RGV Life

Today, I received a press release from Congressman Ruben Hinojosa's office regarding a $9,123,464 grant to provide expansion of the Migrant Head Start services. This is good news for migrants and for the organizations involved in providing the service. If you are new to this blog, I spent this last summer up in Wisconsin working for a Migrant Head Start program run through United Migrant Opportunity Services. For a while, greed got the best of me and I worked in a canning factory with the migrants. I eventually got out and went back to work with the UMOS Head Start in Rice Lake, WI. UMOS has been providing services to migrants since the 1960s, I believe. Recently, they have had to deal with real budget cuts and expanding need. You may wonder, what does UMOS have to do with the Texas Migrant Council? Well, TMC is also a well known and long time service provider for migrants. Where they can, TMC provides services directly to migrants. Given the same challenges, TMC will occasionally...

I grew weary of the old template, so I went in and changed it. The new template started off simpler, but I put all the widgets back in and cluttered it up again. I really need to rethink what stuff is necessary on the site. In any case, you did not take a wrong turn at Albuquerque. You're at the right place.

Applying for unemployment insurance Originally uploaded by rgvlife . Alma Mata is applying for unemployment insurance benefits. She has already applied with her former employer, Hidalgo County Head Start for a job.Typically, it takes a couple of weeks to be called for an interview and another to start working, even when short-staffed. Having worked there in the past, she has a reasonable expectation of being rehired. Alma is trying to figure out where to apply. If you go to the Texas Workforce Commission office, they can't help. They can only help you find work. Currently, the lines are jammed with calls to apply over the phone. Since she worked out of state, she cannot apply over the Internet. Alma will attempt to apply for benefits in Wisconsin if her efforts in Texas don't pay off. I have wagered her that she'll get hired before they give her a dime in UI. I think that the whole process is intentionally inefficient to discourage applicants. UPDATE I married a determined ...

Back when I was a Freshman at Mission High School, I signed up for a pen pal through International Youth Services. Through my high school years and some of my college years, I maintained a correspondence with Jennifer from West Yorkshire. You can imagine reading Wuthering Heights and being in touch with somebody who actually lived out by the moors on the English countryside. In some ways, we grew up together, even being so far apart. After graduation from high school, a friend of mine invited me to go on a tour of Europe with him. One of the first stops we made was to visit my friend in England. We had some other misadventures in Paris, Madrid, Roma, Berlin, and London. That's a whole other story. In any case, through a dream on Sunday morning, I was inspired to reinitiate contact with my friend in England. I was able to find her father and, from there, get in touch with her. I received an email from Jennifer tonight after she found my blog posts via Google. If you Google my name, ...

I just saw this video about an air powered car. It's a simple and awesome idea. I would love to putt around town in one. It would never succeed, I think. Think of all the environmentalists who would be jobless. What would become of Al Gore if we all drove air-powered cars? I would be concerned about the mileage possible in one of these air cars. How many miles to the tank would they get? What if you are out in the country and there aren't any politicians for miles to fill it with hot air again?

A while back, I audioblogged about going for barbacoa. I also touched on barbacoa in other instances ( 1 , 2 , 3 ). Well, today, I went out for another pound of the delicious meat. Just to recap, barbacoa is not the same thing as barbecue. Barbacoa is cooked meat from the head of the cow. The best meat comes from the tongue. Some people can manage to pick the meat off the skull. That creeps me out, so I buy barbacoa already picked off the head. As usual, I went to De Alba Tortilla Factory & Bakery in Mission. I like that they have two options for buying barbacoa. They have regular and especial. Regular barbaco is very greasy. When you make yourself a taco, the grease just drips out the back end. Don't get me wrong, it tastes great. However, I'm committed to my people for the long haul, so I want to avoid clogging my arteries as much as possible. Therefore, my family pays the extra dollar for barbacoa especial. The meat is leaner. The only thing dripping out the back end of...

 I upgraded to Internet Explorer 7. Today, I made a visit to my own blog to see if there are any changes I need to make. I got a yellow pop-up bar on the browser that says "This Web page could be a scam. Proceed with caution."  I think that was uncalled-for. I suspect that the code is looking at the donation buttons on the page. I'm going to remove them and see if that eliminates the scam alert.

I haven't been posting lately. I'm going to be full of myself and presume that you are wondering why. I've been busy working to prepare for the upcoming flurry of activity in my life. For years, since I took a study course at UT-Austin , I have used an Uncalendar to keep myself on track. I admit that I've fallen off the wagon on occasion during jobs that don't merit planning like pizza delivery, retail, or working in a cannery. Now that I've got something looming that will require a great deal of attention, I've been working on getting everything together. I like Uncalendar because of the way it's laid out and because it's undated. My wife is also a big fan of the system since I introduced her to it. In addition to the Uncalendar, I've been working with Llamagraphics's program, LifeBalance. I've used the software in the past and thought I'd give it another go. Apparently, I was using it wrong. It's not a system like Microsoft Ou...

