Going Up

"If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask?" — Scott Adams

Friday I headed down to the Valley for the weekend after work . My friend Christina decided to take the weekend to visit her family as well, so I gave her a ride. We left around 5pm and the trip down went by much faster with someone to talk to. I really appreciated her coming with me and the company. To save me the trip from McAllen to Hidalgo, her sister and brother met up with us at Burger King near their house for the last part of her trip.

I got home to Edinburg soon after and visited with my mom for a while and then headed out to hang out with my friend Rick at Roosevelts. I really like that bar in downtown McAllen. They have a beer selection I have yet to fully try out. Christina, her sister Adriana, Enrique and his fiance Luptia met up with us there. I went to Cornell with Christina and Enrique, which made hanging out with then in the Valley feel like a very mini reunion. I had a fun night and good conversation was had by all. I even got to listen in on a legal debate between Rick and Christina. I learned about the importance of sound girls in a theater production as well. I don't always make the best first impressions, but at least I make an impression. We had planned to try out some other places, but last call came before we knew it.

Saturday morning I visited with my father for lunch. Mainly we just caught up on how things were going. A lot of car talk. Then I went with my niece Rebekkah to pick up her sister Jamie. I took them to the car wash with me, in which I appreciated the company, but am sure it was boring for them. I genuinely enjoy spending time with them. We then dropped by my sister Eliza's house to visit. Then it was time for a late lunch. We we debating between Chinese or El Zarape and well I won out. I just love that place and try to make it there whenever I'm visiting. I know there are better Mexican places, but this place is quick and cheap and I like the menu.

So I have never seen a movie in 3D. I don't know how I have gone this long, but I have for some reason. So I saw UP 3D this weekend. I was very impressed, not only with the movie, but mainly with the 3D. It wasn't red and blue like I expected. I wonder what you do if you are wearing glasses. Maybe put the 3D glasses on top? I look forward to checking out another movie in 3D. Now, I have to try out an IMAX theater. Never done that either.

I was able to check out some really cool bars in downtown McAllen while I was home. El Cine del Rey, Speakeasy, Dive Bar and Rhythm and Brews to name a few. I like what they are doing down there. I can't wait to see how that part of town develops.

I had a date on Saturday night. I think I'm going to keep my comments about my personal life to myself right now though. It was a good experience.

My grandmother came into town on Saturday night. I visited with her on Sunday morning. She lives in Ft. Worth now and it is always great to see her when she visits. After having lunch at home, I went over to my sister Eliza's house again and spend the afternoon there visiting with all the kids. Ana and Sarah were out of town for a trip to San Antonio.

So I convinced my mom to take my nieces to go and see My Sister's Keeper. I had heard a lot about the book and movie and was actually looking forward to seeing it at some point. They really enjoyed the movie and from what I hear. Maybe it is something I'll rent at some point.

Christina and I made our trip back to Austin somewhat late. On the trip back we talked to my friend Maria from college on speakerphone. It had been a while since I heard from her and it was great catching up. It is always nice to check in and see how friends are doing. She is always in such good spirits. So I'm also heading back to the Valley for the 4th of July weekend. I'm looking forward to that. Christina and her cousin Caro are too.


So the other day I saw a sign for the play Wicked coming to Austin. It is playing in August, but tickets are selling out right now. This is a play I have been really wanting to see since I had first heard about it from a person I know who was originally from the Boston area. I have the audiobook, but haven't listened to it yet. For some reason I want to see the play first. It has been a while since I have been to NYC, so I haven't had a chance to see it.



There was a lot of Michael Jackson news this weekend. I have never heard Thriller played so many times. Of all the things I remember, here is the one that made an impression on me growing up.



Michael Jackson's memorable Simpsons stint
But when I think of MJ on TV, my mind will always drift to his memorable appearance on The Simpsons. It was the first episode of the third season (all the way back in -- gulp -- 1991), in an episode called "Stark Raving Dad." Homer is thrown in a mental institution for wearing a pink shirt to work. In there, he meets a huge galumphing patient named Leon Kompowski, who happens to sound like Michael Jackson. Leon leaves with Homer (he's there voluntarily) and helps Bart write a stirring birthday tribute to his sister, "Happy Birthday Lisa."


I actually really liked that episode as a kid. That year I sang that song to my sister on her birthday. It wasn't as touching since she didn't get the reference. Man the Simpsons is such a great show.




I think driving and texting is really becoming a problem. Everyone seems to do it. I even may have done it myself from time to time. Here is an article that puts it in perspective.


