11/30/20 Celebrating Six Years Writing My Blog?

     I started writing this in November of 2014 during the Thanksgiving break.  I didn't really think I would go on this long, but I find that I enjoy writing down my thoughts, even if my boys do not hang on to my every word as I envisioned this would be for, I still enjoy writing it as a personal tracker of our goings on and what not.  The website keeps track and this is the 2,198 blog, so I have written quite a few words over the years.  There are slightly more than 365x6 because the first year I was kind of gun-ho and would put out a few sometimes in a day, every time I got a bug up my butt about something or other.

    I have modified my writing because it is hard to do on the days that I work, honestly, not much happens when I just sleep and get up to work.  I have found it is easier to write 3-4 at a time, and specially on the weekends when we do anything, that really means leaving the house, I chronicle our days out.  If, on rare occasions, something interesting does happen during the week, I can sit down and make a story of it, but at least this way, I can just take it easy during my work week.  I am really lucky that my work weeks are three days one week and four days the next, alternating, for over 25 years now.  I am scheduled to start working four days a week every week, but on a ten hour shift, whenever the paperwork goes through, they finally decided to make me an exempt, so I will be paid a salary, not an hourly wage, but I argued with them to match me up to the dollar on what I made the last year, so it should all be good.

    As far as going forward, I am positive about our prospects, Boy is working a good job and will start to contribute, at least paying his vehicle, gas, and some old credit debts we had agreed upon and Sweetie will also kick in some bucks, so I think things are only getting better here at Casa Gallegos.  Baby A continues to grow into the man he is becoming, a little angry that he is not taller already, but actually stretched a good inch and change from the summer.  I am tracking him on the wall because he is obsessed with himself.  Wife keeps applying and even interviewing for greater opportunities, so if not for Covid, I believe she would have already been on her way.  Things should be improving here in 2021, I am sure the virus will be slain by big pharma, it's what they do.  Hate on them all you want, when things get scary fighting invisible monsters, they are the real heroes.  Fuck a cape, real heroes wear lab coats.

11/29/20 Disappointed In Everything But The Players?

     The mighty Crockett Cougars played their last game of this shitty 2020 Covid-19 stricken season and I say good riddance.  I am honestly confused how a school of around 1500 students can barely eke out a team of 22 players.  There are a good 750 boys at the school, there should be no shortage of would be heroes, but no, for some reason, the more kids the more apathy.  There is something to be said about small town life, they show up in numbers to support their own.  Growing up in Crystal City, our teams were mostly mediocre to bad, but it didn't seem to matter, the stands would always be filled to capacity.  It was that way with some of the teams, like Liberty Hill, which for some reason is in the same district as Crockett, they had an almost filled stadium, even in the middle of Covid.  It has pretty much been the same when the Crockett boys played at other small towns.

    It is bad enough the team finished the season with twenty two kids, I don't think there were twenty two sets of parents in the stands to cheer for the boys.  This is disconcerting, it hurt me a bit to see the boys give it their all, and I don't care if they win or lose, but seeing them give it their all, I feel it would be nice to see the people that these boys belong to seeing what they do.  I don't think I appreciated what student athletes go through, I was in band and although I put in many hours outside of school, football players put their bodies on the line.  I see my son after every game and luckily he has walked home "uninjured" every time, when he takes the pads off, he always has scratches, bruises, and stories of mishaps of how his body is pulled this way and that.  I can only say that he really plays for the love of the game.

    It was a bad loss, for sure, 47-0, and I didn't see much in the way of positive things to say.  Wife had said prior to the start that Marble Falls was like Dripping Springs in that they played dirty, but the team on the field played it pretty clean.  They just had more energy and a hell of a lot more of everything.  The team was over 70 students strong so there were probably backups for every position.  Poor Baby A finally got his position back starting at right guard but he was also gifted the starting position of nose guard as well.  He played pretty decently, getting his name called on at least three solo tackles and we could see he was in on many other group tackles as well.  Although they are losing almost half the team because they are seniors, at least a handful of guys are classmates with Mijo and they will be around for two more years.

    I know Baby A left an impression with his teammates, he works hard, shows up ready, and has a good attitude.  He kept his mouth quiet, listened to the older guys and did what they said.  He said after the game, one of the senior linemen on the team pulled him aside and gave him his "good luck" towels he carried in games as a sign of camaraderie and a way of passing the torch.  Baby A told him thanks and that he would not let him down.  The guy also threatened Mijo to join the wrestling team to make him a better player on the field for next year, jokingly of course, so he feels like he has to do it now.

    Our son was very vocal and definitely acted like a team captain in 8th grade and even his freshman year on JV, he was comfortable telling people what to do.  This year was a learning experience and I think he will be contributing as a leader the next two years as an upperclassman.  I am very proud watching from the sidelines, it has been a treat to see him going from a clumsy "fat little boy" at the start of 7th grade unsure about the violence in this sport to this metamorphosis in process as he becomes a man who fights hard and has a dominating presence without raising his voice or resorting to theatrics.  He is becoming a fine young man and I can only thank the coaches and the sport that are helping me shape him for the future.

11/28/20 Thanksgiving 2020 Was Different?

     There were a few differences this year when it came to enjoying Thanksgiving, the day.  First off, we have been having my in-laws coming over for Thanksgiving in different variations.  Sometimes they have spent the night, because my father in law likes starting to cook the turkeys at like 5:00am and sometimes they have cooked the turkey at home and just brought over a slow cooker full of bird, but either way, Covid-19 as it ruins most things it gets near to, managed to ruin the energy of Thanksgiving.  Nationally, we were urged to practice caution and not gather as families as we have had many outbreaks of the virus any time large groups gather, unless you are rioting in the streets, then the virus gives you a pass and so does the media.

    I kid, but not really, so it did not surprise us this year when they said they were going to play it safe and stay home.  This meant we were going to be on our own, not that I was worried, Wife can more than take care of a meal and if nothing else, we could go out and look for some Chinese food, as the boys said multiple times.  The one thing I did not totally agree with was that my in-laws wanted to play it safe and not come over, but they also wanted to prepare us a tray of stuffing and then the sisters made us a variety of desserts, including a banana cream cake, half cherry/ half apple cheesecake, and another pecan cheesecake.  This was very nice of them, but the story was that they would put these on a table outside and we would just pick up and go, but no, we ended up visiting with them and even sitting and eating tamales.  We were there so long, I took a nap on the sofa while Wife rambled on and on and on.... I don't mind visiting them, honestly, but this was not what I was told was the plan, but anyways....

    We had bought two twelve pound turkeys and a good sized ham for essentially us four, Sweetie and DD.  In the past we have had friends drop by at the last minute, so we make more food than necessary, but it was just us this time.  I got brave and decided to smoke one of the turkeys figuring if I ruined it, we would have the other one there, but that turkey in my pellet grill might have been the most flavorful turkey I have ever tasted.  All we did was smother it in mustard and pour way too much Salt Lick spices on it.  It had a little burn to it, but all the boys complimented the turkey saying it was really good.  Wife of course did her usual best with everything else, including the mashed potatoes from a "just add water" box.  Boy was going on and on about them being inferior potatoes, but it's not like he got his hands dirty.  He did make a really moist cheesecake with pumpkin filling in the middle of two cheesecake layers which was really moist and delicious, so I can't be mad at him, he contributed.

    All in all, everything was delicious, we ate a minute or two later than we planned, but that is all part of the fun.  With family, you improvise and adapt to fit everyone in as best as possible.  We are fortunate that we can slow down and enjoy a meal like this not for sustenance, but to eat with our loved ones.  Happy Thanksgiving to all, now let the Christmas shopping commence.

11/27/20 What Am I Thankful For?

    In this solemn time of remembering to say thanks and slowing down if but for a day, I thought it would be nice to list it out.  I do a lot of bitching and moaning, but that is mostly because I live a very privileged life and sometimes forget and take things for granted.

    First off, I am thankful to live in this great country that has provided so much opportunity and choice.  Others may object, but I do believe this is a great country because together the people have made it great.  Next off, I have to say thank you to my family, I couldn't have had a better upbringing, I saw both sides of my family do what they had to do, whether on my dad's side where my uncles worked hard at roofing and manual labor, I never saw any of them cry or avoid a day of work.  My aunt's on mom's side sacrificing and moving out to get degrees to further themselves, it was all a base set up to where we saw nothing but do the same and thru our own cheer effort, we all have blossomed into healthy contributing adults.  I don't think my dad ever missed a day of work except the once or twice when he got sick and needed to go to the hospital, that man was a great working machine, I have that work ethic.  My mom could not have been a greater cheerleader and inspiration, always insisting that we could do whatever we set ourselves up to do.  When I had to drop physics at UT and for the first time felt like I might not be good enough, she said "just keep going and try again, don't worry, we all have setbacks.  My siblings have done the same, we all compete with each other and we are all successful in our own ways which is directly attributable to our solid foundation which just seemed to make life easier.

