O America

Okay, we didn't do all that much for Canada Day. I mean, we didn't even manage to get the flag out until the day after, but you can't expect much for Canada Day in Texas. Sadly, we didn't really do all that much for Independence Day either. I did manage to get the flag out before the day we were celebrating passed us by, at least.

In fact, we've had it up every day leading up to Independence Day as well.

I try to practice proper flag etiquette, including bringing the flag in at night, since we don't have a light on it, and bringing the flag in during inclement weather. That last one is really hard here in Houston, however, because rainstorms come almost daily, and they appear out of nowhere. It can be a beautiful sunny day with a sky full of fluffy happy white clouds and 11:00 and a booming thunderstorm downpour by noon. If I'm not paying attention, the flag gets soaked, and then it's better to just leave it out there so that the wind can dry it off, and minimize the possible damage.

On the day before the Fourth, also known as the third, we had some friends over for a barbecue and pool party. However, we had to pull the flag down, and cancel the pool party part because another storm came rolling in. Seems like we've had rain nearly every day for the last two months. It would be nice if we could share it around a little with the drought stricken areas of the country.

I still had to cook our chicken on the barbecue. Luckily, the rain let up just enough that I could get that done without getting soaked. We ate inside rather than on our patio furniture. We sat around, hung out, and had a good time.

Our dessert was pretty cool. My wife made a fruit pizza...that is a big sugar cookie with a cream cheese topping, and pieces of fruit on top if you've never heard of such a thing. It was a very patriotic presentation.

We even managed to get a little swimming in...the little kids did, anyway. They ran out and jumped in the pool during a lull in the rain, and had a splashing, screaming good time.

At the end of the night, my wife and the older girls, decided that they would watch Calamity Jane, the old Doris Day movie from 1953. My friend, a firebug if there ever was one, decided that the rest of us could spend the evening getting the last of the fireworks we were going to buy for the next day...well, he could do that, I wasn't planning on getting any. We were thinking of going to the city's Fourth of July celebration rather than buy any of our own fireworks.

My son and all of the younger kids wanted to come and pick out fireworks, so we piled our big group into the car, and drove around, checking out the various fireworks booths that seemed to be everywhere. I tried to steer my son clear of insisting on buying any fireworks, but at the last fireworks stand my friend said he would pay for $5 worth of fireworks for each kid. My son latched right on to that idea.

He started picking fireworks, and I helped guide him in his picks and then paid for them myself despite not originally intending to get any. I wasn't going to let my friend pay for my kid, even though I suspect he fully intended to. We wound up with $20 worth of our own fireworks that we would have to set off at some point.

Before they left, our friends made sure we understood that we were invited over to participate in their fireworks show. They always buy tons of fireworks, and we had witnessed last year just how crazy their show could get. I knew that my son would like that the most, but I was a little nervous, because I wasn't sure about whether fireworks were legal in our area or not. It seemed safer to just go to the city celebration rather than risk a fine if the cops came rolling up.

When the actual Fourth arrived, we didn't really do a whole lot. We sat around the house for most of the day and watched a lot of TV. We had a barbecue in the backyard, eating some hamburgers, then sat down to watch a movie.

We still didn't know if we were going to the city fireworks or our friends' fireworks. My wife had heard that morning that the city celebration might get canceled because of rain, but so far there hadn't been any rain all day.

Because of watching Calamity Jane the night before, the girls were all in favor of another Doris Day movie. Doris is not a big commodity these days, I suppose, because we couldn't find her movies streaming anywhere. We wound up picking Top Secret instead, which is one of those hilarious movies by the same guys who brought you Airplane! and Naked Gun. The jokes may be pretty juvenile, but I still enjoyed them, and since they were so juvenile even the nine-year-old got most of the jokes...and the ones he didn't get were the ones he shouldn't get, so that was good.

As the movie was coming to an end, I texted our friends to see if they were doing fireworks. It was getting pretty dark. Everybody seemed fine about just sitting around and doing nothing but watch TV, but I couldn't do that myself. It seemed like a big waste to do nothing on the Fourth of July.

