It's the End of the World as We Know It...

Can things get any worse than they are now?

On Monday, over 50,000 more jobs were lost in this country, and there are more to come.

On Tuesday in Los Angeles, a man murdered his five children and his wife because they lost their jobs.

On Wednesday, the Post Office announced they are going to be cutting back to a 5 day workweek.

and....the Girl Scouts are trimming their cookies!

I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs what I thought about suicide and taking your kids along with you. It's appalling. The guy who did this was a selfish asshole. Those 5 kids did absolutely nothing to deserve death.

"Why leave our children in someone else's hands." is what the father said in his suicide note.

Why? You idiot, to give them a chance at life. That's why.

There are people out there suffering with illness. People with cancer. People with aids. People who look at every single day of life as a gift. And here are seven healthy people whose lives were just thrown away. Then there are people who are so desperate to have children but can't. I'm sure there are many who would have loved to take care of these kids. This just angers me to no end.

So where is this going to end? Are we on the verge of armageddon here?

We're supposed to be moving into a 2 bedroom apartment in mid-February, which will increase our rent by about $125 a month. We can afford it...but, I'm actually kind of worried about signing a new 1 year lease. Will we still have our jobs for a year? At this point I'm reluctant to enter into any long-term financial commitment. A new car? No. A house? We'd love one...but....are you crazy?

If there's any upside to this financial mess, at least we're getting a lot of restaurant coupons.

Austin's Wacky Weather

Our last two weekends have been pretty uneventful. Most of our time has been spent indoors. Not because we want to stay indoors, but because it's been so damn cold lately.

It's odd, really, the weather here. Austin, I've now learned, is a place that can be 85 degrees one day, and 40 degrees the next day. That's what happened this week. Monday through Friday was very nice, warm weather. Then the weekend arrived. The time when all four of us can finally go out and do something together as a family.

On Saturday morning, about 11am, I check the local weather forecast. It's 38 freakin' degrees outside! What's going on? It was over 80 degrees less than 24 hours ago! So, instead of going to a park or someplace outdoors, we change our plans and go to the local library instead. Not exactly the funnest thing to do on a weekend.

I suppose I should be grateful that we don't live in Chicago or Minnesota or North Dakota or New York. Places that typically dip below zero regularly during the winter. Austin never gets that cold, thankfully. The coldest I've seen it here was about 29, and we woke up to find ice everywhere. That's probably the closest to snow that we'll ever see here, although I have heard that it will snow on a rare occasion.

Still, back in sunny ol' Southern California, it rarely gets into the 30 degree weather. In Austin, it's pretty common. I don't think my wife is used to it yet.

So...I've been reading lately. I just read another book by Stephen King called "Desperation." I liked the book a lot. I finished it in just under two weeks. Then I had the unfortunate experience of watching the TV movie that was made from it. Oh man, did it suck. TV and Stephen King just don't mix. The best Stephen King adaptions have always been big-screen versions by accomplished directors like Frank Darabont and Rob Reiner. This version of "Desperation" was just embarrassing.

(Picture: Kyle, dressed and ready to head out into the cold.)

Movies and the Academy Awards

Anyone that knows me well knows that I'm a pretty big movie fan. I've been one since I was a kid, when my mom used to take me to see a movie every Sunday. From the age of about 8 to around 15, I saw more movies than many people see in a lifetime. We saw everything. Well, okay, not literally everything, but almost everything. My mom didn't like horror movies, so we rarely saw one of those. Although, for some reason, I do remember being taken to see "Alien," "Friday the 13th", and "Fright Night." My mom, bless her heart, even took me to see "Pink Floyd The Wall" in 1982. For those of you who haven't seen "The Wall", it's a musical with no dialogue, only the music of Pink Floyd, and extremely hard to understand if you aren't familiar with the original album.

"How did you like the movie?" I asked my mom once it was over.
"I hated it. I couldn't wait for it to be over." she replied. Still, I really have to give her credit for taking me to see it and sitting through it.

