7/31/22 The Case For The Pellet Grill?

     Living in Texas, one can get a lot of crap for going against the norm.  For many, smoking a large piece of meat, such as brisket, can only be achieved by doing it the old-fashioned way.  These people would have you believe that unless you go and cut your own mesquite tree and run a barrel smoker, manually keeping the temperature around 220 degrees, you are cheating somehow.  I will give you that for a competition, sure, set a bunch of arbitrary rules and then make the contestants follow them.  Wife did this, she came up with the idea of running a barbeque competition when she worked in La Pryor, and she explicitly excluded pellet grills from competing.  In that situation, I get it, the pellet grill would have the advantage of needing very little human input, once it is set up.

    The last time I cooked for an outside group, I was met with the slight snicker of "did you smoke-smoke the briskets or did you cheat with a pellet grill?"  These were people I barely knew, and I volunteered to make and buy the two briskets and was still met with a little sauciness.  Happily, the day ended with tons of compliments, such as "this is the best brisket ever" and "I usually don't like eating the fatty part, but this one is going down like candy."

    I am starting to conclude these are cavemen people, they insist on doing things the hard way.  with my grill, I just make sure and have enough pellets, I keep at least 2-3 extra bags (each one is twenty pounds and run only around $13.99) at all times, so I can just start the grill, if we decide we want something cooked outside.  I am not even including the idea of grilling steaks and fajitas on Saturday and then smoking a brisket or ribs on Sunday on the same grill.

    This morning, I got up around 6:30am, hit the start button, set it to 240, and came inside to season the brisket.  The grill takes maybe 10 minutes, so by the time I am done seasoning the meat, the grill has done its job and gotten up to temperature.  I was then able to run to the HEB, clean the pool, and even organize the pantry while the grill has been doing the part of maintaining the temp at 240.  The hardes part, other than getting out of bed at 6:45am is then taking it out of the grill for a minute to wrap it in the pink butcher paper halfway through its smoking process.  That has been done, as of about 30-40 minutes ago.  At this point, I am just waiting until around 4:00-5:00pm to take it out and let it rest for a while before slicing it.

7/30/22 Shopping For Baby A?

     They are two very different boys, for sure.  Boy could not get enough new clothes, and he was always ready to go to the mall just to look around.  The younger brother has to be drug to a store or taken under false pretenses, saying we are going somewhere else and then surprising him by turning into a clothes store.  I guess we have started his school clothes shopping, in a weird way.  I have now quietly ordered him at least five new hoodies, two before school ended with a wrestling motif, then another with a football motif and his jersey number on the back.  I then bought him one he saw with the Dr Pepper logo and another from that I-cryo place we went to last week.  I then got him a couple of 12-packs of socks, and now have even ordered him some underwear and tennis shoes on Amazon.  The little weirdo is going to go into his third year of wearing the exact same style of Nike shoe, I just keep ordering the same Nike TR4 trainer shoe, in black.  I actually think his freshman year he got the same pair but in red, so it might be all 4 years of the same tennis shoe.

    At some point we will probably have to go to the mall to try on some new pants and maybe a couple of dress shirts or at least some polo shirts, although he has said he just needs a new bag of white t-shirts, since he wears a hoodie every day.  The coach has already said they are expected to wear a dress shirt and tie for game days, so he will need to go buy a couple dress shirts and tailor some pants to his height for Fridays.

    Yesterday we went to Dick's Sporting Goods, and he surprisingly got two pairs of football cleats.  He got a pair of black high-top cleats like he normally does but then he shocked me saying he liked this one pair that was white and not a high top, which means his ankles won't be as protected but as he said, he will be freer to move faster.  I felt uneasy about these shoes, but he was excited at the idea of wearing something so different to the norm.  Another weird one was a pair of lineman gloves, which are supposed to be extra tacky to hold onto a runner if he can manage to catch them, since he will be playing defense this year.

    I am excited for the season to get underway; they have been working so hard all summer, I hope it pays off in some kind of way.  Contact practice begins tomorrow, I am making some of his boys a brisket for tonight, it was one of his friend's birthday this weekend, so they will be getting together here, probably celebrating with food and maybe a jump in the pool.

7/29/22 How Are The Lower Income People Surviving Right Now?

     I am not trying to be insulting, but there is a great disparity in some people and their income and lifestyle, that is just a fact.  I have been wondering and frequently bring up to Wife as a discussion of "how are people getting by?"  I only wonder because together we make a comfortable living, yet because I am horrible with money, as everyone in my family tells me, we are occasionally still tight with money.  If this is the case for us, it must be worse for most middle-income America right now.

    I guess a prime example is Girlie's family, in general.  We know everyone over there, we were pretty close up to about 8-10 years ago, then after we moved, we slowly lost the connection we had.  There have been divorces and deaths in the family and now they are a jumbled patchwork of individuals trying to get by.  To me it seems kind of sad, yet most of the outcomes were and are as a direct result of their own actions, so it is hard to really feel sorry for anyone, except maybe the kids.  With a couple of divorces, now the parents live with the kids who are now really grown and supposed to be on their own.  I can honestly say that Austin is a bad example of a good place to make a living if you are not educated or skilled in some way.  Because of the prices on houses around here, a single person would have a hard time just going out and finding a home they can afford easily.

    Girlie was sharing a 2-bedroom apartment with a girlfriend of hers, which sounds right on the surface, but then she had her younger sister staying with her for some time helping with the rent, then her younger brother and I believe even a cousin, so there was a lot of "carousel living", every time I asked how things were going, she had someone else living with them.  Same seems to be going at her folks, where they managed to get a house before prices went crazy in one of the surrounding smaller cities, and it hasn't been weird to hear her say her cousin has moved in, her aunt has moved in and on and on.  Same with another one of the uncles, our old roommate, also managed to buy a house before prices skyrocketed, then because he is a good man (I always liked him), has let the daughter have the house while she gets on her feet (this has turned into a few years now), and even his ex-wife has managed to move in.  The younger son also lives there, and again, other family members are constantly in and out.

    I am not saying this to insult anyone, it just seems people are trying to survive right now, I don't know that anyone is flourishing at this point.  Boy, even with his new degree and good job, can only afford an apartment, we really do have a shortage in housing all across central Texas.  As Girlie tells me, almost everyone on her family's side has a side job, her boyfriend works a full-time job during the week, then is trying to make money by buying and selling junk cars which he tries to get back to running condition.  Her cousins all seem to have more than one job too.  I am happy for her that she is one semester away from finishing college, but that is not the finish line, like Boy, she will have to continue fighting and scrapping to get to a point and salary that can lead to a more comfortable life.

7/28/22 What Does A Recession Mean?

     I feel our economy has been going down the shitter for a while now.  I will even be fair and say that it might not be entirely the Democrats fault, but I don't think their policies are helping us get to a better spot.  The whole Covid pandemic/endemic disruption to our normal lives had a lot to do with it.  If we are going to accept this, then we can also say it is not Trump's fault, the decisions he made, such as giving out free money in the beginning and midst of it made sense at the time, honestly, most people were scared for their lives, initially.  The media deserves more than their share of the blame here, I think in their best intentions to keep us informed, they went out of their way to paint a picture of doom and gloom if it helped their cause or that things weren't nearly as bad as they were, at the time.  But here we are, halfway thru 2022 and the freaking virus was named Covid-19, for the year it started in, so it has now been almost 4 years of dealing with it.  We need to just accept it like the flu and move on with our normal lives.  Everyone has to get back to work as they were pre-pandemic.

    All these shortages in everything it seems is either a manipulation by the government or if it is true, it must be because not enough people have come back to work.  Where did they go, surely Thanos did not snap his fingers and half of society disappeared?  

    But the question is not what got us here, but what does it mean, to be in a recession?  The Google definition is a significant decline in economic activity that lasts for several months or even years (someone then defined that more narrowly as a decline for at least two quarters).  This means that there has been a decline in productivity, sales, manufacturing and other things that keep money flowing.  Recessions are a normal part of the cycle of the business cycle, probably the reason we constantly see new car models and new clothes styles introduced to the public, to keep us wanting the latest and greatest, thus, to keep the money moving and reducing the chances of falling into a stagnant sales situation.

    The negative consequence of a recession is that there are increased job cuts, which lead to higher unemployment, which then leads to increases in home foreclosures, which leads to more negative results.  This can turn into a negative spiral as more people fall into foreclosure, banks get desperate and then they may raise interest rates, making homes even more unaffordable, which all leads to more unemployment and then even more people losing their jobs, and on and on.

    All this can lead to a depression and depressions are much worse than recessions because they can last for years.  The great depression in 1929 lasted for years and we did not fully recover until the end of WW2.  During the great depression, unemployment rose to 25%.  We had not seen numbers that bad until the housing market crash in 2007, which resulted in an unemployment number around 10%.  Currently, we are hovering around 14%, which seems odd with so many businesses posting "Help Wanted" signs, which again makes me ask where are the people who are supposed to be working right now?  Maybe everyone has become a TikTok superstar.