I didn't get a response from our friends, and they didn't pick up when I called either. In the end, we figured we would just go out in the front yard and do our $20 worth of fireworks. The boy was most excited about doing the sparkler that was in the shape of a sword, which I can understand having been a nine-year-old boy once myself.

We went out and lit up the sword, and he waved it around. I handed my wife my phone so I could have my hands free to light the next firework, and she saw that our friends had responded to our text, and told us to come over, because the fireworks had just begun. We all dashed inside to get shoes and chairs to sit on, then drove off. 

You wouldn't believe some of the fireworks you can buy in Texas...at least if you grew up in a place like I did in Sacramento. The fireworks available are the opposite of safe and sane. I had friends who would buy fireworks in Wyoming on their summer vacations and bring them back to California. That was the only way you could get bottle rockets, roman candles, or firecrackers, but the fireworks available for purchase at the local fireworks stand put all of those erstwhile illicit pyrotechnics to shame. Look at this one, for example:

That is two mortars shooting off. That's right, mortars. My grandpa's generation was using them to shell Nazis, now we celebrate Independence Day with them.

Look at this one too. It makes me think of what comes out of military attack helicopters.

Considering the fireworks I could have as a kid, it's hilarious that when that particular firework came to an end, folks complained that it was too short. My friend did not find it to be worth the money he had paid for it. I can understand that, I guess, but that's why I've always preferred to go watch the city's fireworks. A) Less danger of your hand blowing up, and 2) absolutely free (aside from the taxes collected to put the show on, which would be assessed whether I attended or not).

I always complain about how hard it is to get decent fireworks video at work to use for B-Roll in July, so I decided I would get a bunch more video of fireworks. Some of it is of the wimpy fireworks that my son and I bought, and others is of the Unsafe and Insane fireworks that my friend bought. You can check them out if you like below. It'll almost be like being right there with us in the driveway watching along.

Yeah, that last one was mine, obviously.

In the end, we had some fun. I'm really glad I went to my friend's house to watch his show instead of chickening out because of nebulous legalities. We'll see what we do next year. Maybe we'll go to the city's fireworks for real, or maybe we'll be at our friends' house again. Either way, I'm going to be certain to make the decision earlier.

Happy Fourth, everyone. Let freedom ring.

Head

Rish sent me this text, and I felt compelled to share it with all y'all. Enjoy.

O Canada

With a flag pole in the front yard, I can start displaying my flags on special days. My planned collection is to have a flag of every state and country that our family has lived in. 

When I first looked into getting a Canadian flag, the only ones I could find were really expensive, but just the other day, I looked again and found a nice nylon flag for a reasonable price, so I jumped at the chance.

Sadly, it arrived at about 7:00 PM on Canada Day. I had a plan of having the flag out for when my wife drove up to the house on her way home from work, but that didn't work out. The package arrived after she was already home. I had to put out the flag on the 2nd to take these pictures. I guess there's always next year.

Now that I have all my flags, it makes me want to move elsewhere so we can buy a new one...I was thinking somewhere east coast and pleasant like South Carolina or Florida would be nice...South Carollina particularly has a cool flag.

The Ever-Expanding Collection Of Hulkbusters

Rish sent me this text about a month ago.

Get thee behind me, Satan. As if I needed temptation to buy a Hulkbuster. Though I did hold out for nearly a month before I finally broke down and bought it today.

Toys like this stay around forever. There's no rush to buy it before the other collectors do, because the vast majority of collectors think they are too good to buy a toy that was made for a kid.

Sometimes it's nice to have an option that I can buy any time. It's like when girls shove a guy in the friend zone. He's there, and they can give in to him whenever they want and he'll be ready and waiting, but for the time being they can hold out for something better.

There always comes that day when you went from store to store to store, and didn't find anything even remotely interesting. Well, that day was today, so I finally broke down and bought that Hulkbuster.

