3/6/22 Boy Still Moving Out, Slowly?

     It is a very slow process, but Boy is making progress.  He came over again on Sunday and was here most of the day, arriving around 11:00am to wash clothes and take more stuff back to his apartment.  I had just come back from going to the store, as most weekends, I like to go before the rest of the family wakes up and I go get what we need.  It is much faster this way and I believe it keeps costs down, because Wife likes to put stuff in that we won't/don't even eat.  Anyways, I was just sitting here enjoying my coffee when he walked in.  I ran upstairs and woke Wife so she could come down and say hi to Mijo, she was a little bothered that although he came by on Friday, he didn't stick around long enough for her to get home.

    I finally got to cleaning his room, I had been hesitating because I didn't want to invade his space and take over, as apparently, I am told I do.  This really bothers me because these jackals want the space cleaned but at their pace.  If we leave it up to them, it could take half a year.  I didn't necessarily want Boy to move out, but now that he has, his room needs some attention.  It doesn't help that Baby A has already said he wants to take over that room, so I feel it needs to be cleaned and readied for a new life.  Baby A has his own ideas, and although I like some, I am drawing a line in the sand over him saying he doesn't need the dresser that goes with the rest of the bedroom furniture.  He doesn't seem to understand that without a dresser, his clothes don't really have a place to be put in.  It doesn't help that Wife is encouraging the shitty attitude.  If we are not going to put the dresser back in the room, Boy actually went without it, but he would just keep his clothes in piles, like a freaking hamster, his room looked like a mess all the time.

    Yesterday, I was able to get to the point that I vacuumed all the room, except the space under his bed.  I would have and wanted to move it, but he loaded it with too many books and things that I wasn't going to move by myself.  Instead, I fought as much of the battle as I could.  I cleaned the rest, the room looks much better already, one can walk in and around most of the room, but there is still a little more work to do.  There are holes and dents in the walls that need to be patched in, then repainted before i am going to let the younger Knucklehead take over.

    This will cascade into his room being empty, which I will then tackle and move furniture around, I really want that room for the weights, it is much bigger than the room downstairs, so it will all be a work in progress for a bit.

3/5/22 First Track Meet Of Season?

     Another sporting season is underway.  We were wondering about last year and why Baby A didn't participate in shotput or discus, but last season was shortened, and wrestling coincided with the season.  Either way, this is a new year and both sports are separated enough that about the same boys that did wrestling are now hanging out doing the shotput.  It is so much fun to watch these boys in action.  I don't think any of them will be breaking school records throwing, but they are having a good time doing it.

    Yesterday, I went and watched the last 10-15 minutes of practice, and it was nice having the boys come up to the fence to say hi and give me a little fist bump.  I then got to see them go into various wrestling holds and tumble on the grass.  I swear these boys can't keep their hands to themselves.  The testosterone just flows out of them, since Mijo is the heavyweight, it's usually two other boys climbing on him to bring him down, it is funny, to me.  The coach has a good spirit and I think she likes their energy as she was laughing along with their antics.

    I think maybe 5 of the 6 shot-putters (varsity and JV) were on wrestling, then this morning another handful of the smaller wrestlers showed their faces and they said they were running in different events.  Even some of the girls we met were there, also participating on various running events.  I guess the athletes are athletes year-round.  Mijo says he doesn't care about track as much and is honestly doing it for conditioning, knowing it will include additional running and stretching activities.

    I can't say I was impressed with Mijo's first throws, but this week was the first time he had thrown in almost two years, since he didn't do it last year.  I was asking him if he recognized any of the other throwers, I would imagine the heavyweights from wrestling would be the husky shot-putter types, but as the one non wrestler kid said, "this is a different animal."  He really wasn't kidding, one of the kids with a huge throw was about as big as me, I swear, he had to be 350-400lbs, and strong looking.  Apparently, he had a brother, both kids had the same last name, and they were calling them brothers (but I'm not 100% sure), and the other kid legit looked like an NFL linebacker, all muscle and just scary looking.  He threw like 47 feet, while our boys were near 30 feet.

