3/15/21 Grilling One Way Or Another?

     I finally bit the bullet today and spent the afternoon taking apart my pellet grill.  It has really sucked not being able to fire it up and make steaks at will.  To offset my pain, I suggested to Wife that we would get a fire going on our old charcoal grill and she could make our meats while I worked on dismantling the pellet grill to find what the problem is.  That worked out pretty good, and before nighttime I had taken it apart and removed the parts I wanted to get to.

    It was one of those days, we left the house with the idea of eating lunch somewhere, but when we got out to Buda, I kind of wanted Chicken Express, the line was long, so I had joked about going to IHOP and Wife liked the idea.  We went in and it was supposed to be a thirty minute wait, but I couldn't do it.  I guess it has been awhile since we have been in a full restaurant, but I did not enjoy the intensity of a filled building and the couple of kids crying their freaking brains out.  While we were waiting, a few other parents with more shitty kids went in, and I did the math real quick, and figured those kids would be crying while we tried to eat.  Baby A was not comfortable either with people sitting on the long sofa in the waiting area next to him.  These people aren't very good with the 6ft spacing thing.  We left and for a minute got in line again at Chicken Express, but then Wife said "it's 2:00pm, why don't we just go to the HEB, get food to grill and go home and start the fire?"  That sounded like the best idea, I was already feeling like I was going to have to poop after eating, so there would have been no HEB if we picked up the chicken, I don't know where we would have eaten it.  Either way, we went to HEB and then headed home.

    Taking apart the pellet grill's auger is easy as I have already done it half a dozen times, but getting to the burn box where the ignitor coil is proved to be much more difficult.  If the grill was new, I could more easily have seen the different screws and worked from there, but at this point, there is so much soot and ash and black grime that it was very hard to figure anything out.  I used a bunch of Youtube videos to figure out how to remove the middle part, which was different than what I was thinking in my head.  I honestly am not sure if the problem is with the internal temperature probe or the ignitor coil, but based on the ER2 and ER5 messages, it is one or the other.  Fortunately, the temperature probe was very easy to remove, I hadn't noticed it attached to the wall of the grill, or I saw it but didn't realize it was a temperature probe.  I found both parts on Amazon, the probe for $11 and the ignitor coil came in a two pack for $21.99, so I will have a back up for next time.  Again, I am unsure if this is the problem, but everything else in the grill is just metal frame, unless it's the computer, but I don't think it is that.  Maybe the clean in itself is enough to bring it back to normal working order.

    This poor grill has been working overtime, as I was using it 4-6 times a week since August.  I was not surprised it stopped working, leaving it on for twelve hours at a time since like overkill, but that is what a brisket requires.  That is bad enough, although the temperature stays around 250, grilling steaks during the week is a lot more hot, I usually set the temp at 450 for that.  The ignitor coil was a little worn around the tip, so hopefully all this maintenance is all it will require.  If this doesn't fix it, I already have eyes on my next grill.  I saw one that is half pellet grill and half gas grill, that sounds interesting.  Add that I already have a charcoal and we even have an old electric George Foreman style and I could have all the different types of outdoor cooking at my disposal.  By the way, I have been buying extra bags of charcoal like I said I would to keep in the garage for emergencies.  I believe I am up to like 5-6 bags of charcoal lying around the house.  I still have to set up a space in the garage for them and set up my emergency stash which we figured we need after going through the freeze.

3/14/21 Preparing For Our First Vacation Trip In A Year?

     I am hesitant of the idea, but we will be heading out to our first vacation trip in over a year to Corpus Christi.  I don't know that it is fear over Covid-19 more than just becoming a homebody and I really just like being home.  We are doing this for a couple of reasons, first, I don't feel like we have done half as much with Baby A than we used to do with Boy.  Back when Boy was a teen, we had the boat and RV and we seemed to constantly be on the move doing this or that.  Boy still lives at home, but he mostly does his own thing with his gf and rarely joins us as a family.  That is fine, I am happy we still see him most every day, even if he doesn't join us.  Secondly, my folks ,sister and her family will be going to Corpus Christi, so we will have a chance to see and hang out with them.

