Holy Hell!! Google is down!

I got a 502 error on every request!


I'd be happy to tell you what a 502 error means... but I can't look it up because GOOGLE IS DOWN! I guess I'm going to have to spend time with my damn wiener kids instead of looking up how to fix a slowly draining toilet. Without Google... the only thing I can think of is sending ferrets with diving equipment down the toilet to clean the drain... now I just have to Google where the closest ferret depot is and .... AW DAMMIT!

The Triangle of Power

I was going through some pictures and found this one...


I think I've talked about this before, but it's just too good to let go. This is the Triangle of Power. When we first moved into our house, it was right before Christmas of 2006. Some of Joy's reletives went out of their way to get us some house warming gifts. It was really nice of them and some of the gifts were really awesome. Then we got this one. It was in a cardboard box wrapped in newspaper. I still have it. I've decided that this will be passed down from generation to generation, in that same manner. On some random date, I'll just give Hayden the triangle, wrapped in newspaper. He can then pass it on to his son and so on. Thus begins the tradition of the Triangle of Power!

Little Wheel

Shut up! Stop whatever you are doing! Wait... what are you doing? Shut up! It's not important! Play this instead!

Little Wheel

It is full of awesome and robots win the internet every day!

And then facebook went to poo...

Yeah, the Internets ate our facebook. One second it was like 'you have 300 friends of which you really only know 15 of.' then the next second it was password or gtfo. I sent an e-mail to the facebook help desk.


Oh wait... I think they outsource. Ok, so I sent an e-mail to the facebook help desk...



I told them that I couldn't find my account and gave them my e-mail address. They told me that they couldn't help me because they couldn't find an account with my e-mail address. True story. I tried to explain it again, this time I used my hands to express what was going on... while I wrote the e-mail. Anyway, the put their top men on it, so hopefully I'll get an e-mail soon that tells me that I have to start over. Who wants to bet that it'll tell me that there is already an account with my old user name on it!

The goings ons of the family

Is goings ons a word... or two words? Ah, screw it. So, we've been busy as usual around here. I'm about to close another chapter on the great race to higher education... and I have the mental scars to prove it.

We did get to go out and see some fireworks after all. In the past we've used our Sea World passes to get in and see their show. It was ok, but retarded crowded. Then we used our Fiesta Texas passes to see that show. It's lame because they shoot off of a cliff that you're at the bottom of. We realized right away that if we parked on the road near the cliff (like everyone else does) we'd actually get a better view. Here's a shot of where we were, for once it wasn't too hot and we had fun.



Of course, everyone got stupid as we tried to leave. I actually had a conversation with another New Yorker about San Antonio last week. We agreed that the difference between New York and San Antonio is that you can run down the streets of New York on fire and the people there have the common decency to leave you alone! Here in San Antonio, they'd stop you to ask questions. Everyone says that people are nice here... and they are, they're just to inbred stupid to know that the things they are doing are bothering everyone else.

See that truck that was right in front of us. The guy pulls up, opens all his doors, starts blaring Rage Against the Machine and then sits in the back with his two small children. I asked him to turn it down and he did... but he gave me this look like he was shocked that I didn't want to listen to Rage with my two year old while watching fireworks. See... nice but stupid.

We also ran out the Olive Garden, which is the only restaurant to date that we've had consistent good service at. I'm not saying that it is the pinnacle of our dining choices or anything, it just has good service. When Joy and I first got together I foolishly thought that I was getting bad service because I was picking run-of-the-mill places to eat, so I'd up the ante every so often. Pretty soon I was taking Joy to some pretty high end places and still getting horrible service. That's just the way it is around here, the people are too dumb to think that you might need more than one drink during a meal. At least back home you know that they want to ignore you but they want a good tip, so they'll give you contemptuously good service. I'll take that over the butt-picking slobs we get here any day. Well, like I said, Olive Garden is all good, I can eat there without damming all human life before our entrees show up. In the effort to make this a more light hearted post... here's Seri enjoying a lime.


Ok, one more thing. I had to call my company's customer support for my time site this week. This is a $32 billion dollar company that is consistently on the Fortune 500 top 100 companies. The tech lady I talked to was resetting my account and I guess it took awhile for her system to refresh or something... but she starts talking to me about immigrants ruining our country. Now, I know I have a more Anglo name than some but... we went to password reset to damn Mexicans in about 10 seconds! It just shocked me that she'd throw out something like that to a complete stranger. The only reply I could give was to agree that all immigrants should be kicked out on their asses. She was on my side till I mentioned that only American Indians would be left. She started to disagree and then I remembered that that I live in Texas... that wasn't part of the US till 1836... so I guess we could give it back to Mexico, or Spain... or France even! I'd be all for that... it's too damn hot here anyway. I guess we parted ways agreeing to disagree, besides she had to go cut eye holes in her white sheet.

