all of 2020, only to get it while the vaccine is moseying in on the scene.  I am not trying to be disrespectful, I know many have died and a lot more have been hospitalized by this mysterious virus that seems to have a different behavior for everyone.  When we were first quarantined back in March last year, I was really scared, I had a little breakdown with Wife, I cried like a little girl convinced that it was just a matter of time before it killed me, the news couldn't stop saying it seems to kill old people and fat people.  As time went on, the data seemed to suggest that only a very tiny amount of the population were affected and when there were younger people that died, they always seemed to have other issues, like asthma, or diabetes.  I got my shit together and lost a good seventy pounds, which I hope helped, and basically awaited for my turn to get it.

    I didn't plan on getting it, I just figured it was going to happen at one point or another.  First off, DD goes out dancing every other weekend, so there is an opportunity, Baby A played football, which is like dancing, an extracurricular activity we chose to allow, Boy has gone to Dallas a couple times, and has his friends over once in a while, we go to work, and HEB and a couple times we have even visited with our folks.  All these things are what make us humans, having interactions, and we had curtailed it a lot, but we can't be expected to live in fear with no end in sight when we start noticing that 99.5% of people survive this virus.  My family liked to post every time somebody gets added to the list of positive infections in their hometown.  I just kept thinking "but did you die?"  Wife makes a big deal about students at her school getting it, but kids are barely affected.  The media doesn't want to say it, but it is very much like the flu, it spreads easily and everyone can get it.  Old people die all the time from the regular flu, nobody is crying for quarantine to fight it.

    As far as me having it, I wouldn't even know it if it wasn't for my loss of smell and taste, which because of the media histrionics, I knew pretty much I was probably going to test positive.  I honestly just feel guilty for not going to work, I always think it will be fun to play hooky and stay home, but in isolation, even my boys were pressuring me to get in my room and close the door, there is nothing fun to being locked up.  Luckily, I am on my 2nd full day of testing positive, and I haven't even had muscle aches or any other flu symptoms.  We have a laser thermometer which reads our temperature, and I have maintained a constant 97.5, so even the door check they do at work seems kind of useless.  Hopefully, this is as bad as I get, I can use the time to clean my room, we have piles and piles of old paperwork from every time  I pay the bills, I keep the paper as proof of payment.  I will probably clean all that out, for starters.

1/14/21 Finally Had An Appraisal Done?

     It should be super easy to refinance, I see commercials all the time that it can be done in a couple weeks.  Yet, here we are again, I started looking at refinancing right after Thanksgiving, and we finally got the appraisal done today (1/11/21).  The main reason for trying to refinance is that we did it a few years ago but went to a new 30 year mortgage.  The payment got back under control, we bought the house and originally paid around $2400 a month.  With the cost of property taxes climbing every year, we were soon approaching $3400 a month.  We refinanced to bring it down some, at the time Wife just wanted to sell this house and move back to our original home, which was very nice, but it had about 1/3 the space this one has and we had already outgrown it, back in 2007.  With the refinance that we did a few years ago, we ended up with a payment closer to $2500, and after two years, it is still a manageable $2600, it just creeps up because property taxes keep going up, it doesn't help that we keep voting for new rail systems people don't use, but whatever.

    I was initially told that the appraisal would be done the following week after we started talking to the refinance company, Loan Depot.  That day came and went and we never even got a call.  I texted them to see what was going on and they gave me a name of the appraisal person and was told they would contact me, but they never did.  I eventually asked what's up, but we were in the week of Christmas which I assume was part of the reason for the slowness, add in Covid-19 fears and shit can be extended indefinitely, as long as it isn't a payment from our end, no, those have definite due dates.  Eventually, we got a text from the lady that did the appraisal and said it would be today.  I thought having a couple weeks to clean the house was plenty of time, but man, when the weather isn't right and it's the holidays, it is hard to get excited about cleaning.  Having full trash cans from all the holiday food and gifts and stuff did not help either.

    In the end, we did a minimal amount of cleaning.  Wife kind of cleaned around the front room, we are always piling stuff on the pool table when we bring it into the house.  Sweetie did take some days off and they cleaned their bedroom and their activity room as well.  Overall, the house looked okay, I just feel like we could have done more to make it look nicer.  Right now, we have all the old fence sections laying all over the yard, I wanted to gather them into an organized pile, but it was too freaking cold yesterday, so too bad.