    My parents still have an RV and the plan for them is to leave their RV for the summer months.  They are splitting the rent on the RV site with my sister, so it is not such a big burden.  This kind of makes me want to go and get another RV, but I know from history that owning one is a major pain in the ass.  It is fone when it is being used, but leaving it on the coast means it will have a lot of rust anywhere rust can form after the summer session.  There is then the problem of storing it and keeping an eye on it.  One year we had one of our units in storage and some junky jerk-offs tried breaking into it while we were on vacation in Florida.  All they managed to do was break the door lock and one of the windows.  They weren't able to get in it, but it was still a pain to deal with.  We ended up with a new door and window, and I don't believe the new door ever really fit right.  The first unit we had developed a leak around the door and the wood around it on the floor rotted and it cost us thousands to get out of it and into the 2nd unit.  With the rules here in Austin, it is really hard to keep a unit on your property, so you have to pay for storage and then with the unit not being close by, maintenance falls behind, at least it did with me.

    Anyways, as far as the trip this week, we went out and bought some new clothes yesterday, mostly shirts and I bought some collapsible fishing rods I can carry in a backpack, since we might end up going in our Ford Escape, Wife doesn't want to get sand in her Telluride.  Either way, I guess I am a little excited at the idea of checking out the beach, the fishing is going to be rough after the freeze killed so many fish, but I guess we will still try.  I know going to vacation with my folks is going to mean eating out most of our meals and that is okay, but like I said, I am really used to being home and just making and eating food at home.  This reminds me, I really need to figure out what is wrong with my pellet grill, I haven't used it in almost two weeks and that is really sucking.  I miss eating my steaks for lunch.

3/13/21 First Day Of Spring Break, For Me?

     I started my Spring Break basically last night, I went to work, but it was kind f a slow night, so I got home early.  After putzing around for a few hours, I went to bed around 1:30am and got up at 7:00am.  I tried waking Baby A so he could go to his workout session at school but he refused saying he was too sore and beat from the rest of the week.  He has been going to weight lifting classes in the morning and then he does his wrestling practice in the afternoon.  I still decided to get up and come downstairs to drink my morning coffee to start my day.  I was doing well, until around 9:00am, then I got sleep and since I didn't hear any noise coming from upstairs, meaning Wife was still asleep, I laid down on the bed downstairs and napped until 10:30am or so.  At this point I went up to see if Wife was up and she had just showered, and asked if I wanted to go looking at more recliners.  I said sure and jumped in the shower.

    We headed up north and went to Ethan Allen, which was very expensive, a store specializing in leather chairs, also expensive, but I didn't see any heavyweight chairs, then Louis Shanks, this was really expensive and we felt totally out of place with single chairs in the $4000 range.  We then came down to reality and ended up at Ashley's and Rooms To Go which both had decent and good looking leather chairs for about the same price as La Z Boy.  If I buy a chair, I really have to decide between about 3-4 chairs now.  Rooms To Go had one I really liked for around $900 in brown leather and power movement, Ashley's had one that sold for $1249, but then guy got desperate and said he could get me an additional 25% discount, so that gets the chair in leather and power movements for under $1000.  I still really liked the chairs at La-Z-Boy, but they were $1049 in cloth and manual movement, but those chairs did have rocking capability.  I am still trying to figure which one I want, unless I get cheap and forget it.

    After Baby A got out of class, we headed to San Antonio, it was my father in law's birthday, and they were having a seafood dinner which they went all out for.  There were thick chunks of fried fish, hush puppies, seafood gumbo, jambalaya, crab patties (maybe), pasta with shrimp, jumbo fried shrimps and several other dishes.  I am not a big fan of seafood, but their really was a lot of selection.  The only part that sucked was the drive.  We left at 4:30pm or so and didn't get there until after 7:00pm.  We were there until 10:30pm and the drive home was much better with very little traffic.  It was nice to get out of town and it even felt a little normal as Wife said not to worry about the masks, my father in law has had his Covid shots, I guess Wife wasn't as worried about her mom.  Wife has had her two vaccines, I had Covid and Baby A is young, so he should be safe because of the age and he is a pretty healthy athlete.  I know, it can affect anyone blah blah blah, but come on, are we just going to live in fear forever?

3/12/21 Looking at A La-Z-Boy recliner?

     I love looking at purpose made stuff.  I had been telling Wife just recently that I wanted to maybe get a recliner for myself to put in our room since I have discovered I sleep so much better sitting rather than laying down.  We currently have a couple of nice big leather chairs in our room that I have been sleeping parts of the night depending on how much my back is hurting on any given night.  I do like being in bed and laying flat out, our bed even has the motion things to lift the head or feet portions up but since Wife doesn't like that, I don't really use it to sleep.  I have tried it a few times during the week when she is out of town, but if I lift the feet and head a certain amount, I end up falling in the valley and turning myself 90 degrees.  

