Speaking of Beer and Podcasts

First, I must confess that I've become a PODCAST junkie. Even before I had my iPOD, I started listening to several different shows. My tastes run from the pious to the profane. I lisetn to tech shows, photography shows, education shows, a number of the shows here, as well as several Catholic related podcasts. Oh and I can't forget the podcast novels such as Sperical Tomi and 7th Son.

Now, I do leave some audio feedback from time to time on these shows and have had them played. But, my latest comment has resulted in a show pretty much dedicated to me, so I thought I'd brag a bit. Speaking of Beer is a podcast about, you guessed it, beer. Now, I'm not a beer drinker myself, so I posed a challenge to the host to see if he could make some recommendations for me to try. Not only did my comment get played, but the focus of Episode 6 was directed at answering this question. Interestingly enough, he came up with local favorite Shiner Bock as a possibility of something that doesn't taste like the typical mass market beer. I'll give one a try and see how it goes. In the meantime, it's an entertaining show and I expect I'll continue to listen, even if I don't end up finding a beer I can enjoy.

One long Day

This has been one long day (Saturday). Thanks to the City of Houston's shortfall in traffic ticket revenue, I got a citation back in January for running a red light. Now, let me say first that, I hate red light runners. They're a danger on the road and should be routinely beaten. For me, this was the usual making it through as the light was yellow. In Houston, unless you got a good amount of distance, you don't even think about trying to stop on a yellow light, becuase chances are the two people behind you are gunning it to beat the light.
That said, I don't doubt that the light went red before I cleared the intersection. If you're not out of the intersection by the time the light is red, you've run a red light. 99% of the time you don't get stopped for this (shoot, most times, the flagrant red light runners don't get stopped either, but that's another rant). I don't bear any ill will to the officer. Those guys have a tough job in Houston, particularly trying to fill a quota of tickets that shall not be named becuase, of course, it doesn't exist (wink, wink).
It's been a while since I'd gotted into any trouble, so I was allowed to take Defensive Driving. Funny thing about government information, it seems everyone can get there hands on it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Houston sells it as a revenue stream, but over the last few months it has resulted in a weekly barrage of ads in the mail from what seems every DD school from here to Dallas.
I finally picked a "comedy" class being held in Clear Lake at a Ryan's steakhouse/buffet. I hadn't been there before and I would definitely recommend Golden Corral as having better food in the all you can stuff your face cheap buffet category. The state mandates a six hour minium course, so I was there from 9a to 3p. As usual, the information was all good an important and mostly stuff I do already. The comedian was ok. I don't think I'd seek him out if I was looking to go out for a night of comedy, but he got the job done. I'm sure part of it was him having to be "clean" in his humor for the mixed crowd. He said as much. Although, if you can't be funny without having to be dirty, that's not much of a comedian in my book. During the breaks, he had a videotape of "Bill Cosby - Himself" running on the TV. Getting to see that classic again was probably the best part of the class.
So, I survived that ordeal and returned home. I was able to go to the community pool for a while with my daughter and that was nice. We went a few weekends back when it first opened and boy was that some cold water! This time was much better. We only were able to make a short visit as we get to the rest of my day.
The KC council that I'm a member of has a nice hall here in Pearland. One of the main ways it is being paid for is through rental of the hall to various events. The two biggest are wedding receptions and Quinceaneras. There is a bar that serves beer and other soft liquor along with sodas, chips, popcorn, etc. Volunteer teams of Knights work the bar each weekend for these events to raise more money to get the hall paid off. Last night was my team's turn and it was a Quinceanera. If you've never been to one or seen one, it is often a most elaborate production, often times bigger than wedding receptions. Days like this, I'm glad I am not Hispanic, because this looks like an expensive proposition.
The hall was reserved from 6p to midnight. So, I show up at 6p with the other guys and things are very quiet. Guests don't really even start showing up for the first hour. We send about half the guys home at it looks like it is going to be a rather small and quiet affair. Uh-oh! About 8:30, the action starts picking up and from 9:30 to midnight, that bar was hopping and the three of us still there were scrambling. Working the bar crew is a lot of fun, but it will wear you out.
Was was really interesting this time around is that there were a lot of small kids. The parents of the young lady had prebought a bunch of tickets for sodas and beer. About every 15 minutes, the dad would come by, pull out a wad of tickets, and walk off with a dozen beers or 20 sodas. The sodas (actually, Cokes - they literally bought every can of Coke that we had in the coolers that night) were being given out to the kids by the mother and father and the father would walk off with a case of beer at a time to pass around to the adults guests. Always Bud Light. I'm not sure why, but it seems like at least 80% of the beer we sell at the bar is Bud Light. The Corona was also a big seller as well. It was pretty amazing to see how much work the father and mother would putting in to paying attention to the guests. Those two have got to still be asleep recovering after the night of work they put in!
I finally made it back in about 12:30 on Sunday morning and crashed. (Yes, I know the timestamp says Saturday, but that is the day I'm writing about).
Whew!

