My Phone is not a Toy...

"My phone is not a Toy!!" that's what I tell my kids when they get a hold of my phone. In reality it is a Toy, My Toy! I  just got a new Android based phone, it might as well be Crack because "I can't put down the pipe!" It does everything, its so cool... I bet it'll wipe my ass if I find the app for it! I didn't think it was gonna be this cool when I bought it and after 5 hours with it I was walking down the aisle with it.

In reality I hate cell phones! I hate the fact that it's become a necessity! I'm a be there, live in person kinda guy! Being a parent has teathered me to the phone, but I've accepted it and now and live with it.

I love when people buy a new phone it's like when a little girl gets a new Barbie. Man, we buy a screen cover for it and a little case and check on it all the time, we even have a special place we charge it and give it special ringtones and wallpaper. If we could we'd buy it a Dream House and a cool Corvette!

Then a year later we are dropping it, lousing it, bitching about it and it's all scratched up and scuffed and we call it "Stupid Phone!" I bet it's little phone feelings get all hurt, It's like the new Barbie that you had and now is discarded under the bed or thrown in the backseat of the car!

Then the inevitable approaches, The Contact Expiring...

  We start spying other peoples phones and find ourselves cruising by the phone carriers store or looking on the Internet. All the time our own phone unsuspectingly thinking everythings alright...Then that day comes. "It's not you, it's me" we inadvertivly tell the phone as we shove it in the junk drawer or worse yet hock it on craigslist or eBay! The cycle starts again...

Do as I say, not as I do

   I try to be honest with my kids especially my son now that he's approaching those teens. I like all parents wonder where do i draw the line on what to tell him about my past. I wasn't a criminal by any means but it was a different time with different rules. I went out by myself allot or rolled with the wrong kids sometimes, But don't all boys? We were so damn impressionable by the rebel kids or tough guys, I was. I soaked it all in! Everyone of their nuisances and angst ridden traits!

  Eventually you get to the point where you become one of them or I my case I hung out with them because they thought I was kinda cool in a nerdy kinda way. I was smart and knowledgeable on crap they didn't have time for or could care less about. I also knew allot about music that helped allot. I think I finally moved to coolsville by myself when i was about 20. I still did a lot of stupid crap but I looked cool doing it or so I thought.

  I was coming home tonite from the store with my son and almost hit a garbage can out in the street, he thought it was funny, so I proceeded to tell him how we used to bash mailboxes with a baseball bat leaning outta the truck at 3:08 in the morning. I always preface every story with "don't ever do this", just cause I did it doesn't make it right or cool. I tell him allot of these lately cause he's trying to find himself and I want to steer him on the right path learning from my mistakes.  I'm trying to steer him to the path of nerddom and it's working he's kinda nerdy and cool at the same time.  He's left handed so he's a little different than most kids, real artistic and creative.

  Pretty soon I'm gonna have the BIG serious talk about drugs, I always say something about the dangers of them and makes sure and point out that alcohol is the most dangerous drug. I'm gonna tell him the truth too on how I partook in drugs (pot) and quit when I got bored. He knows now that I did but not the extent and stories. I'm not gonna glamorize it in anyway, I'll probably tell him what my Dad told me "If you wanna try anything,  tell me and we'll do it here at home the first time, that way I feel better about you trying them and you'll be safe", Wow, that really detered me from drugs for a long time, Honest! I thought " Why should I try it if my Dad said he'll buy it and we can do it at home?" It kinda took the fun outta it!

My Movie friend "Donald"

   Tonite I went with my daughters to Ballet Folklorico practice because I wanted to find out more about their upcoming trip to San Antonio. While I was waiting for the meeting to start I had a great time with one of the dancers brothers, we'll call him "Donald". Donald has Downs Syndrome, he is 17-18 years old and was so much fun, He had a notebook and was writing down the names of movies that he liked to the best of his ability. All the movies he liked were Disney and kids films, right up my alley so I was able to guess the titles from his best try at spelling them. He really surprised me when he spelled out the name of a movie that I could not recognize but what clued me in finally was the O in the title was drawn out with 4 small holes inside of it. I said wow that looks like a button, well it was it was Coraline! His speech was very subdued and convoluted but he said "Coraline"  with the biggest smile after I said it!

