ITS Snowing in Houston

Time for a change

Well it took 12 years but it finally happened. It seems that economy caught up with me and I am now a statistic. I became one of the many newly unemployed. Now I could say that I am angry, worried, maybe even a little distraught, but the funny thing is I am not. I don't know why I just do. Maybe it's because I worked at the same company since I was 18. I have been going to the same place for over 12 years and getting my paychecks every 2 weeks. I can honestly say that I will and do miss it but as I sat in front of the TV today thumbing through the classifieds I found my mind wondering. Not about the place but about the people. How so and so doing with her cold,and is whats his face going to be ok with the extra work load. Believe it or not I began to feel guilty about being let go. I know I will be ok, I have been through worse times than this. But what I guess I miss the most is the people that became my extended family. When I moved here I had no one, I moved to a strange city with no family and no friends. People took me in as a brother, friend, uncle and so on. I went to their homes for Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years. Now I know just because I don't work there anymore that I have sever my connection to them, but it's just strange not seeing them everyday. That's what I'm going to miss the most. My friends, my family.

Recovery

Well 2 weeks ago I had my surgery and I really underestimated how it would go. I guess to keep me from freaking out the doc told me it was a routine procedure and that he has done hundreds. He said that the success rate was very high and that it would all be ok. Now that was all true and I am recovering nicely but he forgot to mention the massive pain! When I was rolled out of the O.R. I awoke to the sounds of the nurse saying "Mr. Sang wake up, you're all done" My eyes slowly opened, I could see the florescent lights glaring down at me. I could here the heart and breathing monitor beeping. For a split second all was right in the world, the drugs kept me in a floating sea of bliss. That great feeling that you have when you are half asleep and half awake. I thought to myself "well this isn't so bad." And I drifted off again.
Now to me that felt like it took a few hours, in reality it was only a few minutes. Once again I heard the voice "Mr. Sang cmon dear wake up, you're all done." Now this time the delightful floating sea of bliss had turned into the hurricane of pain. I guess my pain meds had worn off and my brain finally woke up. The best way to describe it is that it feels like your guts are getting ripped out. Oh wait, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! I started cussing (a lot). MOTHER FUCKER THIS HURTS. Again the sweet voice "Mr. Sang calm down we'll get you some pain medication soon. Can you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?" Now remember I have had organs removed from my body. "12 BITCH! OH FUCK THIS SUCKS!" Now my mom is a nurse and she has told me stories of people coming out of O.R. wild and unruly and until now I could not really understand why. Without missing a beat the nurse says "Okay Hun just relax and let the medicine work, I am giving you Morphine and Dilotted." I remember yelling "HURRY THE FUCK UP!" She touched my forehead and said "It's okay just relax your wife is on the way" and then the floating sea of bliss returned. I dosed off into that twilight between sleep and consciousness. I remember my wife coming in and telling it all went well, after that it was all a blur till the next day.

Not I have to admit I feel bad for yelling and cussing out the nurses. Like I said my mom is a nurse and trust me when I tell you that they are just doing their job. Even though I cussed her out she never raised her voice or got angry. She kept her sweet voice and told me it would be okay. Funny thing is I cannot remember what she looked like. So to the faceless angel that endured my onslaught a heartfelt apology and thank you.

I go for my follow up tomorrow. Hopefully I will get the staples removed from my abdomen and I will be cleared to move around some more. Cross your fingers.

Things

Ok so about 2 weeks ago my wife had to take me to the emergency room, I was in agony. I had severe abdominal pain and could barely walk. Well after being there the whole night they finally sent me home with some drugs and a diagnosis of Diverticulitis. After a follow up with my Doctor it looks like I am going to have surgery.

While laying on the couch in pain I realized that there are things I now have to accept.

1. I am no longer 19 and I cannot do certain things anymore
2. Pain means there is something wrong!
3. I have to let things go and concentrate on getting well
4. Not everyone is a dumb ass
5. Do what the Doctors say
6. Cut myself and the people around me some slack
7. People are people, let them be.


