Plane Crash in Austin

Sometime around noon today, as I was making lunch for me and Kyle (Sara was at school), my wife calls to tell me that there's been a plane crash in Austin. I didn't think too much of at first. But then she told me that it crashed right in the area we used to live. Not directly into our apartment complex, but about less than half a mile from there.

So I turn on the news, and sure enough, there's a picture of the plane crash all over the news. Not just the local news, but CNN. I recognize the building on fire as a place we used to drive by all the time.

Apparently, a man by the name of Joseph Stack, angry at the government (and the IRS in particular), committed suicide by deliberately slamming his small plane into the building.

The crash looked pretty bad, and I was prepared for the worst at the hospital. I was expecting a lot of patients to be here. Sure enough, once I got here, there were many patients in the ER, but none directly related to the plane crash. Instead, there were people in the ER who came in because they were "emotionally upset" about the plane crash, or they were complaining about the smoke in the air.

Ok, I can probably understand the smoke issue, but as for the emotionally upset? That's a head scratcher. I figured they must have Medicaid (the free, government insurance), because what rational person would deliberately take themselves to an ER, to be ridiculously overcharged, for what is basically rattled nerves?

On some level, I can empathize with the guy who did it. From his suicide note, it sounded like he had been screwed over by the government in some form or another since the 1980's. But still, killing innocent people isn't really the answer to your problems. Try going public, contact news consumer watchdogs, or even Michael Moore. There's always someone out there willing to stand up for the little guy.

So, for any relative out there reading this. Everyone here is fine. We now live a good 15 miles away from where the plane crashed. Luckily, it seems that no one was killed in the crash (other than the pilot), and hopefully the IRS office that was destroyed wasn't the same one that is holding onto our tax return! :)

The Recession Strikes Again

My sister just got laid off recently from her job in Dallas. This now brings the total to 4 people that I know that have been affected by the recession. Larry Fish, my ex-wife Amber, Jerry Yen, and now my sister. Both Amber and Jerry, last time I spoke to them, still have not found a new job. Jerry was studying to be a real estate agent. Amber had mentioned the possibility of getting a government job.

The economy does seem to be getting a little better, but not quickly enough. Everything that I've read lately seems to indicate it will be another two years before we start to see any positive change.

The hospital where I work, oddly enough, is still extremely understaffed. I couldn't understand it. With all the people out looking for work, why was it so difficult to fill positions here? I talked to one of the supervisors about it:

"Are people just not applying here?" I asked.
"Oh, they're applying." she replied. "We get about 1,000 applications a month."

The problem seemed to be the quality of the people applying.

"We get people coming in here wearing jeans and chewing bubble gum." she said. "Or, they just can't pass some basic aptitude tests."

It's amazing, really. With the economy the way it is, why the hell are people coming in for interviews chewing gum? Are people insane?

I wrote to my sister and told her she could apply here if she wanted, and I would do what I can to help her. My sister and I aren't on the greatest of terms, but it's not as bad as my relationship with my brother. We do actually still communicate with each other once or twice a year (usually on birthdays and Christmas.) I'm not sure she'd like working in the E.R. (pretty much the only department constantly hiring). She'd be around the homeless, the sick, the diseased, the mentally challenged, the bloody, and the vomit soaked masses. Quite a change of scenery from what she's used to. But you know, when times are tough, and you're desperate, anything is better than nothing.

The Water Trolls

Ever since we moved into our new house, we've been bombarded with salesmen trying to sell us a water softener. They call us. They come to the house. On Saturday, for example, we ran into one as we were leaving for the day. We told the guy we were busy right now, but would call him if we were interested. Once we came back later that day, the doorbell rings, and there's the salesman again. He was obviously trolling the area, and as soon as he saw our car in the driveway, his eyes probably lit up.

Reluctantly, we decided to let him come inside and test the water. The test, after all, was free, so we weren't obligated to buy anything.

Now, I'm quite aware of the fact that the water isn't good. We don't drink water from the tap. We buy bottled water, and we also use the Brita filter. So I knew, without a doubt, that this guy would say our water was bad. I mean, really, what are the chances of a water softener salesman coming to your house and saying "Your water is great! You don't need me at all! Bye!" I'd say the chances are zero.

So, the guy comes into the house, puts the water into these small vials, and starts dropping random chemicals into them. The guy looks like he's doing a chemistry experiment in our kitchen. The water changes color. Blue = good. Purple = bad. Of course it comes out purple. What a show! The kids are entertained, but I'm not. I'm just waiting for the hard sell, which comes shortly after.

