8/30/21 Logically Speaking, I Should Be Able To Get A Boat?

     This is not the final argument on this, it is merely filler for the day, but Wife was discussing with me all summer that I can't have it all.  I must decide whether I want a new boat or a new pool, we can't afford both.  I think we can, but then she likes to bring up the scenario that we are getting older and much like the Physician Assistant playing Babe Ruth and calling my death by the weekend with so much sureness in her tone, Wife says we shouldn't get into debt because... you know.  I interpret that to mean that she expects me dead within about 3-5 years and thus leaving her with all the debt to carry by herself.

    She was in full support of us replacing the pool when I was running out of areas to put the clay putty in an effort to find the leak.  Now, miraculously, it appears that I must have accidentally plugged the hole because the water seems to be staying up near the edge of the pool top and so, to me, this is one expense we don't have to make.  Now, logically, if Wife was in full support of going in with me and spending $100k to replace the pool and get a new one installed in the backyard, she should be ecstatic to only spend say, $40,000 on a boat which we would both enjoy.

    Just looking at the numbers, a boat would cost less than half what getting a new pool would, so it would seem to make sense that if we were only doing one or the other, the boat would be the way to go.  Of course, Wife says "well, what if the pool gives us a new leak next summer and we are back to thinking about replacing the pool, but if we get a boat, that will not be a possibility.  I say if I get a boat, the backyard will just get ignored, so it won't matter.  I know this is not a good sound argument to win Wife over, but I am just being theoretical.  

    In actuality, I would prefer a Seadoo PWC, and would even settle for one, and if we do end up enjoying it, possibly buy a second one next summer.  Entry level prices for a jetski are about $8,000-13,000, depending on how basic a machine one would want.  I really like the fishing versions, they are longer and have features for fishing, such as the motor will run as a trolling motor in a very low speed setting, but I could live with just a basic jetski to see if I even enjoy riding on one.  Again, I've spent that kind of money on a watch, it should logically be okay to buy one.  Wife says that a watch will be around long enough to pass on to the boys, so the cost is not as painful.  A jetski will just break down and cause maintenance issues and well, I haven't historically been great at keeping things fixed.

    I'm just ruminating out loud, not taking stabs at Wife.  I have a disease in that I constantly want, she is trying to break me of this, but I don't want to be fixed.

8/29/21 DD Got Me A New Toy?

     I got up this morning at 6:00am and it is now 7:30am and already have had a brisket in the pellet grill for about an hour.  I am smoking this one solely to test out my newest toy.  My birthday was last week and we had a small gathering here at the house Sunday with a few friends and although I was not expecting any gifts, DD bought me what looks like the perfect brisket knife.  I looked it up on Amazon, not to see the price, but I want more knives from this collection, they all seem like what a professional might use.

    The blade is over twelve inches long and is one solid piece of metal, so the handle won't break over time.  I had complained about using my big knife, a Santoku style blade, which was only like 7-8 inches and not long enough to go across the brisket as I am cutting them, making the slices fall apart sometimes in not pleasant ways.  This brand is Dalstrong and their website says they are forged of German high carbon steel which sounds about right to me.

    I don't know if it is too far away now, but Boy did ask me for suggestions for a gift and looking through the other knives, I wouldn't mind if he got me the big scary "Obliterator" meat cleaver, it is a hefty 3 pound slab of metal that should work great on pork ribs and other tough meats.  If he doesn't buy, I will probably end up getting it soon, I like these knives, they seem fit for their purpose.  I'm not like my brother that likes to buy knives and carry them around, but a knife with a purpose like this really does look like a piece of art.

8/28/21 One Is The Loneliest Number For An Afternoon?

     It doesn't happen too often, but occasionally, we make plans and things fall apart in weird ways.  Yesterday was one of those.  Baby A does not do many activities outside of football, working out, or things of that nature, so when he says he is going to do something outside that realm, I want him to go and have fun, specially when he is including his non-sports buddies.  He had asked me about two weeks ago if he could go hang out at the mall with his friends on Saturday afternoon.  This is the first time I think he has ever even made such a request, so I was pleasantly surprised and said yes, of course.

    At the same time, Wife had been planning a get together with her old coworkers and then seeing her plans fall apart because of Covid, or other plans that came up.  This weekend finally saw her free enough to go and meet that obligation, and I think she assumed we would be free to just go, and normally I would have told Mijo to just change his plans, but on the other hand, he seemed excited and the fact that Wednesday night before their first football game he was expressing how "burned out and almost not enjoying football anymore".  I felt bad for him because he spent his whole summer in workout mode.  There was no time to relax, and because Wife started hew new job at end of the school year, she didn't even get any time off, so we didn't even get a vacation of any kind this summer.  I did take a week off, but I spent it here at home taking him to practice and stuff like that.

    With that all being said, it felt too "mean" to say no to his plans to do some non football activity with his regular friends, so I told Wife I would stay home and not join her to La Pryor for the day.  After a little back and forth, she agreed this would be the best route.  

    This worked out great for Wife, who was able to go and be herself with her ladies over there, none of them having to include their husbands because I was going to show up.  It worked great for our boy because he got to go and hang out all afternoon without anyone rushing him, we thought of letting older brother take him and pick him up, but he can be a dick when he has plans and we ask him to modify anything to help us, so I only involve him in emergencies.

    It was okay overall.  I was bored out of my mind since I got to play taxi and just sit around all day.  I wanted to go see the new Seadoo jetskis that just came out but once I saw how backed up traffic was on the freeway and the store that sells them is almost in Pflugerville up north, I said, "forget that!"  I tried calling my buddy who came over to the house last week, but he texted he was at work, so I just went home and sat.  I waited about three hours, then headed back close to six, thinking he'll be out of money soon, I only gave him $140, but he texted when I got there, that they had just started watching Candyman in the theater, so I had to hang out for 2.5 hours.  Worse off, the mall starts closing early, which is a horrible sign.  I don't think this mall will be open in five years, at this pace.  It is starting to look like Highland Mall with too many shoes stores and then I noticed at Dillard's all the cologne bottles that used to normally be out on the counters for sampling aren't up there anymore, it looked a tad ghetto to me to just have the empty display of all the different cologne options, but no actual colognes to try.  I don't know, a lot of little things made me feel bad for the mall, it used to be my favorite place to go and walk around at, but it isn't the same feeling.  The back of Spencer's feels like a sleazy porn store, which I do like, but not for a mall atmosphere.  It shouldn't have all these dildos and sex toys just out on display for any kids to see.

    I ended up waiting the last 40 minutes or so in the car after I noticed Dillard's was closing and I didn't want to walk through the back hallways alone.  When they lock up the big stores, you can still get around them, but you have to take all these creepy kind of dirty back halls to get around the stores.  I just sat in the car and waited for Mijo who came out as per usual complaining on how bad the movie he had just seen was.  It felt good to get back to normal and sit with my boy to hear him complain about something.  We went ang got Wife from the house and went and got pizza for dinner.

8/27/21 Three Quarterbacks In One Game?

     It was a rough start to the season, I can't lie.  The only saving grace is that this is not a district game, so it does not hurt the team's standing but it did hurt the ego and even the quarterback position.  Hays Johnson did about the same amount of damage as last year, but it almost wasn't fair in that we lost our starting quarterback in the second series within the first five minutes of the game.  It got rough fast, the starting quarterback appeared to suffer a concussion which had him laying on the field not moving at all for about five minutes.  He got up eventually, and was helped off the field by a coach on either side, but he eventually left the stadium to go get checked out at a hospital.  Good news is that we heard towards the end of the game that he will be okay.  This got us on the back-up quarterback pretty quickly which made me even more nervous because Baby A was recently moved over to center and as a parent, it is stressful because my son touches the ball on every play and the exchange from the center to quarterback has to be about perfect each and every time.  I was hoping he would be at least as good as the center from last year, where I thought it was good to go a game losing one maybe two snaps a game that went over the head of the QB.

    I am happy to say that Mijo did not have any bad snaps, they were all handled by the quarterback.  He did get in the car talking about feeling responsible for his QB getting knocked out, but we saw the play at home and he was busy guarding against a defensive tackle, the QB ran away from the line, to the right where he was handled by a defensive end that was knocked down but he got up and grabbed the QB at the line as a linebacker came and hit him hard but clean.  I think it cleared his conscious to see that he did what he could in that particular play.

    It got interesting because they have so few players, the back-up QB was also playing defense and about the time he took over, he got hit pretty hard and went out of the game for a short time.  It was nerve wracking to see our son on the sideline warming up with a 3rd QB who my son was saying doesn't even know all the complicated calls that are made at the line of scrimmage, such as calling the codes for where certain defenders are.

    It is in poor taste to pick any one person as playing badly, but I do have to say that the tackling was especially bad on the defense.  Runners in open field just slid all the way to the endzone without being touched.  I didn't see any indication that the other team could really pass or run inside.  It was mostly running around the edges, finding a hole and taking off time and time again.