    The lady said the clutter does not affect things, it is mostly the square footage, so even if we had gone crazy and cleaned everything, I don't think much would have changed.  Now we just have to wait and see where our house sits to see if we can proceed.

1/13/21 Finally Went Out To A Nice Restaurant Meal? (part 2 of 2)

     I really hate having a schedule in which we have to do something, it seems the whole day is wasted waiting for that time to come up.  We didn't really do anything all day, with the weather how it has been, I didn't even really want to go outside.  I have had allergies, I believe and I have just been sneezing where I seem to go on for up to 10 sneezes one after another, it is really horrible, it can leave me lightheaded at times.  Wife was all "we are not eating breakfast or lunch, I want you all to be hungry", which made for a longer day.  I sat around, napped, actually ate some cinnamon rolls with coffee in the morning, and a sausage taco in the afternoon, but I still don't consider that food food.  By 5:00pm, we had all been laying around all day, I went up to get ready, I cut my hair to look clean and decent, and got ready.  Wife showered while I did that, complaining about the lower shower pressure since I guess the other two showers were all being used at the same time.  Oh well, by the time I was done cutting my hair, and pooping, to make room for more food, the shower seemed ok to me.

    We were a little slow to get out the door, but we made good time on MoPac up north.  We got there about ten minutes late, but DD had gone ahead and his two younger sisters were already there to join us.  I was almost taken aback when we pulled up to the restaurant and it seemed like the restaurant Covid forgot, it was packed.  I was expecting every other table to be seated, but it was packed as the last time we had been there on a Saturday night.  Luckily, we were placed in the smaller private room, although we were splitting it with a full table of dudes which Wife said sounded like recruits for something, they all looked like college boys in their little suits, but they had nothing to do with us, so who knows.  We had walls on three sides, so it felt very cozy and personal in there.  The food did not disappoint, it was a little slow when they started, they kept coming into the room with just 4-5 pieces of meat on the long skewers which is annoying because I didn't want to be the fat guy asking for two pieces when the rest of the table was getting none.  Eventually, they sent a cavalcade of gauchos and got us to the point of being filled.  I love the dining experience there, you can get up, get a little salad, look around, then the meat just keeps coming once you start on that portion, it is a fun experience, you just better have a fat wallet for afterwards.

    We were just guests of the birthday boy, so I didn't feel obligated to pay for anyone, even Boy is now working, so he is expected to pay for Sweetie and himself.  Still, just for the three of us, Wife, Baby A and myself, the bill came out to $352.  I was a little shocked, but I swallowed hard and we got through that painful part.  It was expensive for all of us, Boy's ticket was like $180, so was DD's and the sister's was like $160.  I did do a tequila shot which I added one for DD since it was birthday and that was a shock at $31 a shot, so I don't think I will be doing that again.  Other than that, the experience was great, we took a bunch of pictures, and Wife and the boys were all pretty content leaving.  The weather is supposed to be bad, by the time I put this out, and I guess the first of the sleet was starting Saturday night which we could feel as we took a few pictures outside before leaving.  Baby A complained it was "fucking cold", he said he is too used to being in his room with his heater and keeping it a nice 70 degrees in there.  We got home and DD's girlfriend had made him a peach cobbler, which is his favorite dessert, so we ended the night with a cup of that, on top of the desserts we had at the restaurant.  It was a classic good night.

1/12/21 Finally Went Out To A Nice Restaurant Meal? (part 1 of 2)

     Ever since March of last year when we were put into quarantine and all the Covid-19 shenanigans started, we had been real good and stayed away from going out to eat at restaurants.  We used to eat out pretty much 5-6 days out of the week, if you count the Bill Millers and Whataburgers for lunch Baby A and I did.  We were no strangers to trying new restaurants in town, it's kind of what we did for fun, we are fat people after all.  Then we learned to quarantine which made us more homebodies, the boys got me the pellet grill, which made me want to grill all my meals and now I usually do, even during the week.  Once you break the cycle, it gets hard to do something, I started comparing the cost of a meal out of the house versus what it costs to eat at home, and I really don't want to eat out anymore.  Then life happens.

