Lesson's Learned from My Recent Road Trip

If you have been keeping track of my blogs, you know that I just completed a school related road trip to Corpus Christi and back. It turned out I traveled with 4 of my lady co-workers (all over 50 by the way!) instead of three. Here is what I learned about my lady friends.

Lady #1 (M.K.) -- She is originally from Poland. She was born in Poland while it was still under a Communist government controlled by the Soviet Union. She remembers being in elementary school, and the KGB coming in and asking if anyone had been to "church" on Sunday. If the students answered, "Yes", the KGB would take that student out of class and find out who the kids parents were. The kid would then go home to find one, or possibly both, of their parents had been arrested for violation of anti-religious laws. Later she applied to be a Dr. at a medical school. While working for the college's radio station, the KGB came in one evening, and forced her at gun-point to read Communist propaganda over the air-waves. This shook her up so much, she quit medical school. She ended up marrying an American who was working over-seas. He brought her to America and tried to treat her like a slave. She resisted, ended up divorcing him and applied for U.S. citizenship. She has been teaching in public schools and Adult Ed for about 20 years. She is very ANTI-BUSH and ANTI Iraq War, and she is a very nervous person when she cannot smoke like she wants to. She also loves to say, "Jesus Rodriguez" a lot when she wants to emphasize a point or gets frustrated. (Much like Sylvester the Cat says, "Sufferin' Succotash.") She is pro-Obama and tried her best to be a "side-seat driver", until I told her she was making me more nervous than the traffic.

Lady #2 -- (M.R) Our lady from Puerto Rico. She was our "Diva!" She attempted to control it all. She is very allergic to MSG and was very picky about where we chose to eat. She did restrain much of her criticism of others but once again told me "I dance like I am constipated," when I was swaying a little bit to some music at Joe's Crab Shack. Her family still lives in Puerto Rico but she is very glad and very proud to be an American. She supports John McCain, because she feels he is the best person to protect us from the terrorist, "Who will attack us again, if one of those crazy Democrats gets into office." She is also our party lady. She was the one attempting to drag us all out for a drink or two.

Lady # 3 -- (A.R.) This lady is originally from St. Lucia (a tiny island nation in the Caribbean). When asked how she met her husband, (a twenty year age difference by the way), she told us how she was working in a hotel in St. Lucia at age 18. Her husband came in, "He checked into the hotel and checked me out!" Her husband asked permission from her father to bring A.R. back to the states with him. With her father's blessing she traveled back to the U.S. with her future husband. After a year of courtship here in the states, they married. I also found out from her, that because St. Lucia is a British Commonwealth Nation, that citizens of St. Lucia, can go to college in England for free. She supports Hillary Clinton for president, because she supports the "universal health care system." Although she would vote for Huckabee if she had to vote Republican.

Lady # 4 -- (D.R.) She is born and raised Texan. She lives in the "South Side" of our fair town, in what she calls "the hood!" She managed to raise 4 kids in "the hood" and get them all graduated and most of them into college. Wow! She was the quietest of us all. She refused to get involved in the political debates but did call Lady #1 Anti-American for not supporting the war on terrorism. Didn't find out much more about her, because she slept most of the way there and back.

As for the Conference...there were some good sessions and bad sessions as with all conferences. I did learn that even the walls in the expensive hotels are not thick enough to block out all the noise that a bunch of teenagers can make. A group of teens attending a DECA Convention made all sorts of noises from about 10:30-1:00 every night. I called hotel security on them twice. One of the crazy teens attempted to climb onto the balcony of lady # 3, from a lower floor. Scared her to death.

All in all, the trip was not as bad a thought it would be, but I was glad to be home. After spending two 7 hour trips with these wonderful ladies, we were all getting on each others nerves. We just wanted to be home with our families. Or in the case of lady #1, her cats!

I will catch up on my other blog thoughts tonight after paying some bills, or maybe tomorrow. I need to spend some more quality time with my family.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turn the Big 41 today! -- My 30's are officially over!

I think I will start the day by formally introducing myself to the blogger world. I have been very careful not to list family member names because of the many "nut-jobs" out there in the world, who may seek out my children in order to hurt them. But I have decided that my wife and I raised our children well enough that they will attempt to avoid such risky internet behaviors and let us know if anyone "creepy" comes lurking around their blogs. Besides all my fellow bloggers are giving their names so I think it's only fair.

