9/30/22 Thursday Night Games Are A Hassle?

     Everybody likes to talk about the Friday Night Lights, when probably 80-90% of high school football games take place, but there are also Thursday night lights and they just aren't as bright and celebrated, for a reason.  It is a rough hangover to rise the next day, after being out there win or lose, and come back the next day to business as usual.  With as many high schools in the Austin area and only three main football fields to share, there becomes a necessity to be flexible.  Adding to the many high school, there is also a doubling of teams when the JV teams and even the freshman teams get counted.  Crockett was fortunate enough to have enough headcount to make both a freshman and JV team, but many of the schools in our district do not, which is a double-edged sword.  We want there to be a constant pool of incoming boys getting experience and thus being ready for their turns at varsity, but the more teams the more often they end up playing on off days, like Wednesday and Thursday.

    Given all that, the varsity team played last night, Thursday, against another Austin school, LASA (Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy), and it was a dominant victory for Crockett.  The game ended probably around 10:30pm, but then it takes a good 15-20 minutes to leave the parking lot, then another 20-30 minutes before the boys get back to campus and change to their civilian clothes.  By the time we sat down to eat, it was around midnight.  That is rough, it is hard for our boy who is all hopped up on testosterone to just turn it off and go to sleep.  He said it was near impossible to get up when his alarm went off, and he overslept until almost 8:00am.  It has to be even harder for Wife who has to get up 5:20 am to leave the house by 6:00am.

    I don't mess around, because of how our company works nowadays, I am just taking the night off when the games are on Thursdays and I don't work on Fridays, so for me it is just a matter of waking up to take Mijo to school and then I come home and chill.  Sadly, there are only a handful of games left to savor at this point, like all good things, the season will end before we know it and then love it or hate it, we won't have much to worry about games on Thursday nights, so really, enjoy them while they last.

9/29/22 Homecoming Vs LASA?

     It was a rare thing, but I loved seeing the Cougars dominate a game from start to finish.  I think after the way they let off the accelerator with McCallum and allowed them to get back into the game, they were not going to do that again.  Against McCallum, two weeks ago, they started off strong with a 28-7 lead and then slowly watched as the other team worked themselves out of the deficit and totally dominated the second half of the game, ending something like 49-28.  This was not that game.

    First off, Mijo was finally cleared to start and play following all the problems with his left knee.  Also important to this was his friend, another lineman starter was cleared to start as well.  Finally, most of the experienced line was back on the field, which doesn't seem that important, but I don't think our QB was sacked once and only a few times was he pressured in the pocket.  To be fair, our QB is phenomenal, and probably had 400 yards of total offense himself.  The Coogs put up 14 points in the first quarter, another 14 points in the 2nd quarter, and kept building all game long.  With 5 minutes left, I went down on the track to put away my Cougar flags, and they still scored once or twice again in that time.  It is a totally different feeling down on the field, almost magnetic.  You can feel the tension and the release as they got near the endzone and then the screams as they scored, it was a weird feeling.  I loved seeing the boy's faces smiling as they knew they did a good job.

    Making the night more special was that it was Homecoming night, and the stands were as filled as I have seen them for any game involving our boys.  It helped that it was a beautiful night for football.  It probably started at 7:30pm with a temperature around 85 and ended with a nice cool 75 at 10:30pm.  All the facets of high school football were there.  The band was in full uniforms, they have a competition this weekend, the Tex-ann's did their usual stunning work, the cheerleaders took care of business on the sidelines, and even the crowd was rowdy and on their feet the whole game long.  It was really a perfect night for the Cougars.

    Here is to hoping they can do this a few more times this season.  Winning tastes good.

9/28/22 FInally Over All The Knee Stuff?

     OMG, I hope we are finally over the knee stuff.  Mijo has lost about half his football season already.  What started as a minor knee injury has turned into a much longer series, but I think we are finally over it.  After hurting his knee, we took him to the doctor, they determined nothing was broken or torn, so it should have healed within a couple weeks.  This did not seem to be the case, so we went to a specialist, he said basically the same thing, to maybe give it a couple more weeks, so we did.  He did say if the pain persisted, we could consider doing an MRI, to which I thought meant we were going to have to go somewhere else, maybe a hospital, so I held back.  After no improvement, we opted for the MRI, I was a bit bothered to know they did the MRI right there, in the same office.  It should have been done right away.  Either way, it did not show any damage, again, but Mijo was still saying it kind of hurt.

    This then got us on the path to try physical therapy, which I liked, they were showing him how to strengthen the other muscles around the knee, such as his gluteus maximus, which are large muscles and the do a lot, when properly formed.  We did this for about three weeks, and although it was super early, I didn't mind much if it meant getting him stronger and back in action.  It was going fine, but not miraculously improving, as I hoped.  Last week, all of a sudden, he developed a cyst/boil behind his knee.  I thought it could just be poked and bled, but everyone thought I was dumb.  That is exactly what they did, the doctor did minor surgery, lanced the boil in the fat part and squeezed all the juicy bits out.

    This now seems to be what is called a baker's cyst, which are very common with knee injuries.  After a knee injury, extra fluid from the knee has to go somewhere, and a lot of the time, it just pools behind the knee.  This is a good safe place for this to happen, there isn't much contact back here.  Once lanced, the knee almost magically started feeling tons better, to the point he was showing us how well he felt with no pain doing these really low squats in the kitchen.

    I am just glad the doctor gave him his blessing to get back on the field.  He will be playing tonight (Thursday), which is what the coach wanted, to get him involved for the district games.

9/27/22 Are Actual Pictures Still Worth Something?

     I don't know if I am wasting my money, but I went through the pictures taken all last wrestling season, by the team photographer, and I put together my version of a book for Mijo.  The pictures are a Hodge podge of action, some people have whole matches caught from start to finish and some of the kids barely have a picture or two.  I don't think this was intentional, some of the kids just got more attention as they found ways to win.

    Mijo was lucky enough to get plenty of attention when he fought, some based on him being the heavyweight, so it always seemed exciting to see what the big boys were going to do.  Honestly, the lighter weights have a more athletic, almost artistic way of fighting, being that they contort and bend while controlling their bodies to perfection.  With the heavyweights, a lot of times it was just two bulls pushing back and forth to see which one would tire out first and give in to the more fit person.

    That aside, I used Shutterfly for my projects, I chose it randomly and it has been alright, thus far, other than they tend to charge a lot for shipping and delivery.  Putting the book together was fairly straightforward, they have a template, it is up to the person doing the work to decide how many pictures per page.  I did vary it between pages that had up to four images to some where there was just one blown up picture that tok all of the page.  I went 27 pages long; I think the book starts with 20 pages and more can be added at a cost.  I would have preferred to have added all the pictures taken, but I really don't know half the kids, so putting them on a book seemed weird, why save them for later, if we don't know their names now?

    Aside from the book, I also ordered some large pictures from some of the images we have taken recently.  I wanted a large 12x12 pic of Mijo with his 2 close friends in uniform and then Mijo took a cool pic from above his head with most of the linemen eating breakfast together one Saturday morning.

    I don't know if kids today prefer to just keep their pics in their cameras, but I feel some images should just exist in their world, where they can see them regularly, this is why I thought those pics were good to make into large prints.  I want to fill his walls by the time his senior season is done.

9/26/22 Finally, A Raise?

     Well, it was a long time coming, but we finally got a raise.  It wasn't some gigantic change your life type, but it was nice to see my salary going up, for once.  In the last 12 years or so, we had not gotten a raise and had actually gotten two salary reductions.  IT sounds bad, but I guess in the moment it seemed right.  The first pay cut was at a point when it seemed like our company was going under.  The solution they came up with was to do pay cuts across the board.  It sucked at the time, I lost 25% of my salary, 10%, which most everybody did, then my 15%-night shift differential.  I managed to bitch and moan my way back to my 15% differential back, but then because I was no longer working from 7:00pm to 7:00am, it was taken away in the last year or so.  I did not fight that one too badly, I did manage to keep 10% differential, and that means I work until 11:00pm, theoretically.