    While we were working on the fence a couple weeks ago, DD mentioned it was going to be his birthday, on the 11th of January, and he wanted to go eat fancy and he was thinking of Estancia Churrascaria, the Brazilian restaurant.  He just mentioned it as a sort of invite and said he was telling his friends and sisters, but if we wanted to go, it would be cool.  I had been talking to Wife about going, even my family had talked about doing it in San Antonio, but there was not really any follow up.  I told him we would love to go, but only if his friends fall through, I don't want to be some weird old couple sitting with a bunch of twenty something kids out on the town.  A couple days later he said his coworkers and a couple other friends thought it was too expensive and they said no, we said if you want us to join, it would be great.  He seemed happy about it and said his girlfriend had bought a sexy dress and he was going to go out and buy a jacket and vest, they were going to dress up.  I got into it and Boy and Sweetie said they would be joining us, so I told Boy to break out a nice jacket, we were going to do this right.  He is always ready to dress up, he loves his jackets and ties.  Baby A was a little more of a challenge, he hasn't really bought clothes in over a year, he is doing home schooling, so we haven't bothered.  He has basically two new suit jackets he maybe wore once last year and I told him to take one out and it did not fit his husky ass.  The boy has thickened up all over, from his arms to his back to even his waist, it just did not fit.  Luckily, he has his gaudy, loud red dinner jacket, which he loves, and it fit him over a black button down dress shirt and some nice black jeans.  I was able to find suit pants in my closet that hadn't fit for awhile, that now fit again, and a grey dress shirt that I maybe wore once before, which worked nicely with a checkerboard black and grey tie which I had bought last year for my concert before Covid shut everything down.  The last piece was Wife and Sweetie, but gals always seem to have something decent to wear, that is part of being them.

    So the stage was set and we had a dinner time of 7:00pm.  To be con't....

1/11/21 Maybe You Shouldn't Be Keeping It Real?

     There is something to be said about meeting your heroes in real life, they will usually disappoint.  This takes me back to an incident with Charles Barkley in which he spat on a kid and as a result he decried that "he is not a role model."  He managed to turn it into a positive by turning his approach to life from that point, he did get a suspension and a $10,000 fine out of it.  But still, what he said has rung around in my head.  We hold these people we don't really know as better versions of humans because we see them doing what makes them great on TV, we don't get to see them being human, so it is rare that we get a glimpse of their reality.  

    In today's world, we are seeing regular people attempting to be bigger than their realities, this is much easier for the pretty ones, shit on TikTok they barely manage a smile and a sway to the music and literally millions of people will flock to see them.  I still don't understand how this one chick, Bella P., you can find her yourself, manages to get 20 million views at a time when all she does is bop along to some song, that's it.  She is now over a billion views, if TikTok pays, she must be rich from it.  But anyways, I was following a couple other girls that I like, this girl has a pretty face, but I like them thicker, so I follow different people.  Two of these girls recently went live and it was like seeing something you shouldn't, it made me feel like "wow, you let me down...."  These girls forget they have no talent, people enjoy looking at them for voyeuristic reasons, almost like looking at a Playboy where the images move.  Hearing the comments coming from their mouths was uncomfortable.  They forget people tuned in to them because they decided to be pieces of meat to be gawked at, don't even try to explain to me that you have something to add, y'all just dance the same dances everyone else does, there is nothing original to these two in particular.  One of them was told "you are so pretty, I want you" or something like that and she just replied "yeah, I know, so do 200 other guys, what else you got?"  I just thought "ew, bitch you're about 40 pounds overweight, be nice!"  That was enough for me to delete her, I am sure I don't matter to her, but I could see real quick why the state took her kids, fucking asshole with a pretty face.  The other chick wasn't much better, she was ranting about her rights to display herself any way she saw fit but we should hold her with dignity or some stupid shit.  I went to look for any proof of this just now, but it is all gone, still, fuck her.

    These bimbos have to realize they are a dime a dozen, yeah, you'll pull a million views and somehow there is enough money for all y'all, but walking wallets don't like to be disrespected.  You have made yourself the product, we didn't make you eye candy, so shut up and turn around, Daddy likes looking at that ass, bounce it a bit.  Yeah!

1/10/21 Am I Cheap Or Savvy?

     I know if I listen to my lawyer brother, he would just laugh at me and say I am a cheap a-hole and I should just pay to get the shit done when it comes to certain things, I can hear his mocking laughter in my head.  Yet, I take pride in getting away with doing some of the things I do for myself, they manage to save me money and I am no worse for the wear.  For example, with my Excursion, maybe I should have already traded it in and maybe I should be driving something newer, but here I am.  Small things keep breaking and I have been lucky to just fix them myself, lately, it was the rear driver side barn door in the back.  The cable that the lever pulls to release the lock broke, so I ordered a new and replaced it, yes, DD helped, but we still got it done at home for the cost of the cable and some tools I ordered, less than $50, plus I get to keep the tools for later.

