5/31/21 Alternative Watch Possibilities?

     As I have mentioned ad nauseum, I want to get into collecting watches, but the ones I want are just not to be found right now.  There is a shortage of Rolex watches worldwide.  The story is that it takes them a year to make each one, so they are not just pushed out the door.  With that, I have had to adjust and think of creative ways to go about buying a collection I could be proud of.

    I was looking at random watches Sunday morning and I stumbled upon the Tudor brand which I have looked at many times and I almost bought a Black Bay Bronze which almost looks like dull gold a couple months ago.  Bronze is interesting because it will be affected by the environment and start to oxidize and turn different "rusted" colors from turquoise to brown.  The problem was that the strap did not fit my wrist and they seemed to not have a solution they could give me, like ordering a longer strap, so I decided to not buy it.

    This morning I "discovered" that they have a silver version of that watch, the Black Bay 58.  Silver looks very much like stainless steel but is also very reactive to the environment but even worse, it can be reactive to the person wearing it, notably the nickel in the alloy is a known skin irritant to a percentage of people.  They claim that they have solved the issues with reactivity to humans, so it becomes an interesting option which I think I might want to own.  The watch is priced fairly, under $5000, so it isn't that hard to get into it.

    Along with the Tudor brand, I also "discovered" a Bell and Ross watch I didn't know I wanted so badly.  I have wanted a watch with a red dial and red coloring, I think that would be striking and B&R has one right now.  The thing differentiating their brand is they do a square case with a circle dial which is inspired by the instruments on an airplane.  This is a limited quantities watch (only 999 will be made), which might also make it more desirable and valuable in the future.

    I showed the watches to Boy and even he is interested in going to this new store that I didn't even know existed.  Perhaps, if it is open tomorrow, we can make the short trip and check out their inventory.  I don't even know what to expect in this Covid era where everything is in short supply, maybe they also have empty displays much like Ben Bridge.  Yesterday, we did manage to walk in there briefly and they had a total of 4 sad Rolexes, 3 for females and the fourth might as well have been too, with all the crystals on the face.  To me, that makes it a watch for females, men's watches shouldn't have diamonds and jewels adorning the face.

5/30/21 Beautiful Saturday?

    Saturday started a little dreary with light rain as the sun came up.  Still, I went and turned the pool pump on, with some persistence and belief, I have the water about 97% clean as of Sunday morning on this Memorial Day Weekend.  I can now see through the water and can see the smallest of debris still on the pool bottom which I probably need to vacuum out.  

    After my workout, drinking two cups of coffee and watching about 4 hours of Youtube videos, I finally went upstairs to see if Wife was ready to wake up.  I caught her in the middle of going to the bathroom, so she was out of bed.  Still, she tried getting back in and being lazy, this was around 11:00am.  I got up super early, at 6:00am and I felt good.  I went to bed around 10:30pm after all the brisket fun of Friday night.  Once I was able to get Wife up, she was agreeable to go for a drive and even to look at some watches, for fun.  I have been wanting to get a new watch, as I consider that my hobby of sorts now, but I can't decide what to buy since no one has Rolex watches in stock and I feel it a stupid idea to pay more for a used watch than what the new one should cost.  Still, Boy has gotten me convinced that The Real Real is worth checking out.  They are a consignment online store, but they have a small location at The Domain.  They do carry an assortment of watches and online there are good selections, but at the local store, they only had a handful of watches to try on.

    Walking around the Domain was about as perfect as a day can get.  The sun was out in the sfternoon and bright, but in the shade, the air was still somewhat cool and fresh.  It will probably be a few more weeks before our summer arrives when the heat and humidity becomes somewhat dangerous, so we took advantage of this perfect weather to go out and walk amongst the people.  I know it sounds snobby, but I so enjoy walking around other people with means, no one looks hungry and sad, like at every corner around Southpark Meadows, where the freaking homeless are a constant reminder of reality elsewhere.  Everyone looks their best and seem to just be enjoying the atmosphere much like we were.  We didn't really buy anything, but I still had a great day, Wife wasn't in a negative mood and even let me go see stuff I wanted.

    We left The Domain and headed to Bass Pro Shops to see their boats, I figure one time Wife will just say, do it, buy one.  I had what could just as easily be a down payment for a boat or a watch in hand, but I was shocked to find that they did not have any inventory at all, save for one tiny plastic jon boat.  As we walked, I pretty much convinced her, if for a second, that maybe the best way to go would be to just buy one Seadoo jetski this year and if we do find that we like it, then we can think of a second one next year.  It was then another shock to get to Woods Fun Center and find out that they too are totally out of all PWC, not even used Seadoos.  The guy we talked to said we could order one and it would take 2-4 weeks to arrive.  I can't see myself buying something without seeing it.

5/29/21 Solving More Pool Issues?

     By Friday morning, the pool was also looking algae free but still a little cloudy, not fully clear which told me it was probably okay to jump in and work on it.  I always figure if we can jump in a pool or lake with green water, what is a little cloudy water going to hurt?  I then spent the day smoking my brisket for Mijo's party, which went in the grill at 7:30am, and cleaning the pool.  Because I closed all the inlets and outlets, which seems to have stopped the water from leaking, I needed an artificial skimmer to remove debris from the surface.  I looked on Youtube and found some homemade ideas.  I sort of took the ideas I saw and made something I really liked, taking a T connection with 4inch PVC tubing with a 1.5inch connection and connected this to some flexible pool tubing which I then floated perfectly with pieces from a styrofoam floatie which I zip tied to the T and this floats perfectly on the surface, so it is essentially sucking the surface from both sides and slowly over the course of about two hours I saw less and less crap on the surface of the water.

    It was so nice to get in there, because I was getting in for "maintenance", I just bit the bullet and kept moving in instead of dancing around thinking it was too cold.  It did feel a little cool going in but being the day had been warm with the sun out, I think it got to the 90's before the rains came in, it just felt great.  I looked at my shoulders and I even have a bit of sunburn, I was probably in the water for 2-3 hours total.  After I did my little skimmer trap, I had to get out for about 40 minutes because Baby A had to take a book back to campus and pick up new books for a summer class.  The end of the school year has quietly creeped up on us.  Anyways, after we got back, I said screw it, and went back to mess some more with my pool.  I found a scrubbing pad and got in with the idea of scrubbing the walls of any algae and stuff on it.  It has a lot of small age cracks and stuff, but honestly, for almost 20 years old, that pool still looks pretty good when it is cleaned up.  I went all the way around and even used this vacuum thing on the bottom to start sucking on the sand silt stuff on the bottom I could feel with my feet.

    I also just floated there impressed looking at my little creation sucking the dead bugs and surface stuff, when it looked clean, I would swim around and guide more stuff clinging to the walls at the water's edge just to see it get sucked away.  It then rained really hard for about 2 inches I would say given how much the pool water went up, which ruined my perfect looking pool as I had it at 5:30pm.  It's okay, I have it under control for now, I just need to keep the pool pump running, I told Wife we can spend the weekend out there hanging out and she agreed, saying she would get in Saturday.

5/28/21 Highest Compliment A Kid Can Give Me?

     Friday was a busy day around here.  Baby A had a sort of end of the year party with an unspecified number of boys coming over and he had requested a brisket, ribs, burgers, and hot dogs.  I told him that was a bit much but I would make a brisket and some ribs since it has been awhile since I smoked one and we had one in the freezer.  As usual, Friday came around too fast and I never got the brisket out of the freezer.  From experience, I know that it takes at least two days to thaw out if placed in the fridge and I have read that steaks and stuff can be cooked from frozen but I didn't want to be experimenting with a meal that my son's friends are going to eat.  So, Thursday night after work, I stopped at HEB to buy one and first of all, they should be ashamed what they did to the prices.  Briskets have pretty much been $2.29/pound all year but I couldn't find anything cheaper than $3.99/pound.  I settled on a smaller 9 pounder that was about $36 but I was a little pissed about paying that much.  Same with the ribs, they were also more expensive, but I told Mijo I would cook this for him, so I bit the bullet.  Of course, since I had gone to the store, Wife told me to get them regular sodas, sugar free stuff, chips, and whatever else boys eat.

    I started the brisket at 7:30am, and was able to manage the day around it.  I took Mijo to his morning practice, went to Home Depot, gassed up Wife's SUV, and even worked on the pool during the day.  Running the grill all day does take about 3/4 of a 20 pound bag of pellets.  I thought I had enough pellets from a bag I had just opened earlier in the week, but I had to go and tear into the back-up bag.  I still love cooking with my pellet grill and it has behaved very well after changing the heat probe and temperature sensor a couple months ago.