Road test shows texting slows reaction time Car & Driver runs a real-time test of the reaction speeds of drunk versus texting drivers. Let's just say the results are kind of scary, especially if you see a lot of TWI offenders on your commute. [CNET]


Four Reasons Women dig Geeks
This is a decent article written in a very logical way which I found enlightening. My favorite part is about how sex is rated with personal fitness types. Read it and then check back here. Ok, so the problem with this article I think is that she (the author) has to logically make a case for what she calls the "nerd." I've never seen an article about "why girls should like the bad boy." The reason being that even though it logically doesn't make sense, it does makes sense instinctualy for the reasons she raises in the article. Also, you have to look at who is writing this article. It is an intelligent woman who assumes other women are excited to be challenged for example on their foreign policy views. I wonder if she knows how few women (or men for that matter) want to talk about foreign policy over dinner. I think she describes a good fit for her, but I always feel like when you need to sell something, there must be a reason. The points are well made though, but I have a feeling that sometimes instincts win out of logic.


STUDY: Many Women Become Obese After Getting Married
Did they really have to study this? It just seems like an old cliche, letting yourself go once you get married. I think a distinction is made between married people and people in relationships. I wonder if women take offense this article?

The other day I decided to look up my name on Facebook. I wondered who shared my very same name. It seems like most people with my name are from Argentina. Maybe I'll go google myself again, it has been a while.

There are good feelings in life that I enjoy. The problem is that sometimes positive things have the downside of being only one side of the coin. I guess either you can have hope or fear and well we all know what the better choice is.

same place, different reality

Unproductive Lately

"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good." - Robert Graves (1895 - 1985)

This has been a quiet week. Things are getting back to normal with Rino and Abram being back in town. The house is no longer as quiet, and the scamper of pets is back. It is definitely summer. I know the weather isn't a topic that one should write about, but after so many 100 degree plus days, I have to say, man it is HOT. I'm definitely in Texas. I am looking forward to some rain, but man the summer has just begun. It is going to be tough.


So here is some great news. The other day I mentioned how responsible I was going to be and not go and see Bill Maher when he came to town even though it pained me. Well to my pleasant surprise, my friend Christina (most awesome friend) got tickets to the comedy show and invited me. How great it that? I am really looking forward to it. It will also be one of her last weekends in Austin before she moves away. I am really happy about watching this show.

This weekend I'm planning to go the Valley. I haven't decided yet if I'm leaving on Friday or Saturday morning, but it should be a good trip. I still haven't decided what I'm doing on the 4th of July yet, but I am really looking forward to it. I guess I'm just taking things day by day right now.

So I heard that the movie My Sister's Keeper comes out this week. I have not read the book, but yet know a lot about the plot. I don't see myself rushing out to see it, but I may have. I'm sure I'll rent it at some point. So far it has really good reviews.

I don't know how to exactly explain this article. http://thestimulist.com/resolved-shes-just-not-that-into-you/ is a really good read, but it isn't what you would expect. Forget that silly book and check it out. There were some parts that really hit me. I wish I could more clearly express what I think about this, but I can't since I don't fully know. I don't relate to it literally, yet at the same time I really relate to parts of it. If you know me, you'll understand I think. Here is my favorite part:
By the time you’re on your second drink, she’s already uncovered your parent’s divorce, your fifth grade crush, your ex’s faults, your early retirement pipe dreams. There’s just something about her that makes people talk. And talk. And talk. And she knows it.

I never would of thought Republican sex scandals would out number the Democratic ones. I hope this can finally stop being a political issue. (I still want healthcare.) People lie and people cheat. Just don't use government money for your personal problems and we will look the other way. Carry on. Nevertheless, there are some interesting articles that have been written about this.

Sanford’s Adultery May Be Criminal Under South Carolina Law
This is silly and I don't agree with it, but still makes you wonder about all those weird laws on the books.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) didn’t just “let down a lot of people” when he spent the last week in Argentina with his mistress, he may have committed a crime. Under South Carolina law:

Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. . . . “Adultery” is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman when either is lawfully married to some other person.

Fortunately for Sanford, it is not entirely clear that the South Carolina justice system has jurisdiction over an apparent crime that he committed while traveling abroad in Argentina.


Later in the day I read: Why men cheat -- his version - I enjoyed this non related, yet somewhat related article, but you have to get to the end of it to truly understand its meaning. Almost makes me want to rethink my entire approach to life.

I talked to a friend about hate crimes legislation today. It was a good debate. She was completely wrong. I like debating people who are knowledgeable on subjects. You sometimes can leave learning something new. I need to debate more topics to stay sharp and really understand what my views are on things.

So I have decided to learn new knots for my ties. I think I learned how to do it in the 7th grade and once I got it, I never changed it. The problem is that the type of knot I have used isn't the best one and honestly I don't even know the name. Today I learned the Sheby and I liked it a lot. More about this in the days to come.


