Ramblings #4

"There is no scenario where allowing concealed weapons on college campuses will do anything other than create a more dangerous environment for students, faculty, staff and visitors."
-Oklahoma Chancellor of Higher Education Glen Johnson , January 2011

I don't know when...or if...I'll ever be able to call Texas "home." I see constant reminders, either on TV or online, of just how backwards this state is regarding their gun laws. The "guns in school" law is pushing forward again, and this time it seems likely to pass. You know, I'm not a total crazy liberal who wants to abolish all guns, but I think a line should be drawn somewhere. Keep your guns at home, to protect your home and family, or stop the British from their bloodthirsty desire for world domination.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We took the kids to see "Gnomeo and Juliet" this past weekend. I slept through parts of it, but I think the kids liked it. I told my wife I don't want to see any more kids animated movies until the summertime, when the Pixar stuff comes out. It's just too torturous to sit through these things.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those of you who comment on my blog every now and then, you may have noticed that I put the security "word verification" back on. I had to because I kept getting Japanese sex spam every single day. It was out of control.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Republicans seem to be praising the legacy of Ronald Reagan lately. Although personally I think a lot of the problems today began from his administration, this guy would probably be considered a liberal in the eyes of today's Republican party. He was for amnesty for illegal aliens, he opposed torture, he wanted to ban assault rifles, he appointed judges that upheld Roe v. Wade, he wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons, etc. Sounds a bit like a wacky leftist, doesn't it?

(Picture: "Yee-haw!" Texas Governor Rick Perry, known for shooting coyotes while jogging, shows off his love for guns.)

Valentine's Day 2011

Today is Valentine's Day...but we celebrated it yesterday (Sunday). It's hard to celebrate on a Monday when everyone is either at school or at work. Christy wanted to go out for a nice dinner someplace, so she picked the "Sweetheart Meal" at the Outback Steakhouse. Nothing says "Romance!" more in Texas than eating a cow with the woman you love. You get two steaks, two salads, one desert (to share, naturally), and this hideous beast of an appetizer called the "Bloomin' Onion." I never eat onion rings, so this just seemed like a waste. As I'm writing, I think it's still sitting in our refrigerator.

With Valentine's Day comes numerous stories online and on TV about "How to Find Your Soul Mate." One story that caught my attention this morning was about this new dating service which actually hires people to write for you. Yes, someone will do all the flirting and all the correspondence back and forth through email if you're too lazy (or can't write worth a damn) to do it.

This just seems so wrong. It's kind of like the Cyrano de Bergerac story. Let someone else woo the girl for you, and when he's got her, the "client" steps in and meets her for the first time. A relationship based on lies. Nice start.

I have nothing against internet dating. I've done it myself, with no success. I met my wife Christy, not through any dating site, but through "Tealit" which is a site in Taiwan where a teacher can post their resume when looking for work. Christy wanted me to be her English tutor, and that's how we met. The women that I've spent the bulk of my life with have been people I met through day-to-day living, not through any dating service. But...if it works for you...great!

So, as much as I'm against this idea of someone doing all the work for you, I still find it a little intriguing. Maybe I could do that job. I know how to write, and since I'm continuously thinking about changing careers, maybe I should look into it. Hmm...what's that website address??

Ramblings #3

Thanks to Christina Aguilera, and her atrocious rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl on Sunday, I learned a new word: melisma. This is when you put multiple notes into one syllable, or "oversouling" a song. I didn't know there was a word for it, but I hear that a lot in music today.

That made me think of a live recording I heard recently of "The Police" from their 2007 reunion tour. Sting had changed the arrangements, either speeding it up or slowing it down, or adding jazz or reggae touches to every freakin' song! Is there a word for an artist that deliberately makes their songs worse than they were originally? Maybe we should call it the "Bob Dylan Syndrome" Sometimes we just like to hear our favorite songs in their original version (although, for Bob, this would be impossible.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I always thought the motto of the US Post Office was:
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

So I thought. It seems like whenever it's really cold outside, our mailman does not deliver the mail. Last week we didn't get mail for 3 days straight because of the weather, and the weather wasn't even really that bad. Could it be that I just didn't have any mail on those days? Not likely. I always seem to get some kind of crap every day, and the beginning of the month is when I get the most crap (like bills.) It seems to me that our local mailmen are just wimps.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saw the movie "127 Hours" recently, the true-story about the hiker who had to cut off his own arm after his hand got stuck in a rock. Very good movie.