    Another good example is replacing the fence.  I had been dreading the idea and cost, but it was in horrible shape, pretty much every time DD took his dog outside, it was a 50% chance the dog would escape, he couldn't just leave him out there by himself.  Well, my neighbor to one side said he and a friend were going to take care of his fence if I wanted to contribute the cost of the materials for our half of the fence between us, that part cost me $300 which seemed more than fair, actually kind of a steal.  I then decided if he could do it, we could tackle the rest of it ourselves and save a ton of money.  I did a rough estimate and went and got roughly $600 worth of wood and we got on it two weeks ago.  We had a small section left to do and we got it done this past weekend.  I ended up getting another $140 worth of fence materials, it takes more screws than you think.  I had bought a big box and we ended up using like three of them.  At this point, I am about $1000 into the fence and that has now covered one side and the long back section.  I need the last side and already talked to my other neighbor, she said she was into the idea, they had even started getting bids.  I told her I am way too cheap to pay someone, we would gladly do the work for the section between our houses, if they wanted to kick in about $300, like I did with my other neighbor.  She can get a bid and even decide to do it that way, but I am not paying more than $300, if they somehow beat us to the work, I offered to do it for that price.

    Wife was then telling me her  folks are starting to look at their fence and my father in law is thinking of doing the whole fence anew without asking his neighbors, just doing a fence within his property, and leaving the old fence up.  The bids he has gotten have been $5000 to $6000, but why would you do this?  I would at least look to ask my neighbors and try to split the cost.  I feel lucky that I have enough knowledge and then I had the right manpower here with my boys and DD to help me.  I even considered it a fun project being outside with the three boys getting it done.  I jokingly told our neighbor, let me know what kind of bids you get, maybe I'll get my crew and do the rest of your fence for a lot cheaper.  It took half a day to do the length on the back part, if we were going to make a little money, we could really get on it and probably do it in a day.

    Does this make me cheap though, or am I just smart by tackling jobs like this myself?  I just never like the idea of another man coming to my house to do things I should handle on my own.

1/9/21 Where Does It End?

     People on the left are mostly happy to see FB and Twitter ban/shut down our president over his thoughts of "overthrowing the government."  I hadn't seen Boy in a day or two, when I work during the week, he is in bed by the time I get home, but he came out of his room Thursday night and we talked about random stuff for a few minutes.  He brought it up that Trump had been banned with a little "how u like them apples, Daddy?"  It's not that he cares, and he keeps saying he doesn't care about politics, but because I have become so pro Trump, it is a way for him to fuck with me.  I was only paying about 50% attention, so it caught me off guard, but Wife was quick to jump in with "No, Boy, think big picture, where do you think this ends?"  When you can shut off the president, what makes you think they won't do it to anyone that disagrees with them?  It was like Boy was going to step into that cold swimming pool to enjoy it, but it was way too chilly.  Once Mama started talking sense, he started backtracking quick.  "No, I see that, no, you're right."  We then added that if this is where we are at, this is no longer a free country where you have a right to speak your mind, this is not a democracy or a republic, but we are leaving in the beginning of a totalitarian government system.  If the powers that be don't like what you have to say, they can just tell their bitch boys in charge of the internet and communication powers (the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys) to shut them down.

    These two cowards had been towing the line and just acting dumb because they feared their giant tech companies could be targeted for government sanctions and maybe taken apart like the telephone companies were in the 80s, well now that they have shown their true colors and they are in bed with the current powers, they feel emboldened to act freely.  If the first thing they do is censor, they have lost the right to say they believe in a free state and free ideas are good, thus they don't believe in our America.  Good or bad, all sides of an argument should have a level ground to be heard.  Where does this lead?  I can't help but think we just saw the first of the Imperial ships taking off to control the galaxy at the end of one of the Star Wars movies.  It is weird to think of Biden as Senator Palpatine, with his demented state, but here we are.  Maybe it is what the people want, maybe Trump did make it all up, maybe I drank the Kool aid and America wants to leave in a society where we all deserve the same.  In that world we don't all get to live in mansions with 2-3 cars, in that reality we all get to live in ghettos and wait for our masters to serve us like they do in soup kitchens.  The quality of life doesn't have to be raised to make us all equal, it is still equal and much cheaper if instead everyone's quality of life is lowered and we all get the shaft.  Just remember, if the election wasn't rigged, then the majority of you assholes wanted what we are about to get.  Enjoy it.