    Fast forward to my own life where I chose to reside and life couldn't be the same without Wife, she is a beast who takes care of business 24x7.  She might work three hours away but it hardly ever feels that way because if she is needed, give her a car and some gas and she will show up as fast as the speed limit will allow.  My boys may argue with me but they know the whining stops when mama gets involved.  I have learned to just say "hey Woman, attack!"  and those boys turn to jelly.

    Finally, my two boys.  They are my greatest contribution to the world and I think I am creating masterpieces.  Boy has taken awhile to finish college, but I won't focus on that.  He is still attending, but even then, he has landed himself in a career job very near my field to the point his company is my company's biggest customer, so the apple did not fall that far from the tree.  The younger one is just as fiery and feisty.  He carries a little chip on his shoulder and is out to show the world that he is greatness, much like his namesake, Alexander The Great, he seems to be capable of conquering the world.  Sometimes, both boys even seem to be a little arrogant, self-centered, and egotistical, but then again, Wife reminds me that they have a lot of me in them.

    Happy Thanksgiving because I am.

11/26/20 Making The Best Of A Covid-19 Birthday? (part 3 of 3)

 Sunday was Baby A's actual birthday and we celebrated it as best we could, given the fact that Covid-19 rules the lay of the land, for now.  He had his same group of friends he always has over and they spent the night.  I really enjoy seeing these boys together.  Mijo basically fought to go to Crockett so he could stay in contact with these boys, he really should have gone to Akins High School because it is across the street more or less, from our community.  These boys know how to handle our son and he can be a handful.  I especially like the shortest one, he is about as quick with the mouth as our son and always has some comeback to argue with our boy.  He said something at some point about his greatness and we kind of said it's a good thing you're not really bragging about how strong and great you are at school and all four of the boys in unison laughed and said "he never stops reminding us about how great and strong he is..."  It was so perfectly funny how they all said it together.

    We took the boys to lunch at Zaxby's, which sells chicken.  Baby A pushed for Outback, but we had already taken them to pizza the night before, Outback would have been around $200.  Wife suggested Chicken Express, which is a chicken place that we do love eating at, but they did not have indoor dining, so we ended up at Zaxby's since we had driven to Buda already.  Zaxby's is really good, I think, and it had been awhile since we had eaten there.  While we were there, my family called him on a group call and everybody wished him a Happy Birthday.  They didn't talk long, but it was nice that they called.

    This meal was eaten around 2:00-3:00pm and by 6:00pm, we were feeling hungry again.  We had bought meat to grill Friday, but never made it, so I grilled the fajitas, sausages, chicken thighs and even a whole chicken Wife had defrosted a few days earlier.  All was delicious as I cut it all and made fajita tacos out of it.  By this time, his friends had gone home, so it was just us with Boy, Sweetie, and DD joining us to eat and then sing him Happy Birthday.  Around this time, his other grandparents did a zoom call and sang Happy Birthday to him yet again.

    All in all, Baby A said he enjoyed his birthday.  We got him a few video games through Amazon, we took him to Best Buy and he got some game cards to buy stuff online through his PS4 and at some point, we promised to get him a PS5, when they become more widely available since it isn't much fun to play if his friends don't have a system to play online with him.

11/25/20 Making The Best Of A Covid-19 Birthday? (part 2 of 3)

    Saturday was a new day and Baby A was going to have his friends over.  Being that Thanksgiving is this coming Thursday and we are going it alone because Wife's family decided it would be safer to stay home (we usually have them come over for Thanksgiving), Wife woke up early and motivated to go to HEB and get our turkey to make sure it was thawed by Thursday morning.  We went and bought too much stuff, as usual, but that is part of the fun.

    We bought a treat, barbacoa since it was early and then Wife made some eggs to add to breakfast and make it that much more.  We ate then actually headed out to New Braunfels to go look at some kayaks at Austin Canoe and Kayak over there.  They had a Pro Angler demo model but I thought it a good idea to get Wife to see why it is so expensive, it isn't just a kayak.  They had other models, most notably, the Bote Rover Aero.  This is a model I really like, it is a stand up paddleboard but has room and is meant to be pushed by a motor, up to 6HP.  I have seen videos of this particular vessel and it is something else.  I have been having a hard time between deciding if I can trust an inflatable which would be monumentally easier to carry in the back of any of our vehicles, or set up a roof rack to carry a solid fiberglass 12ft long vessel of any type.  I liked the kid showing us the product was a husky dude and he said if he did stand on it as it was sitting there, it would not bend in half, that is a bold statement.

    We then headed back, Baby A had his friends come by at this point and they had walked over to Target, something they like to do.  We went and picked them up after awhile and then headed out to Mangia Pizza.  It had been a few years that we had eaten this pizza and I don't think any of Mijo's friends had eaten the Chicago style deep dish.  It was fun to sit with the boys and hear them joke around.  Our son really does take after Mama, he loves the sound of his voice.  The boys do a good job of keeping his ego in check, he is just so boastful, but in a funny way, not to be conceited.  On the way home, We were way up north, Wife put on Maui's "You're welcome" which they were all singing along too.  We like to joke that Baby A would make a perfect Maui if they ever did a school musical or talent show, but all four boys seemed to know the lyrics.

    We dropped them off at the house, he had new video games to play and we went to Central Market to see what we would buy.  We got some cupcakes in case the boys felt like cake, and some ice cream.  Wife asked each boy what kind of ice cream and then we got each of them a pint.  We ended the night early, I had gotten up at 7:00am and gone to bed like at 2:00am Friday night.

11/24/20 Making The Best Of A Covid-19 Birthday? (part 1 of 3)

     We celebrated Baby A's 16th birthday this past weekend Sunday and luckily, it turned out halfway decent, I thought.  The weekend got off to a rocky start, but we handled it as per usual.  I was excited (as I'm sure Wife was) because we started our Thanksgiving vacation.  We are both off for a week and my last work night was Thursday and Wife got off around 2:00pm, so she was here before 5:00pm on Friday afternoon.  Just as she arrived, Baby A found out his Saturday game was cancelled, but he still had a Friday afternoon practice.  We dropped him off (these practices are weird in that they last an hour, it makes it hard to come home and do anything else when it takes 20 minutes to get there, but anyways), and ran to Sam's to get meat to grill for dinner.  That didn't happen when we ended up going to a couple stores and then Wife brought up the sofa bed Mijo has in his room (it has a tear and she suggested replacing it).  This came up because he was going to have his friends over and this could be a place for them to sleep on.

    He was non-committal, as usual whether he wanted to go to Ikea or not.  It was 7:00pm and I was just excited to be free and have Wife here and willing to venture out of the house, so vamoose up north.  We jumped on Mopac and hauled butt eventually switching over to I-35, on Braker Lane.  My first job was out on Braker Lane, working at a warehouse, and it has changed so much with growth and buildings, I honestly did not recognize the road at all and I worked in that area for a year.  

    By the time we were past Round Rock, Baby A was becoming like his Grandma (Mom).  Ooh boy, when the child misses his eating time, he can get a little distressed.  Not poking fun at Mama, but she has gotten ugly a time or two in the same way.  He started telling us that we sucked, he didn't want a sofabed, I tried tempting him with Swedish meatballs, which they sell at Ikea, but he was not having any of my shenanigans.  He was cussing up a storm, I offered McDonald's to tame a savage beast and he just said "whatever, I am not eating in the car."  Turns out our sweet prince expects a sit down meal when his highness gets hungry.  We just told him to settle down and we would eat eventually.  After his tantrum and saying he didn't care to go to Ikea, when we were within distance of seeing the building, some 30 miles up north, I then said "well, we can at least go to Bass Pro Shops and see what boats they have."  Wife surprisingly went along with it.  This is not normally my wife's response, she kind of hates going to Cabela's, or Bass Pro Shops or even Academy, but she was being agreeable.

    We looked around, I think Wife has accepted my notion that I really want a vessel of some kind to get out on the water, be it a kayak, a canoe, jetski, or a boat.  We saw the boat I really liked, but of course, online it starts at $23,000, which sounds pretty decent, but the real thing is $37,000 once they add a little of this and that, plus even though the length of the boat is 18ft, with motor and trailed, it is past 23ft which is too long for my garage.  So we keep looking.

    We ended up going to eat dinner at Cheddar's.  We ran all the way back to south Austin and first tried Red Robin which our son suggested.  We didn't really want to as we were trying to be good and stay on our diet, but we also know with his birthday, we were already going to eat pizza and birthday cake, so the diet was going to be put on hold.  Red Robin was closed, as in the building looked empty inside, Covid has ruined businesses.  Cheddar's is another place we like to eat and prices are reasonable.  I didn't want a steak as we eat them all week at home and mine are great on the grill, but it was my best option, carbs wise.  We headed home after all this, and it was maybe 10:30pm by then.