It's supposed to be a suit that you can put the Iron Man figure inside of, but they didn't make any place for his arms to go. The suit's arms aren't hollow. You can't put them in there. They left a hole open for arms to just stick out the side. I tried putting them back, so you don't see them as much, but that's pretty weird.

If I take Iron Man out, the suit could stand on its own, but it would have an unsightly hole in its side.

Then again, if I just make it facing forward, you probably wouldn't ever notice.

Yeah. I think I'll give the Iron Man figure to my son, and just pose the suit without its occupant.

Rish wants me to paint it all up like this Titan Heroes figure I upgraded.

I suppose I could probably do that at some point. There is a lot of unpainted detail even in this kids' figure that could be enhanced with a good paint job. Then again, the Titan Heroes guy is a kids' figure too, so that shouldn't be a surprise at all.

I've got a lot of other Hulkbusters to upgrade with a new paint job before I ever get to this one, though. I've got way too many Hulkbusters to be honest. And now I've added another one.

Comedy Is Hard

Over on the Rish Outcast, Rish and I got together to present his story, "Dying Is Easy," to his adoring public.

It's one of Rish's stories that I've always liked. It's about a guy who has always considered himself the funny one. Now that the aliens have conquered earth, however, that skill is less useful than it used to be. He's in a pen for captured humans, and every now and then the aliens come and grab a human to entertain them while they feast. And now it looks like our main character's lot has been drawn. How does his comedy routine go? Do human jokes play well with an alien audience? Find out when you listen to the story.

Afterwards, he and I talk for, well, for a while. You can listen by following the link over to the Rish Outcast blog page, or I guess you could just right click HERE and download the episode now if you're one of those types. Speaking of those types, you know the ones, those types can just click the play button below and listen right now.

Father's Day

I was really excited about Fathers Day this year, and it was all for one reason. As Fathers Day approached, My wife asked me what I wanted to do for dinner. I've been on track with my fasting and carnivore way of eating recently, bringing my blood sugar down from astronomical to a normal level...

Before

After

So, I wasn't about to blow it by having some kind of dessert like cheesecake or fudge, as much as my addiction to sweets makes me want to. It's hard to celebrate sometimes when you can't have sweets. That's all my celebrations have been about for all of my life, changing that paradigm is going to take some work.

This Fathers Day was the first step down that road, however. There are things I've long wanted to eat, but never have. For example, this:

That is a tomahawk ribeye steak. It's a massive piece of meat, nearly two pounds, almost two inches thick. If you zoom on the label, you'll see why I've never gotten it before. It was very expensive, but a good way to celebrate on rare occasions.

We bought the steak at Costco on Saturday morning, and the rest of the day and all of Sunday morning I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it wasn't for breakfast, it was for dinner, so I had a while to wait.

My wife made a nice carnivore breakfast for me to eat, though, with bacon, eggs, and ham...and some banana pancakes for those of us in the family who just can't handle going a meal without carbohydrates. It was a great meal, not a two-pound tomahawk ribeye steak, but still pretty good. We'd get there. 

Next they gave me some presents. They started with this card.

No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. It is actually comically large. They probably got it for me because I've gotten so darn fat that a regular card would look miniature and silly in my hands. More reason to double my efforts on that carnivore eating.

Next I got a flag pole and mount.

Jeez that's a terrible picture of me. Do I look like that? I don't even recognize myself. I miss the skinny me from 2019. Another reason to double my efforts staying away from carbs.

I love flags. I got a bunch of flags from the kids for Christmas this year, now I have the pole to be able to fly them outside. I'm going to attach it to one of our trees (a lot of people do that here, because everyone's house is made of brick, so it's very difficult to mount it to the house). In fact, I'll include a picture of how it came out.

Ooh, looks pretty cool, huh? I love it.

Last present was this shirt:

It's a fun shirt, and very carnivore-centric, so I love it. This whole post has been really carnivore-centric...and there is, of course, more to come. We still haven't made it to the tomahawk steak.

We spent the afternoon watching the new Pixar movie on Disney+ together. I used to be one of the world's biggest Pixar fans. I loved everything they put out. Sadly, their golden age has passed, and their movies are much more hit and miss than they used to be.

