To Jonathon, part 1

Jonathan,

Son, I'm writing to let you know how much you mean to me. It's been so very hard watching you grow up in pictures and e-mails. And with my health concerns, I'm not sure if I'll see you grow up, but I'm doing everything in my power to be around as long as you need me to be.

First of all, let me just say this. I didn't find out about you until you were already 2 years old.

Your Mom and I met in July of 2001 and dated until August of 2001. We actually stopped talking around 2 weeks before 9/11, because I remember thinking I was going to be recalled to active duty right after she told me not to ever bother her again.

I won't bore you with the details of our relationship, because I can't even really call it a relationship.

We dated for 6 weeks and made love 5 times. Then she got pregnant.

I made the mistake of asking her "We should do an amniocentesis test" which is a form of dna testing.

Son, I didn't think your Mom cheated on me, but I was concerned that she and I had started dating IMMEDIATELY after she broke up with her previous boyfriend.

And the exact date of conception? I didn't know. But I didn't ask for the amniocentesis so I could find a way to weasel out of my responsibilities.

I asked because it would have killed me to find out after she gave birth that you weren't mine. Now it's killing me that she ran like a spoiled, petty and unsure little girl and took you with her.

Anyway, back to the pregnancy.

Your Mom was working at the DoubleTree Hotel near Northstar Mall in San Antonio when I met her. And I remember after I asked for the testing, she told me to never speak to her again.

Perhaps I was just supposed to be the rebound guy after her previous relationship. Perhaps she blamed me for preventing her from re-kindling that previous relationship. I just find it so hard to believe that such a simple request for a test could have resulted in so much venom from her.

For weeks afterwards I would go to her work and take her lunch, only to be told by your Tia Mayela she wasn't there, or she was busy.

Once, I finally managed to catch her at the front desk, right before my birthday, and begged her to talk with me. She called the Hotel Security to escort me from the building and threatened me with arrest if I didn't leave her alone.

Your Tia Mayela is the one that introduced us and that is what hurts me the most. She was supposed to be my friend. A good friend. Someone with whom I broke bread with her Family. Someone who was supposed to be worthy of my trust.

So I asked her to help. I asked her to convince Lori to talk to me, but it was a lost cause.

Then, as I was counting down the days, I heard she'd had you. April 2, 2002!

I went by your Grandparents house on April 9, 2002 to demand they let me see you. Your Grandfather told me to leave his home or he'd hurt me. Your Grandmother told me that you weren't mine and that I should leave all of you alone. Then they closed the door in my face and left me standing there.

I turned to your Tia Mayela and asked her the same thing. Is this child mine? Had she seen you already?

I figured it would be easy to tell, since your Mom's boyfriend before me was of African Descent, or so I'd been told. I never actually laid eyes on him.

But even without a DNA test a black baby and a mexican baby can be told apart. So I asked for photos and Mayela wouldn't let me see them.

I begged her to tell me the truth...Was the baby mine?

She told me the same thing your Mom and your Grandparents had told me.

She said No.

Now you might be asking yourself, what's the big deal. Or you should have fought harder.

I couldn't. I was devastated.

You see, I had let your Mom in on my only weakness. I told her how to hurt me, the way Samson told Delilah.

I told her the only pain I had ever felt was when your older sister, Victoria, had been stolen right out of my arms when she was less than a year old.

That pain was what she used against me. You can take away my freedom, you can whip my ass or even cheat on me and I can get over it.

But take my child, a part of my soul, and it hits me harder than a bullet.

I've never really recovered from Victoria's loss, and then I saw it being re-enacted with you. I was in a dark spot.

Anyway, time went on. The summer of 2002 I moved to Guadalajara, Mexico to get away from all I'd lost. I wanted to disappear and never look back.

I was there until September of 2004, then I was going back and forth until February of 2005.

Son, I met the love of my life. The woman I was supposed to marry. She had 2 beautiful children, Alejandra and Felix.

All that I had lost in the USA I had recovered in Mexico.

I was scared to love, but she was gentle with me. I was afraid to open my heart, but she was patient with me. I was afraid to trust, but she showed me how by trusting me completely.

Then the business I was working for fell apart. The owner went bankrupt and lost all her clients and the doors closed on the job.

I moved back to San Antonio and was living with a friend named Michael for a while.

Then, in the first week of May 2004, I recieved a letter from the Attorney General of Texas requiring that I take a paternity test.

