3/21/15 Old Pipes Or A Monster Poop?

    Wife thinks this is funny, as I was stressing on how to fix my dilemma, she is waiting for a high five from me dead panning "write a blog on this, mofo!!"   So here goes....

    I don't think I did anything different, I did my business after a hardy breakfast and some coffee, we were going to take it easy on Wednesday as it was supposed to rain, so our plan was to sleep late, then maybe go for a cruise.  Maybe I used too much paper to clean up but when I went to flush, it did that very depressing circle around then slowly rise.  It did not work.  I was like "dammit!!"  At the house, it happens rarely, and one or two pumps of the plunger, and the mess flushes itself, almost apologizing for any inconvenience to me.

    This was not one of those poops, this one was angry and held strong.  I tried flushing maybe twice, then doing the plunger thing.  I almost panicked, yelled at Wife, she has to give me crap "what?, where are you?"  When I'm agitated, stupid questions are not what I want to hear "how big is this place, if I call you, don't you think I need you?"  Eventually, she comes over and really what is she gonna do other than gag and bring Chubs in as spectator???  She did suggest, just shower, the water will go down, then do the plunger when the water is low.  I looked at her with save me in my eyes, but I know she wasn't going in there.

    I showered, closed the lid on the toilet, and by this point, I had even turned off the water at the wall because the water came up to within about half an inch of escaping the toilet sanctuary.  It was scary, I thought I was clever, flushing and figuring if water comes up, just pull up floating ball in upper tank.  It stops the water, but then what?  If it is not leaving the bowl, it just stays there, and I wasn't going to stand there all day holding the floating ball.  I figured if I turned off the water, problem gone.  Sure enough, after I showered, the water had come down.  I attempted to plunge it, but without water there is nothing to push on.  I flushed it again, and the water was back up to the top of the rim, before I turned it off again.

    This is now about an hour later, I am running out of ideas.  At a certain point, I am scooping out water and stuff with a styrofoam Buc-ee's cup and ferrying it to the other toilet, with the trash can underneath, this really was the shit from hell.  After removing most of the floating debris, I plunged it about ten times, and still nothing.  If I was home, I would have run to Home Depot and bought a "snake" to run down the pipe, but this is not my home.  I did the only thing left for me to do, involve another man.  I called the maintenance office, hoping a burly man answered, no some Sweety-Pie answered and I had to explain what was going on.  I repeated "the plunger ain't gonna cut it, send a guy with a snake or what ever you use".  She said OK.  

    I told Chubs, sorry guy, but I am going to throw you under the bus, he said "what?  I didn't do it!"  I sat there, like a mom, watching my baby turd holding on for dear life, by now we've bonded, it's been closer to two hours.  The door knocks, Chubs opens the door and very quickly starts "umm Sir, it wasn't me, it was my dad, he wants to blame me, but I didn't do it!!!"  I just think "little shit", then might as well just be grown up about it.  Explained to the older man that I had been working that plunger for an hour and change and nothing.

    He was the coolest man I've ever met in a time of distress.  He said it wasn't me, it was probably the pipes, they are old.  Then he said in a high rise building, plunging never works.  What you have to do is stick the plunger in and get a sort of vibration going, he did a motion for about ten seconds, then he flushed, and voila, unclogged.  He asked if we needed new towels or anything else, I said no, I was smart enough to keep everything inside the toilet.  Ten minutes later, we were out on a cruise, looking for a salad to eat, just to clean out my pipes.

3/20/15 Moody Gardens Is Old-ish But Still Kinda Cool?

    We went to both of the Moody Garden pyramids this past week.  One of the pyramids is dedicated to marine life, while the other focuses on the different rain forests.  Both have a main job of conserving endangered species of animals and plants.   The Moody Gardens area has itself grown a lot, Schlitterbahn is right outside the doors of the pyramids, along with various theater venues in IMAX, 3D, and 4D variations, a spa and hotel, golf course, and of course a zip line course for the cooler kids.

