Christmas 2011

Here's a few photos from Christmas 2011. The kids woke up at 2am this morning and came into our bedroom wanting to open presents. I remember doing this to my mom when I was a kid, so I guess it's revenge.

We got them each a kid's camera this year, and it seems that is turning out to be their favorite gift. Anything to keep them away from my expensive camera.

Ramblings #15

As it gets closer to Christmas, Sara and Kyle seem to get more and more excited, and they're extremely energetic. I find myself yelling at them all the time for doing things I always used to do when I was a kid: touching and knocking ornaments off the Christmas tree, stealing (and eating) candy canes from the tree, trying to locate (and open) the Christmas presents, etc. I guess I should just expect that kids will be kids, and behavior doesn't change from generation to generation. Even when I used to teach kids in Taiwan, it would surprise me sometimes how their behavior reminded me of my own childhood.

In Taiwan, though, they don't celebrate Christmas, so my wife Christy doesn't quite "feel the Christmas magic" like everyone else in the house. She grew up the child of poor Taiwanese farmers, and according to her, the only thing she ever knew about Christmas was that "people sent cards to each other." Oh well, maybe after she's been living here for 10 years, she'll start to feel "the magic!"

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Just took the kids to see "The Muppets" recently and found it to be pretty disappointing. Rather than fill the movie with funny skits (like the first Muppet movie), this one seemed to dwell too much on the fact that the Muppets were old and outdated. Apparently even Frank Oz (the voice of many of the muppets) didn't even like this story, and refused to lend his voice to the project. I can see why.

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So...another GOP candidate bites the dust. Pizza man Herman Cain has dropped out. Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann's campaigns are all but dead. So who is left? Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, and possibly Ron Paul (a longshot). Newt Gingrich seems to be in the lead right now, which is a shock to just about everyone (Democrats in particular).

If scandalous affairs killed Herman Cain's chances at the nomination, one only needs to look at Gingrich's history and see that Cain's got nothing on ol' Newt. Newt is the guy who cheated on his wife while she was in the hospital with cancer. Yeah, John Edwards did the same thing, but that pretty much killed his chances at the presidency. Normally, this kind of behavior doesn't occur until after they become president, so I'd have to take a guess here and say that Newt won't make it through the primaries.

So that leaves us with Mitt Romney, who will likely be the candidate. I used to think he was the most "tolerable" of the Republican nominees, but now I have second thoughts. He's the typical politician who says what people want to hear, no matter if it contradicts previous statements or not. The guy flip-flops on everything. I now think that Jon Huntsman is the only guy who doesn't seem to pander to the right-wing extremists. What does it say when Huntsman is the only candidate that will actually admit that global warming is a real problem? But...that kind of thinking won't get him very far, since he seems to be dead last in this race.

Here's a video that pretty much sums up the problem with the current GOP:

Black Friday

I've never gone to any "Black Friday" sales, not even one. Nor do I have any intention of going to one, although I'm always curious to see what sort of mayhem will erupt somewhere in the country. Just doing a quick Google search of "Black Friday violence 2011" I see that some woman used pepper spray on a bunch of people at a Wal-Mart. And there were a few shootings as well. Very, very sad.

One item this year did catch my eye, though. There was a Sharp, 40 inch 1080p HD TV for sale for $199 at Best Buy. This seemed like a good deal to me, but then I read the stories that people were camping out since Tuesday to get this deal on Friday. Yes, there are people willing to give up 3 days of their lives, miss Thanksgiving dinner with their families, just so they can get a cheap television set. A television, it seems, is more important than spending time with your family. Luckily, I know my priorities. If I can't just walk in and buy something without spending hours (or days) in line, it isn't worth it to me.