1/8/21 Covid-19 Is Still Being An Ass?

     Luckily, we have pretty much been able to stay clear of its path, other than Sweetie early on.  Still, Wife and the other negative Nancy's are ever present whenever I want to stretch and say it's not so bad.  Earlier this week, I just happened to come out of the shower, freshly clean and maybe wanting to go for a ride to the mall or Academy, anywhere really, just to get out, I said Covid can't be that bad, instantly, like she was waiting to shit on my head, Wife starts reading a list of people on FB that are on life support and other people that died recently.  What can you do after that?  Just sigh and get back under the covers.  I think she was assigned to me to shit in my cereal anytime I want to feel good.

    If things weren't bad enough here, Dr. Drew, from Loveline fame and a constant sidekick to Adam Carolla who I am back to listening to his podcasts daily, got Covid-19.  He says the ironic thing is he feels he got it running around in circles in the hospital he works at trying to get signed off to get the vaccine as a front line responder.  His message was that he was kind of glad he got it, so he can relay the experience of having it not just from a doctor's perspective, but from a person has had it.  His advice is to stay ahead of it, he contacted his doctor early as soon as he felt something was off.  He even tested negative two times before he tested positive, as Wife told us from her trainings, you can test too early and not have enough of a virus load.  He also said he had taken Ivermectin, which I was reading repeated studies from a couple weeks ago and seems really effective in combatting the virus.  It is also a medicine that has been around for many years and gone through the proper approval procedures, not rushed like the vaccines.

    I look at the data frequently, and I see why people want to ignore the mask law, Florida has a lower incidence of death rates than New York and California, and they both have had draconian laws which have pretty much shut down the states as far as what people can and can't do.  Florida, on the other hand, has had free rein to continue doing as they do, even Disney World is open and the numbers are not terrible in that state.  I don't know what is real and what is "fake news" anymore, if anything, Trump has helped open my eyes that the main stream media does what it does, for its benefit, it doesn't just report the news anymore.

    I don't even know if the vaccine will solve all our problems, as people start taking it, the assholes on TV are already showing mutated versions of the virus out there, if it is like the flu, the vaccine changes yearly to account for the new strains, so we may all get a vaccine for a virus that changes enough but we won't even be told because the reality is this thing is survived without the vaccine by more than 99.5% of the people, so is the vaccine for real?

1/7/21 I Was Really Excited To See A Kraken?

     I should have known better, when the government decides on a narrative, then caries it out, it becomes monumental to even think about changing things, even with proof and common sense.  After the election, which I even came out of my cave to vote for Trump, only the second time I have bothered to vote, not that it mattered, Trump alleged there was a lot of voter fraud.  I am not one to go nuts on insisting I am right or that my side should always, but I actually saw enough to believe that perhaps Trump was not just talking shit.  First and foremost, Trump had a massive following, people that love him, do so fanatically.  He has something about him that is very polarizing, you either love him or hate him, he is not a real politician, he carries his emotions on his sleeves and he is not shy about sharing his thoughts.  I learned to love this about him.  When he first said Africa was full of Shithole countries, I was still holding onto my liberal flag, but putting some thought into it, who can disagree with that?  The peasants may be decent people, but most of those countries are run by dictators and they claim to be the location where humans started, why are they still running around starving and undeveloped?

    Trump has a way of just saying what is on his mind, but I guess people that hate him prefer to be lied to with a serpent's tongue and a suave demeanor.  Biden is probably not a bad guy, but compared to Trump, he routinely fumbles his thoughts and sentences, he is a man in decline, but fuck, he has been in Congress almost fifty years, give it a rest, ass.  Maybe your old ass should introduce term limits for all these Senators who act like they are our royalty.  He could also never pull in a crowd like Trump did on a daily basis, his rallies barely filled a parking lot full of people in their cars, don't tell me this turned into enough energy for him to get over 81 million votes.  I have yet to see anyone excited about Biden's plans for his presidency.  Anytime random people are asked "why did you choose Biden?"  The stupid answer is "he is not Trump."  That answer is so delicious, I just know it will come back and bite these delusional children in the ass.