    The marine pyramid was divided into four sections.  One had an aquarium with sea lions, one was a huge aquarium with a tunnel going right through and had probably a hundred species, with 4-5 different shark varieties.  Then there was a good sized exhibit with the various sizes of penguins, from emperor on down.  The final exhibit was kind of a mangrove outcropping, but maybe it was under construction as not much appeared to be happening.  It had mangrove trees like in the Florida everglades, where the roots are supposed to be home to many species of animals.

    The tunnel of glass with aquarium all around was great, probably spent half an hour just following the different sharks and manta rays both easily in the 7ft range swimming around like they owned the place.  Along the way, there were also many smaller aquariums/exhibits showing smaller sealife, such as octopi, jellyfish, baby sharks that were born in house.  Maybe the one negative was the smell, it was very fishy, and I wasn't sure whether to blame the penguins or the sea lions but man!!!

    The other pyramid was very different, you enter a long hall way going around the pyramid and along the way there are small habitats for snakes and critters, but also a lot of interesting information on the walls.  After going a ways, there is a staircase that takes you up, and when you get upstairs, there is a set of doors that takes you out into the clear glass pyramid.  You start out on the second level and the first thing that hits you is the heat, all week it has been in the 70s, it was 95 degrees and 50% humidity in there, for the sake of the plants and animals.  I broke into a sweat quick.  There are small vents that push cooler air and I found myself looking for that cool air as I moved through.  After awhile you go around, then back into a building of sorts, walk down and comeback out in the lower level.  They really do pack a lot of interesting stuff into these two pyramids.  My favorite part was seeing the vampire bats and as we were there, one of the employees went in to change their food, blood, and all the bats went into a se ction and stayed together.  Once she was done, they spread apart and were happy to be doing their own thing.  This habitat was much bigger than the one at the San Antonio Zoo, other place I have seen vampire bats.  Plus they had a blue light instead of the creepy red light.

    I was suggesting to my wife that she should bring kids to see this, she agreed it was fun and informative, two criteria for summer field trips which she is in charge of from time to time.   We ended the day there by sitting outside watching the sun go down and some serius fog coming in as we drank some soda.  Chubs of course waited patiently so he could start whining again about going to Target to get another action figure from Assassin's Creed, his newest video game interest.  Yeah, as much as the last sentence doesn't fit the tone of the blog, is exactly how he sounded as we were trying to enjoy our evening.  

3/19/15 Chubs Is Maturing?

    Chubs is starting to show signs of maturing.  Or at least hitting those terrible years of being a teenager.  While walking around that small outlet mall, we/he decided it was time for a wallet.  We went into Coach because mijo should have the nicest, but the wallets in there were between $128 and $159.  Even at 50% off, it was not going too happen.

    We went to a couple other places, and eventually he found a wallet while I turned my back on them for a minute.  Wife found one with a pocket for change.  No way would I have talked him into that, but he still values quarters, so he was excited.

    Wife also gave him the change, wallet was only $7, and she must have paid with a $10 as there were two dollars to dispose of, and gues where the two dollars went?  That's right, Chubs was now a powerful member of the buying public.  With his new riches he "needed" to go back to Toys R Us, and check it out.  Of course, nothing is that cheap in that store, as he found out.  We left, but oh man, that wallet is burning on his leg.  He keeps checking it and suggesting places we might want to go where he can spend some money.  We are on this island with hardly any stores, so he hasn't had luck, and Wife keeps giving him change.  Last he mentioned, he was up to $26.  This is all Wife as I haven't had any cash in hand.  I am punishing myself, until I get some OT money.

    Another sign of him becoming a pre-teen.  After we were done at the Moody Gardens Aquarium, he threw a fit.  He wanted to go to the movies, the Moody Gardens advertises an IMAX theatre, but they show ocean movies and those type, not really anything like Spongebob.  Anyways, he managed to work himself into a fit, and before we knew it he was actually crying in the back seat.  I stopped for gas, at a newer gas station with the attached Burger King and Wife suggested a soda or something.  He wasn't done tantrumming in the back seat, so she went in by herself.  After I was done cleaning the window and gassing, I told him going in or sitting here by yourself?  If you stay out here you are not leaving the car, those bums might steal you.  He jumped out of the car, and followed me in.

