So What's in the Cards?

Also gotta thank Paco Montoya of E&P Designs for our logo check 'em out!

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine from my Sallie Mae days... (Matt Scheurerman in case you're wondering.... Check out his site!) I think the tone my my Twitter posts lately in addition to my gloomy blog entry about what I wanted to be when I grow up sparked some thoughts about something to take me out of my doldrums...

We had a heck of a talk and he put some good ideas into my noggin so I'll start off by saying thank you Matt for being a sounding board!

So what did I decide to do?

Well my voice has always been something of an asset to me, I've been told of my "radio voice" by customers and co-workers alike... So....

Me and my brother Adam are going to start podcasting again... It'll be a little bit since I need to find a server and a new website. So ETA is probably going to be in a couple of months... We'll still have the same silliness but we're going to set up more professionally this time (hopefully).

We've already got a name thankfully... DeauxBrahs... Adam and I figured it's already in existence and the skateboarding thing didn't work so incorporate it into our media brand...

So, there it is... Another diversion for me and hopefully we can keep it up this time... (Although Adam's out of school now so I don't have to worry about him stressing over tests anymore... lol)

So What the Fuss???

Sunny Leone's hot... I figured I'd sex it up a bit... lol

Holy crap... It's been a loooooong long time since I wrote on this my official blog...

that's it... thanks for reading...

LOL just kidding...

I guess having a job that keeps you busy is a good thing! I've always felt that as long as I can put in an honest day's work then I would be a happy lil' clam! And I've gotten plenty of that this past holiday season working at Big 5 Sporting Goods, as a Manager Trainee.

A lil' backstory on how I ended up at the Big Nickel in the first place...

When I was still enjoying my time in Arizona I needed a second job in order to substantiate my "lavish" lifestyle... In otherwords I needed a second job because I was in CRAZY debt. Lol...

In came my cousin's cousin Nuch who offered me a job which I endlessly thank him for to this day. Heck he actually spoke on my behalf to get me the job as a manager trainee! So I guess I owe him my first child... But working with Nuch and the friends that I met as a result of working at Big 5 was a HUGE reason I loved working there...

Now fast forward to October when I was miserable working for AT&T as tech support for their DSL service... Things were looking bad for me when my mom after searching for a job for over half a year got a call from Lake Charles, Louisiana and the Le Auberge Du Lac Casino to interview for a position at the casino! Super yay! But Mom has issues with dizziness and was afraid to fly. Well after having the unfortunate luck of getting majorly sick a few times I was pretty much counting on being let go due to attendance (AT&T has a VERY strict attendance policy...) So I said what the hell I'll accompany my mom... So we get to Lake Charles and my mom has a pretty easy time with the interview and was offered the job the same day she interviewed. Also come to find that my mom liked the small town atmosphere and said let's do it!

At the time I was thinking I was gonna move with her to Lake Charles to live and work... Life strangely enough deals you a good hand when you're not expecting it...

After moving my mom to Louisiana and a quick stop in Arizona to visit my cousins, I came back home still thinking I was going to move to Lake Charles. But in the meantime I figured I needed some cash so I went application hunting and happened to see a sign on the front of Big 5 in Sparks that they were hiring. I figured hey at least I can get some part time hours.

Well lo and behold after getting an app and turning it in I ended up getting a full time job as a Manager Trainee! It took me by surprise at how fast it ended up being! On top of that, because of my past work history with Big 5 they put me on a fast track to Manager Training...

It was almost like riding a bike, a lot of the things I did were still being done so after a week of being lost I felt like I got back into the groove again! Then came Black Friday and of course the Christmas season, during that time I began to feel like I was in my element and I busted my ass for 8 hours a day and when I went home I felt good! So now I'm beginning to finish up my training now and about to be an acting manager at the end of the month, which I am sooo stoked about!

I guess happiness is always when you find a job or a passion that you can feel as if you belong. It's always comedic how happiness finds you... I really enjoy myself at work everyday because of the crew that I have at work and being able to move around all day has done wonders to my waistline!

May happiness find you and yours in the new year it can't get no worse... :)

Ok, Ok...

UH... WHAT THE HELL IS THIS???

Apparently I'm not good enough to be a training specialist or a Assistant Bank Manager trainee in Lake Charles, LA.... LOL! Oh well, as with all things we go on and will continue to get my hustle on...