    Mijo was not even bothered, he finished the shotput and said he was done, he was going to hang out and watch some of his friends do their events.  I like the non-stressed Mijo, he took wrestling very seriously, really wanting to do better every time or at least learn from the kids that beat him.  We picked him up five hours later, after we had gone home and napped for a good while.  He said the day was good, we had lunch at Busch's Chicken and came home.

3/4/22 Wife Has Friends?

     Of course, Wife has friends, but rarely do they ever pop up and invade our lives, most everybody we know and grew up with are back in Crystal City.  Austin is just a lonely spot in the middle of the state where we happen to live.  This week was a little different, as two of her coworkers from when she was working in La Pryor came to town for a conference.  I know very little, I guess she probably tells me more, but typical guy, I just say mmm-hmmm to keep her moving along on the conversation.  I may honestly be wrong on some of these accounts, but it's what I went through.

    I think she went to eat with them at Longhorn Steakhouse, pretty fancy for a lady not on a per diem, just saying.  In all honesty, this is a standard good meal, I used to prefer Outback for a regular nice meal, but then they decided to move locations and set up in San Marcos, which is a little far off for just a meal.  Longhorn Steakhouse is really a good alternative, and it is located here in Southpark Meadows which is a couple minutes away from the house.  According to Wife, she ran over and picked up the ladies, who were staying off Ben White, close to my work.  All I know is that she ate a meal that ran around $19, based on the receipt in the bank.

    Tuesday night, she was busy at work, she had to stay for an event is about all I picked up from her conversations.  I believe it had to do with those Tiktoks they made and posted online.  Last week, she showed me some cartoon videos, and her and I guess her work crew are all acting goofy and trying to get the word out that something is coming (whatever event they were celebrating).

    Wednesday night was back to the friend's and this time they went to eat at Kerby Lane Cafe.  The ladies wanted to go to an honest to goodness Austin dive, and I think that fits the bell perfectly.  One of them has gluten allergies and the menu made her feel really safe and confidant that she could eat whatever and not get sick.  Wife ordered a plate with pancakes is all I got from her talking about the night.

    They wanted to get together in San Antonio one last time as they were headed back home last night, Wife is sort of coming down with a cold, so she said no.  I told her it would have been fine by me, Baby A had the dance he went to, but honestly, I got him there and back again, so Wife didn't have to be a part of that equation.  I am just glad it is Friday afternoon, and all is hopefully back to normal, although track starts tomorrow, and we have to have our boy there by 6:45am, so it is still going to be rough out the gate.

3/3/22 Putting On His Dancing Tennis Shoes?

     Baby A is still new to social events, he hadn't shown much interest until recently, starting with his newfound interest in soccer.  All of a sudden, last weekend he wanted to go and participate in decorating for a dance event that occurred last night (Thursday, writing this Friday morning).  He claims his interest in helping is strictly because he has friends who are involved in the dance committee or whoever was running the show.  Regardless, Sunday turned into a dud, we told him it didn't make sense to decorate the week before, the dance was going to be in the cafeteria of the school, same place where we had the football banquet, all the tables roll out of the way, and the floor space is decent for events like that.

    All week, I tried getting an understanding of how things were going to play out.  The dance was on a Thursday night, but he said there wouldn't be school on Friday, so that helped out with worrying about staying up late.  The next question was "what time do I pick you up?"  He could not give me a straight answer.  Maybe he was going to practice, maybe he wouldn't and then he would come home at 4:50 to shower, or maybe he would just stay there and help decorate.  I told him it was gross to not shower after being at school all day (he does have football class in the morning), but he is a kid, and I don't think kids care as much about this.

    I texted him at 3:30pm, he said to get him at 4:50pm which was going to be a pain in the ass with work, but oh well.  Ten minutes later, he said never mind, he would call me.  I proceeded to continue working, figuring I would stop when he called.  Good thing, I continued, because at 6:30pm, I was still wondering, which I called him, and he said he would just stay there.  This worked in my favor, I didn't want to stop and spend an hour running around, just to come back to work later at night.  I managed to finish what work we had by around 8:00pm and I said screw it, I am going home.  I had stayed two hours late the night before and I hadn't taken a lunch break, so although it was early, I justified it.