11/23/20 A Win Is A Win?

     Technically, the Coogs won a third game, so on paper their record is starting to look decent, for a team that was projected to go 1-9.  They are sitting on a 3-4 record, I am still heartbroken about the game they could have won, if not for 1 short yard.  That could have made them 4-3 going into a game against a team they have a chance to win, I think.

    Baby A, in typical fashion, was angry after the news that the game was cancelled by the other team.  This boy gets in the car pissed off after losing games because he hates to lose, then he got in the car pissed after the wins, because he didn't play as well as he thought or hoped he would, even though he started and played in the games they won.  Surely, it would be different after picking him up from the Friday practice, after they were informed the Saturday afternoon game had been cancelled.  No, he spent a good thirty minutes bitching and moaning because he had lost his starting position after the Covid scare kept him out of practice for a week and a half, he had fought himself back into the starting role at right guard.  Clearly, in his head he was going to prove to the coaches they did the right thing by putting him in as starter.  I was a little upset the game was cancelled, I like sitting in the stands and watching them play.  He assured me my being a little upset was nothing compared to his because he is the one on the field.  "Okay a-hole, is all I can think."  What can you say when your son is always tuned up sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting all week to go hit somebody.  He was all amped up at the house, even taking "playful punches" that were landing a little hard on me, and challenging him would just excite him more.  This is a little bull, built like a block of wood, I can't really hurt him physically.  I just threatened him by jokingly yelling at DD to "kick Baby A's ass for me and I'll give you a free month of rent."  That sets off my little psycho off to go argue with DD.

    I love my son's competitive edge, but he needs to learn to control himself and enjoy what he is doing.  He only gets to live in this testosterone environment for a few years, win or lose, he needs to appreciate it.  The other team obviously cancelled for a good reason, probably Covid related, it has happened, even on the college level, so being angry about it is a waste of energy.  They still get credited with a win and so the season moves along.  There is one more game left in this shortened season, hopefully, the last one played with masks and gators covering their mouths, it has been a little surreal, to play and support out there in the middle of a pandemic.  Are we being brave and making the best of a shitty situation trying to live as normally as possible, or are we truly irresponsible and we should have been in hiding from a possible killer, cowering in our homes until our government can make it safe for us once again.  Well, we are Texans, we choose football first, when we can.

11/22/20 Who Is Leading The Vaccine Charge?

     Idiots like to say that America is not so great or that other countries are better than us at this or that, but when shit hits the fan and the world huddles into a scared little mass, who does everyone look to?  America, Fuck Yeah!  Whether it's storming the beaches of Normandy to stamp out communism or to solve a world pandemic, this is what makes this country great.  Americans build and we solve problems.  Antagonists want to say this country is unjust and not all people get a fair shake.  Tough titty, but those that want it, find a way to make it happen.  

    I just looked at the top ten or so companies working on vaccines for Covid-19 and 6 or so of them are American, 1-2 are British, 3 are Chinese , 1 is Russian, and 1 German.  Where are the contributions from the rest of the world?  Denmark and Sweden are so great, where is their work?  Brazil, number 1 in shaking that ass, where are their patents or anything?  Rest of South America?  Africa?  Middle East?  Yeah, but don't worry, as soon as we put Covid-19 back in hibernation, the finger wagging will start.

    What people won't say is how come the United States, basically a new country, compared to anything in Europe or even Africa, always seems to be the vanguard, why?  Why do we always seem to float to the top?  I think it is because of our diversity, because we are composed of everyone, the heterogeneity of our makeup makes us better.  This whole diversion that we aren't a fair country is bullshit, be great and the country will love you and need you.  Be a fucking loser who doesn't want to contribute and yeah, nobody wants you on their team.  I know this seems out of context, but it is all tied together in my head.

     While hundreds of thousands of people with no clear agenda have spent the summer burning down big cities, the people that actually do the work to make this country great were in the labs doing work.  While some of you cried "it's not fair, waah" scientists were slowly discovering ways to defeat the virus and make a real difference.  While millionaire black athletes were screaming to defund the police and disrespecting the American Flag, scientists and engineers were risking their lives by working with the virus, voluntarily going to a building and knowingly handling the virus because they know the outcome outweighs the risk.  These are the true heroes and it is sad that idiots that can play with a ball are going to be compensated better, it is still the right thing to do.

    So fuck you to anyone who thinks these pharmaceutical companies don't deserve the money they get.  These doctors, scientists, engineers and even the dopey managers involved all deserve better than what people give them, cause who you gonna call??  This ain't a movie, Ghostbusters can't do shit for you.

11/21/20 Was The Red Pill Right For Me? (part 2 of 2)

     I believe I made the right choice by switching over and supporting Trump after the debacle during the summer of watching so many people peacefully protesting their cities to burnt ruins.  As I was told, 93% of these protests were peaceful, but if there were over 10,600 (between May24 and August 22), that still leaves 742 protests that were more riots and looting events.  Now you tell me, is that a lot of mayhem or is that acceptable?  It was enough for me to say fuck off liberals, I am done.  I thought it was disgusting to see Dr. Fauci telling us to wear our masks and quarantine, shoot, schools shut down to control the spread, but when he was asked of the protests, he would not answer, but we should be extremely careful when going to the store to get milk, fucking idiot, and I thought he was a beacon of light.

    All that aside, I still find it hard to believe that Biden drew over 70 million votes when his rallies and I saw many on Youtube, seemed to have 20-30 people at most, while Trump was filling stadiums, and airports with what appeared to be thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people.  I mean Biden supporters weren't scared to "peacefully protest" all summer, don't tell me they were cautious and avoided gathering for his rallies.  

Who do you believe, the media seems to have mostly moved on with the notion that Biden won.  Trump is still, some three weeks later, still disputing the counts in key battleground states.  If the media didn't show so much animosity towards Trump most of his term, I would not distrust them so much, but they have repeatedly lied and made him look bad that I can't outright believe them, specially CNN who I had grown up believing was The News Source.  Still, it seems like an uphill climb to prove that there is so much cheating and scamming at this level that in dissecting the voting machines we find that votes go all over the world to be counted.  Is this true?  I don't know what the eventual outcome will be, it seems Biden, more likely, Kamala Harris will be the new president.  This will be interesting if not a little scary to think of what might happen to our taxes, to our borders, to our guns, and even to our vehicles.

    If these things were not being threatened, I wouldn't even care about the national stage, but these two liberal assholes have both said those who can should pay more in taxes, they apparently don't like borders and walls, so I guess come one, come all.  Biden is quoted as saying he is against AR type guns and high volume ammo weapons, like more than 3 shells in a shotgun is too many, and of course, they support the green new deal.  This is a push into more solar and wind technologies which is great and I have solar panels on my house, which cost me more than the stupid things produce, but maybe over time, but you can't cut current technologies which include fracking and not affect the average citizen either in job losses or cost of fuel.

    I guess I was enjoying the benefits of a Trump presidency, with gas hovering around $1.49 a gallon, no talks of wars, increasing talks of him brokering peace deals between different countries (in the middle east, if you can believe that), and even super low unemployment across the country.  We were actually in a great moment before Covid-19 came and shat all over the world.  Even then, to think that in a short nine months, 3-4 companies are pretty much ready to roll out vaccines is somewhat outstanding.  The Spanish flu, another H1N1 virus which came around 100 years ago, took its toll on the world for 3 years before it subsided and killed more than 50 million people.  Covid-19 has killed a lot of people, but 1.3million pales in comparison to what the Spanish flu did.

11/20/20 Was The Red Pill Right For Me? (part 1 of 2)

     There is a phrase I have heard since I started my migration to the right this year, probably starting a year ago.  The notion of taking the red pill, much like Neo did in the Matrix and suddenly seeing everything as it is, not as I wish it was.  Concerning the political arena, this made sense to me, but it meant getting on a wild train lead by a very polarizing but charismatic leader in Donald Trump.  On the surface, he seems disrespectful, rude, short sighted, maybe slightly racist, and much like a person only interested in his self interests.  It took me the first two years of his administration, in which I was very much against him, to start seeing more clearly, but he is us.  I can be a little disrespectful and rude when bombarded with stupidity, man there isn't anything I like less than stupid lazy people.  I wouldn't say I am racist, but if put into a corner and told to choose between Selma Hayek, Beyonce, or Scarlett Johansen in their primes, I would choose the Hispanic 9 times out of 10.  I also think it is refreshing to have the leader of our great country think about the American people first, why should our troops be out protecting people in other countries who won't protect themselves?

