New Year's Eve

Well, time sure does fly. Went down to the valley (unfortunately) for Christmas. Did the obligatory Christmas Eve stuff w/the family and ran out of there as fast as i could. Made it back safely to San Antonio by Christmas evening. Had a four day weekend so that in itself is awesome. Luis and me
Joel and me

Susan, Mary and me
Overall, it was okay.

This past Wednesday we headed over to Sam's Burger Joint http://samsburgerjoint.com/ for the very first time to see Deadman http://deadmanonline.com/ perfom. They are this cool rock/blues/bluegrass type of band from Austin.

This picture is from their performance at the Botanical Gardens http://sabot.org/ last summer. Didn't take any pictures this time, i was too busy enjoying the music. The place was small and seating was limited but we had fun. Left at 11:00pm and they were still going strong, but we had to get up early the next day for work. If it had been a friday or saturday we might have stayed longer...but...maybe we wouldn't have, people were already drunk and acting stupid....so maybe we left at the right time.

Had plenty of plans for tonight, but in the end i think we'll just stay home. and get drunk. and greet the new year w/a hangover. Yeah, that's a better idea.

This is the picture we ended up using for our Christmas card this year. Much better.


Best wishes for everyone for the upcoming year. May it be filled with love, happiness and endless possibilites.

Monday Night

One more full week of work and it's Christmas vacation time. I have next Thursday 23 and Friday 24th off. Yay! This Thursday is the Christmas luncheon at work. It's no big deal, most of the time we don't even eat there, maybe this time we'll make an exception. Last Saturday was the company's christmas party but as usual we didn't go.

On Sunday December 4the we finally were able to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra perform. Every year they come around this time and i never get to go, for one reason or another but this time we were able to go. It was alright, it was too long and some parts were boring as hell, but the good parts were really , really cool.

THIS past weekend we went to the first annual Tamales! At Pearl 2010. It was an all out tamale festival, with all kinds of tamales on sale, cooking demonstrations, competitions, live music and a fireworks display to end the night. It was okay, it started at noon but we didn't show up until 4:30 or so because we had other stuff going on. We sampled some tamales and i had my very first dessert tamales--chocolate chip, raisins and pineapple. They were soo good.

We took the annual Christmas pictures yesterday and this is one of the best ones i could find:

It looks alright, maybe we'll try again in a couple of days.

Have the Bon Jovi tickets ready for the 17th of March and now Juanes is coming to town on the 25th of March. Have those tickets ordered too. Too funny. One week it's Bon Jovi and the next Juanes. How awesome is that?

See how the rest of the week goes.

Saturday after Thanksgiving

Just sitting back, relaxing, watching Iron Man. Mary and family just left a few minutes ago and the house is peaceful once again.

Thanksgiving around here was just another day. I say you should be thankful everyday, not just once a year. but it is what it is.

Stayed away from the stores for Black Friday. To me it's just not worth the hassle especially since i have a low tolerance for idiots out there.

Saw Faster yesterday, Dwayne Johnson's new movie. It was pretty good, better than Skyline for sure. It was a little violent because he was out to kill those responsible for killing his brother but i've seen more violent movies before, so...Eh!

Thanksgiving week

Whew! Been super busy so i haven't blogged in awhile. This is a short week because of Thanksgiving on Thursday and we have Thursday and Friday off. It's a good thing cuz we're running low on work. They're having issues, so....

Mary and company will be in town this week for the youth convention. This is the last year that they'll be under GLAD because they're creating a new section for south texas. Anyways, they'll probably stop by to say hi. We're not cooking this year, so we'll probably just go out for Thanksgiving dinner.

I've done most of my Christmas shopping already. More than half done. Might go to the valley for Christmas, but we'll see, we don't like planning on stuff because you never know, stuff happens.

Hey, I'm super psyched that i go tickets for Bon Jovi but not until March. The wait is going to kill me but at least i have something to look forward to. Just consider it an early anniversary present from Joel since he's not going. Since after the last concert we went to (Nickleback) his ears were still ringing a week after, he swore he'd never go to another one again. It's a good thing cuz this one sent me back $127.50 but it's one of those once in a lifetime things since the last time they were in San Antonio it was back in the eighties. Going with Sylvia, so that's good too.

Went to see Skyline last weekend===OMG i should have asked for my money back and I don't say that too often. IT SUCKED!! Not only was there no story, no plot, but the acting was so bad, you couldn't really get into the movie because it was obvious they were just a bunch of actors saying their lines. I almost walked out,it was that bad. I'm a big sci-fi fan but not even i could fathom seeing this bomb again.