Even once I became a adult, I still saw a lot of movies. I used to go with my ex-wife to see all kinds of movies. We'd even drive an hour to some little art house theater on the outskirts of L.A. to see a movie that wasn't showing anywhere else. We were real movie geeks.

With two kids, those days are pretty much over. I rarely get a chance to get out to see a movie lately, unless it's a movie I can take Sara to, like "Wall E" or "Kung Fu Panda." If I want to see a "grown up" movie, I have to have a negotiation with Christy. She doesn't particularly like to be left alone during the day watching the kids while I'm out seeing a movie, so I have to agree to watch the kids at another time while she does something that she wants to do, like go shopping at Ross. So, I'm lucky if I can catch one movie every other month or so.

I also used to enjoy watching the Academy Awards every year, usually because I had always seen every movie that was nominated for Best Picture. So what are the nominees this year?

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Frost/Nixon"
"Milk"
"The Reader"
"Slumdog Millionaire"

I haven't seen ANY of these movies!

In looking over all of the acting categories, I've only seen two of the movies mentioned: "The Dark Knight" and "Tropic Thunder"

Although I haven't seen the movies nominated for Best Picture, I'm a bit puzzled why "The Dark Knight" wasn't nominated. That was a near-perfect example of what an Oscar caliber movie should be. I'm pretty sure Heath Ledger will win as Best Supporting Actor for that movie. He stole every single scene that he was in.

"Frost/Nixon" just doesn't sound very interesting to me. Two hours of David Frost interviewing Richard Nixon, trying to get him to confess his involvement in the Watergate scandal? That's something I would watch on HBO, but not pay $10 to see at a movie theater. Same goes for all the others, except for maybe "Benjamin Button." I might try to see that just because I like the previous work of director David Fincher.

The Academy Awards has a pretty shaky reputation with me. It seems like a rare occasion when they pick what I consider to be the best film of the year. Consider some of their past mistakes:

They picked "Annie Hall" over "Star Wars" in 1977. Ok, "Annie Hall" IS a great movie, but "Star Wars" was a phenomenon that broke all the boundaries of special effects.

They picked "Chariots of Fire" over "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1982. "Chariots of Fire"??

"Out of Africa" instead of "The Color Purple" in 1985.

"Driving Miss Daisy" instead of "Born on the Fourth of July" in 1989. What the f--- were they thinking?

"Dances With Wolves" instead of "Goodfellas" in 1990. I thought "Dances With Wolves" was good, but "Goodfellas" is freakin' GREAT.

"Forrest Gump" instead of "Pulp Fiction" AND "The Shawshank Redemption" in 1994. "Forrest Gump" is a decent film, but better than either "Pulp Fiction" or "Shawshank"? Hardly.

"The English Patient" instead of "Fargo" in 1996.

"Shakespeare in Love" instead of "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998. This is by far the biggest joke in the history of the Academy Awards.

I started to lose my confidence in those award shows after that. Although, to give them credit, they did get it right a few times: Schindlers List, Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator, The Departed, The Godfather, and Lord of the Rings were all worthy winners.

So, I'll probably watch the show again this year, thought I'm not sure why. Just one of those yearly traditions I guess.

America is Back

It's taken eight long years, but as of today, with Barack Obama becoming the 44th President of the United States, I feel this country is finally getting back on track. Millions of people are flooding Washington D.C. today just to be a part of this historic day. Many of those people have waited hours and hours in below-freezing temperatures just to be there, and some of them will have to see it on large video screens. Even my ex-wife was planning to be there today, but changed her mind when she found out that all train tickets had been sold out weeks ago (that, and the fact that there is one port-o-potty for every 6000 people!)

I was reading the other day that one of the first things that Obama wants to do while in office is expand the "CHIP" program. CHIP is the "Children's Health Insurance Program." Under his policy, he will raise the annual income level (for a family of four) to qualify for benefits from about $43,000 to about $60,000. Bush had vetoed this bill twice already. Under this new policy, both of my children will now qualify for this coverage. Since I'm currently paying over $320 a month for health insurance, this would help us out quite a bit.