So here is some of Christina's artwork from her bar review class. I post it, not to chide her for not paying closer attention to the speaker, but to say how impressed I am that she can draw this well. The cool part is the back story I think, since this is the deer she almost hit on her way to Barbri that morning.

Update: I'm not a very good friend I'm told because I do a bad job of listening. This was not the picture of the doodle. Sometimes I just like the stories I make up in my head better.

This article Clunkers...Where's my $4,500? really makes a good point. Not withstanding, I'm still excited about the law and am hoping to use it to help my father trade in his 92 Van for a decent car.

Update: Michael Jackson died today. I used to have his cds when I was little.

Killing time, then trying to hold on to it.

Home Alone

"If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves." - Lane Kirkland

I had a good weekend, mainly because it was the weekend. I had originally planned to go down to the Valley for Father's Day, but that didn't work out. I did call my father though. He had a good day with the rest of the family. Saturday night, I went out downtown with my friend Christina and Caro. I had never been to the 7th and Red River part of downtown before. It was an interesting area to say the least. Austin has a very diverse bar selection. We went to see a band they knew. They were pretty good, but had no singer. I guess I'm just not very used to that. As Caro said, it is always good to try something new. It was a fun night, except the part on the way home where the people who had been drinking were driving crazy in my lane, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE POLICE STATION. I made some gestures, but then they got out of their car. I wasn't ready to test ignoring consequences at the level they had already shown, but was relieved to see they were picking a fight with some other car they seemed to have gang issues with (multiple people from multiple cars.) I decided to stay out of it and was happy to see traffic moving again once they got back in their cars.

On Sunday, Abram left for the Valley. Rino was still out of town, so that left taking care of the dogs to me. Nothing I can't handle, but man it was a hot day. Lots of water. That also left me at home alone. It is times like this I imagine what it would be like to live by myself. I wonder if I would like it or if I would feel bored and lonely. It is not too bad and I think I could get used to it.

I have been following the Iran Election protests online and on the news. I went to Twitter and searched for #iranelection and the posts and videos where both heartbreaking and inspirational. I think most people agree that the election was a sham and as an American I support the protesters, but we can't just go in there and invade another middle eastern country. I think what these people are doing is very admirable and watching the violence coming through the holes in the media blackout is hard.

I think this morning conservative Joe Scarborough put it best:
SCARBOROUGH: All we would do is undermine those people in the street, who the second that they are attached to the United States of America, the country after all that’s been known in Iran as the great Satan since 1979, we will undermine their cause … It’s so shortsighted I find it stunning. […]

At the same time you can argue that that has already happened.

Speaking of Twitter, I have an account (hyadus), but I don't twitter much. I probably use my facebook status more often like I would use twitter. I finally set up my fb status to update my twitter account, so maybe that will help me try it out more. It feels like a lot of noise.

Bill Maher: Democrats Have Moved To The Right And The Right Has Moved Into A Mental Hospital (VIDEO)
"Shouldn't there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget, a party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal health care, legalizing pot, and steep direct taxing of polluters? ...What we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren't being served by the Democrats, because bottom line: Democrats are the new Republicans."



NBC came out with a new show this week called Merlin. A little research showed that the show was actually released on the BBC about a year ago and was picked up by NBC. I saw the first two episodes on Sunday night it looks promising. I'm still mad about Kings. Have I mentioned what a good job they did of casting the princess?

Do you know what I still have on my Tivo? The last 4 episodes of Prison Break and the last 4 episodes of Brothers & Sisters. I guess even when I don't have anything to watch, I still haven't watched those episodes. It is funny I think because I'm just watching Prison Break because I have come this far. This is just a mental note to watch them.

I can't get away from weddings no matter how hard I try. Here is an impressive -- wedding invite -- I ran into this online and I thought it was a pretty cool wedding invitation. I don't understand why the guy just didn't move to where the girl was, but I admire him for being patient and waiting for her to come. Double click the image or the link to the original to read it.
(via Matt Dorfman)


This is a very mundane fact, but this weekend I got all of my ironing done. I bought a clothes rack where I hang my shirts after I wash them so that I can iron them before putting them in the closet. Well the rack became my closet and I would just pick shirts that were "ironed enough" to wear. My whole idea of this middle ground so that I wouldn't have shirts hanging up on door knobs and door hooks all over the room failed. So Sunday night while I was catching up on some TV, I decided to iron everything on the rack. I am not a fan of ironing, but it had to be done. I have so much clothes that I'm too lazy to wear because I don't want to iron it.

John Hodgman at Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner.

He was the headliner at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night. I found his discussion on nerds very funny.

