Mar 12
Yesterday wasn’t very pleasant. I’ve been fighting off the beginning of a cold with a sore throat and I managed to get the afternoon off; take an opportunity to sleep it off since I felt the worst of it was over.
Right before lunch, my iPhone went off and it was Sam (our Honda salesman) telling me the car arrived. I was under the assumption he would call when it was being unloaded from the boat in Long Beach, CA. This was then an automatic punt to Somara because it will be mainly her car and the hold up is getting the title to her truck.
The short story and conclusion to this all: the title should be in my hands today, the car isn’t completely ready (the dealership has to install a couple of the features we requested), I have to get our insurance amended to prove its covered and we go seal the deal Tuesday night.
The next step is getting the playlist together for the iPod when we take the Fit out on its inaugural cruise. This is what we have in mind, suggestions are very welcome:
- “Drive” by the Cars
- “Drive my Car” by the Beatles and covered by the Donnas
- “Driving” by everything but the girl
- “Drivin’” by Pearl Harbor and the Explosions
- “Car Song” by Elastica
- “I’m in Love with my Car” by Queen
We’re open to others as long as it doesn’t involve a particular model (hence “92 Subaru” by Fountains of Wayne or “Car Trouble” by Adam & the Ants are out).
Mar 12
My brother turns the big 4-0 today.
I hope he and his family have a nice, big three-day weekend planned to celebrate. Meanwhile, I did find a funny card, it will just be late due to Somara’s dizziness and my pre-occupation of other things getting in the way.
May the Chicago-area weather be pleasant too.
Past birthdays of his I remembered when we were kids:
- 1981: Dad taking us to the Aladdin’s Castle where we saw Berserk for the first time, a videogame that talked. Yeah, pretty impressive in 2010.
- 1985: Celebrating at the house we were leasing in North Dakota; I promise to finish the big story on ND soon.
- 1979: All the cool Star Wars stuff he got while we were settling in our new house in Springfield, IL.
Maybe we’ll even have a conversation over the phone.
If you know him, drop him a line.
Mar 10
Somara even having such a problem was news to me when she told everybody at breakfast on Sunday. Namely her ongoing issue of it for 4-6 weeks. I’m not going to discuss the why at this point because it’s irrelevant now.
Somehow it hit critical mass yesterday, enough to make her want to go to the doctor before her follow-up on the Mayo Clinic program we’re in (I’m winning on the weight-loss/exercise part). So she scored an afterwork appointment with Austin Regional Clinic and we rushed down MoPac to get there.
The good news is that the nurse found the probable cause; some kind of weird crystalizing in the ear canals which are involved with balance. Then through some yoga-esque turning of Somara’s head and torso, we learned about how the dizziness tended to manifest more often when she turns left. Thankfully it’s an infection, not the genetic thing her dad and siblings have with deafness; this also affects their balance, ask Jose about my father-in-law’s driving in the Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood) parking lot. I blame our cat Nemo since we had been battling something in his ears for several months and he tends to sleep in my region of the bed while I’m away.
Currently the plan is some powerful antibiotics, saline solution to rinse out and the yoga lite. Somara read other details of this via the Internet about vibrations near the troubled area helping. On the drive home I joked about renting the paint shaker at Home Depot to help her out. I don’t think anybody uses nor builds those silly weight loss machines from old-timey movies. You know, the devices resembling an outboard motor with a belt on it.
We should see results (or not) in a week. I’m confident the drugs should do it. I’ve had nasty blockage behind the ears in the past. Thankfully, it was only painful but I could still drive.
Mar 08
How I totally forgot about this development is a testament of how pre-occupied I was with a couple other things because last year CAMPO (Austin’s mass transit organization) finished constructing the Howard Lane stop around this time. I’ve been pretty excited to take a trip downtown with it since it’s fairly close to my house, I would say around three miles.
I already knew about its downsides:
- It only runs Monday thru Friday.
- It only runs seven sessions in the morning and another seven in the afternoon for the commuters, namely people who live in the Northwest (Leander, Cedar Park) and work downtown: lobbyists, bankers, lawyers and the few gov’t employees that actually own houses. Personally, I have rarely met anyone with a job near downtown unless it was with UT.