Also saw "Paranormal Activity 2." Not so good. Basically it's just more of the same. Lights going off and on and doors opening and closing just isn't that scary anymore.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a related story to my last blog about cuts in education, I was reading an article on Yahoo! yesterday regarding the GOP's ideas to cut the deficit. The first paragraph read:

"Eager to take a quick, $35 billion bite out of government, House Republicans called for termination of at least 60 federal programs Wednesday and cuts in hundreds of others, targeting education and the environment, food safety and law enforcement."

Education...Environment...Food Safety. Wow. No mention about defense spending.

We spend so much on defense spending, but yet it seems our biggest threat to the country is from within: The GOP.

Austin Snow Day

We got about an inch of snow here in Austin this morning. It's the most snow I've seen since I've been here. We got a little bit of snow around this same time last year, but it seemed to disappear just as quickly as it arrived. This time it's expected to stick around a little longer, making driving conditions pretty terrible.

The schools are closed today and Christy doesn't have to work, so I called in to the hospital to see if I too can enjoy the snow day. Nope. I still have to go in. They seem to be so short staffed today that they're willing to send a taxi here to pick me up (on their expense, of course.) Although it seems to me that if it's dangerous for me to drive, wouldn't it be just as dangerous for the taxi? Based on my experience with taxi drivers, they don't seem particularly concerned with safety.

Ramblings #2

Someone once said that if you don't like the weather in Texas, don't worry because it will change. That's for sure. On Sunday it felt like summer. It was hot. We had the windows open in the house. I wore shorts. Today it's 17 degrees and it will probably snow tomorrow. Yes, the blizzard dubbed "the worst in decades" has hit Austin!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For some reason, people like to crash their cars into electricity poles when it gets this cold. We had two blackouts in our neighborhood today. Please people, if you must crash, try to avoid the poles.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had to educate myself on the workings of a heating pump today when our house just wouldn't get warm. I turned the thermostat to 70 degrees and watched as the temp quickly dipped to 56. Why? Apparently, these heating pumps don't work their best when the temperature dips below 35. Once it gets really cold, the "emergency heat" kicks in and charges up the heating strips. Only problem was that the heating strips didn't work. Nice to find this out on the coldest day of the year. Luckily it was still under warranty and was repaired for free.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today is Chinese New Year. To celebrate, I decided to go to Yahoo! Travel to see how much a flight from Austin to Taiwan would cost for the 4 of us. The total came to US $10,142. If that were NT dollars, no sweat, we'd be on our way. But that price just seems insane. And that was the cheapest flight, believe it or not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just watched the Oscar-nominated documentary "Gasland" on HBO recently and was surprised how angry it made me. It was about how drilling for natural gas using hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") is contaminating our water wells. I always knew former VP Dick Cheney to be a heartless evil swine, but I didn't know he exempted Halliburton from the "Safe Drinking Water Act" in 2005 (also known as the "Halliburton loophole".) I'm generally a good hearted person, but I really hope this man visits the fiery pits of hell soon. This movie made me so mad that I wrote an email to president Obama, asking him to pass the "FRAC Act" which would close the loophole and heavily regulate this kind of drilling.

(Picture above) The feelings a lot of people are having about this winter storm, I suspect.

Ramblings #1

As you probably noticed, I changed the look of this blog. I was getting tired of the old format, so... voila! I added some new stuff.

