Rush in Houston

I took the kids to see their first concert on Saturday night at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. One of my favorite bands, Rush, was currently in Texas, stopping in San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas (and skipping Austin, of course.) So we went to the show in Houston, since it was on a Saturday night, and kids are free on the lawn. I'm so glad the kids were free, because the whole experience was somewhat of a disaster.

I was expecting to have an experience similar to what we had on the 4th of July. We'd put our blanket on the lawn, sit down, and just watch the show from a distance. I had seen Rush five times previously over the past 20 years, so I didn't really care if I was close to the stage or not.

Unfortunately for us (but fortunate for Rush, I suppose), the show was completely packed. It appeared to be completely sold out, even on the lawn. Sitting down became an impossibility, unless you didn't want to see anything at all. If you wanted to see something, even the giant video screens, you had to stand for the whole 2 1/2 hour show. The kids didn't like that, and they kept begging me to hold them so they could see. So Christy and I took turns holding the two kids up so they could see. We did this all night, and by the end of the night my arms were as sore as if I had been lifting weights all day.

To make things worse, Sara began to feel tired shortly into the second set (right after Rush had finished playing "Moving Pictures" in its entirety) and she started complaining that she wanted to leave.
"I'm not leaving before I hear 'La Villa Strangiato' " I told them, and I meant it. That was one of my favorite Rush songs, and I knew they didn't play it until the encore. Soon Christy joined in with the complaints, and she and Sara left before me and Kyle. Surprisingly, Kyle was much more into it, and he wanted to stay. So, after I heard the song I wanted to hear, Kyle and I left, even though the concert still wasn't over yet (we missed the final song, "Working Man.")

The show was good, but just about everything surrounding it was not. I told the kids that there will be no more concerts for them until they are teenagers and we don't need to keep our eyes on them every second.

(Picture above: Kids going crazy at the concert. Video below: my shaky-cam recording of Rush performing "Free Will")

More Accolades for Sara

Sara has only been in Kindergarten for less than a month, and already she was won another "Student of the Week" award!

This time, thankfully, they were able to pronounce her name correctly.

Death of a Toyota

It was just 11 months ago when we bought a new 2010 Toyota Corolla. Here's the old blog entry:
http://taiwantotexas.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-car-blues.html

Well...that car is gone. Totally destroyed. Dead. Kaput.

Last Tuesday, during a major storm here in Austin, Christy decided to pull in front of a speeding car at an intersection. She claims she didn't see the other driver coming, and the other driver obviously didn't see her, because she made no effort to brake. The other car literally tore off the entire front of our car (see picture above.)

Luckily and thankfully, no-one was hurt. Had Christy driven a few feet further, the story might have been different.

We had just started with a new insurance company about 2 months ago, Progressive, and so far they've been pretty good about paying all the claims. They gave the other driver $981 dollars for medical expenses (even though by all accounts she wasn't even scratched.) They agreed to pay off the remainder of our loan with Toyota, and we still ended up having about $7,000 left over to get a new car. So yesterday, we had to again look for a new car, something I've always hated doing, and still do.

We went to three car dealerships and tried three styles of cars: The Hyundai Accent, the Toyota Yaris, and the Honda Fit.

I didn't like the Hyundai at all. It didn't feel smooth when I drove it. The air conditioner wasn't cold enough, either. The car just didn't feel like it was well made. To top things off, they didn't even offer us free drinks when we went inside! (if you wanted water, you had to pay for it.)

The Toyota dealer began things right by offering us Italian ice (for free!) the moment we arrived. Then they handed us about 4 bottles of bottled water right away. It was a hot day out, so it was definitely appreciated. I know this may seem like a petty issue, but I look at all aspects of customer service. What does it say about Hyundai if they aren't even willing to give their potential customers a free drink while they're talking business?

We came very, very close to buying a Toyota Yaris. It was a nice little car. Not as good as our old Corolla, but close. The sticking point was that they just wouldn't sell it to us at the price we wanted. In the end it just came down to $300. We wanted them to cut $300 more off the price. They offered $80. Christy wouldn't budge. They wouldn't budge. So, we ended up leaving. Had it been me, I probably would have just got the car, but this time I wanted Christy to handle the negotiations. Last year she complained that I didn't haggle for a big enough discount.

So our last stop was the Honda dealer. I thought the price for the Honda Fit was reasonable, and since we had $7,000 to put down, we knew it was within our budget as far as monthly payments. The Honda seemed like a far superior vehicle to the Yaris. It only required an oil change every 13,000 miles (instead of Toyota's 5,000), and didn't require any additional maintenance at all until the mileage hits 110,000. The engine has a lifespan of about 450,000 miles, and is (supposedly) impossible to steal (unless of course, it's loaded onto a tow truck and taken away, which is how they do it these days.)