He tells us that our water is too hard, and we need to buy an expensive softener. We can either pay $100 a month, for 5 years, or just buy the thing outright for around $5800. While he's talking to my wife, I go into the bedroom and start doing some research. One of the first things I find online is this, from an article called "Do you really need soft water?":

"How do you decide if you need soft water? Ask an expert. (By expert, however, I don’t mean the guy trolling your neighborhood hoping to sell you a purification system or a softener on high-interest payment plans. He will always tell you that your water is too hard to live with.)"

I go on to read that most water softeners should only cost between $800 and $1200. So $5800 seems a bit extreme to me.

So, for now, I'm just going to keep my hard water. It might not be the best water for our laundry and the dishwasher, but it seems like a luxury I can do without right now.

Week 2: The Death Car, Obama, & Oscar

Back in August, Christy and I bought a new car. A 2010 Toyota Corolla. This is just one of the many Toyota models that has been recalled for having a pedal that might possibly get stuck and cause sudden acceleration. I'm happy to report that we're all still alive after driving this car of death. We recently crossed the 5,000 mile mark, so we took the car in to get an oil change, and I asked them about a possible fix on our car. They didn't seem to have a clue what to do at this point. They informed me that we would "eventually" get a letter in the mail advising us to come in.

So...we're still driving our potential ticking time-bomb of a car. What else can we do? We don't have a second car yet. Honestly, though, I'm not overly concerned about it. It seems to be a very rare occurrence. Since my commute to work is mostly driving through farmland, I just tell myself that if my car won't stop, I'll just stick the car in neutral, and drive through the farms, trying to avoid cows and horses until I stop. Luckily, I'm not navigating the lethal freeways of Los Angeles anymore.

In other news, I've been encouraging Christy to take a second job working for the US census. She'd only have to do it part time, and she'd get some experience working a US "government" job. 10 years ago, the population of Manor was only around 1,300. This is the reason why Manor doesn't have a damn thing in this town. There is no major grocery store here. "Downtown" (if you can even call it that), consists of a couple of restaurants, a police station and courthouse, and a post office. That's it. I know, with all the development in the last few years, that the population here is much, much larger than 1,300. Hopefully, the census will show the actual number, and maybe we'll get some decent stores here.

I caught most of President Obama's "State of the Union" address last week. I found it rather funny when the Republicans didn't applaud when Obama stated he had cut taxes for 95% of working families. The Republicans are so freakin' stubborn in opposing everything that Obama wants to do, even though it seems to be the morally right thing to do. Why is the healthcare bill dying? The public option seems to be DOA, but they can't seem to even pass some basic healthcare reform, like allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare. I really, really hope that the two parties can get together and pass at least some sort of healthcare reform. For now, a little is better than nothing at all.

I also found it kind of sad that the only thing that John McCain found to complain about after the speech was the "gays in the military" policy. So what if gays want to join the military? Let them! Last I heard, the military was finding it hard to recruit people as it is. If gay people want to risk getting their heads blown off in Afghanistan, more power to them!

A lot of people have given up home on Obama after his first year in office. I haven't. Not yet, anyway. I knew he had a monumental mess to clean up once he came into office. When the national debt is in the billions (or trillions) of dollars, it takes some time.

Finally, I was a little more pleased this year with the Academy Award nominations. Last year, I hadn't seen any of the nominated movies, and this year I've seen 5 out of 10. "Avatar" seems to be a strong contender to win. Does it deserve it? Not really. "Avatar" is a good movie, but not Oscar-worthy. After I saw it, I told Christy that I liked "Titanic" better. If I were voting, I'd give the directing award to James Cameron, but vote for "Inglorious Basterds" as best picture.

Week 1

So we've been living in our new house for about a week now, and Sara began her first day at her new school today.

We're starting to adjust to our new home life. Driving to work each day, I pass several miles of far, open land, with only bales of hay and cows around. It's quite a dramatic change from anywhere I've ever lived before. I remember saying once (I think on this blog), that I would rather live in a condo in the city, than in a house in the countryside. Ok, so I'm a hypocrite. I do live in the countryside now. To buy a condo in the neighborhood that we used to live would cost us more than double what we paid for our house. So, it's just not realistic. I guess, to some extent, I understand my brother more for wanting to live out in Murrieta. Murrieta, like Manor, is pretty much a cultural void. Although, unlike Murrieta, I don't need to drive for 2 hours to re-enter civilization (for me, it's more like 15-20 minutes).

