Frank Pinedo and Christmas in Houston

INstead of flying to Corpus for the break I had switched my flight to go to Houston to catch up with my family who were at the side of my Grandfather who was suffering from pnemonia and a staff infection which was complicated by his old age and a previous stroke, leaving him paralized on the right side. My Christmas in Houston was great. It was so good to see my family. I was even able to see my cousins that I havent seen in like 2 years. But finally, after being in the hospital over a week, my Grandfather left us for the Lord. December 29, 2009.

My Grandfather was amazing. He was was a leader. He lived through the toughest times, with a single mother during the depression, fought in WWII, helped Hispanics win some battles in the Discrimination of the 50s, raised three amazing boys (of which 2 became lawyers like himself and one worked with the Internatioal Space Station with Russia, Japan, Lockheed Martin and NASA), rejected an offer to work for President Johnson after the death of JFK to raise his family, had to suffer the early death of his first wife and of his first born son. Yet still became an amazing witness of a devote follower of Christ and of his steady work in law for over 50years, his commitment to serving others and leading so many group, church groups, bible groups, helping the Latino community, helping the homeless community, helping the unborn, and everything inbetween. The man is an exsample of perserverence, dedication, commitment and faithfulness. He was the ultimate man, one that created a better world every moment he breathed. His affection is strong, as hundreds of people have been blessed by him. Some call him a Hero. Some call him a God-send. Some call him a Leader. Some an Angel. I call him my grandfather. Frank M Pinedo. I love you and will miss you deeply. See you in Heaven. -DP


(Remember my Grandfather Carlos died last December as well)

To Commemorate him, I made a slideshow video about him. Enjoy.

Christmas Break

Well, it was really nice to fly home. But that was a story in and of itself. It was weds night. I studyied and studied and studied and I packed, then wrote and wrote and wrote. I had a philosopy assignment that was fiven on weds that was due thursday morning as my final. That was annoying as well.

For some reason my professor was really weird, He gave us back the previous midterm just that monday. So I went to office hours 2 times, monday and tuesday, and was there for a combined 2 hours before I would have to leave without getting any help because I had basketball practice. So finally I get in weds after waiting 40 mintues. And yes, I had an appointment every time, its jsut that he is so disorganized and takes forever to do anything. So I studied weds morning, went to office hours, stayed to about half of the practice, and on my way back got a call from my football buddy. He was working on his philosopy paper with the other football player and wanted to know if I wanted to join. I was so happy that they called me and kinda lucky cause I had completely forgotten about the assignment. So I went over and worked on it from 6pm to 2am. I did some packing in between.

I will tell you what...that walk, that short walk from south quad to angell hall took so long. I was like falling over I was so tired. I felt aweful, beyond aweful. It was the morning of the 18th, 2 in the morning, and I had been up to this since the first of December, and I felt aweful. Baaaa. Its true that if you are up 24 hours that you begin to act as if you are legaly intoxicated. Well, I had not done that, but the bind and grind of 18 days was way over due on me and I could hardly walk, less much stand strait without sleeping. But it felt good to drop that last paper in the drop box in angell hall.

The next morning was terrible...yet beautiful at the same time. I felt beyond aweful. I had worked so hard for so long and still everything was going down hill and I knew with all the work I had put into everything I still would not do that good in my grades. I haddnet slept any. I had eaten pretty badly. My workouts werent that good. I had over studdied. I had consumed way too many energy drinks. And my body was sore and I had a hurt kneee. Yes, life was miserable...but I had one hope. All soon would be over, in 4 hours in fact, and then I could go home. Home sweet home. So I took a cold shower to wake up. I had a good breakfast and 2 energy drinks. I had a juiced rock star and a can of bawls. And yes, I was standing while studying that morning, just like I had been for the past few days. You see, when you are exsausted and your body is yearning and pleading for rest, your body will do anything in its power to attain that rest. Anytthing. So by sitting down, you are just asking for it. Its almost like lying down, except not. So by standing up, it makes it that much harder for your body to fall asleep. And on top of that, once you start to dose off, you will litterally fall. You dont know how many times I have caught myself halfway on a fall, but you know what? I also cause myself falling asleep. ChaChing! So yeah, I crambed some more of that good ´ol macro economics and walked to Lorche hall to take my last final with a can of Bawls in hand as my only wepon. I went in there, had my game face on, made a couple of prayers and I takled that thing...and that thing was hard.

