Uber and Lyft decided to pull out of Austin. I just got back from my Dad's funeral and the media KVUE and KEYE calls me for an interview. It was a good distraction, so I decided to meet them. I had been keeping up on the news and several new TNCs had decided to start up. One of them was just a Facebook group called Arcade City. This group exploded with over 15K members at the time. KVUE news wanted to get my reaction and we did a test run for there 5PM news. Later KEYE called and we did an interview in front of my house.
My father past away May 11th, 3:15AM, 2016. I received a call from my mother on Wednesday, May 4th around 11PM. She said my father had fallen out of bed and could not move. She called 911 and was on the way to the hospital. She asked me to call me sister to meet her there. I told my sister and she called me an hour later and said it was not good news.
There was a large blood clot in my dad's brain and he probably wasn't going to make it, much longer. The technical terms was a subdural hematoma. The doctors believe it was a side effect of the blood thinner medication, Coudamin (aka Warfain). He had been taken that medication after finding a blood clot in his leg, five years early.
My brother and I flew in the next day. My Dad was still alive, but remain unconscious. He was on a respirator and the family had to make a decision weather to keep him alive on machines or to pull life support.
My mother was adamant that my father would not want to live on machines. The doctors indicated that there was a possible surgical procedure, but low probability that he would regain full function of his body and would most likely need around the clock care, if he survived.
The family decided to pull the equipment and let our Dad go. We did this on Saturday afternoon and my Dad continue to breath fine. They moved him to a different floor to wait out his remaining days. The family continued a vigil for the next few days around the clock. Two of my Aunts came and we took turns watching my Dad.
It took four days, but finally on Wednesday morning, my brother saw that he had stop breathing at 3:20AM. My dad was cremated and three days later we held a memorial service at my childhood Church of the Assumption. I placed my Dad's ashes in the Columbarium inside the Church. I found out later that it is one of a kind in the Catholic Church. Father Norris had built it first and asked forgiveness later.
KVUE was looking for drivers to talk about South by SouthWest (SXSW), an annual music and tech festival in Austin, TX. They asked me to comment on all the hype and the Presidential visit.
Today I was appointed Precinct Chairman of 161, in Travis County. The main duty of a Precinct Chairman is to bring out voters to all the elections. I saw my precinct had a vacancy for the Republican party to I applied. There was a interview and then vote by the other Precinct Chairs in the County.
Today was the big day. Finally got married to Martha. We are still working on a video, but here are a few pictures of that day. Needless to say it was pretty stressful, up until the wedding day. We started preparing over 2 years ago and still had many details left to the near end. I had to also work the week before the wedding in New Orleans. I flew in on Thursday night and the house was full of flowers and Martha was totally stressed out. For a while there, I wasn't sure if we were going to pull it off. Fortunately, everything went pretty smoothly. Only the Mariachi band didn't show up. We had a violinist and harp playing. A photo booth, caricature and County Line BBQ. Most of our closest family was able to make it and many people came from all over the county. The evening was capped off at the JW Marriott in downtown Austin. Marriott called me around 7pm asking where I was. I said I was at my wedding reception and they upgraded us to the Presidential suite!