Now I know this list will grow but the pain meds have kicked in and I can't think of any. Hopefully when I have this surgery I will be able to have my life back.

Airline baggage fees hit soldier flying out of El Paso for training

After adding all the extra equipment - boots, foul weather gear, uniforms and the like - required for training before he deploys to Iraq, Staff Sgt. Ashley Serrano had filled three bags. That was one more than American Airlines was willing to let fly without an extra baggage charge of $100.
Many airlines, faced with the rising price of jet fuel and other costs, have instituted luggage fees. And now military officials are having to re-evaluate policy as soldiers, many of whom are at the lower pay grades, are faced with significant charges to haul equipment that is required by their jobs.
Serrano said he was confronted Friday at the El Paso International Airport with a demand for $100 for his third bag, and when he mentioned he was headed for Camp Bowie - where Texas Army National Guard soldiers train before deployment - he said they told him, without a smile, that the Army should have given him a voucher. Serrano's fellow soldier and traveling companion had three extra bags and was charged $300, he said.
"I have flown Southwest, Continental, and when they saw me in uniform, they didn't even ask," Serrano said. "I flew American a couple of times before, but I never had this problem."
American Airlines' baggage policy allows service members one checked 100-pound duffel-type bag, one standard checked 50-pound suitcase and one standard carry-on suitcase of up to 40 pounds, "for a total of 190 pounds of free luggage," said airline spokesman Tim Wagner, in an e-mail. Wagner said the policy has been in effect for at least five years.
Since June 15, civilian passengers pay a $15, one-way fee for the first checked bag, a $25 fee for the second checked bag, and $100 each for the third, fourth and fifth bags, according to the American Airlines policy. Other fees are charged for additional luggage and overweight and oversized bags. Service members are allowed larger and heavier bags, according to the policy.
"I am not aware of any ability by our agents to waive an excess baggage fee, even for military personnel - since they already have the common checked bag fees waived in our policy," Wagner said. "Otherwise, our policy is very generous as you can see, and intentionally so. We're very proud of our military forces - and many of our employees began their flying careers with the military - so we're pleased to be able to help."
Wagner offered to look into the case if the soldier thought the policy wasn't properly applied.
"You couldn't fit it all into two (checked) bags if you tried," Serrano said.
In the past, troops carrying equipment needed for their specialized jobs would get authorization for payment of excess baggage fees that would be included in their orders, said Col. Bill Meehan, spokesman for the Texas Army and Air National Guard.
"We have had over 15,000 deployments in the past five years," Meehan said, "and this is the first time I've heard about it."
Meehan said national guard soldiers carry the same equipment as deploying active-duty soldiers. He said Serrano can go back to the unit and request reimbursement. But it wasn't clear Tuesday whether that kind of request would be granted, Meehan said, adding that Texas military forces officials are looking at the reimbursement policy in light of airline policy changes.
Fort Bliss officials also said they were looking at their policies regarding baggage of deploying soldiers.
"We are making sure orders are clear about what they carry and what they don't," said post spokeswoman Jean Offutt. "We are looking to see if they can be reimbursed and whether orders can be amended" allowing reimbursement after the trip.
Serrano, with Charlie Company, 949th Forward Support Battalion out of Grand Prairie, Texas, lives in El Paso. He served a tour of duty in Kuwait in 2004 and is one of about 3,000 guard soldiers training at Camp Bowie for deployment. Serrano expects to deploy from Fort Stewart, Ga., to Iraq "within the next two months."
Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

AMERICAN IDOL

SERIOUSLY WHO GIVES A SHIT!

Chinese Buffets?

Ok so if you go to a restaurant you basically know what you are goin to get right? I mean KFC is chicken, Whataburger is hamburgers etc.... So then when I stepped foot into a restaurant that was called "Chinese Palace Buffet" I naturally thought I was going to get Chinese food. Apparently I was wrong. I think the rice was Chinese but that was about it. Mashed potatoes and gravy? Spaghetti? WTF? I mean I know you have to have child friendly items but stuffed mushrooms? Fajitas? Did I step into Golden Corral by mistake? Oh wait I couldn't have Golden Corral is better than this joint.