    The raise basically gives me back what was taken when I lost the night shift differential, which I guess is fine.  For a long time, I was fighting for every nickel and dime I could get my hands on, but now that Wife is doing good, I have stopped fighting for more money.  I am comfortable in the job I have and what I do.  I have kept it out in the open that I leave early, I mentioned it to our CEO yesterday, I don't want him acting like it is new information if he decides to use it later as punishment.  The "leaving early" thing started with Covid, and basically, we were told to get whatever needed to be done and due the next day taken care of, then feel free to go home.  This was mostly to reduce the interactions and reduce the spread of Covid, I guess.  What it did, was change the way we work.  I used to work following the clock, knowing I was going to be there 10-12 hours, I would do all my prep before lunch, take a decent lunch, then I could plan on coming back after lunch, sitting on the tool with a Netflix/Hulu movie or show and pace the work until the end of my shift.

    Now, the plan is to come in and start running the tool as fast as possible.  I may have half the job prepped if it has many samples, well, I will start the sequence and as the samples keep getting prepared, they are getting analyzed.  Nowadays, I just don't think about going to the breakroom for coffee or killing time like before.  I don't even think about turning on a computer for entertainment.  I stay focused hard on prepping whatever needs to be prepped and running it on the analysis tool.  I also have been running both analysis tools at the same time to finish in half the time.  This means the work gets done, but in half the time, most nights, which translates to me being home in time to eat dinner with my family.

9/25/22 Busy Homecoming Week?

     Well, we started Homecoming week with a bang, I guess.  Some of the booster club moms thought it would be fun if w we went and decorated their locker rooms in Cougar stuff.  What we ended up doing was hanging a bunch of streamers and balloons in the jock corridor of the school.  We did finally get a view of the boy's locker room and where they keep their football gear.  It was nice to see Mijo's locker decorated with last week's dress shirt and tie plus one of his belts.  By the time we left, I did go ahead and grab the dirty clothes to bring home and wash.

    We all did what we could, probably favoring our kid a bit more.  One of the moms was not shy, she put about 7 balloons and a door streamer thing on his locker and left.  The rest of us tried making all of the lockers a bit more festive.  We didn't buy anything new, but Wife had bought so many extra streamers for the mum we're still working on, that I decided to take all the extra stuff and hang it up around the lockers.  We did put a little extra around Mijo's locker, but it was a cheesy gold streamer that I couldn't figure what to do with as far as the mum was concerned.  I thought it made sense his locker has the dance squad motif because he is dating a dancer.

    My other thought was to put candies in all their lockers, so we bought a couple bags of Halloween candies and placed some in every locker.  I want these kids to remember they are still kids at heart.  Give your best on the field, but I also hope you are enjoying your time while doing this.  I kind of was surprised at the birthday party when they were all suddenly playing freeze tag, which is a kid's game, but they are all still kiddos, it was cute, other than when the 250 pounder is barreling at you at full speed.

    As far as preparations, I have mentioned it to mom, they are coming for the game, whether he plays or not.  I asked his brother if he wanted to come to the game, I didn't get a yes, but I also didn't get a no, so I will call this a possible maybe.  I am not sure if Wife has invited her folks, but that could be another wad of people to come and watch.  What we need is a win, these guys have worked tirelessly all summer, they need to see some victories to match the sacrifices and hard work they do.  Here's to hope.

9/24/22 Party At The Swoop House?

     We went to a party in a semi weird location, for us.  This Swoop house, as it is called, is a house in East Austin that is basically downtown, but since it is on the East side, it is still hidden and surrounded by trees.  It felt like we were out in the country somewhere, even though there was a lifted road almost over the road we drove in on.  I was honestly a bit confused because the party was for the girl Mijo is dating, although it is complicated in that the parents haven't outright given their blessing, so the relationship is kind of hidden from them.  Adding to that, we now know the parents and they come and talk to us at every game and function we see them at, but according to Mijo we are not to discuss them, so we just keep acting dumb, even though we know they aren't fond of Mijo, or they don't want their Mija dating.  It is all annoying and both Wife and I just want to scream "WHY DON"T YOU LIKE MIJO, EVERYONE LOVES HIM?"  

    Other than that small fact, the party was kind of cool, well, it started at 7:00pm and when we got there it was just hot, and humid, and we were all supposed to hang out outside.  There was one small dining area in the house, but the party was clearly meant to be had outside.  Before the sun went down, all of the East side mosquitos had a nice drink of my type O+ blood or whatever I have and fattened up for the winter, both Wife and I got bit so many times, I stopped fighting it, even after applying half a bottle of OFF.  By the end of the night, most of the mosquitos had filled with our blood and the weather cooled just enough to make being outside tolerable, I still wanted to stay inside every time I went to go get more food.

    It is a smallish house, but it has a large catering kitchen, and the island was filled with food.  I guess they had a small kitchen crew that stayed hidden or blended in, I never noticed who was doing it, but every time I went back for more food (and I did because it was a chance to be in A/C), the food was restocked.  Because it was a girl's birthday, the main serving was salad, but there was plenty of chicken, beef, bacon, and all the other stuff you put on salads to make it worth my while.  She also loves macaroni salad, so there was a giant bowl of it, and it was actually pretty good, I usually avoid it and just consider it filler.  There was this wavy tray that held hard shell tacos already prepared, so I grabbed a couple, then some bean filled quesadillas that were technically vegan, but I ate about 8-9 thinking they were bean cincos or something.

    I guess because she had her dance squad there, the big thing was dancing, once it got dark, the Tex-anns took over the dance floor and danced everything from Queen to cumbias to country.  It was fun seeing Mijo dancing first with his boys on the edge of the dance floor and finally dancing a song or two with his girl.

    The only rough part was that there seemed to be no ending for this party, and we did have to be up early for yet another booster activity in the morning.  We left the party at midnight, headed home, got in bed after taking a shower, I needed it after all those bug bites and tons of OFF on my skin.

9/23/22 Too Busy Lately?

     No matter what happens in the moment, life keeps going.  After Mijo's minor surgery (doc's words), I took him back to school, he said he had ACC classes and those can't be excused like his high school classes.  he made it until 2:00pm, then called me to go pick him up, he was in pain from walking around and I guess the Lidocaine wearing off where he was cut.  This is how I know he was in pain, I have never picked him up when he didn't say he was hungry, could we pick something up.  After getting in car and lining up at the Walgreen's to pick up his prescription, I asked if he wanted Bill Miller, we were right next to it, and he actually said no, he just wanted to go home and lay down.  That had to be a first for our Gordito who never turns down food.  Don't worry, but the time we actually got the meds five minutes later, he had changed his mind and asked to get him something before taking him home.

    I went to work after, but we have not had too much work, so I was able to get back home at a decent time, in case he needed something.  The rest was good for him, and the cyst seems to be healing nicely.  We changed the bandages Friday afternoon, and most of the area looked dead, none of it was pulsing and angry like it was prior to the lancing.  I had to remove this fat thread the doctor had pushed into his skin, and that was pain for Mijo and gross for me.  It was about 10 inches of maybe quarter inch thread that probably had antibacterial properties and soaked up some of the blood.  There was a tiny bit of blood that started coming out after I pulled on it, but I just rewrapped it to apply pressure on it.  I know how injuries work, I've had a few, and pressure always seems to stop the bleeding, but I was still half expecting the wrap to be soaked in blood before the end of the night.