    Once he ate a burger and drank his soda, he was much better, he made up some lame excuse that he misses his house.  

    He has also been taking swipes at me, I'll make some lame joke to tease him and he'll punch me.  When we said pool was too cold, we walked over, told him to stick his foot in water, he stood there accepting that it was cold, I made some joke about him being an ice cube floating on top of the pool, he flails his arms at me, and hit me.  I'm a big boy, he's not going to hurt me, but I don't want this becoming the norm, that he hits when he has run out of words to use.  He is a work in progress, and eventually he will be as smooth and debonaire as our other son.

    We always joke that Boy is like a robot, or like the tin man, Chubs appears to be all feelings, maybe he is the cowardly lion.  I might be one man short in my quest of conquering Oz.

3/18/15 Are We Having Fun?

    We have been on vacation since Saturday.  It has been nice to change our routine, but I am not sure if we are having fun.  We are in a nice spacious condo, we stopped and got plenty of snacks and food, we have money to do activities, but so far, I can say I would almost prefer to be in Austin.  I am not a fan of all the hoopla downtown with SXSW, or whatever, but I do miss what we do.  Whether it be going to a bookstore, getting some "pan dulce" to enjoy over the weekend, maybe catching a movie at Alamo Drafthouse, going to eat at one of our regular places, or just sitting around the house with all the freedoms of having a good wifi signal.

    Wifi has been the greatest new thing of the last five-ten years.  Everything runs faster because of it.  Our phones have 3G/4G blah blah blah, and it works great around town and even in restaurants, but as soon as we get in the condo, it goes blind.  We bought Chubs a "cheap" phone since he is only ten a year and a half ago, but he is the only one sitting in here watching Netflix through his phone.  The wife and I have "better" phones and I can't even open Facebook.  Netflix, of course runs on most our TVs at home, and all our recorded programming is on those damned cable boxes, but we can't touch them until we get back.

    On top of that, the weather has not been above 75 for any amount of time, so going and getting wet on the beach is not gonna happen.  I was discussing it with Wife and in years past when we come on vacation with family or friends, we might let them take the lead and if they wanted to go to the beach, we would do it, and I might even get wet, to not be the lame one in the group.  But on our own, ehh, why go get wet and risk getting sick, or get all that sand in the car?

    Don't get me wrong, cruising around the island has been fun-ish, specially with the top down on our VW Bug.  Moody Gardens Aquarium was bigger than I thought, and it was free, after listening to a sales pitch at our timeshare, we did have a good time though the smell of fish was intoxicating.   We went and rode the ferry yesterday afternoon, and it was dark by the time we made it back from the other side where it drops you off.  It is a much longer ride than the ferry in Corpus, and the boats have a second story viewing deck, which we went and took some pictures from, but coming down Wife scraped the back of her legs (above the ankles) pretty bad.  The steps are covered with a very rough texture, almost like sand paper, to prevent people from slipping and Wife managed to step too close with both feet, and rubbed off a bunch of skin.  It's one of those situations where I look at her like "dammit, I should've left you in the car".  I know it's mean, but she had one job, walk down some stairs, and get back to the car.  Ten minutes later, we were buying peroxide and band aids and dressing material.  I was glad it didn't require a visit to the hospital.  I would have spit on it and kept going, but we are all different.

    I miss Boy too.  He wouldn't hesitate to force us into Houston.  He would just say I need some pants or a belt and that would be enough to get in that traffic from hell to find a good mall.  We were going to go to Houston Zoo, and I even got up early yesterday, but by the time we showered and ate, it was near 2pm.  I  refuse to get caught in the traffic so on the island we stay.  We ventured in as far as the nearest Buc-ee's as there was an outlet mall, but it was tiny compared to the one in San Marcos.  There was a sign of a large mall and the building was, but it was also abandoned.  There is no lonelier site than a mall that is just down to a Sears and a Gold's Gym.  The Sears had like 8 cars outside it, and the gym about 15 cars.  We didn't even get off, it was kind of scary and sad.

3//17/15 Not Impressed With Galveston So Far?