Oh and here's another thing. I base my tips on service, give me good service I give you a good tip, bad service bad tip. Pretty simple. Well our server took forever to bring us our drinks, never really came by for refills and all in all didn't do much. So we left her a dollar, and she proceeded to get huffy. Again, WTF? Its not like you brought us the food, we did that ourselves. You didn't even seat us!

Man I am sticking to china town.

Remember? You member!

When we were kids we would hear the adults talking about the good ol' days. The era of soda shops and dime movies. When Cokes were a nickle and pop corn was a few cents, cheaper if you brought your own paper bag. I would sit there in awe, wondering what it would be like to buy a steak dinner for 75cents. With all the fixens' too not just the steak. "What a time to be alive everything was so cheap." My elders would look at me and say "cheap? no son that was not cheap. We made about $25 a week back then and every penny had to be spent wisely." What a minute $25 a week? I would kill for kind of money, as it was I didn't even get an allowance for doing my chores, my dad would say i let you live here that's enough. "$25 a week! Wow you guys were rich!" They looked at me and laughed. "oh how cute, wait till he finds out". Find out what? What aren't you telling me? What secret am I missing out on? Tell me I must know! Well they never did. And the mystery went on for years.

The mystery became evident when I began to live on my own. Your paycheck always seems to just cover you. Food, gas, rent, and god help you if you have a girlfriend. But even then you seem content. Money for beer and snacks is all you seem to need. Then as you get older, you get needier. You keep buying more stuff, eventually you get a house to hold your stuff, and then what do you do? You go buy more stuff. No matter how much money you make there is always something there to take it away. So what I learned is take care of the stuff money can't buy. Like family and friends. No matter what size your paycheck, or no matter how big your house, true friends and family can never be bought.

Taking the Leap

Look at this guy in this picture. There was a time when I would do that for shits and giggles. Do it for that rush you get when lightly knock on deaths doorstep. Hell I used to do it when I would go mountain biking back home in the Franklin Mountains. Peddle your ass off and go. Sometimes I made it, sometimes I didn't. Most of the time I didn't. I busted my ass so many times my parents actually bought insurance for the bike because the expense of fixing every week got to be too much. Now I got bumped and bruised and scarred but thanks to my guardian angel (who worked overtime by the way) I never got seriously hurt, I always walked away. Some where I lost that feeling and I miss it. And I don't know how to get it back, I'm not sure I want it back. Hell peddling a bike may cause me to have a heart attack nowadays. Have I gotten older and wiser? Or older and miser? Who knows I don't the answer to that question yet. Hell I don't think anyone does.

The Olympics

Now here's the deal. Are the Olympics worth having anymore? I can't remember the last time I saw them on TV. This is supposed to be an event showing the world the status of your countries athletic prowess. But now it seems like it has become and over runned by advertising and sponsorships. And as we all know protest in one form or an another. So what's the point? Why go through all the trouble of spending millions of dollars on training, advertising, and transportation only to have your, or one of the other countries, protest the politics of the day. If the countries leaders decide to boycott well then all of the money, time, and not to mention shattered dreams all go to waste. Do we participate in order to save face? Or to allow the athletes to shine? Maybe we should consider this before we interupped our favorite programming with this centuries old tradition.

The best show on Television

My writing

Okay when I write my brain is usually going so fast my fingers sometime skip words. So if any body is reading this page just plug in the letter or word. It's not that I am an idiot, its that I think faster than I write!

BOO YA!

HAPPY EASTER!

Dad was right!

Maybe the stories my dad told me when I was younger are true. The stories on how he rode a harley under a bus, jumped out of airplanes in the army, cooked for hundreds and my grandfathers restaurant. All the things he did when he was "younger". I naturally wanted to see him do them so I would say c'mon I want to see you jump out of a plane, prove to me you can ride a harley. Each time he would say "nah I'm too old for that bullshit", to which I would reply "oh cmon you're only as old as you think you are". He would look at me and chuckle and in front of his friends he would say "One day mijo you will be there too"!