Now, I dont understand it. I knew that the professor told us that he was making the test hard on purpose. I knew he said he wanted us to miss the questions and that he wanted us to fail. But saying something and actually doing something are two quite different things. I mean, a black sheep can think its white all it wants, but it wont do it any good. Obama can say he will change the economy for the better and then raise taxes all he wants and it wont do any good. Shaq can say he can make all those free throws when it counts and still miss them in the game and it wont help his team any more. Saying and doing are often quite different. But not for this first year Russian Calculas boring pitstained maniac macro economic professor. No, what he says, he means. And that test was freakin hard! Goodness gratious! I wish he was lying on this one! And so yeah...it was hard. But do you know what? I was done. Yes, I was done.




I walked out a defeated yet living hero, and I had just 2 hours before my bus left. So I went to a local Michigan apperal store that was about to go out of business to buy some shirts as christmas presents. And they hardly had anything. Just XXL and XXXL. And a few childrens shirts...and shirts for dogs, but nothing good. It was just in this huge pile of blaaa and fatness. But I made due. I did run into John, a dude in UCO that I had apperantly had told I would eat lunch with him that afternoon but completely forgot till I ran into him and he reminded me. I love when that happeneds. So I found some stuff at another shop, we ate, I packed the last of what I had, and then went out to the buss stop for my bus to Detroit Airport. I got on and it was the begginging of thankfully a very eventless trip back to Texas. The only annoying thing was that it cost me $40 and 2 philosophy books to send my luggage back home. But it was all good. Oh, and I did sit with the entire Michigan State Mens Basketball team from Detroit to Houston (which they ended up upsetting #5 Texas the following day). I talked some trash, told Coach Izzo to be ready for us February 10th, and talked spanish for 20 minutes strait with a dude from Mexico and crused back to Texas. My headphones where really nice. I liked them a lot and they worked perfect on the airport.

I landed in corpus and my brother christopher, my dad, and Casey and Arce were there to greet the tired yet joyful traveler back home. And after all that studying and staying up late and everything, you figured I would be strait to sleep in my own bed, right? No, I went to Arces House with Casey and my awaited PS3 that my brothers didnt know about and stayed up till 4 in the morning. But that night was a night in itself. I couldnt get the PS3 to work. So I thought I broke that. Then we broke a glass cup. THen we broke the couch. THen we broke the Xbox 360. Then the TV. It was aweful. So yeah. what a first night.

I finally was able to get the PS3 working. It was tight. I just had to adust the settings of the video. The PS3 for some reason makes you adust all types of settings. It wont work automatically, you have to find them out manually. I ended up getting a component cable so that we could see high def on the big screen tv once we got the bulb fixed. It looked sweet. We watched the "forgetting Marshals" Movie on it and it was really really cool. But the audio for some reason was not playing how we wanted. THe component cable went to the tv and the tv to the speakers, and for some reason that was not working so we just had sound come off of the tv itself, sub-par. We ended up getting a high end optical cable 3 days before I flew back and never watched anything with it, even though we tested and it sounded perfect.




Christmas day was fun. Midnight mass was alright, as this was the first year I havent played saxophone at midnight mass since 8th grade. But Christmas day was splended. I got the coolest 4 gifts too. Check this out...





1. The Dark Knight on Blue Ray
2. A Sweet Texas Style belt with a Big Belt Buckle
3. A Signed and framed Michael Jordan Jersey
4. A Rotten Black Banana Peel
...sweet isnt it? I forgot that I asked for a banana peel, but Christopher remembered and said it was a request he could not pass. Haha, they told me to open the box and feel it before looking at it, and I still did not remember about the banana, not even a few seconds afterward till it registered. Haha, it was sweet. Later we played some old school Texas backyard football in the warm weather and then later went to see the cousins out in far like hour Texas, haha. We hung out, played horseshoes, talked about how Texas footall is tied with Notre Dame and coming after Michigan, watched Christmas day NBA (Celtics-Lakers) and chilled with them eating loads of good Texas food. We love Texas here.





The next days were pretty chill. I finally finished my Max Schmeling/Joe Louis boing book...yes, it took me 4 months, ok? But I started my Jessie Owens and Adolf Hitler German Olymipcs books and finished in 1 week...thats right, 7 days. So there is hope for me.

New Years was a different animal. The 31st, Michigan was playing Wisconsin, so I invited some buds, including old school ACA buddie Mark Price, who plays ball for Wheaten University. Unfortunately, Michgian was doing pitiful and of course Arce and Casey were rooting for Wisconsin just to get me mad. The game was absolutely aweful, we had our first home loss, first loss to an unranked team, and our first conference loss all at the same time. But me and Casey and Arce hung out all night going places and having fun till 6:30 am. It was sweet, especially since I got up at 9:30 to go to church. It was a holy day of obligation for Mary, the mother of God. I said, Mary, I am glad you are really my mother; otherwize I would not have come.


