February 8, 2010 5:23 pm

Week 6 of 2010

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by bengalaviz    in Uncategorized

Last week was a welcome to February. Normal work fires throughout the week. (Maybe for one of my weekly blog posts, I will try and describe what my job is and what goes on day to day. I’ll save it for when I am really hurting for some content.)

This was my Tuesday.

Seriously, the bag was just hanging there. I had to buy another one just to get it to fall down. No amount of shaking was going to let this fall on its own.

Had to take Sugar Bear, my Chihuahua, to the vet for seizures. It was not that bad but just the 3rd one we noticed. I got Sugar as a present from Crystal one Christmas. She was a rescue puppy and had a really bad cough when we got her. Turned out that she had a mild form of Distemper. When she was sleeping or really tired, she had this thing where her paws would flop up and down. One side affect from having this is really bad teeth. And really bad teeth means really bad breath. So back to the story, the vet started talking to me about how the seizures could be from the distemper. We talked about putting her on anti-seizure meds but decided to wait. They are not that bad right now and the side affects would outweigh the benefit right now. So after this I asked him about her teeth wanting to get rid of her bad breath. He noticed that some of her teeth are loose and need to be removed. Then he said that her seizure like symptoms could be from infected gums. So for the past week I have been giving her antibiotics twice a day. Tomorrow she will be going back to the Vet for a teeth cleaning and to have some pulled. Hopefully this will help with her breath.

On Saturday, I had to get the oil changed on my car. Took it to a oil changing place in the morning before having to run some other errands. After about 10 minutes of waiting, the service mechanic called me out to talk about my car. I hate how they try to up sell you more services. But that was not what he was trying to do. He noticed that two bolts that keep my engine inside the car were about to fall out.

I had taken the car into the dealership to have the radiator replaced in December. From looking at it, the mechanic forgot to put the nuts back onto the bolts. I wonder how much longer it would have taken before the bolts came completely out. I took it to Bankston Chevrolet on Davis and 820 in Hurst. Will not be going back there anymore. The service specialist was not nice about it too. I think he was seriously lacking normal human communication skills. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t express concern that I had been driving for two months like this. I was mad. They had the car for 3 hours to fix this problem. Seriously. 3 hours. Not to mention, Crystal was upset that our plans for the entire day were ruined.

But Sunday was better. The Super Bowl was on TV and we had some friends over. Game was good, although I wanted the Colts to win. Commercials were not good at all. There was maybe 2 that I thought were really funny.

So that’s the post for this week. Will do better to take more pictures. The more pictures I take, the easier it is to remember things to write.

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February 7, 2010 7:50 pm

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-07

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by bengalaviz    in Personal
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February 2, 2010 2:12 pm

Lost Musings

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by bengalaviz    in Uncategorized

Tonight LOST begins it’s 6th and final season. There are a group of us here at work that are still watching LOST and came to the realization about Jacob’s nemesis.

At the beginning of the final episode of last season, we see Jacob and his nemesis sitting on the beach. They are talking about how “Nemesis” can find a loop hole so that he could kill Jacob. At the end of the episode we find out that the reincarnated version of Locke is really Jacob’s nemesis. He “found his loop hole”. This got me thinking about every other dead person on the island that had come back to see the main characters.

Example:

In the episode “Dead is Dead”, Ben goes to find the smoke monster with reincarnated Locke.

From Lostpedia:

“The Monster surrounds Ben, swirling about him. He is faced with memories of Alex and Widmore, including Alex’s death at the hands of Martin Keamy. After showing these visions to Ben, the Monster abates, followed by the appearance moments later of an apparition in the form of Alex. Ben apologizes to Alex, admitting fault in everything, which she acknowledges. She then pins him up against a nearby column, informing Ben that she is aware of his plan to kill Locke again, and demanding his firm dedication to follow Locke’s leadership, or she will “destroy” him. Ben promises, and Alex disappears. Locke calls Ben back to the hole and lowers a vine in order to pull Ben up. Ben reveals that the Monster has let him live.”

So I think that this is one example of Jacob’s nemesis pushing people to do his bidding. He appears as Alex, telling Ben to do whatever Locke says. And then as Locke, he tells Ben to kill Jacob.

