Thanksgiving 2009

"Today is family day!" Sara shouted as she ran into our bedroom. "Except for daddy."

Sad, but true. She is right. It's family day for just about everyone today except those of us who work for places that don't close on holidays. The hospital workers (like me), the waitresses, the clerks who have to work at retail stores that are open day (and surprisingly, there's quite a few open today). We're all stuck at work today. Luckily for me, when I work on holidays, it's not the horror it is for those other people. Holidays at the hospital are almost always quiet and uneventful. Out of a 8 hour shift, I might have to actually work for about an hour of that time. There are no scheduled appointments, so the only people coming in are the emergency cases. People choking on turkey bones, car accidents, etc.

As we did last year, since I'm working in the evening, we had our turkey dinner earlier. For some reason, neither Sara or Kyle like mashed potatoes. I don't know why. When I was a kid, the only food I ate at Thanksgiving was turkey and mashed potatoes. I didn't like anything else, but I loved mashed potatoes. I thought kids love mashed potatoes. These kids are strange.

Another Round of Holidays...

The kids are about to celebrate their second Thanksgiving in America. I think we have a lot to be thankful for this year. Last year, the four of us were living in a fairly-cramped, one bedroom apartment. This year, we're in a two-bedroom apartment, and I believe by next Thanksgiving we will finally be in a house of our own. We're still looking at houses in a wide variety of price ranges. There are several houses that are just under 100k here in Austin that look really nice when you see the picture online. Then we you actually go to the house, it's not quite what you were expecting. Our main goal is to to try to keep our monthly mortgage payment low. The lower the mortgage payment, the less stress I will feel about buying a house.

We're thankful that both my wife and I have jobs right now when so many people don't. My (ex) brother-in-law has a page on Facebook where he writes that he has applied for around 150 jobs. My friend Jerry hasn't found a job yet, nor has my ex-wife, who lost her job about a year ago. It's still tough out there. Even though the economy is slowly improving, the jobs still aren't there yet.

We're also thankful that the kids are both healthy (and that they survived the freakin' swine flu!)

I'm thankful that I don't have to work this Christmas, like I did last year. Last year I worked both Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. This year, although I'm still working on Thanksgiving, I'll have 4 days off for Christmas.

Because of my rather poor relationship with my brother (and also because we need as much money as possible for a down payment on the house), I won't be going back to California for Christmas. Just the flight alone would have cost us $2,000 to go back this time of year. $2,000 was the entire amount we spent on our last trip there in May, and that included the rental car, hotels, and entertainment.

I tend to think about my relationship with my brother a bit more during the holidays. Now that we're buying our own house, I think about how sneaky he was to get my mom to buy him a house, and then give me and my sister $10,000 dollars a piece, as if to placate us. He's got a $400,000 home. Me and my sister have ten thousand dollars. What I think about now is, if the money was shared equally between all three of us, we could all have bought our own house with it. Sure, it wouldn't have been enough to buy a big fancy house with a pool (like my brother has), but it would have been enough to get something decent (especially here in Texas). I just saw a great house here in Austin for $176,000.

Still, Christy tells me I just need to let it go, and she's right. As the song goes: "If you keep carrying that anger, it will eat you up inside." It's true, and this should be a time to be thankful for what we do have, and not what we don't.

2012: The End of the World?

I just saw the movie "2012" this past weekend. It's based on the Mayan prophecy that the world will end on December 21, 2012. The movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes of mass destruction: earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and everything but the kitchen sink thrown in.

The director (Roland Emmerich) has made some decent movies in the past. "Independence Day," "The Patriot," and "The Day After Tomorrow," to name a few. He's also made total crap like "Godzilla" and "10,000 BC."

I thought the movie was pretty good. I'd give it about a "7" on a scale of 1 to 10. I didn't particularly like the message it sent: that only the billionaires and politicians of the world will be deemed worthy enough to survive.

**Spoiler Ahead**
In the movie, the only people who survive are those who can pay 1 billion dollars per person to get a seat on an "ark." The "ark" being an enormous ship built within the Himalayas that can withstand the massive "mega tsunami" that's approaching. Is it fair? No. But I guess that's the way it would be in reality. It' all about $$$
**End of Spoiler**

Personally, I don't buy into any of it. Many thought that Y2K would be the end of the world. People were building underground bunkers and stocking up on food and water. What did I do on December 31, 1999? I was at the Eagles concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Yep, I knew (and was right) that nothing would happen.

2012 (the movie and the year) will come and go as well. If there is any possible sign that 2012 might be the beginning of the apocalypse, it's that Sarah Palin might run for president that year.

Health Care Rally in Austin

A few days ago I received an email from President Obama (okay, it was just a computer generated email, but still...it had his name on it!) He informed me that there was going to be a big healthcare rally at the Austin Capitol this afternoon, and that I should attend to show my support for reform.

Normally, and regrettably, I rarely attend these kind of things. I'm not a very political person, although I do have very strong opinions and often voice them (as I have on this blog numerous times.) But as for going to some big rally and holding signs and shouting...well, that's just not me. This time, though, since we're only about 15 minutes from the capitol building, and because I do feel very strongly in favor of healthcare reform, we decided to go.