    Part of the reason we changed the bandages was because we were invited to a party, and he needed to dress up.  Well, I am not sure he needed to dress up, but it was his girlfriend's birthday party and I wanted him looking his best, even after hearing there was going to be a bouncy house.  I mean a bouncy house for an 18-yr old sounds extra to me, but it was cute and the mostly girls did all charge in there and jumped to the point of almost flipping it sideways.  There was also a lot of freeze tag, which I hadn't seen since I was in 5th grade, probably, they were having fun.  I liked that the kids were mostly all the wrestler girls and some of the Tex-anns, the drill/dance squad, so we knew most everybody or enough to feel at home.

    I was worried about Mijo's cyst area, but once they got to running, we weren't able to stop him, testosterone took over, we just tried not to stand up and walk where they were running, all around us.  At one point, Mijo's friend, who is also a lineman and about 220 pounds came barreling at a parent sitting next to me.  He just closed his eyes expecting to be injured, but the kid cut left and narrowly missed.  He would have taken out the dad and the table if he hadn't stopped.

    The next day it was great to see the cut only bled a tiny amount, probably when I replaced the bandages, and Saturday afternoon it looked mostly dry.  The tiny stab cut the doctor made was the only place it still looked moist, but I am hoping it'll be dry by today.  The way he was running around Friday at the party, in dress clothes, I see no reason why he couldn't dress out and play, he as soaked in sweat by the end of the night, never mind the nice clothes and tie he had walked in with.

9/22/22 Signs From Above?

     I consider myself atheist, but maybe I am wrong.  This football season has been a pain in the ass with Mijo and keeping him healthy to play football.  He already lost most of August practice, which is fine, he knows the plays and even with missing all that conditioning, he is in better shape than most of the other line men.  Along with that, he also missed the first three games, I believe, it all becomes a blur when you are in the middle of it.  As a parent, nothing really changes, we make the games on time, we move our schedules around, then hope for the best.

    It seemed like we were past the worst of it after last week's game.  Mijo was finally on the field, he was a tad slow, but nothing he can't improve on.  We even had a long weekend to recuperate, they played on Thursday, and even this week is a bye, so they haven't had practice, which is nice to give the boys a break.  All seemed well, except he developed a cyst/boil thing behind his knee on the same leg he has had all his problems.  He really hadn't said anything, instead, we find out Monday when the trainer sends Wife a text and a picture of the infected area.  She called it a staph infection; I just likened it to a boil that needed to be lanced.  I described it to people at work and one of them said it looks like MERSA, which can be deadly, it's how my grandma went, but at that I told her to slow down, he does have an appointment to see a doctor (yesterday at 5:00pm, CVS Minute Clinic).

    The Minute Clinic turned out to be a dud, kind of.  They saw the thing and called it a baker's cyst, which is collected fluid from the knee that pools somewhere else, usually the back of the knee.  The doctor there would not lance it, feeling it was more than he could handle.  I was a little disappointed because to me it still doesn't look like that big a deal and I didn't want to end up in a hospital for this minor looking thing.  Luckily, we had a follow up visit with the orthopedic, to see how he is doing post MRI.  I usually don't like going back to the dc once the injury is healed, but in this case, I hoped it went exactly as it went.

    The doc saw the cyst and immediately began going into a setup for minor surgery.  This must be what doctors live for.  A little poking and cutting to make people feel better.  After gathering the proper gauze, knives, gloves and supplies, they numbed the area with a couple shots, then came back and cut it open.  They kept asking me if I wanted to step out, it might get gory, but I was fine.  There was a lot of blood and crud that came out, after squeezing it as much as he could, the doctor bandaged him up and sent him on his way.

    The doctors (there were two, one was an assistant that did the work) both said he probably won't be able to play next week, but then one said maybe, if the thing scabs over and heals.  I am hoping he can get in there and play, but I understand if he can't.

9/21/22 Worse Than An Old Man?

     I swear, right now, with one thing after another, Baby A is worse than my dad with all the doctor visits.  This week, for example, we have physical therapy (PT), on Tuesday and Friday at 7:30am-8:30am.  We also have a follow-up appointment with the knee specialist on Thursday at 8:30am.  He wanted to see him two weeks after the last visit when we got the MRI results back.  Now, all of a sudden, he developed a nasty "boil", I am calling it, but the trainer at school called it a staph infection.  It looks like a giant pimple without a head to pop.

    I was trying to ignore this one, figuring the doctor on Thursday could see it, but both Wife and Mijo are saying he is a bone specialist, he couldn't possibly handle a skin infection.  So, it means we get to go back to another doctor.  I tried scheduling a visit to the Victory Medical Center out on Westlake, but they had no availability for today (Wednesday), so I fell back on the CVS minute clinic, which I figure handles skin stuff on the daily.  I really hesitate to go there because last time I did, the nurse practitioner swore I was on my last legs, she didn't think I was even fit enough to drive myself to the hospital, I was so fat and out of shape.  Turns out I have an irregular heartbeat, doctor at the hospital chuckled and sent me home.  I literally had my mom crying on the phone, as I was telling her I probably wouldn't make it to the evening.  Five years later, I still hesitate to go back.

    Anyways, this is not about me, so I will go with Mijo, hopefully, get an ointment to clear this up, and hopefully, we can move this thing along.  This boy went all the way up until a few months ago never needing to see any type of doctor, now he spends as much time as my diabetic dad at clinics.  The one good thing I can say is that the PT must really be working, he says he is now to just some dull pain when he goes thru football motions like squatting and pushing off his left leg.

    The PT did say that after Friday we might be able to stop going, at least take next week off and see where we are at.  I say good, those visits are costing $150 each time and they are not covered by Wife's shitty insurance.

9/20/22 A Lot Of TikToks On This?

     I guess now that the Roe V. Wade thing has settled down a bit, people are starting to have discussions more intelligently than the screaming at each other that had been occurring up until now.  One big facet I am enjoying, not that it would affect me, is the discussion that says women can opt out of motherhood by turning to an abortion for whatever reason, whether the baby was created under horrible conditions such as rape, or more ludicrous reasons, such as a vacation has been planned for the summer and a baby in the belly would ruin the pictures.

    The same is not true for a man, and somehow in the calculations, this is not fair.  Men right now, cannot opt out of the obligation of having to pay for a child they may not want.  The only person with a choice is the woman, she can say yes or no to a pregnancy, but a man cannot say yes or no to paying for the child.  The discussion should at least be possible, if a man automatically is "captured" for 18 years, or more, to pay for this child, he should get some say in deciding whether the baby should be allowed to be born.

    I am not trying to say that the man should get the last word, but the child is not solely the domain of a woman, if the man is going to be expected to provide for this child until it grows up.  I also feel that now that the science exists and has been tested, DNA tests should become the norm.  It is unfair to have a man raise a child that is not his thru deception.  I am not talking about deciding to adopt or foster, or any other myriad circumstances where outsiders end up helping to raise children.  I mean when they specifically think the progeny are theirs, but they are not.  This should be known up front, a man can still "step up" and be a loving and caring father, but it should not be thru lies on the part of the woman.

    While we are at it, the courts shouldn't be forcing men to pay for children that aren't theirs thru threats of going to jail.  It is possible a person was raising a child fully thinking they were his children only to find out they were being lied to all along.  When and if this comes out, the courts should not be blind and keep punishing this man, it's not like they obligate the woman to keep having sex with him, which honestly should be part of the exchange.

9/19/22 Bona Fide Fire Alarm?

     This might be the first or second time in the whole time I have been working with this company that I had to evacuate the building on a for real basis.  A few times over the years, we have had the practice evacuation, but this was for real.  There is never a best time for an emergency, but I guess today, when it happened, was about as good as it could have been.  I left work at 5:00pm to go pick up Mijo from school.  This is their bye week, so they are not having practice after school.  Because practice normally goes until after 7:00pm, Wife is the one lucky enough to go pick him up.  This being a much earlier time, I have to leave work and go get him.  Problem was that he was chasing around his little gf, so when I went to go get him, he was busy walking around with her.  I waited for about 10 minutes, then when he said he needed more time, I told him he could then wait for his mom who was going to go to campus and attend the booster club meeting.  I decided to be good and head back to work.