“Nemesis” could have been Boone in the episode “Further Instructions” telling Locke to save Mr Echo.

Also he could be any number of people visiting Hurley. That’s why Hurley thinks he is crazy cause he keeps seeing dead people.

Discuss….

(All pictures are from http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page)

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February 1, 2010 5:21 pm

Week 5 of 2010

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by bengalaviz    in Personal

This week not as exciting at last week. It started out ok. Still a little sore from the kidney stone on Monday, but I have been drinking more water because of it. Weird but I actually crave water more the soft drinks now. If you could not tell from my twitter/facebook posts, I was in Las Vegas from Wednesday to Friday. Had to go for some work meeting. Came into work on Tuesday for a couple of hours as my plane was not leaving until 12:20 p.m. and I needed a ride from my dad to get there. Flight was full.

It was a smooth flight. We arrived around 1:00 p.m. Las Vegas time so I got 2 extra hours. Stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel. Room was really nice. What was a pain was the cost of internet access. $13.99 for 24 hours. For our meeting if we wanted internet access, over $700. Seriously. If you want people to use your facilities, advertise free wifi. It does not cost you anything extra. I’m sure you have the infrastructure to handle that many users. You are a casino.

For dinner we met up with my boss and went to Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill at Caesars Palace.

I usually don’t like sweet tasting sauces on my food, but this chicken was amazing. This is the sixteen spice crusted chicken in a roasted garlic-mango sauce with buttermilk chive mashed potatoes. I left that night stuffed. Also on the menu…

Kick ass whiskey and a glass of Remy Martin Louis XIII for $250.00.

Thursday was the first day of our meeting. Breakfast was not provided so I ended up getting something at the Starbucks located inside the Hard Rock Hotel. Worst decision ever. Don’t ever get a Chai Tea Latte from the Starbucks inside the Hard Rock Hotel. I warned you. Our meeting was for our ADP Clock Kaizen. We had to come up with processes that would make it easier for our employee/supervisors to manage their time in ADP EeTime. I guess I was invited to go because I have IT Payroll experience with the systems and could help explain how the systems worked. I’ll save you the boring explanation on how the entire meeting went. For dinner that night, I didn’t want to go out so I met up with our HDQ Lean Manager and the GM of our Miami kitchens. We decided to eat at Rare 120 inside the Hard Rock Hotel. This time I had the Organic Chicken two ways (pan roasted, confit in natural jus) with the mashed potato trio (lobster, truffle, rosemary-parmesan). Very delicious also. I am going to have to take Crystal to Las Vegas and make the trip to all the famous restaurants. That would be fun.

Day 2 of our meeting (Friday) was much the same as before. You would have thought that I would have gone somewhere else for a Chai Tea, but no. It was still gross the next day. And from the look of most people’s faces there, they agreed with me. Breakfast was provided this time. A hotel breakfast so nothing fancy. Now lunch was different. We had japanese food. Pot stickers, rice, beef, ribs, fried rice, etc… It was probably the best lunch provided by a hotel that I have ever had. After lunch, we were off to the airport to try and get earlier flights home. Originally I was to leave Vegas to 6:00 p.m. We were able to get an earlier flight at 3:20 p.m. but for some reason the ticket computer was trying to charge me $400 for the flight change after I already worked it out with our company travel agency. So 20 minutes of getting everything figured out, they finally printed my boarding pass. So we arrived at our gate at about 1:30 – 1:45 which means we had about 2 hours to kill. That is until the flight got delayed at DFW. It moved from 3:20 to 4:45. So with time to kill I played some slot machines and walked around the terminal.

What’s up with the turtle? Finally got home at about 10:30 Friday night. Was glad to be home and Kylie was happy to see her papa. Getting use to being on Vegas time, I had a hard time getting to sleep when I got home. 2 Days of getting use to 2 extra hours only to have it taken away will do a number on you.

Saturday was Adam’s birthday party. Nothing fancy. Just had dinner at my parents with some of our friends. Afterwards, we went to watch Noah’s band Rescue Signals play at Tree’s in Dallas. Sounded very good. We left after they played and walked down a couple of blocks to a bar and hung out for a few hours. It was there that this amazing picture was taken.