- It can handle just a mere couple thousand people.
- It’s probably cheaper to just drive into the city. I think a pass one way is over a couple bucks plus CAMPO has been cutting back and raising rates thanks to the (Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush) economy. Yet I won’t have to deal with parking!
There are plans to have it expanded to have a line to the airport. At the rate everything happens in America, I will be nearing retirement when it’s completed.
Which leads to me to this little tirade so forgive me now.
Of all the editorialists in the New York Times, the one I can’t stand is Thomas Friedman. He is one of the biggest corporate apologists (The Earth is Flat my ass) but I agree with him (and oddly so does his more liberal counterpart Bob Herbert) on America’s crumbling/lagging infrastructure. This tiny stretch of light rail took practically a decade to happen and it was built on existing rail lines, aka MoPac. Over 2000 years ago, the Romans built a ramp to attack Masada in six months without the aid of dump trucks, earthmovers or any heavy machinery; yes, I know the enslaved people to do it. My point is that the Romans didn’t sit around bickering for several years with committees, lobbyists and studies about population growth forecasts. Hell, many of the institutionalized systems in New York, Paris, London, Boston and Chicago were built faster than the debacle ours has been.
I hope to ride it soon and post my experience about it.
1685
Mar 07
Last night was my co-worker/friend’s turn to pick a concert and a while back she chose Brandi Carlile who always gives me a Johnny and Rosanne Cash vibe; this is a good thing. I’m not even sure how well known this singer is outside of the Austin and probably AAA radio circles (WXRT, KGSR and World Cafe stations).
It was good to take in a show at the Hogg Auditorium too. I haven’t been there since David Byrne in 2004 too.
Anyway, on to Brandi.
The evening was an entertaining set of hits from her three albums, primarily the current release Give up the Ghost with singles like ”Dying Day” (done acoustically and without microphones, amplifiers and monitors) and “Looking Out.” Brandi must have been reading my mind regarding the Cash Family thing too because she closed up with a cover of “Folsom Prison Blues.” Besides Johnny, she and her very talented band did Dylan’s “The Times Are A-Changin’,” Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”
Mar 06
The playoff picture is heating up in the AHL as well as the NHL for us in Austin. Our Stars remain in fourth place but they won a critical game agains the Rockford Icehogs (farm team for the Blackhawks) to stay in the running.
An overtime victory is always exciting yet what made it sweeter was the return of inaugural captain Landon Wilson returning to the lineup. He also scored two of the team’s four goals! That’s twice I’ve seen him in action with a pair of goals. Oddly, he got into a fight so I was hoping he’d get an assist to give us fans a Gordie Howe Hat Trick.
This weekend, Somara and I hope to have a dinner with our friends Tina and Jeremy to work out the season-ticket plan for next year. The Stars’ near future is looking so good we will have to include the playoffs next month.
To kick off the excitement, I installed a little poll plug-in on my site. Throw in your two cents. I included a category for the uninterested.
Mar 06
The younger son of my friends Paul & Helen turns nine today. Unlike his older brother, it appears the weather has panned out in his favor; last month’s weather made DC resemble the South Pole for a while.
I spoke to Helen last night. We didn’t get around to discussing the festivities, I think the weekend is packed with sports to play.
Meanwhile, I just realized that his birthday coincides with the Battle of the Alamo; the infamous diversion which helped Sam Houston gather enough forces to beat Santa Anna later on at San Jacinto.
If you know Jack and/or his parents, drop him a line. Unlike Nicolas, iCal gave me the heads up to get a card out on time.
Mar 03
If you want to know and didn’t see me gripe in person or via FaceBook, the US loss to Canada in overtime sucked. Firstly, the US beat the Canuckleheads a week earlier so the game for all the marbles was just a repeat of their whining over the figure skating mess which resulted in both them and the Russians “winning.” The American team was superior anyway; they beat everybody in their division without any near misses at the end, same for the finals. Meanwhile the Canadian “superstars” struggled in the regular play (they needed a shootout to beat Switzerland) and almost were knocked out by Slovakia in the semi-finals. What chaps my hide the most is that the GWG was made by Cindy Crosby, the Michael Jordan of the NHL, a crybaby who the league promotes as the Second Coming. He’ll never be Gretzky because of his personality. The best he can aspire to be is the next Eric Lindros but he has the backseat driving mother built-in.