    My brother claims that the Kraken is larger than Trump, that plenty of evidence is still coming for other devious acts going on, and Youtube still has stories of people that are going to do this and that, but I don't see the narrative changing.  These same assholes on CNN and all the other main stream media turned a blind eye to the violence during the summer of buildings burning and violence brought unto the police officers insisting it was all a peaceful protest.  One afternoon of the same happening from the right in support of Trump, and the same media people are crying on camera going on with how the fabric of society is falling and how appalling what they are seeing on television.  Get over yourselves, one window was broken, the building is still standing.  A woman got shot for storming up a stairwell, she wasn't attacking one of our lords in there, this kill was unnecessary, but I get it.  They should have done this with the people looting and rioting for months on end all summer, but that served a different purpose.

    Oh well, I am still in Texas and even though Austin swings very liberal, we are still in a red state, so I feel somewhat safe for now.  Before I get too old, I might have to move for my sanity, and how high can the valuation of my house and the taxes we pay get?  But for now, let them eat cake, the liberals can have their way, give more of our money to the unemployables, send our money out to undeserving countries, slowly more and more people are seeing the truth.

1/6/21 Easing Back Into Work?

     I am writing this Tuesday night after getting through half of my work week.  It has been very quiet and I like it like that, to get started.  I was off for two weeks, and Wife is here for a third week, so I am wishing I was still hanging out at home, but two weeks is as much as I feel comfortable taking off.  I went back to work Monday afternoon and usually Mondays suck and there is a lot of work backed up from the weekend, but yesterday was nice.  There were only a couple jobs to prep and both tools were working, so I split the work and was done by 11:00pm.

    I told Wife I love my new schedule in the afternoon, after she got up.  I get home and even after staying up a couple hours, I can still get 6-8 hours sleep and get up around 10:00am.  I like my alone time in the morning, Wife won't get up and come down until closer to noon, she likes to sleep in when not at work.  I made some New York strip steaks Monday which she really liked and then I made some ribeye steaks today out on the grill.  She says this is the real reason Baby A doesn't want to go back to school, he eats way too good daily for lunch compared to anything the cafeteria might provide.  I agree that lunch is really good when I get to make some meat on the grill.  We have a pack of sirloin steaks for tomorrow.

    Tonight was similar to Monday, there were a few more jobs but again since I split them between the two tools, I was able to finish twice as fast as it would normally take.  I was home before 11:00pm and Wife was still downstairs watching crappy TV.  She brought me a plate of the food made by Boy and Sweetie, a Mexican dish called Mole.  I make it better by adding a couple spoons of peanut butter to the sauce which then gets mixed with rice.  Nobody else in the house likes that I do this, but I don't think I would like the dish as is.

    Anyways, I have another two days to go this week, but feel pretty good.  There isn't much work in the logbook and I don't think we are expecting anything so I am just taking it easy.  I don't mind working four days a week every week now (I am doing a ten hour shift and not the twelve hour shift anymore).  I feel my life is a little freer since I can come home early most days, I get to sleep a good part of my sleep cycle at night which has helped alleviate my narcolepsy feelings I was experiencing for a while there a year ago.  

    I am looking forward to going to eat at Estancia Churrascaria this weekend.  DD is celebrating his birthday and asked us if we wanted to join him.  It looks like the whole family is going to go along with his sisters and current girlfriend.  It has been awhile since we have gone out to eat a proper meal at a restaurant and this is by far my favorite.

1/5/21 Fixed My Excursion's Rear Door?

      My poor Ford Excursion needs some attention now and then.  It is now going on seventeen years and although it has been a solid vehicle, little things do break occasionally but I have been able to stay on top of them.  The latest thing to fail was the driver side rear most barn door which allows access to the rear most portion of the vehicle.  The cable broke about a month ago and although I had looked at Youtube and even determined what I needed to fix it and had even ordered the parts, I had not made time to replace said cable.  This morning I decided I could do this in about fifteen minutes, so I should tackle it before I start making lunch on the grill.

    I glanced through one of the Youtube videos as a refresher and then headed out around 10:30am.  The first part was easy enough, removing the inner panel with a pry bar.  It went about as well as the video showed, then I removed the rest of the stuff in the way and just like that, I was pulling on the cable with my hand inside the door frame and that released the door so I could work on it properly.  I ran into trouble trying to remove the three screws holding the locking mechanism underneath the door.  This pissed me off because I knew what I was doing but even then, the screws had some sort of blue Locktite material and made removing the screws way harder than it should have been.  I was able to remove two and then I stripped the third one.  I tried attaching the cable without removing the part, but it would not work, the lock needed to come out.