By comparison, what are some of the first things that George W. Bush did as president during his first 100 days? Here are just a few:

1. He cut funding for international family planning groups.
2. He reversed a rule reducing the levels of arsenic in drinking water.
3. He rejected the Kyoto treaty, an international agreement to fight global warming.

Quite a difference, isn't it? Like literally comparing Good Vs. Evil. I mean, I can kind of understand why he would cut funding for family planning. Most conservative Republicans would love to see Roe V. Wade overturned and have us return to the old days of women using wire hangers. But arsenic in the drinking water??? This is a real head scratcher.

I told my wife recently that I'm glad our children would be growing up with Obama as the president of the country, and not some right-wing war hawk like Bush or Cheney or McCain. Now is the time when people are feeling optimistic for peace and positive change. Many of us are looking at Barack Obama as the savior of this country. To take us out of the darkness we've been in so long: the wars, the torture, the rape of the environment and human rights, the subjugation of the poor. Let's hope this is the beginning of the end of this. Obama has a big job ahead of him.

Connecting...and Disconnecting With Old Friends

I've had, or once had, 5 friends named David. Whenever I talk about "my friend David" with my wife, I have to clarify which one I'm talking about. There's....

David in Taiwan
David in San Francisco
David in Orange County, CA
David in Chili, New York
David in the wheelchair

I haven't spoke to the "David in the wheelchair" since the early 80's, so I probably shouldn't even include him.

The only "David" that I keep in contact with these days is the one in Taiwan. I guess he and I have the closest relationship of any of the "David's"

I spoke to David in Taiwan the other day. I called him using "Skype." My wife's sister has an account there that she lets us use to call Taiwan, so it's free to us. I told David that he should get Skype and then we can talk to each other for free, but he seemed to be totally oblivious to what Skype was or how it worked. I think living in Taiwan for the past 5 years has kept him out of the loop of pretty much everything.

It seems whenever I talk to David, we end up talking for a long time, but rarely about anything that interesting. I don't know why. The conversations will start off okay. We'll talk about what's new in our lives, etc. Then, the conversation will just....change. By the time I logged off of Skype, we were talking about the cartoon characters that McDonalds used to use in their products. We ended up talking about "Hamburgler," "Grimace," and "Mayor McCheese." WTF??

I guess that's one of the reasons I enjoy talking to him, because our conversations are always so random. Both my wife and his girlfriend think we're crazy.

As far as latest developments go, David has renewed his contract with the school that he works for in Kaohsiung, and he is still planning to get married to his girlfriend Pi Chi someday.

I talk to all the other David's by email or instant message, except for the one in Chili, New York. I hadn't talked to him for about 10 years. I don't even know his email address. However, I happened to be really bored one day and I googled his name, just to see if I could find him. I didn't....but....I found his wife. I didn't even realize he was married. He's married to a woman named Grace who runs a blog for the "Democrat and Chronicle" in Chili. So I wrote an email to Grace, and I wrote a message on her blog, basically telling her who I was and I asked her to tell David to write to me. To this day I haven't gotten any reply.

I thought about reasons he might not want to talk to me. The only one I could think of was that we both were dating the same girl back in 1989, unbeknownst to each other. Once we finally found out about it, we called her on the phone, and through a speaker we both dumped her at the same time. I think it's possible he still has some raw feelings about those days. It's been 20 years, can he still be holding a grudge? Who knows. He's got 2 kids now, just like me, and about the same age too. It would have been nice to compare parenting stories.

"David in Chili, New York" was my best friend before I met "David in Taiwan" in 1983, but these two hated each other. "David in Chili" was a bit of a goofball, while "David in Taiwan" was more of the serious, intellectual type. "David in Chili" liked zombie movies and liked to run around saying "Doy! Doy! Doy!" all the time. "David in Taiwan" liked Woody Allen movies and writing poetry. For me it seemed natural to shift my interests to "David in Taiwan."