    The Crockett offense never had a chance to get going once they lost their starting QB, it turned into a matter of just surviving the game.  It was interesting to hear our boy tell us he did manage to play defense for 3-4 plays.  I asked him why and he wasn't sure, but in one play, the guy he replaced was just thirsty and wanted to go drink water.  I would be so pissed at that boy, if that turned out to be true.  Mijo even got in on a kick return which seemed weird as he says he has only done it once or twice since he started playing in 7th grade.  He wasn't even sure what to do other than run and find someone to hit.

    Other than the score, 69-6, it was a great game experience.  We got a rain storm about an hour before the game started, so it kind of cooled things off, then as the sun went down, there was a nice breeze which made sitting out there more enjoyable.  Both bands were out there and made for a festive night with their playing of all sorts of songs.  They then put on good halftime shows which made it feel like games of old.  I am also happy to say that there were a lot of parents and I guess classmates in the bleachers.  Last year, most games were very sad, quiet, and empty.

8/26/21 A Little Lesson Emerged This Morning?

     Tonight is the first full scrimmage of the football season against another school and because of that, Baby A was dressed nice this morning.  The head coach has made it a rule that the team members will dress semi-formal on game days, which includes a button up shirt and tie.  I loved this idea and made one small mistake, assuming he had a basically new black long sleeve button shirt and slacks which he had worn to a funeral a few months ago.  In my head, all he needed was a tie, which I happily ran and bought him one yesterday in his team colors of gold and black, it is supposed to be more brown but it has been mildly replaced by gold, it seems.  Anyway, Mijo looked good this morning, but his pants were almost a tad high water, meaning he might have stretched in the last 4-5 months and even the shirt was snug around his chest and arms, as he flexed to show me he barely fit in the shirt.  I told him we would go and buy him a couple new slacks tomorrow along with the next size up shirt.

    He was really hemming and hawing on the way to school feeling really exposed is what I was thinking.  He usually hides in a baggie hoodie and this put him out there for the world to see.  I told him this was by design, the coach knows what he is doing.  These are the little things that make you into a better man quicker than some of your counterparts.  Think about it, right now you are uncomfortable in these types of clothes, you're all fidgety and kind of acting like a child, but if you do this every time there is a game, it will become something normal and you'll get used to dressing like an adult.  Compare that to some of your friends who might not get this experience and the first time they are dressing up is for an interview, how uncomfortable will they feel on that day, while you will already be used to the attire.  Add to that, this makes you used to going in an adult store and buy clothes that might need to get fitted to you, along with starting you on a path of matching color palettes with slacks and dress shirts that you don't have to do when you just wear jeans and T-shirts every day.  This is all good, plus you look like a fine young man, not a little ne'er do well, which is a good look to show the professors who are still trying to gauge which kids are really trying to succeed.

    His only retort was to say "Boy dressed like this every day?"  "Yes", I said.  "Your brother has always liked to dress up and we supported it happily.  He would regularly wear a full suit with a jacket and tie to school."  It bothers him a bit that he is in a clean room and lab environment that doesn't really make sense to dress up for, but that is the nature of his job nowadays.  I am sure Mijo will have a fine day, plus we have a game to look forward to tonight.

8/25/21 Are You Ready For Some Football?

     We are at the start of a new school year and that means a new football season.  Baby A has been working hard all summer to become the best athlete he can be on the field.  I am genuinely excited to see what this year brings.  They have a veteran quarterback, a couple of returning good receivers, and a handful of strong returning running backs.  There are four returning starters to the offensive line, including Mijo who has been moved from guard to center this season.  Center is a huge responsibility, but I think our boy is the man for the job.  He had one bad snap in the scrimmage last week and that is before realizing he can adjust the football if it is not sitting correctly with the laces a certain way.  Hopefully, this makes him a solid center, although it is always scary to see the football fly over the quarterbacks head, which would happen 1-2 times a game last year.

    The parents are being overly involved this year and that has to be a good thing.  We have an app where we can communicate with the coaches and vice versa.  They have called on us to feed the boys tomorrow, for Thursday's first scrimmage.  The coach suggested some sort of pasta before the game and sandwiches for after.  I didn't want to be involved in either of those situations, the last thing I want is to think that I got a kid sick with my cooking or it sat out too long.  Although several parents are bringing cases of Gatorade, I figured those are good for before the game.  We are bringing 60 sodas (there are 60 players), at least that many Rice Krispies, Motts fruit candies, assorted Cheez-it baggies, and assorted Nature Valley bars.  I probably overdid it, but that is fine, these boys are giving their blood, sweat and tears for their team.

    Wife was telling me not to go out and buy an expensive new cooler, it might walk away if we leave it with the coaches, but I wanted one with wheels, that many sodas and ice gets heavy and guess who the idiot that gets to carry this stuff around usually is?  Instead of the Yeti or Magellan overpriced plastic, I found a nice Igloo for $39.99 that has wheels and will fit over 60 sodas with ice.  I won't be destroyed if it disappears or the wheels break off.  While at Academy, I also bought Wife a new stadium seat, it made seating for the three hour games much better for myself, so I am sure Wife will appreciate it.  I also decided to buy myself a new pair of sunglasses which are polarized.  I haven't had sunglasses in quite awhile, but last week while watching the scrimmage I felt I could have really used them.  They seem to be the perfect team colors with a dark brown frame turning light brown at the legs where they go on the ears.

   All that is left to say is Go Coogs!!!

8/24/21 Pool Fixed?

     I wasn't even sure if I would ever write the  words, but I think I might have fixed the pool, mostly by cycle of elimination.  I was sure the problem was either the skimmer box, where the water gets sucked back to the pump and filter outside the pool.  I then blocked this section off, but water still leaked, so I then figured the leak was somewhere else.  I then thought it had to be leaking at the inlet connection where the water comes back into the pool and I tried all sorts of tricks, going as far as using Flex tape in the Spring.  This seemed to work so I decided after the glue started falling apart that this is where I needed to focus my energy.  I bought this clay putty that I have used before to fill in cracks and places like around the light assembly.

    I bought four of these packages at Harbor Freight and I know it's a cheap tool place, but even the clay felt cheap.  It filled in but it didn't fill the inlets like I wanted.  I then procrastinated another couple weeks, only to see the pool water fall again to about where it always does.  At this point, I had given up, we were talking about spending $80,000-$100,000 to install a new pool and hot tub combo.  I really wanted to do this, mostly to get rid of this albatross, but I didn't want the $600 a month price tag.  I was discussing with Wife that I could put more of the clay putty, but it does cost like $6 a pack and I need another 4-6 of them.  She put it into perspective that if we spend even $50 on clay and we can stop the leak, it is nothing compared to the cost of a new pool.

    So I made the effort a couple weeks ago to plug the four water inlets entirely up, to completely eliminate the chance that this is the source of leakage.  I was heartbroken when after a day I could tell the water was still coming down, indicating that there was still a small leak.  Wife pointed out some cracks on the body of the fiberglass.  I ignored these because they didn't seem deep  enough to go all the way through, but since I didn't know where else to try and plug and I still had clay in my hands, I went along and plugged up these cracks.

    I guess they were the culprits, the water has remained as high and clean as it was Sunday afternoon and it feels so good to discover where the water had been leaking or at least stopping the flow of water outside of our pool.  If the pool is in good shape, then I need to now start worrying about the hot tub.  It did not want to work correctly like it used to before.  It used to have a lot of power and the last time I fired it up, it barely moved the water and the heater would not even stay on because the water flow was so light.

8/23/21 One More Cake?

     I guess I had a little more celebrating to do for my 50th because we went and bought another cake Sunday morning and decided it would be fun to grill and invite a couple friends over for dinner.  Wife and I actually got up early, I was almost shocked to see Wife up at 10:00am when I went in the bedroom looking for my wallet.  It has become the norm that I run to the store on Sunday mornings to stock up for the week, this way we can avoid wasting the day and going when there are bound to be more people shopping.  If we go early enough, there is also a better chance it won't be as hot as it can get during the middle of the day.

    We didn't get much, I had already taken out a 3.5 pound bag of frozen fajitas, which as the bulk of the meal, we then bought some chicken breasts, some sausages, and even some hamburger patties.  One of my friends asked what he should bring and I told him not to worry about it, but he always insists, so I told him we were making fajitas and he brought more.  Other than the meat, Wife made rice and beans, and we even bought a small portion of prepared potato salad, in case someone wanted to go that route.

    We invited DD and his wife, and I also invited a friend from when I first started working at then AMD.  It was a good mix of people, Boy and his gf eventually showed up too.  I wasn't sure if DD and my work friend would find any common ground to talk, but apparently my old friend has a neighbor that he was saying is a douchebag, manager of a strip club and acts that way, and DD knows him and agreed to the douche-baggery tag.  DD's wife is now 3 months pregnant or so, and although she is not showing yet, she did have a long strip of sonograms of her last doctor visit, they seem so happy and excited for the upcoming baby.

    It was a good gathering, we weren't sure about making it a swimming party, but I had cleaned the pool and Wife and I spent about an hour and a half in it before we got out and started grilling.  I have to say I love that grill, it is now a year old, my boys gave it to me for my birthday last year.  I have replaced most of the active parts, but it does a great job and makes me a more adept cook.  It takes very little effort to start up and once you know where the hot spots are, it is fairly easy to manage.

