Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
While in Dallas this weekend, I got to catch the Cowboys-Redskins game. I know that this is the last year for the Cowgirls Cowboys at Texas Stadium. All I can say is, it’s about time. That place is a dump. Compared to Reliant stadium in Houston, Texas Stadium is ridiculously outdated. So maybe a future Dallas home game will be more impressive.
I know that Jerry Jones and the media love to tout the Cowboys as America’s team. While most of America would dispute that, I do know of one country that is all theirs. That would be our neighbor in the south, Mexico. I saw a ton of Spanish signs like “Viva los Cowboys”, and “Cowboys Numero Uno!”. Now just because a hispanic person is wearing a Cowboys jersey doesn’t mean they are Mexican, but I’m going to base this theory on geography. I wish I had taken a pic of the guy wearing a Cowboys jersey that said, “Vaqueros”.
Anyway, it’s no secret that I’m no Cowboys fan. I just can’t force myself to root for a team with such great role models like Terrell Owens, Pac-Man Jones, Tank Johnson, etc. So when the group I was with (all Cowboys fans) decided to put a pot together for guessing the final score, I was the only one that picked the Redskins. So not only did I enjoy seeing the Cowboys lose, I got $50 out of it. You know what I call that? A good weekend. 
By the way, my final score prediction was Redskins 27, Cowboys 24. I was off by one point.
-Dave Q.
So I’ve played another support role in the evacuation of another hurricane. This time, Ike was the culprit. I’ve been doing a lot of driving the last couple of days going between shelters for the purpose of tracking the evacuees with the RFID wristbands. One of those places was in New Braunfels, a town about 20 miles north of San Antonio. It was there where a one good story came out from all the negative ones.
I spent time in that shelter. And I remember when I got there I was somewhat shocked (and confused) about all the Asian people there. As it turns out, this shelter was housing people that evacuated from Port Lavaca, which has a big Asian presence. And therefore we didn’t evacuate Taiwan by mistake, which is what I initially thought.
Anyway, I thought that would be a cool story to share. And I’m hoping the aftermath of Ike to the Texas coast is one that doesn’t prove to be as bad as the government expected. After seeing how it is for people to stay in the shelters, you can’t help but feel for them. A FEMA cot is no substitute for your own bed. The things we take for granted…
Here are some various pics from the Hurricane Ike event. And also a video of Horbi inhaling some bus exhaust.
Horbi taking bus fumes to the face easily makes this video my favorite part of this post.
-Dave Q.
Seven years ago today was the infamous September 11th attacks. Where 19 cowardly savages killed nearly three thousand Americans and people from other nationalities, all in the name of hate. I take comfort in knowing right now they are burning in hell with the likes of Adolph Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer, but it still makes me cringe to think about that day and all the chaos that ensued. Life has never been the same. Our country was changed forever.
To this day I still remember, as I’m sure all of you do, where I was that sad day. But I more so remember what happened that night. And this is something I have never shared with anyone, period. I don’t remember exactly where I was driving to, but I remember going somewhere and listening intently to the news in my Jeep. And of course all they were talking about was the carnage, the destruction, and who had a hand in it, etc. And so the news station was taking calls from eyewitnesses, when a young girl called in. If I had to guess, she was fourteen or fifteen. And listening to the way she spoke about what she had seen and all the chaos that was going on, I started crying. And let me be clear about something. I never cry. And when I say cry, I mean I was balling like a little girl. I couldn’t stop. I had the lump in my throat and everything. And for those that don’t know me, I take pride in not wearing my emotions on my sleeve. But that day was too much for me. Easily one of the crappiest days of my life.
Anyway, I thought I would share that. Maybe it will be therapeutic to do so. How about you guys? Where were you when all that went down? And did it strike an emotional chord that you didn’t know existed like it did me?
It amazes me how united this country was seven short years ago and how divided we are today. How in the hell did we get here?? Anyway, enough of all this sappy talk. On to more pressing things. I wonder what I’m going to eat for lunch today? Hmmmm…
But on one last serious note. Let’s be nicer to each other. I’ll try harder if you will…
-Dave Q.
This was a crazy weekend for me. It started off with a project at work that should have started at 9pm and lasted 15 minutes. Well, the 15 minutes part was accurate, but due to another scheduled upgrade, I didn’t get done until midnight. That sucked. But that was just the beginning.
On Saturday I went to assist with the arrival of evacuees from Hurrican Gustav to San Antonio. I work every now and then with a company out of Ausitn that does RFID tracking. To explain that, the people being evacuated are tagged with a wristband that contains a very small radio antenna. This allows the government to track the departure and arrivals of the evacuees. Think of it like tracking a UPS package, except that in this case UPS is the State of Texas, and the package is the evacuee. Got it? The info on the tag is useful since it contains important info like the person’s name and various medical info. Here are a couple of pics of some the people arriving at the hangar of the Air Force base we staged the operation from.