Sooo... Just got back from a marathon travel sesh... Kinda sucks having to come back to the residence but I did find out a lot of things on this trip...

So what did Alan find out? (In no particular order...)

1.) Driving 4 days in a rent-a-truck dragging your mother's SUV behind you on busy free/highways friggin' sucks...

2.) I still don't know where the hell Van Horn, TX is... But the Chevron truck stop had a BOMB ass Mexican restaurant with the BEST salsa I've had in awhile!!!

3.) Truck stop restaurants kick MAJOR ass...

4.) Monster Energy, Red Bull, and Rockstar Energy drinks ARE your best friends...

5.) Don't ever travel with a mother who says "It's up to you when you wanna stop..." Then proceeds to bitch about being hungry and tired 30 minutes later...

6.) Texas is a BIG ASS state!!!

7.) Dairy Queens must be VERY popular in Texas...

8.) Don't rent trucks from Budget Rentals in Reno... Son of a bitch sent us out on the road with 2 bald front tires on the truck and 3 bald tires on the trailer carrying my mom's truck... Good thing we stopped at that Shell in Wickenburg...

9.) If given a choice stay at a Holiday Inn Express... La Quinta Inn's are SKETCHY AS HELL!!!

10.) No matter where you go Denny's Grand Slam Burgers KICK ASS!!!

11.) I'm suddenly starting to realize that my mother complains about various afflictions that she may be a hypochondriac...

12.) Apparently if you have a Wal Mart you are considered in civilization... (Used to be McDonald's...)

13.) Driving the I-10 East in Houston on a Saturday night in a rent-a-truck dragging an SUV behind you is the scariest thing EVER!!!! I think that steering wheel still has indentations where my hands where...

14.) Lake Charles is humid!!!

15.) Ryan's in Lake Charles is the best buffet in that town and cheap too! (Ok, who are we kidding, anyplace that has fried porkchops, catfish, greens, mac and cheese, red beans and rice, is ALWAYS good to me...)

16.) I REALLY miss Arizona...

17.) I need to get myself a job... LOL

I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff but that's all I got mentally for now...

Have a good one!

On the Road Again...

The lovely Kagney Linn Karter.... Now you know... Need to get this girl on a DeauxBrahs board!

The incredibly adorable Alanah Rae unpacking

Well I figured I'd start with a vision of hotness since I'm heading out to Arizona, which is the first leg of a three day roadie moving my mom to Lake Charles, LA so she can start her new job! All I can say is yay!

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks since we flew out to Lake C so my mom could interview at the L'Augberg Du Lac Casino. The fact that she interviewed and got the job on the same day is so amazing! Maybe whirlwind isn't the best description for it perhaps it's been a hurricane couple of weeks... Nah that's not good either... Oh well I'll figure out a good metaphor before I end this... LOL

It's been insane trying to get my mom's apartment and school stuff squared away. Thankfully my usually dependent mom decided to do most of this stuff on her own. More sleep for me!

But I will have to say that I am incredibly proud of my mom. People fail to realize that my mom has lived in the town of Reno, NV for over 40 years! In a family that seems to never follow through on their intentions to move away my mom got a job and grew a pair and is leaving this hellhole that I also call Reno... Of course it helps when you get a job, but she was even talking about not taking the job if she didn't like the town... Lo and behold she LOVED the lil' town of Lake Charles, Louisiana! (I only know this due to the fact that she won't shut up about it now... lol) But it was funny going through the process with her from thinking of all the negatives to the positives... Thank God there were more positives than negatives!

Of course that means Grandma and Grandpa gotta follow so once I'm done getting the grandparent's business squared away and once mom is settled and cool I'll be escorting grandma and grandpa on a jet plane to Houston again to make the journey to Lake Charles where they'll settle with my mom...

I'm hopefully gonna get a job there too so I can settle in as well (Mom reserved a 3 bedroom apartment... So I guess I better get my butt over there to occupy a room... lol)

For now though gonna chill in the RNO (unfortunately...) and see if I can find some gainful employment here...

I guess I'm excited and sooo happy for my mom but I'm also sad that she won't be here... I wonder if that's how she felt when her oldest baby left the nest for Arizona 10 years ago... (probably not, I'm sure she wanted my ass outta the house by that point... we were working each other's last good nerve... lol!). Now the 3 day roadie? That's a WHOLE different story... I hate driving long distances so this is gonna blow BIG TIME! LOL

Anyway, thanks for reading about my tsunami last couple of weeks... Ahh crap that don't work either... Ok, guess we'll just call it whirlwind... Jeez soooo cliche!!!