    Eventually, my brisket got done around 5:00pm, when I was talking to Wife on her way home.  I took it out and let ir "rest" in the oven just so it would stay warm and do whatever it does while resting.  I continued smoking the ribs at 225, finally adding the sausages and bringing everything in to eat around 7:00pm.  The boys had run down to Southpark Meadows, it rained hard on them, so I went to get them and bring them back home.  The brisket was about perfect, it was falling apart while I cut it into slices.  Maybe it has taken me the five years of Wife working out of town, but I am now pretty comfortable running the kitchen, as I sliced the brisket, cut the ribs, Wife heated some tortillas, then we all ate.  I made a comment about how I thought I had done a pretty good job to Wife and one of the kids said "you made this?"  I said "yup, smoked it all day on my grill right out there."  He thought it was from a restaurant and the other kids commented that it was "delicious".  Baby A is a little shit who will not give me the compliment and just says "it's alright" because he says he doesn't want it to go to my head.  It really was one of the better ones I have made.

5/27/21 Crockpot Magic?

     I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised at the abilities a crock pot brings to the cooking repertoire.  It might have taken me most of the last five years to learn how to cook, but I am finally taking the lead more often and preparing food so Wife can just get home and relax after her long trip back and forth now that she is driving to San Antonio every day.

    For the first three years, I just played dumb and relied on Bill Miller, Whataburger, Panda Express, and the rest of the fast food here in Southpark Meadows to survive during the week, always figuring we would eat home cooked meals on the weekend.  Well, I guess Wife has kind of lost her mojo because she too isn't dying to jump in the kitchen to rattle some pans.  Because of how we eat nowadays, it is not the worst thing, since we rely a lot on the grill outside for starters.  I love grilling on a  Sunday and then enjoying the leftovers Monday and even Tuesday.  Yesterday, I took the 2-3 breasts I had grilled, stripped them of all the meat, cut it into cubes and put it on top of some salad for lunch.  Sometimes, I like to take some leftover sausages and beef and cut it up and mix it with some eggs to make some tacos.

    The crockpot has been used sparingly, but it usually delivers.  Last week I made a pork butt which was very good, then the leftovers stayed in the fridge for a few days, but Wife eventually took that meat and mixed in some eggs to turn it into Sunday morning breakfast.  Not only is the meat easy to prepare this way, we are eating most of it, very little gets thrown away weekly.

    Today, I made a beef stew which was a first time for me.  I bought a pack of beef meat already cut into chunks, about four pounds, and put it in the crockpot with a quart of beef broth, a whole onion cut up, and plenty of spices.  I put it on at 8:00am and it looked about ready by 4:00pm.  At that point, I added a bunch of vegetables from a frozen bag to complete the meal.  Wife got home after 6:00pm and microwaved a small bag of cauliflower rice to mix it in, but as she said, it really didn't need it.

    I am trying not to get home and eat a heavy meal at night, so I just got a small bowl to taste my creation.  I thought it was very good, the meat was tender and broke apart while I tried chewing it.  It went down perfectly with a big spoon, I could have had another bowl if I wasn't trying to diet.  

    I have another pork package labeled "carnitas" for probably next week, being that it is Thursday tomorrow and I already have a whole cut up chicken ready to go.  We are then having a party of sorts for Baby A and he wants me to smoke him a brisket and ribs for his buddies.  We will be in the weekend in no time.

5/26/21 Who Else Is Real?

     We tried sitting down and watching Bliss this past Sunday but it just seemed too hokey to stay with the whole thing.  In the movie, Greg (played by Owen Wilson) is having a bit of a hard time going through divorce, when he meets Isabel (Selma Hayek), a know it all gypsy looking chick living on the streets but in a proud "this is my castle" vibe that screams either nuts or imaginary.  We saw about the first 45 minutes to maybe an hour, but it just seemed too far fetch to stay with it.  When they meet, Isabel is a little frustrated she can't control Greg with the wave of her hand.  This is some sort of test to determine to her, that Greg is a "real" person.  We have seen this type of set up where only the main characters are real and I just see it as kind of a juvenile mentality, to think that only you and those around you are important enough to be "real".

    They did the same thing in The Matrix, where most of the people were living a simulated life and the agents could take control of any body at any point.  If we must be real, I used to think like this when I was young, that people just kind of froze and waited to move and react when I was around.  That has to be some kind of child ego thing, thinking the world revolves around you.  So for Isabel to proclaim that everyone around her was not "real", it just kind of turned me off.  We did not stay to watch the end of the movie, so I can't say if things got better, but she was teaching Greg how to control the environment around them by just willing it.  They are then out on a skating date and with the collective powers, they are making everybody fall and be embarrassed, if they deserve it, such as the two idiots running around showing off and groping the other girls.

    It is really a complicated world where everyone is carrying on with their important part to add to the world.  It is only when we let people into our lives that we see how intricate and beautiful other people's actions might be compared to what you do.  Not to say it is beautiful, but every night when I cut through Southpark Meadows and see so many people engaged in commerce or just hanging in the bars and restaurants kind of reminds me we are not alone.  The way the past year has been, I think we can get confused and forget that we are here for and because of others.  Living for just yourself to me seems kind of selfish, knowing how much I might have to give others.  It is only natural that it must be the same from the other side where people I haven't met yet have a lot to offer me, if I will only let them in.

5/25/21 It's Great That Wife Is Home, But?

     Of course, it is great that Wife is home, it was time for her to come home, but I am still not adjusted to her being here full time.  I feel like I am in this great rush to get home every day when I get to work because she is here and usually that has been a unique and kind of special circumstance to her being home.  I found myself yesterday pissed off at work because there really wasn't much in the way of work but the tools were not working as they should, the standards we use are usually made by the time I get there and they were but I had to remake them, sometimes they just get contaminated.

    I was home by 8:30pm, but by estimation of walking in and only seeing two simple samples, I should have been able to get them done in less than an hour.  It is stuff like this that makes me feel like it was better when Wife was away, I didn't really worry about when I finished and went home for the night.  This is not a big deal and I am sure I will get used to her being around all the time in a while.

    Another thing that sucks, mostly for her is the commute.  The distance isn't even the issue, if she was doing the commute like my brother does out there to Laredo, there really isn't any traffic to slow or affect him, but Wife is running between Austin and San Antonio and that just means she is on the highway with thousands of other people trying to do the same thing.  Normally, she can leave the house at 5:45am and be at work by 7:10am, but on the second day, there was a tractor trailer overturned in New Braunfels and she was late by a good 20 minutes, getting to work around 7:50am.  It seems that daily she is getting slowed down to a crawl in San Marcos, it doesn't even seem to be accidents, just too many people on the freeway slowing everyone down to a standstill.  She can loose as much as 20 minutes of time just siting there not moving, then it all clears up and seems like nothing was wrong.  I have driven with her and experienced this, it is almost more annoying than when there is an accident because there is nothing to hate on.

    It also seems like I am in constant food prep mode now too.  I take the meat out we are going to eat the next day like always and put it in the fridge, but now I also have to think what we are going to eat for dinner too and prep that as well.  Today I forgot to start the beef stew I had planned for tonight, I didn't think about it until noon and the meat was still a little too hard from being frozen, so I guess that becomes tomorrow's meal instead.  I liked just focusing on my steak lunch and then eating whatever for dinner.  Now every meal requires thought and planning.  Add to that my brother in law getting on us about eating too much beef and now it seems most of our meals are chicken and pork.  It is cheaper this way, but steaks just seem so perfect and delicious.

5/24/21 Flex Tape For The Win?

     I know I am probably celebrating prematurely, but for now, I am seeing the pool finally hold the water at the level it is supposed to be at.  For the last 5-6 years, it has had a leak I just could not find.  I think it is either in the return box that sends water back to the pump and filter or it is in one of the jets that brings the water back to the pool.  When I am paying attention and fill the pool up past those points, it always seems to come back the next day to just below one of the jets and/or the return box on the opposite side.

    What needs to be done is I probably have to break the concrete to access the plumbing behind the pool wall, but that just seems daunting.  As a result, I just kind of ignore the pool altogether and we just hardly ever use it.  If we want to have a party, I can fill it up the day before or starting early in the morning, but it is just an illusion as the water will have leaked out by the next day.

    So, earlier this month, Wife and I were talking and Wife said kind of in a throw away line that I should just plug all the holes with tape or something and just go around all the plumbing in the ground.  This got me thinking and because we are constantly shown the video of Flex tape holding up even underwater, I thought it might do the trick.  I went online and looked and found a roll that is sold at 8 inches wide.  I ordered that but had been too busy to mess around with it.  This weekend I finally had enough time to drain the pool low enough, tape the flex tape, wait 24 hours, as recommended on the packaging, it did not really want to stick to the wet fiberglass, then I started refilling it yesterday afternoon.

    I figured that by morning we would see the water back to the level of the return jet or the tape is holding.  For now, it appears the tape is holding, so I am pretty happy about that.  The next step is to run the pump all week to get rid of the algae, I am also shocking it daily.  I am not going to lie, it is a pain in the ass dealing with this pool, but if it doesn't work, we are already talking about digging it out of the yard and looking to get another one.  I might still try cutting the concrete around the pool to get to the plumbing behind the fiberglass, but even DD frowned at the idea of using the saw designed to cut concrete, saying it is a pain in the ass.  Still, I can rent the saw for $100, make a cut, replace some tubing at a cost of $50, tops.  Then fill in with some new concrete and save $50,000 in not getting a new pool.