    We ate around 8:00pm, then we had cake and DD and his wife left around 9:00pm.  My work friend used to work nights and can spin a yarn.  It got to 10:00pm and we kind of had to motion to the door, his kid was starting his first day of school and Wife likes to get in bed before 10:00pm.  I would say it was a good overall weekend.

8/22/21 Birthday Afternoon With Family?

     We celebrated my 50th birthday yesterday in San Antonio at Salt Grass Restaurant.  I would say it was a pretty good day overall.  The lunch was scheduled at 3:00pm, I started the day by getting up at 7:45am, drinking my coffee and doing a little workout, which I am trying to do regularly.  After this, I cleaned the pool, even if it leaks, I have to keep the water clean, and it has stayed clean all summer, I am thinking of running the hose today to get it to fill up to the top so we can swim Sunday afternoon as I make some BBQ, but we will see.

    It was a little funny to see Baby A come down the stairs at 11:45am all scared and confused.  Wife had told him we would leave at noon, so he thought he was running late.  I calmly told him Wife was still asleep, he had plenty of time.  At this point, I figured we should actually start at least getting up, so I woke Wife and we got dressed and going.  We got to the restaurant about 2:45pm, so just in time.  My folks had arrived about 5 minutes before us and it seemed like my sister arrived about that time as well.  It was nice that the room they sat us in was mostly empty, maybe 1-2 other small groups along the tables along the wall, but we had all the tables in the middle lined up in two rows.  My family all sat on the first table, where we sat and we ordered.  I thought it was a little funny when the waiter came and made a fuss about wanting to wait to take our orders because people always move when other people arrive.  We said okay, then he said he would go ahead and take our orders, then my in-laws started showing up and we did all move around.  The waiter didn't really like this and let out a little "come on guys."  Baby A went and sat with his cousins, Boy moved over so my in-laws could sit next to Wife.  I thought it was a good set up, I even got up and went to the end of the table to talk with my brother and sister for awhile.

    I am not complaining about the food, my steak was decent and tasted like it is supposed to, but my boys thought the place was just meh, I thought the appetizers, loaded fries and fried mushrooms were just so-so.  Wife ordered a chicken fried steak and about a third of it was just breading without meat inside, not sure how that works.  The timing was also a little off, we had a hard time ordering appetizers, my mom didn't order any until we were ordering the meals and then the food came too fast, which is fine, but it almost seemed like they wanted to rush us off or something.  I got my first glass of soda, then I got a little pitcher which had enough to refill two glasses, sorry but I drink a lot, I could have treated the pitcher as a glass.  While we were eating cake, most of us had already finished our drinks and the waiter didn't really bother offering more drinks.

    The meal overall was fine, but for a Salt Grass, which I thought was better than an Outback or other chain restaurants, it didn't really seem that way.  We've gotten better service at cheaper restaurants, but we were a group of almost thirty, so maybe that had something to do with it.  Anyways, we finished our cake and left maybe two hours later.  I had wanted to stop and look at watches at a couple of stores in the area, but they both closed at 5:00pm and the traffic was horrible around the Cantera shopping center, so we chickened out and left.

    Even though we had just eaten a big steak meal, we stopped on the way home in Buda to pick up a couple pizzas, just in case, so we wouldn't have to leave the house at night.  The plan was to stay up and watch movies, but I think we all just ended the day early in a food coma.  I was probably asleep by 10:30pm, I had told Wife I wanted a nap of 20-30 minutes, she wanted to go shower, so we went upstairs and that was the end of the night.  We managed to watch one thirty minute show but I guess it was a good day.

We will try to extend the celebration a little more with a few of our Austin friends on Sunday, with a little BBQ and maybe a jump in the pool.

8/21/21 Happy Birthday To Me?

     Woohoo, it's my birthday today.  Seriously, I can't really get too excited, I'm not that type of guy and when I do show emotion, Wife makes a face because I get too loud, so Yeaih me! (but quietly).  Anyways, Wife has been on me for the last two months on what we should do to celebrate and I honestly couldn't think of anything, not because I'm a curmudgeon, but I feel like I celebrate every day.  I live a good life, overall.  If I feel like eating cake any day of the week, we buy cake, if I feel like eating brisket or BBQ, most of the time Wife is ready to join me.  There is very little in life that tells me no or "you can't do that", so I live a pretty good and gifted life.

    At this point, we have raised two pretty great kids, Boy is working in my field, which is pretty much a thumbs up of approval that he likes what I have done or he would have moved away from what I do.  Baby A is still in school but any teachers or coaches that find out we are his parents quickly go out of their way to tell us how great a kid he is and we can see that he works harder than he has to in everything he does.  Wife is a fucking champ, she does go overboard busting balls on the three of us, but that is who she is and I love that at the end of the day.  She likes to play this pity party sometimes that I would leave her for somebody else or whatever, but I need a ballbuster of her magnitude, anything weaker and I would trample over them.  I love her spirit and dedication to her work, it makes her the person she is, and I know that at the end of the day, she does all that for us, so we prosper.

    My parents did everything to give us paths to success and I think looking at how my life has turned out, mission accomplished.  My siblings are equally motivated to challenge and push me just like I enjoy and believe life should be.  We don't sit all Kumbaya style like in Wife's side of the family, where everyone loves each other and everyone is great.  We get together and go at it, arguing and testing each other's resolve, much like Boy's GF says "I argue for sport." (I actually love that quote).  At the end of the day we do have a lot of love for each other, but it is fun to go at it, verbally (never physically, we're not animals).

    With all this being said, yes, I could always use more stuff but life is good.  I sometimes find myself complaining on here, but I always note that I complain over 1st world problems.  My job is pretty easy and stress free, my house is big and has plenty of space, I could use a new truck, but my vehicles are in good working order and we even have an extra vehicle, for emergencies.  I guess that if I live another fifty years (I probably won't), I can only hope it keeps on being what it is, the gift that keeps on giving.

8/20/21 Shit Day?

     I was trying to enjoy my last day as a 40-something, but I guess that request is too much to ask for.  It started innocently enough, Wife wanted an oil change for her car, even though it still had 500 miles before it was due (probably 2-3 more round trips to her job).  Fine, I'm the husband with too much time on my hands.  I know we are supposed to schedule appointments now, I was the one that discovered this two oil changes ago.  Still, Wife has to toot the horn, roll the window down and remind me like I'm a child.  Instead of an I love you as the last words I said before she left like most mornings, she got the bird.  If this was it, it would have been a fine day, but no, she also mentioned YET AGAIN, that the AC upstairs was showing an error on the screen.  Since I sleep downstairs during the week, and rarely go upstairs I didn't really pay attention to this.  I scheduled the oil change for 9:00am, after dropping off Baby A at school, drive over there and maybe wait for an hour, like the last few times.  NOPE!!!  The tech girl said it would be a couple hours, to which I replied 1-2 hours, she said yes.  I figured I could wait two hours, kill time by going over and looking at the Ford vehicles next door, then sit in lobby and play on my phone.

    Three hours later, the tech comes and tells me that they have my car up, and mentioned I could use with changing the coolant fluid, the brake fluid, and something else, along with the cabin and air filters.  I agreed to changing the coolant fluid and the two filters.  This is Wife's car, so I let the pros take care of it.  I change out my own air filters, they are pretty cheap, from Amazon.  It wasn't until 1:00pm that I finally left the dealership.

    I decided to try and make it my day (tomorrow is my birthday), so I headed to the Domain to look at the watches at Ben Bridge, I was pretty sure they wouldn't have any Rolexes, but maybe something else.  I asked about 2-3 Tudor watches I like, and nothing.  I asked about the one Grand Seiko I like, and again "we had one, it must have sold."  I like the Panerai, but I'm not sure about paying upwards of $7000 for another watch right now.  At least the Tudor watches stay around $5000, same with the Grand Seiko.  Wife says I could get another watch, it is a milestone birthday, but I will feel like an asshole if I go buying another watch when I just got one 2-3 months ago.  I then headed home.

    Everything seemed fine, even if I lost around three hours unnecessarily, I cooked myself a NY strip steak and ate it with a side of salad.  Everything seemed fine, but I ran upstairs to get the cord to charge the video camera and I discovered the AC is not communicating with something or other, wither way, another excuse for it not to be working.  I called Fox AGAIN (this must be the 4th or 5th time we have had this unit serviced) and I pissed and moaned about spending so much money and here I am.  I have family coming this weekend and this is fucking bullshit for the $25,000 I was convinced to spend so I would have new reliable units.  Needless to say, a guy is coming over sometime today and they are sending a higher up next week to evaluate and possibly replace the unit, I don't know if I believe that.

8/19/21 It Sure Is Quiet?

     I had forgotten how quiet the day can be when all alone.  Now that Baby A is back in school, Boy was told to show up to work by 8am (he was coasting in around 9am before), Wife leaves the house at 545am and even Boy's gf is back at her mom's home (she was staying here because a few family members tested positive for Covid a couple weeks ago), I am back to being alone all day long.  Used to be back in the day, I was doing a twelve hour shift pretty much from 6pm to 6am, so I tended to sleep all day and even on my days off, I would be so out of it I would just sleep most of my alone time.  Lately though, I shifted my time, I only work a ten hour shift and I am usually home before midnight, so I have been getting up earlier in the day and I feel so much better for it, I am not the walking zombie I was the last 4-5 years when I was doing the real night shift, I don't think I can go back to that, it was not healthy at all.  Even driving around town I would get drowsy and have to fight the sleep to go drop off the boy at school.