Good Things are a Startin'...

Checkin' in from Louisiana, I figure since everyone is sleepin' might as well... So good things have been happenin' in my clan since the last entry... Lil' bro got a full time job at the station he works at! Total Captain Morgan moment there! But another cool thing is my mom who's been out of a job since February FINALLY got a job in an industry she knows which is the casino industry... AND got a payraise in the process!

Makes a brotha wonder what in the world is going on when you gotta go out of state to get a job anymore... Soo... What does that mean for our lil' troupe? I'll probably be relocating to Lake Charles, Louisana that's what... But it won't be too bad, if worse comes to worse I always got Houston, TX... Albeit my preference was to go back to Arizona, buuuut ya gotta go where the cash is flowing... Go figure it's here in Louisiana... LOL

So anyways, here's to good times thank god for some of the good stuff he's been givin' my fam lately!

Deauxin' the Deaux

The logo you'll need to remember!

One of our concept shirts based on one of our boards

DeauxBrahs - Grungy

DeauxBrahs - Flarey

And the DeauxBrahs - Boldly Go (Wonder where that one came from...)

Wow... Another long layoff... For those who are some reason still following this blog (If you are, I'm assuming the beer and liquor hasn't run out yet...) I've been working horrible hours and I've been working on a side project that me and my brother came up with when I was out of a job.

We've started our own skateboard company! I'm sure many of you are wondering "WHAT?" That's why you haven't been writing??? LOL, no but it's been a labor of love getting shirt samples and board samples tested. It's something that I truly enjoy! Anyway, I would be remiss if I didn't mention a good friend who's been on this dream train with me and my brother. My homeboy Paco Montoya, who is one of the proprietors of E&P Designs made our logo for us, so a HUGE thank you goes out to him for helping us realize and finalize a dream!

So what's next you may ask for this DeauxBrahs brand? I dunno, I'm thinking we're just gonna try and get our buzz going here locally and keep selling the shirts and boards on the web and out the back of my trunk... LOL Who knows, maybe snowboards and other "action sports" apparel may follow, but whichever way it goes I'm ready to Deaux the Deaux!

Check out our board shop site http://www.boardpusher.com/DeauxBrahs

The official website soon to follow!

Twitter has taken over my life...

Damn you Twitter!!!

Holy crap it's been awhile since I've blogged. I guess the main reason is just being so darn tired from working... But another reason is just being so engulfed in this Twitter thing. Hard to believe that I originally joined Twitter to get some updates from Sara Bareilles... LOL Now I pretty much twit or tweet (whatever the hell they call it...lol) everyday. I even managed to get an app for my iPhone that's how I roll everyday... Oh man, oh man... It's just a horrible day when I don't Twit, I feel like I'm neglecting my responsibilities... Anyway if you wanna follow a brotha hit up my Twitter

Okay... So I TOTALLY Got Sick...

Man I HATE being sick... Nothing worse in my opinion, actually thinking about it yes there is a worse thing.... Still having a wicked chest cough after you're allegedly "done" with your sickness!!!

So it started on Friday, I had a funky tickle in my throat and I was jubilant that I was able to switch with one of my co-workers so I didn't have to work on Memorial Day. I was thinking "SWEET! I'm gonna go watch me some Terminator Salvation and relax!" Only bad thing is the cough didn't want to go away... Oh well, let's grab some dinner with the fam and STILL coughing like a mother!

So I head to bed after dinner and next day which was the day I planned to see Terminator, my chest is hurting and I'm not feeling so hot... I'm thinking "aww crap, not the flu again!!!!", but despite my mother's concerns I didn't head to the doc yet in the event it was a 24 hour flu or something. So the day goes on and I feel worse and worse... Went to sleep and was coughing while I was asleep, how do I know you may ask? I kept waking up... THAT'S HOW HARD I WAS COUGHING FOLKS!!!