    I went to work, stopped at the bathroom, then ran into a coworker and we stopped to talk in the hallway for 10 minutes or so.  We don't see each other all the time, she is in imaging, I am in chemistry, but we both have been a pain in the butt chasing management for a raise.  It seems we are finally about to get one here in a couple of weeks.

    Anyways, when I headed into the chemistry room, I got some gloves and was all set to start work when a weird flashing light with a siren started wailing.  It was loud enough that I wasn't going to ignore it.  I headed out, my coworker did the same thing.  We went out a door I had never opened before, which was cool.  We then waited about 20 minutes out in the parking lot, then my coworker started making some calls.  We got word the alarm was caused by an air handler up in the attic, but that is all we heard.  It took a few more minutes, but eventually they told us to go back to work.  I went and did all my routine stuff, putting on yet another set of gloves.  I didn't even get to wash these gloves on my hands when the alarm went off again.  Not knowing if it was related to the original one, or a new location, I said "screw it, I am done."

    I decided to leave because two alarms in one day is more than I want to handle.  My thought was "what if it keeps happening?"  I certainly don't want to be hearing the weird alarm high pitch noise all evening.

9/18/22 Cable Might Be Cheaper?

     Shit, I thought we could save money by not having cable.  We got tired of paying $250 or more back when we still had cable about a year ago, and up until now, it seemed like a good enough deal to live without it.  All that has seemed to change now that Mijo and I are starting to watch football again.  Suddenly, I was scrambling to try and get the UT game on TV, but that did not work out.  I looked around and supposedly we could have bought YouTube TV and they had the game on, but that was over $89 a month, which does not make sense.  I also tried FUBU TV and that was even more expensive.  I could not in good conscience just sign up for a monthly fee of almost $100 for the privilege of watching some football.

    Instead, we waited, and although we did not see the Longhorns, there were other games to watch, if we had wanted to.  Saturdays are full of different college teams, and I know UT has some agreement with the Longhorn network where they show like two games solely on that channel, and this week was one of them.  Normally, their games will be on more normal channels, so it won't be that hard to watch them.

    I was really shocked to find that signing up for FUBU, which I think is all sports, costs near $100 a month.  For that matter, I could have kept U-Verse without the internet and phone, and it would probably have been close to $100 a month, but we would have all the other channels as well, not just the ESPN ones.

    I know I don't miss those commercials though.  Tonight, while watching the Sunday night game with Mijo we saw another stupid commercial with a girl as QB, ughh, those type of commercials bother me because we don't have to see women occupy every position of man, do we?  I would challenge a woman to get in there with the men of the NFL and try to compete.  Those are elite men, the best of the best that are produced from the thousands of kids that start playing since they can walk.  These men are stronger and faster and more reactive than anyone else on the planet, they really are the best of us physically, no offense, but for a woman to try and fit in would be a case of suicide.  Yes, women can compete with men in almost any other arena, but that is what makes football so special, it really only takes the best players.

9/17/22 Old Fashioned Birthday Party?

     Saturday, we found ourselves at a birthday party for one of Mijo's friends who just turned 18.  It was a nice party; we weren't even sure if we were going to go until the last minute.  I woke up early, like I do on the weekends, drank my coffee, looked up stuff like I always do online, then by 11:00am, I fell asleep trying to watch some college football.  I figured my peeps would come down any minute, so I fell asleep with the thought they would wake me in 20-30 minutes.  I ended up sleeping until 1:30pm, when I got up because I needed to go pee.  About that time, Wife texted if we were even home, I guess it was too quiet for her.  I told her yes, as I settled in front of the computer.  A few minutes later, Mijo came downstairs all dressed up, he never wears nice shirts without arguing with us first.

    He was all expecting us to be ready to go, after all, he had said we were going to go to the party, even if he never gave us a time.  Wife had already showered, so when she came downstairs, she turned right back around and went and put some makeup on.  I went and showered and got dressed as well.  As we were heading to the door, the parents called to ask if we were going to go.  Wife told her Mijo had not told us what time, but we were on our way.

    It was a nice time, most all the boys we see and argue with on a daily basis were there, so we knew most of them.  The birthday boy had a brother there we hadn't met, and there was another kid that was a friend who wasn't on the team that we didn't know either.  We finally got a chance to eat some of these wings I had heard so much about, Mijo actually told me the mom there made better wings than me, which I had found insulting until I tried them.  It is weird, but she says she boils them first, then when the meat is cooked thru, she will throw them on the grill to get them a little crispy on the outside, get a little char going.  I have to admit, the wings were great, the meat was still juicy, there was a little grill flavor, I was impressed.

    It was a nice time, we sat and talked to the parents for over four hours, Wife kept going and going.  I did not plan on staying there all afternoon, I thought we would say hi, taste a wing, then leave, but before I know it, it was almost 8:00pm.  We came home, Mijo made some story of needing to come home and write a paper, so we were all home and done for the evening by 9:00pm.  We did pick up some 1st Wok (Chinese food) before going home.  Wife and I ended the night watching a cool movie.

9/16/22 Getting Too Old For This Shit?

     It is a cliche line, but it felt so true today.  Thursday games are good and bad.  I kind of like that the game is over and we can have the weekend to relax.  When games are on Fridays, we then have to plan and take Mijo to campus on Saturday mornings and then wait to go get him at noon, so even part of Saturday gets taken away.  Playing on Thursdays means that they have their team meetings and reviews of the game on Friday during their class.  We then get the Friday evening off and no shenanigans on Saturday.  The bad part is that the games do go on kind of late, and it isn't odd to still be up after midnight eating dinner and trying to get to bed.

    If that wasn't tough enough, this was Mijo's first game back, so he is still not in shape because he has not been practicing every day, and running, and doing all the conditioning he was used to doing.  On top of that, he had physical therapy this morning, which meant we had to get up at 6:30am to get there before 7:30am.  I wasn't doing anything, other than staying awake, but I still feel like I should be in the room with him.  We did the hour, his school trainer showed up, she wanted to see what they are doing, and maybe incorporate some of the stuff to what she does at school.  I thought it was awesome for her to show up, she has been wonderful in helping Mijo recover.

    After dropping off Big Boy at school, I ran over to a bakery and got some pan dulce for my coffee and went home.  I managed to eat a couple pieces, and enjoy my coffee, but I could not focus or write or do anything productive on the computer, so I went to bed.  I slept until around 11:00am, when Wife texted me that she was up.  I took a shower, I had not since we got back from the game or before going to the PT in the morning, so I am sure I was stinky, the game had been so muggy and warm.

    We went to a couple of Halloween stores, before it was time to go pick up Mijo from school.  He wanted to get picked up at 3:00pm, which we did, then we stopped to eat at Bill Miller.  The meal was fine, but we got home, and I went right back to bed.  I only got up around 6:30pm because I had to go to the bathroom.  I am now sitting here writing my thoughts and musings over the last two days and starting to wonder what we are going to eat for dinner.

9/15/22 They Need To Believe?

     It was another heart wrenching loss for our Cougars this Thursday night.  This one hurt because the boys were so great in the first quarter, Mijo was finally back in the lineup, the line looked a little tougher, but we should have known trouble was lurking, even while looking at them warm up.  With Wife not going to work the whole week, she is now mostly recovered from Covid, we were able to head to the game early, for once.  I enjoyed myself walking around, setting up my flags here and there, to add some color and spirit to our side of the bleachers.  While they were warming up, one of our linemen got injured to the point he was carried away in the golfcart stretcher.  It might end up just being cramps, but even then, Mijo took a month to get over the one he got at the UT camp.