To be honest, I was expecting massive crowds there. I was expecting maybe 20,000 to 40,000 people. I even parked about a mile away from the capitol, since I assumed it would be crazy as we got closer.

Man, was I wrong. So very wrong. There were maybe, at most, 1,000 people. There was ample parking everywhere. Either this thing just wasn't advertised very well, or Austin isn't quite the liberal mecca it's made out to be.

Still, it was interesting listening to people rip into Governor Rick Perry, Senator (and traitor) Joe Lieberman, and all the tea-baggers going around protesting the public option. Why do people hate the idea of a public option so much? Because they don't like the idea of government running healthcare? Well, if that bothers you, don't buy into it. It's just that simple. Keep whatever crap health insurance you have, like Humana (the one I have). Then there are those who think it will cost too much money, yet have no problem with the continuing wars we have going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. My God, if we took all the money we've spent on these two pointless wars, and put it into healthcare instead, there wouldn't be a single living soul in this country without health coverage.

(Pictures: The sparsely attended healthcare rally)

Halloween 2009

This was the first year that Sara and Kyle went out trick or treating. We met up with two of Sara's friends from school, Jenna and Jennifer, and their parents, and we all went out together.

The kids had a lot of fun. They had a lot of energy the whole night. Kyle got a little carried away a few times and walked inside a few peoples houses. That was a bit scary, but the people in the neighborhood were very nice.

At the end of the night we had a mountain of candy. Enough to make them sick for days and days.

(Pictures: 1. Kyle (as Elmo) and Sara (as a Fairy Princess). 2. Sara, Jennifer, Connor, and Kyle. 3. The kids outside a haunted house. 4. Sara, Jenna, Jennifer, Connor, Jennifer's sister (don't know her name), and Kyle (not looking at the camera). 5. A mountain of candy.)

The Death Penalty in Texas

As an admitted liberal democrat, it might come as a shock to some people that I'm actually pro death penalty. It's my belief that when someone takes another person's life, he or she has basically forfeited their own life. If that person shows so little value in someone else life, why should they have one?


I recently read that convicted killer Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as "The Night Stalker" was just linked to yet another murder in San Francisco. He is the perfect example of the type of person that the death penalty was created for.


Texas loves to execute people. They execute more people here than all the other states in the U.S. combined. I'll be the first to admit that most of them probably deserve it, but recent events have shown that Texas has probably executed an innocent man.



Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 2004 over charges that he set fire to his home, killing his three children. There was no motive. Supposed arson experts claimed that there were pools of flammable liquid found in the crime scene, which suggested lighter fluid was used. These claims were later debunked by numerous other experts, including an acclaimed scientist, Dr. Gerald Hurst. The majority opinion was now that the fire was accidental, not arson.


Prior to the execution, Texas governor Rick Perry was presented with this new evidence, but he refused to hear it. Even now, in 2009, Perry won't even acknowledge that maybe a mistake was made. Instead, he just refers to Willingham as "a monster."


I can't tell you how much this case really bothers me. Perry could easily have given the guy a little more time to try and prove his innocence. Would it really have cost him any clout in the Republican party by showing a little mercy? Would commuting his sentence to life in prison really cost the guy any votes?


Since 1976, 130 innocent people have been released from death row due to new evidence being presented, many of these because of DNA tests. I think when there is some doubt about a person's guilt, and in this case there was a LOT of doubt, the death sentence should be put on hold indefinitely until the truth can finally come out.

I'm not calling for an all-out abolishment of the death penalty. Certainly, if someone murdered someone I love, I wouldn't want mercy for them. But then, on the other hand, this case could happen to any one of us. Imagine if you or I were accused of something we didn't do, based on faulty evidence, or the fact that you listen to Iron Maiden or Led Zeppelin (which Willingham did, and was used against him).

The system as it is, is screwed up, and it needs to be fixed.

Subtle Racism

Racism rears its ugly head again, this time in Louisiana. A justice of the peace refuses to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/16/louisiana.interracial.marriage/index.html

As soon as I saw the headline for this story, I immediately thought "It probably isn't in the United States." But no. It was here, in the land of the free. In 2009. Not 1959, not 1969, but 2009.

Naturally, I was shocked. What decade did this justice of the peace think he was living in? This is what the guy, Keith Bardwell, said when confronted with charges of racism:

"I'm not a racist. I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."

This sounds like the type of racist who tries to defend himself by saying "I have lots of black friends!" I've heard that one before. Usually those black "friends" are just acquaintances, or co-workers. They're rarely true friends.

Mr. Bardwell also tries to argue that most interracial couples end in divorce. Does he have exact statistics? Just because he's seen a few, doesn't mean it happens to everyone. Like I've heard so many times before, 50% of all married couples get divorced, so by this logic, why marry anyone?

Being in an interracial marriage myself, I'll admit there are some obstacles you have to overcome. For me, it's the subtle racism I see in my own family. None of them will admit to being racist, of course, but it's there. I've had to deal with family members telling me that my children don't look like the rest of the family. I've seen my brother's (white) daughter lavished with attention, while my own daughter was treated like merely an afterthought. I've had my own brother make racist jokes right in front of me. But does this affect my marriage? Not at all. My family can either accept it or get lost.

As for this justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, he should resign. He's a public official. If he wants to be a racist, that's fine, just leave it at home. Don't bring it to the job.