Out with old …In with the new

I learned an important lesson from last year, so I'm not going to make any predictions for the upcoming year.  I am going to set some goals such as learning how to edit videos and preserving our old memories, so that our family can enjoy them. One of my children inspired me by telling me that the traditional family album is being replaced by digital albums where they can be downloaded or kept on smart phones.  Remember the proud dad who would pull out his wallet and show you multiple pictures of the new baby.  It,is still being done today, but today they'll just pull out their cell phone.

It was nice not have to wake up to a hangover. My wife and I went to La Tejanita last night where we had a wonderful meal, along with a couple of margaritas for my wife and two Modelos for me.  I watched a couple of old westerns that I had recorded and my wife went upstairs to watch her shows. At 12:00 we wished each other  Happy New Year, as we have for the last 45 years and said  we're glad that we're not like our two cats who slept through the whole thing.

I'm going to miss not watching the Houston Astros unless a deal is made with Dish and Comcast.  I know the Astros are going to have another 100 loss season but there're still my team.  I'm starting to get used not watching my favorite team on Sunday because I had to miss a couple of Dallas Cowboy games because it seems like our area will show Houston Texan games when they are playing on the same network.  I'm also losing out on watching an exciting young Houston Rocket team because our area is now in the San Antonio market.  They do have the sport packages but there are restrictions about watching teams in your home area; so what good is that? Maybe I’ll become a fan of the Generals.

Well, I still have four books to read so I make room for more on my iPad and it looks like I’ll have the time for it since my Cowboys have been eliminated from the playoffs again, so the only thing I'm looking forward to, is finally getting to watch Johnny Heisman of Texas A&M play Friday.  I'm not an Aggie fan, but I want to see if he's the real deal.  I imagine he is because beating Alabama was not a fluke.  It kind of reminds me when I used to watch Navy and SMU play, so I could see the quarterback play of Roger Staubach and Don Meredith.

Have a Happy New Year.

Off to a bad start

I know that the events of the first week of January do not necessarily indicate what type of year I will have. At least, I hope it doesn't. This is only day 2 but I'm not off to a good start mentally.

Last nights, Dallas Cowboys loss was upsetting because I really thought they would put in a better effort. The tackling was atrocious as was the blocking, even if they pulled out a victory after a 21-0 setback, it would have just delayed the inevitable because you don't have the fundamental down by week 16; don't expect them to come back in the first playoff game.

I bought my wife a computer tablet for Christmas and after setting it up for her, and I've told it was better for her to learn on her own. That's my way of instructing people; make your own mistakes and learn from them. Things were going pretty good until she told me that her tablet would not charge. I said," you're probably doing something wrong'" but he just left it there on the coffee table, and I took the hint. As I tried to trace the problems, I said to myself that it can only be three things:1. The outlet was bad 2. My wife didn't insert the cable into the tablet or outlet correctly 3. She was too impatient and didn't give the battery enough time to charge. I went with the latter but when I checked it 30 minutes later, the battery icon was a bright red. I connected the tablet to the USB Port of her laptop and the tablet started charging. That left me off the hook, for while so I got to watch the rest of the game but this morning problem 2 came up. I bought the tablet at our local Sam's Club. My wife had already typed in all the information and downloaded the apps she wanted, so all I was interested in was a replacement charger. I called the 800 number, and Rodney answered( with an Indian accent) telling me that Sam's had not reported our tablet as being sold, so I had to scan the receipt to him, he thanked me (I think) and said that a charger would be mailed to me, so I hung up. I got a little suspicious because I never gave him my mailing address, but I did have a case number. I immediately called back but this time Anita answered in an American voice telling me that Rodney should have told me that tablets or replacement parts wouldn't be  in until the end of January , but if I didn't want to wait, she would send me a $65.00 store credit. Huh? I decided to call the local Sam's Club to see if I could replace the tablet, but they informed me that they have completely sold out of that tablet and weren't sure if they were going to reorder. It's not an earth-shaking problem because she can still charge off her laptop but if another problem pops up, I know that it won't be until the end of the month before the problem is resolved. I have a sneaky suspicion that the “end of the month" is not a date certain but more of a stalling tactic.

I submitted my first blog of the New Year to the VA this is morning but as of late I haven't received any comments on any of my most recent blogs. I'm going to try like hell not to respond to the trash talkers and just state my opinion, link some sources and move on. Have you noticed that one trash talker will get the ball –a- rolling and then the rest of the parasites hop on for the ride? I really don't care if a person likes Obama or the Democrats, for that matter, because those are just personal opinions, and it may or may not have anything to do with the issues at hand. I genuinely like the idea of humanizing a poster. I think that's the idea of using real names because then you can take their objective views or rants and not be offended by them. That's just "X" being "X."….User names serve the same purpose as real names to me.

I hope the old timers at the VA  don’t leave in frustration because it will be a lonely year.