    Anyways, the game started out as good as any game has.  Our first play was a bomb, about 40-yard pass, then before we could stop clapping for that one, the QB took off on a run, and got into the endzone.  We got off to a 7-0 start.  The other team took about ten minutes, but eventually got in the endzone too.  We got the ball back and again, in the first play, our QB took off for another 70-yard run and scored again.  When the other team got the ball, we intercepted and yet again, the ball was returned all the way for a third score.  By the end of the 1st quarter, we were up 28-7.  That sounds like the stuff of champions, I thought having Mijo in the lineup is making a difference, he has opened up some running lanes for our star to capitalize on.

    Not so fast, the magic wore off, and they did not score any more the rest of the game.  Slowly, the other team got back in it, they scored a TD in the second quarter, it took them another 8 minutes or so.  Then they did an offsides kick and totally surprised our guys, who did not even attempt to field the ball.  The recovered it and scored again before the half.  They then got the ball back at the start of the second half with a score of 20-28, they scored again and even made a 2-point conversion to tie the game.  They then kept scoring and we kept making mistakes.  There were too many penalties to even think about winning, not blaming the refs, but it is hard to sustain drives when every series is stopped, and the refs are moving the ball back and forth.

    These boys have to start believing they can win, there are too many self-doubters and when one thing doesn't go their way, the whole thing just crumbles.  They need to learn that the game is a bunch of ups and downs, they will lead, and they will fall behind, it is part of the game.  They should have won this one, they weren't defeated by their opponent, they defeated themselves.

9/14/22 Second Physical Therapy Visit?

 This second visit on Tuesday this week was more to what I thought would be going on while visiting a physical therapist.  The first visit was very slow, and the PT spent time figuring out where it hurt Mijo on his knee.  He then used some inflatable cuffs on his thighs to cut off circulation to his knees.  This starving of blood to the extremities causes a rush of blood after, which is theoretically going to help Mijo to see an improvement to the rate of getting better.  Because the therapy on the first attempt was all fancy stuff with the inflatable cuffs around his thighs, and being that they constrict on their own, it seemed like there was nothing to learn and make sure he incorporates new exercises at home, I figured I was just a taxi for him.

    This time around, there was a slow start to the workout, mostly because the trainer was splitting his time with Mijo and another young lady.  He started by riding a stationary bike, with the cuffs and although he was supposed to do a fourteen-minute ride, Mijo about got off the bike at 7 minutes, half the time given.  The cuffs affected him to the point that this is where his legs reached exhaustion.  He is a big boy, but I know he was routinely running a mile every chance he got around the neighborhood, so these cuffs must be doing something for him to tire out that quickly.

    At this point, it got interesting, as he took off the fancy electronics and went to a more traditional therapy, using some bands around his knees and then feet.  The knees around his knees give tension and pull his legs together.  He was told to do about ten yards of a crab like walk, stretching out his leg against the cuff, then bringing the other leg towards it, but maintaining tension.  Then he was to do it in the other direction.  After this, he moved the cuff to his feet and did what I thought was the best exercise, where he keeps one foot stationary and with the other, he kicks it out about a foot in a 45-degree direction and then back in about 6 inches, keeping tension on the cuff/band thingy.  After doing about 10 of these, do the same thing directly out to his side, then about 45 degrees to the back.  This tension is supposed to be felt in the butt muscles which are very large muscles and can help ease the load from the knees when strengthened properly.

    The PT told him to do these exercises about 3 times a day, in the morning, before starting football practice, and then at night.  I am hoping these exercises get him the strength he needs to get over this injury and maybe even gives him an edge come wrestling season.

9/13/22 Covid Is Still A Thing?

     I know it is still technically around, but come on, people are so over this BS.  However, it turns out Wife finally caught the infamous virus, after avoiding it since it first started.  I am still surprised when I hear someone has not had it, and there are a few people who have managed to avoid it.  Just over the weekend, we went walking around the mall, maybe it was last weekend, but anyway, we walked through the furniture section at Dillard's and ran into the sales lady we bought a few living room chairs and other stuff when we first moved.  I honestly hadn't seen her in a couple years and thought maybe she had retired or moved.  She said she was well and when we got talking on the subject, she said she had not gotten it.  My coworker also told me yesterday that he too has not had it.  There is also most of Wife's family who have not gotten it even though one works in a bank, one works in a cafeteria, and the brother works in a hospital.

    Wife came down sick on Saturday evening, after spending the day buying homecoming mum stuff, she said she felt tired and worn out, so she went to bed early.  She didn't throw up or anything dramatic, but she said she had fever and was burning up all night.  Sunday seemed to be a little better, she stayed up in the room, but by evening, she came down and sat with us to eat dinner.  This was quickly followed by going back upstairs and again going to bed early.  I thought she should have stayed home, but the boss in her wouldn't let her take it easy, she went to work saying she felt better.

    At work, one of the lady's involved with Covid testing happened to come to her office and she mentioned she might be sick so keep your distance.  This prompted the Covid expert to test for Covid, of course.  She tested positive after a few hours and by the time I was driving to work around 1:00pm, she was headed home, grounded for the next week.  Now we are Wednesday, and if this started on Saturday, she is a good four days into having contracted the virus.  Last night, she said she still felt weak and took it easy.  It is 10:30am and I am just now hearing hr step around upstairs, I am hoping all the extra sleep have her feeling better today.

   At this moment, Mijo and I feel fine, I don't think we have gotten infected.  I don't want to test because I feel those tests are designed to give a positive result, as in better safe than sorry, but who has time to stop living for a week?  I am adding that the newest version of Covid, Omicron or whatever it is called now, doesn't appear to be as deadly, so it is mostly just a fancy cold now.  That is at least my interpretation.

9/12/22 Living Without Cable?

     I thought I was fine living without cable and for the most part, I don't miss the commercials and BS being passed off as entertainment nowadays but wanting to get back into the NFL and even college games has me second guessing myself.  The biggest part is that we have a projector as our main "TV", so anything we see has to go through the PS4 or when we used to have cable, a cable box.  I am fully aware that we can use "rabbit ears" here in a big city and get decent reception to watch the local channels, CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox.  The problem comes because of the projector, it does not have channel capability, so unless I can figure out something, maybe an old VCR with modern connections, I don't know how to make the antenna work.

    The next best thing was to fall back to the plasma we have in another room.  It works fine, but even at 50", it seems small compared to our projector in the main living room, where I have my ghetto bed to lie on.  Still, we persevered and even if I wasn't happy that the Longhorns ultimately lost, it was a very good game, and I was glad we were able to watch most of it, especially with Mijo actually being interested, other Mijo never cared for this type of entertainment.

    I did go to Best Buy early on Sunday and tried to find a solution, but even asking the guy working the TV section, there seemed to be no clear solution.  I would have bought a DVR device, if the guy had said it could take an antenna connection, but he seemed at a loss for a solution.  I only say this because it is about the only other thing they sell on the floor other than TVs.  I bought a fancy new antenna thinking it would give me better reception, but I did not really see an improvement, other than I didn't have goofy ears blocking the front of the screen.

    Watching a few minutes of commercials was cringy enough for me.  Men aren't heroes anymore, on any storyline.  Women are in the constant front seat, taking care of business, it made me glad enough that I am not paying for cable anymore.  Like I told Mijo at a certain point, the NFL does not discriminate, if a woman can run a 4.2 and take a hit, every team would be interested, but this is where reality creeps in.  I love every type of woman, but we are not the same, this BS of anything you can do, we can do better has to stop, we are all losing.

9/11/22 Working On Building A Mum For Homecoming?