    All this proud display of self assured confidence turns out to be a deterrent to about half of the population because as much as some people love what this man has done for us, about that many, or so the polls tell us, absolutely hate to see him pumping his fists and declaring he is the best at whatever action he is doing.  I kind of like his mannerisms and I'd like to think if I was in his position I would do the same.  Of course things are the best if I have had anything to do with them is basically how he phrases everything.  I guess the liberals and democrats out there would prefer he hide, look at his feet, and say ummm a lot, so he wouldn't offend with all his maleness.

    One of his biggest detractors has been the main stream media, which is historically considered the fourth arm of democracy.  Early in his tenure, Trump started dismissing the media because he insisted they spun everything to make him look bad or worse, the lie that he supported the neo-nazis after the Charlottesville incident has followed him most of his term and it is a lie the media will not correct.  The same is true about his stance on illegal immigrants where the media claims he called them animals when he was referring to MS-13 members doing evil things like bringing in drugs and trafficking children.

    I meant to talk about the election results and what is reality now, but I guess I got carried away...

To be continued.

11/19/20 Saturday Drive-By To San Antonio?

     For the first few days last week, I thought my parents were going to come for a visit and see Baby A's football game, but they switched it because his birthday is this week, so they should be driving here this week.  Since our weekend was then open and I've got nothing better to do than obsess over getting a new boat, PWC, or kayaks, Wife used it against me to drive down and visit her family for a birthday.  She knows I love walking around Bass Pro Shops, so pitched the trip as we can leave early and go to your store, and then for the birthday party it is a drive-by parade, so we'll just drive-by and drop off a gift for one of the younger kids of her brother.  I thought this sounded okay, I am getting tired of just being in the house all the time, but it's not like we can go hang out at the mall, so this seemed like a good use of an afternoon.

    We got to Bass Pro Shops around 3:00pm and I forgot they move the boats out to set up their Santa land in that section.  As we walked in they had maybe 5-6 boats outside, two that I kind of liked and the price was not bad, but I really want something smaller, if only because it will then fit in the garage and I can have them close by and not have to pay extra for a storage location.  I was really looking for the Mako brand which has a couple of boats in the 15-18ft size that I could like, but they did not have any of those.  We then walked around and looked at the kayaks upstairs, and even did the thought process on these floating fishing tubes that are almost like tire tubes but open on one side and are meant to float your lower body to move yourself with fins on your feet.  I almost like the idea, but I know we wouldn't cover a lot of ground that way.  We walked around until 4:15 or so, then headed out to the party.

    For these birthday parade, we lined up at the school parking lot close by, and waited until 5:00pm.  The sister was saying for one of the other kids, they had about 100 cars because he plays soccer and a bunch of his friends showed up.  This was for the youngest kid, so it was just family and an extra friend or two.  I thought the whole idea goofy, I hate honking my horn and carrying on, specially in a neighborhood, disturbing the neighbors, but everyone else was honking and driving snake-like side to side, even if the snake was maybe 10 cars long.  We drove by from one direction, waved like idiots, then got to a cul de sac, turned and repeated the process.  I don't understand the process, they weren't even wearing masks and then afterwards most everybody ended up stopping and going inside, so it's not like we avoided Covid-19 by doing this, if any family has it.

    Still, it was kind of okay, the kids were all upstairs or outside, I guess they are old enough that the parents didn't bother with party activities like busting pinatas or pin the tail on the donkey.  We just went in and they had gotten some Chick-Fil-A tenders in a couple of boxes and way too many pizzas and that was the party.  Honestly, it was fine, I ate most of the tenders it felt like, but nobody else was touching them, then my brother in law felt bad they didn't have any low carb food and he threw some sausages on a skillet and kept throwing them on my plate until I said no more!  We sat and chit chatted until 8:00 pm or so, then headed back home.

    On a side note, I think losing the weight (almost 80 pounds so far) has helped my perceived narcolepsy, I notice I am not falling asleep or getting sleepy like I used to everywhere we go.  I have been driving us around the last couple of weeks, acting all "man of the house" like I should.  I drove Wife's fancy Telluride to and from San Antonio which honestly feels great to me.  Wife is a good driver, but she is a nerd scared to lose her CDL and won't speed.  I will at least hit 80 with the flow of traffic and get us here and there a little quicker.  She will also line up behind slow drivers and be comfortable doing it. I loose my shit whenever some inferior piece of shit human tries to steal part of my life by slowing me down and making me go at their speed.

11/18/20 Diet Update IV?

     It has been about a month since my last mention of my dieting efforts and I am glad to say I have lost another 15 pounds and now at 357 pounds, as of this morning.  I am now feeling much better about myself as I approach losing almost 80 pounds.  I want to say it has been easy on the one hand but also extremely hard.  It is easy, in theory, we just cut out carbs, Wife is still doing the diet with me and she has lost about 55 pounds or so too.  Anyone can do this diet, just avoid eating sugar but as easy as that is, it is also hard because everything has sugar, so what do you do?

    Well, meat is your best friend, it does not have carbs, it is just protein, which is the building blocks for us and is a necessity.  Vegetarians will tell you otherwise, but I don't see vegetarians doing manual labor or other feats of strength, so Shhh.  I know they are very unpopular, but there is no way I would even still be on the diet without diet sodas.  I have tried to cut down and drink more water, but sometimes, diet soda is the only thing that will kill the craving of something to put in my system.  Weighing the pros and cons, I will take the loss of 80 pounds over the possible health dangers of drinking diet soda.  I do vary it, so if a chemical turns out to be bad in say Diet Coke, well, sometimes I go with diet Pepsi, and sometimes it is diet Big Red, or diet Tea from HEB.  They are all staples right now.

    I did have a huge stumbling block on Halloween.  It was the first time I planned on getting off the diet for a weekend, so we could enjoy some candies and junk food since we weren't going to try to be on "ketosis" anyway.  Man, it took me almost two weeks to recoup the lack of focus I had on that long weekend.  We ate pretty much like we used to, I bought all sorts of muffins and cookies and huge bags of Halloween candy which I just devoured like it was air.  I regretted that weekend so much, first of all, I got constipated and that hurt, for almost a week to get all that crap out of my system, literally.  I also put on 7 -8 pounds that just didn't want to come off like weight normally falls off.  

    In ketosis, I can count on losing about a pound a day, now every weekend it slows down a bit, depending on what we eat, with Wife here, we tend to eat more like two meals, but during the week, I eat one meal and then I snack the other one, like I'll eat some leftover meat, but not a full plate, or maybe I'll have some low carb ice cream with some nuts.

    Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I will try my best not to pig out all holiday, but I do plan on enjoying the Thanksgiving meal, be it mashed potatoes, stuffing, and any and all pies that come my way.  I just have to remember that constipated feeling and not do it for 3-4 days in a row.  Wife has already told her sisters that they are taking all the leftovers, except for maybe the turkey and ham.  Let's see if I can learn from my mistakes.  I should get to my goal of 350 by the end of the year, and if I can get to 340 to give me a window of error over Christmas, that would be even better, but we'll see how I am doing in another month.

11/17/20 Shown Up By A Couple Of Seventy Year Olds?

     I am in awe of my neighbor, he just finished replacing the fence between our houses and was only asking me if I wanted to kick in maybe $250.  I thought this was way cheap and I told him I would give him $300, but until next time I get paid, he sprung this up on me out of nowhere on Sunday last week.  He had brought it up maybe a year ago and because of Covid-19, I have been putting off doing the work, but we really do need to replace the fence, it has holes and broken boards all over the place.  I keep buying a handful of boards at a time and replacing ones that fall off here and there, but really, the whole thing needs a makeover.

    I feel kind of guilty for not going out there and helping him, but he insisted on doing this during the week and sorry, but I work, so I was not going to stress myself during the day and then go to work at night.  It took them two and a half days, but the work is good.  They added an extra rail, the boards that are attached to the posts in the ground.  Our old fence was held by two boards, one near the bottom and one near the top.  He wanted to add a third middle board to make the fence stronger.  They also used a line to line up all the boards and before they added the slats, the part that is the actual fence, the three supporting boards formed three almost straight lines, that followed their guide strings.  They again used a string tied to boards on either end of the fence and if they had to trim a board to make it all look like a level line, they did.  I wondered why they didn't finish the second day, once they had all the rails up, I thought it would just be a matter of slapping on the slats and screwing them in.  He said they had to cut most of them a little to make them the same height, but the end result looks great.  They also chose to use screws instead of nails to make it stronger.  Of course, he said he chose cedar wood because he was not going to do this again, this fence was going to outlive him.

    He is probably not kidding about that last comment, him and his best friend, he told me, are both in their 70s.  He told me jokingly that between the two of them, they have a combined 145 years of experience.  I just love the idea that he is still out here kicking ass and doing work.  I remember when I was young that the idea of a 70 year old was an old person sitting around waiting to die, but that is not the only option.  My mom is very near 70, if my dad is already there, and she still runs around chasing the grandkids and helping to teach them daily right now that they are doing at home learning.  My dad, on the other hand, is a lot more like my original thought of an old person, he is a lazy ass who just seems content to sit on his butt and wait for the Grim Reaper, no offense.  I just wish he would get off his ass and do something.  After seeing what my neighbors did this week, I know my dad could do more.