    I also saw a Flex glue that you just spread over a leaking device and it stops the leak.  A news station did a "will it work?" on Youtube and they showed it did work, so I still have some options.

5/23/21 Relaxing Saturday, Finally?

     We finally got what I was wanting, a nice quiet Saturday at home.  For about the last two months it has been one thing after another.  It started with the wrestling tournaments, then multiple weekends to Crystal City for funerals, then activities at my in-law's house the last two weekends.  I was looking for a day to just recharge my batteries and be home.  Knowing this was coming up, I even scheduled Wife's oil change for Thursday in the morning just so it wouldn't be weighing on me on Saturday.  Wife can be a real hemorrhoid when it comes to her vehicle, I even stopped Friday afternoon at HEB because I planned on making ribs today but we were out of the Salt Lick spice she loves so much and I didn't want to have to feel like I let her down by not buying some, so I stopped and got a bunch of back up sodas, juices and other low carb stuff, even some sugar free cake mixes to ensure we could stay home.

    So what did I do with my day off?  I got up and worked out, around 8:00am, more or less when I get up on the weekends, and worked out/listened to Youtube videos until close to 11:00am, when Wife finally came down.  I love having the weights all in the one room, I can go in there and just make it some me time.  I have even taking to drinking my coffee in there while I do various stretches and other "lame" stuff to make me more human.  Wife then came down and she offered breakfast, which we ate just ourselves as the boys didn't wake up until around 2:00pm.  After eating our sausage and egg tacos (on low carb tortillas), Wife suggested a nap.  We went upstairs, but she actually meant nap, not "nap", so I played on my phone for a bit and came back downstairs.

    I was going to just sit and watch a movie, but I remembered I bought a new door lock for the back door, the old one was sticking weird, so I replaced both the doorknob and deadbolt, that took me about 20-30 minutes.  I was just going to relax when Wife came back down, so we turned the projector on and watched Idiocracy.  Around this time, Baby A came down and after that movie, they watched the second Antman movie.  I kind of napped, but before I started the grill and got the ribs ready.  I put the ribs on and napped for about an hour, which I pretty much do every day around 3:00-4:00pm.

    Since it had stopped raining/drizzling in the afternoon, I decided to go back and finish my swimming pool project.  It has had a leak for a few years and I decided to just close all the inlets and returns and just run the pool water in and out via some pipes above the concrete, very ghetto but if it solves my problem, so be it.  If not, I am seriously going to consider just ripping the whole thing out, I am tired of this albatross fucking with me.

    We then came in and ate, feeling pretty good until my family texted to ruin things by guilting me that I wasn't at some quinceanera they were all at that I wasn't really invited to, other than I should have known, you know, I'm supposed to be able to read minds.  Mom mentioned it vaguely, but mother is not shy, when she expects me to show up, she lays it on thick, so I didn't even think of going.  I don't even know what the girl looks like that was having her quince.  We spent the rest of the evening trying to watch Tenet, which I had really wanted to but it was so convoluted I couldn't figure out what was going on.  We gave up and saw some Southpark before that sugar free cake made me run to the bathroom.  It is now 10:15pm, I am showered and I guess ready for bed.  Sometimes, we call it an early night.

5/22/21 Idiocracy? (Movie)

     I had Wife watch Idiocracy today after commenting from it so many times.  The movie is from Mike Judge and paints a very grim picture of where society is headed.  Given the stupidity of the last few years, it is really looking like we are really going to get there faster than the movie predicts.

    The movie is set 500 years in the future and the premise is that we as a people are getting dumber, the reason for this is because the dumb, low IQ people are out-reproducing the intelligent people in massive numbers.  The movie starts by showing us two couples, the responsible intelligent couple are waiting and figuring out the best time to have a child, meanwhile, Cletus not only has 3-4 kids by his wife, but also has a girlfriend and the neighbor lady all impregnated and getting by.  By the time the responsible couple is ready to have a child, they find they need to resort to artificial insemination, meanwhile Cletus Jr. is even dumber and hornier than Daddy joking he is going to impregnate everybody around him after wining the big football game.  IF you follow this to its conclusion, the responsible people might end up with 1 well cared for kid, but Cletus is going to have 6-7 kids and those kids will have as many without thinking about it so much, and on and on.

    This part really scares me because we know people exactly like this.  Boy's friends are all have degrees and good jobs and none of them are even talking about kids, yet we all know there are plenty of girls that started having kids at 16 and haven't stopped, that is just going to skew society to the dumber side.

    The rest of the movie is okay, the hero, Joe (an average man from today who was frozen by the military and wakes up 500 years later) is tasked with trying to save the world from what it has become.  Everybody lives on a Gatorade drink "it has electrolytes" and fries and the ground has stopped producing potatoes (seems they have been watering the land with Gatorade since it is better than water "it has electrolytes".  Joe eventually saves farming by doing the most basic thing, using water.

    We also see other absurd scenes like a Costco that covers square miles of space with its own law school and theme park inside.  People are all super dumb and the entertainment on TV and the movies is literal farts and kicking people in the gonads.  

    It was almost too stupid for Wife to stay with it until the end, but it does have a pretty good message that if we don't pay attention, this might become our reality.

5/21/21 Decent Service Visit?

     Yesterday was about that time for Wife's Telluride, it needed an oil change and the way Wife gets in a panic, it must be done that day, when she starts getting fidgety.  I guess that is part of the price of losing the Kia Soul to an oil problem, now she makes that something she obsesses over.  Don't think we are going to go over on the mileage between oil changes, she is on top of it.  That of course means "Babe, can you take my car in for an oil change?"  I usually wait for the weekend, but I felt adventurous and decided to go take care of it on Thursday Morning.

    I don't want a bunch of piled on work, I want to take it easy on Saturday, if at all possible.  Because of this, I went and scheduled the appointment for Thursday around 10:00am.  Last time we went to Kia South Austin we weren't expecting to have to do anything other than show up and wait.  This time, they told Wife that she was supposed to schedule everything online now.  We got around the oil change problem by just going to Maxwell Ford since we were going to change the oil on the Ford Escape.  Now that I know how things work, I scheduled the oil change as soon as I came back home from dropping off Baby A at football training.  The procedure was very easy and there were many slot choices with the ad saying the oil and filter cost was going to be $39.95, which I thought was fair.

    When I got to the dealership, our service guy waved me in and told me to just wait a moment.  I felt a little weird because there was a lady in front of me, and she was totally ignored as I was told to step forward so we could talk.  I asked how long, hoping he would say less than an hour, but he said they are very busy, and perhaps as long as two hours.  I do like this time to look at the new cars, and maybe even sit in them to see if I can be comfortable.  Time passed by pretty quickly as I found me a quiet place outside and just watched TikTok videos.

    I was expecting to pay $39.95 plus taxes for the oil change, but our tech guy found me a coupon for the oil change and it only cost $23.88.  That price seems really cheap in today's world of overinflated everything, but I was not going to complain.  I left before they realized they could have charged me double that and got home just in time to start lunch.

5/20/21 Working As A Team?

     It is now Wednesday and Wife has now been at her new job three days.  I was unsure what the result of her moving back home would entail but for now, it all seems to be great.  If there was something that needed a mama's touch it is most probably Baby A and I have seen them bonding already over shows that I don't really care to watch, so it works out for them.  Mijo, both of them actually, are great, never had any behavior problems to worry about, but the young one is a bit of a brute.  We went almost five years with Wife working out of town, and although she was here every weekend, this little brute has developed an edge.  He is very independent, which isn't bad, but he is a bit weird when you try to hug him or grab him.  He's been around guys so much that he expects every hug to be some ploy to tackle him, so he tries to counter a hug with a punch or he'll stiffen up defensively.  I think a couple weeks of his mom forcing herself on him will melt him into a more lovably humanoid.

    At least for now, I am trying to make Wife's job as easy as possible while she gets used to the new environment and people.  I have gotten the house clean and maintained it clean for the last week.  I ran to the store and got a menu of food I could handle and low carb to boot.  I have been doing the bulk of the food and meal prep, such as today, I didn't cook the chicken but I laid it out on a pan and seasoned it, then told Baby A or Boy to throw it in the oven at 350 for a good 25-30 minutes at 6:00pm, which would then come out about the time Wife walked in the door.  I used the crock pot and did a pork butt yesterday.  I was going to make a small brisket tomorrow, but I am going to hold that for Saturday.  I am also thinking of making the ribs I got on Friday with some wings I bought today.  If anything, I am making food I enjoy without the gross wet "carne guisada" and other stuff I don't care for.