     After constantly asking Mijo about the girlfriend situation for three years, now we are paying for it.  He has a little girlfriend, and we are trying to do things right.  The latest thing is a Texas mum for Homecoming, which is in and of itself a big deal.  We looked into it, and they are not what they used to be.  Prices we saw online were easily over $300, which did not seem right, until we went and priced some things out.

    Mijo decided we could do one at home, so I looked at some videos and agreed, but wow, the cost is almost all material.  Wife and I went to Michael's Saturday morning, while he was at the game review at 10:00am.  Just getting basics, and I thought Wife was overdoing it, we easily spent over $200.  This was not all, we then went to Hobby Lobby and spent another $50.  This does include a new glue gun, and some new scissors, for the job, but even subtracting that out, we are still over $200, and I know we already need some more acetate ribbon, as they refer to it.

    Youtube is so great for stuff like this.  I saw about 3-4 videos and almost felt like an expert myself.  Apparently, the mum is built in sections.  There is a mum head, where the flower is installed and the mum body, which are all the hanging ribbons and stuff.  The consensus seems to be that 3 cardboard body parts are needed.  The mum head is first decorated and then attached to one of the round cardboards, then all the ribbons are glued to a second identical cardboard layout, about the size of the mum.  A third is then used to hide all the gluing and stapling and this is where the hanging mechanism that will hold the mum to the girl will go.

    Last night, (Saturday night) Mijo and I worked on building a good-looking base for the mum and attached more ribbons than I thought possible to about an 8-inch disk of cardboard.  I thought Wife was nuts buying 4 of each of all the gold, yellow, and brown ribbons the stores had, but we used up 90% of everything.  The ones we didn't use were just because Mijo did not like the goofy footballs printed on them.

    We are waiting on a crafts stapler to come in the mail, tomorrow (Monday) to really attach everything and put the head and body together.  I don't trust the glue will make it through an average high school day hanging on a busy girl, hence, I want to staple everything, then seal it up, like the examples showed.  After this, we will add the finishing touches, like gluing a small cougar head to the center of the mum, and all sorts of bells and shiny things, to really make it pop.

9/10/22 Llano Did What They Do?

     Last night was a hard game, but nothing that wasn't expected.  They beat us by a huge margin last year, so I fully expected about the same thing, and they delivered, beating us I think 51-13.  Part of the problem is obviously the offensive line, missing 2 of its starters and a 3rd one playing in pain.  I think a bigger problem is the lack of tackling skills on the defensive side of the ball.  On a lot of dinky runs, the defender who first touches the runner with the ball just runs into them, there is no wrapping or intention of stopping the play.

    My first reaction was "wow, none of these kids are really big nor do they look like specimens or playmakers.  They were all just regular kids who play the game well and must be coached even better.  They stick to their assignments and follow a play through.  It was hard seeing our star QB not even having a second or two to think in the backfield, the offensive line was just porous and any and all defenders were getting through.  That is not completely true, I did see an initial block of the front 3 guys being held, but I am guessing they were just blitzing and sending different guys in at will, which worked more times than not.

    As Wife was saying and I agreed with her, they weren't as bad as the score shows, we were inside the 5-yard line at least two other times where we failed to score.  The score could have easily been 35-51, which is still a loss, but not as bad.  They are honestly missing the big guys up front with all their skill and experience.

    I know Wife can't control her job, she has to work until 4:30pm and then the traffic is just shitty on the freeway, especially on a Friday afternoon when everyone is rushing home for the weekend.  I just hate getting to the game after it has already started, and that seems to happen every time out on House Park, because it is further from the house, and we have to drive into downtown Austin.  I guess we get to repeat the arrangement again next week, when we start district play at the same stadium.

    The boys are still hopeful, I think, of making a playoff run, the district competition is nowhere near as good as some of these smaller schools that really gel together.  I imagine that like my mom says, kids back home are playing with the same guys since they start playing in 1st grade, so they really know each other's abilities.  We are working in a huge city where we just get an influx of change every year, it is very hard to build this way.  I could also add that because of financial situations, many of what could be players simply choose to grow up and join the workforce instead of playing a game.  I get it, money is more important at some point, but I wish these kids could just finish high school being kids and enjoying their youth.

9/9/22 First Visit To Physical Therapist?

     Nothing is easy in life, and this was no exception.  After about 6 weeks, and an MRI that shows nothing is physically wrong with our boy's knee, he is still feeling pain, so a physical therapist was suggested.  We went to about five different locations before I felt comfortable enough to say yes and give our information out.

    There are actually several PT offices all around us, on William Cannon, there seems to be one in every little shopping center.  We went to one that was an old Pizza Hut, but it had a sad feeling like the building felt it should still have an oven making pizzas.  We then went to one that was newer but the clientele that was there, and maybe it is because it was 2:00 in the afternoon, did not impress me.  There was an old lady right as we came in talking in that loud almost obnoxious smoker's throaty sound that drowns out any decent thought or conversation and then looking around and seeing mostly elderly gave me the feeling that a thick jock would not be something they are used to working with.  Some of the other places just said they were booked, or we would have to call a different office to book appointments.  Finally, I thought of a coworker who is also going to see a PT, and she had said it is nothing but young people, like she was the only old person there.  We went over there after getting the information and they also had super early hours to boot.  This means we can get him seen and out the door and he doesn't even miss school time.  

    We got there about 7:15am and walked in the door, but there was no person in the front.  We sat for a minute or two, I was thinking the receptionist was maybe in the bathroom, but after a while, we heard noises coming from the back.  I peeked in and there was a guy there, he was friendly enough and was awaiting us.  Mijo took his dress clothes off and got to work.  I thought it was going to be some stretches and stuff we could do at home, but things are way too high tech nowadays.  He mentioned using the BFR method.  BFR stands for Blood Flow Restriction, and then proceeded to give our boy some straps that inflate around his thighs using a computer device.  This is to starve the area of oxygen while making the muscles do some exercise.  He never even got off the massage table.  He just did some hip thrusts up in the air, about five sets of 15 or so.  It didn't look like much, but big boy was sweating it out towards the end.

    The PT guy also tested the strength of both legs with another device he strapped to a stool and with one leg at a time, he would kick out and that tool told him how much force he is generating.  His left leg (injured one) has about half the force of the normal right one.  These are things they can measure and improve over time.  I want Mijo on the field but even more important, I don't want this injury to be nagging him all year, so this is good.

9/8/22 Meet The Teachers?

     Thursday night was the last Meet the Teachers for us, and it was a good one, although the humidity was a huge pain the ass.  Knowing the event was coming, both Wife and I prepared by planning our days to get out a little early from work and be there.  We have been kind of slow for the last couple weeks, so I did whatever new work we had and called it a day by 5:30pm.  Wife had gotten on the road a little earlier than me.  We both got home about the same time, probably about 5:50pm.

    We headed to the school and entered through the entrance we use most often, over by the gym.  There is a walkway that leads to the cafeteria.  We went in and were surprised at how quiet everything seemed.  We went past the cafeteria and just kept walking.  Eventually, we ran into a custodian and random people that seemed too in a hurry to stop and help us.  About the only thing I could think of was to call Mijo and find out where everyone was.  Turns out, we needed to go further into the school, it is a lot bigger than it seems.  Before we knew it, we walked up some stairs and we were suddenly where everyone was, there was the noise and bustle of about 100 kids and parents buzzing about.

    Mijo was working a table with his girl to try and recruit wrestlers to the team.  By the time we got there, he said about 5 guys and a girl had shown interest.  I really want the team to grow, last year there were some weight classes that did not have a fighter and that doesn't help when trying to win as a team.