So we rented three movies this weekend: Nine, The Vampire's Assistant and Robin Hood. In that order they were: Bad, So-So, and pretty good. I thought Nine was gonna be better because it's a musical but i guess i was sadly mistaken.

November creeping up

Hello November. Halloween has come and gone and we're officially into the holiday season. Time to do some Christmas shopping. But first, I'd like to share some Halloween pictures.
Made some more cupcakes this weekend. Was planning on making them Friday to take to work, but they pissed me off and thought, screw them, so i made them for us and the neighbors.

Carved my first pumpkin this year. It was an interesting experience. I even toasted the seeds to have as a snack later. It worked out pretty good. Although being the novice that i am, i thought i'd have some pulp to cook later, but it turns out that besides the seeds, they're basically hollow. Go figure. Had fun anyways. We put a candle inside and here it is in the dark. Looks cool, huh?

We wanted to play around with it, so we put it next to the "graves" me made by the front door and thought it looked nice so i snapped a picture.

We had fun last night, even though i ended up not dressing up as a witch like i wanted. I wasn't feeling too good, my back was still bothering me and so was my stomach, so......we did end up giving out candy and we had more trick or treaters than we expected, but not too many. Have some candy left over, which is good.

Didn't go to work today cause i was feeling sick but i feel a little bit better now. Going to do some online christmas shopping later and do some chores and stuff.

Countdown to Halloween

Went shopping today for some Halloween candy for next Sunday. Have my witch's outfit and i am so ready. Just had pizza for dinner and just setting to put up some pictures from thursday night's Rock Horror Show.

It was alright, considering that I've never seen this movie/musical before. It was an interactive event w/them selling prop bags to be used at certain events during the play. I wasn't too familiar with the songs/story but it was a nice night out.

Wednesday night we went to see the season finale of Dr Who. It was pretty good, i was afraid that it was gonna be a cliffhanger but it wasn't. I guess that's British tv for you. Had it been an American show, they would have left you hanging until next season. I do love my Dr Who.

Back to work

Went back to work today after a well deserved four day weekend. Had Friday and Monday off, not because we had a columbus day holiday at work (god forbid)! but because i requested the days off. I needed some rest because my arms have been bothering me lately, i guess it's just muscle fatigue.

This past weekend we went to the opening ceremonies of the Culinary Institute of America-San Antonio. It was packed, man, loads of people. Probably because of the free food samples that were being given out. Got to see Rick Bayless

He was doing some cooking demostrations and then a book signing. I would have bought it just to get it autographed, but i figured it'd be expensive considering that i probably would have no use for it since i'm a vegetarian and most of his recipes contain meat. But i'm still a big fan and i just had to snap a quick picture. People were complaining, though that he had the event organizers shut down the live band because they were being too loud. Oh well, i guess they didn't take that into consideration when they were planning the thing.

Here is a picture of them actually playing. Don't know what the name of the band is but they were playing latin music, salsa and stuff.

Actually put out some Halloween decorations. This is all new to me because in my family Halloween was just not celebrated because it was evil. PPFFTTT!! Life is too short to be so uptight. I just wish i'd have a costume party to go to, i'd love to dress up.

Friday was Marla's last day at work and they got together at Mama Margie's to say good bye. It was my day off but i joined them anyways.

Happy October

Yes! Finally, a change in the weather, it's been soo nice these past couple of weeks, you can actually enjoy the outdoors w/out sweating up a storm.

Took the dogs to the vet this morning for their check up and vaccines. Everything went okay, and best of all, we didn't have to pay a thing since they have a wellness plan. I did have to leave Maggie for observation for the day because she had the Bordetella vaccines, which she's had a reaction to in the past, so they usually keep her, keep an eye on her, and give her some medication to prevent swelling like she had the first time. We'lll go pick her up later when they call us.

Last time i was supposed to post a couple of pictures more, but for some reason it wouldn't let me so here they are:

That's me feeding the ducks, damn things know what to expect so they get ahead of you. Well, at least i didn't have to open the door for them, as you can see, this little guy did me the favor.

Enjoying the great outdoors.

That's us! Smile for the camera.

Tomorrow Cleto's gonna be filming for his new comedy DVD at a local church here and we might go. Free admission! My favorite. Just kidding, this one is at 6pm instead of 10 so it might be fun, he wants to pack the house. It should be fun.

Changing of the season

Well, hey there, guess what, it's officially Fall already. It's been raining plenty and because of that, it is really humid out there. But at least the temperatures are down and it's a little more tolerable.

