I Miss My Old Friends / School Mates

I've always been what most people call, irresponsible. When I was in grade school and all the way through high school, I always did badly in school, as far as grades were concerned. I was not a discipline problem and was considered a "good kid." My view of life was, I think skewed by the fact that I watched a lot of TV. I didn't have a father for much of my childhood and my mother and aunt really didn't have too much influence on me in terms of outlook on life. I loved imitated characters on TV and looked up to TV personalities. I didn't have very many good friends, just a few good ones. And, that was OK with me.

To this day, I'm the type of person that does not like to "hang out." When I was young I loved having friends over to the house, but after a while I wanted to get rid of them. Sounds terrible, but it's the truth. I just liked being by myself most of the time. I loved the stupid things and the stupid conversations we used to have as kids. It was a great time to be in my room with my friends listening to Rush, Van Helen etc., etc., and acting dumb. I miss going out to the basketball court and spending hours and hours joking around with my friends and playing ball. It was great.

The present.
Now, when I run across some of those friends, I hate it. Everyone is so serious. They are all so "grown up." I suppose that is a bit immature of me. Wishing that people stayed the same. Wishing people stayed young. Nevertheless, I feel somewhat sad when I see my old friends. I'm glad to see them and to hear they're doing well. But, it's just not the same for me. 

I miss my friends. But I miss my friends the way they used to be. Is that silly and immature? Is that living in fantasy land? Ya, I guess the "normal" people would say so. But, that's me and I guess I'll never change. 

Thank God.

Happy 150 College Football. What a shame.

As we continue to celebrate the 150th season of American College Football, it is so very sad that after 150 years we still HAVE NOT crowned a legitimate college football champion. What, do you say?! No, we have never had a legitimate champion of college football.

Why? Because from the very beginning of intercollegiate play, there has been an outside entity "awarding" a national championship i.e. The Princeton Tigers and Rutgers Queensmen in 1869. There has never been, and there still is not a playoff system to determine a champion. The system that is currently used is a complete joke because the teams are still picked to enter a bracket. 

I have always referred to college football as "the twilight zone" of sports. The reason is simple. Every sport that depends on a score or a finish line to determine a winner has some sort of mechanism to determine a champion. In baseball, we have a college world series. In basketball, we have the NCAA tournament and so on and so on. Only those sports such as boxing and gymnastics, were there is subjective judging to determine a winner, are relegated to controversy and debate. Plain and simple a championship, in this case in collage football, is won by playing for a national championship. A championship is not won by someone voting for who they think deserves to win a championship. Anyone who argues that point is a moron. They are living in the twilight zone. How can smart and intelligent people, on the one hand, laud the NCAA college basketball tournament, college world series and other tournaments which crown a legitimate champion and on the other hand, dismiss implementing a REAL college football playoff to finally crown a legitimate champion.

Shame on the status quo and shame on whoever supports the status quo. Shame on you who have robbed all those athletes for all those years of a shot to win a coveted national title.

The new harbor bridge construction

I was out on North Beach a few days ago walking around the construction site of the new harbor bridge. It's really interesting getting up close and personal with the new structure that will soon be the newest addition to the Corpus Christi, Texas skyline.

Also, I must say, it was kind of sad to see the old harbor bridge in the background (lower left) still firm and strong after so many years in service. The fact that that bridge will, in a few months, be a thing of the past doesn't really hit home, yet. It will when it's time to demolish it. It's going to be a sad day for many people, including myself.

I lost my passion

When I bought my first DSLR about 8 years ago, I was so excited and nervous and scared. I remember endlessly watching review videos about the Nikon D3100. That, being the camera I was going to buy. I had to wait about 2 weeks until my next payday in order to purchase it. So, during that time I can remember watching and reading a number of reviews on the D3100. But, the video I remember watching the most was the one produced by  Kaiman Wong AKA KAI W., who at the time work at DigitalRev. I remember watching that video over and over again in anticipation of getting my own D3100.

After practicing for a few hours I felt comfortable venturing out and about to take some pictures. I did so much walking taking picture of just about everything and anything. I was so pumped and driven to get better as I went along. I can remember eagerly waiting for my days off of work to grab my camera and go take pictures.

