The Cordero Brothers

My brother, Dorian, flew into Corpus Christi to be best man in the wedding of one of his best friends. A week before the wedding, he came to SA and we did our drinking & catching up thing.

As we always do, we smoked a bunch of cigarettes, did a couple of Irish car bombs and sucked down a lot of beer.

After the drinking came the obligatory trip to Whataburger. My wife got up at 6 a.m. and found us asleep on the couch, TV on and Whataburger remains on the coffee table in front of us.

Here's the evidence.



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Swing Batter...Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy....

One of the perks of working for the Express-News is that they give us tickets to see the local minor league baseball team, the San Antonio Missions.

I have yet to take Terrance to a major league ball game, but I've taken him twice to see the Missions. He really likes it. We buy a bag of sunflower seeds and both get into the game.

The seats are really good; right behind home plate. We even get VIP parking. Although this last time it proved to be the cause of a near heart attack. We walked out of the third base exit and couldn't find the car. We thought it had gotten stolen. I stopped and talked to a bike cop and found out we'd walked out of the wrong exit. The VIP lot was at the first base exit. Whew.

I never caught anything at a ball game before last Saturday. They were hurling "burritos" from the commentator's box late in the game. I couldn't figure out why they would launch food from a high window into the crowd like that, but as I caught one of these things, it turned out to be a "stress burrito". You know the stress, squeeze stuff: foam rubber. A local Neo-Mexican food place called Chipotle glued a sticker to the bottom for promotion. Turn in the foam burrito at one of their restaurants and get a real burrito. I've eaten there. Good stuff.

Anyhow, here's some pictures from the game.






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And We're Back...

It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride these last few weeks. Being dropped like a hot potato by the company who claimed that I was a superstar. RUMBO is not heading down the tubes. All the loyalties have started to go out the window. The one of the founders is heading back to California and will 'remain in some capacity.' That's code for, 'I'm getting out before this thing comes crashing down.'

I'm with the Express-News now. I'd hoped to have been here long before, but I had to take my chances with Rumbo. I'm not upset about the firing. I'm not upset that all our work was diced and chopped and spit back out as some border town rag. I'm upset that we were lied to, from the beginning, and then left to hang from the flagpole until the bitter, fucking end. I gave them my loyalty and my blood; they gave me my walking papers. They tried to run with the big dogs and we paid the price.

To make matters worse, we were lied to in another respect. We were told that the company would do everything possible to set us up with another job. Do you know what that was? It was a shitty letter of recommendation. Shitty. Apparently, my hook into a new job was how "enjoyable he is to have in the newsroom." They never did a damn thing to find me another job. Had I waited for them to do so, I would have starved, lost my house and gone bankrupt. I had to find my own job and I didn't need the shitty letter of recommendation to do it.

Needless to say, my layoff has affect us in many ways. It has set us back in all respects. Tonya's brother was married this weekend and we had planned on trekking up to Arkansas for the wedding, but since I didn't have a job and she couldn't take time off because she was brining in the income, we couldn't go. We've had to tighten the belts in all ways and we've paid the price. My parents, thankfully, came to the rescue and helped us with a few bills and groceries because Tonya's check and my unemployment were just not enough.

Rumbo has now spent 1.5 million in a new advertising campaign to promote the recently reorganized product. They are rehiring designers at nearly $10,000 less. The VP of editorial, one of the founders, has stepped down and will be "promoting Rumbo's interests from California.' He's going to help expand the empire. In the meantime, people are leaving the company like rats off a sinking ship. I'm sure they will inspire a lot of confidence in their advertisers, not to mention their staff.

Shedding the hair was a rebirth for me. The Express-News is a new beginning for me. It's been tough learning all new methods and workflows, but I feel good. I'm doing business and have done several covers already. I know that as my knowledge base grows, I'll get better. I feel a little bit anxious; I want to know it all now so I can rock the house. But as my mentor, David, says, "Trust your instincts and take it one step at a time."

The family is good, healthy and together. We're lacking the wants, but we got the needs. And that's the important part.

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