The Second of January, a Friday, was my mom`s birthday. We went to B&Js. I hung out with Edy that day and I tried out one of his body building workouts and then we went to eat. We got a pizza full of meat. Well, I stay the night with ed, and we have a good time. I get up in the morning and he was pucking pepper like nuts since 8am. He got sick hard the next day too and accused my mom of trying to kill him (my mom has yet to make any statement upon the issue).





Then Sunday came. That evil Sunday. Not only do I have 2 days left, but trying to update my iPhone from firsmware 2.1 to 2.2, and rushing it in the process to go to church with my Dad, I completely bricked my phone. Bricked it hard core. Worse than last time. Much worse. This time, and I guess it is the new iTunes 8.0.8, it wont recognize the iphone unless it is activated, so there is no way to restore the phone. But when I go to restore mode and do it manually, I get error code 21. Stupid! I spent hours on it, 2 by my self in the after noon and like 4 with Edy that night. But it still didnt work. I worked and worked and no good. So now I am using a crappy phone that carlos butchered and have to go to Michigan like that. Haha, but thats how it happened. In an attempt to fix it with downgrading to a old iTunes, I killed my iTunes. Baaa...but that happens, right?

Another big news! I got a job! My summer job is lined up! How many other college sophmores already have a summer job? Anyhow, I worked with the Corpus Christi Hooks last year doing on field entertainment and promotions. You can see some past posts in may and june 08 posts about it. Well, the General Manager, Michael Wood wanted me to come back. I called him Monday, he told me come over, I got to see him and some new friends, met the new guy in charge of tickets and sales, and Michael Wood, was pretty much like, "Spenser, this is Daniel. He worked with us last summer and did an amazing job for us. You should hire him." Pretty much saying, dude, I am the GM; hire him. It was that easy. I got it. So I will be in Texas this summer once again, probobly for the last time, and I will be doing sales, predominately tickets, for the Corpus Christi Hooks. How bout that!

Besides that I played some basketball with some friends from high school and then flew up to Michigan on the 6th of January, a tuesday. I ran into some mexican soccer team that was going to LA to play a professional team and I talked to them a bit in spanish, but nothing much eventful. Got to Ann Arbor nice and ready (and rested from all that sleeping on the plane) and even went to UCO and had a blast in the after party. I am ready for this semester! Bring it on!

End of school maham

Well Fokes....I was so busy these past 2 weeks that I didnt even have time to stop by and say hi! It was terrible! Work coming out of my nostrils and all other bodily openings! Its wasnt even funny! But alo, I am here now. And so we begin

School was nuts. My Movement Science 110 final was pretty good. Hard, but I got a B. Overall in the class I got a B. Thats great at Michigan. I studied a lot for my econ101 final. Of course I should have studied more, but I picked up some extra shifts on friday and saterday...I wont tell you how much I worked those days, but I will tell you that they were a lot. So of course when those days were gone, I killed my butt studying for econ101 all sunday, monday and tuesday. I worked and worked, and it seemed I was getting the concept down...and I really was, really, but then that blasted last exam came around tuesday night and the rest was history. It was so hard. I didnt know what was going on. It was definitely harder than the last exams covering the same material. There were 33 questions. 10 were true/false, and the rest were multiple choice. I had to guess on 6 of them, completely guess b/c I didnt know what the heck was going on. They would show you a graph of the marginal cost tell you the average total cost was at minimum, and expect you to advise the monopoly whether they should increase or decrease output, increase or decrease price, and that was if you said stay open in the first place! Baaa! So essentially I guessed 6/23, thats like freakin 25%! It was terrible! I wanted to kill someone! But I was too tired and brain dead to do so! I turned in my exam to my GSI and told her it was butt hard. She said it was surprisingly hard for her too...which tells you something....

After the exam that tuesday night I went strait to the St Mary end of year dance thingy. It rocked as usual. I went to the Christmas one and had a blast, and this one was swell as well (thats a rimmer!). At first I was so frustrated about the exam, so my friend Devon took me up stairs and we wrestled to get the frustration out. I beat him real fast, but it did a great job of getting that frustration out. I was going crazy in the dance again. My dancing skills have improved leaps and bounce since last year, no joke, really, like I can actually dance kinda now. You have to believe me (Arce and Casey). I have been working diligently to get some some, natural moves down, and I am at the level were I can just hit the floor and not worry about how undanceful I am any more. Good stuff

Weds they had a barbecue at my dorm, and when they do something like that at Bursley on North Campus, its a big deal, cause we have over 1000 students living there. So in stead of getting there when everyone else would, I went to lift and came back at the end, and there was still a huge line. But I played some football and stuff...you just had to stay out there cause the weather was so good! Finally Michigan turned sunny! Finally Ann Arbor came to its amazing spring self! I mean, sure the leaves were not out yet, but hey, the temperature was a perfect 72 degrees, with the sun out not too bright, with a smooth breeze, and I could go on and on, cause it was perfect. So I spent a little too much time with my friends, but it was worth it.

