Kindred

Softball was rained out last night, so I actually got to watch Heroes on a Monday night. Very nice. Highlight below to see what I thought:

Niki and Micah said goodbye to D.L. Apparently, D.L.'s injuries were too severe for him to survive at the end of last season, so his final scene was as a grave marker in some Las Vegas cemetery. Of course, it's also possible that Niki lost control of Jessica and killed him in his sleep one night. Anyway, Micah is now in New Orleans with a relative (how many classic Star Trek actors are going to appear on this show anyway?) that could be his grandmother. She looks pretty scary to me, though, and Leah thinks that it's actually her eyes that Molly is seeing in her dreams.

Niki wants to be cured and has made some sort of deal with the company to make that happen, but she has to do something for them first. I wonder who they want killed. I'll bet that they send her after the Bennetts.

Mohinder is setup in Isaac's old apartment and is continuing to work for the company. He thinks that he's pulling a fast one on them, but I think that they let him in to try and locate the Bennetts. I did enjoy the scene where he comes back to his apartment and Matt pulls a gun on him. They bickered just like a married couple.

Claire is getting closer to the flying kid at school, and I still think that's trouble. At first I thought that he was sent to gain her trust and then use it against her. Now I think that he's just disturbed and he's using her to get back at her dad. There's no doubt that he has issues with the "man in the horn rimmed glasses," and with all the times he's been peeking in her windows, I find it hard to believe that he's never noticed that the man that kidnapped him is Claire's dad. I wonder if he's going to be the one to kill Mr. Bennett.

Speaking of which, the final painting that Mr. Bennett was searching for shows that he is going to die from what appears to be a gunshot wound. It also looked like Claire is going to be a witness and that someone else will be there either hugging Claire or restraining her. We can't really tell from what I saw whether that person is the killer or not. It definitely could be the flying kid or it could be the same person that killed Mr. Nakamura.

With Claire realizing that her dad kidnapped her new boyfriend and Mr. Bennett seeing his death in a painting, I suspect that we'll have a much cooler atmosphere between the two of them in the next few episodes. I just hope that that doesn't necessarily lead to the events of the painting. Remember that not everything Isaac has painted came true despite the fact that someone (I don't recall who) said last night that they had all come true. New York didn't go nuclear, Claire wasn't killed by Sylar, and this painting doesn't have to happen either.

Hiro is getting better. I mean the actor is getting better. Hiro is still a little annoying, but he did seem somewhat more mature in a few of the scenes last night. I really enjoyed the moment when he put Kensei in front of the 90 angry Ronin and left him there. "Exactly how angry are they?" What a great line!

I think it's ironic that Hiro is the only one so far that has the classic superhero double-identity going. He's both Hiro and Kensei to the princess, and I suspect that he's going to figure out over time that he is his own childhood hero. The only thing that I'm still trying to figure out is why he is writing notes to Ando and how did Ando actually get them? Maybe I'm looking too deep into this, but I see two problems with that plan. First, how likely is it that Ando is the first person in 337 years to notice that butt of the sword says "Open this, Ando," and that it contains notes written by Hiro? Second, if Hiro can travel through time and space, when he returns to his time, why wouldn't he just return to Kirby Plaza right about the same time he left? If he didn't do that, how would he know what time to return to?

Anyway, I still don't trust the real Kensei, and I don't think that he is actually going to be the hero that Hiro wants him to be. I feel pretty sure that he is going to end up being a bad guy, and despite Leah's theories about Micah's relatives, I still believe that he is the man Molly sees in her dreams.

I'm about tired of the whole Maya and Alejandro story already. I really hope that we're not three more episodes into the season and they are still "somewhere in Mexico." Of course, last night, we saw Maya use her power intentionally, but she still didn't kill anyone. I guess that was because Alejandro was able to clear things up quickly. The way things happened, though, it seems like it's not just her tears that cause the problem (if it's her tears at all). It seemed like she had to get a little angry or maybe scared to set things off. With them picking up another fugitive, though, I suspect that we'll get some sort of an explanation. He'll be asking questions about what happened back at the jail.