Maybe I hang onto the past too much. I try to keep in contact with people who really don't want to be in contact anymore. David isn't the only one. Sometimes you just have to come to the realization that it's time to move on.

Death

"Everything dies, baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back."

-B. Springsteen, 1982

As of this writing, death has only touched my life a couple of times. Once, when my father died in 1994 at the age of 81, and another time when a friend of mine named Cathie Bartz in 1993. She was only 24.

The death of my father wasn't really a shock to me. He was, after all, 81 years old and he had lived enough for two lifetimes. He married his first wife in his 30's, had two children, got divorced about 20 years later, then married my mom and had 3 more kids. By the time I was born his other children were already grown men having kids of their own. I was only 23 when my father died, and even though we didn't get along at all, I still wish I had a little more time with him, just to try to know him a little better.

Cathie's death, on the other hand, came as a very big shock to me. I met her the same day I met my longtime friend Jerry Yen. It was 1989 and I was a gathering of BBS (Bulletin Board System) geeks. Cathie was an overweight woman, not particularly attractive, but she had a real warmth about her. She was open and friendly, and someone who would actually listen to you if you had a problem. Since I was only 18 at the time, I had all kinds of problems, so she was always someone to lend an ear. It's rare to find a person like that these days. I had a very brief relationship with her, but she had so many personal issues that it would never have worked out between the two of us.

Cathie attended my wedding to Amber back in 1992, then she got married herself the following year. Shortly after her marriage, she was gone. She was killed while she was riding her motorcycle on the freeway. She hit a bump in the road, which threw her from the motorcycle. She was then hit by another car that was following behind her. It's pretty tragic when you think about it.

As a kid I used to be afraid of death. I remember crying in my bed one night, and my mother came in to ask me what was wrong.
"I'm afraid to die." I told her.
"Oh, silly boy!" she would reply. "You don't have to worry about that for a long, long time."
At the time, it made me feel better. When you're about 10 years old, and you think you have at least 70 or more years to go, it seems like an eternity. You don't think you'll ever get old.

But time goes by fast.....

I don't really fear death the way I used to. At least not natural death. I guess I fear violent death more than anything else. If I can live to be in my 80's, or even 90's, and watch my kids grow up, see my grandchildren, then I'll feel I've had a worthwhile life and the idea of death won't scare me.

Since I've become a parent, I've discovered that I do get a little more emotional when it comes to the death of children. I keep reading the news about the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Palestine. It seems for every terrorist that Israel is killing, they are also killing hundreds of women and children in the process. It doesn't seem like a good trade up to me. I understand the need for Israel to defend itself, but what they're doing seems like overkill. I don't understand why they can't just send in a team of assassins to take out the top terrorists one at a time, like they did with the terrorists behind the Munich massacre. Instead, they're just dropping tons of bombs all over the place, killing children, and creating even more anger and resentment. I know that if I lost a child, I'd be devastated, so I can imagine to some extent the grief that people are feeling over there.

I'd like to think that there's something better waiting for us beyond this life. That when our time is finally up, we'll meet up with all our loved ones who have gone before us. I think that's one of the purposes of religion, to ease your mind about dying. Death is one of life's big mysteries, and once we've solved it, it's too late to tell anyone else.

A Day Downtown

I don't think I've seen everything there is to see in Austin, but I think I've seen most of it. If I had grown up here and lived here most of my life, I'd probably say this is a great city. But as I've said before, I've been spoiled by living in L.A. most of my life. If there is one thing that I really do like about living here compared to L.A., it's the traffic. You can get to anyplace in Austin within a 30 minute drive or less. It's great. In Los Angeles, it can easily take you 90 minutes to drive from Long Beach to downtown, and on busier days it could be up to 2 hours or more. Driving anywhere in Los Angeles is such a chore, even on weekends.