    Lately, I even wake up to walk Wife out in the morning, and sometimes I'll just stay up from 6am and I can be fine most of the day.  This is giving me a lot of alone time though.  Tuesday I did what Wife dreams I would do every day.  I came home after dropping off Mijo and I swept and mopped the entrance of the house and the kitchen, then I vacuumed downstairs and even tried to go and patch the pool (AGAIN!!!).  I washed a load of clothes, we do this during the weekend, but Baby A changes in and out of clothes like 4 times a day, so there is always a pile of clothes in the washroom.  I even made a caldo for dinner, what else can a Wife ask for?  I did all that to stay busy, but it is a long school year and I don't think I have that much interest to be the cleaning boy every day.

    What I'm thinking of is going through the kitchen cabinets and throwing out a bunch of crap, we barely fit in this huge house and that is because we all hesitate to throw anything away.  The dishwasher, which we have never used, is full of plastic bowls, a lot of them from like Bill Miller's because they are good bowls (according to Wife) and it seems wrong to throw them away.  I just have to get motivated to do it.  I want to do stuff outside as well, the fence still needs to be stained, but the humidity is no joke, I will wait until the weather calms down.

    I guess this will be a good time to really get this house in order.  Wife is back, things are trying to flow more naturally, if I get all the BS done during the week, then we can focus on having a good time during the weekends.

8/18/21 Fly Paper Works?

     Here's a little nugget of helpful information.  Fly Paper works at stopping flies from being annoying inside your house.  We have a problem some summers, maybe this one more because we are constantly in and out with our grilling so many times during the week.  Anyways, we'll get a fly in the house and it isn't the worst thing in the world but you can hear it, you can see it, you can think it'll land with its dirty ass feet on our food, and they are generally an annoyance I would rather didn't exist in my world.  Another flying annoyance that gets in the house during the summer is gnats.  Gnats seem to get in the house when we buy bananas and don't eat them fast enough, although that makes me think their nasty larva must be in the bananas and we normally eat them before they turn into flies, they are nasty either way.

    Awhile back, we bought a bunch of stuff to try and kill the flies outside, I bought these plastic bag thingies that you hang and they have a stinky food source which makes the flies go in and then they drown because they can't get out.  It was working great, but I hung it low under the charcoal grill, who wants to see something nasty like that, and when it got pretty full, it must have looked like a good snack for some raccoons or possums because it was ripped off the hanger and ripped up in the yard.  I also bought a bug zapper, but I haven't even opened it, I have to hang it where it won't get wet, but not to close to the house, so that means the patio is not a good place, I don't know, maybe I'll hang it out there later.

    The Fly Paper was just a throw it in the basket and see what it does.  There isn't much to it, the box is tiny, like a small box of crayons and four strips of fly paper come in it.  You open the top and pull the hanging wire, this causes the fly paper to unfurl and you end up with about a foot and a half of sticky paper maybe an inch wide.  I wanted to hang it by the trash can, but there is nothing there to hang it on, and after looking around, I hung it in the window.  We have windows that slide sideways and the locks are in the middle, so I just hung the little wire on the upper metal lock and waited to see what would happen.

    It seems to be the perfect place, really.  Flies come in and maybe they are attracted to the light or warmth and want to go out because they always head to the windows.  Because the fly paper is in the middle and we have blinds, they have to fly tight to the glass and probably a pass or two and they get stuck.  It works on both  flies and gnats, we haven't had to chase any down with fly swatters all summer.  The question now is how many dead flies is too many before changing out the paper.  You have to really look at it before noticing it, but every time I get water from the faucet, it does stare right at you.  Maybe I'll change to a new one now that I have brought it up.

8/17/21 We Have Moved To The Next Phase Of Replacing Our Pool?

     I have pretty much given up on the idea of fixing this sad excuse of a pool.  I have packed all the inlets with that hardening putty which is made to fix underwater leaks and it has not stopped the leaking.  I don't really know where else I can try to plug, so the next thing is to rip it all out and start new.  Wife and I have been going back and forth and it all boils down to we are both tired of almost having a cool backyard, but not really.  The discussion has been very lengthy because it is a lot of money and we both have to be in agreement that it is something we both want to do.  Too often, I get painted as the "spender" while Wife gets to be the "saint" that has to give in to Mr. Demanding.  I don't really like getting painted into this corner and this weekend I was willing to think outside the box.  I suggested to Wife that we just pay to have the pool, concrete and hot tub all ripped out, then maybe next summer we can just buy another hot tub like our first one that comes in its own frame and can sit on top of a concrete pad.  I like this idea because it can then be serviced rather easily, specially if we buy something common that uses generic parts like Hayward Pumps that can easily be swapped out.  Wife then had to step out of her comfort zone and say that no, she would in fact prefer to have a pool too, so this wouldn't be just a "Me" thing.

    We priced both fiberglass and gunite (concrete) pools and they both end up close to $85,000.  If the price was below $50,000, I would have done it already, our first pool and hot tub combined and installed was only $11,000 or so.  I think we spent another $7,000 for all the concrete that was poured.  The prices are what have us hesitating, it is certainly a lot of money but given that we don't really go out, it is a form of entertainment/exercise that would be at our control.  I suggested maybe a country club, but I looked at prices today and it is something like $500 initiation fee (not sure of per person or for the family) and then close to $200 a month just for swimming pool rights, this does not include golf or tennis, some of the other activities.  This was just a far fetched idea.  Another idea Wife suggested was an above ground pool and I don't totally hate that idea, but we had one before we bought this pool and after about two seasons it got rusty around one of the water inlets and one day while the kids were swimming, it just split open and all the water poured into the neighbor's house behind us.  I was scared they would have sued us or something, but they never said anything.  That kind of scared me to want to buy another one.

    So the next thing is to call and find out where we can borrow that kind of money, and I thought it would be easy to just refinance the house, specially with all the new added equity with prices of houses in Austin exploding lately.  Everything seemed to be going smoothly when I got hold of Rocket Mortgage, but then the lady told me that in Texas you can't refinance twice in one year, so we will have to wait until the spring if we decide to go this route.  There are specific pool loans, and I guess I need to see what kind of interest rates they are offering to maybe go that route.  My goal is that by the spring, we will at least have a scheduled day for install before the summer really gets going.

8/16/21 Getting Back To Learning?

     It has been a long break from normal, and honestly, I think the break is something we needed, but now it is time for the kids to go back to school and learn to relate to each other face to face.  Baby A starts his Junior year tomorrow, hard to believe he'll be 17 in a few months.  Our big baby has grown up.

    I was really expecting the school to offer another year of learning from home, and I think our son did okay with the set up, but so far they are only offering home learning for kids under 12, basically, those that can't get the vaccine.  I don't know why, it has been shown that kids don't generally get the virus and when they do, it presents very mildly, most of the time.  The vaccine has also had more than a few instances where people that got it had problems with their hearts enlarging and even worse, it has been shown time and time again that the vaccine does not prevent one from getting sick and even ending up in the hospital, so what is the point of getting a vaccine, much less why are they forcing the population to get vaccinated when it doesn't work like a normal vaccine.  I expected if people got vaccinated, they would be safe, I even contemplated getting vaccinated so I wouldn't have to wear a mask at work, but even the vaccinated are now required again to wear a mask onsite in the buildings.

    It will be an interesting year, the football team has already had two big breakdowns during summer training because there were a couple of positive cases.  Baby A is at the end of his second 10 day quarantine.  What really sucks is that the first two scrimmages were cancelled because of this news.  The head coach called Wife to talk to her and explain that it is not his doing but the school district that requires the kids to stay home if they are not vaccinated for the 10 day quarantine.  The coach said he lost almost all the freshmen and about half the linemen on varsity due to this rule, including our boy.

    We shall see what happens with school.  We went out and bought him new clothes, and school supplies.  In typical fashion, we got him snacks so he can carry something in his backpack to eat during the day, but he was more focused on the idea of selling snacks on campus.  When he was going to school, he had a little racket where he was the gum connection.  We would buy him packs of gum and he would turn around and sell them.  The boy needs a food truck for a car, he really thinks this way on his own, it has nothing to do with us.  I would rather just give him some money, but that just gets him thinking of more stuff to buy to sell to the masses.

8/15/21 Weird Science, Weird Times?

     Times have certainly changed and it is funny to see Baby A reacting to movies we loved growing up.  Saturday afternoon we sat and saw Weird Science, an 80s movie we loved growing up.  It kind of occurred to me that there lies a big difference between our movies and the movies of today.  Our 80s movies were focused on kids getting laid, at any cost, while today's crap is trying to show us how great everyone can be.  I don't know what the focus is nowadays, but these teen comedies were all pretty much the same, from Revenge of the Nerds to Sixteen Candles to this last night.  Guys just want to fit in and get laid.

