Archives February 2004

A long three day weekend with lots of things jammed into it. Saturday was Valentine’s day. I started it out by going to the local quarry and picking up stone. Project month continues, with this weekend’s project being a 3 foot stone border around the house. So on Saturday, I got a load of stone, dug the trench, laid the border and weedblock. Then I shoveled the egg rock out of the truck and spread it. (Ali helped with this as well) One load of stone was only enough to do one side of the house and the quarry closed at 11am so that was all I could do for the day. It looked great and wet my appetite to get the other side done. I had to relent for the day.

We cleaned up and got ready for our Valentine’s day gig. I got tickets to the Naples Dinner theatre to see Pirates of Penzance. Musicals are not my cup of tea but Ali likes them and since V day is all about the woman, I bit the bullet and set it up. The place was much bigger in size than I thought. When I bought the tickets, the person on the phone said we had side view seats. It was all they had available. Well they weren’t kidding. We were as far to the side as you can get. Basically, a perfect right angle to the stage. We also found ourselves seated at a table for four with 2 old gentleman. Of course when I saw this, I initially cringed inside. The one guy was a snowbird from Boston, the other guy was a brit from London with a heavy british accent. Surprisingly we were able to keep the conversation going and by the end we actually enjoyed their company. The snowbird made me laugh when he said matter of factly, “When you get old like me, you get grumpy” Hahaha. We related some of our traffic nightmare stories to the brit. He chuckled and said “So that commute causes you distress? In London, my daughter has an eight mile commute that takes an hour and a half, everyday”

He had many interesting stories about life in London. He told us the horrors of the “free” healthcare system in England. He had to wait 7 months to get an angiogram after a heart attack. Then they wanted him to wait an additional year to get a bypass operation. He could either wait the year, hope he doesn’t die or have the surgery done privately (by the exact same doctor) and have it done the following week. He opted for the latter and spent upwards of 30k of his own money to have it done. Free healthcare doesn’t sound quite so appealing to me now.

The buffet before the show was great. Every single thing we tried was outstanding. Just before the show started the stage expanded out into the dining area which meant that at least we would be able to see most of the show, a relief. Once the show started it took me less than a minute to realize that this was going to be a loooong performance. I just didn’t enjoy it. I was constantly referring to the program to see how much longer I had to endure. Sort of like what I would do when I sit through a church service. The performers were good, I guess, but it just didn’t interest me in the least. Some 2 hours later it thankfully ended to a large round of applause from the audience of mostly over 65 seniors. I tried to hide my malcontent from Ali the best I could. She liked it, so that is what mattered.

On Sunday I did a run to Lowe’s to get the materials I would need to finish side two of the rock border project. I got it all dug, bordered and weed blocked that afternoon. All I needed was the rock, which had to wait till the quarry opened Monday.

Monday I was up with Ali at 5:45 am so I could hit the quarry early. In total I had to make 3 trips till I got all the stone I needed. On Monday alone I shoveled about 2 tons of rock. It was cool yesterday (60’s) so it made it bearable. The finished result was great. It will save us lots of weeding time, as well as giving the area around the house a more finished look and being termite unfriendly (as opposed to mulch). The rest of the day was pretty busy as well. I did household chores till around 5:30 pm. Even though the day was chock full of work and it was supposed to be a day off, I didn’t really mind. I need something to keep me busy or else I feel like a bum.

A new Tivo tweak was implemented this weekend. Now I can go to my Tivo via a web page, display all the current shows that are on it, click a link and poof, it fires up the show in media player on my pc so that I can watch it on my computer. Now that is COOL!

I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I know the gnome will attack me for even mentioning this but who cares. Recently, I have switched from briefs to boxers. I find that I walk around in boxers like they were just a pair of shorts. I will walk the dog in them, answer the door in them, and even talk to the neighbors in them, where as I would never do the same in briefs. I am not sure if this is improper behavior or not. I guess I am assuming the people can not discern if I am wearing boxers or just shorts. I need to research this further.

Anyone else think Ryan Seacrest is looking run down this year? I’m not surprised. I believe he is currently doing 2 radio gigs, a daytime talk show AND American Idol simultaneously.

If you would like to see one of the funniest American Idol auditions ever, go see William Hung.

Was anyone else incredibly offended by the reports of the Mexican soccer crowd chanting , “Osama, Osama” during the Mexico /USA soccer match? That is so tasteless and over the line I can’t even describe my anger. We support this god damn country, take in millions of their people and they chant something which is about as anti-american as you can get? F them.