7/27/22 Schlitterbahn Fun?

     Mijo is starting his senior year strong, doing things I did not know were in his wheelhouse.  Today, Wednesday, out of nowhere became the day they had to go to Schlitterbahn for the afternoon.  I thought it was weird, he was talking about it Tuesday evening, but did not want Wife to order him tickets online.  He said there was a chance he would not go after all.  I really thought it made no sense, he went to practice at 9:00am until noon.  I went and picked him up, figuring we were going to go eat and then I would go about the rest of my day.  Suddenly, when I picked him up, he said I needed to take him straight to his friend's house, they were already waiting for him.  I asked him if he had money on him, he said no.  I did not have any because I am constantly spending my cash on him, or just giving it to him outright.

    I also brought up that he didn't have a towel, a change of clothes, or anything.  He said, "Fine, take me home real quick."  He then proceeded to ask me to get him the tickets on my phone.  I looked at him and said, "uh, I'm driving, but you can do it."  He then said never mind.  According to Wife, the tickets were like $20 cheaper if they were bought online.  He said he would just pay at the gate, to forget about it.  When we got home, I told him you run and get your stuff, I will go to the kitchen and get you the phone protector I bought you.  I went to Academy after I dropped him off at practice to get something to protect his phone, in case he did go to the waterpark.  He actually told me no, I was too slow, and then he ran off into the house and came back out about as fast as I have ever seen him move.

    By the time he called his friend that we were headed that way, his buddy told him "Hurry, we are leaving in 7 minutes.  That was a lot of pressure and when we got there, they were already backed up and waiting on the street.  Once he got off, I was off the hook, I headed home.

    It is roughly 7:30pm and I am waiting for Wife to call that he is in the car.  She swung by the water park to pick them up.  We were talking around 6:00pm that she was headed that way.  I saw them texting in our group chat, but I still don't understand why it has taken so long.  The park is only about 45 minutes from our house, they should already be home.  We are supposed to meet at Zaxby's in Buda to go eat dinner, maybe they forgot about me.

7/26/22 I Guess I Got Ideas?

     This weekend I was looking for something cool for Mijo, to show his school spirit and to get something personal.  I was looking at shirts/hoodies/jerseys but ended up on a website that seems to specialize on socks.  They first page to get started in making your own personal socks is to choose between about six different versions lengths, such as over the knee to the kin that hides in your shoes.  Knowing that Mijo mainly wears the 3/4 style that fits to above the ankle.  From there, I was able to choose what color to go with on the toes, the heel and even the collar on top.  From there, after choosing from a lot of color combinations, we can download a logo, which I had the Cougars on a picture, as if I was waiting for this project.  From the colors I chose, I was then sent a picture with a more or less finished view of what they would look like, in theory.

    I don't know why I was dragging my feet, probably because Mijo was not actually excited about me ordering him and maybe a couple of his friends some of these socks.  Well, it happened that we went to the Booster Club this evening, and after waiting for a lull in the conversation, I found a perfect opportunity to add the socks as a fundraiser event.  As soon as I showed the officers the mock-up, they said they wanted some for their kids.  Then one lady asked if they could be done in pink, for breast cancer awareness month, I mean the kids are already sporting pink accents on their uniforms that month (October).  Before I knew it, most of the moms were asking for a pair of pink socks.  I am writing this around midnight, I sent the pink design to them around 10:30pm and I already received a notice with images of what the mock-up looks like.

    I am going to order a small batch and donate it to the booster, to see if these socks sell themselves, as they said.  Judging by the parents, everyone wanted at least one pair for their kid, so that sounds good.  The website suggests selling for $5 more than the cost of each pair, around $10.  The profit margin seems to be around that for the baseball hats, which cost $25 to make and embroider, and we are currently selling them for $30.

7/25/22 Clueless Revisited?

     We hadn't sat and watched Clueless in a long while, but we watched it again as part of the movies we have been watching with Mijo lately.  It is generally a good movie with some fun parts in it, and kind of a disturbing ending.  I wanted to see it through Mijo's viewpoint, and the boy did not disappoint, he is pretty consistent.

   His first notice was "Wasn't Cher (Alicia Silverstone) stupid in the beginning of the movie, but then she seems to get smarter halfway through the movie."  I always thought she was more of an airhead, having no reason to take anything seriously, as daddy gives her everything.

    Nowadays, I really like Paul Rudd, but it took me years to like him initially, this movie gave me the creeps about him, in the movie he falls in love with his stepsister, how was this okay with Hollywood, other than as the conservatives say, Hollywood has always been full of degenerates.  In the story, the dad even seems to approve of the two step siblings falling in love, it just has a really creepy vibe, when taken out of the fantasy of a movie.  

    Even Mijo noticed it saying the story is going along just fine, Cher and her friends are having little adventures, then it seems like the movie was taking too long and they needed to finish it, so they came up with this idea to give Cher a "perfect" older man, since that is what she keeps saying is what she wants all along.  I would have preferred to see her just stay single, why does everyone have to live happily ever after in the end of the movies, this relationship would only have lasted through a semester at the most.  What are they going to do, go to family functions together, that is still creepy, and these liberal elites like to make fun of the south?

    It is fun to see Donald Faison as a kid, who went on to great success in Scrubs, loved that show.  I also really liked Brittany Murphy, who sadly passed away too young.  Paul Rudd is obviously the breakout star of this ensemble, shoot, he is in the Marvel universe now as Ant-Man.

7/24/22 Clean Up?

     I honestly hate doing more than the minimum, especially right now, in the middle of all this heat, this is really one of the hotter summers I can remember.  We have been hitting over 100 most of the days here in June and July.  As they say, oh well, life goes on.  This week we are doing our city wide clean up, where we can put our junk out on the front curb and the city will come get it.  I believe they do this twice a year.

    Left to my own devices, I would have ignored it, we have some stuff to get rid of, but it really doesn't bother me.  Wife, on the other hand, has been waiting for this, like it is Christmas morning.  She had been giving me subtle warnings, "hey, the bulk pick up is coming around, you need to throw away the old grill..."  stuff like that.  We all kind of spent Saturday napping and generally just staying out of the heat.  Sunday though, there was no getting away from her.

    In the peak of the heat, around 4:00pm, she reminded me that not only does the grill have to go, but that old swing, the sofa in the garage, and the small sofa in Mijo's bedroom.  That just felt like way too much.  I snapped back, "why don't you help, after all, I believe in women's rights."  She was ready with a response (they all are when the going gets rough), "I have strong men in this house, I don't need to go show you how to do it."  Ugh, appealing to our ego, and if she does do it, what good am I?  I got Mijo and told him, this'll suck but it should only take a half hour.

    He worked on gathering all the trash and getting the trash cans to the street, I worked on rolling the grill to the front, luckily it does have wheels.  We then got together to work on getting the sofa out of the garage, we had to move a bunch of stuff, it was mildly buried under a bunch of boxes and bins.  Boy had gotten this sectional sofa from a friend, we were holding it for her, but it has now been in our garage for at least three years, and we were worried mice or other nasty critters would be making it their home.  Along with the sofa, I then grabbed multiple boxes, such as the one the new carpet washer came in from a couple months ago and threw away enough stuff to make a nice passage from the front to the back of the garage.

    The grill wasn't on the curb for more than 5 minutes before a man in a beat-up truck came around.  I was still breaking down boxes, so I saw him slow down and he seemed very polite.  I told him to gof or it, then gauging that he looked to be in his 60s, I asked him if he wanted help.  He said he would appreciate the help, I then had to ask if he was taking it for scrap or if he was going to repair it, if he wanted to repair it, I would get him the rest of the parts.  He said he had a mechanic friend and would be trying to get if fixed.  I explained what was wrong, and then I went and got the parts I had, including the new computer screen, which did cost me like $60, but I had left it out for about 2-3 months now, so it wasn't going to be returned to the manufacturer.  While I went to the back to get the parts, I told Mijo to help the man get the grill in the truck, and I thought they were going to need my help, the grill is heavy, but they had it up in the air before I made it back.  I saw it tip backward and it could have easily been dropped, but the man said he was amazed at Mijo's strength.  I believe assembled that grill weighed 240 pounds.

    I told the man I was glad someone was going to try and give the grill life; I hated the idea that it was just going to go get crushed in the dump.  He said he liked driving around and looking for stuff like this and fixing it and selling it for a couple bucks.  Considering he was doing this in the heat that I was whining about, I felt a little bad for the man, who was in his late 60s, he said.  He took off, and I finished filling the trash cans with crap, then I headed inside to look after my ribs.

7/23/22 Freezing The Pain Away?

