6/1/20 What Was Point Of Protests?

    I guess the purpose of the protests downtown is to bring attention to corrupt police activity?  I could get behind that, but what we see is angry anti-establishment types just trying to start shit.  There is no way any of those white kids gets up in the morning mad at the situation or upset about what happened down in Minneapolis, enjoy a hearty breakfast, drive in that bad traffic, look for a parking spot, pay $20 for the day, oh, looked for a nice piece of cardboard to write something profound like "Cops Suck" before, then walking into the mayhem only to get shot at with a rubber bullet or get maced with pepper spray.
    Wife and I have been watching the mayhem since last night and all we see is assholes trying to destroy the city they claim to love.  Why if the protests are supposedly about coming together and having the police force understand that black lives matter, then do we see over and over masses of people breaking into high end stores to loot, people targeting cop cars with Molotov cocktails to burn them.  If you assholes paid taxes, you would realize that the cop cars you are burning will just get replaced with new cars us taxpayers are going to buy.
    I honestly feel bad for George Floyd, the way the police officers crushed him to death is scary and no one should die this way, but what was he doing prior to getting manhandled?  Was he out helping at his local church, or volunteering at the local library, maybe helping a little old lady cross the street?  Nope, he was possibly using fake bills to buy cigarettes.  Then hanging out in his car with his buddies.  People always seem surprised by this, but I don't have time to sit and hang with buddies, the only people who do, to me, are troublemakers.  When the cops come around, listen and do as they say.  They might be dicks, but if you listen you'll probably survive.  Can't guarantee that if you decide to know more than the arresting cop.
    Same idea with this Ramos dude in Austin.  I am not saying he did anything wrong and probably didn't deserve to die like he did, but when the cops show up 3 cars strong, stop with the attitude.  Mamas, start teaching your kids to say yes sir and no sir to officers and others they should respect.  I've seen too many videos where people start conversations with cops by cussing at them and throwing shit in their direction, what do you expect from the cops?  They are going to back away cause you're super tough and have attitude to spare?  No, never, the cop will have to win and now it's ego vs ego.  Why did he attempt to take off?  People who are innocent don't do that.  I fully support the cops having to get tougher when people aren't listening.  Are we going to let random civilians win in 1 to 1 arguments with cops?  Should we start teaching cops to apologize to sketchy looking dudes to keep the peace with society?
    I am sorry both of these dudes died at the hands of cops, but cops are taught to escalate force.  Ramos was shot with rubber bullets first, I know that would get my attention and I would drop to the ground and make a beautiful starfish pattern.  I wouldn't take off and challenge the cops to shoot me some more.  It is really hard to see what led to Floyd landing on the ground, but once they sit you in the back of the cop car, the cops are pretty much done with you.  The wouldn't put you in the car to drag you out the other end and continue kicking the shit out of you, he made himself get out the other side.  He was already handcuffed, makes no sense the cops would have done that, it takes a lot of energy to load a dude in a car then unload him out the other side.

5/31/20 Fixed Our Dryer?