I worked 29 hours straight monitoring our system and scanning tags of evacuees. My buddy Horbi helped us out. I worked from 7am Saturday morning until 11am Sunday morning when Horbi came to relieve me after he returned from getting some sleep. I was glad he was around. Leave it to Horbi to keep things light.
Well, after he relieved me and I went home, that is when things really started sucking. When I got home, I started vomiting. And didn’t stop. From noon to 9 pm, I vomited about 7 times. I wish I were exaggerating.
So Labor Day I spent recovering. And my friend Cynthia (the owner of the Austin company) spent the day hangin’ with President Bush at the Texas OEM office. Nice. I wonder if he asked her to say hi to me for him. Anyway, I feel much better now. But I have to say, I feel like I gave back to the community with the work we did this weekend. Makes you feel good. Anyway, with all the other hurricanes developing in the Atlantic, they told me to be ready for more.
-Dave Q.
- Flight to Hawaii… $0 (long story)
- Jeep rental… $150
- Digital camera… $300
- Making the most of your time with your niece and nephew while waiting for your sister as she runs an errand at the store… PRICELESS.
-Dave Q.
Today is my nephew’s birthday. I can’t believe this kid is now 10 years old. Double digits already? Damn. Time really flies after you hit 30. Anyway, here he is terrorizing some poor crab he caught in his net at Kailua beach in Hawaii. I know you can barely tell, but there is a crab in there.
Happy birthday, Matthew. Enjoy the Nintendo Wii! Even if it means you want to play it all hours of the night and drive your mom crazy. She will love that.
-Dave Q.
God bless my parents. They have been going over to my house during the week while I am at work and going crazy with all the bathroom remodeling. If they weren’t involved in this, I would probably be paying a contractor thousands of dollars that I’d rather spend on something else. Needless to say, I am going to take them to a very nice dinner when we are done. A nice steak for my Dad, and since my Mom doesn’t eat meat, a nice, thick, juicy salad for her. Anyway, things are coming along pretty good. The master bathroom is 95% done now. The second bathroom is, I would say, about 65% done now. Hopefully they can both be done in about a week. That will be a huge accomplishment, since the bathrooms are definitely the most difficult part of this project. It would be nice to get that part out of the way.
So I’ve noticed Max and Murphy aren’t happy. Anyone that has been to my house knows that I have a decent size deck in my backyard. Usually the dogs hang out on the deck, lounging around during the day and barking at the moon at night. But since we started this home remodeling project, we set up the wet saw on the deck and have other various tools are scattered about there. Well, Max and Murph haven’t cared too much for that. They’ve abandoned hanging out on the deck and now hang out next to the tool shed. Whenever I look over there, I see them both giving me the glare. Believe it or not, I can feel the glare. Kind of creepy. Hang on, boys. We’re going through the home stretch! You can reclaim the deck soon.
-Dave Q.
So I have been kicking this around in my head. Check it out…
Roughly about a week ago I checked an email account that I haven’t used in a while. In it there were several “friend requests” from some friends of mine for one of those social networks. They had accumulated in there since I really don’t log into any of those sites much. So I logged in to approve those friends, who know doubt by now thought I was dissing them (one had been in there close to 2 months).
After I went in there and got that done, I started clicking around. And clicked around some more. And then a couple more clicks on various things. At that point I came across the profile of someone from my past. We’re talking, like, a decade ago. Six degrees of seperation. Seriously. Anyway, I briefly looked and saw what she had been up to, and gathered that she is married now with children and seems to be doing very well for herself. Great to see. And then I clicked on some other stuff, got distracted by something and that was it. Kind of forgot about it.
So today I started thinking about emailing her a harmless hello. And was about to do just that when I started having second thoughts. I mean, we didn’t hate each other when things ended, did we? Or at least I didn’t hate her. Hmmm… I honestly couldn’t tell you if things ended badly or not. I think we were cool, and just went our separate ways. But I’ve been wrong before. God knows I’ve been wrong before.
So in that regard, I definitely wouldn’t want to stir up any bad memories. And although there may have been some good memories, there were definitely some bad ones. But a harmless hello? Would it really be that bad? I really have nothing to gain by saying hello. I’d like to just to catch up. And she is a married woman and I would not want to disrespect anyone. But she is also an adult and I’m sure her husband wouldn’t care about a piddly email. I don’t know.
I’m definitely leaning towards not emailing her now. I haven’t really thought twice about it until another dork friend of mine wanted to get into my friend list today on that same website. Don’t worry, Albert. I’ll put you in there. So I’m thinking I will just leave it alone. Life has been just fine without communication with her. What do you think?
-Dave Q.