    We are here in Galveston on Spring Break vacation.   I love our accomadations, it is a two bedroom, two bath condo with a living room and small kitchen, all maybe in 800 spuare feet.  Perfect for vacationing.  We invited my folks, who I thought were going to come, they joined us last year, but turns out because of different scheduled Spring Breaks (they babysit for my sister) could not join.  Boy was supposed to come and in years past, would bring along a friend, but alas, he is a grown man with goals and agendas of his own.  He decided to stay behind and make some money for his own vacation come May (going to Disney with his friends).   At the last minute, I left open invites with two of our friends, but they both work and couldn't just up and leave like in years past.

    So it is us three, and the tone is very relaxed.  Chubs is over in the second bedroom watching TV at about 3am as of right this minute.  I had fallen asleep at 1030pm, but I told Wife I'd probably wake up around 2am to write a blog or two and that is exactly what happened.  We don't really have a schedule to keep.  Other than this afternoon which we went and listened to their pitch, they called last night when we got in that their had been changes in how they classify things and it would be in our best interest to listen to their latest pitch, I would have ignored it, but they offered tickets to Moody Gardens which my wife looked up and were worth $60 apiece.  I figure for a savings of $180 I can kill about two hours.  We were out of there and came to chill for awhile in the condo.

    Around four, we headed out for a cruise with the top down, got about 4-5 miles down the road, and I had to pull over and close the top, although there was somewhat a partly cloudy afternoon, the wind was still too chilly to enjoy the day, convertible style.  It was OK, we went down along Seawall Drive, which is like Ocean Drive in Corpus.  We stopped at a certain point and took a couple pictures, and then continued further.  My big problem is the signs that say you have to call with your phone and pay to park along the Seawall.  It doesn't say how much, and I don't know that I want to stop for more than 10-15 minutes to check out the bikini girls.  But I am also cheap and untrusting, I don't want to pay by phone, then they have my credit card number, who's to say they don't charge for a longer time?

    I don't recall seeing it before, but it also seemed very chaotic, at a certain point, going east.  It was touristy, then all of a sudden, there were tons of people.  There were people sitting on their hoods like they were waiting for a parade or something.  Cars blasting music left and right, groups of Mustangs screeching their wheels at lights.  People just crossing the street anywhere, like they owned the road.  The whole scene was not really a family feel, it was a youth feeling, maybe because it is Spring Break, and there weren't enough parents around.  I have not had that feeling in Corpus Christi, which is our usual destination for Spring Break.  I'm not ready to give up, we have all week, hopefully the crowds thin a bit during the week.  I still intend to be a tourist, but I prefer to not be surrounded by other tourists.  I know life doesn't work that way.

3/16/15 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Started Strong?

    I just finished watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and I started out liking it a lot, but I felt the writing got sloppier and the acting  just got goofier towards the end.  The premise is a group of females is rescued from a crazed end of the world type by a swat force.  We then follow the Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) character after she goes to one of those morning shows in New York.  She has an awakening and decides she needs to start her life NOW.  She decides not to head back to the small town they were from and thus prooceeds to make her life in the big city.

    She encounters one off beat character after another.  First, the drugged out hippy landlord (Carol Kane) who has a room to rent, but she will have to room with the guy living there, Titus, an over the top gay black dude who breaks into singing often and for no reason.   He starts out "normal" but as the episodes progress, he gets zanier and farcical, ending on the finale by falling down and farting on national TV.  Then comes in her employer (Jane Krakowski), who is cold, and callous, but by the end of the season is dimwitted and having nonsensical flashbacks of her indian heritage.

    Kimmy becomes a nanny for a rich woman, but is often missing and leaving her roommate to tend to the kids while she is busy saving the day/moment in every episode.  This moves forward until the last three or four episodes are about the trial of the man that had them locked up under ground.  He turns out to be Jon Hamm who cleans up nice (always plays a beautiful man, although with Tina Fey, he tends to be goofy).  He has the jury eating out of his hand, and the all in the court love him, he will surely go free unless Kimmy goes and tells the truth.