     I hate to say it, but Mijo has been on the edge of abusing his body this summer, in the quest to make him a stronger person for football, and with this, he has now injured himself twice.  Thankfully, we took him to the doctor and so far, his injuries have only been minor and with time, he has healed.  This last one was a bit scary, because knees are such a common injury in sports, they just tend to wear down and/or become injured.  With bad knees, come all sorts of other problems, and our family has bad knees all over, from my dad, to myself, to Wife's brother-in-law, and even her brother, shit I almost forgot, Wife's mom has had surgery on her knees, so bad knees are all over the family.

    Knowing that football really starts up in another week (summer has been weight training, no football pads, no contact), this is no time to be waiting for the healing to happen at its own pace.  I have now been hearing about cryotherapy, using cold to increase the body's reaction to certain injuries.  The coaches have been using dunk tanks, which they fill with ice and have the athletes sit in it for a few minutes.  All I know is that Mijo really hated this, one of the times he came to get in the car after practice had finished and I could fill his body was still cold, just sitting next to him.

    During the 7v7 scrimmages, I randomly talked to one of the other parents and mentioned his pulled hamstring, he then suggested I take him to i-Cryo, a small storefront over by the old Outback Steakhouse on Ben White and Lamar.  I thanked him for the info, but because we always seem to be too busy and Mijo tends to be super lazy to do anything else after practice, we kept putting it off.  Yesterday, with Wife being off, we went and got him registered while he was at practice.  This would save us the time of him standing there while I filled out paperwork and reduce his complaining window.  We then picked him up, took him to eat at Dairy Queen, because he is always starving after practice, then we headed over there.  He wasn't given much time or choice, so the complaining was kept at a minimum.  He went in the freeze chamber, where he stands in a small space, whole body, and he is subjected to cold for 3 minutes.  There are varying temperatures from beginner to advanced pro, each getting colder, down to -220 degrees (F?).  We tried the package of services, he then sat for 30 minutes and had compression therapy, which was a sleeve for his legs that filled with air and squeezed on them on and off for 30 minutes.  The third therapy was localized cryo therapy, just on the knee.  Afterwards, we asked him what he thought, and he said he did kind of like the full body cryotherapy most, it felt good, the compression, not so much.

    I am guessing we will be bringing him here more often, as the other dad said, he was planning on bringing his boys here after football games.  I like this idea, I know most Saturdays, Mijo is all bruised and moving slow when he has to wake up and go to the team meetings.

7/22/22 Maybe Football Is Taken Too Seriously In Texas?

     Baby A hurt his knee last week during a wrestling practice and although I thought we could just wait a bit and the pain would go away; he woke up complaining that it still hurt this week to the point that Wife started harassing me to take him to the doctor.  I don't like falling out of my routine but sometimes it is inevitable.  Since the pain is staying there and not disappearing, we started thinking it might be something scarier, what if he tore something?  The mind then starts running away, if there is a tear or bone chips or something that requires some sort of surgery, is his football season over before it even begins?  These are things a parent goes thru in their head, and not because I need him to be on the field, but because I know our boy has been all about being the big strong jock, and what if he has to miss out on his senior season?

    Either way, the only way to get to the bottom of all these questions was to go get a doctor to evaluate his knee.  We went to Victory Medical; their facilities are one of the nicer ones we have been to, so it has become our place to go see medical staff, mostly for our boy.  We first came here last year when he injured his shoulder, which was scary and for a minute it seemed like his season was done.  It turned out that the doctor determined it was just a bruise and although he was in tremendous pain, we walked out of that doctor's visit with a "well, if he can handle the pain, he could get out on the field tonight, but I would probably rest it at least another week."  I was half ready to agree with the Waterboy's mom and just say "your little foosball career is over boy; I don't want to see you in pain."  Two weeks later he was back out on the field and the shoulder didn't seem to bother him anymore.

    It was very similar with his knee, the doctor came in, we were told by the nurse that he deals mostly with sports injuries, so he is the guy to go to at their facility, which gave me a little peace of mind.  He gave our son a very thorough inspection, moving and poking all around his knee to figure out what and where the pain was coming from.  He determined that in his drop to his knee (when he "shot" (wrestling term)), he managed to get the bones to rub against each other, I think the femur and the patella bones, so now they are irritated and tender.  He then aggravated the situation by going overboard on Friday and doing way too many squats to prove he is a man, or whatever these boys do in the gym.  Again, surprisingly to me, he brought up the fact that "football starts in two weeks, what are you doing wrestling?"

    Good or bad, the doctor said he can continue working out, just don't do anything that will cause pain, so go light or avoid leg workouts for a bit.  He added, "I don't want to see you lose any of the gains you've made this off-season."  As he walked out of the room, the doc added "I'll see you out on the field, I referee area games."  I thought that made him cooler, because he is on the side of these kids and trying to see them put their best on the field.  As a parent, again I feel like if I was the doctor, my opinion would be "you're done, I should have kept you in band, where you wouldn't have injured yourself."  But I know Mijo is half animal, and he needs to be out there fighting, it defines him right now.

7/21/22 Original Mijo Going To Japan?

     I don't talk about Boy as much as I should, but it's because he has moved out and I don't see what he gets on about day to day.  Yesterday he called to tell us that work was sending him to Japan, and that sounds exciting and scary to me, along with so many other feelings in between.  He seems to be doing really well at work, now that he has officially graduated, and he has been promoted to engineer, I only see his opportunities expanding and we are excited for him.

    He has been with this company now going on close to two years.  I don't want to say names, but it is one of the bigger names in the technology field here in Austin and they have business all over the world.  When he signed on, he was told to expect to travel all over the world, and at the time I was a little worried for him.  In theory, I don't want Mijo on a jet all over the place, but if I think about it, they are supposed to be safer than cars, so I don't know how to feel.  Because of Covid and all that crap, things went on a standstill, and he had only been working here in the lab.  He had been getting frustrated saying his job just consists of making wires and cables all day long, which gets boring after a while.

    This trip is going to come up fast, he said sometime in the first week of August.  He already has a passport, and his work is paying for his work visa, something to the tune of a couple thousand dollars.  He had gotten his passport ready because a group of his friends were going to go to Japan on vacation, but it got cancelled when Covid made a comeback.  I believe he is actually going because another coworker got Covid recently, so I guess Covid gives and Covid takes.

    He was excited yesterday, I called to hear him tell me, as I was driving when he texted.  He said he will fly to Tokyo, then take a 4-hour bullet train to whatever city he will be working at.  He is scheduled to be there for two weeks, and it could be extended if he needs more time to get whatever project he will work on completed.  He also said he will be assigned a translator, although he says most of the larger cities like Tokyo English is a common language, but I don't know any of this to be fact.

    Either way, this is an exciting time for our oldest, as he is sent around the world.  As much as I still want my baby still living at home, this is what we try to create, people that grow up and contribute positively to the world, I am so proud of Mijo.

7/20/22 Mijo And His Bum Knee?

     Baby A goes hard, there is no doubt about that.  It is no surprise that he has come up limping and in a bit of pain, it was bound to happen.  Twice now this summer, he has pushed himself too hard, and now we find ourselves wondering if he is truly hurt or just bruised.  The first one was when he crammed up trying to run the 40-yard dash at the UT football camp, early in June.  I think after a few weeks, we are past that, although I will keep buying him gross Pickle Juice and other electrolytes, to make sure it isn't because he ran out of salts in his body.

    This second injury happened while wrestling in an informal wrestling practice, which shouldn't have even been that big of a thing.  First off, he said hardly anyone has been showing up.  Second, it seems it was mostly him screwing around with a couple of the lighter class wrestlers, which he seems to do for fun since obviously, the smaller wrestlers can't even move him, he claims.  Tonight, as we were going to lunch, he said he hurt it while "shooting", but he was sort of going against two kids, both much smaller than him, so he got caught trying to spread himself and capture both at the same time.  He landed awkwardly, and that is how he hurt himself.  It does not help that every time he goes to practice, he does another stupid activity.  Friday, he got in the car starting with "don't get mad at me."  According to him, he was challenged, and his manhood put into question.  Thus, he had to put everyone in their place by beating them in a squat challenge.  He was pretty proud of himself after both guys who challenged him did 22 and 24 squats, while he went on to do 45 reps with 225 pounds, or two plates on each side.  This is a lot of weight, and pretty stupid, considering he was hurt, and we told him to take it easy.