As I was reading the letter, your Mom's name held no recollection for me. I saw Lori Bailon on the letter and could not for the life of me remember who she was.

That is one of my greatest and worst gifts. I can completely hide bad memories in my subconscious. Pain, put it in the closet of my mind. Loss, stick it in the junk drawer of my mind.

So it took a good couple of hours of thinking to recall who she was.

And at that moment I knew a joy that I hadn't felt since your sister had been born. But I also couldn't figure out how to let my Love know that I might have a son from someone else.

You see, it was our intention to get married in Guadalajara, then immediately try to have a baby together. She told me she wanted nothing more than to be the woman who would give me A SON.

Well, I figured I'd take the test first then tell her, but it felt too sneaky. That is not my way. I am honest to a fault. Even brutally honest, and I wear my emotions on my sleeve.

So I tould Reina about you, and that was the beginning of the end. We tried for the rest of 2004 to make it work, but she was devastated and I was working full-time in Asutin so I was only able to go back to visit her once every 2 months.

In April of 2005 she told me she'd met someone else and that she was going to give him a shot.

That's what I loved about her, she was honest with me. Even Brutally Honest.

I tried to drink myself to death. I didn't want to live anymore. Once again I'd lost a Great Love and 2 children whom I'd begun to identify as my own.

Well, long story short I got 2 dwi's back to back and that pretty much began a downward spiral that I'm still trying to recover from to this date.

to be continued;

Can Cymatics seperate the oil from the ocean water?

I have been doing some research, on the internet, not in a lab, on harmonics and the power of sound and specifically music.

There appears to be a harmony for every single thing in existence. A sound which will cause it to have a certain reaction.

And after watching the Gulf Oil Spill by BP, I can't help but wonder if there is a vibration or frequency that a sound could be played that would seperate the oil from the water.

It should work like a centrifuge, and the fact that sound travels 11 times faster under water, should make it work over wide areas.

This would help significantly reduce the area of oil that needs to be picked up if it could be forced to group itself together. That way oil barges sucking up the oil can concentrate their efforts and pull up purer samples of oil out of the water.

But that is a long way away and I'm not sure if that type of experiment would even work. Need to test it immediately and need to find out who could help with this.

Breakin up is good for you

I've never been able to understand the reasoning behind staying in a broken relationship.

And maybe that has prevented me from truly connecting.

But seriously, at what point will you decide it's time to go.

I don't care if the reason is my fault or yours, fighting constantly is no way to live your life.

If I am the cause, then try to find out what is setting me off and avoid that.

If I'm being irrationally angry, then it's JUST YOU that is pissing me off.

I don't need a reason to be upset, I'm FUCKING clinically depressed, even though I haven't gotten a doctor's opinion for that, but the only way to get treated would be to attempt suicide and I'm too proud for that shit.

Now, if 2 people don't work out, it is not the end of the world, just the end of their happiness.

At that point the miserableness starts to make me physically sick, and that is when I'm GONE.

I won't listen to protests or pleads or promises. I will listen to my body and emotions.

And right now, all the fighting is killing me.

Living with Type 2 Diabetes

This morning was the first day I injected myself with insulin.

It wasn't that bad. Of course the anticipation of the shot was worse than the shot itself since the needle is so tiny.

I also started my medication and started monitoring my blood sugar as well. So I had to poke myself twice today.

But boy do I miss soda...

My First Day with Diabetes

So yesterday was my first day being diagnosed as a Diabetic Type 2.

And I'm as ignorant of all the facts as anyone else who does NOT have diabetes. I have started monitoring my sugar intake and have changed my eating habits drastically.

I want to go thru my symptoms for those of you who might be wondering if they have it or are feeling it.

Going back 3 months, I started noticing tingly legs and my calves kept cramping up.

Then I started feeling lazy, but I put that down to just being stressed out.
I didn't want to walk my dog. Taking the stairs winded me. Both at work and at my apartment.

After that I began noticing that my moods were swinging all over the place. In other words I was very emotional. I couldn't watch certain commercials without getting angry, and other ones made me feel like crying.

All of this is very unusual for me, but once again, I thought it was stress and or melancholy.

Then the Major Symptoms started hitting me:

I couldn't get out of bed on the weekends. I was sleeping like 8 hours during the day and even longer at night.

I was constantly "voiding", or as we call it, I was pissing every 2 hours at night and every 1 hour during the day.