    Our son gave us his schedule and away we went.  It has been the same thing every year, everyone always enjoys having him in class, he participates, is not a distraction, and shows tendencies of being a leader, we are constantly told.  All the teachers seem to know us, I guess because we are at all the functions Mijo participates in.  We were getting greeted by other parents who I had no idea if I knew them or not, so I just kept a smile on my face and did my best happy to see you face.

    The day ended a little earlier than normal, so we left to eat before 7:30pm and went all the way out to Zaxby's over by Cabela's.  We got back home by 8:30pm, I was in and out of sleep almost immediately because we had our first physical therapy training session Friday morning at 7:30am.

9/7/22 New Helmet For Our Knucklehead?

     I am glad they are treating the head as a more important part of the body in football nowadays.  With that, Mijo is on the third generation of helmets since he started playing, which I guess is a good thing.  I am hoping these new helmets tested better than the ones Mijo was calling "Speedflex".  As early as eighth grade, he had been wanting one of these "Speedflex" helmets and he finally got one his sophomore year, when they also put him on the varsity squad.  I am guessing the helmet has been doing its job more or less, when used correctly.

    He has a friend on the line who last week disappeared Wednesday through Friday, he was not picking up his phone, he did not show up to school and missed the game on Thursday night.  Turns out, his parents took him to the doctor to get his head examined, he is on his fourth concussion and was having migraines last week, which prompted his mom to take him to the emergency room.  This is one of Mijo's closer friends, so we know him well enough.  Our boy says he is the hardest hitter on the team, but he is reckless, he will go at a tackle with no regard for himself and manages to bust his head against opponents all the time.  Not in a spearing fashion, but he is still rattling his brain every time he makes contact.  Our son says he uses his hands to bring the guy under control, but this kid is using his body which is more jarring.  I worry that maybe he should hang up his cleats and call it a season, for his own good, especially when he says he is not thinking about playing in college, he is just too accident prone.

    Mijo is still on the fence about continuing to play.  He will commit if there is a scholarship to help him pay for school, but if not, then he would be fine without football.  If he goes to Texas State as just a student, I am sure he will still tryout for the wrestling team they have, if not outright invited.

    It is rough for the coaches, with this being a poorer school, coach was telling us the budget he works with and right off the top, as an example, he buys 8-10 new helmets every year to put into circulation.  These run almost $300, so there goes almost $3000 before the season even starts.  I am glad Mijo gets dibs on the good equipment, which I asked him "wouldn't it be fair to give these new helmets to the guys wearing the buckets (term he uses for the old-style helmets)?"  He said no, the good shit is for the guys that play, not for the ones on the sidelines.  Kind of a dick answer, but it does make sense.

9/6/22 New Motivation To Get Exercising?

     I can't or won't say I am going to get in shape, I just can't seem to do it and stay there, but I think I can get to the point of not huffing and puffing so much.  If I discovered anything this weekend, it is that I am not prepared to be walking around some theme park, especially during the hottest months of the year.  Going to the UT game this Saturday had me walking from the baseball parking lots across the freeway over and to the UT campus.  It was probably about a mile, but man, add in some topography and all the small elevation changes had me about dying.

    It was no better once we got inside the stadium as there were stairs everywhere.  It seems like underneath it would just be one level, but no, the guts pretty much follow the lay of the land and even if we were talking and distracted with so much fanfare, I noticed every time we had to go up or down.  Because of this, I am going to have to start getting my heart pumping regularly.  I have a treadmill, I just also have zero interest in using it, but if it means the difference between huffing and puffing in front of Mijo's classmates, then I have to do something, so I am not the weakest link.

    This all stems from conversations that Wife and the booster club mom keep having.  Wife mentioned to her that we were going to go to Disney and take a couple of Mijo's friends, and she turned that into a great idea for the Senior trip.  This chick gets shit done, she was telling us she is already in contacts with Disney and how much would an all-inclusive package run per kid.  I am not sure how many kids would even be able to go, I wouldn't want to be in charge of more than the handful of boys that I know, girls are a whole other matter.  You can yell at boys, or I can set Mijo on them and they will listen, but girls are on a whole other level, you can't yell at them or they spazz out.  Still, the point is the wheels are now in motion for a bigger trip than I was thinking.

    I don't want to be the lead parents on this thing but judging by the attendance of how many parents have shown up to the first few senior events, I can't imagine other parents stepping up.  This may mean that like it or not, we will have to be on our toes, keeping up with a group of young idiots in a new land.  At least it is early enough that I can plan out a strategy and get on that treadmill.

9/5/22 My Age Is Showing?

     This weekend was great and there was a lot of football in it, but for all the highs, there must be some lows.  We started this 5-day weekend (for me), on Thursday.  I told my supervisor I was going to need a handful of Thursdays since half of Mijo's games are on those nights.  I hadn't quite made the connection that this was going to be a long weekend because of the Labor Day holiday.  As an added bonus, Wife took the day off, Thursday morning we also had the MRI results, so she was anxious to know and be there with us, in case it did turn out to be some devastating news.  The results showed no tears or breaks, so he should be recovering, it is just his pain receptors slowing him down.

    Back to football, the Thursday night game in Cedar Creek was supposed to start at 7:30pm, but because of lightning, it was postponed to almost 9:00pm.  Since the Coogs ended up winning, the game ending almost at midnight did not hurt as badly.  Mijo and Wife did not get to bed until almost 1:30am, and they still had school on Friday.  I thought I would have it easy, but I have to get up to take Mijo to school before 9:00am, then once I got up, I felt compelled to clean.  The day passed and I barely got a chance to nap, I think I laid down for 40 minutes maybe at 5:00pm, before Wife got home.  We grilled and were in bed fairly early, because a friend of mine invited us to go watch the Longhorns at the stadium, so that made for another long day.

    Saturday, we spent the day preparing, going, and then coming back home around 10:00pm.  I can't say we did anything requiring more than walking, but come Sunday, I was drained.  Wife then added that we were meeting her family in New Braunfels for lunch, so there went my lazy Sunday afternoon.  We went and met them around 1:30pm at Sea Island, ate and were back by 4:30pm.  At that point, I did manage to take a nap for about 2 hours as did Wife and Mijo might have too, he was quietly in his room.  When we did get up around 7:00pm, Mijo asked if we would go pick up his friend, we did, then we stopped to eat at Jersey Mike's and got back home before 9:00pm.

    It was a quiet night; the friend came over because they have plans to go to the mall and hang out with other friends, so we went up to the bedroom and I was honestly out by 9:30pm.  I did get up a couple of times, Wife was still watching TV around 10:30pm, but I just wanted to sleep.  I got up at 9:00am, and honestly, it is now 11:00am and I feel like I could go back to bed for a bit.

9/4/22 An Invitation To The Orange Castle? (Part 2 of 2)

     The castle refers to Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium, the UT Longhorns football field, which is really its own thing.  It was big when I went to school there, seating I think something like 80,000 people in the early 90's, but now it has been expanded and bloated up to allow over 100,000 people to attend.  This is a massive space for a maximum of six UT games a year.

    We arrived probably by 4:45pm, I drove us, and my friend suggested we park in the baseball field parking lot.  Parking was a hefty $40, but what can you do, everything was going to be extra for this event.  Walking was a lot more than I expected, he talked of shuttle buses, but I did not see any.  Instead, we walked, and boy, did we.  We had to cross I-35.  Before we could do that, we had sideways where the freeway goes up and we could walk underneath.  It felt like we walked more than a mile, but who knows.  I do know that I am out of shape cow, and I paid for it.