    The rest of the season (15-16 episodes) have her discovering her first kiss, dealing with issues the kids she is baby-sitting have, helping the Jane character deal with her cheating husband, helping her roommate Titus believe in himself so he can pursue his dream and become an actor.  Some of the episodes were good and focused on the premise that Kimmy had been "underground" since she was fifteen, such as still looking for her first kiss.  Other episodes were kind of good, her scheming with and against the kids, seeing who could outsmart who.

    But then the story lines just went and got rid of the kids, the guys interested in her, and seemed to focus on Kimmy confronting the Jon Hamm character.  She went back home, her "step-dad" showed up and these are the kind of characters the lost my interest in 30 Rock, which was also another Tina Fey project, her step dad was a bumbling, fumbling cop who "does heroin" to prove he's not a cop, loses his gun for no reason, chases a cat up a tree, starts a fire, all for no real reason to the story, other than to be "funny", which was not really.

    I'm not sure if there will be a second season, I do enjoy Ellie Kemper, she was also cute and perky on the Office, and I do think Tina Fey can write well, but maybe just write or act, doing both did no one any favors, and if the goal is to look "ugly" on TV, why bother, Tina Fey can be good looking, yet decided to be a lawyer with a horrible hairstyle, threw her back to the 70s with a huge perm thing on her head.  I'll watch a second season, but the goofy stuff is noot needed, it was entertaining enough just by letting the characters be themselves.  

3/15/15 Old School Fables 3?

    This is the tale of Zombie and Knucklehead.  It is very similar to the grasshopper and the ant, I admit.  But it is on my mind, my blog, so I will tell it.
    Zombie was an ornery fellow, although he was young, he didn't much fancy the temptations of youth.  He was disgusted by loud celebrations unless the noise was caused by things going boom, he did love stuff that blew up.  He got himself to school and pushed himself.  He was not the best reader, but he knew that if he did not do well, manual labor was probably in store. He was a zombie and his favorite snack was cheap brains, he loved money because he had figured Amazon had the best brains and he could order them in bulk, when he had money.
    Knucklehead, on the other hand, was good looking and a fast talker.  He was not interested in schools, brains, or anything that required his concentration for more than five minutes.  He could be seen often shaking his money maker out at the clubs where other knuckleheads hung out.  He didn't know this but when one knucklehead hangs with another knucklehead, nothing good happens.  They get exponentially dumber.  Like one has a bad idea, feeds it to the next, and he/she makes it worst.  Of course, because Knucklehead is attractive, other knuckleheads are always calling him out.  He doesn't know the word no, so he goes out every time.  This of course traps him further in his crappy job because he is never rested and thus is always stuck doing menial labor.
    Some time goes by, as it always does, Zombie is still shitty and unfriendly, but now he has finished school, he can get that job that pays him to play video games while he eats brains and even has a nanny to cut up little hamster brains to feed his baby zombies without getting his fingers dirty.  Life is good for Zombie, he takes frequent vacations to soccer matches because zombies love crowds and the potential for mayhem.  Soccer matches always have a chance of live human brains falling out of a unwary fan getting hit by hooligans.
    Poor Knucklehead, he had a good job crushing cans with his head when cars started being made out of aluminum, but some engineer figured a hammer was just as good, so Knucklehead was let go.  Sometimes he gets to wash cars, but he complains that it is cold in the winter and hot in the summer, so really there's like one week in May that is perfect and that is when he works.  Rest of the time, he is on disability.  In the fall sometimes he finds work as a nutcracker, but people know hammers do a better job, but he is still kinda cute, so some people employ him, until he complains of the headaches and migraines.
    Is there a lesson to be learned?  Yes.  Zombie needs to venture out, live a little, maybe try a kidney or a liver, why always brains?????  Knucklehead needs to be an individual who strives for something.  Focus on a little schooling now so that you're not making money the hard way in the future.  Sure, it seems fun to do what the cool kids are doing, but the cool kids will probably be doing the same thing in ten years.  And seriously Zombie, you don't have a disease, you just insist on being a jerk, cut it out, you're not special, make friends with more people and maybe get that stick out of your ass, that's why you're always in a bad mood.