The morning commute has been dreadful for quite awhile now. This morning it was extremely foggy out our way so I knew it could only be worse. As feared, the traffic was backed up at the very first traffic light. This portion of the road is 2 lanes, one in each direction. As I am sitting there, stewing, some asshole thinks they don’t need to wait and swings out into the oncoming lane in an attempt to get up to the light and make a left turn. This moron is in the wrong lane for a good 200-300 yards. I hastily rolled down my window and gave the single digit salute in a fruitless attempt to display my anger at the stunt. Then the cavalry arrived. The offender didn’t happen notice they were passing a deputy who immediately swung out , flipped on his lights and pulled the moron over. Ali and I cheered like the Eagles just scored a touchdown. Hope the jerk got slapped with a nice fat fine.

The rest of the drive in was downhill from there. Every single intersection we came to was backed up. The hoardes of dump trucks clogging traffic, making it even slower since they creep along and leave huge gaps in the traffic because they don’t want to have to shift through the gears. I was 20 minutes late for work, even with leaving at 7am. It’s maddening. The first stage of the road widening out by our place is supposed to be done within the year. That should help things, somewhat. I still have ideas about moving closer in the back of my mind. They are steadily moving closer to the front all the time. Too many people on too small of a road.

At the gym today I saw another funny occurance. Someone was using the Smith machine. For those who don’t go to a gym, the Smith machine is a piece of gym equipment that is a barbell on a track with saftey hooks so if you get stuck, you simply rotate the bar and some hooks will catch on one of the stops. It also slides up and down, supported on each side by rails. It can’t tilt if it wanted to. There was someone that was either very new to the gym or very unobservant who was using safety collars on the smith machine to prevent the weight plates from sliding off. (which is impossible)

On the way back to the office I got stuck behind another elderly driver who was doing 10 mph under the speed limit. Not that abnormal except when they are doing it in a 25 MPH zone!!!!!! As he did his turtle paced right turn, I yelled out my passenger window “15 MILES AN HOUR, COME ON!” I guess I shouldn’t have done that but damn it, it frustrates the hell out of me.

I heard the Sixers coach was fired. Wow that was fast. 1st year coach and he’s gone already? What did they expect when they left Larry Brown go?

I listen to ESPN radio normally during the day on my way to and from the gym. On my way back, the host reads an email from a listener in Emmaus, PA. Being from PA, of course I know it is pronounced “E MAY US” The host had no idea and instead pronounced it “EM MOUSE” Made me smirk.

My volleyball season already has hit a bump in the road. After a week, my shoulder feels fine, unless I move it behind my head in a motion akin to hitting a volleyball. Such motion sends a jolt of a pain down the joint. 🙁 Hopefully another week of rest will be enough.

As mentioned earlier, I declared February as project month. We started out this weekend strong, tackling three projects. The projects were redoing the rose bed border with landscape ties and raise the bed so it isn’t underwater during wet season, double the size of the garden and rip down the shitty vinyl gutter in the back corner of the roof and replace them with aluminum ones. While Ali cleaned Saturday morning, I took the truck to home depot to load up. The truck was filled to the gills with top soil, compost, gutters, landscape ties and mulch. It was so full that I had the 10 bags of mulch in the cab with me. The truck was riding very loooow.

I didn’t get back until after noon so we didn’t get to start until 1 or so. Everything went well, despite getting rained on a bit. By the time dark fell I had the rose bed done, the garden done and had the roof portion of the gutters up. We had pizza delivered and took a break. Now I had a choice, either leave the gutters to be finished up in the morning or do it now. Of course I chose to put on a sweatshirt and finish up the gutters by floodlight. I was done by around 7:30 pm. Both of us were very tired and dirty. Nothing would feel better than a shower. One small problem, the damn well pump was dead again, no water!!!! Argh. This happened a few weeks ago and it simply reset itself after awhile. So we waited, waited until 10 pm. No luck. So I placed a call with the well company for a service call and called the neighbors to see if we could use their shower. They said sure, no problem. While Ali was gathering shower supplies I had a brainstorm and connected the neighbors water system to ours via a long hose. Doing so allowed us to fill our storage tank and have water! It would make do until the well company showed up. So we cleaned up and hit bed after 11, exhausted.

Sunday morning I checked the equipment and the water pressure was back, just as before. However this time I did not cancel the service call as I wanted it checked out. The tech called at 7:45 am and was at our place before 9 am, a rare example of good service in Florida. He told me what was happening was the well pump was overheating from cycling on and off repeatedly when I use it for irrigation. He showed me how to reset it if it happens again and was on his way. Add reevaluate irrigation system to the project list.