So, this morning, I thought I would check out some of the deals on Amazon from the comfort of my own home. Most of the stuff Amazon is offering is stuff I would never buy (a 7-pack of cassette tapes? really? who still uses cassettes?) Then I noticed an electronic toy from LeapFrog, a company that makes educational toys for kids. It was currently on sale for only $7.00, so I thought I would buy it for my son Kyle. The Amazon website, it seemed, was so overloaded that I couldn't even buy it. First they had a problem with address, and I had to enter it into their system about 3 separate times. After that, I couldn't apply my rewards points to the purchase. I tried again a few times, but kept getting the same error messages. By the time I navigated my way through their checkout process, the discounted toy was back to its original price, and was now "sold out." So...screw 'em. If they can't anticipate the volume of users going to their website today, then they are freakin' idiots. They had an option to "chat" with one of their customer service reps, but it was conveniently not working today, so instead I sent them a nice little email, complete with colorful language.

Happy Black Friday everyone!

(Picture: "If you listen to fools, the mob rules!)

Thanksgiving 2011

Here's a few pictures from Thanksgiving 2011. For the first time since we moved back to the US, I finally had the whole day off. I guess that's something to be thankful for.

The other person in the top photo is one of my co-workers at the hospital.

Music Wars

Although I try to play Pink Floyd at home and in the car as much as possible, I don't think I've done my job at brainwashing Sara into liking them. She's starting to have her own, independent taste in music (which is fine). What does she like?

Taylor Swift, especially the song "You Belong With Me"
Lady Antebellum, and the song "Need You Now"
The Black Eyed Peas
Lady Gaga
Katy Perry, especially the songs "Firework" and "E.T."
Adele, and "Rolling in the Deep"

Yes, who would have thought, she likes to listen to current music, not stuff from the 70's. Oh well, I tried.

Some of the songs above are okay, but country music? Please, say it isn't so! I'm going to go out on a limb here, and possibly offend half the state of Texas, but country music simply sucks! I'd rate it about as highly as I do rap music. How can I take any music seriously that sings about having a "bar b que stain on my white t-shirt." This is just lame, pedestrian writing. I could easily write the lyrics to a country music song within 10 minutes if I wanted to. I would just have to write about my girlfriend dumping me for losing my job, and how I'm going to get drunk and watch football. Piece of cake.

I don't think all country music is bad. I just so happen to own (well, used to own) CD's by Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. I also like some songs by John Denver, Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, and Loretta Lynn. But, they're old school country. I saw one country act at Austin City Limits this year (Jack Ingram), and at one point he took off his cowboy boots and started singing to them. Sigh.

Black Eyed Peas and Katy Perry are just a flash in the pan. Listen to their music and you can clearly hear that it is all "auto-tuned." They can't really sing. They need a computer to get in tune. The only singer that Sara likes that seems to have some talent is Adele. At least she's got a good singing voice.

I think Sara might have inherited Christy's "bad music gene." When I met Christy, she was listening to boy band crap. I have since opened her mind to better music, but I'll still occasionally hear her listening to Blue, Wet Wet Wet, and Sugababes.

I think Kyle might have got my music gene, though. The other day I heard him singing "I'm going off the rails on a crazy train!"

Ramblings #14

What is the difference between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street? While looking for information online, I came upon the chart you see above. Is it entirely true? No, probably not. The media tends to focus on the most insane members of the tea party and make it look as though they are representative of the entire movement. On the other end, they also focus on the most bizarre OWS participants as well, often showing dirty, unkempt homeless people.

What I don't get, though, is why there is so much hatred being directed at OWS. The Republican presidential candidates are attacking them, the police are (literally) attacking them. Do they fear we are the beginning of another American revolution?