Last night we finally made it to the Botanical Garden http://www.sabot.org/ for their annual Gardens by Moonlight event. I'd never been there before in the years that we've been here so i really wanted to go and it was pretty good. You got what you paid for. There were 5 stages with different types of music. My favorite was Deadman, kinda had like a southern rock feel to it.
http://deadmanonline.com/



I'm always looking for new music, because, quite frankly, i get bored easily, and this band sounds pretty good. We had a good "seat" so to speak, because we were standing up. We couldn't stay for all the show because since they were playing by the East Lake, the humidity was worse and it was getting packed in there, so it was starting to get hot, but the little bit that we caught was pretty good.


There was also a Jazz band but we didn't stick around here too much, there was so much more to see and hear but the little bit we heard was pretty good. As you can see, they have a lot of brass so it got kinda loud.

And one more picture of the musical acts there, I believe this was Lisa Flores. Not really my cup of joe so we just took a picture and left. Nothing bad about it, just not for me.

Another soggy day

Hey, it rained today, what a surprise. But seriously, it's been raining on and off for a few days now, hopefully it won't rain next weekend because they Gardens by Moonlight is scheduled for Saturday at the Botanical Gardens. http://www.sabot.org/. I've been wanting to go in the past so hopefully this year we'll make it since we're making an effort to explore other things out there. Plus, I AM a San Antonio Events Examiner. ha!

Last Sunday we made it to the Jersey Boys musical. It was pretty good, even though at the beginning I had to strain myself to understand the jersey accent, but i guess after awhile, you get used to it and the rest was pretty good. The beginning was kinda slow, but when they started to perform the songs it was nice, just like seing the Four Season perform back in the day. My favorite parts were when they were shown performing "live" like at American Bandstand and all, they were shown in front of "cameras" and above the stage, they were showing actual footage of the performance and they were moving just like onscreen, so it seemed like they were actually live on air. That was a pretty cool idea. Kudos to whoever thought about that.

Like in previous occasions, since we can't take any kinds of pictures inside the Majestic, the best i can do is a picture of the marquee, so here it is. I would highly recommend seeing this show. Well worth the time and money spent.

Since we usually get there well ahead of time to beat the crowd when it comes to parking, we took a stroll and took some pictures. Usually of me, cause Joel hates to take pictures. Oh well, it's like having my own personal photographer.

We didn't do much this weekend, cause it was raining on and off all weekend so we couldn't do anything really outdoors, but we did do some much needed stuff around the house.

We're supposed to be getting a new employee tomorrow, so wish us luck.

Wednesday was the latest Dr Who Appreciation Nite. We got to watch the next two episodes and next month will be the season finale. Boo! But seriously, my favorite episode was the one where they meet Van Gogh. It was very emotional at the end, they thought they had intervened because he committed suicide in his 30's, he died young but it turned out that after all they did, he still killed himself. He was bipolar. Very depressed young man, but his paintings are the best ever. I bought a poster of Starry Night w/the tardis in the background. That was pretty cool.

We did our good deed of the day Thursday when we headed over to Judy's to help her install her new tv. Man, it was a 19 inch. So, so small, i'm so used to having a big tv. Anyways, she was really thankful, but we made her promised she wouldn't give us money in return. She did give us a box of raising bran. LOL..oh, well.

Another week to get ready for, the last full week of September. Time flies, doesn't it? Pretty soon we'll be getting ready for the holidays. Time to start my Christmas shopping.

Labor Day!

Well, at leat it meant a day off from work because we really don't celebrate holidays around here. It's just a fact of life: just another day. No barbeques, pool parties or the like. The end of summer, you say, well, we did go to the beach one time. For about 15 minutes. Like i said, just another day. always working. that sucks.

At least it cooled off a little bit because there's a storm in the gulf that might bring us some rain for the next couple of days. Gees, rain + San Antonio = massive floods. Here we go again. Aside from that, it's a cool city to live in.

I've already published 5 articles for http://www.examiner.com. It's only part time and it doesn't really pay off moneywise, but it's a cool thing to do. To see my name in a national online publication is awesome. I'm one of the San Antonio Events Examiner, what that means is that I blog about events going on around the city, which is cool.

Am super excited because this week is the premiere of Jersey Boys at the Majestic. I have the tickets for Sunday's performance. It should be good, it won the Tony for best Musical and it's the first time in San Antonio, too.