Down the tubes

Neither the wife nor I have gotten much sleep this week. No, you pervs, it's not that. The boy has been sick pretty much going on two weeks now and he's really taken a dive these last few days. The antibiotics he's been on did nothting for him. He's pretty much a big blob of mucous complete with all the sneezing, sore ear pulling, and coughing to the point of vommiting that goes with it.
We got him back to the doctor today and it looks like he's now going to be following the path his big sister did years back and get tubes put in. This is about the time when the doctor gave up on Denali as well. At least the wife has great insurance.
He's back on the antibiotic that he usually responds better too, so hopefully that will help for a bit. Probably within a month or so, we'll have him in to get the tubes put in and we can try to get back to "normal".

My boy's first loves - chocolate and a 2 yr old girl

This one is funny. Especially over the last couple days, I've noticed that my son has a really strong preference for chocolate. A few days ago, I had a snack bag for him that was a mixture of chex mix, goldfish, and M&M's. Once he figured out there were M&M's in the bag, he sought them out. If he picked out anything else, he'd put it back in the bag and kept digging until he came up with that precious M&M.
Yesterday, the wife had some wrapped Hershey kisses on the table that we were snacking from. He'd seen kisses get unwrapped before, so he knows what's inside. When we sat him down with us and he caught sight of those wrappers, nothing would calm him down until he'd eaten his fill.
That boy knows what he wants. He's also had his first love this past week. On Wednesday, I took the kids to McDonald's so the wife could go to a meeting. We went to the one in town that has the smaller play area for little kids as well. The boy enjoyed climbing the stairs to get into the center chamber, but I couldn't get him to try the tube and little slide. Even having big sister go through first wouldn't work.
Rewind a bit to when we were actually eating. He was sitting in the high chair munching down on nuggets, watching the other kids run around. Then, this girl comes in who must have been about two. He locked onto her as soon as she came in and never let her out of his sight. When she went out to the playground, he was ready to go. And, when she went crawling into that tube to the slide, he went right after her. It was quite a cute thing to see.

And there was much coughing....

Well, it's a dreary Sunday morning and the report from the homefront is that three of the four of us are sick. The wife, myself, and the youngest boy all have the crud that has been running through the area. Coughing, sneezing, congestion, fatigue - the usual. Although, no fever. Seems we never get a fever with this.
My daughter has a touch of it, but she's mostly in good shape. Which, naturally, makes it worse becuase she wants to do things, but Momma and I are doing well to keep ourselves and the boy taken care of.
It's been a busy week, which is why I've been light on posting here. I had two meetings this week and the wife had some as well. She's gotten wrapped up in the PTA for the school that our daughter will be going to in the fall. Overall, I think it will be good for her to connect with other parents at the school, but right now, there's a lot of work involved in getting everything set up. As though we needed to add more to our schedule!