11/16/20 Finding God Works For Some People?

     I am amazed at the transformation some people go on when injected with the idea of a higher power but I don't understand it.  I have now known a couple of people who "have found God" and basically become other people.  Although I personally don't believe in a higher power, I am happy for these people if it truly helps them leave a calmer and focused life.

    My coworker found God before I met him and I can't speak to how he was, but even to this day, some twenty years that we have worked together, he credits with finding God with helping him live a happier life, he goes on and on, I just get mired in the why, but I am not going to argue and try to get him out of his train of thought.  I can just say I am glad he found a way to cope and if he is truly content, then good for him.

    A friend of ours from back in our few years when we were partying good in the backyard, getting drunk and sitting in the hot tub until 4-5 in the morning has now found God.  This person was crazy, they would get black out drunk, not so much with us, but we saw pictures they would show us, and then we would see the kinds of idiots she dated, we never met them, thankfully, because they were the incarcerated type.  Now, she has disappeared into her own world, we haven't seen her in a good 5-6 years, only on the phone apps, but she is a brand new person.  She has two pretty little babies and they must be her world, I think she is trying to be a better person for them.  We have texted her a few times, but it is like talking to a priest or something.  She has even taken to talking about the good lord on her Snapchat account recently.  I want to crack wise, especially because I know she used to be a mess, but she seems at peace and like I say, she is all about her daughters, it doesn't seem like she is chasing thugs anymore, and for that, I am happy she found the Almighty.

    I guess this is the best I can do when I got up and saw her sermonizing her ass off from last night.  Like I say, I have my hesitations and non-belief and that does not change as I go through life.  I have seen a few other friends and family, who grew up being free thinkers and with age slowly turn to the bible and I don't get it.  To me, it is the same book it has always been, I don't focus on what it says, but on what gets ignored.  If it was such a great book and written by the inspiration of God, should it have instructions on how to treat slaves?  If so, then God approves slavery?  If he is infallible, someone fucked up not deleting those sections out.  But I am glad it helps some people, life can be a pain in the ass.

11/15/20 Homecoming Week During Covid-19 Times?

     I am perplexed about this one.  On the one hand, the poor guys lost another one to McCallum 38-14, but on the other, the night was such a perfect and beautiful night, it was great to just be outside and enjoy the evening.  This is what Friday Night Lights means, really.  Texas might be leading the country in Covid-19 cases, but don't you dare think about shutting down our high school football.  Those pussies in the NBA and NFL with their million dollar contracts can all go live in a bubble, these boys play for the cheer pride of their schools.

    It was Homecoming week and it was a little sad that bigger fanfare was not on display, the band was finally there and they sounded great, but they did not march during halftime, not sure if they didn't have a routine worked out or if it was because of the virus?  They also mentioned kids for the homecoming court, but also they didn't go out on the field for applause, so it was bittersweet, I know this is a big deal for the kids involved in these popular contests yearly.

    Still, there was a game and the game itself was a horrible display, sorry to say.  Not only did Baby A not get to play, except for two plays, but I guess because of the bye week, they just seemed so rusty.  They couldn't get a drive going, their tackling was sloppy, and the first two times they tried punting on 4th down, the punter took off running the ball in a trick play of some kind and both times he got hammered for a loss way back near the other teams endzone, which lead to some easy scores.  Once they got going, the penalties did not seem to stop.  They were bullshit technical ones too, like illegal procedure, and lining up in the neutral zone for a defensive lineman.  There was just no flow at all to the game and I am pretty sure that the other team got extra downs in some drives that never seemed to end.

    The crowd was really ten times bigger than normal, I was quite surprised because Wife drives in at the last minute (she does work 3 hours away and those a-holes can never seem to let her out early, she must be that important), but the parking lot was full, I had a hard time finding a spot to park when normally I can park on the first row by the gate entrance.  Some parents just have no sense of how bad they sound.  When one kid got hurt, a parent kept yelling "walk it off!"  I thought it was some random adult yelling at a kid, but then he added "come on, son, you're tougher than that."  I thought "wow, that is an idiot."  Baby A said he was next to the kid on the sidelines and his knee was all swollen and looked like it was sideways, poor kid was close to the sideline and crawled off the field, like a dog getting hit by a car, and the dad is yelling "walk it off!!"  I was half expecting to add in pussy at the end of that chant.

    Boy loves this school and we couldn't move, but man, it is a rough crowd, for sure.  This was not the worst parent yelling, some are trying to coach their kids from the bleachers, some have gotten into arguments with the coaches in previous years.  Some just yell all game long until they wear themselves out.  We just try and cheer for Mijo.  Wife and I were barely paying attention watching until our son gets on the field, then we get all excited, then I fire up the video camera.  I got almost two plays this last game, that is all he played, which I already mentioned, I was not happy about.

11/14/20 Doing The Right Thing Sucks Sometimes?

     Wife complains that the kids at her school can't seem to listen concerning Covid-19.  They might test positive but there they are still showing up to practice either on the football team, the band, cheerleading, or volleyball.  Schools are ripe with activities for kids to stay busy with and in any other year it is great, it keeps the kids engaged and a part of their school environment, it really is a beautiful thing.  The problem comes with the fact that this is how the virus keeps spreading and why our numbers keep going up.  In defense of the kids though, what are they to do?  Typically, Covid-19 does not seem to affect strong healthy teenagers anymore than the common cold, so I think some weigh the pros and cons of staying quiet and just say fuck it.

    All this to explain my exasperation at how they treated Baby A for doing the right thing.  I mean, ultimately, he has to answer for his choices and he did choose to have a party with his friends and then they all got some sort of cold, or virus of some kind.  The week after, most of them were complaining of sore throats, and runny noses.  I am not sure what it ended up being, we tested for Covid-19 and came back negative, as did some of his friends, so none of them ended up having it, which is good, but in the meantime of doing the right thing, Baby A ended up missing a full week, which seemed perfect because it was a bye week (meaning they did not play a game last week), and he also missed Monday of this week while he waited for results.  Well, the results came and he got back to practice only to find his position was filled while he was out.

    Mijo did everything he could, even while he was quarantined, he lifted weights, put on his "heavy vest" (it has 20 pounds worth of weights on it) and hopped up and down the stairs as leg strength exercises, and even ran on the treadmill, he tried staying active, but it seems all for naught.  He came back after practice the first day saying he was replaced by a senior who misses a lot of practice (I believe he had also failed the first six weeks, which was cut to 4 weeks (?) ).  Either way, what can he do, right?  It could have been that he would have been replaced either way, even if he had been showing up as normal, so I am not totally upset, but it hurts me because my son is such a competitor and I know he wishes he was out on the field testing himself against the other team.

    What if, I like to ask myself sometimes?  What if he had kept quiet about the possibility of being positive, he might still have his starting position?  What if he did this and infected half the team?  What if as a result, some kid's grandparent got sick because of our irresponsible asses and that person passed away?  As much as it sucks, this is why we always try and do the right thing.  Society may suck balls right now and everything seems in chaos, but good people will always try to be good people.  We must be happy that he is still on the varsity squad and he has gotten tons of game time experience as a sophomore on both sides of the ball, and hopefully, he can carry that to next year and beyond to make him a better player.  Go Coogs!!!

11/13/20 Part Time Mechanic?

     I love the knowledge one can find in Youtube.  Boy's A/C suddenly stopped working Monday afternoon as he was driving home which got him complaining quick.  I was at work already, so what can I do?  I told him to chill, good thing we have the extra vehicle.  We can drop it off Friday at the dealership and he can drive Wife's Ecosport and she can take the Telluride, which she doesn't like using because she doesn't want to put tons of miles on it.  Boy has fallen for the Ecosport though, it has a lot of nice little extras his doesn't like the reverse camera, and heated seats and steering.

    Anytime a car has trouble I get a little worried because going to the dealership, and that is the only place I trust, those technicians do nothing but work on the engines we buy there, so they should be good at figuring out the best solutions, because there is an increased chance of walking out with a new car and a new payment.  This, specially since he was just car shopping with Sweetie and is really liking the Toyota 4-Runner.  Sweetie bought a Toyota so maybe they are trying to be name brand twinsies, I am not sure, but I do know that Ford has been good to me.  He had been saying he would be cool upgrading to a newer Ford Edge since he likes his, it is just kind of basic and it is now getting older, being a 2014 (and here I am driving a 2004).

