Good News for Migrants and Texas Migrant Council

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 delegate centers to UMOS. Both agencies are non-profit; but by delegating the operation of their centers, TMC is able to quickly expand into areas where they don't have a presence, but other agencies do.

The Migrant Head Start services make a big difference in the lives of children and their parents. For the children, the benefit is that they get exposed to some of the things that they would lack being watched by a babysitter. Such things are art, science, language development, service referrals for developmentally delayed children, and even simple things like a safe environment. For parents, these programs make a difference because, for many of them, it's free daycare. However, some migrant parents do care about raising well-adjusted children who can break out of the migrant lifestyle.

We certainly did our best to teach the preschoolers that they could be anything they wanted to be. Those parents who wanted more for their children also wanted us to instill that dream. With the funding granted to TMC by Congress, the Migrant Head Start program can expand to unserved areas where migrants live and give migrant children a head start on the only thing that will help them succeed, education.

New Look for RGV Life

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

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 woman. She got through to somebody and will receive benefits through the State of Texas. On top of that, the state will attempt to collect additional benefits from Wisconsin. And, I've got to pay up.

Back in touch with a friend

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, you'll see that I'm all over the damned place. It's nice to hear from an old friend and find out what she is doing. The best way to describe it is like finding a long-lost family member.

Let's see this succeed.

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?

Barbacoa. Life is good.

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 your taco after barbacoa especial is the water from your pico de gallo or salsa.

There are plenty of places that sell barbacoa around here on Sundays. For some reason, everybody heads to De Alba. When you arrive, you'll see that the parking lot is full and the drive through has a line at least 5 cars long. If you insist on drive-thru, expect to kill 30 minutes before placing your order. I usually park across the street on the grass and go inside to order. If you wait in line inside, it's 15 minutes to wait.

At other places, you could probably be in and out in 5 minutes. The drawback is that you only get the choice of the greasy barbacoa.

That was breakfast this morning, barbacoa tacos and coffee.

Oh, the insult!

 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.