    Baby A just kept screaming every time there was something "wrong" in the story.  The boys, infamously, create their dream girl with the use of computers and a little nod to Frankenstein.  Mijo quickly started analyzing that "but the monster in Frankenstein wanted to die as soon as he was born, he knew he shouldn't exist..." sounded about as much fun as Wife when I play her cheesy videos I consider to be comedy.  Then again he had a problem when Lisa (Kelly Lebrock, hot but certainly not 23 years old in the role as the dream girl) starts kissing one of the dorky boys and it is insinuated that they go have sex.  Well, that was statutory rape, was all I heard from Mijo's side.  I guess in today's climate, guys ending up dressed in women's underwear cannot be seen as a funny cliche because so many kids today have issues with self identity, so why is a boy in panties seen as funny (which happened a lot in these movies).  Then my kid was sure that Lisa taking the other boy from his parents at gun point was kidnapping (which I kind of have to agree, although it was for his own good).  Even at the end of the movie when the two boys save the girls at the party, win them over and are taking them home, my son complained because they were willingly speeding and putting themselves in danger for no reason.  Poor child, my boy doesn't understand that they were in sports cars, you have to drive a Ferrari fast.

    Overall, I think he enjoyed the movie, he still claims that Top Gun is the worst 80s movie because the main character learned nothing even at the cost of his best friend, who was a better human.  It is still fun to sit and re-watch the movies with eyes from a new generation.  I assume the movies are going to be fun and he will see what we saw, but that hasn't happened so far.  The little nugget of nudity doesn't even draw a wow from him, probably because he can see naked girls on his phone all day, and a lot of idiot girls post practically naked on Instagram and all those apps all day long, so why would a set of boobies from the 80s seem like a big deal?  He is always mad the main character boys are such "losers", not in that they can't get laid but that they have no self esteem so they don't act so desperate around girls their age.  They should just be themselves and not be so obsessed with getting girls is his message to us.

8/14/21 A Convenient Inconvenience?

     Getting a flat tire on Thursday night was not something I really wanted to experience, but if I am trying to spin it positively, it was good that it was on my last night of the week, so I didn't have to rush the next day to get it repaired.  Ultimately, I was down for about 12-14 hours since I was in Discount Tire by 9:30am and out the door by 11:45am with new tires all around.  I thought it was lucky for me that they actually had a whole set of the tires I wanted, there have been times I have wanted to replace my tires only to be told that they would need to be ordered and I would have to wait a couple days, so that was another minor convenience.  The fact that it was payday was good too, Wife finally got her first real promotion check and although it was shitty to basically wait and wonder how much she would be bringing home from her big promotion all summer, I would say the wait was worth it, there was some confusion because she started at the end of the "contract year" and then the school district takes two weeks off, even though she had to work, they didn't pay her for twelve days, it was a mess, but we got through it.  Another convenience was that it happened at my work parking lot after hours, so nobody was around to see my fat ass splayed out on the floor trying to put the jack in and the asphalt wasn't 100 degrees.

    When I bought the Excursion, back in 2004, it came with Pirelli (Italian) tires and at the time I thought that was an exotic fancy brand, better than the American brands.  Well, I stand corrected (I thought Michelin (French), Bridgestone (Japan), Continental (German), Goodyear (American), Firestone (American)) were all American but apparently other countries make tires too.  Anyways, I liked the Pirelli tires but I thought they would be super expensive to replace, and they were, I guess at $250 or so back in the day, but they were also big heavy duty tires.  Prior to that, I had only replaced tires on my Ford Ranger and those were around $100 a tire, back in the 90's.  We weren't holding onto our other cars long enough to replace the tires, we did have a few other cars in between.  I guess looking at it that way, the price of tires has remained about the same, Discount Tire is not really carrying Pirelli anymore and I am a creature of habit, so I am not going to drive all around town looking for a place that carries them.  I settled on Michelin tires last time I replaced them (I really thought they were American until 5 minutes ago) before going on our last trip to Florida, and that has been a good 6-7 years now.  I am happy to say that the tires were still $240 each, so with install and insurance, I was out the door right at $1300.

    As far as blown out tires and having to go through the process of replacing them, it all worked out pretty good.  I was in and out in a couple of hours, my Excursion has 4 new tires for hopefully another 5-6 years of dependable service and seeing the new tires on it inspired me to go out there and give it a good cleaning on the inside, so overall, I'd say the flat tire had perfect timing.

8/13/21 Flat Tire At The End Of My Shift?

     I wanted to be mad but I've been expecting it for some time, honestly.  I believe the tires on my Excursion are somewhere older than six years.  I have been hesitating to change them out because other stuff just seems more pressing and I am not making it a priority.  Not to mention I am in the middle of a 3 payment plan of $800 a month for the repairs I was convinced were necessary when I just wanted an oil change and an inspection for my tag a couple months ago.

    I came out in a bit of a hurry, it is my last day of the week and I really didn't want to be there as long as I was, but I guess I do have to work if I want money.  After my shift, I walked out and I could immediately tell the back was lurching weirdly.  As I got closer, I could see the rear driver side tire was flat.  I called Wife to let her know what was going on, I had told her I would be home in 15-20 minutes and now this was going to slow me down a bit.  I was mad and thought I would take Wife on her offer to come pick me up, but then what?  I would still have to go back and deal with the tire, and it would be worse to do that during the day with the parking lot full of cars and the sun out, no thank you.  I also once had to change a tire on the shoulder of I-37, coming back from Corpus Christi and that was super stressful.  I always think back to a high school friend who got his leg crushed and amputated by a car that hit him while he was pushing a car back home.  Of all the places where I could have been, I guess the empty parking lot at work is a nice alternative to having to deal with something like this at home.

    I wasn't even sure if the spare would hold air, I believe it might be the same tire from when we bought the vehicle back in 2004.  I had never used the spare tire for this vehicle.  We've been lucky, in general, I have only dealt with a couple of flat tires in the 35 plus years I have been driving.  They did used to be a regular thing the three summers I was roofing with my uncle.  We would use my parent's older truck to dispose of the old shingles and it got so common I would carry a patch kit and fix them on the fly.  That was a long time ago and I would call myself reckless because no way would I do that now.  I go in and install new tires about every three years on cars that Wife and the family drive in.  I honestly am about the only one that rides around in the Excursion, other than dropping off my kid at school, but that is a slow backroad drive, we never even get up to 50mph.

    Anyways, it was a nice feeling of manhood that I was able to change out the tire by myself.  Wife wanted me to call AAA or a tow service.  I asked her "why?"  I can do this myself, I just wish I had a little better light.  I had to rely on the light of my phone, but I got it done in about 20 minutes.  I have to put everything back in its place in the back of the Excursion but I'll do that after I go and install four new tires tomorrow, might as well.  I'll be driving it for at least a few more years.

8/12/21 Comedy Is Not For Everybody?

     I don't get it when a comedian will almost make me fall off my chair and then someone else reacts like "that is not funny" or even worse (I'm looking at you, Wife) "is that supposed to be funny?"  Last night I was trying to show Wife some new (to me) videos of funny songs on Youtube and all I got was crickets and a dead stare with her condescending bullshit of "I understand that you're laughing, but to me (and this stick up my butt) it just isn't very funny..."  Worse, then she tried to diagnose it "show me where the actual funny part is..."  If I have to explain the joke, forget it, go back to your vampire shows.

    I was just watching some videos from Andrew Schulz which I had probably seen a year or more ago.  He seems to specialize in working the crowd, reacting to what people say or do.  I think it is a gift to be able to make a room full of people laugh on the fly, by just reacting to what is happening in the moment.  He'll usually make small talk and if the people are from some other country he'll mention some factoid from their homeland so that tells me he is at least knowledgeable enough to regurgitate some random facts.  I expected nothing but positive comments in the comments section, but no Wife must be part of this group of people who can never find the funny in random comedians.  There are a lot of "that's not funny" and "that is the lowest level of comedy."  I thought the lowest level of comedy was fart noises, wtf!

    I almost feel bad for these people who can't enjoy comedy for comedy's sake.  The job of a comedian is to take something common or a regular situation and find some humor in it.  The funny songs I was trying to play for her were all from the same person, and they were all stereotype songs, he did The Black People Song, The Mexican Song, The White People Song, The Arab Song (it's the bomb, get it?), The Asian Song, and even went into The Feminist Song, and others.  I like a little humor concocted from our differences and I don't agree that it is from a racist standpoint, we do all have a little something different about us, sorry but we are not all the same person.  Wife just looked at me like "are you done?"

    Interestingly, these songs were all recorded about five years ago, I doubt they could be made in today's soft environment where people are standing around just waiting to be offended.  And in her defense, I don't think Wife is a delicate ass Snowflake, but because her job is in the area of making things more equitable for all, I think she is bombarded so much daily with rules about everyone must be treated the same and everyone should be on equal footing, her ability to see life through raw unfiltered lenses is starting to affect her.  She has to weigh everything before she inputs her reaction and decide "will this be seen as offensive to someone?"  Blechhhh, I miss the 80's.

8/11/21 Baby A Is In Quarantine, Again?