    It took most of the weekend, but "hey!", mission accomplished.  Icame down Friday morning around 3:00am to get on the computer.  For some weird reason, Wife came home from work and convinced me to go upstairs to our bedroom and before I knew it, I was in that slow sleepy mode of looking at porn/sleeping phase from about 8:00pm until I got up at 3:00am.  We just never go to bed that early, but she had gone to work, so I understood that she was tired.  Anyways, coming down, I run into Boy at the stairs and he tells me like I'm the Super "just so you know, the dryer stopped working..."  "Did you overfill it or something?" I asked.  He was all "nah, I was just running a small load and it made a weird noise and then stopped working."  "Awesome."
    I started looking at Best Buy for prices on dryers, thinking that is what we were going to be doing Friday during the day.  Maybe if not for Covid-19, we really don't want to leave the house for stupid shit.  I started trying to look for solutions and I remembered YouTube is great with the do it yourself videos.  The first one dealing with an F40 code on our style of dryer had a problem at the circuit board and that looked like more than I could handle.  I liked the 2nd solution, replacing a faulty fuse.  There were like 3-4 videos labeling this a fix for F40 code, so I figured this is my real solution.  I opened up the dryer after seeing how they did it (it's a little tricky without help).  It was as they said pretty dirty, so I used the vacuum and cleaned up so much lint and dirt and junk from inside the machine.  I took off a couple more parts and found the fuse on the bottom.  I ordered the part, waited a day to get the new one, even though I tested it like they said and it seemed to be fine (did a continuity test and it beeped like it should have according to another video).  I replaced it with the new part and got nothing.  By this time, I opened up the top where the circuit board was at and found the test booklet to check for this and that.  It showed another fuse, a thermistor, close tot he fuse, so I took it off and tested it.  It tested fine, so I wasn't going to order another one.  I had been talking to Wife and we had pretty much decided to go to Lowe's and look at a new dryer when I thought about tearing up the circuit board.  The one the guy had was rough looking and it had an ugly burn mark on the back.  My circuit board looked pristine and new.  I still took it apart and "Wow, there it was!"  From the back, it looked exactly like his, a big ole burn mark on the plastic and a hole in the circuit board.  The guy in the first video soldered a small piece of metal wire to establish a connection, so I told Boy, who has done this a lot more than me to get his solder gun and fix it for me.  He had it going within a couple minutes, I had already shown him where to where to make the connection and viola!  We are back in action.
    I don't know how long this fix will last, but I am at least on the second load right now, so I can say I got a little more use out of it.  Hopefully, the fix keeps us going a couple more years.  Replacing the circuit board is a mixed bag of thoughts.  The part looks to cost about $180.  That dryer was a high end $1200 unit with misting capabilities to remove wrinkles and other fancy stuff, but like the washer we replaced with a $270 unit, the cheap version is working just as well (and we have never really used the fancy wrinkle remover options).  I don't think I will be buying high priced machines like that anymore, the next dryer will be under $400.

5/30/20 Jumanji: The Next Level (Movie Rental)

    I am not sure if this counts as a night out at the movies, but we just saw the newest Jumanji  movie last night.  It was so new, we paid $5.99 for the privilege to see it.  This is only the 2nd or third movie I have been willing to pay for, normally I am too cheap to consider the idea.  I remember being very apprehensive to watch the 2017 version because to me Jumanji was a Robin Williams vehicle and it coming out after he passed away just seemed disrespectful, but after viewing it a few months ago randomly for free, it had finally been out long enough, I have to say, I really enjoyed the new direction they went with.
    I have always liked Jack Black, but thought he was too goofy to play the hero.  He managed to find just the right fit in this movie where he can play dramatic without seeming outlandish, he is playing a girl.  The Rock is the perfect hero type, Kevin Hart, tiny by the Rock's side makes a good comedy sidekick.  The girl, Karen Gillan, may not have the fame of the other three, but she is very sexy as the kick-ass Ruby.  It would have been hard to get these four people to somehow sit down and play the video game in the real world, as game avatars, they make perfect sense.
    For the third installment, this 2019 version, Danny DeVito comes out as Spencer's (kid who turns into the Rock) grandpa.  He is mean and nasty and has a chip on his shoulder.  It turns out he has a grudge and most of his anger is towards the Danny Glover character.  Back in the day they had a café, and Devito loved it, but Glover convinced them to sell it as they got older.  Glover wanted more out of life, such as travel and not be a slave to the job.  DeVito was who he was because of his shop.  He lost his identity.
    This is sort of a Christmas movie, the 4 kids are back home for the holidays and Spencer is back to being an outcast on his own.  He doesn't feel comfortable in his own skin and tries to repair the Jumanji game they destroyed and it manages to suck them back in for another round, this time grandpa and his old friend get sucked in.  During the fighting and adventures, DeVito and Glover finally understand each other and they make up.  As far as the game, they are back to finding another stone, and working together, they save the world.
    Since more people get sucked into the game, there are more avatars to meet.  Danny DeVito turns into an Asian thief, played by Awkwafina, and Glover becomes a beautiful black horse.  There are a couple of intense situations, when they are being chased by ostrichs and then again on the maze of moving ladders when they are being chased by mandrills (oversized baboons).

5/29/20 Just When You Think You Are Ahead Of Your Credit Cards?

    I am starting to think it might not be possible to ever get out of the shadow of our credit cards.  We have done some serious damage to our credit card usage and even as far as a couple weeks ago, I was naively thinking "ahhh, we have defeated the credit monster."  I guess I forget that the monster is always hearing and he does not like being left behind.  We had just made this deal with Boy to give me half his government stipend, to help us out, and he had agreed, but then he gets a bill for $598.00 for dental work he got done in January.  He is now past the age of 26, so he is not on our insurance plan and he isn't working since Nano went belly up.  Instead of taking on the bill, I told him to pay it with the money he was going to give us.  Grrrr, but at least the bill goes away.  