I'm going to try to post on the blog a little more often this year, so instead of always trying to come up with a singular topic to write about, I'll occasionally have these "Ramblings" posts. I'll just write about whatever happens to be on my mind at the time. I don't use Twitter, so this will be the closest to "Twittering" that you'll see from me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't catch the State of the Union address, but I saw bits and pieces. I still support Obama and think he's doing the best he can possibly do under the circumstances. The Republicans seem to be shooting themselves in the foot spending so much time on healthcare reform when most of the country is looking at them to focus on jobs and the economy. Sure, they're making a "symbolic" statement, but who cares? Can't your symbolic statement wait a few months? Or a year?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christy and I completed our taxes for 2010. We're getting a lot less than the previous two years. I guess that should be expected, considering we got the "Homeowners Credit" last year (which was $8,000). But, seriously, this time it's pretty low. I guess it's because we're not as poor as we used to be. Not that we were really that poor, but since we only worked for about 4 months in 2008 (the year we moved back here from Taiwan), Uncle Sam assumed we were poor, so they gave us some pretty big tax credits. Not this year, though. I guess now I'll have to join the chorus of those who complain about the illegal aliens getting all the free money!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Oscar nominations came out this week, but it seems like a pretty dull year. Out of the 10 nominations, I've seen 4 of them: Toy Story 3, The Social Network, True Grit, and Inception. They were all good, but none of them really blew me away. I guess I'd give the award to "Inception", but that's not going to win.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just watched the movie "Buried" on pay per view last week. Surprisingly good for a movie that takes place inside a coffin for the entire running time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the right of this screen you will see a new feature regarding blogs that I visit. "Meigouren Adventures" is David's blog. There's another cool one called "Bootleg Tunz World" where you can download concerts for free (and good stuff, too, not crap.)

A Year in the House

It's expensive to own a house.


If there is one thing I've learned over this past year of living in our new house, it's the above sentence. It was a year ago today that Christy and I signed the papers and moved into our house. At the advice of our real estate agent, and because we had a one year "bumper to bumper" warranty on the house, we decided to get another home inspection, at the cost of $345. Yep, $345 for a guy to come out for 90 minutes and tell us what needs to be fixed.

I suppose it was worth it, because right now as I'm typing this, our front driveway is being torn up and re-paved. According to the inspector, the driveway "has severely separated, heaved, and moved away from each section at the expansion boards." Our back fence needs to be fixed as well, and about 15 little interior problems. Most of these things we would never have noticed, and because of our 1 year warranty, everything will be fixed at the builders expense. As of tomorrow, though, only the foundation of the house is covered (for 9 more years). Since we might move before then, I'm glad these things are covered.

We also got our first "Home Owners Association" (HOA) bill in the mail. Our "annual maintenance fee" is $220. Not as much as some neighborhoods, but still, this seems like a lot of money to pay for virtually nothing. There is no community swimming pool here that needs to be maintained, and everyone maintains their own property. So what do they do? Oh yeah, they send letters to residents telling them to cut their lawns. Big freaking deal. For this I have to pay $220? The HOA just seems like a big fat scam to me. Perhaps someone can write to me and explain just why the HOA is necessary. For condos, I can understand, but not for homes.

Our house payment increased by $7 as well. Perhaps it's because the value of the house went up a few dollars? I'm not really sure.

So, yes, as everyone has informed me, it is indeed expensive to own a house. Were we tricked, like many other Americans, into buying a house that we couldn't afford? No. We can manage. One of the reasons we decided to live out in farm country is because of the low interest and mortgage rates out here. Our monthly mortgage payment is less than rent money for a one bedroom apartment in California. Christy and I could work minimum wage jobs at McDonalds and we'd still have enough to pay our mortgage payment (although I hope that never happens!)

A year ago, I wrote that I feel "content", rather than "excited" about living in our new house. I still feel that way. I still like the house, and I'm glad that D.R. Horton (the home builder) isn't giving us any crap about fixing everything that we want them to.

We now begin year two in the house, with the economy still in the toilet, and with more home foreclosures expected this year than last. Some economists predict six million people will lose their homes this year (primarily in the states already suffering, like California, Nevada, and Florida.) Pretty scary figures. Although it's something I never thought I'd say, but right now I'm glad I live in Texas.