     This is really frustrating and kind of stupid, but I guess that is what happens when politicians make the rules.  Baby A is now siting at home through a second quarantine in the last month.  One of his teammates tested positive and because he may have come into contact with my son, he has to sit out for the requisite ten days.  I understand taking precautions, but I think if my son was going to get Covid sometime last week, he would be showing symptoms by now.  I get maybe sitting out one week or so if you aren't experiencing any symptoms, but ten days sounds so excessive.

    This came as a surprise for us, he was ready to go to practice Monday afternoon when the message came through on our team chat thing on our phone.  Once they said no practice and stay close to your phone, it was easy to figure out what was coming.  The twist on this is that practice was able to resume the next day for those that are vaccinated but for those that are not, they have to sit at home for the full ten days.  There still is no clear reason what the vaccine does, apparently one can still get the virus, one can still spread the virus, same as a non vaccinated, so what is the point.  If the vaccine is so effective, why bother masking at all anymore?  At this point, the work of the government is done, they created a vaccine and got it out to the masses, it is up to the masses if they choose to be injected with something that is not FDA certified and considered an experimental drug.

    What if there are negative effects to taking the vaccine, who will stand behind those vaccines at that point?  Will the school board or whoever the fucks making decisions help us deal with whatever the consequences?  Will the president compensate us if the vaccine ends up having terrible side effects down the line?  He has been basically shaming those that refuse to get the vaccine which I don't think is right.

    Baby A just cares about the now.  He knows right now if he gets the vaccine, then he can go back to participating in the sport he loves, so he says he doesn't care.  The coach called and talked to Wife, I was at work, and said there will also be home quarantining from school if someone tests positive and they come into contact with others, those others will also have to quarantine, which makes me think getting through a football season unscathed is going to be virtually impossible.  The solution seems to be to get vaccinated, then he can attend school with no days lost to quarantine, as it is, the tenth day for Mijo will be on the first day of school, so he is going to start the school year missing on the first day.

8/10/21 Somebody Give Us The Truth?

     I have never been one to be defiant of the law, I believe we (my family as a whole) were raised to be good productive people in society.  This is what makes it so hard to be feeling like I have for the past year.  Losing trust in what our country is doing is certainly not something I expected, but the way this Covid-19 story has been unleashed upon us and made to be a politically motivated issue is beyond what I expected of our leaders.  I know those assholes at the top are barely human and believe power above all is most important but I want to believe there are enough good people up there to keep the rest of them honest.  Lately, it has seemed like the citizens are under attack, and it isn't that I want to point fingers but it does seem to be coming from the left, starting with "Defund the Police" which they have to have realized by now was completely moronic and I have heard the talking heads try to spin it as that being something that came from the right, fucking cowards.

    The biggest ongoing scandal is the way Covid-19 has been handled.  I get that a virus could come out of nowhere, fine.  I get that it could come from Wuhan accidentally, fine.  We are all human, mistakes were made, I can understand Cuomo in New York for trapping the elderly in nursing homes in the beginning, not knowing what the best course of action to take, fine.  Trump did the best he could, a vaccine (actually multiple) was rolled out per the people's needs in a hurry, I get it, fine.  If it was a regular old virus, then the vaccine should have slowed it down and it seemed to have been doing that job, but how come there are so many stories coming out that the majority of people getting infected during the summer months, when viruses are the quietest because humans are spending time outside (supposedly increasing their Vitamin D levels) are actually people that have been vaccinated?  Why can't they be honest, are they pushing a vaccine that makes people more susceptible to infection?

    Why has this mRNA vaccine technology been around since the 90's yet never gotten past trial studies for other vaccine solutions?  How come no one ever brings up the side of those that have been infected and survived, supposedly 99% of the people exposed never get sick, are we now safe?  I believe that if my body was infected (it was in January 2021) and it handled it with minimum side effects, I lost my taste and smell senses, why would I get it again and react worse the second time around?  Nobody seems to have answers for those type of questions.  I get that the virus is real, I get that it has killed a lot of people, but if the bulk of them were past 70 years old and unhealthy, why be surprised?  The younger people that have gotten it and succumbed to it are a mystery because it doesn't do that to most people, why do some react so badly to it?  These fucking doctors and scientists should be honest and truthful.  The last person I want to believe on any of this is fucking Fauci who looks all sorts of guilty as he sits up there like an authority.  You're 80 years old, retire your old ass and let someone else take the lead, you power hungry fuck.

8/9/21 Annoying Grown-ish Episode?

     I really enjoy watching Black-ish, I can relate to the father Anthony Anderson who does everything for his family yet is always bested by his wife who (like in every TV show) is an all around better human.  They touch on a lot of black issues, and them being a black family, I guess I understand, but I really prefer when they just stick to funny.  I don't remember watching the Cosby show to be preached to politically or The Jeffersons, I loved George Jefferson's attitude back in the day, he was funny.

    Black-ish almost lost me when the season started last year and they were really engulfed in the whole BLM movement.  I guess they got the hint by something because after a few episodes, they dropped the crap and focused on being funny.  It's fine if you want to take a political stand, but don't expect your audience to follow along, a lot of the BLM stuff has turned out to be self serving.

    Well, they have a spin off show, Grown-ish and it follows the oldest daughter at college and I generally enjoy the show (today's TV landscape is so barren, this is one of the last shows I am even invested in).  The characters are all kind of idiots in their own way, but it is excusable because they are young and they are supposed to make young kid mistakes, I get that.  Zoe, the daughter from Black-ish, is perhaps the worst, very self centered and kind of a spoiled daddy's girl who keeps the show going with her life choices.

    Anyway, the latest episode was on the killings of "innocent" black people by cops and MAN!  did they make it one sided.  It would be easier to support them if the real stories weren't covered so well on Youtube.  They used fictional characters and it is much easier to show them innocent and just getting blasted while headed to church or buying a Gatorade on the street corner.  They used this chubby baby faced kid's face for one of the killed to show us how terrible police are, and I think that is a horrible message to send.  Of course, in both instances they used on the show, the people killed were unarmed and not doing anything wrong.  Where is the reality, where is the story line where they start fighting the cop, the attempts to reach for a weapon and the cop then has to defend themselves?  Where is the bad decisions by the person killed because he chose to be high on drugs and made bad decisions?

    I thought this was a bad episode.  The issue could have been addressed positively, how about reminding people that the police officer is also a real person and they also are human and reacting to their environment.  Moving fast to where the officer thinks you might pull a gun is a very good way to get shot.  Reaching for anything might make the officer think your intentions are bad.  There must be personal accountability too, the world isn't here to protect you, participate positively, life isn't just about getting high and enjoying the good times.

8/8/21 New School Clothes Shopping?

     I guess we're doing this, after a year of hiding out at home, the kiddoes are going back to school.  It is a little exciting, a little scary, but it is time.  I can't believe that in the blink of an eye (looking back now), a whole year came and went with most kids home for the duration of the whole year.  Baby A has been working his butt off, spending most of the summer time working out for his football season.  I think he is ready to go back.

    We almost missed this year's no tax weekend, not that we look forward to shopping with the masses at the mall.  This year, I was ready to just avoid the hassle and pay a little more next week, but Wife suggested we go to the Dillard's out on Bee Caves and that was a great idea.  There were very few other shoppers there and they have everything they normally carry at the mall as far as a Dillard's store goes.  I still find it slightly annoying that Mijo does not really care about his clothing needs.  Boy was always ready to go get whatever new items of clothing, but Baby A could give a poop about getting the clothes.  What's worse, even if we buy him nice expensive clothes, he is just going to hide them under a hoodie.

    The choices we found were pretty good though, he found a good 7-8 shirts, mostly T-shirts, but also a couple polo style and even two button style shirts, for his dressier days.  We also got him around 5 jeans and even two belts.  I added a couple shorts and some shirts for myself, so the damage was over $700, but I think if we didn't buy our boy more clothes, he would be fine.  I suggested we could go to the mall during the week, but Mijo just gave out an annoying "no."  He gave me about half an hour of his time before he started complaining he was hungry, so that ended the shopping excursion.  I still wanted to go to Dick's, which is in the same shopping center, but our boy was already done for the day.

    We ate at Jersey Mike's after then came home after a short drive out in the country.  I took a short 40 minute nap and then Wife woke me to start the grill while she prepped the chicken.  We ate at a better time than last week, around 7:30pm and watched a couple episodes of some shows we are following right now.  Mijo still needs some new shoes, and if we left it up to him, he would be comfortable wearing the same old shoes from a year ago, but luckily, it is not up to him.  I told him that we are repeating this whole activity next weekend, he needs shoes (at least two pairs), and maybe even a backpack, I don't think the Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack will cut it anymore.

8/7/21 Quitters Never Win?

     We have been watching Atypical the last few seasons and are in the middle or so of the fourth season.  It has mostly been a good intentioned show where the family has to deal with the intricacies of the main character Sam being "on the spectrum", he has autism and the show is mostly about how he functions through life.  Sam is a focused, to the point guy, we should all be a little more Sam in that he doesn't dance around with feelings, he just says things like they are.  His sister, on the other hand, is an unraveling mess, with no clear reasoning that I can figure.