When I get a chance, I will post more pictures from that night. Then we left this bar to go back to Tree’s to see another band. That was boring so then they decided to go to yet another bar in lower greenville. I didn’t even make it inside that bar. One of those places where if you knew the guy at the door you can get in, and if you didn’t, you had to wait. 5 people from our group made it in, but Adam and I were left waiting for the door guy to let us in. After waiting there in 32 degree weather, watching other people walk in ahead of us, for 10 minutes, I was so over getting into the bar. Will never go there again. So needless to say, I was ready to go home and call it a night. We made the traditional stop at Whataburger for something to eat, and was home by 3:30 a.m.

Crew dinner was at Mel’s loft in downtown Ft. Worth. She made red beans and rice. It was so good to eat a home cooked meal after being in Vegas for 3 days. Forgot to take pictures but will try to remember next time. We watched the Grammy’s until it was time to take Kylie home for her bath and to put her to bed.

I thought maybe I can work on making my posts more interesting and easier to write by forcing myself to do this once a week. 52 posts in a year. Does not seem that hard.

It is. I’m sorry.

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January 31, 2010 7:50 pm

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-31

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by bengalaviz    in Personal
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January 25, 2010 2:06 pm

Week 4 of 2010

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by bengalaviz    in Personal

In an effort to make this blog more than it has been for the past few months, I am going to try and start writing here on a weekly basis on what has gone on in the previous week. I will include pictures, videos and links to stuff I find interesting to me, and hopefully interesting to anyone who actually reads this. So here we go.

Sunday
We had a pretty lazy Sunday at home. Crystal, Kylie and I watched the Cowboys end their season 11-5 against the Minnesota Vikings. A game I wish Zac would have been able to see. He loved the Cowboys, and he loved Bret Farve. Melanie and her mom did fly to Minnesota to watch the game, and even stayed in the same hotel as the Cowboys. Still waiting on pictures!

On Monday when Crystal and I sat down for lunch, there was a present from Kylie in our lunch box.

On the way to take her to school that morning, she found it in her chair. I guess she wanted us to have it and put it in our lunch bag. Crazy kid.

One thing about working for LSG Sky Chefs, is that we work really close to DFW airport. The route we take to and from work has been to drive around Airfield Dr.  Every once and a while you get to see the hawks that live around the airport. They are usually perched on top of the lamp posts looking for something to eat.

And another thing about birds. Right at sunset on Eastchase and I-30, is like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock The Birds. Seriously. This is a picture from my iPhone.

Why has no one done anything about this? There were so many birds, that a lot of them where just walking around in the parking lots. Did not want to leave the car for fear of poop. This picture does not really do it justice.

Now on to the fun part of the week.

Friday morning. 3:00 a.m. I woke up with an immense pain on my right side. Just behind my ribs. At first I thought that I was just sleeping weird and started tossing and turning, trying to get into a comfortable position. After 15 minutes of pain, I decided to wake up Crystal. (Side note, she had found out that she had the flu and had just taken a lot of medication to help her sleep) I told her that she needed to take me to the emergency room. So I called my parents to come over and stay with Kylie while Crystal sped me to the Hospital. Little did I know that she was under the influence of her meds, or I would have had my dad drive me. Luck was on my side as the emergency room was vacant, except for one girl and her friend. By this time I knew that it was kidney stones. It had worked it’s way from my ribs to my groin. Which was more painful. After what seemed like forever, they finally got me back to a room and hooked me up to some IV’s. The Dr came in and we talked for a little bit before he prescribed me some anti-nausea and pain meds. That finally happened around 5:15 a.m. A few minutes later, the pain subsided. Now thinking about it, I don’t know if the pain meds really kicked in or the stone finally made it into my bladder. Anyways, when I was comfortable enough the nurse came back in and wanted to take me to have a CAT scan. At first I told her I didn’t want to have to pay for a CAT scan cause there was virtually no pain anymore. She then started talking about how if the stone was too big to pass, that they would need to perform surgery to remove it. That scared me enough to go ahead and have the CAT scan. 2 hours later they finally had the results of that and a urinalysis and said that I could go home. The Doctor prescribed me some Lortab and encouraged me to make an appointment to see a doctor to test the kidney stone once it passed. Luckly, it broke up in my bladder and passed without any more pain. I am sure you can guess that I will be drinking more water from now on. I really don’t want to have to go through that again.