    I had seen a set of tools that remove stripped screws so in a pissed off haste, I headed to Home Depot to get a set.  I bought what looked like a good set, but apparently, they were crap.  I did as the videos showed me and nothing happened.  Luckily, as I had given up, DD got home early and I asked him if he had dealt with stripped screws, he said he had.  He mentioned the removing bits I had just bought and he said he had a set.  We went outside and tried mine, but apparently titanium is not that strong.  He said his was cobalt and a better set.  He went and got his set and within a few seconds did what my set couldn't.  He removed the stripped screw, then we aligned the cable as it should be and now my Excursion is good to go.

    I really appreciate having DD around for stuff like this.  He threw himself down on the ground and took care of it while I just looked on.  It is the same with the fence last week and Sunday, when we finished the last part.  In that instance, he benefits the most because now his dog can't escape with the fence being solid and without holes or weak spots anymore.  I might go and buy the better stripped screw removers, now that I know which set is better, but as far as my SUV, I am happy the doors are working again.

1/4/21 The Peanut Butter Falcon? (Netflix 2019)

     We saw this movie last night and honestly I did not know what to expect.  I was interested because I assumed Peanut Butter Falcon was some sort of weird reference to the Millenium Falcon, a Star Wars thing.  This was not, but it ended up being a buddy movie between two lost souls looking for some meaning to life and finding it by going forward together.  Zak is a twenty something young man who happens to have Downs Syndrome and has been placed in an elder care facility by the state since his family has abandoned him.  His only outlet is a set of old VHS tapes that show a wrestling school which he decides is where he needs to go so he can become a wrestler and escape his life.  We catch up with Zak in the starting scene and he has a half baked plan to distract the orderlies and make his dash out of there.  It doesn't work and it doesn't matter.  He is intent on succeeding, which he does at night.

    The other buddy to this buddy bromance movie is Shia Lebeouf and he may be going nuts in real life but I loved his character in this, he seemed so real, Wife kept saying "it's like we can smell them stinking through the TV."  He was some sort of crab fisherman, looked like it was set in Louisiana but it was really on the east coast.  Zak is intent on getting to the wrestling school in Florida and Tyler (Shia LeBeouf) is more or less headed that way, so they join forces.  Zak is in terrible shape for running away, he is in underwear and nothing else.  Tyler is drawn to Zak and though he doesn't want to initially, he eventually gives him a shirt, pants and even his fishing boots to wear.  We learn some of their back stories, Zak has been abandoned because of his Down Syndrome and Tyler lost his brother in a car accident.  Tyler leaves a trail of trouble everywhere he goes and leaves his last place where he was working aflame after he was threatened.  This causes trouble to follow him all the way down to Florida and eventually it catches up with him.

    The other part of this is Zak has a therapist after his trail.  She is responsible for him and her boss has threatened to get her in trouble for letting him escape.  She knows he wants to go to the wrestling school, so she heads that way and eventually they all converge.  The wrestler hero turns out to be Thomas Hayden Church and although the wrestling school does not exist anymore, the tapes are over ten years old, he dons the costume to make Zak's day.  Zak gets to experience some good ol' fashion backyard wrastlin'.  

    The movie has a buddy structure, some reviews say it is like a Mark Twain adventure, because it is set in the south, but if you get past the grit and the dirt on the characters, you can see the movie has a lot of heart.  Tyler never treats Zak like he is slow, he just tells them all people have limitations, such as "we don't all get to dunk a basketball, or do this or that."  Focus on what you can do and you will be alright.  Zak is stronger than he realizes and they eventually form a perfect family unit.

1/3/21 Cobra Kai Brings It?

     We sat and watched the new season of Cobra Kai last night and once we started, we could not stop.  We saw all ten episodes back to back, only stopping briefly between episodes so Wife could keep the washer and dryer going and I made popcorn at one point.  The season picks up about three weeks later from season two and Miguel is still in a coma after the accidental but very ugly fall he took in the final fight scene.  Johnny is having to fight the demons in his head because he was trying to be good and coach his kids a better way, to show mercy and that is what directly led to Miguel getting kicked over the railing.  At every turn it seems Johnny tries to do the right thing but it doesn't want to work out for him.  While that is going on, we see Daniel's daughter Samantha has to face her fears as she was almost killed by the other hot chick, Tory, who has a vendetta because Samantha talked to her would be boyfriend.