    The chair is different because there is no give to the sides, the body is kind of locked into the seated position.  We had walked into the La-Z-Boy store before but I thought the prices were a bit expensive for chairs.  Now that I am older and wiser (maybe), I can appreciate the extra cost associated with better technology.  Walking in today, we found out they make chairs with regard to people's height and size.  After walking around and looking at everything, a sales guy approached and I flat out asked him if they had anything for big fat guys.  He quickly pointed to the corner and showed me an assortment of oversized chairs.  At first glance, they don't look like much, nothing fancy to see, really.  The colors are all lame, mostly tans and bland muted earth tones.  After talking with the sales guy, he let us know they can get any of their chairs in any color, it just takes time to special order, specially now in Covid-19 times.

    I was fine with the colors the chairs come in, if I get one it will be in my bedroom.  These are not chairs for the poor, the cheapest they had was over $1000.  I am not sure they are worth the money, but then he flipped it over and started showing me some of the construction, how it is all built on a solid box frame.  They use hardwoods where it matters, and the parts are warrantied for life, I think.  He seemed confidant that any of their chairs would be in service for a good 20-30 years.  I mean according to the guy, these are the type of chairs that are handed down in a family.

    I saw a couple of versions that rock back and forth and then have the lever on the side to kick the legs up.  I didn't realize that after the legs are up, one can lean back and the chair "clicks" back quite a ways.  You end up with your feet above your head, which is supposed to be good for the body.  I am pretty sure I want one of these chairs, but I just have to get around that high price point.  We did go to another furniture store, but after sitting in the chair designed for my size body, it seemed almost cute to sit in a "regular" sized chair.  I didn't have quite the width to spread my legs, the height was a little lower, so it felt I had to almost squat to sit, and my head was awkwardly floating instead of being pampered by the back cushion.  I told Wife I would sleep on it for a day or two (trying not to be so impulsive), so we'll see.

3/11/21 Scared Of Your Own Shadow?

     I just saw a Tiktok video with a kid who discovers his shadow and his reaction was priceless.  From a primitive mind trying to process the world, this must seem startling, to realize all at once that something that looks like a human shape, on the ground, is following you almost too closely.  The little boy, around 3-4, is walking around at night, in a dimly lit house and the dad notices him noticing his shadow and he moves left and right, which seems like a curious mind at work, but then reality sets in and the possibility of a ghostly figure attached to him overwhelms his senses and the kid does all he can, freaks out and cries.

    I imagine this is how real primitive man reacted when he found his shadow attached to him out in the bright light of the day.  Without a science mind, what must they have thought about a dark shadow following them around?  Knowing how people always gave super natural powers to things they don't understand, I can see this being used as a bad omen or something to that effect.  I can even imagine this had a profound effect on JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan, who not only acknowledged Peter Pan's shadow, but gave it life and its own personality and life.  In the tale, the shadow even escaped Peter Pan and went out and had its own adventures, so clearly something happened in Barrie's early life to bring the idea of a "living" shadow to life.

    This idea has been used many times, I believe in shows like Charmed and other supernatural shows where the shadow can become an extension of the person and in times of duress, the shadow can even detach and act on its own, which is an interesting take in itself.  I guess in bringing it back all the way around, it makes sense the phrase of "being scared of your own shadow", as we can see, this little boy was in fact just that.  It was cute in its own naive reality.

3/10/21 Learning About High School Wrestling?

     Last weekend I went to two wrestling meets Baby A participated in.  I had no idea what I was looking at.  It turns out Mijo is doing alright, he has won 2 out of 3 matches so far.  I have no idea if they keep track of this like football wins for purposes of competing for District or what else happens, but we are definitely interested now.  I found the best thing to do was to start watching Youtube videos of wrestling matches and maybe a couple of tutorials on the basic rules.  This is helping, I am no longer at a loss, but I still have a long way to go.

    A win comes either by pinning the opponent to the ground, meaning both his back scapula are touching the ground/mat for a full second.  The other way is to win by points.  Points are given for doing certain maneuvers in certain ways, such as bringing your opponent to the ground, off his feet and controlling him from behind gets you two points.  Escaping from that position and back on your feet facing your opponent gets you a point.  There are other ways to score points, but I am still learning.