Sylar finally showed back up, too. I really hope that this season doesn't turn into another Sylar's power of the week series, though. We've already done that, and I don't want to do it again. My preference would have been for him to just stay dead, but since that didn't happen, I am interested in figuring out why his powers are gone. Just as the scene opened on the beach, I figured out that the girl was Candice. I guess she lived, and she also revealed that she is the one who saved Sylar. Makes you wonder who she is really working for because it's someone further up the chain than Linderman. Too bad she had to die for Sylar to realize that he can't even collect new powers, but at least now we know what she really looked like. Last season she made an off-hand comment to Micah about being ugly and overweight while she was holding him prisoner, and now we know for sure that that was the real her.

Now, about Peter. The guy has obviously been working out, and he's really enjoying showing that off. How many scenes this season have we seen him without a shirt? How many more are there to come? Maybe the ladies don't mind, but that's getting old for me.

Again, I hope that we don't have to go through another season of Peter trying to figure out how to use his powers. He's too cool for that. I just want him to get everything under control and move on. The bad thing is that it looks like he's about to walk down a criminal path just for fun and because no one can stop him. I hope that he gets that out of his system pretty quickly, though.

The interesting question to me is whether or not those guys were supposed to find him. They were sent to steal some merchandise from that ship and they found Peter instead. Is someone pulling strings and playing him? Or is this just all coincidence? And the company has managed to find and track a large number of "specials" in the past, do they not know where Peter is located? And if they do, then have they or will they notify Angela Petrelli? It seems like they would.

At the end, though, Peter got inked into the clan. My first thought was to question how he could even be tattooed since the wound would heal so fast. That seemed to be answered by the fact that the tattoo disappeared. Interestingly, it appeared to change shape into the "godsend" symbol before it disappeared, though. Why would it do that? Was that just stylistic for the audience? Or is there something in their DNA that's linked to that symbol? Remember that Niki doesn't have a tattoo but Jessica does have one that is also the "godsend" symbol. Is that linked to whatever happened to the tattoo on Peter's arm? I guess we'll just have to keep watching to find out.

Tour of Texas

Every once in a while, Leah and I try to get away for at least one night, and with four kids, that only happens once or twice a year. This past weekend was one of those weekends, and we were planning to be away for two nights. Leah actually was planning to surprise me with a getaway to Austin, but she wanted to put in a round of golf and didn't know where I would want to play, so she ended up having to tell me beforehand so I could set a tee time. Regardless, it was a very nice idea and a sweet gesture to set up a surprise trip.

Since Leah has to work on Sunday mornings, our two nights away were Thursday and Friday. Aunt Sis and a couple of friends of ours would watch the kids and help get them back and forth to school while we were away, and then Aunt Sis planned to take the girls to my mom's Friday night. More on that later.

I took off Thursday and Friday and Leah and I left for Austin Thursday morning. We had a nice, easy drive down and got to our hotel in the mid-afternoon. We were staying at the top of the downtown Hilton. Leah had set us up on the Executive floor with the "Romance Package." Basically, that meant that we had some extra amenities on our floor like breakfast, drinks, and evening appetizers in the lounge, we got free breakfast in bed or a dinner at the restaurant downstairs, and we got chocolate covered strawberries and champagne in our room. It was pretty cool since we had never done anything like that before.

Since our hotel was downtown, we walked around down there a bit Thursday afternoon while we were trying to decide what to do for dinner. Finally, we settled on going to get barbecue on the other side of town. It was really good barbecue, though. We ate at The County Line, which is situated on a hill on the west side of Austin and has a great view from the patio at sunset. So we got a good view and even better food. What a deal!

The next day, we went to play golf. Leah did really well on the few holes that she played, but I think she had more fun driving the cart around and watching me. I played fairly well, but it wasn't the best course I've ever played on. The ground was really hard and the greens were pretty rough. Regardless, it was a well spent four hours.

We had our dinner at the hotel that night, and like most other hotels, the food was just okay. It was nothing compared to The County Line. Afterward, we just went back to our room and, like most other couples with kids dream of doing, enjoyed a television show without screaming kids in the background. We were both pretty worn out after being out in the heat all day at the golf course.