Me? No he can't be serious, not me. I have too much to do. Places to go, people to see, I have no time for sleep much less getting old and complaining. I have to go live life and have fun. "Sleep is overated". "Pain is in your head". "Fear is a feeling, you feel hot you feel cold, fear is just a feeling fear cannot kill you." This is the stuff I used to tell myself.

Now if I remember correctly my dad told me all that stuff when we were fishing one night out in this muddy lake in Tornillo Texas. He told me how his back hurt from jumping out of those planes and how cooking for a restaurant full of customers sounds romantic but it is a HUGE amount of work. He said remember that your body pays for what you do to it. If you mistreat it it will let you know sooner or later. And crap wouldn't you know it, dad was right. My knees hurt from a skateboarding and football injuries. My shoulder hurts from bad hit, my back is screwed up from playing tackle foot ball on the hot asphalt. And my latest causality is my stomach. I used to have the stomach of steel, I could eat and drink almost anything. I laughed at spicy food, I would drink so much booze winos would gladly accept a blood donation from me just to get a buzz. But now I have to watch what I eat. No spicy food, no booze. I am on medication for pain, cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Crap I guess dad was right, I am paying for my past sins committed against my body. I do have to say though, it was fun getting here!

GAS!

Is it me or should I start getting my car ready to do battle like in the "Road Warrior" movies? Holy crap! They are estimating $4.00 for a gallon gas this spring and summer! That's it the spikes are coming on, and a war for supremacy of the road will be fought.


Hell maybe we should all go back to riding horses. Can you imagine all the shit on the highway. I mean where would you put your coffee cup? Never mind, don't answer that.

Only in my hometown!

EL PASO, Texas -- A day after a fatal highway drag racing crash, a pair of local television live trucks were caught on video in their own race at a local drag strip.

The El Paso stations, KDBC-TV and KVIA-TV, were at the legal drag racing strip Friday night when a crowd of onlookers apparently convinced a pair of photographers and a part-time anchorman to race.

Charlie Bernal, a 25-year-old photographer for KDBC, said he was fired Tuesday after his bosses saw the race on the video sharing Web site YouTube.

“I knew what I was doing and figured, if someone gets wind of this I’m in a world of crap,” Bernal said. He added that he didn’t regret his decision to race the station’s only live truck but wouldn’t do it again.

KDBC general manager Bram Watkins declined to comment on the incident.

Kevin Lovell, KVIA’s general manager, said photographer Richie Zamora and part-time anchor Rick Cabrera were preparing a story about the legal drag racing site when they made an “impromptu decision” to race the competing station’s vehicle.

“They had the crowd gathered, giggling,” Lovell said. “It was a stupid thing to do. They weren’t thinking.”

Lovell said Cabrera, who was set to take over as a full-time anchor in May when longtime broadcaster Gary Warner retires, and Zamora are likely to face disciplinary action but won’t be fired.

“There will be no terminations at KVIA,” Lovell said.

Cabrera said Wednesday he regretted the incident and should have used his position to halt the race.

“I made a big mistake and I take full responsibility for my actions,” Cabrera said. “In hindsight, I can certainly see the error of our ways.”

A video of the race, posted on YouTube, shows the trucks inching to the starting line as a crowd of onlookers cheers them on. As the trucks start racing, one man not seen on the video can be heard commenting that “every cell phone is out” filming the race.

HOOKERS!

Hookers, street walkers, escorts, ho's, cum catchers, semen receptacles, prostitutes, ladies of the evening, suzy rotten crotch and finally soiled doves. I'm sure there are more but thats all I can of at the moment. Do I have your attention now? Sex for sale seems to be in the news again since the Gov. of NY got busted paying for an escort service. I don't know why they make such a big deal out of it. I mean it is the oldest profession in the world. Men (and women by the way) have been paying for sex for centuries. It never will go away, no matter how much you try. The fact that sex is such a key in a persons survival will make sure of that. Just legalize it and get it over with. Seriously, just make it legal. Why try to avoid it? Why pretend it does not exist? Acknowledge it and regulate it. Make them pay taxes, make it somewhat safer by making the health dept. watch over them. Make it confidential and profitable to the government and it will save us all time and tax dollars. I could write more but I am sooo freakin' tired.