It seems, for many, there is a misconception that OWS just wants free government handouts, and asking for something like "complete debt forgiveness" for student loans seems a bit extreme. But what are their real goals? This is what I found:

Goal 1:
Put a human face on the tens of millions of average Americans from every social, political, and economic strata who have had to put on hold plans to have a job, form a family, own a home, and live a normal life as the result of the dysfunctional mess that the United States has become. Occupy Wall Street is a way to let people across the country know that they are not alone in their struggles.
Goal 2:
Spotlight that the industrial-scale financial fraud at the core of the modern financial-services industry is a major source of this mess, and - because the entire political and legal system has been bought off - virtually nobody is being held to account. Just as we have the right to defend ourselves when we are being mugged, Americans have the right to defend ourselves from corporations that exploit our markets while moving jobs overseas or that evade taxes while using our roads, schools, and other public infrastructure.
Goal 3:
Point out that no partisan "10 Point Plan" will solve the mess we're in. The profound changes that we need will require the hard, slow work of rebuilding popular consensus by engaging with ideas from every point in the political and social spectrum. Wall Street and big corporate interests love never-ending political paralysis precisely because it leaves them free to cold-bloodedly strip the country bare.

Sounds reasonable to me.

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Sometimes if you wish for something long enough, miracles can actually happen. No, I'm not talking about winning the lottery. I'm talking about the best live concert ever...Roger Waters "The Wall Live" is coming to Austin! Yes, on May 3rd, 2012, the Roger Waters show will be performed at the Frank Erwin Center, a mere 20 minutes away from my house. He is doing one more tour of North America, hitting many of the cities he skipped the first time around. Frequent readers of my blog will know that the last time I had to travel to Dallas to see this show, and ended up having to pay my sister a hundred bucks to watch my kids, in addition to getting a hotel in Dallas. It was an expensive trip, to say the least.


Of course I will go again next year. There is no way I would not go. But...I will probably opt for slightly cheaper seats this time. This is a show that is so huge, it would be in your benefit to sit farther back.
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We had a breakthrough last night with Kyle. At 4 1/2 years old, Kyle is still not potty trained, but yesterday he finally succeeded in using the toilet. We have been trying everything: bribes, threats, you name it. Nothing was working. But finally we had some success.
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I didn't realize it until after the fact, but October 21st came and went without "Doomsday" occurring. Religious wacko Harold Camping was wrong again. I think it's time for this senile, old, false prophet to just fade away into obscurity.

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In one of my more recent blogs, I predicted that Obama would probably lose in 2012. Although, it's still a year away, I think that maybe now he has a 50/50 chance. If Herman Cain is the best candidate they have to run against him, I can't foresee a big victory for the GOP in 2012. All the Obama campaign has to really do is show how the "9-9-9" tax plan will raise taxes on just about everyone except the nation's wealthiest. People do have a bad habit of voting against their own interests, but this is very simple math, people.

Halloween 2011

An American Teacher in Taiwan..3 /12 Years Ago

I wrote what I thought would be my last blog entry on my other blog "An American Teacher in Taiwan" on August 16, 2008. But yet, for some reason, I still continually get letters about that blog. So many, in fact, that I started posting them there:

An American Teacher in Taiwan

That particular blog, though only active for a short time, has nearly as many hits as this one has, and I've been writing on this one for 3 years! Go figure. haha

So, since that one still seems to be popular (well...meaning that I seem to have more than 3 or 4 readers on that one), I decided to start it up again with occasional posts, focusing only on Taiwan and Taiwan related topics.

It's amusing to discover what you're most read blog posts are. For that blog, my most popular post is (not surprisingly): "Why Taiwanese Women Like Foreign Men" Ha! I can just picture horny guys googling this subject and finding a link to my blog post. I think maybe I'll title one of my blog posts "Sex With Taiwanese Women" and watch it jump to the #1 spot.

For this blog, my most read entry is "2012: The End of the World." I'm guessing people came to this post hoping for some insightful information, not a review of the movie "2012"

I deleted my "Creative Writing" blog some time ago. It had maybe one reader in total, and it didn't help that I rarely updated it. I've kind of lost interest in writing fiction, anyway. It was fun for awhile, but I obviously prefer writing more stream-of-conscious stuff like this.