    I know this is just a show, but it kind of seems to be touching in and out of reality.  Seeing these asshole Olympic athletes making the performance about them and not the country they represent, the sister, Casey, is behaving very much the same way.  She was shown to be a gifted runner in the first season and is offered the opportunity to go to a private school nearby with tuition paid for since she is a runner on the track team.  She quickly shows she is "special" and is soon regarded as the up and coming star, she has a real shot at going to UCLA on scholarship (her dream school).  She is doing everything right, even interacting with Sam, the autistic brother who in the third season is now in college close by.  All she does is run and school, she has even asked the dad to help keep her focused by taking her for runs.  The dad is played by Michael Rapaport and I really liked the dude before hearing his stupid TikTok videos, but I digress.  The dad more or less plays the unheralded good guy, he had to deal with his wife cheating on him and decide whether to stay or divorce.  It took three seasons but it seems like they are staying together now and all he does is work and putz around for his kids, as best he can.

    The part that pissed me off is that finally all is lined up, the girl has been training for years, a scout from UCLA is at a track meet to see her, she has a letter of interest from the school, she's gay, which is on par for today's climate, even the girlfriend is a runner and also wanting to go to UCLA so what does she do during the big match?  The asshole doesn't even run when the gun goes off, she freezes on the starting blocks and just walks off.  We then see her the rest of the show talking about some convoluted BS story about some character in some book that reminded her of herself.  She is finally seen talking to her coach from the public school and she just wants to go back to running but for herself, out of the limelight, not for the possibility of a scholarship on a mediocre team with no visibility.

    That is some low self esteem bullshit right there.  If you are given a gift, you should make the most of it and ride it to goals that would be unreachable otherwise.  We are led to believe that somehow she will be happy by resetting her goals to a less lofty ambitious life?  This is the problem with today's youth, they think hard work is not worth it, they think that as long as they feel good inside, that should be enough for the world to recognize you.  Fuck you, be safe and warm at home, fine, but don't expect the world to give two shits about your ass.  You only get the world admiring you when you show that you are greater than the average person, that you can give more than the stoner chick who is going to sleep in and eat all day.  Do that, if you want, but do that in anonymity, don't think for a minute that the world wants to hear about your ten cent ass (you dime a dozen asshole).

8/6/21 New Bad Trend In Drivers?

     What happened to driver's ed class?  I have to believe some of these drivers are just showing up and being given their licenses because there are just too many horrible drivers around.  Twice in the last week I have seen people just stopped on the road, like they are going to turn or something but no signal light or indication the car is even on.  Last week Wife and I were driving back to the house and there was a car just stopped right outside our community, there is one of those new lights that allows people to cross the street just randomly here and there (they turn full red for a few seconds, then blink for another few seconds and then turn off).  Maybe the car had stopped to allow someone to cross the street but there was nobody around and we had noticed them from a distance stopped there and not going.  I believe they took the time to start texting and just continued being distracted by their phones, but that is ridiculously dangerous.

    Earlier this week, I had to stop at Lowe's to get Wife that Dewalt vacuum and although that was fine, it meant I had to get back on the frontage of I-35 too close to the Ben White flyover, so I had to drive on the street level roads all the way to work and again, surrounded by stupid villagers.  Some lady cut in front of me, fine if you are going to hustle, but then she tried to time the light in front of her so she could stop, the dumb bitch actually did stop and the light was still green.  I honked at her and she hesitated but kept rolling forward.  This annoyed the fuck out of me because I am not hanging out on food stamps and government assistance, I am actually headed to work.  I managed to get around the idiot and of course she was on her phone, holding it up to her ear like she still lives in 1995, who does that, all cars are supposed to have phone connections by now.

    The other problem that bothers me a lot is people that pretend like they are doing open heart surgery on their turns.  They'll cut you off and hurry to get in front of you, but then when they are turning into a store or restaurant, they proceed to act like they are handling two coffee cups in their hands and turning the wheel with their elbows or some slow shit, it really pisses me off.  Wife gets mad when someone drives aggressively and cuts us off but that one does not bother me.  If you are in a true hurry, God speed, be rude and cut me off, but keep that same energy and disappear into the horizon, that is cool with me.  The ones I hate are the ones in a hurry to get in front of you, maybe they are at the light and you're coming up to the intersection and the light is still green for you, but no, they are going to turn in front of you, making you slow down and now they forgot how to shift to second gear so they'll keep driving at 10 miles per hour while you were coming in at 40, so you have to pump your brakes.  These are the people who shouldn't be allowed out on the road during the busy times when the employed people are out and about.  Unemployables are never in a rush, where are they going, just another place to lounge?  I don't believe these people add value to society, they shouldn't have licenses if they aren't going to drive efficiently.  At least get the fuck out of the way, when you see someone in a hurry.

8/5/21 Football Is Back On The Menu?

     It seemed like a long quiet winter but the boys are back on the field smashing and spitting testosterone all over each other.  Baby A never seemed to stop in the offseason with wrestling and weight lifting but it had been a minute since he had talked about tackling and lining up.  All summer, except for the break due to a Covid outbreak, Mijo and his teammates have been working out for conditioning during the summer.  It was going good and I thought it had been pretty intense, but they officially started football season last week with the introduction of their new uniforms and last night after we picked him up from practice he finally mentioned he had gone face to face with a defensive lineman and had some fun.

    I was really impressed by this particular defensive lineman guy, he looked like a man in the uniform, apparently a senior and looked about as thick as myself but Baby A said he was able to hold his own against him.  He said "okay, he beat me on the first play, but I got him on the second one."  That is what I like about my boy, he doesn't quit, he's like a pitbull or a chihuahua, he doesn't quit trying.  They did some endurance contest earlier in the week and they had to score a total of 250 points on things like sit-ups, push-ups, running a mile and although he managed to score 297, he was told 300 was a recognition level, he told the coach he didn't want his score to count because he wanted to run through it again with the kids who failed to get 250 the first time.  He wants to break above 300 just to be in the upper level with the elites, this is what I like to hear from a competitive standpoint.

    Wife and I did worry about his feet though when we saw them at night.  I guess his feet are getting so sweaty and wet that most of the skin on his soles has delaminated and tore off.  It looked really bad, but he said it didn't hurt and that it happens every year because his feet get so sweaty and all the running around.  I told him I wanted to buy him a second pair of cleats so he can alternate but he said we were making too big a deal of it, that his shoes were still basically new.  I told him I didn't care, they need time to dry between practices, but he was being thick headed and not listening.  I'll probably still go get him a second pair so he can alternate them, and just leave the sweaty pair in his locker.  I think I am also going to get him a bunch of new socks to try and get rid of this problem.  It worries me if this keeps on it might make him have to sit out while his feet heal and I know that would hurt him more.

8/4/21 Can You Suck, Dewalt?

     Well, I just returned the Dewalt trimmer that wouldn't trim to Home Depot and I thought it would be awhile before I bought anything else but Wife "forced" me to go out and get yet another cool gadget, this time at Lowe's.  Wife said she needed a vacuum for this weekend to suck up some hair during a little outdoor festival thing they are putting on at her school in San Antonio.  I guess the haircuts will be free and I hope being done indoors because otherwise why would she care about cut hair?  

    Anyways, we do have a few vacuums but none really fit the bill for what she needed.  Less than a year ago, maybe for Christmas, Boy bought us a Dyson vacuum, those are supposed to be the best vacuums and it really is good at sucking up dirt.  It comes up full even when I look at the carpet and think there can't be much there.  But it is a stand up version and would seem goofy for her needs.  He also has a portable one up in his lab room but it is way too complicated to release to Wife and hope it comes back in one piece.  It looks more like a gun and is probably intended to clean cars not random floor messes.  We also have a couple of older vacuums we haven't gotten around to throwing away but they are also the stand up model variety.  I do have a small gallon type shop vacuum and it would have been perfect, but I use it to clean my pellet grill and is already covered in black soot, it would be risky to travel with, possibly getting somebody dirty or dirtying the carpet in the car as it was taken to the event.  So, my solution was to go and buy a new vacuum for this purpose.  I did have a good shop vacuum that I would use to clean the cars and stuff, but it got really old and broke about a year ago.  This new one is basically my replacement shop vacuum and it happens to be a Dewalt.

    I like the look of these vacuums and had already got it in my mind I was going to buy one, so this made it easy by getting Wife on board.  I got lucky, the corded one and the only type they had in the store was on sale at $79.99.  I wanted the battery version but those had to be ordered online and cost either $150 or $199.  I think this will be fine for what she needs and it will help me later when I go to vacuum the cars.  I like that all the accessories either go inside it or are attached to the outside, such as the two extension poles.  I just hope it does a better job than the stupid trimmer.

8/3/21 Dewalt Let Me Down?

     I am a big fan of the Dewalt tool line, if I see they put out a new product I start figuring how to add it to my tool set.  I have their drills, hammer, saw, all sorts of stuff, I get most of it from Home Depot or Lowe's.  Saturday morning, I went to Home Depot with the idea of buying some underwater silicon to use on the pool, but while I was looking around I noticed that they are now carrying yard tools from Dewalt and I might have ignored them but Baby A had just cut the yard but didn't trim it.  He complained that he can't work my electric trimmer (he is a lazy little shit who doesn't want to drag the electric cord out).  Still, I took that as excuse enough to really consider buying a new battery powered trimmer which looked really cool and perfect.  I love the combination of yellow and black that they use, it spews confidence.