Last night was the first roller derby here in town. wanted to go, but we kinda got sidetracked. maybe next time, next will be in two weeks. The 25th is this years Gardens by Moonlight at the Botanical Gardens. It sounds promising and we haven't gone in past years but i really want to go this time.

gosh, there's so much stuff going on this month, so much to cover. but i like it.

back to work tomorrow. Ugh! but the holidays are almost upon us, time to start the old christmas shopping. Yay! This year Christmas Eve falls on a Friday so we might go down to the valley to visit. Can't make any plans yet, so it might just be one of those spur of the moment things we do.

Can't wait for the weekend

Well, August is almost over so there's hope that the weather will cool off a little bit. It's been super hot, like 103 degrees hot. not counting the heat index. That's Texas weather for you.

Sunday we headed over to the McNay Art Museum http://mcnayart.org/ for the last of the summer Latin Jazz & Lunch Series.

This time it was Richard Oppenheim's A&R Band. Music was prettty cool and the lunch was good too, a little overpriced, but it was for a worthy cause. It was nice because it was indoor and we got to escape the heat for an afternoon.

We left before the music was over so we could head into the museum itself and check out the exhibits. Even though the art was nice, it was kinda intimidating to walk around because they have a security guard in every single room, watching your every move.

Wednesday was the monthly Dr Who Appreciation Night at the drafthouse. I have to admit that these episodes were more interesting than the last ones, at least i didn't fall asleep this time. Probably because they had a bake sale and we got a piece of banana nut bread for each and some coffee to go with it. I got a mocha. it was awesome.

Another scorching day in paradise

Boy, i guess summer is in full swing here in Texas. It is sooo hot outside, it's a drag to even spend a few minutes out in the sun. That's why the grocery shopping was done this morning right after breakfast. Finished all that and was home in time for lunch. Yay!

Last night we finally managed to make it to the Woodlawn Theatre http://woodlawntheatre.com for the showing of Hairspray. This was the opening weeekend since it's showing until Sept 13. It was pretty good, considering that it's a smaller venue than we're used to and it's a local production. I guess you can call it a more intimate setting. The show itself was pretty good, the songs just as enjoyable as the movie. It was even nicer because at the end the cast was outside in the lobby interacting w/the public. That was pretty cool. Got some cool pictures out of it.

All in all, we had fun last night, a nice night out. Already received the Jersey Boys tickets for next month. Plus, i also want to go see a couple of shows over at the San Pedro Playhouse, that's somewhere i haven't been to before. Who knows? Oh, and this week is the next Dr Who Appreciation night at the Alamo Drafthouse. Can't wait for that one.

Finally

Happy Monday to everyone. I know that can be an oxymoron, but at least i don't have to be at work today, i took a four day weekend to go to my high school reunion but backed out at the last minute. Probably because the people that were going were the same people that wouldn't talk to me back then, so why bother. I was gonna go instead to the Pace reunion....but...oh, well, why get into that.

A couple of weekends ago the family was in town. It was mom's bday that weekend and they were here to pick up Alyssa from her Impact Now graduation. They packed in loads of stuff to do in a weekend.


This is me w/Alyssa and Mary.

Love this picture of me w/Marcos. He's gotten so big, i remember when i used to babysit the little bugger.

Family picture. Not all the family, of course.


I went with them to the Natural Bridge Caverns http://naturalbridgecaverns.com/. It was fun, never been there before, i guess i was afraid i'd get clausterphobic, but it was pretty cool. Got a good workout out of it, cause there was 100% humidity in there, but i t was fun.


On Friday, we headed to the beach in Corpus Christi w/the dogs. It was so hot that day, so we didn't stay long.

FYI: next time we do this, they're staying w/the sitters, or we'll go in the fall, when it's not too hot.

Finally decided to go for it and bought the tickets online to Jersey Boys next month at the Majestic. I had second thoughts about it, but so i figured, what the hell, there's nothing good until the spring when West Side Story comes to town. This Friday is the premiere of the community performance of Hairspray ath the Woodlawn theatre. http://woodlawntheatre.com/
We'll see how that one goes.

Personal day off

Here it is Thursday and the week is almost over. Best of all, i took the day off today to go to the ENT. Just needed my ears professionally cleaned. Ha ha, that sounds like when you go to the dentist for a professional cleaning.

Getting ready for the family to visit this weekend. Alyssa's graduating from the internship she took this summer at LABI. Mary and family will be here and so will mom and dad. since friday is her birthday, we'll be celebrating that too. saved me a trip to the valley.

Last Friday we headed over to Italia's house for dinner. It was a good night, with good friends and good food. She gave me a present, my own bottle of wine, w/a personalized label. That was pretty nice of her.