    I didn't even know wrestling was a big deal, we didn't grow up with wrestling in our school.  Turns out it is a pretty engaging sport and kids seem to get into it from a very early age.  We really didn't let Baby A do any sports when he was very young because he was always such an oversized husky boy.  Football had limits on the size, and since we didn't want to embarrass him, we just kind of ignored everything going on around us until he was in seventh grade.  Once he got to 7th grade, some of his classmates started catching up in size, so he didn't seem like an oversized dude anymore.  Apparently, sports have been a natural fit for our son, he loves competing, and he also seems to like learning these sports

    Wrestling is interesting in that it is not what your mind builds up.  I was imagining a lot of throwing of your opponent and the theatrics that come from WWE wrestling, the kind that made The Rock famous.  So far, I haven't even seen a sleeper hold, or an opponent get lifted and thrown, although that can happen.  There is just a lot of arm usage, holds and take downs to the floor.  The pins don't have to be dramatic like in WWE where the ref counts to three.  In this wrestling, one second seems to be enough to ruin someone's day.  I still have a lot to learn, but anyone can learn by watching a few Youtube videos.

3/9/21 These Bums Are Ruining Our City?

     Saturday morning, we had some time to kill, Mijo had to be on campus at 8:00am for weigh-in but the meet did not start until 9:00am, so I thought it would be fun to drive around a bit.  I am still getting to know our new little Ford Escape and have been enjoying driving it around town.  It was all fun and games, we left our son at school and headed up west on Stassney Lane until it dead ends and we turned left to where Central Market is at on Ben White and South Lamar.  It was so quiet with no traffic, we got a light cold front, so the weather was beautiful in the low 50s and the sun was still low in the sky.  I went out on South Lamar, then headed back on Oltorf to 1st Street and I remembered the aquarium store, which is cool and shaped like a dome.  It is somewhat hidden and Wife didn't even know it existed, I think Boy showed it to me a few years ago.  I drove towards it but it was closed, so by then it was closer to 8:30, so I thought maybe we should just head back to the school.  I popped back to the BenWhite frontage road and figured I would just turn on Manchaca Street which goes right next to Crockett HS.  The underpass where Ben White and Manchaca meet might be the most dense area of a tent city here in town.  Both sides of the street are lined with tents and tarps, nothing but bums and druggies as far as you can kick a can.

    I couldn't help it, we pulled up as the light changed.  I was blinded by the activity of one bum fucking with a huge street box, the ones that hold electronics for the street lights.  I couldn't figure if he was trying to open it or just vandalize it.  Maybe he was going to spray it with some Windex and give it a clean, but I doubt that.  Well, at the same time, to our right on the sidewalk a couple of literal zombie bums, they must have been high and out of their minds started wandering onto the road.  I quickly did the math and figured at the rate this fuck is moving, he is going to be in front of me to prevent me from going when the light changes.  Sure enough, I watched his slow retarded drugged out waltz out on the street and he moved towards us about as creepy yet as harmless as it can be.  His eyes were gone, he was in another world, his warm-ups were clearly around his thighs, thankfully his shirt was long enough.  The other bum luckily stayed on the sidewalk and didn't venture out onto traffic, but this one was enough.  I was at the same time staring at him and staring at the light hoping it would change so I could make way before he stepped in front of me.  You know how life works, he stepped right in the path of the right tire as the light changed, but the car next to me gave zero fucks, he never slowed down and just sped by this walking speed bump at a good pace which somehow sucked the zombies attention, he turned towards where the car sped through which opened up my lane just enough and I did the same thing.

    I have rarely felt dirtier and or more disgusted than right there.  It felt like I was being held hostage to this junkies life and all it entails.  I feel for the people that have made bad decisions and end up living life like this, there should be systems to help them, but fucking junkies do it to themselves.  What more than Don't Do Drugs do you need?  There is nothing glamorous to the drug life, this is where you end up when it consumes you.  Something needs to be done about this.  Fine, the fucking city wants to claim my house is now worth over $500k, and then make me pay taxes at that rate, do your fucking part and keep the city clean to make us want to live here.  This shit keeps up, we will all migrate on out to the suburbs and Mayor Adler and his junky pals can keep Austin and all its glorious history.