    Last week, Wife told him to get the inspection done on his Edge so she can drive it on alternate days, so she doesn't have to put all those miles on her car.  He then causally mentions how bad the tires on the front of his car look.  I had to call him out on this.  I said "come on Boy, you are 26, I can't just keep buying you tires every time you wear them out.  I bought you two tires last year when the alignment was so bad the tires got eaten up, it is the same thing?"  He said "No, it's just they are old."  Well then, replace them, it's only two tires and you are getting a nice unemployment check.  I looked them up, they go for about $157, he was trying to get out of it saying he would go today because he wanted to sleep in yesterday, but I got him out the door by 4:50pm and he was back by 6:30pm.  They even found a nail in one of the good tires which they also fixed.

    Yesterday, thinking I had a long weekend of doing nothing, Wife calls to tell me I will be taking Javalina to the dentist.  I got a little pissy, but I figured the sooner we go, the better.  When we got there I asked the lady that answered the phone if this was for a cleaning or for extra work.  She said they were going to work on his crown and I told her I would rather not, specially since he hasn't complained about any pain.  She said we could reevaluate in 6 months.  The last crown was like $600.

    Last night, Wife got home tired from work and we went up to our room by like 7:00pm.  We were asleep early, which means I got up at 2:30am, looking for something to do.  I was going to look at our bills, I am getting excited we are getting closer and closer to getting out of credit debt.  Boy sees me at the stairs and casually mentions "Oh yeah, the dryer stopped working a while ago."  Damn it! is all I thought.  I started looking at the dryers on the Best Buy website, but then I thought of YouTube.  After looking for solutions to the F40 code, I ordered the part which I have already taken off at a cost of $16.  If this works, I will have saved me the cost of at least a $400 dryer.  Something else will pop up and make me get in debt soon enough.

5/28/20 My Kids Are Seriously Off Cycle?

    I have always had a problem sleeping at night and operating during the day, like normal people because I have now been on night shift something like 24 years.  I don't complain and it is fine, except when it is time to get with other people, like my folks who are always surprised to find out that I do still work nights, so I might not want to be up in the morning on my day off.
    I wrote that to explain my part in this.  My kids, though, they do not work at Walmart stocking at night, or with the Austin Police Department where occasionally they are on nights.  Nah, my kids are just night owls, which they took to right away, since spring break for Javalina.  Boy was kind of taking a class, but he is in the middle of the end of the semester and starting classes for the summer which we have told him he has to do, he really needs to graduate soon.  But I digress, I got home last night fairly early, all the work was done and there was no reason for me to stay at work longer than about 10:00pm.  I got home, Wife did go to work this morning at 5:00am, but she had napped, so she sat with me while I ate some leftover chicken and tenders from the night before.
    After talking and saying goodnight, I told her I was staying downstairs because I like to watch TV at night even if I fall asleep and wake up all night long.  She needs the room to be black and quiet or she complains, so this works for us.  I probably slept about two hours between midnight and 5:00am when Javalina came to wake me so we could walk Wife out to her car.  While I was putting a shirt on, Boy and Sweetie also came down.  While Wife was getting a glass full of ice and water for her drive, Boy and Sweetie danced in the kitchen, they were talking about going to get morning tacos and donuts.  Javalina invited himself somehow, they usually don't take him, but this time he went.  So I walked Wife out and a minute later the boys left to go get tacos and donuts.  I waited about an hour and I know I dozed in and out so I thought the donuts might be there waiting, but nothing.  I would have gotten worried but I was too sleepy, so I went back to bed.  I then woke at almost 8:00am and the donuts and 1 taco were on the counter.  Boy came down to tell me I had two tacos for me, but I told him I ate the one taco.  He shook his head and said, it must have been Big Boy who ate your other taco.  It was fine, I wanted donuts.
    Javalina didn't come back down, but even as I am writing this at 10:00am, I hear noises upstairs, so I know either 1 or both of them are still up in their rooms.  It is a weird time in this age of corona, but every time I tell them to go to bed early, they ask me what for?  I don't have a good reason, I certainly don't want them up early being annoying, so I guess this works for right now.  I know that I have to go to bed soon, Wife gets out at 1:00-2:00pm, and she should be back around 5:00pm, so I need to be awake and look half interested in what she might have to say.

