Thanksgiving and Black Friday

My second favorite time of year, this one weekend. First there's Thanksgiving. What does this holiday mean to you? Has everyone forgotten that this "holiday" started out with white people befriending the Native Americans and in the end, slaughtered them and stole their land. Doesn't sound like a joyous celebration to me. But no, this holiday is a time for family to come together and to reflect on what you are thankful for. I'm thankful for having a healthy and happy, albeit crazy, family.

Warrior weekend (Austin, TX)

This past weekend we went to Austin, leaving behind all of the boys. Leaving the older two boys didn't feel any different (since they go to my parents on a weekly basis) but leaving baby for the first time was kind of sad and worrisome. But according to my mom, he was really good and there were no troubles. So why the trip to Austin? Besides the good food, our main purpose was to run the Warrior Dash.

Atypical visual weekend update

I'm feeling lazy so this update will involve visuals (pictures and video) of some things that happened this past weekend. But it won't be your typical pictures.

My little paleontologist

In a previous post, I mentioned that Jacob had asked me what's my favorite dinosaur from the Triassic period, at which point I tried to BS my answer and failed miserably. So I followed up and asked him what was his favorite dinosaur from that time period. He responded with, "Coelophysis and Herrerasurus." Geez. He didn't name one but two dinosaurs. And I'm not even sure he's right but there's no way that I'll doubt him.

Ca-Chow!

Today I took the boys, minus baby of course, to our local HEB where they had life-sized cars from Cars 2 (Andrew's favorite movie). Besides the photo-op with the cars, they were giving away lots of goodies for the kids. Good thing the weather was nice (temperature in the upper 60s) or else I would have second thoughts of standing in a long line with other rowdy, undisciplined kids. If one of my boys sat on the ground, cried, and threw a tantrum in the middle of a crowd as I witnessed today, we would have left (as a punishment) so fast that their heads would be spinning. Some of these parents are horrible. Another kid was only wearing his Spider-Man pajamas. Really? If I were president, I would mandate that all parents (and parents-to-be) take a competency test. If you fail, you will be required to take an educational course (paid for out of your own pocket) on parenting or else face fines/jail time/losing your child(ren). Some people should not even be allowed to procreate. I'm not saying that I'm the perfect parent (far from it) but the crap that I see is irritating. But I digress, here are some pictures from today.

Damn you Sony!

Back in 2004 when I moved into my house, I had bought a brand new Sony 55" LCD projection HDTV. A couple years later blue blobs started forming on the screen. WTF. I Googled it and apparently it was a known problem and everyone was having the same problem. So I contacted Sony and eventually I got the faulty optical block fixed free of charge. Done... or so I thought. In 2009 my parents moved into a new house and wanted a new TV so I gave them the Sony TV since I wanted an upgrade. Then recently the Sony TV started forming blue blobs again and even developed a big yellow oval in the middle. They had already replaced the optical block a year prior so this would be the third time it failed. Piece. Of. Shit. So I decided to contact Sony support via their online chat (I didn't feel like holding on the phone and I can leisurely browse the web simultaneously) and it went like this:

Angry for Halloween

We were, as you might have guessed, Angry Birds. Yes they're everywhere right now from plush toys to candy, and it's overkill but what other theme could we have been that has five (or more) different characters and relatively easy to make? Besides, the kids liked them and most importantly, willing to be them so it was an easy choice.