All of a sudden I was thirsty all the time. And I don't mean a little thirsty. I mean I could drink a 32 ounce gatorade in one gulp and still want to wash it down with some water.

And I lost about 15lbs in 4 weeks. (which I thought was kind of cool, until I realized it was all my water weight)

I was HUNGRY all the time, since I wasn't processing protein or something correctly.

Then came some weird smell. THIS IS IMPORTANT. I started smelling an alcohol smell everywhere I went. It smelled kind of like rotting grapes, but with a more chemical smell to it.
Actually, it was the GIGANTIC amounts of blood sugar in my system that I was smelling. When the blood sugar was too high that was the only thing I could smell.

WORST AND SCARIEST OF ALL, I was losing my vision. It started out with getting dry eyes. I would be rubbing them constantly and sometimes I had to wear sunglasses inside because my computer monitor was blurring in front of my eyes.
Suddenly I couldn't see people's faces 20 feet in front of me. I could see the body, but I couldn't make out details like eyes, noses, mouth, etc;

SO WHAT THE HELL DID I DO?

Well, I'm one of the Millions of Uninsured Americans you hear about all the time on TV. (Except I've never taken a dime of unemployment, welfare or financial assistance from the government)

So I started looking at Homeopathic remedies first, since that was all I could afford:
Cinnamon Tea: Boil cinnamon sticks in a pot, add a small amount of honey and lemon for flavor. Supposed to lower your blood sugar levels. I felt immediately better after the first pot of tea my baby sister made for me.
Echinacea Tea: Boil the manzanilla tea. Supposed to lower my stress levels and blood pressure.
Walking: Since I didn't have the energy to run or lift weights, I began walking my dog for a mile every morning. When I felt funky I would add ankle-weights, but it was always slow and steady pace.
Mouthwash: Many people don't associate a clean mouth with a clean bill of health, but it's true. The more dirty or rotten your mouth feels, the more unhealthy you are likely to be. This one made me start feeling better in 1 day.
Eyedrops: This is for the dry eyes, which is probably associated with my dry mouth and my constant thirst, but whatever. I used the Moistuirizing Eye Drops, not the "get the red out" drops.
Multi-Vitamin: This should go without saying, but a lot of guys (and gals) my age don't realize they are my age until weird things start happening to their bodies. Long hair from; eyebrows, nose, ear, and any other random spots on your body are some signs your getting older.
Change diet: This was the hardest because had to remove all the stuff I love. Got rid of RC Cola. No more pancakes or Flour Tortillas. Bye Bye white bread, Hello whole-wheat bread. See ya later Lucky Charms, how ya doing oatmeal...
Basically I got rid of all sweets, removed enriched flour, bought Sugar-Free fruit juice, and cut back drastically on fruit.

Then I got lucky in a way, because my girlfriend has been diabetic since she was a child, so she recognized the symptoms right away and was the first to suggest I might be diabetic.

But still, my Machismo got in the way of taking the time to make an appointment and get checked out. Then I made the excuse of how expensive it was going to be. (Which it is, but the city is constantly offering free screenings, just the timing is always wrong)

Finally, after getting a scare where I almost passed out and had to lay down to get over it I decided to make an appointment.

After some research on the internet, I located the Texas Diabetes Institute. They were offering free screening in order to find participants for a 3 year study on Diabetes.

They were looking for people who had only recently begun showing symptoms and had never before been diagnosed with diabetes.

Well that was easy for me, because I didn't believe in going to the doctors office unless a bone was broken or blood was gushing out of my orifices so there was NO WAY I had been diagnosed earlier.

So I found out I was diabetic. As a matter of fact, after they realized my blood sugar lever was at 476 after fasting for 10 hours, I thought they were gonna rush me to emergency room.
Just to give you an idea, a healthy blood sugar level is mid-80's.
High Blood Sugar level is 180.
Diabetic Blood Sugar level is over 220.
I was in the "HOW THE HELL IS HE STILL ALIVE" range most of the time.

I have been accepted into the study, which is great because they are paying for all my treatment and tests.

But this is only the beginning of the journey. Hope to see ya'll around when I'm in my 90's.

In my job, I am often required to deal with the rudest, dumbest and craftiest liars on the planet. They don't consist of most of my day, but enough of my week to give me a headache.

Today I had a young woman tell me she made her payment online, because she was not informed by her AGENT (not me), that she was set up on automatic withdrawals from her checking account.