Saturday morning, we got up, checked out of the hotel, and started on journey home with intentions of shopping at the outlet mall in Roundrock after lunch. As we headed to the mall, we got a call from Aunt Sis. Remember that she had taken the girls to see Mom and was supposed to be headed home at the same time. She was calling to say that they had gotten on the road and had made it all the way to I-20 and a little past Marshall when they stopped at a rest area to rearrange the children. After everyone was situated, they tried to get back on the road, but they couldn't get the van to start.

We arranged for Mom to pick up Aunt Sis and the girls and take them back to her house, Leah and I diverted onto highway 79 and set out across Texas to meet Aunt Sis and the kids at Mom's house, and Jeffrey was alerted to meet us at the rest area later that evening to see if the two of us could get the van going. Six hours and one stop at Wal-Mart later (I didn't have a car charger for my phone) we finally arrived at Mom's. The plan, at that point, was for Leah and the girls to take me back to the rest area where Jeffrey would meet me, Leah and Aunt Sis would head home with the girls so they could be at church the next morning, and Jeffrey and I would figure out something to do with the van.

It was about 10pm by the time Leah headed for home, and Jeffrey and I couldn't get the van to do anything. The two of us just went back to his new house in Bossier to rest and regroup before trying to tackle the next problem: how to get the van fixed or back to Sachse. My idea was to rent a car trailer and truck from U-Haul and just tow the car back to Sachse on a one-way rental. U-Haul had a slightly different plan.

I went into the U-Haul place by Jeffrey's house early Sunday morning and told them the plan. They said that they couldn't rent me the car dolly (two wheels up) because a Windstar is too wide for that. I would have to rent the full car trailer (four wheels up). Further, they said that they couldn't rent me an F-150 because it wouldn't be able to pull a Windstar. As a matter of fact, they said that the smallest thing that they could rent me that would pull it was a 14 foot moving van.

We went down that road a little way until I figured out that I was going to have to pay for two days of rental time to do a one-way deal, and they had no way to make it just one day. Ridiculous. I didn't want to pay for more than double the time that I needed and the total cost for that whole deal was going to be about $400. Of course, that was still less expensive than trying to get a wrecker to take it to Dallas, and it would be more convenient than waiting in Marhsall for someone to fix it on Monday. Regardless, I figured that there still had to be a better way.

As it turned out, while I was explaining the situation to Leah, a man at our church overheard the conversation and offered to bring his F-250 to me and pull the van home. All we needed to do was get the trailer. Well, the U-Haul lady where I was said that an F-250 couldn't pull it either. Jeffrey and I just laughed at her and informed her that either the computer was wrong or she was reading it wrong because an F-250 wouldn't even know it was back there. No big deal, though, because we weren't going to rent the trailer from her anyway.

I got Leah to rent a trailer from a U-Haul place in McKinney on an in-town deal so we wouldn't have to pay for two days, and our friend Don brought the trailer to me behind his F-250. Now, there was only one problem left to solve. We needed a way to get the van on the trailer. Since it wasn't running, we couldn't drive it up there, and there is no way that three guys would be able to push it up there. I had already asked the U-Haul lady that I had been talking to if we could get a trailer with a winch on it, and she said that U-Haul didn't have anything like that at all. I guess they figure that people only ever put cars that are running on trailers.

Thankfully, Jeffrey knows a guy in Bossier that had a come-along and some chain we could use. Problem solved. All we had to do at that point was wait for Don to get to Marshall. Once he got there, we hooked everything up and pulled the van up on the trailer. Of course, that took some time. The come-along didn't move very far on each turn and we had to reset it and do it again a couple of times to get the van all the way up, but we finally made it, and Don and I were on the road to Sachse.

Once we got around my house, I directed Don to the mechanics, and we dumped the van in the parking lot for them to look at today. Getting if off of that trailer sure was easier that putting it on. We just had to push a little and she rolled right off. Now, the mechanics are working on it, and they just called to report that that offending part is a fuel pump sensor. Of course, it's only a couple of hundred dollars for a part that's probably smaller than my little toe, but isn't that always the way it goes with car repairs?

So after all of that my four hour trip home from Austin ended up taking closer to thirty. I am so glad to be home!