This new movie, Luca, wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great either. Too bad. I hope Pixar can rise to greatness again someday. What I wouldn't give for a movie that speaks to me as much as Wall-E or Finding Nemo did.

After the movie, it was finally time for dinner. Because my steak was so thick, we decided to cook it with the reverse sear method. You put it in the oven at a low temperature for a while to make sure the middle isn't left raw, then sear the outside so that it has that crust that you're looking for on a steak.

After it had been in the oven for a while, I took it, and the steaks for the rest of the family (they got plain old sirloin), out to the barbecue. I put them on, and came in for a moment while they cooked. When I went back out, I was alarmed to see smoke coming out of the barbecue.

I pulled the lid open, and a huge gout of flames poured out. Nothing was wrong with the barbecue. It was just that the ribeye steak had much more fat in it than the usual steaks we buy, and that fat had melted and dripped down into the barbecue. The fat ignited, and was burning as much as if there were several extra burners in the barbecue. My steak wasn't ruined, but it was more cooked than I wanted it to be.

I grabbed the spatula and quickly flipped it, along with the rest of the steaks, then only a moment later, pulled them off the grill. All was not lost, but this steak wasn't likely to be as perfect as I had dreamed, unfortunately. It still looked pretty good, though.

Looks amazing on that plate, doesn't it? It takes up the whole thing. Crazy.

We all sat down to eat, and I did my darnedest to eat that whole thing.

I didn't succeed, however. I nearly did. I'd say I managed to eat about 2/3 of the steak, maybe 3/4. I'll have to eat the rest as leftovers later this week. It was pretty darn good, but I do think I managed to overcook it out on the barbecue...or possibly in the oven before it even went out to the barbecue. It was my first time with this thick of a steak; I'm definitely not an expert.

All the same, it was a wonderful day. I felt appreciated as a father, and got to celebrate in a healthy way that wasn't going to send my blood sugar back into the stratosphere like the cake that the rest of the family ate would have.

Family In Town

We're so far away from everybody in the family, so we don't get very many visitors out here. But two of my sisters have purchased motorhomes in the last few years, and they had decided to make a big trip southeast...not to the southeast, just southeast of where they are. Turns out that's a direction that includes Houston, so on their trek east, they decided to drop in and hang out with us for a while.

It was a bit of a challenge getting each and every one of them a place to sleep at night. One sister has two kids and the other one has five. Adding eleven people to your sleeping arrangement takes some doing, but we eventually got it all worked out.

The next morning, we headed off to San Antonio, because they wanted to see the Alamo. 

It was nice as usual. At this point, I have been to the Alamo four different times, so it's become old hat for me, but I did my best to impart any knowledge or interest that I had to the rest of the family that was there. There were plenty of tour guides willing to answer our questions as well, and that was nice.

The day was hot as could be, so we were happy to be inside whenever we could be. The church itself is air-conditioned, as is the gift shop, so we spent our share of time in there. We watched the movie that they show on the patio, and I pulled them over to the live oak so that they could marvel and gasp at its beauty and size.

After everybody was ready...and sweaty, we went back out of the Alamo complex and onto the streets of San Antonio.

It was time to head down the stairs to the River Walk, probably my favorite place in San Antonio.

We didn't get far, though. As soon as we made it down all the stairs to the river, the first request for a bathroom came. 

There are no public bathrooms on the River Walk. It's like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. If you want to pee, you must pay. Not sure why that would be. In Hollywood, it's because there's literally hundreds of stoned homeless people who will make your bathroom their new home if you allow them inside, but there's no homeless people on the River Walk. I guess it's mostly just poor planning. Nobody ever thought to save space for a public restroom.

The second, third, and fourth request for a bathroom came hot on the heels of the first request. We'd only been on the River Walk for about a minute. Funny thing is that every time I've come to the River Walk, the whole time has been spent in search of a bathroom.

We found a map of the area with a bathroom marked on it that wasn't too far from where we were. We just needed to go up a staircase, across the street, around the block, and take a left. We did, and found that we were right back where we began in front of the Alamo.