    All we can do is try to get him healed.  We told him to take it easy this weekend, then we went and bought him a knee brace.  This dumb boy puts it on and proceeds to immediately "shoot", which is a move where he throws himself low, land on the "injured knee" as if to grab an opponent around the legs.  It doesn't seem to dawn on the boy that he just landed on his bad knee in our kitchen basically on cement.  The knee brace had a gel support, but I don't think it is meant to protect a patella from a 250-pounder dropping his weight all at once.  He did say the gel felt nice, but the knee brace was a tad small, it wouldn't stay on his knee, it kept sliding down.  Tuesday morning, I went over to Academy and found a bigger, 2XL brace and got it for him to try.  Initially, he said he couldn't really step and walk, but after adjusting it and pulling it higher up on his leg, he aligned the metal brace to his bending knee, and he said it felt a lot better.  I am just hoping the knee needs a little break and he can continue on without being in any pain.  It would help if he stopped being a knucklehead.

7/19/22 Hate Working Out, But I Don't Think I Have A Choice?

     I hate working out, honestly, I would prefer to just sit on my ass all day, drinking coffee and eating sweets, but I can feel that isn't good for me.  Much like taking medicine by force, for my own good, I make myself go and workout, even if I would rather lie around like the fatass I am.  Honestly, I don't know why I try to ignore it, my body feels like shit when I stop working out, and still, I will use any excuse to avoid working out and once I have stopped for a couple weeks, it makes it that much harder to get going.

    Not only have I felt myself getting fatter and fatter, but I notice I have been getting the shortness of breath, even just getting into the car.  My joints feel like they hurt when I am motionless for a while.  I sleep restlessly a lot of the time.  There are so many reasons to hate being inactive, and still, it seems I prefer being a lazy shithead.  The last straw was this past week, I hurt my shoulder just reaching for the little bottles I use at work doing hardly anything, weighing these tiny bottles in the acid hood.  I then almost on the same day, sprained my ankle and was hobbling around over the weekend.  I decided these were signs that my body was getting too weak to be useful.  I've been telling Mijo that I need to get back to working out, but it just seems like such a hassle, especially when I see how much weight he is lifting as he is lazy and leaves the weights all over our weightroom when he goes in there.  He just told me "Just start somewhere!"

    That seemed to work, as he might have said it at the right time for me.  I got up early Saturday and did my routine of working my chest and arms, it was good.  I then woke super early Sunday and worked out my shoulders and I even managed to do some squats, which I have never been a fan of.  I think the squats could be good for strengthening my lower back, knees and legs, if I can keep it up.

   The key for me is to do this early in the day, before Wife and Mijo get up on the weekends, and while I am alone during the day during the week.  I also need to accept some days there won't be time for exercising and that is alright, as long as it isn't because I don't want to.  Today will be my 4th day in a row, so I am on my way.  I went to Academy and bought me a couple new resistant bands this weekend, to help keep me motivated, now I feel I have to use them, so hopefully, I can keep it going.

    By the way, I do feel better after I have been lifting weights for a couple weeks. My joints do seem to get stronger, and I don't hobble as much and when I start adding walking to my routine, I even stop huffing and puffing so much just getting around, so there are so many reasons to keep going, they just all have a hard time beating laziness sometimes.

7/18/22 Descriptions Can Help Sell A Product?

     This is a bit of a reach, I know, but I think I'm on to something.  A couple weeks ago while on vacation we inevitably ended up at the mall to look at what kind of watches they might have.  Honestly, I see Corpus as a bit behind in the times, they are too busy enjoying life on the coast to care about trends and stuff.  I thought I might get lucky, and they would have a Rolex or two to sell and not just as display stuff.  Surprisingly, they did not.  I then looked around the store and although I like the Omega brand and was happy to see they had a display case with about 15-20, there weren't hardly any Speedmasters, which are the ones proclaimed to have been worn on the moon and been to space.  Honestly, I looked at the rest of them and for my taste, I usually like a darker colored watch, although I do want my next watch to look distinctively different.  I walked away not very impressed with what they had, I've been to several Omega boutiques with a whole store of display cases of just the Omega brand, so what they had here was too limited to impress me, I thought.  Wife had been out following Mijo, so I was there alone.  On our way out, I pulled her in so she could see what they had, while I talked myself into believing that my next watch will probably be a Panerai.  Wife looked at the Omega watches and asked to see an orange one with a white dial.  I saw an orange watch that was not my style, she saw a watch that looked like it belonged on the arm of a Longhorn.  Once I looked at it as that, I couldn't help but think this watch would look great with any Longhorn shirt or paraphernalia.  Now, I can't stop thinking I will have to buy this watch, just with the simple words that it looked Longhorn-ish.

    Another thing that has been sold to me again by Wife and DD, to some extent is with brisket.  I love a lean cut of brisket, from the flat with hardly any fat.  Wife says she has always liked the fattier choice from the point which always kind of grossed me out.  DD described it as candy, it just melts in your mouth, it is so good.  This past weekend, I made a small brisket, only around 7.5 pounds and hardly any point, so there was little fat on it, I probably bought it because of this as I like them lean looking.  I always get crap because without all the fat, they tend to cook a little tougher in that they don't fall apart.

    I guess there was some fat hidden in this one after all.  There seemed to be a line in the middle of it, and some fat immersed among the meat.  I could almost taste the description by DD that the fat was "like candy" as I bit into the meat and the fat just kind of dissolved, not in a gross way as I think of fat, but as leading the way with flavor as it dissolved in my mouth.  Instead of wanting to hack it out with a knife, I left it in and found my tacos a bit more enjoyable this weekend.

7/17/22 Weird Running Into People We Know Out In Public?

     Yesterday was a really nice lazy day.  We didn't do much, we kept wanting to take Mijo school clothes shopping, but he did not want to leave the house.  After a couple of naps and not much else, Wife and I decided we would go to Central Market to get some breads, maybe some cheese, no real plans, just hadn't been there in a while.  Before stopping there, I wanted to go to Academy.  I think I am ready to start working out again, and I have noticed the 70-pound rubber strap does not give me enough resistance when doing triceps kickbacks, but the 100-pound strap gives too much.  The only solution in my head then is to go and buy the 80 and 90-pound straps and figure out which one I should be using.  This then turned into also buying a knee brace for Mijo who keeps overdoing his shenanigans and has now hurt himself a bit.  We are hoping it is just a strain and that a few days off will get him back to normal.

    After this, we finally ended up at Central Market, and before going much farther than the fruits and vegetables in the beginning of the store, we stopped, Wife wanted some sort of dip for chips, since we were going to keep it very low key and eat just chili hot dogs for dinner.  I looked back and did a double take, we don't normally see people we know, but DD was walking up to us, his hair loose (it is usually in a ponytail), I did the "I know this guy while pointing at him telling Wife."  People just look different out in the wild, it took seeing his wife over his shoulder and the baby to say "yup, that's them."  By then, he was pretty much on me, I gave him a hug, and then we stood there for a good 10-15 minutes talking and catching up.  Wife carried the baby the whole time we talked, he is a stout and thick baby.  Wife insisted I carry him, and he feels like a solid block of meat, like a brisket, there is no softness to this baby.  He smiled the whole time he was in Wife's arms, which is nice, nobody likes a bitchy crying baby.

    We ended up inviting them over for brisket Sunday evening, but I was out and up front with it has to be more of a dine and dash.  Wife likes having them over but then she doesn't go to bed at her normal time, so she had been hesitant to have anyone over lately.  I understand, with this heat, I also feel tired all day long too.  His wife also agreed that she likes coming over, but then they always seem to stay too late, and she feels like they cut into our routine, so we agreed they will come, eat and be brief, which is the way it should be, especially for a Sunday.  I put my brisket in the pellet grill at 8:00am, and now at 1:00pm, it has been in the smoke for 5 hours.  It is only a 7.5 pounder, so it won't need the full 10-12 hour cook time the bigger ones usually get.  I plan on looking at it around 3:00pm and if it looks good, taking it out and letting it rest for an hour or two before cutting into it.  If we eat at 5:00pm, it might be better for everybody, usually we eat at 8:00-9:00pm and then it makes it real hard to get in bed before 10:00pm.

7/16/22 Girlie Is Moving In Again?

     Girlie's lease is over tomorrow and has thus begun the process of moving out from yet another apartment.  I remember my days as a college student and apartment living kind of sucks because it is never permanent.  The year goes by so fast and before you know it, it is time to move again.  Boy is in the same boat, it hasn't been six months that he moved out, and last time we had lunch together, he was talking about the possibility of either staying where they are at, or looking for another apartment, depending on how much the rent goes up.

    Girlie is going to Indiana for her internship, still don't understand why so far, but that is her thing.  She asked if she could stay with us for a few weeks, since it is still about a month before she has to go.  As we have told her before, she is always welcome to stay with us, we have known her since she was four, she is basically a family member.  We have three empty bedrooms, well one is filled with weights, and the other is filled with 3D printers, but we do have plenty of room for her to stay with us since it is just Mijo, Wife and me. 

