ABC Wednesday -- Letter "H"

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ABC Wednesday, today it's Letter "H"

Her on a Harley.
Ummm what better way to show letter "H" than wit a suculent hamburger.

Ummmm a hamburger!
Image captured by my sister Elena.
Hostel.
Image captured by Abby.

Farewell Father Prosper

My mom, my niece Marya, Father Prosper, and my sister Elena.
Today was an emotional day at church, there are those that in a short period of time steal your heart and that was the case of Father Prosper from Congo whom was here for about two months visiting.

Alfred, Father Prosper, and I.
Fr. Prosper has many gifts and one of them is that he speaks about six languages as he has traveled, studied, and lived in many parts of the world including The Vatican. Today during his farewell speech he stated that he came a poor man but that he goes back to his country with a new found wealth, the one of a new language as he got to practice his Spanish during these two months.

Members of the "Caminando Con Cristo" choir posing with Father Prosper.
I noticed he was getting better and better as the days went by. My niece invited him to sing a song with her during the meditation after communion today and our main guitar player did not show up so they did the best next thing which is to sing it a capela.




It was an emotional moment as we all know my niece can sing but my admiration went to Fr. Prosper because in one short week he learned this song by Juan Luis Guerra and did it justice.

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

A Date With a Duck!

So my daughter Nichole calls me Friday night to ask me if I would be busy Saturday afternoon. Saturdays I usually don't do much so I said no. She then asked me if I wanted to have a date with a certain "Duck" and of course I said yes.

She promised me he was very excited although he didn't show it much when they brought him over but I quickly learned he was indeed excited, it's just that he is one shy duck.



I figure dinner and a movie would be fun so we went to Johnny Rockets for dinner where he ordered some chicken tenders with fries and I a Philly Cheese with chili fries. This place was of course was his choice so I couldn't say no.

After dinner we proceeded to the theater were we watched the movie Spy Kids - All The Time In The World. Cut movie with pretty good action and totally suitable for kids. Both him and I enjoyed it very much.




When we came out of the theater it was already dark so it was funny to see his expression when he asked, "It's already night?" all he knew is that when we went in there was still planty of daylight.

He told me his going to bed time was at 8:00 o'clock but I told him he could stay up until nine, but by 8:30 he was out.




We had a great time and he insiste he would like to do this again... and he said let's do it soon. :-)

There were ballons all over Johnny Rockets and Ducky asked for one. We left it in the car and after the movie as we got home Ducky said I am sending this ballon to grandma and he let it go. *Kid has a heart of gold* :'(

ASU vs. UC Davis

Dorms.
Due to the economy it had been a while since one of my trucking company reps had asked me to join him in a dinner and a football game but that's exactly what happened Thursday. On Wednesday I received the call and was asked if I was interested, of course I said yes since I had no plans to travel to California this weekend.



So I was to meet him immediately after 4:00pm at Z-Tejas in Tempe. I expected traffic to get there but got none so even though I left at almost 4:20 by 4:40 I was there, good thing he too was there already otherwise I would have had to wait.

We had a couple of drinks, don't know the name of the drink but it involved blue Gatorade and Patron tequila. Two of those and I was a happy camper and ready to see ASU whip UC Davis's butt. Game was to start at 7:00pm so we stayed at Z-Tejas drinking an eating until it was time to walk over to the stadium.

The whole stadium is always a sea of yellow.
The spread point was 35 points, by half time we were like almost 30 points. We walked out a little bit before the fourth quarter started and that's when UC Davis scored two touchdowns. Not being a sports fun I love it when I go and watch a game and the home team wins.

There were many of these as the Devils scored over 40 points.
As for the outings, they are usually totally awesome. I like being wined and dined.


Stadium up ahead!
Just a small amount of all the tickets to the different outings over the years.

John Adams Jr. High

Taking a look at the halls inside those doors.
It was a fun outing, not only did Abby and I went to visit the priest at St. Vincent de Paul in Los Angeles but afterwards we decided to take a trip down memory lane as well. Many of you don't know this but I have known Abby since she was like 14 years old and even though at different times we both went to the same Jr. High School in Los Angeles.

John Adams Jr. High School.
John Adams Jr. High School now John Adams Middle School was the first school I attended, starting in the 8th grade I only did two years there then it was off to High School.

In my days this area used to be all open, now it's filled with tables and even flowers.
It was a totally new world to me. I didn't speak a word of English, fresh from Mexico I was stuck in a school that required no uniforms (In Mexico uniforms are a must), the student population was 90% black, 9.9% Mexican, and .01% white. lol At least it kindda felt that way.

There was a tunnel to cross from the main campus to the PE and shops area and believe me, if you were Mexican you found out really quick to NEVER cross the tunnel by yourself or you would get an ass whooping. Fun times!