Weird huh? Personally I think that if you can say that one race, gender or creed can upset you more than any other... then you're not trying hard enough. I can't stand people... it's pretty simple. I mean, when you go out and point at some race for being evil, or whatever... don't you feel all the fingers pointing back? Oh well, gotta love progress. BTW, the tech center is based out of Austin!

The new phone

So, I got the new LG env Touch from Verizon. It's a funny story really.



After we got back to Canada, my phone wouldn't hold a charge. I went down the the Verizon store and they told me that it was still under warranty with the insurance company (from when Seri took a bath with my first phone) and I had to call them. The girl said that if it was just the battery I might have to buy a new one. I called the insurance place and they told me that I needed a proof of purchase, which they e-mailed to me, and to return to the store for a new phone. They also said that they had to test it and if it was just the battery that I'd have to buy a new one.

At the store the girl said 'Well, if it was something more than just the battery, like it was locking up or something, we could get you an new phone.' I said that it was funny she mentioned it because the phone totally does lock up and whatever else I need to say to get a new phone. She completely believed me... because it was true. She asked if they had already tested it and I said 'I was in here yesterday'. That one was actually a true statement!

Well, they didn't have my phone. So she was so sorry to inconvenience me but would I please except this brand new model that just came out instead. After much deliberation, I relented.

The new phone does tons of stuff and it way cool. The music player is very much improved, which is good since I'm going to use it to power my car stereo (as soon as I install it). So, there you go... it just shows that if you are more or less honest... sometimes... you get a phone for it!

The trip to Canada!

We just got back from our big trip to Canada! It was a real blast. If you've been keeping score at home, you know that any chance I get to not be in San Antonio is a win for me. So, to not be in Texas, get to see my family and be back in and around New York is always an awesome time!

We started out our trip with a stay at my mom and dad's house. This meant it was time for some grand kids and grandma bonding. Seri started out by helping make waffles. Mom made us homemade banana waffles with banana foster on them! It was really great!

We then moved right into making sauce for lasagna. Mom was letting Seri taste everything before it went in, which was great till she let Seri add the salt... which she tasted. It was a minor speed bump.


Then it was off to the garden to pick fresh cilantro. Seri opted for the pants-less outfit for this endevor. She let Seri pick the cilantro and then smell it, which ment the Seri 'I should now pick every plant and smell them as well'. So, mom's flowers are a little worse for wear.


When we finally got to the cabin in Canada, Joe quicly set up a huge tarp that took up one side of the cabin. We used this, along with his projector to play life-sized Wii games! It was awesome. Joe also figured out that you can use candles in place of the Wii sensor bar in order to make the controllers work. It was pretty sweet! Hayden still kicked my butt in bowling!


We spent most of the time just playing till we were tired and then hanging out. It was really relaxing. I got to play with Hadyen on grass that didn't hurt your feet. There were no poisonous snakes, fire ants or scorpions to worry about. It was about 85 degrees all the time. It was awesome.



So, we decided we needed to spend a bunch of money. We packed up and drove to Rochester (my favorite town) and checked out the Strong Museum of Play again. It was really fun. Hayden had Josh to play with and the two were inseperatable.


Hayden revised his role as the butcher of Wegmans. I don't think he remembers yelling at kids to buy bacon like the last time he was there.


They had a station set up where you can report the news and be on TV. Hayden gave the 5 o'clock news... which had something to do with Transformers... currently, everything in his life has something to do with Transformers!


My favorite part was this huge section that they had devoted to video games. They had all these old classic games to play. They gave us a ton of tokens and we just went nuts. It was great!


Serenity wasn't left out either. She found this sandbox filled with little plastic beads. She was in heaven! she spent most of her time making 'snow angles', she even got on the local news station that was doing a story about the museum!


We got to see the falls as well. I couldn't get Seri to stop making her monster face in all the pictures. They really liked seeing the falls.


Here's my two girls overlooking the Canadian side. It was kind of packed there since it was Canada Day. FYI, Canada Day is when Canadians celebrate their heritage by going over the border to the US and driving poorly. Interestingly enough, India celebrates Canada Day by coming to the falls, getting wet and smelling bad. Weird huh?


Oh, lets not forget the beach. The kids loved the beach and we all got sunburned for it! It was a great time. We buried Hayden and Seri waged a personal war against every seagull that came near us.


I posted all the pictures from the trip onto Facebook. There's almost 300 of them so enjoy!