We went into the San Antonio Visitor Information Center which both had a bathroom and air conditioning. This turned into a major pit stop. Everybody went to the bathroom. Everybody bought cold bottles of water. The toddler got a diaper change. More souvenirs were bought. When we finally all came out the of the building, nobody wanted to go back down to the River Walk any longer. One minute was enough to have satisfied them.

Some folks wanted to go to the San Jose Mission because it was a national park and they wanted to stamp their passports, but when we looked it up on our phones we found that it closed in ten minutes and took fifteen minutes to get there. We threw up our hands and decided to go for dinner and then head home.

My wife had found a good barbecue joint online, and that was one of the things everybody wanted to try was some Texas barbecue. Our group was so big they wanted to make us sit out on the porch, but we were not having that. It was way too hot to sit on the porch and eat. We offered to be broken into three separate parties and sit at different tables, but they changed their minds and pushed tables together for us. We were quite the group.

It's been a while since I've been in such a big family group that we could overtake a whole restaurant with just our party. That has been such a constant for all of my life. I miss that.

Anyway, the barbecue was great, and we all ate our fill, then got back in the car and made the long trip home.

The next day, which was our last full day together, we had planned to go to the Johnson Space Center and then, once we were done with that, continue on down the freeway to Galveston for some beach fun.

The space center was fun.

There is a tram out to a place called Rocket Park, where they have a few smaller rockets from the early days of the space program set up outside.

 And inside a big building next to those rockets is an entire, unused Saturn V rocket.

The Saturn V is the vehicle that took astronauts to the moon and back in the Apollo program.

It is massive, taller than the Statue of Liberty. They have all three stages, as well as the top part that went to the moon. 

Except this one didn't go to the moon. This one was for a future mission that was canceled, so it's in perfect, pristine condition for us to look at.

The tram dropped us back off at the Space Shuttle replica, and we walked through that tour.

Then we all piddled around for a while, looking at exhibits, getting drinks at the food court (it was under construction, so there wasn't much beyond vending machines to buy from), and going to the gift shop.

After everybody drained their wallets as much as they could, we decided we needed to go out to my sister's motorhome and make us some lunch. The younger kids were starting to get cantankerous. Some of the older folks as well...

We made lunch, and ate it together, and after we'd been out in the parking lot for about an hour, we realized that we weren't interested in going back in and doing any of the other stuff available. Instead, we decided to head to the beach, and get on with that.

Truthfully, we should have done that from the very beginning. I think everyone would have been happier if we'd just gone to Galveston first thing in the morning and stayed all day. I've never seen anybody so happy and content to play in the waves and stay in the waves.

They all went out into the water and never came back in. Even my own kids did that, and most times we come to the beach they're lucky if they even get in the water at all. I guess it makes a difference if you have someone to play with.

The whole time, I was really nervous. There were red flags at every lifeguard station warning us of possible rip currents that could suck even the best swimmer out to sea if he wasn't careful. They advised us not to go in too deep, and to keep our feet planted underneath us as much as possible. With that in mind, I never sat down in my beach chair for more than a couple of minutes. I spent the whole time out in the waves keeping an eye on any kid that might have slipped behind the back of their parents.

I don't even go to the beach very often, but I think I've become a little jaded by its proximity. After an hour or two, I was ready to go. But I think I was the only one. No one else wanted to leave. They stayed far longer than I thought anyone's stamina could last, and when we finally did decide to leave, we had to chase after each and every kid twice as they ran back out into the waves again.

That was our last hurrah. The next morning, we ate breakfast together, and then they got in their RVs and drove off to Louisiana. They were done with Houston and ready to see New Orleans.

We did tell them all the fun stuff to do, just like we'd done when we'd gone before. The visit from family was over, and it was time to get back to our regular lives, but I have to say that it was really nice while it lasted. We just don't get to see our loved ones much any more now that we moved away. It makes us feel comfort when we get to have them around, even if it's only for a day or two.