    Her moving means we usually help a little bit.  Nowadays she has her boyfriend, so we are staying out of it as much as possible, they can handle renting U-hauls and what not.  Most of her stuff is going into storage, she has a bedroom, set, sofas, TV, all the usual stuff.  As far as our house, she said "can you help me take a couple of totes that are going to go with me to Indiana?"  We said sure and went over with the Excursion, good thing though.  She is packed like she is going away for a year.  By totes, she meant those large plastic bins, and all I can say is I am thankful Mijo is so strong.  I had him and a couple of his friends go with us, and they made quick work of these bins I am sure she would not even be able to carry down her stairs.  Wife finds it unnecessary, as she says, "just take a backpack, you wear the same three leggings all the time, just pack a few shirts and a light sweater, underwear and you're done."  This girl has a bin of summer shoes, bin of winter shoes, bin of pants, bin of shirts, bin of sweaters, couple of bins with books.  In one of the see thru bins, there was a Jenga, so it is not all necessary crap, but it's on her.

    We are doing what we can to help her, she has come a long way, and being that her degree is a semester away, I couldn't be prouder of her.  She is still a bit of a knucklehead, but I can also see that she has matured a lot and I can see an adult somewhere in that thick head of hers.

7/15/22 Fancy DXL Store?

     I am kind of a slob, not that I don't try, but being a fat-ass, it is kind of hard for me to find clothes I am comfortable in, so I have a few things I tend to wear, and I stick with them until they get destroyed and/or old.  I have had some success at Dillard's, they have a "big and tall" section and they do offer a pretty good selection, if and when you need to dress up.  I want clothes I can wear every day, like some baggy shorts that don't feel dressy, or even something like pants without the need for dress shoes.

    I have known of DXL existing for some time, it used to be Casual Male back in the day, but the only location I had seen since the Casual Male closed down in South Austin, was an outlet store at the San Marcos outlets.  This is actually where I met the guy that got me to join the orchestra from San Marcos before Covid ruined everything.  The store itself was fine, I guess.  It had plenty of stuff, if you don't mind everything just being packed tightly in row after row of shirts and pants all stuffed together.  This just doesn't leave a good taste in the mouth to want to go and visit that store very often.  Because it is an outlet store, I also feel like I am buying the leftovers that didn't sell at the "real stores."

    Yesterday, after dropping off Mijo at weight training, Wife and I got busy, first going and dropping off her Telluride for an oil change, then heading north to a DXL store we found on the map while I was contemplating ordering some shorts thru their online magazine.  The online thing suggested we could pick up at a local location, which showed there was a store up in North Austin.  It is close to but not at The Domain, so we headed up there via Mopac.  We got there right at 10:00am, when they open, so it worked out about perfectly.  I was looking for two things, one was shorts I can wear every day.  My favorite shorts have holes in the butt, where they are sewn together.  I had bought some nice Polo shorts, but they are way too thick, made out of the same material they use for their warm-ups.  I prefer the mesh type material, it breathes better.  I found pretty much the same style as I had bought a few years ago and now even added a red pair, so I should be good for a while.  I also bought a couple of warm-up pants, which I will try to wear for work.  I still heavily disagree with the rules of work that we have to wear pants, in case we spill acid on ourselves, the pant won't do anything but spread the acid and keep it on our skin for longer.  With shorts, we could instantly spray the area with water, if we ever need to.  Either way, this is not one I am going to win, so I will at least improvise and find some comfortable pants to work in.  I think because it has been so hot, the lab has had a hard time keeping up with the heat and it has been almost stuffy and clammy in the lab, wearing pants makes it suck that much more.

    I kind of got away from the message, but I do want to say that the DXL store was about as nice and fancy as anything I have seen for the "normies" at any mall.  Apparently, fat people can shop in nice looking stores with proper mood lighting and nice decor and everything.  We don't need to be lead thru the slop lines that are the outlet malls, where everything is stuff to the gills.  I really enjoyed the store experience, it just kind of sucked that Mijo called that they were done a bit earlier than I anticipated.  I really didn't get a chance to walk the entire store, but it gives me a reason to go back.

7/14/22 Pool Is An Albatross?

     At the end of last summer, in a desperate last-minute move, I went around the pool with some putty meant to stop leaks in fiberglass pools, boats, tubs, etc. and to my surprise, it worked.  We have literally been looking into removing the pool and either just living without one or starting from scratch and installing a new one.  After looking into it and realizing it would cost of at least $75,000 and probably closer to $100,000, we decided maybe we didn't need a pool that badly.  It is really disappointing to me, at one point we had it all, RV, boat, pool, hot tub, and now I am struggling to keep this stupid pool that just seems to leak and there wasn't much to do about it.

    My thought was that the leak was in the plumbing, when the water would come down, it always seemed to stop around the height where the water inlets and the skimmer box are located.  Logically, it would seem that the leak would then be at those places, that is where PVC tubing is cut into the fiberglass, it makes sense.  After plugging all those points of contact, and I did at the start of spring, it was still leaking.  I had noticed the small spider vein cracks on the fiberglass, but I assumed they were just cosmetic, if they were leaking, the water should go all the way to the bottom because those spider vein cracks are all over.  Right when I was getting ready to throw in the towel, I decided I would patch up the larger cracks at the water line where it always stops, almost in line with the water inlets.  This worked, it was great, from last October thru the winter and even as far as May, the pool was holding water all the way up to the top, and I did overfill it once and the water seemed to stay in it.  Until the actual swimming season began.

    Like Lucy waiting for Charlie Brown to kick the ball, once it was warm enough to actually go and enjoy the pool, it started leaking again, and as of yesterday, the pool was about half full.  Again, the Mijo rarely shows any interest in using it, so I am never in the mindset that it must be fixed.  Still, Wife and I were talking about it, and yesterday she inspired me to go out and try to patch it up once again, maybe we can get a couple months of usage, if I happen to patch the right spots.

    I went and bought three new packs of the putty, it is meant for this job, and I have used it for years, so I know it works.  The little packs are about $7, I ended up using two last night, and I bought an extra one, just in case.  At this point, I have been filling the pool overnight, it is around 8:00am and it still needs another few hours of filling to get it where it needs to be, then we can determine if my patches worked.  If anything, we could at least use it for the day.

7/13/22 Getting Smarter Or Becoming More Of A Wimp?

     I have been watching videos by ASP (Active Self Protection) for a few years and the host John Correia is great at giving tips to avoid escalation of situations where it isn't worth escalating and thus, reducing the risk of confrontation out in the world.  He has videos very day of normal people doing stupid things, and usually as he says, it comes down to a battle of egos.  In this day and age where anyone could be carrying a gun or other weapon is it worth getting in someone's face over them passing you in traffic, or cutting in line, or doing so many other selfish moves?

    I have then seen other videos, mostly of the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) where they point out that many times it is the woman in the relationship that gets the man in trouble.  This stabbing in the bodega that just happened this past weekend was because the woman didn't get her potato chips, so she goes and gets the idiot boyfriend, who starts a fight for no real reason, like "Fucker, get some money."  There are other incidents like this all over the place.

    I would like to think that as I get older, I am getting smarter, not that I was ever one to fight.  I have actually done the opposite, I am not a fighter, call me a pussy, I don't care.  I have though been aggressive on the road and have done my share of stupid things. such as pass and then gone to prove my point when other people pass me, and I didn't like the way they did it.  I am trying to be better, but I guess Wife doesn't see it that way.  Recently, during Boy's graduation, we were in some pretty thick traffic, and the road we were on collapsed down to one lane.  This is one of those situations we can't help and must just be patient.  Some assholes decided they would cut by driving in the middle turning lane, get in front of a bunch of people and then merge in.  One of these majestic beings did this crap in front of our car, and instead of risking him hitting our car, I let him in.

    This set off Wife and she started a little with the "you're going to let him do that?"  "Wow, I thought you were a better driver than that, just letting people cut in front of you..."  I asked her "what do you want me to do, we're all going the same way, he already got in front of us, it's not like he will apologize and go back behind us."  Sometimes you just have to let it go, sometimes the ego is not worth wasting on idiots.

    Women can get away with being aggressive idiots because society gives them a pass.  A woman can throw a fit and hit a man, and it might cause a laugh, but flip that story around and most of the time, the man will end up being charged with assault.  We mustn't let these women with their short fuses get us in trouble.

7/12/22 Another Printer Bites The Dust?

     Printers are not necessarily expensive, but it still bothers me every time we have to replace one.  The last time I cleaned out the bedroom downstairs, I pulled out three from the closet, which does not include this latest one just added to the scrap heap.  It isn't that it wasn't working, it kind of was.  The problem was that it never seemed to work right, it was supposed to communicate via wifi, but the laptop could never really do it.  For a time, my phone was connected to it and it could send stuff, like pictures to print.  I found that the easiest way to print on the laptop was to use a cord and connect the printer to the laptop, which seemed very 90s to me.