My real name is Mark English -- Thus Mr. E. or "Hubbs" as the wife calls me.

My wife of 15 1/2 years is named Jamie! I have recently started calling her "LadyBug" on my blog.

My son, who will turn 13 in March is named Caleb. I think I will start calling him "Scooter" or maybe "Taco". Taco is what the youth group at church call him. ???

My daughter, age 11, is named Rachel. I think I will call her "Cheeks." She used to have some fat little cheeks when she was a baby. (The picture is from 2006 by the way.)

I don't feel any older, but I know I am. I am going to make a renewed effort to exercise more during this year. I need to take better care of myself. I also need to go back to eating better. For a while I gave up many fried & fatting foods, as well as soft drinks. It lasted about 2 months. I did feel better when I was not eating such "junk" but I just couldn't hold out. I will try again!

Swimming was a big part of our exercise program when I first started my new job. But when we tried to go to the pool last week, we were informed that there was a leak in the pool and it may take until May to get it fixed. Phooey! We really wanted to get into the "heated pool" my college provides and get back to swimming.

See you guys next week...Road Trip tomorrow!

Another Crazy Indian Joins the Race for Big Chief

Just when you thought the number of Indians running for Big Chief was dwindling, along comes another Indian. Today, Ralph Nader announced he is running for President as an Independent candidate. Even though I seriously doubt he will pull off a winning campaign, it was his influence in the past two elections, the Democrats blame for taking just enough votes away from them, that the Republicans won the White House. Will Nader do it again? To visit Mr. Nader's official campaign web-site click here.

To update you once again on the current candidates...

Still running for the Democrat nomination: Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama (OK, Mike Gravel supporters...technically Mr. Gravel has not officially dropped out, he has not won any delegates and has absolutely no chance at winning the nomination.)

Still running for the Republican nomination: John McCain & Mike Huckabee (OK, Ron Paul supporters...I know Rep. Paul has not officially dropped out either. I also know you guys are crazy about your candidate, but he has been mathematically eliminated from the race.)

Click on the names of the candidates to learn more about them and how they "currently" stand on some of the major issues.

This's and Thats

This is an observation I made during my men's Bible study class last Wednesday night. The room we study in does not have a visible clock for us to check our time. Somewhere near the end of class the study leader asked what time is was, to make sure he wouldn't start something new and not have enough time to discuss it. Every man in the class who was abt. 50 or older looked at their wrist to see the watch they were wearing. Every man in the class who was abt. 40 or younger (this included me, even though I will be 41 on Tuesday), pulled out their cell-phones to check the time. I guess it is a "sign-of-the-time" so to speak. It really showed the dependency the younger generations have on the new technology.

That Nintendo Wii is back. It has already started to eat away at our quality family time together. It arrived back a little quicker than we thought it would. It was waiting on our front porch (thanks to UPS) when we got home from school and work on Thursday. There has already been one argument over playing it and since it located in the main living room, it uses the main television so "I" (selfish) can't watch some DVD movies we have from Netflix. I sort of enjoyed the quite we had around the house without the Wii. Somehow I think Satan just loves video games and television. Maybe my family should follow the example of Tech Daddy and give up television and video games. They seem to be doing fine without them.

This is what I think of the "CONSPIRACY" the home entertainment system is forcing us to conceed to. I don't like the fact that we have to buy a "converter type box" just to "downgrade" the new High Definition television signals, so we can watch television on our older televisions. Our television works just fine without High Definition why do we have pay extra money just to keep watching television that we still won't get in High Definition? It's another reason why we should possibly give up television like Tech Daddy. Another "CONSPIRACY" is the plan to stop making DVD style movies. Many movie companies plan to start using Blue-Ray for all their new movies within the few years. This means that all my DVD movies that I have (that I had just almost finished switching over from VHS), must now be switched over to Blue-Ray. A young fellow at Game Stop advised me to just buy a Sony PS3 game system instead of a regular Blue-Ray disc player. He told me the PS3 will not only play the PS3 and PS2 games, it will also play regular DVD movie discs as well as the new High Def. or Blue-Ray discs. Great that's all I need is another video game system in our house. I'm telling you it's a Conspiracy!