    Anyway, I went out and looked at his problem the next day, and it seemed weird that the car was making absolutely no sounds from the A/C.  This wasn't a compressor issue or something like that, I thought maybe a fuse, but all the fuses looked good.  I then went to Youtube to see what they would say.  Sure enough, I found a few videos describing that the blower does go out routinely on these Edges but it is a fairly quick and easy fix.  I found several videos describing how to access the part and remove it.  One of the techs even did a little field test with a battery to see if the part would turn if 12v were applied.  Boy is an engineer and he has stuff that can give him 12volts, so we took the part of and went up to his room.  He connected the part to the wires and nothing.  Once we knew that part was bad, we ran to Advanced Auto Parts and got a new one.  It was a very easy fix, other than I am too big to be fitting between the seat and the door frame under where the passenger footwell is of his car.  Good thing Boy is not jumbo sized like me.  He was able to contort himself in there and remove the screws holding it in place.  We tested the part by connecting it before installing it and it immediately came to life when he turned the SUV on.

    It feels so good when you can solve a problem like that.  Plus, we had to have saved ourselves a good $400.  An old lady in one of the videos said she had taken her car into a shop to get the same problem fixed and she was charged $500.  I know Maxwell Ford would have charged us at least that much.  The part cost a reasonable $120, but Boy is now working, so he paid for that.  I basically just supervised him along the fix, he did all the work, it was great.

11/12/20 In Love With My Grill?

     It has now been almost a month since I fixed the auger on my pellet grill and I am back in love with that thing.  I have been cooking most of our lunches during the week for Baby A and me and then on Saturday and Sunday I made dinner out there.  I have figure out some new things to do to protect the auger from having the same thing happen again.  First off, I burn off all the pellets in the auger after each grill and it would seem like I am wasting them, but I have learned to time things just right.

    Most weekdays, I am just cooking two pieces of meat, so I go out and dump enough pellets to fill maybe a third of the hopper and turn it on.  I have to wait about ten minutes for the pellets to make their way to the burn box and heat up the grill, on low, it gets to about 380 degrees.  This is plenty hot to sear the meat, but I usually start by placing the meat on the upper most rack for about five minutes on each side.  This gets the meat cooking, and as we approach 12:30pm, BabyA's lunch hour, I will then put the meat on the grill right above the heat.  This would probably burn the meat if I did it for 4-5 minutes, it gets the job of searing done within 1-2 minutes, I then flip the meat and wait another 2 minutes and call it done.  By the time, I start searing the meat, I open the hopper bottom and the extra pellets fall back into the container that holds them for storage.  The sear is done with the pellets that are clearing out of the tube.  If I time it right, I can then turn the knob over to "off", where it starts a clean cycle which burns off any remaining pellets in the burn box, and then turns itself off.  I am careful to monitor the ash afterwards and make sure it falls through and out of the burn box.

    Saturday, I made some lamb steaks (I believe they were the T-bone but from lambs, little tiny snack sizes), some sirloin which was oh so great, and sausages.  These cooked for maybe twenty minutes and it was ready.  Sunday, we made fajitas, chicken thighs and sausages.  I cut everything up for tacos and mixed the meat up since we didn't buy as many beef fajitas as we thought we did.  Still, we were left with a big container for a couple of meals during the week.  I guess I don't have to defrost meat tonight for tomorrow.  Sam's, which we hadn't been going to much lately, because of Covid-19, has some beautiful cuts of meat, you can see the butcher area right there, so the meat is cut and put out right there.  The sirloins we cooked were a great find at $6.98/pound.  I noticed that the packages were crazy expensive, like $45.00 and up.  When I read the label, they were wrong, ribeyes had a sign going for $13.98 and these steaks said they were ribeyes and priced at the higher price.  I mentioned it to one of the butchers and he corrected it, bringing the pack down more than half what was marked on it.  Sometimes it helps to look at fine details.  We will be buying more of our meat from there, it is all much nicer looking and the taste of both the lamb and the sirloins was just too good.  I thank Boy mostly, for coming up with the idea and making it happen, this has been a great gift.

WEEKDAY MEALS:

Chuck-eye steak (called the poor man's ribeye, but one of the best meals I have ever eaten)

small NY strips, a staple, we eat this all the time, they are not expensive, but very good.

a bigger NY strip steak under avocado slices and spinach and veggies.

a rib-eye steak with bone attached, brussel sprouts and cauliflower rice as sides.

WEEKEND MEALS

I am staying very basic, brisket and sausage (grass fed is the worst, even if it is the priciest, USDA choice and USDA prime are both great).

11/11/20 Busy Saturday Morning? (part 4 of 4)

     Since I had Wife on the ropes and she was being agreeable, I pushed it and asked her if she wanted to go to Woods Fun Center, where they sell the Seadoos and other personal watercraft, PWC.  We didn't have anything special to do, well, there was a baby shower drive-by, but it got cancelled at the last minute, so away we headed to  north Austin.  Apparently, Woods Fun Center is now named is now called RideNow Powersports, but it is the same thing, just a store filled with all the things that boys love that don't have boobs.  They sell motorcycles, scooters, ATVs, PWC, and other funky small vehicles.

    I was trying to sell Wife on the idea of maybe getting a pair of the cheapest PWC, which are the Seadoo Spark jetskis, but in reality, I really want the new Seadoo Fish Pro, but there is a difference of roughly $7000 so I have to accept my limitations.  The first guy was shit useless saying it was now the off season for PWC, so the product they might have in stock would be in their warehouse.  I said thank you and started walking around, the bikes and other 3 wheeled vehicles are still pretty cool to look at.  After a few minutes, another dude came towards us and asked if we wanted to look at some PWC, they had a small lot with all sorts of PWC.  Although it turned out that the first guy was half right, they did have a lot of them in the lot, but most were tagged for service, so they belonged to other customers who had dropped them off to get serviced, probably winterized to be put away until next season.

    Even though, none of the ones we looked at was available for sale, Baby A was infected, all of a sudden he piped up that he would love one of the big Fish Pro models, exactly the ones I would like to get.  Wife was impressed by the size, the Fish Pro is about two feet longer and a little wider than most other PWC and so it looks safer than most.  All of a sudden, she was telling me, if you want to do it, might as well get new ones, and f your son wants those, go for it.  I got excited, this is what I live for, when I get to have my way.  But, I chickened out on my own.  Once he wrote the numbers down and started adding delivery charges of $800, and prep charges of $1000, and then we need a trailer running another $2400, well, it starts to get out of hand.  Yes, the PWC I want is $15,999 x 2 plus $2400 for a trailer then all the hidden costs and financing and it would have been near $750 a month.  We could probably afford it, but I will need a new vehicle soon and I keep saying I want a new F-250 or the new Excursion, both of those are going to be over $70,000.  That means a monthly payment close to $1000 a month, so I have to be careful, this is how we ended up getting in credit card debt in the first place.

    We talked about it as we left, and Wife is still agreeable to the idea, I might have to settle on a new Explorer maybe, which would be a lot cheaper, or maybe she gets a promotion next year, I don't know, but I do believe I am getting closer to the water.

Seadoo Fish Pro (about $15,999)

Seadoo Spark Trixx (about $7700)

Can-Am Spyder, one of the funky rides (about $15,999) range is huge, most basic is $8699 to over $24,000.

Polaris Slingshot, funkiest thing in there, to me (about $24,999) range is also big, basic being around $20,999 to one with a rooftop going for over $34,000.

11/10/20 Busy Saturday Morning? (part 3 of 4)

     After leaving the restaurant, we finally went to where I had been wanting to go since earlier in the week.  I was going to go Friday afternoon but then Wife said she wanted to go with me.  I said great, I want her to be part of this, but usually she just rolls her eyes and acts like a big stump of "NO" so I was trying to circumnavigate her "NO" tendencies and just go alone.  Honestly, I usually talk myself out of stupid shit, but everyone still fears that I will be stupid and reckless, so she probably wanted to go "babysit" my decision making abilities.  We actually got into it at night, when I wanted to show her online what I wanted to get, she could not or would not support me in my endeavors to get a $5000 kayak, so I did what was most prudent and I withheld sex as punishment.  That's right, men can say no too.

    I woke up feeling much better, and a night of lying next to this hunk of a man and not getting any made her come to her senses too, it worked.  She was going on and on about what a great dad and man I was, I am so good to everybody around us and so thoughtful and supportive that dammit dare she say it "I was wrong."  (No, women never admit they are wrong.)  Either way, here we were, in an empty Valhalla.  It was the same as the last time we went to look at jetskis, because of Covid-19, production has been erratic and they just don't have the product they normally carry.  I came to this store a couple years ago and there were a good 50 kayaks displayed all over the place, and the Hobie product was everywhere.  This time, they had maybe 10 kayaks, 3 were Hobies, but they were 2 person style and made for speed (vary narrow) not for fishing (which tend to be wider and have more accessories and storage compartments.  Perception, a close competitor to Hobie did have a couple of boats displayed and at half the price, about $1200-$1800, got Wife to quickly say get two of those to see if you even like doing it.  There were also like 4-5 Riot Kayaks, all these have pedal drives, which means they can be moved in the water by moving the feet, leaving the hands free to fish, or if your legs get tired, you can use a paddle.