Right behind the tree across the street is the tunnel exit and beyond that the PE area. The building in the back housed the shops and the boys showers.

I remember one day we came in to movie cameras and stuff. Later on we found out our school was used to film a part of an episode of "Barretta". Wow, the memories. In any case those were two years I will always remember. Three hours of my everyday were destined for my ESL classes. I remember thinking (In Spanish by the way) why are they teaching me English? This is LA, Spanish is the main language.


A mural. "Don't drink and drive". Hopefully middle school kids are not driving yet.

Any way, it is always nice to go to those places you were a part of when young and of course we took some pictures too.

ABC Wednesday -- "G"

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ABC Wednesday, today it's Letter "G"

The letter "G" is best applied when used with the following words: Grandma, great grandma, goddaughter, and granddaughters.

Here Grandma and Great Grandma share a shot with the little princess.
My Goddaughter and I posing during her farewell party.
My two youngest granddaughters.

A Blah Kind Of Weekend.

My weekend wasn't really the greatest. I fell into a "I don't want to do anything" mode and I just could not shake it. I winded up sleeping all day Saturday and only got up on Sunday to attend mass and have dinner at my sister's. Once that was done it was back home to bed. Needless other than going to mass and dinner it was totally a wasted weekend. So the fairly big "to do" list that I had for Saturday will just have to join the the list for next weekend.

This morning I woke up on time and left the house early only to find the entrance of the freeway backed up. I thought here I go again I am going to be late for work so I started to settle into the freeway traffic when I noticed the source of the slow down. This guy that takes the same freeway entrance and exit and rides a semi-custom bike was down. Now I don't know if he was hit, if he hit, or if he just lost control of the bike. I just hate to see riders down as it is a constant reminder of how vulnerable we are while riding.

I could see he was moving and there were people there already giving him aid. I imagine the ambulance had also been called. So I just silently extended a prayer for him to be OK and kept going. I have seen this type of scene before and I have to shake it real fast and not let it get to me, riding is still my passion and would not dream of giving it up, at least not yet.

One of those things in my "to do" list is to take the bike for service but since I have to drop it off and leave it there I would need a ride back home and then back to the dealership when ready. These days those rides are scarce as everybody seems to be extremely busy.

Well, hopefuly next weekend I will figure it out one way or the other. For now I just hope my week goes fine.

And I wish for yours to go fine as well.

Peace!

Joe Cool's... Eye and lens.

OK now that I have a fully functional camera there is no more excuse not to keep capturing images on a daily basis. With this in mind today I made an executive decision, first my "Arizona... But It's a Dry Heat!" Photo blog will no longer get new images. Instead today I started a totally new photo blog which I entitled "Joe Cool's... Eye and lens".

With me going all over the place these days I decided that I will post random images of things I see. If they attract my eye and are captured by my camera's lens I will publish them here. No theme, no rhyme, no reason, just random images and that's it.

So, please come and visit the new blog and please become a follower, I want to make sure it picks up and takes off fast but for that I need your help and support. A picture a day is all I will do and I hope you all like it.

Don't be shy and let me know in the comment section what kind of shots you would like to see, that will make it fun for me to go and hunt for them, or to at least try. There is going to be a little bit of everything so stay tuned and keep coming back.

Las Vegas

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and obviously on Facebook too. Apparently the money I took to Vegas also stayed in Vegas. It's a good thing that the Casinos were not the first thing on our list, well except maybe on my mom's list but she adapted. Upon waking up and having coffee with cheese cake we all headed down to the swimming pool, the weather was a little on the hot side but otherwise perfect so we headed to the bar ordered some drinks and went to dip ourselves in the pool. The water actually felt cold which made it very refreshing.

Ha, ha, apparently we all have different taste in drinks.



Swimming is always going to make one hungry so after an hour or so my sister and mom decided they had enough and headed back to the room to make some very delicious tortas. Ummmm were they good or what? It was then decided that we would dress up and go out for dinner and then once again to the casinos. Me, I didn't take dress up clothes so shorts and a polo did the trick but everyone else looked like Barbie dolls, OK except maybe my brother in law whom didn't even resemble Ken either. lol





Then it was off to the strip, we wanted to see the Belaggio Fountains show but trying to find parking nearby was next to impossible so we ended at another hotel with lots of stores and the decor was so pleasing to the eye that we just pretty much decided to stay there and not try a different one anymore. We got there too late for the buffet but we found a nice sit down restaurant in there that was open 24 hours.









So, as you can see, we did have a terrific time in Vegas. It was wonderful time well spent with the two birthday girls (mom and sis) my brother in law, my lil sis from Cali and of course my fiance.

Looking forward to the next trip and or next adventure.

Peace!