On Sunday it was cool, in the low to mid 60’s and very windy. However it was sunny so we decided to break down and go to the fair, it was the last day of the 10 day run. The had 2 choices for admission. 5 bucks to get in or 10 bucks if you wanted to ride any rides. This allowed you unlimited rides. Well I wanted to do a few but Ali didn’t want to do any so I got the magical pink elephant wrist band that got me on the rides and Ali’s wrist remained bare. We checked out the animal exhibits first, lots of fancy chickens, along with other farm animals. I always feel bad for the animals being in cages too small for them to even stand up in. Next, it was on to the rides. I was psuedo-pumped to wring every last bit of value out of my wrist band that I paid an extra 5 bucks for.

First off I decided to go on what looked to be a nasty, gut twisting contraption. You had to go 2 at a time so there was a young boy that had noone to go with so we teamed up in the front car. The compartment was super tight, I had to squeeze in and my knees and head were wedged against the walls. The ride spun like a spit while the cars went around the perimeter of the track. The little boy loved it, by the time I squirmed out my stomach already felt unsettled. Not good. Undaunted, I pushed on and looked for the next thrill filled ride. I spotted a big vertical loop that has the cars just simply going around and around, in both directions. Again it required going in pairs so I got teamed up with a zit faced teenager. This ride couldn’t end soon enough. First it rocked you back and forth, then the cruel ride operator would hold the car at the top of the loop so your head felt like it was going to pop, then as the finale we got to fly around the loop forwards and then backwards. By the end my yells of excitement were replaced by silence as I concentrated on the seat in front of me in an attempt to control my nausea. I wobbled down the steps, now feeling truly sick after only 2 rides, pathetic. I proclaimed no more spinning rides for me. They had one of those drop rides so I hopped on that for a quick thrill and I was done. 3 rides was all I could stomach. I am not sure what happens as you get older that makes you less tolerant of this sort of motion. When I was younger it seemed like I could go forever on rides. Maybe it just seemed that way, I don’t know. We both grabbed an apple dumpling, walked around a bit and were out of there within an hour and a half. The best parts of the fair were the animals and the dumpling, pretty lame otherwise. I dropped close to 40 bucks for that crap, ugh.

We’ve all exercised bad judgement in our lives. The other day for some reason I was thinking about some of the f ups I have been involved in over the years. Here are a couple that came to mind:

Putting bald tires on my 69 Buick Special deluxe when I was 16 or 17 so my inline 6 cylinder motor could do better burnouts. Shortly afterwards in a torrential downpour I hydroplane, slide into oncoming traffic and take out 4 vehicles in addition to my own.

On a trip back from AC with my girlfriend, I decide to pull over and pick up a hitchhiker. In the course of the drive we find out he is carrying a knife although he never threatened us with it. I drive the guy to the Harrisburg bus terminal somewhere around midnight, give him money to get a bus ticket, along with my address so he can repay me. Needless to say I never saw the money but at least we didn’t die. Never picked one up since.

In a quest to find my way career-wise, I spent close to 300 dollars for a starter kit for a vinyl repair business. At the time, 300 bucks was a HUGE amount of money to me. I read the book, did a little bit of practice on my own and never touched it again.

I drop out of colllege after my first trimester because I desperately missed my girlfriend from home. The same girlfriend that later keys my car and almost puts me through a fatal attraction type scenario trying to get rid of her.

I am selling my 87 Firebird. I have had little success but finally get a call from a motivated buyer named Whitey. I take the car to Whitey’s place to show him since he presently does not have transportation. In the course of conversation he tells me he doesnt have a car because he recently got out of prison. He loves the car but needs a way to get insurance and get to the bank. I ignorantly offer the firebird for him to drive with my tags and under my insurance to use to run these errands. After 3 days with multiple calls from me and multiple excuses from him, I finally track him down with my brother along as backup and reposses my car. At one point when I was driving home I could have sworn that a state trooper was following me. I was sure that Whitey had used my car in a crime and they were after me. What an idiot I am.

There are many more examples, I’ll be sure to post more. I amaze myself sometimes, amazingly dumb.

If you would like to review the Super Bowl commercials to see which of the subpar group was the best, go here.

If you were looking to see the video from the controversial Janet Jackson boob scandal, here is a clip of what was broadcast on TV. (removed due to reports it had pop ups and junk with it)

The past 3 nights we have let Nicki sleep on the floor in our bedroom. It was a proactive move in anticipation of us starting to have company stay at our place again. When crated, Nicki would start wimpering between 5 and 6 am everyday, even weekends. Since her crate is right outside the guest bedrooms this would make for a very unpleasant alarm clock for our guests. So far it has been going well, last night she didn’t make a peep and I slept straight through the night.