    The story has a lot of weak plot points, such as the dealership losing customers because of an incident that happened at school.  The other car salesman trying to buy his dealership and stealing all the Japanese car sales with one suspicious deal, and more.  This all leads Daniel who honestly does not impress me as a good parent since he is more interested in everything else going on than in his kids, on a trip to Japan.  He has a boy who might as well have not been written into the story, the kid only serves as a side joke and is rarely seen.  Anyway, the side trip to Japan ties in with Karate Kid 2 and he runs into all the key figures, including the little girl he saved.  Chozen, his enemy in that movie who fought him to the death has a few scenes and for most of them still seems to have a stick up his ass, but he comes around in the end.

    The best part of the whole 3rd season arc is we get to see Kreese's back story.  We are taken back to him growing up and joining the Army and some of what he went through.  We see how him showing mercy and not being strong at a critical point almost cost the lives of his whole team.  We see that he is not necessarily evil, he is just trained for survival in a winner take all mentality and I don't think that can be undone, so he has lived a hard life not adjusting well to civilian life.  He trains his Cobra Kais as if they are going out to war and only one side can win, the stronger more menacing force, there is never room for mercy, it can cost more than a single loss of life, it can cost the loss of the mission purpose.

    As if all that wasn't enough to fit into ten 30 minute episodes, Ali, both Johnny and Daniel's first love, comes back to town for the holidays and she does a great job as mediator and getting the two men-children to sit and have a true heart to heart and they finally see that they aren't that different.  The whole season is just great, if you have bought into the Karate Kid universe, it was all so great.  We can't wait for season 4, show down at the All Valley Tournament!!  Cobra Kai!!!

1/2/21 Finally Feeling Relaxed?

     I have been off almost two weeks and today, with two more days to go, I think I finally felt a sort of relaxed internally.  Christmas is never a relaxed time of year, the actual day has too much stuff going on, with visiting family and buying gifts and making sure everyone has been thought of and there is plenty of the right kind of food in the house, it is just way too much to be called anything similar to a relaxing time.  We got past it this year with only visiting my folks.  We then had to find time to go and visit my in-laws sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve, which we did on Monday or Tuesday this week.  We spent the afternoon over there and it was nice, but my goal was to get in and out to get back home so we could start our proper vacation time.  Being off from work should be the vacation, but I like time to just sit around without any obligations and after seeing my in-laws, we still had New Year's to get past last night.

    This year, we stayed home because of Covid-19 and because the weather was supposed to be rainy and cold and I have to admit I liked being home.  We are usually at my in-laws on New Years and there is something to be said about a gathering, but being home meant we could do what we wanted to.  After making a delicious brisket for the family, I napped the evening away, ate too many good snacks, and was on again/off again siting with Wife while she watched crappy movies.  We still managed to be up until 2:00am or so and I even stayed in bed until 10:00am this morning.

    Today was great, we slept in, got up, put the Christmas tree and other holiday stuff away and then hung out while DD and Baby A messed around on the mats Santa bought Baby A for wrestling practice.  Mijo had his friends come over, so they were all taking turns practicing and learning how to fall, and some wrestling moves.  DD was messing around with his girlfriend doing the moves on her, but it was more of a turn on as everything looked way too sexual.  I don't know, wrestling still feels a little dirty to look at, I was enjoying watching them two sneakily while we were putting stuff away.  She felt the same as she was laughing and saying this isn't wrestling, this feels sexual, I couldn't help but chime in "yeah, don't stop, we all learning."  

    After the boys wore themselves down tossing each other around, Wife and I went to Target to get them chips and sodas and then to Little Caesar's Pizza and got five pizzas for us to eat.  Since about 6:30pm, I have been napping and/or looking at Youtube videos.  We cleaned a very little bit, we need to get the house presentable for another appraisal next week as we are trying to refinance the house down to a fifteen year note.  Putting away the tree and all the bins with decorations helped some upstairs, I will try to declutter my stuff in our room either tonight or tomorrow as well as finish the last third of the fence if the weather isn't too cold.  I do love looking out and enjoying the fence looking new and strong once again.