    Once at the stadium, it is a totally different world.  Everyone is dressed in their best orange wear; nobody is showing poor.  This is the type of event that you only come to if you got some nickels to rub together, the idea of homeless walking around ruining the afternoon didn't even enter my mind.  We had to stand outside for a few minutes, but everywhere, it was like a carnival going on.  Getting inside is what made me think of a castle.  As big as the stadium and seating are, it is just as big on the inside.  It is a hollow cavity almost all the way around.  There are museums dedicated to the old teams, stores to sell tons of Longhorns merch and a different concession stand every 10 yards.  There are steps up and down everywhere.  It doesn't look like it, but there are at least 10 floors to the building, I know because the Cougars were working one of the concession stands, up on the 10th floor and we foolishly walked up to it, thinking it was only one floor up from our 6th floor.

    I thought the whole day was worth it, when Mijo saw the field and his eyes lit up.  After walking around the inside for about 10-15 minutes, we randomly popped ourselves in to see where we were in relation to the field.  We were a good distance away from our section, but by seeing, we were able to get our bearings and continue walking.

    Once we got to our section, we had a private club to go in and eat for free.  This sounds much fancier than it was.  There were way too many people, and fancy or not, too many humans is going to make a space hot and uncomfortable.  Still, we ate from the buffet, burgers, hotdogs, and corndogs.  There were a lot of other options, but I was not going to go and get in another line for prime rib or whatever the fancy meat was.  I was also scared of eating and then having to use the bathroom, so I just ate a little bit.

    The seats were great though, we had a straight view of the jumbo screen, and we did have a great time watching the game.  Mijo was excited the whole time.  We might have to do this again soon.

9/3/22 An Invitation To The Orange Castle? (Part 1 of 2)

     I have one good adult male friend that I talk to outside of work and everything else.  We used to work together maybe 20 years ago when I first started with AMD.  He is a huge Longhorns fan and over the last few years, he has been inviting me to attend a game with him.  I kept saying no, mostly because I don't like the idea of big crowds and being away from the comfort of home.  Well, things changed when Baby A declared that he would like to see a UT game live, so he could see first-hand how fast D1 athletes move.

    Before we even get there, I was still hesitant.  It just seemed to happen by the stars aligning just right.  As soon as Mijo said he was interested in a game, my friend happened to call and offered his usual invite.  I might have surprised him by saying yes, and how much will my part be, so I can pay you back.  He said to give him a headcount, was Wife going to join or just two tickets?  Wife thought about volunteering for the Cougars booster club, they were there, on the 10th floor, but already had enough volunteers.  Wife chose to stay home and catch up with work.

    The game was set for Saturday evening at 7:30pm.  Being naive about the whole thing, when my friend asked what time, I was almost thinking getting there at 7:00pm, but then I noticed TikToks and Snapchat images of people already there at 2:00pm.  It felt like we were missing out on the festivities.  I decided that maybe 5:30pm would be better, then maybe even earlier would be good.  We discussed the time, and how to get there.  Since he bought the tickets, I felt obligated to say I would drive us there.  He said he would come over to the house at 4:30pm, and then we could go whenever we were ready.

    I kept looking over images online, I wanted to know what to expect.  I noticed everybody wearing burnt orange, so I told Wife I was going to run out to Dillard's and buy us some new shirts.  She decided to join me.  We went and found a great shirt and shorts for Mijo, but my fat ass had to settle for a T-shirt from DXL, the fat man's store up north.  Still, we both looked the part.  We got back home from our clothes shopping by 12:30pm.  This left just enough time to pick up Mijo and go have a little lunch, which we did at Mucho Taco.  We were home by 2:00pm, I showered and grabbed all my stuff, like my watch and extra cash, then laid down for a nap about 3:00pm.  I napped for about 45 minutes to get ready for the evening.

9/2/22 Like A Phoenix, A New Team Arose?

     We can't possibly take any credit for the win, it was all on the team on the field, but Wife started talking about the team being cursed, so she went all Mama Voodoo and broke out some herbs and holy water on Thursday morning before we took Mijo to school.  Well, before we headed off to school, we had an appointment with the ortho doc to see the results of his MRI.  We were super excited to see that there was no structural damage, all his tendons, muscles, and ligaments looked as solid as the doc hoped they would.  There is just a persistent pain when he loads the leg with weight, such as trying to pivot or squat.  All we can do is keep waiting and maybe try some more aggressive physical therapy, which we scheduled him for later in the day.

    Wife also took a bottle of holy water to one of the Hispanic coaches that believes in such things.  I am still skeptical, but I am open minded enough to know I don't know everything.  Word from some other parent is that the coach did go through and bless the player's dressing room, but I have no proof of it.  Either way, by game time a change was in the air.

    We got to the stadium in Cedar Creek, by Bastrop at around 7:15pm and thought it was weird that the stadium was empty, but there were a bunch of cars.  We got off and were told by some police officers to stay in our cars, the game was postponed because of lightning.  Every lightning strike would delay the game another 30 minutes.  We got all the way to almost 8:30pm with no rain, but thunder and lightning in the distance, the cloud show was dramatic and beautiful, since we were outside enjoying it.

    We were finally allowed into the stadium about 8:30pm or so, and the game started before 9:00pm.  It was a lot of back and forth, but we finally managed a score on a 3rd and long, our QB took off on a broken play and went about 50 yards for a TD.  They scored in the next series, but they were not dominant in any kind of way.  I would say the teams were evenly matched.  Some of these schools just run their schemes to perfection, this was not one of those games, but it was a lot of fun and nerves seeing them lead most of the half, expecting the wheels to come off the wagon.  They really did play as a team, there were no stupid penalties or unnecessary unsportsmanlike moments.  Even when the referees weren't being completely fair or the timekeeper seemed to be very generous with the time left, they still kept their cool on the field and won by outplaying them on the field.

9/1/22 Team Seems To Be Falling Apart?

     I don't even know who will be on the field tonight for the second game, considering how fast the boys seem to be disappearing.  Mijo is still out, although we do have the results of his MRI later today.  He is a guard on the line.  The two tackles, his close buddies, are injured as well, one in the arm and now shoulder, the other has a bad back that is preventing him from playing all game long.  The other senior on the line was demoted to 2nd string because of lack of conviction.  For the first game, they were going with up to four new freshmen and sophomores at times, which is a lot of inexperience.

    This week, the coaches did a sweep of the lockers and although nothing illegal was found, they did confiscate the protein powders and stuff like that.  This caused another of Mijo's senior friends to throw a tantrum and quit.  This kid talks non-stop of making gains and trying to get stronger even though he seems to stay a constant 150 pounds.  He still is a good player and fills one of the starting linebacker roles.  I don't know if he will come back to the team or if he is done.  My son is close to him, but he could not find him yesterday to talk to him, either on campus or on the phone.  His reaction was a very emotional immature one, I am sure when he cools off, he will fill remorse, but ego might also keep him from apologizing and coming back.  Who knows, the coach might not want him back, he has done stuff like this before, last year he quit on the wrestling team, although we blamed it on what was going on at home.

    Mijo had also said that if he quit, the seniors would all follow him.  This pissed me off, that he is even entertaining these types of thoughts, to which he said he wouldn't, and it was just his teammates joking around, although he has mentioned it a couple times now.  According to him, now that several seniors got cars over the summer, they would prefer to be working so they can have gas money and enjoy their cars.

    It is a rough feeling, the varsity team is only about 45 kids, which doesn't leave a lot of extras floating around and honestly, not all are really even varsity level kids.  One of Mijo's closer friends who is a sophomore is being promoted up to varsity when the district games start, because he is such a hard worker, but the aunt texted us, that he seems to be faking injuries, they took him to the doctor for an injury, and the doctor said there was no indication of a bad arm or whatever it was and even the last concussion seemed to maybe having been a faked one.  The kid is severely undersized, for a lineman, I wouldn't want to go against some of these animals on the line, if I only weighed 180 pounds.  Even Mijo, who seems small in height, is still a solid 260 pounds right now and hits like a brick.

    Football is glamorous in some respects, but never forget that first and foremost, it is a violent sport and people that play it must do so at their own will.