While anybody and everybody seems to write a blog these days, we all have different reasons for doing it. Some just like to post pictures of themselves for everyone to see. Others hope to attract attention, possibly in the hope to become famous (like Perez Hilton). I write my blog for myself, to keep my mind active, but I'm glad other people like it. It's also been useful when I need to remember certain dates that things happened. For example, someone recently wanted to know how much Sara weighed when she was born. I had no idea. Then...I checked my old blog! "Sara Amanda Berglund is Born" Oh yeah! 6.9 pounds! What a resource! As you get older, you tend to forget a lot of stuff.

Writing a blog, for most of us, is not a way to earn a living. Even having ads on your blog brings in only pennies, and Google doesn't pay out until you hit $100 in "ad clicks." Right now, even after 3 years, I'm only at $47.10. Maybe after 10 years I'll finally get that big $100 check! haha

David, my Taiwan friend, has a pretty funny blog, but the guy rarely posts anything on it. He claims even he has become bored by it. Once you reach that stage, it's probably time to give it up. I haven't hit that stage yet. Someday I will, I'm sure, but not yet. Hopefully that will make my 3 readers happy.

(Picture: my latest topic on my "other" blog, Taiwanese Brides)

Why I'm Glad I Left Taiwan

I've seen a lot of sick things on the news before, but this about takes the cake. This video literally left my wife in tears. A 2 year girl in China wanders into the street, gets run over by a van (who I'm sure saw her), and over a dozen passers-by fail to help her. Then, to make things even worse, she gets run over by ANOTHER van. It's sick, sad, and it strengthens my disgust over the Chinese selfish attitude of "every man for himself."

This is EXACTLY the reason why I wanted to leave Taiwan. And before any Taiwanese write to me saying "This was in CHINA, not Taiwan." It doesn't matter. I've been to China, and I've been to Taiwan, and you guys drive and act exactly the same. I've stated on my blog a few times that when my daughter was a baby, I was pushing her stroller (in a crosswalk) across a busy intersection in Taiwan and not a single car stopped for us. Nobody gave a shit. My friend David was hit by a car in Taiwan (he was also in a crosswalk, and he was walking with a cane at the time).

You Taiwanese and Chinese really need to look into yourselves and examine your character. I know there are many who are good, decent people, but it's people like this that make the rest of the world feel disgusted with your country. Neither my Taiwanese wife nor I would ever want to raise our kids in such a place as this. To me, this is hell on earth.

WARNING: This video is somewhat graphic.

Ramblings #13

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, l952

I came upon this quote this morning (thanks Janet Fish!) and found it pretty amazing that a Republican could say such a thing. I wonder what Ike would think about this current crop of GOP candidates. A sad bunch of characters if ever I saw one.

With Rick Perry no longer a viable candidate, Herman Cain, the "9-9-9" man, seems to be the flavor of the month within the conservative community. Obviously, I think his 999 plan is crap on a stick. I won't go as far as to say it's really a "666" devil plan, like Michelle Bachmann says, but his plan does totally screw the poor and middle class. A 9% tax on all goods and services, and another 9% on personal income would be crippling to the economy. Someone buying a brand new house for $100,000 would now have to add another $9,000 to the price. That is just insane. And don't get me started about the tax deductions that would end under his policies: The child tax credit? Gone. The mortgage interest deduction? Gone. A family of four (like mine), on a modest income, would end up paying thousands more than we do now. No matter how much Obama might suck as president, I can never get behind a presidential candidate with this sort of plan.
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Although I support the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, their ultimate goal of separating corporations and state is going to be a tough one. My ex-wife Amber is a big participant of this movement, having gone to many of the local protests in Los Angeles. Democrats and Republicans alike have long been fattening their pocketbooks in service to big business. There's a well known story about our current Speaker of the House, John Boehner, giving out checks from the tobacco industry on the House floor for votes. I can tell you that politicians are not going to give this up without a fight.
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In lighter news, this past weekend I took the family to "Southpark Meadows" (sort of a shopping mall and park mixed together) where they have live music on the weekends (for free!). This past weekend was the Pink Floyd cover band "Austin Pink Floyd." They were okay. Vocally, they kind of sucked, but the guitar player was pretty good. Here's a video of them playing "Comfortably Numb":