Living in the countryside does have a few advantages, though. The air is cleaner. You can actually see stars at night. On a warm night, it might be fun just to sit in our backyard and look up at the sky.

Our cable/internet was reconnected on Tuesday. There's been a lot of news lately. The earthquake in Haiti. The soon to be defeated Obama health care reform bill. And the late night talk show war going on between Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien (I'm on Conan's side, by the way. I think he totally got the shaft on that deal. Leno sucks.)

I'll probably have another blog entry about the health care bill later, but I find the whole situation pretty sad. First Clinton tried to get it passed, and failed, and now Obama. I'm really puzzled by the whole backlash against health care reform. Well, more to come on that later.

Sara seems to like her new school a lot. She has to take the school bus this time since her school is not within walking distance (hell, nothing is within walking distance from where we live). I thought maybe she'd be scared to get on a bus full of strange kids this morning, but she just ran right in. Kyle followed her on, but I had to pull him back, which made him cry for the next 20 minutes. I guess he's ready for school too.

(Picture: My new neighbors)

Feeling The Cold

It's times like this when I miss living in Southern California. It's the middle of winter, and it's still 75 degrees in Los Angeles.

Here in Austin, it's about 28 degrees, and tonight it will drop down to 14 F (-10 C).

That is freaking cold. Ok, ok, I realize that in other parts of the country, it's even colder than that. I read somewhere that North Dakota was going to have a low of -50F at one point. Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that something like instant death once you step outside???

My point is, being a Southern Californian, I've never experienced a winter this cold in my entire life. Never. It didn't get this cold in Taiwan, either.

We just got our electricity bill today, and it was $116. For us, that's a lot. Our normal electric bill is around $50, so now it's double because we have the heat on constantly. I was a little shocked at the bill.

"If our electricity bill is $116 for this apartment, imagine what it's going to be once we are living in a house." I told Christy. $200? $300? Oh, I just can't wait for all the little financial surprises that are going to come my way once we move into our house.

Luckily for Austin, there isn't any rain in the forecast over the next few arctic days, so we won't see any snow out of this. Although I would love to actually see some snow here, I think it would be chaos on the roads.

So, it looks like this weekend will be spent mostly indoors, trying to keep warm, like most of the country is trying to do.....except Los Angeles...you lucky bastards!

New Years Resolutions 2010

It's that time of year once again where I try to make some resolutions for the new year and hope to stick to them. Last year I did pretty well. Getting the family into a bigger apartment, and getting out to see my mom were at the top of my list, and we did both. I also predicted that by early 2010, we'd be going back to Taiwan for Chinese New Year. Ain't gonna happen.

This month we're moving into our new house, and the money we would have spent on going to Taiwan went toward our down-payment on the house. So all I can say is...we may go to Taiwan for Chinese New Year 2011. David's girlfriend Pi Chi told us that they're planning to get married this year (after 5 years of dating!), so I'd like to be able to go back for that, but I may not be able to. I still keep trying to get David and Pi Chi, and Christy's parents to come out to see us, instead of us going there. I know David and Pi Chi have a lot more disposable cash than we do.

As for my resolutions, first off, I do want to have a decent vacation this year, but not an expensive one. A local, US vacation, where we can just drive somewhere for a few days or a week. We've thought about two different ideas: a trip to Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park, or a trip to Disney World in Florida. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The Yellowstone/Rushmore trip would be cheaper, but the kids not might enjoy it as much as Disney World. Disney World might be more fun for them, but it would be more expensive and we'd have to drive through states I don't really want to drive through to get there. I haven't been to any of these places before, so I'm hoping to make at least one of them a reality this year.

I also need to let go of the anger I've had toward my brother and sister last year. Those of you who read my blog regularly probably know about how my sister stood us up in Dallas last year and how it really pissed me off. And there is still the ongoing feud I have with my brother over him sticking my mom in a nursing home after she bought him a house. While that will always be a sore spot for me, the only way I'm ever going to have total peace in my life is just to accept what happened and move on. I don't see any warm family reunions happening in the near future, so for now it's probably best to just not think about them for awhile.

Christy will probably request that I talk about our personal life less on this blog, and stick more to impersonal topics. There's a pretty major crisis going on with her family right now and one of the first things she said to me was "Don't talk about this on your blog!" So...I'm abiding by her wishes....although it is a good story.