Peace out!

Fear

Have you ever feared something? I mean really feared something? Have you ever shut your eyes and literally broke down at just the thought of having to do something that you didn't want to do? Or how about this. Ever fear to do something that you've done thousands of time before with no problem? For some dumb ass reason thats the way I feel about flying at the moment. Now if you know me you know that I am a world traveler. I have been to the other side of the world and back with no problem, but last year something happened that really shook me up. I, for unknown reasons at the time, almost "lost it" on the plane. Hell it started before I got to the airport. Now when I say "lost it" I don't mean going whack o and taking a weapon on board or anything like that, I mean I was scared to get on the plane for fear of becoming ill.

My pulse was pounding, my blood pressure was up, my breathing was erratic. In fact for a split second I considered going back to the rental car place picking up a car and driving the 12 hrs back to town. It actually crossed my mind! Not taking a 2 hour flight and instead losing the money on the ticket and rent a car at additional cost and driving 12 hours to get back home. It was insane! Why? I have been on a plane hundreds of times before, Since I was 7 I believe. In some of the worst weather imaginable too.

I clinched my teeth found a seat and DUG my nails into my thigh. I was surprised that it wasn't bleeding when I got off. All through out I kept praying and knowing that God would protect me and not let anything happen to me, but it still shook me up. So much so that I have not been on a plane since. Now that was almost 1 year ago and I have been diagnosed with some medical issues that may have explained what happened. The medication that put on is supposed to help control it but the fear is still there. And if you me you know that I love to take chances and pain and death don't bother me but for some reason getting back on a plane does. Now I know if you fall off the horse you have to get back on, but then again when you fall from a horse it's not from 30,000 feet.

MARS WHAT A PLACE!

Now they have been saying for years that there may have been life on mars. That there is possible evidence of water and microscopic life. They say that Mars is the next planet we need to get to in order to colonize it and begin a new world if and when we destroy this one.


Now I thought about this the other day and the question I pose is. What if we (the human race) were already there? What if we totally killed that planet and moved here? Wouldn't that piss someone off? To land on mars and find an abandoned 7-11 with an old paper with the headline that read "All aboard! If you're not on the last ship today you're screwed!" Hey it could have happened.

Getting Older

Now I know they say you're only as old as you think you are but lets face it.
Things stop working like they should, the bones get achy, mind starts go and you realize that you can't run for that winning touch down pass like you used to because if you try you will have a heart attack in the process.

This morning while laying in bed the wind began to howl and rattle the windows in my house. It made the same kind of noise my parents house would make back home in west Texas. It took me back to the days when I would ride my bike with my friends in the park, back when it was safe to be a child in the park. The football games we played in the dirt, the capturing of bugs, and gossiping over which girls we had crushes on. It made think about the desert air, how it smelled sweet at night. How we would hang on the porch with the radio playing this new music called rap and oldies thinking we were bad asses. The wind blew again and made the windows rattle and it made me think how much I miss my childhood friends, my toys, my room, and just the freedom of being a child. Not having to worry about bills, gas prices, cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and the other shit that life throws at you.

There should be a law that states you should able to act like a child for 1 week out of the year without being tossed in the loony bin. Maybe if we see the world through the eyes of children again, we will do more to make a better place.

I WANNA KNOW!

Did Roger Clemens take steroids? Did he buy them from Britney? These are questions I need answered. My very existence depends are these peoples lives. Please tell me more news with the scrolling text beneath my favorite show. Please interrupt my House MD with this important information. I need to know! Text my cell with alerts and send me emails, and don't forget the Goodyear blimp and smoke signals! We need all the bases covered!

Sometimes too much information is just that. Too much!

Elections!

Is it me or are there slim pickins' for presidential candidates? I mean none of them seem to be serious enough for me. None of them seem to want to have an answer or a plan. They love to point the finger. And the media is no help either. Sacrificing ratings for a real story. For example do we really are that much about Britney Spears?

Is it me? Am I missing something?