    This morning, Girlie sent me a form to print for her, but when I went to print, the printer was out of ink.  At this point, with no backups that I could find in the pantry (this is where the printer lives), I had a decision to make.  Buy a new set of printer ink, color and black and hope the old printer keeps working, or opt for a new printer, and set things to right, by being able to set it up properly this time.

    I headed to Best Buy at Southpark Meadows and was surprised that it was closed, as in the big metal gates were down, and this was maybe around 9:30am.  I just looked online, and they don't open until 11:00am, which seems like ridiculous hours to open, but after Covid, stuff has been screwy everywhere.  They also close at 700pm, thus my thinking that they had gone out of business at this location.  I had to go to plan B and that was head on over to Target and buy my printer there.

    I could not tell the difference between the printers while at the store and although the one I chose seems fine, I don't like that the paper feeds from the top, barely allowing it to fit where I have had it the last few years.  The last one just kept the new paper inside of it, just below where the printed work comes out.  At this point, I think I do like the new printer, I had one the cost $189, but as I walked to the check-out, I got a nagging feeling that Wife would nag at me, so I went back and chose a more sensible one for $124.99 with a $10 Target gift card, so essentially it was only $114.99.  I still bought two sets of color and black ink, so the total was still over $200.  All I can hope for now is that these printers are as good as they seem.

7/11/22 California Pizza Kitchen?

     After getting back from vacation, Wife was talking with Boy, and he suggested we get together for lunch on Saturday.  This works for us since we aren't doing much and as far as I understand his girlfriend has to work the weekends, so he is free to hang out with us for a few hours.  We met at The Domain and this time I wanted something a little simpler than his fancy steakhouse, and I suggested California Pizza Kitchen.  We met at the Domain around 12:30pm, went to Ben Bridge to drop off one of his watches to get a new battery in it.  It is the watch we gave him for his high school graduation, I was so new to the hobby of watches that I didn't even know this was a battery-operated watch.

    After looking at some other watches, I am almost done paying for the last one I got and so I might get another one soon enough, we left and went to go eat.  The meal was good, we were sat on a large table, so we had plenty of space, and it was nice catching up with our other boy.  His conversations are different in that he is still trying to find a better paying job and is constantly applying and trying to get interviews.  He had a good interview with a promising company, so we will see how that goes in time.  He then also told us how it is going at his current job and what he and his girlfriend have been up to.

    We left after a couple hours, and we were going to head home, but since we were up north, we came down MOPAC and stopped at a couple of other jewelry stores to look at other watches.  I find myself comparing everything to an Omega I hadn't paid attention to before, but Wife said the orange on the bezel contrasted with the white dial made it look like a Longhorn watch and I can't unsee that.  I think this is the watch I am going to want to get next.  I had thought I wanted a Panerai next, but they have gotten some bad PR in the news about not using their own in-house movements, and that makes me nervous that I might buy some fake or something.  For the amount of money these watches cost, we should be getting what we assume is inside, not some cheaper knockoff.

    Either way, it was fun to get out of the house and do the day a little differently for a change.  We then came home, and I went back to my routine and took a nap.  It was a fine weekend and I think overall my week off was just what I needed.

7/10/22 This Heat?

     I thought once the hundred-degree days broke a week ago, we might settle into some hot but not deadly heat for the rest of the summer.  Now that I look at the weeklong forecast, it seems that the heat isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but up.  According to the forecast on my phone, it is supposed to reach 105 multiple times this week and more than likely stay above 100 for a high all week.  This heat isn't good for anyone, except maybe the cacti.

    Yesterday was Sunday (wrote this a day late), and we usually grill some meat on Sundays when we are home.  Being that we had been on vacation the weekend before, I was looking forward to eating some beef burned on the grill.  The problem was going outside to do the deed.  First off, I had to go to the store in the morning.  We have gotten used to the routine of me going on Sunday mornings, before it gets too late.  Because we stayed up until 3:00am, binge watching Stranger Things, we didn't get to sleep until real late, then I didn't want to get up like normal at 7:00am.  I didn't go to the store until almost 11:00am and by then it was too late.  Not only because it gets hotter as the day progresses, but there are more and more people too.  At one point, I had to just go past the aisle with bread, wait a couple minutes for the crowd to die down, then go back in to be able to get the right bread, the aisles were so crowded.

    Back at home, we have the grill on the patio in the back, so there is some kind of shade, but even going out just to turn it on, love my pellet grill, and then waiting inside for it to heat up was a lot.  I then very quickly went out and put the jalapeno bombers to start cooking first, followed by the chicken thighs, then the steak and fajitas, followed lastly by the sausage and then of course, the tortillas.  Every time I went out, it took a couple minutes sitting in front of a fan to cool off.  Wife went out to handle the tortillas, and she didn't like it much either.  We used to hang out, jump in the pool, and do outside stuff before, I don't know if it is because it is hotter, we are older, or we just got lamer.

    Either way, I really want this summer to just be done.  I hate that Mijo has to be doing his summer football stuff in this weather, but I guess it is good that they do it early in the day and are out of the sun before noon.  I think it would be a lot worse in the afternoon when the sun has had enough time to set everything ablaze.  This summer just kind of sucks.

7/9/22 Top Gun: Maverick?

     Top Gun: Maverick was as close as you get to a pure 80's adrenaline movie as you can get in today's woke society and still be good.  The movie picks up with Maverick still doing his thing, out in some desert test flying the latest and greatest jets for the military.  We are quickly filled in that with his length of time, he should already be a general or a senator, but because he doesn't follow the rules, all he can do is be a fighter pilot, in a world where we are quickly moving to relying on drones to do the dirty work.  The company he is working with is about to be shut down because the asshole in charge is obsessed with drones and has given them an unreasonable timeline to reach Mach10, Maverick being the guy that he is, wills it out of his jet, and then some.  He doesn't do it for himself, but for the good of others, that is always his MO.  He is always doing heroic things for the good of his team, and somehow the powers that be never appreciate it.

    He ends up in trouble, but we learn that Iceman has been saving his ass for the last 30 years, Val Kilmer has a touching scene, it made the movie that much better.  He then finds himself on the old set of the original Top Gun with the best of the best woke edition.  There is of course, a hot shot female pilot, who needs to be at the center of attention in all the scenes, pretty girl, but I just can't buy the reality, although looking through Google, there have been a handful.  There were also of course a lot more minorities, blacks and Hispanics, flying around and shooting the shit with the best of them.  They did not force the wokeness on us, in the end, I gave that part of the film a pass.

    The action and the jets were everything, there was a mission defined and only the older jets, Maverick's specialty could get the job done, plenty of training montages, then the actual operation, everything we want in a summer blockbuster.  There is another level to the movie, as Goose's son, Rooster, is now a Top Gun recruit, even if the kid was about 5 in the original and this is set 30 years later, that means the kid would be 35, starting to get a little old, but then again, Tom Cruise has to be in his 60's.  The energy of the Top Gun pilots hits more around 25, all testosterone and bravado.  Then again, this is what you want in your "best of the best", I don't want some cowardly nice types in this group.  Rooster and Maverick have to square away some tension which adds to the movie's weird vibe and energy of "will they, won't they?" get along.  I'm not giving away any of the ending, but the movie was what you would want to see on a 4th of July weekend.

7/8/22 Getting Back To Normal?

     Getting back to normal has maybe taken a couple of days.  We got back around 3:00pm on Wednesday and I promptly jumped in bed and took an hour nap, as soon as everything was inside the house.  Wife did some cleaning and started a load in the washer while I napped.  Mijo was a champ and grabbed all the dead palm leaves that had been piling up in the backyard and put them on the curb, we had the twice a year brush pick-up this week and all the yards with brush piles still had them, so we didn't miss it.  

    While we were up there, Girlie asked when we were getting back, she is fixing to end her apartment lease in a week and is then going to Indiana for a semester internship, so she will be staying with us for a few weeks until she leaves.  She wanted to bring a couple of bins over, with her clothes.  She said it was 4-5 bins, which sounded like nothing, and being that Mijo had two friends come over, I took them over as my muscle and made short work of the labor.  It was a little deceiving, it was 4 giant bins, which all seemed to weigh like 80 pounds apiece, followed by another 4-5 bins a little smaller but filled with books and other things that also had a lot of weight and finally another 4-5 small bins she had filled with kitchen supplies.  I could not imagine her or her ditzy friends/cousins carrying any of these big bins, she's lucky she knows us.  Mijo enjoys doing it, if for anything to just show off his strength.  Plus, we told them we would take them to eat afterwards.

    I am always surprised when his friends say they haven't eaten at a place we go to regularly, this time Cheddar's.  We took Girlie along with us, by the time we got out of the restaurant, it was already dark, and when we got home, she promptly left, she is not on vacation like we are.