    I do find it weird and I guess either Wife got old on me, or it is part of the stress and effort of starting a new job, but Wife used to stay up until midnight and then function fine the next day, now she is going to bed before 10:00pm, which I get since she is getting up at 5:00am, but she still says she has bags under her eyes, so I think she needs a little more sleep, maybe 9:30pm will work better for her.  I think she just got spoiled living down in Crystal City where she would go to bed at 10:00pm and get up at 6:20am to get ready and be at work at 7:30am.

    It's all good, I will carry the family for a bit, it has been fun being in charge of what we eat and keeping up with the cleaning.  I'll probably vacuum on Thursdays and then sweep and mop on Fridays since that was always her pet peeve, seeing dirty floors.  I honestly can't tell before and after when I mop, but she gets all happy about it.

5/19/21 These FotherMuckers!!!

     Goddamn this fucking Austin city council and their bullshit.  For a second all seemed to have found a way to correct itself at the will of the people, the camping ban had been reinstated and it seemed but a matter of time before we started seeing our streets cleaned up and maybe even have regular citizens out walking for enjoyment, or kids riding their bikes to the local corner store, but no.  A couple weeks after voting was done and the homeless seemed to have been forced out, the city as a plan, they are going to give them the city park land for their use.  I wouldn't care if it was on the other side of town, but the local park that butts up to our neighborhood is on the list.  It is bad enough that we have the occasional stoners from Akins High School come out and hang at our gazebo, at least they're kids.  If the homeless are given Mary Moore Searight, they will essentially become our neighbors, legally.

    That I'm sure is going to cause our home values to skyrocket, I mean the people from California coming and driving prices sky high are used to their activity, so it'll be a plus for them.  It's bad enough I was already talking to Wife about the possibility of moving, this would surely seal the deal.  Wife just started working in San Antonio and is commuting back and forth, if we got a home out in New Braunfels or San Marcos, we could both commute and split the difference.  I don't really want to do that, but fuck, I don't like what is happening to Austin.  We don't have a decent mall anymore, Barton is there, but they don't even have an authorized Rolex seller anymore, that just screams generic mall.  You can't go anywhere anymore without getting stuck in some sort of gridlock pretty much any time of day, forget trying to go up north to Ikea or something in the middle of the day, it is going to take hours.

    Wife just said she heard a report that Austin's median house price could top $600,000, it is at $550,000 right now, setting new records.  I just looked at Zillow and my jaw dropped as it says our house has a Zillow estimate of $697,000.  There is no way that can be true, but other similar houses in the neighborhood are also in the upper $600k region.  That is just ridiculous, my son with a good engineering job can't find a house he can afford but the city is going to give city park land to the homeless.  Once that happens, it will be near impossible to call it a park and regular people will have to forfeit its use, that is a pretty sad note.  There was a time when we went to that park almost weekly to play disk golf or have the kids run around on their bikes and riding miniature trucks.  

    I'll put up with it for another two years so Baby A can graduate in the high school he is attending, but then I do believe we'll be looking to get out of this liberal created shithole.  Shame, I loved this place when I came here in 1991.

5/18/21 Kevin Samuels Is Teaching?

     I recently stumbled upon Kevin Samuels on TikTok and liked what I saw but the minute videos weren't doing his service justice.  It wasn't long before he was banned probably because today's snowflakes find his truth offensive.  Because all of our internet services are quietly communicating or something he then popped up on my Youtube page and I can't get enough of his "lessons" he is giving women of today.

    First off, I don't understand why average looking women believe they deserve a "high value man".  I don't even know where that term came from, I hadn't heard it before this year, but maybe it is a thing in the black community since most of the callers to his show seem to be women of color.  Either way, he has a knack for deflating their giant egos by breaking them down usually by asking the simple question of "what do you bring to the table?"  The usual suspect of answers just doesn't cut it, it is funny when they start using terms they have been taught such as "I can nurture his creativity", "I can cook", or outright dumb responses like "I look fine as hell."  First off, he gives them a 5-10 second stare down which he'll respond that he is taking her responses in or thinking about what she just said, but then he'll turn it and tell them "do you hear what comes out of your mouth?"

    I agree and it is a simple thing to realize that a lady in her late 20s or older with a kid or more, a little extra weight, the fearful crazy baby daddy, no career, no house, no savings is a lot of baggage for a "high value man" who has focused his life on himself and attaining what he has.  women somehow think they can join a man's life who has been succeeding and that somehow even with their baggage they will improve his standing.  The reality is that these "high value men" have options and they can pick and choose from an ever renewing crop of new 20 year olds just to keep it non-controversial (18 and up is legal).

    I like the guy's take on life that it is the men that choose who and when they marry, not the women.  Women unfortunately, have a timeline and must get on the child rearing within a certain age, men can be much older, so they don't feel a need to beat "Father time".  Add to that the unfairness with the court systems where even if it a woman's fault for divorce, they will still get the children and a chunk of the man's income.  That just screams a big hell no, if I wasn't already married to such a great woman myself.  She could still do a little better when I argue with someone and she takes my crazy side no matter how far out I go, but I guess she wants to have her little voice of her own too.  Seriously, I am so glad I don't have to be single and shop for a partner in today's climate.

5/17/21 Starting Again?

     I know we do it all the time, but the last time we earnestly went on a diet I managed to lose around 80 pounds.  Maybe I have gained half back in the last five months but this seems like a good time to start life with new habits.  I had a good talk with Wife and she agreed she would be into it.  I think that is why it worked so well last year, we were both doing it and being honest about our gains and losses.  We just fell off when we got to the holidays because of one miss-step after another.  No more excuses.

    For starters, I am really bothered that Baby A suddenly is the strong man in the house.  When we were driving back from Houston we stopped at a brisket place in Bastrop and had an otherwise great meal on some big picnic table setup like most of these brisket places have.  After we finished eating, Mijo was sitting across from me and suggested an arm wrestling contest and he beat me embarrassingly bad.  I felt like I had no strength in my arm to even prevent him from slamming my arm and watch on the table.  That was a wake up call, if anything.  After that, we had been scrambling with so many issues and not been home, but I have finished moving furniture around and cleaning for Wife, she is now home and that marks another great time to start with better habits than frozen pizzas and take out every night.

    We talked about it and I went and did the shopping before she even got up yesterday morning (Sunday).  I bought only meat and good vegetables, I hardly got anything else from the middle of the store except for some cans of beans, broth (to slow cook a brisket half, and some green salsa to slow cook some pork butt.  I will be handling most of the cooking duties, so there will be no excuses for meals with carbs, I can only blame myself.  This morning, after Wife left for her first day of work in San Antonio I followed behind her throwing away the half of cake and cupcakes still leftover from the weekend.  I end up eating all that crap, so I decided it was better to just chuck it.

    So far so good, I ate some low carb toast with peanut butter and low carb jelly with my coffee.  For lunch, I made some tacos with our low carb tortillas and leftover meat from our BBQ last night.  I am taking out the pork butt to slow cook tomorrow, so food wise, we are good.  I also started putting the weight room to good use as I worked out for the first time in about a year.  I will be real sore tomorrow, but hopefully, the soreness is gone by the end of the week and I can start feeling strong again.  I accept Mijo is going to be stronger than me (the little shit is already squatting 500 pounds at school), but I have to at least put up some effort in my old age.

5/16/21 What Are You Smoking, Liz Cheney?

     I really am trying not to fall into just being a Trump fanboy as Boy would call me, but I listened to Liz Cheney talking after she was removed from her position as house leader and the words coming out of her mouth just didn't make sense.  She is still being bull headed saying she will do everything in her power to keep President Trump from making another run at the presidency in 2024.  I could listen to her six months ago and think "maybe she knows something."  But we have now witnessed the first 100 days of Biden, the president with the highest voter turnout, over 80 million votes, yet can't seem to get more than 10 million people following him on Twitter.

    In the last 4-5 months, Biden has made the border a humanitarian crisis, he basically rang the triangle and invited everyone south of the border to "come on down, we'll give you aid and citizenship."  That may seem great but does he realize he is helping to ruin the future of those countries if all the young hungry people flee, all that will remain will be the old and the unmotivated.  These are not just rumors and hearsay, Wife and my family have stories and have even seen action where border patrol are continuously stopping cars with illegals and then having to hunt the people running out of the cars all over the small towns like La Pryor, which is an hour away from the border.  Wife was having about daily "lockdowns" at the school because of this.  Biden created this, Trump had it under control constantly bringing attention to the problem with his call to build the border wall.

    Biden just had his first jobs report and although there were more than 7 million jobs available, only 260 thousand people went back to work.  Why would they if the government is paying more than what they would earn with the increased unemployment benefits?  Biden is paying these people to stay home, with taxpayer money, not his personal account.  Under Trump and before Covid-19, Trump had the lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks, Hispanics, things were going great.  Not to mention, we had become oil independent and gas prices were really nice around $2/gallon here in Texas.  Biden's first Executive Order killed a pretty big pipeline project and just this week, most of the east coast was in fear of running out of fuel as some group was able to take control of a pipeline and the white house barely said a word other than "get used to this happening."