(Me and Marc, my buddy from Cameroon that lived right next to my room)

So I did finish classes and my last final on tuesday, the 15th of April. But I had 2 papers due at noon on friday. I also had to pack all my storage boxes and my boxes shipping back home for the 3-5 pick up on friday. So I was flying, trying to get through this paper as fast and as good as I could. I had the great idea of playing tennis with on of my buds there, Eugene, and we played out in the sun from 11:30 to 2pm. I lost the first set 6-2, it was pathetic. But I lead in the second match starting 2-0. We tied 2-2, then I lead 4-2, then we tied 6-6. We fought back and forth and then I finally lost 9-7. It was crap. SO close! It was my first game in ages. But the sun killed me as I always does, and Im not just talking about the sun burn. I got a massive head ache. It was terrible. I wanted to do nothing but sit around the rest of the day. But I had to work. And then I had to write my papers. I ended up taking an hour and 1/2 nap b/c everything felt so weak. Then I wrote some more and more until I finished at 2:30 am. Then Eugine came back to taunt me cause he beat me and b/c I looked so tired and weak and he only needs 3 hrs of nap time a day. And with that I began to clean! And Pack! and Clean! And then I died at 5:30. I got up at 7, packed a little more, then took a 1/2 hr nap, packed packed packed, and then I left at 10:30 to go to my meeting. I dropped of my 2 papers and went to my meeting at cottage inn with the St Mary NCSA (Newman Church Student Association). Then I went back, packed like a freak, cleaned and was done by 3:45, just like I needed to. I had 3 boxes for shipping, 2 of storage, 1 plastic container of storage, and a cleaned refrigerator for storage. I had way too much crap with me. After that, I went to drop off some stuff, picked up my suitcases from a friends house, and went to the Briarwood mall with Annika before she leaves forever back in Germany. I was lucky enough to borrow a friend of mine's car. Matt is awesome- just for the record. He wants to start his own gaming developing firm, so all you should buy the games he makes, cause he is a great guy. I will remind you guys in the future, so dont worry about it too much now. So I did all my errands, got back and packed my bags, or tried to squeeze everything that was left in those bags, and then died again. I was kinda sick cause of the sun/lack of sleep, so that night was not pleasant. But considering it was more than the last few days combined, it was nice. I was sleeping on a bare matrice cause everything was already shipped. I stole Pete's blanket, my roommate (no, pete is my roommate, not the blanket silly!) and that helped a little. I did wake up a few time drenched in sweat. I was sleeping in the same clothes I wore all day cause thats all I had. I got up that morning, tried to figure out what to do to sign out, and finally left with Miriam Torrez, my awesome Godmother who took me to the airport. This was the first time American Airlines has ever been good to me. I actually got to Corpus on Time and with all my luggage! A miracle indeed!

W3ll, being back in the hot, humid Coprus was strange, but kinda nice. My dad and two younger bros, Christopher (AKA Skunk...dont ask) and Michael (Aka Sumo/Mega Wario) were jumping up and down to greet me. Michael even had a shirt that said "MR. HAPPY" and had a smiley face on it, haha. We went back home to see my mom and Carlos (AKA HotDog), oh, and the dog (Pepper, the only other female in the house). My dad finally decided to complete his Texaness and bough a grill. He loves grilled food, he just doesnt like the smell afterwards on his clothes and hair (Weak Sauce!), but he finally got one. So we grilled and ate outside by the pool and fountain and chatted the night away. Then of course we watched basketball together. Thats kinda my imprint on the family. I love to watch NBA, especially the playoffs, and since the playoffs began this saterday, we watched some of the first few games to come. Those darn spurs! GRRRR! I give Tim Duncan credit, but looser Manu Ginobli had to make the game winner to lead the Spurs over the Suns by 2 points in double overtime. And then the rockets just flopped. It was ugli. We will see what happens in the future.

Ok guys, I think I have spoken long enough. I had a lot to fill you in. Upcoming is my first week in Texas, including my new job with the Corpus Christi Hooks, so we will see how that goes. Also, more playoff action ahead, and who knows what else! Adios! -DP