    I got home around 8:30pm, or so.  Wife stopped and bought Popeye's chicken, we ate at the table, for once, without TV as a distraction.  By the time we finished eating, Wife was ready for bed, she goes to bed before 10:00pm, I told her I would go get Mijo, which he texted at 9:30pm to give him another 30 minutes.  I told him I would be there by 10:00pm, which I was.  I was feeling mellow and relaxed, so I told him to take his time, but that I was outside.  I was probably watching Tiktoks for a good 30 minutes before he came out.  We gave one of his friends a ride and then headed home.  It was a good day, especially for him.  I was just glad it was the end of the week for me.

3/2/22 Employee Is Leaving?

     Our director of operations has decided to move on to greener pastures and I kind of think it is the right thing for her to do.  We are a small company of roughly 15-16 people.  4 of us do chemistry, 3 do imaging, and another 2-3 do surface science stuff.  The rest of the people spend all their time in the cubicles and I'm sorry, but I think it is too many for a small company to exist without getting their hands dirty.  I am not saying anything bad about anyone, but sometimes grand plans of reinventing the wheel are really not necessary in a company this size, with employees who have all been working together for an average of 20 years.

  I am still one of the younger employees, although in recent years we have hired a couple of new faces.  Just turning 50 this year it dawned on me, this company is aging.  I don't know exact ages, but I hear we have two guys in their 70's, most everyone else in their 60's and a handful, myself included, in our 50's.  There might be a couple in their 40's, and maybe one of the newest guys could be in his 30's, but I would be surprised.  Given all this information, I think if I were offered an opportunity with a bigger company, I might take it too.  I am happy where I am at, for the most part, but I do worry a bit that the company breaks down from attrition.  When I joined the group, and we were still part of AMD, we were about 40 people strong, that was back around 2000.  Gradually, we have had layoffs and lost people for various reasons, and now we are less than half what we used to be.

    The director leaving is taking a director job with an established company, she should do well, and with a much larger audience, her ideas may actually be appreciated.  Like I said, we are a bunch of old Prima Donnas, I don't want to be told how to do my job if I can continuously get the job done.  My only push back with her was when she came around suggesting things, most recently, to start doing a weekly report, to show what I do.  I know I do a lot, my manager knows it too, the report is just extra busy work, in my eyes, it doesn't put money on the bottom line, and that is what I like to focus my work efforts on.

    Lately, we had been talked to about coming back to working our full shifts, when Covid started, we were told to just do the work necessary and due in the next day or two, and go home, to reduce interactions.  Then we were told we had to wear pants; I have been wearing shorts for most of the last 20 years.  We can also not wear open shoes anymore, like Crocs, and we should be wearing socks, I don't know why.  There was also talk of too many people in the lab, another rule established because of Covid, so only say 3 people can be in a room at one time.  If we are going to act like Covid is no longer a concern, then we can't use the rules from Covid times to restrict shit.  I was also scolded in the last couple months for not wearing a mask, although again, I am not the only one.  Most people wear it on their chins, I refuse to do that and will just take it completely off.  The same people who work together go and drink coffee together and it is perfectly ok to take off our masks there.

    She had the unfortunate responsibility of being the one pushing on all these corrections, so she has seemed like the bad guy, I don't know that anyone else is left to bust balls, the other managers are all dudes and frankly, I don't think they care about stuff like this, other than to make sure and have the work done.

3/1/22 Shit People Still Suck?