I’m over it now. The American program improved greatly since Turin and I hope the people in charge continue to pursue the more Herb Brooks-esque strategies on picking a team.
Meanwhile, my Flyers didn’t do anything before today’s 3 PM EST trade deadline. With Emery out for the season, Boucher having a horrible record and Leighton being unpredictable one would think another goalie was in the cards. Holmgren shocked everybody by not only refusing to fill the gap but also standing firm with the lineup he has. Shocking. This team is in sixth place for the Eastern Conference if the playoffs were tomorrow. Does the GM really think he can win the Stanley Cup with the current lineup? I’m definitely going to be more interested in how the Calder Cup goes since our team in Austin has a better shot regardless of the Hershey Bears being formidable.
Mar 02
This is the overall arrangement Somara submitted.
Last weekend was Austin’s cake decorating competition thing. If you recall the year before, Somara took second place for taste on her tiramisu-based confection. This year she got more into the spirit of the Sci-Fi theme. Originally she had two entries planned, a cake based upon the famous French silent movie “Le Voyage dans la Lune” and some retro cookies from the old pulp novels. Time ran short so the cake was abandoned (even if it were edible, I’m on a diet lately) so she gambled on the cookies. Then through some weird accident (I was away watching the Stars clobber the Aeros), a big thumbprint got left in the thigh of the rocketlady. It was too late to fix it I guess because frosting on cookies is tricky, I have no clue, I’m only an expert on eating not baking.
Stressed, exhausted and frustrated Somara went through with her entry. I think she spent the day having fun displaying the kid entries we sponsored for our little friend Ryanne and Corin. She took the day off from work to do this, I figured she should’ve done her best to enjoy it.
Corin's Roy G Biv and the winner for Best Use of Sprinkles
Ryanne's winner for Best Rainbow
Taking the unconcerned route paid off. It made her third place victory all the better when she called me in tears (of joy). I had to cut it short because I was trying to drive out of the Costco parking lot (fear not, I pulled over first, I’m in the Car Talk opposition crowd) driving toward my destiny with two new tires…thanks again APD. Then Somara mentioned she could’ve taken second it if weren’t for the thumbprint, hence I modified the piece de resistance below with Photoshop.
Rocket girl burning out her fuse out there alone!
Somara is still sifting through the ga-jillion (not quite a Sagan) of digital photos she took from the competition. I hope to post a few more of the interesting ones, namely the Futurama tribute. Oddly, no chest-bursters, brain slugs or explosive decompressions but there was a facehugger egg.
Now to await next year’s theme and start the whole crazy cycle again.
Mar 02
It’s only a coincidence that it happened to be on the same day as the Texas Primaries for both of the major parties; the Teabaggers already had two gatherings elsewhere (Nashville and the CPAC thing).
Much like American Independence Day, the Texans weren’t out of the woods yet against their foe Mexico’s de facto dictator Santa Anna. The colonists decided to borrow a page from 60 years earlier to make their position against Mexico more legal, in the eyes of the US and probably Europe. It worked out in the end for the Anglos. I’m confident that even if Sam Houston lost, the US would’ve just picked its fight with Mexico ahead of schedule to secure the territory. The early Texans did share the South’s similar, cynical motivations for prying the land away from Mexico to spread the legality of slavery and balance out the growing influence of the North.
I didn’t have any opportunity to take the day off but I’m sure state employees like my neighbor Cristina got to kick back, drink a Lone Star in the alley and reminisce about the high school football glory days I tell you whut. Besides, I don’t really live in Texas per se. I live in Austin which just happens to be in the middle of Texas by some cruel twist of fate. Trust me, I’ve given a couple friends the tour and they had a hard time believing this place was possible given the state’s worldwide reputation.
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