    I went and got what I needed and couldn't help myself but come back and stare at the trimmers some more.  There was a more expensive one that has the option to change out the head from trimmer to branch saw to edger and whatever else they can think of.  This one was $300 but they didn't have any of the accessories so I figured what good is it if I can't get other tools to attach?  I settled on the simpler unit that was $179 but it came with a battery and charger, so it seemed like a good deal.  Some of the tools don't come with batteries because they are interchangeable and once you have a few of the tools I guess they figure you can use the same batteries on different tools.  I felt like I was doing something wrong, it was over $200 of stuff once I added the other stuff I had and I didn't even discuss it with Wife, but I figured if she gave me crap I would say it was for my birthday later on this month.

    I got home all excited to set it up and even though the battery needed charging, I had a fully charged drill battery sitting on the charger in the kitchen because I had been using it the night before.  The battery that comes with the tool is 20V but has a lot more amp-hrs, I don't know how that is calculated but it is a much fatter battery but still 20V, same as the drill.  I went to trim along the driveway and was hugely disappointed that the trim line would not cut the fat St, Augustine grass strands growing over the driveway and sidewalk.  I expected to run out of battery charge, that didn't bother me, but the fact that the tool wouldn't cut the grass but simply whipped it around bothered me.  I ended up taking out the old wired one and cleaned up the mess the fancy new one left and then there was no option but to take it back to the store.  I was tempted to keep it, but why would I want a tool that doesn't do the job it is supposed to do?  I guess maybe the bigger battery might have made a small difference, but I ran it both on high and low, it had a switch and it didn't seem like it could handle the fatter grass.  My cheap unit, which cost like $60 took care of it with no problem.

8/2/21 Relaxing Sunday Afternoon?

     Sundays are usually good, if we are home.  There was a time when they bothered me, if I wasn't home, running around listening to the radio on Sundays was horrible, the music was always just a bit off.  Nowadays, we are home most Sundays and I think that is how it should be.  We slept in, I slept until 9:30am at least and then got up to see what was going on with our house.  I also was looking forward to turning on the water to the pool to fill it up yet again.  It was about half full after ripping off the light and leaving a huge hole which I stupidly thought Flex tape would cover and it would hold.  It did, for about two weeks but then I had to accept that it all needed to come off and there was so much tape residue and guck stuck on the wall that I just ignored it for almost a month.  Friday night I finally went out there and scraped and used all my tricks I could think of to get the last of the glue off.  Acetone (Wife's nail polish) really helped along with Goo Gone and some sanding pads I bought for my drill.  After removing all the glue, I wiped it clean with alcohol and applied a generous amount of repair putty, which is meant for small pool repairs and can set under water.  I then put a secondary protectant with a silicon compound meant for thru hull fittings on boats, so it too is water proof.  This needed to set for 24 hours, but Sunday morning was time to fill it with water.  I ran the water until 11:30pm and the water is now above the other area where I feel it has the leak which was also patched with more of this putty.  We shall see what happens by the morning, hopefully it holds water and we can finally relax on the idea of spending $100,000 for a new pool.

    Wife wanted to go eat lunch Sunday before grilling in the late afternoon, and she invited Girlie along, who has been unemployed now for a couple weeks but is working hard on her internship, so she is in a tough place where she is about to graduate from Texas State, but also very much looking for a job to keep herself afloat.  We were talking and she is like a member of the family, argues and plays around with Baby A like a sibling.  Wife has been giving her pointers and ideas for new avenues for job opportunities, like applying at Del Valle, where they are hiring staff for after care programs.  She has been around for almost 25 years which she was blown away with that little factoid since she is 28, but we met her when she was about three years old.  We had lunch at Potbelly Subs, drove by the lake to show both of them the area we found Saturday to take the kayaks sometime soon, then headed home.  Girlie left to go help clean at her cousin's and we took a nap for almost two hours.  I got up at 7:00pm and turned on the grill to make some fajitas, chicken thighs and sausages, they were really good.  What a better way to end the weekend than making some good food and saving more than half to eat during the first few days of the week before we have to start thinking of making more meals.  Wife went to bed at 10:30pm since we ate late and napped, and I am washing the last of the bedsheets from Boy's friends sleeping on our guest bed (writing this Sunday night).

8/1/21 Should We Applaud An Olympian?

     Wife asked me what I thought about Simone Biles and my response at the time (Friday night) was that she was pretty great, I think she has come up with routines that haven't been done by women or something like that.  I didn't know about her not performing because of mental issues which personally bothered me a bit.  I think it is asinine for anyone who doesn't agree to label it immediately an issue of race, when is this shit going to stop?  I don't think it is about race, we are patriotic to a fault and when it comes to the Olympics, we want to send our very best so we can cheer for a winner.  I think we are all used to and have a lot of love for our black athletes who have dominated our favorite sports in football and basketball since before I was born.  I grew up admiring Earl Campbell, Tony Dorsett, Warren Moon, David Robinson, Michael Jordan, their color didn't matter, these were the greats and that was just a given.  How did we go so many years cheering for whoever the stars of the time were only to find out in 2020 that we were racist all along?

    No, we want the best to perform, especially on the world stage where the world gets to see what makes America great.  We have a diversity other countries just can't tap into.  Because America accepts any and all people, we can mix and match to provide the best athletes for any given sport.  A comedian was going on about this awhile back.  The Chinese team will only have Chinese people, the German team will only have Germans, but the American team will show up with all the races and "colors" people come in.  This is not an insult, winners are always beautiful and winners are made when they compete at the highest level and leave it on the field of competition.

    All the comments I have been reading relate to her taking care of her mental health and I'm sorry, but this is what you do, if the thing you are good at is too much, why sign on to the team?  Another candidate would have been thrilled to have gone in your place and done the best they could.  Yes, I agree a person should always take care of themselves, but if you aren't fit for competition, don't take someone else's place.  I don't deny that the Olympics are a stressful time and that is supposed to be part of it, but we are supposed to come together to see the best display of human ability and unfortunately, that does call for those that pursue fame and adoration to put it all out for the world to see.  I wish her well, but she does need to understand that some things are bigger than the individual and you should be a better warden of the self.  Not only do we not get to see you perform when you choose to sit out an event but we also lost the person who could have performed in your place as well.

7/31/21 Having The Last Laugh?

     I feel I am fully entrenched now in the conservative mindset and I believe I am at peace with it.  Coming to this conclusion has taken time, I have had many discussions with other people but especially Wife who keeps me calm instead of my more polarizing family members who can get as loud and aggressive as myself insisting we are right.  

    What I figured is that it doesn't matter, at the end of the day, I am living a pretty great life, Wife and I get up every day and work hard, whether going to work (for the man) or working on improving our little universe (our household), we are already on the winning side because we aren't lacking for much if anything.  I could be healthier, I could be richer, I could be this and that, the only thing that has kept me either where I am (if you're negative of mindset) or gotten me where I have gotten to (if you're positive of mindset) is the fact that we get up every day and strive to make ourselves better.  I am not out demanding life give me more or asking why some people have life better than I do.  I was born into whatever situation, none of us can control that (and although I loved my upbringing, I have always thought my folks sacrificed a lot of themselves for us), I wanted more, so I chose to move to a big city (my decision) and I hustled starting from the bottom.  It was not easy and I didn't help things by getting pregnant (Wife also had to make the hard decision of leaving her family and following me or she could have looked for a better man) before we were ready, but we stayed focused and although my first job was driving a forklift at a warehouse for $8 an hour in 1994-1995, I stayed hungry and made my moves.  I tried relying on friends, got a job at LCRA as a chemist but that didn't get me far and eventually I found my future by being bold and applying with AMD who admittedly I knew nothing about the industry and what I was doing.

    It took a few more years to achieve true success, my first year I was just a fab tech making $9.90 an hour, but that got me in, I didn't whine or complain, kept working hard and eventually got several promotions to get to my current position.  It is not the highest position or salary I could be making, but it is all by my own making.  Same can be said for Wife, although I will add that we did have to work as a team for her to do the schooling and leaving town required sacrifices from the both of us, but now she is in an even higher position than myself and making a little more money, which was always the plan.

    So yeah, social justice warriors can keep fighting for "the man" to give them more or everyone can shut up and do what we did, put your head down and work your ass off, you'll get farther that way.  Nobody gave my parents anything, my mom sacrificed to finish college and then get a Master's to move up, nobody gave my dad anything when he did the bold move of moving from the oil fields when it was in severe recession in the 80's and he made the scary (to him) decision to become a long distance trucker, but they did what had to be done for the betterment of their lives and to provide even more for their kids.  Same with my in-laws, I don't think they planned on moving from their hometown where all their family had lived and they had their home.  When they had to make the tough choice, my father in law moved to San Antonio for work and my mother in law eventually decided she would have to follow along for a better shot at a better life.  Everyone in my family doing good has had similar stories, from my attorney brother who worked his butt off and got over $100,000 in debt for his degree (he has never even thought or said the government should pay his school loans) to my sister pursuing her Master's to become a principal and administrator, life doesn't give you anything, the beauty of this country is that opportunity is there, if you look and are bold enough to go for it.