    Trump had been nominated for 3 Nobel Peace Prizes for brokering peace deals with North and South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and Serbia and Kosovo.  These are tangible deals and help bring real peace to the world and I don't think Trump got any real credit for any of this work.  Meanwhile, 5 months into 2021 and we have high tensions as Russia threatens to attack Ukraine, Israel and Palestine are at it again, it's like they have nothing to fear.  Like it or not, Trump is the first modern president not to get us into a war.  If anything, that actually sounds un-American but it is actually a good thing and can happen when you focus on being an Isolationist country and staying out of other's  business.

Trump's only negative is that he calls bullshit as he sees it, calling CNN "fake news" which has been proven to be true on more than one count, such as calling the riots "peaceful protests" while filming buildings on fire in the background, fucking idiots.  He also tends to speak his mind and is not like most politicians, which was refreshing, he didn't put pretty words to things when they didn't merit them and that is a rarity nowadays.

    So what part of this was bad for Liz Cheney?  These are some of the reasons we are leaning towards saying this was the best president ever, and he was entertaining to boot, if you don't have a stick up your ass.  Wife followed him on Twitter because he said some goofy outlandish shit, but Wife always saw him as funny.

5/15/21 House Got A Good Cleaning?

     This week felt like the week to really pull my sleeves up and clean like I hadn't done in a long time with Wife triumphantly returning to take control of her household, it felt like the thing to do.  I started on Monday which I used part of the day to declutter the front room where we have the pool table.  That becomes defacto storage when we bring things in the house.  Since we had gone to Crystal City two times for separate funerals, it worked perfectly to fill the SUV with things she had taken down to her apartment.  When we brought everything into the house, we just kind of threw everything into that room.  I found a place for most everything, honestly, it was stuff that had been in the house, except for a few things she had bought.  Tuesday I decluttered the foyer, we had something like 50 pair of shoes all over the entryway, so they all went to their respective owner's rooms.  I swept the entrance while I was at it, I also mopped it, maybe the first or second time I have ever done it, Wife usually does it while yelling at us.  I then started cleaning Boy's "lab" room, where he keeps his 3D printers.  Boy is very creative but he is missing the clean gene.  He just lets trash pile up all around him, I think because of his ADHD or whatever, he can't focus on organizing, or he's just an asshole.  Either way, I end up cleaning around him every few months after I can't take his mess anymore.  His GF was doing an excellent job of keeping him in check, or cleaning for him, but she has moved back to her mom's house.  Thursday I didn't mean to, but walking into the "weightroom" downstairs I swore I could smell poop, DD had his dog in there with him when he stayed with us and maybe there was some residue or something, but I ended up steam cleaning the room really good, giving it about 4-5 passes which seems to have helped.

    Yesterday, I went at it all day.  I moved the furniture around in the family room where we have the projector, moving our "ghetto bed" from the other room to this one, I have been wanting to do this idea for years, and I think it looks okay, for now.  We got used to having our sofa chairs up closer to the big screen and with the bed, I was able to put the sofa at its feet which ends up about halfway in the room, it feels better (pics below).  I had Baby A go through every room and clean the ceiling fans, on a ladder.  They were all thick with dust and grime.  I also decluttered and took all my tools into the garage, cleaned the patio up, using the shelf thingy to store my extra bags of pellets, moving them out of the floor in the kitchen.  Boy bought his mama a Dyson vacuum and I have to admit I am surprised it lives up to the hype.  Every time we vacuum a room it picks up so much dirt and stuff.  We vacuumed pretty much the whole house a couple times during the week.  I ended the day by cleaning the kitchen counters and sweeping and mopping the kitchen.

    Wife will be back living full time with her 3 animals, but at least for a minute, the house is clean and she can work on keeping us on the straight and narrow.

5/14/21 Last Day For Wife In La Pryor?

     Wife will be done with her job in La Pryor tomorrow, and thus, that chapter will be over.  I must say, it lasted longer than I thought it would, I believe it was a good gamble even if it cost us some time together.  For her efforts, she was able to put her Master's degree to use in taking that job, which at the time she started she was floundering in Bastrop, locked in a position she had outgrown.  The reason she took the job was that she was seemingly stuck in Bastrop and the pay was decent, but not great.  She was compensated pretty good to take the job in La Pryor, which was the main reason for taking it, along with getting the Director title from Specialist or Coordinator, that she used to be.

    For me, I was measuring her time gone with the project that was started at the same time to widen I-35 between Ben White and William Cannon.  That is the meat of my drive, being that I live off Slaughter Lane in South Austin.  When she left they were starting a four year project to add a lane to each side and make it more efficient to go from Ben White to I-35 and vice versa.  The project seemed to take forever and for a time I even thought Wife would beat the construction home and be able to benefit from the wider highway, but no.  I guess they finished it a few months ago, it is hard to say when exactly, there are still some nights when they seem to go out there and shut down a lane for no reason, so who knows.

    I know it was tough for Wife to let go of her La Pryor position.  She had a good staff around her, the ladies all seemed to work together very well and more times than not, she would stay until the sun went down working in the office with a couple of the ladies.  

    I actually think Covid-19 made the last year bearable because from around March of last year until August, she was home more than she was there on any given week.  She worked from home which made things feel normal.  I was hoping things would have stayed that way, but they went back to school at the start of this fall.

    I will be glad to have a partner in keeping up with the house and the boys.  The boys have been great and I haven't had to worry about their behaviors in and out of school, but Baby A does need more interaction with his mama to soften him up.  He is very independent and mature for his age, which is great, but he doesn't have much of a soft side and I feel that comes from spending time with females.  I'm going to have to get used to having her around every night.  During the week I just kind of do what I do, with her here, I know I am going to have to think of her before I go doing things, but I guess that is what is supposed to happen when one is married.

5/13/21 Too Many Electrical Doodads?

     I have to admit I love all the electric options but sometimes they can screw you if you are not paying attention.  This morning we went out to take Baby A to school for athletics class and the rear trunk door on our Escape was open.  I am not sure how that could have happened and I was worried because I walk in and put the key by the door, so it either was opened last night as I walked in or I hit the button as I was putting my shoes on and it was only open for a few seconds.

    The thought of it open all night worries me because either a critter like a raccoon or squirrel could have made its way inside or worse, some human walking by could have made himself at home and taken whatever.  Luckily, I keep the car pretty empty except for my driving prescription glasses and a couple of small blankets which we use to cover ourselves on long trips and whatever other emergencies might pop up, oh yeah, and my gum.  It didn't look like anything or anyone got inside of it, so I have to assume that it had just opened as I was fidgeting with my Crocs, but I don't like that it can do that and we not realize it.  Speaking of the Escape, Wife has been using it every other week to take down to La Pryor and this weekend she said "now that I am going to be driving between Austin and San Antonio maybe we should cancel XM radio to save the $11 a month on the Escape."  I just looked at her sideways, the audacity (as the kids like to oversay nowadays), "I drive the car too, Donkey."  Just because Miss Queen Bee doesn't need something, we should just get rid of it.  How about asking me what I think?  She had already convinced me to remove it from the Excursion because I have Spotify so I should just use that.  Spotify is fine if you want to hear something specific, but sometimes I just want the music on without moronic deejays telling me how wacky they are playing childish pranks in the morning.  Anyways, enough of my first world car problems.

    Since DD is gone, I have been moving all our work out equipment to that room and I am about done organizing the room.  My old stereo from my college days is there and after it sitting idle for the last 3-4 years just collecting dust, it turned on with no problems.  It will only play FM stations and maybe the DVD player will play CDs, I didn't test it, I'm not even sure where my bag of CDs is anymore.  It is nice when you buy a quality item and it still works some 30 years later.

5/12/21 Tough All Around In Austin?

     I don't understand why it seems like a god given right that if someone wants to live in Austin, they should.  The freaking liberals are spinning themselves into a tizzy on how to keep the homeless where they are so as not to disturb them now that the camping ban will be reinstituted, but sorry, they should have never set up there.  Just for comparison's sake, Boy has a job as an engineer making almost my salary yet by himself he cannot afford to buy a house anywhere here in Austin.  The starting point looking at Zillow.com is pretty much $400,000 inside the city limits.

    Nobody is going to rally for Mijo and start a Go Fund Me so he can buy a house, he will just have to work hard enough, save, be responsible and probably have to move in with his girlfriend or maybe a friend to afford his new house, whenever that eventually happens.  another concession he will have to do is probably buy a house outside of town, things get more affordable the farther out you move.  Things are so bad, he is considering looking at houses in the San Antonio area.  Where are the programs to help him afford a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath home?  We are talking about someone who will contribute positively to the economy, will probably never even bother the police, or use social services, and will, given the chance, in a few years move to a bigger house once he starts with a family.  Someone like this is basically fucked in today's economy if they are trying to start life in Austin.  The only saving grace is we bought this house long before this crazy boom we are in now.  We could not afford to buy our house today if we had to, it is too expensive on paper, going off the values in the area.