Firing up the grill , originally uploaded by shainelee . There are some families that fire up the grill every weekend here in the Rio Grande Valley. Mine is not one of those. Once a month is about the norm. Those families that cook out more often usually live out on a ranch somewhere or on the outskirts of town. The guys will park their car or truck nearby and leave the stereo blaring with Tejano or conjunto music. My barbecues are more sedate. I'm in it for the food more than an excuse to be outside drinking beer. One thing I do share in common with tradional RGV barbecues is an insistance on using mesquite. Lighting it can be a bitch; the flavor it imparts on meat is worth it. As I type this up, my eyes are watery from all the smoke. Despite all that, I missed the familiar scent of burning mesquite. Lucky for us my father-in-law had some logs lying around. I'll be in Madero for the rest of the day.

One thing that Alma and I missed about being in the Rio Grande Valley is that we could not get fajitas up in Wisconsin. A friend of ours would go to Wautoma on occasion and take some to Rice Lake, but they weren't as fresh. Fajitas down here don't last as long on the shelf. The biggest reason is that they aren't prime cuts of beef, so they are affordable. If there is one thing the RGV has, it's poverty. Fajitas are the affordable choice for everybody to barbecue. If you want to go cheaper, then chicken will fit the bill.   We are going to buy some fajitas this weekend and head over to my in-laws to cook them on the grill. One of the things that makes the Rio Grande Valley home for us is the availability of the foods we eat. Oddly, tortillas were readily available in all the grocery stores.   Next food, barbacoa.

We finally went to a Whataburger on Monday afternoon. I was reminded of this tonight as my wife brought home some burgers from there again. She had been dying to have their grilled chicken sandwich and I was yearning for a plain Whataburger with jalapeños. I ruined the experience by waiting until I was extremely hungry. I missed breakfast and wound up having a really late lunch. As a result, I ate it too fast and did not savor the meal. Still, I would have other opportunities like tonight. The photo seen here is the Whataburger on 495 in Mission where we ate.

On the way home from Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to meet with Mack Harrison of Valley in Exile . I've been so preoccupied with getting resettled and getting acquainted with my new job that I haven't written about it. The meeting took place in San Antonio while my family and I were passing through. I am lousy at getting around that city. If I get off the highway, I'll get lost. Mack looked for an easy place to get together and have coffee near I-35. I wound up getting more than coffee.   We discussed some things about blogging, a bit about his studies, and about my family's experience this summer. My mind was racing as I wanted to trade as much info as possible before resuming our journey home. After all, we were in San Antonio, the gateway of South Texas. As a result of the time crunch and exhaustion from driving for two days, I probably didn't have coherent conversations. We hope to see Mack back in the RGV when he is finished with his studies.   Overall, ...

AOL (http://www.aol.com) has come up with a new program called OpenRide. It's basically a browser similar to Opera (http://www.opera.com) and FireFox. The touted features are that you have tabbed browsing, integrated email client, media center, and other stuff. Of course, I want to try it out. The only drawback is that I have a slow internet connection until our DSL gets connected. So, I have dusted off my old shell account at http://www.silenceisdefeat.org to browse the web while the huge file downloads. OK, so it's not a root account. But it does bring bring back memories of when I first started on the Internet. It was my first year at UT (http://www.utexas.edu). When you signed up for a computer account, your options were few. I started off with a VAX account. Talk about an obscure OS! Then, when the Internet gained popularity, I moved to a UNIX account. The web consisted of a few pages accessible by Lynx and NCSA Mosaic. More often, I would use Gopher. IRC was popular. New...

I've created a new blog dedicated to my experience in Austin, and the period leading up to it, for the 80th Legislative Session. The site is Session 80 . The whole purpose behind the blog is to document my experiences and thoughts in the same manner that I documented my experiences as a migrant. I concluded that this new experience is really out of joint with this blog about living in the Rio Grande Valley. I could justify writing about migrants because there are many migrants who live in the RGV. Working in Austin, however, is a whole different animal. Therefore, I created a new blog for the occasion.   My first post goes over what sorts of things I'll write about and what won't be written. I'm not a political hack. I actually want to get things done for the people of the Rio Grande Valley, in general. However, I will have to be satisfied with doing things for the people of District 40. There are some things, however, that affect more than just the people in the d...