   He went on writing out titles and I went on guessing what they were, He wrote the Hulk and flexed his arms and grunted, I picked up on that one right away! What was the biggest help was that he wrote out the movie title the way they appeared on the box so it helped  me pick up on what they were. I did my best to guess what he was trying to convey so I could see him smile and laugh. I love spending time with these kids because their heart is so pure and simple like a child or God's. I always pictured angels like Downs children. 

   I'm glad I was taught at an early age about people like this, I was told to never pity them and just treat them with the same respect as you would treat anyone else. I hope I see Donald again, he made me forget about my pity problems and see inside his heart and the joy and happiness of the simple things we forget about.

A Fear of Menudo...

   Living in El Paso has always been like living in limbo. You live on the border of 3 states and 2 countries with basically 2 cultures your either Mexican or "Mexican't" ! I myself have always called myself Hispanic or New Mexican. That's how I grew up, even though I pretty much grew up a Coconut ( brown on the outside, white on the inside) my upbringing was always New Mexican, Northern NM if you wanna be specific. There was a short time in the 1970's that I was a "Chicano" that was the cool thing to call yourself then though, it was always kinda tough or rebellious, I always felt like I should of had a switchblade or been a member of the Brown Berets calling myself a Chicano!

  So moving to Las Cruces/El Paso was a culture shock for me, I could write about this endlessly and will in other entries but right now were gonna talk "Menudo"... I was brought up eating Posole which was a hominy with pork stew some times made with chile (I make mine w/o and add it later). I had heard about menudo but never eaten it, it looked gross! Most of all though it contained "TRIPE"!  I quiver when I say it!!! When i was  a kid I spent allot of time at my grandparents house in Taos New Mexico. My grandpa always had 5-6 cattle that kept him busy and outta my grandma hair, which she liked. Well once or twice year he would slaughter one for the meat. It was so cool we would walk it down to the slaughter house down the cammanito(dirt road) and he would do the deed and then we'd go pick up tubs of cut, unwrapped meat and wrap each steak or cut of meat like Christmas presents!

  This is where the horror begins... One of the weird scary things that we would bring back was the stomach! My job was to cut open the stomach and wash all the digested or un-digested grass/alfalfa outta the stomach. So here I was about 8 or 9 years old forced to wash out the grass outta the stomach which looked like some sorta Sci-Fi monsters skin inside, all diamond shaped honey combed and stunk like all hell. All I would think about was the poor cow and felt like the stomach was gonna come to life and swallow my hands up at any moment! I would cry sometimes and gag then was told to "Go wrap meat with your Grandma!!" That kinda scarred me to this day... I tried to eat it and just could not, it was rubbery and greasy and always took me back to that laundry room work sink where the horror began!

   Which brings me to this past weekend. My daughters had a Menudo sale for their Folklorico group and I went for support, I didn't plan on eating any but my daughter asked " Aren't you gonna have some Dad, all the other parents are?" Then the guy who made it asked too! So I "Cowboyed Up" and got a bowl ( second time in my life I had it...)  and carefully separated the tripe from the hominy and doctored it all up with oregano, lime and onions and swallowed a few spoonfuls for offspring approval and claimed I was full from breakfast, which I was, Thank you Oatmeal!!! Then walked away like a gunfighter with the greasy menudo behind me... cue "The Good,Bad and the Ugly" music here...

Tired of being a "Big Guy"!

   I watch TV sparingly these days I'd rather watch a movie if I'm gonna waste my time. I recently downgraded my cable so now I'm forced to watch network TV and all the other basic channels. The trend I'm seeing allot of now is all these shows about fat and obese people. There's Fat Camp, Heavy, The Biggest Loser, More To Love, Drop Dead Diva, Dance Your Ass Off and the list goes on and on with more shows to come! I could blog about these shows in general and the guts it must take to be on them or about Americas fascination with fat people, but I won't and can't because I too am overweight and that's not fair or right. What brought me to this after watching a "Ton" of these shows was I need to do something about my weight finally and I am. I see men my age on these show severely obese and on the brink of death or dying already and I don't want that! I got my kids to worry about and raise, in fact they even tell me straight out "Dad you're Fat!"