    Meanwhile, social services are figuring out a way to house the homeless population and I wouldn't be surprised if they buy some million dollar property downtown and convert it into small apartments to help them out.  How come no one ever suggests they move out of town until they find something they can afford, my son is going to do just that and he's not crying about it, that is just facts.

    I could even say the same thing about Girlie, I guess she got too old to be staying with us, or she wants to live on her own, but she is also looking in the surrounding communities with a friend, it just sucks that this is the only real solution.  DD and his new wife got a small apartment a few miles out of the city paying almost $2000 a month, which sounds ridiculous, but that is where we are.  It just bothers me that if you give up completely and put yourself at the mercy of the public, someone will make it their business to provide for you.  Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

5/11/21 It's All Trash?

     Why do we or I hesitate to throw away old stuff?  We have gotten to a point where we just have too much clutter and stuff all over the house and it occurs to me that the easiest solution is to throw away things we have outgrown or have broken and gotten used up.  

    A couple months ago, we cleaned up the yard and we had been talking about breaking down the trampoline to get rid of it, but then I would get soft about it because the boys used to enjoy jumping on it so much when they were younger.  There was a point where even I liked to get on it to lie down and enjoy an afternoon with the boys and their friends swimming or just goofing around.  It had a lot of memories and was a source for a lot of fun at one point, but the mat had gotten threadbare and although it wasn't torn, it did seem like if I got on it, I would have gone through it.  The big negative was that the grass was always growing under it because it was hard to shove the mower under it.  While cleaning the yard, DD took it upon himself to start breaking it down, it was one of those in my head "do it, what are you doing?" kind of things, but I knew it needed to go.  That weekend I fit the mat part in the trash can and over the next few weeks I cut and fit all the metal structure in the trash.  It is now all gone and the yard looks bigger for it and much better.  It needed to go, the mat was so dirty that even touching it would leave your hands black and grimy.

    Yesterday, I decided to clean up the front of the house a bit, we just seemed to have a few too many shoes by the door.  We have a shoe rack that fits about 15 pairs of shoes which I think is a good number to be at the ready.  But when I was done, I took about 15 pair to Wife's closet and another 4-5 pairs to both boy's rooms.  I ended up throwing away like 4 pairs that were in horrible shape.  When I told Baby A I had thrown away some shoes he got a little sad and I told him "which are missing if you miss them so much?"  He couldn't figure it out.  I told him I threw away some broken Crocs (the plastic gives way eventually, one had a hole on the bottom), shoes that were split in half and some ugly ones from when he was like in 6th grade.  He wanted to be sad about them, but I told him "what do you want them for, they don't fit and they were ugly?"

    I guess as humans, we place nostalgia on anything, but if we live like that, we risk becoming hoarders and we've all seen how hoarders live.  It sucks for a moment, but I think once we see the space we gain from getting rid of things we don't use, it becomes a gift in itself.  The area around the front door looked so much more inviting without all our shoes all over.

5/10/21 Weird Call From Neighbor?

     We were minding our own business today in San Antonio at my in-law's house trying to celebrate Mother's Day when my neighbor texted me.  I saw his text and instantly was bothered, thinking "what now?"  It's not like they ever text to say hi.  It is always something we need to do for their betterment of life.  I didn't even understand the two pics they sent without any words.  The first one was a broken pot, like one that holds plants, made out of orange ceramic, and I thought "uh, ok?"  The second picture was of one of my palm trees, but there was no description of what I was looking at.  I had to ask "what am I looking at?"  This got them texting about a large raccoon that is supposedly living in the palm tree and there was a loud ruckus around midnight.  I heard it and for a second even thought there might be someone in the backyard, but I didn't have the energy to go looking outside.  Well, I guess they did.  I guess in there heads, the fight or whatever led to something being thrown from the tree and causing their ceramic pot to break.

    I am unsure if this is even the case, and it's not like I own the raccoon, they live out there in the wild.  I wasn't sure if they were just notifying me to keep an eye out for the raccoons or if they expect me to get rid of said raccoons.  He started telling me about a tree service that can come and take care of the tree, which I am not paying for.  I'll cut the tree down myself before I pay good money for that.  I can't tell if the neighbor is trying to be a concerned citizen to warn me and help me out or if he is being a pain in the ass wanting me to go outside right now and make his life better.  Either way, I told him I was trying to enjoy my day at my in-law's, I would deal with the pesky raccoon later, not even sure I have to, it is a wild animal and I lay no claim to it.

    Why can't people just mind their own business?  I have never called a neighbor or anyone to complain about something if theirs that bothers me and the other neighbor's dog has me wishing I could just put some bowls of antifreeze out there for them to shut them up.  I know it is illegal, so I wouldn't but how come it's okay for their dogs to bark at all hours?  I wouldn't just let my son sit on the patio and blast his stereo or guitar and amp at full volume at odd hours because I understand noise pollution is not cool.  I guess my neighbor's don't give a shit, but as much as it bother me, I wouldn't call them to whine about it.  Occasionally, I do yell at the dogs to shut the fuck up, if I am trying to chill outside and they are going off.

    Anyways, as if I didn't have enough on my plate right now, I have to add knocking down to palm trees here in the next few weeks, whenever I get a chance.

5/9/21 50th Anniversary?

     It took a little bit, but we got to celebrate our parent's 50th Anniversary today in San Antonio at a pretty nice restaurant.  We have eaten at the Brazilian restaurant in Austin a few times and it is always a festival of meat and because of the price, we consider it a fancy sort of dinner.  When deciding on what and where to eat for the event, my sister took the lead and suggested Chama Gaucha, one of the Brazilian restaurants in San Antonio.  I was unsure what to expect since Boy and Wife have eaten at some of the other ones there for work and with friends and both were unimpressed with that restaurant.  I am happy to say that the restaurant was very good and left us all with full bellies and some happy memories with both our parents in very good spirits after.

    We had scheduled this dinner for last weekend, but then we had the pair of funerals to get through and it just didn't seem right to be celebrating at that time.  It was a good idea to schedule it for this weekend, the weather was mild and favorable for the trip.  We left the house at 1:45pm, knowing the meal was scheduled for 3:30pm.  Wife did tell me as we were leaving that she had gotten an email saying that loop 1604 at hwy281 was going to be shut down to the feeder lanes only, so I thought it would be smart to avoid driving that way and go around that intersection.  We drove to 410, then to I-10 and finally on 1604 around from the other side.  It got a little stressful because my parents arrived there about 40 minutes early and I guess they went to check on the table at that point.  When they first called us that they were there, we were barely in New Braunfels, so we had to hustle and things got a little stressed.  We would have been there with 20 minutes to spare if it had been a straight shot without any delays, but traffic absolutely sucks almost any time of day on I-35.  We were in a complete stop in San Marcos, then there is construction before the Buc-ee's and we had another complete stop in San Antonio, so we lost a lot of time, not to mention going all the way around like we did.

    The meal itself was as good as the one in Austin.  We started with a salad bar which had a bunch of different offerings, then it was on to the meats.  I do not like the new move of them bringing soda by the can instead of from a fountain, Covid shmovid, it's just another money grab as each soda is sold separately and I could drink 4 or more if you just keep refilling my glass, normally.  I kept it to two cans, and some water, but then I also had a coffee with the cake Wife was so thoughtful in getting.  It was a simple cake but it was perfect with its creamy frosting and a touch of raspberry filling.

    We topped off the afternoon with plenty of family pictures, something we should do more of but we hardly ever think of, I guess with our modern phones we don't really have a good excuse since we are all armed with a good camera at all times.  Still, I believe my parents loved the effort and experience of having all of us get together just to celebrate them.

5/8/21 Mall Shopping?

     It has become extremely rare, but we spent a couple hours shopping yesterday at the mall.  We are celebrating my parent's 50th Anniversary today, and I wanted to dress up nice, so we went to buy some new outfits for the occasion.  I really wanted both boys to rally and just agree with me and put on a freaking tie but getting Baby A to do anything that isn't sports related is like the new phrase of herding cats.  That boy is difficult in his attempt to be lazy.  I told him early in the week we were doing this, I waited patiently all day because he had class and I didn't want to disrupt that.  Once it got past 4:30pm, which I was waiting for all day and he knew this as I told him in the morning when I took him to weightlifting class at 8:00am, then I reminded him during lunch at noon, he still acted like a turkey.  I called him in his room at 4:35pm, I was waiting for him to come downstairs by the door and he acts like "what?"  "I didn't think you were here."

    We texted Boy we were on the way, we had already discussed meeting out at the mall when he got out of work, then we left.  We pretty much only shop at Dillard's, Men's Wearhouse, and Buckle.  I also liked looking at the watches at Ben Bridge, but that is gone.  Boy called Baby A while I was looking for shirts for me and even though Baby A has grown up in that mall, we used to go once a week, at least, before Covid-19, he still told Boy "We are at the mall, I don't know which store."  That astounds me, what else can you say but "you are so pretty, Mijo." (usually only pretty girls can get away with being that useless).