    I think the reality of seeing the prices on the kayaks and then not actually seeing the ones I really wanted, changed my mood.  I really do want to get on the water, going on kayaks would be an excellent platform to get exercise while out there, but settling for something less than I had built up in my head is not the way I like to do things.  We walked out, thankfully, the sales guys were distracted by a company rep showing them some inflatable product, so we weren't given the hard sell, we looked around for a good 30 minutes then I guess I decided I could do better.

The dream, Hobie Pro Angler 360 (around $5000)

Perception kayak (around $1800)

Riot kayak (around $1200)

11/9/20 Busy Saturday Morning? (part 2 of 4)

     After our unpleasant test, I decided to go check out Austin Canoe and Kayak (we went to get tested as a precaution, but by this time one of Baby A's friends that had been the most whiny said he went to get tested and came back negative, so I think we are negative as well, considering we never really felt sick), but when we got there we found out they didn't open until 10:00am.  We had gone to do the testing at 9:00am, per our scheduled time.  This is when Baby A, per his scheduled time, started whining about being hungry.  We were way up north, on Burnet past 183.  We don't know the area at all.  It took a minute of driving to realize we were on the outside border of The Domain, we usually go there by MoPac, so this was a totally strange look to it, not that it matters too much.  The only reason I added that is because Burnet road is kind of an old shit hole, a bunch of nothing stores and abandoned lots, but then there are glimpses of nice places here and there.  I think The Domain is supposed to make the area nicer, but of course, as the best of plans go, either Covid-19 or the insistence of the reality of the economic power of the area, it is just a mixed mess.

    I was looking for a Mexican restaurant, not because I am brown and I love freaking beans, but because we are supposed to be eating low carb and an IHOP is the opposite of that.  We found a beautiful looking Mexican restaurant (Dos Salsas in a brand new building that was set up with parking underneath and the restaurant up on the second floor).  I wasn't even sure if we could just walk in or if we needed a reservation it looked so fancy, or maybe it has just been awhile since we ate out.  Of course the parking cannot be easy.  I pulled into the side of the restaurant, which is kind of on the same block as a Hilton or whatever nice hotel.  I pulled into the closest parking area that made sense to me, considering it was right next to the entry off of Burnet Rd. but once we got off and we walked towards the restaurant, I noticed the "We Love to tow away your shit because we need this parking lot empty" signs at a few different points surrounding the parking lot.  This is when I cussed up a storm, Wife and son kept walking towards the place and I moved the car and realized this whole building had underneath parking and the food was served upstairs.

    As Mexican places go, this was very foo-foo as my Dad would say.  We were sat quickly, there were maybe 5 other groups sitting spread out like I love.  The place is quite big, I would say 150-200 people could be seated at the same time.  It was 9:30am, so the crowd was small.  We did not get menus, instead we had to scan a thing on the table and the menu popped up on our phones.  I had the brisket omelette, which did come with a side of beans and potato squares.  The plate also came with 3 tortillas, which I got corn and only ate 1.  The food was good, I wouldn't say great, I am not even sure it was brisket, I've been making one about every weekend since my birthday and this just seemed like thin steak to me, it didn't even fall apart.  It was still a fine meal and Wife and Baby A were in good spirits chatting away about nothing in particular.  It felt so normal and nice to sit in a restaurant and eat.  The fact that we paid like $48 for "eggs and a little meat" was a little shocking.  Give me a $30 brisket and some time at home and I will feed you way an abundance of meat not meat shavings, but I am not running a business.

    On to the toy stores....

11/8/20 Busy Saturday Morning? (part 1 of 4)

     I was not looking forward to it, but Wife scheduled us for a 9:00am appointment to get our brains scrambled once again.  We got Covid-19 tested because Baby A had friends over last weekend and they were all complaining of cold fever symptoms.  By that I mean they all had runny noses, and complaining of a cough and some body aches.  I was having a hard time believing this since I felt fine, and Wife felt fine too.  Either way, we decided to do the right thing and test ourselves.

    This was a very different procedure, not sure if it is because they have more experience or if everyone there has already tested positive and aren't as scared, but there were no hazmat suits on site.  This time we did a drive through test, meaning we did not get out of our cars.  It was in an empty old Home Depot parking lot, we drove in snake style, follow the leader and we stopped at a couple of spots, first to check our registration information, which Wife had done earlier in the week, then we were pulled aside because we had three people testing versus the one in most cars, I guess.  The snake of cars kept crawling forward, at another station we were double checked on the info and given a zip-lock baggy, well, it was slipped under the wiper blades, then we got to the station where they actually did the testing, it was very efficient, all this took maybe fifteen minutes total.  Once we had everything, we were split into two lines and I guess two teams of 2-3 nurses or "nose pokers" (apparently Wife got certified this past week to do this so anyone can do it ??) took care of the nitty gritty.  

    This test is no joke, there is no preparing for the violent attack to the sinuses.  They take the most aggressive looking cotton swabs, this ain't no Q-tip, this is a swab on the end of a 10-12 inch wooden stick.  The only thing one can do before the attack is they do give you a tissue and tell you to blow your nose, they want to make sure it is nice and dry in there.  I think that makes it worse, but once that happens, take a deep breath, say a prayer, pull up some porn on your phone, try whatever you want, it doesn't matter, they poke so far back and deep your eyes will twitch and it lasts for 10 slow seconds, Wife said she counted to ten in her head and when she finished, the lady was just rounding the corner at 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.  I complained like a little girl the first time we did this, they laughed at me.  This time, both Baby A and Wife said it was horrible and it took them a good 30 minutes to get over the ordeal.  I knew it was going to suck, so I even put the car in Park to make sure I didn't loose control of the car.

    After this, we drove out the side of the parking lot and back into society.  It took me a couple minutes to come back to normal and honestly, the rest of the day was great, we even had breakfast in a restaurant, which we hadn't done in almost a year.

11/7/20 Someone Has A Scratchy Throat?

     Never say life is dull, shit will hit the fan.  Last week, we allowed Baby A to have his friends over for a sort of Halloween gathering.  All was well, he asked them if anybody had been sick and they all said no.  The party was fine, he had 4-5 boys here and even a girl, which Wife had to go and meet the mom and get permission directly, to show she would be alright.  These boys are harmless, they really haven't started "dating" yet, they are mostly content to play their video games and talk smack online to each other, which is great for us as parents.

    Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, two of the boys told our son that they feared they might have picked up Covid-19 here.  It is hard talking to Baby A, he is kind of spazzy, he won't give direct answers, I'm not sure if it is that he is obtuse or just understands things on another level.  The description of herding cats feels like when having a conversation with him.  It is usually fun when we are goofing around, but when I want facts, I want them now without bullshit.

    He said all his friends were complaining of a sore throat, one of them went and got Covid tested and came back negative.  He then tells me he is fine and feels great and is ready to go to football practice, but he does have a sore throat.  Then he lifted weights Wednesday and did some exercises where he was hopping up and down the stairs to work his legs.  Of course, he has soreness all over his body and it could be that he is dying from Covid-19, maybe any minute (not joking, his words), or he could just be sore from the workout the previous day.  His spirit is fine and he is joking around with me that he feels good enough to go to practice, but his coaches told him to stay home.  It is a bye week, so the rest is probably good for him, he isn't missing a game.

    Boy is not playing games, he told him to self quarantine and stay in his room.  I feel like if he has it, I have it, we were around all those boys Saturday evening, so no point in me hiding from him.  Wife, of course, the real adult here, scheduled Covid-19 testing for the three of us Saturday morning.  I think we are fine, I didn't feel any different all week and still feel generally good.  I started lifting weights last week and walking on the treadmill about 30 minutes a day and I don't feel any weaker or anything.

    I hope it's just allergies, but for all of them to be complaining, it is either somatic symptom disorder or they do have something, but Covid-19 isn't the only disease they can get.  The regular old influenza is still out there along with a cold, allergies, maybe food poisoning.  I don't know but Wife and I feel fine.

11/6/20 Finally An Amazon Fan Boy?

     I have no shame, I am a die hard mall lover.  I love walking around the mall even if we have no agenda to buy anything.  When we go out of town like to Florida, I will hunt down the nicest mall in the area, I just like the idea of stuff being sold.  Same when we went to Houston and Dallas a few years ago, we ended up in the Galleria malls at both cities.

    Well, Covid-19 has changed that, maybe for now, maybe for life.  We just don't want to leave the house that often.  Consequently, I started looking online and seeing what Boy has been doing for years, shopping for his needs on Amazon.  I like handling the things I buy with my hands, you can feel when something is quality and I feel sometimes the pictures might be misleading and you can end up with an inferior quality product when you get your "thing" shipped from a seller you never see.  Still, life must go on and if we need something, better to give it a shot than go without, I feel.