The salesman at the Honda dealership was pretty cocky. He said the cars basically sell themselves and that Honda never gives discounts. He pointed out the reason that Hyundai and Kia give big discounts is because their cars have a very low resell value. Still, Christy wanted to haggle, and we did manage to get a small discount, but that was only by removing a few options from the car that we thought were totally unnecessary (like a plastic tray in the trunk of the car.)

I should also point out that at Honda, they had two enormous refrigerators filled with water, juice, and soda that were readily available for all their potential customers. A very nice touch!

So we bought the Honda Fit, and it seems like a nice little car. I hope it lasts us 10 to 15 years. I hoped the Corolla had lasted 10 years, but alas, it only survived for 1. Hopefully Christy has learned an important lesson on traffic safety (she has to pay a traffic citation for "failure to yield" as well as attend traffic school.) I think traffic school will be good for her. She learned how to drive in Taiwan, and their method of teaching driving is not exactly inspiring. Since she started driving, she has hit trees, posts, walls, and now...other cars. She even hit a pole while taking a driving test! So....yeah, she needs driving school.

As Yoda would say, she needs to "unlearn what you have learned!" Words of wisdom.

(Picture: Christy with our our poor, demolished Toyota Corolla)

40 is the new 20

So, today is my 40th birthday. 40 freakin' years old. It's an age that's hard to imagine when you're a young kid, but now here it is staring me at the face. I'm not young anymore, I'm middle aged.

I feel grateful to still be alive at 40. I know 40 isn't that old, but I've got a few friends and classmates that didn't make it this far. My Taiwanese sister in law recently found out that she has cancer in her neck, and she's only 33! So....(knock on wood), I feel lucky I've made it this far without any serious medical problems.

I certainly don't feel like I'm 40, and when I saw a picture recently of Courtney Cox wearing a shirt that said "4O is the new 20", I thought yeah, that makes sense. I still feel like I'm in my 20's.

I've changed a lot. I'm a lot more responsible than I was 20 years ago (kids have a way of doing that to you) but I'm still a bit of a kid at heart. I still enjoy going to rock concerts, or playing a game like "Rock Band" on the PS3. I like playing with Sara and Kyle, but sometimes my 40 year old body doesn't always agree with my 20 year old attitude. I can only let them ride on my back like a horse for a few minutes before I start complaining about my aching bones. hehehe

I don't have to work today. I've got the day off. My fun filled agenda includes picking up Sara from school, taking my wife to see the dentist, buying a new hair-dryer, picking up a "Thomas" book from the library, and then having a (hopefully) nice dinner. Yeah, it's not the same as going to Disneyland or Magic Mountain like I used to do for my birthday as a kid, but at my age, just being able to have dinner with the family is its own present.

The Mosque, The Muslims, and Obama

"A good Muslim is a dead Muslim." - Nelson
"What do you call a mosque with 300 Muslims? An opportunity." - Honkie Rodeo
"Go home Muslims. Go kill each other in the middle east. We don't want you here." - B. Beverly

These are just three random quotes I pulled from the comments section of a Yahoo! article regarding the proposed mosque that might be built close to ground zero in New York City. There were many, many more just like this one. Too many to even count.

There's a disturbing trend going on in America right now. There's an enormous amount of hatred directed at Muslims unlike anything I've ever seen in my lifetime. I can imagine that it's similar to what Japanese Americans experienced here after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. What I've been seeing isn't just a few racist remarks by extremists, it's normal everyday people calling for (at the very least) a mass exodus of Muslims, or (at the very worst) complete extermination. Wow.

Let's look a little closer at what we're doing here: we're taking a hated religious minority, blaming all the problems of society on it, comparing them to vermin, and condoning violence against them. Just recently a Muslim cab driver was stabbed in New York City by a white college student. That college student is now considered a "hero" by many. Welcome to Nazi Germany my friends! But this time it's right here in our own country. What makes matters worse is that right wing leaders like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, people who have enormous influence, are just fanning the flames of hatred instead of condemning it. How much longer until we hear the same words coming from a Conservative, right wing senator or Presidential candidate? How much longer until Muslims are rounded up and put into camps? Hard to imagine? It feels like that's the path we're on.

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke. Better words could not be said.

Personally, I don't think a mosque should be built at Ground Zero. But then again, I don't think anything should be built there. It should be a park, or just a quiet place of observance for those who died. Put some benches there. Build a pond.