    Mijo's friends spent the night, Wife had been talking about going to Houston, just for fun on Thursday, but I was still kind of dragging ass, and she didn't want to drive, and it's not like I was going to get a new watch, even if I did drive, so there wasn't much motivation.  Instead, we went to the movies on Thursday afternoon and saw Top Gun.  As I have said many times, Mijo did not like the first one, he hated that Maverick got Goose killed by being a knucklehead who didn't listen, amongst many other story problems.  I will get into Top Gun on the next blog, it was pretty awesome.  As much as I hate going to the movies early, it was nice to get home early enough to nap and then still have some leftover day to do whatever.  We napped from 6:00pm to 7:30pm then made some frozen pizzas and watched an episode of Stranger Things and a silly rom com movie to fill out the night.

7/7/22 Ending Our Vacation?

     We ended our vacation Wednesday, checking out before 11:00am and getting on the road.  This is always a hard part of going somewhere.  We carefully pack everything before we go, if we are staying more than 2-3 days, we even unpack and use the furniture provided, so we had our clothes in the dresser.  Wife likes to pack the night before, but I hate this, it makes it feel like the vacation ends that night.  I chose to pack my bag in the morning, after getting up with plenty of time to shower and get going.  Knowing checkout was at 11:00am, I believe I set my alarm for 8:30am.  Of course, how things work in the real world, I like getting up early when I have no reason for it.  The minute I "have to get up early", my body refuses to feel like doing it, and I inadvertently slept until 9:15am.

    This was still okay, but it left no time to play dumb.  I quickly showered, luckily, Mijo had already gotten up and showered.  Wife then followed and while she showered, I gathered my things and then took a first load to the car, the big bags that had been loaded, along with the fishing rods and other bulky stuff.  This was followed by a second trip with Mijo's things, pillows and the food in the cooler.  Finally, when Wife was ready, all we had was the food in those cheap HEB bags and to give the unit a walk through to make sure we didn't forget something.  We managed to get out at 10:50am, Wife sent a text that we were out and promptly were sent back a "Thank you for checking out." message.

    I should have gotten gas the night before, we were down to about 100 miles worth of gas, but leaving Corpus Christi is a little tricky, there are no big gas stations on the way out.  I hate getting off the freeway there where the mall is at, with so much traffic and the gas stations are all a little small.  I got caught up passing people and before I knew it, we were near George West, about 60 miles away, the car was down to 40-50 miles of gas, and so I pulled in to fill up at a Flying J.  It was so packed I had to wait for a pump, which I hate, but eventually we got in and out.  Pulling in is weird, if I feel good, I feel like I should just keep driving, once I stop and we get some food, I will eat then of course get a little drowsy.

    I kept fighting the drowsiness and I was about ready to pull over and let Wife drive, but she was being a pill too and not really wanting to drive.  She tricked me by putting in the Hamilton soundtrack which always makes us turn it up and get all emotional, which worked to get me in a different mindset and allowed us to get home.

7/6/22 Should We Feel Sorry And Help?

     Last night (Wrote Sunday morning), after getting our supplies at the store and eating dinner we were going to meet my family at the Funtrackers here in Corpus.  My dad wanted to go back to the RV, and because it was close by, we decided to wait but get gas in the meantime.  When I pulled into the modest sized gas station, it had maybe 8 pumps, there was a car with its hood open.  I decided not to park next to it, and I tried going as far from it as possible.  Unfortunately, the other pumps were shut down and I ended up closer than I wanted.  I had a feeling this dude would talk to me.

    Sure enough, as soon as I started pumping, the young-ish guy asked if I had some extra change for gas.  I just said nah and turned around.  I fucking hate this!  First off, I could help, I am on vacation and obviously I am a grown ass adult, so I must have extra income to bring my family out to another town and rent another house (condo) to basically hang out for a couple days.  If nothing else, he fills me with a little guilt, which I am apparently still carrying since I remember the exchange and moment.  Second, this is probably just a scam, which makes him suck even more balls.  This gas station is next to a vacation attraction, so the guy, if he has 2-3 brain cells to rub together knows that most everyone filling up here is in a good carefree mood and he is preying on this.  Third, if he isn't out scamming, then what the hell is he doing cruising around when gas is as expensive as it is right now?  He shouldn't be leaving his house except to work.

    This is pretty much the same reason I don't gas up anymore in the middle of the night, like I used to do when I worked through the night.  I want to feel bad for this guy, I was tempted to help, but to what end?  When I got back in the car, and that pump was the slowest ever, I could see each penny counting down as it filled up, Wife told me she had a lady come up to her and do the same thing.  When she said no, the lady added come on, I'll just use the pump after you're done gassing up your car.  Fuck, that is even worst.  This moron thought Wife would just let her have the pump which is going to charge our credit card account so she can fill her gas and Wife would trust her to just take a couple gallons?  Give an asshole an inch and they will take a mile, fuck them.  Too many opportunist criminals have taken advantage of too many good people that now it is almost impossible to tell who is really in need and who is out here just trying to work an angle for their benefit.

7/5/22 A True Vacation Day?

     Yesterday, actual 4th of July, was a great vacation day.  Other than rushing to meet my family for lunch at noon, the day was mostly non-stress, and we just took it easy.  My sister called at 10:30am, to see if we were almost ready to go eat.  We were not, I had just woken, after getting up at 8:00am, then going back to bed at 9:00am.  I took a shower, then woke Wife who followed with her shower, then we woke Mijo, who has been staying up late on his phone, doing whatever teenagers do, when coaches aren't controlling their every move.

    We got to Joe's Crab Shack down at the T-heads on Shoreline Drive by 12:10pm, the drinks had just arrived, when my sister called for the 3rd time to see if we were almost there, I told her what drinks to order for us.  We got to just walk in and order our food, no waiting around for a table.  My sister, her husband and kids were leaving back home, so they were in a rush to eat and scurry.  I kind of hate that rush, we weren't in any kind of hurry.  The food was overpriced, and basic, but I guess that is all right.

    We then did actually take some pics on the water's edge, then my sister left.  Instead of my mom rushing off with them, I convinced her to send the leftovers, a bunch of shrimp and fries, with my brother, who doesn't care to do anything, to deliver to dad, who also doesn't like to move around too much.  My sister and them all left, we headed to the mall.  We didn't have an agenda, but I told Mijo we could look for shoes and other clothes for school, he chose to not do this.  Instead, I headed straight to the one store that sells high end jewelry, Reed's, to see what they had.  They had big billboards with Rolex watches, so I thought maybe they don't sell well here, and they might have some inventory.  Nope, they had the same BS, some display watches that aren't even for sale.  Why advertise a brand you don't really carry for the normal public?

    After this, we dropped off mom back at her RV with my dad, got off to say hi to him, then we went back to our condo, for a nap for a few hours, was the plan.  I went and laid down almost immediately, and slept for an hour, got up, played on the computer and laid down again.  Wife made some bacon, egg, and potato tacos around 7:00pm, then we talked about our plans to go fishing, which seemed like work.  Both of us thought getting in the pool sounded much easier.  Mijo was still on the phone, Wife and I took our little cooler full of drinks and hung out in the pool for a couple hours.  I ended the night falling asleep on the sofa watching one of Wife's shitty movies, something about two pizza places next to each other and the kids maybe are in love, seemed kind of stupid, but whatever.

7/4/22 The Perfect Vacation Moment Is Expensive?

     There was a moment yesterday at Rockport Beach where everything seemed just perfect with the world.  I think that is the vacation moment we look for when we venture out on these far away destination trips.  Wife and I were out about 100 yards in the surf, the water was about as clear and clean as it is for the Texas coast, at the Rockport Beach, it must be a protected bay, looking at the map, it is protected by San Jose Island, so it is not the open gulf.  The waves are not aggressive at all and even this far out, we are standing in water barely up to our knees with a slight wave bumping us every few seconds.  This is when one gets the feeling "we should do this more often..." and then it is another year before you come back.  Why, you ask?

    This moment is not easy and carefree, it took a lot of money and energy to get us standing out here.  First off, we had to rent a place to stay.  I know we could have gone the easy and cheap route and just gotten a cheap room with two beds and be done.  I refuse to vacation this way, I want at least a room for Wife and me, even if we are not playing husband and wife at night, I don't want my kid seeing me scratch and fart and whatever else I do in the privacy of my own room.  Then there is the matter of food and supplies.  We went to HEB and easily spent $400 in groceries and other things.  There was a beach chair for Mijo, he didn't bring one to sit on.  We also bought a flimsy sun umbrella which could not stand up to the vicious wind we encountered out there.  The only meal we plan on eating in the condo is breakfast, so we got plenty of varieties for that, including bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, chorizo and tortillas, of course.  I like having coffee and a pastry when I get up, so I got some Kierig cups, there is that kind of coffeemaker in the room.