So Sunday rolls around and I'm still feeling like crap, so I finally have to admit defeat and tell my mother time to head to urgent care because this is scaring me! Go to urgent care and they diagnose me with bronchitis! HOLY CRAP! So they give me some anti-biotic and an inhaler (Don't ask folks I have no earthly idea, why they'd give me an inhaler for bronchitis... But what do you expect when you don't have to pay for insurance...) So I also get a note from the doc to stay out of work until Tuesday.

So Monday rolls around and I still feel sick as a dog, and figure Tuesday is a wash... So I called into work and let 'em know I had a docs note. So Wednesday rolls around and still feel like crap and I go as far as to go to work to deliver my doc's note and to let my managers know that I'm not in any shape to work, so thankfully they let me head on home.

So now that it's Thursday, I felt good enough to go to work. Still felt like crap taking calls but at least I still was employed for the time being... I unfortunately have a VERY strict attendance at work and I've already shot my "silver bullet" once... So let's hope a brother stays on...

Funny Tees and Graduation Gifts...

Yeah poke this...

I don't know what it is lately, but I've been on a funny shirt kick... Courtesy of DGK (Dirty Ghetto Kids). As you can see they have a bit of a twisted humor... lol! If nothing else people get a good look and laugh at the Pilsbury Doughboy with gold teeth!

Adam with his "pro" board from DeuxBrahs Skateboards

Oh, and my younger brother is graduating from college! Woo Hoo! When it became kinda "official" I gave him his graduation gift. It's the 2nd board from our little outfit, DeuxBrahs Skateboards (courtesy of boardpusher of course). I wanted to get something unique that no one else would think of. It was neat to see his face when I pulled it out for him! He thought I was pulling our first board until he saw it had his name on it! So that was a really cool thing that brightened up my day especially since I had a bad day yesterday. I was just really stoked to see that he was happy with it!

I think I told him to enjoy his last days as a college student because real life sucks.... LOL

Love Ya Bro!

No Rest for the Weary...

Hmm...

Still livin' amazingly... I wonder sometimes why we are blessed to receive things such as a great family and marvelous friends. Yet we can sometimes be cursed by negativity such as angry customers on the phone, a family member who tries to take advantage of you at every turn. It's those days that I wonder if I'm that big of a sucker to let these negative things happen to me... Although I guess the angry customer thing you can't control but it'd be nice if I could get cool people all the time... LOL

Anyway I guess I want to say that I'm thankful for every one of my family and friends who support me and love me even through my trials and tribulations, and through those days when I just have a piss-poor attitude...

Anywhooo.... Sooner or later things get back to normal right??? LOL

Hopefully, once the lil' bro graduates in a few weeks we'll resume recording for the podcast, apparently lil' bro has been getting some emails wondering if we were coming back. So yes we are coming back just had to wait for Adam to get squared away with school so he had a "normal" schedule... LOL

By the way check out my Twitter feed, I try to update that a lot... Damn I have no life... LOL

Alan's Twitter Feed

Oy... So Tired!

Oy... Who knew starting a job after being out of one for six months was gonna tire me out so bad??? All I can say is at least I'm getting used to the schedule now. Even though I'm gonna be working even earlier than now... I better get used to heading to bed at 8 or somethin'...

Get Back to Work!!!

Thank god it ain't a job at In N' Out!!! But if Olivia worked there I'd be there on time everyday!

Had a lovely call today, I'm now amongst the gainfully employed again! I'm happy to announce that after 6 long months I'm finally back to work again, in a customer service position in a call center. Not exactly what I thought I'd be doing at age 30, but in this economy I ain't gonna complain! So first round's on me when I get paid! ;)

What a Nap!

I just woke up from a wicked nap...  All I can say holy crap!  I slept for like 4 hours!  I couldn't sleep last night so I didn't get a load of sleep.  I finally crashed out at noon...  Boy that means I ain't sleeping tonight...  Suck...  

Watching a bit on Attack of the Show's podcast about Lucha Va Voom...  The most utterly ridiculous thing I've ever seen...  LOL!  But you can't beat midgets wrestling!

This has got to be the most Ree-Dunk-Culous show ever...

Dude... The Day...

Man I got a lot of stuff done today! Thank god...

Got my dad's bank situation squared away, along with sending off letters for his debts...

Went to Costco with Mom and Grandma...  Had to take 2 ibuprofen afterwards...  

Then had to finish grocery shopping by buying tuna steaks for my mom's reformed dietary habits...

I didn't even get to play SOCOM tonight!!!  No bueno...  :o(