   Losing weight has never been a priority for me because 1. I like food and like to cook,  2. I never cared about what people thought about me and my weight, F-'em if can't accept me for who I am! I can lose weight real easy it's never been a problem for me I just cut back on sweets and fast food and it comes off quick. That's easier said than done though. My kids are my kryptonite, they can eat almost anything that they want and do and nothing happens to them their little bodies burn it off quickly, so they have their little treats lying around and I get into them or they go out for Ice Cream and I get one too! Now that I'm older even if food is in the same room I gain weight, my metabolism has slowed down like a white man in slippers!

But something interesting has happened to me in the past two years,One, I've lost my appetite and I don't and can't eat as much! I used to have the hollow leg syndrome where I could eat two plates of whatever for dinner or a whole Pizza if I was super hungry. Now days I 'm good with a slice of pizza and I serve myself smaller portions at dinner too. I come from two schools, first is the school of "You can't leave unless you clean your plate" now that's a messed up path to obesity, I remember my folks saying , "There's a little boy in China (Africa, India, Mexico, you insert the third world county your folks used)  who would love to eat that cause he doesn't get fed daily!" Well mail it to him cause I'm done!!! Second is "I'm a guy, I can eat whatever and as much as I want whenever I want!" The problem with that is we continue with this state of mind as we get older and wonder "Gosh, why are my pants so tight???" Then to top it off I'm fighting my Native blood, Indians never surrender...

  Which leads my to "Now". I have quit eating candy and all that crap when I'm hungry for a snack, and have got off my ass and started being active again and what do ya know the pounds are coming off! I don't weigh myself, that's too depressing and cruel to your ego, I just go by how my clothes fit and how I feel daily. My goal is to fit back into the size of clothes I wore in college, I know I'll make it! Now If I could just block that Damn Food Network!!

Debt Card Roulette

   Convenience is cool, everyday more and more our lives are simplified by technology. I'm not even gonna bother listing all the technical conveniences that we use every day, it's crazy! Well for the past two days I've paralyzed by my debt card... I love my debt card it's all I use, I love the fact that they take it everywhere,everywhere!! I even forgot all about my ATM card until yesterday...

   I got my new Debit card and followed the directions and activated it and clipped my old one up into bite sized bits. All is good as far as i can tell, but nothing is ever easy for me! So here we are at Wendy's (not my choice..) My kids and I order our food, which is a ordeal in itself. I go to pay and give the girl my card she swipes it and waits for the receipt,  it comes up and she says "It was declined sir" Run it again I tell her, she makes a face and runs it again, and once again DECLINED! OK this is the part where the panic and a million thoughts run through your head. "Do I have money in the bank?, Did I put the right code, Did someone hack my card and drain my account?, How much did I spend at the strip club last nite?" Then I glance back and everyone is glaring at me with folded arms and drooling hungry mouths! My son gives out a sigh and my daughters say out loud "Great we're not gonna eat today!"  I quickly dial the number on the card and by some miracle I didn't have to wait, The operator told me I have $5.00 in my account!!!  WTF!!! I though I had at least $ 13.00...  Of course this had to happen on MLK day when guess whats closed?? Starts with a B ends with an ANK! I was pissed my kids were salivating looking at their food wilting on the counter and I had no cash, so I had to whip out the AM EX, damn at Wendy's!! 

  I called the bank this morning and they said "Don't worry Mr Quintana we'll straighten it all  out, sorry about the inconvenience! Yeah right!! Same shit different place and day, this time at Walmart. At least I wasn't embarrassed there, that's old hat at Walmart isn't it, like every 3rd customer!  I had cash this time, I'm a damn boy scout now!