Unfortunately, at the present, that excitement has regrettably left me. Lately I have been in a funk not only with my photography but other things that I once had a passion for. Every time I look at my camera (which by the way now, is a Canon 80D) I don't feel the yearning to go out and shoot photographs.

So what I've been doing for the last few days is going back through my RAW files and editing some of the pictures I took with my old camera and posting some online. Doing that kind of got me reinvigorated to go out and take more pictures like I used to do. I hope I can come out of this fog. This coming weekend I have vowed to grab my camera and rekindle my passion for photography and take the best pictures I have ever taken so far.

Here are some of the old photographs I have rediscovered and edited for the first time. I have never shared these pictures anywhere before. I hope you enjoy them.

I love the beach

One of the many regrets last year was the fact that I never got out to one of my favorite places, the beach. I really feel a closeness to the ocean, always have. When I hear seagulls cackling, that evokes feelings of bliss because I associate that sound to the ocean and the beach. When the first winter wind blew in last year I made a vow, "next year I will get out to the beach as much as I can." Here I am, and I have made it out to the beach 4 times so far and plan to go out again before cold weather (which I hate) is here again.

My New Car

It's new to me, but my new vehicle is a 2015 Hyundai Sonata se.

After about 18 years driving my 1999 Ford Ranger I was forced to buy another vehicle. I say forced because my truck was on it's last legs and instead of plunking more money into it, I decided to use the money on a down payment. Why a used car? Well, that's simple. My credit, at the moment, is not good enough to buy a new car. At least that's was my conclusion. I didn't want to go in and embarrass myself trying to buy a new car and being turned down.

I had been planning to buy another ride for some time. Unfortunately, every time I thought about it, I would just put it off and put it off. I remember always telling myself that I would never get rid of my truck regardless of if I ever bought a new car or truck. I always would make promises of fixing up my Ranger to look like new. I vowed "I will never give up my truck." And here I am, without my truck and with another vehicle.

The last straw.

My mother sold her washer and dryer to some people from Aransas Pass. I drove to my mom's home town 45 miles from Corpus Christi and loaded the units on to my truck and drove to AP. I came back to my mother's house then drove back to Corpus. When I got back in to town, on the freeway, my truck stalled. I was shitting myself at that point. I was able to start the truck but it would drive for a few feet and stall again. I had no idea what to do, I was scared and afraid I wasn't going to make it home. I managed to keep starting the truck, get off the freeway and onto the access road. I had to continue starting the truck again and again until I was home. Thank God for my battery, it really saved me that day. That wasn't the first time that happened to me.

The same thing happened a few weeks earlier. You would think at that point I would learn my lesson. No, not me. True to form I kept driving my truck and hoping for the best. That's me for you. There had been other times my truck had issues: a long time ago it would stutter while driving, I had issues with it about a year after I bought it, my engine cooling system had issues, my front end needed work to were a mechanic told me one day "your wheels are going to fall off", but I kept driving it. I didn't want another bill, I needed tuition money. So I drove worried sick all the time.

So here I am. I love my new car. I'm enjoying all the amenities of a fairly new vehicle: a functioning radio, bluetooth, power windows, a fully working AC to name a few things. But, it was a hard transition. I cried my eyes out when I had to clean my truck out and to leave it behind knowing I would never see it again. I know to some people this is ridiculous, but I'm a very sentimental person. I get attached to things and it's very hard to let somethings go. Especially my truck which had been with me for 18 years.

I still miss it. Every day it gets better though. It's still a hard pill to swallow. So many emotions were going through me: sadness, fear, loneliness, uncertainty. I think one of the worst things was that I didn't have any one close to me to talk to and express my emotions. That was hard.

But, the time is now and as I said I'm still getting used to my new car. I'm a little apprehensive (that's just me, I'm a worrier) because it is a used car. I checked it out carefully, but you never know if this vehicle has unseen issues of it's own. So far so good.

1999 Ford Ranger

2015 Hyundai Sonata