As for President Obama, people seem convinced that he's a Muslim. That he's a traitor who is out to destroy America from within. That he's going to get on TV, shout "Allahu Akbar!" and nuke the country. Give me a break. He has stated several times that he's a Christian. No president in history has gone through what this man is going through. Saying he's a Christian and having people reply back "No, you're a Muslim!" What the hell?

If there's anything I've learned from living abroad, it's that we have to be tolerant of other cultures. The Chinese have a lot of wacky superstitions that I don't understand, like not washing your hair for a month after you have a baby, but I accept it because that's their way. Just because Muslims read the Qur'an, doesn't mean they follow every passage literally. If we followed everything in the Bible literally, we'd have the right to kill our neighbors (and our own family) for all kinds of ridiculous reasons.

I'll admit that I'm not without fault. I have prejudices too. Do I get a little uncomfortable when I see someone who looks like Osama Bin Laden get on the same airplane as I do? Sure. There was a guy like that who sat next to my daughter once, but he was actually a really nice guy, and never once complained about her crying all the time. I work alongside a Muslim nurse (from Iraq, no less!) at the hospital, and she's one of the nicest people I have met. Like any race or religion, you can't let a few bad ones represent the entire people.

So come on America, let's stop the hatred directed at people who don't really deserve it. Instead, let's focus on the truly evil, like BP and the woman in the UK who threw a kitten into the trash bin for fun.

Sara Starts Kindergarten

Today was Sara's first day of Kindergarten. We spent a good portion of the weekend trying to track down all the supplies that Sara was required to have before her class starts. While some were quite easy to find, others proved to be elusive. It was bit like going on a scavenger hunt. Here's the list of "required" items:

1 Regular size backpack, no wheels
6 folders with "brads" (I wasn't sure what "brads" were, but once I found out, I could only find two of these folders at the various stores we went to)
2 packs multi color construction paper 9x12
1 pack multi color construction paper 12x18
2 packs of manila paper 12x18 (the hardest thing to find here was this paper)
2 packs of manila paper 9x12
2 Wireless journal/composition books
6 boxes of Crayola crayons - 24 count
2 pack of #2 pencils, 24 count
2 boxes of washable markers
2 pairs of blunt Fiskar's scissors
6 small bottles of Elmer's glue
2 glue sticks
1 school box needs to fit in desk
3 boxes of Kleenex
1 box of quart or sandwich Ziploc bags
1 box gallon size Ziploc bags
1 package of 50 paper plates
1 package of Play Dough

Can you believe this list? Am I supplying one child, or the entire class? Back when I was in school, the only supplies I can remember bringing were paper, pens, and a notebook. Has the school system gotten so bad that now the parents handle the school supplies budget? Just think if every parent buys all the items on this list, the school is set. We found most of the items on the list, but not all of them. What we did find set us back about $50.

Naturally, Sara was very excited to go back to school. She woke up early on Monday morning and came into my room.
"Why are you up so early?" I asked her. "School doesn't start until tomorrow."
"I just wanted to practice waking up early." she said.

Wow. I don't remember having this much enthusiasm about going to school, but I think it's great that Sara does. I think she'll be an excellent student.

The Bugs of Summer

This is my third summer in Texas. I really hate the summers here. We get about 3 months straight of temperatures that are above 100 degrees. When you walk outside, you literally feel like you're inside an oven, the sun burning your flesh like a Thanksgiving turkey. On weekends, whenever my wife suggests we go to the park or a lake or some other outdoor activity, I almost always reject it because "It's too freakin' hot!" Instead, I'll suggest we go to a local pool, or a library, or a movie, or anything that's indoors.

This is our first summer in our new house, and I've now discovered that summer brings out (what seems like) every bug on the planet. Our backyard is filled with spiders, ants, grasshoppers, ladybugs, an occasional frog or two, and hundreds of other species that I'm not aware of. Whenever I mow or water the lawn, I see all sorts of movement going on within the grass.

Now, I don't really mind bugs as long as they stay outside, but lately they've been getting inside as well. Just recently, our house has been invaded by ants. They started out in our laundry room. Once we sprayed there, they moved to the kitchen. Then the bathroom. Then our bedroom. Now this morning I find them in the kids bedroom. And these ants aren't of the friendly variety either. These are aggressive freakin' bastards. They have bit me and everyone else in our family (except Kyle, for some reason). When I was a kid, I remember I use to let ants walk on my hand, and it wouldn't do anything. Now they bite the hell out of you. I have bites all over my hands. Sara has them on her arms and legs.

We've bought "Bug Barrier" from Raid, which you spray all around the perimeter of the house. It's worked pretty well for all the other bugs, but not the ants.

It sucks. It makes me really wish that winter would hurry up and get here.