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