    There was the destination itself which was kind of comical.  My parents have always preferred or just gone to the beach at Bob Hall Pier, and we were about a mile from there, where we got our condo.  Out of nowhere, my folks went and scouted Rockport Beach, my in-laws used to go out there when they brought their RV a few years ago.  My mom really liked the beach, it looked calmer, so she chose the destination.  Bob Hall Pier is great, but it does face the open gulf and the waves get aggressive on windy days (it has also been under construction after the last hurricane came and damaged the pier itself).  The beach was a good 40-50 miles away from where we were staying, so the drive required effort.

    Yes, the perfect vacation moment can and does exist, but it is not just magical and waiting to happen.  It must be worked for, we found it, but only after really wanting it.  I am hoping for another one or two good moments like that, we still have a couple more days before we leave.

7/3/22 Getting In A Rush To Relax?

     Yesterday was a bit of work, even if we were on vacation.  First off, Baby A had a group of friends spending the night, which I always like, but then it took a minute in the morning to get all of them out of the house.  I had wanted to leave around noon, but it was closer to 1:00pm before we were on the road.  That was fine, like I said, I like Mijo's friends, I enjoy hearing their banter and how they talk smack to one another.

    Once we got gas and then some cash from the ATM at the bank, we got on the road and did not stop until we pulled into Corpus, at our condo.  We usually stop on the road for snacks or even to eat some burgers, there was none of that.  Instead, we flew about as fast as the car would go, it was great to make the trip so fast.  We then pulled into the condo, got all of our stuff down, talked to my mom and they were basically waiting for us.  I don't get how they were waiting for us to go to the beach or do something when we weren't getting here until almost the end of the normal part of the day.  We still needed to go to the store and stock up on food, which we always do, especially if we are going to be on vacation for longer than a weekend.  We quickly got our luggage off, peed and took a quick look at the pool, then headed to the HEB.  That took about an hour and a half, but we got plenty of breakfast material, which is something we do try and eat in the condo, to save a bit of money.  Plus, Wife does make a pretty good breakfast, even Mijo was requesting chorizo and beans be included for one or more meals.

    This of course, took another 45 minutes to an hour to go put away.  By now it is 7:00pm, and my family is calling to find out where we are, they are waiting for us at a restaurant we normally eat at.  We get there as quickly as possible and eat our food.  The conversation was a little awkward, my folks and sister had been together all day and we fall in not being in on everything, the teenagers are all in a mood, my dad was all the way over on the other end of the table, so he didn't really talk.  My mom then suggested Fun-trackers, which was a great destination when the kids were younger, I remember going and playing putt-putt and stuff, but Mijo is a big boy, he doesn't look like he fits on any of the rides, and he is 17, almost too old and too cool for any of it, plus at this point, we had driven the long drive, gone to the store, eaten and not quite had a chance to sit and rest.  We decided to cut out early and go back to our place.  Wife and I went and checked the pool out for about 30-40 minutes and Mijo stayed in the room, I think on the phone, by the jerky way he was acting.

7/2/22 I Can't Drive 55?

     I find it hard to believe we used to live in a time when 55 was considered highway speed.  Shoot, we end up driving 55 in town going back and forth running errands without noticing sometimes.  Today, we finally got on our vacation and headed out of town to the coast.  It felt great once we got on I-37 and being able to just open it up and gobble that highway at today's speeds.  I don't want to implicate myself, but it sure felt like we were going faster than 90 at times while getting between big cities.

    There is absolutely nothing interesting between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, except some lonely road that begs to be sped upon.  We were doing great most of the way, until we got to the George West exit, which was being monitored by three separate highway patrol officers.  I know they don't see it, but they are actually the danger.  Left alone, we all drive at our own comfortable speeds and don't bunch each other up.  The minute we see a trooper though, we slow down for fear of a ticket, and that just makes everyone drive bumper to bumper fashion.  This is extremely annoying and slows down the high pace we all want to drive.

    As I have said before, I tend to get sleepy when we head out of town and specially when I eat.  In order to keep myself awake, I told Wife we would eat when we got into Corpus, which was fine with her, if it kept me driving.  Driving that fast also keeps me alert and does not allow me to get comfortable to the point of drowsiness setting in.  I am pretty sure we left Austin at 1:00pm and were in Corpus by 4:00pm.  Maybe it took another 30 minutes to get across town to the Flour Bluff area, but I can live with that, the boring part is driving slow on an open highway.  For a few minutes, we did get down to 59, and compared to what we had been driving, it felt like we were going 30, it was super frustrating.  The slowdown was due to a couple of big trucks trying to pass each other.

    It all worked out pretty well.  Right as we drove into town, we got the email and text with the door code to the condo, so we were able to drive right to it and walk in.  We had already paid online, so there was pesky check-in, we just took out stuff from the car to the condo unit and then we were off to get food for the next 5 days.

7/1/22 Perry's At The Domain?

     We tried something different today, and I think I kind of liked it.  Boy hasn't been coming around as often as I thought he might, but since he didn't make it for Father's Day (he went to Dallas for a friend's engagement something or other), he had said he would take me to lunch or dinner.  I called him on that earlier this week and we started talking about it.  We ended up at meeting Friday at Perry's, which is a high-end steak place at The Domain.

    It had been a while since I had been to a real nice steak place, other than the Brazilian steakhouses, which are always pretty good.  This place specializes on some sort of pork chop that they finish at the table, but they have a cheaper version that serve as a lunch option on Fridays.  We both tried this and although I know pork is not as good as steak, it was still a fine option.  The meal came with mashed potatoes, and I added some asparagus as an extra side.  It had been a few weeks since we had sat with Boy and conversed, so the conversation was easy and we jumped around topics from family to work, to even a bit on the latest Roe V. Wade overturn.  I liked this type of meet-up with Mijo, it felt like I was truly talking to an adult, or even a peer.  I kept jokingly saying "If Muhammed won't come to the mountain, the mountain shall come to Muhammed."  I am the mountain, is the joke there, since I am a big ole cow.

    I am always amazed when I venture out and see other normal humans doing their thing.  It's like some people don't have jobs and yet get to enjoy the best that life offers.  Some of the people at the restaurant genuinely appeared to be wearing pajamas, but how?  It is the middle of the day and most of these people were not on a jaunt out for lunch from their jobs.  The people around us were either dressed up, like they were out, maybe on vacation, or they were dressed down, like eating here is normal activity, I was confused.  Boy just thinks most of these people work from home, or they are on vacation, which are two more possibilities, but who knows.

    We ended lunch with a dessert, I ordered what was named a Rocky Road Bread Pudding, but there was no ice cream, instead, the bread pudding was topped with a thick marshmallow, which had been burned somehow with a flame, then this was all drizzled with chocolate and walnut chunks all around.  It just topped off a surprisingly good lunch.  I left thinking we need to do this again on a more normal time, like once a month.  Mijo agreed that it was good, and we should meet up in a couple more weeks.

6/30/22 Finally Hit A Vacation Week?

     It might be possible that we go too hard in this house.  We both work year-round, none of that time off like teachers have during the summer.  I'm normally fine with it, until I have to go out at a different time than I usually do, and I see all these people just seemingly enjoying life with no look of work or worry on their minds.  Adding to our busyness, Baby A has been keeping as busy as us all summer, with his weight training in the morning, followed by wrestling practice, and then those 7v7 scrimmages, it was all getting to be a bit much.  I have to say thankfully, we ended the month with rain chances, which as a side effect, cancelled the 7v7 scrimmages, so that took a little load off, and then we hit Thursday, which ended the week for Wife and me.

    I have been looking forward to this week off for a while now, so to make the most of it, I went in to work early yesterday, knowing that there was plenty for me to do.  I dropped off Mijo at school, then headed in to work at 9:15am, or so.  I quickly got to work, and thought I would have until noon, when Mijo normally gets out.  He texted at 11:00 that they had finished early, I think the coaches were ready to get going too.  Just like us, the athletes will be off all next week, so it seems fitting to take some time off together and have a mini vacation.  We will be out of town for a few days, it has been more than year since we last went to Corpus Christi, I am a little excited, mostly just to be getting out of our normal routine.

    I then had to go back to work for a few more hours, worried that with the mid-day deliveries from Fedex and others, we would get something that could not wait, workwise, prompting me to stay longer than I planned.  Luckily, there was only one pressing job, but it was a simple and quick one, it added maybe 20 minutes to my day, no big deal.  I finished everything I was doing by 5:30pm, then headed home.  Wife was out at her normal time of 4:30pm.  She got home by 6:30pm, which allowed us to go out and have a nice dinner.  I really can't over how nice it is to have her back in town, having these nice dinners in the middle of the week seems like a treat, between me being on night shift for nearly twenty years, then her working out of town for 5 years, I think it has only added to our relationship not feeling like we have always done the same old thing.

    I don't really know what happened when we got home.  I took a shower, went upstairs, and I guess I fell asleep almost instantly because I don't even remember talking with Wife.  Let the rest begin.