Video - Roger Daltrey in Austin - Baba O'Riley

Here's another video from the concert. The Who classic "Baba O'Riley"

Video - Roger Daltrey in Austin - Pinball Wizard

Here's some video I took of Roger Daltrey performing "Pinball Wizard" from the Cedar Park Center in Austin. You can decide for yourself if you think his voice is shot.

The Who in Austin!

Well...not really "The WHO", but I suppose it's the next best thing. The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, performed at the newly built Cedar Park Center on Tuesday, October 11. Since he was going to be performing my favorite Who album, "Tommy", in its entirety, I decided to go.

The Cedar Park Center is a pretty good venue for concerts, and the sound system there is excellent. Its maximum capacity for concerts is around 8,000 people, which is about half of the size of most concert arenas. Unfortunately, for Roger Daltrey, but fortunate for me, he didn't even sell half the amount of tickets to fill the arena. Apparently, only about 2500 to 3000 tickets were sold. Empty seats were everywhere. As a result, they moved the stage to the center of the arena, and basically turned it into a big club gig. The seat that I had originally purchased didn't exist anymore, so they relocated me to the 7th row on the floor. Not bad. With the exception of the front-row seats I once had for Simon & Garfunkel (which was a total fluke, I just happened to check for tickets on the day of the concert), this was the closest I have ever sat to any band that was playing an arena show.

The show, as expected, was filled with old-timers and hippies. I felt like, at 41 years old, I might have been the youngest one there, but I did see a few kids. There was one guy sitting in front of me who looked to be in his 70's, who covered his ears during some of the nosier segments. Eventually he got up and left. Yes, I guess sometimes you can be too old to rock.

Other than Daltrey's voice not being quite up to par on some of the Who epics (Baba O'Riley, Young Man Blues, See Me Feel Me, etc), he put on a good show for someone who is 67 years old. It's unfortunate that the turnout was so sparse, but I guess if he dragged Pete Townsend along and called themselves "The Who", it would have been packed.

The Death Penalty Revisited

As it has become fairly obvious on my blog, I don't agree with conservatives much. As Bill Maher stated on his most recent show, the GOP has become so far right that their next move will probably be to reinstate slavery (and the "Georgia Works" plan seems to be a step in that direction.) In most regards, I feel that conservatives lack compassion for their fellow man, and completely disregard the lessons we all learned in Sunday school. I'm certainly not a religious man in any regard, but I think I can say for certainty that if Jesus were alive today, he'd be a bleeding heart liberal.

But...I digress. My topic here is the death penalty. And this is one (of only a few) things that I agree with conservatives on. I support the death penalty. I believe in an eye for an eye. If someone takes the life of another in cold blood, they deserve to lose theirs.

On Wednesday, we had two high-profile executions here in the US: Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer. Both are now dead, and while one clearly deserved it, the other did not.

Lawrence Davis was a white supremacist who dragged a black man (Lawrence Byrd) from the back of his pickup truck until his arms and head eventually ripped off his body. On Tuesday, Brewer stated "I have no regrets. I'd do it all over again." So, I say good riddance to this trash. Society really doesn't need racist, homicidal rednecks like this walking the earth.

Troy Davis, on the other hand, has maintained his innocence for the last 20 years. He was convicted of murdering a police officer, but evidence has since began to point in another direction. Seven out of nine eyewitnesses have recanted their testimony. There was no DNA or murder weapon found. Another person even admitted to committing the murder. Personally, I have no idea whether Davis did it or not. The point is that now there is doubt. If there is doubt in a persons guilt, there should be no execution. Reduce the sentence to life in prison.