5/27/20 Racism Is Alive And Well?

    I try to be positive and whenever I encounter something I see as uncomfortable, my first take is to assume the other person is just having a bad day.  On the other hand, I don't usually put myself in situations where I have to defend my actions against another, just because my ego has run amok.  My family pretty much see racism every time they come and visit, sometimes I am left flabbergasted at their thought process.  I might throw in a simple "can't they have made a mistake?"  No, my family members will always argue that I am blind to it because I live here and I want to pretend it's nicer than it is.  Luckily, I have never encountered anything as grotesque as these two incidents that I guess occurred over the weekend.
    The first situation occurred after the cops were called on a situation where a black guy was trying to cash some fake checks or something like that.  Next thing we see is the police officer holding down the offending person, he is already face down and the bigger cop has his knee and it seems his entire weight on the criminal.  He must have forgot that even if he is a criminal, he is a human first and you just can't treat a person that poorly.  I have seen the position and it is very good at controlling the perp at least until handcuffs can be applied.  As far as the story says, the cop just stayed on top of the man for over five minutes applying pressure to his neck.  The man repeatedly yelled that he couldn't breath, eventually he died, probably at a hospital.  I have no problem with the cops beating the shit out of somebody, specially after a car chase or the criminal acting like an asshole, punch him, throw him to the ground, but once you have the upper hand, the officer needs to act more professionally.
    The next story might be more blatant on the racism scale, a birder walking down a trail ran into a woman in the middle of Central Park in New York.  He told the lady to put her dog on a leash and suddenly her inner Karen was awoken.  She threatened the man first to stop filming her, and then she threatened to call the cops saying she was being attacked by a black man.  He said "go ahead, call them."  We then get to hear some pretty amazing acting in which Karen the bitch becomes the poor little girl victim being pursued by a big black man.  The only problem was that the black man had a camera and caught everything on film.  As a result, Karen lost her job, when her employer saw this going viral on the internet.  She had to return the dog to the place where she "rescued it".  She then put out an apology, but really, does the apology mean anything?  All he said was to put the dog on a  leash, was it really that bad of a suggestion?  You obviously never have the dog under control in the two minutes you are trying to cry wolf.
    I absolutely hate people like this.  They use our city resources to try and scare and manipulate.  They never see life through the other person's eyes, only through their own and how they are wronged by the world.

5/26/20 Another Stye?

    I got out of work feeling like I had a pimple starting up in my eyelid last night.  I kind of figured it might be another stye, but I didn't have a way to get a good look at work.  I stayed longer than I wanted to and I certainly didn't want to waste time going into a bathroom out of my way, so I just walked, assuming it wouldn't be in full bloom to scare the natives.  By the time I got home it felt like something was definitely there, but the eyelid wasn't really messed up or looking funky yet.
    I sat and ate dinner, wrote a blog for yesterday, even though it was already late, and waited.  I was up until at least 3:30am before I felt so tired I needed to lay down.  Wife woke me at 5:00am that she was leaving for work, yes driving to La Pryor, so I walked her out but felt like my eye had doubled in size in that 1-2 hours of laying down.  As soon as she left I headed to the bathroom to see what was going on and gah!, grossness on my eyelid.  It looked like I had been punched hard in the upper eyelid, all fat and kind of droopy over my eye.
    I remember that one treatment is to take a hot compress and push at the stye.  The idea is to push the fluid out of the tear duct, which is all a stye is, a tear duct that got infected with something.  Wife likes to say it is because I lay there scratching and grabbing at my nether regions and then I poke at my face.  Maybe, but shouldn't my own body be immune to stuff I have on me already?
    If it wasn't corona time, I would go to the minute clinic to get that ointment to put on my eyelid, but of course, I could get the whole "you are dying, go to the E/R now!" crap again.  Worst case scenario, it'll clear itself up in less than a week, so I just have to bear it.  I had another stye about 4-5 months ago and I remember it went away by itself after about 4 days.  I am not going to worry about it, I pretty much work by myself once I get past the lobby in Bldg4 where all the security and thermal scanners are to check our temperature before coming in to work.  Plus, it is a short week and I already got past day one.  I just need to go in tonight and tomorrow and I am done for the week.