On a completely unrelated note, I think a lot about my lunch break. I really wish I worked near home, so that I could go home, run on the treadmill, shower real quick and be back to work. That plus a microwavable meal would be a good use of my lunch break. Alas, that is not the reality that exists and I don't know if an hour is enough time to do all of that anyway. Maybe if I keep thinking about it I'll figure something out that I'm happy with.

So right now I'm trying to get through the next few weeks to get back on track. The problem is that Bill Maher is coming to Austin on July 10th. That is a comedy show I would have loved to go to. Normally I would of just bought 2 tickets to the show and found someone to go with me. But instead, I'm going to be responsible and pass on the show.

commitment is a big deal

Reasons to Celebrate

"The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it." - Franklin P. Jones.

Thursday I got the good news that Abram got the job he applied for. This was great news and a very well deserved hiring. I don't know a lot of the details about the job, just that he will be working for the state. I hope it is a good fit and that it leads to even better opportunities. We went out Thursday night to celebrate.

Here is a list of things we all celebrate in small ways I think: making the yellow light, it being lunch time, Friday afternoon, the first sip of any drink, finishing a workout, a very good date.

So my sister Ana got a Palm Pre. I was super excited for her. She had told me that her Centro broke and she was getting it fixed. I told her she should consider getting a Palm Pre, but she said that even with the upgrade, it would cost her like $300, a price too high to justify for a phone when she can just fix hers. Well maybe my comments struck some kind of chord, but a few hours later she told me she worked out a deal where she could get the Pre at no upgrade charge. How cool is that? I hope she enjoys the phone.

As much as I think the Pre is a cool phone, I could not give up my iPhone. I got the iPhone 3.0 software for my phone on Wednesday. I had to give up my jailbreak, but I can probably just re-jailbreak it soon enough. There are a lot of small changes, but I'm very happy about cut and paste. I can't wait for TomTom and I thought I would be more excited about the landscape keyboard. There doesn't seem to be much room for the text messages in that mode, so I'll probably just go back to what I'm used to.

On Tuesday, I hurt my finger. In retrospect, the cut wasn't that bad and it healed fine, but the fear of what could of been did shock me a bit. Abram and I were putting the new gym equipment together when we were trying to get a metal pole through the weights unto the floor. It was jammed and much like putting your hand in a garbage disposal I put my hand under the hole to feel where the jam was so that I could help it through. Well Abram was pushing down and when it made it through, it caught my index finger between the bottom of the pole and the concrete on the floor. The blood wasn't as bad as the pain from the crush. I was lucky because I think more damage could of been done if he was pushing down harder. I feel better now. I feel like those comic book characters that heal really quickly when they are hurt, but in super slow motion in my case. The body is neat that way. Here is my visual representation. Oh Art school, such wasted money.

I also hurt my back on Tuesday. It really wasn't a good day for me overall. It took me a while to figure it out since I didn't do much of a workout because most time was spent working on the gym equipment. I had to do some mental detective work to figure out how I was hurt. I noticed it that night when I tried to lay down. The right side of my upper back was just killing me all the way to my neck. I figured I must of had my neck at weird angles while working on the equipment. But the pain was very focused. I felt around and pin pointed the exact place I had the pain and tried to move as to recreate the pain. As I did an imaginary pull up with my right arm I started to feel it. Then it hit me. So I decided to show Abram a cool pull up he could try which involved going up to the right and then to the left. Well I only showed him to the right. Well I'm not in shape enough to do those and I must of injured a muscle in my back. Now it is Friday and it still hurts, but at least it is getting better. That put a hamper on my workouts for the rest of the week. See what I get by trying an exercise I've never done before.

I finally got to see the movie everyone is talking about, the Hangover. It was pretty good and I enjoyed it. The credits were great, but I kind of expected more explanation during the credits. It is a very funny movie and I recommend it. If I am ever going to marry a woman like the girlfriend of the dentist, don't let me.




Arlington: The Rap So I ran into this link a lot the past week or so, especially on Facebook. I feel like I should of been more entertained by it. Maybe I have been gone from VA for too long.


I have a list of sites I visit daily. Mainly, my two comics, news/political blogs and some tech blogs. I decided that I need to add to that list since I'm starting to feel like the internet is shrinking on me. So does anyone have any good recommendations? TMZ is NSFW so I don't go there. Just leave a comment with a great place to waste time on the internets.



So this guy parked really close to me. From the look of his side mirror, it wasn't the first time he has done it. I hate when that happens.

So Thursday night we went out to celebrate. It was a long night, but it was fun. I'm very much paying for it right now. Going out on weekdays is such a bad idea. Yet I'll probably continue to do it.

So even though there isn't much TV on, there is some TV news: Katherine Heigl STAYING On 'Grey's Anatomy' As Knight Leaves


So I had planned on going to the Valley this weekend and I was very excited about it. Alas, I will not be going.

how many times can you make the same mistake?