I told her it was no big deal and it happens to anyone, but if in the future she would rather make her payments online, we could remove the EFT discount.
She said no, but that we should really make it clear that she was set up on the EFT program.

I informed her it is usually written on her invoice. She said it wasn't there. (and here is where the problems began...)

So I pull up the last bill we sent her and read it verbatim.

I wasn't doing it to be rude, I was just not sure of what READING-Level she left school at.

Was it rude of me? I don't think so. I read the letter verbatim, I didn't add any words or remove any sentence.

But I came across as SNOTTY. In actuality, I was being very patient and accomodating, since she didn't have a copy of the bill in front of her.

In my opinion, the problem began when she realized SHE HAD MISREAD the invoice, but was not willing to admit it to me or herself.

She preferred to shift the blame to a third-party who didn't give a ssshit if she nows how to read or not.

I only called to let her know something she overlooked. But now I'm "snotty" for educating her dumas.

touche Vieja, you may be right.

Reposted from "Never Judge Someone"

This was too cool to not pass on. I am not making any claim to this story, but felt I should pass it on.


Never judge someone...

'Some people!' snorted a man standing behind me in the long line at the grocery store. 'You would think the manager would pay attention and open another line, 'said a woman.

I looked to the front of the line to see what the hold up was and saw a well dressed, young woman, trying to get the machine to accept her credit card. No matter how many times she swiped it, the machine kept rejecting it.

'It's one of them welfare card things. Damn people need to get a job like everyone else,' said the man standing behind me. The young woman turned around to see who had made the comment.

It was me,' he said, pointing to himself.The young lady's face began to change expression. Almost in tears, she dropped the welfare card onto the counter and quickly walked out of the store. Everyone in the checkout line watched as she began running to her car. Never looking back, she got in and drove way.

After developing cancer in 1977 and having had to use food stamps; I had learned never to judge anyone, without knowing the circumstances of their life. This turned out to be the case today.

Several minutes later a young man walked into the store. He went up to the cashier and asked if she had seen the woman. After describing her, the cashier told him that she had run out of the store, got into her car, and drove away.

'Why would she do that?' asked the man. Everyone in the line looked around at the fellow who had made the statement.

'I made a stupid comment about the welfare card she was using. Something I shouldn't have said. I'm sorry,' said the man.

'Well, that's bad, real bad, in fact. Her brother was killed in Afghanistan two years ago. He had three young children and she has taken on that responsibility. She's twenty years old, single, and now has three children to support,' he said in a very firm voice.

'I'm really truly sorry. I didn't know,' he replied, Shaking both his hands about.

The young man asked, 'Are these paid for?' pointing to the shopping cart full of groceries.

'It wouldn't take her card' the clerk told him.

'Do you know where she lives?' asked the man who had made the comment.

'Yes, she goes to our church.'

'Excuse me,' he said as he made his way to the front of the line. He pulled out his wallet, took out his credit card and told the cashier, 'Please use my card. PLEASE!'

The clerk took his credit card and began to ring up the young woman's groceries.Hold on,' said the gentleman. He walked back to his shopping cart and began loading his own groceries onto the belt to be included.

'Come on people. We got three kids to help raise!' he told everyone in line.

Everyone began to place their groceries onto the fast moving belt. A few customers began bagging the food and placing it into separate carts..

'Go back and get two big turkeys,' yelled a heavyset woman, as she looked at the man.

'NO,' yelled the man. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks. The entire store became quiet for several seconds. 'Four turkeys,' yelled the man..

Everyone began laughing and went back to work.When all was said and done, the man paid a total of $1,646.57 for the groceries. He then walked over to the side, pulled out his check book, and began writing a check using the bags of dog food piled near the front of the store for a writing surface. HeTurned around and handed the check to the young man.

'She will need a freezer and a few other things as well,' he told the man.

The young man looked at the check and said, 'This is really very generous of you.

''No, ' said the man. 'Her brother was the generous one.

'Everyone in the store had been observing the odd commotion and began to clap. And I drove home that day feeling very American.

We live in the Land of the free, because of the Brave!!

Remember our Troops of Yesterday and Today!!!

A great example of why we should be kind and patient. Kindness is the language the blind can see and the deaf can hear.

May God's many blessings continue to be with you - ALWAYS!!!

MAY THIS KEEP GOING....IT WILL OPEN A LOT OF EYES,HOPEFULLY HEARTS,AND KEEP SOME MOUTHS SHUT..