Today, the Mrs and I ordered DSL service through AT&T. We should be back online soon. Our Rioplex wireless modem has always had lousy reception at home. we kept it because it was better than dial-up. we will also be getting a new computer. our old laptop was bought for schoolwork, not audio, video, and photo editing. It struggles. I'll be needing to do these things. -- Shaine Mata http://www.missiontexas.net http://www.missionhsreunion.com

I finally got all of our backed up mail sorted out. we did not opt for mail forwarding because we did not want to carry all those papers back. most of our accounts can be accessed electronically. paper statements would have been redundant. in any case, i'm done and ready for bed. -- Shaine Mata http://www.missiontexas.net http://www.missionhsreunion.com

This message is from a Virgin Mobile user. Enjoy. _____________________________________________________________ This morning, I made a stop at State Rep Aaron Pena's office to meet the staff. As you may have heard, I'll be working for Dist 40. I think everything went well, except I discovered when I got home that I should have gelled my hair; it was sticking out all over. Otherwise, I feel some synergy with the team. We spent some time going over what to expect during the 80th Legislative Session and what my role will be on the team. Business teaches you much about having the right people on your team. It is apparent that I am joining a good group. They are excited about the upcoming session, as am I. I just need to finish moving back into the RGV so that we can start firing on all cylinders. I have a couple of months to prepare for Austin and get to know my team. I have an idea how this new experience will affect the blog. Like my trip to Wisconsin as a migrant, I want ...

This message is from a Virgin Mobile user. Enjoy. _____________________________________________________________ My family and I are glad to finally be back in the RGV. We arrived very early on Sunday, giving us cause to sleep late. We visited my in-laws and had menudo. We unloaded the U-Haul and then made our way to my mom's to watch a movie. We left the unpacking and "moving in" for today. There are other details to address as well. We left the meter running on our utilities, so we are in luck with the hot weather. It's a big change to go from snow to 90 degree weather. Thank God for air conditioning. Our apartment is our refuge. Our van was fine without A/C up north; not here. We still have to get our Internet going so that I can catch up with the news. We will go with Rioplex Wireless for now. Perhaps we will get DSL for more reliable connections. Thanks for all the welcomes. I've got other news to write about, which you no doubt read at Aaron Pena's...

We made it to the RGV last night around 2 am.

We have entered texas. We are almost home. One more day of driving. It is nice and warm here.

We have entered iowa.

Tonight, my wife, son, and I are staying at a Super 8 Motel. We cleared out our apartment and have almost finished cleaning it. We want to get our deposit back, so we rented a carpet cleaner to do the job ourselves. Tomorrow morning, we will go into the apartment early to clean the bathroom and kitchen before going to work. Once that is done, we would essentially be killing time until we are released from our jobs. All our meager possessions are in a U-Haul trailer we rented. All we can do for the moment is haul it around with us everywhere we go, which consists wholly of work.    We would have spent the night at the apartment except we already had our utilities disconnected. In the Rio Grande Valley, this is quite alright. A night in the dark wouldn't hurt. This week, however, a cold front has decided to make its way through the Rice Lake, WI area. We are expecting snow over the next few nights. Obviously, we would prefer to sleep than shiver at night....

After reading the latest post by Rep. Aaron Peña, Jr, I logged into the SpinRGV site and added Edinburg City Counsel member Gus Garcia's blog. Hopefully this is the start of a trend and the other cousel members will jump into the mix. It would be interesting to see the different perspectives from all the counsel members over the same issues. It would definitely be a boon to the City of Edinburg to have public discourse with elected officials.

Today was the last day of school at the UMOS Migrant Head Start center in Rice Lake, WI. I got my last look at my class of toddlers. In all likelihood, I won't see any of them again, unless I take the seasonal job again. From here until the middle of next week, the staff will be cleaning up and putting things in storage. That kind of work flies by, so our last day of work will be coming up soon. I have mixed feelings about today. On the one hand, I am glad that the daily 12 hour grind is over. The job isn't tough; it takes forever for each 12 hour day to pass. When you work hard, in contrast, time flies, somewhat. I'm glad I am done changing diapers every couple hours. No more wiping noses. No more washing your hands constantly like you have OCD. I do wonder what will become my toddlers in the years to come. I wonder through what paths their parents will lead them. I'll miss my class a little bit. My wife and I have so many stories about them to keep us chatting. They g...

I finally got my cable reconnected after having it prematurely cut by the cable company.Withouth cable, we have no weather channel and no internet.  I requested to have it shut down on the 10th of October, which is our last expected date here in Rice Lake. Now, I am hearing some talk of extending us for a few more days, which will cause further delays on our return to the Rio Grande Valley. All of this complicates stuff for us. We'll manage somehow, I suppose.   I'll get going on the SpinRGV press releases as soon as I get a chance. I'll probably be able to do it Thursday evening.

Still without internet. Using phone to text message or record blog entries. Will depart for RGV on oct 9th.