    If all that wasn't enough, I was telling him all day "I want to buy you at least two new pants at Buckle."  He has been wearing their "cool" pants with the big oversized pockets since 7th grade.  Even at Dillard's when he found some Polo jeans I told him "well, get one, but we are going to go to Buckle to get you pants there."  After spending an hour at least at Dillard's, I got a dress shirt and tie, Boy got 3-4 shirts and a nice pant, we go to Buckle.  Upon entering the store, Baby A tells me "oh yeah, I don't really like those pants anymore, they are too loud."  All I could do was stare at him and shake my head.  Why not bring this up at Dillard's or any other time during the day.  He's not scared of me, we argue all day long (not argue fight, just discuss everything and anything).  

    He straightened out when the cute blond girl came over and started pointing at things she thought were cool (stupid shit he would say yes to).  He found some pants there without the big pockets and at least 3 T-shirts.  He did also get the Polo pant and 2 dress shirts at Dillard's, but man, that little boy does not make anything easy.  Every shirt he puts on after we go back and forth for a couple of minutes is work.  He makes a dramatic presentation of taking off his hoodie and slaps it back on, so it is going to take a lot of effort once he is fully dressed and we have walked 5 feet to the next rack of shirts.

    He also fought me over not wanting to wear a tie "I already wore a stupid tie to the funeral and it sucked."  This is where I do love shopping with Boy, he loves clothes and he doesn't say no.  Young knucklehead doesn't like a shirt if the material is different, he doesn't want anything he has to tuck in, he doesn't want anything white, he doesn't want anything expensive.  He definitely takes after his mother, she is just as bad.

5/7/21 Perfect Gift For Wife?

    I've been thinking about a gift for Wife, well, Boy told me it's Mother's Day this weekend, so I haven't been thinking that long, but still.  I want to get something nice for Wife for her promotion and I guess Mother's Day, but she is so hard to buy stuff for her.  I am about done buying purses, I do that for most occasions, like Christmas or her birthday and she mostly just shucks them into the closet and keeps using those god-awful cloth Vera Bradley bags, like my brother likes to say "like a Poor."  They're nice enough I guess, but I like the shininess and solidness of a Brahmin, they mostly tend to look like alligator skin in different colors, or the classic look of a Coach bag, I would even be okay with an old school Dooney, but I know they just end up in the closet.

    Talking to the boys two nights ago, Boy suggested I buy her a nice watch, like a Rolex.  Hmm, I thought, I mostly look at those watches for myself, she always says she doesn't like expensive pretentious stuff like that for herself, but appreciates it for me since I'll die soon enough and the boys will end up with all my loot.  I mean she doesn't say it like that, but I can read between the lines.  I started looking last night and was pretty close to deciding to go first thing this morning, but stupid Ben Bridge doesn't open until 11:00am.  That was too long for me to sit and think about it.  She would be pissed if I went and spent $5000-$7000 on a watch for her, she is just not into material things like I am.  I looked at the website and kind of liked the "entry level" Cartier which have a quick change out strap, but even entry level means like $2500 and each different strap is like $350.  Plus, I know she isn't going to want to be messing around setting the time on it each time she tries to wear it, she is not patient like that.

   So then the thought came to me, I'll "gift" her the wood floors.  We've been talking about getting new flooring, I'll just go buy some boxes of wood flooring with the money I would have used for a down payment and she'll have something pretty to enjoy here at the house, now that she is returning home.  I think that is a pretty safe bet and once I pull the trigger on the flooring it will become true and not just a conversation.  The carpeting in the house is pretty awful, not just old and worn, but stained all over the place, so it is time.

    I think she will be more receptive to something like this than a dinky watch she won't wear after a few weeks but I'll be paying on for a year or more.  I am kind of excited to get this project going, although I should finish at least staining the fence outside before ripping into a new project.  If we do this though, it means I need to go buy myself a new table saw so I can do all those cuts.  I guess this would be a win win gift for us.

5/6/21 So Many Activities, But No Time?

     Once in a while, it seems like everything is waiting on you to get things done.  I kind of feel that way, not sure if it is because Wife is coming back home or maybe because it is spring and soon it will be overbearingly hot once again.  I am sitting here not wanting to get too excited because I do have to go to work tonight, but we started staining the fence about three weeks ago and it is still not complete.  I am unsure if we will have a chance to work on it this weekend, but I would like to get it all stained so it looks uniform all around.  Now that the first part has dried, it looks much better than it did when it was still wet.  Since I am talking about the backyard, Wife and I came up with a solution to just plug up all the inlets and outlets and use another long piece of pipe like I have been using for the return on top of the concrete.  I agree with Boy who said it'll look a little ghetto, but if it means we can fill the pool and use it, so be it.  Nobody really hangs out with us anymore, so it is really for us.  With Wife back in town, it'll be easier to envision jumping in on a random weekday evening if I can get out of work early enough.

    I hate to say it, but my two extra tall palm trees are not looking great, they still haven't produced anything looking green up on top, so they may have died in that weeklong freeze, so at some point I am going to have to cut them down.  Since they are taller than the house, it might be a bit of a challenge.  It won't be the worst thing, I don't really like how tall they got, they make me kind of nervous they might fall over and damage the neighbor's property.

    Looking inside, now that DD is gone, we are turning the downstairs guestroom into our weight room, I just feel the squat rack in the living room and a bench press in front of the big screen is a bit too tacky with Wife coming back home.  While doing this, I know we need to just bite the bullet and replace the flooring.  Maybe it would cost more, but be quicker and get crossed off the list if we pay someone to do it.  I know it is going to get expensive, but I still want wood, at least downstairs and the hallway outside the bedrooms upstairs.  I might still decide on carpet for our bedroom maybe, and the boys, if they wanted.  I don't really like walking on cold flooring in the morning or on cold days, but we'll see.  Slippers could also solve that problem.

    Finally, I don't necessarily agree, but Wife thinks it's time to repaint the house.  This is a monster of a task, the house is huge and I am scared to tackle it again.  The first time I had plenty of cheap labor in Boy and his friends.  I paid them like $300 total which they used for prom, but I don't know if I could get them going again.  I am hoping by the end of the summer most of these things are done.  I have been talking about the flooring for at least three years now, it's time to get the finger out of my butt.

5/5/21 Recovering From The Last Few Weeks?

     Why can't we just be dumb Mexicans deciding between getting drunk with Corona or Modelo?  It is Cinco de Mayo but for us here, it was a rough slow morning.  Baby A and I were in bed by 11:00pm or so last night, but he could still not get going in the morning.  I woke at 7:05am and went and called him.  I did what I usually do, turn on his light, say a couple of "come on, get up, let's start the day..." then I went back to my room and fell asleep, knowing I put a backup alarm on my phone for 7:30am.  I got up and almost didn't get out of bed, snoozing a bit until 7:50am.  I yelled "sorry, let me pee and brush my teeth and I'll take you." only to come out of my room to see that he never even got out of bed.  He missed his 8:00am athletics class but I wasn't going to push too much, if he felt as shitty as I did.

    I came down to have my coffee and get a load of clothes going figuring and extra hour of sleep would be good for him.  I went up at 9:00am to try and wake him and I noticed Boy was still asleep too.  I knocked on his door and he said he was not going to go in to work.  Baby A came out to take a shower at that point to try and start his day.

    It is rough breaking a routine and going away from home for more than a day or two.  Just the weekend before we had spent four days in Houston, then we had to come back and deal with the first funeral, leaving Austin on Wednesday night.  We were there at Wife's apartment for the first night, then at my mom's the second night.  We came back to Austin Friday night, then back to Crystal City on Sunday, this time with Boy in tow.

    Don't get me wrong, I love being at my mom's, she gets up and makes breakfast every day for all the grandkids and us, while we were there.  That is pretty good, to just sit there and have food magically appear without thinking about it.  I was on my third cup of coffee on one of the days before I had to say no more.  I am not sure if it would give me heartburn or prevent me from sleeping, but I normally drink 1 cup of coffee a day.

    Even last night, after both funerals were done and we were in "free mode" we still had to go through the 3 hour drive to get back home.  Everyone was worried I would get sleepy, but I took a nap before we got going and I was fine.  We still have another "get together" this weekend but it'll be in San Antonio for my parent's delayed 50th anniversary dinner we were going to do last weekend.  I have enjoyed seeing my people, but we really need a weekend at home to do some serious relaxing, maybe in June.

5/4/21 Another Death In The Family?

     I hate to be the one counting but this is the third brother my dad has now lost in about the last 12 years.  This was probably my favorite uncle on my dad's side, I worked with him for three summers roofing and building a house.  He was quite the ham and had that uncanny ability to make you laugh even if he was hurting from a hangover and was not in the mood to work.  His favorite phrase he used around me was for my brother who never did like doing manual labor but we were both hired by him the first summer after I graduated from high school, he would always say "he is no bueno for work."  My brother could not stand being out in the heat, taking directions, being left alone to clean, or anything resembling the kind of work one would do building a house.  Shit, recently my brother's remote steps on his truck wouldn't go all the way up, so to fix them he kicked them until he got tired, then jumped up and down on them until something broke, that boy has not changed.