So this past weekend we drove to downtown Austin again. It didn't take long to get there from where we live, maybe about 10 minutes. There's a second "Austin Museum of Art" downtown that we hadn't yet seen, and admission is free the first Saturday of every month. Thank God it was free, because this museum was no better than the last one we went to. I think we'll have to end up driving to Dallas if we want to see one of the better museums in Texas, Austin just doesn't seem to have any.

Later we had dinner at a restaurant in the downtown area called "The Spaghetti Warehouse", which seemed almost identical to "The Spaghetti Factory" that they have in L.A. It must be part of the same chain.

After dinner we went to Zilker Park once again, but frankly I don't think this is a very good park to take children. It's primarily a park where people take their dogs to run around free. There's very little grass to sit down on, as it's primarily dirt and rocks. We saw many boats out in the river, and I thought it might be fun if we rented one for an hour or so, but I couldn't find anywhere where boats could be rented.

(Pictures: 1. Christy and the babies outside the downtown Austin Museum of Art. 2. Christy and Kyle browsing the shops. 3. Sara showing off her homemade artwork. 4. The Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant. 5. Another view of Zilker Park, which you can see has no grass whatsoever.)

Another Day at the Park

Every now and then I like to go back and re-visit an old entry I made on my previous blog, "An American Teacher in Taiwan." This time, I was looking at an entry from April 30, 2008 called "A Day at the Park." Here's the link to the old one:
http://kenberglund.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-at-park.html

I didn't have to work on New Years Day, so Christy and I just decided to have an easy, relaxing day at the park with the kids. It was quite nice, and it reminded me of the last time we all went to the park together in Taiwan.

In Taiwan, it's not that easy to just have a peaceful day at the park. There always seems to be somebody who wants to either take our picture, or take a picture of the kids, or touch the kids, or who knows what. If you look different, the Taiwanese want to photograph you. I remember taking Sara to the zoo once in Taiwan and having to stand and pose with her for about 5 minutes while a gang of teenagers was snapping pictures of us. I could have just walked away, but I didn't want to be rude.

Of course, here in Austin, nobody gives a damn, and I love it!!

So here's a happier sequel to "A Day at the Park." Just like the old blog, there are pictures at the top, and a 1 minute video below.

New Years Resolutions

I generally don't make any New Years resolutions because after a couple of months I forget what they were. In the past my resolutions have been pretty typical: try to make more money, exercise more, try to lose another 5 or 10 pounds, learn more Chinese, more quality time with the kids, etc.

For 2009, Christy and I have a lot of the same resolutions as before, and a few new ones. First, and I think most importantly, we need to move into a bigger apartment. This is Austin, Texas, not Southern California or Manhattan, so we can definitely afford a two-bedroom apartment now. Sara has grown out of her crib, so now she sleeps on a mattress in what should be our dining room. When we got this apartment back in July, we were desperate for anything and fighting for survival, but that's just not the case anymore.

Also, we need to get out to California sometime this year to spend some time with my mom, and to let her have more time with her grandchildren. I, unfortunately, never knew any of my grandparents. Both my fathers and my mothers parents were all dead and gone by the time I was born. My only memory of them is from photographs. I'd really like my kids to know their "American Grandma" before it's too late. Luckily for us, it will be cheaper for us to fly to California now that we're back in the US. When we were living in Taiwan, it was costing us over $3,000 every time we came back for the holidays. This time it will be less than half that amount.

Barring emergencies, or if my friend David in Taiwan finally marries his longtime girlfriend Pi Chi, we don't have any plans to visit Taiwan in 2009. We're planning a big trip to go there in early 2010, for Chinese New Year. We'll also visit Tokyo for a week either before or after we see my wife's parents.

Christy told me her top priority this year is to save money. That used to be impossible when our salaries were going to the daycare center, but now it may be possible to actually save something.

We just finished watching the annual Tournament of Roses Parade on TV. Christy pointed out to me that for the past 4 years, once we watch that show, we know it's time to head back to Taiwan, since we've always flown back on either the 1st or 2nd of the new year after our holiday visit. Not this time, though. She's finally beginning to accept the fact that America is now her new home.