Last night was the monthly Dr Who appreciation night at the Alamo Drafthouse. They could only get one theatre for the night, instead of the usual two so we were packed in there, totally "sold out" and i say that because it is a free event. they even had to turn people away, which totally sucks, but they should have been there earlier. we got there at 6:30 even though it starts at 7:30 and got a good spot.

Here's me with my Dr who shirt. Brought to you by: Fans of Dr Who Unite. Whoo Hoo!! http://doctorwhofansunite.com. My favorite doctor so far has been David Tennant. I am such a geek, aren't I? Love it!

A recent picture of me w/the girls. Aren't they just the cutest? Of course they are. Tonght is the last Concert under the stars at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. http://sabot.org. The last one was cancelled because of the rain. Even though it's kinda cloudy out there and a few sprinkles here and there, it hasn't really rained, so i hope we get to go. It's nice to get out and listen to some cool jams "under the stars".

Will probably take loads of pictures this weekend, so i'll be posting them pretty soon.

Friday

Yay! Finally Friday, where have you been, i missed you so much.....anyways...LOL...even though this was a short week, we didn't work on Monday, it was a long week because works sucks. Enough said. I'll try not to think about it too much right now so that I'll be able to enjoy the weekend.

We spent the fourth of july relaxing at home. Went to the Witte Museum and checked out the dinosaur exhibit. It was pretty good, really enjoyed ourselves.

The rest of the week was uneventful because the weather turned rainy again. There was another tropical storm that hit Brownsville yesterday. Luckily it wasn't too bad but we, of course, got rain here again. because of that, the concert under the stars at the botanical gardens was cancelled. that totally sucked because i was looking forward to some music under the stars. oh, well, the next one is in two weeks.

New pictures

Was checking the "crops" i planted a few weeks ago and i finally saw some progress.

These are my cucumber plants. There are several growing already, but this is the biggest one of the bunch. Ya see it?

These are the yellow sweet banana peppers. That's more like it...

And the bell peppers, i think they're supposed to be yellow...or red....once they mature.

And this is the cactus plant we had to grow because the original that was on the ground died....aw...during this very, very cold winter we had. we had to get rid of the dried up stump that was left. as with the lemon trees that we had that were also ruined by the cold weather, we had to start from scratch. but that's okay. won't have any key limes for my key lime pies this year......

Just finished reading another book "Capital Crimes" by Jonathan & Faye Kellerman, huband and wife writers. http://jonathankellerman.com/ they collaborated on this collection, it's two books in one. actually, two different stories in one. whatever...anyways, it took me a little longer than usual to finish it, but i finally got it done.

Went to see "The Last Airbender" hesitanlty, but i went, because i had heard atrocious commentaries/reviews about it but it turned out not to be too bad, for a kids movie. yeah, the acting was so-so, the dialogue a bit childish, but, like i said, it's based on a cartoon, so you can't really expect too much. the original concept of the elements, and caring for the earth, and buddism were there. have to admit, i'm not too familiar w/the original cartoon, but i guess that's a good thing.

Long weekend

We finally get another holiday off from work. sunday is the 4th of July but we get Monday off. Plus, i called in today,so....i get a 4 day weeekend. Who Hoo!!

The news headline of the week was hurricane Alex that was bound for south texas/northern Mexico. It made landfall about 100 miles south of brownsville and thankfully didn't cause much damage there. We did get some residual wind and rain here, yesterday it was all wet and overcast and today too, but at least i see the sun starting to peek out. and it's only the start of the hurricane season. but at least we haven't gotten really hot temps like last year, the hotttest it's been so far is 95, compared to last year, when we were on our 2nd week of 100 plus temperatures, this is heaven.

On June 24th we went to the Botanical Gardnes again for the 2nd concert under the stars event. http://sabot.org/. Their featured artist was The Sisters Morales http://sistersmorales.com/.

It wasn't too bad, the day was pleasant, not too hot and the music was soothing. they play mostly mexican urban folk music. they sang one or two songs that i remember from my childhood. that was kinda weird, but it was a good evening.

That's us enjoy the nice weather for a change.

Last Saturday i went to my first professional, although Minor League, baseball game ever. Normally, i wouldn't even think about it, but they gave Joel 4 tickets to the Missions game in town. I jumped at the chance, since one of my new year's resolutions was to try new things. I couldn't find anyone else who was interested, so it was just the two of us. Which, it turned out, was the best thing to do because the seats were so close together. We ended up taking the two seats in the middle, w/one empty seat at each side. that was the best thing about it, we weren't

crowded in or anything.

Even though they ended up losing, it was nice to be outdoors for the evening, since i work 8 hours stuck in a cubicle. They even had a fireworks show afterwards.