I had a pleasant surprise this evening. I got a cool balloon toy.

My little neighbor/buddy, Martin, pronounced, “Mahr-Teen” came over tonight with his Dad. Seems they were at some function and “Marh-Teen” got a cool alien balloon made for him. On the way home his Dad asked if he wanted to keep it.

He said, “No. I’m gonna give it to Mr. Saldivar.”

They came over and gave it to me this evening.

Way cool.

Beto

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Well I finally got around to fixing my son’s desk. I’m sorry it took me so long Mijo. But, I must say, all those times tolling around in the garage building stuff, helped me in fixing your desk hutch.

See, we bought my son a desk a long time ago, one of my 1st posts to this blog even. But when I got my new iMac, I passed down my trusted 24″ iMac. Only problem was…it was too high for that desk. About 3″ too high. To get the iMac onto his desk, I had to remove the hutch and he lived with his desk that way all through summer. I kept thinking, “How the heck am I gonna be able to raise that hutch so his iMac will fit and have it stable?” For now, we just took it off and he just put the hutch items in a box but this Saturday, my wife Liz was in a cleaning frenzy and since the kids had already started school, I figured it was time for me to fix his hutch.

I remembered I had bought some channel aluminum a while back when I built one of my first camera stabilizers. I had bought extra and thoughts, “Hmmm…maybe that will fit?”

Sure did.

So this afternoon I took out the hack saw, cut some of that aluminum, and after a quick trip to Home Depot – I got it set up.

[Show as slideshow]

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I guess all those days tolling around in the garage paid off.

His desk is fine now. And I’m glad.

Beto

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Tomorrow the summer ride is over for my kids. They start back to school. My son starts high school, my daughter into 5th grade. They begin a week early since they go to Catholic School.

It just seemed like a short summer but who am I kidding?

We did a lot but now the fun begins for the Saldivar Clan. Academics are the important thing for our kids but they love sports as well. Joaquin is giving Freshman football at Antonian High school a try and Emmy is going out for the Volleyball team at Blessed Sacrament.

The good news is that “hopefully” both will be playing for the school teams. Actually, Joaquin is on the team but Emmy still has two more tryouts tomorrow and Tuesday.

This could mean our weekends will be free since CYO was mostly played on the weekends. Practices should also be held at the respective schools so that will help as well. I hope.

I’m strapping in — it’s gonna be a fast ride.

Oh and if you’re wondering about the cool school bus photos – it’s real. Found it on this webpage.

Jet-powered school bus reaches 350 mph, eliminates tardy slips — Autoblog

Beto

Popularity: 9% [?]

Yesterday was Joaquin’s (Wack’s) 1st football practice at Antonian High School. He’d been preparing himself for these practices by attending the Strength and Conditioning camp during the summer at the high school. These were tough workouts that tested his capabilities and determination.

During the 1st week of the camp, we had some very strong conversations about commitment, perseverance and dedication. By the end of the second week, he was looking forward to the daily workouts and he made it through the 4 week camp. He said it helped that he knew most of the football drills – thanks to his football coaching staff at Blessed Sacrament Catholic school.

The practices for the Freshman football team were being held from 10:30am to noon so I took off from work to pick him up. I figured he might be sore plus I wanted to talk to him about his first day in such a large team sport. We hadn’t bought him football cleats so I thought we might do that during the afternoon.

Never mind that fact that my boy is starting High School, but add High School sports and you can count me as a bit apprehensive in my approach to this new venture. I sometimes think Wack is more relaxed than I am.

As I pulled up to the school, I parked up on the hill, turned off my truck and looked down at the practice field. I began to slowly scan the area of over 70 players to try and find my son in the sea of grey t-shirts, red shorts and red helmets.

Wack’s not a speedster but his size and quickness would make him an ideal candidate for the line, so I concentrated my search to that area. I soon spotted the familiar stance of my son as he was going through the drills. I could see him nodding to his lineman coach as he received direction and I am confident in saying that Wack ended his response to the coach with a, “Yes sir.”

At least from my untrained eyes he seemed to being doing well and holding his own. I had arrived a bit early so as I settled back into my seat to watch the drills – I noticed a figure walking around the football practice field. He was wearing black shorts, white baseball cap, a blue and white shirt with that familiar red Bulldog logo on the left side.

It was Wack’s middle school football coach, Andrew Torres. I recognized the confidence and authority of his stride as walked to different areas of the practice field — silently looking down to his clipboard through his dark sunglasses, taking notes.

All business that Torres…

Coach Torres stayed with the team all the way through practice and stood silently by the team when they all huddled and listened to their new coach offer words of encouragement. In an iconic ending, the team lifted their football helmets above their heads in tight circle, shouted something and then broke huddle. Practice was over and a sigh escaped me.

It brought me such a sense of relief knowing I was not the only one at the practice, to watch and encourage my son’s progress.

I started my truck and pulled around to the gymnasium to wait for Wack and in a few minutes, this large, sweaty, sunglass wearing young man rounded the corner in his Apache grey shirt and red shorts. I had to do a double take to make sure it was him. He seemed so much bigger than I remembered this morning. But his toothy smile betrayed the tough guy image. There was my growing young man — hidden behind those sunglasses.

He wasn’t even wearing a football uniform but my heart swelled with pride as he approached the truck.

I know he will do well.

As he opened the door and climbed in, I asked, “How was it Papa?”

“Pretty good. I liked. It.” He responded.

“Was it tough?”

“Not too bad Dad. I’m used to it.”

No doubt thanks to Coach Torres who had also prepared my son for this new chapter in his young life.

“Did you see Coach Torres Papa? I saw him walking around.”

“Yes sir, I saw him.”

“Did he tell you hello?”

“No sir, he was just there watching us.”

“Huh…why was he there?”

“Probably to see any new plays and to show support for HIS PLAYERS.“

Thank you Coach Torres for the continued support of my son. There are very few people who can make an impression on parents (and kids) and I am grateful that you are one of them.

For those of you who don’t know of Coach Torres, that’s him up in the picture (I took) during his 1st football season as head coach at Blessed Sacrament Catholic school. He is a dedicated family man, coach and teacher. You can see more of him by clicking on this link for the videos I produced of the 2010 and 2009 sports seasons.

Thank you for letting me share and I’ll have a football schedule posted soon.

Beto

Go Apaches!

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This is just excellent! I rap/video about Dads.

I’m ashamed to say…I could be in this video. Okay…maybe not that ashamed.

LOL.

Beto

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