That recent lunar eclipse that just happened. Well, we couldn't see it. Storms were moving in that night and totally blocked our view of this semi-rare event. We saw the first part of the Earth's shadow start to cover the moon, then the clouds rolled in. The only images we saw after that were on TV or pictures from the internet. What a bummer. We really wanted to see the eclipse.

On another note: I'm already tired of the Presidential campaign commercials appearing on my TV. Every morning I am greeted with Hillary or Barack telling me how they are the better choice for change in America! I have only seen one McCain ad, and surprisingly I have not seen any Huckabee ads. There are some Ron Paul signs up and about along with Obama signs. I'm just ready to vote on March 4 and get my primary over with. At least us Texans still have somewhat of a choice when we vote. I hope you bloggers in Indiana still have a choice on who to vote for by the time your primary comes around in May.

Upcoming Road Trip

Next week I will be taking a road-trip with some of my co-workers to Corpus Christi, TX. We will be attending a conference there from Wednesday the 27th until Saturday March 1st. This means a 9 hour drive there and another 9 hour drive back! Yuck!

What makes this trip interesting is; 1) It is the day after my birthday (but that is another blog), and most importantly 2) I will be taking the trip with three older women. Not only are these ladies at least 10 years my senior, they are all originally from different countries. Each has their own unique accent when they are speaking. They also have the ability to not get along so well with each other.

The first lady is originally from Poland. She has a very thick Polish/Slavic accent and she is very talkative. She goes into much detail about everything and it tends to be a little over dramatic. The second lady is from Puerto Rico. I know it's not really another country, but her accent is a very thick and proper Spanish accent. She tends to be the "Diva" of our group and she can be very judgemental about others, especially our Polish co-worker. The third lady is originally from St. Lucia, which is a island nation in the Caribbean. Her accent is also a little tough to understand and she is also a no nonsense kind of person. She dosen't like to mess around with anyone. She is very direct and says what she means.

As for me, I am the designated driver. They have chosen me to drive the entire length of the trip. That is fine with me, because I don't want to talk to them much. They are nice to talk to when they are seperate from each other, but all together...AHHH! I think I will just plug my wife's I-Pod into my ears and just drive. Plus, there is just the fact I am the only guy going, already makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I have told them to just tap me on the arm when they need to take a potty break or it is time to eat. I will have my directions and map with me and I plan on getting there and back as fast as (5 miles over the speed limit) I can!

Pray they don't drive me crazy and I don't drive them crazy either. I'm sure the trip will be fine, I just think it will be interesting to travel with such diverse cultures in the van. Who knows, maybe they will get along and I will learn more about each of them. Think Positive!

If you don't get any new posts from me next week you will know why.

Happy Late Valentine's Day To My Bride!

To make up for our lack of a Valentine's Day, (wife was sick) I decided to book a Bed & Breakfast for my wife and I to stay at right before the Easter holiday. We will be staying at The Dowell House in McKinney, TX. We will stay in The Chardonnay Room. The kids will be stay with my wife's sister's family just up the road in Howe, TX. We are already looking forward to spending some quality time by ourselves. Especially in the Hot Tub! (The 1970's movie "Benji" was filmed using this location as the main home of the family who owned Benji.)

My wife and I try to stay at a least one B&B every year just to get away from it all. Other B&B's we have stayed at include: Oaklea Mansion & Manor in Winnsboro, TX, The Woldert-Spence Manor in Tyler, TX (this was our first B&B), Roseland Plantation & Winsor House B&B in Ben Wheeler, TX (near Tyler, TX), White Oak Manor, in Jefferson, TX and Wisteria Garden B&B in Marshall, TX.

I have created a list of several B&B's within a decent traveling distance from our home town of Longview, TX. I especially would like to stay in a "haunted" location. The White Oak Monor in Jefferson was suppossed to be haunted, but nothing happened while we there anyway. We did go a "Ghost Walk" while we were there though.

On a side note: our Nintendo Wii (that I broke) is on its way home! My kids were very happy about this. I was just enjoying the peace and quite without it. According to Nintendo USA it should arrive by UPS sometime this weekend or early next week. JOY JOY!