It seems that for every high profile case of someone who obviously deserves the death penalty, we have cases like this and like Cameron Todd Willingham, who was likely also innocent. Willingham supposedly murdered his children by setting his house on fire, but fire experts later concluded that it wasn't arson, and was probably accidental. Still, Governor Rick Perry wouldn't halt or delay the execution. Perry even went as far as to remove the investigators from the case because he didn't what they were finding: proof of Willingham's innocence. If evidence is ever found that an innocent man was executed, we will never know about it. Public opinion would change, and the system as we know it would be called into question. The Powers-That-Be can never allow this.

I'm still a supporter of the death penalty. If someone murdered someone I love in cold blood, I would want to see them die for it. Convicted "Night Stalker"serial-killer Richard Ramirez should already be dead, but for some reason he's still sitting on death row. He scared the crap out of me when I was a kid in the 80's living in Southern CA. But...when you've got cases like Davis and Willingham, it seriously makes me begin to question my beliefs.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Stevie Wonder #2

For my last post on ACL 2011, here's one more from the biggest name at the festival, Stevie Wonder, performing "I Wish."

I realize the quality on these videos isn't that great. I'm still using my Nikon Coolpix S4 that I bought in Taiwan about 5 or 6 years ago. The thing I liked about the camera at the time was that it had 10X zoom, which allowed me to get some good close-ups.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Coldplay #2

Here's one more video from the Coldplay set, which was really a highlight for me since I was sitting so close to the stage.

In this video, they are performing the song "The Scientist."

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Cee Lo

Cee Lo performing the Gnarls Barkley hit "Crazy."

Cee Lo was a bit of a disappointment. He came on stage late, left early, and talked a lot between songs, mostly about how he was "323 pounds of pure sexuality." Yeah...okay.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire performing "Wake Up."

Arcade Fire is pretty good, but I didn't really understand why they were the closing act of the entire festival. Last year it was the Eagles, which makes sense, so you'd think they would have another dinosaur band closing, like the Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac, or Paul McCartney, Neil Young or U2. Or even newer bands like Pearl Jam or Soundgarden. Unless I'm totally underestimating this band, I thought they are still primarily a college, underground band. Anyway, let's hope that next year they get a reunited Pink Floyd. :)

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Randy Newman

Randy Newman singing "Short People."

I only know about a half-dozen Randy Newman songs, and I'm not much of a fan, but for some reason I had the "Short People" 45" single. Don't ask me why.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 3

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is finally over. Sunday didn't have quite the star power of the previous two days, but since there wasn't anyone I was overly excited to see, it allowed me to sample several bands on different stages throughout Zilker Park. I caught little bits here and there of: The Lee Boys, Death From Above 1979, Manu Chao La Ventura, Fleet Foxes, Bomba Estereo, Jack Ingram and Randy Newman (I saw half of his show). Most of the acts I couldn't really get into. One was country music (Jack Ingram) which I don't care for at all, nor do I like Latin music (Manu Chao). I watched most of Arcade Fire's closing set, but left about 15 minutes early to avoid the mad rush to the shuttles. If you left early, you could get to a shuttle pretty quick, otherwise it was easily a 90 minute wait.

It was a pretty fun experience overall, but it's not likely I would do the 3 day pass again. By the end of the day, it's pretty exhausting. It was nice to see a lot of old people in the crowd among the teenage masses, though.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder singing "I Just Called to Say I Love You" at ACL, 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 2

Here's some pictures from day 2 of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The kids came with us this time, so we spent some of the time watching kids bands like "Recess Monkey." We also caught Cee Lo, who wasn't that good. The highlight was the closing act, Stevie Wonder.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Coldplay

Coldplay performing "Yellow" at ACL 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 1

Here's a few pictures from the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. We didn't arrive there until close to 6pm, so we only caught two bands, Bright Eyes and Coldplay. I had never heard of Bright Eyes, and wasn't particularly impressed, but Coldplay put on an excellent show.