    While we were at his viewing, his daughters (he had three) and son set up a set of pictures from his life and I couldn't help but see the fire in his eyes.  He was a great marathon runner himself and all his kids turned out to be state champions while they were in high school.  I remember how he rode his kids, hard, to make sure they achieved what he saw in them.  He wasn't mean on purpose but he had no filter and he cut through a lot of BS by just saying what needed to be said.  If you were a couple of pounds overweight, he knew and you knew that he knew.  He had a certain way of delivery, I was never going to be a runner, so I wasn't his target audience, but he would occasionally point at my stomach, do a little "huh? uh?" like "hey, what we doing about this? eh?"  It was more in humor but he wasn't checked out, he paid attention and let you know what he thought.

    I liked this man, he was a good guy, he didn't like going anywhere and stayed close to his family all his life, even in the last few years, his son had a business running a restaurant and he would spend most days working with him in the back, washing dishes, helping with the briskets, he was serving plates at my niece's quince, where our cousin was hired to provide the meal.  He was happy to be there involved but in the background, staying busy but being part of the action.

    I didn't like seeing him at the viewing, it wasn't the man we knew all our life, the man with a quick joking jab, the man who had a lot of patience to teach what he knew.  Two years ago I mentioned to him that Baby A runs weird and he had him take a couple steps and proceeded to explain what he needed to do to run more efficiently, this was that man's passion, he enjoyed the sport of running, and I am glad to have known and worked with him.

5/3/21 Silly Mask Laws?

     I loved the idea that Governor Abbott announced that we don't have to wear a mask here in Texas and then it was even better to see the data that Texas did not explode with a ton of new Covid-19 cases.  It has been closer to two months since he made the announcement but the message is understandably slow to get across and out to everybody.

    We went to eat at Sea Island on our way back to Austin and because it was raining when we got there, I got off and forget my mask.  I asked the lady behind the counter and she said very casually that this was Comal County and they did not have any rules regarding the wearing of masks.  I said thank you and happily ordered my food maskless.  Today (Sunday) while coming back to Crystal City we stopped at Cane's for some chicken tenders and were met with a sign on the door that indoor dining was not allowed, but we could eat out in the patio like animals if we wanted to.  Since I couldn't think of enjoying my tenders and driving, we sat outside enjoying the sounds of the cars passing by on the freeway about 100 feet away, it kind of sucked, noise wise.  The part that pissed me off was that the lady came out to give us our food said "the rules change tomorrow, we will be open in the dining room for all and we can get refills without asking for new cups.  I understood these restrictions when everyone was scared in the beginning but at this point, why is anyone bothering with the BS?

    It is the same thing at every restaurant, we enter with a mask, order, then sit down and take our masks off while a waitress brings us drinks and food.  The memes exist for a reason, does Covid-19 really respect people's right to eat?  Does it not strike if you are in the process of eating or drinking which is when we can take our masks off?  We are all inhaling and exhaling in the building, there is no magical vent system to remove the impurities one breathes in and out, so it is safe to assume that being long enough in a building, the air molecules that went in and out of person A will eventually go into person B, a loose mask, which is how 80% or more of people wear them, is not going to stop anything.

    Boy tells me that the CDC just said it was ok to walk around outside without a mask if you have had your vaccination shots.  I didn't know this was not allowed, he clarified this, saying it was meant for when in a crowd, I still maintain that if you are with your people, you have already breathed their cooties in and out more than a few times.  I guess I can see a reason to use the mask in a crowd like at Tex Ren Fest with thousands of people walking around, but even then, I am going to have a hard time covering both nose and mouth.  Once we vaccinate Baby A, all four of us will be protected, I consider myself protected because I had it in January.  Wife has had her vaccinations and Boy needs the 2nd one here in a week.

5/2/21 Missing So Much Work This Year?

     I had never missed this much work in one year as I have this one.  It started out harmlessly enough, I have in the last few years been taking the weeks of Christmas and New Year's off, and since most of our customers either slow down or shut down, it kind of works out, work doesn't really pile up.  After this much needed break, I ended up getting Covid-19 in January.  I had maybe worked two weeks and I found myself having to quarantine for 14 days.  I was technically home and not working but I wouldn't count it as a vacation being locked up in my room alone for the two weeks.  It is all kind of becoming a blur, but I believe I again worked for about two weeks and then we got the week long freeze that shut the state down for a week.  This now feels like a long time ago seeing the green trees outside and beautiful sunny blue skies but it was only about two months ago.  I then maybe worked for three weeks and then we hit Spring Break which I felt guilty for asking for the time off, but it isn't very frequent when Wife has time away from work and we can do stuff.  It also felt like a two week break because she was off the week before Baby A and came to the house, then our son was off the following week and she took another three days off which is when we went to Corpus Christi for like four days.  That was our first "official" vacation trip since Covid-19 started.

    After Spring Break I figured we would be back to normal and I would go a few months before thinking about missing but then we had the whole wrestling thing taking Mijo to the state meet in Houston and we followed causing me to miss Thursday last week.  I mean that has to be the last of it or so it would seem, but no.  While we were "getting away" on another mini vacation enjoying a pretty nice suite mom called with not one but two deaths in the family.  These are not things we can just ignore and hope they go away, this is when families have to come together.  I thought of not going to my sister's mother in law's funeral, I didn't know her well, but I also know my sister would appreciate to see us there even if in the background offering our condolences and support of being there in town.  Right now it is Sunday and we are in our home in Austin, we drove up Friday afternoon, but we are on our way down tonight for the second funeral, my dad's older brother passed away to cancer last week but the funeral home was too busy that he had to wait, the viewing is Monday and the funeral is on Tuesday at noon.

    I will be back to work on Wednesday night, hopefully, I can string a series of weeks and maybe months where I can be a good employee and not miss anymore, but given this year and how it has been, I don't know anymore.  The good thing is a couple years ago, our management came up with the genius idea of unlimited personal time off (PTO), so at least until they get tired of the BS, we should get paid a complete check even if we are out like I have been.  I have been with these people over twenty years, they know I don't habitually miss, but I am starting to feel guilty about so many absences.

5/1/21 Wife Is Coming Home?

     It lasted longer than we hoped, but I do believe the sacrifice has been worth it.  Wife was just offered a new job in San Antonio doing what she does but for a much larger school district.  This whole thing was a bit of surprise for me too.  She applies everywhere and when she got the job in La Pryor as their Director of Federal Grants we talked about how it might go into a third or fourth year before she could get back to a job here in Austin and come back home.

    She will still technically not be working in Austin, but the commute will be about an hour and a half which she says she can do just fine.  Two weekends ago she mentioned that she had an interview on the Wednesday coming up for a job she had applied for and already done the first round through a zoom session.  The second round of interviewing was face to face with a committee and she was asked to put a Powerpoint presentation that lasted 45 minutes about something or other.  It all worked out as we were already going to stay home for the Easter Weekend, which gave her time to focus and concentrate on her project.  The idea was that the top two candidates were going to be chosen and they would do a third round sometime this week, but she got a call on Monday afternoon and was offered the job.  She was told that the superintendent saw the video of her interview and he was impressed enough to decide on choosing her on the spot.

    Wife is really the perfect employee, she started out at ACC and did recruiting and retention in low income schools, then went to Bastrop and worked as a Homeless liaison, working with the homeless kids which is a big population when any kid who's parent's don't have their own place are considered "homeless".  While doing a project to bring junior college classes to Bastrop, she volunteered to drive the kids and even got a CDL license to drive the school busses for that program.  This might seem a little weird, but I think it helped sell Wife to the new superintendent since he was formerly the Director of Transportation and Maintenance for the school, it just makes sense this jumped out at him.

    Update (wrote the first part two weeks ago but Wife didn't want me to mention anything until everything was approved):  She has finally let the La Pryor people know she will be leaving and they are not taking it well, she has inserted herself into almost every part of the framework in running the school to the point that since they were down several bus drivers, she has been running a route to help out.  Yesterday (Friday), some members of the school board came by and asked her to stay an extra week more than she planned but her new supervisors said they understood and are very excited to have her come aboard.

    I am personally happy she will be coming home, we didn't really expect it would take five years, but here we are.  This works out almost perfectly as DD just moved out and Boy likes to go spend the night at his GF house sometimes and I didn't like the idea that Baby A was going to be home alone.  Mama will be back in town and I am sure that within a few weeks she will be back to rattling pans in the kitchen and remembering how to make dinners that don't involve going to pick them up.  My high schooler will have a bit if an adjustment as he has been managing himself, more or less the last few years, I don't bust balls like mama, I just tell him he better not act like a child in the morning that he doesn't want to get up if he stays u late.  He has gotten good at doing his own thing but dont worry, Mama will find ways to improve things.