     Last week, I thought I would be smart on Thursday as I was driving home, we were getting a cold front and I figured I should fill the gas tank up, so I wouldn't have to be doing it in rainy weather and it was supposed to be cold for a couple days.  It was actually chilly, but the precipitation never came, so we stayed mostly dry.  Friday morning, by 7:30am, I got a call from my bank, supposedly, that I had some suspicious entries, and I should stay on the line.  I hung up but went to the computer and checked out what was going on.  Sure enough, there was a charge for $400 and one for $212.  I did not know what they were for, but I know I didn't do them.  I called Wife to call the bank, she loves being on the phone, I hate talking to people, but on the way to dropping off Mijo at school, I got another call.  Since I knew it was real this time, I took the call, talked to a person and told them I did not make those transactions.  They were able to put a stop within a few seconds, cancelled my card and got everything fixed up.  I hate that criminals, Shit People, can do this sort of thing, but at least we have counter measures that keep us from being liable for these attacks.  While I was talking to the lady from my bank, Wife got one also and she was getting more information, such as they had gotten the attempted transactions from the Shell gas station by the house, I am guessing they had one of those skimmer devices on the gas pump I used, but I use this gas station regularly, it is the one closest to the house.

    The guy talking to Wife was saying that they had attempted three withdrawals of $400 and three of $212, I don't know why they are so stupid and stick to specific numbers like that, but then again, that is part of the reason they are criminals.  I fucking hate people that do this type of activity for sure, but I also kind of understand.  Things are getting so ridiculously expensive here in Austin, how are regular people going to survive going forward?  Wife and I are good but that is because we both have good paying jobs.  I know that isn't the case for a lot of people, some are just barely getting by.  Housing prices are crazy, I doubt I could afford a house in today's market here in Austin.  I keep looking at car prices, but I am not paying $70,000 for a new truck, but even the smaller Ford Ranger easily gets into the $50,000 range.  Everything is kind of unbalanced, I don't know if it is because we are coming out of the pandemic, but either prices need to come down or we need to start getting paid more money, and that needs to happen quickly.  Like I said, we won't starve any time soon, but I know this can't be good for the average family trying to get by on the median Austin income.

2/28/22 Baby A Becoming A Trainer?

     I've been eyeing this interest in Mijo's interest in soccer games with a slight wonder as to why.  I figured if he is interested in some girl that is a good enough reason for him to be out there in some of these cold nights.  Yesterday, with no warning, he texted around 2:00pm to see if he could go to the soccer game at night.  I don't mind him going, but there are logistics involved.  I go to work around 1:00pm nowadays and although I can easily go and pick him up, I don't want to spin around an hour later and go pick him up.  Wife would normally do the second pick up, but her friends from La Pryor are in town for a conference and so she went and had dinner with them last night, so I had to tend to Mijo.  It turned out the game was a double header, JV played first and then the Varsity team played after, both girls' teams, hence why I keep thinking he might have a crush on a girl.

    His story is that he is curious about becoming a trainer, one of his friends has been doing it after he broke his ankle at the start of football season.  The kid carries a huge bag with all sorts of first aid gear and has been getting trained on how to respond to small emergencies on the field.  Mijo went to the game saying he talked to the coach and the coach said he could be a ball boy.  Ball boys chase the ball when it is kicked out of bounds and from what I saw the last ten minutes of the game when I went to get him, those ball boys are running as much as the girls as the ball spends about as much time out of bounds as in play.  One way or another, our boy figured out it was easier to tend to scrapes and bruises, so he talked to the head trainer, and she said he could help out.

    Knowing our boy, I was not surprised when he said, "for the first girl I helped I was being real delicate, I didn't want to hurt her, but by the end of the game, I was thinking and wanting to yell at them to quit whining about every little scratch and get your ass back on the field."  He said all the girls just keep asking for band aids for every little scratch.  There is no way these girls could survive a football game.  He did get a lot of experience he said, girls were constantly coming off the field with various cuts and one girl did have to be carried off the field when she got kicked in the leg and she got a nasty bruise.

    I am hoping this sparks an interest in Mijo wanting to go in the medical field, there are so many things one can study and do well, nowadays.  Other than becoming a doctor, even a physical therapist, technician, and other specialties I can't even think of.  He is at a good age to experience different things, maybe he finds something he really loves.