Grocery Hell

OK, so I hate going grocery shopping, it's one of those necessary evils in life, consequently I hate going out for dinner all the time it's boring, expensive and I never get to go where I want. Don't get me wrong I love to cook, it's like therapy for me, I wish I had a shopping service or one of those cool stores like Whole Foods or one of those bad ass HEB's like in Austin TX. Alias I am designated to Walmart or Albertsons. Walmart is HELL... even more so now with all the people from Juarez that have moved over here, but that's a whole new blog.

   If you think about the process of grocery shopping it's mind bogglingly stupid! Let me review: You get the food off the shelves, you then put the food in the cart, you go up and down aisles looking at the food, talking about the food, reading the labels of the food, remembering what food you need. When you finally finish choosing your food you go to the register and unload your food to the convener belt, the cashier charges you for the food, then you put the food in bags and put the food back in the cart. Next you take the food to the car and unload the food from the cart and load the food into your car. Bare with me here we're almost done... Now you drive the food home, unload the food from your car and then get the food outta the bags and finally put the food away! Only to repeat the process all over again in a week or two!

   I used to go grocery shopping at 1:00 am because no one was in the store and you had to weave in and outta the food stockers and drunks looking for that last 30 pack and a family bag of Doritos. Now sleep is more valuable so I try to go in the evening after dinner with all the single moms and old people. I miss paper bags too they were a big part of my childhood, they were the only matching luggage I had, they were a carry all and an arts and crafts necessity! I also miss the old cash register before UPC labels, when you could switch the labels on the food and go to the naive cashier and pay $1.78 for steak!

  I cant leave out my most favorite part, the shopping cart, it was the first vehicle with four wheels that you could drive without permission and then hopping on the back and cruising to your car down the sloping parking lot all outta control! Well I gotta go I forgot something at the store...

and I'll see you at the Movies...

   I was having this discussion at work the other day on the topic of going to the movies and how we watch movies. We were talking about 3-D and someone said they can't watch it because all they do is look for the overlap and mistakes in the effect. I quickly responded with my film watching philosophy " When I go to the movies I leave all my film making/industry knowledge at the door and let myself get lost in the film/story." After all that's what we go to the movies for right? To be told a story...
   Well I'm about to embark on that journey. I'm gonna start writing a movie...finally!!! If this were LA It's as common as taking a dump, everyone does it. I've wanted to do this for a very long time now and now events and time have extended their hand and so my journey begins. I have come to the conclusion that anyone can write a film after some of the crap I've seen and boy have I seen allot! I watch everything and now with Netflix on my Wii I see my choice of crap!

  What qualifies me to write a movie? Nothing! Nothing but my ideas on what I think is a good story. When I was teaching I used to teach screenwriting as part of the curriculum. The one thing I drilled through the kids was you have to tell a story, you just can't shoot video off the top of your head or put what you think is cool. There as to be some sorta structure to your story. You know, boy meets girl-boy loses girl- boy gets girl back or some convoluted version of that, as long as there is structure.

   Now days being a screen writer is not easy , you have to be clever and creative in your dialogue and storytelling, It's not easy! But I feel I'm up for the challenge. What am I gonna write about ? Am I gonna use my experiences as background ?  What genre will I write for? These are all the things I have thought about and drove my ideas. Will I tell ya whats it about? As they say in LA "It's an Idea I've had in my head for a while..." Stay Tuned!