So with Crystal’s flu and my kidney stones, our weekend was very tame. Just hung out at the house all weekend except for “Crew Dinner” Sunday night. We ended up going to my favorite place.  P.F. Changs.

Didn’t have my camera with me so you will have to do with the picture above from my iPhone.

One final thing before I end this post. For Christmas my parents got Kylie a Dora video game for the Wii. She was playing it last week and I finally thought to video tape her playing it. Crystal and I laugh every time we watch her play. So for your viewing pleasure, Kylie playing a Dora video game for Wii.

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January 24, 2010 7:50 pm

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-24

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by bengalaviz    in Uncategorized
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December 31, 2009 2:55 pm

Ben’s Best of 2009 Mix

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by bengalaviz    in Uncategorized

I was reading the blog of someone I follow on twitter and at the end of the year, they create a mix of songs that meant a lot to them this year. This is my attempt to do the same.

2009 for me would have the be the year of “The Crew”. We started the year together without a name. I think  it was on the Austin trip that Mel came up with the name. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) It just stuck. We had our ups and downs. But we definitely are a lot closer than when we started. So without further delay, here is my mix of 2009.

The Crew

1. Smile – Flickerstick (Live)

In January we all got to go and see Flickerstick play at the House of Blues. Definitely my top concert for 2009. I had so much fun with everyone.

2. 99 Red Balloons – Goldfinger

This year for Melanie and my birthday, we had a 99 Red Balloon bash. This was a fun song we (The Dirty Girls Social Club) played when we first started playing. Crystal and I actually went out and bought 99 red balloons. “The Crew” met up a caves and decorated. Then at midnight we let all the balloons go while playing this song. Very memorable for me. Just don’t know how we are going to top that in 2010.

3. The Year In Review – Her Space Holiday

Melanie and I got a chance to see Her Space Holiday in May at the Mohawk in Austin. Worth the drive to see them. Zac introduced HSH to me so a lot of his music makes me think of him. And we were so close to having them peform at his benefit concert this year. Maybe next year….

4. Use Somebody – Kings of Leon

Uncle Baby. For some reason, Kylie wants to hear this song every time we are in the car. She calls it the “Uncle Shane’s Song”. We got to play it at the benefit concert this year so I think when we were practicing it at my house, she put two and two together.

5. I’ve Got Your Number – Passion Pit

This is another song Kylie loves. She calls this one “Tia Melanie’s Song”. I wish I could have gotten to go to their concert when they were here. Melanie and Crystal spent a week following them from Dallas to Louisiana. All before they hit it big. If you do one thing in 2010. Get their albums.

6.Chasing Pavements – Adele

I found Adele while searching NPR.org for a story I heard. She did two acoustic songs and this was one of them. Amazing voice. Bought tickets for Crystal and I but I ended up giving my ticket to Crystal H. Thought she would have a better time than me. Mistake. (I still love you CH).

7. Unlike Me – Kate Havnevik

I don’t remember how I found her. Glad I did. She sounds a lot like Bjork and Imogen Heap. Great album.

8. My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend – Her Space Holiday

I know I already have a song from HSH. I like it. Suck it.

9. Please Don’t Go – Barcelona

Crystal says that I listen to too many depressing songs. This is one of them. First heard it from a video and really liked it. Album is really good too but definitely rainy day music.

10. After Dark (アフターダーク Afutā Dāku) – Asian Kung-Fu Generation

I also get made fun of cause I like this band. They are a alternative rock band from Japan. The words are in japanese so if you can hear past that, this album is really good too.

Download Music

And as always, please support these and other artists by buying their albums on iTunes or Amazon.

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December 20, 2009 7:50 pm

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-20

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December 13, 2009 7:50 pm

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-13

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