    I started slowly, I have ordered things for Boy in the last couple years, then for Baby A, like his latest pair of tennis shoes, which Grandma actually paid for, that was nice.  Then I ordered a pair of motors to fix my pellet grill which has now been running almost daily since I fixed it (I have a back-up in case I need it), greatest gift the boys have gotten me, by far.  Slowly, my purchases have been increasing and it just seems to get easier and easier, even when I notice not everything is available with just a click.

    The biggest purchase so far and what made me a convert was getting a $400 dehumidifier to Boy.  He now has a few smaller dehydrators in his room where he has his 3D printers and he uses them to keep the spools of filament from getting too humid, which can affect the build quality.  When I found out about this, I set out to solve his problem in an elegant manner.  I ordered a midsized dehumidifier which can be used to keep delicate equipment protected from atmospheric moisture.  If he sets it up right, he should be able to store up to 21 spools or so.  I counted and he has something like 50-60 spools in the room right now, if anything, he can round them up and keep them organized here.

    This week, Baby A got me to order some Halloween costumes/pajamas for his boys.  Done.  Click click.  Wife wanted some Nightmare Before Christmas ornaments.  Click.  I bought Boy two pair of shoes for his new job brown and black dress shoes with steel toes.  All this is now super easy because I applied for the Amazon card and they gave me a healthy credit line, starting with the dehumidifier, I also got a nice 10% off on it, being my first purchase on the card.

    I have now copied Boy all the way, as I made my first list of stuff I want.  My first thing on the list is those giant novelty salt and pepper grinders, which now that I am grilling daily, seem appropriate.  While I was at it, I added some dress shoes that reminded me of some cool shoes I had in college for when I wear pants, and then some exercise equipment.  There is a lot of range in what they will deliver.  I just need them to offer some jet skis and better choice kayaks.

11/5/20 This Is Why I Historically Don't Vote?

     It is very hard to invest yourself completely in something you don't have much of a chance of affecting.  Wife asked me recently why I didn't stick with football in high school.  I don't think I have ever answered it out loud but honestly, I like being someone that matters and gets the attention of the room or crowd.  Staying in football meant I was just going to be seen as a fat lineman who did the grunt work for others to get the spotlight.  As I like to say, Fuck That!  I am the star in my own life, not some skinny fucker who can run fast.  So I stuck with band, not as glamorous, but I was always considered one of the best members of the band and got plenty of attention for it.

    Fast forward to adulthood, voting is kind of the same thing.  We pave the way for some glorified old white man (and Barack, I guess) to be our leader and be the man.  Repeat every four years.  If done right, we get some special favors, choosing conservative is supposed to keep a few extra nickels in our pocket and they promise to strengthen security and keep us safe.  Voting for the left means we get to run a little freer from the rules and we'll try to make things more equal by taking from the haves and giving it to the have nots.  This sounds fair to more or less 50% on both sides and we "play ball."

    I haven't cared too much either way.  A tax break from the right would maybe save me a little bit of money, Trump did re-do the tax codes back when he started.  Obama tried to increase healthcare for all, which initially I was excited about until I realized I was on the side of helping to pay for these "have nots" to be covered and I now pay twice what I used to ten years ago.  This seems to be the game they play and we act as spectators and participants to their shenanigans.

    I only got involved because the idea of socialism taking root if the democrats are allowed to control seems a scary thought to those of us that care.  The idea has been tried in many countries and all those countries end up ruined, yet it is supposed to work here?  I fear not for me, but in twenty years this country might look very different for my grandkids.  Maybe we shift and some civil war breaks out, scary indeed, but ultimately, I am team Texas, if we separate, we will be ok.  We have a coastline, we are large, we have oil, land for farming, and we can stand on our own.  The west coast can all turn into a country of Chaz, it'll be hilarious to see the most beautiful part of our great country turned into one big smelly turd, thanks to a philosophy of "ask not what I can do for my country, but what my country can do for me."

11/4/20 Feeling Like A Fat Cow?

     I decided I would take a break from dieting this weekend and just enjoy the Halloween candies and everything associated with it.  This seemed like a perfect weekend for the holiday, it being on a Saturday, Baby A playing his game on Thursday night and even winning, so we enjoyed it and got it out of our system by Friday to be able to focus on Halloween more thoroughly.  The weather was perfect, in the mid 70's during the day turning cooler into the evening, probably in the mid 50's by 11:00pm.  Mijo asked for a brisket to treat his friends and so I bought one on Thursday after I dropped him off at his school for the game (he has to be there a couple hours before game time at 4:30pm, then game starts at 7:30pm).  Everything was pretty much perfect, because he played on Thursday, Wife took Friday off and she was here for a 3 day weekend, which added to the weekend feeling like a real holiday.

    With Wife here, we went out to get supplies on Friday early, hitting Target for candies, which we did after we went and voted (Trump 2020!!).  We hadn't used the Target card in a few months, so we decided we would just load the cart and not worry about what we got.  We ended up with maybe 10 jumbo sized bags of candies (in other years we have gotten as many as 15 of these, but this is the year of Covid-19), and we were a little disappointed that barely any kids came by.  Still, we did what we felt we had to do.  Along with all the candies, we also got pumpkin flavored muffins, chocolate laced croissants, brownies topped with two inches of sweeter stuff on top, like chocolate drizzle and nuts, cupcakes, burgers, sausages, chips, regular sodas for the boys, and other stuff.

    I resisted for about two minutes when we got the stuff home.  Of the candies I saw in the bags,  I love Twix bars the most.  I found some of the half sized bars and tore into the bag.  The first one was divine, then the next 10 were just a blur.  While trying the different candies, I also split a muffin in half, ate a cupcake or two in one bite, and sampled everything else we bought within an hour of getting home.  It was so great and so much all at once.  Wife started filling baggies to give on Halloween night, I went upstairs to change into a house shirt, laid down, and slept my sugar rush away for about an hour or two.

    For the rest of the night, I felt lethargic, and bloated.  While being disciplined and eating one good meal a day, I have been very good, going potty once and not having much of any thought about my digestion the rest of the day.  After all the crap, I was gurgling and burping and popping like a coffee maker making a pot of coffee.  I did not enjoy any of it.  It felt great in my mouth, for a second or two, but I felt bad pretty much all weekend.  I am writing this Sunday morning and I am trying to be good, but I have already had another muffin with my coffee, so I am not done with all this bad stuff.  Wife said she would be taking the leftovers to her office Monday morning and I will glad to get it out of the house.  I can be disciplined if it is not in the house, but if it is in front of me, I will eat it.

11/3/20 I Kind Of Like Living In A Covid-19 World?

    First off, I am not pro virus, idiots, I like the results it has spawned.  Generally, I am an introvert and not a fan of crowded locations.  As I have said more than a couple times, I love that we are spending more time at home nowadays, we don't do unnecessary crap out and about if we can help it.  But, when we have had to go out into the public world, I do like some things.  We hadn't eaten out in months and when we finally went to Mod Pizza about a month or so ago, it was so awesome to see every other table blocked off, so we had no chance of having an idiot group sit close to us.  This was the same thing twice with my in-laws when they have joined us to see Baby A's football games, we eat together afterwards and we have been given huge space all around, I love that. 

    I just don't like people in my space.  I also noticed this to be the case at Baby A's football games.  The first game in Hays was great, we bought "reserved" tickets and were given actual seating locations which told the dum-dums where to sit.  This was great because people are generally dense.  I say this because at other games we have been told to space apart and it has worked more or less, but this last game, the convention seemed to start falling apart, almost like people believe the vaccine is already out or the virus has given up.  We got to the game about forty minutes early, we were maybe the 2nd or 3rd group of parents to get there, and I like to sit near the 50 yard line, it splits both sides of the field evenly.  Everything was cool, people arrived and everyone was sitting spaced pretty good, the tend to skip a row and then sit skewed to one side or the other, it seems to work well enough.  Well, with 2-3 minutes before kickoff, a family came in, it was only four people, but they were a husky group.  I understand that and I will even say it seems like a great supportive family, from dad to mama, to younger siblings, they all scream for their kid all game long, as they should.  The only thing that bothered me was that the younger girl ended up so close to me, her flailing arms touched my leg, which worried me that she might knock my camera over from it's tripod.  Luckily, with no other people close to us, I told Wife slide over and away.  While we stood for the National Anthem, we slid over about 3 feet to give us some more space, and the little girl kept standing like she had fleas in her ass every 3-5 minutes, but we were spaced enough away that it didn't bother me, too much.

    This was also the case at the voting location, the line went out the door, but it was because they were spacing people so far apart.  We had designated spots to stand on, noted on the floor with big stickers, then the machines were all separated by more than 6 feet, what else could an introvert ask for, thanks Covid-19.