Like a Virgin

   "Like a Virgin" yeah and that's how I'll stay, of course I'm speaking metaphorically here (that train has long passed...) I was born a Virgo, I'll die a Virgo! C'mon WTF!!! or as I always say [Hillybilly accent please...] "What kinda Hippy Dippy Bullshit is this!" You know its funny when something like this happens everybody jumps on the bus, me included! I never gave much credence to the Zodiac, when I was younger, Yeah. I used it as a tool to hook up with a girl " We're a match made in the stars!" Other than that I never believed it it all the way, I mean how could a bunch of empty planets, rocks and gasses determine my personality traits!
  I have to admit though I do hold true to alot of Virgo traits though, I am a good teacher and pretty organized at somethings and very critical of people, if that's a good thing? Other than that I'm pretty much a mix-mash of what I ate last nite and how the traffic was this morning. I've never understood how your sign could rule your day or life, we all have that friend who won't do a certain thing that day cause their horoscope told them not to, "Fine, I'll have Chinese food by myself then Mr Aquarius with a bad moon rising"
   Why now,  why was it sooooo convenient to all of a sudden say "Hey, ya know your Astological sign , well we F'ed up, our bad!!!" Did sales drop in those little zodiac scrolls you buy at Circle K or did the new agers and hippies all decide "Hmmmm we better say something already! Planet axis tilt!!! Tilt-schmilt!!! I have the solution I say half the worlds population run to the opposite side of the planet and jump up and down all in unison that'll knock us back into alignment and we'll be back to our original signs, I'll meet you in China, RUN!!!
Bueno-Bye

The Social Networx

I have lost my love for Facebook... Yes she's now a $4.00 whore, what happened??? I was Mr Facebook I was updating my profile 2-3 times a day commenting and liking my peeps posts and pages and then just like that I didn't love her anymore. "It's not you it's me" I said to her, she beckoned me to come back but alias I would just cruise by or drop by for a ...ehhh nevermind...
   I did the same to My Space, Although I never liked MS from the beginning, it seemed to cheap or High School or something and weird people and kids were on there making all their snide comments and flirtations.I still have my page up I don't know why I haven't deleted it it's  just floating there in "Space" that's not mine anymore.
  OK I admit I still use my facebook page almost daily but I'm not a "Soch" anymore. There are some people on there that are genuinely funny with their daily post and life comments that I have to read them, and I don't wanna isolate myself anymore than I already am from society and the few friends I have so I stay connected and active. I guess as I'm gettin older I long for the old way of socialization as in actually talking to someone face to face but with everyone so far away and busy, busy, busy who has the time. Maybe I should use a webcam and go on one of those roulette chat sites, I'd probably be told "Get off dirty ol' man!!" yeah of course I'd be shirtless...
  So if you see me on facebook I'm there for a reason and not cruising for comments or "Likes" and yes I still "Like" you all very much just not in a Facebook kinda way... Bueno-Bye

Re-Boot or Lets try this again...

So where do I start... Here's a good as place as any. I started this blog when i was home unemployed and would post stuff that was happening in my life which wasn't much since I was unemployed. I didn't wanna blog about Don Knotts acting skills or "Why can't i get a job?" endlessly. Then the candy holidays approached (Halloween, etc...) and I got lazy or depressed or something and I forgot about Mr Blog! We lo and behold come February 2010 i found a job!!! Hooray!! It was with the Government and in a field I haven't touched since college so I got busy and busy and busy... Oh yeah and to top it off it was in Las Cruces 34 mi. away from my place! So lets fast forward to now and my life since then whhooooooooooooooosssshhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Lets see...hmmm I now wake the chickens up, my car is falling apart, my son hates school, my ol' lady's obsessed with her ballet folklorico group, I work with super smart people which make me feel like a idiot, debt from my unemployment has consumed me, and I was arrested for the first time! I'll touch on some or all of these in the months to come and not all of it was bad I was just being a whiner, (some cheese to go with that whine please waiter...) I finally got a new SLR camera!!! I lost my love for facebook, I'm finally getting gray hair ( yes that's good ladies... for me at least)!
I'm hoping to write at least 2-3 times a week here but it'll probably be twice. I have plenty to write about cause I'm always in the right place at the right time or the opposite more so! I'm the guy that the mentally ill approach or the cops pull over cause i match the description, and then I'm also the guy that finds a wad of cash in the parking lot with no ID on it or wins the drawing for a lifetime worth of Wonka Bars!
I'll also be posting a lot of my pix on here too for your enjoyment and feedback, please, please with artificial sweetener on top leave comments on my Pix or for that matter my posts! I wanna know someones looking at my meager talent! So pardon my grammar and run on sentences loaded with commas and ellipse's, its how I write...
Dennis